Control (Control #1) by Lydia Kang
Dial Books (an imprint of Penguin), 400 Pages
US Release Date: December 26, 2013
Format/Source: ARC via Around the World Tours - thank you!

When a crash kills their father and leaves them orphaned, Zel knows she needs to protect her sister, Dyl. But before Zel has a plan, Dyl is taken by strangers using bizarre sensory weapons, and Zel finds herself in a safe house for teens who aren’t like any she’s ever seen before—teens who shouldn't even exist. Using broken-down technology, her new friends’ peculiar gifts, and her own grit, Zel must find a way to get her sister back from the kidnappers who think a powerful secret is encoded in Dyl’s DNA.

A spiraling, intense, romantic story set in 2150—in a world of automatic cars, nightclubs with auditory ecstasy drugs, and guys with four arms—this is about the human genetic “mistakes” that society wants to forget, and the way that outcasts can turn out to be heroes.
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Control was a weird read for me. It’s not my usual cup of tea (can’t say biomedical YA is normal in general!), and I felt like this book was trying SO hard. Too hard. And despite all that, it was still every bit as typical as ever. Every personality you could want is here, all types of rivalry and friendship and brotherhood and sibling love and relationships and real love, and none of it in a really special way. The book was predictable in the weirdest ways; even the “twist” of the “trait”, the good house versus evil house, the nightclub.

It was definitely a slow start for me. I just wanted it to hurry up, and I may have even skimmed through a page or two or nine. What probably didn’t help is that I felt like I recognized a thousand different books in the pages. Which also makes me feel like Control wasn’t entirely original. A lot of it was fun, and I’m not saying I’ve ever read a singular book like this—except it seemed to be built off a lot of good parts of other books, and it was a bit weird. I didn’t like that almost every scene I could say, “Hey, that’s like X-book!”

Still, I read it. All of it. Control definitely picked up in the latter half and I finally started to feel like I was getting invested. The characters, though typical and pretty predictable, are endearing in their own little ways. I enjoyed seeing how their “traits” affected them and made them quirky. I enjoyed them all in the house, especially when they were all in a group. Is it weird to say they have chemistry together? Because they do.

Perhaps the only thing I didn’t predict was the end between Zel and…well. You know. But it’s my own naivete. If I’d bothered to take a step back and see the story as a whole rather than pieces of others, I would have seen it and known it was meant to be this way at the end of Book One.

Control was a mixed bag for me. I liked it only because I found it to be parts of books I do like, and the better parts…which is also its downfall. But I will definitely read the second book to know where it’s going to and what happens with the entire crew, so at least there’s that.

Maybe One Day by Melissa Kantor
Harper Teen, 304 Pages
Expected US Release Date: February 18, 2014
Format/Source: ARC via Around the World Tours - thank you!

Critically acclaimed author Melissa Kantor masterfully captures the joy of friendship, the agony of loss, and the unique experience of being a teenager in this poignant new novel about a girl grappling with her best friend's life-threatening illness.

Zoe and her best friend, Olivia, have always had big plans for the future, none of which included Olivia getting sick. Still, Zoe is determined to put on a brave face and be positive for her friend.

Even when she isn't sure what to say.

Even when Olivia misses months of school.

Even when Zoe starts falling for Calvin, Olivia's crush.

The one thing that keeps Zoe moving forward is knowing that Olivia will beat this, and everything will go back to the way it was before. It has to. Because the alternative is too terrifying for her to even imagine.

In this incandescent page-turner, which follows in the tradition of The Fault in Our Stars, Melissa Kantor artfully explores the idea that the worst thing to happen to you might not be something that is actually happening to you. Raw, irreverent, and honest, Zoe's unforgettable voice and story will stay with readers long after the last page is turned.
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This is a weird confession, but here it goes: when I was younger, I was obsessed with cancer books. Books where characters had cancer, or were best friends with people who had cancer, or had family with cancer…whatever it was, I read it. Lurlene McDaniels was practically part of my daily diet.

I’ve since widened my reading repertoire, but I feel like I can safely say my knowledge and “experience” (this is such a weird thing to have experience in) had me going into Maybe One Day pretty prepared. I knew what to expect, I figured I could sense how it would end or progress within the first 100 pages, and I was determined to face whatever Melissa Kantor threw at me. I mean, I made it through TFiOS, I can make it through anything. As long as I have a tissue box.

And damnit, did I need that tissue box.

Maybe One Day is a strong, heart-achingly beautiful book of friendship and love. Of finding what we love, of learning that love does not always have to be forever; but it will always be for the things and people that matter.

I definitely did get a feeling what was going to happen less than 100 pages in, and I did get it right…but the entire story itself was so good I didn’t even care that I could figure it out. I loved the incorporation of dance and how it seemed to influence and echo a lot of their friendship and beliefs. I loved the families, how they struggled but were supporting, how they were just the right amount of involved.

I love Olivia and Zoe, so much. As individuals, but also together as friends. They are the epitome of everything I hope to find in a friend and hope to be in a friend. And what made this book so special is that their friendship just…was. It never felt forced or lacking, I didn’t think Melissa Kantor was trying to prove they had a friendship stronger than anything—it was fluid and beautiful, something I couldn’t see but believed in as wholeheartedly as I do air.  Even separate, each character was so strong with her own personality and distinction. There was enough in common for you to see how it works between them, but they are definitely their own people too, and that was fantastic.

I wish Calvin was in the book a little more, I felt he could have been a bigger part—but for what he was, I loved him. He had few parts, but each one was meaningful and said a lot about him. All together he probably comprised less than 50 pages of this book, but I knew him wholely.

Because I can’t talk about the entire last third of the book without giving away what happens, just trust me that it will pull you every which way you could possibly go, without anticipation and only with hope. I cried pretty solidly through a lot of it, because there are moments you just…you don’t know.  There was one line that just made me start weeping: “It is agony to thaw.” And in that one line, I feel you can see so much of this book. The emotions, the feelings, what may or may not happen, the parts that do and the ones you wish could.

Maybe One Day may not be on the same level as The Fault in Our Stars, but it definitely stands on it’s own. You are able to find yourself in their friendship and in both the characters, while feeling like you are a part of them as well. It made me want to hug my best friends harder, to tell them how much they mean to me.

Being Sloane Jacobs by Lauren Morrill

Cruel Beauty by Rosamund Hodge

Split Second (Pivot Point #2) by Kasie West
Harper Teen, 320 Pages
Expected US Release Date: February 1, 2014

Life can change in a split second.

Addie hardly recognizes her life since her parents divorced. Her boyfriend used her. Her best friend betrayed her. She can’t believe this is the future she chose. On top of that, her ability is acting up. She’s always been able to Search the future when presented with a choice. Now she can manipulate and slow down time, too . . . but not without a price.

When Addie’s dad invites her to spend her winter break with him, she jumps at the chance to escape into the Norm world of Dallas, Texas. There she meets the handsome and achingly familiar Trevor. He’s a virtual stranger to her, so why does her heart do a funny flip every time she sees him? But after witnessing secrets that were supposed to stay hidden, Trevor quickly seems more suspicious of Addie than interested in her. And she has an inexplicable desire to change that.

Meanwhile, her best friend, Laila, has a secret of her own: she can restore Addie’s memories . . . once she learns how. But there are powerful people who don’t want to see this happen. Desperate, Laila tries to manipulate Connor, a brooding bad boy from school—but he seems to be the only boy in the Compound immune to her charms. And the only one who can help her.

As Addie and Laila frantically attempt to retrieve the lost memories, Addie must piece together a world she thought she knew before she loses the love she nearly forgot . . . and a future that could change everything.
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Parallel by Lauren Miller
Harper Teen, 432 pages
US Release Date: May 14, 2013
Format/Source: ARC via DAC ARC Tours - thank you!
Challenges: Debut Author Challenge, Stand Alone Challenge

Abby Barnes had a plan. The Plan. She'd go to Northwestern, major in journalism, and land a job at a national newspaper, all before she turned twenty-two. But one tiny choice—taking a drama class her senior year of high school—changed all that. Now, on the eve of her eighteenth birthday, Abby is stuck on a Hollywood movie set, miles from where she wants to be, wishing she could rewind her life. The next morning, she's in a dorm room at Yale, with no memory of how she got there. Overnight, it's as if her past has been rewritten.

With the help of Caitlin, her science-savvy BFF, Abby discovers that this new reality is the result of a cosmic collision of parallel universes that has Abby living an alternate version of her life. And not only that: Abby's life changes every time her parallel self makes a new choice. Meanwhile, her parallel is living out Abby's senior year of high school and falling for someone Abby's never even met.

As she struggles to navigate her ever-shifting existence, forced to live out the consequences of a path she didn't choose, Abby must let go of the Plan and learn to focus on the present, without losing sight of who she is, the boy who might just be her soul mate, and the destiny that's finally within reach.
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