"The Twins on Thursday" is reserved for the Twins' joint reviews. It is a special feature of our blog that discusses books that we either both like, dislike, or have mixed feelings about. This is also the day where we post reviews for books (and ARCs/Galleys) that have been sent to us by authors/galley sites/publishing houses. And because we don't believe much in uniformity, we'll be trying to mix things up a bit by adding random stuff in relation to our review (well, mostly for books we purchased anyway).
Publication Date: October 19, 2012
Publishing House: NLA Digital Liaison Platform LLC
ISBN: 9781620610114
Summary: Imagine waking up in a post-apocalyptic, nightmare world -- and being told your whole life is a but a dream. Skye Brown thought she was your typical teen -- good grades, hot boyfriend, and an afterschool job that pays her to play videogames. But then she started having dreams.
In her dreams, there is no Earth. Only Terra, a bleak, underground wasteland where people live in squalor and oppression. In her dreams, there is no Skye -- only Mariah, a rebel leader fighting against a vile, dystopian regime. And then there's Dawn, a handsome, but haunted soldier who sees her as but an empty shell of the girl he once loved -- a betrayer he vows to hate forever, despite what she sees deep in his eyes.
Now, ripped between Dark Siders and club kids, the mundane and the mystic, Skye finds herself in a fight against time -- to learn who she really is, where she belongs...and why. The shocking truth will have her questioning her own reality...and her heart.
(Image, summary and information courtesy of Goodreads)
Review:
What's keeping us from giving this one a high rating? Well, there was a scene where Skye had to act like she was all for the dark side, and we couldn't help but cringe at how obviously bad at acting she was. But no matter how bad we thought her acting was, Duske still fell for it, which lead us to question Duske's judgment. We found that this scene was too convenient for Skye and the other revolutionaries.
Another thing we didn't like about this book was the portrayal of romance and relationships, and how the story often focuses on the romance. Sure, Skye resembled Dawn's ex-girlfriend to a T (we won't spoil why) and Dawn is this pretty awesome guy, but that still doesn't give them license to fall in love with each that quickly. Dawn, who has been supposedly pining for Mariah for a long time, has been too hasty in discarding his feelings for Mariah in order to start anew with Skye. Skye also seems to have no remorse about giving in to her fast-growing attachment to Dawn, especially when she keeps pining for her life back in Earth where she has Craig, her boyfriend. The good thing about Mancusi's Alternity is that it's easy to read, and does not attempt to choke the reader with a lot of information. Instead, Mancusi eases the reader, through Skye, to adjust to the different reality that is Terra. The pace is relatively quick, and it gets faster as the book draws to an end.
All in all, Alternity is a good read if you don't want to get into the heavy stuff. We'd recommend this for people who're after the more romantic aspect when it comes to science fiction, and for people who're trying to ease into reading this kind of genre.
In her dreams, there is no Earth. Only Terra, a bleak, underground wasteland where people live in squalor and oppression. In her dreams, there is no Skye -- only Mariah, a rebel leader fighting against a vile, dystopian regime. And then there's Dawn, a handsome, but haunted soldier who sees her as but an empty shell of the girl he once loved -- a betrayer he vows to hate forever, despite what she sees deep in his eyes.
Now, ripped between Dark Siders and club kids, the mundane and the mystic, Skye finds herself in a fight against time -- to learn who she really is, where she belongs...and why. The shocking truth will have her questioning her own reality...and her heart.
(Image, summary and information courtesy of Goodreads)
Review:
Due to the slightly shady cover, we were both afraid that
Alternity would turn out to be a disappointing read. It had a really
interesting summary and a totally unique plot and while this book did not exactly
wow us, it really caught us off guard as it was a decent read.
Mancusi's characters, while having good intentions to keep us interested, did not exactly keep us wanting more. While we did find Skye a bit dense sometimes, and Dawn so unlike other male protagonists out there, we found ourselves quite indifferent to them. Skye had a decent voice, albeit a bit confusing at times. Skye's easy to follow, however, and we think that's a good thing. Dawn on the other hand, was probably the antithesis to the usual brooding, sullen, YA male lead. He was unafraid to show his emotions, and we do think that's a point for him. Duske, the evil-because-he-simply-is-evil guy, was smarmy and detestable at best, but he's not given much character aside from that. It's like he's the ultimate bad guy, and that's it. What's keeping us from giving this one a high rating? Well, there was a scene where Skye had to act like she was all for the dark side, and we couldn't help but cringe at how obviously bad at acting she was. But no matter how bad we thought her acting was, Duske still fell for it, which lead us to question Duske's judgment. We found that this scene was too convenient for Skye and the other revolutionaries.
Another thing we didn't like about this book was the portrayal of romance and relationships, and how the story often focuses on the romance. Sure, Skye resembled Dawn's ex-girlfriend to a T (we won't spoil why) and Dawn is this pretty awesome guy, but that still doesn't give them license to fall in love with each that quickly. Dawn, who has been supposedly pining for Mariah for a long time, has been too hasty in discarding his feelings for Mariah in order to start anew with Skye. Skye also seems to have no remorse about giving in to her fast-growing attachment to Dawn, especially when she keeps pining for her life back in Earth where she has Craig, her boyfriend. The good thing about Mancusi's Alternity is that it's easy to read, and does not attempt to choke the reader with a lot of information. Instead, Mancusi eases the reader, through Skye, to adjust to the different reality that is Terra. The pace is relatively quick, and it gets faster as the book draws to an end.
All in all, Alternity is a good read if you don't want to get into the heavy stuff. We'd recommend this for people who're after the more romantic aspect when it comes to science fiction, and for people who're trying to ease into reading this kind of genre.
Rating:
Ah bad acting scenes..you are making me cringe thinking about it. I am glad that despite the cheesy cover you found some substance.
ReplyDeleteI was kind of embarrassed for the protagonist while reading the scene. xD But overall, it wasn't that bad. :) It turned out to be better than we expected.
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