May You Find Who - And What - You Are Searching For

Avatar: The Last Airbender
The Search
By Gene Luen Yang & Gurihiru
in collaboration with Bryan Konietzko & Michael Dante DiMartino
Amazon ~ Powell's

For years, fans of Avatar: The Last Airbender and The Legend of Korra have burned with one question - what happened to Fire Lord Zuko's mother? Finding a clue at last, Zuko enlists the aid of Team Avatar - and the most unlikely ally of all - to help uncover the biggest secret of his life.

Immediately following the Avatar's adventures chronicled in The Promise, this remarkable oversized hardcover collects parts 1-3 of The Search, from Airbender creators Michael Dante DiMartino and Bryan Konietzko! Featuring annotations by Eisner Award-winning writer Gene Luen Yang (American Born Chinese) and the artist team Gurihiru (Thor and The Warriors Four), and a brand-new sketchbook, this is a story that Avatar fans need in an edition they will love!


Once again I must lament over the decision not to put these stories into a fourth season. This story in particular was one that EVERYONE wanted to know, was teased in both the finale of Airbender, as well as in the premiere of Korra, and could have easily carried its own made-for-TV movie. But, as it stands, it still was an amazing story.

What Does It Take To Unwind The Unwanted?

~Unwind~
Unwind Dystology
Book 1
By Neal Shusterman
Amazon ~ Powell's

Connor, Risa, and Lev are running for their lives.

The Second Civil War was fought over reproductive rights. The chilling resolution: Life is inviolable from the moment of conception until age thirteen. Between the ages of thirteen and eighteen, however, parents can have their child "unwound," whereby all of the child's organs are transplanted into different donors, so life doesn't technically end. Connor is too difficult for his parents to control. Risa, a ward of the state is not enough to be kept alive. And Lev is a tithe, a child conceived and raised to be unwound. Together, they may have a chance to escape—and to survive.


I have no idea how I'd never heard of this book before. In the same vein as Ender's Game, this is a provocative and complex look at our society through the lens of a possible/probable future. And just like Ender's Game, I don't want to spoil too much of Unwind. It may have come out four years ago, but it is just as relevant and engaging now as it was then, and I truly think reading it is an experience that shouldn't be missed.

In the not-too-distant future, technology has enabled transplant surgery to have absolutely no failures. No rejection of foreign parts, no tissue decay, no problems. This means that nearly every medical malady, augmentation surgery, and accident-caused emergency can be solved by cutting out and replacing organs, limbs, and even parts of brains. But where do the replacements come from?

Why, unwanted children, of course.

Precious Blood Is Not Intended To Be A Holy Place

~Precious Blood~
The Blessed
Book 1
By Tonya Hurley
Amazon ~ Powell's

What if martyrs and saints lived among us? And what if you were told you were one of them?

Meet Agnes, Cecilia, and Lucy. Three lost girls, each searching for something. But what they find is Beyond Belief.

Pulseit is running a pretty cool promotion this month. They're offering 31 different YA books, one per day, to read on their site for free. You can also enter a drawing for each book, as well as the entire pack of 31. They have some interesting books on the list, as well as some bestsellers including Rot & Ruin, Wither, Uglies, and Clockwork Angel, so you may want to check out the list and free up your schedule a bit this month.

Yesterday's offering was this little gem called Precious Blood, accompanied only by the cover, 2-line description, and video seen above. Not much going for it, but it was free, the cover didn't look bad, and I had the time so I dusted off my Kindle and booted up the site. To Pulseit's credit, the website software ran exceptionally well on my Kindle Fire, giving me only a couple hiccups when I tried to highlight or go full-screen. Still, word-size, bookmarking, and page turning operated exactly like a normal e-book would, so I look forward to reading more e-books there this month.

On the downside, I absolutely hated this book.

Even More Peculiar Pictures

Miss Peregrine's Home
for Peculiar Children
~The Graphic Novel~
Miss Peregrine’s Peculiar Children
Book 1
By Ransom Riggs & Cassandra Jean
Amazon ~ Powell's ~ Jan's Paperbacks

When Jacob Portman was a boy, his grandfather regaled him with stories of his fantastic life at Miss Peregrine's home during the Second World War, even sharing photos of the remarkable children with whom he resided. As Jacob grew up, though, he decided that these photos were obvious fakes, simple forgeries designed to stir his youthful imagination. Or were they...?

Following his grandfather's death—a scene Jacob literally couldn't believe with his own eyes—the sixteen-year-old boy embarks on a mission to disentangle fact from fiction in his grandfather's tall tales. But even his grandfather's elaborate yarns couldn't prepare Jacob for the eccentricities he will discover at Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children!

My Review of the Novel

It seems I'm in a re-reading mood all of a sudden. What could be better than re-reading your favorite books? Why, getting to experience them again for the first time, of course! And that's exactly what Cassandra Jean has achieved with Ransom Riggs' intriguing novel about Peculiar Children. This graphic novel adaptation contains the same plot as the original novel, so if you're wanting a review of the story, you should probably click that big link up there. But if you're interested in how the adaptation came out, please read on.

A Shifting, Crazy Kind of Game

~Ender's Game~
Ender's Saga
Book 1
By Orson Scott Card
Amazon ~ Powell's

In order to develop a secure defense against a hostile alien race's next attack, government agencies breed child geniuses and train them as soldiers. A brilliant young boy, Andrew "Ender" Wiggin lives with his kind but distant parents, his sadistic brother Peter, and the person he loves more than anyone else, his sister Valentine. Peter and Valentine were candidates for the soldier-training program but didn't make the cut—young Ender is the Wiggin drafted to the orbiting Battle School for rigorous military training.

Ender's skills make him a leader in school and respected in the Battle Room, where children play at mock battles in zero gravity. Yet growing up in an artificial community of young soldiers Ender suffers greatly from isolation, rivalry from his peers, pressure from the adult teachers, and an unsettling fear of the alien invaders. His psychological battles include loneliness, fear that he is becoming like the cruel brother he remembers, and fanning the flames of devotion to his beloved sister.

Is Ender the general Earth needs? But Ender is not the only result of the genetic experiments. The war with the Buggers has been raging for a hundred years, and the quest for the perfect general has been underway for almost as long. Ender's two older siblings are every bit as unusual as he is, but in very different ways. Between the three of them lie the abilities to remake a world. If, that is, the world survives.


Read this book. No, don't go see the movie, don't read a summary, don't read movie reviews, just go read the book. Okay, you can read my review first, but then go read the book. You can thank me later.

Alright, in all seriousness, this is an amazing book. This will probably be one of my more sparse reviews because I don't want to spoil things. It really deserves as open a mind as you can give it. Then again, I've read it three times now and each time I've gotten something different out of it. The first time was for a high school class, and I remember becoming inextricably engrossed in Ender's journey and the battle school and eagerly jumping into the next books of the series. The second time was in college, around when I was studying a bit of philosophy, wherein I paid much more attention to Valentine and Peter's story. Finally, upon reading multiple reviews (and summaries) of the movie, I decided to revisit Ender's Game for a bit of comparison, analysis, and nostalgia. And it is every bit as great as I remembered.

Before I go too far, here, I feel somewhat obligated to touch on the elephant in the room that is the author. Orson Scott Card has been in the spotlight lately due to his extremely vocal and financial support of anti-gay causes. I personally abhor his words on this topic and had I not already purchased his books before learning of his practices I would probably never read them. But I did read them, and I love them. That being said, I fully support those who refuse to support him or his works. If you still want to read these, perhaps read them from the library, or from a friend, and if you feel so inclined to purchase one, do so from a used retailer.