{Review} The Fearless by Emma Pass

Posted by Donna
Release Date: April 24th, 2014
Finished Date: September 29th, 2014

Publishers: Corgi Childrens
Genre: YA, Dystopian, Romance
Source: For Review
Format: Paperback

Pages: 400

Buy: Amazon UK / Amazon US / The Book Depo

The Fearless. An army, powered by an incredible new serum that makes each soldier stronger, sharper, faster than their enemies. Intended as a force for good, the serum has a terrible side-effect - anyone who takes it is stripped of all humanity, empathy, love. And as the Fearless sweep through the country, forcing the serum on anyone in their path, society becomes a living nightmare.

Cass remembers the night they passed through her village. Her father was Altered. Her mother died soon after. All Cass has left is her little brother - and when Jori is snatched by the Fearless and taken to their hellish lair, Cass must risk everything to get him back.

The Review: After reading British author's Emma Pass's debut novel ACID and enjoying it, I knew I wanted to read her next release. I love supporting British authors and I really enjoy stories being based in the UK. 

The Fearless follows teenager Cass who has a happy life that until The Fearless - a powerful army powered by a serum that makes each soldier loses their emotions including all their fears, turning them into zombie like creatures not afraid of anything. Leaving the rest of the world in serious danger and The Fearless take over and turn as many citizens are possible to be like them. 

Cass escaped with her life but lost her mother and father, leaving her to look after her new born brother while trying to make a new life on a small island. But when The Fearless break in and kidnap her brother, Cass knows she has to save him and she'll need all the help she can get. Cass do the impossible and find her brother before being turned in to the thing she hates most - The Fearless? 

I enjoyed The Fearless and definitely more so than ACID. The Fearless was faster paced and more exciting, it had an good start to the story and pulled me in quite quickly, but at times I lost interest. I was trying to work out why I kept losing interest and while the story is good, I think it would have been better if it had been shorter. The one thing that saved this story was the alternative point's of view because I enjoyed getting in to all the characters heads. Had it of been just Cass's point of view, this may have been different outcome. 

The characters were enjoyable and likeable all except one - Sol. He was a very rash and unpredictable character that was very annoying and quite dangerous. I did like Myo and Cass though and thought they made a great team once they got over their issues. 

In all, The Fearless wasn't a fantastic story but it was one I certainly enjoyed and I'll definitely look for more by Emma Pass in the near future. 

3.5 flowers!

Thank you to Corgi Children's for giving me the opportunity to review this book in exchange for an honest review. 

Totally Random Tour: Dream Literary Dinner Party Guestlist with Emma Pass, Amy McCulloch & Karen Mahoney

Emma Pass's Dream Literary Dinner Party Guest List.

I like small, intimate gatherings, where you don’t have to shout across the table to make yourself heard, or get exhausted trying to make time to talk to everyone. So my dream literary dinner party guest list isn’t a long one, but I think it would make for a fun evening.

First of all, I’d have to invite…

Stephen King: SK is my all-time favourite author. I discovered him when I was 13 with the epic IT, and have been addicted to his novels ever since. Not only does he have the most incredible imagination, but I love his writing style, his dark sense of humour, and the way he manages to create such rich and interesting characters. I think he’d be a lot of fun to talk to!

And then…

SE Hinton: A pull-no-punches look at life on the wrong side of the tracks from the point of view of ‘Greaser’ Ponyboy Curtis, The Outsiders has been a favourite of mine for as long as I can remember. S.E. Hinton was only 16 when she wrote the book, and 18 when it was published. I’d love to talk to her about her inspiration, and what it felt like to be published at such a young age.

Emily Byrd Starr: I like the Anne of Green Gables books, but I’ve always found Anne Shirley a little too good to be true. Emily of the Emily of New Moon books, on the other hand, is a girl after my own heart: feisty, independent, a daydreamer who spends every spare moment she has scribbling stories… I reckon we’d get on like a house on fire.

Finally…

Lyra Belacqua: The His Dark Materials books are in my all-time reading top ten. Hearing from Lyra about her adventures would be amazing (and I’d love to meet a real, live daemon!).

Amy McCulloch's Dream Literary Dinner Party Guestlist.

My dream literary dinner party would have to start with the perfect venue. I’d want it to be properly inspiring and surrounded by books – so I’m thinking the Beast’s library from Beauty and the Beast? Then we would have the benefit of Lumiere’s kitchen to provide the catering, too!

First up on my guest-list would be J.K. Rowling: apart from wanting to just get a chance to tell her how much her work means to me, I’d want to hear from her first hand what it was like to go from scribbling notes on a napkin to a reading on what might be the world’s largest stage - the Olympic opening ceremony.

Next up, I’d invite Roald Dahl, because he had such a long and varied career – plus he’s funny. I’d definitely bring Neil Gaiman, because apart from being one of my favourite authors, he’s an excellent conversationalist and I’d want to pick his brains about the future of storytelling. I’d invite Jane Austen next, because I’d really love to discuss with her how Pride and Prejudice has influenced modern literature. And then I’d invite all the Lucky 13s (authors who are debuting in 2013) so that we could grill the famous authors at the table and see how publishing has changed throughout the years!

Karen Mahoney's Dream Literary Dinner Party Guest list

1) Charlotte Brontë – because I’ve always been obsessed with her books. Jane Eyre is a favourite, but I also love Villette. I used to be a member of the Brontë Society (don’t laugh) and once upon a time, many years ago, I actually had the chance to hold the handwritten manuscript of Jane Eyre in my hands! That’s a totally true story. It was awesome.

2) William Moulton Marston – because he created Wonder Woman back in the early 1940s. Need I say more? :)

3) Neil Gaiman – because I’ve never met him, and his Sandman comics inspired me to really dig deep into folklore and mythology. I think he’d be the perfect dinner party guest.

4) Holly Black – because I love her work, have never met her (and would love to), and think she’d be super fun to talk to. I’d ask her lots of questions about faeries...

5) Daphne du Maurier – because her books are wonderfully gothic and atmospheric, and many of them I’ve read over and over. I’ve read biographies about du Maurier’s life, and she always seemed like such an interesting woman. She also wrote one of my favourite romances of all time: Frenchman’s Creek. (In fact, Donna in The Iron Witch books is partly named after the heroine of Frenchman’s Creek.)
Here's where we'll be and what we'll be doing:

Totally Random Tour Schedule;

WEEK ONE

Mon 27th May – “Our Top 5 writing tips!” – MOVELLAS

Tue 28th May – “Book Reviews” – SUGARSCAPE

Wed 29th May – “If I wasn’t a writer, I would be…” – CHICKLISH

Thurs 30th May – “Dream Cast” – BOOKS FOR COMPANY

Fri 31st May – “Group Discussion” – GOODREADS 6pm-7pm

WEEK TWO

Mon 3rd June – “Dream literary dinner party guestlist” – BOOK PASSION FOR LIFE

Tue 4th June – “Places that inspire your writing” – SABLE CAUGHT

Wed 5th June – “Webchat” – TOTALLY RANDOM FACEBOOK (5-6pm)

Thurs 6th June – “Soundtrack to your writing” – WONDROUS READS

Fri 7th June – “Group interview” – TOTALLY RANDOM BOOKS 

A Review for ACID by Emma Pass

Posted by Donna
Release Date: April 25th, 2013
Finished Date: May 7th, 2013

Publishers: Corgi 
Source: For Review 

Format: Paperback
Pages: 431 

Buy: Amazon UK / Amazon US / The Book Depo

2113. 

In Jenna Strong’s world, ACID – the most brutal, controlling police force in history – rule supreme. No throwaway comment or muttered dissent goes unnoticed – or unpunished. And it was ACID agents who locked Jenna away for life, for a bloody crime she struggles to remember.

The only female inmate in a violent high-security prison, Jenna has learned to survive by any means necessary. And when a mysterious rebel group breaks her out, she must use her strength, speed and skill to stay one step ahead of ACID – and to uncover the truth about what really happened on that dark night two years ago.

The Review: I was excited to receive ACID that I started it within a few days of receiving it, and while the story had such a strong start, after a few chapters it slowly started getting weaker. And so in the end, it was impossible for me to love it, but I certainly didn't hate it.

As I said before the plot started off strong but no sooner than things getting interesting, I started to lose interest. It was pretty easy to figure out what had happened to Jenna before she did, and because of this there was no excitement and nothing to grip me to the edge of my seat with anticipation. So of course, by the time Jenna figured everything out, I was over it and all the surprise was taken out of what I was reading.

As for Jenna, she starts out as a strong main character. We see her kicking the butt out of a guy who she's in prison with, and we see her trying to get on with her life as much as she possibly can. However, when she's sprung from prison, Jenna doesn't come across as the kick-ass character that she once was - which was slightly disappointing. It isn't until the last few chapter's that we start to see her once again, becoming the kick-ass character she was. I guess you could say my expectations were very high when it came to Jenna. I'd seen all the glowing reviews comparing her to likes of Lara Croft, so of course I was expecting awesomeness from her, but in my opinion Jenna never came across that way. I felt she was somewhat lacking as a character, and although she did have her moments, I don't feel like the author took the time to explain what it was really like for her to be in the prison or what it was like to 'kill' her parents. 

Max as the love interest was a weak character. Nothing screamed out to me about him, even when he's gone in part of the story, it was easy to forget he was even in the story. It was good how his character was wove into the story but that's about it. Sorry Max!

The government; ACID, were probably the highlight of the book for me, even though they were the bad guys. It was interesting to unravel the laws that had put in place and how they kept everyone under control. As a dystopian, Emma Pass did a good job bringing something dreadful and scary to the table, and making it work so well. Especially since ACID aren't the only players in this story. We have two other groups trying to take control, and that's NAR and FREE. Once again, I enjoyed their stories and loved seeing how they wanted to make an impact if they could over throw ACID.

The story did have many good and bad points and some of the  information I felt was irrelevant and some was not. Near the end, there were a few chapters that I felt didn't need to be there because they didn't really have any impact on the story. But then everything picked up again towards the end. 

The ending, I guess I could say it was enjoyable, if not predictable at times. I think it could have been put together better but still, it was one of the best parts of the story. The epilogue was a good added bonus that I believe felt right. Not a lot of authors take the time to write epilogues, but I'm glad Emma Pass did and I felt everything was concluded well. 

In all, Emma Pass's ACID didn't live up to my expectations, but it was still an enjoyable read. I still believe many people will love, so it's definitely worth a read.