Battle Royale by Koushun Takami

Koushun Takami's notorious high-octane thriller is based on an irresistible premise: a class of junior high school students is taken to a deserted island where, as part of a ruthless authoritarian program, they are provided arms and forced to kill one another until only one survivor is left standing. Criticized as violent exploitation when first published in Japan - where it then proceeded to become a runaway bestseller - Battle Royale is a Lord of the Flies for the 21st century, a potent allegory of what it means to be young and (barely) alive in a dog-eat-dog world.

Battle Royale had this dark atmosphere right from the start. You are pulled into book and thrown on the deserted island where the 'program' is carried out. The characters in the book don't know where they are and as a reader you don't know either, which makes it spine chilling. Only one student can survive in the program and if no one participates in the 'game' then they will all die. Violent battles ensue. The students don't know who to trust even though they've been classmates for years, because someone might just betray them in the end to guarantee their own survival.

At the beginning I was overwhelmed at the 40+ names I had to remember but as you read on, you get to know and remember most of them. We dive into back stories of some of the characters which make them seem more human, rather than simple empty beings fighting for their survival and it makes it hard to read the outcomes of some of the characters you've grown to like. This book was unputdownable as I desperately wanted to find out how everything could possibly end.

★★★★★ for the unputdownability

Bargain Buys

This week, I discovered an Australian store: Basement Books where they sell books for up to 90% off the retail price! (awesome.)
The website sells excess stock that other bookstores can't sell or remaindered books which means they have a black texta mark across the edge of the book so it can't be returned to the publisher by the retailer.

The YA range is quite small but I grabbed two novels for a measly $2.40 each (shipped free!), only one of them was marked with texta and the other one was perfectly new! The books I grabbed both happen to be about previous lives/reincarnations (and have pretty covers):

The Eternal Ones by Kirsten Miller

Ever since Haven Moore can remember, she’s experienced visions of a previous life as a girl named Constance, whose love for her soulmate Ethan ended in tragedy. And then the sight of the world’s hottest movie star, Iain Morrow, brings Haven to her knees. She knows she has met him before. Is Iain her beloved Ethan?
Unable to deny her past any longer, seventeen-year old Haven flees to New York to find him- and an epic love affair begins. But it is both deeply fated and terribly dangerous. Can Haven unlock the deadly secrets hidden in her past lives- and loves- before all is lost and Ethan disappears again… forever?

Anxious Hearts by Tucker Shaw

Eva and Gabe explore the golden forest of their seaside Maine town, unknowingly tracing the footsteps of two teens, Evangeline and Gabriel, who once lived in the idyllic wooded village of Acadia more than one hundred years ago. On the day that Evangeline and Gabriel were be wed, their village was attacked and the two were separated. And now in the present, Gabe has mysteriously disappeared from Eva.

A dreamlike, loose retelling of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow’s famous love poem “Evangeline,” Anxious Hearts tells an epic tale of unrequited love and the hope that true love can be reunited

Chasers by James Phelan

Jesse is on a UN Youth Ambassadors camp in New York when his subway carriage is rocked by an explosion. Jesse and his three friends, Dave, Mini and Anna, crawl out from the wreckage to discover a city in chaos.

Streets are deserted. Buildings are in ruins. Worse, the only other survivors seem to be infected with a virus that turns them into horrifying predators...

Outnumbered. No sign of life. Just them. And you... ALONE.

Yesterday at the library I came across this series called 'Alone'. The blurb intrigued me. It sounded generic but I just wanted a good book to fight the boredom and this book did the job. From the start this book was fast paced and attention grabbing. We are introduced to the characters David, Min and Anna, who the main character Jesse becomes friends with on a UN camp trip. I liked how these characters were of different cultures/backgrounds to give some sense that these characters aren't just cardboard cutouts used for the purpose of encountering terrible situations. There wasn't much action in the book but this only made it seem more eerie and suspenseful.

The setting is in Manhattan (kinda typical for dystopian movies, right?). Unlike movies, I got to learn a bit about the city, googling the places mentioned the book which was a bonus (You can learn from fiction!).

My absolute favourite section was the ending. It was totally bloodcurdling and left me gasping out loud. I never saw the twist coming. People who like the Tomorrow series by John Marsden and dystopian movies like Cloverfield and I am Legend will gobble this book up!

★★★★★