Choose: A quick death…Or slow poison…
About to be executed for murder, Yelena is offered an extraordinary reprieve. She'll eat the best meals, have rooms in the palace—and risk assassination by anyone trying to kill the Commander of Ixia.

And so Yelena chooses to become a food taster. But the chief of security, leaving nothing to chance, deliberately feeds her Butterfly's Dust—and only by appearing for her daily antidote will she delay an agonizing death from the poison.

As Yelena tries to escape her new dilemma, disasters keep mounting. Rebels plot to seize Ixia and Yelena develops magical powers she can't control. Her life is threatened again and choices must be made. But this time the outcomes aren't so clear…

I really liked this book (though I thought it had slightly too much unnecessary swearing, but it very minimal), I found Yelena to be a very interesting character, and I liked the love story. I’m planning on buying the next two.

~Enna Isilee

Katniss is a 16-year-old girl living with her mother and younger sister in the poorest district of Panem, the remains of what used be the United States. Long ago the districts waged war on the Capitol and were defeated. As part of the surrender terms, each district agreed to send one boy and one girl to appear in an annual televised event called, "The Hunger Games." The terrain, rules, and level of audience participation may change but one thing is constant: kill or be killed. When Kat's sister is chosen by lottery, Kat steps up to go in her place.

This book will hold you in its grasp and will NOT let you go. HOLY COW! I loved this book. I think that this kind of sci-fi is amazing, and this one is at the top of its class. I loved Katniss, I loved the people she was around. More than once I broke down and cried while reading this book. Pure literary magic.

This book kept getting shorter and shorter and I kept thinking, “No way they can wrap it up in this many pages,” and they didn’t! TOTAL CLIFFHANGER ENDING! The kind of ending that makes you want to squeeze the author until a sequel pops out! As it is, I don’t think the sequel, Catching Fire, comes out until Fall 2009.

GRR!

~Enna Isilee

Okay, this book came with a lot of recommendations and praise. Though, I didn’t go in expecting much. It seemed to me that it was just kind of another one of those “give a girl a sword” books, which I have absolutely nothing against (I LOVE Tamora Peirce for her “give a girl a sword” books.), and it was.

I didn’t find anything special about Meliara’s story. I predicted the ending from the beginning. I felt like I had read the story before. But I liked it. Similar to what I thought of Pillage: it was a good story, but it was nothing new.

Now, for the second book/part two, I was less pleased. It was certainly not as cliché as the first book/part, but it was less…driven. It didn’t really seem to have a plot until the last 50 pages. I liked the story in the preceding pages, but it didn’t really carry me along. Because I already was pretty sure I knew the answers to all the “mystery” presented in that part of the book.

In my version, there is included an unpublished short story that continues the story of Meliara. I really liked this story, it was probably my favorite part of the whole book. I thought it showed the personality of the characters very well, and I finally felt the love between Meliara and her love-interest, which I hadn’t felt in the book.

Boy, this is hard to write without giving away spoilers. Time for a sum up:

It wasn’t unique, but I liked it. It brought me back into my reading swing (again), and for that, I’m grateful.

~Enna Isilee

P.S. This is really sad, but I was half-way through the book before I realized Sherwood Smith was a woman. The whole time I was reading that half I was thinking, “How could a man write this? I could never get inside a dude’s head like this.” Turns out, he didn’t. She did. *sheepish*

Have you read the Leven Thumps series by Obert Skye? Then you’ve probably read Pillage even if you’ve never picked it up. Does that make sense? Let me explain.

Leven Thumps: boy finds out he’s special, finds a magical world, goes on an adventure.

Pillage: boy finds out he’s special, hatches dragons, goes on an adventure.

Very similar.

NOT that this is a bad thing. I really liked Pillage. I thought it was a short, breezy, fantasy read. Nothing too special about it, but good anyway.

If you like dragons, you should definitely give this book a try.

~Enna Isilee