ANIMAL FARM by George Orwell 144 pp. Penguin Group. £8.99. (Ages 13 and up) ISBN 9780141182704 Rating: ? Stars This book is set in a future when animals are much cleverer than now. And because of their cleverness, the pigs started a revolution against the humans. Pigs could speak fluently in English unlike the other animals, and that gave them the power to be leaders. But, the story that follows only happened a few years after that... Their first leader, Old Major, was kind and fair who knew animals should be equal. But when Napoleon became the leader it was very unpleasant. He made a rule that allowed the pigs to have better food and that forced all of the other animals to work crazily hard every day and night. That wasn’t enough, Napoleon wanted more power. He decided to kill his brother, Snowball, so that he would be the only leader. Snowball was admired because he came up with a clever idea to build windmill. Sn...
Publisher: Razorbill
Pages: 352
From Goodreads: "Love, fate, and power collide in this new series by #1 New York Timesbestselling author Aprilynne Pike!
Tavia Michaels is the sole survivor of the plane crash that killed her parents. When she starts to see strange visions of a boy she’s never spoken with in real life, she begins to suspect that there’s much about her past that she isn’t being told. Tavia will soon discover that she’s an Earthbound—someone with the ability to create matter out of nothing—and that she alone holds the key to stopping the Reduciata, an evil society that manipulates global events for its own shadowy purposes. Tavia will ultimately have to make a choice: to come into her powers and save the world from the evil Reduciata or to choose free will and a love of her own."
Admittedly I was quite hesitant to read this book- why? Because Aprilynne's "Wings" series is one of my most favourite series and I didn't think that there was any way that this book could compare. Am I ever glad that I was wrong. This book is, without a doubt Aprilynne's strongest book to date and one of the better books that I have read this year. That being said, that is not to say that this book is without its fault.
The largest strength of this book, in my opinion, is its complexity. While Aprilynne's "Wings" series was complex in the make-up of its world of faerie, I don't think that it could touch this in that aspect. I was never quite sure where Aprilynne was going to take the story next- for instance, I didn't know what paranormal beings the characters were (if any), who could be trusted, and so forth.
That being said, I wasn't a massive fan of the love triangle element of this book- I felt that it was near impossible to make a connection to Quinn and therefore it fell quite flat. Furthermore, when one of the paranormal elements of the storyline was revealed, I couldn't help but wish that it was more unique- it seemed a bit too similar to Lauren Kate's "Fallen" series for my liking. Last, after finishing it, I had the sense that, while a lot happened, not a lot did (what did happen seemed more so action-y than answer-y, very much along the lines of "answering questions with questions").
That being said, I do think that this is an extremely promising to Aprilynne's new series- it becomes evident that with each book she grows tremendously as an author- and, as I am sure that you can imagine, despite my complaints, I am more than excited to see what she has next in store for these characters. As such, I do highly recommend this book as I do think that overall she has done something a bit different than we have seen in the world of YA to this point.
Rating: 4/5
I received this book from the publisher to read and honestly review. I was not compensated in any way for said review.
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