Project ELE

Project ELE

by Rebecca Gober and Courtney Nuckels

Sometime in our future, Global Warming will force the nations to install patches to the ozone to protect the population from the heat and UV rays.

Sometime in our future, the C.U.R.E. for all diseases will be created, which will end everything from cancer to the common cold.

Sometime in our future, a super virus will develop that will begin killing off people by the millions, leading to the possible destruction of the human race.

Sometime in our future, the ozone patches will be removed, the uninfected will be moved to mountain sanctuaries, and everyone else will be left to fend for themselves.

Sometime in our future, the vaccinations created to try and save humanity will end up changing it forever.

Final thoughts: Ugh! Another great idea that suffers from poor execution. Why do people refuse to get good copy editors!?!?!  Looser vs. loser is an obvious issue. The lack of proper punctuation was horrendous. You always put a comma before a name or appellation when talking to someone. ALL CAPS IS YELLING! If the whites of her eyes are developing little circles of color, how does a contact help to cover that up? Let's just completely forget/ignore the family members left out to die. Let's fall in love with the first cute guy to be seen and let's make that a near insta-love. Yeah. Let's not.

Rating: 1/5

Switching Hour

Switching Hour

by Robyn Peterman

Zelda just suffered nine months of confinement with another witchy offender and she's eager to be free. She hasn't used a spell in so long, she almost feels rusty. Orange is soooo not her color. She needs, needs, NEEDS some designer duds.

But it turns out that her release includes conditions. She's got to take over for her now dead, formerly unknown aunt in a tiny little town in West Virginia. And she's not allowed to use her magic for selfish reasons or she may lose her powers forever (so sayeth Baba Yaga and therefore it must be).

So now Zelda must drive a nasty lime green Kia out to the middle of nowhere with her damaged familiar for company (she swears that running over him three times was an accident!).

When she arrives, she's greeted by a murder mystery, a house with no cool technology, a line of shifters who swear she's the new "shifter whisperer" and their personal healer.  Oh... and a super hot were shifter who seems to think she's his Mate (note the capital M).

With only a few weeks to solve her aunt's murder before Baby Yaga possibly makes her mortal, Zelda is running out of time and is too easily distracted to get the job done without some help and some Prada to replace the orange jumpsuit.

Final thoughts: Another roller coaster from Peterman. Don't think too hard and just hang on for the ride. This one is cotton candy all the way through and there is plenty that is skipped right over in her seemingly ADHD writing, but it's still worth the price of admission.

Rating: 4/5

Famous Last Words

Famous Last Words

by Katie Alender

When Willa's mom marries a big-time Hollywood producer from Los Angeles, they pack up their belongings and leave Connecticut to move into his amazing mansion.

His amazingly haunted mansion.

As Willa tries to get settled in her new home and her new school, she's followed by strange events and pulled into memories that aren't hers. Visions of girls during their last moments of life, before being murdered by the Hollywood Killer, begin to take over her life.

Someone is trying to tell her something, but Willa isn't sure what and she's not sure who to trust with the secret of her visions.

Now the Hollywood Killer has set his sights on Willa and she's running out of time to figure out the clues before it's too late.

Final thoughts: Decent read. It flows and keeps up the tension pretty well, but is a little formulaic. Much like Bad Girls Don't Die, the danger is obvious to the reader even as the protagonist stays ignorant. Alender once again hides things until the last minute in an attempt to keep the reader from figuring it all out too fast, but it's cliché and a little insulting. Young adults will eat this up, but those who have read more will probably find this a little dull.

Rating: 3/5