YA

FREE for One Day Only: Sykosa, Part I: Junior Year by Justin Ordoñez

“Sykosa makes for some compelling reading. Older teens and adults alike will enjoy Ordoñez ‘s tale for its humor, realism and relatable protagonist.” — Kirkus Indie Review

Sykosa (that’s “sy”-as-in-“my” ko-sa) is a junior in high school. She belongs to an exclusive clique of girls called the “Queens.” The leader is her best friend Niko. Their friendship has been strained lately because Tom—Sykosa’s first boyfriend—has gotten all serious about making her his pretty Prom princess. That is if he ever gets around to asking her. Before Prom, there’s a party at Niko’s cottage where parental supervision will be nil. He wants to have sex. She doesn’t. He sometimes acts like that doesn’t matter.It matters.

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Book Review: Farsighted by Emlyn Chand

I got this book from Amazon when it was free for a brief period. I saw a link about it on Twitter and since I’m a sucker for free books, I downloaded it. I wasn’t able to get to it for weeks though. I finally gave it a go since I’ve been reading about it everywhere on my newsfeeds.

Farsighted by Emlyn Chand is about Alex, blind since birth and deemed an outcast by his peers. He has no friends until a nice new girl comes to town. Simmi sincerely wants to be friends with Alex and things starts to look up. Unfortunately for Alex, he also discovers a new ability. He has “visions” of the future and sometimes it gets him in awkward situations. No matter how hard he tries, Alex can’t escape his new ability, especially when he starts seeing visions of Simmi in danger. Alex gains the help of new friends and discovers more about his new sight. This book is about his journey to change the events in his visions. — Check out Farsighted on Goodreads.

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High School Life, Oh High School Life: Sykosa by Justin Ordonez

About the book
YA fiction for the 18+ crowd. Sykosa is a sixteen-year-old girl trying to reclaim her identity after an act of violence shatters her life and the lives of her friends. Set at her best friend Niko’s cottage, for what will be a weekend of unsupervised badness, Sykosa will have to finally confront the major players and issues from this event, as well as decide if she wants to lose her virginity to Tom, her first boyfriend, and the boy who saved her from danger.

I think this is the first YA book I’ve read that has very mature content.  I normally steer clear from books that talk about really serious stuff unless the cover or blurb were interesting enough to reel me in.  Also, when it comes to YA fiction, I tend to go for the adventure or fantasy genre because I prefer the fast-paced, light and easy reading of these books.  I decided to read Sykosa because I figured I have to review “serious” books once in a while. YES, this is still all about my reading/writing goals. It’s all about me, me, me.  HAH.  I sound like I’m in high school.  Like Sykosa.  No, not really.

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Finally I’ve caught up with The Games

The Hunger Games, that is. Yes, yes, it’s been a gazillion years since the first book of this ever so popular trilogy came out and the second and third have been out for quite some time. I just finished The Hunger Games yesterday. Carpet Head was finally able to dig up his copy from somewhere so I was able to get a hold of it. Not bad. Very Battle Royale. I liked it. I love that the main character is a strong woman. I could’ve done without the lovey dovey parts between the two leads though, but I guess it was essential to the story. If you’ve read the book, you know what I mean.

So, the movie’s coming out in March next year. I would watch it for Jennifer Lawrence, who’s playing the heroine. She’s gorgeous. I think at first fans weren’t sure if she could do the role justice, but I think she can make it work. I mean, hello, Winter’s Bone. That role got her Oscar and Golden Globe nominations and several other film awards. I haven’t seen it but I trust the film critics on this one.