A Girl Named Digit - Review

Title: A Girl Named Digit
Author: Annabelle Monaghan
Tags: Young Adult, FBI, terrorism, Los Angeles, CIA, teen crush, action, romance, math, code, genius
Format: Hardcover, 192 pages
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Books For Children
ISBN-10: 054766852X
ISBN-13: 978-0547668529
Website: http://www.annabelmonaghan.com/digit/

Publisher's Description:

Farrah "Digit" Higgins may be going to MIT in the fall, but this L.A. high school genius has left her geek self behind in another school district so she can blend in with the popular crowd at Santa Monica High and actually enjoy her senior year. But when Farrah, the daughter of a UCLA math professor, unknowingly cracks a terrorist group's number sequence, her laid-back senior year gets a lot more interesting. Soon she is personally investigating the case, on the run from terrorists, and faking her own kidnapping-- all while trying to convince a young, hot FBI agent to take her seriously. So much for blending in . . .

Advisory:
Rating: By film industry standards I think the book would be rated "PG." There's just a couple of curse words, some underage drinking, and a chaste romance between the 17 year old heroine and her 21 year old FBI handler.


Review:

I'm a fan of Ally Carter's Gallagher Girls series and Heist Society series. I chose to read A Girl Named Digit because the description reminded me of those stories: strong female lead dealing with typical teenage issues of friendships and boys, all the while engaged in very atypical, Mission Impossible style covert operations. Nothing too serious, aside from saving the free world from homicidal terrorist organizations. Just a light, fun, action-packed read. Ally Carter's books definitely deliver, but I feel A Girl Named Digit falls just a fraction short.

BZRK - Soundtrack

As you'll be able to see over the coming weeks as I add more content, this ain't your normal book blog. I'll be adding some interesting features that I think you'll enjoy and this Book Soundtrack is one I'm particularly excited about. I haven't decided whether I'll do this for every title or just books I really like. BZRK just happens to fit both categories. 

I compiled this soundtrack on Playlist.com. You can go there and set up your own playlists for free. So I hope you'll listen to the Soundtrack I've compiled for BZRK, and if you've read the book and have ideas for songs I've missed here, go ahead and post the Artist and Title in a comment below!

BZRK - Review

Title: BZRK
Author: Michael Grant
Tags: Young Adult, Science Fiction, Action, Thriller
Format: Hardcover, 400 pages
Publisher: Egmont USA
ISBN-10: 1-60684-312-5
ISBN-13: 978-1-60684-312-3
Website: http://gobzrk.com/

Publisher's Description:

Love The Hunger Games? Action-adventure thrillers with a dystopian twist? BZRK (Berserk) by Michael Grant, New York Times best-selling author of the GONE series, ramps up the action and suspense to a whole new level of excitement.

Set in the near future, BZRK is the story of a war for control of the human mind. Charles and Benjamin Armstrong, conjoined twins and owners of the Armstrong Fancy Gifts Corporation, have a goal: to turn the world into their vision of utopia. No wars, no conflict, no hunger. And no free will. Opposing them is a guerrilla group of teens, code name BZRK, who are fighting to protect the right to be messed up, to be human. This is no ordinary war, though. Weapons are deployed on the nano-level. The battleground is the human brain. And there are no stalemates here: It’s victory . . . or madness.

BZRK unfolds with hurricane force around core themes of conspiracy and mystery, insanity and changing realities, engagement and empowerment, and the larger impact of personal choice. Which side would you choose? How far would you go to win?

Advisory:
Violence: Gory descriptions of action scenes; dismemberment; potentially frightening creatures.
Language: Some graphic language.
Sex: Some discussion of sex; no description of sex scenes.
Rating: By film industry standards I think the book would be rated "R" based on strong language/violence.


Review:

I didn't really know what to expect from BZRK. Didn't have any preconceived notions. It's a good thing I didn't waste time thinking about it because I would have been wrong anyway. The only thing you should expect is to feel your pulse pounding a mile a minute, which is roughly how fast the action happens in the story. You should also be prepared for some graphic, often gory, descriptions of battle scenes at the macro and the micro levels. There's everything from human limbs being blown off to close up views of blood cells and bacteria. At times you'd almost think Grant was describing a documentary film about the inner workings of the human body, that is until you see microscopic killer robots battling genetically engineered spider/scorpion/human hybrids.