*** 5 Stars
This book is set in a future world where everyone left after a chaotic war is either very young(Starters) or very old(Enders). It is full of suspense, thrills and unexpected twists.
It centers on a "Starter", Callie who lives a life of running and hiding from "unfriendlies". She,her brother and their friend don't have food or a home since their parents(along with everyone elses') died in the Spore Wars. Callie decides to rent her body out to an "Ender", through a Body Bank, in order to get money for her brother. This should mean that an old person gets to live in a young, energized body for a couple of days and then Callie would return to her mind and so would they. But something malfunctions and she wakes up in the life of a rich Ender who has a dangerous plan to expose the truth about the system. But it's very dangerous and mysterious. And Callie still has to decide whether or not she believes in the cause.
This book and it's concept are extremely interesting and kept me wanting more every time a chapter ended. But seriously. Probably one of the most interesting concepts of all time. I mean, come on, renting your body out to an old person? How creepy is that?
Dear Word Girl,
ReplyDeleteI'm an award-winning author with a new book of YA fiction. Ugly To
Start With is a series of thirteen interrelated stories about teen life
published by West Virginia University Press in November
of 2011.
Can I interest you in reviewing it?
My book's only 160 pages short. The writing is easy and open, and all
the stories are interconnected--same hero and story arc throughout. It
reads like a brisk novel in the form of stories.
If you write me back at johnmcummings@aol.com, I'll send you a PDF of my book.
At this point, my small publisher is out of available review copies, so
I hope and politely ask that you consider the PDF. I would be
very grateful.
My publisher, I should add, can offer your readers a free excerpt
of my book through a link from your blog to my publisher's website:
http://wvupressonline.com/cummings_ugly_to_start_with_9781935978084
Here’s what Jacob Appel, celebrated author of Dyads and The
Vermin Episode, says about my new collection: "In Ugly to Start With,
set in the eastern panhandle of West Virginia, Cummings tackles the
challenges of boyhood adventure and family conflict in a taut,
crystalline style that captures the triumphs and tribulations of
small-town life. He has a gift for transcending the particular
experiences to his characters to capture the universal truths of human
affection and suffering--emotional truths that the members of his
audience will recognize from their own experiences of childhood and
adolescence.”
My short stories have appeared in more than seventy-five literary
journals, including North American Review, The Kenyon Review, Alaska
Quarterly Review, and The Chattahoochee Review. Twice I have
been nominated for The Pushcart Prize. My short story "The Scratchboard
Project" received an honorable mention in The Best American Short
Stories 2007.
I am also the author of the nationally acclaimed coming-of-age
novel The Night I Freed John Brown (Philomel Books, Penguin Group,
2009),winner of The Paterson Prize for Books for Young Readers (Grades
7-12)and one of ten books recommended by USA TODAY.
For more information about me, please visit:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Michael_Cummings
Thank you very much, and I look forward to hearing back from you.
Kindly,
John Michael Cummings