Sequel to the Marbury Lens and man does it keep the crazy flowing. I was so pumped when I found out that the story wasn’t over, but now I’m sad because I don’t think there is a third book. There really doesn’t need to be a third one except for the one small fact that we STILL HAVE NO IDEA WHAT MARBURY IS!?!?

Ugh, but that’s what makes reading these books so good. You are just as lost as Jack. Situations are life and death and Andrew Smith has no problem killing off his characters so you have to be ready for anything. Reading both of these books is quite a rush. I almost wish I had read them back to back but it was nice to get a breather in between.

Most of the bad reviews revolve around the intense violence and gore of the book, but that’s what makes it feel real. I felt every punch in the gut and wrinkled my nose at every smell in the air because Smith writes in a way that brings it to life. Especially in the audio book. This is one of the few audio books that makes you feel strange while you listen and go about your normal business. I felt like I was half in another world that the people around me had no idea about. Which made me even more into Jack and his story.

Okay, I’m just rambling now,perhaps even gushing. Overall just a great great great book and I loved it and this is going on the short list of books I will read again.

First off, I love this cover. It’s gorgeous and makes me want to pick the book up. Kudos for that!

This was one of the most original fantasy stories I’ve read in a long time. There wasn’t a moment where I was thinking how it was kinda like this book or that book. Even though the book is a novel, it read like a short story to me. I say this both because of how fast the book moved and because of some undefinable characteristic. It just ‘felt’ like a short story.

The world of Twixt is wonderfully inventive with creepy creatures and strange overlords who rule over a scared group of people who call themselves sleepers. None of them know where they are or how they got there. Of course everything changes when the main character is found. Doesn’t it always?

The beginning is a little slow and confusing because you are thrown into this new world with the character and have to learn everything with her. As she learns more and more the pace picks up and it becomes a true page turner.

And the love story? Personally, I would have liked to have seen a bit more of it. What’s there is beautiful and simple, but it is swamped over by the rest of the story. It’s fine because the rest of the story was good, I just wanted more of the girls!

Worth the time and price of admission, definitely pick this one up. Fair warning though, it will get into your head, I had two dreams about it.

I got no complaints on this one. From start to finish this new telling of Hansel and Gretta sucked me in and kept me page turning long after I should have set it down for the night. It’s such a simple, great concept that I’m smacking my head that I didn’t think to write something so awesome.

Greta starts out as a fairly whiny and helpless character who grows a backbone in a very short time when she is forced to leave her home and face the ragers that threaten the world around them. When she and her brother arrive at an old candy shop in an abandoned city, the story really gets going.

The writing in this was just beautiful. I think Grimm fairy tales would be very proud to see this telling of their story, it’s certainly closer to the feel it was meant to have than anything Disney would put out. Crumbs captures all the beauty of the old fairy tales as well as the darkness and fear.

I can’t wait to read more by this author!

So, I loved this book. Like, want to recommend it to everyone I know sort of loved. Okay, well not everyone, because it’s not really an everyone sort of book.

I’m pretty sure that ‘Andrew Smith’ is the name Stephen King uses when he wants to write a completely bad ass YA novel without anyone knowing. Yeah, this book was that good.

It also wasn’t anything like what I was expecting. It was everything I want in a fantasy book though: dark, disturbing, beautifully written. The audiobook version captured all of this perfectly. The whole thing was very realistic in its telling so that even though it is clearly a fantasy novel, it reads like something that could really be happening.

Teenage Jack gets drunk at a party and ends up kidnapped and barely escaping before the man can do much more than touch him a little. Did the plot really need this? Maybe, maybe not. I think it was a perfect way to set up Jack’s unstable state of mind as he headed to England for two weeks. Maybe without all that happening he wouldn’t have bothered looking through the glasses. Maybe without all of that happening he wouldn’t have been able to look through them.

But Jack does look through them and he is transported to Marbury, a dark world where he is fighting for his life. Meanwhile, his real life is falling to pieces around him.

OMG, I loved it.

Yeah, Jack is a bit of a dick, but lots of teen boys are. Conner might be a little bit of a homophobe, but lots of teen boys are. The characters felt real because they weren’t perfect. Would a sixteen-year-old boy have sex with a hot British girl on vacation? Absolutely. I’ve decided many women have a hard time writing teen boys. They want their characters to be the perfect guys they wanted as teens. This is not a book about perfect guys.

I never knew where I was with this book. For a while I believed it was all real. Then I thought maybe it was all in Jack’s head. Then I came back to thinking it was real. I couldn’t stop listening to the damn thing even as I wanted it to last longer.

So excited that there is a sequel. The only thing that distracted me from the awesomeness of the book was how often Jack referred to himself as Jack. That got old. But I’ll forgive you, Stephen…I mean Andrew, because your book was amazing.

Pick this up today!