"Hunger" by Jackie Morse Kessler

"Hunger" by Jackie Morse Kessler, 177 Pages

Hunger is quite the serious read. I absolutely loved it.  Lisabeth Lewis is anorexic. After being teased for her weight, she started on the road to anorexia. Her boyfriend and her best friend see the signs and try to help her. When Lisabeth has enough, she attempts suicide. Death awaits her and offers her the role of Famine - one of the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse. As Lisa takes on the mantle of Famine, she discovers much more about herself than she imagined. This book gives good insight to how the mind of a person with an eating disorder works. Interestingly enough, the author was once a bulimic herself. This is a really quick read and worth every minute. It does have language and adult content.

Underworld: An Abandon Novel by Meg Cabot

Underworld: An Abandon Novel by Meg Cabot, 352 pages
(Book 2 of Abandon series)

In the sequel to Abandon, the death deity, John Hayden, takes Pierce to the Underworld when he discovers that the furies are after her. There, he thinks she'll remain safe. Unfortunately, her family is not safe and Pierce does what she can to return to the "surface" and rescue her loved ones.She also learns that maybe she should have studied her Greek Mythology a bit harder to avoid a lot of the surprises that come her way.  Once again, the book moves along slowly and a bit choppy, however, it is much better than the first and worth the read.

Abandon by Meg Cabot

Abandon by Meg Cabot, 304 Pages
Book 1 of the Abandon Series

From the author of the Princess Diaries comes a trek into the realm of Greek Mythology.  Supposedly this book is a retelling of Persephone and Hades. However, after diving into the story, we discover that is not the case at all. To not give too much away, the main character, Pierce, meets John, a death deity (not exactly Hades)- once as a 7 year old, once as a 15 year old (she meets him after her death) and again at 17 (with more than a few interactions). During their "run-ins" they quickly fall in love and he asks her to rule the Underworld with her. The story is choppy at best and will have you scratching your head a few times. It is written in first person. While I did complete the book in 2 hours, it was a slow read for a majority of the story and did not really get good until more than halfway through the book.

Leviathan by Scott Westerfeld

"Leviathan" by Scott Westerfeld, 440 pages

The first in the series, "Leviathan" is an excellent Steampunk novel filled with danger, suspense, a little humor and your typical run-of-mill teenage drama. This lovely salad is filled with the expected ingredients - Teen girl wants to fly again so she pretends to be a guy in order to enlist in the military during WWI era; Teen boy is a prince that pretends to not be a prince after his parents are murdered to start WWI. Then you have your fighting factions - the Darwinists who like to create machines using biological parts and the Clankers who think you shouldn't "improve" upon nature and create their machines strictly from metal. And of course let's not forget the part where Darwinist teenage girl falls in love with Clanker teenage boy for the typical 'Romeo and Juliet' scenario. However, most readers will find this novel very entertaining and thrilling.