Room 3 by Jonathan D. Allen (CBR-V #33)

Cannonball Read V: Book #33/52
Published: 2012
Pages: ebook
Genre: Scifi

Kelli Foster is living a regular small-town life as a bartender when she gets abducted one night from the street. She is taken to a cabin in the middle of nowhere and held prisoner in a room with another girl. They  are occasionally taken to the mysterious "Room 3" where they are given a drug to make them vividly hallucinate. For some reason, these hallucinations and the puzzles within are very important to the people who kidnapped Kelli. 

Room 3 is written in a journal format from Kelli's point of view. She begins each entry with her current circumstances (running from someone) and then writes down things she remembers from her captivity. Eventually, the two stories intertwine with each other and we find out why Kelli is running and who her companion is. I love the format because it allows the reader to slowly piece things together. 

I also loved the characters and Jonathan D. Allen really has a skill making his characters come to life. Kelli was a fighter and she never gave up on trying to escape. She had two roommates at different times and they were both great characters as well. I actually didn't notice until after I finished the book that the author is male - his female characters are great!


The reason I only gave the book three stars is because of the ending. I got some hints earlier on that it may be heading into the supernatural/sci-fi direction, but I was in no way prepared for that ending. It was so out in left field that it almost soured everything I had already read. However, I think it wouldn't have been nearly as bad if I wasn't expecting a more realistic ending. The reviews I read warned towards an unexpected ending, but I still wasn't prepared for sci-fi. It reminded me a little of the TV show Lost - the ending sucked, but the journey to get there was amazing and worth re-watching (or re-reading in this case). 

Under the Dome by Stephen King (CBR-V #29)

Cannonball Read V: Book #29/52
Published: 2009
Pages: 1092
Genre: Science Fiction

Under the Dome is a monster of a novel, clocking in at almost 1100 pages. I'm kind of a sucker for long, epic novels, so I decided to tackle this book for a second time. I read this book when it was first released in 2009 and loved it. I wanted to re-read it before I watched the TV show that just came out based on it. 

The basic premise is pretty simple: An impenetrable dome falls over the town of Chester's Mill, Maine. No one knows what it is or where it came from. The outside world is just as baffled as the people inside the dome. 

As with most of Stephen King's longer novels, there are a LOT of characters to wade through. Fortunately, you have plenty of time to sort everyone out with 1100 pages. One of the main characters is a guy named Dale Barbara, or Barbie. He's an ex-military guy who was a cook at a local restaurant. He was trying to leave town when the dome fell and trapped him inside. He was leaving town due to a pretty nasty, unfair fight with a guy named Junior over a girl. Junior is a sociopath who didn't fall far from the tree. His father, "Big Jim" Rennie is a local used car salesman who uses the dome to his advantage as he tries to take over the town. Big Jim is involved in a bunch of unethical things (with one of the town pastors, no less) while hiding behind the facade of being religious. 


There are tons of other characters and plot points that would take forever to go into, but I still really enjoyed this book. The second reading was a little slower due to already knowing the somewhat disappointing ending, but the interesting characters and story arcs make the journey worth it even if the ending wasn't great. 

Wool Omnibus by Hugh Howey (CBR-V #13)

Cannonball Read V: Book #13/52
Published: 2012
Pages: 550
Genre: Scifi/Dystopian


5 stars: A favorite! Would read again.

Why did I wait so long to read this book?? It was fantastic. It was originally released as a short story (Part 1) and then the next five parts were released as novellas. The entire thing was eventually released as one volume called Wool Onmibus. 

Part one is a stand alone story, but sort of acts as a prequel to the rest of the novellas. I was sucked in after that first story. The stories take place in a large underground silo that houses thousands of people because something happend outside making it a hostile environment for humans. They have outside cameras so the people in the silo can see that there is nothing out there but dust and grey clouds. It is absolutely forbidden to express any interest in going outside. If someone does, they are sent out for "cleaning", where they are sent outside to clean the camera lenses and then die in the poisoned atmosphere. But what happened out there? Who build the silo? Why do the banished cleaners actually clean the lenses? 

Parts 2-6 of the book mainly follow a girl named Juliette. She works way down deep in the silo in the mechanical section. She had helped law enforcement with a murder case a few years ago, so when a new sheriff is needed, she ends up on the list. She ends up taking the job and gets curious about what happened to the previous sheriff (his story is in Part 1). 

I loved the suspense of this book. Questions were answered, but there was so much tension that I just wanted to keep reading more and more. Don't mistake this for another tired dystopian series. I can't wait to read the next part of the series (another collection of novellas called the Shift Onmibus). 

Corridor by Robin Parrish (CBR-IV #25)

Cannonball Read IV: Book #25/52
Published: 2011
Pages: ? (ebook)
Genre: Young Adult/Science Fiction

I realized I read this book a few months ago and forgot to write my review, so I apologize if it's a little short and/or vague. I do remember that I LOVED this book though. It follows a teenager named Troy who wakes up to find himself in a contraption called The Corridor. 

He has no idea where he is or how he got there, but he is guided by girl's voice who doesn't know much more than he does. Her job is to get him to keep going forward to the different rooms. Each room is a different color has has a different obstacle Troy needs to overcome in order to move to the next room. For instance, the red room's obstacle is fire. The scenes of Troy going through the obstacles in the rooms were really great, but....

...as much as I loved the premise and the majority of the book, I really didn't like the ending. It was kind of a letdown and I was hoping for something more intriguing. However, I still think the rest of the book was worth reading even with the subpar ending. Just make up your own better ending and enjoy the rest of the book.

Robopocalypse by Daniel H. Wilson (CBR-III #41)

Cannonball Read III: Book #41/52
Published: 2011
Pages: 304 (16,657 total pages so far)
Genre: Scifi

I didn't really expect much from this book. I figured it would be kind of cheesy and reminiscent of Terminator. Add a little bit of Transformers into the mix and I wasn't exactly wrong. However, I did enjoy it much more than I thought I would.

The story takes place sometime in the future where robots and computers are even more commonplace than they are now. Most houses have domestic robots that can wander around the cities and run errands. Then a scientist creates a computer program named Archos who becomes too intelligent and eventually programs all of the robots in the world to turn on humans. The book spans over 2 years showing how the humans fight this war against machine.

This book was definitely heavy on action and light on character development, but I wasn't expecting an intelligent piece of classic literature with a title like Robopocalypse. It's written in a "found footage" type of narrative. Chapters are transcriptions from security cameras and interviews or copies of various documents.

It's a good, quick read for a rainy day if you're interested in the genre. I heard it's going to be turned into a movie even though it was just published this past summer. It might be worth watching.

The Death Cure by James Dashner (CBR-III #38)

Cannonball Read III: Book #38/52
Published: 2011
Pages: 256 (15,585 total pages so far)
Genre: Young Adult Fantasy

***This is the third book in a trilogy. There could possibly be spoilers if you haven't read the first two books.***

Previous reviews in this series:

The Maze Runner

The Scorch Trials

If you've read my previous reviews on this series, you know I have a love/hate relationship with these books. To sum it up quickly, I am completely enthralled by the mystery and the plot but I really hate the execution of the writing. My previous reviews (linked above) go more in depth with my thoughts so I'm not going to rehash it all here.

The basic plot follows a group of kids who were put into a mysterious maze in the first book. After they figure out how to escape, they go through the second faze if the government trials in The Scorch Trials. There they find out that most of the world is falling apart due to a virus called "The Flare" and they were part of an experiment being conducted by a group called WICKED to find a cure. In this final book of the trilogy, the group of kids escape from the WICKED compound and try and stop them from continuing their "trials".

The characters were still kind of blah. After reading all three books, I should know these characters pretty well. However, I was still struggling to remember who was who and who did what. Occasionally someone will die and you have to think for a second who that person actually was.

I'm not even going to get into how irritating I find their made up, slang curse words again. It's just annoying. Thankfully, it was slightly toned down from the first two books.

As for the ending, I knew all along I was probably going to be disappointed. I did like how they made a full circle and had to go back to the maze towards the end, but that part was kind of rushed. Actually, the whole ending seemed sort of rushed, like it was thrown together at the last minute.

As much as I am intrigued by the plot of these books, it's really confusing. I never did figure out how exactly they're going to find a cure for a deadly disease by putting a bunch of teenagers through life threatening and horrible situations. A lot of things were never really fully explained or were explained horribly - such as whether or not Thomas should get his memory back. Did it really matter if he did or didn't? They made an awful big deal about it, but it seems like it didn't really effect anything in the long run.

I know I like to complain about these books, yet I keep reading them. I really do like the plot lines and the books move very quickly. There are more twists and turns than in any book I've ever read. It's really hard to put this book down once you start. I can't quite explain why, but as irritated as I might get at this series, I constantly need to know what happens next.

Fragment by Warren Fahy

Fragment
Cannonball Read 2011 #5
384 pages

I should have turned away when I first read the horrible reviews for this book. But it says it's like Jurassic Park and I love Jurassic Park...book, movie, anything. The only thing Fragment has in common with Jurassic park is that people get eaten on an island. Sounds cool, but you had to wade though a bunch of boring, useless crap to get to the good stuff.

The basic plot centers around a very remote island that has been left to evolve on it's own for millions of years, resulting in some very strange creatures. Every creature on this island is incredibly violent, except for one, which I won't spoil for you. It's maybe the most interesting part of the book. A group of scientists and crew members for a reality show are sailing around the world when they hear a distress signal from the island. They go to check it out and well, lots of people die.

First of all, I don't know if the author was getting paid for every time he dropped the name of a label or what, but he uses brand names for EVERYTHING. We're talking excruciating detail about all thirty characters (or however many...there were way too many) were wearing every time we went back to them. It reminded me of The Baby-Sitters Club books when they would take up a whole chapter describing their outfits.

Also, these strange creatures found on the island were extremely hard to picture because the descriptions were almost over detailed. They were also inconsistent. For instance, there was one recurring animal that was sometimes described as a giant tiger with spider eyes/legs and other times as a giant spider with tiger stripes/fur. I had no idea what to picture for this thing.

I also don't get why they used the reality show idea. It didn't work and just added more characters that they didn't need. Between the camera crew, the scientists, then later on the military, there were too many characters to even care about any of them, so it wasn't even a big deal when most of them died. I knew more about what the characters were wearing than their back story or personality. They actually had a character named Ham Pound. They probably ran out of names.

Fragment wasn't anywhere close to a "good" book, but it was a pretty quick read. The the second half was much better than the first with much more action and even some suspense at times. The rest was just mindless carnage of characters that I didn't give a damn about.

The Scorch Trials by James Dashner

The Scorch Trials
Cannonball Read 2011 #3
384 pages

The Scorch Trials is the sequel to The Maze Runner, which I reviewed back in May. This time, the group of boys from the maze find themselves put through another mysterious "trial" while Thomas tries to piece together his past. Again, the plot is extremely interesting to me, but the execution is sub-par.

I still absolutely hate the made-up slang that the boys use. It's so distracting from the story and just makes me think that they're using it as an excuse to add curse words to a YA book. It's obvious that the words are just fill-ins for common curse words (i.e. "shuckface" or "piece of klunk") and it does nothing to further the story or add to anything.

Also, what kind of crack is this guy on that thinks of this stuff? The first book was more puzzles and this one just throws everything out into left field. We have metal balls that eat peoples heads (which are never explained), giant faceless creatures with orange bulbs growing off of them, and diseased crazy people called Cranks - and that's just to name a few. You're constantly being hit over the head with just straight-up weirdness.

I also can't help but wish that James Dashner just sold his idea to a different writer. I hate his execution. The world he created is so creative and so original, but I can't help but think think that everything is going to lead up to a very disappointing ending. You're not going to find any answers in this book. I'm not sure how many books he has planned for this series, but I'm guessing we'll have to wait until the very last one to get any answers. It's almost as bad as Lost.

I'll probably continue reading this series just because I LOVE the whole idea behind the books. I love puzzles and dystopian futures and mysteries. I just really wish these books were as good as I want them to be. All I can say is that there better be a good payoff at the end.