Happy Easter – Rabbit, Rabbit, RABBIT!!

Hey all you!

I am so happy to see the response from the post about Megan. I wanted to leave all your comments there and untouched because the post isn’t about me, it’s about Megan and how wonderful she was. So thank you all for the outpouring of love. I hope she knew we all loved her so much.

It’s a new month, and according to the lying calendar, it’s supposed to be Spring. I got snow last night, and IT IS SUPPOSED TO BE SPRING. But what can ya do?

I have been on a huge Backlist reading kick. But I haven’t been sharing ANY reviews of the books I have read…so maybe it’s about time I review a few books for y’all?

Here’s one I have really been excited to share:

Title: Zero Repeat Forever (The Nahx Invasions #1)
Author: Gabrielle Prendergast
Publisher: Simon and Schuster, 2018 (Aug 29)
Genre: YA Retellings, YA Science Fiction

This Review can be found on my Blog, TeacherofYA’s Tumblr, or my Goodreads page

My Review:

Ok, so I got an ARC of this at BookCon or ALA and I put off reading it – then I won a HC copy of the book and I just felt it was time to read it. It’s been touted as a science fiction Beauty & The Beast retelling, and I cannot get enough Retellings. Ever.

The cover is gorgeous as usual for YA books lately. The title makes no sense until you read the book. Then it makes all kinds of sense. And you want to cry. Like I did.

Let me tell you about Repeat…

The world has been taken over.

Raven is at a summer camp for “troubled youths” with her boyfriend and has been trying to make the most of the time away from her parents. Then they came: they dubbed them “the Nahx” and have no idea what their plans are – as Raven has been isolated up at the camp, she knows only what the broadcasts tell her. And the broadcasts say the Nahx are unbeatable though people are fighting back.

One day Raven’s boyfriend disappears early in the morning…and when they find him, they find the telltale signs of poison in his veins, preserving his corpse. She wants revenge. And so does her boyfriend’s twin brother. They know they can’t stay at the camp – they don’t have enough supplies to survive.

Eighth is low-level – he does what he is told to do: dart the humans, leave them where they fall. Repeat, repeat, repeat. He does what he is ordered to do, though he knows he is broken. He is not like the others. He is mocked for staring in wonder at the nature around him by his fellow upper-ranking cadets. He breaks when a human kills his partner. He loses it and gets lost in the woods, too overwhelmed with things he shouldn’t feel.

When Eighth sees Raven, injured, he tries to help. But Raven only knows that he is a member of a species that killed her boyfriend. Though she would rather run than be helped by one of them, she has no choice. She will die otherwise.

When Eighth takes her home and doesn’t hurt her, Raven is confused. This Nahx seems different. Though Eighth cannot speak, he uses hand signals that she can learn, and she finds that he is no threat. It makes her wonder what the Nahx are trying to do, and why this Nahx seems to care about her.

All that Raven believes, all that she has seen of the invasive Nahx, leads her to believe that they are evil.

But what if they aren’t? Or at least maybe not all of them? What ARE the Nahx, and where did they come from?

And what is Eighth…this beast with a kind heart that saved her life?

Is it Classroom-Appropriate?

Yes! But it’s long. And it is a part of a series. But it raises all sorts of ethical questions that would make great discussion topics: what is considered hostile? Can the enemy of my friend be a friend…or must they stay an enemy? What are the parallels to Beauty & The Beast? (There are so many)

There is nothing inappropriate that I found, and I think if time permitted, it would be an excellent read for high school readers. However, at almost 500 pages, I just don’t think there would be time to use it in class. So maybe it’s better for outside reading by ambitious young readers.

I give Zero Repeat Forever ★★★☆☆ for classroom use only because of the length and the fact that it’s only the first in a series. So there are better choices…but it would be nice if you had the time to use it.

Age Range

Once again, Lexile lets me down. I think even Middle Grade readers could enjoy this, but there is a lot of material even if the reader is ambitious. My best recommendation would be 15 and up: the reader needs to be patient and can handle a book this length. If someone can get through The whole Harry Potter series, they can handle Zero Repeat Forever.

I know my HC is going right in the class library. And I know I am in line already for the sequel and will grab it as fast as I can!

End Result:

Though I read this book a bit ago, I can still remember it fresh in my mind. It was incredible. Though it starts slow and you wait for the interaction between Raven and Eighth (it switches from both POVs), it really is addictive and hard to put down. You keep trying to figure out the Nahx: I’m pretty sure I know what’s going on now, and I had my suspicions, but it still didn’t kill the book for me. This book has staying power and I won’t have to reread when the next one comes out.

You may not agree, but I loved every min of it. Prendergast has talent for writing characters and making you question their motives: you love Raven, you want to strangle her. You love Eighth, you want to smack him. They are flawed which makes them more REAL. I didn’t want the book to end.

I give Zero Repeat Forever ★★★★★ easily.

I encourage all of you to read this. Please. It really didn’t get the attention it deserved. Not in the slightest.

So I’m making a goal to start doing Standalone Sunday, a feature that Megan started, and I would like to keep that tradition alive. I have never participated in any of those things…but there’s always a first, right?

I don’t have a banner yet but I’ll make one.

This is the rule of “Standalone Sunday” for all of you in case you are unfamiliar:

Standalone Sunday is a feature created by Megan@BookSlayerReads where you select a book (not part of a series) that you loved & would recommend to others.

This is hard for me. I read a lot of series…

I guess I would have to say Atlantia by Ally Condie! I loved that book!

I don’t have the other cover, but here are both of them side by side (I’m a HUGE ALLY CONDIE fan)

A lot of people don’t love it as much as I do, but I tend to be an oddball with the books I love.

Here is the description from Goodreads:

For as long as she can remember, Rio has dreamed of the sand and sky Above—of life beyond her underwater city of Atlantia. But in a single moment, all Rio’s hopes for the future are shattered when her twin sister, Bay, makes an unexpected choice, stranding Rio Below. Alone, ripped away from the last person who knew Rio’s true self—and the powerful siren voice she has long silenced—she has nothing left to lose.

Guided by a dangerous and unlikely mentor, Rio formulates a plan that leads to increasingly treacherous questions about her mother’s death, her own destiny, and the corrupted system constructed to govern the Divide between land and sea. Her life and her city depend on Rio to listen to the voices of the past and to speak long-hidden truths.

Loved this book so much! I might have to reread it but I have a HUGE Ally Condie collection, including her Matched series, and I have multiple copies of this book…I really want the cover with the sisters on it. I think Atlantia is one of my faves, as it was one of my earlier books in the fantasy realm: I have read her science fiction and fantasy was really new to me. And now I’m a fantasy geek.

Ok, so that’s my first attempt at Standalone Sunday, and since it is mixed with a review, I will keep it short!

Thank you all again for your outpouring of love for Megan and though her blog and all her social media are gone, we will keep her alive in our hearts and with our “Standalone Sunday” posts. I pledge to try to do it every week in her memory. I hope you all take the plunge too.

Love and kisses to my bloggerinos! 😘❤️