Uglies by Scott Westerfield

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Publication Date: February 8th 2005
Publisher: Simon and Schuster Children's Publishing
ISBN:  0689865384
Age Group: Young Adult
Genre: Adventure/Action/Dystopian
Source: Borrowed
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Lootability: ****

Everybody gets to be supermodel gorgeous. What could be wrong with that? Tally is about to turn sixteen, and she can't wait. Not for her license -- for turning pretty. In Tally's world, your sixteenth birthday brings an operation that turns you from a repellent ugly into a stunningly attractive pretty and catapults you into a high-tech paradise where your only job is to have a really great time. In just a few weeks Tally will be there. But Tally's new friend Shay isn't sure she wants to be pretty. She'd rather risk life on the outside. When Shay runs away, Tally learns about a whole new side of the pretty world and it isn't very pretty. The authorities offer Tally the worst choice she can imagine: find her friend and turn her in, or never turn pretty at all. The choice Tally makes changes her world forever.

I've really gotten into dystopian literature in the last year or so, and while I've been searching for more, I kept hearing about Westerfield's Uglies trilogy. Having read his novel So Yesterday a few years back, I decided to give it a try.

The Scorpio Races by Maggie Stiefvater

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Publication Date: 18th October, 2012
Publisher: Scholastic Press
ISBN:  054522490X
Age Group: Young Adult/New Adult
Genre: Fantasy/Adventure/Folk Lore
Source: Bookshelf
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Lootability: ****

It happens at the start of every November: the Scorpio Races. Riders attempt to keep hold of their water horses long enough to make it to the finish line. Some riders live. Others die.
At age nineteen, Sean Kendrick is the returning champion. He is a young man of few words, and if he has any fears, he keeps them buried deep, where no one else can see them.
Puck Connolly is different. She never meant to ride in the Scorpio Races. But fate hasn’t given her much of a chance. So she enters the competition — the first girl ever to do so. She is in no way prepared for what is going to happen

The concept of the waterhorse fascinates me and I was greatly appreciative to learn of the Scoprio Races.  Generally, the waterhorse is just one small facet of a story of the otherworld, and I never expected them to feature so heavily in a novel.
It's a delightful change from the infinitely long line of vampires, werewolves, zombies and pixies featuring in Young Adult literature. Not that Stiefvater didn't tackle werevoles well in The Wolves of Mercy Falls.

Guest Review: Marta reviews Shadowfell

Shadowfell takes place in Alban (read Scotland, oh Beloved Scotland), and the main character Neryn is on the run, soon to be very alone in a country ruled by a tyrant, and where people who have uncanny powers are either executed or made to work for the king against their will. The odds are not very good for Neryn, even worse because she also has an uncanny power herself, on that allows her to see and talk with all sorts of Good Folk. She is in search of a place called Shadowfell, a name that is only whispered and is the synonym to the fight against king Keldec, but that to her it's a place where she can be safe.