Mundie Moms

Sunday, November 21, 2010

Restoring Harmony Blog Tour, Day 1- Book Review

By Joelle Anthony
Published by Putnam Juvenile
Released on May 13th, 2010
Source- The Teen Scene Blog Tours
4 Stars- It's a Good Read

The year is 2041, and sixteen-year-old Molly McClure has lived a relatively quiet life on an isolated farming island in Canada, but when her family fears the worst may have happened to her grandparents in the US, Molly must brave the dangerous, chaotic world left after global economic collapse—one of massive oil shortages, rampant crime, and abandoned cities.

Molly is relieved to find her grandparents alive in their Portland suburb, but they’re financially ruined and practically starving. What should’ve been a quick trip turns into a full-fledged rescue mission. And when Molly witnesses something the local crime bosses wishes she hadn’t, Molly’s only way home may be to beat them at their own game. Luckily, there’s a handsome stranger who’s willing to help.

Restoring Harmony is a riveting, fast-paced dystopian tale complete with adventure and romance that readers will devour (quoted from Goodreads).

I'll admit, I can be bias to books set in the Pacific Northwest, which is one of the things that drew me to this book. This year I have read a handful of amazing dystopian books, and that's saying a lot as I'm not a huge dystopian fan. Well I should say it takes a certain style of writing for a dystopian book to really grab my attention and Restoring Harmony is one of them. Being set in the year 2041 in both British Columbia and Portland, Restoring Harmony had my attention.

What I liked about Restoring Harmony is how realistic some of the elements felt. In a time where most of the world's oil has run out, travel is restricted, communication is almost non existent, there's little food, spastic heath care, most everyone is poor and a fallen government who's lack of leadership has paved the way for organized crime to take control, the world in which the story takes place has little hope and a lot of uncertainty. It's during this time that the story's heroine, Molly, becomes a source of hope to those around her. Having grown up on her family's farm in Canada, being self reliant has become second nature to her, and will be a key to her survival in a world has chaotic as hers.

Restoring Harmony has something unique, in that there are a few character journeys that are all entwined within the story. It worked with the story, as I liked getting to know some of the supporting characters, while getting to know more about Molly. Molly's journey takes her from her family's humble farm in Canada to Portland, OR to find her grandparents. Once there she is to convince her Grandfather to make the trek back her, as the island she's from in British Columbia, has no doctor and her mother is in need of one. It's during this long, hard trek that Molly's quest also becomes a journey of self discovery. I really liked seeing how Molly and Spill's relationship developed through the course of the book. Spill comes into Molly's life when it seems she needed his help the most. What I like about Spill, is he too is on a character journey and is one of the more in-depth characters. In many ways, they become a source of survival for each other, and it's through this that their friendship grows and becomes something stronger. While the world is in constant transition, so are the stories of many of the characters.

While Restoring Harmony has many dystopian elements to it, many times I felt like I was reading a real story with a lot of "what- ifs". While the story is futuristic, it was easy to relate to the feeling of helplessness, despair and loss and then jumping into survival mode by finding hope, trust and friendships. Restoring Harmony is a quick read and one I would definitely recommend picking it up.

Tomorrow we will have an interview with Joelle Anthony and giveaway!! Be sure to visit us tomorrow for more on Restoring Harmony.

GIVEAWAY WINNERS

SIGNED ARC winner- #144-Jolene Allcock
SIGNED Beautiful Darkness poster- #53- Ambur Hostyn
3 Winners for the signed Gatlin County book plate, with BD swag ie. key chains, bracelets and buttons, (the 3rd winner in this group will only receive one bracelet and one key chain, as mentioned in our giveaway post). Each winner will receive a signed BC post card.
#161- Bianca Mutti
#103- Erin Box
#69- Nicole Avery

Thank you to Little Brown, Kami Garcia and Margaret Stohl for our giveaway!


#70- Shellie Brewer
#32- Danielle Bateman
#1- Em Bennison
#21- Angie Thompson
#36- J. L. Jackson

Thank you to Daisy Whitney, Little Brown and Novel Noise for the giveaway!!!

Congratulations to all of our winners, and all of which have been notified via email. If you didn't win, we have more giveaways happening right now and more to come in December.

2011 Debut Author Challenge

This year has been an amazing year for 2010 Debut Authors, and we really enjoyed taken part in Kristi (The Story Siren's) 2010 Debut Author Challenge. We're looking forward to being apart of the 2011 Debut Author Challenge, as there are so many AWESOME books coming out next year.

In addition to the challenge, we have a lot of awesome things planned with the 2k11 Debut Authors. More details about this will be posted closer to January, but I'm thrilled that we will be working closely with this amazing group of debut authors bringing you reviews, interviews and giveaways with their debut titles.

We have also been busy working on our Debut Author Books Of Month, that we started this last year with our Mundie Moms Book Of The Month Club on our forum. I'm indicating which books we will be our Debut Author book of the month, which will also include live author chats, interviews and hopefully lots of giveaways (depending on when the book is published, some books will be featured the month after their release, giving our book club members time to purchase and read the book).

Here's our list (I know we have a few books missing from it that we will continue to add/ or delete books from this list) for both Mundie Moms and Mundie Kids:

- Our Debut Spotlight Book Of Month for our book club are highlighted in orange.
- The 2K11 Debut Authors we will be featuring on our blog are highlighted in green.
-Books w/ a ** by them are ones we own/have read/will be posting review closer to their release date.
- Debut Authors listed on this challenge are ones who are first time authors or have their first YA or MG book being released this year.

JANUARY:



FEBURARY:

MARCH:

APRIL:

MAY:
JUNE:

JULY:

AUGUST:

SEPTEMBER:

To sign up and to find more information about the 2011 Debut Author Challenge head over to The Story Siren's site here!

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