September 2010 - In Review

This month I read 23 books .  It was a great month for reading and I caught up on a lot of series that I am in the middle of this month and read a lot of really outstanding books. You can see details on what I read, what series I caught up on, my favorites, and reading challenges status below.

I caught up on the following series:
Chronicles of Elantra: Book 6, Cast in Chaos by Michelle Sagara
Twenty Palaces: Book 2, Game of Cages by Harry Connolly
October Daye: Book 3, An Artificial Night by Seanan McGuire
WWW: Book 2, Watch by Robert Sawyer
Parasol Protectorate: Book 3, Blameless by Gail Carriger

I started the following series:
Elemental Assassin by Jennifer Estep
The Ballad of Kirin Widowmaker by Matthew Cook
Mistborn Trilogy by Brandon Sanderson
The Witches War by Andrea Cremer
Ghost Finders by Simon Green
Locke & Key by Joe Hill and Gabriel Rodriguez
Socket Series by Tony Bertauski
Paranormalcy by Kiersten White 

I finished the following series:
Jane Jameson by Molly Harper

My Favorite Books of the Month Were:
Spider's Bite (Elemental Assassin, Book 1) by Jennifer Estep (5/5 stars)
Web of Lies (Elemental Assassin, Book 2) by Jennifer Estep (5/5 stars)
Mistborn (Mistborn Trilogy Book 1) by Brandon Sanderson (5/5 stars)
An Artificial Night (October Daye, Book 3) by Seanan McGuire (4.5/5 stars)
Nightshade (The Witches War, Book 1) by Andrea Cremer (4.5/5 stars)
WWW: Watch by Robert Sawyer (5/5 stars)
Paranormalcy (Paranormalcy, Book 1) by Kiersten White (5/5 stars)

Here are the books I just couldn't get into:
Radiance by Alyson Noel (2.5/5 stars)
The Girl with the Mermaid Hair by Delia Ephron (3/5 stars)

Here are the stats on the reading challenges I am participating in:
- Summer Romance Challenge: Complete!
- Thriller and Suspense Reading Challenge: Complete!
- Debut Author Reading Challenge: Complete!
- Young Adult Reading Challenge: Complete!
- Support Your Local Library Reading Challenge: Complete!
- GLBT Reading Challenge: 5/8 read
- 100+ Book Reading Challenge: 189 read
- 1st in a Series Challenge: Complete!
- Speculative Fiction Reading Challenge Book List: 8/24 read

The full list of books that I read this month are shown below. 
1.   Nice Girls Don't Date Dead Men (Jane Jameson, Book 2) by Molly Harper (4/5 stars)
2.   Plain Kate by Erin Bow (4.5/5 stars)
3.   Nice Girls Don't Live Forever (Jane Jameson, Book 3) by Molly Harper (4.5/5 stars)
4.   Cast in Chaos (Chronicles of Elantra, Book 6) by Michelle Sagara (3/5 stars)
5.   Spider's Bite (Elemental Assassin, Book 1) by Jennifer Estep (5/5 stars)
6.   Blood Magic (The Ballad of Kirin Widowmaker, Book 1) by Matthew Cook (4/5 stars)
7.   Mistborn (Mistborn Trilogy Book 1) by Brandon Sanderson (5/5 stars)
8.   Web of Lies (Elemental Assassin, Book 2) by Jennifer Estep (5/5 stars)
9.   Hero by Mike Lupica (2/5 stars)
10. How to Survive a Garden Gnome Attack by Chuck Sambuchino (3.5/5 stars)
11. Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde by Robert Louis Stevenson (4/5 stars)
12. Carrie Pilby by Caren Lissner (5/5 stars)
13. Game of Cages (Twenty Palaces, Book 2) by Harry Connolly (4/5 stars)
14. An Artificial Night (October Daye, Book 3) by Seanan McGuire (4.5/5 stars)
15. Radiance by Alyson Noel (2.5/5 stars)
16. Nightshade (The Witches War, Book 1) by Andrea Cremer (4.5/5 stars)
17. WWW: Watch by Robert Sawyer (5/5 stars)
18. The Girl with the Mermaid Hair by Delia Ephron (3/5 stars)
19. Ghost of a Chance (Ghost Finders, Book 1) by Simon Green (3.5/5 stars)
20. Locke & Key: Welcome to Lovecraft by Joe Hill and Gabriel Rodriguez (4/5 stars)
21. The Discovery of Socket Greeny (Socket Series, Book 1) by Tony Bertauski (3.5/5 stars)
22. Blameless (Parasole Protectorate, Book 3) by Gail Carriger (4/5 stars)
23. Paranormalcy (Paranormalcy, Book 1) by Kiersten White (5/5 stars)

Review - Paranormalcy (Paranormalcy, Book 1) by Kiersten White (5/5 stars)

Reading level: Young Adult
Genre: Paranormal/Urban Fantasy
Paperback: 352 pages
Publisher: HarperTeen
Release Date: August 31st, 2010
ISBN-13: 978-0061985843
Stand Alone or Series: 1st in the Paranormalcy Trilogy
Source: Bought from audible.com
Rating: 5/5 stars

This was another teen paranormal book that I was a bit reluctant to read, since some of the popular teen series I have read lately have been kind of disappointing.  I kept an eye on it though and the reviews were flattering, so I decided to give it read.  I am glad I did, this was a wonderful book.  I listened to it on audio and the audio book was well done, the person who reads matches Evie's personality perfectly.  Paranormalcy is the first book in a planned trilogy; the second book Supernaturally is due out Fall of 2011.

Evie works for IPCA (International Paranormal Containment Agency).  She tags and bags paranormals to keep both the paranormals and the rest of human society safe.  Evie's most unique ability is that she can see through any glamore; which makes her invaluable to the IPCA.  This is why sixteen year old Evie hasn't left IPCA since she was eight, unless she is on a bag and tag job.  Then a mysterious paranormal is caught going through the head of IPCA's office and he is unlike anything they have ever found before; his name is Lend and he befriends Evie during captivity.  Evie then finds that paranormals are being killed at an alarming rate and IPCA needs to figure out why before whole species of paranormals are wiped out.  As if crushing on Lend, finishing homework, and trying to save paranormals isn't enough...Evie has to deal with her fairy ex-boyfriend Reth who keeps trying to literally steal her heart...

Evie is a wonderful character.  She is tough, snarky, loves to shop, loves pink, and is lonely.  She is grateful for her place in IPCA but yearns to be part of the outside world.   She is a fun character that I really enjoyed reading about and listening too...she was just so real, yet tough at the same time.  Of course the other awesome character was Lend, he has a depth and a sensitivity to him that you don't see in a ton of teen male leads.  The way Evie and Lend banter back and forth is funny, engaging, and shows the wonderful chemistry they have together.

There is a lot of action in this book  and that is tempered with some interesting scenes dealing with Evie's struggles against Reth and with some tender scenes between Evie and Lend.  The plot moved at a fast-clip making the book hard to put down.  I really enjoyed White's writing style, she really nailed the dialogue between characters and made the book very natural sounding and easy to read.

White has also built a great world here.  It is a complex world with a lot of depth but the reader is introduced to it effortlessly.  The book wrapped in a wonderful way, but left a few tantalizing questions unanswered.  I was impressed with the completeness of the story and eager to read the next book Supernaturally to see what happens to Evie and Lend.  Really this was a great book and I highly recommend it.  It was refreshing, fun, and something readers of teen paranormal books should really enjoy.  It was an overall feel-good and uplifting book and just lots and lots of fun.

Overall a great read.  For a while I was a little put-off by teen paranormal books because series like The House of Night, Wicked Lovely, and the Wolves of Mercy Falls have been okay but nothing spectacular.  This book blows all of those out of the water.  I also recently read Nightshade by Andrea Cremer; this was another really excellent young adult paranormal series that is something different.  So pick up Paranormalcy and read it; and if you are looking for something else awesome check out Nightshade too. 

This book goes towards the following reading challenges:
- The Debut Author Challenge
- The Young Adult Reading Challenge
- Speculative Fiction Reading Challenge Book List
- The 100+ Book Reading Challenge

 

Review - Blameless (Parasole Protectorate, Book 3) by Gail Carriger (4/5 stars)

Reading level: Adult
Genre: Paranormal/Steampunk
Paperback: 384 pages
Publisher: Orbit
Release Date: September 1st, 2010
ISBN-13: 978-0316074155
Stand Alone or Series: 3rd in Parasole Protectorate series; 5 books planned in this series
Source: Bought
Rating: 4/5 stars

This is the third book in the Parasole Protectorate series by Carriger.  The fourth book "Heartless" is supposed to be released in July of 2011.  The fifth and final book "Timeless" is supposed to release some time in 2012.  This book was a great addition to the series, not quite as fun as the two previous books, but more of a transition novel in which Alexia searches out the "why?" behind her pregnancy while fleeing both English hostility and vampires bent on her death.

After the bombshell dropped on us poor readers at the end of Changeless, this book picks up shortly after that book leaves off.  Alexia is living with her family and scorned by English society.  Things take a turn for the worse when she is thrown out of the family home, removed from the Shadow Council by the Queen, and attacked by homicidal ladybugs.  She finds that for some reason all of London's vampires are out to kill her.  With Floote and Madame Lefoux as traveling companions Alexia is forced to flee to Italy and try to find the why, how, and what behind her infant inconvenience.  Meanwhile Lord Maccon spends the majority of the time sloshed as he realizes his mistake in tossing his wife out because of her supposedly impossible pregnancy; this leaves poor Professor Lyall with a huge mess to hold together.

This was a fun book, but not quite as fun as the previous books in this series.  I really missed some of my favorite characters; for example Lord Akeldama was absent most of the book and the insufferable Lord Maccon was sloshed.  I missed the witty interplay between Lord Maccon and Alexia.  I did enjoy spending more time with Floote, but although I find Madame Lefoux interesting, she is not one of my favorite characters in this book.

I continue to vastly enjoy Carriger's writing style.  I love all the crazy steampunk contraptions she comes up with to incorporate into the story, I love her witty dialogue, and how her characters try to achieve English dignity in the craziest of situations.  The pace of this story was good, it was a page turner and kept me fully engaged.  I liked how it wrapped up, without a horrible cliffhanger like Changeless had.

You learn a lot about the background of many of the characters here.  You learn a lot about Alexia's father and how Floote ties in to all that.  You learn more about what it means for Alexia to be a Preternatural, and many crazy Victorian theories are discussed as to how her improbable pregnancy occurred.  Alexia shows a venerability that she hasn't shown in previous books.  Usually she is so practical and shrewd that you wonder at her emotional depth; this book explores that a bit more...it's not obnoxious about it but there are scenes where the whole pregnancy, abandonment, etc just becomes too much for her.  Which is entirely reasonable under the circumstances.

I continue to get a lot of joy out of reading this series.  It is interesting, witty, funny, and thoughtful all at once.  I am very excited to see what Heartless will bring us and find out the outcome of Alexia's pregnancy.

This book goes towards the following reading challenges

- Speculative Fiction Reading Challenge Book List
- The 100+ Book Reading Challenge

Waiting on Wednesday - 9/29

Okay "Waiting On Wednesday" is a weekly meme hosted by Jill at Breaking The Spine.


This week my Waiting on Wednesday book is Nightshade by Michelle Rowen.  I really enjoyed Rowen's Demon Princess series so when I saw she was starting a series that is meant to be more urban fantasy than romance I was excited.  Nightshade is the first book in a two book series.  The second book is due out April 2011.

Nightshade by Michelle Rowen

Pages: 352 pages

Publisher: Berkley
Release Date: Februrary 1st, 2011 

ISBN:  978-0425239827

 

Synopsis from MichelleRowen.com: "Jillian Conrad never believed in vampires. But she’s just become a living, breathing weapon against them. Attacked by a desperate scientist, she is injected with a serum that was supposed to act as a deadly poison to vampires. And when the scientist is gunned down in front of her, his secrets die with him.  

 

Declan Reyes was only half-vampire, but he hates them with all his heart. He knows that the poison in Jillian’s veins could finally destroy the undead kingdom. Also, the serum has had an unintended effect, making her blood irresistible to all vampires—including Declan, whose bloodthirsty traits are driven into a frenzy by her.

Driven by duty to protect her and by instinct to crave her, Declan takes Jillian into his shadowy world of blood and battle. But he soon realizes his increasing need for her may be a different kind of hunger…"

 

Review - The Discovery of Socket Greeny (Socket Series, Book 1) by Tony Bertauski (3.5/5 stars)

Reading level: Young Adult
Genre: Science Fiction
Paperback: 282 pages
Publisher: Bertauski
Release Date: July 13th, 2010
ISBN-13: 978-0982845202
Stand Alone or Series: 1st in the Socket Trilogy.
Source: Received from Author in return for an honest review
Rating: 3.5/5 stars

I got a copy of this book from the author in exchange for an honest review.  It is the first book in a planned trilogy.  When I read the synopsis it sounded interesting and appeared to be a middle grade sci-fi/cyberpunk type of story.  I had mixed feelings about this book.  I had trouble getting through the first half of the book, but found the second half to be incredibly interesting and engaging.

Socket Greeny and his friends love playing in virtualmode, where you can commence battles but never feel any of the dire consequences.  That is until they are attacked unexpectedly and Socket...does something strange.  All of this leads to Socket finding out he has the powers of the not-so-human Paladin race.  Socket can do things like stop time and listen in to people's thoughts.  The Paladins are trying the gradually advance humankind for the better, but their plans are accelerated when they find clones leaving virtualmode and inhabiting real human space.  Now the future of humanity is at risk, and Socket with his unique powers may play a vital role in saving it.

The books starts out a little rough.  You are introduced to Socket and his friends and then quickly they are torn apart and Socket is isolated.  This made it hard to see any chemistry between this group of friends and hard to find the characters engaging; they were just names.  Then a lot is thrown at the reader; I struggled to keep up with all the terminology and descriptions of metaphysical yet vaguly scientific stuff happening to Socket.  Socket himself doesn't know what's going on and this comes across as confusion to the reader.  I found some of the descriptions hard to follow and had a hard time forming a good picture in my mind of what was happening.

After the first portion things get better.  We are introduced to the Paladin race and we get to know Socket a bit better.  Socket actually develops some rapport with his new friends and finally the plot gains some momentum as we wait to see what will happen with the clones.  By the end of the book I was actually attached to these characters and happy that I kept reading the book.  I read the last third of the book straight through in one sitting.

Socket himself isn't all that complicated of a character.  He misses his father and resents his mother, he resists authority and in general acts like a frustrated teenager.  Initially I thought this sounded like a middle grade novel and it definitely isn't.  I would put it more toward the young adult/older teen genre.  There is a quite a bit of swearing; Socket acts out a lot and has a huge chip on his shoulder.  This all makes Socket a character that you don't really like or sympathize with.

The book ends well and wraps up the main story but leaves another line of story open for book 2.  Overall I have mixed feelings about this book.  Some of the ideas are really interesting and by the end of the book I was engaged with the characters.  The beginning of the book was pretty rough, didn't flow very well, and really dragged on for me.  In the beginning I kept putting the book down after each chapter, I had a hard time staying interested...then the second half of the book I read right through in one sitting.  This is a series I will keep my eye on in the future.  I noticed that it is now on sale for $.99 on Kindle.  If you have a Kindle and are into cyberpunk/sci-fi; I would check this book out.  For that price it is worth giving it a read through to see whether or not it's something you'll get into.

This book goes towards the following reading challenges:
- The Debut Author Challenge
- The Young Adult Reading Challenge
- Speculative Fiction Reading Challenge Book List
- The 100+ Book Reading Challenge

Discussion - Ever find yourself in a reading rut?

Do you ever find yourself stuck in this reading rut?

Occasionally I go through times where I feel like I am reading lame book after lame book and I begin to wonder why I am wasting my time reading.  I begin to wonder if it is just me and if maybe my expectations of these books are too high.

Usually I get out of the rut by finally reading something wonderful and realizing that "Yep, all those other books were lame."

Occasionally it happens the other way around too.  There have been a couple months were I just love almost everything I read.  Then I feel like I am giving out too many 5 star reviews. 

Anyway, just something I was thinking about and wondering if other readers/bloggers go through this too :-)

Graphic Novel Review - Locke & Key: Welcome to Lovecraft by Joe Hill and Gabriel Rodriguez (4/5 stars)

Reading level:Adult
Genre: Graphic Novel/Horror
Paperback: 152 pages
Publisher: IDW Publishing
Release Date: September 24th, 2008
ISBN-13: 978-1600102370
Stand Alone or Series: 1st in the Locke and Key series.
Source: Bought
Rating: 4/5 stars


This is the first full length graphic novel which contains the first six issues of the Welcome to Lovecraft story arc.  It was a really good collection.  The drawings are beautiful and in full color and the story is creepy and intricate.  There are two more full length graphic novels out already; Head Games and Crown of Shadows.  The fourth is being released issue to issue this year and is called Keys to the Kingdom.

After the murder of their father Tyler, Kinsey, and Bode Locke relocate to the Keyhouse with their mother.  Bode finds that certain keys lead through certain doors that do things; the one he finds turns him into corporeal form for as long as he wants.  Meanwhile the kid that murdered the Lockes' dad is trying to escape from juvenile detention to come back and finish what he started.  Also Bode meets someone mysterious in a well outside the house.

This book is very creepy in a number of ways.  You have a brutal murderer on the loose at one point, a house with doors that lead you to mysterious place and do mysterious things, and a strange creepy person in a well.  It was a great story and the illustrations are just wonderful.  It was very engaging and very hard to put down.  The characters are well done and you are really rooting for them throughout the book.  This is definitely a horror novel.

Overall a great graphic novel.  It is on the borderline of being a bit too creepy for me.  I am super curious about what else the Locke's will find in the house though, so I will definitely pick up the next compilation "Head Games". 

 

Teaser Tuesday - 9/28

Teaser Tuesdays is a weekly bookish meme, hosted by MizB of Should Be Reading.

Anyone can play along! Just do the following:

- Grab your current read
- Open to a random page
- Share two (2) “teaser” sentences from somewhere on that page
BE CAREFUL NOT TO INCLUDE SPOILERS! (make sure that what you share doesn’t give too much away! You don’t want to ruin the book for others!)
- Share the title & author, too, so that other TT participants can add the book to their TBR Lists if they like your teasers!

This week my teaser comes from Blameless (The Parasol Protectorate, Book 3) by Gail Carriger.



Here it is: "A closer view of those antennae revealed tiny beads of moisture oozing from the tips - probably some brand of poison.  She reworked her assessment of her attackers: homicidal mechanical dripping ladybugs - ugh." Pg. 38

News - Cover for Maggie Stiefvater's Forever Cover Revealed

Maggie revealed the cover for the third book in the Wolves of Mercy Falls series, Forever, on her blog today.  See it below!  I think it matches nicely with the covers of the other books in this series.  What do you guys think?
Forever is scheduled for release July of 2011.

Review - Ghost of a Chance (Ghost Finders, Book 1) by Simon Green (3.5/5 stars)

Reading level:Adult
Genre: Urban Fantasy
Paperback: 272 pages
Publisher: Ace
Release Date: August 31st, 2010
ISBN-13: 978-0441019168
Stand Alone or Series: 1st in Ghost Finders series, 3 books on contract
Source: Bought
Rating: 3.5/5 stars


I really love Simon Green's Nightside series and also liked the first book in his Secret Histories Series (the only one I have read in that series so far).  So when I heard he was starting a new paranormal series called Ghost Finders, I was eager to read the first book in the series.  Overall it was okay, Green has created an interesting world but the characters were a bit cliche and hard to distinguish.    I was hoping for more, but what was here is a start.

The book follows two teams of "ghost-hunters".  The first is the Carnacki Institute, the good guys.  There team consists of JC Chance (a prodigy hunter), Melody Chambers (a woman very focused on her technology) and Happy Jack Palmer (a pill popping telepath).  The second team are the Crowley Project (The evil team); this team features a La Femme Nakita kind of telepath and a psychotic surgeon.  JC's team are called on to help solve a problem in London's Underground.  The trains down there have gone wrong and are eating people.  When JC and team arrive they find that something more evil than they could imaging has taken root.  The Crowley Project is also there to try and harness the evil for their own purposes.

Let's start with what I liked.  Green does a great job with imagery and comes up with a lot of interesting and creative ideas.  He's not afraid to delve deep in the macabre and that makes things entertaining.  This book was a bit creepy and horrific, but never went into that "too scary to read" region for me.  Overall I liked the general idea of the characters and how the Carnacki Institute team was full of "good guys" with some bad vices.  This series is a good idea and this book an interesting start. 

Unfortunately this book really fell flat in a couple places for me.  The characters are overly characterized and come off as clownish at times, which makes it hard to take the story seriously.  The dialogue between them occasionally gets campy to the point of painfulness.  There were a few times I wished one of the good guys would get eaten.  It also drove me nuts that JC Chance fell in love at first sight with that ghost lady.  It happened so suddenly and was so improbable that it was irritating; then to have his love for this ghost drive so much of the plot...well it pretty much drove me nuts.

Overall this was not one of Green's best works.  I would start with the Nightside series and then move on to the Secret Histories series before reading this one.  That being said Green does set-up an interesting idea, world and characters in this book...the characters were just a bit too campy to pull it off.  I will probably read the next book in the series just because I found some of the things Green did in this book intriguing.  I am hoping that the next book does a better job with the characters and has a more believable plot.

This book went towards the following reading challenges:
- Speculative Fiction Reading Challenge Book List
- The 100+ Book Reading Challenge

 

In My Mailbox and Mailbox Monday - 9/27

IMM is a meme started at The Story Siren with some inspiration from Alea of Pop Culture Junkie.

Anyone can participate in IMM and you are not limited to only sharing books that arrive via your mailbox. You can also share books that you've bought or books that you've gotten at the library.

Mailbox Monday can be found at: The Printed Page
 
Mailbox Monday is the gathering place for readers to share the books that came into their house last week (checked out library books don’t count, eBooks & audio books do). Warning: Mailbox Monday can lead to envy, toppling TBR piles and humongous wish lists.  

This week I got four books.  The first was from the Amazon Vine program and this was The Kneebone Boy by Ellen Potter.  This book just looked so interesting and gothic I couldn't pass it up.

The second two I bought from audible.com because I had actually run out of audio books to listen to on my drive to work.  These two books were The Girl with the Mermaid Hair by Delia Ephron and Paranormalcy by Kiersten White.   The Girl with the Mermaid Hair had been on my wish list for a while.  After reading tons of great reviews on Paranormalcy I was eager to read this one, and at $8 for the audio book on audible it was a steal.

The last book I got from netgalley.com and it was Rage by Jackie Morse Kessler.  I read Hunger and loved it, so I am hoping that I like Rage just as much.  You can read my review of Hunger here.

See below for more info on the books mentioned above!  I hope you all have a great week of reading :-) 

The Kneebone Boy by Ellen Potter
 
First Sentence: "There were three of them.  Otto was the oldest, and the oddest."
From Amazon.com: "Life in a small town can be pretty boring when everyone avoids you like the plague. But after their father unwittingly sends them to stay with an aunt who’s away on holiday, the Hardscrabble children take off on an adventure that begins in the seedy streets of London and ends in a peculiar sea village where legend has it a monstrous creature lives who is half boy and half animal. . . .

In this wickedly dark, unusual, and compelling novel, Ellen Potter masterfully tells the tale of one deliciously strange family and a secret that changes everything."

Audio Books:

The Girl with the Mermaid Hair by Delia Ephron

First Sentence: "Sukie kept track of herself in all reflective surfaces: shiny pots, the windowed doors to classrooms, shop windows, car chrome, knives, spoons."
From Amazon.com: "Click. Sukie Jamieson takes a selfie after her tennis lesson. Click. She takes one before she has to give a presentation in class. Click. She takes one to be sure there's nothing in her teeth after eating pizza at Clementi's. And if she can't take a selfie, she checks her reflection in windows, spoons, car chrome—anything available, really. So when her mother gives her an exquisite full-length mirror that once belonged to her grandmother, Sukie is thrilled. So thrilled that she doesn't listen to her mother's warning: “This mirror will be your best friend and worst enemy.” Because mirrors, as Sukie discovers, show not only the faraway truth but the truth close up. And finding out that close-up truth changes people. Often forever.
Acclaimed novelist and screenwriter Delia Ephron crafts a powerful novel of truth, beauty, and the secrets about family and friends that lie beneath perfection."

Paranormalcy by Kiersten White
 
First Sentence: "Wait - did you-You just yawned!"
From Amazon.com: "Evie’s always thought of herself as a normal teenager, even though she works for the International Paranormal Containment Agency, her ex-boyfriend is a faerie, she’s falling for a shape-shifter, and she’s the only person who can see through paranormals’ glamours.
But Evie’s about to realize that she may very well be at the center of a dark faerie prophecy promising destruction to all paranormal creatures.
So much for normal."

eBook:

Rage by Jackie Morse Kessler

First Sentence: "If Melissa Miller were an artist, she would have painted the world in vicious streaks of red."
From Amazon.com: "Missy didn’t mean to cut so deep. But after the party where she was humiliated in front of practically everyone in school, who could blame her for wanting some comfort? Sure, most people don’t find comfort in the touch of a razor blade, but Missy always was . . . different.
That’s why she was chosen to become one of the Four Horsemen Apocalypse: War. Now Missy wields a different kind of blade--a big, brutal sword that can cut down anyone and anything in her path. But it’s with this weapon in her hand that Missy learns something that could help her triumph over her own pain: control. A unique approach to the topic of self-mutilation, RAGE is the story of a young woman who discovers her own power, and refuses to be defeated by the world."