This is a collection of three novellas that fit into the world of The Lorien Legacies.  As far as reading order, they all come between books one and two, although that's not how they fit chronologically.  But none of that matters.

 

They are great stories.  The first two give backstory on Numbers Six and Nine respectively.  We get to see a little of their lives before/during the murders of One, Two and Three.  We meet their Cêpans and see their lives before they are turned completely upside down.  The stories really make you empathize with the characters.  They only want a small semblance of normalcy, to be regular teenagers with friends, homework, and love interests.  Instead they are on constant guard for fear of discovery by Mogadorian scouts.  They are the only hope of stopping the Mogs from destroying Earth, and rebuilding their race, their planet. 

 

The stories are both exciting and sad.  They live nomadic lifestyles, moving from place to place, trying their best to blend in, to not stand out.  Hiding in plain sight, but not exactly living.  They are just existing, surviving.  Their Cêpans'  only ambition is to train and prepare heir young wards for the coming war.  You can see why the young Garde have their little rebellions.  It's understandable, but it's also their downfall.

 

The third story is a bit of a twist.  In this one we follow the only son of an important Mogadorian General.  Adamus, or Adam, has been taught his entire life to hate the Loriens because the Loriens hate him and would happily see him dead.  He has great hopes to follow in his father's footsteps and eventually be a major player in the conquering of earth.  He believes he will be in control of his own territory and eagerly awaits the day that the nine Lorien Garde are dead and the Mogadorians can proceed with their plan to take over the planet.

 

Until his father takes him on a mission to follow a lead on a Garde.  Seeing Number One murdered, stabbed in the back, unnerves Adam.  His father then volunteers him for an experiment that is supposed to help him see the memories of the slain Garde.  The hope is that they will gather important intel about the remaining Garde.  What happens is the already compromised Adam is trapped in Number One's mind along with the apparent consciousness of Number One.  She has full control and takes him on a tour of her life.  If he was unsure before...

 

Adam is trapped with One in her memories for three years and when he awakens, he is more than a little conflicted.  His best friend has taken his place as his father's son and has virtually become his rival.  He's weaker than ever, which is very bad for a Mog, especially one who is the offspring of the most prominent Mog general.  But also, One has stayed with him and he now has no desire to hunt down the remainder of the Garde, or conquer Earth.  But he definitely can't tell his father that!

 

For the next few years he tries to act the model Mog all the while, plotting escape, planning ways that the Earth armies could defeat the Mog armies.  He's too late to stop Two's death, and in trying to stop Three's, he outs himself to his rival as a traitor.  

 

The end is a bit of a cliff hanger and I have no clue which book/novella will pick this plot line up again.  UGH!!!

 

Very good read.

Into the final third of the book and we're being introduced to Mogadorians.  I think this is a ploy to get the reader to sympathize with them.  Perhaps seeing things from their point of view might give us pause.  Don't think it's gonna work...but we'll see...

Generation One - Pittacus Lore

A special thank you to Edelweiss and HarperCollins for an ARC in exchange for an honest review.  I just couldn't get into this book after several tries, but because I committed to reviewing, I limped through.  And by limped, I mean I skimmed.

There is nothing new here, just more of the same from the first series.  But there is something off and I can't put my finger on it.  Perhaps it is the writing, it was very staccato, with choppy and disjointed sentences—maybe this was done on purpose to move the story along at a more rapid pace to lay the groundwork.  I hope that this narrative style doesn't continue throughout. Needless to say, I won't be continuing with this series.  

I read this originally when the movie first came out. At the time I rated it 3 stars, and started the second book, but never finished. Needless to say, I liked the series, but the writing style didn't hold my attention my first time around.

This year it was my goal to try to finish some of the series I started but never finished. While I didn't get to reread as many as I hoped, I'm finally catching up with my reading to a point that next year I plan to listen to a lot of audiobooks to finish the series faster.

After listening to this one on audio, I decided that I will listen to this series instead of reading them. I loved listening to this one, and am once again excited to be reading this series! I loved Neil Kaplan's accents and the emotion he put into his acting! I'm happy to see he is also reading the rest of the series on audio!

The story is about a group of teenage aliens who have power, their home planet were destroyed by another group of aliens. 

 

The writing is not bad, it is not good either. 

 

The story is not cohesive enough. There are some good exciting bits but then it jumped from different perceptive that make it less interesting. 

 

In the end, it is just using of power to fight the bad guys. Not much of working together or getting more depth into why they are doing this. 

 

The introduction of the writer himself as one of the character is a bit weird. 

 

Anyway, it is good enough story to be a 3.5 stars. 

 

Reading this for Aliens square.