Uncommon Criminals by: Ally Carter

     Uncommon Criminals is the sequel to Heist Society.  I wrote about Heist Society in a blog post a while ago.  To review, Kat (the main character) is a sixteen year old girl in a family of thieves.  She decided to leave the family and go to boarding school like a normal person, but three months in she had to leave to steal back paintings from a mysterious thief, that her dad was framed for stealing.  She succeeded, and decided to be a "thief"that stole back items that were stolen years ago, and give them back to their rightful owners.  In Uncommon Criminals, Kat bumps into many problems.  First, she starts off stealing easy things by herself.  She enjoys this, but realizes that people are getting  the wrong impression of her doing this.  All of her family members think that it is dangerous for her to be stealing all by herself, and her cousin, Gabrielle, and her cute friend, Hale, are angry with her for doing this.  Gabrielle believes that Kat is "heist drunk".  She explains this as being obsessed with stealing, and does not want anyone there in the way of her own fun.  Kat gets defensive at first, but when she thinks about it, Gabrielle seems right.  Is Kat obsessed with stealing even if it is for a good cause?
     Another problem that comes up in this book, is that Kat is asked to steal Cleopatra's Emerald.  She agrees to it, but the problem is that the gem is cursed.  It is said that whoever has it will die or something really bad will happen in their life.  All of Kat's family disagrees again.  This time Kat is even unsure herself.  She feels it will be dangerous, and she definitely cannot do it alone.  She asks her friends to help her even though it could be fatal, surprisingly they agree.  She and her crew (from Heist Society) start trying to steal the Emerald.  They are pressed for time though, because the train with the gem on it will be coming in a week, and once it is in the safe, there is no getting it out.
     I have not come to the climax in this book yet, but I am really excited for it.  I think there will be a lot of twists and turns.  This book is similar to Heist Society in many ways including writing style.  It is written by Ally Carter, who also writes the I'd tell you i love but then I'd have to kill you series.  So if you like those you will like these.  I recommend reading any/all of these books if you can!  They are really good reads!

Divergent by: Veronica Roth

I just finished reading this book.  I really liked it because it had one of those fascinating plots.  Whenever I picked up this book I could never put it down!  There was always a surprise in every chapter.  In the book, the people of Chicago are split up into five fractions.  Each fraction is based on a certain characteristic that they think is most important.  The fractions are Candor (the honest), Abnegation (the selfless), Dauntless (the brave), Amity (the peaceful), and Erudite (the intelligent).  The morals of each fraction are supposed to be the opposite of what they think would cause war (which is feared by all of the people), but the morals have changed so that they are extreme for each fraction and all of the other beliefs in other fractions are ignored and considered bad.  The book is set in Chicago, but it is in the future so Chicago looks is very different from now.  This is another reason why I loved this book, because it is set in where I live now, so I can relate to the places that Beatrice goes.  In the time of the book Chicago is not as much of a city as it is now.  The lake is a giant swap, and the river is just thick mud.  Most of the buildings are not in use because the five fractions like to stay to themselves in their headquarters.  The Sears Tower is called the Hub.  The Hub is where all of the kids go to school, and one of the only places where the fractions meet.  Divergent is about a sixteen year old girl named Beatrice Prior.  She lives in Abnegation with her selfless family.  She has trouble being selfless all of the time though.  Sometimes she gets frustrated that her mom, dad, and twin brother, Caleb, can be selfless so easily, but she cannot.  She wonders that she might not be in selfless enough to be part of that fraction.  Then the time for the choosing ceremony comes.  This is when all of the sixteen year olds take a mental test to find out what fraction they fit in, and then choose which one they want.  The kids are not allowed to have any preparation for the test, so Beatrice does not know what to expect.  When she finally takes the test she is very scared because she has to make some very important decisions.  I want to tell you what decisions she makes but that would be spoiling the story.  When she is finally done, the lady doing the test tells Beatrice that her test results were inconclusive, so multiple fractions fit her.  This means that she is divergent.  The lady tells her that being divergent is very dangerous, so she cannot tell anyone.  Beatrice starts to get really scared.  She already has to chose between the fractions, and she is something that is dangerous for her.  All day she tries to decided wether she should chose Dauntless (the brave), which would mean leaving her family, or Abnegation (the selfless), which would mean staying with her family but struggling to be selfless all of the time. when the choosing ceremony comes, everyone is watching Beatrice, and she is scrambling through her head which fraction she wants to be in.  she finally surprised everyone by picking Dauntless.  That was only two chapters of the book.  The rest of the book is about the journeys Beatrice makes in her new fraction.  She changes her name to Tris, and does many daring deeds that even she is surprised she was capable of doing.  She also has to make it through a series of training and tests to make sure that she fits in her fraction, before officially becoming a member. Within this book there are many twists of turns, which makes reading this book so fun.  Also there is a little romance which makes it even more exciting.  I think that it is similar, but better than the Hunger Games.  I really suggest you read this book even if you do not typically read these types of books.  I know because my friend recommended this book and I was hesitant to read it but ended up loving it.