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_tabae's review
5.0
An ihrem Testtag an der Peel Academy, an der die nächste Generation Agenten der Regierung ausgebildet wird, wird Amanda nicht wie erwartet der CIA oder dem FBI zugeteilt sondern wird entführt und zu Annum Guard, einer weiteren Geheimorganisation gebracht. Hier wird ihr zunächst nicht viel erklärt außer dass ihr Codename von jetzt an für immer Iris lautet, und sie, wenn sie sich nicht an die Regeln hält "ausgesondert" wird und ihr restliches leben in einem Hochsicherheitsgefängnis fristen kann. Aufgabe von Annum guard ist es, die Welt durch Eingriffe in die Vergangenheit zu verbessern. Nach und nach findet sich Amanda immer weiter in ein Netz aus Geheimnissen, Korruption und Betrug verstrickt wieder...
Mir hat das Buch echt richtig gut gefallen. Es war spannend und gut erzählt. Nicht zu sehr verharmlost und alles in allem wirklich super zu lesen. ich freue mich schon auf die Fortsetzung!
Mir hat das Buch echt richtig gut gefallen. Es war spannend und gut erzählt. Nicht zu sehr verharmlost und alles in allem wirklich super zu lesen. ich freue mich schon auf die Fortsetzung!
megandukebooks's review against another edition
5.0
I first learned about Meredith McCardle at an event we did together in Boca Raton, FL. I was immediately drawn to her book, The Eighth Guardian, after hearing her describe her characters as being part of a secret government organization, traveling back in time and tweaking our nation's history. I bought the book and started reading it that night. Page one = hooked! I blazed through this outstanding first novel, and I can't wait to get my hands on the rest of the Annum Guard series!
v_nerdbooks's review against another edition
5.0
Book: The Eighth Guardian
Genre: YA
Type: Audiobook.
Book rating: ♡♡♡♡♡♡
Narration rating: ♡♡♡♡♡♡
Review
Well this one is going straight onto my favourites shelf !!
I may gush a couple of times during this review, I do apologise. I also had this as a buddy read so I have to thank Kristin for listening to my rambles haha!
I wasn't really looking forward to this book i have to say, it got chosen also for my Dusty bookshelf so I thought I would get it over and done with, what a brilliant mistake to make!
Amanda is a top Junior student at Peel Academy, it's basically a school for kids that eventually end up in organisations like the CIA or the FBI, that is what they train for. They train for things like hostage situations, guns to the head, hand to hand combat.......you know, normal stuff like that!
At the end of every term they have a "testing" this is to prove how good you are, and for the CIA etc. to choose new recruits.
Amanda completes her challenges but messes one of them up, and also as she is a junior she wouldn't get picked anyway........
After the testing everyone sits in the hall to have the graduation candidates read out by the head, and to receive their envelope with their new career in it (a la Harry Potter)
Unfortunately Amanda has a very funny feeling that her name is going to be read out, her boyfriend Abe tells her not to be so silly.........can you guess what happens?? Yep she gets picked.
Only Amanda gets picked not for the CIA but the Annum Guards, an unknown department run by the government, that deals in time travel!
Now at this point if I was reading this review I would say "right, that's me off then" I don't do time travel stuff, it's just too mehh for me, but I was enjoying the book so I kept with it.
Amanda aka Iris is bound by secrets and lies and taught how to go back in time to "enhance, not alter history"
I loved all of the characters, especially Iris and Yellow, the narration was brilliant and the book was actually very funny as well.
So there you have it, a badass, kickass, time travelling cracker of a read, I loved it and can't wait till the next one in the series is out.
6 ☆
Genre: YA
Type: Audiobook.
Book rating: ♡♡♡♡♡♡
Narration rating: ♡♡♡♡♡♡
Review
Well this one is going straight onto my favourites shelf !!
I may gush a couple of times during this review, I do apologise. I also had this as a buddy read so I have to thank Kristin for listening to my rambles haha!
I wasn't really looking forward to this book i have to say, it got chosen also for my Dusty bookshelf so I thought I would get it over and done with, what a brilliant mistake to make!
Amanda is a top Junior student at Peel Academy, it's basically a school for kids that eventually end up in organisations like the CIA or the FBI, that is what they train for. They train for things like hostage situations, guns to the head, hand to hand combat.......you know, normal stuff like that!
At the end of every term they have a "testing" this is to prove how good you are, and for the CIA etc. to choose new recruits.
Amanda completes her challenges but messes one of them up, and also as she is a junior she wouldn't get picked anyway........
After the testing everyone sits in the hall to have the graduation candidates read out by the head, and to receive their envelope with their new career in it (a la Harry Potter)
Unfortunately Amanda has a very funny feeling that her name is going to be read out, her boyfriend Abe tells her not to be so silly.........can you guess what happens?? Yep she gets picked.
Only Amanda gets picked not for the CIA but the Annum Guards, an unknown department run by the government, that deals in time travel!
Now at this point if I was reading this review I would say "right, that's me off then" I don't do time travel stuff, it's just too mehh for me, but I was enjoying the book so I kept with it.
Amanda aka Iris is bound by secrets and lies and taught how to go back in time to "enhance, not alter history"
I loved all of the characters, especially Iris and Yellow, the narration was brilliant and the book was actually very funny as well.
So there you have it, a badass, kickass, time travelling cracker of a read, I loved it and can't wait till the next one in the series is out.
6 ☆
myeverskye's review against another edition
4.0
This was a totally cool book. I really liked the characters and the premise of the book was very interesting. I liked how this book had all loose ends tied up & didn't end on a stupid cliff hanger. I know there is another book coming out which is cool because I enjoyed this one so much, but I like that this book could've just as well been a stand alone book.
operasara's review against another edition
4.0
The Eighth Guardian is the first book in the Annum Guard series by Meridith McCardle begins with Amanda taking her exams at the Peel school which trains young men and women to work for the government. Amanda has a bad feeling that things are not going to go as she expects them to at the graduation ceremony. When she hears her name called, a year early, for graduation she hugs her boyfriend goodbye before being rushed into a room to meet her new boss, the leader of the Annum guard, a small time traveling branch of the government. Amanda is then renamed Iris and is enveloped into a grand conspiracy to change history.
Wow, the cover of this book is terrible. I almost didn't read it because it looked like a book written for twelve year old boys. Imagine my surprise when I realized it was about a seventeen year old girl who gets a job working for the federal government. I was totally sucked in once I read the first chapter. Amanda is a smart girl who is unafraid to speak up and use her skills to do what's right even if it's hard. The mythology has quite a number of holes (as any time travel book does) but if you don't think to hard it's a fun ride. I couldn't put the book down and finished it quickly.
Appropriateness: There is no adult content in the book. There is some violence but it's a bit comic bookish. There isn't much romance (just the knowledge that Amanda has a boyfriend) making this a book that will appeal to teens who enjoy adventure and mystery and making it enjoyable for readers who are not fans of romance. I would recommend this book for a YA audience 13+ however it is appropriate for younger readers.
Review copy provided by Amazon Vine
Wow, the cover of this book is terrible. I almost didn't read it because it looked like a book written for twelve year old boys. Imagine my surprise when I realized it was about a seventeen year old girl who gets a job working for the federal government. I was totally sucked in once I read the first chapter. Amanda is a smart girl who is unafraid to speak up and use her skills to do what's right even if it's hard. The mythology has quite a number of holes (as any time travel book does) but if you don't think to hard it's a fun ride. I couldn't put the book down and finished it quickly.
Appropriateness: There is no adult content in the book. There is some violence but it's a bit comic bookish. There isn't much romance (just the knowledge that Amanda has a boyfriend) making this a book that will appeal to teens who enjoy adventure and mystery and making it enjoyable for readers who are not fans of romance. I would recommend this book for a YA audience 13+ however it is appropriate for younger readers.
Review copy provided by Amazon Vine
vailynst's review against another edition
3.0
Notes:
Fun book for kids. I would recommend the book over the audio. Narration made the MC sound more whiny than she may have been written.
Fun book for kids. I would recommend the book over the audio. Narration made the MC sound more whiny than she may have been written.
radioactiv's review against another edition
3.5
I enjoyed reading the book in a the way someone enjoys a sugary dessert - all fluff, no nutrients. It's fun but I wish there was more substance underneath. Hard to rate... enjoyment-wise? Pretty good. But parts start to unravel when you think about them.
If you think about McCardle's approach to Time Travel, there is a paradox issue... The way the book is set up, it seems like the people who "enhance" the past can remember the previous history (their memories move into the parallel universe unchanged) while everyone else essentially has their memories changed to fit the new reality. Spoiler How, then, does Alpha remember what the previous history and the mission of each trip was?
Beyond this, what happens when things change dramatically (over 50,000 Americans were killed in Vietnam. Soldiers who might get married and have kids... who is to say that it wouldn't alter a guard member or EI person's life by changing that? They might never have been born). This would also be an issue if someone were to, I don't know, give penicilin to someone who would otherwise die young. Because that person ("A") might marry "B" who was otherwise going to marry "C". And "B" and "C" could have been the ancestors of someone important (or be YOUR ancestor or someone who saved one of your ancestors!), who now won't exist.
And how is the bribery issue happening?
Let's say I was the person who wanted to change the Boston Massacre. I contact Alpha to set it up.
- If I am supposed to pay him after the fact/only give a down payment and he collects the full later, it won't work. History will be rewritten and I will never have contacted him (since there would have been no reason to), so I'm not going to pay him off.
- Who the fuck is going to give someone large sums of money (up to $10M for the JFK assassination) without assurance that it will happen? Doesn't seem likely. And it's not like Alpha could prove it worked, as history completely changes itself when they go back, so the I would believe the event had always been that way once altered.
(aside: how the hell did she not realize the JFK one went through when her own failure was angrily crossed out. Dontcha think she would've realized he would have angrily crossed out the $10M if it didn't happen?!)
And, on a different note, I'm a little surprised that McCardle's editor didn't step in to tighten up the set-up of the plot/novel.
In particular, more time should have been spent establishing Amanda/Iris and Abe at Peel Academy. This would:
A) give me a sense of the character when she isn't out of her element. Also, the author might have been able to establish Amanda as having some authority issues despite Peel's curriculum, since that stood out as a WTF thing to me. She's in a military-esque school that trains kids for the CIA and yet she can't obey orders?
B) lead me to care about Abe, who we only know for a brief second before Amanda is taken for Annum Guard. Seriously, she's taken away at the end of the 2nd chapter and the 1st is dedicated to her test. As it is, Amanda's moping about her relationship doesn't raise sympathy within me. Instead, I feel like Yellow, Violet, etc. - annoyed with Amanda's whining.
C) provide the author with an opportunity to establish Amanda's motives for being at Peel early on, including introducing her family situation.
D) Introduce the Headmaster more thoroughly.
E) Allow us to see Tyler earlier
(possibly also let us see that Peel has crap history classes because who doesn't know that the Emancipation Proclamation only applied to slaves in seceded states?)
In my opinion, the best idea would be to introduce Amanda during her Sophomore year, during which we witness Tyler's 2nd Testing Day. This briefly establishes Tyler AND the idea that Juniors don't pass. It also gives us time to warm to Abe and learn about Amanda's family (since Amanda's testing day was in October, just a few months after Tyler's, we can see Amanda & Abe planning their Thanksgiving plans, giving us information on Amanda's mom & Amanda's relationship with Abe's family)
Because, honestly, while Amanda's focus on Abe is realistic, it's frustrating that we're simply being told why Abe is wonderful, etc. Despite this, it was pretty clear that he was going to show up again in the plot.
I wish the other characters were better fleshed out. All of the characters except Amanda/Iris are quite flat - I don't know nearly enough about them to predict or understand their actions. Hell, I can't tell you anything about Orange than he is mid-20s and has orange-y hair, or anything about Green other than he's a bit skeevy and his dad was Beta. Even Indigo and Yellow, the most fleshed out 3rd gens, are a mystery.
I'm going with 3.5 stars right now. In some ways it seems generous, in other ways a low ball (I did fly through the book, plus I'm looking forward to reading a follow-up. I just don't know if this version of time travel will be sustainable, given the paradox issues & I am disappointed in the lack of depth among the characters)
If you think about McCardle's approach to Time Travel, there is a paradox issue... The way the book is set up, it seems like the people who "enhance" the past can remember the previous history (their memories move into the parallel universe unchanged) while everyone else essentially has their memories changed to fit the new reality. Spoiler How, then, does Alpha remember what the previous history and the mission of each trip was?
Beyond this, what happens when things change dramatically (over 50,000 Americans were killed in Vietnam. Soldiers who might get married and have kids... who is to say that it wouldn't alter a guard member or EI person's life by changing that? They might never have been born). This would also be an issue if someone were to, I don't know, give penicilin to someone who would otherwise die young. Because that person ("A") might marry "B" who was otherwise going to marry "C". And "B" and "C" could have been the ancestors of someone important (or be YOUR ancestor or someone who saved one of your ancestors!), who now won't exist.
And how is the bribery issue happening?
Let's say I was the person who wanted to change the Boston Massacre. I contact Alpha to set it up.
- If I am supposed to pay him after the fact/only give a down payment and he collects the full later, it won't work. History will be rewritten and I will never have contacted him (since there would have been no reason to), so I'm not going to pay him off.
- Who the fuck is going to give someone large sums of money (up to $10M for the JFK assassination) without assurance that it will happen? Doesn't seem likely. And it's not like Alpha could prove it worked, as history completely changes itself when they go back, so the I would believe the event had always been that way once altered.
(aside: how the hell did she not realize the JFK one went through when her own failure was angrily crossed out. Dontcha think she would've realized he would have angrily crossed out the $10M if it didn't happen?!)
And, on a different note, I'm a little surprised that McCardle's editor didn't step in to tighten up the set-up of the plot/novel.
In particular, more time should have been spent establishing Amanda/Iris and Abe at Peel Academy. This would:
A) give me a sense of the character when she isn't out of her element. Also, the author might have been able to establish Amanda as having some authority issues despite Peel's curriculum, since that stood out as a WTF thing to me. She's in a military-esque school that trains kids for the CIA and yet she can't obey orders?
B) lead me to care about Abe, who we only know for a brief second before Amanda is taken for Annum Guard. Seriously, she's taken away at the end of the 2nd chapter and the 1st is dedicated to her test. As it is, Amanda's moping about her relationship doesn't raise sympathy within me. Instead, I feel like Yellow, Violet, etc. - annoyed with Amanda's whining.
C) provide the author with an opportunity to establish Amanda's motives for being at Peel early on, including introducing her family situation.
D) Introduce the Headmaster more thoroughly.
E) Allow us to see Tyler earlier
(possibly also let us see that Peel has crap history classes because who doesn't know that the Emancipation Proclamation only applied to slaves in seceded states?)
In my opinion, the best idea would be to introduce Amanda during her Sophomore year, during which we witness Tyler's 2nd Testing Day. This briefly establishes Tyler AND the idea that Juniors don't pass. It also gives us time to warm to Abe and learn about Amanda's family (since Amanda's testing day was in October, just a few months after Tyler's, we can see Amanda & Abe planning their Thanksgiving plans, giving us information on Amanda's mom & Amanda's relationship with Abe's family)
Because, honestly, while Amanda's focus on Abe is realistic, it's frustrating that we're simply being told why Abe is wonderful, etc. Despite this, it was pretty clear that he was going to show up again in the plot.
I wish the other characters were better fleshed out. All of the characters except Amanda/Iris are quite flat - I don't know nearly enough about them to predict or understand their actions. Hell, I can't tell you anything about Orange than he is mid-20s and has orange-y hair, or anything about Green other than he's a bit skeevy and his dad was Beta. Even Indigo and Yellow, the most fleshed out 3rd gens, are a mystery.
I'm going with 3.5 stars right now. In some ways it seems generous, in other ways a low ball (I did fly through the book, plus I'm looking forward to reading a follow-up. I just don't know if this version of time travel will be sustainable, given the paradox issues & I am disappointed in the lack of depth among the characters)
loveisnotatriangle's review against another edition
4.0
The Eighth Guardian was so much fun - this book kept me on the edge of my seat! I loved the time travel and intrigue and all the different time periods and historical events. I was excited that so much of this book takes place in Boston, including a fantastic section that involves the Isabella Stewart Gardener Museum Heist!
However, there was some mean girl jealousy and drama that I think was overdone. I also feel sort of indifferent about the romance. Amanda and Abe are already dating when the book begins, which is a unique approach (though it makes sense for how the plot progresses). Even so, I was able to connect into their relationship pretty well. However Abe is gone for a large part of the story, and we're mostly told about their relationship by Amanda. Without him on screen, I began to lose touch with them as a couple. Then I was disappointed in some of his actions near the end. Still, the author seems to make a point to say that this series won't have a love triangle, and I hope that I'll get more into their relationship in the next book when (hopefully) we get a chance to actually see them together.
I'm already eager to dive into book two and find out more pieces of the puzzle!
Love Triangle Factor: None
Cliffhanger Scale: Low/Medium - this storyline wraps but there are still a lot of loose ends and clearly at least one more book to go.
Full review to come
However, there was some mean girl jealousy and drama that I think was overdone. I also feel sort of indifferent about the romance. Amanda and Abe are already dating when the book begins, which is a unique approach (though it makes sense for how the plot progresses). Even so, I was able to connect into their relationship pretty well. However Abe is gone for a large part of the story, and we're mostly told about their relationship by Amanda. Without him on screen, I began to lose touch with them as a couple. Then I was disappointed in some of his actions near the end. Still, the author seems to make a point to say that this series won't have a love triangle, and I hope that I'll get more into their relationship in the next book when (hopefully) we get a chance to actually see them together.
I'm already eager to dive into book two and find out more pieces of the puzzle!
Love Triangle Factor: None
Cliffhanger Scale: Low/Medium - this storyline wraps but there are still a lot of loose ends and clearly at least one more book to go.
Full review to come
sydneygonzales08's review against another edition
5.0
Really interesting story line, and left on a good cliffhanger, so I'm excited to read the next one.