Marked By Books: daynight Blog Tour: Review & GIVEAWAY

Man, I love this tour so much. Not that I'm shamelessly promoting/fangirling over the tour that Laura and the author put together, but really, how can I not? First off, the book is fantastic (yay for Megan!), and secondly, this tour is amazing. Not only did I get to read the fabulous book, but I also got to read a fabulous short story, which is also fabulously free during this tour!

Has anybody noticed yet that I'm a little sleep deprived while writing this? Eh, what the heck, I'd choose books over sleep any day. Or should I say night? Ooooo, I just made a completely tactless and unsubtle pun. I must really need some sleep.

Meet The Second Chance Institute (SCI): Earth’s benevolent non-profit by day, Thera’s totalitarian regime by night. Their motto: Because Everyone Deserves a Second Chance™. Reality: the SCI subjects Second Chancers to strict controls and politically motivated science experiments like Cleaving—forced lifetime union between two people who have sex. Punishment for disobeying SCI edicts? Immediate Exile or death.

Meet Kira Donovan. Fiercely loyal, overly optimistic, and ensnared by the promise of a full-ride college scholarship, Kira signs the SCI Recruit contract to escape memories of a tragedy that left her boyfriend and friends dead.

Meet Blake Sundry. Bitter about being raised in Exile and his mother’s death, Blake’s been trained to infiltrate and destroy the SCI. Current barrier to success? His Recruit partner—Miss Goody Two Shoes Kira Donovan.

Meet Ethan Darcton. Born with a defective heart and resulting inferiority complex, Ethan’s forced to do his SCI elite family’s bidding. Cleave-worthy Kira Donovan catches his eye, but the presiding powers give defect-free Blake Sundry first dibs.

Full of competing agendas, romantic entanglements, humor, twists and turns, daynight is Megan Thomason’s debut young adult dystopian novel and first in the daynight series.

Amazon B&N The Book Depository

My Review

I'm not going to say that this book was perfect. I had my problems with it, like I do with pretty much everything I read (what can I say, I'm picky!). Namely, how easy it was for Kira to accept that she was no longer living on Earth. Did she question it? Heck yeah, which was why it wasn't that big of a deal for me, but I just felt like there should have been a little more drama behind her figuring that she just got handed over to a bunch of wackjobs.

But like I said, that wasn't a huge deal for me, so I'm not going to focus on it.

What I am going to focus on are the things that I did like. Because no matter what may have irked me a little bit at times (hi Jax), there would always be something following not so far behind that would either make want to laugh or cry. Only one of which I did. I'll let you figure out which one it was.

I loved the multiple perspectives. Sometimes it was a little confusing how they were laid out because there were a few repeated events and some funky chronological order, but it was all worth it. There's nothing that I appreciate more in an author than being wiling to explain why her (or his) characters think and act the way they do. If you ever want me to emphasize with or even like them, you have to get me to understand them. Which definitely happened here.

So I guess now I can talk about Ethan! I really liked Ethan. Don't get me wrong, I think that Blake is a pretty cool dude too, but I really really liked Ethan. You can't possibly understand how incredible I thought he was until you read the book, but perhaps I can give you a little glimpse from his perspective:

"I didn't think it was possible to love someone so much, but she is the smartest, most beautiful, most kind, most loyal, most caring, most fun, most incredible girl in the universe. When I'm with her I just want time to stop forever and when I'm not I can't even think straight. My heart pounds, I'm antsy, and I can't get her out of my mind. She's in my every thought, every moment, so much so that I have trouble getting my work done. I constantly wonder what she's thinking and if she feels a fraction for me the way I feel about her."

Awwww!!!!! How sweet is that?! And he's so shy around Kira that pretty much everything he does makes me laugh.

It's one thing to try to make me understand the protagonists, though, and quite another to branch off into the extremely barren territory of explaining the so called "bad guys." You literally have no idea how happy I am that Megan Thomason did this. It's pretty much the reason why I'm giving this book such a high rating.

You see, I have a bit of a hard time believing that people are inherently born "good" or "evil." Life is so circumstantial, and everybody usually has some sort of a reason for the things they do, even if it may not make sense to anybody else. I don't necessarily think that the SCI is evil, even though I may believe that some of the things they do are. They have a reason for doing what they do, and I'm so thankful to Megan for daring to explain those "whys."

Rating: 5 stars

Alright, time for the short story. Which, as I already mentioned, is free right now! (edit: Okay, so as far as I know for right now, it's just free on Smashwords, but that may change soon!)

Meet The Second Chance Institute (SCI): Worldwide non-profit and do-gooder organization. Their motto: Because Everyone Deserves a Second Chance at Life(TM). Reality: hidden behind every kind act is a dark agenda designed to gain control and force societal and moral extremes. Currently, the SCI’s pushing Project Liberate, a program to woo the poor and downtrodden into their Clean Slate Complexes—where “everything is provided” from jobs to food, shelter, clothing, and education. Unfortunately, as with all things that sound too good to be true, there’s a catch…

Meet Alexa Knight. Feisty, tough and currently homeless in Los Angeles, Alexa agrees to help the SCI in return for medical care for her sick mother. When she starts to suspect there’s more to the SCI than meets the eye will she believe Adam—the boy who saved her life and the SCI’s biggest champion, or Joshua—the attractive enigma who sings about conspiracy theories and pretends to be someone he’s not?

Full of action, humor, romance, twists and turns, clean slate complex is a companion story to the highly-praised dystopian novel, 'daynight'. It can be enjoyed before or after reading 'daynight'.

Smashwords Amazon

My Thoughts

Okay, since this was a pretty short read, I'm going to be much briefer than with my daynight review and not give it an actual rating. Just my thoughts.

I read "clean slate complex" when I was about a 10th of the way through with daynight, and I feel like I was still able to understand things pretty well. Yeah, some things would have been easier to grasp if I knew everything already, but it didn't kill me. In a perfect world, if you plan on reading both (and you should because they're fantastic), I'd suggest reading the full length novel first, but if you just want to try out the series with the short story first, I wouldn't sweat it too much. Some things will be a little fuzzy, but you'll be fine.

Character-wise, I thought the book was great. Alexa reminded me a lot of Kira with the whole over-protectiveness and self sacrificing thing they've got going on, even if I felt like Alexa was initially better equipped to deal with everything. Adam and Joshua were both pretty cool too, even though I do have a favorite. Sorry Adam, being Alexa's cookie pimp (which I thought was hilarious) just wasn't enough.

Overall, I was really surprised with how much character and plot development I read in the few pages there were. It's pretty hard to go that in depth in a short story, but someway, somehow, Megan managed to do it!

And here, just for the heck of it, is what she said when I asked her to tell me a little bit about the story:

I came up with the idea for clean slate complex while writing daynight's sequel, arbitrate. Alexa was a planned character in arbitrate from the beginning, but I couldn't figure out a way to tell her story (how she became the face of the clean slate campaign for the SCI) without using her voice. And since I already have three voices going in the daynight series I couldn't realistically add another one.
I got invited to participate in a "Best of YA dystopia" anthology (to be released this summer) and that's what finally pushed me to take the time to write clean slate complex. The entire story was in my head, so it was just a matter of putting it down on virtual paper (via my 11" MacBook Air & Scrivener).
Because I knew the story had to be concise I contracted a professional content/copy editor I knew and she happily signed onto the project. This added time and stress (deadlines...not something I am accustomed to!), but it was well worth it.
I asked some author friends (who are excellent writers in the genre) to beta read clean slate complex and their feedback was invaluable.

Megan Thomason lives in paradise aka San Diego, CA with her husband and five children. A former software manager, Megan vastly prefers writing twisted tales to business, product, and marketing plans. When she isn't typing away on her laptop, she's reading books on her phone—over 600 in the last year—or attending to the needs of her family. Megan’s fluent in sarcasm, could potentially benefit from a 12-step program for road rage, struggles with a Hot Tamales addiction, loves world travel & fast cars and hates paperwork & being an insomniac. Daynight is Megan's first published novel, but fourth written one.

Goodreads Blog Facebook Twitter

daynight Second Chances Giveaway

Choose what you enter to win wisely. Your stay on Thera may be extended indefinitely.

Highlighting a different giveaway every daynight of the Tour... International Winners will receive a $25 Amazon Gift Certificate and US Winners may choose $25 GC in lieu of Prize Package.

US only. International winners will receive $25 Amazon gift certificate. US winners can opt to receive $25 Amazon gift certificate in lieu of any prize package.Open only to those who can legally enter. Winning Entry will be verified prior to prize being awarded. No purchase necessary. You must be 18 or older to enter or have your parent enter for you. The winner will be chosen by Rafflecopter and announced on Rafflecopter and Grand Finale posts as well as emailed and the winner will have 48 hours to respond or a new winner will be chosen. This giveaway is in no way associated with Facebook, Twitter, Rafflecopter or any other entity unless otherwise specified. The number of eligible entries received determines the odds of winning. Giveaway was organized by Burgandy Ice @ Colorimetry and Prism Book Tours and sponsored by Megan Thomason. VOID WHERE PROHIBITED BY LAW.

a Rafflecopter giveaway