Lisa Loves Literature: Blog Tour: Review and Giveaway

Wednesday, July 12, 2017

Blog Tour: Review and Giveaway - Waste of Space by Gina Damico

Book info:

Title: Waste of Space
Author: Gina Damico
Genre: YA Science Fiction
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt for Young Readers
Release Date: July 11th, 2017
Formats: Hardcover, ebook, audiobook
Pages: 400
Find it:
Amazon, Audible, Barnes and Noble, iBooks, The Book Depository, Goodreads

Synopsis:
Cram ten hormonal teens into a spaceship and blast off: that’s the premise for the ill-conceived reality show Waste of Space. The kids who are cast know everything about drama—and nothing about the fact that the production is fake. Hidden in a desert warehouse, their spaceship replica is equipped with state-of-the-art special effects dreamed up by the scientists partnering with the shady cable network airing the show. And it’s a hit! Millions of viewers are transfixed. But then, suddenly, all communication is severed. Trapped and paranoid, the kids must figure out what to do when this reality show loses its grip on reality.

My Review:

My rating: 5 stars

Once again Gina Damico has written a story that is so much fun! I love her characters, the snarkiness, the silliness, all of it. And it's not just that the characters are so great, the story itself is full of all kinds of great scenes, and extremely edge of your seat action at some points! While you know there is something going on, I didn't quite guess exactly what it was until it was actually happening in the story. In a way, this is almost a tribute to stories like Illuminae by Amie Kaufman and Jay Kristoff, in that the story is told through recordings and video, with comments from the intern that is turning all this evidence into a book so that everyone knows what really happened. This book had me sitting and laughing at something on almost every single page, especially a lot of the dialogue. There were actually two parts in the story I had to make note of. Let me share them with you.

Page 73:

NASAW: You know you can't just put the word "space" in front of everything and act like it makes sense.

Chazz: Watch me!

Page 203:

NASAW: It's ludicrous. None of that makes any sense, scientifically speaking.

Chazz: You don't make any sense, scientifically speaking.

As you can tell, Chazz is a bit of an imbecile. I mean there are all the words he either creates or gets wrong. Like "intrepit" instead of "intrepid." And that he wants them to make a "Spaceplane" and calls the kids on there "spacetronauts." All of the characters are really perfect fits for a reality tv show. And Damico totally blows each of their stereotypes all the way out, takes them to the supreme limits. The villain is pretty much a villain. There is the party girl that is pretty crazy. Of course they had to have minorities, which includes one Japanese girl - Kaoru - who pretty much only speaks Japanese, making all of her comments also hilarious. They also needed someone with a physical handicap, in this case, a missing finger.

I really need to get back and finish the Croak series, as well as get Hellhole read. I'm never disappointed when I read this author's books. Can't wait to add this one to my school library for my students to read.

About the Author:

Gina Damico is the author of Croak, Scorch, and Rogue, the grim-reapers-gone-wild books of the Croak trilogy. She has also dabbled as a tour guide, transcriptionist, theater house manager, scenic artist, movie extra, office troll, retail monkey, yarn hawker and breadmonger. A native of Syracuse, New York, she now lives outside Boston with her husband, two cats, and one dog, and while she has never visited hell in person, she has spent countless waking hours at the Albany Regional Bus Terminal, which is pretty darn close. Visit her website at www.ginadami.co.