Solitary (Escape from Furnace #2) by Alexander Gordon Smith

"Furnace Prison ...Where death is the least of your worries.Escape is just the beginning ...
We thought we’d made it, we thought we were free. But we should have known there was no way out of Furnace.
All we did was slip deeper into the guts of the prison: into solitary confinement, where the real nightmares live - the warden, the Wheezers, and something much, much worse.
The clock’s ticking. Because if we don’t escape soon they will turn us into freaks - like them. For ever.
In the darkness of the hole your worst nightmares come to life."

I don’t want to tell you about the actual story, it would give far too much away. I can say this; It was amazing, just as good as the first, if not better! Smith continues to weave his plethora of horrors with Furnace.. Just the sheer amount of surprises are insane. Paragraph after paragraph the last sentence almost always delivers a punch. A lot of sequels let down readers, this is not one of them. I cannot wait to get my hands on the third book. Of course, the negative, is the language (medium amount.) I still highly recommend this series.

Lockdown (Escape From Furnace #1) by Alexander Gordon Smith

"Furnace Penitentiary: the world’s most secure prison for young offenders, buried a mile beneath the earth’s surface. Convicted of a murder he didn’t commit, sentenced to life without parole, “new fish” Alex Sawyer knows he has two choices: find a way out, or resign himself to a death behind bars, in the darkness at the bottom of the world. Except in Furnace, death is the least of his worries. Soon Alex discovers that the prison is a place of pure evil, where inhuman creatures in gas masks stalk the corridors at night, where giants in black suits drag screaming inmates into the shadows, where deformed beasts can be heard howling from the blood-drenched tunnels below. And behind everything is the mysterious, all-powerful warden, a man as cruel and dangerous as the devil himself, whose unthinkable acts have consequences that stretch far beyond the walls of the prison.Together with a bunch of inmates—some innocent kids who have been framed, others cold-blooded killers—Alex plans an escape. But as he starts to uncover the truth about Furnace’s deeper, darker purpose, Alex’s actions grow ever more dangerous, and he must risk everything to expose this nightmare that’s hidden from the eyes of the world."

This book was a thriller and is by far the best book I have ever read. The motto conveys what the book is about perfectly, “beneath heaven is hell and beneath hell is the Furnace.” It's about thrills and chills. The book was so jaw-dropping and amazing, that I kept going to my family and reading parts to them. By the time I got done I literally had no voice, I sounded like a bizarre mouse squeaking out words. It seemed like every other paragraph something comes that you didn't see. Every time, you just stare at the page and say
Woah.
I definitely recommend. It's hard to tell whether I had light amounts of language or a medium amount, the blood rushing, adrenaline raising content really left my ‘how much’ scale disoriented. Based on the length of the book I would have to say it was a medium amount, but again with the action it was hard to take notice. My only lasting question was...Why have I never heard of this author before?!

Au Revoir Crazy European Chick (Perry & Gobi #1) by Joe Schreiber

“It’s prom night—and Perry just wants to stick to his own plan and finally play a much-anticipated gig with his band in the Big Apple. But when his mother makes him take Gobija Zaksauskas—their quiet, geeky Lithuanian exchange student—to the prom, he never expects that his ordinary high school guy life will soon turn on its head. Perry finds that Gobi is on a mission, and Perry has no other choice but to go along for a reckless ride through Manhattan’s concrete grid with a trained assassin in Dad’s red Jag.
Infused with capers, car chases, heists, hits, henchmen, and even a bear fight, this story mixes romance, comedy, and tragedy in a true teen coming-of-age adventure—and it’s not over until it’s “au revoir.”

WOW. What a crazy whirlwind. I loved the format! It starts as a college application style question/answer form. But you can tell, Perry just get’s too caught up in this chain of events to answer the questions seriously. He just rolls with it! There was some explicit sexual implications coupled with pulse pounding action. I absolutely adored the style of the story, the way you discover Gobi, and the way Perry discovers himself. You want to grit your teeth, cheer, and scream…sometimes all at once.  I read this on the staircase at my place, and finished it within an hour. I thought I knew what was going to happen…then I didn't….then I did. But at the end, it didn't matter if I saw it coming or not. It had a Mary Poppins ending (it was practically perfect in every way!) This book could be read as a standalone or, like me, you’ll look forward to Perry’s next adventure. I was wholly satisfied with this read and would recommend it to any action junkie.