Legend begins with the intertwined stories of a rich girl prodigy (June) and an elusive boy criminal (Day). You know that they will somehow become romantically connected, but don't see exactly how. Luckily, the novel doesn't dawdle. Day is looking for anti-plague medicine for his family and breaks into a hospital. In the process he supposedly kills June's older brother. June is conscripted to help hunt him down. Both are keenly observant and he eventually makes an innocent gesture that clues her in (thought not until after they have kissed.) He is arrested and sentenced to death. Then she makes some additional discoveries. She had thought she had been the only one to score a perfect score on the test that is administrated to all children. However, she discovers that he actually had earned a perfect score, but the results were faked to give him a failing grade. She also learns that the "Republic" is really not all that it is cracked up to be. Could the United States really fall into dictatorship without most people knowing? People often look at Trump shenanigans and predict a falling away coming from that direction. However, a west-coast dictatorship in the novel is more likely to be caused by a left-wing mast uprising. Could we gradually fall without knowing? Would the government willingly silence dissenters to keep the masses happy?
A boy wakes up in a world with no memories in a world he does not understand. He discovers that it is a world with just boys. A new one comes every month. They get electricity and other basics provided for them. However, they have to work to provide food and solve a maze. They hope to sometime escape and get out. However, many of the boys get attacked by monsters and die. Some get stung, but get an anti-venom that causes them to undergo a changing. They get some of their thoughts back. 
John Paul the Great spends some time providing a biography of Pope John Paul II. However, most of the book details the author's spiritual journey. For many immigrants, Catholicism was an "old world" custom that they sought to avoid. Their descendants needed the spiritual confirmation rather than custom to participate in the church. Pope John Paul II was keen to this and was a humble, prayerful figure that traveled the world to help spread the message of peace. This helped open the church up to many that would otherwise have not sought it. Alas, at the time, the church was also suffering from bad behavior from many priests. The Pope's great love may have made it difficult for him to take early decisive action to stop the bad actors. (This was also influenced by his experience losing his family at a young age and enduring the horrors of communism and Nazism.)
The Tournament at Golan is the first "prequel" book to Ranger's Apprentice. Things seemed to be going well, but I expected it would not work out. (After all, doesn't this need to set up the background of the villain?) In the book, an usurper to the thrown has had somebody masquerade as the crown prince in order to discredit him. He has also "dismissed" the Rangers that live in villages, and appointed "pretty boys" in their stead. (Often the dismissals were justified by some trumped-up false accusations.) The book centers around two rangers going around trying to gather up the dismissed apprentices to confront the bad player. In the end there is a big battle, the bad guy cheats, and the good guys have a chance to kill him. They don't. They do confine him to his castle with his army. However, they sneak out through underground tunnel. I'm guessing these will be the "bad guys" through the rest of the series.
Being the new kid at school is never easy. It is especially difficult when you are coming from a different culture. It can be even worse when you think you understand people only to have that understanding flipper around. In Save Me a Seat, a bright elementary student moves from India to the United States. He speaks the same language, but people cannot understand him well. He also struggles with the different customs of the school. He sees one other Indian in the class, and seeks to befriend him, thinking he will understand. However, this other Indian is a born-in-America class bully. The new boy (Ravi) is upset when he is asked to go to the special ed teacher to help with his English. He also meets the American boy there (Joe). Ravi looks down on Joe because he is there. However, they end up becoming good friends. 
Thinking Fast and Slow is Nobel Prize-winner Daniel Kahneman's very accessible work about how we think. He anthropomorphizes the quick, impulsive "System One" and the slow, methodical "System Two" as the two parts of our thinking process. System One will often provide us with our "gut" reactions without us seeming to process it. People who are trained with much experience in certain situations will often find System One guiding their reactions, seemingly without them understanding why. (An example was a firefighter who told everyone to evacuate just before a collapse.) System Two is a much slower process and what we use for detailed thinking. Of particular interest was his description of collaboration with his "opponent" Gary Klein and a publication of "A Failure to Disagree". It was interesting to see how two opposing sides could come to realize they agree on a lot. 
Mogadore had let their planet go to waste. They sought to destroy the planet Lorien to gather their resources. Nine children escaped the planet to earth. The Mogadorians, too, are on earth trying to destroy them. However, the children have charms that mean they can only be killed in order, and they have done a good job hiding. I Am Number Four centers on the fourth of these. HE has realized that the other three have died by tatoos that have appeared. He has been moving about with his caretaker, Henri. Anytime there is something that may cause them to be noticed, they move. They try to live in rural places and slip under the radar. He finally starts to develop friends in Florida when something happens that makes them move. This time, he adopts the name John Smith and lives in Ohio. Alas, things start to get complicated. He gets bullied by a football player, and then falls in love with a girl. He also befriends a boy that is into aliens and conspiracy theories. At first, John tries to blend in, but as he develops his special powers, he uses them to save his friends. He has to tell them, and can't lie under the radar. Eventually, he is found out and a battle royale ensues. Quite a different coming of age story. 
Time sleeping seems to be a waste. After all, we are not engaging in what could be more productive activity. Alas, that is not the case. Paradoxically, sleep actually aids in performance. Many studies have shown improved problem solving, memory and creativity after getting sufficient sleep. Lack of sleep also severely limits our performance. Drowsy driving is actually a much more serious danger than drunk driving. Not getting enough sleep can also decrease the number of chemicals that tell us we are full while increasing the ones that tell us we are still hungry. People think they are acting fine when they don't get enough sleep, but they are not. The immune system and memory also suffer when there is not enough sleep.
The Hive is the second book in the second Formic War series. This is yet another "Ender's Game" book. Card has really milked his seminal work for all it has. (Though it would be nice if he would actually finish some the series that he has left hanging, such as Alvin Maker.) There are a number of subplots floating around. There is the pirate who gets captured by the Formics and is then used as a science experiment. (I could just see this going bad.) There is the young married couple zipping off separately in space to help with the war effort. Then there are the military people. We have a lunar refugee crisis. And then there is bureaucratic incompetence. A central theme is that military and political people can be good, but most of them have their own motives that are not necessarily in the best interest of the organization as a whole. Chain of command can often separate those with needed information from those that act on it. The "hegemone" seemingly knows everything. He and his song both have the best interests of themselves and the world at heart, though they sometimes seem corrupt. They also seem to magically know exactly how things are going on. The "good guys" always seem to have just a little more brains and intuition than would be humanly possible. The book also devolves at times into long political episodes before picking up again. It wraps up a lot of the key plot points, but leaves open plenty more for the next book.
Alliance is the second book in a boarding school series. The kids all have their friendships and weird new things start to happen. Will West and his friends are trying to find out more about the secret society and beings that are trying to take over the world. The difference between good and evil starts to get fairly murky. They find new things out about people they know. They also begin to find other kids with powers. And in the process, love starts to kick in. Will is torn between two close friends who both have romantic attachments. The big "adventure" is the exploration of a castle next to campus and the unearthing of more knowledge of the past. The book answers a lot of questions, and then ends with even more questions. The writing is fairly fast paced, but does tend to telegraph future intentions a little too much, while at the same time having the kids just "know" things.
I've read a few of "boarding school" books close together and it is hard to keep them straight. They all involve "gifted" children who are plucked away from their home and do amazing things. In the Truly Devious series, the things involve solving mysteries. This novel eventually picks up where the other one left off. Our heroine is bored silly at home in Pittsburgh. Luckily, the right wing senator (and her parent's employer) comes to encourage her to go back to school. Her parents comply. Back there she gets to spend more time investigating the school deaths past and present. (The novel includes regular interludes of the 1930s to give us details of the past murder.) She gets to meet a professor who wrote "the" book on the murders and is working on new research. Alas, we do not get good vibes from her. Her security guard "friend" warns her not to go exploring. Alas, she does, and ends up finding the dead body of a missing classmate. The security guard eventually leaves. However, she contacts him after she "solves" the original murders. (As readers, we get the "full story" of the original murders as part of an interlude in the story.) Alas, the book seems to end right before the action wraps up. These books were written in cliffhanger fashion and do not stand alone well. A lot of loose threads from the previous book are wrapped up. However, there are many more things opened that we want resolved at the end. And, being a teen book, we also get some interesting interpersonal relationships going that are left in quite a messy state. Oh well. I guess that leaves us eagerly anticipating the next book in the Truly Devious series.
After reading the second Strain book, I was eagerly anticipating this one. However, I forced myself to read a few other books first. Alas, by the time I started reading, Night Eternal, I was disappointing. Troll Hunters essentially had the same story with a much lighter tone. This book is very dark. Many of the "good guys" die. People struggle against each other and themselves before finding a way to eliminate the vampires. In the end, the vampires are just nuked out of existence. You know it will happen, making some of the tension feel forced. There is a ton of mythological and religious background to explain things. However, most just serves to delay the outcome.
Black Prism is set in a fantasy world where colors are very important and have some special powers. We follow the goings of a fat boy who watches his village destroyed. We later learn that he is the illegitimate son of the "Prism", the sort of Emperor over the kings. However, we later learn that the Prism is actually the brother of the Prism in disguise. The society values people that can identify minute differentiation in color. It also has some practices that we would find abhorrent. The government servants participate in a "release" when they have reached the end of their service. They get to talk with the leader, and are then executed by him, "releasing" them from this life. Individual Kings have power to do whatever they so desire. However, the Prism also has some similar power, giving some means of balance. The book goes on for a while, and also follows the path of a girl from the same village who was the daughter of a disgraced general. Things seem to gradually come together at the end, though it takes a long time to get there.
Ten Lessons to Transfrom Your Marriage provides detailed analysis of conversations by couples in different situations. Each utterance by one of the partners is graded with a "plus" or "minus" with reasons why. On eof the kye points is to let each other express their feelings with empathy before jumping into problem solving. There is a tendency to behave in ways with somebody that you have spent time with in ways that you would not behave in polite conversation. One common problem is attacking the person rather than the problem or situation. Trying to focus on building each other up can be much more productive than trying to "win". It also pays to understand that there are some "unresolvable differences" Those do not need to be dealbreakers. We just need to understand that they exist and find ways that both sides can be happy.
Trollhunters is essentially a children's version of del Toro's Strain series. There are a bunch of supernatural beings that are much more powerful than humans. However, they have limitations to their power and can use human assistance to carry out some tasks. They have lived in relative peace with humans. However, one of them decides that is enough and is going to destroy humanity. Luckily there are others working with humans to prevent that from happening. The tone of the two works, however, is much different. Trollhunters is much more bright and fun. The protagonists are two geeky kids. They like to sneak through the San Bernadino historical society. They notice a new bridge being assembled. They later learn about trolls. The bridge can enable trolls to do even more badness. They meet a lost uncle who became a troll fighter after the last "milk carton kids" epidemic. They have an epic battle and team up with the good trolls to defeat the bad ones. And in the process discover that the class bully is a troll in disguise. And even better, they discover that his "crush" is actually a troll hunter also. They are all able to live happily ever after.
The Fall is the middle book in the Strain trilogy. New York is becoming invested with Vampires. We learn of the plan for world domination. A rich guy had been helping out with the plan with the hope of vampiric immortality. He uses his nuclear power plants to help prepare the world for vampires, but the vampires have no need for him. We do get clues as to ways the vampires can be stopped. However, this book is about the vampires wrecking mayhem. We see some key characters die, while others seem to be prolonged longer. Vampires don't really care for humans. The war is really a war of vmapires for domination, with humans as mere pawns. The vampires chose humans to befriend based on their needs, not on the desires of humans. The powers that be could have ended this pandemic early on. However, they were influenced by those that wanted destruction and did too little too late.
The collection of audio short stories from the lightspeed anthology. The stories are hit or miss. Many of them are very dark. (In one, space traveler eats the entire crew of his ship, only to be eaten by natives once he arrives.) There were a few that stood out positively. In one, there was a secret message from aliens that technology will lead to the downfall of civilization. In another, elephants came in to a town. They eventually knocked over some bad architecture. But people felt a little bad that they lost control. 
The Strain starts with an airplane that lands in New York City and then just stops. All power goes out and there is no sign from anybody. They call in many government agents, including the CDC. Everyone appears dead - ecept for 4 people. They are taken to the hospital, and seem to have a full recovery, even though there body is showing some weird vital signs. The government tries to bury the news by having it released just before a total eclipse over Manhattan. An old man who knows about the vampire tries to talk to the CDC man. We learn that this has been a vampire infestation and part of a battle among vampires where humans are mere pawns. The dead passengers wake up and attempt to go to their homes, vampirizing everybody, including the UPS guys. They have plenty of vampire battles. We also have the human interest side. The CDC guy is trying (unsuccessfully) to get custody of his boy. He misses an important court date to attend to the plane. Later he warns his ex to get out of town with his son. However, her boyfriend doesn't want to go and they say. Eventually both die, but the son remains. (How convenient!) Our "heroes" also come really close to getting killed by vampires. However, they manage to always escape just in time. (Wouldn't it be interesting if the main guy died in a book and then it had to switch over.) 
Terminal Alliance would be a good source book for a cheesy B-movie that would by made fun of by MTK3000. An alien species came to earth. Humans were mostly destroyed. The alien species revives humans with some quirks in their interpretations. Humans adopt names of famous humans from history, though they may or may not match the gender or personality. The action starts when one ship looses all of its alien crew and most of the human crew goes feral. Some low ranking human janitors assume control and discover that a virus was the cause. They go on an adventure and discover they are pawns on a battle between alien species. They eventually win out with some janitorial tricks. It is written in a somewhat lighthearted fashion and just not very good.
Will West is raised as somewhat of a nomad. His parents move about every 18 months to some new location. His father is a nuerobiology researcher and always is switching to new projects. They instruct him to live under the radar. He loves to run, but has to control himself to not be the fastest. He also intentionally does less than his best academically. Then one day, he accidentally aces an intelligence evaluation test and has a boarding school seek him out and offer a big scholarship. At the same time a bunch of secretive agents also try to catch him. He manages to evade them with the help of a taxi driver who later assists hi remotely. He makes it out to the boarding school where he makes friends and gradually learns more. There are bits of supernatural in the process. He learns that previous inhabitants of earth had gained too much knowledge and power and were banished. However, they are using manipulatable humans to get back to earth. He is to help get them back. His mother has been controlled by some of these bad guys. 
Divergent is set in a dystopian futuristic Chicago. Everybody is divided into factions based on their personality traits. At 16, they are tested and can chose the faction they would like to join. Though if they don't make it in, they become "factionless" Beatrice Prior starts out in the selfless "Abnegation", but decides to join the brave "Dauntless". There she must pass through a series of sadistic initiation rites just to get in. They have to jump from trains, fight each other and participate in brutality. 
Plutarch's Lives presents the biographies of Romans and Greeks. The translation is freshly well done. However, the audiobook narration is dry and of low quality. This work is really long - and is only volume one. He presents complete biographies of important Roman and Greek people. There would be bits of similarity and repetition. (There seemed to be a ancient desire to watch people get killed. Has our media violence now satiated that morbid desire?) He compares the different people with a good amount of opinion. (Somebody was described as a great leader, though he would have been greater if he were not a drunk.) This is not the best book to read through. However, it would serve as a good source for research on important figures of antiquity.
Two postdocs are sent to a small southern town to do a genetic study. The town seems to keep its population, with even those people that leave coming back. The budding scientists want to do a genetic study to determine if there is a gene that influences this "homing" behavior. They will need to take DNA and personal information from nearly all the residents. In the process, the scientists both become attached to the town, each finding a partner. The town itself has an odd division. There are two nearly identical Episcopal churches. They divided nearly a century before over a Christmas pageant. Each wanted a different baby to play the role of baby Jesus. The members of the two churches had intermarried before the split, but now do not associate with each other. In the end, the scientists push to have their study finding published, even though they don't fall in line with the goals the funders were looking for. They also marry their partners found in the city and uncover the "dark truth" about the split.
I remember watching a movie once where every every movie previewed was about the eminent end of the world. Only one ordinary random person could save us from utter destruction. Reading Armada, I could see it fit directly into that genre. It is a CGI-fest in the making, complete with a hard-hitting soundtrack, one-dimensional characters, and a bit of requisite sappy drama. It is also a nerd fest with references to numerous classic games and 80s music. 
A boy in Harlem has his older brother murdered. He copes with it by building a giant lego city. He gradually befriends an autistic girl who also likes to build with legos. They have a contest to build a 10 foot tower. However, both of their towers fall. They end up building a big city together. Hers is a realistic model of New York buildings (including their projects). His is a fantasy world with heroes and monsters. He also makes a game with it to help people learn. In the end, they discover that the "wasted" legos that his mom's girlfriend is bringing are actually stolen. The criminal experience helps him to chose not to try to use a gun to attack thugs that have jumped him.