Book Review: Above Ground by A. M. Harte (Series, #1)

Summary:
Lilith Grey has spent her entire life living below ground–among the lucky descendants of the humans who escaped there before catching the virus that turned the rest of humanity into monsters from fairy tales.  But one day Lilith and her friend Emma get temporary vaccines and go above ground to a tourist theater to view these vampires and shapeshifters in person.  When everything goes horribly wrong, Lilith finds herself whisked away from the carnage on the back of a werewolf.  Can she ever get back below ground?

Review:
I was hesitant to accept a YA book for review, since the genre is not one I tend to enjoy.  But I had previously read and thoroughly enjoyed a book by this indie author, so I decided to give it a go.  Her other work, Hungry For You, is a collection of zombie themed short stories that manages to put a fresh twist on that genre, so I was hoping for more of that unique glint in her YA work as well.  This, her first full-length novel, is more unique than what is currently saturating the market, but I did not feel that it lived up to the expectations I had based on her short story collection.

The basic concept is intriguing.  Many post-apocalyptic stories feature humans living in bomb shelters or other similar underground enclosures but not for the reasons put forth in this novel.  This unique twist is what I’ve come to expect from Harte’s writing, and it definitely was the part of the story that kept me reading.  Seeing how the mutated humans lived above ground versus how the non-mutated lived below ground was intriguing and interesting.  I wish more time had been spent building this world and less on the emotions of the main character (not to mention her friend, Emma, and the werewolf, Silver).  The scifi explanations for the fantastical creatures was also engaging, but again not enough time was spent on it.  Similarly, while the typical werewolves and vampires exist among the infected above ground, there are also the more unique such as the ewtes who mutated to live in the water but can walk on the ground with water tanks.  Actually, I could have easily spent an entire book among the ewtes.  They were far more interesting than our stereotypical main character Lilith.  The world and minor characters are what kept me reading….not the plot or main characters.

The initial plot set-up is painfully stereotypical.  Clueless teenage girls wind up in danger. Two men save them. One is an angst-ridden werewolf. The other is a mysterious, handsome intelligent fella.  The girls protest they can care for themselves but the reader can see they can’t really. The main teenage girl feels inexplicably pulled to the werewolf angst man. The werewolf angst man feels drawn to the teenage girl and angsts about it. And on we go.  The last few pages of plot, thankfully, didn’t take the typical turn, but honestly the pay-off was incredibly minor compared to the rest of the stereotypical YA plot.  Even just making it a teenage boy from below ground saved by a female werewolf would have been a change enough to make me more interested.  I also was disappointed to see no depth or examination of the human condition here, which I saw in Harte’s previous work.  I was excited to see what depth she could bring to YA but she didn’t even bring an empowered female main character to the genre.  Quite disappointing.

Ignoring my own quips with the plot and main characters, the book simply does not read like a solid first entry in a series.  It gives the reader mere tastes of what we want to know from a first book in a series, like who the DEI are and why everyone is afraid of them, while lingering on things like how the main character craves the werewolf.  That is fine if it was a paranormal romance, but it feels more like it is meant to be a post-apocalyptic/dystopian style novel.  A clearer world needs to be established and characters more fully fleshed-out if they are to hold up a whole series.   There has to be a clear world and a three-dimensional main character set up before the danger if the reader is to feel any connection or caring at all.  As it is, I mostly just wanted to wander off and follow the ewtes.

Overall, then, this is definitely a book for YA fans only.  It’s the basic plot from YA with a twist set in a unique future world that was fun to visit.  YA fans will have to try it out for themselves to determine how much they will enjoy that visit.

3 out of 5 stars

Source: Kindle copy received from author in exchange for my honest review

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Giveaway! The author is running a giveaway along with her month long blog tour.  Check out the rafflecopter for details!

 

Book Review: The Walking Dead Volume 15 by Robert Kirkman (Series, #8) (Graphic Novel)

Summary:
Everyone’s world was rocked when the zombies got through the community’s fence.  Will they respond by banding together or falling apart?

Review:
Ok, before I review, the numberings need a bit of explanation.  Comic books are issued very similarly to academic journals. So there are skinny issues that come out every few weeks (generally). A few of these bound together make a volume. A bunch of these bound together make a book (what we call in academia a “bound journal.”)  I *was* reading the books of The Walking Dead but then I caught up to the author.  I decided I didn’t want to buy issues, because they’re flimsy and you read through them very quickly, so I’m now reading the volumes.  I hope that makes some semblance of sense.  This will probably be the case throughout the rest of the series, because you have to wait a long time for the books, and I just am too impatient for that.  My reviews will then be much shorter, because a book contains a few volumes, and I am now reviewing one volume at a time.  Moving right along to the review!

This volume is basically cleaning up the mess from the action of the previous one and prepping for the action of the next one.  Classic in-between chapter.  What this volume really reminded me of is the infamous “Live together or die alone” speech by Jack in Lost.  In fact, this volume sees Rick basically trying to turn into Jack and failing miserably.  Long-time readers know I’ve never liked the guy, so personally I got a lot of schadenfreude out of seeing him be so pathetic in this volume.

That said, the survivors are definitely going for a new strategy, which will lend itself well to future fresh storylines, which any long-running series needs.

Fans of the sex will be quite happy with the developments in that area. Drama! Intrigue! Changes of partners!

Overall, it’s an enjoyable entry, if not mind-blowing, that perfectly sets things up for the next volume. Fans won’t be disappointed!

4 out of 5 stars

Source: Newbury Comics

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Previous Books in Series:
The Walking Dead, Book One (review)
The Walking Dead, Book Two (review)
The Walking Dead, Book Three (review)
The Walking Dead, Book Four (review)
The Walking Dead, Book Five (review)
The Walking Dead, Book Six (review)
The Walking Dead, Book Seven (review)

Publication Announcement: Waiting For Daybreak

Hello my lovely readers!

I am pleased to be able to say my first full-length novel, Waiting For Daybreak, is now available on Amazon!  After the first 90 days, it will also be available at Barnes and Noble and Smashwords.

What is normal?

Frieda has never felt normal. She feels every emotion too strongly and lashes out at herself in punishment. But one day when she stays home from work too depressed to get out of bed, a virus breaks out turning her neighbors into flesh-eating, brain-hungry zombies. As her survival instinct kicks in keeping her safe from the zombies, Frieda can’t help but wonder if she now counts as healthy and normal, or is she still abnormal compared to every other human being who is craving brains?

I do hope you will give it a shot.

If you have a book blog and would like to participate in the upcoming blog tour, just let me know!

*confetti*

Book Review: Warm Bodies by Isaac Marion (Audiobook narrated by Kevin Kenerly)

Summary:
R is a zombie, and he remembers nothing about his life before he was one–except that his name starts with the letter R.  He and his group of the other living dead inhabit an old abandoned airport and are ruled by the bonies.  They hunt the living not just for the food, but also for the memories that come from ingesting their brains.  It’s like a drug.  One day when he’s out on a hunt, R eats the brain of a young man who loves a young woman who is there, and R steps in to save her.  It is there that an unlikely love story begins.

Review:
Now that I have a new job I decided to stop going through the rigamarole that is finding something you actually want to read as an audiobook in the public library and subscribe to Audible, especially since I always have my kindle with me anyway.  I decided to choose audiobooks to read from the bottom of my wishlist, so everything you’ll be seeing on here (unless it was free on Audible) was put on my wishlist a long time ago.  Half the time I couldn’t remember why it wound up there.  That was the case here.  I mean; I’m assuming it was there for the zombies, but I basically had no other idea about it heading in.  This is partly why my mind was blown, so if you want a similar experience I’m telling you to go get yourself a copy right this instant!  Vamoose!  For those who need more convincing, though, please do read on.

Perhaps surprisingly, I have read zombie love stories before, so I wasn’t expecting too many new or particularly engaging ideas.  This book is overflowing with them though.  Everything from zombies getting high on other people’s memories to getting to see both the zombie and living side of the war to the concept of what the war is ultimately about to even what a zombie is was all brand-new.  And it pretty much all makes sense in the world Marion has set up and is engaging.  I could not “put the book down.”  I listened to it in every spare second I had.  Nothing went the way I predicted and yet it all made complete sense.

R is far more complex than what you’d expect from a zombie, even before his symbolic awakening.  Julie is everything you would want from a heroine.  She’s pretty, smart, and she says fuck!  She can hold her own but is still emotional and vulnerable.  She’s exactly what any artistic, strong woman would be in a zombie apocalypse.  Even the more minor characters are well-rounded, and there is the racial diversity one would expect from a zombie apocalypse in a big city.

Alas, the narration was not quite as amazing as the story.  Although Kenerly does a very good job, sometimes he fails to convey all of the emotions going on in the scenes or doesn’t switch characters quite quick enough.  Don’t get me wrong, it was very good and didn’t detract from the story at all, but I also don’t feel that it added a ton to it.

This is a book that I know I will want to read again, and I may even need to buy an ebook or print version just to do so in a whole nother way next time.  It is an engaging new look at a zombie apocalypse that reads more as a dystopia than post-apocalyptic.  Anyone who needs restored faith in the ability of humanity to fix where we’ve gone wrong should absolutely give this book a shot.

5 out of 5 stars

Source: Audible

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Book Review: Y: The Last Man: Paper Dolls by Brian K. Vaughan (Series, #7) (Graphic Novel)

Summary:
Our trifecta of heroes have successfully crossed the Pacific Ocean and are now on the seacoast of Australia.  Yorick naturally insists on looking for his long-lost girlfriend in the drug-infested city of Sydney.  Meanwhile, Dr. Mann gets wooed by the one-eyed sailor rescued from the pirate ship in the previous book.  We also learn more of Ampersand the monkey’s backstory.

Review:
It probably comes as no surprise that I am still loving this series, although I am super-grateful to have one containing so many issues to be holding up so well!  Although I’m not a big fan of the Dr. Mann being duped story, the other two more than make up for it.

Seeing Sydney torn apart by heroin provides a different scenario in this post-apocalyptic world.  We’ve seen the women fall to violence, over-monitoring, and chaos, but we haven’t seen the self-medication reaction yet.  The scenes with the women on heroin are sad and poignant.  The perfect backdrop to Yorick’s story.

Naturally as an animal lover and animal rights person I love Ampersand’s backstory.  Originally abused and destined for a research lab, his shipping got mixed up and wound up with Yorick to be trained to be a helper animal instead.  How this ties in with Dr. Mann is disturbing and the perfect set-up for the next issue.  After seeing all he’s been through, I really hope they find Ampersand the next issue!

Overall, the art and story are consistently good and in spite of being the seventh in a long series the storyline has not gotten out of hand or become dull.  This is an excellent entry that will leave fans craving more!

5 out of 5 stars

Source: Public Library

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Previous Books in Series
Y: The Last Man: Unmanned (review)
Y: The Last Man: Cycles (review)
Y: The Last Man: One Small Step (review)
Y: The Last Man: Safeword (review)
Y: The Last Man: Ring of Truth (review)
Y: The Last Man: Girl on Girl (review)

Book Review: The Walking Dead, Book Six by Robert Kirkman (Series, #6) (Graphic Novel)

Summary:
The group continues to slowly lose their collective minds, although it is quickly made evident that they haven’t gone as crazy as some groups when they find themselves stalked by living cannibals.  Toss in a preacher who failed to protect his flock and what turned out to be a pack of lies from the scientist, and it’s no wonder the group is suspicious when a couple of men approach and offer them refuge in an idyllic community just outside of DC.  They in their state of PTSD can’t stop seeing danger around every corner and don’t even realize the dangerous ones just might be themselves.

Review:
You know how they say you can always find someone in the world worse off than you?  Well, the first part of book 6 seems to be all about proving that’s true, perhaps in a way to humanize the group prior to how abundantly evident their loss of humanity is in contrast to the DC compound.  That isn’t to say I particularly enjoyed the cannibalism plot-line.  I can see its value, yes, but I also feel like we’d already seen how bad humanity can go in Woodbury, and if people are going to be eating people, that’s what you have zombies for.  So the first half of the book is kind of meh to me.

On the other hand, seeing our group in the DC compound is delicious.  I think one of the pieces of artwork in the appendix at the back explores the contrast eloquently.  Michonne is dressed up talking to a group of women at a party, but she’s hiding a sword behind her back.  The group has become so used to constantly being turned on and at war with the zombies and other survivors that they cannot relax.  Classic PTSD.  It’s fascinating to see how even Carl can recognize that they are no longer like these people who’ve been able to have downtime in the zombie war.  Anybody who understands war and trauma at all would know that these people need special care.  Even just the way they clump up and sleep all together in spite of being offered separate quarters is a symptom of PTSD, and yet the DC group makes Rick a cop.  Um….ok.  A seriously questionable choice there, but then again, the mayor of DC did used to be in politics.  And we all know how smart those types can be.  *eye-roll*

In any case, it’s obvious that this book is setting things up for a show-down between our traumatized group and the DC folks.  I’m enjoying seeing our main guys turn slowly evil, and I’m curious to see how far Kirkman is willing to take it.  That said, the first half of the book with the cannibals seemed kind of unnecessary to me.  I’d rather have seen more zombies.  Overall, it moves the plot forward, but that plot momentum is left mostly to the second half of the book.  Worthy of the series and hopefully book 7 will live up to the build-up.

4 out of 5 stars

Source: Public Library

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Previous Books in Series:
The Walking Dead, Book One (review)
The Walking Dead, Book Two (review)
The Walking Dead, Book Three (review)
The Walking Dead, Book Four (review)
The Walking Dead, Book Five (review)

Book Review: Dark Life by Kat Falls (Series, #1) (Bottom of TBR Pile Challenge)

Summary:
Ty was the first person born subsea.  His family are settlers on the bottom of the ocean, a new venture after global warming caused the Rising of the seas.  Ty loves his life subsea and hates Topside.  One day while adventuring around in the dark level of subsea, he stumbles upon a submarine and a Topside girl looking for her long-lost older brother.  Helping her challenges everything Ty believes in.

Review:
This is one of those rare YA books that gives me renewed hope for the genre.  There are no stupid love triangles. The adults are intelligent and good parents.  There are bigger worries than who you’re taking to prom.  There’s adventure but no gratuitous violence.  Romance but in a healthy way.  Basically, it’s everything you’d hope for in a YA book.  I’d gladly hand this to any teen or preteen looking for a good read and feel happy in doing so too.

The post-apocalyptic setting is unique, intelligent, well thought-out, and supported by science.  Creating a new American frontier under the ocean is delightful, and Falls draws on the American pioneer experience in cute, tongue-in-cheek ways.  For instance, the settler kids call their parents “Ma” and “Pa.”  They earn their acres by successfully farming them for 5 years (a common time-frame in the old west).  Plus, the world is different beyond subsea as well, reflecting drastic changes that would occur with such a huge change in the world.  There are people called “floaters” who live in houseboats.  Those who still live on land live in huge skyscrapers, and everyone sends their kids to boarding schools.  Perhaps most interestingly is the fact that ever since the falling of the land into the ocean the US has been under “emergency law.”  A harrowing possibility to any astute YA reader today.

Ty and Gemma are adventurous and intelligent yet still flawed in their own ways.  Gemma can be too impulsive, Ty too cautious.  This is naturally part of what makes them a good potential couple.  They balance each other.  Similarly, Ty’s parents are smart and caring, yet still capable of being wrong sometimes, even though well-intentioned.  They’re an example of the type of parent we hope most kids will have.  In contrast, Gemma is an orphan with an evil boarding school mistress to provide an adult for kid to hate.

The plot is deliciously complex and for once I actually did not guess the ending.  It left me surprised and happy simultaneously.  Falls does not take the easy way, but she also doesn’t use any lame deus ex machinas.

I feel my review is not doing this book justice.  Suffice to say it is a richly complex world she has created, filled with characters that are worthy of being looked up to but with interesting scifi elements to keep the interest level high.  I found myself never wanting to leave the subsea world and sort of wishing living subsea was an option in real life.

Overall, I recommend this to fans of YA scifi, but also to anyone with a curiosity about what it might be like to live on the bottom of the ocean as a new pioneer.

5 out of 5 stars

Source: PaperBackSwap

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Book Review: Z for Zachariah by Robert C. O’Brien (Bottom of TBR Pile Challenge)

Summary:
Sixteen-year-old Anne Burden has been living alone in her family’s farming valley ever since nuclear war left everything around the edges dead.  She’s created a quiet, calm life for herself and the animals left alive until one day she sees smoke on the horizon.  A man enters the valley in a radiation-proof suit.  At first Anne is cautious but then happy to no longer be alone.  Soon, however, the man’s sinister side starts to show.

Review:
This is a complex, thought-provoking with a surprise ending that is a bit….off-putting.

Anne Burden is a surprisingly pulled together gal for someone who just lost everyone and everything she knew to nuclear holocaust.  She has a surprising amount of faith and is accepting of her fate.  Her buddhist-like nature is admirable, but does seem a touch unrealistic.

There are many complexities in the plot that have no easy answers and keep the reader thinking.  Is the man a bad guy or has the radiation poisoning simply addled his brains?  Is it best to stay put where you are temporarily safe or take a risk and seek out other survivors?  What things are ok to do to survive and what things are not?  These deep questions, questions that have nothing to do with the school dance or which boy to choose are refreshing to see in YA.  Putting the main character into extreme situations allows O’Brien to bring up more serious life questions.  Although I don’t always agree with Anne’s decisions, I do respect her thought process.

The ending came kind of out of left field for me, and I am still dissatisfied with it.  Anne’s decision to run instead of to stay and fight is an odd choice for a YA book.  In fact the book reads very pacifistic, almost dangerously so.  Running is not always an option.  Sometimes you have to stand and fight.  Hold your ground.  Similarly, I do not believe the man would have given Anne any genuine tips on which direction to go out of sudden remorse.  It seems out of character and done simply to give a more eloquent couple of closing paragraphs.

Thus, the book is a fast-paced read with important life questions.  The main character makes some questionable decisions, though, and I am not entirely comfortable with the ultimate message it contains.  I recommend it to fans of YA or post-apocalyptic fiction capable of taking the message with a grain of salt.

4 out of 5 stars

Source: PaperBackSwap

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Book Review: The Walking Dead, Book 2 by Robert Kirkman (Series, #2) (Graphic Novel)

Summary:
The rag-tag group of survivors of the zombie apocalypse stumble upon a prison with two circles of fences just in time.  With the warm weather more zombies are active now that they’re no longer frozen.  Of course they also discover locked in the cafeteria three surviving inmates.  Attempts to make the odd mix of original survivors, inmates, and the farmers into one group might be a task too huge to overcome.  Especially when you add in a mysterious woman who arrives with two pet zombies she leads by chains.

Review:
Now that Kirkman has the post-apocalyptic zombie world firmly established, he is more free to move his characters around within it, seeing how different personalities and mores react to an entirely reordered society.  This leads to some interesting storylines, such as the May/December romance, suicide pacts, and the idea of a fresh start for the living inmates.  It does, however, also lead to some….overly dramatic speeches, let’s say.  One in particular reminded me of the infamous “Live together, die alone” speech from Lost, only this one goes, “You kill; you die!”  I had to stop reading for a minute to giggle.  The close-up of the sheriff’s overly dramatic face had me in stitches, and I”m pretty sure that wasn’t the intended reaction, lol.

That said, though, all of the drama and death and zombies is exactly what one is looking for in a zombie graphic novel.  If anything gives a writer an excuse to be overly dramatic, it’s a rag-tag bunch of survivors of the zombie apocalypse.  Death and chaos are what we’re looking for here, while also addressing survival issues like farming and people having nervous break-downs.  There’s also a creative zombie lore twist that I won’t spoil for you, but that is highly enjoyable.

Overall, Kirkman finds more stable footing in this second entry in the series.  It’s chaotic, high-speed disasters, violence, and sex.  If that’s what you look for in your graphic novels, I highly recommend this one.

4 out of 5 stars

Source: Public Library

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Previous Books in Series:
The Walking Dead, Book 1 (review)

Imminent Arrivals and TBR

Since I didn’t quite manage to finish my current read on the bus this morning (I literally had to stop in the middle of the climax.  I HATE IT WHEN THAT HAPPENS), I thought I’d do something a little bit different today.  As you all know, I use PaperBackSwap for acquiring a lot of my books.  It lets you sort your wishlist by estimated time to fulfillment, so I thought I’d share with you guys the books that are estimated to be mine shortly.

First up, I’ve been waiting for this book forever: The Forest of Hands and Teeth by Carrie Ryan.  All I really know about it is it’s a post-apocalyptic zombie story with a girl/woman/female-okay! at the center of the plot.  I love all things zombie.  Love.  They’re grotesque and fabulous and really fit my dark sense of humor to a T.  This is one of those books that will jump to the top of the TBR pile when it arrives.

Next is The Groupby Mary McCarthy.  This got added to my wishlist after reading Nymeth‘s review of it.  It’s about eight female Vassar graduates in the 1930s and the struggles they faced as women at that time.  I’m a sucker for stories about the struggles women face due simply to the fact that we’re women, and the early 1900s are a favorite time period of historical fiction for me.

Third is yet another post-apocalyptic book: Life As We Knew It by Susan Beth Pfeffer.  I can only explain my post-apocalypse obsession by pointing at my fundamentalist Christian upbringing.  Or maybe I just enjoyed the apocalypse sermons because I secretly love tales of suffering.  Take your pick.  Anywho, this one is in journal form, a format I came to love through those Dear America books back when I was in middle school.  This particular apocalypse takes the form of an asteroid hitting the moon, moving it closer to the Earth and giving us some fun Arctic weather.  I’ve heard good titterings from my fellow librarians on this one.

Ok, so I also have books in my TBR pile, so I’m going to show you guys 3 random books from there.  If there’s one you sorely want reviewed soon, tell me now!

I stumbled upon The Integral Trees by Larry Niven on PaperBackSwap’s customized homepage (it shows me recently added scifi, horror, and memoirs).  The cover caught my attention, so I checked out the description.  It’s supposed to be about a planet where humans evolved to live without gravity and live among the trees.  All other life forms also live among the trees, including the fish.  Honestly, it reminded me a lot of Wii Mario Galaxy, so there you have it.

A pretty recent arrival, I Am Not A Serial Killer by Dan Wells features an untrustworthy narrator with sociopathic tendencies who spends the book trying to convince us and himself that he’s not a serial killer.  Kind of reminds me of Dexter-lite.  I was really stoked for this the whole time it was on my wishlist, but I haven’t touched it since it arrived.  I’m not sure why.  Maybe I’d enjoy it more if it was called, Yeah, I’m a Serial Killer, Deal With It, Bitch.  As is, it just seems like the author was afraid to take it to the edge that Dexter is at.  Prove me wrong, people!

Finally, there’s Undead and Unwed by MaryJanice Davidson.  Yes, it’s yet another paranormal romance series, and I have yet to finish the two that I’m on (Demon Slayer and Sookie), but well this one seems a lot more like Shopaholic, plus it’s not in the south, which is a huge plus.  I mean, really, why must all tongue-in-cheek paranormal romance take place in the south, whereas the dull I’m-a-huge-bitch-because-I-was-wounded-as-a-child-LOOK-AT-MY-TATTOOS paranormal romance take place in the north?  Sooo dull.  So, yeah, I have high hopes for this series.

That’s it!  Please tell me what you think, my lovely readers!