Dust & Decay by Jonathan Maberry

Pub date: August 30th, 2011.

Six months have passed since the terrifying battle with Charlie Pink-eye and the Motor City Hammer in the zombie-infested mountains of the Rot & Ruin. It’s also six months since Benny Imura and Nix Riley saw something in the air that changed their lives. Now, after months of rigorous training with Benny’s zombie-hunter brother Tom, Benny and Nix are ready to leave their home forever and search for a better future. Lilah the Lost Girl and Benny’s best friend Lou Chong are going with them.

Sounds easy. Sounds wonderful. Except that everything that can go wrong does. Before they can even leave there is a shocking zombie attack in town. But as soon as they step into the Rot & Ruin they are pursued by the living dead, wild animals, insane murderers and the horrors of Gameland –where teenagers are forced to fight for their lives in the zombie pits. Worst of all…could the evil Charlie Pink-eye still be alive?

In the great Rot & Ruin everything wants to kill you. Everything…and not everyone in Benny’s small band of travelers will make it out alive. (goodreads.com)

Evul. Jonathan Maberry is an evul, evul man. Holy good mother this was such a truly awesome sequel that I'm having a hard time forming it into words.

I LOVE Maberry's zombies. Love them. They're so Romero but don't second guess them. Like any good virus, it mutates so while he sticks to the classic Romero notion of slow, shambling, unthinking zombies, there's a twist. And it's pretty terrifying.

As if you thought things couldn't get any harder for Benny and Nix and Lilah and Tom (and Chong now), you thought so wrong you need to go dunk yourself in a dunk tank. Maberry does things to his characters that only the most sadistic of gods would do to its people. And I love him for it. He stretches and bends his characters, pushing them to the brink of their own destruction, just to see what they would do. Maybe they make it out, maybe they don't. But none of them are unscathed by it. They all show the battle scars of a mental and physical war run ripshod over their persons time after time after time. And they're all the better for it. Maberry's characters are some of the deepest, most dynamic I've found in YA to date. If you don't love them, I'm going to question your integrity as a human being.

There are horrifying revelations popping up all over the book that'll have you gasping (probably literally) and just maybe screaming at the book (just watch where you do it, you don't want people to think you're too insane). Mayberry goes THERE over and over and over again. Where's THERE? Where you think he just wouldn't go with the plot, where it would be too terrifying, too gruesome to even contemplate. He goes THERE, comes back and then crosses THERE to the other side where there's unknown stuff waiting. DUST & DECAY will keep you guessing until the last page. Maberry is so willing torture the hell out of his characters that you couldn't possibly admit to yourself that he might go THERE and when he does, whether you guessed it or not, you're still shocked.

And the ending? EVUL. Had me in tears. Literally. Thankfully I was home and could weep openly without judgment (although my dog did look at me a little strangely). There's resolve yet everything shatters but at the same time life goes on. You watch as these kids slog through hardship after hardship and yet even at the end, faced with the choice of going back to something easy or pressing on to something unknown, they take the road less traveled because it's who they are, shaped by the Ruin into something they were always meant to be.

Jonathan Maberry should be dipped in gold and worshipped as the zombie god he is. Read this series. Read it now. Then read it again and again and again. It is so fantastic in so many ways that I can't even possibly name them all. I don't think the language has created a few of those descriptors yet. Just read it.

The Babysitter Murders by Janet Ruth Young

Published July 26, 2011.

Everyone has weird thoughts sometimes. But for seventeen-year-old Dani Solomon, strange thoughts have taken over her life. She loves Alex, the little boy she babysits, more than anything. But one day, she has a vision of murdering him that's so gruesome, she can't get it out of her mind. In fact, Dani's convinced that she really will kill Alex. She confesses the thoughts to keep him safe, setting off a media frenzy that makes "Dani Death" the target of an extremist vigilante group.

Through the help of an uncoventional psychiatrist, Dani begins to heal her broken mind. But will it be too late? The people of her community want justice . . . and Dani's learning that some thoughts are better left unsaid. (goodreads.com)

For the first seventy pages or so the story actually ambled along a bit slowly for my taste. After my first sitting I was wondering when the story would get to the point. For that first chunk that I read, it was just set-up for Dani but it was really schizophrenic. Not in a character sense but in a story sense. The plot was just all over the place and I was left wondering when it would all come together and I'd get to see something that resembled the blurb.

But not long after that the plot rolled over the hill and just kept tumbling down. The second Dani opened her mouth about her thoughts everything just catapulted. I was so engrossed in the plot to the point that I wanted to write an editorial to the paper in the book stating how horrible and sheep-like the townsfolk were for treating Dani the way they did.

I don't think this is a book just about OCD but I think it's about the greater lynch-mob-mentality that people have a tendency of getting. Instead of listening to reason, and seeing sense, people just hop on the bandwagon and convict of their own accord. I was truly frightened for Dani. I honestly didn't know how the story was going to end up with all of the crazy vigilante action going on.

OCD is a disabling disease and it's not always about the germs. I'm glad Young tackled the issue from a different perspective instead of going to a failsafe standard route for OCD. I don't think the kinds of thoughts that Dani has are all that abnormal. I really don't. I don't think we're all latent serial killers or anything but I do think things like murder poke at our deepest morbid curiosity. When we have these thoughts, we tend to just file them away because they are so horrifying. But what if you don't have that kind of control? What if those thoughts take up your day? Starting changing the way you act and your routine? Convince you that you're actually dangerous?

I'm not sure I understand why Dani took the approach she did and told the person she did. It didn't seem like a wise move from any vantage point. I would have liked to have seen a little more of the why behind Dani choosing the person she did to unload upon. It definitely would have cleared up some of my confusion but it definitely exacerbated her problem instead of fixing it. Gotta love those plot bunnies!

The way the story is structured it makes for a really quick read but at the same time the story will suck you in so thoroughly that you'll plow through it anyway. Young wrote it in such a way that Dani was truly sympathetic and despite everything going on around her you were rooting for her. Did she have murderous thoughts? Yes. But nothing is what it seems and you can never listen to rumors.

I loved how the most unexpected people stuck by Dani's side and those that you thought should wavered a bit. It was shocking to see people's real personalities come out in the face of something like this. It's really telling. But it made the story all the richer and realistic. It could happen. Why not? How many people are suffering from OCD on a daily basis? You don't know what anyone's thinking until they tell you. And then what would you do?

Up there in line with A BLUE SO DARK, THE BABYSITTER MURDERS is a poignant look into a mind sick with OCD and a girl's struggle to fix it. You'll get sucked in and go on Dani's bumpy, and frightening, ride with her. You'll want to root for her and hope to whatever god you believe in that she'll turn out okay. You'll probably be disgusted with the way the majority of the townsfolk reacted and maybe you'll feel like me and want to write an editorial to tell them just how crappy they are. It's a book about help and hope and it showcases that if you have the right support system, regardless of what's going on around you, you can make it through. I loved it.

Cleopatra Confesses by Carolyn Meyer

Pub date - June 7, 2011.

It is the first century B.C. Cleopatra, the third of the pharaoh's six children, is the one that her father has chosen to be the next queen of Egypt. But when King Ptolemy is forced into exile, Cleopatra is left alone to fend for herself in a palace rife with intrigue and murder. Smart, courageous, ambitious and sensuously beautiful, she possesses the charm to cause two of history's most famous leaders to fall in love with her. But as her cruel sisters plot to steal the throne, Cleopatra realizes there is only one person on whom she can rely--herself. (goodreads.com)

I chose this galley because I have a pretty deep love for all things Egypt, Cleopatra and Roman. So by default, the chances of me loving this book regardless of anything were pretty high. And I did like it. But if I didn't have all of that history love going for me from the beginning I probably wouldn't have.

It was written compellingly enough but throughout the entire book I couldn't help but feeling a step removed from Cleopatra. I felt like the story was being told from a distance, that the author didn't want to delve too deeply into Cleopatra's feelings because her true feelings weren't known. I think that hindered the story.

Her voice didn't carry much excitement or anticipation or worry or much of anything. A lot of the time I felt like I was just getting relayed information by someone playing Cleopatra. It was kind of annoying at times. A lot of this information I already knew and not all that much was done to spice it up or do much with it beyond the words on the page. It set nice scenery but that seemed to be the strongest portion of writing. Almost as if the author were afraid to delve too deeply into Cleopatra.

It's a good rehash of Cleopatra events that we already know but if you're looking for something more, more sentiment or involvement, you're not going to find it here. It's really just another notch in the Cleopatra belt. Had I not had the love of Egypt I had going in, I probably wouldn't have stuck with the book because, at times, I found it downright boring. I could have read a history text and gotten a similar result.

Read it if you love Egyptian, Cleopatran or Roman history because it'll enrich you in that arena even more. But if you don't, since there isn't much story or emotion to it, you might want to skip it at the risk of getting bored with it. I'm not sure why this was classified with YA. Maybe it has crossover appeal. But between the hoity voice and lack of emotion, I'm not sure how much it's going to appeal to a younger audience.

Wrapped by Jennifer Bradbury

Pub Date: May 24, 2011.

Agnes Wilkins is standing in front of an Egyptian mummy, about to make the first cut into the wrappings, about to unlock ancient (and not-so-ancient) history.

Maybe you think this girl is wearing a pith helmet with antique dust swirling around her.

Maybe you think she is a young Egyptologist who has arrived in Cairo on camelback.

Maybe she would like to think that too. AgnesWilkins dreams of adventures that reach beyond the garden walls, but reality for a seventeen-year-old debutante in 1815 London does not allow for camels—or dust, even. No, Agnes can only see a mummy when she is wearing a new silk gown and standing on the verdant lawns of Lord Showalter’s estate, with chaperones fussing about and strolling sitar players straining to create an exotic “atmosphere” for the first party of the season. An unwrapping.

This is the start of it all, Agnes’s debut season, the pretty girl parade that offers only ever-shrinking options: home, husband, and high society. It’s also the start of something else, because the mummy Agnes unwraps isn’t just a mummy. It’s a host for a secret that could unravel a new destiny—unleashing mystery, an international intrigue, and possibly a curse in the bargain. (goodreads.com)

With a somewhat slow start, Wrapped launched into an intriguing and on-the-edge plot that kept me hopping from one page to the next, eager to see what happens.

The beginning was filled with high talk and poofy dresses. It takes a minute to get used to the language but once you settle in, you're ready for the action to start. That doesn't happen for another couple of chapters though. First we have to flesh Agnes out, show that she's not your typical society women concerned with debuts and marrying "right." Agnes wants adventure. She wants to travel. She wants to think about something other than fabric colors.

Enter the mummy, and her noticing a boy below her station, and that's when all of her troubles begin. Agnes adopts a secret that's more than just a novelty or a dream of a far away place. It shoves her right into the middle of something that she doesn't know if she's capable of handling or not. The easiest thing for Agnes to do would be to give up.

But she doesn't. She sticks through the problems right until the end. Even when things get dangerous, even when her well-being is at stake, Agnes stands hard and tall to get the job done. And that's what I loved about her. She didn't need to be saved. She thought for herself and did her own saving. In fact, she stepped in and saved other people of the male variety. Something mighty fantastic of a girl of the time.

I will admit, though, I had a hard time swallowing the end. Just based on what I know of the era, it doesn't seem to fit. But according to the author, things like this did happen. Of course we wouldn't know about it because, well, covers would be blown, wouldn't they? I had to suspend my disbelief a little bit for that part but it was worth it.

Wrapped is exceptionally well-written and captures the voice of the time perfectly (sometimes a little too perfectly at some points that it dragged). Agnes is all the YA heroine that we could ask for and then some. Even in her floofy dresses she blows a lot of these current YA chicks straight out of the water.

I really don't have much to say about Wrapped other than if you love Egypt and Victorian-era London, you'll want to dive right into this book. It's a history lesson and a fun adventure all rolled into one. You'll be biting your nails in suspense as the plot carries on and by the end, you'll be clapping for all that happened. I thought it was great.

Stay by Deb Caletti

Published April 5, 2011.

Clara's relationship with Christian is intense from the start, and like nothing she’s ever experienced before. But what starts as devotion quickly becomes obsession, and it's almost too late before Clara realizes how far gone Christian is—and what he's willing to do to make her stay.

Now Clara has left the city—and Christian—behind. No one back home has any idea where she is, but she still struggles to shake off her fear. She knows Christian won't let her go that easily, and that no matter how far she runs, it may not be far enough.... (goodreads.com)

Go. Read. Now.

. . .

What are you waiting for? More? What do you think I'm writing here? A review? Fine.

Amazing. There really isn't much else to say about Stay. It's amazing. It takes that obsessive high school love that so many YA novels are glorifying and slaps that nasty bitch right back down into reality. Hey, that guy that wants to know your every move? Not so romantic when he calls 47 times and shows up at your local grocery store. That guy that just can't possibly live without you? Major creep factor when he's ready to break a glass over your head.

Stay is right up there with Albatross by Josie Bloss for me. I didn't feel as deep of an attachment with Stay as I did Albatross but the message is the same: obsessive relationships suck. They're not nice, they're not loving. They're downright scary.

The only issue I had with this one was Finn. Don't get me wrong. I liked Finn. I just don't like that considering what Clara was running from, she ended up taking up with another guy. I would think she'd want some kind of male space considering the last two relationships she'd come from. I wasn't a fan of the third-time's-a-charm thing that was playing in the background. Yeah, Clara told her dad she was taking it slow and I guess, compared to Christian, she was. But the time frame was really only a matter of weeks. Is she head over goo-goo heels for Finn? No. I guess I just didn't like the fact that she had no cooling off time before she was with another guy again. I would have liked to have seen her develop a friendship with Finn's sister more than Finn just because I wanted her to stand on her own instead of running into Finn's arms. Not that she had fainting spells or anything but he was somewhat of a crutch. Not a big fan.

Other than that, the story's absolutely amazing. When the shit got going my heart sped up. I was anxious when Clara was anxious and just as swimming in love as she was with Christian. Of course he seemed like such a nice guy and you don't really pick up on those subtle nuances until bigger ones start rearing their ugly heads and you can get some hindsight behind you. The story had me tearing in places, where Clara thought all was lost, thought that she had nowhere else to run, that she was out of options.

I was rooting for her the entire time. I wanted her to overcome. I wanted her to find love in all the places that she genuinely needed it. She deserved it after everything. You'll feel Clara's world come crashing down on her. Just when you thought the weight couldn't get any heavier, another anvil falls from the sky. But you'll keep pushing through, determined to see it through to the end because you know there's hope. You have it. You have to. For Clara.

If you're tired of all those romanticized obsessive romances out there that make possession a good thing, if you want some perspective from the outside looking in, if you want to have your heart ripped out of your chest only to have to glue it back together again, read Stay. It'll be worth the tears and the unknown and the potential pain. Because there's hope.

The Limit by Kristen Landon + Contest!

Published September 7, 2010.

In a world not too far removed from our own, kids are being taken away to special workhouses if their families exceed the financial debt limit imposed by the government. Thirteen-year-old Matt briefly wonders if he might be next, but he quickly dismisses the thought. After all, his parents are responsible with their spending, right? But after Matt's family unexpectedly goes over their limit, Matt's whisked away to a workhouse where far more serious dangers exist than anyone on the outside realizes - dangers that could change his reality forever. (book back blurb)

See, for me, that blurb exerts far more tension than what the story did. Yeah, the threat is there but it's kind of cartoonish and the way it's told kind of waters down the tension that could be there.

To be fair, this is more of a middle grade novel than a young adult. Just the age of the MC and the style it was written in showcases that so I'm not a prime candidate to judge this one. But I think I can still make a few comments on it.

I loved the kids in this story. I just thought each one of them so individually unique, with their own quirks that stood out so vividly on the page that I felt they were right there next to me. Matt was so real and up until the end, even Honey Lady (a nickname Matt gave her that existed, for the most part, in his head) was exceptionally real. I think that was the strongest part of this book; the characters.

The world I could believe too. I'm not sure of the greater overall motive of the government to put spending caps on people or take their children away. It's really government spending and deregulation that ultimately screws over debt but that's beside the point. It felt real to me for personal reasons I won't go into. I kept being able to put myself in Matt's shoes and I found it horrifying. When you're that young you have such faith in your parents that they're doing right and when you find out they're not infallible, it hurts. In this world it just so happens the children that have to have that realization end up paying for it. Again, I don't really get the dynamics but I'll swallow it.

The parts leading up to the workhouse were really good, grinding in tension in the background through backstory and hint-dropping. I liked it. But I think it unhinged a little bit once the workhouse came into play. I liked THE BIG REVEAL towards the end but I think the context could have been a little better. I don't want to give anything away so I'll say that the threat isn't all that present in the way it's presented. Good for trickery but, to me anyway, bad for the ultimate execution of it.

The biggest thing that threw me, though, was that every adult seemed to be suffering from Idiot Adult Syndrome. Not as common in YA (I don't think, at least not in what I've read) but much more prevalent in MG where all of the adults end up being dopes for the sake of allowing the kids to rise to the top and solve the problem. I likened it to those really obnoxious live action shows on Disney or Nickelodeon where the parents are just caricatures of what parents really are. I absolutely facepalmed a few times with some of these adults, especially towards the end. All I'll say is, to save the plot, if you're a member of SWAT and need to rely on kids to connect the dots in front of your face for you, you need to lose your job for the safety of the greater public.

I was ultimately okay with the book until the end when every adult in the story turned into a raging moron. That just aggravated me. I understand that the kids need to be the ones to solve the problem in these books but it doesn't make them look any better to plop them in a pool full of idiots. Really, it was a good story. I enjoyed it. I didn't think it carried the amount of tension it would have liked to (especially by the way of the blurb) but it was enjoyable. Just beware of idiot adults. They run rampant in The Limit.

Contest Time!!!

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Wither by Lauren DeStefano

Pub date: March 22, 2011.

What if you knew exactly when you would die?

Thanks to modern science, every human being has become a ticking genetic time bomb—males only live to age twenty-five, and females only live to age twenty. In this bleak landscape, young girls are kidnapped and forced into polygamous marriages to keep the population from dying out.

When sixteen-year-old Rhine Ellery is taken by the Gatherers to become a bride, she enters a world of wealth and privilege. Despite her husband Linden's genuine love for her, and a tenuous trust among her sister wives, Rhine has one purpose: to escape—to find her twin brother and go home.

But Rhine has more to contend with than losing her freedom. Linden's eccentric father is bent on finding an antidote to the genetic virus that is getting closer to taking his son, even if it means collecting corpses in order to test his experiments. With the help of Gabriel, a servant Rhine is growing dangerously attracted to, Rhine attempts to break free, in the limted time she has left. (goodreads.com)

I'm not a chick that falls easily into hype but sometimes it can be hard to avoid, like with this book. It seems like EVERYONE absolutely LOVES this book. I have not come across one blogger saying anything to the contrary. Of course I could be missing a few but those that I do wander across, love. I had to wade into Goodreads reviews to find black sheep like myself that found serious fundamental issues with this story on multiple levels. Did I buy into the hype initially? To an extent. Books get pimped all the time but it's not all that often that they're swayed so heavily like Wither was. So when I went to read it, my expectations were slightly higher than normal. Unfortunately the book didn't even come close to meeting them. And of course I then started to freak out a little and that's when I started looking for the less than stellar reviews. Did anyone else feel like I did about Wither? Yes. They're the minority but yes. As some asstastic random commenters on Goodreads would have it, anyone with a dissenting opinion against the overwhelming majority should just shut the hell up and keep their opinions to themselves or suffer the wrath. Sillies. Does that sound like me?

See, with dystopian fiction, you can't just insert random catastrophic, shock value events for people to live around without having a thorough understanding of how our society works today and how this current society would potentially break down under such apocalyptic situations. So when I see a statement in the ilk of 'the ice caps were vaporized long ago by warfare' with zero environmental nor humanstic repercussions for such an event, my suspension of disbelief gets punched in the face. It can only take so many hits before it just gives up. DeStefano punched my disbelief in the face. A lot.

If the elements in a dystopian world don't make sense, I just can't take the rest of the plot seriously because everything ends up disjointed. Let's take those ice caps (which is a near quote from the book, by the way). They were vaporized by warfare. Breaking that down, we would have to have weaponry that ran so hot it could vaporize Antarctica. Which holds a steady -35 degrees Celsius. Okay. Hot weapons. But if they're cataclysmic enough to do that, what about the rest of the planet? Would it not get completely annihilated? People, we'd turn into Mercury if there were weapons that could do that. Since weapons of mass destruction have not moved beyond the nuclear warhead in the 65 years it's been in existence, and this story is only set about 70 years in the future, it's relatively logical to assume that they haven't moved much beyond that. And since nukes now are capable of ass raping humanity, what this premise is saying that they've created something beyond that that have been used but people still exist. No, sorry. You can't just pick and choose which elements to remove without considering the greater repercussions of that action. And this isn't even considering the environmental impact of releasing millions of square miles of ice as vapor into the atmosphere. Guys, we'd have beach-front property in Kansas if that happened. We'd have floods of Arc proportions that would have even Noah going 'fuck this shit.'

Do you see what I mean? Since we have Rhine going from Manhattan to Florida, from that tiny statement alone my suspension of disbelief has a black eye, a bloody nose and is missing a tooth. Factor in a nonsensical virus that no one can explain yet everyone's looking for a cure to (how you can fight something you know nothing about is beyond me and how no one knows how it works after 50 years is absurd), women dying before men (when, scientifically, women outlast men, and again, this virus seems to function for no other reason than shock value), how the society has de-evolved to a Victorian polygamists' compound (despite coming from a feminist culture where women should be smart enough to hold their crotchtal regions hostage and switch control since, you know, they're the ones with the power to control the fate of procreation in their . . . nether regions), the whole of the planet has destroyed itself in viral chaos except for North American (which, upon first mention, had me going 'are you fucking kidding me?' either the author is shitting on the rest of the planet for being feral idiots that couldn't survive the virus or she's shitting on Americans for being dumb enough to believe that we're the only ones superior enough to survive this, either way it's bad), girls getting slaughtered for not being bride material (in a society where a womb is like gold, makes total sense O_o) and the kick to the nuts the author gives sensical dystopian fiction, my suspension of disbelief was pureed in a blender and drunk for breakfast.

The world failed hard. Nothing made sense and everything seemed to exist to serve the plot. DeStefano pushed aside what should have been valuable research for shock value and pretty dresses.

And then there were inconsistencies in the plot, like Rhine's desperation to leave. Yet when she's presented with perfectly valid windows of opportunity, she passes on them for one stupid reason or another. With her earthly clock winding down, you'd think time would be valuable. Waste none, right? So instead of taking the opportunity to, literally, walk away, Rhine tried to made mad dashes in the most horrible, inconvenient ways. Why? I have no idea other than to make the plot more interesting.

Linden's an idiot pedophile whose ignorance is made to actually be appealing. He doesn't know what his dad is doing. His father keeps him in the dark. Maybe he isn't so bad after all. No. He's no more ignorant of what's going on in his own damn house than the Germans were of the camps they were living next to. Sorry, guy, but you don't live in the middle of a shit pile and not smell the stink. It really bothered me how his whole situation attempted to make Rhine's blooming Stockholm syndrome justifiable and even okay. No! She was kidnapped! Her "sister wives" are being raped! This is not okay! But of course Rhine gets a free pass. In a house where Vaughn is salivating to produce loinfruit, Rhine doesn't have to get down with her pedo-husband for . . . reasons . . . I guess. She just weasels her way out of it. Or someone didn't want to write a rape scene from behind the eyes of the MC. Either or.

Any antagonist in this story is implied and insinuated but never shown. Yeah, we see Vaughn with a body in a gurney but anything outside of that window is pure conjecture. We hear gunshots but the door's closed before anything could actually be proven. The fear is spread by rumors and wild imaginations. As far as we know, there is no threat. But people's wagging jaws and out-of-context scenes keep the fear alive. We have no idea what really happens outside of Rhine's eyes. She doesn't even know what happens outside of her eyes. She just guesses.

The words on paper were good enough to get me from beginning to end. I was definitely compelled to read through to the end and find out what happened to Rhine, despite the fact that I found her to be a whiny brat without the brain she kept saying she had in Manhattan. I liked the oldest sister wife whose name escapes me right now. I found her the most dynamic, the most compelling character. But the world is written so lazily and the situations so nonsensical that I just couldn't get into it. I couldn't push the niggling back far enough to enjoy it. Sorry, but I'm science-minded and I don't like it when people fuck over science for the sake of dances and bubble baths and candies. If I can't believe the world in which these characters live, how I even begin to believe them?

In all honesty, I'd bet money on the cure for this virus being in Rhine's multi-colored eyes. It's mentioned too hard and fast in this book not to carry weight further on down the line. You don't show a gun in the first act and not have it go off in the third, you know? So I would not be surprised if Rhine lives beyond her scheduled 20 years because of some genetic mutation caused by those multi-colored eyes. Or the twin thing factors into it, or both. They both survive because they split off from the same egg, thus each carrying the same mutation to both embryos and saving both children, only one's dominant and one's recessive. The twin thing is pretty dominant in the story too, and it was mentioned that Rhine and her brother were the first non-deformed twins her parents had. But I might be thinking way too far ahead of myself here because this is all branched off of scientific accuracy, which this book spits in the face of.

When it comes down to it, remove the characters from the story and set them in ether and you have a love triangle coupled with kidnapping. It's not a "normal" love triangle where the contenders are evenly matched. One is made pretty obvious over the other here and the other two chicks are there basically for shock value. They're not competition (I guess) but they don't really serve a purpose other than to serve Rhine's plot.

Chances are you'll get sucked into it but personally, you have to turn your suspension of disbelief way up to get through it. Like I said, I was compelled to read through to the end and I liked the ending. The story could rightly end there (although we know it doesn't), it was nice and cleanly finished in a happy ending sort of way. It was nice. But the rip-my-hair out parts far exceeded anything good I found in Wither. There are far better, and far more believable, dystopians available out there that couple not only a strong (and less squick-worthy) romance but a well-built, believable world to set it in.

The Poison Eaters and Other Stories by Holly Black

Pub date: March 22, 2011.

Poisonous girls whose kisses will kill. A fateful eating contest with the devil. Faeries who return to Ironside, searching for love. A junior prom turned bacchanalia. In twelve short stories, eerie and brimming with suspense and unexpected humor, Holly Black twists thefantastical creatures you thought you knew in ways you’ll never expect. (bn.com)

I always get myself into a bit of a conundrum trying to review short story collections. Do I review each story separately or collectively? Well, each story would pose for a heinously long review and I think with this particular book, Black's voice stands out enough that I could review one lump sum without losing sight of the book as each story individually whole.

Black has a very distinct voice that I think permeates through all of her stories, regardless of context or plot. And that's not a bad thing in this case. It's poignant and telling, hitting you with each word so as to drill the story in deeper. Each story, despite its shortness, carries a weight that sits atop your shoulders for the entire book, each word hanging on you, forcing you to never forget them.

All of the stories were demented and somewhat sinister, each carrying an edge of nastiness that hung out right at the edge of black humor, poking at the line between insanely clever and just a little bit sick. 'In Vodka Veritas' is a good example of perhaps crossing that line, where with an ancient spell cast by a little club at school, all of the students at prom end up in orgiastic ecstasy before the end of it. Depending on my mood, that could broach the 'little bit sick' line more than the others.

'The Coldest Girl in Coldtown' was exquisite. I'm all for dementing vampire lore in order to make something new but there's a difference between knowing what you're doing and raping the ever-loving fuck out of it *coughsmeyercough*. Black knew what she was doing, twisted the lore just so and ripped the romanticism right out of its back, leaving it in a half-alive state in a tub filled with ice cubes and its hand taped to a phone receiver. God, I loved it so. That's not to say I don't like my romantic vampires but every once in a while the vampire fans need to be reminded of just what vampires are like. And Black was filming it all.

'The Poison Eaters,' the book's namesake, pulls no punches and does what few authors are willing to do with their darlings: kill them. Black shows no mercy, serves no plots. There is this story that no one's safe from. Everyone's at risk, everyone's a murderer and everyone's a victim and in the end everyone gets theirs. Love. Truly. Fearless writing is what I call it.

Really it's an excellent compilation of stories that'll have you salivating for more. I've never read any of Black's work outside of this book but you can damn well believe I'm going to. If the rest of her stuff is this fantastic, I'm right there hounding for it. If you're looking for fluffy and fun tinged with a hint of pink, this book isn't it. It's dark, dastardly and at times gruesome. It'll rock you right out of your comfort zone and into Black's world where nothing is sacred and everything's up for grabs. It's damn good writing is what it is and I couldn't ask for anything more. Read this. Read it now. And love it.

Cryer's Cross by Lisa McMann

Published February 8, 2011.

The community of Cryer’s Cross, Montana (population 212) is distraught when high school freshman Tiffany disappears without a trace. Already off-balance due to her OCD, 16-year-old Kendall is freaked out seeing Tiffany’s empty desk in the one-room school house, but somehow life goes on... until Kendall's boyfriend Nico also disappears, and also without a trace. Now the town is in a panic. Alone in her depression and with her OCD at an all-time high, Kendall notices something that connects Nico and Tiffany: they both sat at the same desk. She knows it's crazy, but Kendall finds herself drawn to the desk, dreaming of Nico and wondering if maybe she, too, will disappear...and whether that would be so bad. Then she begins receiving graffiti messages on the desk from someone who can only be Nico. Can he possibly be alive somewhere? Where is he? Andhow can Kendall help him? The only person who believes her is Jacian, the new guy she finds irritating...and attractive. As Kendall and Jacian grow closer, Kendall digs deeper into Nico's mysterious disappearance only to stumble upon some ugly—and deadly—local history. Kendall is about to find out just how far the townspeople will go to keep their secrets buried. (goodreads.com)

YA NEEDS MORE GOOD HORROR LIKE THIS!!!

I'm just saying. Young adult novels as a whole today have a deep void, a precipice if you will, where horror should be. And not the glittering, pussy, it-has-fangs-lets-call-it-horror type of horror either. The good horror. The horror that has you looking over your shoulder, sleeping with a nightlight or just not sleeping at all. I saw this in Cryer's Cross.

Now I have to say, my expectations for a horror novel is pretty high and while Cryer's Cross didn't hit the top, it was still up there.

Here's a story not bogged down with romance (point 1). Yeah, it's kind of there but it's not front and center and the point of the story. It proves for a good distraction but that's about it.

It relies on the creep factor (point 2). It's not about gore. It's about scaring the everloving crap out of the main character. She's not supposed to have a good time. She's supposed to be worried. She's supposed to be hearing voices. She's supposed to be pushed to the edge.

It's filled with fearless author (point 3). I haven't read McMann's other works but let me tell you, she's wearing her ovaries on the outside for this one. She is fearless with her characters. No one is safe. No one's sacred and everyone can be a victim. Love it. She's taken that security blanket you were holding on to and damn near strangled you with it. You should feel uncomfortable. You should be worrying about whether Kendall makes it out alive. You should feel insecure. Nothing is clear and everything's fair game.

It has evil history (point 4). It's the basis of so many good horror novels. The little hick town hiding a deep, dark secret and now that secret is salivating for the children of those secret keepers. It's kind of like Freddie but without the unadulterated access. History alone can be the monster in the closet. No need to have actual monsters in the story. And McMann utilizes that. Buried secrets were all she needed.

It doesn't end happily. Not really (point 5). There's always that lingering thing. The problem's solved. For now. Until the secret finds a new home and a new way to manifest. And from the looks of things, it could very well do that. This should loop you back around nicely to point 3 and feeling ill at ease.

Now, what I wish the story had was more of the dark history. I felt it was such a fleeting element in the story, brought in to serve a purpose and then brushed away. I would have been wholly happy with another 50 pages fleshing the history out a little more. As I read I kept wanting to pull it out, will it further away from the pages and into life. I felt it was always just out of reach. It was there; I could see it. But I could barely touch it. It kept slipping out of my fingers. I wanted more.

I wasn't all that convinced with Kendall's OCD though. I felt it made things a little too easy. I get the hindrance becomes a help factor with it all but I felt it played too seamlessly into the story. I like my horror a little more rugged, a little harder to earn. While I like that Kendall did suffer (as demented as that sounds), the stepping stones were placed a little too neatly for my liking. That's not to say it wasn't good. It was fantastically written but like I said, I like my horror a little rougher around the edges. A little less neat.

Please, please, PLEASE! I'm begging the authors of YA to write more horror like this. Ms. McMann, please tell me you have more creepy stories up your sleeves. I honestly can't get enough of these stories and I think there's such an excellent gap waiting to be filled with a proper creepfest. Cryer's Cross is an excellent throwback to the YA horror of yore where it was more about keeping you up at night than keeping you swooning the rest of the time. You want horror? Read Cryer's Cross. Preferably with the light on. And if you happen to have an antique school house writing desk in your home, you'll probably want to get rid of it after you finish this. You don't want it to start talking to you or anything.

Clockwork Angel by Cassandra Clare + Contest!

Pub date August 31st, 2010.

When sixteen-year-old Tessa Gray crosses the ocean to find her brother in Victorian England, something terrifying is waiting for her in London's Downworld. Kidnapped by the mysterious Dark Sisters, who are members of a secret organization called the Pandemonium Club, Tessa soon learns that she has the power to transform at will into another person. The Magister, the shadowy figure who runs the Club, will stop at nothing to claim Tessa's power for his own. Friendless and hunted, Tessa takes refuge with the Shadowhunters, warriors dedicated to ridding the world of demons. She soon finds herself fascinated by - and torn between - two best friends: James, whose fragile beauty hides a deadly secret, and Will, whose volatile moods keep everyone at arm's length. As their search draws them deep into a plot that threatens to destroy the Shadowhunters, Tessa realizes that she may need to choose between saving her brother and helping her new friends save the world . . . and that love may be the most dangerous magic of all. (book back blurb)

Potential Spoiler Alert!!!
Really, I'm going to try not to give anything away of the plot but what one sees as mundane information another may see as spoiling. This also isn't going to be a glowing review. You've been warned.

When I read City of Bones, I didn't have much issue with the story itself as I did with the writing. The text was drowning in descriptions and the plot was very derivative. I didn't read on in the series because while I was entertained by the story, I wasn't entertained enough to try and slog through Clare's writing again. I have been told that her writing does get better as the series went on but I still didn't venture.

Until Clockwork Angel. I figured by now the writing's improved enough that it isn't going to be as hard for me to get through as CoB was and if it was anything like that book, at the very least I'd be entertained.

Well, thankfully the descriptions of doom did die down substantially. The similes were kept to a minimum and they didn't slap me in the face every time I came upon one (multiple times a sentence). Having said that, the overbearing descriptions were replaced by something more awkward. Every time I did hit a simile (which, as I said, was minimal), I felt that Clare tried to find something to compare whatever it was she was comparing to to but couldn't find the words so she just settled. It's hard to explain. The similes were lackluster and, to me, read rather defeatist. Tired. I found a lot of redundant descriptions that even with a little effort could have been avoided. It was rather disheartening.

As for the overall story, it was slow. Very slow. A lot of exposition. A lot of information is learned from the characters listening in on meetings or having sit-downs or going for walks or whathaveyou. There was much by the way of talking heads and little by the way of action. Tessa was kind of getting shoved around from plot point to plot point without much will of her own. Not to say she wasn't a strong character, but instead of her moving the plot, the plot moved her. Slowly. While I found CA a faster read than CoB, I wasn't nearly as entertained and at times was rather bored with all of the eavesdropping. I get there was a lot of information to be had in this book but there are better ways to relay it.

The whole love theme talked about in the blurb is a shadow to the overall story. It's so slight that, personally, I don't think it bears mentioning in the blurb itself. As for the tearing love triangle, I didn't feel much of that either. I didn't think Tessa's "attraction" to Jem was anywhere near what I think it was to Will. By the blurb you'd think she were equally pulled to both boys. I didn't get that. But I'm sure I can see which boy she chooses by the end of the series. What girl wouldn't want to attempt to reform the asshole prick that treats her like shit? Such attractive qualities, I know. Really, there is nothing appealing about Will. He's an asshole. Yeah, he's had some bad stuff happen to him in the past (which we don't know about even as the story closes) but it doesn't make it okay for him to be a jerk to everyone. But oh, that's just Will. Blech.

The plot as a whole feels really familiar, like I've read something like it before. Really I felt the only thing that was original was the Shadowhunter deal but the more I read about their runes and all the "help" those things provide, I couldn't help but roll my eyes. A rune for opening doors. For protection. For healing. For everything you could possible need. It just seemed contrived. As for the plot: evil megalomaniac has bid for world domination, uses evil robot us-es to attempt to get it (ten points if you get that reference), wants to make confused yet super-powerful girl his wife to parasite her power, girl gets saved by superheroes, whom she teams up with to save the day. It's just . . . blah.

As for the actual clockwork angel . . . don't think you're going to find out what that is. Just don't even think about it when you start reading the book and don't try to keep guessing as the story goes along. If there is an answer, it's not in this book.

I liked a lot of the history and my favorite part was where Tessa was with the Dark Sisters. Unfortunately that was the very beginning of the book. The tension just seemed more real. I liked the mystery and the intrigue but once she's out of there, I found my mind wandering.

Overall, I was actually much more disappointed with Clockwork Angel than I was with City of Bones. The writing's nominally better albeit heinously overwritten and the story's short on action and on giant in talking heads. I see the book as being entirely exposition for what's coming in the series. Tessa gets to London. Shenanigans ensue. She now realizes what she must do. I could have lived without it but I hope it ends up in the hands of someone that'll appreciate it more than I did.

Contest Time!!!

With stipulations! I want to make sure this book gets into the hands of someone that'll read it and then spread the word about it. I don't normally limit contests like this but considering the popularity of Clockwork Angel, I don't want the copy getting sucked into oblivion, never to be seen again.

ONLY A BOOK BLOGGER CAN WIN THIS BOOK!!! Not a cake blog, a bible camp blog or a cross stitch blog. A BOOK BLOG. Yup. You heard that right. You must have a book blog to enter, at least 3 months old with an average posting rate of 2 to 3 entries per week. You will also acknowledge that you agree to review the book once you're done reading it. No time frame but the word should be spread about it. If you do not meet this criteria, do not enter. I will be verifying all entries and those that don't fit will be deleted. Other than that, fill out the form below and good luck!

New Pulse It

Simon and Schuster's new Pulse It site debuted at the beginning of last month. It includes Facebook-like qualities like friending other members, plus places to review their books. Instead of the pool of teens getting tangible copies of books, they're now releasing digital copies of two books a month to all members, giving them a set number of days to read. Sounds pretty extensive.

I was too old for Pulse It when I first found out about it and I'm not any younger now. For those of you that do use it, how do you like it? Is it a kind of smaller version of the book blogging community? Is it a good place to meet other book lovers and talk about books? Did you prefer the older Pulse It and would rather get the tangible books?

I'm genuinely interested because this whole movement of digitized reading is supposed to be really central around teens but I'm wondering if they're really just as attached to physical books as the rest of us. Speak up!