In My Mailbox (7)

In My Mailbox

Week Seven

Seeing how I was taking a break last Sunday, this week's In My Mailbox will include both weeks so it's a larger than normal.

Heist Society

Ally Carter

When Katarina Bishop was three, her parents took her to the Louvre...to case it. For her seventh birthday, Katarina and her Uncle Eddie traveled to Austria...to steal the crown jewels. When Kat turned fifteen, she planned a con of her own - scamming her way into the best boarding school in the country, determined to leave the family business behind. Unfortunately, leaving "the life" for a normal life proves harder than she'd expected.

Soon, Kat's friend and former co-conspirator, Hale, appears out of nowhere to bring her back into the world she tried so hard to escape. But he has good reason: a powerful mobster's priceless art collection has been stolen and he wants it returned. Only a master thief could have pulled off this job, and Kat's father isn't just on the suspect list, he is the list. Caught between Interpol and a far more deadly encounter, Kat's dad needs her help.

For Kat there is only one solution: track down the paintings and steal them back. So what if it's a spectacularly impossible job? She's got two weeks a teenage crew, and, hopefully, just enough talent to pull off the biggest heist in her family's (very crooked) history - and with any luck, steal her life back along the way.

First thoughts: I've picked this book up off the shelf a dozen times, debating whether or not I wanted to get it. So when I saw the library had a copy in I couldn't help myself. It sounds like an interesting plotline plus art! I'm planning on starting it this afternoon.

Uglies

Scott Westerfeld

Tally is about to turn sixteen, and she can't wait. Not for her license - for turning pretty. In Tally's world, your sixteenth birthday brings an operation that turns you from a repellent ugly into a stunningly attractive pretty and catapults you into a high-tech paradise where your only job is to have a really great time. In just a few weeks Tally will be there.

But Tally's new friend Shay isn't sure she wants to be pretty. She'd rather risk life on the outside. When Shay runs away, Tally learns about a whole new side of the pretty world - and it isn't very pretty. The authorities offer Tally the worst choice she can imagine: find her friend and turn her in, or never turn pretty at all. The choice Tally makes change her world forever.

First Thoughts: I'm honestly not sure, at this point, whether Uglies is going to get read or not. I've heard mixed things about it and I had picked it up on a whim during my last trip to the library. If you've read it (and I'm sure some of you have) let me know what you think.

A Match Made in High School

Kristin Walker

When a mandatory course forces Fiona to "try the knot" with super-jock Todd Harding, she's convinced life couldn't get any worse. Until her crush is paired with her arch-enemy (otherwise known as Todd's obscenely hot, slightly sadistic girlfriend). But that's nothing compared to her best friend's fate - a year with the very goofy, very big Johnny Mercer

A series of hilarious pranks leaves Fiona wondering: Is there something her "best friend" hasn't told her? Could there be more to Johnny Mercer than an awesome music collection? And most intriguing, could Todd Harding have a heart beneath his pretty-boy-exterior?

First Thoughts: Another library grab (I'm broke, ok?) but one I am super excited about. I heard about this book about a month ago and I've wanted to read it ever since. It sounds cute and light and fun. After reading The Forest of Hands and Teeth earlier this week, I want something more fluffy for a change. Plus the cover is really, really cute!

Moonlight Falls

Vincent Zandri

Albany, New York, is the setting of Zandri's paranoid thriller (in the Hitchcock tradition) about Richard "Dick" Moonlight, former APD detective turned private investigator/massage therapist, who believes he killed Scarlet Montana - his illicit lover and wife of his ex-boss, Chief of Detectives Jake Montana. The problem is ... Moonlight doesn't remember what happened because he’s got a small fragment of a .22 hollow point round buried inside his brain, lodge directly up against his cerebral cortex. It's the result of a botched suicide attempt four years prior to the novel’s start, and an operation to remove the bullet fragment would be too dangerous.

But the bullet causes Moonlight lots of problems, the least of which are the occasional memory loss and his rational ability to tell right from wrong...

First Thoughts: This book came in the mail this week, which I'm excited about. I won an autographed copy from Goodreads and while the book isn't what I normally go for I think it sounds ridiculously good. I'll probably bump it up on my reading list because my best friend is already trying to steal the thing from me (she had entered the contest but didn't win a copy, so now she's trying to snag mine).

Poor Little Bitch Girl

Jackie Collins

Denver Jones is a hotshot twenty-something attorney working in L.A. Carolyn Henderson is personal assistant to a powerful and very married senator in Washington with whom she is having an affair. And Annabelle Maestro - the daughter of two movie stars - has carved out a career for herself in New York as the madam of choice for discerning famous men. The three of them went to high school together in Beverly Hills, and although Denver and Carolyn have kept in touch, Annabelle is out on her own with her cocaine-addicted boyfriend, Frankie.

Then there is Bobby Santangelo Stanislopolous, the Kennedy-esque son of Lucky Santangelo and deceased Greek shipping billionaire Dimitri Stanislopolous. Bobby owns Mood, the hottest club in New York. Back in the day, he went to high school with Denver, Carolyn, and Annabelle. And he connected with all three of them. Plus, Frankie is his best friend.

When Annabelle's beautiful movie-star mother is found shot to death in the bedroom of her Beverly Hills mansion, the five of them find themselves thrown together...and secrets from the past have a way of coming back to haunt everyone.

First Thoughts: Another library book...I know, I have a problem but I've had a hold on this forever and it finally came in. Not going to lie, it was the awesome cover that attracted me to the book but the plot sounds like the perfect guilty pleasure. And as much as I love YA, sometimes I want to step away into something that's a bit more trashy.

Seeing how I was on a break, I didn't actually get much done in the world of blogging since my last post. I put up my first return review yesterday for Hex Hall. You can check it out here.

I've finished two other books: The Forest of Hands and Teeth and the third book in the Morganville Vampire series, Midnight Alley. The reviews for those should hopefully be up later this weekend.

Review: Hex Hall by Rachel Hakwins

Hex Hall

Rachel Hawkins

My Rating: ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥

Back of the Book:

Three years ago, Sophie Mercer discovered that she was a witch. It's gotten her into a few scrapes. Her non-gifted mother has been as supportive as possible, consulting Sophie's estranged father - an elusive European warlock - only when necessary. But when Sophie attracts too much human attention for a prom-night spell gone horribly wrong, it's her dad who decides her punishment: exile to Hex Hall, an isolated reform school for wayward Prodigium, a.k.a. witches, faeries, and shapeshifters.

By the end of the her first day among fellow freak-teens, Sophie has quite a scorecard: three powerful enemies who look like supermodels, a futile crush on a gorgeous warlock, a creepy tagalong ghost, and a new roommate who happens to be the most hated person and only vampire on campus. Worse, Sophie soon learns that a mysterious predator has been attacking students, and her only friend is the number-one suspect.

As a series of blood-curdling mysteries starts to converge, Sophie prepares for the biggest threat of all; an ancient secret society determined to destroy all Prodigium, especially her.

My Review:

Due to the drama of my real life since the end of last month it's been about two weeks since I've done one of these reviews, and finished Hex Hall, so bare with me as I find my sea legs again. The waters may be a bit choppy at first.

Hex Hall was one of those books that I was excited about the moment I heard of it. It's a magical school with witches, faeries and werewolves and I was a crazy Harry Potter fan back in the day. I had high expectations going into this book, especially after all the amazing reviews for it surfaced.

And this book didn't disappoint. The story revolves around Sophie, a teenage witch being raised by her muggle....sorry, human (old habits die hard)...mother. Between her mother's job and Sophie's tendency to expose her powers to humans she's been bounced from one part of the country to the next. Finally, after doing a love spell for another student that goes horribly wrong, she's sent to Hex Hall.

Which is kinda like a reform school for magical beings.

While most of the students have been sentenced there since they came into their power, Sophie is new and works well as our introduction to this world (because, despite her own powers, she had never known anyone else who wasn't human due to her warlock father's estrangement).

Hijinx, in the form of witches being drained of all their blood, occurs and it's up to Sophie to clear her vampire roommate of the charges.

There's also a subplot where Sophie learns about her own history and place in this new world, which ties in nicely.

Overall, the story works well and Sophie is an excellent character. She's not perfect, a trait I'm sure you've all figured out I look for in leads, but she has a good heart and is likable. Even when she is making a decision or two which leave you with the overwhelming urge to shake her and shock her back to her senses.

Despite the five star rating I gave it, Hex Hall isn't completely perfect. The pacing isn't even, the last 1/3 of the book feels slightly rushed in the amount of time and events occur opposed to the first 2/3's which kept a steady rhythm. I think the book would have benefited with a few extra chapters to flesh out the ending more.

But I am very much looking forward to the second in this series.

Mini-Update

So I am really sorry that I haven't been posting (or commenting) all week.

I have a Hex Hall review I need to write, plus a few others I'm almost done with. However, due to some real life situations I'm in right now, I haven't really had a chance to read this week.

Things should start going back to normal by Tuesday or Wednesday so I'll be back then with updates and posts.

I just wanted to let you all know that I'm still here and didn't abandon the blog. I just needed to take a short break while I figured some things out.

Teaser Tuesday

Hex Hall

Rachel Hawkins

"They found her in the upstairs bathroom." Elodie's voice was almost a whisper. "She was in the tub, with two holes in her neck, and almost no blood left in her body."

p. 56

Teaser Tuesday is an awesome meme brought to you should be reading. Check it out.

In My Mailbox (6)

In My Mailbox

Week Six

So this week, real-life wise, was not the most stellar for me but I did manage to get some awesome books despite everything. And nothing works better at cheering me up than a good book to snuggle up with...well okay except maybe winning the lotto. That would be pretty sweet.

But enough about me, onto the books:

Beautiful Dead
(Book 1 - Jonas)
Eden Maguire

Not alive. Not dead.
Somewhere in between lie the Beautiful Dead.

Something strange is happening in Ellerton High. Jonas, Arizona, Summer, Phoenix. All dead within a year.

Jonas Jonson is the first to die, in a motorcycle accident. But there are many unanswered questions, and the three deaths that follow are equally mysterious.

Grief-stricken Darina can't escape her heartache or visions of her dead boyfriend, Phoenix, and the others who died. And all the while, the sound of beating wings echoes inside her head...

Are the visions real? Or do the Beautiful Dead only exist in Darina's traumatized imagination?

First Thoughts: This purchase was made on a whim last weekend when I needed a book to read for a bit and wasn't able to make it back home to grab one. It had a pretty cover and the back sounds good. I did end up reading the first chapter and it's interesting so far.

Every Last One
Anna Quindlen

Mary Beth Latham is first and foremost a mother whose three teenage children come first, before her career as a landscape gardener or even her life as the wife of a doctor. Caring for her family and preserving their everyday life is paramount. An d so when one of her sons, Max, becomes depressed, Mary Beth becomes focused on him, only to be blindsided by a shocking act of violence. What happens afterward is a testament to the power of a woman's love and determination and to the invisible line of hope and healing that connects one human to another.

First Thoughts: I got this in the mail this week after winning it from goodreads. It's my first ARC and I'm a bit to excited about that. This one comes out on the 13th and I'm going to attempt to get this read and reviewed before than.

The Agency
A Spy in the House
Y.S. Lee

Orphan Mary Quinn lives on the edge. Sentenced as a thief at the age of twelve, she's rescued from the gallows by a woman posing as a prison warden. In her new home, Miss Scrimshaw's Academy for Girls, Mary acquires a singular education, fine manners and a surprising opportunity. The school is a cover for the Agency - an elite, top secret corps of female investigators with a reputation for results - and at seventeen, Mary's about to join their ranks.

With London all but paralyzed by a noxious heat wave, Mary must work fast in the guise of a lady's companion to infiltrate a rich merchant's home with hopes of tracing his missing cargo ships. But the Thorold household is full of dangerous secrets, and people are not what they seem - least of all Mary.

First Thoughts: I'm excited to read this and was thrilled to hear my hold had finally come in at the library (figuring out how to work the hold/request system at my library was the best thing to ever happen to me).

I also bought new glasses this week that I think are super cute:

Week in Review
(click cover for review)

Finally, I put up my first Month in Review. It's crazy to think I just completed my first full month blogging. :D

This awesome meme is brought to you the story siren. Check her out.

Review: Dead Until Dark by Charlaine Harris

Dead Until Dark
(A Sookie Stackhouse Novel, #1)
Charlaine Harris

My Rating: ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥

Back of the Book:

Sookie Stackhouse is a small-time cocktail waitress in a small-town Louisiana. She's quiet, keeps to herself, and doesn't get out much. Not because she's not pretty. She is. It's just that, well, Sookie has this sort of "disability." She can read minds. And that doesn't make her too dateable. And then along comes Bill. He's tall, dark, handsome - and Sookie can't hear a word he's thinking. He's exactly the type of guy she's been waiting for all her life...

But Bill has a disability of his own: He's a vampire with a bad reputation. He hangs with a seriously creepy crowd, all suspected of - big surprise - murder. And when one of Sookie's coworkers is killed, she fears she's next...

My Review:

I am sure all of you have figured out now that the vampire genre is one of my favorites and makes up a huge percentage of what I do read. So when I say that Dead Until Dark is one of my all time favorite vampire novels ever? You know I'm not messing around.

This book pretty much has everything that I want and expect from the genre: vampire politics and social structure, lots of smutty sex scenes and proper mythology of vampires not being able to come out during the day.

On top of all that it takes place in the backwoods of the South and the setting is fabulous. Charlaine Harris has this ability to just make the entire town of Bon Temps come alive and seem real in every aspect. Even the smallest characters have personalities to them and are definable. Plus I'm a little bit in love with her style of writing.

I don't want to go to much into the plot details because it is a mystery, a well-down one at that involving girl's who get "friendly" with vampires being strangled to death and raped (disturbingly in that order). The murderer isn't obvious but makes sense upon being revealed.

Finally, I used the original cover for the series here for this review and normally I am not a fan at all of TV/Movie cover changes but True Blood cover is also beautiful, imo:




If we're being completely honest here, Dead Until Dark was a book I started almost a year ago and it took an irrationally long time for me to finish it. I had originally picked it up to read on my flight out to San Diego for Comic-Con because I was a fan of True Blood and had learned that Charlaine Harris was going to be at the panel. I managed to get probably 80% of the book finished by the time I arrived in California however it got thrown into my bag and forgotten in the chaos that followed. By the time I got back home, it was lost in my bag of swag and not necessarily forgotten as much as it was misplaced. I finally ended up buying the box set of the first eight books during last year's Day After Thanksgiving Sale.

Seeing how it had been so long since I read the book, I started over (it's a bit to easy for me to confuse certain events on the show with the book because the show actually runs parallel to book in a number of cases) and it did take me a bit longer cause re-reading is never quite as quick for me as reading for the first time. But honestly? The only thing this proved to me was how much this book is worth a second read through.

A Month in Review: March 2010

A Month in Review:
March 2010

Happy April 1st, everyone! It's a shiny new month and I have a nice stack of books to the left of me that I'll be reading and reviewing. But before I get to that I figured I'd do a recap of all the reviews I did for my first full month blogging!

Review: The Dead Girl's Dance by Rachel Caine

The Dead Girl's Dance
(The Morganville Vampires - Book Two)
Rachel Caine

My Rating: ♥♥♥♥♥

Description:

Claire has her share of challenges. Like being a genius in a school that favors beauty over brains; homicidal girls in her dorm, and finding out that her college town is overrun with the living dead. On the up side, she has a new boyfriend with a vampire-hunting dad. But when a local fraternity throws the Dead Girls' Dance, hell is really going to break loose.

My Review:

I'm just going to start this review by coming out and admitting that by the time I finished the second book in the series I had completely and utterly fallen in love with The Morganville Vampires.

It's violent, dark and doesn't butcher the vampire mythology like so many other books and series do in this genre. In a lot of ways it also reminds me of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, not that they're vampire ~slayers~ but the political elements of the things that go bump in the night and the scooby-gang feel to Claire, Eve, Shawn and Michael's little group.

Despite the summary, and the title, this book actually has very little to do with the Dead Girl's dance hosted by the EEK frat. Claire's invited at the start of the book and the actual party only makes up less than two chapters and isn't exactly relevant to the main plot.

Which is Shawn's vampire slaying father showing up in town, which ultimately causes Shawn to get blamed for a vampire murder and sentenced to death by fire. We get filled in on Shawn's time outside of Morganville and what happened to his mother along with growth within his relationship with Claire.

The relationship between Shawn and Claire also continues to be one of my favorite elements of the series. They're slowly making their way to being one of my favorite couples in the ya genre. It's not 'omg-most-realistic-romance-ever!' but it doesn't sugarcoat the issues they have (especially with her jailbait status and the fact they want to have sex, yay for teens having hormones).

Like I mentioned earlier, the book also continues to be violent and dark. Which is obviously not everyone's cup of tea but I love it. I just personally believe any book that involves monsters should include at least some senseless blood and gore. I'm old fashioned like that.

I also like the fact that the book doesn't present a black-and-white depiction of who is good and who is evil. There are human's in the book who do evil things, for no real reason. Along with vampire's actions and morals, for a lack of a better word. For example, in terms of contracts the vampires have human's sign that make them their slaves? It's pointed out that most of them come from a time where "owning" slaves or you servants was extremely common. It doesn't make it right, but it weakens the wrong or evil element.

In conclusion: I'm in love with this book and it was a improvement over Glass Houses. I'm looking forward to the third book in the series.

If you want to read my review for the first book in the series, Glass Houses, click here.

Teaser Tuesday

Pride and Prejudice and Zombies
Jane Austin and Seth Grahame-Smith

The limbs broke off, and the unmentionable fell to the ground, helpless. She retrieved her dagger and beheaded the last of her opponents, lifting its head by the hair and letting her battle cry be known for a mile in every direction.

Teaser Tuesday is an awesome meme by Should be Reading. Check it out.

Let's Try This Again...Pretty New Layout, Possible Contest and Place to Get Books!

So I have a new layout, which is beautiful and amazing. Apparently it wasn't letting people comment but I seem to have fixed that by just using the pop up feature. So if someone wants to be a doll and comment here to insure that it's working right I'd love you.

Also, I am currently at 40 follows which is awesome. When I hit 50 I'm pretty sure I'm going to have a contest to celebrate :D We'll see how that pans out.

Finally, I saw a post a few days ago that listed places online and such to get books in order to review. Sadly I lost the link :(. And someone mentioned netgalley, which seems like an awesome site but I'm hesitant to use it because it says you need to be a professional and sadly I am not. Anyone know anything about it? Or similar sites?

In My Mailbox (5)

In My Mailbox
Week Five

I'm doing this a few days early, again, because I picked up some weekend shifts at work and I'm not entirely sure how much I'll be around this weekend. I wasn't actually planning on picking up any books this week because working this much overtime has seriously impacted my reading time so I'm way behind on my 'to-read' pile.

However, two of my holds from the library finally became available and I couldn't stop myself from picking them.

Pride and Prejudice and Zombies
Jane Austen and Seth Grahame-Smith

"It is a truth universally acknowledged that a zombie in possession of brains must be in want of more brains."

So begins Pride and Prejudice and Zombies, an expanded edition of beloved Jane Austen novel featuring all-new scenes of bone-crunching zombie mayhem. As our story opens, a mysterious plague has fallen upon the quiet English village of Meryton - and the dead are returning to life! Feisty heroine Elizabeth Bennet is determined to wipe out the zombie menace, but she's soon distracted by the arrival of the haughty and arrogant Mr. Darcy. What ensues is a delightful comedy of manners with plenty of civilized sparring between the two young lovers - and even more violent sparring on the blood-soaked battlefield. Can Elizabeth vanquish the spawn of Satan? And overcome the social prejudices of the class-conscious landed gentry? Complete with romance, heartbreak, swordfights, cannibalism, and thousands of rotting corpses, Pride and Prejudice and Zombies transforms a masterpiece of world literature into something you'd actually want to read.

First thoughts: I'm only about thirty pages into this but I'm really enjoying it so far. Pride and Prejudice has always had a special place in my heart so I'm loving this "version" of it. I've read the original so it's also interesting to see how he worked in the zombie elements.

Hex Hall

Rachel Hawkins

Three years ago, Sophie Mercer discovered that she was a witch. It's gotten her into a few scrapes. Her non-gifted mother has been as supportive as possible, consulting Sophie's estranged father - an elusive European warlock - only when necessary. But when Sophie attracts too much human attention for a prom-night spell gone horribly wrong, it's her dad who decides her punishment: exile to Hex Hall, an isolated reform school for wayward Prodigium, a.k.a. witches, faeries, and shapeshifters.

By the end of the her first day among fellow freak-teens, Sophie has quite a scorecard: three powerful enemies who look like supermodels, a futile crush on a gorgeous warlock, a creepy tagalong ghost, and a new roommate who happens to be the most hated person and only vampire on campus. Worse, Sophie soon learns that a mysterious predator has been attacking students, and her only friend is the number-one suspect.

As a series of blood-curdling mysteries starts to converge, Sophie prepares for the biggest threat of all; an ancient secret society determined to destroy all Prodigium, especially her.

First thoughts: sdfkjaskldf <- For real, I did a happy dance when I got the notice this book had arrived. I was expecting it to take a lot longer to get to my local library than it did. It's pretty much taking everything in me to finish the two books I already started (or at least one) before I start on it...and knowing me, I'll probably cave by tomorrow night.

This Weeks Reviews
(click book cover for review)

Apparently last weeks theme was covers with legs.

I also posted the super-short teaser from ABC Family for Pretty Little Liars, cause y'all know how much I adore that series. You want watch it here.

In My Mailbox is an awesome weekly meme hosted by The Story Siren so check it out.

Trailer: Pretty Little Liars TV Promo

I'm a firm believer that books will always be superior to whatever movie or show they're made into but I'm really excited to see this show.

Pretty Little Liars is easily one of my favorite ya series so definitely going to be tuning in for this.

Review: The Dark Divine by Bree Despain

The Dark Divine
Bree Despain

My Rating:

Back of the Book:

A Prodigal Son.

A Dangerous Love.

A Deadly Secret.

Grace Divine - daughter of the local pastor - always knew something terrible happened the night Daniel Kallbi disappeared and her brother Jude came home covered in his own blood.

Now that Daniel's returned, Grace must choose between her growing attraction to him and her loyalty to her brother.

As Grace gets closer to Daniel, she learns the truth about that mysterious night and how to save the ones she loves, but it might cost her the one thing she cherishes the most: her soul.

My Review:

The Dark Divine, for me, is like that movie everyone you know has seen and is raving about. It's amazing, epic, etc. Even your granny dragged herself into the theaters to check it out. Only, it doesn't really appeal to you and the trailer is kinda blah but when it comes out on DVD you rent it just to see what everyone is talking about.

And you kinda end up loving it.

I went into this book with very little knowledge of it, other than the main character was a pastor's daughter and it had a theme of forgiveness. I know that normally this is the part where I recap the story but I'm not going to with The Dark Divine because part of the appeal is watching it all unravel as the story goes on. It's done beautifully.

I'd be lying if I said Grace was my favorite female lead character but she wasn't annoying and did experience some nice character growth. I ended up really loving Daniel and really wish the book had focused a bit more on his life during the time he was gone and what he had fallen into to. It's implied but for the most part brushed over fairly quickly.

I was unsure of the religious theme in the book, with the belief that it may come off preachy. I've never been keen on Christian fiction, and while this doesn't fall into that category, it was one of the reasons it hadn't originally appealed to me. However, the religious elements worked well within the story. I ended up really liking Grace's father as well.

The book, however, wasn't perfect. I read the vast majority of it this weekend. For the first third of the book it was almost impossible for me to put down (which kind of sucked because I was filling in for some extra money and kept having to put the book down to help customers). However, the ending didn't have the effect on me.

I actually had to force myself to pick up the book and finish the last fifty or so pages because it was due back at the library. I'm not saying the ending was bad, it wasn't. It just wasn't up to par with the rest of the book and I think it came off to rushed.

Which is why I am giving the book a high four stars. It's definitely worth reading, just make sure you have a lot of free time before you start.

Teaser Tuesday

The Dark Divine
Bree Despain

I still hated the way he'd made me want to forget - even for a moment - who I was.

How could I help Daniel find his way, without losing mine?

p. 93

Join the fun over at Should Be Reading.

Review: You Are So Undead to Me by Stacey Jay

You Are So Undead to Me
Stacey Jay

My Rating:

Description:

Megan Berry is a Zombie Settler by birth, which mean she's a part-time shrink to a whole bunch of semi-dead people with killer issues. All Megan really wants is to go to homecoming, but when you're trailed by a bunch of slobbering corpses whenever you leave the house, it's kinda hard to score a date. Let's just say Megan's love life could use some major resuscitation.

Megan's convinced her life can't get any worse - until someone in school starts using black magic to turn average, angsty Undead into scary, hardcore flesh-eating Zombies. Now it's up to Megan to stop the Zombie apocalypse. Her life - and more importantly the homecoming dance - depends on it.

My Review:

You Are So Undead to Me is one of those books I really wanted to love. And, in a lot of ways, I did. It has Zombies, a "chosen" one and secret organizations that protect us from the things that go bump in the night.

And it kinda reminds me of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, which has my undying love. And not just cause the cover is playing off the movie poster.




I liked Megan. She was slightly shallow and made some bad choices but she comes off as normal teenage girl who just wants to get on the dance team and have a hot date to the Homecoming Dance. And Ethan work well as the older love interest.

I also kind of loved the fact that the zombies came to her to talk about their last wishes. It was an interesting take. However, I was disappointed that this never took off or was the focus of anything. We had a girl who was murdered by her sister and that was dropped right after the scene and never mentioned again.

And, don't read this paragraph if you don't want spoilers....look away now, I was definitely not keen on the fact that the evil villains in this book turned out to be a lesbian couple. Which ok, is petty but lgbt characters aren't all that common so it saddens me how frequently they do get the role of psycho who is going to kill everyone. The book and ending would have worked well without that fact, in all honesty.

So I'm stuck with giving this book a very low four stars. I will probably check out the sequel and see where they're going with this. Plus...you know...zombies.

Note: Sorry for the short review. I'm working overtime, so I'm a bit drained. I may go back and add more later.

In My Mailbox (4)

In My Mailbox
Week Four

It's been kind of a slow week for me, I worked overtime which made it pretty much impossible to hit up the library or bookstore for some casual browsing. However, I did manage to borrow these:

Glass Houses
(The Morganville Vampires, Book One)
Rachel Caine

College should be an exciting time, but for brainy 16-year-old Claire Danvers that's too mild a word. Due to advanced placement, Claire can start college early, but her parents refuse to allow her to go to the distant Ivy League school of her dreams. She goes to Texas Prairie University where she is tormented by the popular girls—but that's the least of her worries. Morganville, home of the university, is also home to vampires and vampire hunters. Claire finds protection from the horrors of the town in the Glass House with three fellow outcasts, Goth girl Eve, rebellious Shane, and Michael, who disappears during the day. Claire falls for Shane and would do anything to protect her friends, including facing down bloodthirsty vampires and dangerous bikers. (from bn.com)

The Dead Girl's Dance
(The Morganville Vampires, Book Two)
Rachel Caine

Claire has her share of challenges. Like being a genius in a school that favors beauty over brains; homicidal girls in her dorm, and finding out that her college town is overrun with the living dead. On the up side, she has a new boyfriend with a vampire-hunting dad. But when a local fraternity throws the Dead Girls' Dance, hell is really going to break loose.

Because of my crazy schedule this week I was only able to get Glass Houses reviewed (which you can read here). However, I've finished You Are So Undead to Me last night and the review for that should be up later tonight.

In My Mailbox is an awesome meme hosted over at The Story Siren. Go check it out (and if you found your way here, feel free to click that 'follow' button your right to make my dad).

Review: Glass Houses by Rachel Cain

Glass Houses
(The Morganville Vampires, Book One)
Rachel Cain

My Rating:

Description:

College should be an exciting time, but for brainy 16-year-old Claire Danvers that's too mild a word. Due to advanced placement, Claire can start college early, but her parents refuse to allow her to go to the distant Ivy League school of her dreams. She goes to Texas Prairie University where she is tormented by the popular girls—but that's the least of her worries. Morganville, home of the university, is also home to vampires and vampire hunters. Claire finds protection from the horrors of the town in the Glass House with three fellow outcasts, Goth girl Eve, rebellious Shane, and Michael, who disappears during the day. Claire falls for Shane and would do anything to protect her friends, including facing down bloodthirsty vampires and dangerous bikers. (from bn.com)

My Review:

Glass Houses was one of those books that, for the first third of it, I didn't think I was going to like it. I was lining up flaws and issues that I could foresee coming in the story and character plot lines. However, I ended up surprised by how everything eventually just started clicking together and how it all worked.

The cliff's note of the version of the story is sixteen year old Claire is attending university in the small, Texas town of Morganville. She's a genius with dreams of Ivy league but her parents wanted her to stay close to home. However, their plan to protect their daughter doesn't really work out all that well because the popular girls have taken to harassing her. This ends up escalating to a point where they push her down the stairs in their dorm and threaten her life. Fearing for safety, Claire seeks out other living arrangements which is ultimately how she ends up being roommates with 18 and 19 year old's Eve, Shane and Michael in the glass house. Eve's a goth girl who works at Common Grounds, the local coffee joint. Shane's a slacker with a pretty face. And Michael? He's a musician that never leaves the house and sleeps all day. The three hometown teens introduced Claire to the real side of Morganville, where not only are vampires real but they rule the town. And Claire finds herself on the vampires' bad side very quickly and it's going to take the four of them to get her out of this alive.

I kinda sorta really love this book because, with the flooding of the YA genre with vampire books that take huge liberties with the mythology, the Morganville vamps are extremely traditional. They need to drink blood to stay alive, they can't come out in the daylight, you need to invite them in for them to gain access to your house, garlic is a big no-no, etc. You don't understand how utterly happy this made me.

Also Cain does a great job explaining how it is the vampires can exist, known to the general public in the town, without making it feel forced. There is a logic behind it, how it's just part of life there.

Like I said earlier, I was unsure of this book at the start. One of my biggest issues going into it was the discovery that Claire was sixteen, despite being in college (not something I was aware of, due to the college element I was expecting the female lead to be of age). I figured this would either highly limit the character or force it to become extremely unrealistic. With the rest of the cast 18 or 19 year olds I figured we wouldn't get a real romantic interest for her along with the nagging realization that her parents are nowhere to be seen.

And I actually ended up loving the fact that Claire was younger. In a lot of ways it shows in her character, she may be a genius when it comes to school stuff but she is a bit naive in the workings of the world. It also explains, to an extent, why the other three are so protective of her opposed to her simply being a victim (and their is some lovely character growth on Claire's part throughout the book). Not to mention, upon moving into the glass house Michael brings up the fact that having a minor living with them could get him and Shane into a lot of trouble. And when her parents show up, they act like parents. It's refreshing the age thing wasn't just forgotten within a few pages and it was reflective in the storyline.

And ultimately, yes, it does add a nice element to the relationship between Shane and her. Which, by the way, I absolutely adore. It was played out absolutely lovely. There is a lot of subtly to the interaction between the two and the foundation has been built before you even realize it's happening.

Warning: the book does end with a cliffhanger so make sure you have the second on hand. But this is so worth the read. The only reason this baby didn't earn five stars is because the first third of the book did start off rather slow, in my opinion. Here's hoping the second book can keep this up.