City of Glass by Cassandra Clare

#3 in The Mortal Instrument series
Published in 2009 by Margaret K. McElderry Books
2 Stars

Goodreads Review
To save her mother's life, Clary must travel to the City of Glass, the ancestral home of the Shadowhunters - never mind that entering the city without permission is against the Law, and breaking the Law could mean death. To make things worse, she learns that Jace does not want her there, and Simon has been thrown in prison by the Shadowhunters, who are deeply suspicious of a vampire who can withstand sunlight.

As Clary uncovers more about her family's past, she finds an ally in mysterious Shadowhunter Sebastian. With Valentine mustering the full force of his power to destroy all Shadowhunters forever, their only chance to defeat him is to fight alongside their eternal enemies. But can Downworlders and Shadowhunters put aside their hatred to work together? While Jace realizes exactly how much he's willing to risk for Clary, can she harness her newfound powers to help save the Glass City - whatever the cost?

Love is a mortal sin and the secrets of the past prove deadly as Clary and Jace face down Valentine in the final installment of the New York Times bestselling trilogy The Mortal Instruments.

Review:  City of Glass my be the most frustrating book of the entire series.  There are so many cool ideas in this novel, but it's like the interesting aspects of the world building and plot were rushed or pushed to the side so we could get to the stupid angst and drama going on with Clary and Jace.  And there is a lot of drama, but sadly not much else.

My biggest complaint with City of Glass is the writing style and choices.  A lot of the plot developments (what happened to the wizard Ragnor Fell, what happened with Clary's mother, what happened with Isabel and Max, ect.) happened "off screen".  Clary wouldn't be present for the actual event, she would just be told about it later.  There is a lot of truth to the "show don't tell" style of writing and we do not get shown much.  I also have to point out the horrific overuse of similes in this novel (and in Clare's writing in general).  Now, I'm not inherently against similes, when they make sense.  But when you start comparing every single characteristic a person or building or event has to something else seems just lazy to me.  My personal favorite, "There was a crash—the sound of shattering—and a sudden spray of broken glass like a shower of jagged stars."  What does that even mean? 

I found the plot to be very predictable (in fact I was predicting the events of this book at the end of City of Bones) and the amout of drama and angst surrounding this very obvious plot made me roll my eyes and shake my head a lot.  And it's just so disappointing because there really are a lot of cool ideas in this novel that I don't really want to to mention specifically because I don't want to spoil, but they are all so clouded by Clary's inner monologue stuck on her Jace obsession that it's just painful. 

Let's talk really quickly about the ending (no spoilers, promise!)  The final battle is just a huge disappointment.  After being stuck for over five chapters waiting around for the battle to begin, it barely lasts 5 pages!  I want some bloody action!  And the resolution with Valentine was a huge let down.  The whole ending was so anti-climactic and then everything is wrapped up in one convenient little bow.  I hate endings like that, I like it when character are actually affected by the events of the novel and they don't come out perfectly squeaky clean (ie Mockingjay). 

I honestly just don't get what people see in this series.  I think The Moral Instruments is a weak collection of fantasy tropes that are done much better in other series such as Harry Potter, Star Wars, and Buffy the Vampire Slayer. 

Beastly by Alex Flinn

Published in 2007 by HarperTeen
2 Stars

Goodreads Review
I am a beast.

A beast. Not quite wolf or bear, gorilla or dog but a horrible new creature who walks upright--a creature with fangs and claws and hair springing from every pore. I am a monster.

You think I'm talking fairy tales? No way. The place is New York City. The time is now. It's no deformity, no disease. And I'll stay this way forever--ruined--unless I can break the spell.

Yes, the spell, the one the witch in my English class cast on me. Why did she turn me into a beast who hides by day and prowls by night? I'll tell you. I'll tell you how I used to be Kyle Kingsbury, the guy you wished you were, with money, perfect looks, and the perfect life. And then, I'll tell you how I became perfectly . . . beastly.

Review:  I picked up a copy of Beastly because I surprisingly enjoyed the movie (starring Vanessa Hudgens and Alex Pettyfer) and I wanted to see what the novel was all about.  I thought Beastly was ok, and was actually enjoying it despite the incredibly cheesy writing and the fact that Beastly sticks closely to the Disney version of Beauty and the Beast and not the classic fairytale.    However, it all went downhill when I got to the ending.

The writing in Beastly is just very safe.  While this is set in "modern day" New York (I use the term modern lightly because the pop culture and technology in Beastly is already vastly dated) Beastly doesn't do much else to deviate from the original fairy tale.  There are no risks or interesting interpretations of the moral of the story, it's the Disney movie in New York.  No more no less.

What really bothered me was how Beastly seemed to miss the whole message of the original fairytale.  The whole point of Beauty and the Beast is to show that inner beauty is more important than outer, but at the end of the book Lindy and Kyle/Adrian are still worrying about each others looks. It's like they learned nothing from Kendra's spell.

Overall Beastly is a very simplified re-telling that doesn't go too deep and keeps the writing and themes very surface level, almost to a fault.  This would be a good book for young readers, but I wouldn't recommend it for anyone looking for a challenge or an exploration into the true meaning of beauty.

City of Ashes by Cassandra Clare

#2 in The Mortal Instrument series
Published in 2008 by Margaret K. McElderry Books
2 Stars

Goodreads Review
Clary Fray just wishes that her life would go back to normal. But what's normal when you're a demon-slaying Shadowhunter, your mother is in a magically induced coma, and you can suddenly see Downworlders like werewolves, vampires, and faeries? If Clary left the world of the Shadowhunters behind, it would mean more time with her best friend, Simon, who's becoming more than a friend. But the Shadowhunting world isn't ready to let her go — especially her handsome, infuriating, newfound brother, Jace. And Clary's only chance to help her mother is to track down rogue Shadowhunter Valentine, who is probably insane, certainly evil — and also her father.

To complicate matters, someone in New York City is murdering Downworlder children. Is Valentine behind the killings — and if he is, what is he trying to do? When the second of the Mortal Instruments, the Soul-Sword, is stolen, the terrifying Inquisitor arrives to investigate and zooms right in on Jace. How can Clary stop Valentine if Jace is willing to betray everything he believes in to help their father?

In this breathtaking sequel to City of Bones, Cassandra Clare lures her readers back into the dark grip of New York City's Downworld, where love is never safe and power becomes the deadliest temptation.

Review:  Ugh this book.  It's really bad you guys.  The characters are boring or stupid, the plot is a scattered mess, and the writing is full of really bad descriptions and terribly lame jokes.  It's just not good.  The only reason I didn't give this a 1 star is because the ending was moderately interesting and City of Ashes didn't fill me with blinding rage like my other 1 star reviews.  I think the best way to review City of Ashes is to talk about the characters, because there really isn't much plot to speak of.

Let's start with Clary and Jace.  They sends shivers of disgust down my spine.  Seriously, every time I read anything with Clary and Jace together I felt like I needed to take a shower.  With a Brillo pad. and some bleach.  I don't get squicked out by many things, but incest is one of them.  I honestly feel like this whole brother/sister thing isn't true and is just added in for some tension that will be revealed later to not be true when it's inconvenient. 

Simon.  He pissed me off so bad at the beginning of this book.  Look, just because you're a "nice guy" doesn't mean your girl "friend" has to like you back or should consent to your advances!  Like seriously, if the only reason you're being nice to a girl is because you think she'll one day wake up and realize she's been in love with you the whole time, you're not a very nice guy! 

***spoilers but I have to rant*** 

When Simon all of a sudden was a vampire I was seriously just like whaaa??  That came out of left field!  They like leave the Seelie court and Simon storms off then it literally cuts to him being almost dead and changing.  We don't get any kind of transition, it was just like Simon's a vampire now ok?

The Inquisitor is totally the Dolores Umbridge of The Mortal Instruments.  She basically exists to get in the way and to be as antagonistic as possible without any reason (ok we kind of get a reason at the end of the book, but in my opinion it's not justified.  How did this person get elected to such an important position if they're unable to be rational or objective?  SMH)

Other random thoughts:

• The faeries in this are rather weak.  Seriously, the biggest mischief you can get up to is forcing a brother and sister to kiss?  Boring!
• The snark that I enjoyed in City of Bones is completely gone.  These characters do not sound like teenagers, they just sound lame.
• Magnus has that creepy I'm-a-900-year-old-supernatural-being-who-creeps-on-18-year-old-mortals vibe going on *cough*Edward Cullen stalker*cough*  (Seriously though, I feel like Clare put Alec and Magnus together because she can't bare to have one of her characters be single.  They so do not work together, they are awkward and in my opinion it really drags down Magnus's character, who could be really awesome if Clare let him).
• Clary is such a special snowflake.  I really hate how her special rune power seems to have no limitations. 
• I had to get through 75% of this book (roughly 340 pages) for anything interesting to happen and to really see any development in the main story arc.  That is not good friends.  Not good.

So yeah.  To say I was not impressed was an understatement.  At this point I'm only reading this series so I can know what other people are talking about and because I own most of these so I might as well read them before I get rid of them.

Blog Tour: Hysteria by Megan Miranda

Hello everyone and welcome to the Triple Threat Blog Tour hosted by Bloomsbury! This stop is my review for the newly released sophomore album, Hysteria by Megan Miranda.

Published February 5th by Walker Childrens
egalley provided by for review from netgalley
2 Stars

Goodreads Review
Mallory killed her boyfriend, Brian. She can't remember the details of that night but everyone knows it was self-defense, so she isn't charged. But Mallory still feels Brian's presence in her life. Is it all in her head? Or is it something more? In desperate need of a fresh start, Mallory is sent to Monroe, a fancy prep school where no one knows her . . . or anything about her past.But the feeling follows her, as do her secrets. Then, one of her new classmates turns up dead. As suspicion falls on Mallory, she must find a way to remember the details of both deadly nights so she can prove her innocence-to herself and others. In another riveting tale of life and death, Megan Miranda's masterful storytelling brings readers along for a ride to the edge of sanity and back again.

Review:  I really enjoyed Megan Miranda's debut novel, Fracture, and I was really looking forward to her sophomore novel Hysteria.  I thought the premise of this book was really great, but the execution was really lacking and sometimes just confusing.

While I liked the mystery surrounding the murder of Mallory's boyfriend, I found the reaction of her parents to be completely unbelievable.  I just can't believe that only a few months after being attacked and forced to kill her boyfriend in self defense that Mallory's parents would send her to boarding school alone.  Girl needs therapy, not being sent away from everyone who loves her.  No I'm sorry, but that is ignorant at best and in my opinion down right negligent.  I have a really hard time believing that her parents would just ship her off, regardless of the social stigma in their home town.

And let's talk for a minute about the whole boarding school plot.  (Without spoilers)  It just did not work for me.  All of the girl characters felt basically the same and I had a really hard time telling them apart.  I felt like their motivations for their actions were really unsupported, especially later in the book where things got so melodramatic it almost turned to comedy.  I thought it was a useless plot device that would have work just as well (or better) if we could have just stayed in her home town.

Then there's the actual murder "mystery".  There's really no mystery at all.  We find out at the very beginning that Mallory murdered her boyfriend.  Without spoiling the story let me just say that there really isn't anything more to this story and there is no twist at the end.  I was really disappointed with the lack of actual mystery. 

I really didn't understand Reid's character either.  Why did he even like Mallory?  Maybe he liked her when they were 14, but that was years ago and a lot has changed.  Also, did he know about her murdering her ex?  I feel like that would be something you would hear about and if I were Reid I would not be in a hurry to start a relationship with someone with such a bad track record. 

Really the only good thing about Hysteria and the only reason this didn't get a one star was Mallory and Colleen's friendship.  They were there for each other, willing to literally carry them when the other was too weak to walk.  I love reading about girls who are friends with other girls who support and are loyal to each other.  Those types of relationships are really important to YA literature and I thought Colleen and Mallory were great friends.

Overall Hysteria was a great premise that was not presented well.  It was like a collection of great ideas with no connecting plot to tie it all together.  There was so much potential for something great, but sadly Hysteria just did not deliver.

Harbinger by Sara Wilson Etienne

Published February 2, 2012 by G.P. Putnam's Sons
2 stars

Goodreads Review
Girl, Interrupted meets Beautiful Creatures in this fast-paced thriller

When sixteen-year-old Faye arrives at Holbrook Academy, she doesn't expect to find herself exactly where she needs to be. After years of strange waking visions and nightmares, her only comfort the bones of dead animals, Faye is afraid she's going crazy. Fast.

But her first night at Holbrook, she feels strangely connected to the school and the island it sits on, like she's come home. She's even made her first real friends, but odd things keep happening to them. Every morning they wake on the floors of their dorm rooms with their hands stained red.

Faye knows she's the reason, but what does it all mean? The handsome Kel tries to help her unravel the mystery, but Faye is certain she can't trust him; in fact, he may be trying to kill her - and the rest of the world too.

Rich, compelling writing will keep the pages turning in this riveting and tautly told psychological thriller.

Review:  Harbinger had a lot of things going on.  I mean a LOT.  There were elements that were dystopian, paranormal, psychological thriller, or romance.  Unfortunately these ideas were not strung together well and gave Harbinger a disorderly and confusing plot.

Harbinger is set in a post apocalyptic type world, but because Faye is secluded in an institution type place, we only get hints at the dystopian world around her.  This would be ok if the action was only in Holbrook Academy, but the story eventually stretches to a world wide problem.  Because of the scope of the issues presented by the end of the book I really needed more information about the current government and social structure.  We just don't get enough information about what went wrong and what changed from today to bring the world to such a drastic situation.  I felt like there was a lot of interesting things there, but it was treated as common knowledge, which in a made up world doesn't really work.  Honestly I would have just shifted the setting to today's world because the story is about what is happening at the academy and all of this post apocalyptic stuff was just distracting.

I also found the characters to be really confusing.  There's some really unfortunate insta-love with Faye and this guy she meets named Kel.  It's that common trope of two people instantly knowing they are super special snowflakes the first time they meet.  I really don't like relationships like that in books, I much prefer the slow burn of a relationship that takes a whole book to develop.  I find the payoff much more satisfying.  (Plus it's never a good sign when the romance happening between two side characters is more charming than the main love interests.)

I felt like there was a lot of potential with Harbinger.  The mystery was intriguing and suspense was built well throughout the first half of the novel.  However there are just too many different story threads that aren't pulled together neatly.  Harbinger would have definitely benefited from a stronger editor who could have narrowed down the scope of the book to just the elements that are essential to the plot and cut the rest out. 

On a brighter note, there was some really fantastic marketing when the book came out and artists were commissioned to create different scenes from the book.  I think this is a bang up idea and I wish more books would do stuff like this.  Some of these turned out quite lovely, which I think is proof that there is potential with this book in terms of creativity.  Below are some of my favorites, but check out all of the art here.

(c) Mary Etienne

(c) Andrea Offermann

(c) Andrew Mitchell

Starters by Lissa Price

#1 in the Starters series
Published March 13, 2012 by Delacorte Books
egalley for review from netgalley
2 Stars
DAC 2012

Goodreads Review
HER WORLD IS CHANGED FOREVER

Callie lost her parents when the Spore Wars wiped out everyone between the ages of twenty and sixty. She and her little brother, Tyler, go on the run, living as squatters with their friend Michael and fighting off renegades who would kill them for a cookie. Callie's only hope is Prime Destinations, a disturbing place in Beverly Hills run by a mysterious figure known as the Old Man.

He hires teens to rent their bodies to Enders—seniors who want to be young again. Callie, desperate for the money that will keep her, Tyler, and Michael alive, agrees to be a donor. But the neurochip they place in Callie's head malfunctions and she wakes up in the life of her renter, living in her mansion, driving her cars, and going out with a senator's grandson. It feels almost like a fairy tale, until Callie discovers that her renter intends to do more than party—and that Prime Destinations' plans are more evil than Callie could ever have imagined...

Review:  I began Starters with high hopes.  It has a striking cover and a very interesting premise.  However as I read more I became increasingly disappointed.  See, I love dystopian, when it makes scientific sense.  That's the key phrase, but sadly Starters's world building was under developed which really detracted from my reading experience. 

The world building gave me the same problems that I had with Lauren DeStefano's Wither.  I don't understand the age principle used as the crux of the story.  It doesn't make sense that the youngest and oldest would get vaccinated first.  The richest and most important would.  It's not age so much as status and power.  I find it extremely hard to believe that important military, political, economic, and medical personal wouldn't get vaccinated before some 100 year old grandma.  I also found it very difficult to believe that since EVERY child in America (or maybe the whole world, that wasn't clear) became an orphan at the same time that any kid who didn't happen to have living grandparents would be forced to live on the street or sent to what is basically a prison.  I mean, it's every single child, the future of the country.  I don't believe the enders who are now running the country wouldn't set up some sort of care system that would raise the orphans to be productive members of society. 


The other problem I had was the first 75% of the book.  It has a promising start, but then quickly fell into the oh so common YA dystopian trap of thinly veiled girls in pretty dresses meeting cute boys.  And the middle chunk of this book dragged.  I just couldn't care about the night clubs, costumes, or parties.  The book did pick up in the final 25% and I think that if I had cared more about the characters I could have really enjoyed the ending.  However even parts of that felt rushed and just too convenient.


I think my biggest frustration is I loved half the premise and was really annoyed by the other half.  I loved reading about Callie's body being taken over and how she tries to figure out what is going on with Prime Destinations.  I liked the conspiracy theory and there were some great plot twists that I didn't see coming.  I just really disliked the world building that puts the characters in their situations.  Now, I did read an egalley, so there is a great chance this book has gone through another round of editing that could smooth out some of the rushed and unsupported parts, but for me Starters was a book with great potential that focused too much on trivial details.

Across the Universe by Beth Revis

#1 in the Across the Universe series
Published January 11, 2011 by Razorbill
2 Stars

Goodreads Review
A love out of time. A spaceship built of secrets and murder.

Seventeen-year-old Amy joins her parents as frozen cargo aboard the vast spaceship Godspeed and expects to awaken on a new planet, three hundred years in the future. Never could she have known that her frozen slumber would come to an end fifty years too soon and that she would be thrust into the brave new world of a spaceship that lives by its own rules.

Amy quickly realizes that her awakening was no mere computer malfunction. Someone-one of the few thousand inhabitants of the spaceship-tried to kill her. And if Amy doesn't do something soon, her parents will be next.

Now Amy must race to unlock Godspeed's hidden secrets. But out of her list of murder suspects, there's only one who matters: Elder, the future leader of the ship and the love she could never have seen coming. 

Review:  Look at this cover.  Look at it.  It is phenomenal.  Seriously, take off the words and I'd hang that on my wall.  But sadly I cannot say the story inside the book was as wildly exciting as the cover.  I rarely think that books are overwritten, but There were so many plot twists it got to be too much and I found myself figuring out everything long before they were revealed and rolling my eyes. 

The biggest problem in Across the Universe is world building, as is often the case with lack luster science fiction.  I did not understand why there needed to be a society of people to maintain the ship in the first place.  Couldn't there be a group of frozen technicians who are awaken at certain intervals?  Couldn't most of the ship's functions be run by computers?  Also, what was the point in the mission at all?  I don't remember if that was explained but I never really knew why Amy and her parents were frozen in the first place. 

I found myself really disliking Elder and Amy, the two main characters.  I felt like there wasn't anything special enough about either of them to make them stand out and I couldn't relate.  Amy was particularly bland.  I came away from the novel knowing she was different because she had red hair, liked track and field, and spent a lot of time whining about her parents, her ex-boyfriend, and how different life on the ship is.  I got a bit of a better feeling for Elder, mostly because he had the opportunity to develop as he learns more about Eldest and the deceptions of the ship's government.  What really bothered me about these characters was how terrible things could happen to them but then they'd get over it in a matter of minutes.  Amy, in particular, had some very unbelievable reactions.  The romance between these two was boring and poorly paced.  By the time they finally meet we're a third of the way through the book and I found it very difficult to care. 

There were some good themes in Across the Universe, namely does quality of life matter if something can survive?  It questions government control through various means: medicinal, class structure, and religion.  It was like Revis had these great ethical themes that were bogged down with poorly built science fiction and tiresome romance. 

Across the Universe looks like a beautiful romance set in outer space, but don't let that cover fool you.  The book plods along with a clunky and more than slightly creepy romance and while there are some huge plot twists, they're hinted at with extremely obvious clues and then solved with extremely convenient solutions.  This would have been a one star read, but that stunning cover is worth a star all on it's own.

The Mermaid Chair by Sue Monk Kidd

Published in 2006 by Penguin (Non-Classics)
2 Stars

Goodreads Review
Sue Monk Kidd's phenomenal debut, The Secret Life of Bees, became a runaway bestseller that is still on the New York Times bestseller list more than two years after its paperback publication. Now, in her luminous new novel, Kidd has woven a transcendent tale that will thrill her legion of fans. Telling the story of Jessie Sullivan-a love story between a woman and a monk, a woman and her husband, and ultimately a woman and her own soul-Kidd charts a journey of awakening and self-discovery illuminated with a brilliance that only a writer of her ability could conjure.


Side note, this review is slightly spoilery, but I wanted to talk about some of the themes.  You have been warned ;)


Review:  The mermaid chair was the first book I read by Sue Monk Kidd, being attracted to her books after seeing the movie of The Secret Life of Bees.  While I really enjoyed the movie, my first  step into her books was sadly disappointing.


I found the plot of The Mermaid Chair to have great themes, but poor execution.  It's a story about how relationships can fizzle out after a while and the temptation to find that spark in someone new.  It's also about how the sense of duty and propriety can prevent a person from choosing their own happiness.  But at the same time The Mermaid Chair is also about how people can have a life changing experience with a person even though they only know them for a short while and that meaningful relationships don't have to happen over twenty years.  I just didn't like how these themes were displayed.  There is very little room for the reader to draw their own conclusions, for the author will spell out each and every (obvious) symbolic meaning.  


The biggest problem was my inability to care about the characters.  On one hand I can totally understand Jessie and the choices that she made, having been there myself, but in reading her thoughts all I could think was that she was selfish and shallow.  I didn't feel any sense of empathy towards her and couldn't bring myself to understand why she felt the way she did about her husband.  I also didn't believe her "love" with Whit.  It was definitely more of a case of lust and using a lover to hide from depression than true romantic love.  


I want to make it clear that I didn't mind the affair, I can actually completely understand why she did that and her emotions behind it.  I just didn't like how it seemed like she was fooling herself by calling it love.  I wish she has at least cared enough about her husband to let him go first.  He seemed like a honest man and didn't deserve her betrayal.  Why are we all so afraid to admit our unhappiness to the people we care about before we do something that will end up hurting them way more than just telling the truth?   


Whit was probably the best character.  I could really identify with the choices he made in going to the monastery and his inner conflict trying to decide to stay or go, both from the monastery and his relationship with Jessie.  I like the theme of taking that cave time to heal from something bad, but then also realizing when it is time to come out of the cave and begin to create a new path in life.  The religious aspects and events that can totally shake the foundation of your faith and make you question everything you've always believed to be true was very interesting and well handled.  


Overall I really liked the themes in The Mermaid Chair, and some of the setting and imagery was very nice, but the deliverance of the themes in general fell flat and unemotional.  

Carrier of the Mark by Leigh Fallon + ARC Giveaway (CLOSED)

#1 in the Carrier series
Published October 4, 2011 by HarperTeen - ARC
3 Stars
DAC 2011

Goodreads Review

Their love was meant to be.

When Megan Rosenberg moves to Ireland, everything in her life seems to fall into place. After growing up in America, she's surprised to find herself feeling at home in her new school. She connects with a group of friends, and she is instantly drawn to darkly handsome Adam DeRís.

But Megan is about to discover that her feelings for Adam are tied to a fate that was sealed long ago—and that the passion and power that brought them together could be their ultimate destruction.

Review:  I'm sad to say I came away from this book pretty disappointed.  There was a lot of hype around this book so when I received an ARC I thought I was in for an interesting and unique read.  Instead I found myself reading yet another unoriginal paranormal romance info dump.  

The first third of the book was Twilight in Ireland.  New girl at school who makes instant friends and then fall head over heels in love with a guy who treats her like smelly garbage.  The middle of the book is insta-love and a massive info dump.  Seriously page after page of "oh you must be confused, here's tons of information about our secret powers.  Come back tomorrow for more and more pages of information".  I didn't think it was well written at all, and there was a lot of potential for Megan to discover this information in much more interesting ways, not just being told in one big conversation.  And then because this magical family decides they can trust Megan, the boy who was treating her like disgusting trash for the first 100 pages is suddenly madly in love with her.  That doesn't make any sense!  

The final third of the book we read about all of this drama about why Megan and Adam can'tbe together and how their love may not even be real, but just their powers being drawn together.  I actually really liked that idea and I hoped the book would explore this more, but pretty much the characters went "Nope, we're actually in love" and that was the end of it.  The whole mythology behind their powers was very weird too. It wasn't explained well and had an awkward incestual tone lurking around it which I just couldn't get over.


There were some good parts though.  I really enjoyed the descriptions of Ireland.  I've never been there so it was fun to read about the towns and the marina.  The setting was very well described and very interesting to read.  I also thought there were some cute moments between Adam and Megan.  I liked the small moments when they weren't acting like their love was this magical destiny and were just joking around.  The book only got bad when it started to take itself too seriously.


Overall Carrier of the Mark had an interesting premise, but fell far short of my expectations.  It seemed like a weak mashup of Twilight and any book series with elemental powers such as House of Night or Vampire Academy.  

Congratulations to angelface0911 on youtube, the winner of the giveaway!

Dead Rules by Randy Russell + Giveaway! (CLOSED)

Published June 21, 2011 by HarperTeen - ARC
2 Stars
DAC 2011

Goodreads Review
Till death
Jana Webster and Michael Haynes were in love. They were destined to be together forever.
Do
But Jana's destiny was fatally flawed. And now she's in Dead School, where Mars Dreamcote lurks in the back of the classroom, with his beguiling blue eyes, mysterious smile, and irresistibly warm touch.
Us
Michael and Jana were incomplete without each other. There was no room for Mars in Jana's life—or death—story. Jana was sure Michael would rush to her side soon.
Part
But things aren't going according to Jana's plan. So Jana decides to do whatever it takes to make her dreams come true—no matter what rules she has to break.

Review:  Dead rules is an interesting take on life after death for teenagers, but instead of focusing on the interesting setting and rules of being dead, Dead Rules gets stuck on a love triangle that borders (ok lands squarely) on obsession. 

I have mixed feelings about this book.  I really liked the setting and the interesting spin on the afterlife.  It has Christian undertones but nothing specific so it can be appreciated by people of different faiths.  I liked the set up for the school and the mystery surrounding it, but we never really learned the truth behind the mystery, nor do we ever really learn the rules of the different classes of students.  We learn what makes a person in one class verses another, but none of the real rules associated with them.  The whole mystery of the book is not explained enough for my liking. 

The best part of the book was Mars and Waytt.  They were the only characters that experienced any growth and with which I felt any connection even though they were the stereotypical paranormal romance "sexy bad boy" and "misunderstood bff".  I loved their history that was revealed and how they learned from each other.  I think the fact that Mars was physically perfect while Wyatt was seriously disfigured added an interesting dynamic to their relationship.  True bromance. 

The biggest problem for me were all of the other characters, and the female characters in particular.  While some characters have interesting development, most are one dimensional fillers.  The side girl characters only had one aspect to their personality which mostly depended on the state of their bodies after their death.  The main character was just scary, and not in a good way.  This part might get a tiny bit spoilery, but not too much.  Jana is in love with her boyfriend who is still alive and on earth.  And by love, I mean obsessed.  Jana is crazy and seems very selfish.  She says that Michael "completes her" and "makes her a better version of herself."  WHAT!?  That is not love, that is obsession, and it is not healthy as a human or a ghost.  She has such an obsessive "love" for Michael that she wants to kill him so they can be together.  Again I say that is NOT love.  I'm sorry, but if I was dead KILLING MY BOYFRIEND would NOT be the solution to my problems.  If Jana had learned that she wanted Michael to live a long and happy life and THAT was true love, then I would have been ok with it, but THAT NEVER HAPPENS.  She just jumps to the next guy.  Seriously, messed up. 

Overall Dead Rules is a paranormal romance that had a lot of potential to be a very exciting mystery but fell short because it was stuck on the love triangle aspect of the story.  Completely ineffective satire.

The giveaway is now closed, congratulations to MrRobirabbit!

The Forest of Hands and Teeth by Carrie Ryan

#1 in The Forest of Hands and Teeth Series
Published in 2009 by Delacorte Books for Young Readers
2 Stars

Goodreads Review
In Mary's world there are simple truths. 

The Sisterhood always knows best. 
The Guardians will protect and serve. 
The Unconsecrated will never relent. 
And you must always mind the fence that surrounds the village; the fence that protects the village from the Forest of Hands and Teeth. 

But, slowly, Mary's truths are failing her. She's learning things she never wanted to know about the Sisterhood and its secrets, and the Guardians and their power, and about the Unconsecrated and their relentlessness. When the fence is breached and her world is thrown into chaos, she must choose between her village and her future-between the one she loves and the one who loves her. 

And she must face the truth about the Forest of Hands and Teeth. Could there be life outside a world surrounded in so much death?

Review:  The Forest of Hand and Teeth gets one star for the description of the zombies (though not their explanation) and one star for the awesome title.  That's about it for the positive aspects of this book.

1. There needs to be an explanation for why the zombies exist, and the science has to make sense.  I am a stickler about there being science in science fiction and that science is based on fact.  If a virus causes the zombies I need to know how the virus is spread, where it originated, if it had an intended purpose or if it was just an accident, how it works in the body, ect.  I also need to know how the zombies specifically act in this story.  Are they fast or slow?  Are they thinking and planning zombies or mindless one?  Do they live until their bodies wear out or do they have to feed to survive?  I need to understand the cause of the zombies and how they act and why they act the way they do. 
2. There needs to be an explanation for the way society deals with the virus.  How do they adapt and what strategies have they developed to protect themselves from the zombies?  If there is a government still in place, why does it work, why do the citizens live the way they do, and what are the motivations of the governments decisions?
3. The heroes/heroines need to be smart.  They need to have an understanding of their enemy and survival needs to be their main focus.  They have to be imaginative, determined, and ready to fight.  That's the only way to survive a zombie apocalypse. 

The Forest of Hands and Teeth had none of these elements.  There was no explanation for the existence of zombies, just that they existed.  There seemed to be some knowledge hidden by the "government" of the village, but it was never revealed even though there were many opportunities for the main character to do some sleuthing.  There was almost no history about the zombie outbreak and how the village came to exist.  I got absolutely no understanding about how the zombies worked and how to best defeat them.

The Forest of Hands and Teeth was way too focused on the completely illogical romantic drama.  If the villagers believed that they were the last of humanity in the entire world, why would they force women into becoming nuns?  Shouldn't every viable womb be used to keep the population up?  I can understand forcing teens to marry in order for this to happen, but if a girl cannot find a match when she is 16 it made no sense for her to be forced into a life of celibacy.  Polygamy would have been a more logical system.  The particulars of Mary's relationship were also similarly mind boggling.  The teens involved inflicted a lot of unnecessary stress upon themselves.  They should have all just gotten together and talked about it.  A round table would have saved them all a LOT of problems.

I also really hated the attitude taken towards the zombies.  There seemed to be absolutely no protection and preparation beyond a few vaulted platforms and a chain link fence.  And where did all of the technology go?  This book read more like historical fiction than science fiction.  If it were me, people would be training every day in combat and survival skills, and they would all have the knowledge about zombies that was available. 
I'm surprised that these people lasted as long as they did because there was no preparation for a breach in their defenses.  They always seemed to be taken by surprise by a zombie attack, even though they had weeks to prepare.  The characters needed to get their priorities straight.

Overall I think this author had too many ideas and couldn't wrap them up.  None of my questions were answered or even hinted at having answers.  The Forest of Hands and Teeth focused too much on creating a complicated love square and didn't focus on the more pressing issue at hand, the fact that zombies were trying to eat some brains.  The zombies seemed like an afterthought added in to make a romance story more marketable.