Alice in Zombieland

I've been wanting to read this book for awhile.  The cover just caught my eye, and of course, what's not to love about a retelling of Alice in Wonderland, with zombies!  But, that's not what this books is.  Don't get me wrong, I really liked the book, but it wasn't what I expected.  To tell you the truth, I think it was better than I expected.  If I hadn't just finished this book last night (and summer is officially over for me), then it would have definitely ranked in my top 5 for books I read this summer.

Alice Bell has lived her entire 16 years believing her dad is insane.  He has fortified their home against the "monsters" that he believes roam at night wanting to devour us.  It isn't until a tragic accident takes her family away from her, that Alice learns that her dad was not crazy.  The monsters are real, and they are far more dangerous than she ever imagined.  She soon becomes involved with a mysterious group of teenagers who teach her about the monsters they call zombies.  She is determined to avenge her family and learn to fight the creatures. 
I felt that the first half of this book was much stronger than the ending.  I know that this is just the first book in a series, but it seemed to me that the latter part of the book was rushed.  I would have liked to have seen more detail towards the end of the book.  All in all, I am looking forward to the next book in this series.

My Favorite Books of Summer 2013!!!!

I've been busy reading a lot of books this summer.  Throughout the summer I tried to constantly have a young adult novel to read and an adult novel to listen to from audible.  Many of the books I read were fairly quick reads, but I was still able to get through 10 young adult books on my break.  Now, I'm going to rank them for you from least favorite to favorite, and give you a little background on each. 

#10 The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern


I really wanted to love this book.  The cover is beautiful and the premise was so interesting.  However, I just felt like the story was a little flat.  There was so much potential, but it was so slow in places that I nearly put it down.  I did enjoy the story, but it just needed something more to keep me going.  The story surrounds two magicians who are in competition, within the setting of a circus that appears mysteriously and is only open at night.

#9 World War Z by Max Brooks

I actually did enjoy this book, but it wasn't what I expected.  The book is divided into interviews with various survivors of our war against the zombies.  Some of the stories were a little slow, but all of them were interesting. 



 #8 The Nightmare Affair by Mindee Arnett

This was a quick, fun book.  Dusty Everhart is a magical creature.  She is a nightmare, which means that she feeds on dreams.  However, everything changes when she enters Eli's dreams.  He is dreaming of a murder at Arkwell Academy, a school for magickind.  Not only should he not know anything about the academy, but the dream comes true.  Dusty and Eli have to team up to try to solve the murder.  I liked this book, but parts of it (characters, setting, some events), were just a little too similar to things in the Harry Potter series.

#7 Unremembered by Jessica Brody

I really enjoyed this book, but I thought it needed more development in some places.  I would have liked to have seen more character development in the flashbacks.  I liked the concept of the story and I will continue reading this series. 

#6 Sky on Fire by Emmy Laybourne

Monument 14 was a really good book, and so was the sequel, Sky on Fire.  My only complaint was that it was just a little too short.  I wanted more details, especially since the group was divided.  Dean and Astrid, along with some of the younger kids, stay behind in the store, as Alex, Niko, and the others search for their families and help at the Denver airport.  I felt like this book pretty much wraps up the story, so I'm curious to see Laybourne will do in the third book of the trilogy.


From this point forward, it is going to be very difficult to rank the rest of the books I read this summer. They were all really good.

#5 Eve & Adam by Michael Grant

This book reminded me a lot of The Adoration of Jenna Fox.  Evening was in a terrible accident.  She is rushed to her mother's research facility by a boy named Solo, where she makes a miraculous recovery.  When she becomes bored with her surroundings, her mother gives her the task of creating the perfect boy using new simulation software.  However, with the help of Solo, Eve learns that there is more to her mother's research than it appears. 

#4  Game by Barry Lyga

This is the second installment of the Jasper Dent series.  Like I Hunt Killers, this book is definitely creepy.  I really enjoyed it, but I am desperately wanting the next book now.  This one will leave you hanging.

#3 Stung by Bethany Wiggins

This was a different take on the zombie apocalypse story.  Fiona awakes in her home to find that the world has changed without her.  Not only that, but when she went to sleep she was 13, but she awakes as a 17 year old.  She also has a weird tattoo on her hand that she doesn't remember.  She soon learns that people who were given a vaccine and the tattoo turned into mindless beasts.  However, Fiona is unaffected. 

#2 The 5th Wave by Rick Yancey

This was a great book, and would probably be my number 1, except that I got a little aggravated with it at times.  The story switches points of view too often, and left me wanting to go back to the previous person.  The others have come to destroy the human race in waves.  Cassie has survived the first 4 waves, but now she has to save her little brother before the 5th wave destroys them all.

#1  Mackenzie Bishop is a keeper who works for the Archive.  The Archive doesn't store books, but histories.  When a person dies, their lives are recorded in the archive.  Sometimes these histories become restless and wake.  It is Mackenzie's job to send the histories back to where they belong.  However, Mackenzie's job has been harder since she lost her brother to a terrible accident.  Her whole family is in mourning and they move to live in an old hotel, where there are more restless histories than Mackenzie has ever dealt with before. 

Blood Red Road

 

Blood Red Road by Moira Young is the first book of a new dystopian series.  Saba and her family struggle for survival near a dried up lake bed.  After a massive dust storm, Saba's twin brother is taken by men on horseback.  Saba takes off across the desert to save her brother, Lugh. 

I loved this book, and I'm looking forward to reading the next book in the series.  Saba is a strong character, but she does have her faults.  One of which is that she dislikes her younger sister and treats her terribly.  She learns valuable lessons about herself along the way.  She also begins to respect her sister more, and she tries to make amends for her earlier actions. 

End of a Series

 

 

 

 

Since I'm falling behind on my blog, I thought I'd try to combine the end of these two series into one blog.  The Eve trilogy is one of my recent favorites.  I was a little disappointed with the last chapter of Rise, and the fact that one of the main characters is almost completely absent from the final book; however, overall, I thought it was a great end to the series.  I had a hard time putting the book down.

 

Beautiful Redemption was very different from the first three books in this series.  However, I thought it was a great end to the series.  The alternating viewpoints between Ethan and Lena were also different for this series.  

I Hunt Killers by Barry Lyga

As you should know by now, I like creepy books, the creepier, the better!  Therefore, when I saw this book, I definitely had to check it out.  While parts of the book didn't quite live up to my expectations, I thought this was a great first book in a series. 
Jasper "Jazz" Dent is introduced to us at the scene of a brutal murder.  He is watching the investigators as they go about their investigative process.  If you didn't know the premise of the book, you might suppose at this point that Jazz is a murderer who has come back to the scene of the crime.  However, that is not the case.  Jazz has been trained by the most prolific serial killer of all time....his dad.  He was supposed to follow in his dad's footsteps, but instead, his dad was caught and sent to prison.  Jazz has since developed a friendship with the detective who caught his father.  All he wants is to be a normal teenager; however, throughout the book the reader can see that damage that his dad has done to his mind.  Jazz constantly has to remind himself that people matter.  It is easy to see that things could have taken a very different turn for Jazz, and he could be the one killing instead of hunting the killers. 
I really enjoyed this book, though it was predictable in places.  For instance, I figured out the killer's identity early in the book.  However, there were enough surprises at the end to make up for that.  I am looking forward to the sequel to this book, Game, which I have heard is even better than the first book. 

52 Reasons to Hate My Father by Jessica Brody

52 Reasons to Hate My Father was a fun, quick read.  Lexington Larrabee is the typical spoiled, rich kid.  She has everything she wants, but all she really craves is attention from her father.  She spends her life going from party to party and bad decisions to worse decisions.  She is really just marking time until she turns eighteen and receives her twenty-five million dollar trust fund.  She knows that then her life will really begin.  However, after her latest big mistake, she is informed that her trust fund will be put on hold until she completes a different job each week for the next year. To make matters worse, her father assigns his intern as her babysitter.  How can she succeed when everyone expects her to fail?

I really enjoyed reading this book.  It was very funny and entertaining, eventhough parts of the plot were somewhat predictable.

Loki's Wolves by K.L. Armstrong and M.A. Marr

In Loki's Wolves, the characters, Matt, Fen, Laurie, must prevent the end of the world, also known as Ragnarok.  Each main character is a descendant of the Viking gods.  Matt is a descendant of Thor, while Fen and Laurie are descendants of Loki.  They have to work together to locate descendants of the other gods to fight the monsters that will be released at the beginning of Ragnarok. I received an ARC of this book and decided to give it a try. I must admit that the beginning was slow for me and I almost stopped reading it. It took me awhile to get familiar with the characters, and I didn't find them to be very interesting in the beginning. However, once Matt, Fen, and Laurie began their journey to find the other descendants of the gods, the story picked up considerably for me. By the end of the book, I was wishing I had the next book in the series!