Posts Categorized: Review

Tuesday, October 18, 2011

Review: The Forest of Hands and Teeth by Carrie Ryan

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The Forest of Hands and Teeth
(The Forest of Hands and Teeth, #1)
Carrie Ryan
Released March 10th, 2009
by Delacorte Books for Young Readers

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?

This was a really exciting read. The plot was not what I expected from the little I knew of the synopsis – it was even better! The Forest of Hands and Teeth takes us years after a virus turned everyone into zombies, except for a certain few who have escaped and built a village surrounded by fences. We follow this girl, Mary, who lives in this village and she wonders if it’s true that there is nothing and no one beyond the fences, but zombies (or Unconsecrated as they call it). Then one day, the fences are breached and Mary has run off to the forest trying to find any signs of life, all the while trying not to get bitten. This is a true, creepy, exciting zombie novel!

For the first part, the book was pretty slow moving and a tad boring. Mary just kept whining about how her life sucked. But after the fence is breached the story gets very engrossing, fast paced, and keeps your heart racing until the very last page. It would have gotten 5 espressos if not for the slow beginning.

The author is obviously very talented. The writing is great. She did a very good job at making their world very eerie and nostalgic. The characters are well-rendered. You really feel for them – their loneliness, fears, and will to live. It was great to have a female main character who was strong and didn’t need a boy to hold her hand and lead. She also grew to be optimistic which was a relief. I do wish we would have gotten more explanation about what happened before that lead them to this life; how the virus started and such. Maybe in the next books!? We’ll see.

I recommend this to anyone who likes heart pounding excitement and isn’t afraid of a little zombiesauce.

4 Hot Espressos

Review: Faefever by Karen Marie Moning

Posted by on 10/15/2011 • 12 Comments

Faefever (Fever, #3)Karen Marie MoningReleased September, 2008by Random House Publishing Group

He calls me his Queen of the Night. I’d die for him. I’d kill for him, too.

When MacKayla Lane receives a torn page from her dead sister’s journal, she is stunned by Alina’s desperate words. And now MacKayla knows that her sister’s killer is close. But evil is closer. And suddenly the sidhe-seer is on the hunt; For answers. For revenge. And for an ancient book of dark magic so evil, it corrupts anyone who touches it.

Mac’s quest for the Sinsar Dubh takes her into the mean, shape-shifting streets of Dublin, with a suspicious cop on her tail. Forced into a dangerous triangle of alliance with V’lane, an insatiable Fae prince of lethally erotic tastes, and…

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Review: Dearly, Departed by Lia Habel

Posted by on 10/14/2011 • 31 Comments

Dearly, DepartedLia HabelRelease date: October 18thby Random House Publishing GroupFormat: Ebook

Love conquers all, so they say. But can Cupid’s arrow pierce the hearts of the living and the dead—or rather, the undead? Can a proper young Victorian lady find true love in the arms of a dashing zombie?

The year is 2195. The place is New Victoria—a high-tech nation modeled on the manners, mores, and fashions of an antique era. A teenager in high society, Nora Dearly is far more interested in military history and her country’s political unrest than in tea parties and debutante balls. But after her beloved parents die, Nora is left at the mercy of her domineering aunt, a social-climbing spendthrift who has squandered the family fortune and now plans to marry her niece…

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Review: City of Ashes by Cassandra Clare

Posted by on 10/13/2011 • 7 Comments

City of Ashes(The Mortal Instruments, #2)Cassandra ClarePublished March 25th, 2008by Simon & Schuster

A murderer is loose in New York City …

… and the victims are Downworlder children. Clary Fray and her fellow Shadowhunters have a strong suspicion that Valentine, Clary’s father, may be behind the killings. But if he is the murderer, then what’s his true motive? To make matters worse, the second of the Mortal Instruments, the Soul-Sword, has been stolen, and the mysterious Inquisitor has arrived to investigate, with his eyes vigilantly targeted on Clary’s brother, Jace.

Clary will need to face some terrifying demons and even more terrifying family decisions. No one said that the life of a Shadowhunter would be easy.

City of Ashes is the sequel to City of Bones. It’s…

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Review: Ashfall by Mike Mullin

Posted by on 10/10/2011 • 17 Comments

Ashfall Mike Mullin Published September 27th, 2011 by Tanglewood Press Format: Ebook

Under the bubbling hot springs and geysers of Yellowstone National Park is a supervolcano. Most people don’t know it’s there. The caldera is so large that it can only be seen from a plane or satellite. It just could be overdue for an eruption, which would change the landscape and climate of our planet.

Ashfall is the story of Alex, a teenage boy left alone for the weekend while his parents visit relatives. When the Yellowstone supervolcano erupts unexpectedly, Alex is determined to reach his parents. He must travel over a hundred miles in a landscape transformed by a foot of ash and the destruction of every modern convenience that he has ever known, and through a new…

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Review: The Unbecoming of Mara Dyer by Michelle Hodkin

Posted by on 10/08/2011 • 25 Comments

The Unbecoming of Mara DyerMichelle HodkinPublished September 27thby Simon & Schuster

Mara Dyer doesn’t think life can get any stranger than waking up in a hospital with no memory of how she got there.

It can.

She believes there must be more to the accident she can’t remember that killed her friends and left her mysteriously unharmed.

There is.

She doesn’t believe that after everything she’s been through, she can fall in love.

She’s wrong.

I think this was probably my most anticipated book in the past months, and I also think that was it’s downfall. You really look forward to a book. Everyone is saying how incredibly awesome it is. Nothing could ever be as good as this book – except maybe Daughter of Smoke and Bone – so…

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Review: Held by Edeet Ravel

Posted by on 10/07/2011 • 9 Comments

HeldEdeet RavelReleased January 25th, 2011by Annick Press, Limited

What happens when the source of your worst fears becomes the object of your affection?

Seventeen-year-old Chloe’s summer vacation in Greece comes to an abrupt end when she is suddenly bound, gagged and whisked away to an unidentified location. Waking up from a drug-induced sleep, she finds herself in a squalid warehouse. Chloe can only imagine the worst.

After several days of total isolation and utter despair, Chloe faces a new threat when her kidnapper appears, but she also feels a sense of relief. His revelation that she is being held as ransom for a prisoner exchange, however, does little to allay her fears.

The weeks pass and, haunted by terrifying dreams and with only her thoughts to keep…

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Review: City of Bones by Cassandra Clare

Posted by on 10/06/2011 • 15 Comments

City of Bones (The Mortal Instruments, #1)Cassandra ClareReleased March 27th, 2007by Margaret K. McElderry Books

When fifteen-year-old Clary Fray heads out to the Pandemonium Club in New York City, she hardly expects to witness a murder – much less a murder committed by three teenagers covered with strange tattoos and brandishing bizarre weapons. Then the body disappears into thin air. It’s hard to call the police when the murderers are invisible to everyone else and when there is nothing – not even a smear of blood – to show that a boy has died. Or was he a boy?

This is Clary’s first meeting with the Shadowhunters, warriors dedicated to ridding the earth of demons. It’s also her first encounter with Jace, a Shadowhunter who looks a little like…

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