Genre: YA


Monday, January 18, 2016

Blog Tour: Teen Frankenstein by Chandler Baker (High School Horror #1) Review and Guest Post

Posted by 3 Comments

I received this book for free from Macmillan Children’s Publishing Group in exchange for an honest review. This does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review.

Blog Tour: Teen Frankenstein by Chandler Baker (High School Horror #1) Review and Guest PostTeen Frankenstein by Chandler Baker
Series: High School Horror #1
Published by Feiwel & Friends on January 12th 2016
Genres: Horror, Retellings, YA
Source: Macmillan Children’s Publishing Group
Buy on Amazon
Goodreads

High school meets classic horror in this groundbreaking new series.

It was a dark and stormy night when Tor Frankenstein accidentally hit someone with her car. And killed him. But all is not lost--Tor, being the scientific genius she is, brings him back to life...

Thus begins a twisty, turn-y take on a familiar tale, set in the town of Hollow Pines, Texas, where high school is truly horrifying.

 

Teen-Frankenstein-Blog-Tour-Banner

Hello everyone!! I am happy to be participating in the blog tour for this book. Right when I read the synopsis, I knew that I had to read the book. So I will be doing my review and I have a great guest post with a real life high school horror story from Charlotte Huang, a friend of the author who is also an author.

To start, I really liked the characters. They were great. Especially Tor and her best friend Owen. They really were what pulled me into the story. I did enjoy this book, but had to ignore all of the things that just didn’t make sense to me. As with all things fiction, not everything has to make sense or be logical right? I can’t go into all the little things that bothered me without major spoilers, but one thing is that this kid is able to even start school. And yes, it’s mentioned that he shouldn’t be able to start, but then that’s that. There are a lot of little things like that throughout that just stood out to me. Besides that, I really did enjoy the book.

Tor is the MC. She is super smart. Obviously if she is able to bring someone back from the dead using science, but anyways. I really liked her. She is very focused on her science projects and experiments. Since her dad died and her mom is pretty much a shell most of the time, she has a lot of time to use the storm cellar as her lab. She’s a good friend most of the time too, and I really loved seeing how she changed through the book. How she was with other people and how much she learned that science can’t explain. Besides that, Adam seems to be fitting in well and end up in with the popular crowd. Of course that means Tor has to hang around too, which is all sorts of entertaining. She’s not exactly the social butterfly.

Adam is the boy that she brings back to life. Unfortunately, things don’t go quite as smoothly as she would have liked and he has no memory. At all. The only way that she can keep an eye on him is to enroll him in her school. Surprisingly, it works for the most part. He is a bit odd to others, but they still really like him. He’s also apparently some kind of football superstar so that makes him instantly one of the cool kids. Of course since Tor is the first person he saw when he was brought back, he has a crazy attachment to her. It’s kind of cute actually. Imagining this big guy acting like a toddler and just wanting to please Tor like she is his mother. The thing is, as time passes and more experiments happen, he starts to remember things. And he also seems a bit off and possibly dangerous at times. The real person underneath is a different person than Tor has created.

This was a really fun book to read. I really liked the scientific part of it all, but most of all the character development. The story itself had a lot of convenient things that were looked over. I suppose for the sake of story progression, some of it had to be that way. I loved the idea of this revived dude going to school and trying to fit in, I also wanted to know his real story and who he was before he died and lost all of the memory of who he was. Oh, and I almost forgot. There is a great murder mystery as well. Some of it is gruesome, but awesome. This book isn’t something that is going to give you nightmares, but it is a bit creepy at times. I look forward to seeing what comes next in the High School Horror series.


Guest Post by Charlotte Huang

Charlotte Huang photo

My High School Horror Story

When I was a junior, I had a serious crush on a senior boy. He was artistic, wore

black Converse high tops, played guitar in a band, and yeah .  . .  All that. We had

some friends in common but definitely were not in the same crowd. He dated a lot

while I was a professional crush-haver, often relegated to the little sister

role—amusing, but not quite datable.

One day, his familiar gray car rolled to a stop next to me while I was walking down

my street. He said he was bored, just out for a drive, and invited me to join. I wasn’t

wearing shoes and hadn’t told my parents I’d be gone for any length of time but did

that stop me from jumping into his car? No it did not. I was delirious with

excitement.

We drove across town to visit his best friend, whom I’d never officially met. I

followed my crush out of the car and had ventured no more than three steps before I

felt my foot sink into some thick and oozy substance. I looked down and almost

passed out on the spot. I had just stepped in a pile of fresh, steaming dog poop.

Barefoot.

The boys turned to see why I wasn’t following them into the house. I was literally

speechless. All I could do was blink. My crush came over to inspect the situation.

“Oh. Whoops,” was all he said. I wanted to die. While I continued to stand there, he

disappeared around the side of the house and then returned with a garden hose,

which he very gallantly used to spray off my foot. The best friend, with whom I’d

exchanged exactly one word, brought me a towel.

Even after I was cleaned up, I was too mortified to attempt being social. I stayed

mute until my crush finally said that he should probably take me home.

I mean, how do you recover from something like that? You don’t. So the drive back

was filled with more silence. I wished with my entire being to never see him again.

Somehow, the story does have a happy ending because we started dating that

summer. Maybe because we both had enough sense to pretend this incident never
happened.

Charlotte Huang is the author of For the Record.


About the Author

Chandler Baker_biopic (2)Chandler Baker got her start ghostwriting novels for teens and tweens, including installments in a book series that has sold more than 1 million copies. She grew up in Florida, went to college at the University of Pennsylvania and studied law at the University of Texas. She now lives in Austin with her husband. Although she loves spinning tales with a touch of horror, she is a much bigger scaredy-cat than her stories would lead you to believe.

Don’t Forget to check out the other stops on the blog tour!!


Full Blog Tour Schedule
11-Jan
Fierce Reads
12-Jan Good Books and Good Wine
13-Jan Jana’s Book List
14-Jan Booki Emoji
15-Jan Sci Fi Chick
16-Jan Novel Novice
17-Jan Word Spelunking
18-Jan XPresso Reads
19-Jan Working for the Mandroid
20-Jan Katie’s Book Blog

The publisher has also been generous enough to offer a copy of this book! Giveaway is US/CAN only.

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Review: The Mystery of Hollow Places by Rebecca Podos

Posted by on 01/13/2016 • 2 Comments

So I’m not really sure what to think of this book. It wasn’t bad, and it had the potential to be really good, but it missed the mark. I’m all about background information and learning the history of the character and their lives, but this one was to the point that is was very disruptive to the story and it really just disconnected me from the whole thing. It was hard to really care abou the story and what was happening when it was interrupted for long stretches explaining something about the past. I get that it’s the thought process of the main character as she is the one telling the story, but it just did’t quite work for me.

Imogene is the MC and she was just okay…

Review: Ink and Bone by Rachel Caine

Posted by on 12/23/2015 • 14 Comments

I am a bookworm (hopefully there are no doubts about that) so a book that featured an evil library definitely got my attention. Ink and Bone also had a lot of hype surrounding it and some of my most-trusted peeps loved it. When I finally dove in, I was expecting my mind to be blown and it wasn’t necessarily blown but there is just something about this book. It’s really really slow but it is also really fucking amazing.

If you love fascinating villains, this book is for you. The Library is the villain here. The library essentially controls the world so there is definite dystopic quality to this book but don’t be turned off by that if dystopias aren’t your thing. The library isn’t some mindlessly evil villain….

Review: My True Love Gave To Me: Twelve Holiday Stories Edited by Stephanie Perkins

Posted by on 12/22/2015 • 6 Comments

I love the holidays, so when I was approached about reviewing this book I couldn’t pass it up. I also always love “feel good” stories and knew this would be filled with them. It didn’t disappoint. It has twelve different stories having to do with the holidays written by an amazing variety of authors. No matter what holiday you celebrate, this book will make you smile. Some even had me tearing up with happy tears. I always really have a hard time reviewing anthologies because I don’t want to have a review that is super long or too short, but I am going to try to do it as good as I can, but be assured, this is a book you want to read around the holidays or any time…

Review: I Am Princess X by Cherie Priest

Posted by on 12/17/2015 • 8 Comments

Reasons to read I Am Princess X

1. All about the friendship. Seriously, who doesn’t love a book that focuses on friendships of all relationships. Friends are important!

2. If you like books involving scavenger hunts, this book is for you. In the book, May has to put together a bunch of clues to find out what happened to her friend and how she might be able to find her. YAAAS.

3. The mystery. It comes with the scavenger hunt aspect of the novel but the book kept me on my toes. At one point while I was reading, my phone buzzed and I almost jumped out of my skin because I was so absorbed by the novel and the mystery.

4. The images. The comic strips with Princess X are…

Review: Trouble is a Friend of Mine by Stephanie Tromly

Posted by on 12/10/2015 • 7 Comments

If you like your Sherlock re-tellings full of lots of wit, humor and fun; Trouble is a Friend of Mine is for you. This book was SO MUCH fun to read. I was giggling most of the time, I liked the characters, I liked the plot, I liked the relationships. This was a great brain candy book  but my problem with the book was how ignorant and privileged the characters were.

We are constantly reminded that the characters live in a very white neighborhood with no diversity and I would assume that that would at least mean that the MCs weren’t completely ignorant and flippant about certain issues but that’s sadly not true. Even though Zoe moved from NYC, a very diverse city, to a white suburban neighborhood. It isn’t…

Review: Macbeth #killingit by William Shakepeare and Courtney Carbone

Posted by on 12/02/2015 • 3 Comments

I know that I have already review a few of these books, well actually all of them so far, and they are getting harder to review. I can only say how fun they are so many times. Macbeth is one of stories that I really enjoyed reading back in the day when I was in school, so I really liked getting to read it in this format. What’s even better is that the Macbeth movie comes out Friday. Yup, that’s right, December 4th and it looks pretty good. I can’t wait to see it. So, if you haven’t read Macbeth, you should check out the movie, then pick up this book when it comes out in January to see how entertaining reading in this format makes a dark story.

DNF Review: Hotel Ruby by Suzanne Young

Posted by on 11/27/2015 • 11 Comments

Welcome to the Hotel California Such a lovely place (Such a lovely place) Such a lovely face Plenty of room at the Hotel California Any time of year (Any time of year) You can find it here

Let me tell you something about my childhood. Back when I was a kid, I would fly to the Sultanate of Oman (a very peaceful Middle Eastern country) to spend time with my father. He worked there as the head Quality Surveyor of a pretty kick-ass construction company, and the times I spent there were one of the very few times I could be with him (the rest of the year would be spent in the Philippines, away from his loving arms). Every time we were in the car, he would put on…