Showing posts with label i zombie. Show all posts
Showing posts with label i zombie. Show all posts

Friday, January 24, 2014

Young Adult Paperback Giveaway Extravaganza

Welcome to my blog's YA Paperback Giveaway Extravaganza! Enter for a chance to win one of these amazing books! You can check out the summaries below =) Giveaway ends February 4 and open to US and Canada. Good luck!

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Summary:

Ten years ago, Quinn Jacobs’ mother made a bargain with a local witch—steal away Quinn’s memories from the first eight years of her life and in return, Quinn would spend a year in servitude to the witch.

On Quinn’s eighteenth birthday, she’s forced to leave her home and friends behind. For the next year, she’ll live at the Chadwick House, learning everything she needs to know about being a spellcaster. As her powers grow, Quinn begins to unravel the secrets of the past and the reason her mother was so desperate to conceal the horrifying truth.

Summary:

What happens when falling in love and falling from grace collide?

After dying in a car accident with her two best friends, Lily miraculously awakens to grief and guilt. She escapes to her dad’s to come to terms with the event and meets some people at her new school who seem all too eager to help her heal. Sliding deeper into sorrow and trying to fight her feelings for two of them, she finds out who…what they really are and that they are falling too.

Can she find the strength to move on from the past, reconcile her feelings for Luc, find a way to stop a divine war with fallen angels, and still pass the eleventh grade?

Summary:

It's the end of the world as we know it.

Trixie Collins is a normal teen making her way through high school. One night at a party, a boy comes on to her and won't take no for an answer. As she jerks her arm away, his fingernails cut into her skin.

When she finds her dog's mutilated body and realizes she's to blame, she starts to think maybe the zombie apocalypse they've been screaming about on the news isn't a hoax after all. Worse, she begins to think maybe she's one of the infected.

Now it's a fight for life as she joins together with her brethren to stop the humans intent on destroying them. Are zombies all bad, or is it just a huge misunderstanding?

Summary:

Leigh Baxton is terrified her mom will come back from the dead -- just like the prom queen did.

While the town goes beehive over the news, Leigh bikes to the local cemetery and buries some of her mom’s things in her grave to keep her there. When the hot and mysterious caretaker warns her not to give gifts to the dead, Leigh cranks up her punk music and keeps digging.

She should have listened.

Two dead sorceresses evicted the prom queen from her grave to bury someone who offered certain gifts. Bury them alive, that is, then resurrect them to create a trio of undead powerful enough to free the darkest sorceress ever from her prison inside the earth.

With help from the caretaker and the dead prom queen, Leigh must find out what’s so special about the gifts she gave, and why the sorceresses are stalking her and her little sister. If she doesn’t, she’ll either lose another loved one or have to give the ultimate gift to the dead – herself.

Summary:

Jake Reese thinks he’s just a screwed-up high school kid living in a small town isolated in the Arizona desert. Traumatized at an early age by his mother’s sudden death—and believing he might have had something to do with it—he’s allowed his guilt and lack of self-confidence to rule his life.

Hailey is the fiery little redhead that sees Jake as more than just a good friend. When she invites him as her date to a school function, it brings down the walls he's built to protect his heart, and sets off a series of events that threaten not only Jake’s life, but that of everyone around him.

The discovery of a portal on the outskirts of town brings Jake face-to-face with death and reveals a closely guarded secret about his mother. No longer is his memory of her the only thing that haunts him. Something evil from her past has escaped through the portal, and nothing will prevent it from trying to steal Jake’s future.

Can Jake overcome his fears to keep Hailey safe? Will the decisions he's forced to make destroy everyone he knows and loves?

And ultimately...is he strong enough to live with those choices?

Summary:

Seventeen-year-old Reagan has a problem: She can’t remember what happened the night her brother was taken. Now, the dreams haunting her from the incident are becoming more intense by the day. All the while, the lines between what’s real and what’s a product of her paranormal-obsessed mind are becoming blurred.

Is she losing her mind or has she just stepped into a world she thought only existed in books?

Caught in a web of worried parents, competing boys, Wiccan relatives, protective amulets, and psychiatrist babble, Reagan must determine the truth before it’s too late.

Summary:

To the outside world, Anna appears to be an ordinary high school senior... 

Anna has a lot of questions. Should she pursue her desire to leave home for college and live out her dream of becoming a physicist? Or should she stay home and help care for her family, which has struggled ever since her father died in Afghanistan? Is her crush, Steve, really interested in her, or is he only using the highly intelligent Anna to try and boost his grades in school? 

These questions, plus the ordinary trials and tribulations of high school, distract Anna from noticing some very... strange things that are beginning to happen to her. 

For as long as Anna can remember, she has had a haphazard smattering of freckles on her arm. But these freckles are starting to change, and cause a series of unnerving hallucinations and odd side effects that only Anna seems to notice. When a strange shadow man starts to haunt her nights, she decides to go on a hunt for the truth to discover, once and for all, what is happening to her. The hallucinations continue growing stronger, however, and each new visit by the shadow man appears to become more and more threatening. Eventually, Anna realizes that she can no longer hide from her friends and family what is happening to her. 

But as she shares her secret with those closest to her, Anna never imagines that her very life, and the lives of those she loves, will be put in jeopardy.

Who, or what, is Anna?

Wednesday, January 15, 2014

Review: I, Zombie by Jo Michaels

Goodreads Summary:

It's the end of the world as we know it.

Trixie Collins is a normal teen making her way through high school. One night at a party, a boy comes on to her and won't take no for an answer. As she jerks her arm away, his fingernails cut into her skin.

When she finds her dog's mutilated body and realizes she's to blame, she starts to think maybe the zombie apocalypse they've been screaming about on the news isn't a hoax after all. Worse, she begins to think maybe she's one of the infected.

Now it's a fight for life as she joins together with her brethren to stop the humans intent on destroying them. Are zombies all bad, or is it just a huge misunderstanding?

Publication Date: January 8, 2014


Books about zombies always give me a lot to think about and I, Zombie continued this trend for me. I’m always impressed with zombie novels that aren’t simply gore fests, but instead make me think about the human condition. The author created a thought-provoking read by having the narrator not only be a zombie, but starting the novel before Trixie becomes infected.

Trixie was a main character that needed to grow on me. She came across as a little self-righteous as a human so I thought it was awesome when she became infected. As a zombie, I found her much more likable and was glad to see the author continue her theme of featuring strong women. I really liked her best friend Jack and found him my favorite character of the novel. One character I didn’t care for was Trixie’s mom. Her reactions to certain situations seemed a little unbelievable. For instance, Trixie comes home with scratches on her arms and says one of the boys at the party got too touchy-feely. Her mom’s response is to tell her daughter to be more careful. Huh?

The writing was good and the novel is well edited. It moved along at a nice clip and I never found myself bored with the plot. There’s plenty of action as Jack and Trixie run for their lives while the zombie outbreak becomes a showdown between the infected and the non-infected. I could tell the author did her research while writing the novel and found it interesting that she tied the disease to kuru. There were a lot of fun touches too like the creative chapter titles.

I did go through a lot of emotions while reading. I was angry at times and crying at other points. There were a few deaths that were surprises and I liked that there were twists up until the end. It is a zombie novel, so a few out there concepts are expected, but the teens Googling diseases and helping the CDC figure out a cure probably could have been left out. Trixie became a hero in so many other ways I don’t think it was necessary.

All in all, I enjoyed the book and I’d recommend the novel to fans of YA horror novels. There is some violence but I didn’t think it was graphic enough that younger teens couldn’t enjoy the book. I think the author’s recommendation of 13+ is a good guideline.

Rating: 4/5 Stars


Saturday, January 4, 2014

Stacking the Shelves #72

Stacking the Shelves is a weekly meme hosted by Tynga's Reviews and features books you've added to your shelves, both physical and virtual.

I bought some great books with an Amazon Gift Card I received. I already finished Surviving Raine and it was awesome!

Purchased:
Surviving Raine by Shay Savage

Flat-Out Love by Jessica Park

Lone Survivor by Marcus Luttrell
For Review:
Song of the Fireflies by J.A. Redmerski

The Rogue Returns by Leigh LaValle

I, Zombie by Jo Michaels

When the Duke Was Wicked by Lorraine Heath