Category Archives: Young Adult

Alice in Zombieland
(White Rabbit Chronicles, #1)
By: Gena Showalter
Publisher: Harlequin Teen
Published: Sept. 25, 2012
Genre: Paranormal YA
Rating:

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She won’t rest until she’s sent every walking corpse back to its grave. Forever.

Had anyone told Alice Bell that her entire life would change course between one heartbeat and the next, she would have laughed. From blissful to tragic, innocent to ruined? Please. But that’s all it took. One heartbeat. A blink, a breath, a second, and everything she knew and loved was gone.

Her father was right. The monsters are real….

To avenge her family, Ali must learn to fight the undead. To survive, she must learn to trust the baddest of the bad boys, Cole Holland. But Cole has secrets of his own, and if Ali isn’t careful, those secrets might just prove to be more dangerous than the zombies….

This is not a retelling of Alice in Wonderland. The only thing that is the same is that the main character’s name is Alice, there is a rabbit shaped cloud that appears when there’s trouble and her best friend’s name is Kat. Other than that, I saw no other similarities.

Alice’s father used to be a paranoid drunk. He was always going off about these monsters who kill people. He wouldn’t allow anyone to go out after dark and would keep watch over the house while everyone was asleep. Alice used to think he was just nuts, until the night she talked her father into going out at night so that the family could watch her younger sister’s recital. And that was the night when she saw the monsters eating her father. That was the night she lost her family.

The characters in this story weren’t shallow like a lot of young adult books. Instead, they all show strength in the face of danger. Alice decides to hunt the zombies that are terrorizing her. She has to learn to not only fight but to fight in the spirit realm. You see, these zombies are not the reanimated flesh and bones that we’ve come to know. These zombies are spirits that feed on the spirits of the living. So the general public have no idea that they are out there.

I liked that the drama that takes place in this book wasn’t over exaggerated. You had the typical issues between cliques but that was about it. There also aren’t any love triangles taking place. So instead you get a paranormal packed adventure from start to finish. And Gena knows how to write a story. She kept the storyline going at a steady pace with spikes up suspense throughout.

Considering that this book’s cover and title make you think that this is a retelling of Alice in Wonderland with flesh eating zombies, it was a bit of a let down. However, for being a paranormal young adult novel, it was pretty good. So don’t go into this book (like I did) expecting zombies or AiW because you won’t get it. Go into this expecting a young adult paranormal story and you shouldn’t have any problems.

“Truly living required risk.”

Hover
(The Taking, #2)
By: Melissa West
Publisher: Entangled Teen
Published: Aug. 13, 2013
Genre: Sci-Fi YA
Rating:

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On Earth, seventeen-year-old Ari Alexander was taught to never peek, but if she hopes to survive life on her new planet, Loge, her eyes must never shut. Because Zeus will do anything to save the Ancients from their dying planet, and he has a plan.

Thousands of humans crossed over to Loge after a poisonous neurotoxin released into Earth’s atmosphere, nearly killing them. They sought refuge in hopes of finding a new life, but what they became were slaves, built to wage war against their home planet. That is, unless Ari and Jackson can stop them. But on Loge, nothing is as it seems…and no one can be trusted.

This is a sequel to Gravity and you MUST read Gravity before reading this. You cannot just jump in and hope to catch up. It had been a while since I read Gravity and even I needed the refresher that the author gives when starting the book. It took me a little bit for me to get my bearings and to get back into the state of mind since Hover starts right where Gravity left off.

I don’t want to give too much away in my review but all I can say is that although this story isn’t as gruesome as the last, it still has a high level of suspense to it with a couple of shocking moments. Ari and Jackson are trying to beat the clock and keep a full blown war between the aliens and the humans from happening. New characters are introduced and are vital components to the story while we get glimpses from the secondary characters from the first book. So with everything that’s taking place, and the new characters that are thrown into the mix, there is a lot going on. I was never bored with the story of felt like the story lagged. The pacing of the story was brilliant.

I also like that we get a better look at Jackson who is still a mystery in this book. You start to peel back the layers that makes up his character. In the first book you think he’s this confident person, but it isn’t until you see him in his own element that you realize that it’s all just a mask that he wears. He’s really just a hurt, panicked, broken boy who’s been beaten down like a stray dog all of his life. So much is expected from him and so much is taken from him that he wears this mask to not only protect himself but protect the ones he loves.

The reason why I took away a star from this, and I may later change it when I reread a finished copy, is because the formatting was horrible. I was given an ARC by the publisher and words were missing or were off to the side of the page in a different paragraph. There were words that had overlapped each other leaving me to guess what it was supposed to say and if what I was reading was the same sentence or again, something that was from another paragraph in the story. And all of the “f” and “fi” in the entire book were missing. So for instance instead of “first”, I’d get “rst” or instead of effective I would read “eective”. I understand that this is an ARC and usually I let these mishaps slide under the radar because I know the book hasn’t been through the final wringer yet. However, the problems were so huge and disruptive to my reading that I couldn’t fully get into the story. Every sentence I was having to figure out what the author said. Maybe once the book is released I will revisit the book and will find myself more enveloped in the story, thus bringing this up to 5stars.

Will I continue with the series? Definitely. Melissa has a great voice when it comes to telling a story. She doesn’t add drama where drama isn’t needed just to keep the story interesting. However, be warned, she is a master at leaving you on the edge of your seat the entire time… even until the very last word.

“Then do me a favor. Try to imagine what it would be like to be petrified to think or act freely. Not just worries that you will disappoint, but literally afraid that you or someone you love would die if you ever thought or acted of your own accord. That has been Jackson’s life. So before you start judging him for not telling you who he is, maybe you should consider his motives and consider that perhaps, for someone like him, he put everything on the line for you too and you pushed him away.”

Previous reviews from The Taking
Gravity

Melissa lives in a tiny suburb of Atlanta, GA with her husband and daughters. She pretends to like yoga, actually likes shoes, and could not live without coffee. Her writing heroes include greats like Jane Austen and Madeleine L’Engle.
She holds a B.A. in Communication Studies and an M.S. in Graphic Communication, both from Clemson University. Yeah, her blood runs orange.

GRAVITY is her first novel.

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Triangles
By: Kimberly Ann Miller
Publisher: Spencer Hill Press
Release Date: June 18, 2013
Genre: YA
Rating:

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A cruise ship. A beautiful island. Two sexy guys. What could possibly go wrong?

In the Bermuda Triangle—a lot.

Hoping to leave behind the reminders of her crappy life–her father’s death years ago, her mother’s medical problems, and the loser who’s practically stalking her–seventeen-year-old Autumn Taylor hops on a ship with her sister for a little distraction. When she wakes up in the Bermuda Triangle, she fears she’s gone nuts for more than one reason: that loser’s suddenly claiming they’re a happy couple… a hot guy is wrapping his arms around her and saying “Happy Anniversary”… and suddenly, she’s full of bruises, losing her hair, and getting IV medication. Autumn visits the ship’s doctor, hoping for a pill or a shot to make the craziness go away. Instead, she’s warned that these “alternate realities” could become permanent.

She just has to ask herself one question—how the hell is she going to get out of this mess?

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