Sick by Tom Leveen

I was a surprisingly big fan of the last book I read by Tom Leveen, Zero, which was a contemporary read I wasn't really sure about before I picked it up, so when I saw that he'd written a zombie book, I was very curious to see what he would do with the genre. Sick is the story of a group of teenage outsiders, including the main character, Brian as well as his friends, sister, and ex-girlfriend. When their high school is overcome with a virus that turns people into mindless bloodthirsty beings, Brian and his best friend are stuck safe in the theater department. Unfortunately, his sister and ex are not, and Brian makes it his goal to bring them to safety, even if it may end up costing him his own life.

Sick reminded me a lot of the "stuck in a high school edgy YA zombie novel" This Is Not A Test by Courtney Summers, but unfortunately I preferred her variation. This book was just a bit forgettable for me, but it is an easy read and in combination with the male narrator, might appeal more to a younger audience. Leveen's zombies are kinda cool, and the story has lots of action, but in terms the actual storyline it got a bit ridiculous with coincidences. I was most disappointed with the lack of explanation of about how the zombies started. I really wanted more background and science behind the storyline, instead of just feeling like something the reader had to accept. Brian is an okay narrator, but he's again, nothing memorable, and I just really preferred the title character in Zero.

Overall, I'm glad I gave Sick a shot as it was a quick read I devoured on an airplane ride, but I will be sticking to Leveen's contemporary in the future. There could be a sequel to this, but if there is, it's not for me.

Release Date: October 1st 2013 Pages: 288  Format: ARC
Source: Publisher  Publisher: Amulet  Buy It: Book Depository

Anna Dressed in Blood and Girl of Nightmares by Kendare Blake

These are some more super late reviews (do I write any other kind?) and it's two books I borrowed that make up a mini-series...not sure what you call it if it's only two books, a duology? So I decided to combine it into one review that gives you my thoughts on Anna Dressed in Blood by Kendare Blake, and the followup, Girl of Nightmares. 

I really like horror movies, but I honestly don't really read horror books. However, Anna Dressed in Blood had such good reviews when it was first released that eventually, after the sequel was released, I finally decided to pick it up one day It's the story of Cas, a ghost killer who moves from town to town with his mother, tracking down evil ghosts that have been killing humans, and finally getting rid of them. When he finds the ghost Anna Dressed in Blood, he expects everything to go like usual-- but Anna is not ordinary. She's more powerful than any ghost he's ever encountered, and yet, when given the chance, she doesn't kill Cas. 

I don't read a lot of books with a male narrator, so that was something I immediately appreciated. I think Cas's voice feels authentic and although he's a bit stuckup, there's something just charming about him that I enjoyed. In perfect balance to his charm, there's Anna, who is perfectly creepy. The violence and gore in Anna Dressed in Blood is perfectly done, and Blake's writing and imagery are dark and thrilling. 

However, I did get disappointed partway through Anna Dressed in Blood when the story took a new direction in a way that I didn't like. I wanted a book that was pure horror and guts, but instead it decided to get a bit mushy on me. No thank you. From that point on, there were still some redeeming moments and I thought the characters were all well flushed out and believable, but even it got a tad scary again it just wasn't quite as satisfying as I was hoping for.

The sequel, Girl of Nightmares by Kendare Blake, begins with a moopy Cas, and ugh, that is not what I wanted to read about. Guts and blood, please. However, it does move onto more interesting things and it has the same great writing, which is a mix of violence and humour. As a narrator, I just really enjoyed Cas's voice, even though I didn't always think he was great. I did want more of Anna in this book, along with more of the horror. In a lot of ways, because of the material, Girl of Nightmares is darker and more serious than Anna Dressed in Blood. However, I think there is less of that guts and blood, and more subtle horror, which I also really enjoyed once the story progressed to that.

In both Anna Dressed in Blood and Girl of Nightmares by Kendare Blake, there is a great group of characters that each have their own personality and depth that I really enjoyed reading about. Even though they are written from Cas's perspective, Blake really has the ability to create a group dynamic that feels real. Even secondary character's like Cas's mom are believable and with their own story. I also think Blake's writing is really strong, and there is some fun and some creepy imagery in these books. Although at first I thought I could do without the romance-- okay, I still could, but that would have made these books something totally different, and in the end Girl of Nightmares won me over on some aspects I didn't like about Anna Dressed in Blood making the series as a whole a success despite the mush.

If you're looking for something a bit creepy, well-written, and with great characters you would probably enjoy Anna Dressed in Blood and Girl of Nightmares. 

This Is Not A Test by Courtney Summers

This Is Not A Test by Courtney Summers

Release Date: June 19th 2012
Pages: 320
Format: E-galley
Source: Raincoast Books
Publisher: St. Martin's Griffin
Also by this Author: Cracked Up To Be; Some Girls Are
Buy It: Book Depository

Six students have taken cover in Cortege High but shelter is little comfort when the dead outside won’t stop pounding on the doors. One bite is all it takes to kill a person and bring them back as a monstrous version of their former self. To Sloane Price, that doesn’t sound so bad. Six months ago, her world collapsed and since then, she’s failed to find a reason to keep going. Now seems like the perfect time to give up. As Sloane eagerly waits for the barricades to fall, she’s forced to witness the apocalypse through the eyes of five people who actually want to live.

Courtney Summers writes a zombie novel. It seems so strange at first: this author who has published three edgy contemporary novels, two of which I have read (and loved)- Cracked Up To Be and Some Girls Are- suddenly decides to add the undead to her story? But in reality, This Is Not A Test is actually more similar to her previous books than I ever would have expected. Yes, there are zombies, but there is also a sorta unlikable main character with a secret, a romance between two people that don't really get along, and the kind of story that leaves you breathless with quickly turning pages. In fact, all the zombies really do is force six people together in a confined space for an extended period of time, six people who would never be together under any other circumstances, and then the reader gets to see what happens.

I don't really read about zombies, but I do watch a lot of horror films, and when it came to that aspect of This Is Not A Test I wanted a little more from the story. If there were going to be zombies, I wanted their existence to seem less random. At the same time, maybe that is what makes them so scary, the fact that they appear out of nowhere, all of a sudden. I guess I was never completely convinced that there had to be zombies, and that the same story couldn't have been told during a war for example, with bombs going off outside. There were a few key moments where the zombies were crucial, but the fact that most of the book relies on the terror they trigger, not them specifically, makes This Is Not A Test read a lot more like a contemporary novel than a paranormal.

Like Summers' main characters tend to be, Sloane was difficult but conflicted. When the novel begins, she's planning to kill herself, and then the zombies attack. What makes her existence even more complicated than Parker from Cracked Up To Be and Regina from Some Girls Are is the fact that she manages to live despite wanting to die, while so many others have died while desperately wanting to live. In a way, it's really frustrating. But at the same time, it makes Sloane's experiences incredibly interesting and unique to read about, especially watching her develop and grow throughout the novel, something Summers excels at like usual.

Even though Sloane is the main character of This Is Not A Test, her five companions each get their own little story too, and I found them each interesting to read about in their own way even if they didn't have the complexity to them that Sloane did. I did feel like the story ended a bit too soon, I mean, it's not that it ended abruptly exactly, it was just that I wanted a little bit more from it I guess. It has all this intensity and heart-pounding action, so it goes by really fast, and in a way it felt like it was over before it was really over. The beginning is just so amazing, that opening chapter blew me away, and the ending was more subtle. That said, I appreciate the restraint that it must have taken to end the story there, and it is also beautiful and twisted in its own way.

This Is Not A Test is incredibly easy to read, exciting and horrifying at the same time, thanks to Summers' wonderfully sharp writing–– it manages to have all the dark honesty of her contemporary books, there just happens to be zombies involved.

Slice of Cherry by Dia Reeves

"Portero was full of doors, and not all of them had four sides and a doorknob."

Slice of Cherry by Dia Reeves takes place in the unusual village of Portero, where strange things are the norm not the exception and girls like Kit and Fancy Cordelle feel right at home. The daughters of the Bonesaw Killer, Kit and Fancy would rather spend time with each other than interacting with the rest of the world, until one summer their mother signs them up for art courses and Kit meets a boy who changes everything. In their spare time the Cordelle sisters have also started following in their father's footsteps as they go on a murder spree facilitated by Fancy's ability to make all the evidence vanish by using a doorway to another world.

I'm not sure exactly what I expected when I picked up Slice of Cherry, but I was certainly surprised by the weird and interesting world Reeves had created. The novel itself is something like Dexter but with teenage sisters and magic, full of graphic but surreal violence. The relationship between Fancy and Kit is extremely well written, as it is evident how much the girls mean to each other, especially for Fancy. One line I loved near the beginning was from Fancy's dream diary, where she wrote:

"A doctor examined me and Kit and said the reason we were sick was because Kit had my heart and I had hers. But when he switched our hearts, they stopped beating."

This sort of imagery reminded me slightly of a Tim Burton film and fit perfectly in with Portero's oddity. However much of Slice of Cherry was perhaps just too weird and graphic for me, and some of it I just didn't quite understand. For example, Fancy wears little girl dresses which are apparently way too tight on her in an attempt not to grow up and in a novel with so much horror, adding in sex scenes honestly made me slightly uncomfortable. I also couldn't help but wonder why exactly Portero was the way it was- perhaps this is touched on in Reeves debut which also takes place in Portero, Bleeding Violets, but in Slice of Cherry it felt as if the reader was just dropped into this world full of monsters with no explanation of how it worked or why it was so different from the rest of the world so it took awhile to get used to. Ultimately this book was just a little too gruesome and odd for me. However, if you are looking for a twisted, strange, slightly creepy book to read, then you just might be craving a Slice of Cherry. 

Release Date: January 4, 2011
Pages: 512
Overall: 2/5
Source: E-galley from publisher
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