The Graveyard Book by Neil Gaiman
This was the first Gaiman book I’ve ever read, and after hearing so many good things about him, it was a little bit of a let down, but that isn’t to say that I didn’t enjoy reading it. I loved the supernatural aspect to it, and the seemingly normal life Bod lived in the graveyard, but the ending just seemed a little…. lackluster. Continue reading
The Fear by Charlie Higson
This is the third book in The Enemy series and it brings us all the way back to the end of The Enemy. We’ve come full circle over the course of three books, and in a way it kind of makes you feel like you haven’t actually gotten any further in the story, but then it also was interesting to see what other kids were doing to survive.
This book splits its focus between DogNut and those at the Buckingham Palace, including Jester when he goes off and finds the group from the supermarkets in The Enemy. We’re introduced to some new characters, some who you’ll love and some who you’ll hate, and we get to see how the group of kids living at the Natural History Museum are surviving. It’s really interesting to see how some of the kids we met in the second book who were considered nerds, and called themselves “The Brain Trust”, were acting as scientists and doing experiments on the grownups.
Also, because we followed Jester through his journey to find more survivors, we got to see more of what kind of character he was rather than the persona he portrayed to the other kids in The Enemy. I’m going to warn you, if you’re interested in reading these books, or have read the others and are going to read this one, you’re probably not going to like him. Before this he seemed like he knew what he was doing and he was maybe not really a good guy, but not a bad guy like David. In this book you realize that he stayed alive for the whole journey to Holloway because he’s a coward and relies on other people to keep him alive. Doing this gives him some enemies, so I hope that gets played out in the coming books.
Since we don’t get to see what’s happening at the Tower of London, we don’t get to see what’s going on with Sam the Giant Slayer and The Kid after they arrived there at the end of both The Enemy and The Dead, so I hope that’s what the next book partially focuses on.
I want to read the rest of the series, but what’s nice about this series is that I feel like I don’t have to go out and borrow the next book or two from the library immediately or risk forgetting what’s going on. That, I believe, is due to the fact that at the end of the third book, we find ourselves at the end of the first book on the timeline.
Overall, I give The Fear a 10/10.
Read on!
Molly
The Dead by Charlie Higson
This is the second book in The Enemy Series, and is a prequel to the first. At the very beginning, you get a look at how kids reacted to the disease before the power went out, before the internet was down, when things were still relatively normal and only a few grown-ups were sick. Continue reading
Conspiracy 365: February by Gabrielle Lord
I didn’t actively go out and search for this book so that I could continue with the series. My little sister got her first tattoo a few weeks back and while my mom and I were waiting for her to be done, we wandered around the used book store across the street and lo and behold! Conspiracy 365: February was right there waiting for me. They also had May, but I didn’t want to get too far ahead of myself. Continue reading
The Enemy by Charlie Higson
This book is the first in a series of six books, of which I will likely read all. The basis of the story is that all of the adults have succumbed to a disease that has killed the lucky ones and turned those that survive into kid-eating almost-zombies. Their bites are dangerous, but not because it will turn you into one of them, but because they have so many germs and bacteria in there mouths that bites quickly become infected. Continue reading
Conspiracy 365: January by Gabrielle Lord
I found this entire series on a trip to a local used book store with two of my friends. We all thought it looked hilariously bad, so I bought the first book. I mean, it was only two dollars, and I thought I’d probably get a laugh out of it. Worth it in my opinion.
The main premise of the book is that on New Year’s Eve Cal is told (by a crazy man wandering the street) that something called the Orland Singularity killed his father and now they’re going to kill him if he doesn’t lay low for 365 days, until midnight on December 31st. Cal’s dad died 6 months ago of a virus that ate away at his brain, and Cali doesn’t believe this man.
Then shit goes down. He’s almost killed, can’t trust his uncle, kidnapped, beaten, on the run at only 15 years old. He acquires drawings his father did before the virus finally killed him, and knows that there’s something in them that’s important, that his father wanted him to know and that everyone else seems to be after him for. If only he could figure it out!
With all this happening, Cal feels he can only really trust his best friend, Boges, with all the information. He doesn’t want to drag his Mom in since she’s still dealing with his dad’s death, and then all the other bad luck that the family has been having since then (which, believe me, is a lot).
It wasn’t as hilariously awful as the general look of the book had led me to think. Yet another reason not to judge a book by its cover. It wasn’t a masterpiece work of Young Adult literature, but not bad. Actually, I’m tempted to buy the next book (February) just because this book ended on such a cliffhanger. And I hadn’t really realized until then just how much the book had sucked me in.
A fun addition to the plot of the book, which counts down how many more days Cal has to stay alive (as each chapter is the start of a new day), was that the pages of the book begin at 185, then count down to 1.
Overall, I think I’d give this book an 9/10. It was well-written and had me involved in the plot before I knew it. Also, it was a fast read, which sometimes you just need to read a book that you know isn’t going to take you weeks. I’d give it a 10/10, but the front cover of the book really needs to be redesigned. It makes potential readers think the book is going to be much different than it actually is. Also, there weren’t exactly plot holes in the book, but there were some parts where I was sure what was happening wasn’t exactly realistic, even in this conspiracy that Cal finds himself in.
Read on!
Molly
Lord Loss by Darren Shan
Two of my friends recommended I read this book, the first in the Demonata series, when we found it in a used book store. I like getting book recommendations, and I liked Darren Shan’s Cirque du Freak series, so I bought it, and went in expecting to love it, and wanting to love it. However, I got through the first chapter and a half and I had no idea what I was reading. It was so much stranger than I expected it to be, and it was strange without explanation. It just dove right into the strange and stayed there.
It got less weird as the story went on, at least for a while in the middle. Even so, I was pretty sure that I wasn’t going to be continuing on with the series. It just didn’t do it for me like the Cirque du Freak series. However, when I got to the end, there was a sneak peak at the next book, which seems to be from a new character and unrelated to this book, so I might give it a shot.
The book wasn’t bad, it was just unexpectedly strange. You find out at the beginning with the main character, Grubbs, that demons do exist. And once you finally get used to that idea, suddenly Grubbs and his friend Bill-E suspect that werewolves exist too. I got used to the idea that there was some way for the characters in this world to contact the demon world, or there were ways for the demons to somehow cross over to their realm, but then I expected that to be the only supernatural aspect to the book. Werewolves threw me, but they kind of made sense once everything was explained.
Speaking of, I did feel like it took a long time for everything that happened at the beginning to make sense with the rest of the plot. It wasn’t necessarily bad that way, but I felt like Grubbs could have been told long before he was and it may have prevented some things from happening.
Overall, I’d give it a 7/10. It was a little too strange for my tastes, and I should warn anyone who’s interested that it does get gory, but it had a consistent plot and everything was wrapped up nicely in the end.
Read on!
Molly
Hello!
My name is Molly and I have a book review blog called redbirdbookreviews where I review the books on the list 1001 Books You Must Read Before You Die. This blog will be for the books that I read which are not on that list. Perhaps some books that are if I find them worthy of a double posting.
redbirdreads 