Beautiful Creatures, by Kami Garcia & Margaret Stohl (Book Review)

Title: Beautiful Creatures
Author: Kami Garcia & Margaret Stohl
Genres: Fantasy, Romance
Format: Paperback
Pages: 563
Publication Date: 12/9/2009
Publisher: Little, Brown Books for Young Readers

Goodreads | Amazon

★★★☆☆

Lena Duchannes is unlike anyone the small Southern town of Gatlin has ever seen, and she's struggling to conceal her power, and a curse that has haunted her family for generations. But even within the overgrown gardens, murky swamps and crumbling graveyards of the forgotten South, a secret cannot stay hidden forever.

Ethan Wate, who has been counting the months until he can escape from Gatlin, is haunted by dreams of a beautiful girl he has never met. WhenLena moves into the town's oldest and most infamous plantation, Ethan is inexplicably drawn to her and determined to uncover the connection between them.

In a town with no surprises, one secret could change everything.

I'll cut right to the chase. This book is okay, but it's not brilliant.

This is my second time reading it. I did this because I got a wild hare and decided that I had to review the entire Caster Chronicles series if I was going to maintain a decent blog reviewing YA fiction. That impulse resulted in the impulsive purchase of the entire series as a boxed set.

I did the same with Delirium, another book I disliked.

If Delirium works out the way that  Beautiful Creatures did, it will be a lucky mistake.

Here's how it goes: This book is a solid three-star rating. That's the same rating I gave it the first time that I read it, and I stand by that rating even though it surprises me. Maybe the first time around I should have given the book two stars.

The difference between then and now is that the first time around, I didn't enjoy this book. Not even a little bit. I found it insufferably long and it took me nearly two months to finish reading the book because I couldn't stay with the story. According to my current rating system, that warrants a two-star rating.

Maybe this is why I chose to revise that system, yeah?

Having read this book twice now, I can attest that this is an enjoyable story and that I would recommend it to readers who enjoy atmospheric teen romances.

Thing is, that's not really me. 

Warm Bodies, by Isaac Marion (Book Review)

Title: Warm Bodies
Author: Isaac Marion
Genres: Fantasy, Science Fiction
Format: Paperback
Pages: 256
Publication Date: 12/25/2012
Publisher: Astria/Emily Bestler Books

Goodreads | Amazon

★★★★★

R is having a no-life crisis—he is a zombie. He has no memories, no identity, and no pulse, but he is a little different from his fellow Dead. He may occasionally eat people, but he’d rather be riding abandoned airport escalators, listening to Sinatra in the cozy 747 he calls home, or collecting souvenirs from the ruins of civilization. 

And then he meets a girl. 

First as his captive, then his reluctant house guest, Julie is a blast of living color in R’s gray landscape, and something inside him begins to bloom. He doesn’t want to eat this girl—although she looks delicious—he wants to protect her. But their unlikely bond will cause ripples they can’t imagine, and their hopeless world won’t change without a fight.

Full disclosure: This is my favorite book of the twenty-first century. 

I guess that's kind of corny. Certainly there must be better books written during the past seventeen years, and yet this is the book that has called to me the most over the past four years since the first time that I read it.

Another note of disclosure: This is the second time I've read this book.

And it's only the second time I've read this book, which seems strange when I consider how much the language comforts me. Reading this book feels like wrapping myself in the warmth of grandmother's favorite quilt and snuggling down for a long winter's nap. Or maybe just a good read.

Let me start this review by stating this: This book is corny. It's humorous and it's implausible and it's cheesy and it's sappy and it's just a weird genre.

I want you to read this book. What I don't want is for you to read this book and groan, because it does bear its similarities to Twilight (which, by the way, I thoroughly loved but which does not make my top 10 books of the twenty-first century by a long shot).

You're here to read about this book though, and that's what I want to tell you about.

How about we start out by talking about what this book is not?

Rot & Ruin, by Jonathan Maberry (Book Review)

Title: Rot & Ruin
Author: Jonathan Maberry
Genres: Horror, Young Adult
Format: Paperback
Pages: 458
Publication Date: 5/3/2011
Publisher: Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers

Goodreads | Amazon

★★★★☆

In the zombie-infested, post-apocalyptic America where Benny Imura lives, every teenager must find a job by the time they turn fifteen or get their rations cut in half. Benny doesn't want to apprentice as a zombie hunter with his boring older brother Tom, but he has no choice. He expects a tedious job whacking zoms for cash, but what he gets is a vocation that will teach him what it means to be human.

Well this one was definitely not what I was expecting. I don't read reviews prior to reading a book due to concerns that I'll spoil the book for myself, and the synopses of this book didn't begin to do it justice.

I'm tempted to type up the text on the back cover for you, but that seems somehow silly. 

So let me emphasize: This book was not what I expected it to be.

I've discovered recently that I love zombie fiction. What's wonderful about it, for me, is that every zombie book (or series) that I've read has been different than the books that I read before it.

Everybody has a different take on zombies, and that's pretty cool, if you ask me. Sorry, I shouldn't use that word. Benny Imura would cringe. How about I say it's pretty fascinating?

Jonathan Maberry's take on zombies is that they were people once, too. Or at least that's Tom Imura's take on zombies. For me, this perspective was life-changing and not at all in the least bit what I expected to get from this book.

Okay, maybe life changing is strong wording for how this book affected me. The point is that it did affect me.

Percy Jackson and the Olympians (Series), by Rick Riordan (Book Review)

Title: Percy Jackson and the Olympians (Series)
Author: Rick Riordan
Genres: Fantasy, Mid-Grade
Format: Paperback
Pages: ---
Publication Date: 2010-2014
Publisher: Disney Hyperion

Goodreads | Amazon

★★★★★

All five books in the blockbuster Percy Jackson and the Olympians series, in paperback, have been collected in a boxed set fit for demigods. Now with glorious new cover art and packaged with a special poster, this value-priced set includes the best-selling The Lightning Thief, The Sea of Monsters, The Titan's Curse, The Battle of the Labyrinth, and The Last Olympian. Whether it is for readers who are experiencing Percy's thrilling adventures with Greek gods and monsters for the first time, or for fans who want to devour the saga again, this gift will be prized by young and old.

When I initially decided to review this series as a whole series, I'd thought I would do so as a general discussion of the merits of the story, its similarities to Harry Potter, and open up discussion of the characters. 

I still want to do that. However, the further I got into this series, the more that I realized that any similarities to any other series were meaningless, because Percy Jackson is the best mid-grade series I've read to date.

Yes, that means I liked it better than Harry Potter. 

(But do note that I also separate middle-grade fiction from young adult fiction.)

The main thing that I have to address about this series is that the series as a whole is better than the sum of its parts. I could not average my individual ratings of each book and achieve an accurate star-rating for the entire series that reflected my feelings about the series.

So I didn't. I assigned a five-star rating to the series as a whole because it deserves it. This is a series that I will read again. And again. And one that I will recommend.

There you have it. That's the simple part. But there's a lot more I have to say about this, so let's keep going, shall we?

There may be spoilers beyond this point!

Percy Jackson and the Olympians: The Last Olympian by Rick Riordan (Book Review)

Title: Percy Jackson and the Olympians: The Last Olympian
Author: Rick Riordan
Genres: Fantasy, Mid-Grade
Format: Paperback
Pages: 381 Pages
Publication Date: 01/25/2011
Publisher: Disney Hyperion

Goodreads | Amazon

★★★☆☆

All year the half-bloods have been preparing for battle against the Titans, knowing the odds are against them. Kronos is stronger than ever, and with every god and half-blood he recruits, his power only grows. 

In this momentous final book in the New York Times best-selling series, the prophecy surrounding Percy's sixteenth birthday unfolds. And as the battle for Western civilization rages on the streets of Manhattan, Percy faces a terrifying suspicion that he may be fighting against his own fate.

This book was unnecessarily long.

Let me jump right in and tell you why I don't feel like this book deserved more than three stars. It's highly rated on both Goodreads and Amazon and it distresses me to mark this book so low when it ordinarily rates so high. 

But here it is: The book was too long, and during the entire middle portion of the book (roughly one half, but potentially as much as two thirds of the middle section of the novel), nothing happened.

Okay, okay. Before readers who've read this ahead argue with me that there's plenty of action in this book, allow me to clarify that there most certainly is action throughout The Last Olympian. It's one battle scene after another after another and I'd say that certainly qualifies as being "action" in a book of this nature.

If that's your thing, and you like action regardless of plot, you're going to do great with this book. For me, this sort of reading drops a book almost instantly to a two-star status for me. And if it wasn't part of a series, a one-star status.

Yep. I'm telling you I almost couldn't finish the final book in a series. 

Percy Jackson and the Olympians: The Battle of the Labyrinth, by Rick Riordan (Book Review)

Title: Percy Jackson and the Olympians: The Battle of the Labyrinth
Author: Rick Riordan
Genres: Fantasy, Mid-Grade
Format: Paperback
Pages: 361 Pages
Publication Date: 4/7/2009
Publisher: Disney Hyperion

Goodreads | Amazon

★★★☆☆

Percy Jackson isn't expecting freshman orientation to be any fun. But when a mysterious mortal acquaintance appears on campus, followed by demon cheerleaders, things quickly move from bad to diabolical. 

In this latest installment of the blockbuster series, time is running out as war between the Olympians and the evil Titan lord Kronos draws near. Even the safe haven of Camp Half-Blood grows more vulnerable by the minute as Kronos's army prepares to invade its once impenetrable borders. To stop them, Percy and his demigod friends must set out on a quest through the Labyrinth-a sprawling underground world with stunning surprises at every turn. Full of humor and heart-pounding action, this fourth book promises to be their most thrilling adventure yet.

Ugh. This book was incredibly difficult to rate. It was tough to pin down a specific star rating, and that brings to light the fact that Lightning Thief wasn't difficult to review because it was the first in the series; It was difficult to review because it was so disappointing.

If I had to characterize the fourth book in this series with a single word, that word would be disappointing.

I've read some reviews of this book, and many readers say that this was their favorite in the series so far. For me, I found that many characters that I had previously loved fell flat, that the relationships lacked texture, and that ultimately a book or series nearly always loses me when it introduces the (spoiler alert!) love triangle.

So let's talk about the things that made this book such a let down for me.

Percy Jackson and the Olympians: The Titan's Curse, by Rick Riordan (Book Review)

Title: Percy Jackson and the Olympians: The Titan's Curse
Author: Rick Riordan
Genres: Fantasy, Mid-Grade
Format: Paperback
Pages: 312 Pages
Publication Date: 5/9/2009
Publisher: Disney Hyperion

Goodreads | Amazon

★★★★★

Percy Jackson isn't expecting freshman orientation to be any fun. But when a mysterious mortal acquaintance appears on campus, followed by demon cheerleaders, things quickly move from bad to diabolical. 

In this latest installment of the blockbuster series, time is running out as war between the Olympians and the evil Titan lord Kronos draws near. Even the safe haven of Camp Half-Blood grows more vulnerable by the minute as Kronos's army prepares to invade its once impenetrable borders. To stop them, Percy and his demigod friends must set out on a quest through the Labyrinth-a sprawling underground world with stunning surprises at every turn. Full of humor and heart-pounding action, this fourth book promises to be their most thrilling adventure yet.

Six stars. Is that a thing?

I'm starting to feel like I did a wrong thing by rating Lightning Thief four stars. At the rate that these books are getting better and better, I'm going to run out of stars. Or maybe I already did, because six stars is not, in fact, a thing.

But it should be. Because Titan's Curse.

So here's the thing about this book. I'm jumping to the middle, but I want to tell you about this thing. Maybe it's more like "the end" but so what? I promise I won't spoil this for you.

This book made me cry. For real, it made me cry. 

Not pretty crying, either. I'm talking about big, ugly tears, rolling down my cheeks, sobbing so hard that my family members remarked on it later.

Yes, Percy Jackson made me cry.

Percy Jackson and the Olympians: Sea of Monsters, by Rick Riordan (Book Review)

Title: Percy Jackson and the Olympians: Sea of Monsters
Author: Rick Riordan
Genres: Fantasy, Mid-Grade
Format: Paperback
Pages: 279 Pages
Publication Date: 3/20/2007
Publisher: Disney Hyperion

Goodreads | Amazon

★★★★★

After a summer spent trying to prevent a catastrophic war among the Greek gods, Percy Jackson finds his seventh-grade school year unnervingly quiet. His biggest problem is dealing with his new friend, Tyson-a six-foot-three, mentally challenged homeless kid who follows Percy everywhere, making it hard for Percy to have any "normal" friends.

But things don't stay quiet for long. Percy soon discovers there is trouble at Camp Half-Blood: the magical borders which protect Half-Blood Hill have been poisoned by a mysterious enemy, and the only safe haven for demigods is on the verge of being overrun by mythological monsters. To save the camp, Percy needs the help of his best friend, Grover, who has been taken prisoner by the Cyclops Polyphemus on an island somewhere in the Sea of Monsters, the dangerous waters Greek heroes have sailed for millennia-only today, the Sea of Monsters goes by a new name the Bermuda Triangle.

Now Percy and his friends-Grover, Annabeth, and Tyson-must retrieve the Golden Fleece from the Island of the Cyclopes by the end of the summer or Camp Half-Blood will be destroyed. But first, Percy will learn a stunning new secret about his family-one that makes him question whether being claimed as Poseidon's son is an honor or simply a cruel joke.

First of all, I want to apologize for taking so long to finish reading this one. It's been an incredibly difficult two weeks and I haven't had a lot of time to read.

Which is disappointing considering how much I loved this book.

I'm going to be honest with you, my dear readers: I wasn't expecting too much after finishing Lightning Thief. The first book was okay but it wasn't amazing. Sea of Monsters made up for that in a way that I didn't anticipate.

It's hard to explain how I could love Lightning Thief without being transfixed by it. In the end, it just didn't quite cut muster for me. Sea of Monsters made up for that, so if you're reading (or have read) Lightning Thief and aren't sure whether you should continue with the series, my advice is do.