Pride and Prejudice and Zombies

Pride and Prejudice and Zombies by Jane Austin and Seth Grahame-Smith

I tried........I delayed, and yet my weak will collapsed.  I Bought Pride and Prejudice and Zombies.  I was wholly enchanted by the cover.  Giddy with anticipation of zombie mayhem combined with the goodness of Austen love.....I delved into the depths of England overtaken with Satan's army.  I don't care who you are, this is a good idea.  If you feel now that you should stop, and possibly have my ability to be literate held behind lock and key with Federal Marshals at ready........well you are living on a nut farm and I do not wish to visit your parched and dry life there.

Austen alone is well worth the read for most women.  But add puss, vomit, and brain craving zombies and you now have a book worth making room for in your purse.  Tote this with you and read whenever possible.  After headily trying to recall which bits of this novel were original.....I said, "To Hell with it."  This is the way it was surely intended to be.  Darcy is much more palatable when weilding weaponry.  His standoffish and uptight behavior seem nearly manly and desireable when accompanied with musketry. And lo and behold, Miss Elizabeth Bennett you are now my hero.  Able to slay the undead with out the blink of an eye.  To use all manner of sword, dagger, gun and physical prowess to take on the stumbling zombies of the English countryside.  And as Mr. Darcy is humble enough to profess his true feelings of love.......Elizabeth will hear none of his amore......she beats the holy tar out of him.  Heaven help us all, this is how Pride and Prejudice was meant to be.
Here, the proper use of pus and vomit..."As dinner continued in this manner, Elizabeth's eye was continually drawn to Charlotte, who hovered over her plate, using a spoon to shovel goose meat and gravy in the general direction of her mouth, with limited success.  As she did, one of the sores beneath her eye burst, sending a trickle of bloody pus down her cheek and into her mouith.  Apparently, she found the added flavor agreeable, for it only increased the frequency of her spoonfuls.  Elizabeth, however, could not help but vomit ever so slightly into her handkerchief."

Rating 4.5   Loved it!  The only detraction was the original writing which can get wordy when you just want some vomit, zombie whoopin', and Darcy to finally make his move.
Rating PG   Bloody zombie killing, zombies eating people, vomit, ninjas, and one point where Elizabeth returns the balls belonging to Darcy's weapon and there is sexual inuendo (which was funny:)  ).

Not My Daughter

Not My Daughter by Barbara Delinsky

Three bright, college bound teens make a pact to become pregnant and have babies.  News of the pact is quickly leaked by one of the friends.  The community's anger and disappointment is soon turned on one of the mothers......also the principal of the highschool.  The mother having been pregnant herself at seventeen but still making a successful life.

The story drew me in when I wondered, 'What the heck were they thinking?"  And then......pft, what they were thinking was never really explained.  The girls decided after a summer of babysitting that they, as mature 17 year old girls, could be better mothers than the ones they worked for.  Also it seemed so fun to have something of your own.  I would like to offer up that a kitten would have been a better choice.

The book had its points.  The mothers did question their culpability in the situation, wondering if they had parented wrong.  And as far as the book describes, they probably didn't, but it is a question asked by most parents.  It was just a foolish pact between the girls.  Once the gossip mill started there were some hard times.  It described fairly well what it can be like in a small town where your business is everyone elses.  The maturity of the girls seemed to be on target.  They were ridiculous fools.  And even though Delinsky showed this........I was still more than irked.  The girls were idiots.  They never had a good reason for doing something SO life changing.  Beyond the passing mention of adoption or abortion, the options were never really given any creedence.  The main teen Lily said more than once that she didn't want the father in the picture because she wanted the baby to be 'hers'.  It made me so violently angry that I wanted to poke her in the eye.  So self centered and immature I wanted the community to rip her to shreds.  By the end.....probably the worst part........the whole package is tied up in a snappy little bow.  The babies are all born healthy.  All of the parents accept the babies and their daughters.  The girls live at home and get taken care of by their parents.  I'm not saying that that situation isn't probably true to life at times......I just didn't like it.

Rating 2  Okay, I wanted somewhere in the book to have better options or to show the struggle.....or to at least show someone with enough maturity to say 'hey what's best for the poor baby?'. 
Rating PG 13 Teen pregnancy, subject of abortion, sex between an unmarried adult couple, teen sex

The Council of Dads

The Council of Dads by Bruce Feiler

New York Times Best Selling Author Bruce Feiler is known for his books on walking.  'Walking the Bible' even being turned into a PBS documentary.  His livelyhood having very much to do with walking.  Then an astonishing blow.  A cancerous tumor on his femur.  Not only could he lose his leg, his ability to walk, his livelyhood, Bruce could lose his life.  As the father of 3 year old twins he was heartbroken.

This book is Bruce's attempt at making a safety net if he should succumb to the cancer.  He gathered men representing stages of his life and characteristics that he wanted his girls to know about him if he could not be with them.  Fantastic idea.

I found myself interested more in the medical aspect of the book and his day to day life with his wife and children.  The Council of Dads was a great idea and the men had wonderful ideas about what they would do and say for the girls.  But somehow I found myself not wanting to have anything to do with the council.  Bruce seemed like a great father.  I resented the fact that he might die and leave his wife and daughters.  I didn't want him to die and I didn't like that he was making any kind of arrangements should events turn in that direction.  I'm not saying he shouldn't have because as a good father he was doing something awesome for his daughter's future.  I just didn't want him to die and I refused to be party to his planning for a dim future......so there.

At one point he and his wife go to visit the place where he will someday be buried.  I think this was the saddest part for me.  He writes........."Tears were streaming down our cheeks, salt trickling into our mouths.  The rain was matting our hair. My crutches tumbled to the ground. And in the darkened cathedral of  a Bonaventure thundershower, we clung to each other, pressed our foreheads together, and kissed on the land where we would one day rest forever. "

Rating 4  Great writing, good idea, smart articulate men.
Rating G  Clean but a grave situation. 

The Dead-Tossed Waves

The Dead-Tossed Waves by Carrie Ryan (sequel to The Forest of Hands and Teeth)

Years have passed since Mary left the Forest of Hands and Teeth.  She lives at the edge of the ocean, caring for the lighthouse and the beach.  Her own daughter, Gabry, is not as daring and adventurous as Mary.  Gabry wants nothing more than to be safe and stay in her small seaside town with her new love Catcher.

As many teens are prone to do, Gabry follows her friends outside of the barriers that keep the village safe from the Mudo.  When a Breaker attacks the group of friends, turning many into the undead, Gabry flees to the safety inside of the barriers.  Catcher is contaminated with a Mudo bite.  The ones not 'turned' are captured by the Recruiters and locked up to await punishment for endangering the whole community.

Mary decides it is time to go back to the Forest and reclaim the past she left behind.  Gabry, too afraid to follow her mother, stays behind.  Gabry wonders why she can't be brave like her mother and adventerous like her friends.  When she finds out Catcher is still alive and outside of the barriers, but contaminated with the virus that will turn him into an undead, Gabry tries to find the inner gumption to leave the community and brave the dangers outside of the barriers for the boy she always saw herself loving.

At the beginning of the book I felt a little like I wasn't reading a sequel.  The unconsecrated are now called Mudo, meaning 'mute'.  The fast Mudo are called Breakers.  You turn Breaker if there are not enough Mudo around when you are infected.  I didn't feel like these were covered very well.  I felt like I walked into the middle of a conversation.  Then the more I thought about it, I realized that this was many years after the first book and it took place in a society that knew more about the zombies. 

I would have like to delve into the reason for the zombies and how the rest of the new civilization worked.  I do however LOVE this author's writing style and the way she puts the words together.  She uses very descriptive words in a way that I would not think to put them together, but then somehow you understand exactly what she was trying to evoke.

I am pretty sure that I marked a lot of quotes but now that I am looking at my markers I see that my kidlets have pulled most of them out:(

"His words cut into me, his desires and dreams mingling with my own, throwning at me everything I've lost.  Everything that will never be mine."

Gabry's life strays completely from the narrow path she saw for herself in the future and she miraculously steps onto it with bravery that I don't know if I could muster.

Rating 4  Great, great writing style.  I was still interested in the Mudo virus and the society that was built up after the Return, which I didn't get many answers to.
Rating PG  No language or sexuality really.  Just some sensual kissing and peril.

Courting Miss Lancaster

Courting Miss Lancaster by Sarah M. Eden

'Courting Miss Lancaster' is the sequel to 'Seeking Persephone'.  I was given this book and read it without knowing there was a volume preceding it.  I did not find that I needed the previous volume to understand this one.

Harry Windover has fallen for Athena Lancaster.  Poor Harry can never be thought of as an eligible match for her though because he is nearly penniless.  To make Harry's suffering even worse, Harry's best friend is Athena's guardian, and he asks Harry's assistance in finding Athena a suitable gentleman.  Harry decides to show Athena what she doesn't want in a suitor.  Gentlemen with alarming characteristics are introduced and quickly turned away.  With every debacle, Athena needs Harry's comfort more.  What she doesn't understand is that love isn't always like a lightening bolt, sometimes it grows quietly.

Clean, sweet romance!  Even though there must be some...misunderstanding.....to wrench your heart and make you cringe in agony, it's not so bad that you start to hate the story.  Fun, super fast read.  I think I am convinced to find its predecessor and read it too.

Rating 3.5  Sweet, cute, fun, cuddly if necessary......just like you think it would be.
Rating G Pretty darn clean.

Recovering Charles

Recovering Charles by Jason F. Wright

Wright is the author of 'Christmas Jars' and 'Wednesday Letters'.   In 'Recovering Charles' Wright's main character, Luke Millward is a lost soul.  He is a successful photographer that has little personal connection to anyone except his friend Jordan.  Jordan and Luke met in college and have remained close, though Luke cannot bring himself to make Jordan his wife.
Hurricane Katrina hits the lower South.  Luke discovers that his estranged, alcoholic father was lost in the fray.  Luke has never come to terms with his father's desperate dive into alcholism.  As a teen, Luke's mother died of a drug overdose.  His father has never been able to reconcile himself and turned quickly to the soft sholder of alcohol.  Charles (Charlie, Luke's father.) stopped contacting Luke at his request.  He became a nomad, traveling for cards, liquor and his deep love of music.  Charlie found his life again, in New Orleans playing jazz and getting clean.
Luke takes his time making the trek from New York to the hard hit South.  He finds way more than he thought he would.  Initially he agrees to go as a photographer.  Through the eye of his lense he sees a nation ravaged by nature but saved by the amazing heart of humanity.
The story as a whole was meaty enough to enjoy.  I was crushed by the aftermath of Katrina.  The characters were very loveable.......except for Luke.  I could never understand exactly when his heart turned from disgust with his father to love and regret.  Luke was a mystery and not very well written as a main character.  The end was rushed and left me to wonder what happened:(

Rating 3.5  There were salvageable parts; Katrina, the characters, Charlie's struggle through alcoholism and twelve step recovery.
Rating PG  Lots of death and destruction.

Dramarama

Dramarama by E. Lockhart

Two teens from small town Ohio dream of making it big on stage.  Demi is gay and black and determined to leave small town forever.....leave behind what small town expects him to be and what his parents grit their teeth and bear.  Sadye (Sarah) can't wait to leave behind being a nobody, that nobody understands.  So the two bestfriends audition for summer drama camp. 

Once they make it to Wildewood Academy; one of them sees their dreams quickly coming to fruition while the other realizes that though their love for the arts makes their heart beat, they might not have what it takes to be the big star. 

There's lots of love, laughter, singing, dancing, and a strain on true friendship.  If you have not had much experience with musicals or theater, you may struggle with the references to the multitude of productions spoken about.  At the end the author leaves a list of movies and a playlist that the characters like.

Rating 3  Loved the musical and theater parts.  Sweet book about owning who you are and making it work.  Worth a quick read.

Rating PG 13  Underage drinking, homosexuality, sexual references.

Impossible

Impossible by Nancy Werlin

The song 'Scarborough Fair' takes the starring role as a curse.  Lucy is a regular girl living with her foster parents.  Her life takes a dramatic change;  her crazy birthmother shows up just as Lucy is heading off to her first prom, a strange and enchanting man shows up for dinner at her parent's house, her long time neighbor/best friend Zach, moves into her house, and her prom date becomes posessed and rapes her.
Lucy realizes that the song 'Scarborough Fair' isn't just a song her looney mother sang because she was nuts.  It is a curse, a riddle, and a warning.  Lucy has to find a way to accomplish all of the tasks in the riddle, in order to break the curse put on all of the women in her family by an Elfin Knight.  She only has a short amount of time to break the curse before she becomes crazy......as all of the women before her have.

Lucy was easily likeable.  She is quiet and determined and makes the strange plot easy to believe.  Lucy and Zach quickly fall in love despite their ages.  Zach, along with Lucy's very supportive parents, help her unwind the riddle that will soon take her mind.  I didn't really end up liking Soledad (Lucy's foster mother) very much.  I think somehow I took her to be a liberal, granola......and she never sat well with me most of the time.

Rating 4  Loved Lucy and Zach together.  I loved the magical quality and unique way that the song was turned into a curse.  The characters where a great group that I became attached to.

Rating PG 13   Rape, teen pregnancy, information about abortion, evil magic used to cause a mental disorder and to coerce someone into being a sex slave.