Kiss Of Life (Generation Dead #2)

*Spoilers......and overall uninteresting if you haven't read Generation Dead*
After Adam is killed by Pete, a zombie hater, he returns to life.  Phoebe  feels love and guilt that Adam died saving her.  Since Adam is techincally still walking around, Pete was not convicted of murder.  Phoebe spends a lot of time with Adam since she was told that love brings the undead back faster.  Adam struggles with simple movement and speech.  The rights of the undead are being tried.  Groups are out to see the zombies returned to complete death or to do scientific research on them.

I could go on and on but the book really wasn't as good as the first one.  I was excited to pick this book up to see what happened with the zombie love triangle between Phoebe and Adam and Tommy.  I wish I had only checked it out from the library instead of purchasing it.  It took forever for the book to go anywhere.  Not until the very end is there very much action but it felt unfinished.  I hate second books that are merely a bridge to book three.

I will definitely read the next book in the series, "Passing Strange", because it has one of the better characters, Karen, a zombie sometimes passing as human.  By the end of the book we are unsure what has happened to her.  I have the feeling that there will be loose ends even as the series wraps up.  I also have suspicions about what will happen next and will be glad to have everything explained.

Rating 3 Meh.......
Rating PG 13 Death, zombies, murder, torture, language.

1001 Things You Didn't Know You Wanted To Know

I love facts.  I do.  I love finding out little tidbits of information.  This book was read during a party.  If you know me at all......you know this is pretty probable.  The book was laying about when picked up by another guest.  She started in on all of the fact telling.  It got to be a bad habit.  By the end of the party we had read the whole book.  It was like a sick compulsion to share every fact we read.  When you read this book make sure there is at least one other person with you.  You will be so compelled to tell someone what you just read that you will not be able to contain the urge.  If you are alone I swear to you......you will be speaking aloud to thin air.

There were some things that we already knew (ex.  A female gives only X chromosomes and it's up to the male to give an X or Y......determining the gender of the offspring.  Please......if you are in any way sexually active....please, please tell me you know this.)  There were some things that were too boring to mention.  But most of them were interesting and fun.

Rating 4  Fun book to read with other people.  Great introvert tool for conversing with the enemy (anyone else you don't know).
Rating PG 13 There is a section on sex, which my little party friend tried to skip........but I went right for it as soon as she let go of the book.

Life As We Knew It (Last Survivors #1)

If you have ever needed external motivation to beef up your food storage......here it is.  It heightened my naturally high anxiety level to 'frantic'.  I plan to begin stock piling wood, asprin, batteries, fuel, canned fruit and veggies, and canned chicken, like nobody's business.  And I am beginning to think that my vaulted ceiling was a mistake.  It won't hold in enough heat when the ash comes.  I'm getting ahead of myself.....

Teenager Miranda is your run of the mill girl.  She worries about blog stalking her Olympic crush. She's a little shallow. She wants less homework and worries about her changing friendships.  Then a once a life time meteor collision with the moon goes from block party atmosphere to apocalyptic.  The moon is pushed closer to the Earth causing it's gravitation to spur one natural disaster after another.  No longer is Miranda worried about which sport to play or the fact that she is growing apart from her childhood friends.  Survival is at the forefront.  Sacrifice, starvation, desolation, and death quickly take the place of free spirited American life.  Miranda captures it all in journal entries.

This is a superb work of post-apocalyptic fiction.  It is so believeable that you can't decide whether to keep reading or start hoarding.  It is very simply written and a tad slow at the beginning.  The simplicity makes it scarier on one hand.  The sense of desperation and grueling day to day survival is vivid.  And then sometimes I felt like the simplicity also took away.  I didn't get the sense of urgency that I think would exist during a crisis.  That took it down a point for me.  Also, I am now realizing......hello! Where was your weapon stock pile? How were they going to defend their wood, asprin, and canned chicken for Pete's sake. That part is so unrealistic I can't believe I forgot it was one of the point deductors. And I just have to put in my 2 cents....I realize the author can write any old thing she wants and if I were to author a book I could splatter my opinions everywhere....but I didn't like the Conservative slamming, from President bashing (which granted I would do if the President in the book I wrote were a so Liberal he was suffocating) to making Christians look like Kool-Aid sipping nut jobs. I think I may have been more forgiving if this book wasn't aimed at a younger audience. Just my opinion.



Rating 4
Rating PG 13  Crisis situations, death, destruction, scarey situations, talk of promiscuity.

A Loving Heart (Dicken's Inn #3)

*Spoilers*

The third installment of the Dicken's Inn saga picks up where the second left off.  Chas is pregnant with their second child.  Jackson has been baptized and they are looking forward to the time when they can be sealed in the temple.
We immediately find out that the baby Chas is carrying has a heart defect and may die at or before birth.  Jackson's former FBI associate calls to see if he will accept a woman in protective custody (hiding from the mob) at the Dicken's Inn. Jackson's sister comes to stay with the family to help.  Her son, a soldier in the war in the Middle East is injured and ends up moving in to the inn.  And Jackson's old FBI team member finally comes for a visit to help with the woman they are harboring........he may never end up leaving.

I think this may have been the best book in this series so far.  Jackson was all manly and cop like, which is a plus.  I do appreciate the way that Stansfield's characters approach situations and handle themselves very graciously and very gospel oriented, but I don't find it at all realistic.  This time Jackson seemed more human to me......especially when he whipped out his duty weapon.  Aside from the totally obnoxious fact that the characters are usually independently wealthy and function together as a couple.........ALL day, EVERY day (Which I consider to be the biggest work of fiction in these books)...the book was much more palatable.  It didn't have the emotional turmoil that many times harrows up these books.  I am ready for this series to be over.  I love Jackson and if he actually worked full time as an agent or a police officer he would probably be a much better character........but he runs an inn.....and is a little demasculinized by it.

Rating 3.5  More action.  Jackson actually uses a weapon....which he stopped wearing when he retired......and I find absurd.  The storyline containing the new baby was good and even though it was traumatic, it wasn't so mentally emotional that I felt like a dog going in cirlces after my tail.
Rating PG  Shooting!!!!

A Great And Terrible Beauty

A Great And Terrible Beauty by Libba Bray

Gemma is left at a Victorian England boarding school after she witnesses the death of her mother in a vision.  She quickly realizes that she is an outsider in a place she used to long for.  Transplanted from India into a group of hostile mean girls, in a society she once ached for but now regrets how her desires came about.  Gemma is paired with Ann, another outcast.  Her quick wit, snarkiness and eventually her powers to see beyond,  cause the elite girls to see her as an asset.  The girls form a secret society using Gemma's supernatural powers.  They begin to realize the power they are capable of.....power to have anything they desire. 

Beautiful title, lovely book cover, likeable and entertaining story.  The drawback for me are the vision scenarios...I didn't get into them, or maybe I did. I didn't like the feeling of confusion, darkness, dreaminess.  It didn't make sense to me or wasn't concrete enough for me to grasp.  The lurking evil wasn't really explained well enough for it to feel as truly menacing as it should have been.  I think the book was capable of being much scarier which would have given it the substance needed to make it a great book.

Rating 3.5
Rating PG 13  Murder, supernatural.....scarey elements, sensuality.

The Wedding Dress

The Wedding Dress by Carrie Young

A compilation of short stories detailing life in the early 1900's on the plains of North Dakota.  The fictional stories feel real.  Some of them give the sense of ghost stories where you are just waiting for the creepy ending which never comes.  The stories are sweet, engaging, and poignant.  The characters are good, solid, moral people.  Endings were not always happy but the morality always shined through.

Rating a good solid 3  Easy to pick up and read bit by bit or as a whole.
Rating G 

Rumors A Luxe Novel

Is it wrong to swoon over a cover of a book so much that you don't care what takes place inside?  I would love to put on this blood red frosting and walk right into New York elite society 1899.

Spoilers if you haven't read The Luxe.

Elizabeth has gone to meet Will in a very underdescribed manner....out West.  Diana is hot for Henry.  Henry is hot for Di.  The fact that Henry was engaged to Diana's dead sister is keeping them apart.  Penelope is a hot mess as far as I am concerned.  Her kitty claws are out and ready to capture Henry.  Lina, the personal maid that Elizabeth fired is on the loose and vying for a place in a society she has envied her whole life.

I was completely caught up in The Luxe.  This book was a severe disappointment.  I quickly tire of the intrigue, gossip, backstabbing and jealousy.  I just want the people in love to get together.  The surprise ending was a nightmare.........a serious, serious nightmare which I don't understand.  And it will lead me to pick up the next book as soon as I can.

Rating  3  I HATED the end of this book.  It magnified how in need the rest of the book was. 
Rating PG mature themes but not entirely dirty