{Review} The Murmurings by Carly Anne West

Title: The Murmurings

Author: Carly Anne West

Format: Library hardcover

Publisher: Simon Pulse

Release date: March 5th, 2013

Date Read: April 21st to 23rd 2013

Rating: ✭✭✭✭

Everyone thinks Sophie’s sister, Nell, went crazy. After all, she heard strange voices that drove her to commit suicide. But Sophie doesn’t believe that Nell would take her own life, and she’s convinced that Nell’s doctor knows more than he’s letting on.

As Sophie starts to piece together Nell’s last days, every lead ends in a web of lies. And the deeper Sophie digs, the more danger she’s in—because now she’s hearing the same haunting whispers. Sophie’s starting to think she’s going crazy too. Or worse, that maybe she’s not….

It looks like I'm going to be the odd one out with this book, but not in the way you might have thought. In a surprising change of events, most of my friends did not like this book or at least, gave it a two star rating. But I did like it. I've been thinking pretty hard about this book and how I want to review and rate it. After a bit of deliberation, I've finally settled on a happy three and a half star rating.

This book isn't perfect, nor is it anywhere near perfect. It has a lot of problems, yet it also has a lot of positive points to it. While the book takes a long time to build up, the last part of the book is more then worth the wait. The supporting characters aren't all that built up but none of them are stereotypes or jerks.

Please take a moment to read the summary again and take a good look at the cover. I'm sure that by now you have vague ideas of what the book is about. Something that involves lots of scariness and creepiness and staying up all night? Nope, sorry.

THE MURMURINGS' summary isn't exactly truthful. It promises the reader a world of paranormal creepiness. Instead, the book turned out to be more of a mild psychological horror, or more appropriately a psychological thriller. There aren't any paranormal or real horror aspects to the book till the last 100 to 150 pages. Instead, West spends her time building up the story and the atmosphere. This may not appeal to some people but personally, I really liked this. 

Sophie, the main character, spends much of the book trying to figure out what exactly happened to her sister and why did she end up dead in an entirely different city - especially since she was "locked away". The book progresses very slowly here but I never felt like I wanted to drop the book. 

In the second half of the book, everything changes. Here enters the evil doctors, mental institutions, torture chambers, death, and gore. This part is the main reason I loved the book to be honest. While I enjoyed the beginning parts and Sophie's struggle with insanity or what she perceived was insanity, I do agree with most people by saying that the second part of the book was the main strength.

THE MURMURINGS avoided many of the standard clichés in YA literature. There was a cute romance that didn't overshadow the plot. It was treated as more of a side plot then the main objective of the story. Sophie's inner turmoil didn't consist of "omg, who do I love?". No, instead it ran more along the lines of "am I fucking insane or what?"

Though I found THE MURMURINGS to be a pretty awesome book, I was very disappointed by the ending. I hate easy endings. The ending wasn't in itself easy but the last chapter ruined the whole ending for me. I expect that when someone walks out of such a traumatic experience to have some scarring but from what it sounded like, everything was hunky-dory in happy land.




Aside from a few problems with lying blurbs and terrible endings, I surprisingly really liked this book. While it's definitely not my favorite, it was enjoyable and exciting, with just the right amount of scariness for the book. I recommend THE MURMURINGS someone who is looking to spruce up a boring afternoon.

Lisbeth is an American teenager who enjoys blowing shit up in videogames and discussing decapitation in great detail. She's also obsessed with Oceana, but you're not supposed to know that.

{Random} Please Don't Kill Me

I get the feeling that I should really write heart-to-heart posts more often. They're a lot more fun than reviews lately; that's for sure. I'm not very good at them, though.

I'm here to grovel at your lovely feet hey, did you get a pedicure? and apologize profusely for not keeping up with the blog.

I've been super busy WATCHING TELEVISION AND ON TUMBLR and reviewing is much harder for me to do now. I'm pulling myself out of this damn reading slump, but it's hard, you guys.

In the coming weeks, however, Lisbeth and I are planning on hiring an awesome person to completely revamp this blog, because let's face it: I am not web designer. This blog looks like shit, and my "templates" are a pain in the ass to work with. The only thing I'll tell you is that we're going to have a different color scheme: black, white, and green.

And our anniversary is coming up in several months! It'll have been a year that we met on the... what is it? The nineteenth of September? The story of how we met is pretty amusing, but we'll save that for another time. Man, I wish I still had the status update thread I posted a few days before we met... I deleted it because I was afraid my parents would somehow see it, bwahaha.

Dammit, I can't stop saying met. Gah.

Back to the point: I am SO, SO SORRY. I know all my friends in real life would say, "why are you apologizing for having a life?" because they are meeeaan bitches, but my blogosphere nuggets mean so much to me.

I love you all!

Well, most of you, anyway. There's a few I'd like to stab... with love, of course.

Oh, and maybe this will make up for my disappearance:

YES, THAT IS ME AS A VERY YOUNG BITCHY CHILD GIVING THE CAMERA THE DEATH STARE

LEAVE ME ALONE

xoxo,

Oceana

{Review} Going Vintage by Lindsey Leavitt

Title: Going Vintage

Author: Lindsey Leavitt

Format: Netgalley egalley

Publisher: Bloomsbury

Release date: March 26th, 2013

Date Read: March 5 to 8th 2013

Rating: ✭✭

When Mallory’s boyfriend, Jeremy, cheats on her with an online girlfriend, Mallory decides the best way to de-Jeremy her life is to de-modernize things too. Inspired by a list of goals her grandmother made in1962, Mallory swears off technology and returns to a simpler time (when boyfriends couldn’t cheat with computer avatars).

The List:

1. Run for pep club secretary
2. Host a fancy dinner party/soiree
3. Sew a dress for Homecoming
4. Find a steady
5. Do something dangerous

But simple proves to be crazy-complicated, and the details of the past begin to change Mallory’s present. Add in a too-busy grandmother, a sassy sister, and the cute pep-club president–who just happens to be her ex’s cousin–and soon Mallory begins to wonder if going vintage is going too far.

I’ve put off reviewing this book for a while, but not for my usual reasons. I’m not scared that this will turn into a massive rant or a bunch of fangirling nonsense. No, I simply do not know how to express myself here. I know what I’m feeling but I have no clue on how to say it.

GOING VINTAGE is the kind of book that makes you happy while reading even though you know it’s absolute fluff. I don’t like reading fluff for some reason. My “chick lit” (and I use this term very loosely) needs something more to it. It needs well defined and formed characters. It needs wonderful character interaction. I don’t really care if it comes in dystopian, contemporary, or science fiction.

This may or may not be the reason I love The Walking Dead.

Lindsey Leavitt attempted to add the “more” into the book but she simply did not achieve what I wanted. Now, when I say I want chick-lit, it’s often very different from what other people would think of when others say the same thing.

GOING VINTAGE will please a lot of people – and has already. It’s a cute book with really awesome family dynamics – something sorely lacking in YA literature. It has an adorable romance and with an adorable love interest. My problem is with Mallory, the protagonist and more importantly, her lack of logic.

In GOING VINTAGE, Mallory’s boyfriend cheats on her with a girl he met in a Sim-like game. Mallory then assumes that her relationship issues would never have happened if it weren’t for electronics and decides to swear them off. Forever.

*facepalm*

What Mallory doesn’t seem to grasp is that a cheater is a cheater no matter where or when or how he does it. It doesn’t matter what time period it is. Whether it be the 60s or 90s, there will always be cheaters.

Now, of course, if Mallory had thought along these lines, the book wouldn’t have happened and that would be sad.

Despite her often blatant logic fails, Mallory is a sweet character. She’s not all that bright and she’s in love with the spotlight a bit too much, but she’s not a horrible person nor could ever be called one. She stands up for what believes in and she’s really a good person. She’s a pretty awesome example of a flawed, yet strangely lovable character.

She’s definitely got her heart in the right place but I think she would have benefitted from some therapy and chocolate. I don’t think she gets enough chocolate. *hands over chocolate to Mallory*

The best part of the book was definitely was Oliver who was adorable and cute and squee-worthy. He’s not my favorite or even close to my favorite but I really did like him. He was a genuinely nice guy for a genuinely nice girl – something that I don’t often say.

As I said, I loved the family dynamics to the story. They were surprisingly deep. For the most part, YA books the families are lackluster. You’d think that a story with teen protagonist, they’d have a realistic portrayal of families.

LOLNO.

For the most part, none of the books have realistic families. They always have either perfect families or families that are so messed up that they become equally unrealistic. The family is GOING VINTAGE is perfectly flawed. There isn’t a perfect family in real life and thankfully, this book shows that.

GOING VINTAGE is wonderfully fluffy and light. It’s often hilarious. There was substance to the book but I just needed more than what I got. As I said, GOING VINTAGE will be perfect for a lot of readers, but for those who need something more than mindless fluff, this might not be the book for you.

Lisbeth is an American teenager who enjoys blowing shit up in videogames and discussing decapitation in great detail. She's also obsessed with Oceana, but you're not supposed to know that.

{Review} Entwined by Heather Dixon

Title: Entwined
Author: Heather Dixon
Format: Paperback
Publisher: Scholastic
Release date: March 29, 2011
Date Read: April 15
Rating: ✭✭

Azalea is trapped. Just when she should feel that everything is before her... beautiful gowns, dashing suitors, balls filled with dancing... it's taken away. All of it.

The Keeper understands. He's trapped, too, held for centuries within the walls of the palace. And so he extends an invitation.

Every night, Azalea and her eleven sisters may step through the enchanted passage in their room to dance in his silver forest.

But there is a cost.

The Keeper likes to keep things.

Azalea may not realize how tangled she is in his web until it is too late.

I had high hopes for ENTWINED, especially since retellings aretotally my thing, and I adore most fairy tales: especially The Twelve Dancing Princesses... well, not the original version, where the eldest sister marries this old solider and it's all very creepy.

Fortunately, Azalea, our main character and the eldest sister, doesn't end up marrying an elderly man. Unfortunately, the book just wasn't for me.

I did like the plot; a pretty original twist on the classic. However, it didn't keep my interest the whole way and I quickly began to get bored with it. I thought it was much more middle grade than young adult, because I could see how it was fluffy and cute, even though I didn't feel that way.

The sisters each had their own personality and traits (it was hard to confuse them), but they are behaved immaturely and far younger than their actual age. They giggled and squealed so much that I was sure I'd loose my mind. Azalea, especially, I found dull and quite unlikable, and I couldn't see what everyone else saw in her. Mr. Bradford was boring and stiff. It's very possible to craft a sweet, kind, "nice-guy" without making him snore-worthy. The King I did like when he wasn't sucking in his damn cheeks half the time; his character growth was fantastic and I really enjoyed reading about him. Our villain, the Keeper (not really a spoiler, honestly) was frightening and fascinating... at first.

The writing was lovely, for a fairy tale. It never would've worked if it wasn't, being a very distant and detached style with a lot of uncommonly used words pussyfooted .

ENTWINED may be truly amazing for some, but I didn't think so.

also, I'm aware that was one of the worst reviews I've ever written. GO AWAY.

Oceana is a French-blooded teenager who enjoys stalking British boys and asking them to marry her. She was diagnosed with severe fangirl disorder in 2011. Able to curse like a sailor with an angelic voice.

{Review} The Pirate's Wish by Cassandra Rose Clarke

Title: The Pirate's Wish

Author: Cassandra Rose Clarke

Format: Netgalley egalley
Publisher: Strange Chemistry

Release date: June 4th 2013 

Date Read: April 05 to 06, 2013

Rating: ✭✭

After setting out to break the curse that binds them together, the pirate Ananna and the assassin Naji find themselves stranded on an enchanted island in the north with nothing but a sword, their wits, and the secret to breaking the curse: complete three impossible tasks. With the help of their friend Marjani and a rather unusual ally, Ananna and Naji make their way south again, seeking what seems to be beyond their reach.

Unfortunately, Naji has enemies from the shadowy world known as the Mists, and Ananna must still face the repercussions of going up against the Pirate Confederation. Together, Naji and Ananna must break the curse, escape their enemies — and come to terms with their growing romantic attraction.

I should have expected this book to be bad. It's not like I ever love sequels or the final book in a series as much as I love the first book. They're often not worth the wait in any shape or fashion. But for some crazy and illogical reason, I did expect THE PIRATE'S WISH to be as enjoyable as THE ASSASSIN'S CURSE, if not even better. Instead, it failed me in many aspects.

The story takes place only a few days after the events of THE PIRATE'S CURSE leaving our favorite heroes on the island, trying to find a way off so they can break the curse. If you remember, the curse can only be broken if Naji and Ananna complete three impossible tasks.

These first few pages were very enjoyable, though there were a few hints of what's to come. The book became even more entertaining for me when the manticore, Ongraygeeomryn (don't worry, she's never referred to with this name). Ananna and the manticore's relationship was quite similar to the arashitora and Yukiko's relationship yet the arashitora definitely surpassed the manticore is adorableness because it is simply not possible to not think that a griffin snuggling up to a girl is the most adorable thing ever.

The book deteriorates rapidly when Ananna decides to kiss Naji, everything takes a downward spiral as Ananna adopts a "oh my gosh, I hate myself and my life and my hair and my body and my face and my lips" attitude. Because Naji doesn't want to be kissed in his sleep, Ananna suddenly thinks that her lips and her kissing technique is flawed.


Bitch, I wouldn't want to be kissed in my sleep and neither would you. That's sexual harassment whichever way you look at it. That's why he pulled a sword on you. Not because your lips are bad and your kissing style is poor. It's because he thought he wasbeing attacked.

This is definitely the point where it all went wrong. After this failed attempt at kissing him, Ananna started to sulk. Sulking is ok, we all do it. When your sulking lasts for most of the book, you know there's problem. 

Ananna was utterly insufferable because all she seemed to ever care about was getting Naji to like her. In the first book, Ananna didn't give a shit if Naji loved her or not. No, she was kind of busy surviving. In this one, whether or not Naji loves her is her biggest problem and her main concern. I mean, who cares if you're going to die as long as a cute boy loves you? 

She was definitely my biggest problem with the book, though not my only. My second biggest point of aggravation - no infuriation - was how the romance made it seem like Ananna's happiness depended on whether Naji was with her. Girl, you do not need a man to be happy. I would think that you of all people would know that.

Naji was pretty much the same but more subdued. By that I mean that all his badass witty comments are completely absent in this book and he spends his time fretting because he thinks these guys



will care about how ugly he is. I don't think that they're thinking, "Ew, he's like totes ugly." Dude, I'm pretty sure the only thing they're thinking is, "Oh look, yummy male-human! NUM NUM." 

There were a few really awesome parts. It's impossible for a book that not only has diva manticores but lesbian queens and armored sharks. Oh and pirate battles and manticore royalty. And an octopus. UM YES. That's so fucking awesome that I had to raise the rating by a star.

In the first book, the world and story was full of adventure and this something that I can't describe. It was like a drug. The moment you read the book, everything feels so happy and it's like you're floating on air.

But this book didn't have that. It just wasn't there. There wasn't a single moment that I felt like it even began to touch the feeling that I felt in THE ASSASSIN'S CURSE. It was still imaginative and creative but that feeling that I felt in the first book just wasn't there.

I really wish I could have loved this book like I thought I would've. It failed me in so many ways. I can't properly describe how devastated I am without either turning this review into a rant or making it sound very weepy. I'm so unhappy to say this but I can't recommend this book to anyone and I am unsure if I will want to read the spin off books.

Lisbeth is an American teenager who enjoys blowing shit up in videogames and discussing decapitation in great detail. She's also obsessed with Oceana, but you're not supposed to know that.

{Review} Under the Never Sky by Veronica Rossi

Title: Under the Never Sky
Author: Veronica Rossi
Format: Hardcover
Publisher: HarperTeen
Release date: January 3, 2012
Date Read: April 5, 2013
Rating: ✭✭✭✭✭

Exiled from her home, the enclosed city of Reverie, Aria knows her chances of surviving in the outer wasteland—known as The Death Shop—are slim. If the cannibals don't get her, the violent energy storms will. Then Aria meets an Outsider named Perry. He's wild—a savage—and her only hope of staying alive.

A hunter for his tribe in a merciless landscape, Perry views Aria as sheltered and fragile—everything he would expect from a Dweller. But he needs Aria's help too; she alone holds the key to his redemption. Opposites in nearly every way, Aria and Perry must come together to survive. Their unlikely alliance forges a bond that will determine the fate of all who live under the never sky.

I owe this book so much.

For several months, I’d been a horrendous reading slump - the kind where you have a pile of books to choose from and read, but you actively avoid them all and spend your free time stuffing your face with junk food and watching Netflix.

I’d received a lot of advise for the slump: read novellas, read comedy books, and watch more television (which was a really bad idea, because then I watched all eight seasons of SUPERNATURAL in a row).

But I decided to pick up UNDER THE NEVER SKY because it just seemed like something that would interest me.

And oh, gods, did it.

This book bitch-slapped me out of my slump and set me on a ridiculous path to read as many books as I’d missed out while on my little... vacation.

UNDER THE NEVER SKY takes place in a world where the city dwellers live in a community known as the Reverie, completely excluded from the dangerous outer wasteland, where cannibals feast and the land is swamped with Aether storms. Our protagonist, Aria, gets into a bit of a fight with some very important bastards and gets thrown out of the Reverie, left to fend for herself.

However, she’s not alone for long. ‘Savage’ Perry is on a quest to find someone, and Aria goes along with him to seek out answers and look for her missing mother.

I’m going to be perfectly honest: the beginning of UNDER THE NEVER SKY was no picnic. It was confusing and I had no idea what was going on. I didn’t understand what Aria meant by Pods and the Reverie and Smarteyes and Aether. Hell, I still didn’t even know what the words meant by page one hundred! I would’ve preferred info-dumping to the lack of information in the first half.

But slowly, you began to unravel the meaning behind the words, and that’s when the world building got awesome. It was like someone had wiped and cleaned my finger-print ridden classes soon as I figured it all out.



I KNEW WHAT WAS GOING ON AND IT WAS EPIC

The world Rossi had created for her characters was richly imaginative. The science fiction was so engrossing, but the outskirts, outside the enclosed city, was even better. I couldn’t put the book down. 

I literally considered skipping math class to hide out in the bathroom and continue reading.

but the bathroom is full of weave and dirty toilet paper and weird moth bugs so I was just like FORGET IT I'LL RUIN THE BOOK'S COVER

The characters all had these realistic backstories and personalities. I didn't like Aria at all for the first half of the book, but as soon as she got her shit together, I really started to appreciate her. Perry I loved as soon as I met him - he was kind of a badass awkward penguin that I couldn't help but adore.

And Roar.

ROAR, YOU GUYS.


okay, so a gif of my baby Castiel exploding probably wasn't my best move ever, but still

There was no insta-love in Perry and Aria's romance, though there was a bit of romantic tension after they became friends. Their relationship was so adorable and realistic, and equal. Perry snapped at Aria when she was being a bitch, Aria called out Perry when he was being a unknowing jerk, and it was all well and good. There were also hysterical moments in their relationship, like when Aria thinks she's dying because she got her period, and Perry is the one who tells her that she's menstruating.

I was crying from laughing so hard. 

Roar's relationship with Aria was fantastic, too, because even though he was a flirt, they were just friends, and they both knew it. Roar was in love with someone else, and I'm thankful Rossi didn't pull the dreaded love-triangle card on us.

I loved Rossi's writing. It was pretty and easy to read, going along with the intense world-building perfectly. UNDER THE NEVER SKY is indeed written in third-person with both Aria and Perry's points of view - but their voices were so varying and unique I never had to worry about mixing them up.

Veronica Rossi got me out of a damn slump with this amazing read, and I have her to thank for many months to come.

Also, I blame her for tearing my throats to shreds.

I honest-to-goodness screamed and snorted and squealed my way through this lovely work, and while my throat didn't enjoy the ride, I sure did.


DAMMIT MORIARTY WHAT ARE YOU DOING BACK IN MY REVIEWS

Oceana is a French-blooded teenager who enjoys stalking British boys and asking them to marry her. She was diagnosed with severe fangirl disorder in 2011. Able to curse like a sailor with an angelic voice.

{Review} Warm Bodies by Isaac Marion

Title: Warm Bodies

Author: Isaac Marion

Format: Library; paperback

Publisher: Vintage

Release date: October 28th, 2010

Date Read: March 30th through 31st

Rating: ✭✭

'R' is a zombie. He has no name, no memories and no pulse, but he has dreams. He is a little different from his fellow Dead.

Amongst the ruins of an abandoned city, R meets a girl. Her name is Julie and she is the opposite of everything he knows - warm and bright and very much alive, she is a blast of colour in a dreary grey landscape. For reasons he can't understand, R chooses to save Julie instead of eating her, and a tense yet strangely tender relationship begins.

This has never happened before. It breaks the rules and defies logic, but R is no longer content with life in the grave. He wants to breathe again, he wants to live, and Julie wants to help him. But their grim, rotting world won't be changed without a fight...

Actual Rating: 2.75 stars!

QUICK SYNOPSIS

WARM BODIES is a pretty nice read. It's definitely not a perfect book, nor worth the hype surrounding it. I expected way more from the book and I think that's the main reason that I didn't love it as much as I thought would. The hype made my expectations skyrocket and as usual, I was disappointed. 

UPS

- R

- Writing

DOWNS

- R

- Julie

- Preaching

REVIEW

This book is full of itself. I swear that this book thinks that it’s the shit. The book is utterly insufferable in that regards. It had a very elitist attitude, if we're going to assign anthropomorphic qualities to this darling book (that sounds like something that would be said in this book TBH). It's the douche that thinks it's better than everyone because it reads Shakespeare and Tolstoy for fun.

WARM BODIES is a metaphor for the 21st century and how utterly horrible it is. WHY I HATE THE 21st CENTURY would also have worked as the title for the book. To be honest, I'm entirely okay with books that are metaphors but I'd like the metaphor to be subtle. When you pretty much shout it at the reader, it looses its impact. The whole book was filled with passages like these:

We were fearful in the best of times; how could we cope with the worst? So we found the tallest walls and poured ourselves behind them. We kept pouring until we were the biggest and strongest, elected the greatest generals and found the most weapons, thinking all this maximalism would somehow generate happiness. But nothing so obvious could ever work. (page 148)

We're corralled in the stadium with nothing to think about but surviving to the end of the day. No one writes, no one reads, no one really talks. We don't have flowers anymore. Just crops. (page 71)

Perhaps part of Marion hates about the 21st century is the fact that you cannot write a book like this anymore. You just can't. WARM BODIES was lucky to make it big time but for the most part, it is impossible to make a widely successful YA book that is a METAPHOR. 

That aside, WARM BODIES is still a good book. It's not amazing like I thought it would be. I don't think it could've gotten more than a weak 3 star rating if the preaching had been taken out. It could have gotten a much higher rating if I got what I was promised: a gruesome and poetic book.

I can see where this "poetic" part is coming from but gruesome? Nuh-uh. This is light stuff. There's no ick factor or weird zombie gruesomeness. There's definitely some zombie violence but it's neither graphic nor scary. 

But, you can't judge a book by its lack of gore. You can however judge a book by its characters. R the zombie is our main character. His thoughts were surprisingly really interesting. I didn’t expect that at all.

For the most part, his thoughts were interesting and thought provoking. I admit he some times too philosophical. I don't think any 20-year-old contemplated life on a daily base. Not to mention this:

I wobble into the bathroom and lean my forehead against the wall in front of the urinal. I unzip, and I look down, and there it is. That mythical instrument of life and death and first-date backseat fucking.


Don't know about you guys, but I highly doubt that a penis could kill anyone. Or can it?

R's sort of a loner. He's also a possessive arse - yeah, let's not forget about that. He also saves kidnaps the love interest, Julie. He also lets Julie go back, "freeing" her, and then he follows her all the way to her home. But he likes Sinatra and Lennon so we're all good. 

I'm not saying that R is the worst protagonist ever. He's cute and funny at times. He's got some really amazing moments but I definitely do not see why he's in people's Top Ten Book Boy Friends. 

What keeps people fairly interesting in the real world? It's really obvious. In real life, people don't have one personality feature. There's always more to them. People are multidimensional. They have feelings. That's one thing that some authors can't do. Characters are either entirely missing a personality or they have one feature that OVERWHELMS EVERYTHING. THIS ONE PERSONALITY FEATURE YELLS AT THE READER, "DON'T FORGET ABOUT ME. I AM [insert word]!!!1!!!". 

This.

Is.

Not.

Natural.

Julie was one of those characters. She's brave and that's it. She's got girl balls because she can live in zombitopia without being eaten. She's obviously intelligent but this isn't really a personality his is the end of her intended personality.

Julie has no real personality. She was just the girl that R loved (for some strange reason). I think she was meant to signify something but honestly, I have nothing. For someone to signify something, the person needs something more than a name.

It's sort of a must.

The writing is definitely the main selling point to WARM BODIES. To an extent, it lives up to what I thought it would be. WARM BODIES is beautifully written. It truly is. WARM BODIES is a type of book that you want to read every single line thoroughly.

However, this comes at a price. Too much of a good thing is never good. The amount of symbolism and philosophical thoughts was nauseating because there was just too much of it. I like symbolism and philosophical musing but I do have a cut off point. When interesting thoughts turn into preaching about how horrible the 21st century is, I loose interest in the book.

Overall, WARM BODIES is a fairly interesting book that I do think you should read. It's not a must read for the decade or even the year. WARM BODIES is simply an interesting book that will entertain you through a lazy afternoon.

Lisbeth is an American teenager who enjoys blowing shit up in videogames and discussing decapitation in great detail. She's also obsessed with Oceana, but you're not supposed to know that.

Please note that my next few reviews will most likely each have a different format. I'm currently experimenting to find a new format for my reviews as my old one was very annoying for many reasons. I couldn't let the review flow normally because I could only put character/plot/writing info in the designated spot, making the reviews feel very unnatural.

{Review} Partials by Dan Wells

Title: Partials
Author: Dan Wells
Format: Library Hardcover
Publisher: Balzar + Bray
Release date: February 28, 2012
Date Read: March 29, 2013
Rating: ✭✭✭

The human race is all but extinct after a war with Partials--engineered organic beings identical to humans--has decimated the population. Reduced to only tens of thousands by RM, a weaponized virus to which only a fraction of humanity is immune, the survivors in North America have huddled together on Long Island while the Partials have mysteriously retreated. The threat of the Partials is still imminent, but, worse, no baby has been born immune to RM in more than a decade. Our time is running out.

Kira, a sixteen-year-old medic-in-training, is on the front lines of this battle, seeing RM ravage the community while mandatory pregnancy laws have pushed what's left of humanity to the brink of civil war, and she's not content to stand by and watch. But as she makes a desperate decision to save the last of her race, she will find that the survival of humans and Partials alike rests in her attempts to uncover the connections between them--connections that humanity has forgotten, or perhaps never even knew were there.

Dan Wells, acclaimed author of I Am Not a Serial Killer, takes readers on a pulsepounding journey into a world where the very concept of what it means to be human is in question--one where our humanity is both our greatest liability and our only hope for survival.

Oh, man. This book made me feel like humanity was my nasty ex, and I had just dumped his ass before snapping my fingers in Z-formation.

By that, I mean most of the humans in this book pissed me off - though they were supposed to. 

PARTIALS takes place in a futuristic world where humanity is quickly going extinct after a virus released during the Partial-Human war kills off babies less than a week after birth. Kira Walker, sixteen, is a medic-in-training. When someone important to her becomes pregnant, she resolves to find a Partial, experiment on it, and try to save the human race. But there’s more background to the war and the Partials than she initially thought, and what she discovers will turn her world upside down. 

That was about the shittiest blurb I’ve ever written but GIVE ME A BREAK OKAY AND THIS WILL BE A MINI REVIEW BECAUSE I’M TIRED.

The world-building and plot was amazing, hands-down. It was extremely immersive, and even though I didn’t understand a lot of the medical talk being the idiot that I am, I still appreciated the effort Wells put into it. It was very, well, scientific.

The politics and government in PARTIALS was brilliant, and this book made me feel like humanity was my nasty ex, and I had just dumped his ass before snapping my fingers in Z-formation. I mean, TEAM NATURE, Y'ALL.

By that, I mean I was cheering when I read about the flora and fauna taking over the cities.

I didn’t like most of the characters, Samm the Partial being an exception. I loved how sweet and mysterious he was without being a huge jerk. While Kira was a determined badass, she was also boneheaded and whiny. Her friends annoyed the crap out of me, particularly Madison and Marcus, her boyfriend.

There wasn’t a lot of romance in PARTIALS, though when there was, it was with Marcus, Kira’s boyfriend. Not Samm. Unfortunately.

YOU CAN HEAR ME GROANING FROM HERE

The writing was average for me, honestly. Some people didn’t care for it and others couldn’t get enough, but I found it to be alright.

PARTIALS didn’t consume me as much as I thought it would, being a predictable read and all, but it was good anyway.

Oceana is a French-blooded teenager who enjoys stalking British boys and asking them to marry her. She was diagnosed with severe fangirl disorder in 2011. Able to curse like a sailor with an angelic voice.