Awakened by Brenda K Davies (Vampire Awakenings #1)

I think I got this for free on my kobo and if it wasn’t free then it was definitely very cheap. It was just one of those books you download because they sound vaguely like something that might be interesting. It has been on my kobo for awhile never really appealing to me enough to actually start reading until now. I have to admit I was very worried at the start of this book as it had all the hallmarks of a poor twilight offspring.

I was wrong this was much better than twilight. However that wouldn’t be very hard now would it? It had a better storyline, the characters weren’t as painfully annoying and there was sex which, let’s face it makes an extremely bad book worth reading (case in point ‘Fifty Shades’). It was a bit too soppy and lovey-dovey at stages for my taste but never too much that I stopped reading.

The main bad point about this book was the spelling and grammar mistakes. The mixing up of the words to and too drove me insane and there were some punctuation issues also. I completely understand that an author can make a mistake here and there and even that they can be missed by an editor or whatever but every time the words too or to were used it was incorrectly. There is no excuse for that. Drove me insane.

However I did enjoy this book and I see that it is the first in a series which I’m glad about as I’m always looking for more series to start (as if I haven’t enough already…).

 

Uglies by Scott Westerfeld (Uglies #1)

I’ve heard a lot about this book in the past and it’s always been on my to read list so when I spotted it in my local second hand bookshop I jumped at the chance to give it a go. It reminded me a little of the Requiem series by Lauren Oliver. Requiem was about an operation you get that makes you immune from love and this was about an operation that everyone gets that makes you beautiful.

Basically you spend your whole life until the age of sixteen being an ‘ugly’ and then at sixteen you get an operation that transforms you into a ‘pretty’. It’s quite creepy to be honest. It seemed obvious to me from the beginning that being Pretty messed up your brain somehow but this came out towards the second half of the book as a major twist.

Tally, the main character, reminded me a lot of the main character from the Requiem series as from the beginning both characters believed in the operations and the authorities that carried them out. As the story progresses however both learn shocking truths about the procedures and become the biggest advocates against them.

Tally was a character that you grew to like. She doesn’t instantly appeal and at times you want to shake her for being so blind to the horrible way her world works. However if you step back and think about the fact that she has been taught that this was the proper way to think from the moment she was born it’s a little easier to empathise with her.

I loved the whole excitement of the world that the author created and I’m definitely looking forward to reading the next installment!

 

Frankenstein by Mary Shelley

Hmmm I’m not one hundred percent sure how I actually feel about this book. I liked it for sure but did I love it? I don’t think so.

So I was only vaguely familiar with the whole Frankenstein story. Of course I had seen the green monster masks with screws in its neck for Halloween and I had heard the stories of him being a monster brought to life by a mad scientist but that was it and I’m afraid not for the first time Hollywood has messed with the original and this book is barely recognisable as the Frankenstein story that’s so popular these days.

First of all Frankenstein was the name of the scientist not the monster?! Surprised? Me too.

Also he wasn’t green and wasn’t held together with screws. He was deformed and ugly but not to that extreme. Poor monster…

I did feel very sorry for the poor monster created by the self centred Frankenstein. All he wanted was to be loved or at the very least accepted by a fellow being as something other than the ugly wretch he believes himself. Frankenstein on the other hand cares about very little other than himself and even though seems to hold himself responsible for the monsters actions he repeatedly delays taking any action himself to stop him.

The end is actually quite sad and made me unsure how I felt about the book overall.

 

Patient Zero by Jonathan Maberry (Joe Ledger #1)

Man did I need this book… After two bad reading experiences in a row this was a knight in shining armour! I have struggled to find many good zombie books that have an actual good storyline and something that will keep you interested after the zombies stop attacking. Which isn’t as easy as it sounds surprisingly enough.

My favourite zombie series so far is probably the Newsflesh series by Mira Grant. It was just so well thought out and in depth with a whole lot of good, old-fashioned, rip-your-throat-out zombies thrown in for good measure. This may come in an easy second after Newsflesh. It’s definitely not as intellectually minded as Grants effort but it sure as hell is a rollicking good read!

I don’t think it slowed down once through the whole book. In actual fact the whole book centers around events that take place over the course of about three days so you can imagine how fast paced that makes the book.

So basically the storyline focuses around a terrorist plot to release a viral plague on America which turns people into flesh eating, violent zombies. Not an ideal situation. Joe Ledger along with a few other military types form a new task force in the DMS (Department of Military Sciences). They are tasked with the unenviable job of seeking out the terrorist cells and destroying any zombies along with the terrorists themselves.

I really enjoyed this book but I do find myself wondering whether it was because I was so desperately in need of zombies that I’d settle for anything or because it was genuinely very good? Maybe a bit of both. I definitely found it a little too All-American hero, gung-ho at times and it was also definitely a bit clichéd where terrorists are concerned. Muslim and Middle Eastern of course. However it was a great, fun read and it was exactly what I needed so I’m a happy girl.