Review: This Is Not A Test by Courtney Summers

Title: This Is Not A Test
Author: Courtney Summers
Publisher: St. Martin's Griffin
Published: 19th June 2012
Source: Own Copy

It’s the end of the world. Six students have taken cover in Cortege High but shelter is little comfort when the dead outside won’t stop pounding on the doors. One bite is all it takes to kill a person and bring them back as a monstrous version of their former self. To Sloane Price, that doesn’t sound so bad. Six months ago, her world collapsed and since then, she’s failed to find a reason to keep going. Now seems like the perfect time to give up. As Sloane eagerly waits for the barricades to fall, she’s forced to witness the apocalypse through the eyes of five people who actually want to live. But as the days crawl by, the motivations for survival change in startling ways and soon the group’s fate is determined less and less by what’s happening outside and more and more by the unpredictable and violent bids for life—and death—inside. When everything is gone, what do you hold on to?

Knowing that this is a Courtney Summers zombie book, you know it is not going to be a straight forward story of survival. The main character Sloane Price felt like she had very little to live for before the outbreak. She was alone in a horrible home situation after her sister left, and when the outbreak occurred Sloan saw it as a way to leave this world with no one noticing. When she ends up with five other students taking shelter in the local high school Sloane is not sure she even wants to be there.

What I love about novels including zombies is the tension. Zombie books should be straight up survival books with the horror almost coming from what the living are willing to do to survive. Since at the start of this book Sloane wants to die I felt that there was a lack of tension. To be fair this did build during the course of the book and the desperation of the other characters came through in the writing too.

As usual, Courtney Summers builds a complex character with real fears and feelings. You can't help but immediately sympathise with Sloane and understand why she has become numb to her own life. This numbness carries through a good part of the story which I found entertaining even if it was a bit lacking in tension.

I didn't enjoy this as much as I did with Some Girls Are and Cracked Up To Be but I enjoyed it none the less and I will be queuing up to read whatever she writes next!

Review: Allison Hewitt is Trapped by Madeleine Roux

Title: Allison Hewitt is Trapped
Author: Madeleine Roux
Published: 1st Jan 2011
Publisher: Headline
Series: Zombie #1
Source: Own copy

One woman's story as she blogs - and fights back - the zombie apocalypse

Allison Hewitt and her five colleagues at the Brooks and Peabody Bookstore are trapped together when the zombie outbreak hits. Allison reaches out for help through her blog, writing on her laptop and utilizing the military's emergency wireless network (SNET). It may also be her only chance to reach her mother. But as the reality of their situation sinks in, Allison’s blog becomes a harrowing account of her edge-of-the-seat adventures (with some witty sarcasm thrown in) as she and her companions fight their way through ravenous zombies and sometimes even more dangerous humans. - From Goodreads

This book had been on my want list for months and months. On my last birthday I got this as a present (thanks mum and dad!). I was over the moon and could not wait to start reading. I really enjoy the whole zombie genre and have been a fan of The Walking Dead graphic novels and the TV show, add that to this book is written in the style of a blog and to me it sounded like a winner!

Alison Hewitt is trapped. In the back room of the book shop where she worked with five of her colleagues. The only thing separating her from the zombies roaming outside is the heavy metal door. To stop herself from going insane Allison starts a blog connecting to SNET, an emergency military network. After deciding that there is no chance of surviving as they are the group start scavenging using the shop's security camera as a lookout. Zombies are not the only thing however that you need to look out for.

Alison was a great character and as she was talking to us through the medium of a blog (that she thinks no one was reading to start with) we really got to feel how she and the others were dealing with the situation. For me, I thought Allison was a really strong character and I really liked how she took charge of the situation when it was looking desperate. She starts off quite normal, but with everything she is going through we really see her evolve to be a bit of a badass!!

This was such a well executed idea with each chapter being a blog post. There were also comments from other survivors at the end of the chapter which added to the enjoyment. The whole story had the right level of tension running through it at all times, with some bits being quite mellow and almost relaxed and other parts where I could have put the book down if I wanted to. This book is all about expecting the unexpected, but not veering off into the ridiculous.

I liked this book, but learned very quickly not to get too attached to any of the other characters. Zombies and blogs are the perfect mix, with a little violence thrown in for good measure!! There were a few of the plot points I didn't like so much, but only because of the direction it took the story in and in the situation of "what would I do?" I probably would have done different! All in all however this was a great read and I can't wait to read the next book from Madeleine Roux, Sadie Walker Is Stranded!

Review: The Immortal Rules by Julie Kagawa

Title: The Immortal Rules
Author: Julie Kagawa
Published: 24th April 2012
Publisher: Harlequin Teen
Series: Blood of Eden #1
Source: eARC thanks to NetGalley and publisher

In a future world, Vampires reign. Humans are blood cattle. And one girl will search for the key to save humanity.Allison Sekemoto survives in the Fringe, the outermost circle of a vampire city. By day, she and her crew scavenge for food. By night, any one of them could be eaten.
Some days, all that drives Allie is her hatred of them. The vampires who keep humans as blood cattle. Until the night Allie herself is attacked—and given the ultimate choice. Die… or become one of the monsters.
Faced with her own mortality, Allie becomes what she despises most. To survive, she must learn the rules of being immortal, including the most important: go long enough without human blood, and you will go mad.
Then Allie is forced to flee into the unknown, outside her city walls. There she joins a ragged band of humans who are seeking a legend—a possible cure to the disease that killed off most of humankind and created the rabids, the mindless creatures who threaten humans and vampires alike.
But it isn't easy to pass for human. Especially not around Zeke, who might see past the monster inside her. And Allie soon must decide what—and who—is worth dying for. - From Goodreads

I had heard very little about this book and had blown it off as "just another vampire story". The reason I decided to read the book was Julie Kagawa. I have not read the Iron Fey series, it is one of those series I keep meaning to read, but I have heard so many good things about them. So with this series under her belt, I was hoping that Julie Kagawa would bring something different to the genre.

Allie lives in a future where society as we know it has totally broken down. A plague known as Red Lung has killed a massive number of humans, and in the search for a cure rabids were born. Now humans live in Vampire Cities protected from the rabids in walled cities, but there is a cost. Registered humans get food, but are kept as pets and willing blood donors. Allie is unregistered and this means that every day for her has been about surviving. Her whole world is turned on it's head when she is turned into a vampire and sent out to fend for herself.

I like Allie, she is quite a closed off character and at the start of the story when she was scavenging for survival I found her a little difficult to relate to. I began to warm to her, the internal struggles she had while discovering herself as a vampire were well written and made me like her even more. There are a number of other characters in the book that appear and then disappear. I liked Zeke, he made a great counterpart to Allie. All of the characters she encounters on her journey, from a human surviving in New Covington and on to a Vampire searching for Eden, were great. Don't get too attached to anyone though, this is an apocalyptic vampire book after all! 

We are all quite familiar by this point and some of them were beginning to feel really familiar. However the pairing of a broken society run, in the most part, by vampires made an interesting read. The story is a journey and there were a couple of times when the pace felt a little slow, but I always wanted to know what was coming next. The book is split into parts and these felt like they were well defined sections and I really enjoyed the change in tone or feeling that a new section brought.

I really enjoyed this book. The only thing I had a problem with was the cover. From the start we are told that Allie is a short Asian girl, but this does not fit with the girl on the cover. Details like this are a little annoying, how hard would it have been to find a model that looked like the description of Allie? Putting this aside, I will be reading the next book in the series, I need to know where Allie will be going from there!

Revew: Forest of Hands and Feet by Carrie Ryan

Publisher: Gollancz

Published: July 2009

Series: Hands and Feet #1

Source: Own Copy

From Goodreads: 
In Mary's world there are simple truths. The Sisterhood always knows best. The Guardians will protect and serve. The Unconsecrated will never relent. And you must always mind the fence that surrounds the village; the fence that protects the village from the Forest of Hands and Teeth. But, slowly, Mary’s truths are failing her. She’s learning things she never wanted to know about the Sisterhood and its secrets, and the Guardians and their power, and about the Unconsecrated and their relentlessness. When the fence is breached and her world is thrown into chaos, she must choose between her village and her future—between the one she loves and the one who loves her. And she must face the truth about the Forest of Hands and Teeth. Could there be life outside a world surrounded in so much death?

I loved that this was a story about zombies where the focus was on the living. Mary lives in a simple time where the focus is on surviving. The Unconsecrated (zombies) are not a recent development but something everyone has lived with all of their lives. Living in a village surrounded by fences Mary's daily life is simple and full of chores, but if the warning bell rings there has been a breach and everyone must get to elevated platforms built into trees to stay away from the dead. To ensure survival the sisterhood demand that everyone marries as soon as they are ready. Mary has the weary task of marrying someone who loves her even if she loves someone else. Soon Mary starts asking questions such as who gave the Sisterhood their power, what are they hiding and what are behind the gates in the village?

From very early on in this novel I felt there were similar tones to the M. Night Shyamalan film "The Village". You have that feeling of being isolated and only knowing the village but suspecting that there must be something else outside through the Forest of Hands and Feet. The writing in this book made me fell that I was full immersed in the life (even if I was lying on a sun lounger beside a pool!!) and was feeling all of the doubts along with Mary.

I loved the characters in this book, well I didn't LOVE them all, I thought there were some nasty characters, but I thought they were all well written. The story does not rush along either. I read this book in a day, but I felt like I had been reading it much longer as the story took it's time to unfold and develop. There were certain parts to the story, where she would find something which we would be familiar with but was completely foreign to Mary, which made me want to shout at the book. I thought it was a really interesting concept that whatever education they had was focused on the present and how to survive, and never looking at the past.

I can't wait to pick up the sequels to this book and see what is to become of the world we live in.