Gwenda Bond: Blackwood

Where to start?

A possible YA story of what happened on Roanoke many centuries ago and the curse of it being handed down through generations still living on the island?
Sounds good to me. :)
If at times a bit scary which is not something I usually encounter in YA novels, even when they deal with zombies.

Miranda is very mature and serious for her age but then again, her mother died when she was young and her father became an alcoholic so yes, it makes sense she is the way she is.
Of course, she is the main character through whose bloodline the curse is being kept alive. The other part of the puzzle comes packed in a "bad" boy - Phillips.
Well, you can guess where that leads to.

But, in the meantime, we are treated to some funny dialogues, some melodramatic phrases (I really don't turn my eyes often at dialogues, I mean, I do read romance as a rule, but some parts were really eye-roll worthy here, which I found funny) and some interesting ideas as to what might have happened on Roanoke.
Ok, the interesting ideas are only possible in the paranormal world but they are still interesting.

And, some parts of the story were rather well hidden so you couldn't guess them. Which is always a plus. A huge plus actually.

As usual, I'm skipping telling you everything what this book is about, there's much in the story to keep it flowing and interesting.
I really think I should give books I read a scale of how good I find them by either having to read something more interesting in the meantime or reading them straight. This one I read straight through. :)


As this is Ms. Bond's (great surname btw) first book, I am looking forward to those that might come next.
Because her version of paranormal YA verges perfectly on the boundary to really scary and that is something to admire.



My copy of the book was received through Netgalley.

Julie Kagawa: The Immortal Rules

I seem to be stuck in the YA niche. :) Not that I mind.

And it's turning out to be a dystopian, futuristic YA worlds I'm reading about. In this one, the vampires live in cities and humans are registered and kept practically as cattle because they are registered in order to give their monthly supply of blood for vampires and that is all they do. They survive for only that reason.
Then you have the Unregistereds who do not want to give blood but at the same time, cannot gain the food. So they are forced to scrounge and find whatever they can while remaining hidden from vampire powers.

And then we have Allie, who hates the vampires with a vengeance and of course, runs into trouble that causes her to become one.
As usual I won't go into the details of the story, there is so much I could write about it. The world is well detailed and well described so you can imagine it without any problems.
The reasons how the future world came to be dominated by vampires and how people ended up as nothing more than vessels of vampire food is described as well.

As you could expect, there must exist a place in this world where people live where they aren't food, but it would be too much to describe how we get to know about that part. :)

The stuff I found both interesting and frigthening is how after an apocalyptic event in the world's possible future, it wouldn't take long for the people to lose much of the knowledge they now have. If you remove the books and no knowledge gets transfered to children, after 2 or 3 generations, no one is  able to read any longer.

What bothered me a bit about the book is the fact that everything always falls exactly right for Allie, even when it seems it's going wrong, in the end it turns out right. Not to mention the fact that at some points, I was rolling my eyes at how blind/stupid people can be, but then again, it could be just my low tolerance of stupidity (which I know I have).

But, the world building is great, you really feel pulled into it and there are zombies! Kind of. :)

Even with these little things I thought could have been done better, I didn't feel like stopping with the reading and finding something better (which is a clear sign for me the book is not really good) and I'm already looking forward to the next book in the series, so on the whole, I think it's a good addition to the YA pool of novels.



My copy of the book was provided through http://www.netgalley.com/