Review: NOS4A2 by Joe Hill ★★★★★

I have a feeling that this is going to be a rambling kind of review full of leg-humps and drooling.

You've been warned.

But first, I want to get the non-leg-humpy stuff out of the way. Technically, I'm giving this 4 1/2 stars, because there were a couple things that just... didn't feel right to me. Forced, one might say. They were little things, in the grand scheme of the book, but they just didn't really work for me, and took me out of the story. I know why they were there, but knowing why someone painted their house fluorescent orange doesn't make it easier to look at. Appreciating a style of art doesn't necessarily mean one has to LIKE it.

So my first issue is with the carryover sentences from the end of one chapter, to the header of the next. These are abrupt cut-off sentences hanging in the middle of a page, and the header of the next chapter finishes them.

It took me quite a while to get used to this, and it had a tendency not to stick. I don't read chapter headings. This hinders me a lot at times, because, in a book like this, the chapter headings are vital to keeping up with the story. They tell the reader where, and when, we're at in the story. But I find that chapter headers are often times spoilery, or hinty, and this annoys me. I don't want the chapter saying "Hey, watch out for this thing to happen... it's gonna be good!" I just want to read the story and get to the thing when I get to it, and be surprised. I especially dislike the cutesy ones like "Chapter 7, In Which Character A Has Things Happen To Him And Then Learns A Valuable Lesson". Ugh.

So I stopped reading them quite a while back. Sometimes it means that I get a little lost in the story and backtrack, and sometimes it means nothing because the only thing I've skipped is "Chapter 3".

Back on point - As I mentioned, it took me a long time to get used to the end of the sentence being the beginning of a chapter thing here, but I also said it didn't really "stick". What I mean by this is that there would be gaps of several chapters that ended normally, no carryover, and so the next time I'd see it (usually when it was supposed to be suspenseful) I'd have to pause and remind myself to read the next header. And not only read it, but read it as part of the previous chapter's last sentence.

Anyway... Needless to say, it took me out of the story. I've now written more about this carryover thing than some of my full reviews, and I feel like I'm starting to sound like I disliked it a lot more than I did. I actually didn't really mind it so much except that I just had to take that moment and remind myself how to continue. But it DID serve the purpose it was intended to serve, which was to make the reader pause, to wonder where things would go... to create some suspense. And it worked well in my case, for all the reasons mentioned already. Probably better than intended, actually. I tend to... skim. Especially if I'm anxious for characters and need to know what happens.

I know that this seems to go against everything that I hate about spoilers and hints, but I don't see this as spoiling myself, because technically I am reading the page - twice. One quick skim to find out what happens, and then a rescan to pick up anything I might have missed on the first pass. I don't do this with every page, or even every book. But the ones that grab me, that have hooked me and know it, they are the ones that I'm likely to skim because I just have to know what happens. It seems contrary - you'd think that the ones that I don't like would be the ones I'm most likely to skim... but no. Those my cause my interest and desire to read to fizzle out and die, and they eventually are just abandoned. Or abandoned quickly depending on how hard I hated it.

Moving on... The second thing that took me out of the story was the unlikely relationship at the end. I'm not going to give anything away here, but it just didn't seem realistic to me. I feel like I understand it, but it felt forced and... wrong, somehow. Tacked on, perhaps. And that's all I'm going to say about that. (See, I can be brief!)

Moving on to the things I loved about this book... Oh, there are so many. It will be much, much harder to specify these, and much harder to explain just why I loved it... at least without giving anything away.

First, I'll just say that this book was not at ALL what I expected. One expects, with a title like NOS4A2 (Nosferatu, if you don't speak license platenese) that it's a vampire story. And it is, but it isn't. It's so much more than that. That sounds trite, but I don't know how else to describe it. It's a book about the mind, and the power of belief, and in belief in oneself, and parenthood, and the nature of innocence... It's really so much more than I expected, though I feel like I should have known better, considering how much I loved Joe's last novel, and the reasons I loved it.

To date, I've read everything that Joe Hill has published, with the exception of his Locke & Key series, which I'll be getting to very soon. I started reading him, obviously, because he's Stephen King's son, but I've KEPT reading him because he's an amazing author in his own right. His voice is unique from his father's, he has his own style, his own way of using words and images and music to bring a story to life, and I love that about him.

But in this book, there's a distinct shift. Joe's no longer striving to separate himself, it seems, but is now incorporating... There's a kind of linking of the universes. I absolutely LOVED stumbling across the references to other books (The knife Maggie mentions was one that I thought fit perfectly into this story, though not very subtle. :P), but especially from Stephen King's. I highlighted a lot of passages - ones that Constant Readers will recognize immediately. There were a surprising number of them.

In addition to that, I felt like this book felt more like one King would write, especially post-2000 King. Don't get me wrong, Joe Hill's hand is alllll over this book, and it's incredible, but I can see an influence here, that's all. One of the major contributors to this is how Joe writes children. Stephen King is known for writing children with perfection, and it's abundantly clear that the apple did not fall far from the tree in this aspect.

I want to say a little something about the characters... but I'm not sure what I could say without giving anything away. I'll go vague then. I thought all of the characters were perfectly done. Their lives and their hopes and fears were all handled perfectly and I felt like I'd known many of them for a long, long time. Vic especially. I felt like I knew her better than she knew herself. Or maybe I just had more faith in her. I'm not sure there's a difference. I loved her, her strength, her refusal to give in... she's one to admire, if only for her determination. Goodness knows there's not much else to admire there. She's flawed, hugely flawed, and that's what makes her beautiful.

Lou was another one of my favorite characters. I was surprised at how important he became to the story, and by the way it happened, but I almost immediately came to love him. He's the perfect guy to have your back, no matter what it might mean for himself.

Anyway, I'm not saying anymore. To say more will be to spoil. I highly recommend this one, as I do with all of Hill's books. They are all amazing, and should be read and loved forever. The end.

Review: Closure, Limited by Max Brooks ★★★★

I really enjoy Max Brooks' stories. I love his insightful way of looking at the zombie culture, what it represents, what it means for us, what we would, or could, do about it if it were to occur.

I recently recommended Max's World War Z to a friend, and loaned him my copy so he could read it. (Don't worry, it's back in my possession now, and unharmed. :D) He returned it with the comment that it was probably one of the best stories about society in crisis he'd ever read, and that the realism was incredible. I completely agree, which is why I recommended it to him in the first place. ;)

So anyway, my point in mentioning this is that Max Brooks' books have been on my mind recently, and so when I was browsing Audible last night looking for something to listen to so I could clean the kitchen (What? Like you don't...), I discovered Closure Limited. I'd never heard of it before, so I was kinda excited by the thought of new material.

So, I downloaded, listened, and cleaned... in that order. Priorities, people. O_o

Overall, I liked this - maybe not AS much as Zombie Survival Guide or World War Z, but close. I think part of what detracted from this a bit was the format and the reading. For one thing, the reader sounded a lot like Max Brooks himself to me. I have heard Max read on the WWZ audiobook (the abridged one - I've yet to listen to the newer unabridged version), and I've seen him on that one zombie documentary show that I can't think of the name of... *IMDBs* "Zombies: A Living History". So for the intro, the reader's voice worked fine for me... but in the stories themselves... it wasn't the best match.

That's not to say that the performance wasn't good... It was good, but I am kinda picky when it comes to audiobook readers, and I wouldn't say that Christopher Ragland is among my favorites. The male voices were OK - but the females were... not. And three times he had to do accents: one from The Netherlands (if I remember right?), another from Vietnam, and then a woman from China. Oddly, the Chinese woman's voice distracted me the least, which was kind of contradictory to how I felt about how he read other women - maybe it was the more staccato way in which he read her that helped. Not sure.

Before I talk about the individual stories, I'll just mention one other thing that detracted from this book for me, with regards to the audio version. That issue is that each story is headed by a chapter. "Chapter One: Closure, Limited". I didn't actually NOTICE this, though, until midway through the 2nd story, when I was wondering what the hell the events I was listening to had to do with where I thought the story was going. I'm used to stories jumping around at chapter breaks. It gives a different perspective, and progresses the story, etc, so I heard, "Chapter Two: Steve & Fred" and didn't think anything of it being a NEW story, but a 2nd chapter in the story I was listening to already.

It was a little distracting, the be honest. Probably in print form, this wouldn't be an issue, because I'd know, getting to the next story, that it's not really "Chapter Two". Anyway, so when I eventually realized that it was a different story, it made a LOT more sense.

Moving on to the stories themselves, I really enjoyed them.

Closure, Limited:

Think about a zombie apocalypse... You know that the undead are everywhere, and that they are relentless killing, and turning, machines. Think about your loved ones, the ones that are now out of contact with you in your safehouse, or compound, or whatever. You don't know whether they are alive or dead or undead. You hope that they are alive, but the odds are... slim. After a while, the wondering starts to get to you... it starts to be harder to live with NOT knowing than it would be to just mourn. That's where Closure, Limited comes in - they allow you to end that uncertainty. They provide a service that gives just what their name says: closure. Granted, there's a certain amount of self-deception that's required, because, after all, you HIRED this company to give you closure... but if you just need the symbolic aspect, you're all set.

This one really made me think... It is kind of awful in its way, and extremely risky, but could I really say that I wouldn't want something like this to exist if I was in the situation of needing it? At the very least, it would be cathartic to destroy the hope that just stubbornly hangs on and insists on tormenting us...

Steve & Fred:

When I listened to this one last night, I was... not impressed. It didn't help that I didn't realize it was a new story (as I mentioned above), but to add to that the story also has a shift of its own. So, to be fair, I listened to this one again this morning, and I've changed my initial opinion. This is a GOOD story. It's like a little polaroid of a story, one that is still working on developing toward the middle. There's not much to this one - it's 22 minutes long, so, maybe I'd estimate a similar number of pages if the reader goes through 1 per minute. Maybe double if he reads slower. I dunno. But either way, the way it expands to show the whole situation is impressive, and enormous in its capacity for dread. And the irony of the story-within-a-story aspect is not lost on me. This is good stuff. 

The Extinction Parade:

This one is probably my least favorite of the lot, and oddly enough for the "unreality" of this zombie story containing vampires. Yes. Really. 

I mean, it's not that I'm against vampires and zombies in the same story; in fact, usually I'm good with that. But in Max Brooks' universe, zombies invade the normal, everyday world due to a virus. There's nothing paranormal about them. So the insertion of the paranormal here just felt... out of place. 

That being said, if I put that aside, the story is still a good one. It brings to light the concept of resources - that if suddenly a previously thought continually renewable resource suddenly starts to dwindle, would those who rely on the resource notice in time to stop it... COULD they stop it even if they did? 

The Great Wall: 

This story, previous to my re-listen to Steve & Fred, was my favorite of the four. Now, I'd say they are tied. I loved this story for everything that it represented in terms of human resilience and stoicism and courage. It brought tears to my eyes, both of pride and sadness, and I loved every second of it. 

This one is definitely a keeper for anyone who enjoys zombie lit, or who is a fan of Max Brooks, or both. I definitely recommend it. 

Review: Crusade by Nancy Holder & Debbie Viguie ★★

I received this book as part of an ARC tour from Star Book Tours. I had actually forgotten that I had requested it, and when it showed up on my doorstep, I was a little surprised. But opening it up, I can see why I would request it - it looks like it would be awesome. Dark and gritty and bloody, just like a vampire book should be.

In in many of those aspects, this book delivered wonderfully. The vampires were vicious and cruel and bloodthirsty, and there wasn't a sparkle to be seen. The fights were pretty intense, and the action was written well and was exciting. I also liked the political facets of the story, and how they corresponded with other wars from our past. History repeats itself, just with a new bad guy each time around. If these are the things that you're looking for, you will enjoy this book, and probably the series.

I was hoping for a little more, and so I admit that I am a bit disappointed with this one. I think that this book had great potential, but I think that it got lost on the way.

First, the characters didn't feel authentic to me. Almost all of them were very stereotypical and one dimensional to me, with few exceptions. Holgar was one exception. I loved his character throughout the story until the last 50 pages or so, until he seemed to change before our eyes into someone suddenly dark and secretive - most likely a lead-in to the next book in the series. The same with Father Juan. We're supposed to ask: Who are they really?

The rest of the characters didn't do much for me. Jenn was at her most interesting when she was on her own. With the others, she was bland and boring. The group dynamic quickly got on my nerves with all of the in-fighting and I kept thinking that they would be better off if they went their separate ways and each had a book to follow their adventures alone. Maybe then we'd get to see more of their character and the focus would help them to come alive. I doubt that will happen though.

Then there is the writing itself, which was inconsistent. I know that the edition I read was an uncorrected edition, so I'm not talking about the grammatical errors or spelling errors, but the writing itself. For example, in the midst of running for her life from a pack of vampires who want nothing more than to kill her, and trying to rescue her sister from still more vampires, we have this:

"The sun was setting; she could feel it as surely as she felt the pounding of her own heart.
The heart that beat for Antonio."

It then goes on to talk about how afraid she was that she would never see him or her sister again. And then back to Jenn trying to save her own life so that she could try to save her sister. It just seemed incredibly out of place to insert a line about her heart beating for someone else when she is literally running for her life. I know that in times of stress and fear, we think about those we love, but the line itself is strange and awkward to me, like it was inserted to create a relationship link to him.

Not to mention the chapter headers that contain Jenn's diary entries. These are written in such flowery and formal language that it doesn't mesh with the self-conscious and unsure 17 year old "Just Jenn" from the rest of the story.

And then finally, my biggest issue with the book is the way that religion and faith is handled. This book could be considered a Good vs Evil story, and so it stands to reason that a certain amount of religious comparisons could be made. That isn't really my complaint, although it does get quite preachy at times.

My complaint is that in this mixed cast, we have several different religions and belief systems interacting with each other, but no matter which belief system a character lived by, they approached it in a Christian-oriented way, or otherwise acted in Christian ways that did not fit with their own beliefs. I felt like, since it seemed that it was a deliberate choice to have so many different personalities and faiths, they should have rung more true, rather than all centering around what is referred to more than once in the book as the "One True Faith".

For instance, we have a Wiccan "White Witch", who practices magicks and worships the Goddess and the moon and nature, etc. But then, in a moment of uncertainty, she considers going to a Catholic priest to give her absolution, rather than relying on her own beliefs. This is just one of the examples of this from the book, and there are quite a few. This, more than anything else, made this book less than enjoyable for me. I couldn't help but wonder: Why go to such an effort to include the variety of religions and faiths if the characters do not act according to them?

I think that if handled differently, this book could have been a very enjoyable one for me. I think that people should believe what works for them, but this just felt like the message we were supposed to take away is "You can believe whatever you like, but in the end, it's all the same thing, you'll see."

Overall, I thought that this book was OK. I think that people who are just looking for an exciting read will really enjoy it, especially those who are fans of Buffy the Vampire Slayer.

Review: Bonded By Blood by Laurie London ★★★★

4.5 stars -- I am pretty open to reading all kinds of books, but I haven't read all that much paranormal romance, so I was glad to have the opportunity to review Bonded by Blood for my blog. I read the excerpt on Laurie London's site, and was drawn into the story almost immediately... I wanted to know who Mackenzie was, what her story was, who this mysterious injured man was... Intriguing!

Once I started, I found I couldn't stop. Bonded by Blood was very readable, and the pace was great. I didn't put this book down very often after I started reading it, and when I did, my mind was drawn back to it again and again, wondering what was happening to them, who they were, and what was going on around them while I wasn't looking. I love when this feeling happens, because then I know that the characters in a book aren't just 2D creations on a page, but are real, well-written characters that I can identify with and care about. And I did care about Dom and Mackenzie. Both intrigued me, and as their lives continually crossed paths, and as each of their histories were revealed and the links between them shown, I was drawn into their lives and felt that the connection between them was tangible.

Their relationship was great as well. I loved the way that they interacted with each other, and the tension and suspense was palpable. Kenzie's history makes it hard for her to commit herself, and Dom being what he is (a predator, really) he feels he should stay away from her for her own protection. But they are drawn to each other, and Dom has the further complicated issue of protecting her from Darkbloods as well as himself. So naturally, things reach a breaking point in the tension between Dom and Kenzie, and ohmygoodness when it does... get out your fans, ladies. It's steamy.

I enjoyed the progression of their relationship, and how each seemed to open up due to it. I love how Kenzie's deep-seated tension and need to control everything in her life, which is understandable given the circumstances, eases up, and she is able to relax and let go when she is with Dom. I also like the fact that she has a similar effect on Dom in that his anger and desire for revenge are softened around her. I felt like this was less a change in personalities, and more an effect of their bonding and connection and understanding with each other.

I loved the world that London created here, where vampires are real and live amongst humans while still remaining secret. I immensely enjoyed the modernity of the story, how vampires have adapted and adjusted to changes in the world around them, welcoming scientific and technological advances and discoveries. I also thought that it was interesting how the Darkbloods embraced scientific methods to further their aims, while still keeping the old world mentality about what it is to be a vampire. I wish that the Darkbloods had a little more face-time in the book, and that more of their ideals and goals were examined, but maybe this will be coming in the next book.

Overall, I really enjoyed this book, and cannot wait for the next in the series, which is out later this year.

Stay tuned in just a few minutes for an interview with Laurie London. She's generously offered to give away a free signed copy of Bonded By Blood!