Litslut

The dialogue and 1st person narration are absolutely terrific. I seldom encountered a MC wittier, snarkier or more shrewish than Meda.

“When Mom told me I was special and unique, I thought she literally meant I was special and unique. … Turns out I’m only ‘mom-special’. Special like a snowflake is special. Special like a school kid on honor roll.”

You not often encounter a convincing antihero in the young adult department. Meda has in the beginning almost no redeeming qualities. She kills people because she needs their souls to survive, but she isn’t one to cry about the unfairness of it all like Louis de Pointe du Lac in Interview with a Vampire. Even if it was Brad Pitt. This vamp was insufferably whiny.



Meda actually revels in the killing, stages some of her slayings even like a dramatic play, and she absolutely enjoys the powerplay.



As unapologetic as her opinion is about humans (fodder), Meda is not completely without conscience. She knows moral and honor as is apparent when she talks about her human mother. But those terms are at first only almost blank concepts for her. Canvases to be filled with color and meaning in the course of the story. She lies, cheats, steals, and is really a bad girl with a hilarious POV. The part I loved most about Meda was her attitude. She’s witty and intelligent and comments in her unique snarky and sarcastic way on everything that happens and what is being said.

This boy might have the answers; I just have to take them from him. My eyes fill with tears. “Wha-“ I swallow hard “- what were those things?”
“Demons.” Thanks, Einstein. I got that part. “Turns out spiritual warfare is a lot less theoretical than you probably think.”
He hurries to reassure me. “Don’t cry – I’ll protect you.”
Humiliating. Absolutely humiliating.

This book was terrific! I loved so much about it: from the characters to the dialogue and the history of both groups. Thankfully there was no love triangle, regrettably there was almost no romance either, at least for Meda. I can understand that she might be a bit too young, and also it wouldn't have fit the overall story. Meda has to come to terms with herself first. But everything else fit together so well that I was immediately immersed in Meda's world. She is a truly fascinating and multi-layered main character. She's smart, witty, and determined to figure out who and what she really is. This was an hilariously entertaining and fast paced read. I wasn't sure this would work with a main character that eats human souls but it was a unique idea and worked really well. The secondary characters are well written too - especially those of the three Crusaders. They each have a unique personality with flaws and strengths.


If you are looking for a fun read with a sarcastic heroine this is the right book for you.

I really don't get this book:

“Gerik, her savior, a six-foot-four-inch Scandinavian Gypsy, takes her back to his magically protected Gypsy camp where she discovers a whole new way of life that she never knew existed – as well as a whole new set of problems.”

1. Gerik is six-foot-four-inches tall with blond hair. A real Viking. Complete with braided long hair:


No other description is given. We just have this tall, muscled and blond cave man gifted with some ominous magical abilities and in need of a soul mate. And please a Romanian gypsy like Xan with Dreads? This is more like reality:



2. A lone Scandinavian gypsy in a gypsy camp of Romanian origin speaking Romanian. Maybe the author confused it a little bit because Romanian and Romani sound so similar. BUT between the gypsy’s own language (“Romani”: Romani is an Indo-Aryan language with strong Balkan, and especially Greek, influence. It is the only New-Indo-Aryan language spoken exclusively outside of the Indian subcontinent.) and the language of the people living in Romania is the same enormous difference as between people from India and the Native American Indians. And the usage of Romanian is wrong, too:
“stimati dumnezeu ne salva” means “Holy God save us!” or some such und not “the boy has horns”

I just hate it when authors don’t even spend an hour or two on researching facts.

This book is not for me. DNF

When I first read those glowing 5-star reviews I was hooked. I couldn’t wait to get my hands on this book as soon as it came out. How bizarre that I really can’t connect to it. I don’t like this girl, really I think she is blasé, she is a flake and most of all I hate her for her attitude because she is oh so special.

“I was born to be unpopular”

So starts the story of Elise Dembowski, sweet sixteen but sadly nobody sees her that way. She is bullied, with no friends the one that sits alone in the school bus. Guess what? If you wouldn’t listen to your iPod with the earphones constantly plugged and smile once in a while people might actually talk to you. But with this sentence alone I didn’t like her. Everybody I know, really everybody has embarrassing moments in his life and pictures and memories and scars to show for it. It’s called childhood and it’s called growing up. And to think that you’re so special nobody will ever like you for you, that is just simply stupid and arrogant. For someone who gets bullied, misunderstood and is constantly underestimated at school I thought she might know how wrong it is to being judged by others because of your looks and outward appearance. But noooohooo for our special Elise all people around her are just stupid, idiots or bitches. She is as much a snob if not worse as anybody else.

I was working on my combination when my friends showed up. You know, Chava and Sally. Those friends. “Just the people I wanted to see!” I said to them, and I wasn’t even sarcastic for once.

From the first page to the last she kept judging people, her friends, and the boy she made out with, everybody. Her cool indie rock is so much better than the popular music.

The one thing I couldn’t bring myself to do was listen to the music. I tried, for nearly an hour. Then I gave uo. It was bad. Not even interesting-bad (…). The popular music wasn’t interesting-bad, it was bad-bad. Auto-Tuned vocalists who couldn’t really sing; offensively simplistic instrumentation; grating melodies. Like they thought we were stupid.

Really? Just because I like to listen or dance to pop music once in a while you oh so special girl can call me stupid and brainless? Elise’s attitude is so offensive to me because the majority of people and especially my friends like all kinds of music. I like to listen to live jazz in a smoky bar, go to classic guitar concerts, I enjoy opera but I really love a DJ who can make me dance with house music. I like indie rock as well as hip hop and don’t you dare tell me I am brainless and offend you because I like listening to “popular music”.

So, because she is this spectacular music genius, after a few hours of practicing she is this AWESOME DJane at this AWESOME underground club, at 16. Suuuure. But not enough, she also gets a job offer after only a few weeks of half-an-hour appearances as DJ for the whole Friday night putting on music until early morning. Seriously? Are fucking kidding me? Maybe that is news to you, but at this age and according to youth labor laws that also apply in the USA as far as I know this is prohibited (it is called: Young Persons Protection of Employment Act ) I believe it is liable to prosecution to put 16 year olds to work after 8 pm. But our Elise is soooo special she is even better than DJ Char, the boy who she made out with during the last weeks, who showed her how to DJ and gave her an opportunity to perform as one in the first place.

Pete took a swig of ginger ale. “If you’re saying that you’re sure I could find some thirty-six-year-old guy who’s spun ‘Love Will Tear Us Apart’ so many times that he’s able to play Tetris in his phone while he’s DJing, while chugging Red Bull so he can stay awake until four am, then yeah.I’m sure I could find that guy, too. (…) But, Elise, believe me when I tell you this: your talent, your natural talent, puts Char’s to shame.”

Again our oh-so-special Elise is better than anybody else even her “mentor” DJ Char and the Underground Friday Party Night in an old warehouse will be promoted with her picture and her name online in the local newspaper. Let me tell you this: No DJ will attract a crowd because he is an upstart. But of cause special DJ Elise does. And last but not least Prince DJ Char(ming) turns out to be Michael who works as server in Antonio’s Pizzeria and who is “only” a part-time student at the college.

That was Char. It was all laid out for me across the Internet. It was a simple portrait of a person, like a million other people, and I felt the magic of Char float off into the air, as if I’d blown on a pile of dust.

After I had learned all I cared about Michael Kirkby, I looked up my own name. (…) The first two search result were the same as always. (…) But the third result was different. Elise Dembowski suicide had fallen down on the list. The third thing that came up when I typed my own name was Elise Dembowski DJ. I stared at my computer screen for a long moment, and I smiled.

You know what Elise; fuck you and your attitude. You are nothing special. You are like a million other people out there and maybe just maybe I suggest you talk to people instead of judging them. Maybe Michael has a reason for his way of life. But you never cared to know, because you didn’t even want to know his real name. Maybe you should care more about friends and family instead of destroying your sister’s castle and being sarcastic and dismissive to your dad and the people who actually care about you throughout this story.

In order to finish this review I’d like to only skip over the actual story. I really get that she has a hard life in high-school, that she doesn’t like her class mates and being called lesbo because she doesn’t wear a bra at age 16, well it’s not funny but girl really wear a bra, those boobs bounce and jingle and make 16-year-old boys all kinds of horny and say all kinds of nasty things to you.

Being 33 years old I can honestly say I am glad I am out of school. It was a horrible experience sometimes; at least for me. But this novel gives young adults the wrong idea: that if you are an outsider you are special and you just go out at night walk into an underground club and you’ll see how everything changes like in a fairy tale. And no, this is not true. Because I went out at night, and I did go to parties and I met all kinds of wrong people, started taking drugs and have meaningless sex with boys I never met before. And the way Elise takes is not right: her nightly adventures, her making out with Char, sneaking out of the house in the middle of the night…

Everybody is special. Everybody has something good to show, everybody has gone through life altering moments as well. Maybe some people were popular in school. But even they had heartbreak, or have lost dear ones, or have a problematic family situation. It just takes talking to them to get to know people and it takes courage to open up and to confide in others. But sadly our special Elise didn’t really learn this lesson.

I can’t give this book more than 1 star.

Oh my god this book is gross. It’s so cheesy and chintzy and sappy that I think I have to scrap my eyes back from where they stuck to my brain. Even my cats were looking worried by the time I finished because of the gagging noises coming from my mouth.



Wild Cards by Simone Elkeles is the ultimate punch to any decent teen romance book I’ve ever read so far. I still can’t believe what I had to go through. Those characters, the love interest development the happy ending… GAG! It’s like there is no normal, no slow, no simple.

Everything is extremely exaggerated. Ashtyn and Derek, whoa those two are hilarious. Either they want to fuck each other or they fight. They tell to anybody who wants and even those who don’t want to hear it how annoying the other one is and that there will never ever be something romantic going on. But as soon as the lights are out they have those One-Night-Stand encounters but the next morning it’s back to the No-Touching-Rule. To say that this romance didn’t touch me would be an understatement. There was no spark in the story, no Awww-moments, nothing to sigh on and nothing to cry about. One moment Ashtyn is with Logan, the next she kind of is swooning over Derek and the next she wants to have sex with him and then back to no touching. In the end it’s this can’t-live-without-you part and you just reread the last pages thinking maybe you missed it, but noooohoooo there was not a thing you missed it just wasn’t there. And don’t get me started on the food thing. I mean I really get it they’re supposed to be opposites (because of this opposites attract shit) but she seems to eat only junk-food with expiration dates on it and he drinks organic food smoothies with spinach in it. YUCK YUCK DOUBLE YUCK on both parts.

I really like tough cookies, girls and women who are not playing by the rules, who do what they want to do, who kick ass more than their men counterparts. We are told that Ashtyn is this fantastic kicker, captain of her football team, but we never really see her in action and all she does is practice, even when she is at camp she doesn't really impress me. She knew before that this is going to be hard, that her ex-boyfriend will be there, and that she is a girl in the same field with 99% of hormonal 17-year old boys. So what do we get: A few of the boys are talking about her behind her back which she overhears and then she runs into her bedroom and weeps? Yeah, that is exactly what I expected from a snowflake but not from a girl that has been voted on Captain of her FUCKING football team. Same same but different with Derek who is supposed to be this bad boy … All he did was playing a childish prank for which he got kicked out of his privileged boarding school. The rest of the book we read from his POV how he mewing the backyard, taking out the dog and making breakfast for his 5-yearld stepbrother. That is really so bad I think I soaked my panties. And you know what: I don’t get it why he has to be the heir to the biggest textile company of the world (so we are told) and therefore rich beyond imagining. Well at least he can afford to make this cheesy-as-fuck happy end.

I was more interested in how Derek's father and Ashtyn's sister got together and married than in the crappy teen romance.

This book is fast and fun. The perfect fast food for your urban fantasy tastebuds. It has hot fallen angels, ugly minions, a secret society and a kick ass heroine. It was not perfect in any way, but it is worth it.

I think what I like most is that there is a lot of action, and our heroine here can sure take care of herself Nikita-style :) (The series with Peta Wilson from 2001).

The love interest was convincing, the sex hot, the back story intriguing.

I’ve been really looking forward to a new zombie novel with lots of creepy zombies and suspenseful moments and maybe a little bit of romance; unfortunately this wasn’t it. The whole book felt like a washed out version of The Walking Dead with mostly flat and lacking characters, less world-building and a lot less creepy.

When I first read the title “Red Hill” I thought of “Silent Hill” – the horror movie and I expected at least a little bit of that: Horror, suspense, adrenalin, nail-biting moments. But almost 50% into the story I feel nothing at all, watching the three main characters drifting on the verge of a zombie apocalypse, trying to reach Red Hill, an isolated country house and being bored out of my mind. There is something dull about the story, maybe the pacing or the language. I can’t exactly say why, but it’s just dull. After reading five minutes I look for something else to do, or start skipping entire chapters or skimming through the pages. I have the impression it’s an exhaustive enumeration of she did this and then did that and then she turned and walked away…

“Tears threatened to moisten my eyes once again, but instead I let anger take control. The helplessness I felt at not being able to get to my children sent me into a rage (…) the can opener was in the silverware drawer, but I left it, hopeful that Andrew would remember to pack it if he wasn’t already on the road. I also took a plastic reusable water bottle.”

You are surrounded by zombies, you can’t find your children you‘re frustrated and furious but you have time to reason that maybe your children would need a can opener if they maybe come back to the house? And water bottles are almost always reusable, especially the plastic ones. So why tell me so precisely? It doesn’t make sense and it irritates me.

“I grabbed one more item, zipped the backpack, and then returned to the front room. I pulled some frames off the wall, and then shook the can in my hand. The aerosol hissed as I pressed my index finger on the trigger, my arm swaying with the silent music of my good-bye as it formed large, conspicuous black words.”

Do people really leave their black aerosol lying in the laundry room, together with (oh how convenient) a flashlight, some batteries, a large screwdriver and a folding knife? Really give me a break. It was all just so conveniently placed throughout the book. Even the house on the Red Hill was conveniently supplied with enough guns and rifles and ammunition to kill 1000s of the shufflers and enough food to last a lifetime for 10 people. No need to go scavenging or raiding supermarkets or think about farming. Apparently there was even enough toilet paper and shampoo or medicine so you needn’t even mention it. Puhleeease. This is no survival book; it’s a book about convenient but unrealistic circumstances like how they all almost meet at the church, how they go to Red Hill and how convenient every car is full of fuel.

60% into the story all main characters are on the Red Hill, house secured, with water and food supply, electricity. Yeah you name it! Now we move into the romance part. >Romance should be shown and not told. Authors have to show me, make me believe that their main characters really care about each other. But the romance of Scarlet and Nathan comes out of the blue. One moment they are talking, the next they’re holding hands and we read from Nathan’s view how she is such a strong women and that he doesn’t have the balls to kiss her. Yuck. It makes Nathan, the ex-football player who still works out in the gym and has a body to show it into a wussy boy. And well after slaughtering a few Zombies there is nothing as good as sex. So we get treaded to a sex scene between Scarlet and Nathan. More yuck. His lips are red from kissing her body. Brrrrrrr. too much information for my imagination.

Also up until this point Scarlet was an almost amiable character with potential: a strong-willed woman wants to get to her children. But they are not in the house so what do you do? You spray a message on the wall and go to Red Hill and wait there. No need to call your ex-husbands mobile to try to get in touch with him. But then after weeks of sitting on the porch waiting for her girls to come over the hill, she suddenly starts packing a gun and wants to go all Rambo on the TEDs (our Zombies). Elleny, a 13 year old girl that has been sexually abused, wants to go with her. So naturally you answer this:

“I can’t concentrate if I’m watching out for you, too. Got it?”

You insensitive bitch! Why not tell her loud and clear that she is unfit and too stupid to live. Maybe you should have spent less time on the porch with Nathan and more time with this girl showing her how to shoot and survive.

Or here a conversation between her and Nathan:

S: “Don’t you know by now that I can take care of myself.” (after patrolling a few times and going Rambo on the Zombies)
N: “Yeah, and it scares the hell out of me. I have tried to understand, but I can’t let you do this Scarlet. It’s reckless.” (No shit Baby, she has the trousers on and you pee yourself thinking of going out. Don’t you have any balls?)
S: “You don’t get to tell me what to do just because we fucked in the yard.” (Uh that was real smart and so nice to say to the guy)
N: You can push me away all day long, but I’m in love with you. I love you, Scarlet, and it would destroy me if anything happened to you.”

Let’s get this very clear; this love declaration is laughable and it makes me vomit. Here you have a 200 pounds muscled flannel-bimbo with no backbone giving the love-speech to our tough cookie the Über-mother that came from the same gene pool as Conan the Barbarian.

What I missed completely in this novel was how the government and military reacted to the threat or the general public. There must have still been some radio and tv stations broadcasting, at least people with batteries and cars could have listened to something. But the military makes an appearance ONE YEAR after the outbreak with jets and an atomic bomb over Wichita. I shit you not. A few days later they even come with a helicopter to Red Hill explaining that not even though you could see the mushroom on the horizon this was not an atomic bomb and the fallout was not radioactive. Yes sure, how is it possible to have a mushroom cloud without the atomic bomb? It’s not! Geez. It’s not as if you can get the radiation out of the nuclear fission reaction in the bomb.

There are dozens of apocalyptic novels out there that are way better.

an incredible emotional story, touching with realistic characters and dialogue...

Apart from a heroine who weeps extremly easily AND is always in search of her hendkerchief this was a fun read because of him:



Thinking of a tender Uncas who shows you the native wilderness ... ha!

I believe everybody should read this book at least once in his life. Not only because it gives an appropriate description of life in 1687 New England but also because it is a remarkable tale of a young women growing up.

I simply loved it and could read it all over again and again.

Waiting again

Author is a troll http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/709104340

I found this book not as good as the first one. Jarra's relationship with her boyfriend was rather boring: I mean they get engaged with rings and all.

But the plot is full of action and I really wanted to know what happend with the aliens. I found it rather unrealistic that Jarra is now in the military with a hight rank and a lot of responsibility. I don't have the impression that Jarra really grows up. She hasn't changed at all.

The story is well paced, but I rather wanted to know more about her interactions with her friends than the military. All in all a rather boring experience

this was such a disapointment ...

First of all, I loved reading this book. It’s the perfect book for a rainy Sunday, when you make yourself a hot chocolate or a big cup of tea. You can cuddle up with a blanket on your favorite reading couch and spend hour after hour grinning and anticipating and fevering with the characters in the book. It so good, that you can’t put it down.

Omens is made for your imagination. It is easy to visualize the small town of Cainsville with its Gargoyles and the mysterious natives.
What I really enjoyed was how KA integrated supernatural into the overall story. It reminded me of the movie The Devil's Advocate with its effective blend of supernatural thrills and character exploration or the erudite suspense novel The Da Vinci Code by Dan Brown with Robert Langdon embroiled in a quest for the Holy Grail with mostly accurate descriptions of artwork, architecture, documents and secret rituals. The novel is full of esoteric references and reminded me also a little bit of the novels of Umberto Eco, specifically Foucault's Pendulum and The Name of the Rose. Omens is not an Urban Fantasy, as many reviewers already indicated, but a well-crafted mystery thriller with a touch of urban fantasy elements. If Urban Fantasy was a child this would be the grown up version of it. I really enjoyed the use of references to real life historic events (The FBI mind control programs) and literature references (Arthur Conan Doyle). It adds to the story and its creep factor making it more substantial but also I think it is something special if an author makes you look up the historic hints.

Oh this book was awesome ... And I personally think the Kirkus review is totaly amiss. The missing romance part: It is a great strength of the author making her readers anticipate, raising the hopes of something more intimate to happen in the next book.

I fucking love this story, the writing, the character development, the world ... everything

I don’t think I had high expectations for this book but I was affronted on so many levels at the end of the book and especially after reading a few chapters of the third book in the series.

First of all what would happen if a large asteroid did strike the moon? Could it knock it clear out of its orbit? Objects hit the moon quite frequently, creating new craters on its surface. A meteoroid hitting the moon on May 2, 2006 created a crater about 14 meters wide and three deep. The rock that collided with the moon was only about 10 inches across. It would take another nearly moon-sized object to actually move the moon. If that were to happen, the moon wouldn't survive the impact. It could send chunks of the moon hurtling toward Earth, and potentially jeopardizing life on Earth as a result of disruption to the lunar cycle. Fortunately, no known nearby asteroids come anywhere close to that size. There is a much bigger chance that the Volcano in Yellowstone might erupt because it felt it was time to do so. And as for this scenario it was way more plausible and better told in Ashfall. If a moon sized object would happen to just spontaneously enter our solar system, targeting to hit our moon at the same velocity as its trajectory, but on an opposite direction to knock it out of its orbit, than I sure as hell can’t believe that no astronomer or scientist or some professionals from the NASA or any other aeronautics & space institution couldn’t have predicted it???

I mean this book basically tells you that all scientists are dumb; it tells you several times that the president of the USA is an idiot and it turns religious belief into something perverted. Believers starve themselves to dead while priests gorge themselves on the charitable donations. Basically the pillars of our society: Education, Religion, Government are being rendered obsolete. It rubs me the wrong way. I can understand the need for survival but not one of them tries to even help someone else. They turn down every call for help that comes from somebody outside of family. They don’t look out for neighbors or friends. But isn’t that the means of being humane?

What majorly pissed me off to no end: Not once do they take their survival in their own hands. They basically sit in their warm house and ration their hoarded food. They have a library near them, they could have borrowed books about how to build stuff (e.g. a fucking greenhouse), or how to make medicine; books for survival. Noooo they borrow romance books and keep learning French instead of trying to find food in the nearby woods, or go hunting for animals or trying to trade with other survivors. They meet with 20 other survivors on Christmas to sing on the street and not once do they cross over their neighbors to trade stuff or ask for any news they might have? Is this what we are supposed to learn? That in times of trouble you should keep to yourself, relinquish or erroneous belief in religion or government but accepting every good deed as sheer luck? I simply cannot accept that.
And last but not least, I really hoped at some point that at least one person in this family should have died. But miraculously all survived, even their dad, his new pregnant wife and the cat. In the end this whole book is a manifest to the belief in FAITH. Have faith and thou shall prevail. Matthew 21:22 “If you believe, you will receive whatever you ask for."

I so want to be like this family: Have a few hundred dollars on my bank account when the world ends to go shopping, hoard my food and not help anyone and keep my faith that the old lady from across the street will conveniently die ASAP so I can have her food and fresh laundered towels. Ha ha …