My take On: Feed by Mira Grant

The year was 2014. We had cured cancer. We had beat the common cold. But in doing so we created something new, something terrible that no one could stop. The infection spread, virus blocks taking over bodies and minds with one, unstoppable command: FEED.

NOW, twenty years after the Rising, Georgia and Shaun Mason are on the trail of the biggest story of their lives-the dark conspiracy behind the infected. The truth will out, even if it kills them.

Firstly, I'd like to send my deepest thanks to Stormi of Books, Movies, Reviews! Oh, My! because it is due to her and a great contest that she hosted that I had the pleasure of reading this book. Thank you, Stormi!
 
This really was a pleasure to read. The story was told by one Georgia Carolyn Mason, called George by her beloved brother Shaun, and she was witty and insightful and a real treat. One of my new favorite characters right off the bat!
The world, which was revealed with, seriously, perfect pacing and just the right amount of detail at just the right times, was a post-zombie apocalypse world, but it wasn't the one you're used to reading about. The zombies were caused by our own hubris, as is typical, but the world went on almost as usual (aside form the innumerable, and painful, virus scans that the government as well as private citizens rely on to keep them safely separated from the Infected and the zombie-proof security standards to which every post-Rising building, from homes to schools to hotels, was built.). There was still internet, still government, and still bloggers. In fact, blogging had taken on a big roll in the society after the Rising. In the wake of the dead coming back to devour the living, bloggers had been the only ones paranoid enough to believe that it wasn't a hoax and report the news accurately and honestly, and they helped a lot of people survive the first horrendous weeks with constant updates and tips shared from George Romero movies.
As a result, most of the media is now online, though bloggers still catch a lot of flack from the print media.
George and her intrepid brother are news bloggers and report for their site, After the End Times. Goerge is a newsie, a blogger who reports the truth as it is with no spin, and she has a passion for finding telling the truth. Shaun is what's called an Irwin and takes great joy in poking zombies with sticks (you can see why they're called Irwins now, right?) and posting his footage on the web. There's one more category of bloggers, and that's the fictionals who make up stories and write poetry to keep the house-bound populace from getting cabin fever.
I loved the the different strata of bloggers and how their field mirrored their personalities. George was a very cut and dry character, but she still had a wicked since of humor; and Shaun was... he was a wild man! He was like a chihuahua hopped on Mountain Dew, but he also had an incredible soft spot for his sister. That brings me to my favorite aspect of this book: the relationships. George and Shaun were what the average person would call "co-dependent," but the way they always had each others backs no matter what, and in the world they live in "no matter what" comes with a heavy price tag, moved them up the ranks to being two of my all-tie favorite characters.
The story takes off fairly early when the Mason's, plus their resident fictional Buffy, nail a job as the first bloggers to report on a campaign trail. They follow the campaign and. along the way, uncover a conspiracy that strikes close to home, but could also have global implications.
With a good deal of mystery, political intrigue, and enough zombies to shake a stick a stick at, I give Feed...

...Five Zombies!

For me, this book had everything! I laughed, I cried, I threw up in my mouth a little bit, I cried some more... It was the closest thing to a perfect zombie book and I truly cannot wait to read the next installment of the Newsflesh series.

Happy Zombie Month!

Zombies vs Unicorns: Choose Your Team Wisely

(Contest deets at end of post)
In this, the battle of the century, two teams have arisen (one from the grave) to compete for surpemacy and the right to say that they are the bestest.
On one side we have every little girl's dream: they're sparkly, they smell like cupcakes, and their hair rains glitter, it's Team Unicorn!
Opposing Team Unicorn is your worst nightmare: they're rotting, rank, and not afraid to play dirty, let's hear it for Team Zombie!!!

The two teams take their places at opposite ends of the field, the unicorns stamping and pawing the earth that their fearful opponents arose from; the zombies moaning and gnashing their teeth at the delicious smell of horsey fear.
The honorary official of this clash of the Titans is former Idol judge Paula. She prances out to the center of the field, sings a little song, and fires the starting gun. The unicorns flance at the sound, but soon recover their composure, and take off racing across the pitch toward their enemy, but what's this? Half of the glittering herd rears up as the wind shifts directions and blows the stench of the undead legion into their faces! They wheel around and gallop back to the starting point, narrowly missing the official, and stand together, quivering with fear, by the fence.
Team Zombie didn't get as a good a start as their opponents, and is soon over taken by the braver members of the herd, many of them falling as the mercilessly sharp hooves crush their skulls. But the zombies aren't out of it yet! As one, they lurch forward, grabbing whatever their hands meet first and tearing their bony sharp fingers into flesh. Paula, too mesmerized by the glittery ponies, is soon overwhelmed by a small contengency of zombies and is "recruited" for Team Zombie. The ranks of Team Zombie continue to swell as even more desicated corpeses clamber from the earth. Moondancer, the captain of Team Unicorn, whinnies his displeasure and claims foul play, but the official has swallowed her whistle and doesn't seem to care for his tone of voice. Zombie Paula shambles toward the head of the herd, who is still neighing his discontent, and lunges at his throat. Her fellow zombies join her and they bring down the leader of the herd.
Team Unicorn watches in horror as their brave leader is enveloped by Team Zombie. The battle seems to have frozen for an instant, and then the zombies are thrown off as Moondance rises from amid the dog pile. The unicorns cheer their valiant leader, but too soon. Moondance moves toward his co-captain Glitteringfalls with none of the grace he usually possesses, and too late to save herself, Glitteringfalls realizes that Moondance has been turned into a zombicorn!
The battle takes a drastic turn for the worse for Team Unicorn as their herd is either devoured or infected, with only the winged unicorns managing to escape, if not with their pride, then at least with their lives.

In conclusion! Team Zombie wins because they didn't play by the rules and because everyone, in the end, was on their roster.

Now for the fun part, my lovely horde! Velvet of VVB32 Reads is having a zombietastic contest in honor of Zombie Month! All you have to do is plendge your allegiance to Team Zombie or Team Unicorn (and follow a couple other steps) to be entered for the chance to win! One winner will even be chosen from the comments of this or another of her contestants blogs, so your comment on this post gives you a chance to win as well! The winners will receive their very own copy of Zombies vs. Unicorns, the much discussed anthology that has sparked this war between the pretty ponies and the undead.
Contest ends September 30 and is open internationally. Good luck!

It's the Most Wonderful Time of the Year!

No, I'm not celebrating Christmas super early--though, I suppose that is the true holder of that title being as how it's Jesus' birthday and all and we'd all be in a way worse way without Him and His love, but I digress.
It's the second most wonderful time of the year! Zombie Month! *I'll pause here to allow y'all a moment to get all happy out of your systems. Are we good? Okay.*
Yes, September is my favorite time in the blogosphere because that's the time of year when the zombies come out to play! Sadly, however, I won't be playing such a big role this year due to time constraints. T_T But I will be dazzling y'all with zombie craftiness as I post a step-by-step progress update of my latest project spawned from the gooey depths of my not unsubstantial imagination (so humble!). I'll be embroidering a zombie sampler for Book Rat's Zombie Craft Challenge! I gotta give Misty credit for coming up with this challenge; I have total challenge envy. If only I'd come up the brilliant idea of pitting zombie fans against each other in a to-the-death craft battle myself! Oh, well. I'm just glad someone had the idea! Thanks, Misty!
So anyhoo! Go forth, my lovely horde, and share your hidden talent, and love of the undead, with the world! Oh, and, you know, you could also win some awesome stuff, like the zombie or unicorn book of your choice if you enter your craft before Oct 31 and are a citizen of this planet, because this challege and contest is international.

Happy crafting!

My Take On: True Love

"The greater the feeling of responsibility for the person the more true love there is."

It's not very "romantic" and it sure doesn't inspire one to break into song, but there you have it. I just thought after my "little rant" in my review of the Song of the Lioness series I owed y'all a bit of an explanation as to my feelings on the subject. See, my definition of love is: willing (or desiring) the good of another person. It is completely unselfish and seeks only to give another person good. Alanna's relationships were basically selfish and that really bothered me since the series is aimed towards girls who are still trying to figure out what love really is. I think that authors need to try a little harder to live up to the responsibility of forming the minds and wills of young readers.

And that's my take.

My Take On: The Song of the Lioness Series by Tamora Pierce

Becoming a legend is not easy, as young Alana of Trebond discovers when she disguises herself as a boy and begins training to be a knight. Filled with swords and sorcery, adventure and intrigue, good and evil, this audiobook is a rousing introduction to the intensely satisfying story of Alanna.

This is the first series within the saga of Tortallan legends by Pierce. I've always said that she is one of my favorite authors and that this is one of my favorite worlds, yet I'd long neglected reading her first quartet. Instead of starting at the beginning like a normal person, I started reading Pierce's fantasy with the third book of her third quartet, The Protector of the Small, and, aside from reading the first two books of that series at a later date, I never looked back. But this summer I found out that my library had the first quartet of my beloved Tortallan heroines, so I vowed to read it, and read it I did!

In this quartet, we meet Pierce's prototype shero (she + hero = shero. Similar to a heroine, but it sounds less druggy), Alanna. Alanna wants nothing more than to be a knight and go on adventures, so she and her twin brother, Thom, who wants nothing to do with swords and would rather study sorcery, switch places. Thom goes to the Methrin priests to learn magic, and Alanna goes to the royal city to study the arts of combat and chivalry.

We watch as Alanna grows into a legend of Tortall, battles great evil, and, along the way, learns to love.

Okay, enough summing up. Now what did I think of the series?
I think that Pierce's writing has come a long way since she first wrote her archetypical quartet. The series, which lays the groundwrm for all her later Totall-based series, lacked the subtlety of her later works and was weighed down by thinly disguised femenist ideals.

When I first picked up this series, I thought I'd be in for a thrill ride starring a real tough-as-nails girl who made no compremises and kicked butt along the road to success. What I got was a confused girl who didn't really know what she wanted after all. Now, this may be what some people find so attractive about this series; that Alanna, through her struggle to balance her identity as both a warrior and a woman, is made more real by her flaws and mistakes. But I would've preferred that Alanna, who Pierce is obviousy trying to set up as a roll model of an empowered female for young girls, had shown more maturity and true responsibilty in regards to sex. I mean, this girl was in and out so many beds so many times it made my head spin! It also made me look back on all of Pierce's other books that I'd read and enjoyed immensely, even as a young and impressionable tween, and notice an unnerving trend: All the girls in her stories, with a few exceptions, are away from home at a very young age, and so they innevitabley hit puberty while the story is going along, and we all know what that means, "Knock, knock! It's Mother Nature here with your special gift! Congratulations and welcome to womanhood!" Nothing at all wrong with that. In fact, i highly encourage it. What I do find disturbing is that the first thing these girls go out and do upon "becoming women" is to get an "anti-pregnancy charm" from ye olde healer. Now what kind of example is that teaching girls? That your only responsibility in making love is to keep yourself from having an unwanted baby, not that making love is at its core about having children. It's not a recreational activity but the creation of a person through love. Hence the term "making love". Without that definition, the phrase doesn't even make sense. Making love into what?

Pierce's stories all revolve around a young girl fighting for a different way of life--to be a warrior, a mage, a spy master, a Dog (beat cop/detective)--and the lesson is always the same: you can do whatever you put your mind to! A sentement that helped me when I was young and feeling awkward in my own skin. What I'd like to see from Pierce, though, is a lesson in true courage. Not facing down an enraged centuar or band or mountain raiders single handedly, but to sacrifice oneself for another or to woman up to the concequences of ones choices, not when they're "ready", but when the moment arises. It's not about being ready, it's about being responsible!

Anyway...

Now as for the actual books themselves; it felt like there just wasn't enough plot to go around. The timeline was hugely stretched, we're talking about a decade long or so, and it made the story just drag in places. All the action seemed to me to crammed into the last six chapters or so of each book with lots of diplomacy and training and traveling in the middle. To put it short, it was kinda, well, boring. The story itself was cool and had everything you'd want from a fantasy book: Hero? Check! Epic journey? Check! Conflict with villain as well as lesser evils, i.e. personal struggles etc.? Check! But there was severe lack of action for a good deal of the series that made it really hard to read.

The Song of the Lioness Series set the stage for greater things to come form Pierce's imagination, even if it fell a little short of greatness itself.

I give Alanna: The First Adventure...

In the Hand of the Goddess...

The Woman Who Rides Like a Man...

and Lioness Rampant...

As for the whole series, I give it...

I never thought I'd find a series by Tamora Pierce that I'd dislike this much, at least not one based in Tortall anyway. It just was not my cup of tea. Maybe y'all feel differently, though. Let me know what you thought of this series if you've read it!

Happy reading, y'all!

In Which I Give In To Peer Pressure

No, I didn't do anything stupid like get a tattoo of Sponge Bob or copy Emma Watson's new hair-do (looks great on her, probably not so much on me, though). Nothing that dramatic. I just joined Twitter! I said I'd never do it! But I "had to" because it was necessary for joining the Thirteenth Chime cover remake contest.
So anyway! You can find on Twitter here or follow me @Zombie_Girrrl or however you do it (I'm still new, give me a break).

Well, happy Tweeting!
Zombie Lemming Girrrl

Thirteenth Chime Cover Remake Contest

To celebrate the release of Emma Michaels' The Thirteenth Chime on Augaust 13th, Khadija of Black Fingernailed Reviews is hosting a cover remake contest!

Here's my interpretation of The Thirteenth Chime's cover. What do you think?

I'm not all that comouter savvy, so I had to draw mine by hand then add the backround and text online.

I'm really excited about this book, it sounds awesome! I can't wait for the 13th to get here.

Happy waiting,