Book: ZOM-B

“When the news starts reporting a zombie outbreak in Ireland, B’s father thinks it’s a hoax–but even if it isn’t, the two of them joke, it’s only the Irish, right?

That is, until zombies actually attack the school. B is forced on a mad dash through the serpentine corridors of high school, making allegiances with anyone with enough gall to fight off their pursuers. But when they come face to face with the ravenous, oozing corpses, all bets are off. There are no friends. No allies. Just whatever it takes to survive.“

First of all, the fact that B is a girl took me completely by surprise.

Oh, don’t worry. That’s not really a spoiler. Or, at least, I don’t think so. Her gender doesn’t affect the story much, except how you look at the events prior to the reveal. It actually makes the novel better, come to think about it now.

But before you’re fooled into thinking that this is actually a novel about zombies–it’s not. Well, it is. There are zombies in this book, but this book is not about zombies.

It’s about B. And her dad. And her mom. Her friends. How she chooses her friends. How she forms her relationships, and how she makes decisions, because of her dad, her mom, and her friends.

This book is about B, a girl who has to live up to the demands and expectations of her father. The father she loves. The father she hates.

And ZOM-B is a brilliant book. About the psyche of a troubled child, about racism, and how it’s harder to see the monster in us than it is to see the ones that surround us.

Oh, and sure, the zombies aren’t very original. Author Darren Shan does add a new twist into the mythology, but for the most part, the zombies aren’t that interesting. But then again, we don’t really read zombie novels for the zombies, do we?

We read these kinds of novels for the humanity. The people who inhabit this world that has gone crazy.

And Darren Shan has created a marvelous character study with his protagonist: B.

I’ll probably just continue gushing about how brilliant the character is, so I’ll end this hear–and leave with you with some links that would actually have reviews:
Alexander Gordon Smith
Totally Bookalicious
Miss Literati

I read through their reviews, and I thought it would be worth mentioning to note that Miss Literati seems to have mistaken B for the first character we meet. Just thought I’d point that out.

Book: The Superior Spider-Man, Issue #11

“Otto Octavius is a man who cheated death, but at a price. When he exchanged bodies with Peter Parker, he gained the amazing skills of Spider-Man–and all of Peter’s memories. Otto finally understands Peter’s mission of great responsibility.

A tiny piece of Peter Parker remained in the Superior Spider-Man’s brain but Otto battled him within the realm of his mind and eradicated him by erasing the last of Peter’s memories.

Previously, the Spider-Slayer Alistair Smythe killed J. Jonah Jameson’s wife, Marla, who died saving Jameson’s Life.

Since then, Smythe has been imprisoned on The Raft, awaiting the day of his execution, a day Jameson has been looking forward to.“

And we’re getting somewhere.

This new development in the Superior Spider-Man’s story is something that I, again, have been expecting since the title began. I say ‘again,’ because I think I’ve already mentioned it before. Maybe. I don’t have the luxury of time to check it right now.

Moving on.

In this issue of The Superior Spider-Man, we delve more into Otto pretending to be Peter–and making his former nemesis’s life his own. And, in this issue, we also dive deeper into the things that Otto himself faced–and is now looking at with a different perspective, from a different angle, in a different body.

This is the interesting part.

And what is even more intriguing is how the villains are leveling themselves up to meet this new, more ruthless, Spider-Man.

That said, I still have the same qualms about the missing progression from the other characters–which list is continuously growing.

I want to know what’s going on with Carlie Cooper, with Mary Jane Watson, and with the Green Goblin. All of whom are already suspecting something is amiss with our formerly friendly neighborhood Spider-Man.

Where are they?

When will we see development in their fronts?

How long can they stay on the side, without their stories coming in too little, too late?

Book: She’s Dating the Gangster

“It all starts when 17-year-old Athena Dizon unwittingly plays a trick on resident heartthrob and bad boy, Kenji de los Reyes. All of a sudden, she finds herself pretending–unwillingly at that–to be his girlfriend to make his ex jealous.

Now, not only does she have to deal with dirty looks from girls in school who want Kenji for themselves, but her supposed hotheaded boyfriend is getting on her nerves. He’s hotheaded, never seems to agree with her on anything–and everything about him screams ‘gangster.’ Has Athena gotten herself into more trouble than she can handler? Or has she actually found herself a boy she can call hers–’gangster’ be damned?“

What the actual fuck.

Yes, I cursed. No, I’m not taking it back. And yes, I know that this is published fan fiction. Never mind that I found out after I read it, I would have still given the book a try.

I just didn’t expect it to be that horrible.

The story is standard soap opera fanfare: Girl meets boy. Girl pretends to be boy’s girlfriend. Girl falls in love with boy, but has a secret that will tear them apart.

If this were written better, the novella could actually have been good. Unfortunately, it wasn’t. The editors in Summit Books really need to work on how they pick stories. I’m not saying they have to be classics-in-the-making. But they should at least have a clear progression of where things are going.

At the very least, the books should have characters who aren’t two-dimensional.

Or, I’m not asking for much, a story that actually has a clear structure of where it’s been and where it’s going.

She’s Dating the Gangster has the potential to be a funny coming-of-age novella about how image is perceived by people, and how people are more than their looks. But by the novella’s last page, the potential doesn’t just remain a potential, it has become a far-fetched possibility that exists in an alternate universe where this book went through an editor first before being published.

Apologies for that run-on sentence that’s training for a marathon. The novella has me that worked up.

Funny thing is, I didn’t want to disparage the book for fear of hurting the feelings, or sensibilities, of what I thought was an adolescent writer. And then I read the last page–the one about the author.

I don’t know the author personally, and I have nothing against her. But for someone who graduated with a degree in psychology– Scratch that, with a bachelor of science degree in psychology– would have a better handle on the development and progress of emotions.

Or, at the very least, a good handle on character.

I had to fight the urge to throw the book at least six times while reading the novella.

High school students disappear for days at a time without repercussions from family members; family members are treated as background characters who exist for the sake of existing–and brothers don’t even react when the guy their sister hates crawl into bed with her! And then there’s the best friend who doesn’t know squat.

And I wouldn’t pretend to know how the high school caste system works now, after the proliferation of Asian dramas, but I’m pretty sure they’re unlike the high school scenes from Gossip Girl.

Summit Books, I implore you, please pick better stories to publish.

Book: Dead of Night

“A prison doctor injects a condemned serial killer with a formula designed to keep his consciousness awake while his body rots in hte grave. But all drugs have unforeseen side effects. Before he can be buried, the killer wakes up. Hungry. Infected. Contagious. This is the way the world ends. Not with a bang…but a bite.“

I was going to say something about this book in relation to a series of books that author Jonathan Maberry has written. And then I realized how much a spoiler that was going to be. So I’m going to hold that thought back and give you my assessment of this book without relation to any other stories.

The book was nice. Better as it came closer to its end, but that’s not to say that it wasn’t good before then. Well, it was a tad slow-paced. Much slower paced compared to Maberry’s other books. But, in this case, it helped in establishing character.

Weird thing though–

The events described in this book all happened within a day. It felt much longer. The book, after all, only kicked into high gear near the end.

But I still liked it.

My gripe against Michael Grant’s Gone books, with its series of red shirts who die as soon as they’re introduced, gets turned in its head in this book. We get red shirts, and they too die way too quickly; but while they don’t provide traction to the development of the characters we’re following, they don’t detract from them either. In fact, their little stories help in coloring this world in better.

Later on, this even serves as a character upgrade for one of the main protagonists.

My other gripe against the Gone series, with its some times too separate story lines is how, in this book, the stories are still tied together at its core. There are no separate concerns that one set of characters are involved in that doesn’t, in one way or another, connect to the concerns of the other characters.

If there’s anything to complain about in this book, it’s that we don’t get as many updates on a couple of peripheral characters who play a bigger part near the end.

Oh, and the missing time between a certain character’s disappearance to his reappearance later on in the book. This touches on a whopper of a spoiler though, so I don’t know how I’m going to discuss this…

Basically, a character leaves. Starts moving. And yet ends up in a place that another character reaches in a shorter time. While partly walking there. I’m sure there’s an explanation, but I thought the ribbon was a bit too perfectly tied on that bow.

I realize that that statement makes absolutely no sense unless you’ve already read the book. Which you should.

Don’t believe me? Then check out what other people have to say too!
Fantasy Book Critic
Speculative Fiction Junkie
Enough is Enough

And I just realized how I started with I’m not going to compare this to other books and proceeded to do that anyway. Oops.

Book: The Other Normals

“Given the chance, fifteen-year-old Peregrine ‘Perry’ Eckert would dedicate every waking moment to Creatures & Caverns, an epic role-playing game rich with magical creatures, spell casting, and deadly weapons. The world of C&C is where he feels most comfortable in his own skin. But that isn’t happening–not of his parents have anything to do with it. Concerned their son lacks social skills, they ship him off to summer camp to become a man. They want him to be outdoors playing with kids his own age and meeting girls–rather than indoors alone, with only his gaming alter ego for company. Perry knows he’s in for the worst Summer of his life.

Everything changes, however, when Perry gets to camp and stubmles into the World of the Other Normals. Ther he meets Mortin Enaw, one of the creators of C&C, and other mythical creatures from the game, including the alluring Ada Ember, whom Perry finds more beautiful than any human girl he’s ever met. Perry’s new otherworldly friends need his help to save their princess and prevent mass violence. As they embark on their quest, Perry realizes that his nerdy childhood has uniquely prepared him to be a great warrior in this world, and maybe even a hero. But to save the princess, Perry will have to learn how to make real connections in the human world as well.“

I’m a little up in the air about this book. On the one hand, I liked it. I found it engaging enough that what was supposed to be an hour’s worth of break turned to three, just so I could finish the book. But there’s something off about it as well.

I just can’t put my finger on what that off something is.

So let me break it down.

Story-wise, it’s very engaging–as I already said. The novel intrigues you enough to make you keep wanting to know what happens next. And it’s unpredictable enough, that you don’t even want to second-guess what’s going to happen. You just want to experience it.

And the book also succeeds in making likeable characters, as you do care about them enough that you want them to succeed. And though their flaws already border on the unlikeable territory, they still maintain enough pull that you don’t want harm done to them. That you don’t want them dead.

That said, one of the problems I encountered in reading this novel was perception. Ned Vizzini’s other work, Be More Chill, played with the importance of public image and how you carry yourself. This novel takes that a step further by introducing a twist: actions affect a person’s imaging. In a big way.

And, hang on, I think a big reason of why I can’t make my mind up if I like this book or not, is because it fails in follow through. Well, partly.

We see Peregrine’s actions affect the world of the Other Normals, but we only see parts of it in our world. Glimpses, really. And this teases a bigger conspiracy and a bigger story, yet doesn’t deliver on it.

I’ve read books that don’t get a full wrap-up and still give a sense of closure and resolution. Perks of Being a Wallflower comes to mind. So does Be More Chill, actually. But while The Other Normals provide a resolution, it doesn’t give closure. Or, if it does, it’s not a satisfying one.

Unless Vizzini plans on revisiting this world in the future, with more development from Peregrine. That’s the only reason I can think of why Vizzini would end where he ended. Because, personally, I didn’t see an end of journey for Peregrine when the novel ended. It felt like we were just about to enter denouement.

But I could be reading it the wrong way. After all, I did say I liked it. And even after over-analyzing, I can still say I liked it.

Let’s see if what other people have to say will help me make my mind up:
The Book Reaper
Small Review
Toast Pop

Okay. So. Reading the reviews, I realize now that I do like the book enough to overlook the things other people didn’t like. Though, Small Review does bring up a good point about expectations:

She wanted a traditional fantasy world but was given a weird and convoluted world that didn’t seem well-formed. While I did like how weird and convoluted the world is, I do agree that the fantasy world doesn’t feel whole. Or real.

It was bowing too much to where the author wanted the story to go, so it didn’t feel natural. The plot developments did not feel like the were where the story would naturally go.

And it’s hard to define what are inconsistencies in characters, and what are actually developments that the story gave them.

Oh, also, I really found it annoying how one character dies and disappears from thought after a couple of chapters. I thought said character should have mattered more to the survivors. I guess I thought wrong.

Who else has read this book? Let’s discuss what worked and what didn’t. Hit me up with your comments!