I’ve been a fan of Mary Janice’s Undead series for over a decade, so when Better World Books had a sale on their preloved books, I was stoked to see something from her I hadn’t read yet, and was even more pleased that it’s for a middle grade/young adult market.

 Thanks to Goodreads for the description…

“She knew that growing up would mean changing. But Jennifer wasn’t prepared for the blue scales or the claws, since no one had told her that she came from a bloodline of weredragons. Her greatest challenge? Protecting herself from her family’s ancient enemies and preparing herself for fierce battles. And that’s a lot to expect of a girl just coming into her own.”

The twists in the tail tale are beautifully crafted. Foreshadowing is forgivable and the ending has you chomping for book two, Jennifer Scales and the Messenger of Light.

This husband and wife team have a refreshing view of friendships between guys and girls, and make you wish the guys in their early teens, in real life, were as level headed as their characters are.

These books first came out in 2005, so they may be a little challenging to find.

 If you’re in the mood for something light, sassy adventurous, sweet and quick to get through, see if you can track down a copy.

 Mass Market Paperback, 224 pages

Published January 30th 2007 by Ace (first published August 2nd 2005)

original title

Jennifer Scales and the Ancient Furnace

ISBN

0441014747 (ISBN13: 9780441014743)

Some Quiet Place is like no other YA Paranormal book I’ve ever read, and that’s very exciting! No werewolves, no vampires, none of that! Kelsey Sutton has introduced a new and refreshing topic in this genre, which everyone should take the chance to read.

I was offered this book for review, and when I said yes, because of the beautiful cover, I had no idea what I was getting myself into (I’ve already seen the cover or the sister book, and it looks just as amazing!). If you have this book sitting on your shelf right now, unread, I recommend pushing it to the top of your TBR pile. If you don’t own it yet, I recommend purchasing it RIGHT AWAY!

Some Quiet Place revolves around a girl named Elizabeth, who was in an car accident at a young age, and only walked a away with a few bruises and scratches. She hasn’t been the same since.

Elizabeth hasn’t told anyone, but she has the ability to see emotions and elements in human forms. She can’t feel any sort of emotion; not happiness, not excitement, not sadness or even anger. Not even Fear who is constantly sending horrific scenes into her mind whenever he touches her.

Elizabeth isn’t sure why this is happening to her, but it doesn’t matter how hard she tries, or pretends, she can’t feel anything.

Some Quiet Place follows Elizabeth on her journey to discovering herself, dealing with the loss, having her mother scared of her, having her alcoholic father beating her, and her relationship with Fear.

Where can I sign up for the Fear Fan Club? I absolutely love him.

When Fear is first introduced, he seems mysterious, and I wasn’t really sure why he was always around Elizabeth. My guess was just that he was interested and had never met anyone like her who couldn’t feel emotions.

But throughout the story he becomes more of a friend to her than a nuisance, which he seemed to be at the beginning of the story. He even opens up about his feelings towards Liz. When she’s in danger, he risks his job as a emotion, and his life as well, just to protect her.

Fear is like no other boy in YA Paranormal genre, and nor is his relationship with Liz. He isn’t just a normal guy, who knows  how good he looks, but instead he is insecure about being an emotion instead of a human.

Overall, Some Quiet Place had me addicted! There are other books I’ve read where the main character “had no feelings”, but nothing like Liz. Kelsey Sutton did an amazing job breaking our (the readers) hearts and not Elizabeth’s. Suttons writing was enticing and intricate! Loved it, and I can’t wait to read her other books.

Blythewood was one of those books that had me back and forth with my opinions and thoughts. At the beginning I was excited to see the world of Avaline Hall, Blythewood and the Fey. Within the first few chapters, I found the story to be a bit slow, but only a few more chapters later, things started to pick up and it seems that there was no end to the action! Then I found myself a bit confused, and finally my heart skipped a beat throughout the ending!

Blythewood starts with a poor girl named Avaline Hall, Ava for short, who is working in a factory. Her and many other poor girls, including her best friend Tillie, are locked into a room every day to work for a ridiculous amount of hours and are paid very little.

Before her mother committed suicide by drinking landrum and was found with a black feather on top of her, Ava worked for her, sewing and selling hats. But once her mother passed Ava started to struggle to pay the bills and life is much harder.

When the Triangle factory catches fire, the girls inside have no way out, the doors are locked throughout working hours, and Ava has no idea what to do or where to go. Some of the girls are running around wild, other girls are jumping to their death out the window. Ava and her best friend, Tillie, only know one other way, climbing from the roof of the factory to the roof of the building next door.

After slipping and losing her grip, Ava finds herself saved by a mysterious pair of strong arms who belong to a boy with dark eyes and hair… and wings. She can’t believe her eyes but the next thing she knows, she’s in a mental hospital, drugged and diagnosed with mental issues. Six months pass, before Ava finally leaves the hospital, and escorted by a lady who claims that she knows her grandmother, and says that they’ve been looking for Ava.

Upon her arrival at her grandmother’s house, Ava learns a lot of herself and her mother. Ava has always known how much her mom loved Blythewood, and would speak about the school often, but still Ava didn’t know much about it. Her grandmother, a rather snarky thing, informed her that Ava’s mother got pregnant in her senior year at Blythewood, and ran away. Even though Ava just arrived, and hasn’t even settled in yet, she is told that her interview to Blythewood is in three days and they have a lot of work to do before then.

Upon being accepted, Ava is worried that people might judge her due to her mother’s history, but that is that last thing she worries about when finally going to the Blythewood initiation in the forest and sees all the creatures that live within it.

Blythewood isn’t just any school. Besides doing homework and studying for finals, Ava and her friends are learning about all the different dangerous creatures in the forest and how to defend themselves from these creatures so they can find Nathan’s twin sister, Louisa, who is lost in the Faerie world.

Ava also discovers who her dark angel is, and why he’s around right when she needs him. Right when Ava thinks she knows what’s going on, there’s always something else.

Overall, Blythewood was a new take on the Fey world. The only other books I’ve read on faeries are Julie Kagawa’s books, and these are nothing alike. While I can admit that the beginning of the book was kind of slow, pushing through that and continuing to read is definitely worth it. The ending was intense, and shocking! I had no idea what hit me on the last page!

There is no need to even speak about the cover, because all three of them look AHH-mazing!

I purchased Insurgent before I even started reading Divergent, and I’m really glad I did. Why? Because I was able to read it right away, instead of running out to the store in the middle of the night, just to get my hands on a copy! (I would recommend this for anyone!)

Before I begin to review Insurgent, I just want to explain the main reason I loved Divergent. Tris spent her entire life putting other people in front of her, she avoided eye contact, never saw herself in a mirror, and tried to only speak when spoken to. But when it was finally her turn to make a decision, and her turn to change her life, she did. COMPLETELY. She became something she never was before; strong. The character development in Divergent, through Tris, is what pulled me in. And it was also what forced me to continue the series.

Insurgent takes off exactly where Divergent ended; some reviews I read really liked this, but some also thought this was just ridiculous. I guess that just depends when you read the first book. I understand that if you read Divergent days after it released, and then read Insurgent when it was finally released, it would be hard to remember all the characters, everything that happened, and of course the little details. But if you read the two books within months of each other like I did, it wouldn’t be such a big problem. 

Erudite is trying to take over the world by injecting the Dauntless with a mind control serum. The Dauntless faction is split into two, the Traitors and the now Outcasts, who are teaming up with the Factionless, who are beginning a rebellion. Erudite are hunting down all citizens that are Divergent, because for some reason or another, the serum doesn’t work on them.

Tris is struggling with both the loss of her parents, and the guilt of killing her friend while he was under the mind control serum. Unsure of what to do, or where to go, Tris, Four, Caleb and a few Abnegation head to Amity, seeking protection, shelter and help. The world is in complete chaos, but she knows she can trust Four; he is her light in all this dark. With violence rising and alliances forming, the five factions Tris has grown up with, do not exist anymore. And with so much going on, and different sides of the dilemma the two are forced to pick sides, even if they might not be the same ones…(ooohh, doesn’t that make you want to read the book?)

So on my blog Turning Pages, I discussed why I like Divergent better than I did Insurgent. And these are the points I made:

1. Tris, her guilt, and her inability to shoot a gun. In Divergent, I absolutely fell in love with Tris; she was that kick ass girl that I look for in any action book I read. I thought it was cool that she didn’t know who she was, and was always told to be quiet when she was Abnegation. But when she decided to go into Dauntless, she showed her true side; her badassness, and her bravery! I loved everything about her. She made smart moves, played the game safe when needed, but also wasn’t afraid be risky. But she wasn’t anything like that in Insurgent… I understand that she lost a lot in the first book (her parents, and her friend), but the world is in complete shambles, she needed to get her head in the game. I was so frustrated when I read that she couldn’t even hold a gun, nor shot it, when she was in a life and death situation… you’ve got to be kidding me!? Shoot the dang thing! She spent the entire first book, becoming Dauntless, and now this??

2. Four..what a jerk? Okay this one wasn’t as bad as number one, but since when was he so mean? I loved that he was this tough guy, and that he was sweet to Tris. But in this second book, he just isn’t like that.

3. Romance? Action? I have to admit I love romance books, and if you’ve been with Turning Pages for a while you know that all too well! But I do like different genres. I came to love Divergent for the action, and adventure, not because of the romance. I was expecting the same thing from Insurgent. Yes, it’s true, there is some romance in Divergent between Tris and Four, but that isn’t “in your face”, its in the background. But Insurgent focused too much on the couple, and not enough on the action.. .I guess the romance aspect in this book wasn’t what I was expecting.

The things I liked about the book:

1. Caleb! Uhh I don’t want to further explain this one, but definitively liked this twist in the story!!

2. The ending! Ughh another one I can’t give away!

3. Four..what a jerk! Okay I know I put this one in my dislikes, but I also liked it in a strange way, and this goes along with number one in my dislikes. Throughout Divergent I liked that Tris was smart, and made smart moves. In Insurgent she doesn’t do that. She almost reminded me of one of those girls who just acts dumb and does dumb things to get attention. Tris making these idiotic moves, like not using a gun, wasn’t the Tris I got to know in the first book. And that’s why I liked Four. Though he was rude and a bit of a jerk about it, he called Tris out on her stupidity. Four made sense, but he was just a bit mean about expressing it, but I felt that Tris really needed that a few times throughout the story; a reality check!

I already reviewed (or ranted) about these points on my own blog, and decided just to incorporate them into this review as well. I don’t think I can explain them any other way.

So yes! I know, I liked Divergent much more, and I’m not afraid to admit it. But I still liked Insurgent, but there were just so many little things that bothered me throughout most of the book.

I continued to read the last book in this series, Allegiant, and fell incomplete love! LOVE I say! If you haven’t gotten the chance to pick these up yet, I recommend buying all three at one time! ASAP!

Zombies! Zombies! Zombies! ZOMBIES!!!

Zombie Blondes by Brian James was a book I stumbled upon during a Half Price Books Warehouse Sale last summer, and for only a dollar, I had no choice but to pick it up. I loved the cover, and I was going through a zombie craze at the time!

For only a dollar, I don’t regret anything…

With her dad running away from his past (ratting out fellow cops, for doing the wrong thing) and the collect calls, Hannah is used to coming home with her dad in the car and finding all her stuffed packed up.

Hannah Sanders has spent the last few years of her life moving around, and being the new girl in many different schools. While the schools looked different and had different names, they were practically all the same; with the same type of cliques and the same type of people. Hannah has never been part of the popular crowd, but has always wanted to be accepted for who she was.

Her dad is doing the best he can, and Hannah knows that. So while she does get frustrated with him, she knows that they only have each other, and that they need to stick together. But when the two of them move to a small town in Vermont, called Maplecrest, Hannah feels uneasy.

Driving through the town, she realizes that it’s practically empty and that almost every house has a “For Sale” sign posted in the front yard. Something here just doesn’t seem right, and Hannah knows it in her gut. But her hopes do get a bit higher that the school she’ll be going to might be small and that there would be no issue of cliques.

But Hannah was wrong; this school is just like any other one she attended, if not worse.

As usual the popular kids are football players and cheerleaders… who all strangely look similar. On her first day of school, Hannah doesn’t make any friends, but this weird guy named Lukas, does introduce himself. While at first he seemed to a normal “weird” guy, Lukas is trying to convince Hannah that the school and Maplecrest are full of zombies.

Ignoring his crazy accusations, Hannah jumps on the first opportunity to becoming part of the popular group; cheer tryouts. After making it on the squad, Hannah realizes a few odd things here and there about both the cheerleaders and the football players, causing her to think about what Lukas said. But instead of confronting what’s going on, she decided to just push aside the thought.

Soon Hannah comes to the conclusion that maybe Lukas isn’t as weird as she thought he was, and maybe it was a HUGE mistake not to listen to his advice.

Zombie Blondes stood out to me for two reasons, it was only a dollar, and it had zombies in the title… I love zombies… don’t judge!

But when reading the synopsis, I was worried that this was going to be another book about a teenage girl willing to do anything to become popular. I don’t go for those books, I find the main character to usually be shallow, and have absolutely no self acceptance. But luckily Brian James veered away from that in this book. Hannah is hoping for acceptance and friendship instead of popularity. Hannah has never truly belonged anywhere, and she is searching for that belonging in Zombie Blondes.

With being part of a military family, I could easy compare to Hannah, and the constant moving. It’s hard to make new friends and go to new schools all the time, so I completely understood why Hannah wanted to be accepted so badly.

The only question that arose in me while reading this book, was about Lukas. He knew what the zombies, he knew about what they were doing, and he was even warning others about them. Why didn’t the zombies just get rid of him? Like they did everybody else, why keep him around?

Overall I really enjoyed it! I had high hopes that it was going to be ALL about zombies, but it wasn’t. I guess I was a little disappointed by that, but that was more my own fault, because I didn’t really look into what the story was about.

If you’re looking for a zombie twist on a high school teenage girl story, this would be the book for you.