The Girl With all the Gifts by M R Carey

NOT EVERY GIFT IS A BLESSING.


Melanie is a very special girl. Dr Caldwell calls her "our little genius."


Every morning, Melanie waits in her cell to be collected for class. When they come for her, Sergeant keeps his gun pointing at her while two of his people strap her into the wheelchair. She thinks they don't like her. She jokes that she won't bite, but they don't laugh.


The Girl With All the Gifts is a groundbreaking thriller, emotionally charged and gripping from beginning to end.



Book Review:

There's a moral code I live by when it comes to buying books: If you want to read it, it will eventually go on sale. I got this sucker for $1.99! 

I've had TGWATG on my TBR list for most of the year, and the hum around this book made it even more enticing to read. When one of my bookish friends told me how amazing it was, I had to get my hands on The Girl With All the Gifts. I wasn't expecting a zombie apocalypse setting, with the title of this book I was expecting more of a superhero vibe. But, this was a pleasant surprise. The first half of this book was definitely intriguing. Eventually it turned into the typical run-for-your-life-the-zombies-are-coming apocalyptic novel. But the zombie origins storyline made this unique and wonderful. I really loved the underlying story of a motherless girl and her beloved teacher. Our main character, Melanie is super smart, a lover of greek mythology, and intuitive when it comes to figuring out what she really is. There were more great storylines, the mad scientist wanting to cut children's brains apart, and the stone faced soldier trying to hold shit together. Overall, this was a great read. The ending was a bit gloomy, but what do you expect with the zombie apocalypse? 

5/5 stars

What comes with every great book... a movie.

Tor.com released this announcement:

Glenn Close and Gemma Arterton to Star in The Girl with All the Gifts Movie

Stubby the Rocket

Mon Mar 23, 2015 12:30pm 12 comments  2 Favorites [+]

M.R. Carey will adapt his 2014 novel The Girl with All the Gifts for film, The Hollywood Reporterannounced today. Retitled as She Who Brings Gifts, the movie will star Glenn Close, Gemma Arterton, and Paddy Considine, and will be directed by Colm McCarthy (Sherlock, Doctor Who).

These stars will likely play the three central adult roles in the film: We’re assuming Arterton is idealistic young teacher Miss Justineau, who must teach special children in the wake of a worldwide fungal infection; Considine will bring the muscle as Sergeant Ed Parks, terrified and disgusted by his charges; and Close must be Doctor Caroline Caldwell, who will sacrifice as many test subjects as she needs to in order to find a cure.

But what about Melanie, the girl who will bring gifts? The casting directors will probably be looking for an unknown to play the precocious Melanie, who knows that something is wrong with her but also yearns for love and acceptance. In a press release, producer Angus Lamont talked a little bit about the film’s emotional core:

Melanie’s story is a completely unique take on a much loved genre, seamlessly blending together a lonely child’s search for love and family with a terrifying journey where she controls the fate of the last adult humans on earth.

Filming will begin in the UK in May 2015; no release date has been announced yet.

Book Review: What Lies Within

Fast-paced and unpredictable, What Lies Within is an exciting read. For a good portion of this book I kept getting that eerie feeling I remember from watching the movie Scream as a kid. As Shelley Murano's story unfolded, I was hooked and couldn't put it down.  If you like YA and thrillers, What Lies Within is perfect for you.


5/5 stars

Get Your Copy of WHAT LIES WITHIN by James Morris








PS: I just started reading MELOPHOBIA, and I'm hooked. Pick up these books people.

The Infinite by Lori M. Lee

The blurb:

The walls of Ninurta keep its citizens safe.
Kai always believed the only danger to the city came from within. Now, with a rebel force threatening the fragile government, the walls have become more of a prison than ever.
To make matters worse, as Avan explores his new identity as an Infinite, Kai struggles to remind him what it means to be human. And she fears her brother, Reev, is involved with the rebels. With the two people she cares about most on opposite sides of a brewing war, Kai will do whatever it takes to bring peace. But she’s lost her power to manipulate the threads of time, and she learns that a civil war might be the beginning of something far worse that will crumble not only Ninurta’s walls but also the entire city.
In this thrilling sequel to Gates of Thread and Stone, Kai must decide how much of her humanity she’s willing to lose to protect the only family she’s ever known.



Review:
Strangely, this was better than the first book, but the ending didn't hit the spot. The author leaves the series open for the third book in the series, but there was just something lacking in the last 25%. In THE INFINITE we see Kai and Avan's relationship struggle to be what it was. Also, there's more world!

I'm not sure why I picked this up to read, since the first book wasn't my favorite. I'm thinking it's those darn covers which are just so pretty.

3/5 stars






ARC received for an honest review.

Review of Golden Son by Pierce Brown

Golden Son by Pierce Brown

So I just finished reading Golden Son. What can I say about this read… it was dark, gritty, impactful, heartbreaking, gorydamn amazing. (Yeah, I think I like that last one the best.)  

Golden Son is the second installment of the Red Rising series by Pierce Brown. If you haven’t read Red Rising, go do it.  In this book we leave the surface of Mars and the brutal training play yard of the Golden children and head intergalactic. There’s a touch a space opera, other-worldly technological advances, new adult angst, power struggles, slaughter, violence and death-the list goes on and on and on. We watch Darrow lose his focus and find it again, lose his friends and find them again, lose his family and find them again, but best of all we watch Darrow lose himself and find himself again.

In a booklovers universe that’s filled with YA giants like The Hunger Games, Harry Potter, Ender’s Game etc, Brown’s titles are a step in another direction. This author doesn’t need comparison to others in his genre because he does something that these other books don’t, he stabs you in the gut with a slingBlade made of fire, rips you to the sternum, lances your heart and then does it all over again without apology, without the assistance of a Carver to sew your soul back up. His writing is unique and consuming, his characters over the top but still captivating. The world he’s created… tremendous. There are Reds, Golds, Yellows, Pinks, factions residing over factions in an intricately designed world cross-stitched with Greek mythology. And don’t blink while you’re reading this, you might miss the deception, the thrill, the passion, and it’s all going to slap in you in the face at the end, leaving you wondering what the hell just happened, because it’s all pure awesomeness. 

The Edge of Never by J.A. Redmerski

I guess I have to give any book that keeps me reading until 5am five stars. Not only did it keep me up until 5am, but when I woke up a few hours later, I turned on the coffee and read until I finished the book. This was a great read. I will say, I could sense a bit of a tragedy coming on, and when I started chapter forty, I wanted to kick myself in the teeth and then I got to the fourth paragraph and all was well with the world. 

The Edge of Never starts out sweet and while I felt like I easily could have put this book down during the first few chapters, I didn't, and then it was too late because I didn't want to put the book down. The author gave me everything I wanted from a NA romance read, it wasn't over the top, it wasn't raunchy. There was simplicity and fun and just enough "Deepness" to stick in my heart. My only negative idea was that I did get a little annoyed with every male character wanting to bone Camryn.
Great read.

Review of Gates of Thread and Stone by Lori M. Lee

I came across Gates of Thread and Stone by Lori M. Lee via email from Amazon. In this email it was promised that I could read this book for free. A few clicks later the book arrived in my Kindle. I’m not sure what I owe Amazon for this, maybe a kneecap or my first born? Or can I simply pay them in gratitude?

So, let’s start from the cover. Can I just say, holy hell, have you seen anything so beautiful as this? Whoever did the cover work has talent and I would consider doing certain things to get a cover like that for one of my books. 

Before reading Gates of Thread and Stone, I perused a few reviews and saw some people liken this book to the Clockwork Princess series by Cassandra Claire. Well folks, you can’t judge this book on its cover, this is not your mother’s Cassandra Claire. Actually if Cassandra Claire’s books were an apple and you picked up Gates of Thread and Stone, you’d be holding a carrot in your hand. Ergo, they are on opposite sides of the spectrum.

It took me until about 12% before I started really getting into this book. At first there seemed to be a lot of information that wasn’t necessary or that I felt should have been reworked to fit into the story better. And I got a little uncomfortable with all the mackin’ Kai was doing on her brother. I mean, I have four brothers and not once did I gaze at them as they slept. Anywho, we find out why later in the book why this is acceptable. At 37%, the book really picked up, the story got really interesting and things started to come together a tiny bit, although there was still plenty of mystery. 

I see in my reading progress I noted that at 67%, this book got really good. And then I couldn’t put it down. Still, while reading I felt like there was something missing. It seemed to be plagued by vagueness and gloss and a bit dreamlike. But I kept thinking to myself, this is fantasy, let’s just go with it. So I’m still on the fence with some aspects of this book. I had a hard time connecting with Kai, I feel like her character needed more development. And I guess I’m a selfish reader because I yearned for more uses of Kai’s ability to dapple with the threads of time. I really enjoyed Avan and Reev’s characters, and truly, those two are what kept me reading. 

Overall, the setup is a Young Adult Dystopia with magical/fantasy elements. When I step back, I see elements of Hunger Games, Divergent, and Red Rising, with the cadets and the training, etc. The author did a great job of mixing the dystopia with the mythology but I wanted more. There was so much more that could have been said or delved into with relationships and events instead of glossing over them. So while I enjoyed the last half of this book very much, I still have that nagging feeling that something was missing. Also, this is the only book I’ve ever read and kept asking myself, where is the rest of the world? Are we on a flat plane where there is only Ninurta, a forest, the void, and Etu Gahl. Humans are mentioned, a Rebirth, the one week of sun but… where is the rest of the world?

After all is said and done, I find that Amazon knows me a little too well. It's creepy really.

Bonuses: the ending brought everything together; when I was done I was satisfied and even consider reading this again.

I recommend this, 3/5 stars.

Review of HORNS by Joe Hill

 
Overall, this was a thrilling read! A great mix of love, heartache, godliness, and the supernatural. I enjoyed the ups and downs of the story and many times I felt like I was hanging around my brothers as a kid, the dialog was real.

The only negative I have about this book is the ending, which seemed to drag on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on. People were supposed to leave but then showed up again, other characters showed up and the interactions that followed didn't seem to add anything to the story, just drew it out. And how many times to we need to read about Lee beating the crap out of Ig in the bowels of that building? It was a repeated scene that got old.
 

Overall, a good read. The ending could have been a bit better, and less drawn out. I'm excited for the movie!

4/5 stars

Red Rising

There is violence in this book. Violence and heart, love and pain. People die terrible deaths. Painful deaths. The info dumping in the first quarter of the book was a bit overwhelming at first, but necessary. I mean, how else are you going to learn the rules of society on Mars? If you can get through that, it is well worth it. I wasn't expecting to find Harry Potter, Hunger Games, Ender's Game, and a gorydamn pound of Greek Mythology woven into one. (I know, that's what all the reviews say, and they're right.) The prose is unique. Entertaining. And now I have to wait until 2015 to read the rest. Bums. I'll start re-reading now.