Category Archives: 2 Flames

SLAYED
Author: Amanda Marrone

• Reading level: Young Adult
• Paperback: 272 pages
• Publisher: Simon Pulse; Original edition (October 5, 2010)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1416994874
• ISBN-13: 978-1416994879

SUMMARY:

The Van Helsing family has been hunting vampires for over one hundred years, but sixteen-year-old Daphne wishes her parents would take up an occupation that doesn’t involve decapitating vamps for cash. All Daphne wants is to settle down in one place, attend an actual school, and finally find a BFF to go to the mall with. Instead, Daphne has resigned herself to a life of fast food, cheap motels and buying garlic in bulk. 

But when the Van Helsings are called to a coastal town in Maine, Daphne’s world is turned upside down. Not only do the Van Helsings find themselves hunting a terrifying new kind of vampire (one without fangs but with a taste for kindergarten cuisine), Daphne meets her first potential BF! The hitch? Her new crush is none other than Tyler Harker, AKA, the son of the rival slayer family. 

What’s a teen vampire slayer to do? 

MY THOUGHTS:

First of all, I love the cover!  I love the upshot angle of the camera focusing on our heroine with the stake in her hand. Unfortunately, that was about all that I loved about this book.

Daphne dreams of being a normal teenage girl with normal friends and school.  Unfortunately, she comes from a long line of vampire slayers and is forced by her parents to stay true to the family business.  While I wasn’t a big fan of Daphne, I did enjoy Kiki in the story.  She was a laugh out loud riot throughout the whole story. 

The writing wasn’t amazing, but it was bearable.  It came across childish even though Daphne is suppose to be seventeen in the story.  I felt she acted more like a fifteen year old than a near adult.  The plot of the story also left me feeling like the story would never end.  Sometimes this can be a good thing, but in this instance, it was tiresome and I found myself hoping each chapter was the last. The story could have been great, yet I felt it only to be so-so.  The characters never really captured my interest enough to really care what happened.

An okay book, but not one I would reread anytime soon, if ever.

MY RATING:

WHERE I BELONG
Author: Gwendolyn Heasley
Source: Around The World Tours

• Reading level: Young Adult
• Paperback: 304 pages
• Publisher: HarperTeen (February 8, 2011)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0061978841
• ISBN-13: 978-0061978845

SUMMARY:

Corrinne Corcoran’s upscale Manhattan life is perfectly on track—until her father announces he’s been laid off and she’s shipped off to Broken Spoke, Texas, to live with her grandparents. All alone in a big public school and forced to take a job shoveling manure, Corrinne is determined to get back to the glamorous life she’s supposed to be living. But as she grudgingly adjusts—making new friends and finding romance along the way—this city girl begins to realize that life without credit cards and shopping sprees may not be as bad as it seems…. 

MY THOUGHTS:

When you read the first page of the book, you know exactly how the main character is going to be.  Basically the first page is a letter from Corrinne to the reader.  She tells you that when reading this book, you are going to not enjoy her attitude and demeanor.  I found this to be very accurate.


When Corrinne’s Father loses his job due to the recession, her family is forced to sell their home in New York.  While her father travels abroad to find work, Corrinne is forced to move to Broken Spoke, Texas with her brother Tripp.  While living with her Grandparent’s, Corrinne whines about anything and everything.  She can’t stand to live in a place where Sonic is considered fine dining, and football is the favorite past time.


Throughout this book I agreed with the letter from the character.  I couldn’t stand Corrinne.  She was spoiled, whined on almost every page, and basically a teenage brat.  If she didn’t get exactly what she wanted, she made sure to tell everyone who was listening a poor-me tantrum.  I didn’t see much of an improvement in the character by the end of the book either.  Sure, she learned to like Sonic and Texan fun, but she still had the spoiled princess persona that grew irritating with each chapter.  There isn’t much romance in the book, and it is left with no real resolve at the end with what romance it does have.  


To me this was an okay book, but not one that blew me away like I was hoping. I think the ending of the book needed more to it, and a better outcome that what is revealed in the last chapter. 


MY RATING:

Title: iDrakula
Author: Bekka Black

• Reading level: Young Adult
• Paperback: 160 pages
• Publisher: Sourcebooks Fire (October 1, 2010)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1402244657
• ISBN-13: 978-1402244650

SUMMARY:

The classic vampire story that started it all gets new life for a generation of connected teens

18-year-old Jonathan Harker is diagnosed with a rare blood disorder after visiting a Romanian Count. His girlfriend Mina and a pre-med student named Van Helsing team up to investigate the source of the disease. The teenagers discover a horrifying truth: the Count is a vampire. The harrowing events unfold through emails, text messages, web pages, Twitter feeds, and instant messaging-the natural modernization of Bram Stoker’s original Dracula, which was written in letters, diary entries, and news clippings.

MY THOUGHTS:

This is a book that can easily be finished within a few hours, if not less.  The concept peaked my interest since it is geared towards the technology that teens and adults are all addicted to now.  I was curious to see how the author was going to take a well known story and adapt it to this concept.

While the cover was amazing and the summary intriguing, the book lost its connection with the reader with all of the simple text and emails.  We basically get the bones of the story with no real meat attached.  I didn’t enjoy the execution of the book and I felt cheated in the story.  Since there was no real story introduced, we didn’t get the connection with the characters that you normally get with a story filled with dialogue and description. If the author could have given us some chapters of real story in between the emails and text, then this would have made the story more enjoyable and more plausible.

While the computer age of technology might be intriguing in some plots, with this story I felt that it held the book back from being something more.

MY RATING:

DUST DEVIL
Author: Anne Isaacs
Illustrated by: Paul O. Zelinsky
Source: Publihser
* I received this book free of 
charge in exchange for an honest review*

• Reading level: Ages 4-8
• Hardcover: 48 pages
• Publisher: Schwartz & Wade (September 14, 2010)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0375867228
• ISBN-13: 978-0375867224

SUMMARY:

Here is the thrilling, thigh-slapping companion to Swamp Angel, the beloved Caldecott Honor–winning picture book.

Swamp Angel has a reputation as the greatest woodswoman and wildest wildcat in all of Tennessee. But when she grows too big for that state, she moves to Montana, a place so sizeable, even Angel can fit in. It’s there that she wrestles a raging storm to the ground and, at its center, finds herself a sidekick—a horse she names Dust Devil. And when Backward Bart, the orneriest, ugliest outlaw ever known, starts terrorizing the prairie, seems like Angel and Dust Devil may be the only ones strong enough to stop him.

Children will be captivated by the beauty and exaggerated humor of Paul Zelinsky’s American primitive–style paintings and the wit and energy of Anne Isaacs’s unparalleled storytelling. Here is an original folktale starring an extraordinary gal who is as feisty as she is funny and as courageous as she is kind.

MY THOUGHTS:

When I received this book, my daughter and I shared it at bedtime for her routine read of the evening.  While the story was fun and whimsical, it was a bit long for younger children.  She lost interest in it quickly because there was so much reading involved per page.  On that note, I would definitely save this book for older children around age 8 and have them read it themselves.

The story was great, but the illustrations could have been so much better.  While they may have been suited for the storyline, the illustrations were bland and not as pretty as girls would normally enjoy.  Again, the illustrations tend to fall in the older child range and even focused more towards a feel that boys would like better.

If you were wanting to find a book that is well suited for a boy and who falls in the age range of 6-8, then this would be best for that.  Overall not a bad book, but not one I would recommend for younger girls.

MY RATING:

STRANGE ANGELS
Author: Lili St. Crow

• Reading level: Young Adult
• Paperback: 304 pages
• Publisher: Razorbill (May 14, 2009)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1921518324
• ISBN-13: 978-1595142511

SUMMARY:

Dru Anderson has what her grandmother called “the touch.” (Comes in handy when you’re traveling from town to town with your dad, hunting ghosts, suckers, wulfen, and the occasional zombie.)

Then her dad turns up dead—but still walking—and Dru knows she’s next. Even worse, she’s got two guys hungry for her affections, and they’re not about to let the fiercely independent Dru go it alone. Will Dru discover just how special she really is before coming face-to-fang with whatever—or whoever— is hunting her? 

MY THOUGHTS:

I had really high expectations for this book.  It sounded great from the summary and I had heard wonderful things about the series.  However, it ended up being a disappointment for me.

When Dru’s Father takes off for another hunt, he doesn’t come back.  She is worried and scared about him which is understandable.  They hunt things that go bump in the night, and things that most people think are not real.  When her Father does return though, she finds he has been turned into a zombie.  After he attacks her, Dru is forced to shoot and kill her father.  She finds herself hiding out with a boy from school named Graves.  He quickly finds out that Dru is not like other girls when a werewolf attacks and he is bitten.  Instead of him turning though-and forcing Dru to kill him- he ends up only half changing.  Together they try to figure out what is going on, while another boy named Christophe tries to convince them that he is there to help as well.

This book had more description than actual dialogue.  It went overboard in the supernatural to the point of enough already.  While I loved the character of Graves-even when he was whiny and scared- Christophe came off as a jerk, while Dru came off as a stuck up ditz.  She is suppose to be trained in this stuff growing up with a father who hunts.  At times, she couldn’t even take the safety off a gun!  There were many filler scenes and pages with no actual reason to be in there.  A lot of repetitive story with no substance and progression.  By the time I neared the end of this book, I didn’t really care what happened to anyone in the story.

That being said, the story could have potential in the rest of the series.  If the books following Strange Angels would put its focus on the characters and their interaction more than the dialogue of useless information, then the plot of the story could really take off and make it work. The basis of the plot is the only reason I am giving this a 2 star rating instead of a 1 star rating.  I still might give the next book a try, but I don’t have the excitement in the series as others might have.

MY RATING: