Review: Scary School

Scary School by Derek the Ghost

Published by Harper Collins

Genre: Midgrad

$5.99 (US paperback)

237 pages

 

What it's about:

You think your school's scary?

Get a load of these teachers:

"Ms. Fang," an 850-year-old vampire

"Dr. Dragonbreath," who just might eat you before recess

"Mr. Snakeskin"--science class is so much more fun when it's taught by someone who's half zombie

"Mrs. T"--break the rules and spend your detention with a hungry "Tyrannosaurus rex"

Plus

Gargoyles, goblins, and Frankenstein's monster on the loose

The world's most frighteningly delicious school lunch

And

The narrator's an eleven-year-old ghost

Join Charles "New Kid" Nukid as he makes some very Scary friends--including Petunia, Johnny, and Peter the Wolf--and figures out that Scary School can be just as funny as it is spooky

My thoughts:
I'm always on the lookout for good midgrade books. The kids I babysit are reluctant readers and will only read the books I force on them and swear up and down that they are really good. So when I was asked to review this book, I immediately read it so I could recommend it to my babysitting kids.

This book was surprisingly funny. I was sort of expecting it to be a little cheesey and that I'd probably only chuckle while reading it, but that wasn't really the case. I was full on laughing while reading it because it was hilarious! It was so out there that I couldn't help but laugh and think "wtf?" the whole time I was reading. The things that go on at Scary School are outrageous and definitely entertaining.

A few things I really enjoyed about Scary School:
*The three "r's" Rachael, Raychel, and FRank (which is pronounced Rachel).
* Charle's the New Kid. I thought he was just great.
*The illustrations. They really are just sketches but I thought they were awesome. They are simple yet detailed all in one.

This was a quick and funny read that I would (and have) recommend to anyone who enjoys funny midgrade books.

Review: The Maze Runner

The Maze Runner by James Dashner

Published by Delacorte Press Books for Young Readers

Genre: YA dystopian

$9.99 (US paperback)

374 pages

What it's about:



When Thomas wakes up in the lift, the only thing he can remember is his first name. His memory is blank. But he’s not alone. When the lift’s doors open, Thomas finds himself surrounded by kids who welcome him to the Glade—a large, open expanse enclosed by stone walls.

Just like Thomas, the Gladers don’t know why or how they got to the Glade. All they know is that every morning the stone doors to the maze that surrounds them, open. Every night they are closed tight. And that every 30 days a new boy is delivered in the lift.

Thomas was expected. Only the next day, a girl is sent up—the first girl to ever arrive in the Glade. And more surprising yet is the message she delivers.

Thomas might be more important than he could ever guess. If only he could unlock the dark secrets that are buried within his mind.

My thoughts:
I've seen this book around a lot the last couple of years and hear everyone talk about how awesome it is, yet I never bothered to pick up a copy and see what it was about. Then last week when I was doing my volunteer shift at the library and the librarian freaked out and said "ARIEL! How have you not read the Maze Runner  yet?!?!?!" Knowing the librarian, I knew she'd never let me hear the end of it until I read the book. I picked up a copy and read it in two sittings. It was that good.

I know that I hate it when every single dystopian book is compared to Hunger Games, because most of the time the books are nothing like HG, but Maze Runner really does have a lot in common with HG. Well, it has a lot of the same feel because the poor kids are put in this horrible situation that is life or death and they just  have to deal with it. Reading about the kids dying in horrible ways and how it forces them to grow up sickens and disgusts me, but I can't help but love those books. Plus this one has a lot of mystery surrounding everything and asks a ton of questions. What is the Maze? What is WICKED? Why can't the kids remember anything besides their names? What in the world is going on????  These questions just about drive you crazy and make it impossible to put down the book for any length of time.

I loved how MR had a boy for the mc. That doesn't seem to happy very often and every time it does, I always get excited. I like seeing things from the opposite sex's POV because it's nothing like seeing it from a girls pov.

I don't really know what all to say about this book without giving anything away, I'd hate to give away spoilers to this book. The only complaint I had at first about this book is the weird slang that the boys created. I found them saying klunks, shanks, ect. all the time very annoying, but I got used to it and it didn't bother me after about half the book. After finishing MR, I immediately picked up the next book in the trilogy, The Scorch Trials, and am already half way through it. I already adore this series.

Review: Redheads are Soulless

Redheads are Soulless by Heather M. White

Self published

Genre: YA paranormal

$2.99 Kindle ebook

 

What it's about:

High school senior, Sofia Black, has had a very hard life. Since her father's death 7 years ago, she has had to look after her drug addicted, alcohlic mother. School isn't any better for her either. The other kids constantly tease, and ridicule her. All she wants is to get out of her small hometown in Alabama.

When new student, Jason, shows up, Sofia's world is turned upside down. She doesn't understand why he wants to befriend her so badly... And, just when she thinks she can trust him, trouble appears.

Jason's twin brother, Robbie, moves into town, and things go haywire. Sofia is now running for her life - and Jason is forced to share hidden secrets with her. She learns the truth about her father's death, and finds out that she may not be as "human" as she once thought. She struggles to accept her fate, while fighting for her life.

My thoughts:
This book was just plain ridiculous in every single way imaginable. (and just as a warning, this will probably turn more into a rant rather than a review. I don't think I'll be able to help myself.)

Being a (bottled) redhead for the last nine years, I felt sort of obligated to read this book. When I saw it on Goodreads, I started giggling and was all "hell yeah! I must read that book." Seeing as how it's only $3 for the ebook of this, I bought it and read it real fast.

Ugh.

So where to begin...

Characters: I'll start with Sofia. I hated her. Couldn't stand her. She is incredibly embarrassed about her prescription drugs addicted alcoholic mother. And who wouldn't be? But Sofia goes out of her way to enable her mother to continue these addictions. And then she complains about how the house is a mess and there are alcohol bottles everywhere, and how the house is falling apart and the yard hasn't seen a mower in 7 years and yadda yadda yadda. Yet she never does anything about this. Sofia always seemed surprised when she walked into the house and the same mess is still there even when she always talked about how her mom would literally lay around all day long doing nothing. So why was Sofia surprised the mess was still there? And for goodness sakes, if you don't like it, then clean it up, don't just bitch about it. Geesh. On top of this, she allows herself to be pushed around by everyone, never sticking up for herself. And while Sofia questions what is going on around her, she doesn't really seem to care what answers she is given. She may be book smart, but when it comes to life, she is as dumb as a brick.
Now onto Jason and Robbie. They are creepers. Serious creepers. Jason walks into school and literally starts throwing himself at Sofia 2 seconds later and never stops. He knows where she lives and knows her cell number all without Sofia ever telling him, and then he randomly shows up and hangs outside her window at all hours of the day. WTF? And Sofia never questions this. Ever. Then there is Robbie who literally killed Sofia's father, and yet Sofia is panting all over him? Like "oh you killed my dad, and now my mom is an alcoholic because of it, and my life is a dump, but it's okay, I forgive you even though I've known you for a whole 2 days."

No. Just No.  No.

Then there is the whole supernatural aspect of this book. I honestly have no idea what it was. It was never explained. Every time Sofia asked about it, Jason and Robbie would be like "you really don't want to know" and Sofia would be all "okay!"

I get that the author was trying to make this all mysterious and have a big twist, but failed miserably. This whole book was a good idea but was poorly executed.

As a side note, this book has my all time favorite typo in it. At one point Jason is being a swoony to Sofia and Sofia says that her heart is being "erotically." This just about killed me I was laughing so hard. How does a heart beat erotically? Does it beat to a "bow-chicka-wow-wow" rhythm?

My rating: 5/10

Review: Isle of Night

Isle of Night by Veronica Wolff

Published by NAL Trade

Genre: YA paranormal

$9.99 (US paperback)

302 pages

 

What it's about:
Is life offering fewer and fewer options? Then join the dead.
When Annelise meets dark and seductive Ronan, he promises her a new life-if she has the courage to chance the unknown. Now, she's whisked away to a mysterious island and pitted against other female recruits to become a Watcher-girls who are partnered with vampires and assist them in their missions. To survive and become a Watcher, Annelise has to beat out every other girl, but she's determined to do so, because to fail doesn't mean dishonor-it means death


My thoughts:
Going into this I was sort of expecting it to be like Hunger Games, Vampire style. This was sort of true, but completely off at the same time.

I guess what I was sort of expecting was a bunch of girls who are on an island and the last couple standing gets to become the protectors to the vampires. This was not at all the case. The girls are taken to an island over by I think Scotland, and they are pretty much sent to boarding school. They have to go to classes such as etiquette classes and also PE along with a few others, and they have to try and survive, which isn't easy. The classes are killers, literally. It wasn't until the second half of the book that it did turn into something more Hunger Games-ish.

I loved Annelise's character. I thought she was great. She isn't some dumb damsel. She is smart, determinded, and beautiful. Thought she did have her flaws but those made her believable. I felt so bad for her for a good chunk of the book that I just wanted to give her a great big hug and tell her it would be okay.

I know that a lot of people are sick to death of vampires, and honestly I am a little too, but this book isn't really a "vampire book." They are such a small part of this book. There are lots of questions asked of them, and hardly any of them are answered in this book. That kinda drove me crazy while reading it, but it definitely had me intrigued.

I'm dying to get my hands on the second book in this series, Vampire Kiss. I am really invested to what happens to Annelise and the rest of the characters. I must find out all the answers to the questions that were asked.

My rating: 9/10

Book Blogger Confessions- starting over

Book Blogger Confessions is a meme that's held every 1st and 3rd Monday of the month and is hosted by For What It's Worth and Tigers all consuming books

The question for today is this:

 We have created a blogging time machine! Pretend you can start over. Knowing what you know now about blogging – what do you wish you did differently when it comes to creating your blog?

I've been blogging now for almost three years (holy crap, I can't believe it's been that long) and I can definitely think of a few things I'd do differently if I could go back.

First thing first, I'd think a lot more about my blog name and my url. When I decided to write a blog, I wasn't exactly sure what all I was going to do with it. I didn't know if I wanted it to be just a book review blog or something else. But I was watching the movie Must Love Dogs and because of my love for that movie (and my laziness to come up with anything else) I decided to go with Must Love Books. The only problem was someone back in 2005 decided to create a blog with that url, wrote one post, and never come back. So I had to pick a different thing to put in my url. I went with "labradors" instead of "books" because, well I dunno, I just did. Maybe it was because my Labrador was sitting on the couch next to me at the time or just my all around love for that breed of dog.

If I could go back and change this, I'd think about creating a theme and having the name fit with the theme of my blog. But back then I had way too much fun changing my layout about once a week. I couldn't make up my mind.

Next thing I would do is I'd work a lot harder at finding other book blogs and getting more involved in the blogging community. It took me a year to really get involved in the community and I'm sad it took me so long because I'm sure I missed out on a lot of cool things and opportunities.

And lastly, I think I would go back farther in time than when I first started, maybe a year farther back and tell myself to start blogging then. I was getting really into reading a year or two before I decided to start blogging and there are a lot of books that I wish I had some form of review or documentation for because I'm having trouble remembering my original thoughts on the book.

Let's talk about book crushes

Normally I wouldn't do two let's talk abouts in a row, but this one I've just got to get off my chest.

We all have book crushes. It's hard to not fall in love with the hunky guys in the books we read. We love them so much that there are weekly memes such as Missie's My Book Boyfriend to show off our love of them. Now we also have  The YA Sisterhood's YA Crush tournament.

It's this said tournament that has me all worked up right now. When I went to go nominate my 10 favorite boys, I was looking at the list and saw that Sebastian from the Mortal Instruments series is at spot #29 and Jordan from the same books is at spot #30.

This disgusts me.

I know that for myself, personally, that the boys I love in books are not always like the boys I like irl.* Take for instance Jace and Simon both from the Mortal Instruments. Jace is a complete jerk who is very into himself. Normally I'd hate a guy like him irl but in the books I absolutely adore him. Simon who is an adorable, funny nerd, I don't much care for in the books but in irl I'd be all over that.  Why this is I can not say. While reading, you get everyones sides of the stories. Sometimes the reader is inside the head of the boy himself, or you are in the head of the girl who loves the boy so you as the reader just can't help but feel the same way towards them. Most of the time.

And while I know and understand that the boys we love in books are not always the same boys we love irl, there should be boundaries. There are just some things that should disgust and horrify you to the point that no matter how hott the guy is, he is a monster of a man and should in no way be "crush" material.


Why I'm so upset Sebastian is on the list:
For those who have not read the Mortal Instruments series by Cassandra Clare THIS IS GOING TO BE A MAJOR SPOILER! If you haven't finished reading City of Lost Souls yet, you might not want to read this.

Sebastian is Clary's brother who is part Shadow Hunter, part Demon. On a few different occasions he tries to rape Clary, aka HIS SISTER. His full blooded sister. Like that isn't enough, but oh no, he also killed a fellow shadowhunter named Sebastian, AND STOLE HIS IDENTITY. Then to add on top of it, he killed the youngest Lightwood, Max, and then left and started a war, not once, but twice. To add on top of this, he tried to kill his step brother and when that didn't work, he bound his brother to him so that what he thinks, his brother has to think, and if he gets hurt, his brother gets hurt.

What a bastard. Oh, but don't forget, he's like, hott, so I guess that makes up for it.

*headdesk*

Why I'm upset Jordan is on the list:

Jordan is Maya's ex boyfriend who beat her and then turned her into a werewolf. But once again, he's like, a total babe, so it's okay he beat his girlfriend.

UGH.

So where should we draw the line from "it's just a book, don't get all huffy over it" to "wow, even if he isn't real and just in a book, you shouldn't still like him." I know that I definitely have that line and it falls before abusers and rapists.

A few people in the comments have also stated that they are upset over these two being on the YA crush list and have asked that there be boundaries for who can and cannot be on the list. The YA sisterhoods reply is this-

"Thank you for your comment. We understand your concerns. These votes are in no way representative of our own opinions. We are only showing the results as based upon voting.

Regardless of how we ourselves feel, we cannot change votes simply because of any one person's opinion, especially being that there were no restrictions outlining which characters were eligible for nomination.

We would, however, encourage you to rally support behind other characters in the hopes that they might overcome him."

 

So dear goodness people, if this bothers you in the slightest, please make sure to go put in your top 10 favorite boys and then go vote when the time comes so that Sebastian and Jordan are not on the final list. And if you are one of the 98 girls who nominated Sebastian for this tournament, can you PLEASE explain why you think he should be on that list above people like Harry Potter and Vincent, both characters who sacrifice everything to save people.

Here is the link to the page: YA Crush Tournament

On a side note, I would really like to know how Cassandra Clare feels about Sebastian being on this list.

*IRL = In Real Life. Just posting this for people who do not follow internet lingo

Lets Talk About Rating Systems

Lately I've been noticing something. People seem to be rating books lower and lower, even if they loved it. I've been seeing a lot of "OMG I LOVE LOVE LOVE LOVE THIS BOOK!" and then they rate it 3 stars. Or they will give it 3 stars but in the review will say 3.5 stars. Don't they know that when something is .5 or above that you typically round up? Not down?

When I see this happening, I tend to look something like this:

It has me wondering why do people think they need to give something a bad rating in order to have people actually read their review? Do they look at their ratings and go "hmmm I haven't rated something 3 or less stars lately, maybe I should" and so they do even if that's not how they really feel?

Why are people afraid to say their true feelings on a book? If all your ratings are good ones,  all it means is you know how to pick out books that are to your preferred taste. It's actually really bugging me that people are lowering their ratings on purpose. I know that a lot of people will not read a book if it's been getting bad ratings or people do not actually read reviews, they just look at what the reviewer rated it. By rating a book lower, you are changing the overall rating for the book and that may make people not read it.

What this all comes down to is, don't be afraid to give a book the rating you think it actually deserves! Don't get all weird about the fact that your ratings are almost all good ones. That is perfectly okay. There is no reason to be stingy with your ratings.