Book Review: Hollowland by Amanda Hocking

Hollowland (The Hollows, #1)

by Amanda Hocking 

Genre: Horror/Zombie Apocalypse

Reading Grade: New Adult

Publication Date: October 5, 2010

Source: Kindle store (freebie)

Age Rating: 17+

| Amazon | | Barnes &Noble |

"This is the way the world ends - not with a bang or a whimper, but with zombies breaking down the back door."

Nineteen-year-old Remy King is on a mission to get across the wasteland left of America, and nothing will stand in her way - not violent marauders, a spoiled rock star, or an army of flesh-eating zombies. 

 

My Review

• Plot: Remy is evacuating a high school being used as a make-shift quarantine for uninfected humans when it gets attacked by an army of zombies. She discovers that her eight-year-old brother is getting transferred to a different quarantine in another state. Along the way, several characters see how strong a survivor she is and how capable she is of killing zombies, and she ends up dragging a few of them with her in tow across an apocalyptic desert wasteland on a mission to reunite with her little brother.
• Characters: Remy is a pretty cool character who has learned before the story begins how to defend herself against the flesh-eating zombies. This makes her stand out because everybody else is scared and many get bitten and infected by the zombies. She even rescues a lioness which she names Ripley and forms a nice bond with her, albeit a bit unrealistic of one. Lazlo is the love interest and he's funny, but not much use in killing zombies, since he's quite weak in that area. I like Blue because he is stoic under all the high tension and even had been a medical student when the zombie virus broke out. The characters are very likable, although many of them do end up dying, but that's to be expected.
• Story: This one surprised me because I didn't think I'd like it very much, but it ended up being quite an exciting journey through the Nevada and Idaho deserts. Sure, many things are improbable like walking out in the Nevada desert during late summer in the sun for several hours and not getting dehydrated or sunburned. Nobody would realistically survive without shade of some kind, which they did not have. A lioness would probably maul and kill someone in the traveling party, but she never acts like she would harm a soul. Still, I thought it was fun to read. It isn't all that gory, which is good because I would have dropped it otherwise. I'm not a zombie fiction reader, but I felt how hard it was to deal with a world in which, at any moment, the person you've been learning to trust and rely on could get attacked by a zombie and suddenly turn into one themselves.
• Writing: The quality of the writing does leave much to be desired. As interesting as the story and characters are, the technical writing is sub par. There are several proof errors, as well. Still, I was able to overlook them and just enjoy the exciting pace of the story.
• Overall Quality: Pretty decent, although poor writing brings it down a little, but it still ends up being an enjoyable read. This book gets classified as Young Adult fiction, but it technically is not. It's an adult novel with a nineteen-year-old protagonist and there is a sex scene with a little graphic description, although it's not as detailed as it could be. I'd say use caution and reserve this read for older teens at the youngest.
• Favorite Scene/Moment: It's a bit spoilery, but I like the scene when Remy escapes from the cult leader, Korech (not very a very original name, I'm afraid) and how that whole thing goes down. A shotgun is involved and it's pretty intense. The guy doesn't end up being an important character, but Remy's time at his compound is odd and interesting.
• My Score: 4/5 stars.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  

Teaser Tuesdays #4 (Infinity by Sherrilyn Kenyon)

"Teaser Tuedsays" is a weekly bookish meme hosted by

MizB of Should Be Reading.

 

Anyone can play along! Just do the following:

1. Grab your current read.

2. Open to a random page.

3. Share two (2) teaser sentences from somewhere on that page.

4. BE CAREFUL NOT TO INCLUDE SPOILERS! (Make sure that what you share doesn't give too much away. You don't want to spoil it for others.)
5. Share the title & author, too, so that other TT participants can add the book to their TBR lists if they like your teasers.

My Teaser

"My mom will be so disappointed after all she went through to potty train me. But once you let me live...your big mistake...now I know you think I'm too cute and fluffy to kill."

- from page 205 of Infinity (The Chronicles of Nick, #1) by Sherrilyn Kenyon

*****

At fourteen, Nick Gautier thinks he knows everything about the world around him. Streetwise, tough and savvy, his quick sarcasm is the stuff of legends. . .until the night when his best friends try to kill him. Saved by a mysterious warrior who has more fighting skills than Chuck Norris, Nick is sucked into the realm of the Dark-Hunters: immortal vampire slayers who risk everything to save humanity.

Nick quickly learns that the human world is only a veil for a much larger and more dangerous one: a world where the captain of the football team is a werewolf and the girl he has a crush on goes out at night to stake the undead.

But before he can even learn the rules of this new world, his fellow students are turning into flesh eating zombies. And he's next on the menu.
As if starting high school isn't hard enough. . .now Nick has to hide his new friends from his mom, his chainsaw from the principal, and keep the zombies and the demon Simi from eating his brains, all without getting grounded or suspended. How in the world is he supposed to do that?

My Boyfriend Is a Monster #1 by Evonne Tsang

My Boyfriend Is a Monster #1: I Love Him to Pieces

by Evonne Tsang; Janina Gorrissen (Illustrator)

Genre: Paranormal Graphic Novel

Reading Grade: YA

Publishing Type: traditional

Publication Date: April 2011

Source: public library

Rated: Teen (13+)

Amazon.com

Can love survive the zombie apocalypse? Maybe Dicey's first chance at a real relationship was dead from the start. She's the star of her high school baseball team, and Jack's the star of the science program. Her idea of a study session includes sleeping in the sun, and his idea of a good game involves dungeons and dice. But opposites start attracting when they're assigned to be partners in a class project. Now an outbreak of a weird infection—it eats your brains and leaves you hungry for more—might not mean just the end of their first date. It might mean the end of everything. Will their relationship fall apart faster than zombies in the Florida sun, or can Dicey and Jack beat the odds and find a happy ending?

My Review 

I Love Him to Pieces (the first book in a series) takes place in Florida where baseball star Dicey Bell is paired up with her fellow high school student, Jack Chen, for a Health Ed project. She is a jock and he is a nerd. Somehow they end up liking each other and Jack Chen asks her out on a date that turns into the worst date imaginable because the zombie apocalypse breaks-out in their area during their date. 

This is my first review of a true graphic novel (not a manga), which I love to read along with regular ol' fiction. Nice thing is, NO superheros in tights. Thus, I Love Him to Pieces is a very cute little romantic zombie apocalypse story that could easily function as paranormal romance fiction. 

There was nothing particularly earth-shattering about the story-telling, nor the characterization (but, what happens is earth-shattering to the characters' lives, of course). There's nothing here that I haven't seen done before somewhere else, but it is a nice way to turn off your brain and read a brain-eating zombie story before you turn in for the night, assuming that sort of thing relaxes you. 

I will say that it is very sweet and romantic, but I just didn't buy Dicey's and Jack Chen's very quickly burgeoning love for each other. Seriously, it was way too fast to make such confessions to each other, since they barely knew each other before being paired up for their Health Ed project. But, I did like Dicey as a character. She was lively and tough enough to be the only girl on the boy's high school baseball team. Jack Chen was cute in a geeky sort of way. 

The art is very good, although I usually prefer manga-style art. But, the art in this volume is very professional-looking and pleasing to the eye. It's worth reading if you already like zombie fiction with a side of romance, or already like reading graphic novels. 

My score: 3 out of 5 stars