Ascendent, by Diana Peterfreund or in my head: Return of the Killer Unicorns!!

I don't know why I love the concept of killer unicorns so much. I think it's partly the way it sounds, partly the concept, and partly the genious of taking such an innocent seeming thing and ripping away it's facade to reveal a MAN EATING MONSTER!!!!! [cue evil laugh]. No, I'm not crazy-just brave enough to say what all my nonexistent readers are thinking.

All killer unicorns aside, or maybe not considering they are part of the book, Ascendent was very different from Rampant. It was darker, turning everything you and Astrid thought you knew upside down and around and right side up again. I liked the darkness though, because a book about killer unicorns shouldn't be happy go lucky. Hence the killer. The problem with the darkness is that it didn't really come in to the story at all until the middle and once it did, everything moved at lightening speed. The twist near the end almost had me in tears which is rare in a fantasy book (rare that it was fantasy, not that I was in tears. I have leakage issues when I read genuine sad stuff).

And now, for the killer unicorns: they were awesomer than ever, reaching new heights of awesomeness that have never been reached before.

One more thing that I liked: the character from the short story that directed me to Rampant came in somewhere in the middle. It was very happy-making.

4.99999999 stars. I just couldn't do 5, even though there are KILLER UNICORNS KILLER UNICORNS KILLER UNICORNS KILLER UNICORNS KILLER UNICORNS KILLER UNICORNS!!!!!