The Vampire Is Just Not That Into You, by Vlad Mezrich

This is an entire book making fun of Twilight and the entire vampire-human romance genre. At the end Vlad is basically telling you not to go for a relationship with the undead because he'll probably kill you. It was short, but I was laughing at every line. Nothing much else to say but I loved it.

5 stars



My Unfair Godmother, by Janette Rallison

There should be a law that everyone has to read this book. That is how good this book was. It was funny, fantasy, romantic, witty, and even a little sad which rounded out the book very nicely. And let me say-I am ready to jump into the Hudson River.

This is a kinda sequel to My Fair Godmother, but you don't have to read that first. Chrissy is in both books but the actual stories have nothing to do with each other. The beginning of the book is depressing, talking about Tansy's parents' divorce and how everyone abandoned her and they ship her around as if she's a burden. Seriously, give the girl some love!! So, you're sitting there and thinking "poor Tansy-her situation couldn't be any worse" and then her idiot bad boy boyfriend graffitis and has Tansy take the blame. At the precinct she meets the annoying-yet-hot police chief's son, Hudson. (Now you get what I was saying before.) Then she goes home and her fairy godmother shows up. Chrysanthemum Everstar is a very good fairy godmother name, don't you think? Well, she's actually only a fair godmother because she hasn't gone to Fairy Godmother University and she has a talent for messing up wishes. Tansy (who doesn't read novels, in order to annoy her librarian father) wishes Robin Hood were there because he always fixed things. Then he's there and causes trouble. Then Tansy and her family are transported into the Middle Ages to the Rumpelstilskin story. Everything is flying and together with all that are all these funny references to our time. I love Tansy. I love Hudson. And my favorite character is Stetson. But I'm not telling you who Stetson is, ha ha ha ha ha.

5 stars. Read it. Or else

love the cover, don't you?

City of Fallen Angels, by Cassandra Clare

Really I shouldn't be commenting on this book because I didn't finish it but this is a warning to all you out there. Don't read it. If you read the 3 books before it, great. If you didn't you should check them out-they're pretty good. But when you write a trilogy you can't just stick on another book after the happily ever after. That defeats the point of the happily ever after. Which is why I stopped after 20 pages of the perfect ending being ruined. I liked this series. Now I don't.

Just Listen, by Sarah Dessen

I am not a Sarah Dessen person. I have friends who practically swear by her books but after getting majorly turned off by a pregnant teenager and her morbid (or is she boring? I don't remember.) best friend I didn't read any more of her books. This is the 3rd one I've read recently and I cannot explain why I keep coming back. The books are all identical. All of them have a main character with no personality, a boy who is either bad or has a damaged past or both, at least one, usually two or three, life altering things in the past and present, and a mundane everyday object given way too much significance. Here it was music. And modeling.

All I knew about the book before I started was that Annabel and her best friend are in a fight and Annabel isn't saying what happened and is ostracizing herself instead. She's a model; her sister has an eating disorder; she becomes friends with a guy named Owen who is music obsessed. He's not even obsessed with good music--no, he listens to obscure stuff that can't even be called music over all the noise. And he's a snob about it too, thinking that he is "enlightened" (her word, not mine) and so is anyone who agrees with him. Annabel is also infuriating because whenever someone is upset with her or she gets in a fight she runs away and ignores that person. So they're mad at her for the fight and get even madder because she hates confrontation and never approaches them again and they see her avoiding them as a mean, purposeful thing. I want to shake her really hard. I like Owen better. He knows how to get angry. Angry people are a lot more interesting than people who literally run away. The book should have been about him.

I can't say anything else without giving it away so I'll say what I can. I don't like Sophie. I like Emily. I like Clarke. Rolly and Mallory are comic relief. Don't underestimate Kirsten and Whitney. As a sister, I sympathized with all the sister problem and was very proud of them at the end of the book.

4 stars. For some reason, I couldn't put it down.



Skinned, by Robin Wasserman

This book looked awesomely fantastically cool. Then I read it. The front flap said it was about some girl, Lia, who practically dies so then her brain is transplanted into a robot body and now she is going to live forever as a robot. But all the robot people are shunned by society because they're kind of creepy so now Lia loses her perfect life (boo hoo) and must learn to live on the fringes of society. Sounds cool, doesn't it? I was expecting some sort of evil scientist, or a plot somewhat resembling Meg Cabot's Airhead series (where a girl has a brain transplant into a supermodel's body). But nope-it was nothing like that.

Lia has a perfect life. She's rich, gorgeous, popular, and has a hot boyfriend. Then she's in a car accident and becomes a robot. I wanted, as mentioned above, a few conspirators to be the perpitrators (I spelled that wrong) but alas (I use that word a lot. I also use parentheses a lot.), instead of being a cool scifi thriller, it's about a girl finding out who she really is. The book is actually pretty deep when it comes to that. Lia has to discover who she really is once she loses everything: she can't define herself by her looks because they aren't really hers anymore, she can't define herself by her family or friends or boyfriend because no one likes her anymore. So who is Lia? (I love that name. Sorry, had to let it out. But now I will try to not use any more parentheses on this post.)

This book contained one of my favorite and least favorite qualities that can be found in a book. It made me think. One thing that bothered me and made me laugh was how the book takes place at least 100 years in the future. {People aren't really becoming robots nowadays. And these technically aren't parentheses.} What is even funnier is how the author talks about how we destroyed the world. Scott Westerfeld also talked about that in his Uglies series. So all my millions of readers, remember our destiny. We must not destroy the world so that the perverted societies of Skinned and Uglies never exist. It's also entertaining when you realize that the parts talking about us are a plea from the author to be green.

Another thought provoking topic was the whole genetics thing. In the future, when having a child, there is some screening process which tests for just about every disease and if the parents pay extra they can also have a kid with higher IQ or specific looks. For example, Lia's parents paid extra for Lia and her sister to both be smarter with blond hair and blue eyes. Robin Wasserman manages to make this an integral part of society without giving many details about it so I don't even know if this is done before the child is conceived or while the mom is pregnant. All you know is that parents can make their kids.

A third thing is that the robot people, called skinners, live forever. The robot body lasts around 50 years, then they just get a new one. Everyone is jealous that these kids-because only teenagers become skinners-will live forever and never age. What they don't realize is that these kids don't live amazing lives. They are shunned by society, don't have normal senses and feeling in their bodies, and will watch all their loved ones die. So tell me now-do you really want to live forever?

Another thing-yes, another-is about the skinners being considered not human. They aren't full citizens with full rights and some of them would die if given the choice. Many are forced into that state, including Lia, and now must suffer for their parents' selfish choice. The parents couldn't bear to lose their child so instead gave the kid a miserable eternal life. Selfish, purely selfish.

3.2 stars. Did anyone notice that I used ---- instead of parentheses? There is no way to defeat the little parentheses monster in my head. Mwa ha ha ha ha.

Confession: I didn't read it because I liked the inside cover. I read it because I like the picture on the front.

The Gathering, by Kelley Armstrong

This book is in the same world as the rest of Kelley Armstrong's books but less obviously so--names are recognized but the main character has never read any of Kelley Armstrong's other books so doesn't realize that Dr. Davidoff is actually evil. Ahem. But, anyway, it was very interesting, if not boring. That didn't make sense. I apologize. It seemed like all the exciting things happened one after another and then there was a lull until another 5 stuff happened 50 pages later.

The story goes something like this: Maya lives in this really weird town near a medical research facility and then all these strange things start happening. And there's the hot not so new guy who is always hitting on her but she always turns down because he's been in town long enough to break a lot of hearts. But she disregards her own warnings and falls for him anyway. Then there is her best friend who was her dead best friend's boyfriend until her dead best friend, well, died. And it is clear that he now has a thing for Maya but she is almost totally oblivious to it. She kind of knows but is in very deep denial. Very very very deep denial.

The whole two love interests thing really gets on my nerves. Most of the time I cheer for the loser so get upset when she doesn't pick him, but if I cheer for the guy she chooses I feel bad for him because he knows that she had/has feelings for the other guy. So it's a no-win situation. But usually I cheer for the loser (yes, I was on Team Jacob) so it's even worse. However, I don't think this will escalate into that because Kelley Armstrong already created a love triangle in the Darkest Rising (I think that's what it's called) series. Chloe has to choose between Derek and Simon. I spent a month listening to my friends pray she would choose Derek before actually reading the book. I must say, I like Simon a whole lot better. Ok, Derek is hot but she clearly states that Simon is gorgeous too. I just realized I've been rambling about the wrong series. I'm sorry. But Simon is 10 times cooler and the only reason she isn't with him is because she isn't good enough!!! (whew-got that off my chest)

I'm bored so I'm going to stop myself (not so) short.

Read it. Don't read it. If you do then comment. If you don't then I don't really care.



Immortal: Love Stories With Bite, edited by P.C. Cast

Yes, I hate short stories. And yes, I read two anthologies of them in two weeks. Shameful of me, isn't it? But these stories were actually more enjoyable than the ones in the vampire one. Not that there weren't vampires here too- notice the title? But here there was an emphasis on the word love so they (mostly) weren't dark and evil and endless and dreary and depressing and morbid and funereal and suicidal. I mean, some of these were like that but as a whole they weren't. I enjoyed most of these stories but I was still annoyed with them so I realized what it was that was so bothersome: it was vampire/fantasy overload. A normal book this size or even longer I can handle easily and then get up and read another supernatural book but I was a little nauseated when I picked up the next book in my pile. Each story manages to pack in so much fantasy nonsense that I just couldn't handle it anymore. So here are the indiviual analyzations:

Haunted Love, by Cynthia Leticia Smith: Very cool. Loved how the supernatural was hinted and then came out to hit you in the famous. However, she made the age-old mistake of trying to fit a 300 page book into 30 pages. But very good. 4.4

Amber Smoke, by Kristin Cast: One of the worst in the book. Too many extraneous details for a short story. Girl has no personality and accepts everything after protesting twice. 3 stars.

Dead Man Stalking, by Rachel Caine: Must admit-I was impressed. Only overlapping author between this and the one I read last week and this one rocked unlike the other. Rocked in comparison. It wasn't the best just wasn't the worst like before. Loved the title. 4.2 stars.

Table Manners, by Tanith Lee: Amazing. Girl is at weird rich people and her opinions of them are hysterical. Then the vampire comes. And the whole story becomes even better. 4.5 stars

Blue Moon, by Richelle Mead: Really, Richelle Mead, I was expecting more from you. It was decent and the story itself was very good just with this one I literally wished you had made it into a book and not a short story. There is so much you could have done with the girl vampire escaping with the help of the human boy and the whole prophecy thing. Instead it was just kinda lame. 3.8 stars.

Changed, by Nancy Holder: Not what I was expecting. This story takes place during the Vampocalypse (that's what I'm calling it) and some girl is trying to find the guy she is in love with who happens to be gay. Very dark and deep and angsty. 3.7 -4 stars

Binge, by Rachel Vincent: These vampires are special because they don't suck your blood. Mallory, main character, sucks talent and Andi, best friend, is a siren and sucks out life energy. 3.5 stars.

Free, by Claudia Gray: I was a fan of Evernight but I didn't like the sequel. One of my favorite things about Evernight was Patrice who was the main character of this story. Let me tell you--Patrice is one vamp you don't want to cross. And I love her. She is my favorite character in this book and her story is phenomenal. 4.9 stars.

Total: 3.4 stars. Sorry, but altogether they weren't that great.

I have no idea whose face that is.