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!!!!!

Fallen, by Lauren Kate

I am going to start off by saying that Kate is an awesome last name. Now that I got that out, I can actually tell you about the book.

Fallen is one of those teen romance books where the couple is destined to be together but something major and earth shattering is in their way. And one of them is always some fantastical creature. In Fallen, you don't find out what type of creature or thing makes it fantasy until you are more than halfway finished the book. As much as that annoyed me, I did like how the suspense was built. You can guess but your guesses seem unrealistic until you find out the truth, and then comes the spot where the perfect melody must be played, like something between Titanic (not My Heart Will Go On, but the wordless stuff you don't really hear) and Pirates of the Carribbean (I might have spelled that wrong).

So, basically, this girl always has creepy stuff happen to her and her parents think she is mildly psychotic so they send her to a messed up school for messed up teens. The people there are all, yup, messed up. And then she stalks this guy who is giving totally mixed messages because she thinks she knows him from somewhere. Boy is she surprised when she finds out where they know each other from. And I don't get why this girl is so special--seriously, I know blank walls that are more unique.

4.3 stars. I am way too nice-I don't usually go this low. I definitely recommend it, just don't go crazy obsessed teen while waiting for it. And there are no killer unicorns.

Rampant, by Diana Peterfreund

Here is a list of why I loved this book:
1. It's about killer unicorns. how often do you get to say "hey, i'm reading a book about killer unicorns!". Not often.
2. Diana Peterfreund wrote a killer unicorn in Zombies vs. Unicorns which was unlike any other. In a good way.
3. Killer unicorns. Need I say anymore?

Numbers 4-10 are all the same. Killer unicorns. Sounds corny, but let me tell you--it isn't. The main character, Astrid (love that name-Diana Peterfreund has awesome taste in names), is a descendent of Alexander the Great and is a virgin and so she is a unicorn hunter. She is dragged away from her somewhat normal life and totally crazy mother to learn to be a unicorn hunter. Somehow, she managed to not be annoying and I actually liked her. And there were killer unicorns.

It's kind of hard to say anymore except this: READ IT!! Did you not see what I just said about killer unicorns!?!

5 stars. How could I not, there were killer unicorns.

Yes, I have a thing for killer unicorns.



Zombies vs. Unicorns, Short Stories edited by Holly Black and Justine Larbeliester

The title really says it all. This book is a collection of short stories about either zombies or unicorns, and prefacing each story is an introduction from Holly Black, in charge of Team Unicorn, and Justine Larbeliester, leader of Team Zombie.

What drew me to the book, (besides its title), were the number of amazing authors who contributed. Having read and enjoyed books by more than half of them, I felt obligated to read and enjoy this as well. And I did.

My personal favorites were Princess Prettypants, by Meg Cabot, (although to be fair, this wasn't so much fantasy, more chic lit-ish), and the story by Diana Peterfreund, who I had never heard of until I read this book. Princess Prettypants was classic Meg Cabot-I would have been able to recognize it as hers withough knowing. Diana Peterfreund's came with an entirely new approach to the whole unicorn thing.

As a lover of rainbows and princesses, I was not very excited for any of the zombie stories. All in all, any story with a zombie-live person relationship got a 10 on the ick factor, no matter how good it was. Many of the stories got a little too gory, and even though my stomach could handle it, it didn't really want to.
However, in my opinion, the real issue is that two nonexistent totally different creatures cannot be compared to each other. One is dead people coming back to life to eat us and the other is a horse with a horn on its head. In order to argue that one is better than the other, they need to have some inherent similarities. Since they don't, every argument is null and void and I will shut up now.

5 stars. Look up the authors and you'll see why.



Still Sucks To Be Me, by Kimberly Pauley

Alas, this book fits into two categories that have been majorly overused on this blog of mine. Yes, it is both a sequel and [gasp], a vampire book. So, you may ask, what makes this book so different from the others? The answer is very simple: it is 500 times cooler, funnier, and well, better than the others. I did not stop laughing from the beginning to the end of the book (which annoyed everyone around me), but I couldn't help it. No one has ever made vampires this funny. But was even better was that although it was utterly hysterical, it was also serious and had a normal-ish plot. And was one of the best sequels ever.

In the first book, "Sucks To Be Me", Mina, the daughter of two vampires, is discovered by the vampire government dudes and must become a vampire or magically disappear down a dark alleyway so she chooses the former. So then, she needs to go to these classes to learn all about vampires and so on. I don't remember the rest of the plot but at the end, she becomes a vampire and ends up with a cute guy. (That wasn't a spoiler, by the way, because anyone with half a brain, which is surprisingly few people, can figure that out after page 4.)

In the sequel, Mina's life as a vampire officially starts with her family faking their deaths and moving away. And the cover flap was really weird so I don't know what else is safe to say.

5 stars. 5 full stars without even a dot uncolored.



Halo, by Alexandra Adornetto

Before starting, let me just tell you that the author, Alexandra Adornetto, was 18 when she wrote Halo.

Halo was a very unique book, especially surrounded by all the other teen fantasy novels. Instead of vampires, there were angels, but the book didn't seem overly religious, like it was trying to convert you (well, mostly). The angels were different, not how you would imagine angels on earth to be, but still angels. Bethany and her two angel siblings, Gabriel and Ivy, were sent to a small town somewhere in Australia because there were strong dark forces there and they need to be counterbalanced. Bethany is a young angel, and the most human of the three. She meets Xavier and they fall in love, which is the forbiddenest of the forbidden. But, although the love story is a main focus of the book, dark things occur and the angels must rescue all the stupid teenagers of the town.

This was a very interesting book, even if it get a little bit generic with the love story. What I didn't like was that nothing happened for a hundred pages, then the next two hundred covered the love story, and the last hundred and plus was where the dark side came in.

4.5 stars



Size 14 Is Not Fat Either, Meg Cabot

Unfortunately, I am once again commenting on a sequel, but since it is so similar to the book that comes before it, Size 12 Is Not Fat, this should be relatively easy.

Before I start, I'd like to say that although I wouldn't call Meg Cabot an "amazing, incredible, blah blah blah" author, I do secretly enjoy her books, and her talent for pushing other genres into her generally chic lit books.
This book (well, series really) is a mystery and although I cannot stand mysteries, I actually enjoyed this. But no judging.

The story goes something like this: Heather Wells is an ex pop star whose mom ran away with all her money, her dad has been in prison for years, and has been out of style for years. Now, she is 28, a couple of sizes larger (which she never stops mentioning. But I think she should stop eating so much. With the amount of high calorie food she eats, cutting out a few would not be that hard), single, because her fiance, whose fame was going down really fast, dumped her for someone a little more famous. And skinny. Anyway, Heather's new job is an assistant dorm manager or whatever and in both the first and second books, some students have been murdered. [insert creepy music]. In the first book, 2 girls fall down an elevator shaft and the incompetent police put it down to elevator surfing. Heather knows that these girls aren't the type to elevator surf so she goes and solves the crime, with a little help from her crush/landlord/ex's brother, who happens to be a PI. In the second book, the same thing happens except instead of falling down the elevator shaft, a girl's head is found cooking in a pot. Yes, that is the most disgusting, cruel, and sadistic thing ever. But don't worry, because Heather finds out who did it. And gets insulted along the way, because everyone insults her. No, I'm not kidding. On every page, someone insults her. But, in the end, she lives not so happily ever after, without her PI and still a size 12. The end.

3.8 stars. I would've given it less but the lines were pretty funny.