Review: This Is Not A Test

Stats:
Publisher: St. Martin's Griffin
Date of Release: June 19, 2012
Page Count: 322
Unique elements: No chapter numbers (time goes on forever in a zombie apocalypse)
Would appeal to: Anyone who is turned off by zombie novels, it was that good!

Favorite Quotes:

"The way she says it, the way she's beside him--I want to be between them. I want to be in the direct path of their togetherness so I can steal some of the feeling for myself."

"When this is over, society will need entertainment to get past it. We'll make movies about it, hundreds of movies, and in every one of them, we'll be the heroes and the love interests and best friends and winners and we'll watch theses movies until we are so far removed from our own history, we'll forget how it really felt to be here."

"Cary pulls Trace away from the window but Trace is made of the kind of energy people with hope have."

"They also don't tell you about how you can share your deepest secrets with someone, kiss them, and the next hour it's like there's nothing between you because not everything can mean something all the time or you'd be crushed under the weight of it."

"Time has a way of shifting funnily in situations like these. There is not enough of it or there is too much of it and it's always one when you need the other."

I'm trying something new with reviews so they're a little quicker to read. Hopefully no one will miss the Goodreads summaries!

Why you have to read this:
Hate zombies? That's okay. This has dead people walking around trying to munch on anything living, but it's about so much more. It's about survival and how people act in life or death situations.  I mean, with the impending zombie apocalypse that everyone is freaking out about, it could seriously (not really) happen-- 6 teens trapped in their high school who get in fights and need human touch and haunted by the people loved ones left behind. There's whiskey and Never Have I Ever and a gun. There's jealousy and the locking up of boys and a mysterious voice on the radio. Just the faintest touch of Lord of the Flies...there's always a power struggle when a group is trapped together without a leader. But I didn't like LOTF, and I loved this book.

It's evokes gritty, raw emotion. I gasped out loud. I cussed at least once at something I didn't see coming. I felt overwhelming sadness for different types of losses. You've got to admire an author not afraid to explore death because that's what's real.

I read this so fast because it flows so well your eyes flit across the page. The writing is so convincingly teenager that I got lost in the words and became invested in everyone, from Sloane, who tells the story, to Cary, who's done awful things in his past. At points, Sloane's sentences are stream of consciousness, and it's so natural that I recall myself thinking, I would think the exact same things.  I couldn't put it down and would have liked to devour it in one sitting without interruptions.

Trace. He's mean and stubborn and bossy. He will do anything for his sister Grace. I thought the rhyming names would be annoying, but it served to showcase their closeness. Even though he was a jerk and bully to everyone at some point, especially Cary, and I first hated him, I found myself understanding his motives; my hate lessened into plain old dislike and then pity. He was in a situation with too much sorrow. It was nice not to hate him through the whole novel.

No details are just handed over to the reader. You learn about Sloane's awful past slowly and through small memories. Without her sister, she is nothing. There's the betrayal of both her father and her sister Lily to contend with, only one of which was expected. I felt her wounds. I felt her need for it all to be over long before the end of the world arrived.

What I wasn't that crazy about:
The ending. It's a little more open than I would have liked. I have so many questions. I am left wanting more. I read the ending four times like more words would actually appear on the page. That is the only thing preventing me from giving this a five star rating. Please, Courtney Summers, save us all this anguish and torment, by creating a sequel!!


I found that Emily @ Emily's Crammed Bookshelf has started a movement. It's worth a shot. Read this-- no, DEVOUR this, because you will--and then tell me you don't want a book #2...
I need more heart achingly real drama, more spot-on character development, more of Rhys, please! He's not the typical dreamy hero, but I did find myself loving his take-charge attitude that wasn't overbearing. And he's so gentle and I was excited to see the one really vulnerable moment he experienced. Help a girl out, Courtney Summers. Actually, help out a crap ton of fans!!!

Review: Demon Whisperer

"Awake after a year-long coma, where he literally spent in hell, Caden Butcher, 17, developed a special power. He can speak to demons in their own language. This new trick helps him take over the family exorcism business, from his broken alcoholic father. Having to take care of the finances, Caden makes a decent income getting rid of demons. He’s known as the young whiz-kid exorcist to the stars, obtaining most of his work in Hollywood. But what others don't know is the exorcisms are all staged with the help of his best buddy, a demon he met in hell named Dantalion (Dan).

When an exorcism goes wrong, Caden discovers the demon inside a teen girl is not the run of the mill malicious entity but an adversary from down under who is hell bent on Caden’s destruction. The International Order of Exorcists, an organization that tolerates Caden at best because of his respected father, starts their own investigation because of his screw up.

Now with the help of his demon buddy, and Caden’s girlfriend Aspen Spencer, a skilled necromancer, Caden must track down the rogue demon before he can expose Caden as a fraud and destroy everything that matters to him in his life, ending his reign as the one and only Demon Whisperer." -Goodreads

Stats:

• Format: Kindle ebook
• Page count: 223
• Would appeal to: Those who like supernatural elements, including zombies and demons
• Amazon Link

Caden Butcher. His name falls gracefully off the tongue. At first I thought it was weird but fitting, seeing as how he exorcises demons; but after a while, it perfectly fit his personality. A little sexy, a tad daring. The story is narrated by Caden, and it's sweet how much he likes his girlfriend Aspen. I could tell how much she turned him on, so I was surprised that his thoughts didn't go a little more into the great beyond of inappropriateness. His scheme with Dan to make a quick buck off the Hollywood elite is quite clever, and at times, he even had me convinced he'd done tons of real exorcisms in his 19 years. The infused Latin definitely gives an element of realism to the story. The plotline about the lack of closeness between Caden and his dad was also realistic, though it was still obvious he looked up to his dad in a huge way.

My favorite character was Dan, the demon freed from hell by Caden. He has a penchant for shoveling down pizza, which fits a gluttonous demon. A pretty nonchalant guy, he speaks as little as possible but has Caden's back when all is said and done. Plus, it's refreshing to find a good-looking character who doesn't flaunt his looks. I like the idea that just because he is a demon from hell, he isn't necessarily all bad. He was just trying to survive underground, the same as Caden.

Aspen was also a pretty kick-butt girl, an apprentice to her mom who raises the dead. Overall, the minor characters, including the coffeehouse girl Saleisha, were very two-dimensional-- the quirky sides of their personalities are well developed.

Stokes does a great job of revealing details in pieces so the reader craves more. I liked not knowing all about the inside (the seven layers of hell) until Caden's mind is ready to remember it.

I was a little surprised that the public in the story knew about zombies, but I shouldn't have been because everyone was so interested in demons.

Parts seemed slightly repetitive, especially the words "padded" (as in walking) and "folded" (as in folding pizza into the mouth). There are also far too many times Caden has to swallow bile that's rising in his throat or try to control the contents of his stomach from coming up. This makes him seem a little too sensitive, even though I liked knowing he was vulnerable and scared. Also, a few grammatical errors occured here and there (not counting Canadian spellings), but nothing that hindered the story.

The ending fell short for me; it was too punny and maybe like a forced lesson. It is good to know, however, that there will be a second installment to come in March. I hope it contains a little romance and a lot more Dan:) After reading this piece by Stokes, I look forward to delving into her other book, Static.

First off, Tawny Stokes writes with such a natural flow that it was easy to dive right into the first chapter. After that, time simply flew by. Five hours later, I'd finished this book! With memorable characters, a constant building of action, more than one plot twist, and chapter hooks, this story took me in a direction I'd never thought I'd go, let alone enjoy: demons.

--GET DEMON WHISPERER HERE--