Title: Team Human
Author: Justine Larbalestier & Sarah Rees Brennan
Published: July, 2012 by HarperTeen
Pages: 344
Rating:  
Purchase: The Book Depository

Just because Mel lives in New Whitby, a city founded by vampires, doesn’t mean she knows any of the blood-drinking undead personally. They stay in their part of town; she says in hers. Until the day a vampire shows up at her high school. Worse yet, her best friend, Cathy, seems to be falling in love with him. It’s up to Mel to save Cathy from a mistake she might regret for all eternity!

On top of trying to help Cathy (whether she wants it or not), Mel is investigating a mysterious disappearance for another friend and discovering the attractions of a certain vampire wannabe. Combine all this with a cranky vampire cop, a number of unlikely romantic entanglements, and the occasional zombie, and soon Mel is hip-deep in an adventure that is equal parts hilarious and touching. Acclaimed authors Justine Larbalestier and Sarah Rees Brennan team up to create a witty and poignant story of cool vampires, warm friendships, and the changes that test the bonds of love.

Final Thoughts:
This book should have come with a warning label. I almost choked my own incessant laughter amongst a fit of coughing and spluttering. I was constantly grinning like a kid on Christmas over how thoroughly I found myself loving Mel and her vampire-boyfriend eradicating ways. Breathing sarcasm, and backed by a heavily rooted disliking of vampires that wanted to date her friends, Mel was the kind of character you just glom onto and don’t want to let go of. The plot seemed a little flimsy to start with, but it quickly grew beyond the initial premise, adding in a mystery, angsty friends, and cute guys.

Stacking The Shelves is a meme hosted by Tynga’s Reviews all about sharing the books you are adding to your shelves, may it be physical or virtual. This means you can include books you buy in physical store or online, books you borrow from friends or the library, review books, gifts and of course ebooks!

Titles link back to Goodreads
• Team Human by Justine Larbalestier & Sarah Rees Brennan (purchased)
• Kamikaze Boys by Jay Bell (won)
• Before I Wake by Rachel Vincent (purchased/thanks to publisher)

So it’s been a few weeks, but I haven’t been getting many books lately–couple that with moving house again, and an utter lack of reading time that came with that and you end up with absence of things to post. I actually got both of those Before I Wake‘s the week before and moved it to the top of my pile. I really like that series–especially If I Die, so it was good to come back to Kaylee and her gang. I’ll probably be starting Team Human in the next few days. It’s co-author by Sarah Rees Brennan–one of my favourites–so I’m pretty excited to see what she’s come up with. A girl trying to stop her best friend from dating a vampire…yes, I wanna read that! Also, thanks to Jay Bell for sending me a signed copy of his book. It carries the pink theme along nicely. Anyway, that’s about it for me this week. Happy reading 😀

Here are my latest reviews if you want to check them out:
Fukuda, Andrew The Hunt #1, The Hunt
Green, John, Looking For Alaska
Vincent, Rachel Soul Screamers #6, Before I Wake

Link up to your mailbox and I’ll be sure to check it out!

Title: The Hunt (The Hunt #1)
Author: Andrew Fukuda
Published: May, 2012 by Simon & Schuster
Thanks: Simon & Schuster, AU
Pages: 293
Rating:  
Purchase: The Book Depository

Against all odds, 17-year-old Gene has survived in a world where humans have been eaten to near extinction by the general population. The only remaining humans, or hepers as they are known, are housed in domes on the savannah and studied at the nearby Heper Institute. Every decade there is a government sponsored hunt. When Gene is selected to be one of the combatants he must learn the art of the hunt but also elude his fellow competitors whose suspicions about his true nature are growing.

Final Thoughts:
I didn’t expect to love this—the sticker on the front said I would, but I was sceptical. With everyone jumping on the dystopian bandwagon, there’s so much out there, plots overlapping, making it all fairly unoriginal. Adding in vampires—or at least, vampire-esque people—I’d be remiss not to say that I wasn’t going into it with the biggest of expectations. But somehow, The Hunt snagged me—I could hardly put this one down! It was like Rachel Caine and Suzanne Collins had gotten together, leaving behind this little baby Fukuda in their wake. With such descriptive creativity, and a perpetual fear of dismemberment, he had me scratching my own wrists, but for completely different reasons.

Title: Before I Wake (Soul Screamers #6)
Author: Rachel Vincent
Published: June, 2012 by Harlequin Teen
Thanks: Harlequin Teen, AU
Pages: 339
Rating:  
Purchase: The Book Depository

I died on a Thursday-killed by a monster intent on stealing my soul. The good news? He didn’t get it. The bad news? Turns out not even death will get you out of high school…

Covering up her own murder was one thing, but faking life is much harder than Kaylee Cavanaugh expected. After weeks spent “recovering,” she’s back in school, fighting to stay visible to the human world, struggling to fit in with her friends and planning time alone with her new reaper boyfriend. But to earn her keep in the human world, Kaylee must reclaim stolen souls, and when her first assignment brings her face-to-face with an old foe, she knows the game has changed. Her immortal status won’t keep her safe. And this time Kaylee isn’t just gambling with her own life….

Final Thoughts:
After the book that basically remade the series, I was wondering what to expect. While not packing as heavy a punch, Before I Wake still kept me enthralled with the day-to-day demon-infused lives of the characters I’ve come to enjoy. While almost all them are supernaturally charged in one way or another, it’s a wonder that when I think of these guys, I think of their personal struggles, the drama, and not the Netherworld crisis currently befalling them. Becoming less self-contained, the plots have grown across the six books, playing more on the human qualities, yet managing to do so in a way that doesn’t let the book fall into the dreaded ‘paranormal with no paranormal’ territory.

Title: Looking For Alaska
Author: John Green
Published: January, 2005 by HarperCollins
Pages: 262
Rating:  
Purchase: The Book Depository

Miles Halter is fascinated by famous last words and tired of his safe life at home. He leaves for boarding school to seek what the dying poet Francois Rabelais called the “Great Perhaps.” Much awaits Miles at Culver Creek, including Alaska Young. Clever, funny, screwed-up, and dead sexy, Alaska will pull Miles into her labyrinth and catapult him into the Great Perhaps.

Final Thoughts:
How does one review a John Green book? Seriously, what kind of addictively illicit substance is he sprinkling the pages with? After being randomly sent a copy of The Fault In Our Stars and finding myself obsessively pawing through it in a matter of hours, I went off to my library and tracked down his debut. It didn’t disappoint. He just has a way with characterization—they don’t feel like characters—they are real. Staring through Miles/Pudge’s eyes, I found similarities in myself—lots of them, actually—and immediately connected with the book. The ploy used throughout the formatting of the chapters made the twist fairly obvious, taking away most of the impact, but in spite of that, I still enjoyed it greatly. If anything, it brought a new layer to the already established dynamic, making it feel somehow more.

Stacking The Shelves is a meme hosted by Tynga’s Reviews all about sharing the books you are adding to your shelves, may it be physical or virtual. This means you can include books you buy in physical store or online, books you borrow from friends or the library, review books, gifts and of course ebooks!

Titles link back to Goodreads
• Deadly Hemlock by Kathleen Peacock (thanks to Publisher)
• The Golden Lily by Richelle Mead (purchased)
• Rapture by Lauren Kate (purchased)
• Unrest by Michelle Harrison (thanks to Publisher)

Thanks to Simon and Schuster for the two paperbacks this week. Werewolves, and body snatching…sounds fun. I preordered The Golden Lily ages ago. It was a suprise when it arrived, actually. I still haven’t read beyond the first book of the Vampire Academy series so this one will end up waiting on my shelves for quite a while before I get around to it. Rapture, on the other hand, is one I’ve been waiting to get to. I’m really hoping it brings this series to an exciting close. It’s a hit and miss series for me, but I do love angels. So what did you pick up this week?

Here are my latest reviews if you want to check them out:
Damico, Gina Croak #1, Croak
Kane, Ashlyn & James, Morgan, Hair Of The Dog

Link up to your mailbox and I’ll be sure to check it out!

Title: Croak (Croak #1)
Author: Gina Damico
Published: March, 2012 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
Thanks: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt via NetGalley
Pages: 311
Rating:  
Purchase: The Book Depository

Sixteen-year-old Lex Bartleby has sucker-punched her last classmate. Fed up with her punkish, wild behavior, her parents ship her off to upstate New York to live with her Uncle Mort for the summer, hoping that a few months of dirty farm work will whip her back into shape. But Uncle Mort’s true occupation is much dirtier than that of shoveling manure.

He’s a Grim Reaper. And he’s going to teach her the family business.

Final Thoughts:
This one ended up being surprisingly addictive. It wasn’t quite what I was expecting—something along the lines of a Dead Like Me clone—still, it turned out to be a little gem, just in a different way. Lex quickly progressed from her initial delinquent state featuring quite a lot of physical violence and a general defiance of reason into someone that seemed somewhat pliable. I enjoyed her antics in the beginning, but found it a relief that the book didn’t rely on her punching people for 300 pages. It goes off on a mystery solving tangent instead, backed by a town full of death and reaping, laced with plenty of humour, teen bonding—the occasion bout of underage drinking—and a mashup of board games.