Title: Demon Road (Demon Road #1)
Author: Derek Landy
Published: January, 2015 by HarperCollins Children’s Books
Pages: 507
Rating:  
Purchase: The Book Depository

Full of Landy’s trademark wit, action and razor sharp dialogue, DEMON ROAD kicks off with a shocking opener and never lets up the pace in an epic road-trip across the supernatural landscape of America. Killer cars, vampires, undead serial killers: they’re all here. And the demons? Well, that’s where Amber comes in…Sixteen years old, smart and spirited, she’s just a normal American teenager until the lies are torn away and the demons reveal themselves.

Forced to go on the run, she hurtles from one threat to another, revealing a tapestry of terror woven into the very fabric of her life. Her only chance rests with her fellow travellers, who are not at all what they appear to be…

Final Thoughts:
Initially I thought I’d found plenty to love about this one, but with just over five hundred pages, I found my interest lagging midway, not feeling the pull to devour it. I think it comes down to the structure. Basically a road trip story, a bunch of mini plots were compiled together, leading towards the main issue plaguing main character, Amber. New characters kept being introduced at each different town they visited, and then dropped as they went on to the next. It got to the point where I just wanted the main plot resolved so I could move on to something different to read.

Title: Loathing Lola
Author: William Kostakis
Published: 2008 by Pan Macmillan
Pages: 346
Rating:  
Purchase: The Book Depository

Fifteen-year-old Courtney Marlow didn’t exactly think it through. She thought the offer to have her life broadcast on national television was the perfect solution to her family’s financial troubles.

She was wrong.

Mackenzie Dahl, the show’s producer, promised to show Australia a real teenager. Courtney was going to be a positive role model, someone on television without a boob job and an eating disorder.

Soon, everyone wants their 15 minutes of fame via a little bit of Courtney – especially her conniving friend Katie, and her stepmother, Lola. And Courtney is just beginning to realise that ‘ordinary’ does not translate to ‘entertaining’…

Final Thoughts:
Perhaps having read Will’s later published books first left me at a disadvantage going in to this. It was hard not to compare the differences and notice how much he has grown since this book. Loathing Lola, while not feeling as polished, did still have a fun plot. It was kind of like Degrassi in its tone, along with the high school setting taking the forefront, but very much Australian. Had we gotten to know the characters a bit better, to see what made them tick, I think I would have enjoyed it more. Although, taking it for what it was, it had more than enough humour and angst to keep me turning the pages.

Title: Remembrance (The Mediator #7)
Author: Meg Cabot
Published: February, 2016 by William Morrow
Pages: 388
Rating:  
Purchase: The Book Depository

You can take the boy out of the darkness.
But you can’t take the darkness out of the boy.

All Susannah Simon wants is to make a good impression at her first job since graduating from college (and since becoming engaged to Dr. Jesse de Silva). But when she’s hired as a guidance counselor at her alma mater, she stumbles across a decade-old murder, and soon ancient history isn’t all that’s coming back to haunt her. Old ghosts as well as new ones are coming out of the woodwork, some to test her, some to vex her, and it isn’t only because she’s a mediator, gifted with second sight.

What happens when old ghosts come back to haunt you?
If you’re a mediator, you might have to kick a little ass.

From a sophomore haunted by the murderous specter of a child to ghosts of a very different kind—including Paul Slater, Suze’s ex, who shows up to make a bargain Suze is certain must have come from the Devil himself—Suze isn’t sure she’ll make it through the semester, let alone to her wedding night. Suze is used to striking first and asking questions later. But what happens when ghosts from her past—including one she found nearly impossible to resist—strike first?

Final Thoughts:
Having only just read the original series for the first time, I didn’t go into this with the nostalgia glasses on so I felt like some of the things that irked me were harder to overlook. Suze was the main culprit. With her now in her mid-twenties, I just couldn’t get over how immature she came across. And Paul, the main villain of series, he’s back, and trying to force his way into Suze’s pants again. Ugh. I thought this plot had been wrapped up, albeit hurriedly, in the previous book. But no, this angst pretty much drove the book. Chapters and chapters of Suze hiding things from Jesse, all the while, wondering why he wouldn’t give up his pre-marital chastity vow and sleep with her already.

Title: Signs Point To Yes
Author: Sandy Hall
Published: October, 2015 by Swoon Reads
Pages: 288
Rating:  
Purchase: The Book Depository

If only Jane’s Magic 8 Ball could tell her how to get through the summer. With her “perfect” sister, Margo, home for her “perfect” internship, Jane is not going to be able to spend the summer writing fan fiction, as she had planned. And her emergency babysitting job requires Jane to spend the whole summer in awkward proximity to her new crush, Teo, a nerdy-hot lifeguard with problems of his own. With his best friend out of town, Teo finds himself without anyone to confide in…except Jane. Will Jane and Teo be able to salvage each other’s summer? Even the Magic 8 Ball doesn’t have an answer…but signs point to yes.

Final Thoughts:
Fluffy romance is what you’ll find here. The stakes are low to point where pretty much nothing goes wrong for the main character, Jane. The romance, I’d say it’s marshmallow (enough to bite into, but not a lot of substance), and the family drama, it doesn’t go far beyond Jane and her mum arguing over what she’ll do after high school. So if you’re looking for a meaty contemporary to rage over your emotions, this isn’t it. However, it is a quick little book to devour, have some mild fun with, and move on from.

Title: Toxic (Denazen #2)
Author: Jus Accardo
Published: October, 2012 by Entangled Teen
Pages: 317
Rating:  
Purchase: The Book Depository

When a Six saved Kale’s life the night of Sumrun, she warned there would be consequences. A trade-off. Something taken for the life they gained. But Dez never imagined she’d lose the one thing she’d give anything to keep… And as if it’s not enough Dez finds her immunity to Kale fading, the Six brought in to help Kale learn to control his killer touch starts drooling on him the moment they meet. Worse than that? Jade can touch Kale. But bimbo Barbie is the least of Dez’s problems.

After Dez and Kale got away at Sumrun, her father lost not only his most powerful weapon but an important piece of the Supremacy project. Forced by Denazen to remedy the situation, he poisons Dez and offers her a choice–surrender to Denazen for the cure…or die. Determined to find a solution that doesn’t involve being bagged and tagged–or losing someone she loves–Dez keeps the poison a secret. But when a rash of Denazen attacks hit a little too close to home, Dez is convinced there’s a traitor among them. Jade.

Sacrifices, broken promises, and secrets. Dez will have to lay it all on the line if there’s any hope of proving Jade’s guilt before they all end up Residents of Denazen. Or worse, dead…

Final Thoughts:
Second-Book-Syndrome strikes again. I really wanted to love this one as much as I did Touch, but just couldn’t get over the decline in Kale’s character. Once loveable, and cute in his blank-canvas of a guy ways, that trait seemed to bring him down here. With so much angst holding up Dez and Kale’s relationship—a lot of it due to Kale’s inability to see what was going on around him, or how to treat someone’s feelings with respect—I found it quite to enjoy the romance, or lack of it. And with the rest of the plot revolving around Dez keeping secrets from everyone, as a reader, it just wasn’t a fun ride to be on.

Title: Shine (Shade #3)
Author: Jeri Smith-Ready
Published: May, 2012 by Simon & Schuster
Pages: 399
Rating:  
Purchase: The Book Depository

In this dramatic conclusion to the Shade trilogy, Aura and Zachary’s relationship sizzles as the secrets of the Shift are revealed.

Life can change in an instant, and no one understands that better than Aura. It’s been almost a year since her boyfriend tragically died. She’s finally letting go of Logan’s violet-hued ghost, but not her search to uncover the truth about her past.

As the first in a generation that can see ghosts, Aura is convinced she has a connection to the Shift. She’s trusted Zachary, ever patient and ever by her side, with all that she knows. But when the government threatens his life in an attempt to learn Aura’s secrets, she will stop at nothing to protect herself and the one she loves…even if that means betraying her own heart.

Final Thoughts:
With a heavy focus on Aura and Zach’s relationship, fans of that aspect of the series will eat this one up. I don’t know if too much time has passed since I read the last book, but for me, I thought we got too caught up in all of that. It started out great, with Zachary out of the picture, the stakes high, and Aura and her friends taking on the DMP, but after a while, the evil organisation plot slipped onto the backburner. Still, we did learn pretty much all of the secrets, but I could have used more of an ongoing struggle against the DMP. The ending just felt like it had been tacked on the end—like it could have been placed at any point in the second half of the book and we would have gotten the same result.

Title: Firewalker (Worldwalker #2)
Author: Josephine Angelini
Published: August, 2015 by Macmillan
Thanks: Pan Macmillan, AU
Pages: 339
Rating:  
Purchase: The Book Depository

Lily Proctor has made it back to her own universe, and it’s finally time for her and Rowan to be happy and relax. True, she almost died in the Pyre that fueled their escape, and they must hide her new magic for the safety of the world, but compared to fighting the monstrous Woven and leading armies in the alternate Salem, life is looking good.

‘You think I’m a monster, but my choices, as ruthless as they seem, are justified.’

Unfortunately, Lillian, ruthless ruler of the 13 Cities, is not willing to let Lily go that easily. Lily is the closest version of herself she’s ever seen in all her worldwalking, and Lillian’s running out of time. If she can’t persuade Lily and Rowan to return to her world, she’ll have to find a way to make them come back.

Final Thoughts:
It had its good plot points, but the journey just didn’t feel worth it. I was never enthralled, and really, I just wanted to get to the end of it so I could start the book I was actually interested in reading. So what happened? I quite enjoyed Trial By Fire, but Firewalker, not so much. With the use of the contemporary and fantasy settings split pretty much in half, the ‘world-walking’ concept doesn’t really come into play much. The book was either set in one world or the other, giving the story two distinct arcs. I thought of them as the ‘training’ one and the ‘quest’. And I’m not one for quests, so that didn’t help things improve.