Best Halloween Reads

I can read just about anything. But I've never been very big on horror. 
I'm not a big fan of anything creepy in general.
Monsters, Inc. gave me nightmares as a kid.

So if you want to get in the Halloween mood but still, you know, be able to sleep and enter rooms with the lights off and open the fridge without crying, you and I are in the same boat. Check out these  slightly creepy reads on my Halloween list this year.

Beautiful Creatures by Kami Garcia and Margaret Stohl

Now that every other supernatural resource has been exhausted (vampires, werewolves, angels, VAMPIRES) we've turned to witches. I'm excited to read Beautiful Creatures before the movie comes out this spring. I love book-to-movie movies in general. And Emmy Rossum is going to be in this one. She's like the Zac Effron of Phantom of the Opera. I've heard great things about this franchise so far- i.e., "It's like Twilight, when Twilight isn't acting like Twilight." To quote my favorite blogger, "We don't need a next Twilight. Once was enough." But if this franchise can be Twilight but not, it sounds like a good Halloween read.

Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children by Ransom Riggs

This one's already checked off my list. It's exactly as haunting and quirky and flat out creepy-weird (that always should have been a word) as the cover art insists it's going to be. The author, Ransom Riggs, is also a cinematographer and photographer, and the story goes he used his favorite old photographs he's collected at flea markets and in private collections to structure the story around. Turning the page to a vintage freak show photograph inside my novel is just about as much as I can handle- it definitely has the desired effect.



The Forest of Hands and Teeth by Carrie Ryan

While I went through a stage of being a bit against this book, you can't hate zombies with this much class. Not for that long. As I've posted before, this book is clever, elegantly written and elegantly covered (?) and elegantly everything- when your leading lady isn't wielding an ax. The Forest of Hands and Teeth tells an apocalypse story in a society so cut off from the outside world, technology and slang make it feel more like the place you'd expect to see the Salem witch trials go down than a zombie attack. It's getting to be an oldie and a bit of a classic re-read for me. If you still haven't read it, it's a great Halloween catch.



Was I too much of a wimp?

Check back next Friday! We've made it to November . . . Neal Shusterman book signing cover!

The Best Apocalypse and Dystopia Novels: A Timeline of the Future

Apparently it doesn't matter who gets elected president this month; America is scheduled for a complete and psychotic make-over in two years from now. The world's favorite subject is quickly becoming How the World Will End, which is kind of like hanging out with your friends and all deciding to draw comic strips about how the others are going to kick the bucket.

All the same, I love dystopia and apocalyptic novels. I posted here in July, "Usually, in dystopians, Nazis come back to life and everyone has to live in little shacks, and the love triangles are made up crazy people and celebrities and bakers." (Should that not be the catchphrase of all YA books lately?) 

But how will they all fit together? With so many depressing predictions for the end of the world, we're going to need to operate on a very tight schedule. 

If you see a book you like or haven't read, click on the cover for more info. 

2013: Life As We Knew It by Susan Beth Pfeffer

First things first, the moon must be hit by an asteroid. Zombies-shmombies. The moon has to be really big in the background before I can even think about that. In Life As We Knew It, the moon is sent into a closer orbit with the earth, causing climate changes, natural disasters, and tides rising, making this novel the perfect segway into dystopia as we know it. In the meantime, The Host can run around for 400 pages. It's a win-win. 

2020: Warm Bodies by Isaac Marion, The Zombie Survival Guide by Max Brooks

Zombie geeks, now is your time. And your mother laughed when you bought a flame thrower. We'll allot you five years to rule the earth in ax-wielding glory before finding a cure. And your mother will still laugh at your flame thrower. Unfortunately, for the apocalypse to continue, we've got a lot more ground to cover. 






2025: Ender's Game by Orson Scott Card

Why does this book ALWAYS come up? Maybe it's because I'm too excited for the movie. However, in 2025, people are already studying Harry Potter in school as classic literature. Everyone has that old Ender's Game movie memorized, so it won't take us too long to recover from a couple of well-placed alien attacks and world-dominating governments. Well, maybe a little bit of time.




2104: Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury

Classic lit fans, rejoice! Fahrenheit gets its day. Of course, that means all your favorite classic lit is destroyed by fire. Luckily, firemen will be unemployed sooner than later, because it's a pretty short book. So stay tuned, citizens, for . . . 

2177: Matched by Ally Condie

Evolving out of the Fahrenheit society comes Matched, which holds plenty of the same characteristics as its predecessor. Matched is still big on censorship and creepy pills, but introduces the world to a new concept as well: love triangles. The future slowly morphs into a place where a romance can no longer be a romance unless it involves an indecisive girl, a blond guy, and a brunette one. One of the three must limp. Or be an outlaw. Or both. 

2177: City of Ember by Jeanne DuPrau
In the meantime, a group of semi-sane people decide to ditch dystopia and hop underground. To create . . . a dystopia. In City of Ember, a group of people formulate an underground society when living above ground becomes just too scary. Of course there is the problem of running out of food and electricity. Read the book. 




2205: The Hunger Games by- do you really not know? 
(Suzanne Collins)

I really wanted to be alive for this one, but unfortunately Panem is established a little outside my life-expectancy zone. From the ashes of psychotic book-burners and zombie purged lands comes my personal favorite. Katniss, as the great-great-granddaughter of Hawkeye, (the Avengers apocalypse happens before the rest of this of course, but unfortunately it's not a book) proves that those flamethrowers were tacky and takes us old school with a bow and arrow and a love triangle  Of course.



What did we miss? Leave a comment if there's a dystopia you'd like to see squeezed in. 

Check back next week for an early Halloween post!

The Death Cure: Review (And Other Tales of the Apocalypse)

James Dashner is a nice guy. I've met him more than once, and other authors are always telling me this, too: James Dashner is a nice guy. If you don't like James Dashner, you're not a nice guy, because James Dashner is a nice guy. James Dashner is the kindest man you will ever meet don't you dare bash on his novels.

So before I tell you what I think of this series, I have a disclaimer: James Dashner is a nice guy. I read all three of his Maze Runner books. They have nice covers and the man who reads them on Audiobooks is really good at doing Irish accents. So that was fun.

I know some of you love these books. You think James Dashner is a really nice guy. You give his books five stars on Goodreads. You must be a nice guy, too. I guess I'm not a nice guy. Not only am I a girl, but I'm not a Maze Runner fan.

I really hate writing bad reviews. It disturbs me. Because I get this evil little adrenaline rush from doing it, like it's fun. And really what I'm doing is asking a nice guy to please go cry. I hate that it's fun. I hate that I get no guilt trip out of this. But here's the thing.

Everyone loves this book. These books. All three of them. Four if you're The Dedicated Fan who reads the prequel. Somebody has to stand up, in the name of Suzanne Collins and Ray Bradbury and Orson Scott Card and point out what's really going on.

It's like watching Psych. I love Psych. I find the pineapple every episode. But you're not looking for pineapples in Maze Runner- this book is like Psych on an intellectual level. This book isn't hilariously stuffed with jokes from 1992. This book reminds me of the way, in general, a cute little crime show typically goes about its business.

So say you're a Psych fan. For those of you who aren't Psych fans, this is how it goes down: little Shawn and Gus run around, make an 80's movie reference you don't get, and- Gasp! Look! There is blood on that man's shirt! Shawn makes a dramatic face, the camera zooms up on the blood and it glows. He's our killer!

That was thrilling for you.

Then one day you hear all these crazy people talking about Sherlock. And they say It's totally like Psych you'll love it! and you're thrilled because season 5 or 16 of Psych doesn't come out for a whole month, so you need something to occupy your time and you guess you'll try this show.

You turn on Netflix. Two hours later you turn off Netflix. You just sit there looking at your TV. Holy Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. For those of you who aren't Sherlock fans, this is how it goes down: This show was invented by geniuses. Forget the slightly-open door being your clue to the murder, forget 80's movie references. That was cute, but you can't look at that show the same way again. You're on a new level.

There are millions of apocalypse/dystopia novels out there in the world. Publisher Heaven chucks down one every hour. Off the top of my head? Hunger Games, Shatter Me, The Forest of Hands and Teeth, Ender's Game, Matched, Unwind, Fahrenheit 451, Uglies, Divergent, please make me stop. I know that's a random list. Not all of them a gems. But some of them are.

Picture yourself watching Shawn and Gus trying to solve a Sherlock crime. They make the same, basics-of-simple observations and 80's movie references. Even worse, Sherlock and Watson are sitting next to them telling them what geniuses they are and worshiping at their feet. And the worst part is? It works, and they solve the crime.

This is what reading this series was like. In the usually sophisticated genre of dystopia, amidst the Sherlocks of Hunger Games and Fahrenheit 451, in walks a really nice guy. The decisions I watched James Dashner's characters make were painfully straightforward. But every other character within the book regards them as genius.

Even the series' plot itself is basic, but loopholed and frilled up until you would have no idea. The world has been attacked by a virus that makes people go crazy. The only rational explanation is, of course, to gather up a group of fifty adolescent boys and build a life-size maze for them to live in, filled with giant slugs that may attack them. With needles that come out of their skin. March these children through a desert, strike them by lightning, make several of them telepathic. Bring in tiny mechanical spiders. Threaten these children with vivisection and . . . if I remember correctly, human sacrifice. Oh, spoiler alert.

The end result is so simple and obvious that I just sat there for a moment, listening to the Audiobook fade out with this blank expression on my face, wondering if that really could have been what I'd been waiting three books for. I was alone in a room. But I was slightly shouting, "Really. Really. That's it."

YA fiction, particularly YA dystopia/apocalypse has become this flooded refugee camp for all the other demographics in the world who've been disappointed by adult literature or tween books. Everybody's figured out young adult is the place to be. As a YA writer, you're facing the most competitive, the most intense, the fastest paced but the cleverest genre there is right now. You as a YA reader no matter what your age are expecting the best. You deserve it.

No book is completely bad or completely good. In addition to having a CD reader who was great at Irish accents, this series is a group of quick reads with sharp, clear writing. They are action-packed and hit the nose with a love triangle I didn't expect, thrown in on the side.

I don't think James Dashner is a bad writer. I think he is a good writer, actually. But cerebrally, his writing can't stand up to this genre.  I know he's also written successful series for middle grade readers. The intellect of books he writes for older teens and adults is still on the same middle grade level, and after three books and a prequel, it doesn't look like he prepares to step it up. But for a  quick adrenaline read that won't tease your brains too much, these books are harmless.

I have two exceptionally petty issues with this book as well, which you'll understand if you've read the novels. Click. 

Check back here at Read My Print for a new post every Friday. Before the end of October, I have a Halloween reads post, and, of course, the annual October Companion Novel Awards. Annual starting . . . now!

The middle-grade novels I give props to:

Got through these books thanks to the awesome audio reader:

The Mark of Athena by Rick Riordan: Started* Review

The Heroes of Olympus series feels like reading a Pixar film. Not Cars 2 or Wreck It Ralph, but a 2005 kind of Pixar film that gets 97% on Rotten Tomatoes. It’s funny, squeaky clean and well paced, and it’s been polished until nearly everything, even reading it, looks like a cartoon. There’s nothing to complain about. But there’s probably never going to be that much substance to think about either. 

That doesn’t mean I can’t be over the Empire State Building every time Percy and Annabeth have a dramatic moment (less than the corner half three-fourths of my brain that is still twelve years old would like). But the over polished, Disney-ified feel does take something away from these books. The first five had a bit rougher edge to them somehow that I feel like we've lost. The evolution of Camp Half-Blood has its benefits and its drawbacks.

I grew up reading Rick’s** books, and the first five Percy Jackson novels will always have a very special, geek-friendly place in my heart. The Heroes of Olympus series is different, but unlike most follow up series, (cough, cough, three more books in the City of Bones series, really, cough, cough) these novels actually feel necessary to the story established during Percy Jackson and the Olympians.

When I met Rick at a signing on his Lost Hero tour, I asked him why he felt the need to create a follow-up series. He said, in Greek mythology there was a natural kind of “follow-up series” to the Titan war, and he wanted to mirror that in his stories. I smiled and nodded and thought, Confound the gods of Olympus, don’t give me sensible trash answer. We all know it was for the money. But the more I read this series, I realize I was wrong. These books really do build on the last five. I don’t regret reading them.

Out of everything I’ve ever read aloud, I prefer Rick Riordan books. I’m currently employed reading The Mark of Athena to a group of 10-13 year olds. I have the best excuse in the world to still be reading these books in high school. I can make any character I feel like at the moment British while reading. And while my voice box is slowly disintegrating from overuse, I'm not ready to give up on the Olympians just yet. In Mark of Athena, Rick has provided me with a decent excuse not to grow up. Again. 

Fingers crossed he'll pull through for us one more time next fall. 

For a spoiler full review of Mark of Athena, book signing reviews (including Neal Shusterman and Shannon Hale), and SLC readers' guide to the best local reading nooks, check back here at Read My Print every Friday this fall.

*When I was little and saw "A Starred Review!" on the back of a book, I always read it wrong. I thought it said 'started' and meant that the dumb book critic had only bothered to read the first few pages. Come on, people.
 I get the real process now, but have written this article as a genuine started review. Seeing as Mark of Athena is over five hundred pages long, I didn't think it would be fair to make you wait that long for an article. This review is based on my experience reading the series and the new book so far. 


**I can’t bring myself to be mature enough to call this guy by his last name like a real, sensible book review. I just can’t. Secretly I am twelve years old, I swear.