A Note:

6/2/13

I once told myself: IF I am accepted into grad school, this blog would no longer be updated. As it turns out, in April, I received news of my acceptance for the Fall 2013 semester, where I will attain a Master's degree of Science in Nutrition.

Running a blog, as many of you may already know, is a demanding side job once the excitement wears off. And once I fell out of the blogging community's loop (have you SEEN how many blogs there are now? Wow!), it was like the kiss of death. Despite my best efforts, I couldn't get into a blogging routine once this happened due to the disconnect I felt from the community.

So I took a break. I struggled with the loss and with missing my blog. And then I realized I didn't have to run Book Faery to still be a book reviewer; I could read my books and post reviews online. I'm still a book review blogger, just not in the traditional sense.

I'll still be online. You can chat with me on Twitter, where I'll be posting links to my reviews and talking books. I'll also be posting links to nutrition articles. And if you'd like to connect with me where I guarantee I will post reviews, just add me as a friend on Goodreads.

So that's all, folks! It's been a fun and amazing journey, and I thank you all for listening to my thoughts about books. I hope we all can keep in touch elsewhere :)

Tori

Tuesday, November 27, 2012

Alice's Review: Undeadly by Michele Vail

Released: 20th November 2012
Paperback: 267 pages
Price: AU$14
Publisher: HarlequinTeen
Source: Kmart (hehe)
Genre: Young adult, paranormal romance
Series: The Reaper Diaries
Series Order:
1. Undeadly
2. Unchosen (2013) 
Summary
The day I turned 16, my boyfriend-to-be died. I brought him back to life. Then things got a little weird...

Molly Bartolucci wants to blend in, date hottie Rick and keep her zombie-raising abilities on the down-low. Then the god Anubis chooses her to become a reaper—and she accidentally undoes the work of another reaper, Rath. Within days, she's shipped off to the Nekyia Academy, an elite boarding school that trains the best necromancers in the world. And her personal reaping tutor? Rath.

Life at Nekyia has its plusses. Molly has her own personal ghoul, for one. Rick follows her there out of the blue, for another...except, there's something a little off about him. When students at the academy start to die and Rath disappears, Molly starts to wonder if anything is as it seems. Only one thing is certain—-Molly's got an undeadly knack for finding trouble...
My Rating:
My Opinion: Michele Vail has brought something new to the paranormal fiction table (at least to me it's new): Egyptian mythology! I think the Egyptian mythology and the experience of reading about something totally new and unexpected is what made me like the book a lot more than I would have if it was something I'd read before. I'm rating this a 3 because of a few reasons, which I'll explain later. But now, let me gush about the coolness of the Egyptian stuff.

So this is a world where zombies exist (but it's not grisly or scary, yay!) and people who have the powers to raise, command, see or talk to the undead (called reapers) are pretty common. Molly is one of these and she turns out to be extra special. All of the reaper powers are gifted to humans by the Egyptian God of the Underworld, Anubis, in his efforts to fight his uncle Set, God of Chaos, for the position of top dog in the underworld because Set didn't want to give up his throne to Anubis, who is the rightful ruler of the place. There were some pretty grisly battles between Anubis and Set's followers/reapers but Set was locked away and is only now threatening to break his bonds...

So there's lot of cool Egyptian mythology, we get to meet the awesome Anubis (he seems like a pretty decent guy) and this was what made the book so interesting. What wasn't so interesting was Molly and her drama. Now, I was 16 pretty recently but I don't remember making such a huge deal out of everything. Molly is quite immature and a pretty bad narrator. She always adds in stuff that isn't necessary (like those little trivia bits added into some episodes of TV shows for fun) and it got annoying for me to constantly read her OMGs, LOLs, BTWs, etc. I also felt that this book was all over the place. Like there was an instance where a gun was being pointed at Molly and I had a hard time finding when it got pointed because it was surrounded by all the rubbish Molly kept thinking in her head/narrating. I just felt very disconnected and quite confused at times!

Another thing I didn't like was Molly's overall attitude to what was going on around her. She's a very 'watch the world go by from way back here' kind of girl, I felt, and didn't take initiative. She's just not fit to be the hero and champion of the future battles/events ahead of her. She let people just tell her what to do and didn't ask questions and ended up being confused by her abilities because she didn't bother to go up to someone and talk about her problems/questions. So I as a reader was also very confused because no one ever really even tells Molly what she is (she's not a normal reaper) but they all just imply that she's different.Molly doesn't even demand an explanation, just stands there in a confused daze! Asdfgjhdjkl. Another thing: Molly is so head over heels for this one guy Rick she is too dumb to notice that he is clearly NOT OKAY. She's all like "Nah, Rick wouldn't lie, he's perfect, Oh Rick, you put hearts in my eyes!"

My verdict: The richness of Egyptian mythology in this book makes it far more interesting to read than your run-of-the-mill vampire angst novel, but the main character fails to inspire my belief in her. A positive is that there are some good characters in it that I DID end up absolutely loving.

4 comments:

  1. This sounds good, I do like Egyptian Mythology.

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    Replies
    1. I'm kind of fascinated by it but the gross images of mummies and creepy death in tomb stories I had to read in History when I was younger make me kind of hate it lol! But I did like this, I'm excited to read more. :)

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  2. I agree this was a decent book but it isnt a must read.

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  3. I read a lot of zombie books and this one is great too! This book reminds me a lot of the House of Night series. If you're a fan of Egyptian mythology, zombies and reapers like me, this novel is created just for you.

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