The Good, The Bad, and The Fugly

Have been getting a lot of good reading in... finally am reminded of why I love geeky books so much. So allow me to tell you the tales of my most recent reads... the good... the bad... and the fugly.

I started with Shiver by Maggie Stiefvater. What a lovely little book. That's the best description I can come up with. It was engaging, but I was still able to put it down at night and go to bed (for which I was greatful at 7 a.m.). It was interesting, but not overly dramatic and climatic. It had a love story, but wasn't too mushy sappy Twilight gross. It was just lovely. I wouldn't change a thing about this light wolfy read.

And then I got to the bad. And OH! Was it bad. I don't even know why I bothered to keep reading: The Forest of Hands and Teeth by Carrie Ryan. I am struggling to even begin telling you all the reasons I couldn't stand this book. For starters, it was effing terrifying and gave me nightmares. I would be reading at night and think, "In just one more chapter, it won't be terrifying anymore and I can go to bed," but nope, still terrifying! I actually slept with my lights on one night (and may or may not have let my dog sleep on the bed to keep me safe from zombies). I think I was partially determined to finish it simply because there were no "safe" places to stop. Creepy gross fugly zombie things are not friggin cool, people!

And then, there was the craptastic plot. A relatively unlikeable heroine was about the only person to live. Many of the characters were jerks and the only semi-likeable one gets eaten sacrificing himself for the selfish unlikeable heroine. And then, at the end, you realize all of the significant things you expected to come together in some meaningful interesting key way... nope, they don't connect at all. In fact, even though they were made out like a big deal, they really hold NO significance. And the last pages?!?! Oh, yeah, that's where she finally "makes it" out of the forest only to find, there are zombies everywhere. Not really shocking, right? Yeah, except everywhere else, they're just like, "Yeah, they're man-eating zombies, but we just kill them with shovels. No biggie." The end.

WTF?!?

And then, we surpassed any good, bad, or fugly with The Demon King by Cinda Williams Chima. This book reminded my why I absolutely love this genre. It's got it all -- great plot, fun twists, loveable characters, horrible villains, magic mystics and even a little political intrigue thrown in just for laughs (a personal favorite of mine). I truly couldn't put it down. And I already Googled it and am ecstatic to learn book two in the Seven Realms series, The Exiled Queen, is slated for release this fall. Whee!

I liked her first books, but they didn't make my must-read list. This one, though, just may have earned itself a spot... Particularly after I fear that my beloved Looking Glass Wars books may have fallen off the list with Arch Enemy... but that's another blog post all together! Happy reading!