Bad Taste in Boys by Carrie Harris

Kate is more than ready to move beyond her high school experience and go off to college to pursue medicine. She's got everything prepared in order to look the best she can to the college recruiters. This means that she's also staying on top of her extracurriculars, like volunteering lab time with the science teacher and unfortunately helping out with the losing football team. Kate stumbles on evidence that the football coach is giving the team steroids, but it has horrifying side effects. Side effects that look very similar to what you think a zombie would be like. Now people are dying and Kate is worried that those closest to her could be infected: her brother, her best friend, and her secret crush Aaron.

This isn't going to be a long review, because the book itself isn't long. It's super fast-paced and only 208 pages. I think it took me a grand total of two hours to read this. There's not a lot of in depth descriptions of thoughts or evaluation of emotions. Obviously more plot-driven.

I think that it's a longstanding fact that I don't like horror. Zombie especially freak me out. I mean seriously, that shit could happen. So this book was kind of perfect for me. Most of the horror was  from the ambient tension of where the boys were being infected from and having to be covert about where Kate was looking for information rather than from the zombies themselves. Not that the zombies weren't scary, Carrie Harris did a great job describing the effects of the drugs. I especially liked the scene where one boy pukes up black and then seems to die. Well done, creepy without making me put the book down.

This is a series, and the sequel is called Bad Hair Day and involves werewolves. I'll be reading it, mostly because I think this is fun mind-candy. Fast read, without a lot of emotional commitment. Nice.

Enclave by Ann Aguirre

Deuce has just ascended the ranks and reached her goal of becoming a Huntress, someone who gathers meat for the Enclave and protects the other citizens from the Freaks who prey on the unwitting who cross their paths. She lives in a society where everyone has their place in order to capitalize on the few decades that they are alive. Things become less straightforward when she and her enigmatic Hunter partner Fade discover that the Freaks are getting smarter and the Elders are misleading the people to keep their own power. Eventually she and Fade are banished Topside, and they must survive gangs, winter, and aggressively intelligent Freaks. All of a sudden Deuce must deal with a developing romantic relationship with Fade, the reliance of a helpless girl that they save from the gangs, and a distant hope that there will be a safety up north. If they can survive the trip.

I really loved this book. It was dark, gritty, and Deuce's evolution was remarkable. Ann Aguirre has created a well conceived universe, where the research behind the story is evident and yet never explicit. The different communities/cultures  have obvious rules that work well within the post-apocalyptic setting.

Here's the thing I enjoyed the most, Deuce's evolution from focused Huntress to someone who must make up her own rules and develop stronger ties to the people she meets. Her new perspective on what she is allowed to do, her own developing ideology, and her confusion on how she is to behave, is unbelievably engaging. I can't say how much I loved this character. She was so incredible; she was flawed and yet strong. Really amped up the heroine traits that I adored in Darkness Becomes Her. I mean honestly, this could not have been done better.

The secondary characters were equally well done, I loved Fade. He is mysterious and angsty without being obnoxious. The development of their relationship is so well-shaped and I loved how they are so cautiously sweet with one another. Then there's Tegan and Stalker, their back-stories are stark and gripping.

I am actually going to stop here. I could go on and on about how great this was, but I'd rather you just go and read it and see for yourself. Ann Aguirre did an incredible job. Loved it. I can't wait for the sequel Outpost to come out in September, though you can go and read the first two chapters here.

Waiting on Wednesday

"Waiting On" Wednesday is a weekly event hosted by Breaking the Spine to spotlight an upcoming release that we're excited about. This week I'm waiting on Dearly, Departed by Lia Habel.

Love conquers all, so they say. But can Cupid’s arrow pierce the hearts of the living and the dead—or rather, the undead? Can a proper young Victorian lady find true love in the arms of a dashing zombie?

The year is 2195. The place is New Victoria—a high-tech nation modeled on the manners, mores, and fashions of an antique era. A teenager in high society, Nora Dearly is far more interested in military history and her country’s political unrest than in tea parties and debutante balls. But after her beloved parents die, Nora is left at the mercy of her domineering aunt, a social-climbing spendthrift who has squandered the family fortune, and now plans to marry her niece off for money. For Nora, no fate could be more horrible—until she’s nearly kidnapped by an army of walking corpses.

But fate is just getting started with Nora. Catapulted from her world of drawing-room civility, she’s suddenly gunning down ravenous zombies alongside mysterious black-clad commandos and confronting “The Laz,” a fatal virus that raises the dead—and hell along with them. Hardly ideal circumstances. Then Nora meets Bram Griswold, a young soldier who is brave, handsome, noble . . . and dead. But as is the case with the rest of his special undead unit, luck and modern science have enabled Bram to hold on to his mind, his manners, and his body parts. And when his bond of trust with Nora turns to tenderness, there’s no turning back. Eventually, they know, the disease will win, separating the star-crossed lovers forever. But until then, beating or not, their hearts will have what they desire.

In Dearly, Departed, steampunk meets romance meets walking-dead thriller, spawning a madly imaginative novel of rip-roaring adventure, spine-tingling suspense, and macabre comedy that forever redefines the concept of undying love.

Summary from GoodReads

This title was book-talked during the Random House Fall Book Buzz lunch during the ALA Conference. It sounded pretty awesome. A bit steampunk, a bit romance-y, and lots of zombies who are gentlemen. Therefore I will sit patiently and wait for it to come out Oct. 18.