Bird Box

I received an invite to a new Goodreads Bookclub called BookClubFiction the other day. Because I can’t refuse a request like that of course I had to pick up September’s book…even if I only had a few days before the end of the time period! After finishing The Name of the Rose…that left, well, today. No big deal, right?

Hubby has spent the afternoon flipping through college football, and we’ve been completely lazy all day long. Perfect for a little speed reading.

And Bird Box was a great book to do in a day. This is a very M. Night Shyamalan kind of book. Think The Village or The Happening. Something is out there, causing people to kill themselves….but no one knows what it is. The book refers to them as “creatures,” but pretty much people are going insane after they see…things.

I devoured this book by Josh Malerman. It’s very post-apocalyptic, and so so creepy. I love these dystopian-type books that are almost zombie-like, except the monster is an unnamed enemy. They are chilling, because we don’t really know what is going to end our society, we just know that eventually, something is going to end it. It’s the same feeling I had after reading Not a Drop to Drink, and watching The Last Ship.

This is an adult dystopian. There’s no weird love triangle, and it’s very very bloody. They also describe childbirth in all it’s gory wonderfulness, so just be prepared for that. Also, as I stated before, people kill themselves, and there are descriptions on how they do so.

Towards the end, I thought this was ramping up for a sequel, and I wouldn’t be surprised if one was written, but there’s not a huge cliffhanger at the end. Malerman did wrap it up pretty cleanly. I would like to see what happens next and would definitely read a second book if there was one. I’m not sure I would want to see a movie on this–I think it would end up being too much of a slasher instead of the psychological thriller that the book is.

Check this out if you are a Stephen King fan, or if you liked Mindy McGinnis. You’ll appreciate this one too!

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WWW Wednesday 7/2/2014

 

 

I completely forgot about Teaser Tuesday yesterday, and I almost forgot about WWW Wednesday! Unfortunately, this is much how July and August are going to go :(. Please forgive!

 

What are you currently reading?

The Phantom of the Opera by Gaston Leroux

Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children by Ransom Riggs

She Walks in Beauty by Caroline Kennedy

 

What did you just finish reading?

Cinder by Marissa Meyer

Not a Drop to Drink by Mindy McGinnis

Dreams of Gods & Monsters by Laini Taylor

 

What do you think you’ll read next?

The Goldfinch by Donna Tartt

After that, I don’t know. Probably mostly ebooks, since we’ll be packing up all my pretties soon. Sad face! It’ll just depend on what comes available on my library hold list next!

 

Not a Drop to Drink

After my struggle with Laini Taylor, I was hurting for a smooth read. Thankfully, I had three holds come available this weekend all at once! First up was Mindy McGinnis’s debut novel Not a Drop to Drink.

Mindy drops you into a dystopian landscape of alarming potential. There’s almost no context given until the middle of the book, all you really know is that there’s a mother and a daughter living in the middle of nowhere, alone, and they have to fight to survive.

I won’t give away what the dystopia is, but I will say that of the YA I’ve read lately, especially the trilogies, this is the most likely I’ve seen. It is so simple, so realistic. You will sit back and go, oh wow. And then you will run out and start stockpiling.

This book also straddles the line of YA and Adult fiction. The main character is somewhere in her teens, but it never really tells us how old she is. I think she’s somewhere between 16-19. There is kissing, and sex is talked about, but there is no actual sex. The relationship, I felt, was very awkward. I actually didn’t ship the couple in the book, and I wasn’t sure the girl did either…it was very weird. The guy was kind of like, oh, I haven’t seen a female my age ever, so we are automatically going to be together. *shrug*

Awkward rural teenagers aside, this debut was successful for McGinnis. I really liked the characters and the plot. The setting was definitely alarming!

The second book, In a Handful of Dust, is due out in September, and I will for sure be reading it!