Zombie Kid by J. Scott Savage

Title: Zombie Kid (Case File 13 #1)
Author: J. Scott Savage
Reviewer: Karen
Genre: Mid-Grade Horror
Rating: Fabulous
Alerts/Warnings: None unless your kid is highly sensitive to zombies and voodoo.
Premise: "The Halloween plans of monster enthusiasts Nick, Carter, and Angelo are thrown into turmoil when a magical amulet acquired from Nick's voodoo queen aunt turns Nick into a zombie and prompts an uproarious effort to break the curse" (King County Library System).
Opinions: I LOVE this book and I hate zombies. This book is an awesome cross between a mystery, Halloween horror, and just plane awesome sauce. It is perfect especially for pre-teen boys who love to be grossed out by limbs falling off of the undead, practical jokes, and learning that your relatives have spooky secrets. And for a zombie book it was incredibly clean and fun to read. There was great character growth, proof of awesome friends, and fun humor.  I'm still dying over the creation of a food substitute for zombies who crave brains.  I'm intrigued by the concept and look forward to reading more about Nick, Carter, and Angelo in book #2, Making the Team.

Air Keep by J. Scott Savage

To read my reviews of other books in this series click here: Water Keep and Land Keep.




Title: Air Keep (Farworld #3)
Author: J. Scott Savage
Reviewer: Karen
Genre: Mid-Grade Fantasy (or YA depending on your library)
Rating: Love
Alerts/Warnings: None
Premise: "Marcus and Kyja continue to search for the Elementals they need to unite to open a drift between Earth and Farworld, but the Air Elementals have a strange sense of humor and with Farworld in the grip of a terrible drought and daily earthquakes, the two friends face untold challenges" (King County Library System).
Opinions:  I love this series, but I made the mistake of keeping this book in my car. I have a habit of always having a book in my car for when I'm stuck in a drive-thru somewhere or waiting for kids to come out of school.  The problem is that I've changed the way I eat and the kids are out of school for the summer, therefore I have to wait in far fewer lines.  So I finally wizened up and brought the book into the house. I was half-way when I did that, and I just finished reading it. Once I had the dedicated time to focus on it I could not put it down.

My favorite character by far in this book, the third in its series, is Kyja. I love her more than ever. She is passionate, determined, talented and flawed. She's great. As Marcus' health/emotional state is tied in with the health of Farworld he felt weaker in this book, but it was totally intentional. Marcus had to learn to open up and be honest and some other stuff I can't tell you without spoiling the story.  I loved the unveiling of the air elementals.  The uniqueness between the different types of elementals is intriguing, especially when it comes to their weaknesses. And who wants a racing snail. . . um, me please. The snail and Mr. Z were fascinating, mysterious, and I want to see more of them.  So yea, when is Fire Keep coming out?  According to GoodReads it isn't until October, but Amazon shows it as July 1st.  As for me, I sure hope Amazon is right.

Memoirs of a Teenage Amnesiac by Gabrielle Zevin

Title: Memoirs of a Teenage Amnesiac
Author: Gabrielle Zevin
Reviewer: Karen
Genre: YA Fiction
Rating: Love
Alerts/Warnings: Reference to previous teen sex, mild language, secondary characters in same-sex relationship
Premise: "If Naomi had picked tails, she would have won the coin toss. She wouldn't have had to go back for the yearbook camera, and she wouldn't have hit her head. She wouldn't have woken up in the ambulance with amnesia. She would have remembered her boyfriend, Ace. She might have even remembered why she fell in love with him. She would understand why her best friend, Will, keeps calling her "Chief." She'd know her mom's new family. She'd know about her dad's fiancée. She never would have met James, the boy with the questionable past and the even fuzzier future. But ... Naomi picked heads. -- After a nasty fall, Naomi realizes that she has no memory of the last four years and finds herself reassessing every aspect of her life" (King County Library System).
Opinions: This was a book I picked up from my library when I was in a totally random mood. I went into the YA section and picked the first book in the letter A's and the last book in the letter Z's.  From the moment I picked up this book I was pulled in. The premise was fascinating and the characters compelling and relatable for me.  I was intrigued by the idea of how a personality can change if your memory had been wiped clean for the last four years.  I felt drawn into Naomi's personal emotional/physical struggle with all aspects that the amnesia affect her.The decisions a teen makes based on the need to feel accepted, successful, etc. might totally change.  Then having to re-deal (or in some cases deal for the first time) with a parent's divorce and remarriage could totally be up in the air.


For those of you concerned about what your teens read this book does talk about serious depressions, friends thinking of suicide, friends with same-sex relations, divorce, drugs, teen sex, etc.  In spite of that, or maybe because I've had friends/family go through some similar instances, I found them personal and made the story more relatable to me. I maybe not have made some of the same choices as Naomi if I were in her shoes, but I was drawn in by her willingness to change even though she remembered less.  I would recommend though that parents who are uncomfortable with how these topics might impact their children read the book for themselves first.


As for me, once I started reading Memoirs of a Teenage Amnesiac I couldn't put it down and was up until almost midnight (even after taking two Tylenol PM) finishing the story. 

Character Sympathy by Jordan McCollum

Title: Character Sympathy: Creating Characters Your Readers Have to Root For
Author: Jordan McCollum
Reviewer: Karen
Genre: Non-Fiction
Rating: Like
Alerts/Warnings: None
Premise: "IS YOUR CHARACTER WORTHY OF YOUR READER? CHARACTER SYMPATHY hooks your readers and gets them on your character's side from the very start. Often we think of sympathetic characters as those we love or envy or pity, but character sympathy runs deeper than simply liking or feeling sorry for a character. Sympathy in this sense is truly feeling what the character feels, worrying over the same things he worries about, and wanting him to succeed against all odds. If we can get our readers to fully sympathize and identify with our character, our readers will enjoy that journey with our character and then clamor for more. CHARACTER SYMPATHY will help you: Learn what events, actions and characteristics create true sympathy for a character. Engineer your character's motivations and goals to maximize her sympathy. Avoid cliched methods for creating reader identification. Foster sympathy for heroes, antiheroes, villains and everyone in between. Observe and analyze master storytellers' techniques to create character identification. Character sympathy isn't automatic or easy, but it's necessary for readable fiction. Applying these principles can strengthen any story and any character. Hook your readers with a character they can really root for!" (GoodReads.com)
Opinions: For the last month I've been reviewing feedback from my beta readers on my current writing work in progress. I've then spent the rest of the time studying various authors lectures and books on different techniques for improving my writing and fixing my weak areas. I just finished reading this book yesterday. It's a quick read, but I recommend keeping a pen handy. I frequently underlined tips and ideas that will help make my story tighter and increase my characters connection to the reader. So if you are a writer and are looking for information on how to improve your story I recommend this book.  It also references a lot of other books, blogs, and authors with great advice.  I'm looking forward to going through the additional reading section and learning more.

The Haunting of Derek Stone: City of the Dead by Tony Abbott

Title: City of the Dead (The Haunting of Derek Stone #1)
Author: Tony Abbott
Reviewer: Karen
Genre: Mid-Grade Horror/Paranormal
Rating: Like
Alerts/Warnings: Intense scary moments
Premise: "Derek Stone just turned fourteen. He's lived in New Orleans with his dad and older brother, Ronny, his whole life. He's a little overweight and can't hear well out of his left ear. And he's on the run from the dead" (King County Library System).
Opinions: I was in a weird mood when I went to the library yesterday. In between chasing after my escaping kids I grabbed the first book in YA in the A's and the last one in the Z's. The Haunting of Derek Stone by Tony Abbott was what I got. At first I had difficulty getting used to the narrative voice as its in first person and feels a bit disjointed as the character's thoughts bounce around. But soon I found that I couldn't put the book down and read it straight through in just a few hours.  I was intrigued by the concept, but the train accident was intense and scary though surprisingly clean for what it could have been.


Overall, I was freaked out, spooked out, and crept out, but since its a horror/paranormal book I would say that's great. It might be a bit intense for younger readers so I recommend that parents read it first to make sure it will not give your particular kid nightmares. As for me I went to sleep to a nice happy movie and singing kids' songs in my head.