Book Review: Ashfall by Mike Mullin + Weekly Random Commenter Giveaway

Ashfall by Mike Mullin

Publisher: Tanglewood Press

Publish Date: October 11, 2011

Hardcover, 466 pages 
Fiction, Young Adult, Post-Apocalyptic
 ISBN: 978-1933718552

My Review:
Wow what an rush of all different emotions.  Imagine being an everyday teenager, being a little perturbed at your parents for a normal reason.  They've gone off to visit family for the the weekend and left you at home alone.  And the the calamity of all calamities hits.  At first you think it's something small, but then you realize it's something on a much grander scale and as each day goes by you realize that it has much more far reaching effects than you ever thought.  This is where Alex is at within the first few pages of the book.  From there it moves on to him venturing out from his hometown to try and find his parents.

Mike Mullin has imagined a world that really could exist in a time like this, looting, attacks, murder, all just for a little food.  It's all about survival and while Alex wants to believe in the best in people we know from other situations in our world that disaster situations do not always bring out the best in people.  But while Alex does meet some bad people on his way to Warren, Illinois, he also meets some generous people like Darla and her mother.  Taking the good and bad along the way, Alex never gives up and with Darla who's life on the farm makes her the best person to have along on the trek they just might make it to where they are going.

I found the landscape descriptions and the weather descriptions to be very haunting but realistic.  I enjoyed the character development especially the "city boy" of Alex pitted against the "country girl" of Darla.  I like that Alex never let his ego get to him so much as to not let Darla use her skills to the advantage to help them the best.  Alex was a gentleman to the max but he was also a boy.   I liked watching their sweet romance blossom after they worked through some animosity.  They really made a great team. 

Ashfall is a great "what if" post-apocalyptic book and one of the most realistic books I've read in awhile.  I enjoyed it from beginning to end.  The plot kept me turning pages and the characters kept me engaged in the story.  It ended in a way that ties things up enough but I am hoping there will be another book because I really want to know how things continue in this post-apocalyptic society and how Alex and Darla continue to fare.  I care about these two characters and they will stay in my mind for quite a while.


My Rating: 4.5/5.0

About the Book:

Under the bubbling hot springs and geysers of Yellowstone National Park is a supervolcano. Most people don't know it's there. The caldera is so large that it can only be seen from a plane or satellite. It just could be overdue for an eruption, which would change the landscape and climate of our planet.

Ashfall is the story of Alex, a teenage boy left alone for the weekend while his parents visit relatives. When the Yellowstone supervolcano erupts unexpectedly, Alex is determined to reach his parents. He must travel over a hundred miles in a landscape transformed by a foot of ash and the destruction of every modern convenience that he has ever known, and through a new world in which disaster has brought out both the best and worst in people desperate for food, water, and warmth. With a combination of nonstop action, a little romance, and very real science, this is a story that is difficult to stop reading and even more difficult to forget.


About the Author: 
Mike Mullin’s first job was scraping the gum off the undersides of desks at his high school. From there, things went steadily downhill. He almost got fired by the owner of a bookstore due to his poor taste in earrings. He worked at a place that showed slides of poopy diapers during lunch (it did cut down on the cafeteria budget). The hazing process at the next company included eating live termites raised by the resident entomologist, so that didn’t last long either. For a while Mike juggled bottles at a wine shop, sometimes to disastrous effect. Oh, and then there was the job where swarms of wasps occasionally tried to chase him off ladders. So he’s really hoping this writing thing works out.

Mike holds a black belt in Songahm Taekwondo. He lives in Indianapolis with his wife and her three cats. ASHFALL is his first novel.

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Giveaway Information
Mike will be giving away a hardback of ASHFALL first editions during each week of the blog tour (that means 4 hardbacks) to a random commenter.  Open to the US/Canada only and in addition to the weekly giveaway - Mike is offering 1 copy to be given away to an International commenter as long as The Book Depository ships to your country.  So comment away to be entered in this week's drawing.

FTC Information: I received this book through Teen Book Scene for an honest review. 

Scavenger Hunt & Review: The Kingdom of Childhood by Rebecca Coleman

The Kingdom of Childhood by Rebecca Coleman

Publisher: Mira

Publish Date: October 2011

Paperback, 352 pages 
Fiction
 ISBN: 978-0778312789

I'm the next stop on The Kingdom of Childhood by Rebecca Coleman Scavenger Hunt sponsored by Meryl L. Moss Media Relations (Media Muscle).  First check out the next part of the excerpt, the next tour stop and then check out my review of this very interesting book.

I turned the car into the deserted lot next to the lake and parked toward the back, near

the woods. I laid a hand on his thigh and said, "Hey."

He turned his face toward me.

"Why are you so moody?"

"Because thinking about cops and babies doesn't turn me on."

"Is something else the matter?"

*Head over to Urban Girl Reader on October 17th for the next installment from THE KINGDOM OF CHILDHOOD*

My Review:
The Kingdom of Childhood definitely deals with a difficult subject and Ms. Coleman definitely never in any way sugar coats this situation.  I admire her for tackling this situation in a book and in a realistic manner.  And I think that is what is key and captivating about this book is the realistic look of the plot.

As you can read from the overview of the book, the storyline is essentially about an inappropriate relationship between a teacher at a school and a student (who is not her student) who is 16.  The relationship is consensual, but is still wrong since the teacher is in her forties and the teenager is underage, making it statutory rape.  Thankfully there is never that "ick" factor in the book, I mean you know that it's wrong, and you accept it's wrong, but since Ms. Coleman never tries to make it right you don't feel like it's "icky".

As characters by themselves  I liked Judy and Zach.  I felt for Judy and her dissolving marriage.  Her husband is busy pursuing a PhD and has little time for her and she is feeling the pain from that and pretty much counting the days until her youngest graduates.  Zach seems like a pretty good kid, he's a new kid at school and he's just trying to fit in with the people he's in choir with, one of whom happens to be Scott, Judy's son, which is how he meets Judy.  Zach comes off crass at first with his jokes and then he's assigned to work with Judy to get some extra hours by working on the bazaar she heads up.  This is what throws Judy and Zach together.

Their first kiss is almost by accident.  As is their second and then they can't seem to get enough.  But then the power shifts between them and to Judy it seems that Zach has all the power and to Zach it seems that Judy has all the power.  There is definitely no love and the relationship is purely based on sex.  But people are starting to notice.  Things begin to get dicey and the book gets even more interesting.  You want more details, read the book.


The Kingdom of Childhood is even more than the description above.  It is about what is going on in Judy and Zach's heads and a few of the people around them as well.  I fund it a fascinating story that I could not put down.  It's like a train wreck that you cannot look away.  If you ever wanted a look at the real motives at how something like this could happen, read this and you can get a good feel.

I knew i wanted to read this from the start, but I didn't know I would enjoy this book this much.  It was a true eye-opener and thrill ride from beginning to end.  Ms. Coleman knows how to capture your attention keep it and leave you just right at the end.  I look forward to future books by her.  But until then I know The Kingdom of Childhood will stick in my brain for quite a while.

My Rating: 4.5/5.0


About the Book:
The Kingdom of Childhood is the story of a boy and a woman; sixteen-year-old Zach Patterson, uprooted and struggling to reconcile his knowledge of his mother's extramarital affair, and Judy McFarland, a kindergarten teacher watching her family unravel before her eyes. Thrown together to organize a fundraiser for their failing private school and bonded by loneliness, they begin an affair that at first thrills, then corrupts each of them. Judy sees in Zach the elements of a young man she loved as a child, but what Zach does not realize is that their relationship is, for Judy, only the latest in a lifetime of disturbing secrets.

About the Author: 
Rebecca Coleman received her B.A. in English literature from the University of Maryland at College Park and speaks to writers' groups on the subjects of creative writing and publishing. A native New Yorker, she now lives and works near Washington, D.C.

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***I received this book from Meryl L. Moss Media Relations for an honest review. ***

Guest Blog: What I Really Wanted To Be by M. J. Rose

What I Really Wanted To Be by M. J. Rose

 

When I was a kid, we lived a block away from Metropolitan Museum of Art It was my backyard. Other kids rode bikes… I took art classes there. By seven years old I was already at home there. As I grew older, my mom and I went there once a week for lunch and to walk through a new exhibition. For years we never missed a single show.

Spending so much time around the great art at that great museum – exploring every nook and cranny, it’s not surprising that I’d want to be an artist.

When I went to college -- it was to go to art school. I have a BFA. I’ve always loved everything about art and still do. But despite all that I didn’t wind up being an artist because at school I discovered what a truly ordinary painter I was. For some, just doing it would be worth it, but for me what I see in my mind is so far from what I can create with my hands that it’s more of a frustration than a joy.

And so I started writing what I saw in my mind.

For me writing and painting are very different. Both in the creating and the absorbing. The intellectual versus physical. Philosophical versus cerebral. Paintings, like music, move you without logic. Books require thinking, logic. I love the movement of painting, the romance of the artist’s life. I like museums better than bookstores, art supply stores more than computer stores.

I can stare at colors for hours, mix blues and greens into each other for no other reason than seeing them bleed together like the ocean. I love the smell of paint, the sting of the turpentine in your nose, the overwhelming scent of the linseed oil, the feel of brushes, buying new brushes and running one down your cheek and feeling that smooth silky touch of the sable. I love touching thick rich watercolor paper with its tiny indentations where the color pools. And I lust after the idea that when you paint you can create something in an hour or an afternoon and look at all of it at once. See the whole. Take in all of it all at the same time.

So while you might read what I write… I’m really painting the stories first.

The e-book, “In Session” by M. J. Rose and audio book will go on sale Oct 17 but the e-book is available to pre-order at Amazon now. http://www.amazon.com/Session-Morgan-Reacher-Eislers-ebook/dp/B005OLJ3VC

INTERNATIONAL BESTSELLING AUTHOR M.J. ROSE GETS JACK REACHER, COTTON MALONE, JOHN RAIN ON THE SEX THERAPIST’S COUCH

How do you get a stoic drifter, a former covert agent and an international assassin to see a sex therapist? That was the challenge faced by international bestselling author M.J. Rose when she proposed setting up appointments for Jack Reacher, Cotton Malone and John Rain with Dr. Morgan Snow of the Butterfield Institute in her new e-book IN SESSION (October 17, 2011, Kindle e-book, $1.99).

Eisler – swore that their men of mystery would never agree to therapy – unless Rose found a way

to get them there. By slipping Dr. Snow out of her office, Rose delivered some of America’s
favorite male characters to a place they’ve never been before – in therapy.

IN SESSION contains three racy and revealing short stories by M.J. Rose:

• KNOWING YOU’RE ALIVE with Lee Child’s Jack Reacher results in revelations for the
injured Dr. Snow and her unexpected savior/patient. What secrets from the past are contained
in an unexpected gift?

• EXTENUATING CIRCUMSTANCES with Steve Berry’s Cotton Malone features a
woman who seeks help for her lover, and sends Dr. Snow overseas on a most unusual house

call. Can a rare book in a plain brown wrapper be the medicine her patient needs?

• DECISIONS, DECISIONS with Barry Eisler’s John Rain forces Dr. Snow out of her own

comfort zone, and into the world of a former patient’s worst nightmare. Does protecting what

she loves most require a dance with darkness?

The audio version, narrated by award winners Phil Gigante and Natalie Ross will

feature Dick Hill, Scott Brick and Barry Eisler reprising their roles Reacher, Malone
and Rain.

M.J. ROSE (www.mjrose.com) is an internationally bestselling author of eleven novels

including The Halo Effect, The Venus Fix and The Delilah Complex all featuring Dr. Morgan

Snow. Her next novel, The Book of Lost Fragrances will be published in March, 2012 by Atria

Books (S&S). Rose is a founding board member of International Thriller Writers and founder

of the first marketing company for authors, AuthorBuzz.com. Proceeds of the audio book

and a share of the proceeds of the ebook will be donated to David Baldacci’s Wish You Well

Foundation, supporting family literacy. (http://wishyouwellfoundation.org/)

Book Review: The Vision by Jen Nadol

 
The Vision by Jen Nadol

Publisher: Bloomsbury USA

Publish Date: September 27, 2011

Hardcover, 240 pages 
Fiction, Young Adult, Paranormal
 ISBN: 978-1599905976
The Mark #2

My Review:
The Vision picks up a little ahead of where The Mark left off and I must admit that confused me at first.  I read so many books that I was trying to figure out how The Mark ended in the first place, but after a little bit I remembered and Jen Nadol does a great job of bringing you up to speed in the first few chapters.  I also think that with these first few chapters that a reader could pick up The Vision and start with it without reading The Mark. Yes you miss the back story, but it could be done.

So once I figured out where I was in the story, the story began to pick up fast from there.  With Cassie moving to a new town to try and figure out more about how the mark works, the reader finds a whole new cast of characters and a new love interest or two for Cassie.  I found the plot of the book to be very interesting.  Cassie is still trying to figure out whether telling a person and saving their life is a good thing or a bad thing.  She knows that there is a possibility that saving one persons life means that another person will lose their life.  What is the person's life she saves is not worth saving.  She wrestles with the meaning of each life and even tries to stay away from crowded places so she won't be confronted with the mark and have to deal with the what ifs.  She's come to the suburb of Chicago to seek out a Greek population like her to find out if there is anyone like her.

While wrestling with all of this, working at the funeral home, befriending Ryan, learning about various religions and trying to find a way into the Greek group, she meets Zander.  Zander is the hot guy and player at school.  Zander is the guy that Cassie's best friend Liv has warned her about.  But Zander has an interest in her.  Suddenly Cassie and Zander are together and Cassie finally feels she fits in, but does she.

Cassie is really developed in this book.  She wrestles with right and wrong through the whole book.  I like that although she is on her own, she is still very much a teenager and she acts like it when it comes to guys, she is still rather immature, still trying to figure things out when it comes to love.  The rest of the characters were rather glossed over.  I never felt like I got to know Zander.  I honestly liked him, then I hated him.  I never knew Ryan either or any of Cassie's friends.  Cassie is the star of the book, but it would have been nice to know one or two of the other characters a little better.

The Vision is a great book if based solely on plot - it moves along at a strong pace that really held my interest.  It furthered the premise put forth in The Mark and prepped me for the third book in the series The Touch.  I like the moral angle that Cassie dealt with when trying to decide whether to tell and how she knew this was too much of a job for just one person.  Where The Vision fell just a little flat for me was with the characters.  While Cassie's character was strong and well fleshed out, all of the others were not and that made them hard to understand.  However this did not detract from the overall enjoyment of the book.  I still enjoyed the book very much and with the ending I will be anxiously awaiting The Touch.

My Rating: 3.75/5.0


About the Book:
Cassie Renfield knows the mark tells her when someone is going to die and that she can intervene and attempt to change fate. But she still doesn't understand the consequences, especially whether saving one life dooms another. With no family left to offer guidance, Cassie goes in search of others like her. But when she meets Demetria, a troubled girl who seems to have the power of the Fates, Cassie finds the truth isn't at all what she expected. And then there's her heady new romance with bad boy Zander. Dating him has much graver repercussions than she could ever have imagined, forcing Cassie to make choices that cut to the essence of who she is and what she believes.


About the Author (from Goodreads): 
I grew up in Reading, PA, hometown of John Updike, Taylor Swift and fellow YA author A.S. King (nope, didn't know any of them).

I went to college at American University in Washington DC, graduated with a BA in Literature, then spent the next twelve years doing something totally unrelated to pay the bills.

Now I live north of NYC in an old farmhouse with my husband and three young sons. I am thrilled to finally be writing, the thing I always meant to do. 

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FTC Information: I received this book from Teen Book Scene for an honest review. 

Waiting on Wednesday - October 12

"Waiting On" Wednesday is a weekly event, hosted by Jill at Breaking the Spine, that spotlights upcoming releases that we're eagerly anticipating.

Night Eternal by Guillermo Del Toro & Chuck Hogan
Publish Date: 10/25/2011

From the authors of the instant New York Times bestsellers The Strain and The Fall comes the final volume in one of the most electrifying thriller series in years
It’s been two years since the vampiric virus was unleashed in The Strain, and the entire world now lies on the brink of annihilation. There is only night as nuclear winter blankets the land, the sun filtering through the poisoned atmosphere for two hours each day—the perfect environment for the propagation of vampires.
There has been a mass extermination of humans, the best and the brightest, the wealthy and the influential, orchestrated by the Master—an ancient vampire possessed of unparalleled powers—who selects survivors based on compliance. Those humans who remain are entirely subjugated, interred in camps, and separated by status: those who breed more humans, and those who are bled for the sustenance of the Master’s vast army.
The future of humankind lies in the hands of a ragtag band of freedom fighters—Dr. Eph Goodweather, former head of the Centers for Disease Control’s biological threats team; Dr. Nora Martinez, a fellow doctor with a talent for dispatching the undead; Vasiliy Fet, the colorful Russian exterminator; and Mr. Quinlan, the half-breed offspring of the Master who is bent on revenge. It’s their job to rescue Eph’s son, Zack, and overturn this devastating new world order. But good and evil are malleable terms now, and the Master is most skilled at preying on the weaknesses of humans.
Now, at this critical hour, there is evidence of a traitor in their midst. . . . And only one man holds the answer to the Master’s demise, but is he one who can be trusted with the fate of the world? And who among them will pay the ultimate sacrifice—so that others may be saved?

I read The Strain and have The Fall in my TBR pile.  Sounds like it's time to break out The Fall and read it so I can finish out this trilogy.  Perfect time of year as well ;)

So what are you waiting on this week?