The Other Life by Susanne Winnacker

After a deadly rabies virus is unleashed on the city of Los Angeles, fifteen year old Sherry and her family have not left their underground bunker in more than three years. Three years, one month, one week, and six days to be exact. Trapped inside with her two younger siblings, her squabbling parents, her ceaselessly knitting grandma, and her dead grandpa–who’s been in the freezer for the last six months.

Kinda puts you off your frozen peas, doesn’t it? 

But Sherry and her dad have to make a hard decision when they run out of food eight months earlier than expected. They have to go outside and face whatever’s left of the outside world. Turns out, the Weepers are what’s left. Ugh.

Imagine zombies, but kind of rotting animals too. There are different kinds of Weepers–so called because of the milky fluid that runs out of their eyes when you kill them. Gross. Some walk upright and look mostly normal, others are down on all fours and look monstrous. All have a taste for human flesh. All of them creeped me out.

Only hours after Sherry and her dad leave their bunker, the Weepers attack. All seems lost until a handsome stranger shows up, guns blazing. Unfortunately, once the dust settles, a large puddle of blood is the only thing left of Sherry’s father. Is he still alive? And even if he is, where could he be?

Can Sherry and her new friend Joshua find him before it’s too late?

And where has the government been this whole time??

Do me a favor with this book and please please please IGNORE the cover. It’s totally ridiculous and off-putting. (I judge books by their covers, so sue me…) The book itself is actually really fast-paced and entertaining. I read it all in one sitting. I understand that the market is being flooded with post-apocalyptic YA zombie novels, but TOL actually holds its own. There’s a big enough twist to the virus for it to be untraditional and for some reason the Weepers reminded me of really creepy raptors or something. It’s that nasty blood-thirsty run they do, I think.

I just can’t imagine living in a world so fraught with peril… (I just said “fraught with peril” *tee hee*). Even the “safe” havens aren’t really that safe. There’s no way I’d be sleeping alone in Zombieland.

From what I understand, TOL’s sequel The Life Beyond is supposed to be released this weekend. I will definitely snag it soon.

5 strips of peeling flesh of 5

Rage Within by Jeyn Roberts

Seeing as it’s freshly October, some scary books are in order… Rage Within, sequel to the ultra-creeptastic Dark Inside. (DI was a great book. I’d be reading it next to the sleeping boyfriend and still jump out of my skin every time the house creaked.) 

Roberts’ post-apocalyptic world is less zombies and more terrorist attacks meets natural disaster meets rage virus. It follows the lives of a handful of teens as they try to overcome the insurmountable odds against surviving in their deadly environment. The people that have caught the rage virus are known as Baggers and in book two they are more intelligent and more organized, therefore much more dangerous.

Obviously it’s easier to run from mean but stupid things–like the T-Rex in Jurassic Park–but much harder to run from mean but smart things–like the raptors. (I seriously still have nightmares about them!)

While RW wasn’t quite as scary as DI, it was still an enjoyable and sufficiently creepy read. I was less scared out of my wits and more on the edge of my seat, if that makes sense. There was still plenty of action, gore, and suspense–just not as much utterly horrifying mental imagery.

In this book, we get to find out what the Nothing infecting everybody really is. We also learn that the Baggers may not be as easy to read as previously imaged. Scary, huh?

I am pissed off that the character Colin has lasted this long, and once you read the story you’ll get what I mean. I’m sorry, but if I had a group of friends together in a safe house and one little jerk was beginning to compromise our safety… Well… let’s just say he’d have another thing coming. Marshall law for the win!

Roberts has definitely left an open ending for another book, which I’ll be eagerly awaiting. I’m not sure how well things will turn out, however, because things aren’t looking so good for the humans these days…

Definitely worth the read, especially in honor of Halloween.

4 stale Twinkies of 5

Zombies vs Unicorns edt. by Holly Black & Justine Larbalestier

Since the dawn of time there have been intense (and often violent) rivalries between opposing factions. Vampires vs Werewolves. Bloods vs Crips. KKK vs Black Panthers. Humans vs…. Well, everything really…  But never before has there been a rivalry as blood thirsty and cutthroat as ZOMBIES VS UNICORNS. Holly Black (Team Unicorn) and Justine Larbalestier (Team Zombie) have compiled an anthology of stories about zombies and unicorns to end all anthologies. No, they’ve really outdone themselves. They got the likes of Garth Nix, Scott Westerfield, and Meg Cabot to contribute–just to name a few. There’s seriously not a dud in the bunch. 

I LOVED this book. I really do like anthologies. They give you brief snippets of an author’s work and it’s a great way to discover new talent without the time commitment that a whole book demands. That being said, however, usually there are a few that just plain suck. There are no two ways around it. The editors draw you in with a few big names on the cover, and the rest are just lifeless page-fillers. Not so with Zombies vs Unicorns. I absolutely loved/appreciated all the stories compiled and gained a new respect for all the writers involved. I also really liked the commentary between Black and Larbalestier–although I wish Holly had stood up for Team Unicorn a bit more! I know the whole thing is a running joke between the two of them, but she totally let Justine run all over her!

The variety of the stories was also great. We saw killer unicorns, zombies in love, unicorns with suicidal tendencies, gay zombies… Need I go on? These are not your typical Lisa Frank unicorns or your 28 Days Later zombies. You will experience something brand new and freaking awesome with this collection. I would especially recommend:

• The Care and Feeding of Your Baby Killer Unicorn by Diana Peterfreund
• Cold Hands by Cassandra Clare
• The Third Virgin by Kathleen Duey

Love love loved it.

2.5 rotting body parts + 2.5 unicorn farts = one 5 star anthology

Dark Inside by Jeyn Roberts

Sorry about the long pause between postings, it’s exam week and my final few days in college before graduation. I’m so excited! But with great power comes great responsibility, as we all know… Unfortunately that great power comes in the form of term papers, exams in languages I don’t know, and coordinating family members who don’t like each other.

However, somehow in all this madness I had time to read Dark Inside by Jeyn Roberts. And boy, I’m glad I did. (My dreams were not happy, but I was entertained nevertheless). 

Her first novel–by her own description–combines The Road and 28 Days Later. Neither of which I’ve seen, since I’m a big chicken and I hate things jumping out at me. (Whatever, judge me all you want, but watching people get tortured à la The Human Centipede is not my idea of a good time).

The story takes place in a world suddenly ravaged by natural distasters, terrorist attacks, and a hypothesized virus/body snatcher that turns normal people into savage blood-thirsty killers. And not in the dead-eyed shuffling zombie way. I’m talking cognisant, hunt-you-down-and-drag-you-kicking-and-screaming-from-your-house killers. And guess what? To top it all off the power is out, cell phones and radios don’t work, and police and doctors are just as likely to kill you as anyone else–so what do you do?

Something about the way this book was written really freaked me out. It had a believability that a lot of other horror novels don’t have. Roberts made this scenario seem like it could really happen. It posed the question that, if the absence of communication–which has so long been our crutch–is kicked out from under us, how many people would really know how to survive?

The plot was a bit cheap, and getting to really know any one of the four main characters was not really possible because of the constant action–but in this case it worked. The story represented the world as a whole, and the action was the focal point, not the participants. But, the events and the cringe-inducing violence were enough to scare me, even with the lights on and a sleeping boyfriend by my side. So that’s a success in my book.

Definitely worth the read if you’re in for a bit of a creep-fest.

5 of 5 stars