Undead

Though it is a commonly knowledge fact that Johnathan Maberry's "Rot and Ruin" series are the best YA zombie books out there, "Undead" by Kirsty McKay begs to differ.
     Life could not get worse for Bobby.  Not only was she forced to attend a class skiing trip with a class that hates her, a twist of fate leaves her sequestered in the school bus with the class bad boy, Smitty.  So, cue the teenage hormones and romance or the blood, guts, gore, maggots, carrot men, explosions, and . . . zombies? Joined by the pasty-faced albino nerd (Pete) and the head cheerleader (Alice aka Malice), the teenagers face down horrors such as surveillance cameras, vegetable juice, shrink-wrapped sandwiches, and the undead armed with ski equipment and their own ingenuity.  The only thing that would have been worse was if they'd gotten off the bus in the first place . .
.

I say that this is better than "Rot and Ruin" any day. No, I never did a review of "Rot and Ruin" though, yes, it is generally considered the best zombie book out there--every other zombie book gets compared to it. And, yes, Tom Imura might possibly be the most sympathetic zombie-hunter out there, but halfway through "Dust and Decay," the second book, I fell asleep. So, obviously, Tom Imura, his bratty little brother, that--girl-who-wants-revenge-but-was-basically-brought-along-for-kicks, the-kid-who-didn't-want-to-be-there-and-kept-getting-into-trouble, and the girl who was mysterious-and-oh-so-hot couldn't hold my interest for all that long.  (Oh, and I might have given away the whole plot line for the first two books.  Sorry.)
     Smitty, on the other hand, is very interesting. Possibly that could be because he is insane, unlike the Imuras who are reasonable and posses the power of forethought 50% of the time.  I highly doubt that Tom Imura would chop a zombie's head off with a snowboard.
      Anyway, and now I'll stop with the "Rot and Ruin" references, this book is my sort of book.  Plenty of guts and gore without the prominent and exaggerated battle scene towards the end, because the battle is all through out the book.  Also, there is plenty of inanity.  The whole plot is insane.  The characters are insane. The whole thing's fantastic.
      I did know what was causing people to rise again before the characters did, but that didn't ruin the plot too much.  I also figured out who was behind the whole thing, because it was a bit typical, but it didn't ruin any of the fun.  The last paragraph, though, has a twist that annoys me so much . . . My teeth clench up just thinking about it. Why do people do such things to me!?!
      My favorite character is Bobby.  At first, you get the sense that she's a reasonable heroine, the type you usually get. Yes, she is a reasonable heroine, I do agree with that, but her reasonable isn't what most people would consider reasonable. The things that seem practical to her wouldn't necessarily seem practical to me, or most normal people, in the same situation. She isn't like a lot of modern-day heroines, though, becoming despondent when something isn't working out her way (Miss Everdeen?  No, we weren't just talking about you, were we?). There is almost no one else I would rather be stuck in a truck stop with during the zombie apocalypse.
      Her supporting cast is also amazing.  Smitty, as I've already mentioned. A bad-boy to rival Ronan Lynch, (though Ronan would come out on top because Ronan's amazing).  Pete is an amazing nerd.  I classify myself among their number, and I feel that though he does not represent the majority he is definitely amazing, and that is the only word I have. What dude could not notice that they have a piece of metal shelving sticking out of his head?  His madness knows no bounds of genius.  And, of course, Alice, nicknamed Malice by Smitty.  A cheerleader with an attitude.  She's not your stereotypical ditz, but she does think she is better than the other characters.  Since they out number her 3:1, though, that does get interesting quickly.
      "Undead" came out in the United States this spring, I think.  I picked it up over the summer and read it twice within the space of a month and half, which says something to the quality because usually I have to wait six months before I can re-read something.  "Unfed," the sequal, just came out on this side of the pond, and I wanted to order it from England earlier, but my mother was taking too long so I'll probably just go over to Barnes and Noble this weekend and get it because seriously, I cannot live with not knowing what happens next any longer.  I'll pull all of my hair out of my head if I'm am forced into waiting.
       So, anyways, it's a comedy and a disaster and a train wreck that you can't stop watching.  Turn around.  Run away. Save yourself.  And beware carrots bearing gifts.

The Raven Boys

Maggie Stiefvater was excellent in the anthology "The Curiosities: A Collection of Stories," but I have been lax in reviewing her books, a mistake I will rectify by drawing your attention to the first in her new(ish) triology:   "The Raven Boys."
     
Blue's first love will die after she kisses him.  Gansey wills stop at nothing to find a sleeping, hidden Welsh king of ages past. Blue knows that Gansey will die before the year is out, and because she knows that she knows that she will be the one to kill him.  Gansey is a Raven Boy, an elite and privilege student in the local private school who can make you believe he has everything under control. In Blue's race to save Gansey's life, she may end up killing him.
        Never trust a Raven Boy.

I was not a fan of Maggie Stiefvater's "Shiver" series, because I do not really put up with books that are merely about romance for the sake of romance.  I did like her "Scorpio Races" which was much better, though there was a lot of romance in there, but it was just for the sake of romance.  There were also flesh-eating horses, which is always a bonus.  "The Raven Boys" is by far the best novel she's written, and though it has romance it's romance-y with the threat of death.  So, that's perfectly acceptable.
        Also, it has my favorite thing.  A cast of absolutely crazy characters.  Blue is the main character.  She's a pretty standard tough-girl female heroine, but not in a bad way.  She has her own personality and is not stereotypical at all.  At first, I thought because she didn't have any physic powers the main conflict in the book would be her attaining the powers that were meant to be hers, or something awful and perfectly predictable like that.  I am happy to report, though, that that is not the part of the book.  Throughout the book she remains normal, but also a cut ahead of standard.  Blue is, put simply, I character that I would like to be. Though, I guess I didn't read the description of her appearance close enough, because I never get why Noah says she has spiky hair.
       The Raven Boys are also fantastic.  Noah--we'll discuss Noah in a minute, but Noah is awesome.  Gansey is the ring-leader, who is arrogant, well-intentioned, determined, and hardly able to see past the tip of his own nose.  Metaphorically, of course. Adam is the shy guy who is equally, if not more, determined to make a place for himself in the world. And, of course Ronan Lynch is your bad boy. His father was killed in front of him, so he enjoys getting drunk and getting into fist fights, as well as feeding baby ravens at the crack of dawn.  The juxposition in his personality makes him one of my favorite characters.  Oh, and if you couldn't tell, he's Irish.  (I am too, so I find it amusing.)
      Now, onto Noah.  Since this is Maggie Stiefvater, you accept that you are in her sort of off-kilter world the moment you open the cover (the off-kilter part of the world being flesh eating horses and whacked-out werewolves).  So, one of the first things that Noah says--or, more specifically, is said about Noah in Noah's presence--is sort of strange.  But, hey, this is fiction, so you accept it. Then, about seventy-five pages from the end of the book, everyone all goes like 'Omigod! Noah's actually _______ !' but you're like 'uh, yes, I knew that when Declan first said that, dummies.'  Anyways.  That still doesn't stop Noah from being awesome.
       The plot of this book is pretty good, with enough twists to keep you occupied.  Some of the things I like are the fact that:
             1) A relaxed atmosphere is maintained for the better part of the book.  It's the calm before the storm.  And, maybe people do find out who their true selves are in the face of adversary  but occasionally you want to meet the people before you are thrust into their fight with their adversary   You get to see the personalities of Blue and the Raven Boys fully develop before everything begins to crumble into pieces.
             2) Everyone knows something's going to happen.  It's said multiple times by multiple people.  Occasionally in books it's like normal-normal-normal-normal-DISASTER!  That is a very annoying habit. Because disaster doesn't come on suddenly, you can see it brewing for a while off.  In this book, you can.  Even though it's calm, you can see the storm brewing on the horizon  and you can see that despite all of the build-up and wait, it's going to be one dang good storm.
          Though, sadly, I think I already know what Gansey is going to wish for when he finds the Welsh king. (You get one wish if you find the king. It's not like I'm giving everything away, because it's told to you almost straight off.)  I mean, if you think about it it's pretty obvious.  But, maybe there will be some devastating twist and it won't actually happen that way.  Or, maybe, it'll happen the way I think it will happen and it won't be half-bad because I'm secretly a sap at heart.
          Even if the ultimate ending appears to be a bit predictable, the ending is anything but, and it is fantastic.  Everything is evening out perfectly, coming together in a happy ending in sort of a creepy/sad way.  Happy endings are always nice when they aren't too sappy.  And then my one of my favorite characters says something spectacular.  One of the best things about that line is that it hardly makes any sense.  (You know that you have a good book when the last sentence hardly makes any sense whatsoever, yet you still want to know what it means.)
        And, on that note, I might tell you that the sequel is called "The Dream Thief" is coming out on September 17th (2013, in case you're a time traveler and you were wondering what year you are in), and from the looks of it it's going to be focused around one of my favorite characters, namely one who's bald and tattooed and failing out of school and evidently has a penchant for stealing dreams.
         What did I say?  Never trust a Raven Boy.

http://maggiestiefvater.com/  I haven't looked at it yet, but it looks like a pretty interesting website, which is always good, because usually book websites can be very, uh, dull.

Rotters

What does it mean to be dead?  "Rotters" by Daniel Kraus has the answer.

Secrets are best left buried next to the skeletons in the closet, but it's hard to keep them down there when the source of your livelihood is buried six feet under, locked in a wooden box, and nestled between the pale white ribs of the ones best left in the closet.  The order of the grave robbers is an old and ancient one that's gasping its final breaths when two unexpected things happen:  Joey's mother dies, and a colleague commits the worse sort of heresy possible.  There's beauty in death, if you're around it long enough, as pale and as cold as it is.  The trouble is, if you accept death as your love, you're halfway there yourself.  Joey's drowning in a sea of bones, rats, and lies that are older than he is because nothing will ever be as it seems when you're the Resurrectionist's son.

This is not a book about zombies.  This is not a book about romance. Well, there is love, but it's not romance, really. This is not a book about happiness.  In fact, Daniel Kraus makes Lemony Snicket look like a Care Bear. This is not a book that has any definable parameters.  This is not a book that one raves and gushes about, because in a way, it's too sacred for that.
       This book does not have any definable parameters because it is so many things.  At first, it seems like a realistic fiction book, in which a boy's mother dies and then he has to go live with his horrible father and go to a horrible school where everyone picks on him, including the teachers. For a while there, you think that he's going to do alright, get the girl of his dreams, rise up from his underdog status, and show those bullies their proper places, etc. like in a lot of other books.  Then, you realize that you still have 3/4's of the book to go, you haven't even figured out why the name of the book is 'Rotters,' and that there's a picture of a shovel sticking out of the dirt next to a tombstone on the cover.
       After you get out of the part where it's all a nightmarish high-school fantasy, it gets pretty twisted.  Excuse me, really twisted.  But, that is the most fantastic part about it. In the beginning it's pretty tame.  They rob graves, big whoop.  It's pretty interesting how Joey's interactions at school are directly influenced by his 'graveyard shift' (excuse me, I had to).  He is one of the most dynamic characters I've seen, and even as he steps away from being what fundamentally made him Joey in the beginning of the book and he stops being recognizably Joey, he is still Joey.  It's rare to find a character that changes so absolutely, completely, and believably over the course of one book.
      The high school drama also serves to anchor the book.  In the end of the book, when there is no more high school stuff and everything gets dramatically more weird, the book gets almost dreamy, because there's nothing there that you can really connect with.  Yet, it's better for that.  The book becomes more because true understanding of the real situation lies on the peripheral of your understanding.  It doesn't make any sense now, while you're reading this, but it makes a lot of sense while you're reading the book.  Which, I hope you do, because it's a fantastic book.
     The whole thing with the dudes chasing after the dad because he robbed the grave after he saw the rat king is a bit absurd, though.  If I saw an evil omen, I would've gone back to my house and sat there for a while and thought some before I jumped the gun and did.  It seemed completely out of everything we knew about the Resurrectionist's character.
      Speaking of character, the characters are very.  As you know by now, I like a decently sized cast of personable characters.  This book has two main characters--Joey, and his dad, though, I would suppose you'd be amiss if you didn't count Baby as a main character, so say you have three main characters--and really, only a few of them converse at a time.  Half of the characters in the book are repulsive, and the other half are reclusive.  They are personable,if personable means they have their quirks, but they are a very odd sort of personable.  None of them are loud or overly sarcastic, which is more my style, but most are quietly cynical. And then there are, of course, the few people who devote themselves to a cause with a whole-hearted passion, which I don't really understand, but I almost can, per the style of the writing.  The only person you really connect to is Joey, and the only one you really, really like is Ike or Joey's father's mentor.  Yeah.  But everyone's personality is fantastic, even if you hate them.  Each are their own person, and you forget that they are merely characters in a book.
       The world they live in is vivid, if not bright.  A good book will keep you anchored by not moving to new places every other page.  Many places in this book are revisited and reused, so it feels like you've actually been somewhere, not skimmed by it. That doesn't make any sense either. Excuse me.
      In this day and age, people are easily offended, so I'm going to tell you that there is a bit of a religious undertone.  He doesn't go to church, but there's a dude that comes around frequently telling him that his soul needs to be saved.  And then there the two-fingered Jesus.  I mean, I don't know what people's boundaries are, and I am an open-minded person who doesn't really get people's boundaries, so I thought I would just put that out there.
      And so, now to the ending.  All I'm going to say is that it is a pretty open-ended ending, one that's fantastic and creepy and mysterious and brings up more questions than it does answers.  It's the sort of ending that leads to a sequel, in most cases, but if anyone makes a sequel to this I will personally bring them to their grave because perfection should not be messed with, and, anyways, what could be a better resolution than that?  So, for once, I am pretty pleased with an ending. That must be some sort of momentous event, no?
        The question that this book is supposed to answer, as I posed up in the beginning--'what does it mean to be dead'--is never answered outright, but you're given enough information to form your own answer.  For me, I think that the moment you die is the moment you stop worrying about whether you're truly alive.

http://danielkraus.com/rotters.php  Watch the video by Vorvolakas (that's a band that plays a significant part in the book).  It's pretty creepy, once you get into.  And, I think they're chanting 'pain will not escape you,' or something of that kin, but I'm too sure.  His other books look pretty cool, too.

Death Watch

"Death Watch," Ari Berk, is a fantastic novel on death and what it means to live.
       Lichport is a town where the dead outnumber the living.  Amos Umber used to be the town's Undertaker, putting the spirits of the dead to rest and keeping the fragile peace between the world.  Amos Umber went missing while working a year ago, though, and his disappearance has haunted his son, Silas.  Moving into his uncle's house in Lichport, Silas stalks the old, abandoned streets looking for clues to his fathers appearance.  But Silas is no child and the more time he spends looking for his lost father is less time he has to figure out the real problem in Lichport, the one that's got everyone on their toes; a lonely ghost locked in a house, an insane man looking for blood, and the ship wicked that's hovering just beyond the horizon.

You know what's going on forty pages after Silas steps over the threshold and into his uncle's house.  Well, you know the basic premise of what's going to happen, but still.  That's a hundred pages into a (I want to say) 500 page book? Eh.  Could be better.
     Also, Silas is a spoiled brat.  All he thinks about is his 'girlfriend' and his father's disappearance.  Okay, so, maybe he's not a spoiled brat.  But he's pretty self-absorbed.  He is a basically good person and he's selfless when he can see past his own problem.  When Mr. Peale dies he's still wrapped up in his father and he has to do the final rites.  Hello?  Quit worrying.  There's a time for everything.  Eventually, though, I do believe that he learns his lesson.  It's always nice to see a character grow after reading an absurdly long novel.  In my mind, he was cutting an impressive figure by the end, but that might just be my perception and my obsession of good beating evil, good personalities over bad personalities.
     I'm not saying that it's a bad book, though. It's one of those books that can carrying on no matter what mood the protagonist is in.  There isn't a dreadful amount of dialogue; the descriptions of things outweigh the dialogue by far.  The amount of description is like that of C.S. Lewis's, in literary nature, of course.  I've heard some people describe the Narnia books as wordy, and if you can't handle those I don't believe that "Death Watch" is for you.
      But, lo, the descriptions describe something wonderful.  The ghostly worlds jump of the page.  It's phenomenal.  The town of Lichport is as real as any town on the map, sometimes more real.  The closed in lanes of the Narrows; the playground;  the cramped, chaotic, and serene sight of that graveyard that's on the hill that I've gone and forgotten the name of; and (one of my favorite parts) the tea house and the alehouse where the spirits go to forget that they ever lived.  They all played like a little movie in my head, and I believe that I would recognize those places if I ever stumbled across them.
       Also, I love books about death.  I know that's extraordinarily morbid, but I do. Books that bring up theories about what happens to you after you die, books that speculate what the meaning of death is.  This is a book that does both, with an added question: What is death if you've never really lived at all  The question is sort of buried within the many pages, but I agree with it wholeheartedly, or, at least, as much as one can agree with a question.  The book also brings up another interesting concept (yes, this one also has to do with death); the memory of the dead.
       Not the memory of the spirits, but how people remember them.  Silas's mother's grandfather decided not to die, so he's basically a 'zombie' or a corpse with a will.  No, he does not try to eat anyone's brains, sorry for the disappointment.  Mainly, he sleeps.  But, all that aside, Silas's mother's grandfather is a good example of the books theme "Remember the dead," because Silas's mother is afraid of her grandfather. She doesn't want to remember him.  In fact, she moves so she doesn't have to remember him anymore.  This could be in part because he's a corpse, but it also could be a metaphor, and not just about death.  A lot of people are afraid to remember things that are painful to them.
      Also, in the spirit world, spirits try to remember things too.  I think that those souls 'have lost something but have given up on looking for it' but I don't have the book in front of me so I can't check up on the correct wording.  But these souls lost something in their life, and now, upon their death, they've given up looking, but they're still stuck. This could be another metaphor, but about people who are living.
     So, really, the book isn't all about death.  It's about the living and how death affects them.  It has multiple levels, which makes for an enthralling read.  All in all, Silas Umber's story isn't half bad, not half bad at all.  Now, if only he can stay alive long enough to give us more of them.

Scorch

"Scorch," the sequel to the fantastic "Croak," by Gina Damico is finally out.
      Cordy is dead, a physotic serial killer is on the loose, and all of Croak blames Lex and Mort. With Norwood and Heloise pointing fingers at any Junior who breathes funny the world is falling to pieces. To make matters worse, Zara is murdering her way from criminals to innocents and everyone in between, just to make a point.  As Grims start falling dead in the streets Lex must run so the wrath of the "Croakers" can't get her before Zara can. But the only way to save the world this time is to figure out who "Bone, the sick scythe bandit" is and where the mysterious "Wrong Book" is, so with limited resources and limited time, Lex finds that it's her responsibility to stop the dominoes her uncle started falling with the touch of his finger.

I hate this book.  No, let me revise.  I have a love/hate relationship with this book.  Because it's so darn good . . . and it's so darn bad. I mean, come on.  Did that really have to happen?  Really?  It's so painful to read.  Too painful, almost.  Like ripping your heart out and roasting it over the open flame.  But I only hate it so much because I like it so much.  It's an awful conundrum.
       I think that this book, if it's even possible, is even more hysterical then the first one (though that could just be because I've over-read the first one).  Again, there is a strong language warning on this.  A strong warning about strong language.  And, uh, since Driggs and Lex are, like, dating or whatever it is that Grim Reapers to, there is a lot of . . . snogging, to put it into British terms.  Just an advisory.
      Now, to analyze the plot.  I hate it.  And I can't say much more without giving anything away.  But I hate it, hate it, hate it, hate it. Except for the funny parts.  And the part where they're hiding out in DeMyse and everything is so ludicrously fabulous it's like Katniss going into the Capital in the "Hunger Games" (don't you think I didn't notice that parallel Ms. Damico).  So, yeah.
       The characters are still wildly funny and extraordinarily wacky, which is always good.  There are some new ones to make up for the ones that have been lost or do get lost during the course of the book (in every love/hate book someone has to die, and you just know it).
         Lex is still dealing with all that inner angst that we all known and love: Occasionally she blows up dirt or pencils or furniture, which is always fun to watch.  Driggs doesn't play the drums at all during this book, nor does he mention the Titanic, but we know he's not an impostor because, well . . . He's madly in love with the most difficult Grim Reaper in any life, After or otherwise.  And we'll leave it at that.  You get to see a side of Cordy that you had only seen momentarily in "Croak" and it leaves you wondering "those two girls really grew up in the same house?"  And you see Mort to is full Mort-ness.  You also see Pip and Bang in ways that you've never seen Pip and Bang before, mainly you've never seen Pip and Bang before.  So, there's comfort with the old characters and an edge with the new characters.  It's a nice mix.
       And again, the humor.  Always with the humor.  It's just such a silly book, even though it's about death and stuff.  If it was a serious book, I think I wouldn't like it.  Who would want to read a morbid book about a girl who goes around and steals other people's souls?  But a book about a bunch of teens who go around, steal people's souls, come back home, and have a social uprising on their hands and deal with it all while laughing is a serious winner.  A pick-me-up for when all of the Zaras and Norwoods in your life are out to get you.
        Uh, la la la.  There are some twists.  Big twists.  One big twist.  One I hate.  I haven't fully finished the book yet, but I just thought it was so wonderfully awful that I had to tell it to you right away.  If I say any more about the big twist, though, I know that I'll give it all away so I'll stop harping on it.
         But I despise its guts.
         Moving on.  I do not know when the third one will be out, but rest assured that there will be a third one because this one is not going to be wrapped up any time soon at the rate I'm going at.  I don't know when it comes out, though, because "Scorch" came out on September 25, and the website isn't saying anything about another one in the series yet.
        A theme of this book, humor and all, might be that we shouldn't fear death because it's just another stage in life.  "Don't fear the reaper," as the Blue Oyster Cult says.  Laugh at it,  as Lexington Bartleby says, because the Afterlife is pretty much the best thing out there.  Next to that ice cream that Cordy and I ate a week before the place that sold it closed.

The website is, as it always is, is www.ginadamic.co  If you go to ginadamico.com you get a realtor's site, just so you know.

Croak

Croak, by Gina Damico, is a hilariously grim book about the one thing that every human is afraid of.
      Lexington Bartleby is a good girl gone rouge.  From straight-A's to having to be tied to her chair during dinner so she doesn't kill a family member, Lex would baffle even Freud.  So when her parents get an offer to send Lex to work on her Uncle Mort's farm in upstate New York, they are delighted.  Could this be an end to their problems?  But Lex is devastated--she can't remember a time when she's ever been away from her twin sister, Cordy, and she really, really, really, doesn't want to go to live with a man she hasn't seen since she was six.  He could be, like, a homicidal maniac or something. 
     Lex's fears are proven to be true when she finds out that Croak, the town Uncle Mort lives, is a town for the secret population of Grim Reapers.  And Lex's summer job to join their ranks and reap the souls of the dearly departed.
      But, as the pesky literary devices of plot and conflict would have it, nothing is as simple as it seems.  From dead presidents and poets who hate each other's guts, to a boy who might be better looking than Lex would like to admit, to a rash of mysterious deaths that might be linked to a shady figure of legend, the tension within Croak escalates with each step Lex takes--and the population begins to see her as more of a threat than a fellow Grim.
       When there's a chance that the harbingers of death might die, things will get tight, especially when all of Croak is forced to face a stinging betrayal -- and Lex's world is rocked forever.

When I grow up I want to be a Grim Reaper.  Really.  If I get to live in a story-world as delightful as Croak I would stay there for forever and ever and ever. And ever.  I actually went out and bought the book, I liked it so much.  (It's $8.99 at both Barnes and Noble and at the Apple iStore, or whatever it's called.)
      Croak is a lovable town, full of whimsical characters, from the old man, Cropp, who owns the local tavern and is susceptible to flattery, to his wife, Pandora, who owns a diner and enjoys throwing food at her customers, to Kilda, the overly-energetic tourist deterrent, to Mort, the, uh, eccentric mayor, to Norwood and Heloise, a husband-and-wife pair who can be likened to vultures who pick at beings who are still alive. 
      The Junior Grims have their charms too:  Kyloo, the mother of the group, Zara, who's the best Junior Grim and isn't afraid to admit it, Ayjay, who is Kyloo's boyfriend and not much else, Ferb, the video-gaming nerd, Sofi, the girl in pink, and Elysia, everyone's best friend.  Of course, my two favorite characters, Lex, the juvenile delinquent, and Driggs, the witty drummer, are constantly at odds, except . . . when they're not.
     There are basically two plot lines, one in the beginning of the book and one near the middle and end of the book.  The first plot line is Lex getting adjusted to Croak.  The second is the mysterious deaths.  They transition smoothly, overlapping somewhat in the middle, though there are parts that only seem consequential upon reflection. Also, the story is buoyant despite the grim (ha ha) subject matter because it is hilarious.  For precautionary measures I will note that there is some language that may not be suitable for all age groups.  Juvenile delinquents do cuss a lot. 
      The book does require some suspension of disbelief and there are some parts which are in there purely for the humor.  And, of course, which book wouldn't be complete without romance?  Also, to myself, the events directly after the climax are a bit anti-climatic.
      This is a book that doesn't hesitate to cut apart the shroud of perfect it wrapped you in, and all the better for it.  So many books these days are scared to make you hate them, but this book does it, and you find you can't hate it even if you want to.   All that's left to say is that Gina Damico better come out with a sequel soon, and thank-you, person, who left this book over by the manga section because I never would've spotted it otherwise.

http://www.ginadami.co/  This is the website.  There are some reviews, a better description of the book, and an . . . interesting book trailer.  Yeah.