Book Review: Cold Kiss by Amy Garvey

Title: Cold Kiss
Author: Amy Garvey
Series: stand alone book so far
Publisher: Harper Collins
Expected Release Date: September 20th, 2011
Format: e-book, ARC
Source: Netgalley
My Rating: 2.5 stars

"It seemed so right. Danny was mine, I was his, and that wasn't going to work if he was dead. So I would make him not dead, not anymore. I didn't think any further than what it would feel like to kiss him again, to wrap my arms around him and bury my head against his shoulder.That was my first mistake. It also turned out to be the biggest."
When her boyfriend, Danny, is killed in a car accident, Wren can't imagine living without him. Wild with grief, she uses the untamed powers she's inherited to bring him back. But the Danny who returns is just a shell of the boy she once loved. 
Wren has spent four months keeping Danny hidden, while her life slowly unravels around her. Then Gabriel DeMarnes transfers to her school and somehow, inexplicably, he can sense her secret. Wren finds herself drawn to Gabriel, who is so much more alive than the ghost of the boy she loved. But Wren can't turn her back on Danny or the choice she made for him-and she realizes she must find a way to make things right, even if it means breaking her own heart.

Cold Kiss was my first book about zombies and I found myself waiting anxiously to read it. Sadly I was dissapointed. When I heard it was about zombies my first thought was that the book will be filled with a lot of zombie action but found that the book was focused on Wren and her feelings for her undead dead boyfriend. See the zombie in this story is her boyfriend that she brought to life because she couldn't handle the loss.

Throughout the book we get glimpses of how their relationship was before Danny died and Wren realizing as the time passes that the Danny she brought back has nothing to do with the Danny she fall in love with. There wasn't really any action in it but it kept me reading in the hopes I would find some in the end. Needless to say I loved Danny's and Wren's relationship, at least the 'alive' Danny.

In this story we are being introduced to the new love interest named Gabriel. I couldn't see a connection between Wren and Gabriel unfortunately and just couldn't believe that those two were falling for each other. Wren acts selfish pretty much throughout the novel and Gabriel just stood there. If I were him I would be long gone.

Another aspect of the story was Wren's family and their magical abilities which was not explained at all in the book. By the end of Cold Kiss we know nothing about their abilities expect from the fact that the women do have magic but not their uses or where it came from and what kind of powers they have. 

Overall I liked the book. I was just expecting something else.

Frosy

The abc's of Kissing Boys >> Book Review

Title: The abc's of Kissing Boys

Author: Tina Ferraro

Publisher: Delacorte Press

Date Published: 2009

Format: Paperback

Pages: 215

Source: The library

My Rating: 5 stars

Synopsis

Parker Stanhope has played soccer practically since she could walk. And now that she’s a high school junior, everything she’s worked for is finally coming together. She's paid her dues on the field, and as an upperclassman she's a shoo-in for the varsity team. Anyway, the coach moves everyone from JV up to varsity. It's just what happens. 

But that's not what happens.

This year Coach Hartley moved up every JV player but two-and one of those was Parker. 

Parker has spent her life being a team player, but as soon as school starts, she's stuck with (horror of horrors) the freshmen, and her love of the game is seriously beginning to fail. Worse? Her friends her own age are cutting her loose, and now the freshmen kid across the street is the only person who'll give her the time of day. 

But Parker's determined to get her life back. She has to get on the varsity team, and she has the perfect plan. The only catch? She has to trick her way into a place in the kissing booth at the school's annual sport's fair, then pull a stunt crazier than any she could ever dream up on her own. But the kiss has to look real. And Parker is less than experienced in playing that sort of field.

Parker knows that practice makes perfect. Now she just has to find the right coach...

My Review

The ABC's of Kissing Boys is a really fun and quick read. I enjoyed every aspect of this book. Parker, a junior, came up with a plan to get her into varsity soccer that involved kissing a boy. The thing was that she had no experience in kissing boys. So her neighbor Tristan, and a freshman, comes to her rescue. 

The romance between those two was adorable and even though Tristan was younger than Parker, he was very mature for his age. I would say even more than Parker, but by the end of the book she matures enough to make the right decisions.

The book, besides the romance, deals with friendship. Parker throughout the book gets challenged and is wary about who her real friends are. Sometimes I got frustrated and wanted to yell at her to make her see who her real friend are but she managed to figure that out. 

What I also loved was the chapter-headings! The author managed to give kissing advice on each letter of the alphabet! 

Overall I loved this book and I would definitely recommend this to anyone who enjoys YA books. 

Frosy 

Buy the book at Amazon | Book Depository  (Format Paperback)

or Amazon (Format e-book, Kindle)

The Secret Hour >> Book Review

The Secret Hour by Scott Westerfeld 

Midnighters, Book 1

paperback pages: 297

My Rating 2.5 stars

Nobody is safe in the secret hour.

Strange things happen at midnight in the town of Bixby, Oklahoma. 

Time freezes. 

Nobody moves.

For one secret hour each night, the town belongs to the dark creatures that haunt the shadows. Only a small group of teenagers knows about the secret hour-only they are free to move about the midnight time.

They call themselves Midnighters. 

Each one has a different power that is strongest at midnight: Seer, Mindcaster, Acrobat, Polymath. For years the Midnighters and the dark creatures have shared the secret hour, uneasily avoiding one another. All that changes when the new girl with an unmistakable midnight aura appears at Bixby High School. 

Jessica Day is not an outsider like the other Midnighters. She acts perfectly normal in every way. But it soon becomes clear that the dark creatures sense a hidden power in Jessica... and they're determined to stop her before she can use it. 

My Review

Humans that are born at the stroke of midnight have the ability to access the secret 25^th hour of the day. Wouldn’t you like the extra hour? I know I would.

The promise that out there is something more than what we see and feel is really interesting and will definitely be appealing to those who like sci-fi books.

This is my first sci-fi book so it was kind of hard to get into but once that was over and I got to know the characters I found myself trying to find ways for the characters to escape..... not saying! J

The truth is these series have really stuck with me and days after I read them I was thinking about them. It has enough science stuff for those of you that are interested to know how things happened, like me, and it was simple enough for those who don’t want to have a headache from the entire information overflow.

The characters were really unique and each one of them had a different talent. They call themselves Midnighters since they are the only humans that live in the secret hour but not for long because something dark out there wants them. These creatures, called daklings, are the other things that live or better exist at the secret hour. They only live at the 25^th hour and that’s a relief because they are after Jessica. But she has the help of 4 other Midnighters, all with special talents.

The writing was in third person narrative which is my favourite. A plus! You will find yourself turning the pages fast and eager to see what happens next.

I only gave it 2 stars because it was hard for me to get into and because there wasn’t the love story I wanted to see but let me tell you the next books are better. This is the kind of series that gets better as it goes. So read it and then go for the next one!

Frosy 

Buy the book at Amazon | Book Depository  (Hardcover Format)

Amazon | Book Depository  (Paperback Format)