Zombies vs. Unicorns

It's a question as old as time itself: which is better, the zombie or the unicorn? In this anthology, edited by Holly Black and Justine Larbalestier (unicorn and zombie, respectively), strong arguments are made for both sides in the form of short stories. Half of the stories portray the strengths—for good and evil—of unicorns and half show the good (and really, really bad-ass) side of zombies. Contributors include many bestselling teen authors, including Cassandra Clare, Libba Bray, Maureen Johnson, Meg Cabot, Scott Westerfeld, and Margo Lanagan. This anthology will have everyone asking: Team Zombie or Team Unicorn?

Aithen's Review

This was a pretty awesome anthology, to say the least.

I adore zombies (though as a kid, I was a fervent believer that unicorns existed and would be back to save the world - some day), and I was already 100% team zombie before I even started reading this anthology. But that didn't stop me from loving many team unicorn stories (even if the zombies were better, in the end).

Something I really loved is the little introductions Holly Black and Justine Larbalestier gave before each story. They were really funny, and it was cute to see them argue about which kind of mythical creature was best.

It was amazing to see all the different stories that could be done with the theme. Every single one was different, even if a zombie or unicorn had to play a main part. They were all quite different, and that is what made every single story interesting.

Of course, I won't review every single story in the book, but I'll tell you the highlights of my read:

- The Children of the Revolution, by Maureen Johnson
A seriously deranged story that sent shivers down my spine. My favourite story of all. No story can even start to amaze me as much as this one. I had never heard of the author before, but I am definitely hunting down more of her books with my Christmas money.

- The Care and Feeding of your Baby Killer Unicorn, by Diana Peterfreund
A really amazing unicorn story. Killer unicorns? Count me in! This story was really, really cool, and the best of the unicorn stories. If all unicorn stories were as good as this one, maybe my unconditional zombie love would've wavered. Maybe.

- Inoculata, by Scott Westerfeld
A strange spin on a zombie story. Zombie-human hybrids are extremely interesting, and the fact that the main love-story is between two girls just adds to the awesomeness.

- Princess Prettypants, by Meg Cabot
Absolutely hilarious, this story kept me laughing all through physics class (don't do like me, kids, reading in class is bad, bad bad XD). It was a caricature, really, of the sparkling purple and white unicorns of our childhood, and it was exquisitely done, too. Another author I've never heard of and am going to read more from. (Okay, wait, scratch that. ALL her stories are sparkling-colorful-girlish stuff. Guhh. )

These stories could've given this book an easy 10. Sadly, some of them weren't as good (Like Cassandra Clare's Cold Hands. I was so disappointed with it, and I already didn't really like her books and wasn't expecting too much. Margo Lanagan's A Thousand Flowers actually disgusted me. Bestiality? With a unicorn? Uh, sorry, but no. Hating that.) and made me want to give this book a 6. That's the problem with anthologies, I guess. Some stories are amazing, some aren't, and you have to live with it. Overall, though, it was really excellent, and I recommend it to all zombie-, unicorn-, and fantasy-lovers out there.

What team will you be on? Zombie, or unicorn?

The awesome-tastic promotional video

-Aithen

Zombies vs. Unicorns edited by Holly Black and Justine Larbalestier
Rating : 8,5/10

Beryl's Review

I'll tell you which story I liked, and which I didn't.

Those that I liked:

Love Will Tear us Apart (Alaya Dawn Johnson): This story is told by the point of view of a zombie, which I found interesting, since no other story did this. All the thoughts and the mentality of the protagonist who is actually the zombie really gave a cool insight.

Purity Test (Naomi Novik): Hilariously ridiculous. It's the kind of story that is so silly you just love it.

The Children of the Revolution (Maureen Johnson): This story was funny, but I found it a bit generic. I know Maureen Johnson is a popular and good author, but I found her story a bit unoriginal. She took the base concept of zombies and made her characters turn into them. Let's say there was no new element. She didn't try to redo the concept of zombies in her own way. The reading was nevertheless good.

The Care and Feeding of your Baby Killer Unicorn (Diana Peterfreund): I think this one is my favorite. I just found it really fun to read and I couldn't wait to learn what happened to the baby unicorn.

Inoculata (Scott Westerfeld) : This story had an interesting concept, and kudos for the lesbian pairing.

Princess Prettypants (Meg Cabot): I laughed so hard while I read this. This story really made me pity and relate to the protagonist. It's another of my favorite stories.

The Third Virgin (Kathleen Duey): The story is told by the point of view of a unicorn, and so it's another interesting insight. Loved the ending.

Prom night (Libba Bray): Libba Bray has a usual succeeded in creating this atmosphere that makes the reader want to keep reading. Her short story really seemed like the beginning of an awesome novel. It only lacked a bit more of zombie action.

Those I didn't like

The Highest Justice (Garth Nix): Very dull, lack of characterization, and a mess overall. I browsed through it quickly instead of wasting my time reading it.

Bougainvillea (Carrie Ryan): It had a nice decor and setting, but the rest was boring.

A Thousand Flowers (MargoLlanagan): Somewhat weird. A failed attempt at creating a sort of fairytale with bestiality. What I hated most was that the story was told by the point of view of three persons, but in the 1st person. You don't write a few pages using the 1st person point of view, because it has the effect that the reader quickly gets attached to the narrator. If you kill the narrator off a few pages after, and switch to another person, the reader is destabilized. The transactions from person to person were also messy.

Cold hands (Cassandra clare): Boring. It's Cassandra Clare, after all.

-Beryl

Rating : 9/10 (if you don't count the bad stories)

The Van Alen Legacy

With the stunning revelation surrounding Bliss's true identity comes the growing threat of the sinister Silver Bloods. Once left to live the glamorous life in New York City, the Blue Bloods now find themselves in an epic battle for survival. Not to worry, love is still in the air for the young vampires of the Upper East Side. Or is it? Jack and Schuyler are over. Oliver's brokenhearted. And only the cunning Mimi seems to be happily engaged.

She did it again. A whole year has passed between Revelations and the Van Alen Legacy, and I was not amused when I read that. So much has happened since Schuyler and Oliver have been on the run, and yet the author skips this potentially interesting developpement?! I swear, I thought it would get even better what happened in the previous book, but I see now it can only get worse.

The whole novel feels like de la Cruz had an epic writer’s bloc but forced herself to write and never got around to rereading herself and make the book better. The whole story arc is slowly lagging along and I don’t think it’s going to get any faster anytime soon.

There is one major problem: this has become your typical GOTTA SAVE THE WORLD!!!11!!ONE!
Yeah.

First of all, the runaway half-vampire is supposedly chassed by dozens of Blue Bloods, and by the dangerous demons too. She is the one who will save the world, after all. Yet her own kind and her enemies are trying to kill her, so she has to run instead of helping them.

Secondly, Schuyler and Jack hook up together... again. To Oliver’s great demise, of course. I wanted to stop reading then and there, but I forced myself to continue.

Little is actually revealed about the plot, apart from the fact that Bliss has Lucifer himself in her body. That nice, sweet girl has the dark prince inside her and he takes over her body from time to time. She speaks with her (dead) boyfriend Dylan in her head, because since she killed him in Revelations, he lives there.

The ending is quite impressive, or could have been if it didn’t involve absolute idiocy on Schuyler’s part and a bonding between Mimi and Jack. Yes, the gown of the bride as well as the clothes of everyone else there was merrily described.

Not many cliffhangers in this book, too, and only my dedication to this blog actually kept me reading. My reading pile is stacking high, and I don’t have time for any bad books like this. Don’t expect me to read the fifth one when it comes out, that would be sheer torture.

-Aithen

The Van Alen Legacy by Melissa de la Cruz
Rating: 6,7/10

Revelations

Have you ever wondered what secrets lurk behind the closed doors of New York City's wealthiest families? They're powerful, they're famous... they're undead.

Schuyler Van Alen's blood legacy has just been called into question--is the young vampire in fact a Blue Blood, or is it the sinister Silver Blood that runs through her veins? As controversy swirls, Schuyler is left stranded in the Force household, trapped under the same roof as her cunning nemesis, Mimi Force, and her forbidden crush, Jack Force.

When one of the Gates of Hell is breached by Silver Bloods in Rio de Janeiro, however, the Blue Bloods will need Schuyler on their side. The stakes are high; the battle is bloody; and through it all, Carnavale rages on. And in the end, one vampire's secret identity will be exposed in a revelation that shocks everyone.

The third book of the Blue Blood series, Revelations (the two first ones were Blue Bloods and Masquerade), is much better than the second one, even if the characters annoy me more and more. Finally, the plot is actually starting to unravel. The vampire business is finally coming back.

As the Silver Blood seem to grow in power, Mimi’s jealousy of Jack and Schuyler’s relationship is still at the same heights than at the end of the previous book. She therefore plans her bonding (wedding, in vampire terms) with her beloved brother. The conclave travels to Rio, for they fear the strongest of the Silver Bloods is back to haunt them. Conspiracies are played behind Lawrence’s back, even if he is the Regis, the vampire leader. More and more, we perceive the true nature of the vampires, and the long story behind them.

The characters are still the same, and still as bland. Hardly any character development and way too much love obsession for me to feel comfortable. No one the age of Schuyler and Jack actually obsesses over someone to the point of renting an apartment for the sake of meeting up with a secret lover. Their love downright annoyed me, since they had never had any interest in each other before the first book of the series.

Apart from all the lovey-dovey stuff with Schuyler and Jack, this is actually quite action packed, compared to the two previous novels. What happens in Rio is entertaining and captivating for the few pages it happens on. I wish this scene had been longer, or that more emphasis had been put on it. A couple of other scenes with similar action could’ve been fun, but I guess this’ll have to do.

This is probably my favourite book yet in this series, but that isn’t saying much. It is, all in all similar in quality to the two previous ones, and I really do hope it will get better in the next book.

-Aithen

Revelations by Melissa de la Cruz
Rating : 7,3/10

Masquerade

Schuyler Van Alen is starting to get more comfortable with her newfound vampire powers, but she still has many unanswered questions. A trip to Italy in search of her grandfather only serves to make things more confusing. What secrets are the leaders of The Committee hiding? Meanwhile, back in New York, preparations are feverishly underway for the famous Four Hundred Ball. In true Blue Blood fashion, the ball is totally fab, complete with masks, and hidden behind this masquerade is a revelation that will change the course of a young vampire's destiny.

The sequel to Blue Bloods, Masquerade, profoundly disappointed me. I really wanted to love it; the story that had started in Blue Bloods was excellent and very promising. But this second novel just wasn’t as good as it could’ve been.

The first few pages made me yawn and flail in a frustrated manner at the same time. The second book debuts several months after the first one’s end. Schuyler and Oliver have traveled to Venice to find Lawrence, as Cordelia had asked them to. There are so many things that could’ve happened during the lost months! I could hardly contain my deception when I realized when Masquerade picked up.

So little interesting things actually happen in this book. Almost nothing otherworldly, that’s for sure. Mimi throws a ball, Schuyler learns to live with her grandfather (that she gets to love very quickly), and Jack and Schuyler date in secret. Honestly, this book bored me. The only vampire-related action is that Lawrence starts teaching Schuyler how to use her extraordinary, out of the norm powers.

By the way, in this book, two horrible things happened to the characters. Schuyler, the protagonist, is discovered to be as strong as an archangel, even if she is only a half-vampire. And Bliss is Schuyler’s hidden sister. Can someone please shoot me? These two things alone pretty much killed all interest I had for this book and made me want to throw it out the window.

I can’t say nothing in this book was good, though, since while the protagonists just do teenager stuff, in the background, a very interesting story is unfolding. The whole Silver Blood story arc is sadly relegated to a minor position as trivial matters seem to be the whole point of this book, but it is nonetheless excellent. If only the focus had been on this, instead of Mimi’s shopping sessions!

The vampire’s immortal background stories that mesmerized me in the first book also more or less disappeared, and we don’t learn as much about the past lives of the individual vampires as we’d like.

The countless descriptions of ball gowns, parties and food kind of made me nauseous, once again. There seems to be more and more as the book goes on, cutting precious space to explain the actual plot.

All in all, Masquerade annoyed me, and I wish Melissa de la Cruz had developed more on the story and background. It is directly aimed at an audience with a taste for clothes and glamour, and I am not in this crowd. I prefer good characters and plot to clothes and parties any day. I will continue reading this series, but am now wary of what might come out of it. I no longer have much hope for it to get any better.

-Aithen

Masquerade by Melissa de la Cruz
Rating : 7/10

Blue Bloods

When the Mayflower set sail in 1620, it carried on board the men and women who would shape America: Miles Standish; John Alden; Constance Hopkins. But some among the Pilgrims were not pure of heart; they were not escaping religious persecution. Indeed, they were not even human. They were vampires.The vampires assimilated quickly into the New World. Rising to levels of enormous power, wealth, and influence, they were the celebrated blue bloods of American society.

The Blue Bloods vowed that their immortal status would remain a closely guarded secret. And they kept that secret for centuries. But now, in New York City, the secret is seeping out. Schuyler Van Alen is a sophomore at a prestigious private school. Suddenly, when she turns fifteen, there is a visible mosaic of blue veins on her arm. She starts to crave raw food and she is having flashbacks to ancient times. Then a girl from her school is found dead... drained of all her blood. Schuyler doesn't know what to think.

Could those vampire legends really be true?

Like Beryl said, this was some sort of contest to see who could find the worst book with great reviews and survive. Obviously, she won, since Blue Bloods was actually a pretty good book.
First of all, the characters had a certain depth. Of course, they could have been elaborated more and they were all kind of cliché in their own way, but they weren't the worst characters I ever read about. Schuyler was a pretty typical emo girl, Oliver her faithful best friend, Mimi the prick you want to slap, Jack the sexy awesome vampire, Bliss the misfit popular girl. I find the relationship between Mimi and Jack fascinating.

One thing I sometimes found annoying is how some of the girls were so superficial it hurt. There were too many parties and clothes shopping sprees and clothes descriptions for my liking. Also, Jack Force made me slightly apprehensive at the beginning, since he sounded like another Edward. When it became evident that he and Schuyler wouldn't be hooking up (at least, not for too long), I could breathe better.

Also, the vampires were different from the classic killing beasts without being sparkling Twilight vampires. They had codes, rules, laws that they have to respect, they had a history, they are organized. Their whole concept is quite mesmerizing, I even think it is worth picking this book up just for them.

The story actually had a plot, which was, I must admit, excellent. There are many answers you want to know, and the idea of a greater predator preying on the mighty vampires was good. It wasn't your typical lets-save-the-world book, it was more like lets-save-the-vampires. The ending makes you want to read on, and I just picked up Masquerade. Expect its review sometime soon.

Finally, the author's style was very nice, with great vocabulary and no abuse of slang terms (such as 'like', 'omigod', etc.).

Overall, this was a good book that will mostly please teenage girls. It is nothing like Twilight, that is for sure. It really ressembles City of Bones by Cassandra Clare, so if you loved that novel, you'll probably like this one too.

-Aithen

Blue Bloods by Melissa de la Cruz
Rating : 7,3/10