The Reapers Are The Angels

How to describe The Angels Are the Reapers? Sure, it's a zombie story, but it's so different than most other books with that theme that it's hard to know precisely what to say. I finished the book a few days ago and I'm still digesting the story, and I imagine I'll still be thinking about it long after I finish this review.

The Angels Are the Reapers is the story of fifteen year old Temple, born after whatever it was that caused the dead to start returning as zombies happened. It's the only life she's known; she has no clue who her parents were, having grown up in an orphanage very quickly. When the story opens, Temple is alone on a small island with a lighthouse, thinking she's safe for the time being, but it doesn't take long for the "slugs" to begin to invade and Temple has to go back into "civilization", such as it is. It's obvious there's more to Temple's background, but we're only teased about it; Temple finds a community to join, but things go downhill rapidly and she's forced to flee almost as soon as she arrives. How a fifteen year old invokes the deadly wrath of a fellow warrior in the fight against the zombies and finds herself on his personal hit list is only part of the story; how she manages to take on an adult, intellectually challenged male in her travels, abide for a time in a genteel southern home, and face off against mutants round out the tale but still doesn't fill in all the gaps.

Temple may be the young adult heroine of this story, but it's not really a YA novel in tone or message. Temple is fascinating in so many respects, revealing layer after layer to her personality even though she seems not to be sophisticated enough to know what she does about people. She faces down her enemies in deadly fashion, yet it's obvious she still has a conscience. She adapts to her world because that's all she's ever known, showing a grudging respect for the man, Moses Todd, who is determined to hunt her down and kill her. She shows compassion when necessary and is ruthless almost all the time. Her story is going to grip you hard and won't let you go.

If there's anything I disliked about The Reapers Are The Angels, it would be the ending. I'm not going to spoil anything, but I will say that I was disappointed. Though it's well written and entirely believable, I wanted more...more emotion, more explanation, more redemption, more revenge, more everything. And maybe that's the point of the whole story: It is what it is. I know I'll be thinking about it for a long time to come, and I suspect that was the author's purpose all along: To get in there without apology.

~taminator40

Monsters...and not the good kind

Monsters brings the Ashes trilogy to a close, but it complicates matters and drags things out way more than was necessary. As the book opens, Alex and Tom are separated and trying to survive in a zombie-filled world where humans are almost as big a problem as the people-eaters. There's a lot of traveling, and Alex is back with Wolf, the zombie who seems to still retain some human emotion. Meanwhile, Chris meets up with Ellie, the girl originally with Alex when the Zap happened, but his story takes a major turn when his injuries turn out to be much worse than feared. Somehow, the main characters slowly, slowly make their ways back to one another in a showdown that may take the town of Rule down in pieces.

I wasn't a fan of the multiple points of view; there's a section in the book that I found myself skimming in order to get back to the main stories. By the time we finally end up in Rule, I was about ready to blow the town up myself. However, I really did enjoy the final third of the book, and the chapters moving back and forth between characters' action was riveting. I loved how it all played out, even if I do feel the story would've benefited from serious culling. It took me quite a while to remember who was who and where we were when I began the book; whoever decided that the "catch-up" pages belonged in the back of the book--after the ending!!--was a major idiot. It really slowed my reading down while I came to grips with what all was going on since it'd been more than a year since I read Shadows.

Monsters is a book I can recommend, with reservations. I think it would've been best had I read it right after Shadows, and if you feel like skimming, it's all right to do so. You won't miss any major plot points and it will get you to the action, which is really good once you arrive. And be forewarned--this is one majorly gory book! Bick doesn't shy away from details of zombie-people-eating, and you'll need a very strong stomach to read it. I also got very tired of hearing about the "monster" in Alex's head--okay, I got it, it's all tied into the theme and the zombies and her illness...too much. But I did enjoy the read and am glad I read the entire series.

~taminator40

Just So You Know

Gamquistu - Games, Quizzes and Stuff.

Shadows

The world's gone to hell, and our heroine Alex has been left outside the community of Rule to face the zombie teens, the Changed, in the fight of her life. Meanwhile, Tom, her partner/friend, has disappeared and survival seems unlikely. So begins the second book in Ilsa Bick's Shadows trilogy, and from the word go, the action is fast, unexpected, and gory. Did I mention gory?

Bick doesn't waste time recapping the storyline, but a helpful hint for those who've forgotten anything would be to visit the author's website as she has a great page to refresh your memory. Instead, we're launched into Alex's predicament, surrounded by Changed...and it's not a spoiler to say that while she lives, the situation is one of constant danger and vividly horrible positions. While we are dealing with Alex's dilemma, we are also bounced through the points of view of Tom, Chris, Peter, and a few others, making it hard at times to keep the action straight. But that's a minor quibble in this excellent, action filled sequel.

Bick is a master of keeping the reader on the edge of his/her seat, and I'm no exception. Many of her chapters end as cliff hangers, making the "just one more chapter" bit an almost constant issue. There is a point midway when the action slams back and forth between Alex and Tom that literally left me exhausted as the pages flew between life threatening situations. That segment alone would be worth the price of the book, but Shadows is so much more than "Chuckies" eating people; it's about relationships, fear, survival, and the degeneration of humanity. Just when it can't get worse, it does, and Bick succeeds in breaking our hearts more than once. When Jack entered the story, I nearly lost it.

I absolutely loved Shadows and one of my particular joys while reading is that Bick does not write down for the reader: her vocabulary is extensive and well used, and her knowledge, particularly of old mines, traps, and the depravity of humans, shines through. I'm impressed that Bick expects the reader to infer so much and that she's able to tie so many threads together so well. This is what young adult writing should be.

Big warning though: While I adored Shadows, it is filled with gore, to the point that I even skimmed a few passages to avoid the mental picture. And while I applaud Bick for not shying away from situations that bring the terror of the zombies to life, I do think those with a weak stomach might want to consider before reading. I'd recommend this one for those at the older end of the young adult spectrum, but adults like me will definitely find much to love. Highly recommended.

~taminator40

Ashes: Blood, Guts, and Zombies...Oh My!

Creepiness. Wandering. Healing. Hurt. Deception. The Changed. And much, much more, all in Ilsa J. Bick's spine tingling new young adult novel, Ashes. While it is, at times, formulaic and even a tad predictable, it is on the whole a book that captures your interest from the first Electric Magnetic Pulse and won't let go, even after you close the last cliffhanger page. 

Alex has had a lot of tragedy in her life recently, including the deaths of both her parents and the long battle against the monster, otherwise known as the brain tumor slowly taking her life. So she's had it; with a phone call to her guardian aunt, Alex is off into the wilderness to reclaim her life and make decisions for herself. She expects to be alone on her quest, so she's taken aback to run into a grandfather and his granddaughter, though they seem all right. It is while Alex is talking with the grandfather that the world changes; there is a loud noise, everyone falls to the ground, blood pours forth, and very few are alive when the moment passes. The grandfather is dead and Alex finds herself unable to abandon his surly eight year old granddaughter, Ellie, but she believes they can make it to the ranger station and all will be fine. But the truth is, nothing will ever be fine again. And that is just the very tip of the iceberg that is Ashes--there's so much more going on, with so many twists and turns that it would be impossible to summarize it all in this review. The book could actually be divided quite nicely into three segments: Pre-EMP, the Tom/Ellie segment, and the Rule segment, but that would be leaving out how the stories overlap and the progress Alex makes. 

Ashes is a zombie-pocalypse, and it's not easy to read. There is gore and plenty of it, in squeamish, stomach churning detail. There are hard life decisions that you wish you could take back immediately, and there is even a touch of romance (but that is very, very secondary to all the terror and strangeness). Things are Not Right, and it's not just because those at puberty and just beyond have turned into flesh eating monsters, while Alex finds herself among the Spared. The town of Rule adds a whole other level of weird to a story that is filled with people leaving, dying, and betraying, and the odd way dogs seem attracted to Alex has got to mean Something. That killer cliffhanger of an ending had me immediately looking online to see when the next installment comes out.


Ashes started just a bit slowly for me, but once it took off, I found myself totally immersed in the dystopian world in which Alex finds herself. I was often reminded of the television show The Walking Dead; there are similarities in the stories and both offer frightening looks at the horror of running for your very life. Of course this genre of books does stretch believability at times, and the story does take an odd turn with Rule. But I'm on board because this one has enough imagination and interesting characters that I'm vested in the outcome. Be forewarned that you'll need a strong stomach for Ashes, but the excitement is worth the adventure.


~taminator40