Category Archives: Paranormal

Review: Perverse by Larry Rodness

Book Review and Content, Paranormal, Young Adult/Teen 12-18, , , ,

Perverse
Larry Rodness
ITOH Press
Published December 31, 2012

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As a second generation Goth, even Gothic life for Emylene is weird. Not weird. Perverse! While she enjoys her position in her community as a Goth princess, she doesn’t always see her spoiled and self-centered behavior and how it impacts others. When she inadvertently frees a mysterious girl from a charcoal sketch found in a dismal antique shop, Emylene’s world begins to shift. Her parents are barely recognizable and what’s the deal with her friends at her nightly club hangout?

Too late, Emylene realizes her new friend is not what she seems. As events spiral out of control, Emylene finds new allies to face the terror she is partly responsible for releasing. It will take all their strength and cunning to stop the creatures controlling her hometown.

Rodness creates a complex and feisty young girl with smarts and spunk in spades. Emylene grapples with her newfound adulthood and its challenges in familiar and entertaining ways. Narrative and plot are not as well-constructed as the characters, however. The narrative wanders out of one point of view and into another without ceremony or pattern. Scattered rants about the misconceptions the mainstream population has about the gothic community were sometimes off-putting rather than insightful. One character hijacks the story and inserts a long (several chapters) narrative of his own. Still, Rodness uses some interesting bits of folklore and introduces readers to a strange magical picture, creating a story world worthy of the genre.

Profanity/Crude Language Content
Moderate profanity.

Sexual Content
References (without description) to some teen sexual experimentation girl-on-girl. In one scene, Emylene is incapacitated by a villain and made to experience sexual pleasure. She is later found by a young man who fantasizes about having sex with her, whether or not she is willing. Other brief references to aberrant sexual practices.

Spiritual Content
Brief mention of solstice celebrations and Wiccan traditions.

Violence
Some brief scenes of fatal violence.

Drug Content
References to bad parts of town including drug trafficking, but no drug use among characters.

Note: I received a free copy of this book in exchange for my honest review.

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Review: Maximum Ride: The Angel Experiment by James Patterson

Book Review and Content, Clean Fiction, Mystery/Suspense/Thriller, Paranormal, ,

Maximum Ride: The Angel Experiment
James Patterson
Little, Brown and Company
Published April 11, 2005

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For fourteen year-old Max and the others in her care, life is anything but normal. How can it be even close when she has wings bursting out of her back? Max and the others spend their lives hiding from scientists who would put them back in cages and continue the genetic experiments which resulted in their avian mutations. Just when Max thinks the coast is clear, and she and her friends are safe, the Erasers, frighteningly strong boys who morph into wolves, close in on them. When one member of the flock is captured, Max and the others have only one choice: they must rescue her from the lab where they were once imprisoned.

Max finds more than her lost team member when she reaches her former home. A mentor who helped them escape seems now to have betrayed them. He warns Max that nothing is what it appears. Everything is a test. A strange voice in Max’s head echoes the strange idea and leads Max and her friends on an even more perilous journey to uncover a secret which they desperately want to know: who are their parents?

Maximum Ride is packed with action and teen angst, but the ending was a bit anti-climactic, almost as if the book ended partway through the story. Max is above all an empathetic leader committed to protecting the weak, no matter the cost. Her struggle to discover who she is makes for a powerful undercurrent to Patterson’s first book in the Maximum Ride Series.

Profanity/Crude Language Content
Mild. H*ll appears a couple of times.

Sexual Content
None.

Spiritual Content
None.

Violent Content
The central characters are part of genetic experiments and spent a great portion of their childhood locked in cages like animals. After their escape, their former captors pursue them, making for some moderately gory battle scenes.

Drug Content
None.

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Review: The Rising by Kelley Armstrong

Book Review and Content, Paranormal, Young Adult/Teen 12-18, , , ,

The Rising
 Kelley Armstrong
HarperCollins
Published January 1, 2013

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Maya and her friends have been on the run since they discovered their roles as test subjects in an experiment to resurrect supernatural abilities. Worse than that, they’ve now become mixed up in a war between rival groups, both of whom want the supernatural teens for their own use. With nowhere to go and only one possible contact left, Maya seeks a meeting with someone who might help. Turns out his help means putting up with an awful lot of attitude and a part of Maya’s past she’s not ready to face. More than that, as Maya and her friend Corey’s abilities continue to develop, so do the frightening side effects. Experiment leaders, the St. Cloud and Nast Cabals may be able to counter the side effects with medication, but access to the treatment means surrender and a life in a gilded cage for Maya’s team. Protecting her freedom means Maya has to discover a way to negotiate with the Cabals.

Fraught with angst and romantic tension, The Rising delivers a story of desperate teens battling for independence, desperately trying to sort out who they can trust and addresses issues of adoption, abandonment and what it takes to make a family. While Armstrong nails some of the tense moments with keen dialogue, she often summarizes scenes which would have deepened the story and more fully developed its characters. Nonetheless, readers who enjoyed Maggie Stiefvater’s Shiver will likely enjoy this paranormal novel as well.

Profanity/Crude Language Content
Moderate language.

Sexual Content
Kissing/ “making out.” When Maya shifts from her cougar form, she is naked, but the others are respectful and protect her privacy.

Spiritual Content
None.

Violence
An accident is referenced in which a character was hit by a car. One character is shot, but not fatally. Maya slashes an enemy with her claws. A girl attempts to suffocate Maya. No graphic details to any of these events.

Drug Content
Maya’s parents are very permissive about alcohol and allow underage drinking, though no one consumes alcohol during the story.

Note: I received a free copy of this book in exchange for my honest review.

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Review: The Immortal Rules by Julie Kagawa

Book Review and Content, Dystopian or Post-Apocalyptic, Paranormal, Young Adult/Teen 12-18, , , , , ,

The Immortal Rules
Julie Kagawa
Harlequin Teen
Published April 24, 2012

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In a world ruled by vampires, Allison Sekemoto survives by staying hidden and scavenging for food. When hunger forces her to venture outside the safety of home, she is attacked and offered a choice: to die or become what she hates most. A vampire.

Allie struggles to learn vampire ways and accept and what her new form means to the humans she has left behind. Another attack forces her to flee from the city and into the wild where she will be stalked by rabids, diseased and deadly creatures. But Allie isn’t the only one braving those wilds. In the night, she comes upon a group of humans on a quest to find a legendary city. A safe haven for humans. A city without vampires. Allie vows to protect them on their journey, but can she really succeed when the deadliest threat is her own hunger?

Kagawa sends her readers plummeting through a masterfully woven plot into a post-apocalyptic world in which humans are ruled by vampires and stalked by rabids. While heroine Allie seems cold-hearted and indifferent at the story’s opening, it is in her vampire form that she develops love for others, creating an intriguing paradox.

Language Content
No F-bombs, but other curses peppered throughout.

Sexual Content
Insinuations, but no graphic content.

Spiritual Content
Allison encounters a group who are people of faith. Precisely what they believe isn’t deeply explored, but faith is portrayed as a very admirable and positive thing, even if such optimism is hard for Allison to understand. In Kagawa’s world, vampires may be either good or evil, depending on their relationship with the living. They will either abuse and dominate or perhaps struggle to check their power and thirst and protect humans.

Violence
Lots of violence. Creatures called rabids, human and animal, viciously pursue and devour any they can capture. Some references to past torture.

Drug Content
Random guy drinks a beer.

Note: I received a free copy of this book in exchange for my honest review.

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Review: Darkwater by Catherine Fisher

Book Review and Content, Paranormal, Young Adult/Teen 12-18, ,

Darkwater
Catherine Fisher
Dial Books for Young Readers
Published September 27, 2012

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With her famed family estate lost to a mysterious stranger, Sarah and her father have been forced on the kindness of a former servant and her family. When Sarah loses her job, she swallows her pride and accepts a new position assisting Azrael, the owner of her former home. A job isn’t all the strange man seems interested in. Disturbing rumors about how he acquired the estate buzz around Sarah’s head, and his question lingers in her mind: for what price would she offer him her soul? She resists, but tragedy forces her hand. All Sarah can do now is try to save the next desperate person from sharing her fate.

While the concept of the story is very intriguing, the most interesting part is left out of the story. She makes an agreement in trade for her soul and then the story cuts ahead to the future, to the next fly caught in Azrael’s trap.  As Sarah tries to help this next victim, the intensity builds to a mighty climax that is resolved too simply and easily. The author does, however, make excellent use of unexpected twists in the plot which repaint all the reader thinks he knows about the story. Darkwater is packed with elements of intrigue and mystery.

Profanity/Crude Language Content
Mild.

Sexual Content
Very mild.

Spiritual Content
There is some allusion to the idea that the character Azrael has supernatural abilities that seem to have no direct connection to God or any particular religion.

Violence
A few suspenseful moments, but no real graphic violence.

Drug Content
None.

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Review: Scorch by Gina Damico

Book Review and Content, Fantasy, Paranormal, Young Adult/Teen 12-18, , , , ,

Scorch
Gina Damico
HMH Books for Young Readers
Published September 25, 2012

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Going home after her sister’s death is the hardest thing Lex has ever had to do. But life in Croak isn’t getting any easier for the teenage Grim Reaper. Though her friends stick with her, the rest of the town blames Lex for Zara’s murderous rampage. After all, Zara wouldn’t be able to Damn souls if Lex hadn’t somehow transferred that ability to her. That Zara killed Lex’s sister doesn’t seem to matter either. Irrational fear and poor leadership whip the town into a frenzy of paranoia until Lex and her friends have no choice but to flee to the Grim capital, DeMyse.

Distracted by the glitz and glam of the Vegas-like town, Lex and her friends teeter between concern for the innocents Zara continues to murder and enjoying the city’s night life. Zara will only stop killing when Lex gives her the secret book that will grant terrible power to anyone who reads it. Lex is sure she is the only one who can find it, but will she find it before another innocent soul is Damned?

Readers who missed the first book in this series will find Scorch a little hard to follow. The rules of the story world are confusing and not well-explained. The plot meanders forward with frequent pit stops for parties and make-out sessions despite Zara’s promise that an innocent person will die every day until Lex gives her what she wants. While she is a bit shallow, Lex’s struggles with guilt and insecurity are very real and relatable. The appearance of Poe and other famous people of the past were a clever addition to the story.

Profanity/Crude Language Content
Moderate. Some swearing and lots of uses of various forms of “douche” insults.

Sexual Content
Heavy. Characters frequently sneak off to make out and hope to progress further.

Spiritual Content
The central characters of the story are Grim Reapers. Human characters experience an afterlife which is more or less wonderful, unless their soul has been Damned by a Grim Reaper. One rogue Grim Damns souls who are undeserving of such punishment. No real connection to Christian world-view.

Violence
Some battle violence and an explosion.

Drug Content
Grims enjoy a special drink that seems to have the same effect as beer. Young characters are depicted drinking it at bar and nightclub type settings.

Note: I received a free copy of this book in exchange for my honest review.

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