In the After by Demitria Lunetta

   "This is how I think of time: the past is Before, and the present is the After. Before was reality; the After, a nightmare..."

In the After is another entry in what seems to be the year of the alien invasion. Thankfully, it is also an awesome and riveting book.

The invasion started with spaceships, then came the arrival of Them. They are green and vaguely similar to humans in shape, but with sharp teeth. These teeth are used to tear humans apart limb for limb, eating them alive while they are still screaming.

Amy is a teenage girl who was in her house during the arrival. Her father was a hippie and her mother worker for the government. Therefore, Amy's house is equipped with solar panels and a rooftop garden, as well as a gun and impenetrable electric fence.

The aliens have very sensitive hearing, but poor eyesight at night. Amy sneaks out at night to get food and other necessities. One night, she finds a young girl in the store she names Baby. Amy and Baby develop a form of sign language to communicate without attracting the aliens. They become as close as sisters, forming routines to help them survive.

Eventually, they have to leave the house (It would probably be a pretty boring book otherwise). It seems like in every zombie/alien/dystopian book, there is a point where the main character(s) are taken to a safe place. They think that they can finally rest...but it's not as it seems. The safety is just an illusion. So it is in this book, not to give too much away. I am a little embarrassed that it took me this long to recognize the pattern.

In conclusion, In the After was a very good read. It's narrative flows really well, so much that I was compelled to keep flipping the pages. It was also full of suspense and a pleasing amount of gore from the aliens. I am definitely excited to read the next book in this series.

I received my copy of In the After from Edelweiss, courtesy of HarperTeen. It's available for purchase now.

Messy by Heather Cocks and Jessica Morgan

You can read my review for the Fug Girls' first book, Spoiled, here.

Spoiled was a story of an ordinary girl whose mother dies and then she finds out that her father is a movie story, the famous action hero Brick Berlin. The girl moves to Los Angeles and has trouble getting along with her newly acquired sister and the world of the rich and famous.

Messy leaves that ordinary girl on the sidelines and puts the focus on Max, the Principal's daughter and Molly's friend. Max dreams of a summer writing program in New York, but she doesn't have the money to pay for it. She answers an ad to write a blog for an up and coming starlet. She couldn't be more surprised when the starlet turns out to be Molly's sister, Brooke Berlin.

Brooke is trying to get noticed in the acting world, but for something other than being Brick's daughter. She thinks that a blog could give her that extra little edge. Openbrooke.com turns out to be a massive hit, but Brooke has trouble living up to the words, and Max grows tired of seeing someone else take credit for her work.

In conclusion, I love Go Fug Yourself, I love the Fug Girls, and I love these books. It's just a fun series, and sometimes it's nice to read something that isn't all about the end of the world. Plus, it feels a bit more highbrow than all those Pretty Little Liars novels I am addicted to. I loved getting more from Max, who is probably my favorite character from these books. Highly recommended for all GFY fans, young adult fans, and anyone who would like a nice read for the beach (I actually read it at the beach, while feeling superior and judgmental towards a neighboring woman who was reading Fifty Shades of Grey or a lazy fall weekend, winter holiday, whatever the occasion, really.

Hereafter by Tara Hudson

It's just a typical teen romance. Girl meets boy. Girl helps save boy from watery grave. Girl is dead. Oh, wait, it's not so typical. And I officially hate myself for starting my review like that, but I'm not turning back now.

Amelia was wandering for as long as she remembers. None of the living people noticed her. Every now and then she would have "nightmares," reenactments of what little of her death she remembers. She wakes up thrashing in the river where she drowned. After one nightmare, she realizes that someone else is drowning, a boy. Amelia tries to save him, cheers him on. Surprisingly, he wakes up, and he can see her.

The boy is Joshua, and not only can he see Amelia, he can touch her. She has been totally numb until now, but she starts to be able to feel things, to smell things. More importantly, Amelia starts to remember her life. Joshua, though, gets his own pet ghost to follow him to school one day. I'm not sure whether that was against the rules. People probably thought he looked pretty crazycakes, talking to himself and kissing the empty air, but he's hot so nobody really minds.

Just to complicate things, there are dark forces trying to claim Amelia. A ghost named Eli has been watching her. Eli claims souls, and he's not working for the good guys. He wants Amelia as his new assistant. Further complicating matters, Joshua's grandmother believes that Amelia is an abomination and plans to exorcise her, as well as Eli.

At first, I had a difficult time getting into Hereafter. Once I took a little break from it, and got further into the story, I found myself eager to read more. These stories are always so depressing. Amelia will never be alive again, and it would kind of suck if she actually came back to life somehow, but you still wish Amelia and Josh can have their happy ending, even though they never will. Sorry for the horrible run-on sentence. The pining is what's attractive, the unattainable love. Ultimately, Hereafter is a sweet love story. I liked it, but I occasionally watch repeats of Ghost Whisperer on the Canadian channel, so I may have questionable taste.

I received a copy of Hereafter from Netgalley. It's available now, wherever books are sold.

P.S. I mostly watch Ghost Whisperer for mocking purposes. It's terrible, but like a car accident and I get so much enjoyment out of how long it takes her to figure out what the damn ghosts want.

Marvel 1602 by Neil Gaiman, Andy Kubert, and Richard Isanove

The year is 1602. Elizabeth I is Queen of England, but she is fading fast. King James of Scotland is chomping at the bits to take over when she is finally gone. English colonists have settled at Roanoke in the Americas. Spain is preoccupied with their Inquisition, weeding out those in league with the Devil who would imperil the church and its people. It is a time of great miracles, wonder, and changes. The most unsettling of these changes are the lightning storms. Although nobody is sure exactly what is the cause or the outcome, they are fairly certain it means the end of the world.

There is an object harbored by the Knights Templar, an object of incredible power. This object could be powerful enough to save the world. Head of intelligence Sir Nicholas Fury hires a man, the blind minstrel Matthew Murdoch, to fetch the object for the good side. Count Otto von Doom is trying to steal the object for less noble purposes. Doom also sends three creepy henchmen to kill Queen Elizabeth, Fury, and the young Virginia Dare. Virginia is the first child born in Roanoke. She returned to England with her bodyguard, Nativeman Rojhaz, in order to get English aid for the colony. The strange storms started in the colonies a short time after the colonists arrived...maybe when Virginia was born? Now they have followed across the sea to England.

In other parts of the country, Carlos Javier and his College for the Sons of Gentle Folk serve as a safe harbor for those who are labeled as "witchbreed." The Inquisition, namely Grand Inquisitor Enrique, have been killing as many as they can find...or have they? Once Elizabeth dies, the less-tolerant King James comes after Javier and his students, accusing them of killing the Queen. Fury and Javier have a mutual understanding, and Fury must decide whether to break Javier's trust or commit treason against his new King.

Why are all these Marvel superheroes alive over 300 years before their time? What (Or WHO) sparked the end of the world? Where can a witchbreed go to gain freedom from oppression? Why bother changing Peter Parker's name when you give him the obvious (And horrifying) moniker of Peter Parkquagh?

This was my first real attempt at a graphic novel, if you don't count the graphic novel version of The Baby-Sitters Club. Let's call that training wheels and this the big-girl bike. The mixture of classic superheroes and historical figures was creative and just plain awesome. In a nice touch, the illustrations look like woodcarvings, and I have just enough knowledge to recognize the superheroes (With a little help from the lists in the introduction and at the end of the book). My graphic novel experience was incredibly positive. I will definitely read them again in the near future.