Bad Girls Don't Die by Katie Alender

This book reminded me so much of being a teenager. Everything is set in place and these boundaries cannot be crossed. So you can only talk to certain people, and you must hate other people. Your parents, of course, just don't understand. Keep in mind that all my memories of being a teenager come from the television shows I still watch despite the fact that I am now older than the twenty-somethings playing high schoolers.

Alexis has pink hair and an attitude. She hangs out with a crowd of gothic kids that she secretly refers to as the Gloom Squad. Her enemies are the cheerleaders, especially Megan, the captain and the perfect high school girl.

One day, a boy named Carter opens a door into Alexis' head. It's pretty much the greatest meet-cute ever and I totally have a crush on a fictional high school boy, mock me if you wish. The problem is that Carter is a preppy, Young Republican type. Goths and Young Republicans dating is JUST NOT DONE!

At home, Alexis is worried about her younger sister Kasey. Kasey used to be normal, but now spends all her time with her doll collection. Sometimes she uses strange language and flies into a rage for no reason. Sometimes her blue eyes turn green. Alexis starts to wonder if her sister is crazy...or possessed?!?

So, I really liked this book. Alexis could have been annoying with all her rules of high school living, but it seemed realistic for that age. I also admired her for the stands she took, for slapping "Gas Guzzler" bumper stickers on SUVs and trying to get unknown kids elected to student government instead of cheerleaders and popular kids. Of course, her preconceived notions are all wrong. She's wrong about Megan and Carter, Kasey, her parents, everything. In the end, it doesn't matter. Everyone goes to prom and it's happily ever after.

P.S. I really want to read the second book in this series that comes out in July, From Bad to Cursed.

Wanted by Sara Shepard

Once upon a time there were four girls, fair as the snow but unable to tell the truth. Long ago, their most intimate friend Alison vanished and was later found slain. In the last installment of their tale, the dastardly Billy Ford, builder of gazebos, was accused of the heinous crime. We now follow our heroines into the end of their saga (Until the new book comes out July 5th, the year of our lord 2011).

Wanted begins with the DiLaurentis family gathering men and women from every village around to share a most hidden secret. Mrs. DiLaurentis had born another daughter, identical to tragic Alison. The second child had the same hair golden as the sun and eyes as blue as sapphires, but her head suffered a form of delirium. As a result, Courtney was sent away and never spoken of until now. Her goodly physician assured her family that her brain is no longer vexed by visions and frustrations, thenceforth, Courtney returned to Rosewood and Rosewood Prep.

Courtney appeals to our duplicitous heroines one by one. She offers them their innermost desires, as though she has corresponded with them for years. To Spencer, Courtney is the sister long wished for and long denied. To Emily, Courtney is the girl forever yearned for, love reciprocated at last. To Hanna, Courtney is a means of regaining the power of her kingdom. Fair Aria is the only maiden lacking need of Courtney. Alas, it appears as though Courtney wishes to steal Aria's gentleman Noel, much as her sister Alison did years ago.

Soon, dear readers, young Courtney reveals a truth to her guileful companions: she is in truth Alison posing as Courtney. That fateful night at the conclusion of their seventh year education, Billy Ford had slain Courtney in place of her rightly-minded sister. Alison's dearest family believed her to be her addled-minded doppelganger and sent her away for years.

At last, the merry group of friends achieve the second chance they never expected. Following the school's prom festivities, the girls hearken to Courtney-now-Alison's family estate in the Poconos. Aria, so distrustful of Courtney-Alison now attends the proceedings after young Noel was found kissing his old love. At last, it appears as though serenity has returned to our unconscionable four. Yet, throughout our tome, we have received reports that pernicious gazeboman Billy Ford may not be as heinous as he first appeared. If Ford was not the murderer in days of yore, who could have committed the foul crime? And are our fair fabulists in danger whilst relaxing with their newly rectified friend?

*Read no further past this point, lest you find out the even greater secret at the conclusion of Pretty Little Liars.*

In order to forge greater bonds in the chain of friendship, the young maidens reenact the fateful night of Courtney's murder. Alison once again attempts to compel her friends. Once they emerge from their state of sleepfulness, Alison has vanished once more. Then the mythomaniacs find the letter. It tells the story of two sisters. As we knew, Alison had been posing as Courtney. What had never been revealed was that Courtney had played the part of Alison. When our storytellers had been rescued from obscurity by Alison and placed in their positions of power, Alison had been Courtney. After years spent locked away as Courtney, the true Alison became just as addled as her sister. Hence, it was Alison who killed her sister and tossed her in the pit. Alison slain poor pedophile Ian Thomas, and Alison snuffed the candle of sightless Jenna Cavanaugh. As a final act of vengeance, true Alison alights the house in an attempt to end the lives of our duplicitous four. Our heroines escape, but the villainess is ensnared by her own trap. It may not be the end, yet, as neither hide nor hair is found of the true, insane Alison DiLaurentis, also called A, tormentor of the Pretty Little Liars.

*Returning to normal, spoiler-free speech*

So, that was a fairly exciting speech. I'm not sure how I feel about a ninth book. Everything is pretty wrapped up at this point. Am I going to read the ninth book? Hells yes!

The Help by Kathryn Stockett

I became aware of The Help when it spent forever on the Bestsellers list at work. Women of a certain age would look for it for a book club. These factors don't bode well in getting me to read a book. What happened was that my friend recommended the book to me, and I decided when I started Cannonball Read that if someone suggested a book, I'd read that book. This was my first (and only) suggestion.

The Help is sort of amazing in that it is chock full of book club-worthy topics. It's almost a Lifetime Movie. There's racism, domestic violence, more racism, infertility, feminism, a little romance, and yet more racism. Oh, and cancer. You can't forget the cancer. It's also all about women. Even with all that working against it, I actually ended up enjoying The Help.

The plot centers around three women. Aibileen and Minny are maids for prominent families in Georgia. Skeeter is a young woman fresh out of college. She wants to pursue a career in writing, but is having difficulty because it's the 1950s and she's a dame. A publisher in New York advises her to write about something she cares about, something that nobody else is talking about. Skeeter eventually decides to write a book about black maids and their experiences working for white women.

It's not easy for Skeeter to get a maid to talk to her, let alone help her with the story. The first maid to help is Aibileen. She has been serving as a maid for over twenty years. Aibileen feels that it's important to tell her story. She eventually convinces Minny to talk as well.

At that time, much of the Southern United States was segregated. Skeeter's best friend Hilly is trying to advertise a Home Health Initiative among the Junior League, aimed at building separate bathrooms for maids and service employees of color. This issue is what inspires Skeeter's idea. It also gets Aibileen and Minny to tell their stories.

Unfortunately, nobody gets cured of their racism. I thought maybe if all the ladies played football together like in Remember the Titans...but I digress. The three narrators all had interesting points of view and compelling stories. It was also incredibly sweet to read Kathryn Stockett's essay about her own maid growing up. It's nice to know that this was such a personal story for her. So, in summary, pick this book up if you want to discuss a book with your grandma or maiden aunt, or maybe just wait and catch the movie when it comes out.

Heartless by Sara Shepard

I'm in the final stretch now, the penultimate book to be finished with the Pretty Little Liars series. Heartless is kind of a doozy of a book.

Killer ended with the PLLs narrowly escaping from a fire in the woods. They had rescued a girl who looked just like Dead Alison. She vanishes into thin air. Paramedics think the girls were just suffering smoke inhalation-induced hallucinations. Emily is so affected by seeing Ali alive that she refuses to stop mentioning the incident. Reporters start referring to the girls as the Pretty Little Liars.

Aria spends the book trying to contact Ali's spirit. She attends a seance and is surprised to see Noel Kahn there. It turns out that he is more than meets the eye. They later contact an actual medium. Aria asks who killed Alison, and the medium writes a note: "Ali killed Ali."

Spencer lost her college tuition, but her parents finally decide to stop being jackholes towards her. I was really excited for good stuff to happen because I like Spencer. Alas, A gets her to investigate her parents some more. She discovers that her dad had an affair with Ali's mom. They were half-sisters, and Spencer's mom was so disturbed by this that she killed Alison. When Spencer confronts her parents with this information, it turns out that the affair part was right. Spencer's mother never knew, though, and she definitely didn't kill Ali.

Hanna's dad sends her to an asylum for her mental well-being or something. It ends up being a really nice asylum, the kind celebrities go to when they're exhausted. She becomes friends with her roommate, a girl named Iris. Alas, Iris leaks information about Hanna to the press and turns out to be legitimately crazy.

Finally, Emily goes to an Amish community, in hopes of learning about Ali. An Amish girl named Lucy tells Emily about her sister Leah. Leah left on rumspringa to be with her boyfriend and disappeared. That boyfriend was Darren Wilden, suspicious police officer.

In a crazy plot twist, all the PLLs are then arrested. They are released after police arrest a man for Alison's murder. His name is Billy Ford and he had been working on the DiLaurentis' gazebo before Ali disappeared. They got him after they found a new victim: Jenna Cavanaugh.

Warm Bodies by Isaac Marion

"We knew it was all wrong. We knew we were diminishing ourselves in ways we couldn't even name, and we wept sometimes at memories of better days, but we no longer saw a choice. We were doing our best to survive. The equations at the roots of our problems were complex, and we were far too tired to solve them..."

The zombie as a metaphor is hardly a new idea. Zombies are the mindless hordes, reacting on impulse, driven by insatiable hunger to consume that which they once were. The more zombies feed, the more zombies they create. It's a fate worse than death, and it effects those who haven't even been turned yet. They start to die before they physically die.

R is a fairly typical zombie. He lives with a bunch of zombies in an abandoned airport. We get a look into his thought processes, about how zombies can't read, they can't remember their names or their old lives. It's all meaningless wandering and hunting for live flesh. They crave the intimacy of tearing into a human throat, eating a warm brain. When they are taking human life, they feel a tiny bit of humanity.

During a typical hunt, R kills a young man and eats his brain. Something strange happens, R experiences the boy's memories. He learns all about Perry Kelvin and his girlfriend Julie. R then acts completely out of undead character and rescues Julie from the other zombies, keeps her safe. In the process, he makes enemies both living and undead.

Warm Bodies seemed a little pretentious at first. The writing can be a bit flowery at times. It's still a very good read. There are times when I also feel dead inside, when it feels as though every day endlessly repeats itself, when all that's left driving me is the instinct to survive. Warm Bodies didn't make me want to embrace life or hug a zombie, but it did offer a new perspective on both living and dead zombies.

"There's no benchmark for how life's 'supposed' to happen...There is no ideal world for you to wait around for. The world is always just what it is now, and it's up to you how to respond to it..."

Warm Bodies has already been released in the UK. It is set to be released in the US on April 26th, 2011. Thanks to Atria Books for sending an advance copy to my bookstore.

Killer by Sara Shepard

Wicked left off with a party at Spencer's house. The PLLs found Ian's dead body in the woods. By the time they find Officer Wilden at the party and drag him outside, Ian has vanished. The police look for him, but eventually call off searching and say that the girls were making the whole thing up. Nobody is sure if Ian is actually dead. Spencer uses her sister's laptop and gets IMs from someone claiming to be Ian, but we're not actually sure what's what.

The big event in Killer is the opening of a hotel called the Radley. It used to be a sanitarium for troubled children. Remember that, because it's important for later. Aria is invited by her mom, who still doesn't know that her skeevy boyfriend hit on Aria. Aria spends the book getting closer to Jason DiLaurentis, Alison's brother. Jason is a little off, flying into rages for seemingly no reason. He freaks out at Aria when she mentions the name of the hotel, and later on, Emily finds an old guest log from the sanitarium- Radley, and it has Jason's name in it over and over.

Speaking of Emily, she gets way close with new boyfriend Issac, in the carnal sense. Unfortunately, his mother starts to hint that she knows and verbally attacks Emily in an Applebee's bathroom. When Emily reasonably tells Issac all of this, he thinks she's being an attention whore like his last girlfriend who claimed the same things. Oh, Issac. In the end, Issac finds a picture of Emily that his mother mutilated, he confronts her, and she freaks out. Emily still won't take him back, for now, because he didn't trust her.

Hanna is still a total entitled princess and my least favorite character. Stepsister Kate decides that she wants to go out with Mike Montgomery, Aria's little brother and lacrosse boy. Hanna decides that she must have him, besides he once groped her years ago, so she has dibs. Mike goes around juggling both girls, but Hanna gets him to be exclusive by agreeing to take him to the prom. At the hotel party, Kate admits that she only ever pretended to like Mike to fool around with Hanna. Just a little revenge for telling everyone that she had herpes. Mike was also using her to win a bet with his friends, but they decide that they are even because she was using him in the first place. I hate them both. So. Much.

Poor little Spencer meets with her biological mother and she's all fancy and rich. They have such a wonderful time that Spencer is determined to move to New York to be with her. It doesn't help that Spencer's parents are total a-holes. Seriously, I have no idea what their issue is- that she told the truth about her dumb Golden Orchid essay? They spend the book sending her car back to the dealer and mocking her when her computer crashes. The only explanation I can think of is that they are secretly going broke. Spencer uses her college fund to purchase a loft from her mother's realtor, but it turns out not so much. She got scammed, the loft doesn't exist, that's not really her mom, and her college fund is all gone.

A shows up in this book, but she's more helpful than threatening. All A does is urge everyone to solve Ali's murder. This makes me wonder if there may be a different A now. The PLLs gather at the end to go over all their clues so far, when the woods behind Spencer's house are set on fire. They rescue someone from the blaze, someone who looks just like Alison.

The Ask and the Answer by Patrick Ness

This post will contain spoilers to Chaos Walking Book 1, The Knife of Never Letting Go. Please be warned.

The Knife of Never Letting Go ended on a sad note. After an epic quest to reach Haven and contact Viola's ship, both Viola and Todd ended up captured by Mayor Prentiss. Davy Prentiss, the Mayor's son, shot Viola, and Todd's main concern is that she be saved. They spend the first parts of the book separated, neither knowing whether the other is safe.

The city of Haven surrendered to Mayor Prentiss without a fight. It is now New Prentisstown, and Mayor Prentiss is the President. Todd is assigned to work with Davy. Davy wants nothing more than his father's approval but knows that his father prefers Todd. Hence, this is the root of the majority of Todd and Davy's fighting. Throughout the book, we understand more about Davy and he actually becomes kind of likeable.

Viola wakes up in a house of healing. After she recovers from her wound, she becomes an apprentice healer. The head of the house is Mistress Coyle. She wants to use Viola to get information on the President. The President wants to use her for the same reason. Mistress Coyle was once mayor of Haven. She had to make a lot of tough decisions while in charge. She doesn't agree with putting Prentiss in charge. So she fights.

The reoccurring theme in The Ask and the Answer is that we are the choices we make. Mistress Coyle forms the Answer with her group of rebels. They make themselves known with their bombs and their blue letter As. President Prentiss then retaliates with the Ask. Anyone of interest is "asked," basically tortured until they say anything just to make it stop.

Todd and Viola are both stuck on their opposite sides of the war. Todd numbly follows all of President Prentiss' orders, no matter how horrifying. Viola is resistant to Coyle, but eventually she is helping set explosions herself. Apart, they are affected by the battle. It's not until they meet again that they are themselves and the slate is clean.