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Monday, August 9, 2010

YA Reviews: Lord of Misrule + Carpe Corpus

WARNING: These reviews, even the summaries, WILL having spoilers for later books in the series. There ain't a whole lot I can do about that so either skip them or read at your own spoiling risk if you haven't read them. I'm doing my best to avoid spoiling. I take no responsibility if you read past this having not read the books. It's not my fault. I don't know any other way to say HERE BE SPOILERS, guys. :P

Okay, so, by this point of reading these books, my review notes deteriorated somewhat into babbling fangirldom, so these won't be the best reviews I've ever done. I'd combine the reviews of the last four books into one post and just do mini-reviews, but I think the post would be too horribly long, so just bear with the fangirliness, okay? Okay.

Lord of Misrule by Rachel Caine - The Morganville Vampires Book Five

Published: 2009 by Signet (My cover says Nal Jam books, but I'm just going to assume those are all connected and listen to goodreads.)
Genre:
YA Fantasy / Thriller / Paranormal / Urban Fantasy
Binding: Paperback.
Page Count: 231 in my copy, 244 counting the excerpt.
Part of a series? Yeppers.
Amazon link.

Summary (from the back of the book because I didn't like the goodreads one): In the college town of Morganville, vampires and humans have coexisted in (relatively) bloodless harmony... until the arrival of Bishop, a master vampire who threatens to put the evil back in evil undead and smash the fragile peace. But Bishop isn't the only threat...

Violent black clouds promise a storm of devastating proportions. As student Claire Danvers and her friends prepare to defend Morganville against the elements - both natural and unnatural - the unexpected happens: Morganville's vampires begin to vanish one by one. Discovering why leads Claire to one last choice: Swear allegiance to Bishop... or die.


Review: These books just keep getting better and better. This one really had me on edge. Tornadoes freak me out in books. We had one touch down a few years ago and they had to evacuate us. We get warnings all the time, which don't bug me much, but in books it freaks me out. But even more than that, if I hadn't known that there were two more books, I would have been having major freak-outs. As it was, I only had minor freak-outs. :P


I have a couple of quotes I really liked for this one. One of my favourite Shane quotes:

pg. 13

"I hugged. I'm done."
An Amelie quote:
pg 17

It felt like time stopped for about a hundred years while Amelie stared at her. It probably had been at least a hundred years since the last time anybody had dared to correct Amelie like that in public.

Amelie's lips curved, very slightly. "No," she agreed. "You are not a child, and in any case, by your age, I was a bride and ruled a kingdom. I should know better.
Amelie is SCARY. Oh, and while Shane's still my favourite, I still have a soft spot for Myrnin in all his insane glory.

This one is very, very tense. My notes literally go "Eve Eve Eve Eve Eve Eve - GOD I love Shane." Seriously. Plus, it has a really, really, really bad cliffhanger that is
really freaky. And this isn't so much a review as a fangirl gush-festival, isn't it?

Cons, complaints, bad stuff, etc.: This is a weird thing, but it bugged me a tiny bit. There's one part where "tranq" is spelled "trank" and it just seemed weird to me. But I spelled "that" with three T's, so I'm not really one to talk.

Oh, and somebody gets noshed (I won't tell who) and the biting is glossed over, which I wished it hadn't been.


PG-13 stuff: Totally and completely.


Cover comments: I LOVE this cover. The boy is just gorgeous, honestly, (Shane? And I would assume the girl is Eve... doesn't look so much like Claire to me) and the colours are stunning and yeah, I love it.


Conclusion: Is a fangirl squeal appropriate in a review? I'm absolutely in love with these books, honestly. Also four and a half roses.


Other notes:

- (Written a while ago) "My hair is turning pink is purple. And so is the bruise on my arm... where did I get that???"
- "Double check to make sure the blog has a full feed, not just a partial one." (It does.)
- "Scariness, scariness, scariness - I just dropped my book."
- "Drogheda? I know Drumheller. DINOSAURS!"
- "I was very comfy til my butt went numb." (I was reading at my aunt's kitchen tables and her chair's aren't the most comfortable in the world.)
- "That was so a Buffy homage!"

Carpe Corpus by Rachel Caine - The Morganville Vampires Book Six

Published: 2009 by Signet (This one's cover says Nal Jam books, but again, listening to goodreads.)
Genre: YA Fantasy / Thriller / Paranormal / Urban Fantasy
Binding:
Paperback.
Page Count: 241 in my copy.
Part of a series? Oui.
Amazon link.

Summary (from goodreads): In the small college town of Morganville, vampires and humans lived in (relative) peace-until all the rules got rewritten when the evil vampire Bishop arrived, looking for the lost book of vampire secrets. He's kept a death grip on the town ever since.

Now an underground resistance is brewing, and in order to contain it, Bishop must go to even greater lengths. He vows to obliterate the town and all its inhabitants-the living and the undead. Claire Danvers and her friends are the only ones who stand in his way. But even if they defeat Bishop, will the vampires ever be content to go back to the old rules, after having such a taste of power?

Review: As much as I love these books, this one isn't my favourite. There are a few parts of it that I'm just not in love with. However, I absolutely love that Claire KICKS BUTT in this one. But SHANE isn't in this one enough. You all know Shane's my favourite. We always need more Shane. Still, there was a lot of Myrnin and that was nice, even though he was getting nuttier and nuttier. I still find him strangely hot.

I know, I have issues.

So, my favourite Shane quote?

pg. 117


He smiled, and it was pure Shane - full of edges and yet strangely sweet. "Claire, I just got out of jail. Do you honestly think I'm bucking for sainthood or something?"
I LOVE him.

Um... my notes went a little "OMGDIE" here, so let's just say I was really happy with the ending, and it wasn't too bad of a cliffhanger.

Cons, complaints, bad stuff, etc.: This is a little weird, but I was deja vuing like crazy during some points of the book. I wondered if I'd read an excerpt or something, but I'm usually really careful not to do that because I hadn't read after the third one til I started reading this time, so... it was strange.

Also, I had some trouble at the beginning. I got a bit confused, even wondered if I might have skipped a book by accident, but after a couple of pages, it made sense again and the feeling went away.

PG-13 stuff: Heavy in this one. It's all handled super well, though, and never inappropriate, in my opinion.

Cover comments: I really, really like this cover. In general, I like blue things (this would be why my hair is blue a lot) and if I could find a bracelet like that that fit, I'd probably fall in love with it. So, yup, like the cover.

Conclusion: Because of a few parts that I had some issues with, this isn't my favourite book out of the series, but it's still very good, has a lot of really, really good parts, and the not so incredible parts don't make it any less readable. Definitely worth reading. Four out of five roses.



Other notes:

- Apparently I was determined that there was mistake of some kind on page 140... but I have no idea what I was talking about now.
- Oh, and I wrote down the name of one of the reviewers in the front of the book (Genre Go Round Reviews) and confused the heck out of myself.

Okay, so one more of these posts to go!! What do you guys think? Are they half-decently okay?

Peace and cookies,
Laina

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