Cursing Cats

Apologies for the late blog post. I assumed incorrectly that I would have time to keep up with this because we weren't having many people over. Man, some people are a pain, you know who you are. Just kidding, Thanksgiving was lots of fun and I am now very sleep deprived.

The Curse Workers:

White Cat

By Holly Black

Cassel comes from a family of Curse Workers - people who have the power to change your emotions, your memories, your luck, by the slightest touch of their hands. And since curse work is illegal, they're all criminals. Many become mobsters and con artists. But not Cassel. He hasn't got magic, so he's an outsider, the straight kid in a crooked family. You just have to ignore one small detail - he killed his best friend, Lila, three years ago.

Cassel has carefully built up a facade of normalcy, blending into the crowd. But his facade starts to crumble when he finds himself sleepwalking, propelled into the night by terrifying dreams about a white cat that wants to tell him something. He's noticing other disturbing things too, including the strange behavior of his two brothers. They are keeping secrets from him. As Cassel begins to suspect he's part of a huge con game, he must unravel his past and his memories. To find out the truth, Cassel will have to out-con the conmen

I have to admit that I predicted several things that happened later in the book, but that didn't keep it from being an interesting read and there were a couple of key points that took me by surprise.

At first glance the world of White Cat doesn't seem very different from ours, but as the book went on there were all these little details that gave it a different twist. It's our world if there just happened to be magic.

One detail that I really liked was that everyone wears gloves. Because Curse Workers can do so much with their bare hands and there's no way to tell who is one just by looking, it's considered as essential to being dressed appropriately as wearing pants.

The idea of Curse Workers reminded me in some ways of the Contractors in the anime Darker Than Black. They have these incredibly powerful abilities, but they pay for it every time they work a curse in ways that they can't control. This provides a very reasonable way to keep Curse Workers in check as the more powerful the Curse the more painful the payment.

I doubt I will read the second book in the series because I had a hard time liking one of the main characters and was completely neutral about the other. I think the two things I liked the most was the mystery about what had really happened in the past (I was only half-right) and the world itself. The world fascinated me more than the characters which is not very conducive to reading more in the series.

One of the things I didn't like about this book was that all the characters in this book had a rather skewed moral compass. There were spots were I had difficulty seeing how the actions of the protagonist were any more morally correct than the villians. It was more like they were all just rivals in the mob.

Overall, I liked the book enough to finish reading it, but that's about all. I've found that I tend to only like about a third of Holly Black's books, but they always sound interesting and make me want to try them.

Zombie (Un)Life

If you have any book recommendations or books you'd like me to review, I would be happy to hear them. I'm always looking for new books and I am trying to branch out on what genres I'm reviewing. So far it's been mostly fantasy, since that's what I read lot of the time.

You may notice that I've been giving the summary straight off the back of the book rather then writing my own. That's because sometimes it does a good job and it's kind of a pain writing my own. If I feel that the summary doesn't cut it, I will write my own.

My Life As A White Trash Zombie

By Diana Rowland



Um, this is certainly a different variation of a genre I've been reviewing. This is a romance zombie book.

'Living with her alcoholic deadbeat dad in the swamps of southern Louisiana, she's a high school dropout with a pill habit and a criminal record who's been fired from more crap jobs than she can count. Now on probation for a felony, it seems that Angel will never pull herself out of the downward spiral her life has taken.

That is, until the day she wakes up in the ER after overdosing on painkillers. Angel remembers being in an horrible car crash, but she doesn't have a mark on her. To add to the weirdness, she receives an anonymous letter telling her there's a job waiting for her at the parish morgue—and that it's an offer she doesn't dare refuse.

Before she knows it she's dealing with a huge crush on a certain hunky deputy and a brand new addiction: an overpowering craving for brains. Plus, her morgue is filling up with the victims of a serial killer who decapitates his prey—just when she's hungriest!

Angel's going to have to grow up fast if she wants to keep this job and stay in one piece. Because if she doesn't, she's dead meat. Literally.'

Before I get started talking about the actual book, I really like this book cover. I'm not sure why but I really like it and it's part of the reason I decided to read this book.

Wow, where to begin with this book. I suppose I should start with, I actually did enjoy this book a lot. This isn't the first zombie book I've read, but it is the first that: Is from the Zombie's point of view, Is a Zombie Romance, and Is about Zombie survival.

Angel is an interesting character because I wasn't really expecting to like her at all. She doesn't have a lot going for her and she has done lots of things I would never do.

At the beginning of the book she's a druggie (becoming a Zombie cures this and she never has to deal with kicking the habit) and she's on parole for having a stolen vehicle (her boyfriend knew this guy who she could buy a cheap car from).

She's been fired or quit every job she's ever had, so when she gets this job, driving a van for the morgue and picking up bodies, everyone in her life assumes that this is going to be just like every other time.

No one in her life seems to actually care about her well being very much. There's her dad, who's a drunk and semi-abusive, and there's her boyfriend, who is kind of a jerk in negligent way.

This is a romance (not as much as I was expecting) but a lot of this book is Angel turning her life around and realizing that she's not a loser just because everyone says so, she's a loser because she acts like a loser.

One review I read about this book made a connection between the Zombies in this book and the recent trend of Vampire books. I see where that connection can be made, but I felt like the book was enjoyable enough to read, that I never stopped and started mocking it, like I've done with several of the new Vamp books I've tried.  It was free of tacky Zombie puns in a way that Vampires seem unable to shake.

The Zombies in this world are not the shamblers you see in the movies, in fact, in this world they are self-aware and eating brains keeps them alive. Now, unlike with Vamps nowadays, there is no cheating this. It has to be human brains, no substituting for animal brains. It doesn't work like that.

Angel spends the first half of the book not knowing she's a Zombie, she reluctantly follows the instructions left her via mysterious note that neatly blackmails her with her deepest fear. As the book goes on and she figures out that the instructions she's following are saving her unlife and trying to teach her how to survive without overwhelming her all at once.

Now this is an adult book and adult things are mentioned, but nothing is ever explicitly described. I don't actually remember how much cussing there was. I tend to filter those things out and not even notice.

This was only a little over 300 pages so this was a fairly short read. I think I finished it in two sittings.

Oh yeah, and there's a serial killer going around and decapitating people. That always makes things interesting.