Tuesday, May 31, 2011

The Cellar by A.J. Whitten



This was another egalley from Netgalley. This book is actually already published, but I still was interested in reading it.


First off, let me say this story was pretty scary! We have two, kind of three, main characters. First are the two sisters Meredith and Heather. They recently lost their father in a car crash, and since have moved in with their aunt and two twin cousins, and while the girls are lost, their mother has begun shopping constantly and not being there for her daughters. The third main character is Adrien, a very attractive and mysterious boy who has just moved into the really crummy rundown house next door to them.


At school all the girls seem to fall in love with Adrien, including Heather. Meredith however senses something isn't quite right with him. Adrien always leaves his sunglasses on, but he does pull them off one time to intimidate Meredith, and she sees maggots and other worms crawling out of his eyes. Turns out Adrien is a zombie basically, and lives with his "mother" or another zombie. Adrien needs to find a body for his mother to move her soul into because her current body is decomposing fast. Adrien however wants to find a new person to live with him and be rid of his mother. He controls hyenas and pirahnas, vultures, flies, all kinds of creatures that help get rid of what he and his mother do not eat. As zombies, they must continue to eat humans to "live". And because they are voodoo type zombies, they also know magic, and that is how Adrien pulls people under his spell.


This is a good story. My only complaint is the jumping back and forth between the three main characters. While Adrien's parts are easy to tell, between the two girls is occasionally confusing until you get some hint of which sister it is. But as I've said before in other blogs, this isn't my favorite way of storytelling. However, again, this was a really good, scary book. I will definitely recommend it to teens, as well as anyone who enjoys zombie stories.