Scorch (Croak #2) by Gina Damico

This is a book, a series, that I love, love, love!!  And of course it is in #7 in my September is for Sequels Challenge.  Again, it has been sitting on my TBR shelf forever, which was a huge oversight on my part, because like the first one, it was soooo good!  One I didn't want to put down, even when I had to because I had to work, or sleep, or drive, etc.
We left off with Zara having somehow gotten Lex's ability to damn people.  Now, it might not seem so horrible that she got that power, because the people she is damning, which also basically incinerates them, are all horrible criminal type people, murderers, etc.  But for the Grim Reapers in this story, that is not allowed.  They are only allowed to kill those who are supposed to be dead according to their instructions.  Because of what happened, Lex is back in the town of Croak to try to help catch Zara.  But when she gets back, she finds that some in the town are not happy to have her back, in fact they have decided to punish all of the Junior Reapers.  Things take a turn when Zara begins damning innocents, a fact which the town is even unhappier about because she has come to Lex with a demand.  A demand for the "wrong book", the one that a mythical Grim from the past, Grotton supposedly wrote about how to do all the things he decided to do that went against the rules.  Soon a few of the townspeople convince most of the others that they must get rid of Lex's Uncle Mort as mayor, and take over.  Then when a bombing occurs in the middle of town, they decide they must put all the juniors and Mort in jail.  When they finally escape, Mort takes them to another Grim town, DeMyse.  DeMyse is way different from Croak, it is quite a bit like Las Vegas in description.  Here they try to hide from Zara, one reason they feel this is a good place is that she hasn't really gone to take anyone from there as she has from the other Grim cities.  All the time they are fighting either their own townspeople, or trying to hide from other dangers like Zara, they continue to try to figure out the mystery of the book that Zara wants, and how they can both find it, and keep it from her.  Along the way there are many surprises, and even a few deaths of characters that we know and love.  I won't tell you who, I'll let you read and discover the sadness for yourself.
I loved the book, I can't say it enough.  This author's writing literally makes me laugh out loud, no matter where I am while I'm reading.  As I said in my review of the first book, Croak, I really enjoy the sarcasm of the characters.  I love the teenage romance between Lex and Driggs.  It is so realistic, and I have to say a relationship that I would be comfortable in, as the sarcasm in my family can be quite that extreme.  One page I had to mark to talk about in my review was page 121, there is a reference to Silent Bob, a character in Kevin Smith movies, that is played by Kevin Smith.  Kevin Smith is one of my favorite actors/directors/writers/personalities.  So I love that he was in this story in this way.  Now, the only thing I didn't like about the book was the ending.  Which actually, I know that the ending is one of the best types there can be.  But, I hate what happens!  I don't want it to happen, and I really hope the author can come up with some kind of way to fix it in the next book, and I don't really care if turns out to be unrealistic.  Maybe it can somehow relate back to one of the surprises that took place with the person that it has to do with in this book.
I highly recommend this book to anyone who liked the tv show Dead Like Me, or enjoys stories about Grim Reapers, and you must also really be a fan of sarcastic people.  There's just no way around it.

Waiting On Wednesday - Scorch (Croak #2) by Gina Damico

Waiting on Wednesday is a weekly event hosted by Jill at Breaking the Spine where we spotlight upcoming releases that we're eagerly awaiting. This week I've chosen the sequel to the book by the author I got to host as part of the Authors are Rockstars tour.  You should go check it out and sign up for the contest to win this book HERE.  

Croak is a cool series about Reapers, and Scorch continues Lex's story after a renegade reaper has taken off with an extra power that Lex unwillingly gave to her.  Here is the summary from Goodreads.com:

Sixteen-year-old Lex Bartleby is a teenage grim reaper with the bizarre ability to damn souls. That makes her pretty scary, even to fellow Grims. But after inadvertently transferring her ability to Zara, a murderous outlaw, Lex is a pariah in Croak, the little town she calls home.

To escape the townspeople’s wrath, she and her friends embark on a wild road trip to DeMyse. Though this sparkling desert oasis is full of luxuries and amusements, it feels like a prison to Lex. Her best chance at escape would be to stop Zara once and for all—but how can she do that from DeMyse, where the Grims seem mysteriously oblivious to Zara’s killing spree?





So, what book are you eagerly waiting on this week?

Authors Are Rockstars Tour stop featuring Gina Damico, author of Croak

I'm so excited to get to be a part of this awesome tour!  I've been telling people that authors are my rockstars for such a long time!  Probably since I first joined into the whole Twitter and blogging universe, and got to talk to them, and even occasionally meet some of them!  When I was notified that I got to host Gina Damico, I was really excited!  I'd tried for awhile to win her book on Goodreads.com, but never won.  Then I got to meet her at BEA this summer, and get the book autographed!  I had put off reading it, as I kind of set up a little schedule with trying to read ARCs before they came out.  But when I found out I was hosting her, I picked Croak right up to read.  And I LOVED it!  You can read my review here.  I got a top 5 list from Gina to share with you, I hope you enjoy it!!

All summer long, I've been working on the third and final book in the Croak series. It's been wonderful and fun and difficult all at the same time (emphasis on the difficult when my house decides to turn itself into a sauna), but lately I've been thinking about how I used to spend my summers when I was a kid: not writing, but reading. More specifically, going to the library and checking out the same books over and over and over until the librarian had to call pry them out of my freakishly strong little hands. So here are the top five picture books I loved as a kid, in no particular order:

-Herman the Helper, by Robert Kraus
This charming little ditty is about an octopus named Herman who loves to help. It's his favorite thing ever. Get stuck in a web of seaweed? Herman'll help you out. Ocean traffic jam? Herman will use all of his legs to direct traffic. DWI charge? Herman's the best lawyer there is. (There is a chance I'm remembering this story wrong.) 

-Did I Ever Tell You How Lucky You Are? by Dr. Seuss
This is one of those books that I loved so hard, I memorized it. Which is a difficult thing to do with a Dr. Seuss book, in my opinion, with all those made-up words. It's a gorgeously drawn book that tells you that even if you are stuck in a desert and sitting atop a cactus (as a wiser cactus-sitter is telling our narrator), there's a whole bunch of crap that can happen to you that's a whole lot worse. Like poor Mr. Bix - every morning at six, poor Mr. Bix has his Borfin to fix! 

-Peter and the Penny Tree, by Thomas James
I'm not sure this was one of my favorites, actually, but it definitely was the first book I ever read. I was only three at the time, and I remember sitting at the kitchen table while my mom was drying dishes or something, and I was looking at the book, and then the words just came plopping out of my mouth. Mom freaked out and I got scared. But then once I realized what was happening we all had a hearty laugh and a celebratory round of Goldfish. Thus began my career of reading and getting paid in processed cheese snacks. My book advance consisted solely of Doritos!

-Chicka Chicka Boom Boom, by Bill Martin, Jr. and John Archambault
The story is about how all the letters of the alphabet get together to climb up a coconut tree, and then it gets a little too crowded up there and they all fall out - which, now that I am seeing that all typed out, is actually pretty horrible. But I dare you to read this book  and not start saying "Chicka chicka boom boom" to yourself for the rest of the day, or perhaps the rest of the month, driving anyone within hearing range to insanity with your nonsensical ramblings.

-Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day, by Judith Viorst
I know I'm not alone in loving this book, and I think it's because kids are just so darn convinced that they are constantly going through the worst possible things that could happen to them, when meanwhile they have no idea how much harder life is going to get. Hey Alexander, I bet you'll stop whining about the ice cream that fell off your cone once you get audited by the IRS. Good luck whining your way out of THAT one. Sure, you can move to Australia like you keep threatening, but you know what? THEY WILL FIND YOU.

I have to say I definitely agree with the last book on that list.  It is one of my favorite books EVER!  I find myself quoting lines from it even when I'm having a bad day.

And in going with the top 5 list and the theme of these books, I've created my own top 5 Grim Reapers list, like above, in no particular order.

• Lex from Croak
• Georgia Lass from the Showtime series Dead Like Me
• Sam Oliver from the CW series called Reaper
• Tod Hudson in the Souls Screamers series by Rachel Vincent
• And a classic, the one from A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens

And to all of you out there, let me say that I wish I could enter the contest I'm sponsoring today!!  Gina Damico is offering a copy of the 2nd book in her Croak series, called Scorch.  A book I really can't wait to read now!  So, make sure you enter the giveaway below, so you can be the lucky owner of this book.  And it is open to US entries only.

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Check out the rest of the Authors Are Rockstars Tour HERE.

Croak by Gina Damico

This is one of the books that I got at BEA, autographed of course!  It was a little further down in my stack to get read until I found out I will get to host the author during August, the Authors Are Our Rock Stars Hop month!  (And also my 3rd blogoversary month, stay tuned for fun!)  And I have to say I'm glad I went ahead and picked it up, and that I get to host Gina Damico, because it was a good, fun read!
I actually used to love the show Dead Like Me, a story about reapers, so this book about a similar type of storyline, reapers, really was a good one for me to read.  This is a bit different though.  In Damico's story, the reapers are still alive, although they do tend to live together in different towns throughout the world.  The main character of this story is Lex, she is 16 years old and has a twin.  But over the last few years she changed, all of a sudden she just started punching people and cursing, and just all around violent behavior.  Finally, it is the last week of school, and the principal would kick her out, but her father promises he's going to send her to her uncle in upstate New York to work on his farm. Now, the funny thing is they tie her down with jump ropes to tell her this.  She of course is not happy about this, but kind of sees that she does need to do something as she is not even sure why she has all this rage and is behaving this way.  She gets to the small town, her uncle shows up, and right away things are weird and crazy!  Then, she finds out he is a reaper, living in a town full of reapers. And he has figured out that her behavior will make her a perfect "Killer"/reaper.  There are partners, a killer, who touches and pulls the soul out of the bodies, and the culler, who collects the soul into a container to be taken back to the afterlife.  Now when they go to do their job, it is like they are frozen in time, and so everything in the scene is stopped.  Lex sees the murderer in one of her first jobs, and wants so bad to be able to kill the bad guy. But that is against the rules.  You can only kill who is supposed to die.  However, they soon find some strange killings are going on, deaths with the cause unknown both by their sources, as well as the people in the real world.  And while Lex kind of understands why this person is doing it, she also knows she really needs to find who is doing this kind of vigilante reaping.    Even when she kind of sees why they are doing it.
First, let me touch on the one thing I had a problem with.  The way Lex was at the beginning, violent and all that, I have trouble identifying with a character like that.  Kind of like I did with Wildefire by Karsten Knight.  But again, same as with that book, once I got into the story, and understood why they were the way they were.  And I grew to really like Lex.  Her sense of humor was awesome.  And I just loved when she'd go to punch people or something similar.  I really liked all the people and their sarcasm in this story.  I really liked the town, and I can't wait to go on and read the next in the series, Scorch.  This was a book I read in basically a day, I didn't want to put it down when I had to, and was always thinking about picking it back up and reading constantly.  The "romance" in the story was so tongue in cheek, without being sappy and silly, and I loved it, seemed so realistic and perfect for the the character of Lex.  There were even a few bits that reminded me a bit of Lemony Snickett's Series of Unfortunate Events, in how something would be explained, that really you probably already knew, but the way it was done was funny and fit perfectly.

Me with Gina Damico at BEA 2012

Oh yeah, one last thing I have to complain about with the book.  On page 141, one of these explanations says that "As everyone knows, the offer of an onion ring is not to be taken lightly."  Okay, I can go with that, onion rings can be pretty tasty, but the next line is where I beg to differ, "Onion rings are far more valuable than their throw-away side dish counterparts -- french fries and potato chips..."  I would so take french fries over any other side dish.  So, a little disagreement there.  :-)

My Soul to Take (Soul Screamers #1) by Rachel Vincent

My Soul to Take by Rachel Vincent
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

All I can say is, why has it taken me so long to read this book? And I'm guessing, any book by Rachel Vincent is going to be this good! Reading this book reminds me of when I found Mara Purnhagenand her ghost series. I fell right into it, in love with it, and can't wait to read the rest of the series! First off, not sure why I didn't guess right from the series name: Soul Screamers, that this was about banshees. But what a cool new supernatural creature to develop into a story! The main character is Kaylee. Kaylee gets this uncontrollable urge to scream when she sees this black cloud surrounding people, and somehow she just knows that they're about to die. She had an episode in a mall,and I guess I have to get the prequel novella to read about that, but her aunt and uncle, who she lives with because her mother died when she was little and her father has moved back to Ireland, well, they put her in a psych ward and get her on meds to try to help with these "episodes". Only it happens again when she's snuck into a local club for 18 and older with her best friend Emma. The night starts off good, as one of the hottest guys in school, Nash, seems to have eyes for only her, and really be into her. But then this happens again, and she has to hold back the scream, and doing so makes her look like she's having a fit. Only, Nash doesn't seem to be too freaked out or scared off by this. In fact, he seems to know what's going on, and he does, he lets Kaylee in on what her heritage is. The cool thing, banshees aren't quite what we think of them as. In fact they have a cool Irish name that is interpreted as banshees, bean sidhe. The females scream/sing because they can tell when the soul leaves the body. And they are able to hold it and keep it from leaving the body, so that the deceased can see his family say their goodbyes, etc. The males don't do the screaming, but they can get the soul to move, back into the body, towards where it should be going, etc. But you're not supposed to bring someone back to life this way, because it means someone else will take their place. And what Kaylee soon learns, is that this rash of deaths of young people isn't supposed to be happening. They aren't on death's "list" to die. Someone is taking their souls for a nefarious purpose. And we do find out who, and Kaylee's father does come back, and we learn a lot about her family, but I won't tell you that, you'll have to read it for yourself.
I just have to say I love the connection between Nash and Kaylee. Can't wait to read on and find out where it goes. I do also like the character Tod, a grim reaper, which reminds me of one of my favorite shows, Dead Like Me. I can't wait to keep up with him too. I got this book as a strip cover that was going to be thrown away at the bookstore where I work. Now I have to go back and buy the compilation that has this, as well as the prequel novella: My Soul to Lose, and the 2nd book in the series: My Soul to Save. I'm hoping that they'll put the next 3 in a compilation as well.
This counts as my "M" in my A-Z Reading Challenge.

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