Published by IDW Publishing
Released June 12, 2012
384 pages
Where I got it: E-galley received from publisher via NetGalley
Rating: 4 out of 5 stars

Description (from publisher):

A sweeping threaded narrative of the global phenomenon known as the Vampire Wars.

Mankind has been silently infected by millennia-old bacteria unknowingly exhumed by a scientific expedition in Antarctica. Now, in some rare cases, a person’s so-called “junk DNA” becomes activated, and depending on their racial and ethnic heritage they begin to manifest one of the many diverse forms of the “others” that are the true basis for the legends of supernatural creatures. These aren’t your usual vampires and werewolves-it goes much deeper than that.

Conceived by Jonathan Maberry, V WARS features stories from various “frontlines” as reported by such contributors as Nancy Holder, Yvonne Navarro, James A. Moore, Gregory Frost, John Everson, Keith R.A. DeCandido, and Scott Nicholson (as well as Maberry himself, of course).

The result is a compelling series of tales that create a unique chronicle of mankind’s response to this sudden, hidden threat to humanity.

I’ve stated before that I love me some vampires. Especially scary vampires. Jonathan Maberry is also one of my favorite horror authors currently writing, so when I saw this book by Maberry, with contributions by other writers I enjoy, like Nancy Holder and John Everson, I knew it was a must-read. I’m glad to report that my instincts were dead-on. This book is great, and so much fun.

The structure of the anthology is one of the best I’ve seen in a multi-author book. Each writer is allowed to have his or her own style and story, but all of the stories relate back to the larger work by Maberry and weave in elements and characters of his tale. Maberry writes in his signature style: the events leading up to a supernatural crisis, with medical and military storylines playing a large role in his plot. He breaks the events into chunks, giving us the countdown to, and time elapsed after, the V event. The other stories are sandwiched between Maberry’s overarching narrative, so we know that we’ll always come back to  that central plot.

None of the stories here are weak. Each author has a strength and unique voice, and those add up to a rich experience. Readers see the Vampire Wars as they play out across the country, and even around the world: on the talk show circuit, along the Mexican-American border, on an Indian reservation, in the Bronx, in Chinese gangs, in the backwoods, and in Europe. I think what I appreciated best about the world building is the way that a multiplicity of vampire archetypes are at play here.  This is really a vampire aficionado’s dream. Vampires run the gamut of classic western vamps, to flesh-eaters, to psychic vampires, and everything in between. They’re called by their cultural names, and are even sometimes pitted against one another. Anyone who enjoys vampire horror from Carmilla through Anne Rice (maybe not Twilight fans so much) is sure to have a great time with this book.

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Published by HarperCollins
Released April 3, 2012
403 pages
Where I got it: Public library
Rating: 2 out of 5 stars

Description (from HarperCollins):

In July 1890, Vincent van Gogh went into a cornfield and shot himself. Or did he? Why would an artist at the height of his creative powers attempt to take his own life . . . and then walk a mile to a doctor’s house for help? Who was the crooked little “color man” Vincent had claimed was stalking him across France? And why had the painter recently become deathly afraid of a certain shade of blue?

These are just a few of the questions confronting Vincent’s friends—baker-turned-painter Lucien Lessard and bon vivant Henri Toulouse-Lautrec—who vow to discover the truth about van Gogh’s untimely death. Their quest will lead them on a surreal odyssey and brothel-crawl deep into the art world of late nineteenth-century Paris.

Oh là là, quelle surprise, and zut alors! A delectable confection of intrigue, passion, and art history—with cancan girls, baguettes, and fine French cognac thrown in for good measure—Sacré Bleu is another masterpiece of wit and wonder from the one, the only, Christopher Moore.

I need to start my review by describing what I brought to this book, and what was at stake for me as an individual reader. I studied art history in college; I have both a B.A. and an M.A. in art history. That is to say, I have a deep personal interest in art and the story behind its creation and place in history, but I don’t think this really affected me much with this book, since I went in knowing it is fiction. I also have read Christopher Moore books in the past and enjoyed them. I do think this affected my reading of this book, mainly because I went in expecting to enjoy his writing style and humor.

Sacre Bleu was a tough read for me. It took me longer than usual to get through, mostly because I was often bored while reading. Moore has a humorous, irreverent style, but for me, the jokes in this book just weren’t funny. It’s a very dialog heavy book, but I felt like most of it was throw away dialog. The jokes are mainly having to do with some combination of bonking, shagging, and/or penis, and this kind of humor really ran thin pretty quickly. I wanted more substance behind the jokes, more wit. Instead, it was as if Moore had a post-it on his computer that said, “When in doubt, type ‘penis’.”

I thought the story itself had a lot of promise. The mystical source of ultramarine, the most expensive and dear of all colors, associated with the Virgin herself. A Colorman and Muse that transcend time to bring both inspiration and destruction to artists. There was a lot of potential there. I never felt the story delivered, though. It felt meandering, and kind of dull. After thinking about it for a while, I decided that this was the result of a combination of lack of character development and just too many things going on in the plot. I’d love to see another writer take on this story, to see what it could have been when delivered with more seriousness and exactitude.

One of the positive attributes of this book is the design. The physical volume is absolutely beautiful. I love the rich blue of the cover, and the design that integrates Toulouse-Lautrec and the Eiffel Tower. There are color illustrations of famous Impressionist paintings throughout the text, which relate back to the story. And the text of the pages itself is blue. Altogether, it’s really nicely done and in the spirit of the story.

Sadly, Sacre Bleu is the weakest Christopher Moore book I’ve read. It lacked the spirit and true humor of his past writing, and struggled with character development and focus. I hope his next endeavor is more successful.

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Published by Penguin
Released April 24, 2012
272 pages
Where I got it: E-galley received from publisher via NetGalley
Rating: 2 out of 5 stars

Description (from Goodreads):

Hailed as “one of the most hilarious and well-observed accounts of teenage debauchery you are ever likely to read” by the trendsetting British lifestyle magazine Dazed & Confused, Ben Brooks’s Grow Up is a shocking, stylish, and very modern coming-of-age story.
As Jasper J. Wolf careens through high school, his list of to-dos includes: get high with friends, seduce the hottest girl in school, and, last but not least, expose his stepfather as a murderer. But as growing up soon teaches him, what he wants and what he gets are often wildly different—and decidedly unexpected.

I was really excited to read Grow Up. Looking back on it, I’m not sure why this was, other than I loved the cover art and the description sounded really good. However, there’s a big difference between the way a book is marketed and the book itself. After the first couple of chapters, I started feeling really ambivalent toward this book, and that feeling grew as I read on. There are a lot of funny parts. For instance, the main character, Jasper, has it in his head that his step-father murdered his first wife. Throughout the story, this is woven in anytime he encounters him, and it’s hilarious.

However, Jasper is also a jerk. A big time jerk. So much of what he says and does it utterly immature, and misogynistic on top of it. It was more than not being able to relate to him: I wasn’t able to sympathize with him or even like him. He starts off the book by taking drugs and sleeping with an overweight girl he doesn’t like. Then, he sends messages to her and her parents about her being pregnant in order to shame her and get her in trouble. While I understand that there are guys that act this way, I want nothing to do with them. Jasper’s language is crude, and he tries to shock people constantly. He orders white supremacist stuff to read and wear to his therapist meetings. I think Brooks is going for edgy, but it just comes across as pathetic, immature, and disgusting. I love the voice, but hate what he’s saying.

On top of that, there were two events that just made me sorry I’d read the book. Item 1: A cat is murdered, senselessly, and without meaning much to the plot. Why!? I hate any time a cat is murdered in a book, and this just turned my stomach. Item 2: Jasper drugs and date rapes a girl. He starts to feel badly about it, but his best friend assures him that it wasn’t rape, because pretty much all girls who have sex at parties are wasted anyway, so what was different? It was despicable, and I just couldn’t accept that Jasper never learns a lesson and never has any sort of punishment for the poor way he treats most women.

Grow Up gets points for humor, but overall, I really didn’t like this book. I wish it had retained the style, but had a main character I could enjoy.

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Published by Soho Press
Released April 3, 2012
336 pages
Where I got it: E-galley received from publisher via NetGalley
Rating: 3 out of 5 stars

Description (from Goodreads):

Fifteen-year-old Lynn Marie Sugrue is doing her best to make it through a difficult summer. Her mother works long hours as a nurse, and Lynn suspects that her mother’s pill-popping boyfriend has enlisted her in his petty criminal enterprises. Lynn finds refuge in online flirtations, eventually meeting up with a troubled young soldier, Logan Loy, and inviting him home. When he’s forced to stay over in a storage space accessible through her closet, and the Army subsequently lists him as AWOL, she realizes that he’s the one thing in her life that she can control. Meanwhile, her mother’s boyfriend is on the receiving end of a series of increasingly violent threats, which places Lynn squarly in the cross-hairs.

Caring is Creepy was a strange, dark book about bad people in worse situations. Many times while reading, I considered putting the book down and walking away from it, much like some of the characters should have done with the problems in their lives. However, just like the frustrating characters in this book, I kept going, no matter how bad it felt for me, because I wanted to see how everything would turn out.

The main character of the story, Lynn Marie, has problems. Her father left, and her mother pays little attention to her because she is too wrapped up in her boyfriends. Lynn finds refuge from the boredom of her life at her friend Dani’s house. There, they play a game of making up fake personas and messing with people in internet sex chat rooms. One day, instead of playing the game, Lynn reveals her real name to somebody in the chat room, who turns out to be a 25 year old soldier on a nearby base. Although he’s suffering from PTSD, Logan has been stop lossed by the military, and he is itching to get out.

Meanwhile, Lynn’s mother’s boyfriend has gotten into deep trouble with the local drug lords. After witnessing a horrific episode, Lynn knows that Hayes is in deep, deep enough to get killed. Lynn’s mother also may or may not be involved. It turns out that Hayes’ troubles will affect everybody around him, including Lynn.

There were many times when my heart seemed to stop while I was reading. This book was truly scary for me, on a deep level, because I know that so many of the terrible things that happen in this book happen in real life, and that is the scariest thing of all. Looking at Lynn and her boredom, I think back and know that if I hadn’t had such good parents who were active in my life, it would have been easy to get into trouble like Lynn. That said, she’s pretty crazy as well. The loss of her father hurt her deeply, so that when she has an older man who is affectionate, she locks him up and makes it so that he is her prisoner. Add to that Logan’s AWOL status and the statutory rape, and he’s really at Lynn’s mercy.

Caring is Creepy is a totally messed up book involving drugs, neglect, and abuse. Nobody is innocent in its pages, and some will not be able to get through reading it. However, Zimmerman has written a story that had a powerful impact on me, and presents much for the reader to think about.

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Published by Crown
Released March 27, 2012
404 pages
Where I got it: Review copy received courtesy the publisher
Rating: 5 out of 5 stars

Publisher’s description:

Two hundred years after the Salem witch trials, in the summer of 1892, a grisly new witch hunt is beginning….
When newly appointed Deputy Marshal Archie Lean is called in to investigate a prostitute’s murder in Portland, Maine, he’s surprised to find the body laid out like a pentagram and pinned to the earth with a pitchfork.  He’s even more surprised to learn that this death by “sticking” is a traditional method of killing a witch.
Baffled by the ritualized murder scene, Lean secretly enlists the help of historian Helen Prescott and brilliant criminalist Perceval Grey.  Distrusted by officials because of his mixed Abenaki Indian ancestry, Grey is even more notorious for combining modern investigative techniques with an almost eerie perceptiveness.  Although skeptical of each other’s methods, together the detectives pursue the killer’s trail through postmortems and opium dens, into the spiritualist societies and lunatic asylums of gothic New England.
Before the killer closes in on his final victim, Lean and Grey must decipher the secret pattern to these murders–a pattern hidden within the dark history of the Salem witch trials.

The Truth of All Things is exactly the kind of book I always want to read, but so rarely find. This book has many of my personal interests: witches, New England history, nineteenth-century occultism, a spunky and intelligent special collections/historical society woman, and a countdown to catch a serial killer. Throw in a visit to the local opium den and another to the Danvers State Hospital, and I’m a very happy reader.

There is a lot going on in this book. Racism plays into the plot. Grey is half Native American, and has to continually work in the face of prejudice. There are also clues that point to a Native American being involved with the murders, as well as ties to the prejudices and tensions between the Puritans and the local tribes during the Salem Witch Trials. In the Salem transcripts, the devil is continually referenced as looking like an Indian. Grey has his own personal story of family tragedy, which combined with his exacting and scientific nature, makes him all the more intriguing. Shields’ love of Portland, Maine is also obvious. He revels in the details of the locals and is very successful at tying local history into the story.

I was pleasantly surprised by the characters, which are the real reason this book was such a great read for me. Archie Lean is compelling as the main investigator on the case, but can be overshadowed by Perceval Grey, a man whose demeanor and detective skills are bound to remind readers of Sherlock Holmes. However, for me, the historical society researcher Helen Prescott stole the show. She was witty and spunky, and worked her way into the investigation beautifully. I was very happy to find such a strong female character in a story that could have easily been dominated by the male investigators and the female murder victims. The characters interact with each other beautifully, adding levity to what could have been a book so dark that it would have dragged itself down. Instead, there is witty banter that eases tensions and makes the reader feel like an insider among friends.

The Truth of All Things was pitched to me as appealing to people who enjoyed A Discovery of Witches by Deborah Harkness. I think it is more similar to The Physick Book of Deliverance Dane by Katherine Howe. However, I enjoyed The Truth of All Things more than both of those books. It came across as somehow more intelligent, and with less pretension. Instead of meandering through meals and conversations, every page of this book supports and adds to the plot. The writing is tight, and is therefore easy to read without ever feeling like Shields has written down to his audience. There are plenty of twists and turns in the plot, as well, and I was not able to guess the answer to the mystery until the big reveal, which made the book all the more fun to read.

The ending leaves the way open for further adventures with Lean and Grey, and considering how successful Shields’ debut is, I am actually excited to see the development of a future series. The Truth of All Things is one of my favorite books of the year so far.

Excited by my review and want to read it for yourself? Crown was kind enough to give me a copy to giveaway! 

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