Welcome to Monsterland –
the scariest place on Earth. All guests can interact with real vampires
in Vampire Village, be chased by an actual werewolf on the River Run,
and walk among the dead in Zombieville. Wyatt Baldwin, a high school
student and life-long movie buff is staring bleakly at a future of
flipping burgers. Due to a fortuitous circumstance, Wyatt and his
friends are invited to the star-studded opening of Monsterland. In a
theme park full of real vampires, werewolves and zombies, what could
possibly go wrong?
My Review:
I so much wanted to love this book. The cover is great in that 'gates of
jurassic Park' kind of way, it sounded like just my thing-a themepark
with monsters, and it was recommended by friends. Sadly I didn't like
anything much about it and only finished it because it was short!
A
plague has turned innocent people into zombies and nobody knows what to
do to contain them until rich doctor Vincent Conrad decides to open a
theme park and keep the dead as a 'safe' exhibit for curious people to
look at without putting themselves in danger. The zombies are fed
regularly and kept away from the human population. Then, wild werewolves
living happily in the swamps are added to the exhibits along with
starving desperate vampires who have been unable to find prey and get
offered a new life. Monsterland is about to face its Grand Opening to an
excited public.
The characters are frankly appalling. The story
centres on Wyatt, his family and friends. Wyatt and his whiny brother
Josh do nothing but fight and cause trouble for their mother and
trodden-on stepfather Carter. Carter is the only one I actually liked
and despite treating the kids well, they show little gratitude to him.
Then we have Wyatt's idiot friends Howard and Melvin who are an insult
to nerds. All these three do is have an ongoing fight over which is the
best monster at the park. It goes on and on and on until I'm ready to
scream and feed them all to the zombies. Add in the wonderful teenage
love angst and I was gritting my teeth. Yes Wyatt the nerd has caught
the eye of gorgeous Jade whose boyfriend is school bully Nolan. Her
equally gorgeous friend for some insane reason fancies one of the other
nerds too. I can't remember their names.
After a full 114 pages
of teenage fights and angst, nothing much was really happening. We get
bits about the vampires and werewolves who are captive and hating their
new environment. The vampires volunteered to come to the park for the
regular meals but are being turned into creatures to be ridiculed for
entertainment instead so they want out. The angry werewolves are also
determined to escape. These bits were a lot more interesting that Wyatt
and friends but their story gets to play second fiddle to angst which
was disappointing.
When we finally get into Monsterland there is a
lot of wandering around, more about Wyatt and Jade and finally we get
to the werewolf exhibit. It was reasonably interesting and it's the
start of the disaster as the werewolves escape and start taking their
revenge. However the twist in their story was obvious from the minute
the wolves in captivity were first described! The vampires I kind of
found a bit pathetic overall and the dramatic scenes of them rebelling
were pretty poor compared to the werewolves. I especially wondered how
on earth one of the nerds managed to get a pencil through the ribcage of
the vampire to kill it. Oh please! And there was so little zombie
action!
If I had been writing this, the story would have begun
with everyone at the Monsterland gates, no dumb romances and teenage
angst or wasting time on stupid things. I would have split the group in
three, each at one monster exhibit and switched the action between them
as hell broke loose. And my version would have been scary. Very scary.
It was a nice idea but for me the execution was sadly lacking. I won't
be trying anything else by the author.
Read December 2016.
At last! I have finally got caught up with all the book reviews from last year which means I can now concentrate on the reviews for books I have read this year-and there are plenty reviews to come. I think now would be a good time to talk about the format of reviews on my blog as there still seems to be lingering confusion amongst you over when I read these books.
For about five months I have been using a policy of dating the reviews to alert the blog visitor as to whether the review is old or recent. It is in the format of 'Read December 2016' or 'Read October 2016' etc and is right above the star rating, on a seperate line below the full review. But some blog visitors are still saying 'hope your next read is better' when the review is clearly marked as being read five months ago! So please take note of when the review was written! I will be starting to post January's reviews from today.
Those that are marked as Chuckles Retro Reads are older reviews maybe even from years back. These reviews are ones that were previously posted on my blog but I want to share them again for the benefit of newer followers who might like the books. These will NOT have read date on them as I might not remember when I first read them!
Hopefully, you guys will see some books you like the sound of! Happy Reading!
Every year I promise to catch up on the book series that have been
sitting on my shelves brooding for years. Last year I did actually
manage to deal with a few which is better than
I've done in the last four years combined! Now it is time to look
forward with excitement to getting more series completed!
FEBRUARY UPDATE:
Michael Stephen Fuchs-Arisen
status-read 1-4, need to read 5-12 and two prequel novels.
updated: read 5-11 and 2 prequels.
MARCH PLAN:
I have some books on my reading list for this month that will allow me to catch up with or complete a few series I've started.
Steven Jenkins-Burn the dead
1) Quarantine (previously read)
2) Purge
3) Riot
JT Sawyer-First Wave
1) First Wave (previously read)
2) The Longest Day
3) No place to hide
Bonnie Dee
1) After the End (previously read)
2) Dead Country
Jason Kristopher-The Dying of the Light
1) End (previously read)
2) Interval
3) Beginning
-Walker chronicles short stories
Robert Brown-The Last Blade of Grass
1) The Last Blade of Grass (previously read)
2) Barren Fields
Cherie Priest-Cheshire Red Reports
1) Bloodshot (previously read)
2) Hellbent
Patricia Briggs-Mercy Thompson
1-8 (previously read)
9) Fire Touched
Micah Gurley-Macon Saga
1) The Road to Macon (previously read)
2) The Rise of Macon
Craig Jones
1) Outbreak (previously read)
2) Breakout
It's March and it seems like a good excuse to select some books related to monsters of all kinds to read this month. Welcome to the Monster Month of March at The Book Cave! I'll be reading a mixture of ebooks and paperbacks, each featuring various monsters-zombies, vampires, shifters, dinosaurs, sharks...the possibilities are endless and I'm very excited!
1) Steve Alten-Meg
2) Brennan Beard-Devil of the Forest
3) Ezekiel Boone-The Hatching
4) Eric S Brown-Bigfoot War
5) Jonah Buck-Carrion Safari
6) Rick Chesler-Hotel Megalodon
7) Catt Dahman-Extinction Island 2
8) Catt Dahman-Louisiana Saturday Night
9) Ray Garton-'Nids
10) Dane Hatchell-The Lost World of Patagonia
11) Hunter Shea-Swamp Monster Massacre
12) Cherie Priest-Hellbent
13) Chris Fox-No such thing as werewolves
14) Judith Post-Magicks Uncaged
15) Patricia Briggs-Fire Touched
16) Robert Brown-Barren Fields
17) Keith RA DeCandido-Resident Evil Apocalypse
18) Bonnie Dee-dead Country
19) Micah Gurley-The Rise of Macon
20) Dave Jefferey-Necropolis Rising
21) Steven Jenkins-Purge
22) Steven Jenkins-Riot
23) Craig Jones-Breakout
24) Jason Kristopher-Interval
25) Jason Kristopher-Walker Chronicles
26) Jason Kristopher-Beginning
27) JT Sawyer-The Longest Day
28) JT Sawyer-No place to hide
29) JT Sawyer-Until Morning Comes
30) Timothy Long-Z Risen
The exciting thing about this lot is that it also catches me up and completes several series which is a bonus! And lots of zombie fun this month, yea!
If there is one thing that makes a great book even better, it is when
it has a cover that we love! The cover design is what catches the eye
as we browse through a bookstore shelf or check out the Amazon or
Goodreads recommendations. The right cover makes me look closer at a
book, to read the blurb and maybe make a purchase. A poor cover might
mean I never look at the blurb at all.
I haven't read this series by Jaye Wells yet but I certainly love looking at the covers. This is the type of cover that I love in urban fantasy. I've read and enjoyed the first of her Sabina Kane books and look forward to reading both series during this year.
Has anyone read this series? Is it good? How does it compare to the Sabina Kane series for humour and action?
