In My Mailbox #2

In My Mailbox is a weekly meme hosted by Kristi at The Story Siren. It's an awesome way to share what new books you got during the past week.

So this week is super cool because I actually got something In My Mailbox...

I was super excited to recieve my copy of Monsters of Men by Patrick Ness

I won it as a part of the 2011 Locus Challenge being hosted over at The Ranting Dragon... You can find out more here. I think this is the first time in my life that I have actually won anything... ever... haha.

Monsters of Men is the third book in the Chaos Walking trilogy. I'm really looking forward to reading all three books. They seem like great books to review here on the GUYde.

So thanks again to The Ranting Dragon and of course to Candlewick Press for hooking me up!

So what did you get in your mailbox this week?

Review- Rot & Ruin by Jonathan Maberry

Rot & Ruin- Jonathan Maberry

Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Age Group: Young Adult
Pages: 464 pages

Genre: Dystopian/Zombie Apocalypse

Buy it 

In the zombie-infested, post-apocalyptic America where Benny Imura lives, every teenager must find a job by the time they turn fifteen or get their rations cut in half. Benny doesn't want to apprentice as a zombie hunter with his boring older brother Tom, but he has no choice. He expects a tedious job whacking zoms for cash, but what he gets is a vocation that will teach him what it means to be human.

               I can truly say that I’ve never really appreciated a good Zombie story until I read this book. Rot & Ruin was simply a blast to read. From the moment I picked it up I didn`t want to put it down.  It`s funny because there’d be times when I was reading it and I’d forget for a second or two that the book has anything to do with Zombies. As much as it is a story about a 15 year old kid growing up in a world literally surrounded by the living dead, it`s also largely a story about a boy struggling to find his place in the world. While avoiding the `zoms` who would like nothing more than to wrap their rotting mouth`s around a nice piece of human flesh, of course.  So, in short, it`s a coming of age story… with Zombies. Genius, pure genius. 

                Benny lives in the town of Mountainside, a small town separated from the great, zombie infested ‘Rot and Ruin’ by nothing more than a fence (and the fear and denial of the town’s inhabitants).  He’s lived there with his bounty hunting, half-brother Tom since he was an infant and the world as we know it changed forever when the dead began to rise on what became known as “First Night”.

                Now, I`m a big fan of dystopian novels, but what I particularly loved about Rot & Ruin was the fact the story is set only a generation after “First Night”. The implication of telling a dystopian story in a world at this junction point is the fact that the majority of the people who survived the initial fallout understand and remember how life used to be. They feel the loss of their previous lives. However, the flip side is Benny’s generation and all the children born afterwards. Mountainside is all Benny and his friends know. They don’t feel the same loss as the others. They don’t share the same memories. But while the older generation is so scared and traumatized by the past to even consider trying to reclaim what they`ve lost, Benny and his friends are only beginning to yearn for something more. More than the only life they`ve ever known. A life surrounded by a fence on all sides. I found that this really adds an interesting twist to this coming of age story.

                Rot & Ruin isn’t just a book about kicking some good ole zombie ass (although don’t worry, there’s plenty of it). It’s also about Benny figuring out that the world he grew up in may not be as black and white as he had always believed. Benny comes to realize that the Monsters on the other side of the fence may be nothing compared to the ones living on the inside.  

                 I really enjoyed this one. I felt like a teenage guy reading this book could really relate to a lot of the things Benny has to deal with. Well minus the flesh eating Zombie part. It tackles a lot of serious issues but Mayberry manages to discuss them in a way that is fun, exciting and keeps the reader wanting more. I know there is a second book in the works for this series and I for one am definitely looking forward to checking it out! And I`m sure after you read Rot & Ruin you will too!

In My Mailbox #1

In My Mailbox is a weekly meme hosted by Kristi at The Story Siren. It's an awesome way to share what new books you got during the past week. This is my first IMM post.

So because I'm still super new to blogging, and this is my first time taking part in IMM all three of the books I got this week I bought and paid for myself.

The first two I bought for myself for review.

 

1. The Hunchback Assignments by Arthur Slade

2. Behemoth by Scott Westerfeld

I've been looking forward to reading both of these books for sometime now. The Hunchback Assignments is the first in a trilogy. The third book in the series (Empire of Ruins) was just released in by Harper Collins in Canada on Feb 18th and is due out in the U.S in September. I'm really looking forward to reading and reviewing this series. 

Behemoth is the second book in Westerfeld's Leviathan Trilogy (check out my review of book one, Leviathan, here). The final book in the series, Goliath, is supposed to be released in October 2011 I believe. Westerfeld just released the first piece of art from Goliath on his website this past week. It was pretty cool. He 'partially' released 3 images and let fans vote to chose which of the three would be completely revealed. Check it out.The one I chose didn't win, but it was still really cool and the art looks awesome.

The third book I bought this week wasn't for me and it has nothing to do with the GUYde. I actually bought it for my daughter and it is super cute so I thought I would share.

That's it for this week. Thanks for checking out my first installment of In My Mailbox.

Review- Little Brother- Cory Doctorow

Little Brother- Cory Doctorow

Publisher: Tor Teen
Age Group: Young Adult
Pages: 384 pages

Genre: Cyberpunk(ish)

Buy it 

Marcus, a.k.a “w1n5t0n,” is only seventeen years old, but he figures he already knows how the system works–and how to work the system. Smart, fast, and wise to the ways of the networked world, he has no trouble outwitting his high school’s intrusive but clumsy surveillance systems. But his whole world changes when he and his friends find themselves caught in the aftermath of a major terrorist attack on San Francisco. In the wrong place at the wrong time, Marcus and his crew are apprehended by the Department of Homeland Security and whisked away to a secret prison where they’re mercilessly interrogated for days.
When the DHS finally releases them, Marcus discovers that his city has become a police state where every citizen is treated like a potential terrorist. He knows that no one will believe his story, which leaves him only one option: to take down the DHS himself.

The plot of Little Brother deals with some really heavy issues. Specifically, a large part of the book deals with the main character Marcus (and the reader by extension) trying to answer the question, when does the need for maintaining a nation’s security cross the line and infringe on the privacy of its citizens? The reader is often forced to consider, just how much of their freedom they are willing to give up in the name of security? And what is the cost? Although I must admit that even though I didn’t agree with all of the politics which are interweaved throughout the storyline, it didn’t bother me or turn me off because Doctorow didn’t shove it down the readers’ throat. Instead he does it in a way that is both entertaining and thought provoking. Something which I think would be ideal for use in a classroom to engage students in some serious debate.

                Although there are a lot of heavy themes in this book like I mentioned above, there are also a lot of light topics covered as well. For example, Marcus deals with ongoing problems at school, his parents, strained friendships, and even girls. All of these things really added to the plot as a whole for me. They made Marcus more believable to me. It made him seem like just a regular teen guy who throughout the course of the novel is caught up in some pretty extraordinary circumstances.

                Overall I think this is a great book for a teen guy. It really inspires some serious critical thinking from the reader and Marcus is a very strong male protagonist, even though it’s clear he doesn’t have everything all figured out. Plus, the fact that the use of video games and technology throughout the story will really grab a guy’s attention while reading. Definitely check this one out. It would be an awesome teaching tool in the classroom, and an even better addition to your bookshelf.