Mundie Moms

Saturday, February 19, 2011

Book Review- Red Moon Rising

By Peter Moore
Published by Disney Hyperion
Released on February 8th, 2011
Source- ARC from publisher for review

Being only half-vamp in a high school like Carpathia Night makes you awhole loser. But Danny Gray manages to escape the worst of the specists at his school. Thanks to genetic treatments he had as an infant, most people assume Danny's other half is human. Which is a good thing.

Ever since the development of synthetic blood – SynHeme – vamps have become society’s elite, while wulves like his father work menial jobs and live in bad neighborhoods. Wulves are less than second class citizens; once a month they become inmates, forced to undergo their Change in dangerous government compounds.

For Danny, living with his vamp mother and going to a school with a nearly all-vamp student body, it’s best to pretend his wulf half doesn’t even exist. But lately Danny's been having some weird symptoms — fantastic night vision; a keener-than-usual sense of smell; and headaches, right around the full moon.

Even though it's easy to be in denial, it's hard to ignore evidence. There's only a month until the next few moon, and Danny's time is running out.

Peter Moore speaks to adolescents in a voice that will have them laughing, set in a world that will get them thinking (quoted from Goodreads).

Red Moon Rising has a great premise, as Peter Moore adds a very different spin on Vampires & Werewolves when he makes his main character Danny, a half breed-half vampire and half wolf. Now mix that into a society where vampires rank supreme and wolves are at the bottom of the food chain, so to speak, and you have a book that has some teen angst and a lot of conflict.

In the middle of a deeply heated battle/segregation between vampires and werewolves is a half breed, Danny, who's half werewolf and half vampire, something completely unheard of. Danny's someone I think teens will enjoy reading about, as he's relatable and has a great voice. He's funny, honest and it's nice reading a book from a guys point of view. Like many teens, Danny has challenges and choices to make. On top of that he has a lot of conflict with his family, with the hot shot vampire at school and himself.

Being a half vamp, half wolf isn't easy at all for Danny, especially when at first he can't figure out what's going on and why he's having all these weird changes. Being a wolf you're treated like a low life in society and are required to register and turn themselves in during the full moon, something Danny's wolf father doesn't want him to do. Mixed into this is Danny's light romance with the human girl Juliet. He has also has best friend Claire, a vampire who's there to help him and support him. I liked that the two of them are not in love with each other and truly are just friends, as Claire is gay. An underlining tone with the story is being accepting of who are, which I think is a great message for teens, as Claire and Danny work to over come their struggles, they are completely accepting of each other.

Overall I had some problems with the plot and a lack of character development which made it hard for me to really like the story as much as I wanted to. I felt like the story stalled a few times through out the book, and I could have done without the overly done pop culture references, which Moore puts his own spin on. In the end, I was left with more questions than I had answers for. I felt like the end was rushed and things were left out of the story. If there's a sequel planned, than I can understand why, though I'd still feel unsatisfied with the ending. Though I was left feeling I wanted to like the book more than I did, I think teens will like Red Moon Rising as it's a paranormal coming of age story with a light romance, humor, acceptance, and action, and one I'd recommend to older teen readers.

Interview with Across The Universe Author- Beth Revis


We are excited to have Across The Universe author, Beth Revis with us today! If you haven't picked up Across The Universe, I highly recommend that you do! It's a fabulous debut and I'm looking forward to reading the next book in the series.

Here's a little bit about the book-

A love out of time. A spaceship built of secrets and murder.

Seventeen-year-old Amy joins her parents as frozen cargo aboard the vast spaceship Godspeed and expects to awaken on a new planet, three hundred years in the future. Never could she have known that her frozen slumber would come to an end fifty years too soon and that she would be thrust into the brave new world of a spaceship that lives by its own rules.

Amy quickly realizes that her awakening was no mere computer malfunction. Someone—one of the few thousand inhabitants of the spaceship—tried to kill her. And if Amy doesn’t do something soon, her parents will be next.

Now, Amy must race to unlock Godspeed’s hidden secrets. But out of her list of murder suspects, there’s only one who matters: Elder, the future leader of the ship and the love she could never have seen coming (quoted from Goodreads).


What inspired your story, Across The Universe?

The idea came about when I started thinking of mysteries. I thought of (imo) a really great solution to a mystery, and so I built the entire story around solving that mystery. Everything from the characters to the spaceship were invented to make the twist at the end happen.

Amy never had a trunk packed for herself. What three things would she have brought with her?

Oh, good question! She would have brought something along that had once belonged to her grandmother--Amy never really connected well with her mother, and her grandmother fulfilled that matronly role for her. I think, probably her grandmother's cookbook. She also would have packed a brand-new pair of her favorite running shoes, and finally something that came directly from Earth, maybe even something as simple as a bag of dirt.

If we could ask Eldest, Godspeed's current leader, which world leaders he used as models for his leadership style, what would he say?

Oh, he would definitely pick a dictator. He believes in absolute control, and he's obviously rather xenophobic. Some people felt I used a reference to Hitler too casually, but I sincerely believe that Hitler really would be the kind of leader Eldest would look up to. I also mention in the book other tyrants, like Kim Jong-il and Nero and even Genghis Khan. Essentially--anyone who had absolute control.

We are really fascinated by the lay out of Godspeed. What inspired your design?

You're going to laugh at me--but...Futurama's ship, Planet Express. My original sketch of the ship was just an egg-shaped oval divided into levels. When it came time to make that egg fly, all I could think of was the general round-ish shape of the cartoon ship, and there you have it.

We are eagerly awaiting the sequel for Across the Universe. Are you able to tell us a little bit about the sequel?

I can only say this: two things you think are true in Book 1 are actually lies.

Have you recently read anything that you'd highly recommend we go pick up?

Unfortunately, I've had my nose in a lot of ARCs lately, so you're going to have to wait on my recs! But Veronica Roth's DIVERGENT and Elana Johnson's POSSESSION are both brilliant and are going to be spring and summer hits!

I love that twist that some of what we thought was truth, are actually lies. Great recommendations, thank you! I just received Divergent and I can't to dive into it. Thank you so much Beth for being with us!

Thank YOU!
______________________________

Be sure to visit Beth's site here and follow her on Twitter here
You can read my review of Across The Universe here

Recent Cover Releases/ Cover Love

There have been some absolutely stunning cover releases lately and these three are WOW covers. I'll admit, I'm in love with the covers and if I were to judge these books by their covers, I would totally pick up them in the store.

Yesterday Kiresten White and Lisa Mantchev released the covers of their upcoming releases and Myra McEntire recently released the cover for her debut book!

What do you think? Beautiful, aren't they?


Published by Harper Teen
To Be Released On September 30th, 2011

Life's never fair when faeries are involved.
The sequel to Paranormalcy (quoted from Goodreads)

Don't forget to go and enter Kiersten's contest here


Published by Egmont USA
To Be Released On May 24th, 2011

Since the age of fourteen, Emerson Cole has seen strange things - dead things - swooning Southern Belles, soldiers, and other eerie apparitions of the past. She's tried everything to get rid of the visions: medication, counseling, asylums. Nothing's worked.
So when Emerson's well-meaning brother calls in yet another consultant from a mysterious organization called the Hourglass, Emerson's willing to give it one last try.
Michael Weaver is no ordinary consultant. He's barely older than she is; he listens like no one she's ever met before; and he doesn't make her feel the least bit crazy. As Emerson ventures deeper into the world of the Hourglass, she begins to learn the truth about her past, her future--and her very life.
A seductive time-slip novel that merges the very best of the paranormal and science fiction genres, Myra McEntire's Hourglass is a stunning debut from an author to watch (quoted from Goodreads).


Published by Feiwel & Friends
To Be Released On September 13th, 2011

Things are never easy for Beatrice Shakespeare Smith. Something's happened to the Théâtre Illuminata, putting the only home she's ever known in limbo. Her mother's sanity is fraying under the strain, her father has vanished and an angry goddess is out for revenge. Bertie is caught between her duties and her dreams, just as her heart is torn between Ariel and Nate. But hope glimmers in a Distant Castle, and if Bertie can put on the performance of her life, maybe she can win the magical boon that may save them all
(quoted from Goodreads).

Labels