Book Review: How Green This Land, How Blue This Sea - Mira Grant

How Green This Land, How Blue This Sea by Mira Grant
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I was so excited hearing this was finally getting released. I've been missing the Newsflesh world!! Unlike the other short Newsflesh stories, this is a sequel to the series (ok, San Diego 2014: The Last Stand of the California Browncoats was a sequel but its focus was on the Rising so that doesn't count).

This one follows Mahir as he travels to Australia to meet the Australian branch of After The End Times as well as learning more about the Australian way of life, which is much different from life in Britain or America (for example).

It was an interesting story and totally worth a look for Newsflesh fans. It does poke a bit of fun at Australians but in the end, proves that they are more courageous and better prepared for a zombie apocalypse than we are (seriously, i know people who run away screaming at the smallest of spiders, can you image what would happen with zombies!)

"After the Rising was over, life for Australians went on much as it had before. They went to work, went to the pub, and endeavored not to die while living in a country that contained the lion’s share of the world’s venomous snakes, deadly spiders, and other such vermin. The addition of zombie kangaroos— and worse, zombie wombats— did nothing to change the essential character of the nation."

In conclusion, Australia is awesome. The End.

I'm joking, the book is more than that. We learn a bit more about the world since the end of Blackout. I still miss the Masons (and i'm pretty sure Mahir does too). And it was interesting to see how the world is moving forward.

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Book Review: "Dead Ever After"

Book Review

"Dead Ever After" - Charlaine Harris

Sookie Stackhouse/The Southern Vampire Mysteries/ True Blood #13 (Final book)

Though I've never really bothered with the tv version, I loved the books for years. Despite the decline in quality the past couple of books, I still get excited every year for another visit to Bon Temps. Nothing beats the blues than snuggling up in bed with a cup of tea and some Sookie Stackhouse :) I would say it was a guilty pleasure except I don't feel guilty about it lol. And like many fans, I had my own ideas and hopes for the ending. Strangely, everything I wanted to happen actually happened! Which resulted in me yelling "Yasss!!! I knew it!" at random moments. 

So what did I think? Well, being as spoiler free as I can, there are no new major character brought in, which I liked. However, I felt that Harris had just wrote a list of past character who could be bad guys and just picked at random. Which did result in me thinking "wait! What? He's after Sookie? Why? He was in like one scene, 5 books ago! Why have you brought him back?" They weren't all like that though. One of the villains was actually a bad guy and we knew that and I had marked him down as a character I wanted to make a reappearance before the series ended anyway. So that made sense. The others, not so much. 

The other thing I didn't like was the ending. Not the conclusion, I liked that, but the final face off with the bad guys. It felt rushed, without sense of threat. Now, mmmm, book 9! Now THAT had threat. This one didn't. The scene was resolved within a couple of pages, without much happening. So that was a disappointment. 

All in all, the book did feel rushed towards to end and yes it did had plot holes and we were left with quite a few questions left to ask. But we live, make do and enjoy the ride anyway. Old faces popped up for a final time to help Sookie. The story moved into third person as well as first which was fun - nice to see what else goes on when Sookie's not around - and it did tie up a load of loose ends. 

So in conclusion, did i like it? Silly question. Course i did. It wasn't the best book, but was a little better than the last couple. It was another wee fun adventure in Bon Temps. I still can't get over the fact that this is the final book. Next summer won't be the same without it. But i'm glad Sookie got her happily ever after, and that was the whole point. I'm sad to see her go. 

On a side note - as for the unanswered questions, at the end of the year Harris is due to release the final final Sookie book called "After Dead" which is what happened next - an A-Z of characters and their final fates. So I'm looking forward to reading that out of curiosity.