Quarantine #2: The Saints by Lex Thomas (1 Star)

A cross between the Gone series and Lord of the Flies, Quarantine #2: The Saints continues this frenetically paced and scary young adult series that illustrates just how deadly high school can be.

Nothing was worse than being locked in—until they opened the door...

McKinley High has been a battle ground for eighteen months since a virus outbreak led to a military quarantine of the school. When the doors finally open, Will and Lucy will think their nightmare is finished. But they are gravely mistaken.

As a new group of teens enters the school and gains popularity, Will and Lucy join new gangs. An epic party on the quad full of real food and drinks, where kids hookup and actually interact with members of other gangs seemed to signal a new, easier existence. Soom after though, the world inside McKinley takes a startling turn for the worse, and Will and Lucy will have to fight harder than ever to survive.

I recently wrote a review for an amazing debut novel from the creative man-duo Lex Thomas, two friends who managed to craft Quarantine #1: The Loners, a book about a mutating super-virus epidemic that results in an entire high school being quarantined by the military, and what happens inside the school as a result of no adult supervision. It was fantastic, and it got a 4.75 stars from me.

Then book two, The Saints, came out, and it broke my heart. And not in a good way.

A lot of the things I loved about book one were missing in book two.

For one thing, David—the main character of The Loners—isn't there, because he "graduated," losing his immunity to the virus and thus having to leave the school.

For another, the Loners tribe from book one escapes McKinley High at the very beginning…except Will, Lucy, and about 7 or 8 other kids, thus stripping them of their strength. The Loners disband and everyone joins different tribes to stay safe. So most of the characters I got attached to in The Loners are gone after, like, page 10.

But the biggest thing is the sex and the violence. In The Loners, sure kids are having sex and killing each other in this incredibly high-stress, unsupervised environment—but it's handled tastefully and for the most part it's off-screen, as it were. We see a few kids get killed, yes, but it's not wet violence, with gratuitous description and a high ick-factor. We get more of the "oh that's terrible" emotional punch and less of the "oh, that's disgusting" reaction.

Not so in The Saints. In book two, sex is handled a lot more crudely and casually, and we get a lot more wet violence. I was actually nauseated reading the violent bits. I only finished so I could write this review.

Let me restate this so you all understand: I had the same reaction to a young adult novel as I did to watching Saw II. Yeah. The violence was that gross. Was that really necessary, Lex Thomas? Really? No, it wasn't. Come on, guys. One of the things that impressed me the most about you two was that your debut novel was tastefully done. Why must you unnecessarily step up the ick?

Another big issue I had with the plot was Sam and Hilary from book one. In book one, Sam is very much the homicidal whacked-out power-hungry dictator kid. Hilary is torn between wanting to be safe/comfortable with Sam or doing the right thing and protecting David, whom she still loves.

In book two, we lose both of these dynamics. We begin to see a more vulnerable (and also a crazier) side of Sam, and learn that his father's manipulation and emotional abuse is why he's so bat-crap crazy. We also learn about Hilary's mother's emotional abuse, which explains why she's so cruel, but we've lost the part of her that made her someone you wanted redeemed in book one—and we never find out why that happens. What changed Hilary? We don't know. David leaving? Maybe, but again, we never find out.

As for Sam, the moment his father shows him that he really loves him, that it's not all about strength and winning, Sam's like, "Okay, I'm good. I'm escaping now. Forget conquering McKinley High. I am so out of here." Which basically means he's not a threat. He doesn't need to die anymore because he wants out of McKinley, and once out of McKinley, he'll probably get shot by the military.

So why does he need to get killed by a wild pig? It's like, the moment Sam becomes even close to sympathetic, Lex Thomas got twitchy about him being less than psychotically evil and killed him off—and in a really violent, gory way. Why?

And then of course there's Gates, the new kid, the leader of the Saints (so-called because they're escapees from St. Patrick's private school down the road). We as the reader know right away that he's gonzo. It's pretty obvious. A) he's obviously bipolar and b) he just gives off the nutso-vibe. So when Will hooks up with him as his new best friend, it's like, "Ohhh, snaps."

Now Gates is a very well-done character. I actually like him as a character. I would never be friends with this guy (too much of a party animal) but he's well-written. And he's a better-done bad guy than Sam, because he has more dimensions. His type of crazy isn't so close to the surface.

But!

One new, well-done character isn't enough to balance out the problems in this book. In fact, even all the cool things in The Saints aren't enough. What good things there are—learning about the Sluts and their initiation, the surprisingly happy new lives of the former Loners, Will and Lucy finally getting together, a new and better bad guy—don't balance out the sickening amount of wet violence in the book, the tacky sex-capades (the single, very glossed-over scene between Will and Lucy and Lucy's hesitation about giving her virginity away to just anyone are the only things done tastefully here), and the sudden urge everyone has to party all the time with the new supplies they get from Sam's parents due to Gates taking Sam hostage.

Maybe the point was to show that in high-stress situations, teenagers act like wild animals, but we kind of figured that one out during The Loners, and it was shown in a much less tacky way. I don't know. I was very disappointed in this book. It seemed like the storylines involving Will and Gates were mostly full of cheap shock-events, and the only thing worth reading was Lucy's initiation and membership in the Sluts. That's less than 1/3 of the book.

There were plenty of other things that piqued my interest, but they were never followed up on: what happened to two of the Loners who were very much in love during book one, one of whom graduated; the pregnant girl we meet in the Sluts in book two, who's going to graduate in time to have her baby safely; the Freak and the Nerd who got "married" apparently in book one (we only hear about it in book two, but never see it) who graduated on the same day together. Those things are never followed up on, and I for one would've liked to see this marriage in The Loners.

And of course, they ended the book on a cliffhanger. So Gates may or may not be dead, Violent—the leader of the Sluts, who is a wonderful person—may or may not be dead, Sam is dead, Lucy is badly injured and Hilary is out to probably literally kill her, and we don't know what happens to the pregnant girl.

I hate you, Lex Thomas. Because I'm gonna have to read book 3 when it comes out (although I'll probably just skim it) so I know what happens. But I'm not buying them.

You've broken my heart with your sudden urge to jump your rating from PG to R, with your twisted descriptions of people being scalped with box-cutters and kids getting their throats torn out by wild pigs, and I've lost my faith in you guys. I don't know what happened, but your second book is a 1.5 star.

It just was so badly done, so lazy. As if you couldn't be bothered to work at getting the same effect with less blood and bare skin and profane language. I don't understand—were we, your fans, not worth trying?

Sincerely and with much sadness,

LA Knight

Enclave - Ann Aguire

In Deuce’s world, people earn the right to a name only if they survive their first fifteen years. By that point, each unnamed ‘brat’ has trained into one of three groups–Breeders, Builders, or Hunters, identifiable by the number of scars they bear on their arms. Deuce has wanted to be a Huntress for as long as she can remember.

As a Huntress, her purpose is clear—to brave the dangerous tunnels outside the enclave and bring back meat to feed the group while evading ferocious monsters known as Freaks. She’s worked toward this goal her whole life, and nothing’s going to stop her, not even a beautiful, brooding Hunter named Fade. When the mysterious boy becomes her partner, Deuce’s troubles are just beginning.

Down below, deviation from the rules is punished swiftly and harshly, and Fade doesn’t like following orders. At first Deuce thinks he’s crazy, but as death stalks their sanctuary, and it becomes clear the elders don’t always know best, Deuce wonders if Fade might be telling the truth. Her partner confuses her; she’s never known a boy like him before, as prone to touching her gently as using his knives with feral grace.

As Deuce’s perception shifts, so does the balance in the constant battle for survival. The mindless Freaks, once considered a threat only due to their sheer numbers, show signs of cunning and strategy… but the elders refuse to heed any warnings. Despite imminent disaster, the enclave puts their faith in strictures and sacrifice instead. No matter how she tries, Deuce cannot stem the dark tide that carries her far from the only world she’s ever known.

Time to review a book I've been dying to write about for several months. Why? Because this book is terrible. I only finished it so I could review it on my blog. Now, I don't normally read and review books that suck, but the major flaw in this novel is one that I've seen in miniature in a lot of other books—an unbelievable premise; some major flaw in the laws of physics or psychology or what-not that renders the entire book (or the majority of it) unviable, even when the rest of the writing works.

A good example is the Maximum Ride series by James Patterson. The kids can fly because they have 2% avian DNA and hollow bones like birds (and wings, obviously). Only one problem with that—they have enhanced human musculature. The human body is a delicate thing. Our bones are just strong enough that with the help of ligaments and tendons, our muscles can't snap them in half. Enhance our musculature but weaken our skeletal structure, and you've basically got crippled wrecks who can't move because our bodies don't work.

But the flaws in Ann Aguire's Enclave is more obvious than the one in Max Ride, since a lot of people don't actually know about the muscle-skeletal relationship and so some people might not get snagged on that. But the issues in Enclave are more obvious, like I said. Let me set the stage here.

In the future, after a zombie apocalypse, everyone in New York City who survived moved underground into the subway tunnels, deep in the dark. They've set up these underground outposts called enclaves. The zombies have moved into the subway, too, but the enclaves are fortified against them. The zombie apocalypse was about sixty or seventy years ago. Now the main character, Deuce, just turned fifteen—a big deal if you live that long, and it means you're an adult. They've got a fairly functional society in this little enclave…

And THAT is my first problem.

Deuce and her entire enclave have NEVER been outside. They've never been exposed to the sunshine and have no such thing as UV or sun-lamps. They have no idea what vitamins are. They don't eat ANY fruit or vegetables of ANY kind except mushrooms. Unlike in a novel with a similar society (City of Ember), their diet consists of mushrooms, fish caught in underground pools, and water. So no milk, either. No red meat. And no vitamin supplements. Do you know what lack of sunshine, fruit, veggies, red meat, and milk amounts to?

Death. Very painful death. That's what it amounts to.

- You have no vitamin D from the sun or from milk. Lack of vitamin D causes jaundice, muscle and skin pain and other skin issues, and depression. That's one of the reasons depression is more common in places where there's a lot of rain or snow and not a lot of sunshine. Also, vitamin D is essential for absorbing calcium (both vitamin D and calcium are in milk). Without vitamin D, even if you get calcium from somewhere else, your body can't absorb it. See point 3 for what happens then. Yet no one in the enclave has these problems.

- You have no vitamin C from oranges, lemons, limes, or tomatoes in their diet. Lack of vitamin C causes scurvy. Your gums get swollen and tender and they bleed, your teeth fall out, your toenails turn icky colors, blah-blah-blah. Scurvy can kill you. Yet no one in the enclave suffers from scurvy.

- You have no calcium from milk or dairy products. Lack of calcium causes rickets, brittle bones, lost of bone density, the onset of early osteoporosis, etc. Kids in third-world countries suffer from rickets and such, and kids in medieval times. Untreated, rickets could cripple and/or kill a kid well before they reached their fifteenth birthday. And yet no one in the enclave suffers from rickets or any of these other problems either, either.

Add onto that, someone with cruddy bones couldn't easily or properly do the things the kids in the enclave are required to do: work in their little tool-making area hauling heavy equipment and such, fight against the incredibly fast and strong zombies, or handle the strain of carrying and birthing babies (without the help of modern medicine). Yet no one talks about that in Enclave, either.

- No iron from red meat induces anemia. Anemia can also prove fatal if left untreated. My elder sister once suffered from such severe anemia on a regular, I-buy-my-groceries-at-the-supermarket diet that the hospital almost forced her to stay overnight to make sure she'd be okay when she went in for blood tests. Some side-effects of anemia include weakness, dizziness, and fainting spells…which no one in the enclave has.

- Everybody knows you've got to eat your fruits and vegetables, right? You're not going to get all your vitamins and minerals from some crummy, underground mushrooms.

Keratin for your eyes, for example. Keratin (which is in carrots) helps with your eyesight, helps develop it, etc. The people in the enclaves have tremendously awesome night vision. Understandable, since they live underground with only handmade torches…except that there is NO keratin in their diet from ANY source whatsoever, and yet once Deuce and Fade go aboveground, their eyesight turns out just peachy. Better than peachy after they've had a day (a freaking day) to adjust to the intense light.

Another example is magnesium. Magnesium is found in a lot of green vegetables such as collard greens, broccoli, etc. You need magnesium for a lot of things, including absorbing other vitamins. It also helps you maintain a healthy digestive tract. Yet they don't eat any greens, and are surprisingly healthy.

So the structure of their society is fine. It's actually kind of interesting—the naming ceremony at fifteen and how you're given your job then based on how much pain you can handle (one cut with the ritual knife, you're a worker; two cuts, you're a breeder; three cuts, you're a fighter). That's all very clever. But unfortunately, the way the society survives is completely unbelievable.

Also, the breeders? Going back to the diet-thing real quick, they nurse their babies when they're born. That's nice, that's good. Except without proper diet, the human body can't produce enough milk to adequately feed a baby. Malnutrition (which miraculously none of them are suffering from) can affect the quantity of milk produced, or even interfere with the ability to produce it at all. But this is not mentioned and does not influence the story in any way, shape, or form.

Which would work if these people were aliens or something—or if they'd evolved like this over a few (or several) hundred years—but it's been less than a century and they're regular humans. This doesn't work at ALL. The whole world crumbles because these people shouldn’t even be alive based on how they live. It's like having a story where we threw a bunch of humans into a gas chamber full of CO2 and they miraculously adapted and spawned like bunnies, even though humans can't actually subsist on carbon-dioxide.

Then there's the characterization for the secondary characters. Deuce has two friends, one who's a breeder and one who's a worker. They've been friends since they were itty bitty. Yet when Deuce takes the fall for one of them (the breeder, who was actually framed in the first place) they turn on her without hesitation. Both of her so-called friends are like, "Gasp! You broke the law! You're evil! Get out of our enclave even though it means certain death! We don't love you anymore!" Yet her partner, Fade, whom she's known for less than a year, risks death and other things to follow her.

So to put that in perspective—lifelong friends who are like her family abandon and despise her instead of trusting in her innocence and/or not believing she did whatever she was framed for even though one of them JUST got framed for something; guy she's known less than a year risks his life to go with her into the dark of the zombie-infested tunnels.

Fast-forward to when Deuce and Fade reach the surface. So, to be clear here—Deuce has NEVER been under the sun EVER. She's never gone outside, she's never seen light stronger than a torch (which gives less illumination than your average light bulb). She's never been exposed to UV rays of ANY KIND.

Yet when she goes outside for the first time in her fifteen years, does she get a sunburn? Nope. Not a real one. The light prickles a bit (imagine sun on a bad sunburn) but does she turn red or get peeling skin or blisters or anything? No, she does not. Does the light hurt her eyes? Yes, it does, but it only takes a couple of days for her to acclimate to it. Is she freakishly pale from lack of light? Nope.

Now, I've read the book Flowers in the Attic by VC Andrews, and in that book four kids are locked up and held prisoner in three rooms (a small bedroom with two beds, a bathroom, and one big attic) for almost three years. One of the kids dies, another one gets really sick (though this is because of something else) but their stay in those three rooms, never allowed out into the sun or allowed to see the sun except through the barred windows, bleaches them out. They look like they're dead. Skin that's almost gray, blond hair bleached to a dead-looking white. And that's from lack of sun for a little less than three years. Deuce hasn’t seen the sun EVER…but she looks normal. A little on the pasty side, but that's it. How? It's never explained. It just IS.

And then comes my other big problem (the first two were the diet and her cruddy friends), and really it's the biggest, stupidest problem in the entire book. I'm sorry, but this thing that I take issue with should never have happened. This book is for teenagers. Here's what my problem is:

Deuce gets captured aboveground by this guy named Stalker. Stalker and his gang of thugs KIDNAP GIRLS TO RAPE THEM for breeding purposes. Deuce meets up with one little girl who's maybe twelve or thirteen, one of their captives and they become friends.

Let me repeat this in simple terms: STALKER AND HIS GANG KIDNAP AND RAPE GIRLS MULTIPLE TIMES.

Why do I have a problem with that plot device? I don't. It's a viable and realistic concept. What I DO have a problem with is that after Deuce and the other girl get rescued, against the advice of Deuce's partner Fade (who loves her and has stuck with her this whole time), and even though Stalker attacked and hurt her and the other kid, when Stalker's like, "I'm coming with you guys," SHE LETS HIM! And then she lets him teach her some fighting skills, lets him give her the nickname of Dove, and finds him attractive. He's the third part of her love-triangle and she makes him part of their group. And she BLAMES the younger girl for what Stalker and those psychos did to her!

No. No, no, no.

NO.

I'm sorry, but there will never be a young adult or new adult novel where a known murderer and rapist who willingly and ruthlessly preys upon innocent people can become one of the heroes. I doubt this could ever happen in an adult novel, either. This novel idolizes someone disgusting. Deuce should have killed him when she had the chance. He should NEVER have become part of their group. He should NEVER have become a so-called "good guy." That's revolting. What sort of heroine is Deuce, that she could view someone like Stalker and someone like Teagan (the other girl) in such a way? What sort of author is Ann Aguire, that she would write something like that?

For the first time on this blog, a book gets 0.25 stars. The mechanics of the writing are good—no misspelled words, no bad grammar. The society Deuce comes from is structured in an interesting manner, and some of the descriptions are good. Everything else? No. 0.25 stars, and Deuce? When I have kids, I'm going to tell them: do NOT be like her. EVER.

- LA Knight

Romeo & Juliet & Vampires - Claudia Gabel

"You are deluded, Romeo. Vampires do not have the capability to love. They are heartless."

The Capulets and the Montagues have some deep and essential differences. Blood differences. Of course, the Capulets can escape their vampire fate, and the Montagues can try not to kill their undead enemies. But at the end of the day, their blood feud is unstoppable. So it's really quite a problem when Juliet, a vampire-to-be, and Romeo, the human who should be hunting her, fall desperately in love. What they don't realize is how deadly their love will turn out to be—or what it will mean for their afterlives. . . 

Juliet Capulet, dreading her 16th-birthday transition ritual, falls madly in love with Romeo, a Montague from the household that has been slaying her vampire relatives for eons. Despite the truce that Prince Radu has called between the two families, the hatred continues: Juliet's cousin Tybalt kills Romeo's best friend, Mercutio, and a distraught Romeo then slays Tybalt. Banished from the kingdom and fearing for his life, Romeo flees. 

Friar Laurence launches a plan to help reunite the lovers, but it goes awry. Only when Juliet drinks her dead husband's blood, turning him also into one of the undead, can the two forge a life together beyond Transylvania, away from their families' vengeful mores. 

For what it is, Gabel has done a credible job of adapting the original story to accommodate the rudiments of vampire lore, using both humor and passion to reel in her readers. The familiar characters are all here, if, generally, in two-dimensional form, and the clear plot moves quickly, but with the tragic ending replaced by a "happy" one. The language, stripped of the beauty of the Bard's poetry, has Mercutio warning that he is about to "punch Benvolio's lights out," and sappy dialogue abounds. Some vocabulary is not explained, and there are some sexual references. While fans of Stephenie Meyer's Twilight (Little, Brown, 2005) are bound to be enthralled, those preferring the poignancy of Shakespeare's original love story would be better served by either Bruce Coville's eloquent prose retelling (Dial, 1999) or the dramatic reading found in Audio Partners' "The Complete Arkangel Shakespeare" (Audio Editions, 2003).

All right, people. I almost never do this. In fact, I can't think of a book I've read other than the one I'm about to review where I've done this. But I actually picked up a book, read about 30 pages, and then debated whether to set it on fire or feed it to my deadly piranhas. This is the only book that's ever provoked me that way. And I have read many a book that was badly done, but never one that disappointed me so much.

I am referring to Romeo and Juliet and Vampires, supposedly adapted from Shakespeare by Claudia Gabel.

Now, I'm sure we all remember that big craze from a few years back, starting with Pride and Prejudice and Zombies, followed by books like Little Vampire Women, The Adventures of Tom Sawyer and the Undead, and Wuthering Bites. I haven't read all of those, but I have read P&P&Z as well as Little Vampire Women, and they were cute and well done and really funny.

This book was not cute. This book was not funny. This book was not well done. This book was stupid, and I do not use that word lightly in a professional review.

Here's why I couldn't get past the first thirty pages.

1) The language. Romeo, Benvolio, and Mercutio are horsing around in a very early scene and Mercutio calls Romeo a fat cow. I'm serious. He calls him a fat cow.

Now, these are boys. Girls call each other cows, and guys call girls cows, but I have never heard of a boy calling another boy a fat cow. If a boy did call another boy that, they'd be laughed at and humiliated for coming up with such a pathetic piece of not-so-witty repartee.

Not only that, but during this time period, these boys were considered to be on the cusp of becoming men. So you'd expect a little more maturity in their insults. I mean, it's not like Romeo and Mercutio don't rag the crud out of each other. They did. Hence why Romeo says things like, "They jest at scars but never felt the wound" (referring to their teasing about his being in love). But it would be on the level of a man, not a three-year-old at their first day of preschool.

Also, people did not speak back then as modern teens speak now. Romeo did not use words like "douche bag" and Mercutio did not use words like "dill-weed." That's just common sense. Not that the dialogue has to be all thee, thou, thy, and wherefore, but there's a way to blend the two. Historical fiction is popular among teens, so it's not like people can't get into a slightly more formal language style.

And you can modernize a historical story without destroying its authenticity. Look at A Knight's Tale with Heath Ledger. Quite a bit of modernizing in that, but the language was old-style in a lot of it, and yet it was still popular! Not only that, but the modern dialogue in this book didn’t even feel like natural dialogue anyway. So what was the point of having it in the first place?

I'm sorry, but this author's insertion of (pathetic and improperly applied) modern slang feels like condescension to the reader to me, as if she thinks we're too uneducated to understand what the characters are saying unless she brings it down to basically a preschool level. I rarely get offended by a book, but the badly done language bugged the heck out of me.

2) The incredibly hokey portrayal of vampires. In R&J&V, Juliet and all the Capulets are vampires. I'm okay with that. I love vampires. But the vamps in this book are more ridonculous and campy than even the 1930's Dracula with Bela Lugosi and the rubber bat. The effect is muted in Juliet, because she's not a full vampire yet, but you see it in Lady Capulet.

First of all, Lady C has crimson eyes. By itself, I could take it. But she's also got a prominent widow's peak, dark hair, fangs that don't retract, and she's so pale that she's sallow. She's like, tallow-colored. She's jaundiced-looking.

Also, she dresses like Elvira or Morticia Addams in the clingy dress with the tendrils on the hems, including a little cape that serves no purpose except to look vampy and doesn't even fall all the way to her feet.

Add onto that the way she enters and leaves the room during the scene where in the play Juliet's mom is like, "Speak briefly: can you like of Paris's love?" In the book, she comes in with her cape draped along her forearm and her forearm in front of her face, floating six or so inches off the ground. Why is she floating? I have NO idea. And she never really stops. It's said that Juliet will start floating too after she becomes a full-fledged vampire.

So basically Claudia Gabel grabbed every schticky, icky, vampy stereotype from those campy movies made in the 1930s-70s and smushed them all together. Maybe she meant it to be funny, like a parody or something…but it wasn't. It wasn't satirical, it wasn't parody-funny, it wasn't funny in any way. It was ridiculous. It's like if one of those caricature sketch-artists off the street looked at Lady Capulet and she said, "Draw me as one of the fiendish undead!"

I love vampires. I love all the different variations found in literature. I've read "The Night Flyer" by Stephen King, PN Elrod's novels about her vampire detective, Anne Rice's Vampire Chronicles, Fred Saberhagen's Dracula books, Nina Kiraly's Mina, Jessica's Guide to Dating on the Dark Side, even the totally adorable novel Bloodthirsty. And I've watched all kinds of movies, from The Hunger to The Lost Boys to Van Helsing to Dracula 2000. And they were all so much better than this. BBC's Young Dracula, The Little Vampire…even Twilight was better, and the sparkly bloodsucking dudes in Twilight aren't even real vampires. That's just sad.

3) Finally, how Juliet has to become a vampire: she has to bite and kill someone. So basically she's given a choice by the author to either give up everyone she loves - her parents, her other family - as well as the life she's known all this time in order to do what's right and not murder an innocent person (it never occurs to her to go after a rapist or a killer)…or she kills someone and becomes evil.

Now, if this book wasn't so hokey, this plotline would be perfect. It would be fine. It would totally work. But you can't take a serious plotline like this, one fraught with emotional introspection and seriously tough choices, and then be like, "And now let's add some crack-acid to liven things up even though it makes people wanna say, 'Go home, book. You're drunk.' Just 'cause we can."

You can't take a plotline this serious, this potentially dynamic, this potentially beautiful, and slather it with all the stupidity heaped up in the first chapter. And if that's the author's way of being like, "Ha, you must wade through the crud to get to the good stuff," well then shame on her, because that's not how it works, since someone had to shell out money for that book to be available (in this case the library, or whoever donated the book). So I hope that wasn’t why she did that. I doubt it was, actually, but I like to cover my bases. Whatever her reason - she just didn't know any better, she didn't care, whatever - I couldn't finish this book.

So, I'm sorry but this book is 0 stars from me. I literally would have to be paid in order to read it, and it would have to be upwards of $30 because I'm a really busy individual. The only thing I've ever read that was worse than this was a fanfic (the infamous "My Immortal" about Harry Potter). That's saying a lot.

- LA Knight

PS - I'm also offended that people assume "fans of Twilight" will like this garbage. I like Twilight, flawed though it is, and I have more sense than that.