(ARC) YA Book Review: Masque of the Red Death by Bethany Griffin

Release Date: 24 April 2012

Publisher: Greenwillow Books

Format: eARC

Source: Publisher via Edelweiss

Get a copy! Amazon | B&N

Goodreads description:

Everything is in ruins.

A devastating plague has decimated the population. And those who are left live in fear of catching it as the city crumbles to pieces around them.

So what does Araby Worth have to live for?

Nights in the Debauchery Club, beautiful dresses, glittery make-up . . . and tantalizing ways to forget it all. But in the depths of the club—in the depths of her own despair—Araby will find more than oblivion. She will find Will, the terribly handsome proprietor of the club. And Elliott, the wickedly smart aristocrat. Neither boy is what he seems. Both have secrets. Everyone does.

And Araby may find something not just to live for, but to fight for—no matter what it costs her.

My Thoughts...

YA Book Review: Dearly, Departed by Lia Habel

Release Date: 18 October 2011

Publisher: Del Rey (Random House)
Format: eARC
Source: Publisher via NetGalley

Get a copy! Amazon | B&N

Goodreads description:

Love can never die.

Love conquers all, so they say. But can Cupid’s arrow pierce the hearts of the living and the dead—or rather, the undead? Can a proper young Victorian lady find true love in the arms of a dashing zombie?

The year is 2195. The place is New Victoria—a high-tech nation modeled on the manners, mores, and fashions of an antique era. A teenager in high society, Nora Dearly is far more interested in military history and her country’s political unrest than in tea parties and debutante balls. But after her beloved parents die, Nora is left at the mercy of her domineering aunt, a social-climbing spendthrift who has squandered the family fortune and now plans to marry her niece off for money. For Nora, no fate could be more horrible—until she’s nearly kidnapped by an army of walking corpses.

But fate is just getting started with Nora. Catapulted from her world of drawing-room civility, she’s suddenly gunning down ravenous zombies alongside mysterious black-clad commandos and confronting “The Laz,” a fatal virus that raises the dead—and hell along with them. Hardly ideal circumstances. Then Nora meets Bram Griswold, a young soldier who is brave, handsome, noble . . . and dead. 

My Thoughts...

YA Book Review: The Iron Thorn by Caitlin Kittredge

The Iron Thorn by Caitlin Kittredge

© February 2011 by Delacorte Books for Young Readers

Goodreads description:

In the city of Lovecraft, the Proctors rule and a great Engine turns below the streets, grinding any resistance to their order to dust. The necrovirus is blamed for Lovecraft's epidemic of madness, for the strange and eldritch creatures that roam the streets after dark, and for everything that the city leaders deem Heretical—born of the belief in magic and witchcraft. And for Aoife Grayson, her time is growing shorter by the day. Aoife Grayson's family is unique, in the worst way—every one of them, including her mother and her elder brother Conrad, has gone mad on their 16th birthday. And now, a ward of the state, and one of the only female students at the School of Engines, she is trying to pretend that her fate can be different.

My Thoughts...

I checked this book out from the library in APRIL and I have no idea what kept me from reading it until July! This was my first venture into the realms of steampunk and I have to say that I was not at all disappointed! Caitlin Kittredge's world-building is fabulous! The city of Lovecraft and the surrounding world is created in such a way as to send you there and make you want to stay.

When we meet Aoife (pronounced Ee-fah, in case you were curious), she is an Uptown girl enrolled in the School of Machines (one of the FEW girls enrolled there) waiting to go mad.  However, notes from her estranged brother convince her to escape school and Uptown and head for her father's mansion in Arkham to find and help her brother. What she discovers there is crazy beyond her wildest dreams.

I loved the characters in this book. Aoife was a character that I really, truly enjoyed reading about.  She was..different.  She has this chip on her shoulder about the madness that is a part of her family and the looming eventuality that it will probably affect her as well. But...she's also got a bit of an attitude.  She's cautious but she's not afraid to pursue the things that are important to her.

The whole world that Kittredge has created is really spectacular.  There is a little bit of everything for everyone! Seriously! It took me a little bit to get into the language with all the crazy inventions and such (welcome to steampunk, I suppose, lol), but once the plot gets going you can't put the book down! Don't let its size/length stop you from picking this one up. It's a fabulous read.