Book Review: Zombies vs. Unicorns

Title:  Zombies vs. Unicorns
Editors:  Holly Black & Justine Larbalestier

Authors:  Alaya Dawn Johnson, Maureen Johnson, Carrie Ryan, Scott Westerfeld, Meg Cabot, Garth Nix, Kathleen Duey, Margo Lanagan, Naomi Novik, Diana Peterfreund, Libba Bray, & Cassandra Clare
Publisher:  Margaret K. McElderry 
Genre: YA anthology
Hardcover: 432 pages

ISBN: 1416989536

Summary from Goodreads: 
It's a question as old as time itself: which is better, the zombie or the unicorn? In this anthology, edited by Holly Black and Justine Larbalestier (unicorn and zombie, respectively), strong arguments are made for both sides in the form of short stories. Half of the stories portray the strengths--for good and evil--of unicorns and half show the good (and really, really bad-ass) side of zombies. Contributors include many bestselling teen authors, including Cassandra Clare, Libba Bray, Maureen Johnson, Meg Cabot, Scott Westerfeld, and Margo Lanagan. This anthology will have everyone asking: Team Zombie or Team Unicorn?

• Overall rating: 8/10

To buy this book: IndieBound | The Book Depository | Powell's | Amazon

Add this book to your: Goodreads | Shelfari | Library Thing | Visual Bookshelf

Zombies vs. Unicorns is a fantastic YA anthology!  If you love zombies, unicorns, or any of the authors featured in this anthology, you are going to want to pick up a copy of Zombies vs. Unicorns as soon as possible.  With funny introductions from Holly Black and Justine Larbalestier, this diverse collection of zombie and unicorn stories by a wide assortment of talented YA authors is highly entertaining.  It has something for everyone - romance, intrigue, sci-fi, fantasy, tragedy, violence, heartbreak, and humor.  


The Highest Justice by Garth Nix
It seems fitting that this book starts with a story that features both a unicorn and a zombie.  This is a tale of deception and revenge about an unfaithful king and a dead queen.  It has a scheming sorceress, a touch of romance, and a unicorn who helps dispense justice.  Hard not to like that.


Love Will Tear Us Apart by Alaya Dawn Johnson
This author was totally new to me before reading the Zombies vs. Unicorns anthology, but I look forward to searching for more of her work because Love Will Tear Us Apart turned out to be my favorite story in the entire book.  This darkly funny, romantic, and intense story is about a teenage boy who finds himself hungering for a handsome lacrosse player (in more ways than one).  I'm a sucker for stories about broken boys, and this angsty love story features two broken boys who may just be perfect for one another (so long as one of them can control his cannibalistic urges).


The Purity Test by Naomi Novik
Hilarious!  This is probably the funniest story in the anthology.  Team Zombie may have my undying allegiance, but between The Purity Test and Princess Prettypants, Team Unicorn definitely deserves the prize for funniest story.  This story is set in modern day New York, where a teenage girl who is down on her luck unexpectedly finds herself helping a unicorn on his quest to rescue baby unicorns from a conniving evil wizard.  So funny!


Bougainvillea by Carrie Ryan
I liked this story a lot.  I love the way Carrie Ryan's zombie stories feature people pushed past their breaking points.  Plus, the idea of zombie pirates is just plain awesome.  Bougainvillea is set in a fully-imagined world in which the zombie apocalypse is upon us, and it cleverly brings to mind questions about how much of your humanity you'd be willing to lose in order to stay alive.


A Thousand Flowers by Margo Lanagan
For me, this was the weakest story in the anthology, and it definitely features the strangest human/unicorn relationship.  There are three different narrators, and unfortunately all three narrators are too disposable and too far removed from the emotional heart of the story for my taste.  I really wished that at least one part of the story had been narrated from the princesses' POV.  Since I didn't particularly care about the princess and thought her connection to the unicorn was very tricky to believe in, this story wasn't particularly compelling.


Children of the Revolution by Maureen Johnson
Hilarious and disturbing all at once!  I thoroughly enjoyed it.  This story is about a teenage girl who spends every penny she has flying to England to work on an organic farm with her boyfriend for the summer.  Once her slacker boyfriend ditches her, she finds herself miserable, broke, and stuck in dreary rural England.  So when an Angelina Jolie-esque celebrity (who lives in a secluded manor nearby) offers her a job working as a nanny, she quickly jumps at the opportunity.  But there is definitely something very odd about those children...


The Care and Feeding of Your Baby Killer Unicorn by Diana Peterfreund
 Set in Diana Peterfreund's world of killer unicorns, this story is a must-read for fans of Rampant and Ascendant.  It offers a view of the unicorns as both predators and an endangered species in need of compassion and protection.  This story also features an angsty best-friend romance that will resonate with lots of readers.


Inoculata by Scott Westerfeld
An excellent dystopian story about a small community of people who have found temporary refuge from the zombie-infested world by barricading themselves inside an old marijuana farm.  When one of the teens survives something that would normally have been fatal, it opens up a new world of possibilities.  I really liked this unique take on the zombie apocalypse, and I wish it had been longer because I wanted to see what happened next.


Princess Prettypants by Meg Cabot
First of all, can you even say the name Princess Prettypants without smiling?  I don't think that is possible, and I also don't think it is possible to read this story without laughing aloud.  This cleverly funny unicorn story is about a modern seventeen year old girl who is understandably shocked and mystified when she receives a unicorn for her (very disappointing) birthday.  This story features a boy-next-door romance (love that!), a unicorn who farts rainbows but goes all demon-eyed when facing down sexist jerks (hilarious!), and a Zack Efron birthday cake (even more hilarious!).  Major kudos to Meg Cabot for this totally entertaining unicorn story.


Cold Hands by Cassandra Clare
This is a zombie story that touches on one of my worst childhood fears - being trapped in a coffin.  It is also a love story and the tale of a corrupt leader of a village in which the living and the dead spend their days side by side.  It feels like a bittersweet fairytale, with zombies.  :-)


The Third Virgin by Kathleen Duey
This was definitely the most haunting and thought-provoking of the unicorn stories for me.  I loved it and was impressed by the way it dealt with the concepts of suicide, loneliness, and addiction from the perspective of an immortal unicorn who has the ability to heal people or steal their lives.  


Prom Night by Libba Bray
This haunting story about a town full of teenagers who outlived their parents in the zombie apocalypse is quite sad, but it is also told with a lot of humor and heart.  The teens are all survivors who have tried to stay optimistic and to maintain a sense of normalcy as they've dealt with the tragic deaths of their parents and classmates.  An excellent conclusion to the book, which will make you want to hug your loved ones while you still can.

Zombies vs. Unicorns is an awesome anthology.  If you have any interest in zombies, unicorns, compelling short stories, or any of the fabulous authors featured in this book, I highly recommend you pick up Zombies vs. Unicorns immediately.  Some anthologies have one or two gems in a sea of mediocre stories, but this one is full of great stories.  If you would like to learn more about this anthology, you can visit Simon & Schuster's Zombies vs. Unicorns page or click any of the contributing author's names above to visit their websites.

Flower Friday - Hebe

'Blue Mist' Hebe

This week's featured flowers are 'Blue Mist' Hebe!  This perennial shrub blooms all summer long and stays green year round.  We have a few different varieties of Hebe, and they are all evergreen perennials but are very different in size and color.  'Blue Mist' is right in between our larger and smaller varieties and has flowers that are a light periwinkle purple and seem to glow at dusk and dawn.   Bees and butterflies love these flowers.  This shrub gets to be around two feet tall and two feet wide and it puts on a striking display of flowers each summer, with thousands of tiny flowers blooming along six inch racemes.  The perfectly symmetrical leaves are almost as lovely as the flowers, and the flowers burst out in all directions giving this plant a shape that reminds me of a mound of fireworks.  Hebe is in the Veronica family of plants, so the flowers are very similar to Speedwell while the overall shape of the shrub is quite different.  To learn more about about 'Blue Mist' Hebe, check out Kwantlen Polytechnic University's 'Blue Mist' Hebe page, OSU Extension Service's Hebe article, or the Hebe page at Dave's Garden.

A few book and blogosphere updates:

1.  Can't wait to pick up Brenna Yovanoff's The Replacement next Tuesday?  You can read the first chapter here via Amazon's 'More to Explore' feature.  Brenna also shared the book playlist on her blog this week.

2.  Looking for something fun to read over the weekend?  You can read the entire first book in Sara Shepard's Pretty Little Liars series or preview some upcoming books like Diana Peterfreund's Ascendant, Anna Godbersen's Bright Young Things, Francesca Lia Block's The Frenzy, or Emily Whitman's Wildwing using HarperTeen's Browse Inside feature.  

3.  Madeleine at Wordbird is hosting a 'Megalodon of a Giveaway' to celebrate her one year blogoversary.  She is giving away an Amazon giftcard and eleven awesome books (pictured to the right --->).  Stop by Wordbird to find out how you can enter before October 4th.

Book Review: Rampant by Diana Peterfreund

Title: Rampant
Author: Diana Peterfreund
Genre: YA
Publisher: HarperTeen
Hardcover: 416 pages
ISBN: 0061490008 
Summary: Forget everything you ever knew about unicorns . . .  Real unicorns are venomous, man-eating monsters with huge fangs and razor-sharp horns. Fortunately, they've been extinct for a hundred and fifty years.
Or not.

Astrid had always scoffed at her eccentric mother's stories about killer unicorns. But when one of the monsters attacks her boyfriend—thereby ruining any chance of him taking her to the prom—Astrid finds herself headed to Rome to train as a unicorn hunter at the ancient cloisters the hunters have used for centuries.

However, at the cloisters all is not what it seems. Outside, the unicorns wait to attack. And within, Astrid faces other, unexpected threats: from the crumbling, bone-covered walls that vibrate with a terrible power to the hidden agendas of her fellow hunters to—perhaps most dangerously of all—her growing attraction to a handsome art student . . . an attraction that could jeopardize everything. [Cover image & summary from Goodreads.com]

Overall Rating: 8/10

To buy this book: Powell's | Amazon | IndieBound | The Book Depository

I've wanted to read Rampant since I first heard it recommended by the phrase: killer unicorns!   Throw out your images of gentle unicorns that merrily prance & sparkle among rainbows and butterflies, and prepare yourself for the bloodthirsty, venomous beasts of Diana Peterfreund's Rampant.

What I Liked:

• Astrid is an intelligent, science-minded heroine.
• She and her fellow warriors (all virgin descendants of Alexander the Great) are flawed & don't have flat, bland personalities.  
• The group of potential hunters sometimes reminded me of Buffy-esque slayers-in-training.
• The mystery surrounding the unicorns and their history is interesting, seems plausible,  and leaves a lot to be explored. 
• [The following is an example of ReaderFAIL on my part, but I've decided to mention it anyway because it does describe something I liked about the book.]  This book is set in modern times.  Right now you are probably thinking: "Thank you, Captain Obvious!  The mention of prom in the book's description made that rather clear."  But as I said before, this book had me at "killer unicorns" so I did not actually read the jacket summary before purchasing it.  What I did see - the cover featuring a young woman with a sword & Tamora Pierce's glowing recommendation on the back of the book - seemed to support my vague assumption that a book about sword-wielding unicorn hunters would be set in a quasi-medieval setting.  So Rampant's present day setting was a surprise to me, and it turned out to be a pleasant one.

What I Wished:

• I would like to have seen more of the loose ends tied up and more information about the Remedy revealed.  
• I also wanted more details about the unicorns & their history.  

Who needs vampires, werewolves, and fallen angels when there are deadly unicorns lurking in the woods? I would recommend this book to teens and adults who want to read a fresh take on unicorns and to readers who like coming-of-age adventure stories. Fans of Tamora Pierce, Rick Riordan, and Joss Whedon should pick this one up! To read more about Diana Peterfreund's Rampant and Ascendant (Killer Unicorns, Book#2) or to learn more about her other novels, check out:

Diana Peterfreund's: website | blog | twitter

Side note:  Zombies vs. Unicorns, the upcoming anthology edited by Holly Black and Justine Larbalestier, is now available to pre-order on Amazon.  It is scheduled to be released in September & no detailed author information has been provided yet, but I will be shocked (and disappointed) if Diana Peterfreund is not included in the lineup.

Happy Reading!