The Last Days... (dun dun duuuuuhn...)

To ring in the new year, I finished the last 200 pages of Scott Westerfeld's The Last Days, and it was so FAWESOMELY, FEXCELLENTLY, FAMAZINGLY, FOOOOOOOOOL! I love, love, LOVED it! So before I even give you my review I will tell you that it has achieved the great honor of 9 KINDS OF FAWESOME!!! Partially because I kind of stole the scale from the book, but seriously it was that good.
Okay I kind of lied.
There were actually 2 things that I didn't like about it:
1.) The cover LIED! As you can see in the picture, it says that TLD is a sequel to Peeps, but it is, in fact, a companion book. It is about five new characters, and *****SPOILER ALERT***** Cal and Lace don't even really come back until the end.
2.) The absence of science at the beginning of the book. Yes, I missed all of Cals crazy science facts. It just felt strange. But then it started to make the book more eerie and intense, so I got over it.

Okay before I even start I have to send out a super ******SPOILER ALERT****** to anyone who has not yet read Peeps, because I am bound to slip something without even knowing. So, if you haven't yet read Peeps, go read the review of it and then READ IT! And then come back here.

Our story begins with Moz (short for Mosquito) and his best friend Zahler, two amazing guitarists who wish they had a band. On the way home from Zahler's, Moz meets Pearl as they together save a 1975 Stratocaster with gold pickups and hardware (this is a really cool guitar, for anyone who is confused) that fell from the sky. Well, actually a crazy lady chucked it out her window, but whatever. Pearl, a musical genius who can play basically anything, proposes to Moz that she, Moz, and Zahler form a band, they could be the Taj Mahal of alternative, death, metal, of the New Sound. To complete the band, Moz and Zahler recruit Alana Ray, who drums in time square on paint buckets, and Pearl goes to find Minerva. Minerva ***semi-spoiler alert*** is a peep, and she has been locked into her room eating just killed chickens and garlic with her cat, Zombie. Together, the 5 create a totally amazing a eerie New Sound, but Minerva's strange singing has cause the earth to rumble beneath them and with the "sanitation crisis" getting worse, they know something bad is about to happen....

Ok, so like I said, I thoroughly adored this book! It had everything. Zahler could make me laugh, Moz, near the end almost made me cry (why did he have to smash the poor, innocent... well I won't give that away.), and, okay I will admit it, I hated Minerva. But it was that kind of love to hate way, you know. The plot was not only exciting, but it was also eerie, almost like a horror story but so much better.This book had EVERYTHING! You name it, this book probably had it. YES!

Last Days adoring, cover uncovering, Minerva hating-ly yours,

Peeps (or for the Brits: Parasite Positve)

For my second reviews, I read Scott Westerfeld's Peeps. This was Scott Westerfeld's new, fresh taste on the Vampire. In his version, Vampirism is a disease, a parasite. The parasite causes the "vampire," or peep, to hate everything they used to love. They trash all their stuff, they hate the sun so live underground, and they eat people. The parasite causes, yes, cannibalism. It also causes black fingernails, super strength, an intense craving for meat, advanced night vision, and overall insanity.
Luckily for our main character, 19-year-old New Yorker Cal Thompson, he is only a carrier. This basically means he still has all the side effects minus the hating stuff, cannibalism, and insanity. But it's not all peachy keen. The parasite withing him makes him extremely horny, and whoever Cal kisses (or bites, as if he would want to do that) gets the parasite.
Our story begins with Cal catching his eighth and final girlfriend that he had kissed/infected after he had been infected with The Parasite. When this is accomplished, Cal is set with the mission of finding the girl who infected him. Unfortunately, the bar Cal met her in doesn't exist, he was drunk the whole time, and he only remembers one thing about the girl who'd infected him: her first name is Morgan. That's it. In his hunt, Cal meets Lace who now lives in Morgan's old apartment. The previous inhabitants of Lace's whole floor have mysteriously disappeared and strange things have been written on the walls in blood. With the help of Lace, Cal is launched into an eerie expeditions, full of rat infestations, possessed peep cats, strange monsters rumbling in the Underworld and smelling of death. But if Cal doesn't act fast, the whole world might be infected...
I REALLY liked this book. It was full of action, mystery, voice, creepiness, and, of course, romance. Also, every other chapter, Scott/Cal describes a real life parasite, which added so much substance to the book. With all the amazing science, he almost had me thinking the parasite was real. It's not. Or at least, I REALLY hope it's not... Anyway, I rate this a whopping 8 kinds of fawesome!


Science pondering, vampire loving, parasite infecting-ly yours,