Alice in Zombieland

By Gena Showalter

"She won’t rest until she’s sent every walking corpse back to its grave. Forever.
Had anyone told Alice Bell that her entire life would change course between one heartbeat and the next, she would have laughed. From blissful to tragic, innocent to ruined? Please. But that’s all it took. One heartbeat. A blink, a breath, a second, and everything she knew and loved was gone.
Her father was right. The monsters are real….
To avenge her family, Ali must learn to fight the undead. To survive, she must learn to trust the baddest of the bad boys, Cole Holland. But Cole has secrets of his own, and if Ali isn’t careful, those secrets might just prove to be more dangerous than the zombies….
I wish I could go back and do a thousand things differently.
I'd tell my sister no.
I'd never beg my mother to talk to my dad.
I'd zip my lips and swallow those hateful words.

Or, barring all of that, I'd hug my sister, my mom and my dad one last time.

                                                                        I'd tell them I love them. I wish... Yeah, I wish"

I don't know exactly what I was expecting from this book, but I wasn't expecting what it is. Gena Showalter does have some very interesting ideas and unique takes that vary the paranormal genre. This book is no exception.  Right away, her concept of zombies that are spirit, not undead flesh and bone, had me captivated. The idea that only some individuals can see these monsters and that one can only fight them by leaving their body and duking it out in the spirit realm, is a pretty great twist.

The characters... Alice is not a particularly strong heroine, but she does have good, real qualities: here vulnerability wen it comes to her sister, her regret over how she treated her father, her desire to avenge her family's death. I really liked her ability to stand up for herself, even against the gang-like group of hardened zombie slayers. Her loyalty to Kat scores points for her. Also, the fact that she and Cole, although confronted with an obvious connection and attraction, tried to create a relationship slowly, was something I enjoyed seeing progress. I love that Showalter made Ali's grandparents so sassy, trying out teen lingo and discussing sex, drinking and drugs openly.

There was a lot of emotion in this book. There were unavoidable and irreversible events leading to death and sorrow and defeat. The thing that I was irritated about was how anti-climatic her reunion was with her zombified father. Also, it was lacking in the promised malevolence that was indicated by Emma. I know this is a series, but there were too many unanswered questions. Jury is still out pending book two of The White Rabbit Chronicles.

Twisted

By Gena Showalter

"Sixteen-year-old Aden Stone has had a hell of a week. He's been:
Tortured by angry witches. Hypnotized by a vengeful fairy. Spied on by the most powerful vampire in existence. And, oh, yeah, killed—twice.
His vampire girlfriend might have brought him back to life, but he's never felt more out of control. There's a darkness within him, something taking over…changing him. Worse, because he was meant to die, death now stalks him at every turn. Any day could be his last.
Once upon a time, the three souls trapped inside his head could have helped him. He could have protected himself. But as the darkness grows stronger, the souls grow weaker—just like his girlfriend. The more vampire Aden becomes, the more human Victoria becomes, until everything they know and love is threatened."

Book three in Gena Showalter's Intertwined series left me excited for the final book in the series.  With that said, wow, was Twisted difficult to get through!

I like these characters, that's already been established.  However, I was a little irked when from page one, Aden wasn't really Aden.  It took nearly half of the book for him to fight off whatever vampire change induced douchebaggery he had been victim to. I also was unimpressed by Mary Ann's little adventure, and the fact that she magically came back to herself at the conclusion of the book.  Why?  What happened there? I did enjoy Victoria's foray into the land of mortality.  She needs some humility in her life. That, and I like the duality of her and Aden, switching places so to speak, instead of becoming vampirisms power couple.
I was glad that there was a focus on the souls; I was irritated when nothing progressed there in the second book. I found Julien's release cathartic, although his story was a little less emotional or realistic than Eve's. I was also happy to see Aden's parents and back story furthered in book three.  It did surprise me that his father was so intent on keeping Aden out of his life, but seemed to know an awful lot about what he insisted he hates. I would have liked a tad more closure there.

About three quarters of the way through, it finally became a page turner, and that's saying something since the  book is over 500 pages.  I've seen a few reviews rampaging over the ending and Aden's decision to rewind everything (which I think would be a good name for the 4th book if it really does go that way), but I'm actually intrigued by how Showalter's going to bind up all these loose ends.  It really was quite a disaster at the end of Twisted, everyone dead or injured or becoming human; things were dire. It will be interesting to see what happens, if Eve and Julien will be back inside Aden, etc. All in all, seemed a little like an interim book, just stringing things out unnecessarily to get to the end.