POD by Stephen Wallenfels (CBR-V Review #4)

Cannonball Read V: Book #4/52
Published: 2012
Pages: 192
Genre: Young Adult/Alien


I've been trying to track this book down for a while now but I think the first edition went out of print or something so it was really hard to find for a few years. Then I realized that one of the local libraries had it and I could get it via ILL! Finally!

POD is a Young Adult book about an alien invasion. Not much is known about the invasion except that a bunch of mysterious pods showed up hoving over the earth and is zapping anyone who steps outside. So now everyone is trapped inside of their house or whatever other building they may have been in at the time of the Pod's arrival.

There are two main stories that the book switches between. The first is 12-year-old Megs (ugh...hate that name...why not just Meg?) who is left inside a Los Angeles hotel parking garage while her mother goes on a "job interview" (she's actually going to a man's house for money). Megs and her mom just left her abusive step-dad, so they are living in their car for the time being. She stays in the car as long as possible, but has to leave and scrounge for food in the other cars. Meanwhile, a couple of men are terrorizing all of the other people stuck in the hotel and start looking for Megs when they find out she's hiding in the garage.

The second story follows 16-year-old Josh and his father who are trapped inside their house in Washington. They slowly run out of food and water and end up having to contemplate on what they should do about it. 

I thought this book was great. It was interesting and moved quickly. The story with Megs was a little over the top at times (she refers to herself as a pirate and leaves notes around as she evades the "bad guys"). But then again, she is only twelve. Josh's story was very, very grim. I was shocked at how much so considering my library labeled this book as for "younger teens". This book has everything from eating pets for dinner to suicide and cannibalism. It's not super graphic, but probably too much for some people.

The Perks of Being a Wallflower by Stephen Chbosky (CBR-V #3)

Cannonball Read V: Book #3/52
Published: 1999
Pages: 213
Genre: Young Adult


I've had this book on my to-read list for a long time. I'd heard it was good, but the plot seemed somewhat boring and I was slightly turned off by the fact that MTV published it (MTV publishes books?). However, after being bombarded with previews for the movie version, I decided it didn't look too bad and I always prefer to read the book before I see the movie.

So, The Perks of Being a Wallflower follows a "wallflower" named Charlie who is just starting high school after his best friend committed suicide the previous year. Then he meets a pair of senior step-siblings (Sam and Patrick) who sort of take Charlie under their wing. The story unfolds through letters that Charlie writes to an anonymous penpal. 

I could relate a lot to Charlie in the beginning because my best friend died (although not via suicide) when I was 12 and just entering high school (we didn't have a middle school - high school was 7-12th grade). I was already very introverted and was very much a wallflower. However, I did not have "cool" senior friends to help bring me back out of my shell. I think I would have loved this book when I was in high school. 

Although I liked it overall, some of it was kind of over the top. Like Charlie's crying. My god, that kid cried every other page. He's not 10 - he's 15! I'm not saying that boys shouldn't cry or anything, but NO ONE should cry as much as that poor kid. Also, the ending was really, really unexpected and I didn't think it really fit with the rest of the book. 

I'm looking forward to seeing the movie adaptation now.

The Dead Zone by Stephen King (CBR-V #2)

Cannonball Read V: Book #2/52
Published: 1980
Pages: 402
Genre: Fiction/Thriller

I've read just about every Stephen King book that he's written, so now I'm reading some of the few that I never managed to pick up. Which means these are the ones I found least interesting when I read the blurbs on the back. The plot of The Dead Zone never really jumped out at me. It follows a man named John Smith (creative, huh?) as a 20-something with a nice girlfriend who gets into a bad car accident and ends up in a coma. He surprises everyone when he wakes up almost five years later. Of course by then everyone else has moved on. His girlfriend is now married to someone else and his mom lost it and started getting into some weird religious cults.

Johnny's changed too. He gets flashes of the future sometimes when he touches people or objects. Eventually the press hears about it and makes a huge deal and then eventually prints that he's a fraud. He tries to live a quiet life but he keeps freaking people out when he tries to help them after seeing a flash. He even helps solve a serial killer case that the police are baffled by. 

I thought the serial killer part would be more central to the story than it was. It was a fairly small part while most of the book was centered around a politician that Johnny shook hands with once and saw a flash of a future war. Sigh. I seem to be picking all the political books this month for some reason.

This definitely wasn't my favorite King book. It was okay (and probably good for people who like King's novels that are less "horror"), but pretty forgettable. 

The Casual Vacancy by J.K. Rowling (CBR-V #1)

Cannonball Read V: Book #1/52
Published: 2012
Pages: 503
Genre: Fiction

I think this book is best read by going into it without thinking that it was written by J.K. Rowling. I know it's been said to death, but this is definitely not Harry Potter. The Casual Vacancy starts off with the death of Barry Fairbrother. His death was sudden and now everyone is plotting to see who will get his seat on the town council. There's a lot of politics in this book, which is probably why I didn't like it as much as I wanted to.

It's actually a fairly solid book, but ultimately not really my type of book. The thing that saved it for me where the secret lives of the townspeople. I loved those parts and hated all the political scheming. I could have read an entire book just about Krystal's family. There were a lot of characters to wade though, but I really liked the younger kids the best. J.K. Rowling has a great way of writing children and adolescent characters and the kids in this book really showed that. Their stories were just so much more interesting than the adults (maybe because there were less politics with the kids?). 

Overall, it was a well-written book, but I'm not sure exactly who it should be marketed to. Most people probably like either one half or the other. 

Cannonball Read V!

New year, new reading challenge! I signed up for Cannonball Read again. Another 52 books in 2013!

Cannonball Read Overview

Cannonball Read V blog (everyone's collective reviews)