Invisible Monsters by Chuck Palahniuk (CBR-III #37)

Cannonball Read III: Book #37/52
Published: 1999
Pages: 304 (15,329 total pages so far)
Genre: Fiction

Invisible Monsters is narrated by a nameless, faceless (literally) ex-model who lost most of her face in a freak accident. She's telling us the story of her friend Brandy Alexander and how their lives became intertwined. You can't really give much plot without ruining the story since you gradually start understanding more and more with each chapter. The whole story comes together like a puzzle at the end.

I was kind of annoyed at times because most of the time you have no idea what's going on until it is explained later on. It jumps back and forth through time and can get really confusing. Thankfully, it's a short novel with very few characters, so it's fairly easy to piece together the story by the end. The end is worth it though when you finally realize how everything fits together.

I love Palahniuk and will definitely be reading and reviewing some of his other books in the future.

I love Palahniuk and will definitely be reading and reviewing some of his other books in the future.

Perfect by Ellen Hopkins (CBR-III #36)

Cannonball Read III: Book #36/52
Published: 2011
Pages: 533 (15,025 total pages so far)
Genre: Young Adult

I love Ellen Hopkins. Her books are like every episode of Degrassi rolled into a novel. If you're not familiar with Degrassi, it's a Canadian teen soap opera that covers every major teen issue under the sun. Seriously, the teens in these books have more issues than anyone I've ever met. Makes for good reading though since I've read every single book Ellen Hopkins has written.

Perfect is a companion novel to Hopkin's book Impulse. However, it can easily be read on it's own. The book follows four teens who all have issues. Cara is coming to terms with breaking up with her boyfriend and realizing she's a lesbian. Her ex-boyfriend, Sean, tries to win her back by any means necessary. Oh, and he's also on steroids. Kendra is an anorexic model. Andre is dealing with his alcoholic girlfriend (Kendra's sister), her racist father, and the fact that he wants to be a dancer instead of following his parent's dreams for him.

This book was a little slower paced than most of the other Hopkins books I've read. It was a little heavier on the teenage angst and a little lighter on the drama until the end. Then things got much better and more drama-filled.

If you've never read anything by Ellen Hopkins, I'd recommend trying one of her other books first. Try Crank or Burned.

Blood Mountain by J.T. Warren (CBR-III #35)

Cannonball Read III: Book #35/52
Published: 2011
Pages: n/a - (Kindle book - couldn't find pages)
Genre: Horror

I bought this book for two reasons. One, it was cheap ($2.99). Two, it was described as "for fans of Jack Ketchum and Jack Kilborn". I love Ketchum and Kilborn, so I figured it was worth a try.

Blood Mountain follows a recent college graduate named Mercy as she and her father try to bond on a hiking trip up Blood Mountain. Unfortunately for them, a crazy guy named Victor has been stalking Mercy and follows them up the mountain. Sounds interesting, right?

Well, it could have been better. It wasn't awful, but it definitely wasn't up to par with Ketchum or Konrath. Mercy wasn't likable at all until the end. She loves to read serial killer novels and sympathize with the victims. She is a completely pathetic heroine who mopes around and constructs fantasies about every young male who comes across her path. This is probably more of a personal opinion than a criticism of the author, but I want a horror novel heroine who is strong and independent - not Bella from Twilight.

Victor was kind of an irritating character too. He was very cliche at times and I kind of wish they just left out the whole weird, pseudo-religious "cleansing the world" stuff.

With that said, the book was a very quick read. It moved at a fast pace and I didn't get bored - just mildly irritated at the characters sometimes. Mercy also redeems herself towards the end and becomes a character you actually want to root for. All in all, it's worth $2.99 for a quick, trashy read. I wouldn't pay $9.99 for it though.

Serial Killers Uncut by Blake Crouch and J.A. Konrath (CBR-III # 33/34)

Cannonball Read III: Book #33 & 34/52
Published: 2011
Pages: 600 (14,481 total pages so far)
Genre: Horror

I'm going to count this as two books since it's described as a "double novel" and includes two previously published books (Serial Uncut and Killers Uncut), along with a bunch of novellas and short stories by the same authors as a compilation. This book basically includes every Konrath and Crouch character written so far and strings their stories together chronologically.

There are over twenty characters throughout the book who keep running into each other in various stories. Sometimes that got a little confusing, but it helps if you've read any of the author's other books. I've read several, but sometimes the characters got a little fuzzy anyways.

Overall, it's a great book if you're a fan of the genre. It's definitely gory, but not as bad as some of the reviews make it out to be. I've definitely read worse. I'd recommend trying a few other Crouch/Konrath novels first though, or else the story might get a little muddled with all the characters.

The Compound by S.A. Bodeen (CBR-III #32)

Cannonball Read III: Book #32/52
Published: 2010
Pages: 272 (13,881 total pages so far)
Genre: Young Adult

Eli's dad is a billionaire who spent millions of dollars building an underground bunker for their family to survive in case of a nuclear war. One Eli's 9th birthday, the family is rushed underground after some explosions. Unfortunately, Eli's twin brother and their grandmother get left behind while the rest of the family is locked underground. The plan is to stay 15 years to be sure radiation is gone, but things start to unravel when Eli is 15. His father is seemingly going crazy and the food supply is rapidly dwindling.

I loved, loved this book. It was absolutely everything I want in a YA novel. I'd almost given up on them lately since they all seem to involve supernatural beings and love triangles, but this book didn't even have a love interest (which is good, I guess, considering all the characters are immediate family members). The story completely relies on suspense and it definitely delivers.

There are so many twists and turns in this book, that I can't say much without spoiling anything. I'd definitely recommend this book to anyone looking for a good YA book that will still interest an adult.

Wake by Lisa McMann (CBR-III #31)

Cannonball Read III: Book #31/52
Published: 2008
Pages: 224 (13,609 total pages so far)
Genre: YA/Supernatural

Janie can see other people's dreams. That's pretty much the plot. If she's in the same room as someone dreaming, she kind of blacks out and enters enter their dream. This makes sleepovers kind of hard.

I wasn't a huge fan of this book. The premise sounded promising, but ultimately it let me down. It just wasn't interesting enough. Most of the book was the same thing: Someone falls asleep, Janie sees their dream, blah, blah, repeat.

They did throw in a love interest, which wasn't actually that nauseating for a YA novel. It was a little over dramatic (pretty accurate for most teens though), but luckily the most annoying thing about Cabel was his name.

**SPOILER**

The ending was eye-roll inducing too. Cabel is actually working undercover with the cops and they want Janie to use her dream watching skills to help them apprehend criminals. I have a HUGE problem with this.

First of all, who the heck dreams real life past events? I sure don't. Even if someone does, how can you use that as police evidence? How do they know what is fact and what is simply your brain making up stuff?

**END SPOILER**

The dreams really annoyed me. Apparently, everyone dreams every time they fall asleep. Personally, I dream a LOT, but not every time I sleep. Also, I know you have to enter into REM sleep to dream, which takes a little while. These kids are falling asleep in class and within seconds are dreaming. I was practically a professional at sleeping through high school, and I rarely dreamed there because you only get 15 minutes or so of sleep at a time and it's not a deep sleep.

Like I mentioned in the spoiler paragraph (this itself isn't a spoiler), they all also dream real life past events. EVERY TIME. I don't think I've ever dreamed real events that happened, unless they were drastically changed to be all weird and dream-like.

For instance, once I was mad at this guy so I dreamed that he turned into a baby tiger and I stomped on him. Yeah, no one dreams like that in this book. It's all straight-up, factual history dreams.

Also, the book was very choppy with almost all simple sentences or sentence fragments. I don't think I'm going to bother with the other books in this series.

The Passage by Justin Cronin (CBR-III #30)

Cannonball Read III: Book #30/52
Published: 2010
Pages: 784 (13,385 total pages so far)
Genre: Post Apocalyptic

In a post-apocalyptic future, survivors of a government experiment gone awry live their lives in fear of "virals". Virals are pretty much just your average vampire with a more interesting back story. They were created by the government using death row inmates as guinea pigs. Eventually, they escape, multiply, and wipe out most of North America (and possibly the world, but no one knows for sure).

Then we have Amy. She was taken as a little girl and given a new version of the virus (that created the virals). Almost a hundred years later, she shows up at The Colony - a village of surviving humans in California. However, Amy appears to be around fifteen years old, not a hundred. They find an electronic chip in her neck that says to return her to Colorado if she is ever found. So the journey begins (about 2/3rds into this brick of a novel).

I actually really liked this novel. The first and last thirds of the book were amazing. The middle chunk was kind of boring and slow. I think this book could have done with a little more editing, especially since it clocks in at almost 800 pages. I have no problem with long novels, but the length here didn't really seem to add to the story.

For one, the characters should have been much more vivid in my mind than they were. I was more than halfway through the book before I realized that Caleb and Hightop were the same person. Sometimes they referred to him by his nickname and sometimes by his real name. There were also too many love triangles to bother figuring out, especially since you barely knew the people involved. This problem was really bad in the middle when everyone was at The Colony, but by the last third of the book it finally focuses on one main group of characters: the group heading out to Colorado with Amy. You get a much better grasp on these characters once they're all together in a smaller group.

Overall, I definitely think this book is worth checking out if you can make you through the muddled center. The beginning and end more than make up for it.