Surviving the Angel of Death by Eva Mozes Kor and Lisa Rojany Buccieri

Surviving the Angel of Death by Eva Mozes Kor and Lisa Ronjay Buccieri(Cover picture courtesy of My Shelf Confessions.)

Eva Mozes Kor was just 10 years old when she arrived in Auschwitz. While her parents and two older sisters were taken to the gas chambers, she and her twin, Miriam, were herded into the care of the man known as the Angel of Death, Dr. Josef Mengele. Subjected to sadistic medical experiments, she was forced to fight daily for her and her twin’s survival. In this incredible true story written for young adults, readers will learn of a child’s endurance and survival in the face of truly extraordinary evil.

The book also includes an epilogue on Eva’s recovery from this experience and her remarkable decision to publicly forgive the Nazis.Through her museum and her lectures, she has dedicated her life to giving testimony on the Holocaust, providing a message of hope for people who have suffered, and working for causes of human rights and peace.

[Full disclosure: I received a free ebook copy through NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.]

Just so we’re all on the same page here I want you to know that this a review of Eva Mozes Kor’s YA version of her memoir Echoes From Auschwitz.  Surviving the Angel of Death is meant for a teen or more sensitive audience because it does not go into as much graphic detail as her full memoir does.  There are still nightmarish scenes considering the subject matter, but keep in mind that this particular version is more YA-friendly.

Eva and Miriam are twins in Hungary when the Second World War breaks out.  Since they’re Jewish, Eva shows us how things steadily got worse for her family before they were finally rounded up and eventually sent to Auschwitz.  Being twins, they heard the cry of “Zwillinge!” (Twins!) as the soldiers selected who would live and who would die.  They were the ‘lucky’ ones, the ones chosen by Dr. Joseph Mengele for his twin experiments at Auschwitz.

We learn about the horrible conditions the twins were kept in even though they were ‘special’ and the experiments they were subjected to during their stay at Auschwitz.  What really struck me about this memoir is the description of Dr. Mengele: “My first thought was how handsome he was, like a movie star.”  It really brings home the fact that these atrocities were not committed by movie villain caricatures, but by real people.  For a young adult first learning about the Holocaust, I dare say that would be a rude awakening.  But it really drives home the point that the Holocaust did happen and that the atrocities we all hear about now were committed by people just like us.

What I found the best about Surviving the Angel of Death was that Eva Mozes Kor wrote about the liberation of Auschwitz and included information about where she and Miriam ended up later on.  She includes snippets of later on in her life where she started campaigning for Holocaust awareness and how she came to publicly forgive the Nazis.  It’s an intense personal journey and it’s one I’m glad she’s sharing in a more young adult friendly manner.  Obviously I’m not saying teens can’t read her full memoir, but rather that I think this is a good book if teens are just starting to learn about the Holocaust.

The formatting on my Kindle was a little weird at times, but that didn’t even register for me.  The fact is that this is an extremely emotional, honest memoir about one of the darkest periods in human history.  It’s well-written and informative, which is what it should be.  I would highly recommend it to teens who are just starting to learn about the Holocaust or sensitive people who don’t feel they’re ready for the full version.

I give this book 5/5 stars.

Amazon     Barnes and Noble     Goodreads

***A note on comment moderation: I know the Holocaust is an extremely sensitive topic, especially on the internet.  It’s also one that I personally am extremely sensitive about, for reasons I don’t want to discuss.  Therefore, I will be moderating all comments on this post with a heavy hand and will forewarn you that any Holocaust denying comments will be deleted for sheer ignorance.  Yes, this is censorship and no, I don’t care in this particular case.

Apocalyptic Organ Grinder by William Todd Rose

Apocalyptic Organ Grinder by William Todd Rose(Cover picture courtesy of Goodreads.)

A fatal virus—a biowarfare experiment unleashed on an unsuspecting world—has reduced the once-mighty United States to a smattering of tribes dueling for survival in the lawless wilderness. The disease-free folk known as Settlers barricade themselves in small villages, determined to keep out the highly contagious Spewers—infected humans who cannot die from the virus but spread the seeds of death from the festering blisters that cover their bodies.

Tanner Kline is a trained Sweeper, sworn to exterminate Spewers roaming the no-man’s-land surrounding his frightened community. As all Settlers do, Tanner dismisses them as little more than savages—until he meets his match in Spewer protector Lila. But when hunter and hunted clash, their bloody tango ignites a firestorm of fear and hatred. Now, no one is safe from the juggernaut of terror that rages unchecked, and the fate of humanity hangs on questions with no answers: Who’s right, who’s wrong . . . and who’s going to care if everyone’s dead?

[Full disclosure: I received a free ebook through NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.]

Whatever my expectations were starting Apocalyptic Organ Grinder, they were blown away within a few chapters.  William Todd Rose packed so much into this novella that I hardly know where to start.

Let’s start off with his world-building.  It was fascinating, terrifying and worst of all, believable.  The divide between the Spewers, the people infected with a horrible disease who pass it onto healthy people and the healthy people is realistic.  Spewers are outcasts to be put down like animals upon sight by Sweepers like Tanner, who will do anything to keep their friends and family safe.  Yet the atrocities aren’t limited to the uninfected because the Spewers’ hands aren’t clean either in this war.  I love how in Apocalyptic Organ Grinder both sides are relatively ambiguous; it’s left up to the reader to decide for themselves who’s good and who’s evil.  Personally, I decided both sides are a mixture of good and evil.

Both Tanner and Lila were fascinating characters.  Tanner will do anything, which includes kill Spewers, in order to protect his little girl back at the settlement.  He does have a guilty conscience and wrestles with it and it’s that struggle that brings Apocalyptic Organ Grinder to its horrifying conclusion.  His hands are certainly not clean and we do feel more sympathy for Lila, the Spewer who only wants to protect her family and her tribe from Sweepers like Tanner.  Since we get to see things from both perspectives we’re left to judge the characters by their actions and internal struggles.

The plot was fast-paced in this little novella and I read the whole thing in one sitting.  Reading a book in one sitting is not unusual for me as my regular readers will know, but frantically flipping the pages to do so is.  William Todd Rose certainly knows how to create suspense in a limited number of pages.  He is also quite even-handed with the perspective switches so that we get enough switches to understand both sides of the story but not so many as to become confusing or annoying.  In short, Apocalyptic Organ Grinder may not have a completely unique premise, but it does have awesome characters, great world-building and suspense.

I give this book 4.5/5 stars.

Amazon     Barnes and Noble     Goodreads

Sky’s End by Lesley Young

Sky's End by Lesley Young(Cover picture courtesy of Goodreads.)

A secret she must never share. A secret that two warring species are determined to control. A universe’s future at stake.

Twenty-year-old Cassiel Winters joins Earth’s new space academy in hopes of finding her brother, one of Command’s top pilots and her only family, who’s been reported MIA. But she quickly realizes she may not be cut out for life in space, where female cadets are outnumbered, competition’s fierce, and she’s already failed her hand-to-hand combat test once.

Even the station’s most respected officer, Lt. Damian King, probably can’t help Cassiel pass the second time around – so why is he so interested in her progress? If only one of her freaky déjà vu visions would offer an answer instead of mysterious messages like hide.

When Cassiel’s manipulated into a perilous mission, she encounters a warrior species bred to protect the universe from an even greater threat. And she learns that her secret visions are at the heart of it all.

Now Cassiel must fight to control her own destiny and race to save her brother – even if it means pretending to be the pawn of Prime Or’ic, the cold-as-steel Thell’eon leader. Even if it means risking her life, facing hard truths, and making the ultimate sacrifice.

[Full disclosure: I received a free ebook copy through NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.]

If I had to describe Sky’s End in one word, it would be disappointing.  Lesley Young had such an amazing premise here that I couldn’t help but request it from NetGalley.  I mean, a young female space cadet in a mostly male world working to find a way to save her brother (who is missing in action) sounds like a great sci-fi premise.  Throw in some marauding aliens bent on wiping out humanity and you have an apparent winner.  Except Lesley Young had some problems with not only what she was writing about, but how she wrote.

There are a lot of awkward phrases throughout the book, but not enough to annoy me.  What annoyed me was that some things were described in ridiculous detail (mainly the Thell’eons) and things like Cassiel’s surroundings weren’t described at all.  It was akin to be dropped into a dark room with a bunch of talking heads at some points in the story.  Okay, so I could ignore even that, but all of the futuristic technology that is named but never explained really grated on my nerves.  I don’t like it when authors talk down to their readers, but sometimes it’s okay to explain the things your main character casually mentions.

The plot was truly confusing at some parts.  Why they sent Cassiel out on a mission knowing she’d be captured by the Thell’eons is a mystery to me, even though there was sort of a weak explanation about how they like human women.  The plot twists that I don’t want to reveal involving the real threat to the universe were also ridiculously confusing.  I re-read certain scenes twice to make sure I wasn’t missing something and still didn’t completely understand what was going on.  I think Lesley Young definitely knows where the plot was going, but that she had a hard time getting the message through to readers.

Cassiel was an okay character, I suppose.  I could feel that she truly loved her older brother and wanted to find him, that she was confused about the Prime Or’ic and Damian and that she wanted to do the right thing in the end.  Yet at the same time, I didn’t really feel her emotions.  Throughout the course of the story Cassiel gets angry, sad, happy, etc. but I never really could connect with her on that emotional level I can with most characters.  I’m not sure if it’s something on my end or the author’s, but it definitely affected the way I felt about the whole story.

Overall, I’d say that Sky’s End really just wasn’t for me.  There was such an awesome premise, but Lesley Young never really did live up to it.  I finished the book and just felt confused and let down by the ending.  The plot twist completely blindsided me and not in a good way.  It was more of a “Huh?  Where’d that come from?” way.

I give this book 1.5/5 stars.

Amazon     Barnes and Noble     Goodreads

Hollowland by Amanda Hocking

Hollowland by Amanda Hocking(Cover picture courtesy of Amanda Hocking’s Blog.)

“This is the way the world ends – not with a bang or a whimper, but with zombies breaking down the back door.”

Nineteen-year-old Remy King is on a mission to get across the wasteland left of America, and nothing will stand in her way – not violent marauders, a spoiled rock star, or an army of flesh-eating zombies.

After enjoying Amanda Hocking’s Trylle trilogy, which was admittedly light reading but still good, I decided to give Hollowland a go.  I mean, it’s about zombies and it was free on Amazon at the time so why not?  I had already read Amanda Hocking’s work and liked it so it seemed like it would be a winner.

Except it wasn’t.  The plot was so cliché that I could pretty much predict all of the plot twists.  And certain elements were so unbelievable that I have to laugh.  A pet lion, really?  Even if it was tame before the apocalypse, it certainly would not have stayed tame after Remy freed it from a bunch of zombies.  Okay, if I suspend disbelief on that front long enough I still find the rest of the plot either trite or unbelievable.

Harlow is thirteen but is so immature you would think she’s eight years old, Remy knows how to get things done but is an unemotional robot and Lazlo is just plain annoying.  I don’t want to spoil too much, but the fact that Remy’s little brother is taken by the government for immunity testing and Remy wasn’t is just a little unbelievable considering they’re siblings and therefore could share the same DNA that makes them immune.

The characters were unlikeable and the plot was, well, nonexistent.  Remy and the gang do a bunch of travelling and get chased by zombies a couple of times, find the quarantine zone and just relax until the very end.  Trust me, you can predict what happens at the end by chapter two.  Honestly, I would have expected quite a lot more from Amanda Hocking, considering that I enjoyed her Trylle trilogy.  Sure, it was a little predictable and there were a few clichés, but there was nothing on the level of Hollowland.

Moving on from the characters and the plot, I did find one good thing about Hollowland: the zombies.  The zombies are more of the 28 Days Later fast zombie type than the traditional slow type.  They display a lot more intelligence than zombies in some books and even lay an ambush for the characters at one point.  However, there is exactly zero information on the virus/parasite/whatever that caused the zombies and virtually no backstory about how or when the apocalypse started.  It’s frustrating because that’s the one element I actually enjoyed in the story.

Overall?  I’d give Hollowland a solid ‘meh’.  The zombies are okay, but the characters and plot are either boring or unbelievable.

I give this book 2/5 stars.

Amazon     Barnes and Noble     Goodreads

Taking the Weekend Off

This is just a brief note to let you guys know I’ll be taking a break from posting for just this weekend.  I’ve got a case of blogger burnout and I want to catch up on a lot of reviews that I haven’t been doing.  I’ll still be participating in the discussion post about strong female characters, so feel free to comment away and see you on Monday!