Twice Shy by Patrick Freivald
♦publisher: JournalStone
♦release date: October 26, 2012
♦paperback, 231pages
♦intended audience: Young Adult
♦source: from publisher for honest review
High School Sucks...... It's worse when you're dead.............
Ohneka
Falls is a small, Western New York town where everyone knows everyone
and nothing of note happens. Ani Romero is a sixteen-year-old girl who
wants to play sports, hang out, and kiss Mike, her middle-school crush. A
childhood carrier of the zombie virus, she died at fourteen but didn't
become a mindless, brain-eating monster. Her controlling mother forces
her to join the emo crowd to hide her condition behind a wall of black
clothes and makeup, and her friends abandon her. When creeper Dylan
learns her secret, he falls into obsession, with Ani and with death. She
bites him in self-defense. Persecuted by the jocks and ignored by Mike,
Ani struggles through the motions of life hoping her mother's research
unveils a cure, or Dylan dooms them all to a hungry, walking death. As
her emo facade crumbles in the face of jealousy and obsession, Ani knows
that the worst thing she can do is be true to herself.
Review: A contemporary, gothic horror that leaves zombies fans cheering for more.
Ani just wants to be a normal teenager, but hiding deep down is a secret she can only share with her mother. Which in turn, results in way too many rules: be part of the emo crowd, stay covered, only limited sunlight, take formaldehyde baths, get good grades, no secrets, and never ever tell anyone that you are a zombie. All of which is easy, if you’re ok being called a freak. Not to add, the one boy you have ever liked can’t stand looking at your new emo style and his girlfriend is determined to make your life miserable. Life would be simpler, if only she could keep the thought of brains off her mind. The serum her mother, (Doctor and scientist) creates helps a bit, and even keeps the decaying process down but it still isn’t a cure. Leaving Ani with the illusion of a normal teenage life with her piano, job , and finding simple ways to distract her from eating brains.
However, Ani’s life starts to change when Dylan, local creep and obsessive emo boy, turns his obsession onto her and discovers the truth. Turning Ani’s life into chaos, threatening the very life she has grown to tolerate.
With love and hate and hate again, Ani’s heart is constantly tugged between her junior high crush Mike and his toying affections, while his girlfriend Devon goes to any length to make sure Ani knows who’s boss. Causing a cat and mouse chase with her heart that doesn’t even beat. All leading up to one explosive ending, that leaves the door open to its sequel.
Patrick Freivald captures the essence of a teenager. With great dialogue, true problems and the angst of complicated love. Addressing real social issues such as: cutting, drinking, and acceptance at any cost. I was pleasantly delighted by the unusual and creative spin on capturing the zombie essence. Adding a little teenage undead drama, with all the gory details one would expect there to be in a good zombie classic.
Special Dead by Patrick Freivald
♦publisher: JournalStone
♦release date: July 12th, 2013
♦paperback, 260 pages
♦intended audience: Young Adult
♦source: from publisher for honest review
Shackled to her desk,
Ani Romero has a hard time concentrating on her studies. One of eight
zombie survivors of the Prompocalypse, she's back at school, but this
time it's no secret. Locked in their room, flamethrower-toting soldiers
watching their every move, they're tasked with homework and classes
during the week, and macabre experiments on the weekend.
When the
courts rule they're not human, only an appeal keeps them alive long
enough to discover a cure. College applications and SATs pale under the
threat of incineration, and desperation turns them into lab rats...
...but the scientists helping them have ulterior motives, and the
promised cure destroys more than the virus.
Surviving high school has never been so hard.
Review: Follow Ani through the zombie filled continuation of
Twice Shy, where life as a zombie is not what it is cracked up to be.
With the event of prom fourteen months earlier, and Ani’s small slip up, her secret is partially out, and the zombie virus has been discovered. Leaving Ani and 7 of her classmates infected and known world-wide as the zombie survivors of, Prompocalypse.
Now acting like a new undead person, Ani must suffer with her classmates the horror of returning back to high school. If you call being chained to your desk, wearing helmets and metal bite guards, while surrounded by guards with flame throwers, a normal high school day. Luckily she has Mike, her partly brain eaten boyfriend, there with her. Although, Devon his ex girlfriend just happens to be there as well. Life could only get worse if they were all dead- wait they already are.
With a storyline that stretches through their days at school, medical testing, zombie virus injections you follow the trial and tribulations of not only being a teenager but being a zombie teenager.
With a realistic approach to how society might actually react to a zombie virus outbreak. This book highlights social disorder and raises the question of, “What do you do with the living undead?” Are they people with rights or subjects only to be kept around for medical experiments?
Special Dead highlights the fall of social structure at the dawn of a deadly virus and the challenges faced by those who are left to cope with the disease. Although teenagers themselves, they are faced with choices of which all have deadly consequences, as well as being emotionally charged. If you are a fan of zombies, sci- fi, or gory medical research this book taps into it all.
In book one, we meet Charlie. He's a young boy who's just recently lost his mother to illness. He's hurt and he's angry and often takes it out on his little brother, as brothers sometimes do. There is an old house in his neighborhood, a spooky old purple house on a hill, and when he crosses paths one day with Charlotte Dechance, his worst fear happens---she becomes his stepmom and he winds up living in the big purple house! When he starts having horrible nightmares, he knows she and the house have something to do with it. Together with his band of friends, they take on their nightmares in a way they never imagined. The characters are all very different and bring something fun to the story. There's some heavy themes and touching moments dealing with loss and having a parent remarry, but also a great message in facing one's fears, standing up for your friends, and finding and using your strengths. I really enjoyed this one so much! 
