Series: Gossip Ghouls #1
Cover:
Genre: Young Adult, Fantasy
How did I get it: Free via Smashwords
This is the book for you if you like:
- High school stories
- Cecily Von Ziegesar’s Gossip Girl series
Summary: Zombie punk Z wakes up in her designer coffin to learn that Vampie, the undead Paris Hilton wannabe, killed her. At first, Z believes this attack stems from Vampie’s jealousy over Z’s boyfriend. Soon, Z learns Vampie's master plan: stealing Z's boyfriend while eliminating werewolves and zombies altogether. Z decides to pose as Gossip Ghoul to get revenge on the billionaire vampress. Impersonating Vampie’s party girl cousin, Z enters the world of the super wealthy, of birka bags and designer fangs, of Parisian shopping sprees and lavish parties. Will Z be exposed before she texts Vampie's scandalous secrets to the undead world? Or will Z vanquish Vampie to once again make the high school of the living and the undead a safe and fashionable place for all?
(from Goodreads)
Thoughts on cover: The cover is mostly focused on the gossip aspect, which was part of the book, but I wouldn’t say it was the important part. And even after reading the book the two lighted girls seem like random people instead of characters out of the book. So I’m not really liking the cover.
Title: I like the title. I think “Gossip Ghouls” is a pretty obvious reference to “Gossip Girls”, which the book does deserve. The updates on the Gossip Ghoul blog are really similar to Gossip Girl’s blog, style-wise, which I was pretty impressed with. “Zombies & Lipstick” is a title that, because of its wackiness, works really good in drawing attention to the book.
Characters: Even though there are more characters in this book than just Z, I thought she was the only one we really got to know. Sure, there is Vampie, the villain, and Brent, the love interest, but both of them seem really one-dimensional characters. Z, on the other hand, is a girl who was not asking to be drawn into this world of zombies, vampires and werewolves, but is willing to rise up to the challenge and get back at them all in their own way. I really liked that about her.
Setting: The book is set in Auburn Heights, a small city in Michigan, USA and in a couple of other places around the world. Auburn Heights is a convergence point for all kinds of supernatural creatures: werewolves, zombies, and vampires, who are the main rulers of the Auburn Heights High and of the entire town.
General story: I loved the first couple of pages. I really, really loved them. I laughed out loud and couldn’t help but keep reading sentences aloud to my girlfriend. That style seemed to be gone after a few pages, though, and while I liked the story, I was sad that feeling didn’t come back.
I have to be honest, I still have trouble seeing how a zombie could ever be anything but gross or scary. So it was hard to accurately picture Z, but I really liked the mythology in this book; zombies aren’t flesh-eating mindless corpses at all, just a different kind of supernatural creatures with their own abilities (like shape shifting or teleporting).
Will I read other books from this author? Yes.
Will I read the next instalment in this series? Probably.
Overall rating: 3 stars
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