Book Review: Alice in Zombieland by Gena Showalter

Alice Bell has never experienced what you’d call a normal life. Her whole life her family was held captive by her father’s paranoid ramblings about monsters, never allowed to go out at night and living in a highly secure but permanent state of fear. Except that he wasn’t delusional and monsters are real. It is bad enough that Alice loses her entire family in a car accident on her sixteenth birthday but on that evening she finally sees the monsters with her own eyes and she realises once and for all that her father was anything but crazy.

Alice in Zombieland is Gena Showalter’s latest foray into young adult fiction, following on from her as-yet-unfinished Intertwined series. Despite the play on the title of the Lewis Carroll classic, the book has little to do with Alice in Wonderland and it is not a reimagining of that story. In a sense, this might be misleading to readers as the front cover proclaims “Off with their heads” and the series is called The White Rabbit Chronicles but apart from Alice’s sightings of a white cloud in the shape of a rabbit, further references to Alice in Wonderland are extremely tenuous.

This suited me perfectly as there is a time and place for parody mashups but I think Gena Showalter is a better writer than that.  However, therein lies the problem with Alice in Zombieland.  It is probably worth mentioning that I am a great fan of Showalter’s Intertwined series to the extent that it is the first series in years that I have read several times.  The supernatural world that Showalter created in those books along with her characters’ natures and abilities was incredibly entertaining, unique and interesting. It is safe to say that I had high expectations of her with this book.

Ultimately, Alice in Zombieland is just an average high school melodrama with stereotyped characters and a zombie threat. Except that the zombies aren’t zombies, they are ghosts, despite the fact that the author insists on more than one occasion that ghosts don’t exist.  And, of course, the zombie ghosts can bite you and infect you which actually makes them zombies. I think I’ve conveyed how silly the distinction is.

There were so many scenes that reminded me of other books, films and television programs that little seemed original in this book.  The scene where Alice first sees Cole seemed almost identical to the scene where Bella first sees the Cullens in Twilight; the organisation of the hunters in relation to their parents seemed like a cross between Teen Wolf and Secret Circle; and the characterisation of Cole and his friends (and the subsequent reversal of that impression) felt like it came straight out of Fallen. 

My honest impression (and I might be entirely mistaken in this) was that Harlequin Teen had far too much editorial input into the novel and encouraged Showalter to write a book that they could sell. This was supported by Alice reading another Harlequin Teen novel in the book (product placement anybody?) and the fact that Showalter’s characters are now shiny and squeaky clean with no cursing or carnal bodily relations. 

So if you were expecting a Lewis Carroll / zombie mashup or a paranormal thriller of the same calibre as Showalter’s Intertwined series, then Alice in Zombieland is probably not the book for you.  However, if teen romances with a touch of the supernatural are what you are looking for, then his book performs fairly on that level.  I give it a fair 2.5 out of 5 stars.

Alice in Zombieland is published by Mira Ink and is available to purchase on Amazon.co.uk or Amazon.com.

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Music Review: Keane – Night Train

Keane – Night Train Label: Island Release date: 10 May 2010 Genre: Indie Rock Rating:  2.5/5

After a short break of just two years, British indie rock outfit Keane return with an eight-track EP Night Train.  Hailing from East Sussex, Keane are Tom Chaplin, Tim Rice-Oxley and Richard Hughes.  The darlings of the British indie music scene, Keane have experienced phenomenal success both in the UK and worldwide with their first three albums selling over ten million copies.  While each album has seen stylistic shifts, Keane have become known for Tom Chaplin’s trademark voice and Tim Rice-Oxley’s sweeping melodies.  With Night Train, Keane hope to break through the indie rock label and try out new sounds and styles.  While most indie rock bands fizzle out after their debut, can Keane repeat the magic that has captivated their fans since their 2004 debut Hopes and Fears?



The album opens with the musique concrète introduction “House Lights”.  Keane have often leaned towards uplifting and upbeat songs in the past but “House Lights” gives an expectation that the album will be perhaps darker and more complex.  This is somewhat confirmed with “Back in Time” with its dramatic synthesiser melodies and anthemic vocals.  The band collaborate with Somali/Canadian rapper K’Naan on the next track “Stop for a Minute”.  This is the first single from the album and will no doubt garner a lot of radio play but I thought it was pretty disappointing.  It is definitely a Keane song with its uplifting and positive sound and Tom’s unmistakable voice but we’d been promised something different with the first two tracks.  Furthermore, although acts like Gorillaz and Dan Le Sac vs. Scroobius Pip seem to have succeeded in bridging the gap between the indie rock and hip hop genres, I don’t think the rap works in this track. 



Things definitely pick up again with “Clear Skies” though.  The track has an urgent feel to it with quite a funky beat and it is one of those songs you want to hear again as soon as it is finished.  “Ishin Denshin (You've Got To Help Yourself)” is the second collaboration on the album and features Japanese baile funk MC Tigarah.  The song has a definite Japanese sound to it and seems to work a bit better than the first collaboration before becoming but is a bit silly and repetitive in the end.

“Your Love” features a rare lead vocal from Tim Rice-Oxley.  This song reminds of their first hit “Somewhere Only We Know”.  The next track “Looking Back” is the second collaboration with K’Naan on the album.  It starts off interestingly enough with 1960s-style brass sound and it is quite a nice song but once again, as much as I like hip hop, I just don’t think the rap works in this song.  The EP closes with “Your Shadow” which is a touching finale to this short album.  This is a good, solid song but I couldn’t shake the feeling that I had heard it somewhere before.



The band have admitted that they didn’t put too much effort into this EP and it was recorded while they were touring.  Rice-Oxley stated that “All of these songs were recorded with a spirit of ‘Why Not?’.  We didn't labour over making this record, or worry about it, we just enjoyed experimenting with things”.  It is a pity because I think this shows in the EP and I have to wonder why they didn’t just hold out for a full studio album with better material.  Some of the songs just don’t work and others sound like a Keane jam session.  Keane have long been one of my favorite bands and I will keep listening to the better songs on the EP but perhaps it is time for them to return with an edgier, more mature sound. 

Being that I liked four of the eight tracks, I give the album two and a half stars.



Article first published as Music Review: Keane - Night Train on Blogcritics.org.  I was provided with a copy of the CD to review and all opinions in the review are my own

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Book review: Chosen by PC & Kristin Cast

After being thrilled to bits by  Marked and more than a little  disappointed by the sequel Betrayed, I decided to take a chance on the next book in the House of Night series because it had received good reviews.

The House of Night is yet another series in the ever popular vampire genre.  What makes this series different is its references to elemental magic, ancient Cherokee traditions and a focus on strong, powerful women.

The first book in the series Marked introduced us to Zoey, the protagonist of the series as she realises she is a vampyre fledgling and she starts at the House of Night vampyre finishing school.  In Betrayed, Zoey must deal with an evil force within the school that is killing human teenagers but the book ended right at the pinnacle of all the action and it was so frustrating!

Chosen begins immediately after the events of the previous book.  Without giving away the story too much, I will say that Zoey finds herself torn between three men and forms an alliance with her former enemy.  The authors have really written the most horrible lead character as Zoey proves herself to be arrogant, selfish and disloyal with a severe case of self-righteousness.  What saves this book and made me decide to pick up the next one in the series is the explosive finale which had me racing to the end of the book. 

At the end of the day, the House of Night series is a fun, imaginative series that does breath new life into the vampyre genre.  It is a pity that the authors have dragged the story out over so many books and used cheap cliff hanger techniques when the story could have run just as effectively by finishing up one story arc in one book.

I certainly wouldn’t recommend reading this book as a one-off and this is a series that you do have to read in a strictly chronological order.  But it is fun and easy to read and the books are great at passing the time and reading on the train.  Would I recommend that you start the House of Night series at all?  Yes, I would.  Just maybe borrow the books from the library rather than spending good money on them.

I give the book at strict passing grade at 2.5 stars.

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