Finale by Becca Fitzpatrick.

Product details;

Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Genre: Young Adult/Supernatural

Paperback, 480 pages

Publication date: October 2013

Rating: 5 out of 5.

Ages: 13+

Synopsis:

Nora and Patch thought their troubles were behind them. Hank is gone and they should be able to put his ugly vendetta to rest. But in Hank's absence, Nora has become the unwitting head of the Nephilim and must finish what Hank began. Which ultimately means destroying the fallen angels - destroying Patch.

Nora will never let that happen, so she and Patch make a plan: lead everyone to believe they have broken up, and work the system from the inside. Nora will convince the Nephilim that they are making a mistake in fighting the fallen angels, and Patch will find out everything he can from the opposing side. They will end this war before it can even begin. But the best-laid plans often go awry. Nora is put through the paces in her new role and finds herself drawn to an addictive power she never anticipated.

As the battle lines are drawn, Nora and Patch must confront the differences that have always been between them and either choose to ignore them or let them destroy the love they have always fought for.

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I'm pretty disappointed that this series is over, I started reading the Hush Hush series around the beginning of the year (I did go and look on my goodreads for the exact date but it looks as though I never put in on my Currently Reading shelf - whoops. I'd been dying to read the series since about this time last year and I finally got my hands on the first book in this series for Christmas 2013, which I was super excited for so when I finally decided to read the series I got pretty excited for it as it was an anticipated read. So the first three books I obviously haven't reviewed because I wasn't into my book reviews as much as I am now, so yeah. I overall have enjoyed this series a lot, I think the plot and the character development have been really clever and all the characters have their own specific personalities which you can definitely relate to some and some that are a little bit more complicated than others. Other characters that you can fall in love with and will always have a special place for them in your heart and others that you just cannot wait to die so you don't have to read another page from their perspective. 

So this is about a girl called Nora who meets a mysterious guy called Patch - Patch takes an immediate attraction to her and they realise that they start to meet each other everywhere that they go, be it the cinema, the arcades or just going the shop. They also then start going out with one another which is frowned upon by her mother and her best friend Vee, (I should also probably mention that her father is dead and its just her mum and her) who both take a dislike to him. By the second book they have split and gone their separate ways due to Nora confessing her love to him and him not returning it back to her, she then finds out he has been standing around her rival Marcie. This then leads her to become close friends with Scott and through him she finds out that a person called the Black Hand was the one who killed her father. It also then comes to her knowledge that Hank Miller who was Marcie's father was her real father as her mother was having an affair with him, then she is captured by Hank at the end of the 2nd book. Three months later Nora wakes up within a graveyard to discover that her mother is now dating Hank Millar. She has no memory of Patch but has moments of deja vu when she hears his name. Along with Scott and a boy named Jev, Nora begins researching Nephilim after her many flashbacks. In the process it's revealed that Jev is actually Patch and that Hank is the Black Hand. Nora eventually begins to regain her memories of Patch and Hank through flashback memories and is ultimately forced by Hank to make a choice between the deaths of herself and her mother or becoming a Nephilim. Unwilling to cause her mother's death, Nora agrees and becomes immortal. Hank tries to send Patch to Hell using one of his feathers, but is stopped when Nora shoots him to death. The book ends with Patch revealing that he had the chance to become human, Nora discovering that she has been made Hank's heir and the leader of his group of nephilim, and that a war between fallen angels and Nephilim is unavoidable. Yet could they jump and not be bound by the unlimited power of the only but not only devilcraft. Nora and her fallen angel boyfriend Patch have had a pretty rocky relationship, and now they finally get to be together. But, Nora has to deal with the fact that she is now the leader of the nephilim army, she has to deal with the raging war between them and the fallen angels. Nora and Patch are determined to do what it takes to finally just have a normal life together, but as time goes on, Nora has to figure out where her loyalties lie. Nora and Patch devise a plan to bring the two sides to peace, but as time is ticking it's getting harder for Nora to decide if peace or war is best. Nora has many nephil friends, including Scott and her new, sexy lieutenant Dante who are determined to help her become the leader she needs to be, but as Nora goes deeper into the world of her new race she finds things that could destroy her, including a dark addiction that Nora might not be able to shake. In the end all plans of peace are lost and the nephilim and the fallen angels must go to war. Dante is revealed to be the antagonist.

So a lot happened throughout the whole series, she found out she was actually a Nephilim and that she had to lead them to war, poor Scott dies after him and Vee start dating and Vee was actually happy in a relationship and that Vee is also Nephilim which I was absolutely gobsmacked about, out of all the twists and turns that the books took I think that was the one that actually made my draw drop because I never ever thought she would be - although I kind of like the twist that she did on it I also thought that maybe it could of done without that and that Vee could of just been a normal human girl but yanno that is what makes books more interesting and more captivating when she throws a massive twist in the book. I was actually pretty happy with the ending of this book and how she ended the series altogether - like adding the little epilogue at the end, what I was not happy about and what I don't think I will ever be happy about is that Scott gets murdered by Dante - I always knew there was something a bit off about him, he just had that shifty way about him, like he was always hiding something. And the whole devilcraft obsession that she went through was a little bit weird but she did it in a really clever way that I actually enjoyed it. I would 100% recommend this series especially if you're into your fallen angel and nephilim series, then this is definitely a really good read. I love love love this series and its become one of my top 10 series that I could just read every year, which I probably will next year. Also the whole Patch's feather being burnt actually gave me a little lump in my throat and I was actually so gutted by the fact that he may be dead - but then when he came out of hell everything was all better thank god! Also the little diary entry by Scott at the end was so sweet, it was well obvious that he liked her though, but it was still so sweet! So yes, to wrap this up, if you haven't already read this series, then do so and if you have, what did you like about it?

The Girl With All The Gifts by M.R Carey.

Product details;

Publisher: Orbit Books
Genre: Dystopia/Zombie

Paperback, 460 pages

Publication date: June 2014

Rating: 2 out of 5.

Ages: 16+

Synopsis:

Every morning, Melanie waits in her cell to be collected for class.

When they come for her, Sergeant Parks keeps his gun pointing at her while two of his people strap her into the wheelchair. She thinks they don't like her. She jokes that she won't bite. But they don't laugh. Melanie is a very special girl.

Review:
Okay so just reading that synopsis doesn't it want to make you go out and buy the book and read it, it sounds so gripping and so unputdownable - but let me tell you that you're in for a rude awakening, because although it sounds like a totally awesome book and it sounds so captivating and the type of book that you will just fly through it really isn't in my honest opinion. Now let me just make this clear, I actually like zombie movies, TV shows, and I quite like a lot of horror films, they don’t phase me the way they bother some people. So when I saw that this was the best thriller book of the year, and everyone was hyping it up and saying that it wasn’t for the faint hearted I got pretty excited because I haven’t actually read a thriller book before so I couldn’t wait to start it. But I have to say I was so disappointed by what I read - I was expecting this big thriller story that was going to keep me on the edge of my seat and keep me anticipating the next chapter, and I really thought it would be the type of book that I would literally finish in a couple of days but it took me like a week because I just didn’t want to carry on with it and I didn’t want to even continue reading it. But I battled through and I finished it and even the end was so disappointing and so annoying that I actually hated the book even more. 

So this girl called Melanie who is the main character of the book is a hungry as they call them in the book, except that she thinks and acts like a normal human, she is locked in a cell and is only allowed out if she is strapped to a board and wheeled around to get to her classes - like all the other children in the book. She has feelings, she has emotions and she also has knowledge which is unusual for a zombie of course. She notices two of her classmates leaving the base and going to visit Dr Caldwell, she waits for days upon days for these children to return until it dawns on her that they will probably never return. It then comes to her knowledge that Sergeant Parks has to take Melanie to Dr Caldwell, once arriving in her lab she realises that she has been dissecting the kids and testing them to find out about they’re mutation and to find a cure for them. It turns out that she needs to do these tests on Melanie. Now baring in mind Melanie has grown fond of her teacher Helen and Helen has grown fond of her, so as soon as she realises Melanie has been taken and it about to me tested on she interrupts and saves her, telling Dr Caldwell she get her hands off her. This is where the book gets a little bit exciting because the hungries break through the defences of the base and start mauling at the soldiers and the workers before they try and come for the Melanie, Helen and Dr Caldwell who are all locked in the lab. They escape along with Parks and Kieran who I will admit I was actually really fond of and totally pissed off when he did what he did to him.

So they’re going between houses trying to find refuge before they come across a lab that’s inside basically a motor home called Rosie here is where a lot of the book just goes downhill, nothing much happens, we find out that Dr Caldwell is dying and doesn’t have long to live and she is desperate to find a cure, Melanie finds a house that is full of hungries that have the same senses of knowledge that she does and also Parks and Helen do the dirty business, because why the hell not, they’re gonna die eventually anyway. Eventually Melanie confronts Dr Caldwell and asks her why she’s so special which she explains to her, then Caldwell dies (hallelujah) and then Parks gets munched on and Melanie shoots him as he asks her to, Helen gets knocked out and when she wakes up Melanie is waiting for her with a bunch of other kids as if they’re back in school and then it ends. Which to be honest is a bull shit ending which makes absolutely no sense! 

So let me just start by saying it was a waste of a read and it was not scary in the slightest, I've watched scarier episodes of Supernatural than what that book was. It may be rated for 16 and over but I would say 14 year old could read it, especially the way some video games are now days, you could handle reading about guts and blood, because that’s all that’s mentioned, how is that even scary?! I feel like the book started off good and it had its moments, like he knew how he wanted it to go, and he knew what the end game of the book was going to be but he just didn't know how to end it and the character building was so boring and there was no real character building it was just all so slow and so blah. I mean a lot of people love this book, like A LOT of people but I just wasn't fussed on it at all, and I’m actually really disappointed that I didn't like this as I was so excited for it, and it just sort of didn't have anything happening for me. So again another not so positive review