360 to Paradise – Casey Marx

Thank you to the author of this book for giving me a copy to read in return for an honest review.

I wasn’t really sure what I’d think of 360 to Paradise but was so intrigued that I just had to agree to read it. We read through the eyes of Cody Reece, and 18 year old drug dealer who assures the reader numerous times that he is a good person and not a complete low life.

We run through a day in the life of Cody at his lowest point. In the space of 24 hours he finds out that he’s gotten his best friend pregnant, owes his drug dealing boss £12k and his probation officer is following his every step, waiting for him to slip up.

First of all, I thought that Cody’s character was brilliant! Casey Marx has written him so well. Mainly because he is such a slimy scumbag, he deals a lot of drugs, he sleeps around and pervs on quite a few girls and he is constantly tagging graffiti on things to prove his gangster ways. He is a very immature teenager who has a ‘know it all’ attitude and an immortal vision. Basically, I’ll admit that he’s the kind of person that I’d be far too snobby to make eye contact with on the bus for fear of him taking it as a threat. But this guy is actually really likable in the same way. Kind of like a lovable rogue. As bad as I know Cody is, I really found myself wanting him to succeed in all he’s doing. I wanted him to go to university and better himself, I wanted him to end up with Sadja, I wanted him to somehow come up with £12k to avoid being killed and I wanted him to find and bond with his real dad. Cody’s soft side is shown very cleverly with his communications with the two closest people in his life, his adopted sister Ashley- who he is playful and responsible with, and his best friend Sadja – who he seems to literally drop everything for and wants to be a good person around.

The other characters were also very well written. I thought that Sadja’s rebellion against her parents islamic traditions was funny and really enjoyed reading about how she’d embraced her own style. As I said before, she brought out a really good side of Cody, he was kind of like a doting little puppy around her and  their friendly banter was really fun to read.

Dane, Cody’s old friend was also a very good character. I found myself liking him almost straight away even though, like Cody, he was an absolute low life. But he was a very loyal friend and quite a funny character to read. He came in when a little comic relief was needed.

The gang members are horrible. I know that I definitely wouldn’t want to run into Emilino at any point in my life. I physically cringed when reading some parts including him and his antics and despite Cody getting on my nerves with his low life ways at times, I wanted him to escape from Emilino and his horrid gang.

There were some parts of this story that I actually weren’t sure what they were saying to each other. I think I’m getting a little too old to translate the gangster talk, however, I found it fairly easy to keep track of what was going on and the main points of the story.

I did find that some points did drag a little in this book. Mainly only the scene setting chapters but I would skim a few pages like that and still know what was going on pretty easily.

 

I did enjoy this book and I am glad that I read it.

 

Overall Rating

4 stars ****

 

Casting Corner

Casey Marx – Jacob Anderson

Cody was VERY hard to cast. Mainly because there is a question all the way through this book about what his race actually is. Cody didn’t know his parents so is unaware of his ethnicity. I’ve seen Jacob Anderson in a few films and television programs and do think that he has the talent to pull off a character like Cody’s, where he is a bad boy but not completely hated.

 

 

Once Bitten Twice Die – Antony.J.Stanton

Thank you to the author of this book for giving me a copy to read in return for an honest review.

Once Bitten, Twice Die is a very cleverly written story that follows an army regiment and their families as a new medication for dementia goes wrong and begins to turn people into zombies.

I wasn’t too sure about this book when the author offered me a copy to review for him. It mixes three things that I’ve never really been keen on, zombies, vampires and army stories. There are the odd films and TV shows that I’ve watched and made an exception in this factor for (I enjoyed walking dead for a few seasons before I got bored of them just walking, I tolerated Twilight but that had a little more to do with shirtless Taylor Lautner). When I read up on this a little I agreed to give it a read because there were quite a few people who mentioned in their reviews that they didn’t tend to read that kind of thing but loved it.

I’m really sorry to say that storywise…it wasn’t my cup of tea. I didn’t manage to finish the book because I kept getting so distracted that I was finding it quite hard to follow. But that is no fault of the author at all…it’s my own fault for not reading a little more into it before agreeing to read it. There were, however, some brilliant points of this book that I couldn’t ignore.

The idea of the story was brilliant. A medication gone wrong for a disease that affects a number of families is really believable. I really enjoyed reading the beginning of the story too, where one character has the internal battle with wanting to try and help his mum get better and considering the safety of his wife and children. The outcome of that internal battle was heartbreaking for me to read and really showed the talent of this author…I don’t think there would be many zombie/vampire books that would have me close to tears, but if I was watching this in a cinema I would be blubbering like a baby.  
I absolutely LOVED Antony J. Stanton’s style of writing. It is so descriptive and easy to picture what he is talking about. The way that he describes things is almost poetic, absolutely genius. You can tell by just reading a simple part of the story how much passion this author has for this book.
The characters were very well written, it’s quite obvious that Stanton has taken the time to think about each and every character as they all have their own personality and way about them.

I maybe would have found it a bit easier to follow had each chapter followed a specific character and it was obvious by naming them at the top (that might be that I’ve read a few too many chick flicks that do that…)

Overall Rating

4 stars ****
For me, it wasn’t really my genre, but I can’t deny that it was really well written, very clever and I do know a number of people who would love this story. I would highly recommend it to those who like paranormal books.