Two Mini-Reviews - The Strain + Campus Visit

So yeah, this thing called school. I’m still reading. All the time. Amazingly. But for some reason I just can’t write thoughtful reviews right now. It’s like, my mind won’t let me actually THINK about what I just read, deeper than just a surface feeling. Like my mind is too tired after thinking all the time for school that anything else is just… meh. So I think I’ll be sticking with short reviews about my general feelings for a while. Unless I read something that makes me just have to write more than that. So here we go, one book I didn’t like so much and one book that I really loved:

Title: The Strain

Author: Guillermo del Torro and Chuck Hogan

Published: June 2010, Harper

Source: PaperbackSwap

Goodreads Description:

In one week, Manhattan will be gone.

In one month, the country. In two months . . . the world.

At New York’s JFK Airport an arriving Boeing 777 taxiing along a runway suddenly stops dead. All the shades have been drawn, all communication channels have mysteriously gone quiet. Dr. Eph Goodweather, head of a CDC rapid-response team investigating biological threats, boards the darkened plane . . . and what he finds makes his blood run cold.

A terrifying contagion has come to the unsuspecting city, an unstoppable plague that will spread like an all-consuming wildfire–lethal, merciless, hungry . . . “vampiric.”

And in a pawnshop in Spanish Harlem an aged Holocaust survivor knows that the war he has been dreading his entire life is finally here . . .

My Thoughts:

I honestly don’t know how I feel about this book. Calling it a vampire story doesn’t sit well with me. The creatures are more of a cross between vampire and zombie. It just felt completely weird to me. I don’t really understand how someone possessed by a virus can end up intelligent like the Master, but the others just seem like droids. I don’t even know how to describe how weird I felt about this book. Probably not my cup of tea.

Rating: 3/5

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Title: Campus Visit

Author: Stella Huerto

Published: August 2012, Dreamspinner

Source: Dreamspinner

Goodreads Description:

Damian Garza and Alex Murphy became best friends in their closed-minded small town, remained inseparable through Alex’s coming out, and have stayed close while studying at different colleges. They’re close enough that Damian dares a shocking e-mail confession: he’s bisexual and wants to experiment with men. With Alex.

It’s supposed to be a simple friends-with-benefits arrangement, one weekend only. That one weekend turns into two, then three, then a whole season of unexpected passion. But life after graduation can’t be ignored: soon Damian will be obliged to return to his family’s orange orchard, and Alex will fly off to his dream job in Europe. Unless they can admit their feelings to each other—and the world—their time as best friends may be over.

My Thoughts:

I honestly could not stop reading this once I got to the second half. I thought the first half was fun, seeing one friend helping another know what he really wants. It was something I had ever read about before. I don’t know how realistic it was, but definitely fun. Once they started obviously falling for each other, I just couldn’t wait to see them actually admit to it. I almost cried when Alex left, seeing how much pain they were both in, but seeing Damian finally come to terms with himself and what he was feeling was great. Definitely a very sweet story. I would read it again.

Rating: 5/5