keyla M

• Rated 3 stars

“Betsy had a boring annoying life; divorced parents, an evil step mother and a rich talkative friend. She joined the undead after a car accident and she just went back to her house after she woke up in her coffin.
The vampire community wasn’t okay with her letting her identity public, so they locked her with them before discovering that it was their lost queen; she didn’t burn under the sun, instead she yawned and dropped asleep.

After Sinclar; who ends up being the king; teaches her vamp 101 and persuades her to help them fighting some evil vampires as he brides her with her favourite expensive brand shoes, she finally accepts her status as the queen and tries to use it to convince other vampires to join them.

This first book of the Queen Betsy series is a lot of fun. It’s an easy read. It is weird at first to see a vampire mixing casually with human and spreading all over the news about her nature. But then she has a point, she doesn’t want to lie to her parents especially her mother, who takes the news very well, or her best friend, who was frightened at first but is happy to have her friend back.

For a paranormal comedy book, undead and unwed is not so bad, it has a lot of events going on. But the style is very simple that you can barely add any new linguistic forms into your brain.
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keyla M wrote this review Saturday, April 18 2009. ( reply | permalink )

• Rated 3 stars

“Chocolat, by Joanne Harris, apprises the story of Vianne Rocher and her daughter Anouchk. They spent their entire life going from town to town, from country to country, exploring new places and experiencing new relationships. It was particularly a tradition that Vianne and her mother used to do.

In her new town vianne opened a chocolaterie, and tried to make it a way to blend in and adapt into the new environment. But the reigning ambiance wasn’t welcoming the single mother. The town was a religious one, women were supposed to take care of their houses and husbands, and go to church. The things that Vianne wasn’t doing and was never willing to do. They considered her chocolaterie as the devil’s messenger.

Vianne fought with the narrow minded people and proved to them that chocolate is a pleasure that everyone is allowed to feel.
She made them realise that religion is not depriving its followers from the pleasures of life and that the person got its needs and craving for some fun and amusement.

Vianne decided to leave many times, but the kindness of some friends, and her need to settle down and have a stable life, made her overcome the challenges and make the change in the small town.
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keyla M wrote this review Sunday, March 22 2009. ( reply | permalink )

1 of 1 members found this review helpful.

• Rated 5 stars

“Zoey Redbird was going to be one average high school student before being marked. Zoey’s life changed upside down, everything was new and weird to her. Her friends abandoned her, her family wanted to control her. She only found refuge at her grandmother that took her to the house of night that was her home from that day. She was a third former fledgling but not a regular one.

Her mark was different from the others, her affinity was powerful, and her determination to follow Nyx’s path clean and strong as it is, made her a perfect match to be a training high priestess.


I found the story very interesting since it showed the change and the suffering of a teenage toward being a vampire. It gave us an idea about how much the change can be difficult, and how much strength and belief it’s needed to go through it. Friendship had a huge part in the story, the whole sticking together in good and bad helped Zoey to win her battle so far against the ex leader of the Dark Daughters.

Zoey’s holding to her family’s traditions was another point that I liked about the story. She actually turned to the Cherokee’s with prayers to help her come up with a plan; I found this brilliant because many of nowadays teenagers grow apart from their traditions and beliefs even when they need them the most.

I couldn’t help but compare the House of night series with the Harry Potter ones. The whole school thing, the fitting issue, and then the typical enemy blond people, for me that was just the same thing, this is really Harry Potter vampire version. I would love to watch it as a movie, it would be fabulous.

The style was easy to read, it was a very simple one, merely like the fanfiction’s. Which can make you bound with the book more, and feel that it was written by your close friend.

I can’t wait to read the other books of the series. It was a great deal to write what Zoey had been through and make you understand her pain and hard times because you can feel the bound between you and the main character. That certainly makes you wonder what will she do next. What changes will she do in the Dark Daughters? And if her relationship with Erik Night will be developed or not?
All that and more will be discovered in the next book. I recommend “Marked”, it’s a very catching and eventful story.
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keyla M wrote this review Sunday, February 15 2009. ( reply | permalink )

• Rated 5 stars

“After I read Twilight, and as for many readers, I grew attached to Edward. Bella in the other hand was just one normal character for me, even though she was the main character and the one telling the story, I had a hard time sympathizing with her.

Bella Swan, the daughter of the town’s sheriff, fell in love with a vampire, Edward Cullen. She went through many problems because of her boyfriend’s nature. The Cullens decided to leave town to make Bella safe and get her normal life back. That's how the second book of the Twilight series begins and left me in big disappointment as Edward had to leave the pages and left me and Bella face to face.
When I started reading more, I found that that's how Bella succeeded to get my attention, and make me feel her pain during what she was going through. I actually had been drowned by those pages, and attracted by the style and the use of the description.

But after thinking things through, I could see that Bella was over reacting during the absence of her vampire. She was a lot negative and suicidal than it should be. And she didn’t calm down until another guy came giving her care and attention. It was bad example for teenage girls, to make them believe that they can’t live without the one they love.



As for Edward, he was one dependant vampire that I’ve never seen anyone alike. Usually vampires are not that attached to their lovers, even the ones that are mainstreaming. But Edward broke the tradition and grew more dependant and attached to his “prey”. He put it the right way when he said “The lion fell for the lamb.” For me that's not a bad thing, but for other vampires... that is breaking the law. But Bella had already made up her mind when it comes to crossing to dark side and entering the mysterious world.


Jacob, the werewolf from La Push, couldn’t get me to like him. Him being a werewolf was another reason for me not to like him. I’m more a vampire girl.
The events were expected but the smoothness of the story made it enjoyable and pleasant.

Edward and Bella, the famous couple, had moved me by the sacrifices that they did for each other. The death was going to be the price for not living without each other.


The scenes were touching, and the events were in row that you can’t let go of the pages to do anything else. It was like nibbling on a piece of an ice cream bar not willing to let it finish.
To sum it up, I really enjoyed the book more than I expected. The story is easy to read and the events made it easy to follow.”

keyla M wrote this review Saturday, January 24 2009. ( reply | permalink )

• Rated 5 stars

“Dead until dark is the first book of the Southern Vampire Mysteries. The story is told by Sookie Stackhouse, a telepathic waitress that lives in Bon Temps a small town in northern Louisianna. The young lady is in a relationship with Bill, the only vampire that was tempted by that town because it happens to be his hometown.

The vampire is trying to mainstream so he could live in his father’s house, but some crimes were occurred in that quiet small town the thing that made all the suspicious eyes around him.
Being capable to hear people’s thoughts got Sookie to not feel much as a human and meeting Bill got her the consolation that she needed especially that she can’t hear his thoughts, so she found the peace and relief that she always missed.

I liked the line of the story and the way Bill treated Sookie, I just loved it. Even with all the problems and the disapprovement that Sookie’s friends and colleagues had expressed towards their relationship, Bill didn’t seem to be intimidated, he showed his love in different ways and so did she.

At the end of the book, a very supernatural fact happened that made the story be less believable, and that made me feel uncomfortable at first, because I was starting to believe the story and I am not into supernatural things very much.

Charlaine Harris is one of the best writers that write about vampires in a very deep way, and the Sookie Stackhouse series are one of the series that are believable and make you feel like it is real. The story makes you love vampires through Bill’s trusting character and I personally grew attached to him as the story was going on.

Sookie’s character in the other hand doesn’t influence the readers even if she is the one telling the story from her point of view; I just didn’t sympathise with her.

Dead until dark treats the classical problem of relationships between two races and the issues that they get from both races and how they stand in front of them for their love. A very important matter that is real yet common that Harris expressed it in a very well written, smooth reading novel.”

keyla M wrote this review Saturday, January 24 2009. ( reply | permalink )