World Without Crows Review

The World Without Crows is both a coming of age story and a post-apocalyptic novel.

The Plot

In 1989 a parasite, commonly called the Vacca B, brought about the end of the world.  A year later our protagonist, Eric, decides to walk from Ohio to Maine in search of an island in a middle of a lake from his childhood.

The Vacca B turns people into zombies, but not traditionally.  The zombies in the book are mostly non-issues.  People who just kind of sit and stare into space and ignore you.  Some of the zombies are "Cracked" and thus more violent, but even they seem to be a non-issue in the novel, rarely making appearances.  Animals can also be infected with the Vacca B and more of the animals seemed to be "cracked" than humans.

My Thoughts

It was a good story and a fast read but seemed to be lacking a few things.  The author uses small sort sentences to tell the story instead of being more descriptive and showing you the scenes.  For example:

"He would have to walk."
"She was in the street.  Someone had shot her."

And we don't delve too deeply into anyone's thoughts, which makes it hard for the reader to really feel anything about anyone.  There is little, if any, emotion connected to the deaths in Eric's travels.
You also don't get any backstory on the characters.  Normally I'm not a fan of flashbacks but would have made an exception in this case becauseThe World Without Crows is full of so many potentially amazing characters who are just kind of there.

Should You Read It

If you want an intensely emotional or scare read, this book is not for you.
This does not mean it was a bad book.  I finished it in a matter of days and it makes for a quick summer read and would rate it 3 out of 5 stars and you recommend it to a teen or young adult who is looking to ease into the horror or zombie genre.

If you would like to give it a read you can buy the ebook or the paperback through Amazon.

Or if you want a slightly more intense zombie novel with a similar theme of traveling to a certain destination in a post-zombie world, you could check out Red Hill by Jamie McGuire.

The Author

Ben Lyle Bedard is the author of The World Without Crows.  He chose to self-publish and markets this novel on his own.  You can find out more about him and his novel on his Website The Blog of Ben.
(I won a free copy of this book from a Goodreads Giveaway.  All thoughts and opinions are my own.)
If you are looking for something else to read, you might want to look at some of my other reviews.
Full Wolf Moon
Camp So-and-So
and MORE.
Or, visit Wild Verbs to read some of the fiction that I have written myself.

Rabbit Cake

As March faded into April, and with April 1st being Easter, it seemed fitting that I read a book about rabbits.  Because surely a book called Rabbit Cake with a bunny on the cover is about rabbits, right?
No, not really (and no I didn't really think that), but Rabbit Cake by Annie Hartnett was a story that grabbed me and didn't let go.

Elvis's mom bakes rabbit cakes to celebrate special occasions.  The first day of school, new moons, birthdays.  She says a rabbit meant good luck to a new start.  But on Elvis's 10th birthday Mom burned the rabbit cake.

Six months later she sleepwalked into a river and drowned.

Elvis is a smart girl.  She knows a lot about animals.  But what she doesn't know is how her mom's death could have been an accident.

While her dad starts wearing her mom's clothes and lipsticks, and her older sister starts sleep-eating instead of sleepwalking, Elvis tries to find any good reason her mom would have killed herself.
Over the next 18 months, she tries to cope with her own grief and her families grief in the only way she knows how.

Rabbit Cake is a coming of age story which is heartwarming, heartbreaking and humorous in all the right ways.  I would love to see a sequel story centered around this family.

MAKING A RABBIT CAKE

Over 1000 Rabbit cakes were baked, eaten, judged or destroyed in this book.  While some were left plain, some were fanciful and some were decorated to look like real rabbits.  Elvis tells us on the first page of the novel:

A rabbit cake is baked in a two-sided aluminum mold, producing a three-dimensional cake.  That's the miracle of it: the cake stands up on its own, on its four paws.

I pictured them as looking a lot like this cake pan available from Amazon:
I've never made one before, but maybe we should all start celebrating the new beginnings, or even the daily mundane tasks, of our lives with Rabbit Cakes.

Rabbit Cake is the 18th book out of the 60 I hope to read this year.  See Everything I've read on my 2018 Reading List

Is A Quiet Place a Rip-off?

I've been seeing previews for a while now of a movie called A Quiet Place.  Due to be released in theaters on April 6th, I have not had a chance to see it yet.

However, since the very first time I saw the preview something about this movie has bugged me to no end.


In the preview we see a family which must be very, very quiet at all times.  Because there is something out there that hunts them if they make a sound.  Any sound.

I kept thinking, "I've read that book!"  But I couldn't think of the name of the book.

So tonight I went digging on the internet and found out that "A Quiet Place" isn't based on a book.
A Quiet Place is about a family trying to survive in a world that is post-apocalypse.  A creature hunts them if they make a sound.  And looking further into it turns out that one of the children is deaf so the family already knew sign language and all that good stuff to give them a small but slightly better chance at knowing how to survive in silence.

Nothing about it being based on a book though, which confused me because I KNOW the story.  I READ the story.  But I couldn't remember the name of it.  So I kept typing what I remembered of the story into google until I found it.


In the novel, The Silence by Tim Lebbon (published in April of 2015) havoc has been wreaked on the world by creatures which.... hunt by sound!

It follows a family trying to survive in a world where they are being hunted by creatures who hunt by sound.  The slightest sound means death.  Also, and huge surprise here, the daughter in the story is deaf, so the family knows sign language and has the ability to communicate in silence already.

Judging by what little we see of the creature in the preview for A Quiet Place it is vastly different from the Vesps (the winged creatures who hunt the family in The Silence), but the rest of the story appears too close to the novel for the novel to have not gotten credit.

In some communication on the author's page I see I am not the only person who feels uncomfortable with how similar they film and the novel are.  The author says he is aware of the film and he also  says:

Hi Folks … thanks for your comments and concerns. There are similarities, of course, but I’m confident that the movie of The Silence will stand on its own. It’s going to be epic!
It is a little troubling, but I guess that’s all I can say about it.

Meanwhile, The Silence itself is in pre-production.  Yep, it's being turned into a movie.

I can see it now though when The Silence comes out in film version a whole bunch of people are going to be angry because they are going to be SURE that it's ripping off A Quiet Place.

What do you think? Coincidence or not?

I guess I'll have to wait until I see the film to pass final judgment, but that preview sure does make it feel fishy to me.

They Sky is Yours

The Sky is Yours

Two dragons have risen from the sea, and now they perpetually fly above Empire Island in this dystopian tale by Chandler Klang Smith.

I went into it with high hopes, but in the end I was a bit disappointed.

The characters are, for the most part, of the "poor little rich kid" variety.  The haves, who even in a burned out city have no idea what it is like to be a have not.

I have learned a long time ago that when you detest your protagonists that much it is really hard to read a novel.

While Duncan and Swanny made me taste bile in the back of my throat I did enjoy Abby's character.  The only thing that kept me reading after a point was trying to figure out who she really was, and how/why she came to live on the garbage island.

I was also very disappointed by how small of a part that the dragons had in most of the book.  The escapades of the poor little rich kids were certainly not what I had envisioned when I realized that dragons were in the sky at all times.  Other than randomly torching buildings for no apparent reason they seemed to play no bigger part than pigeons in the sky.

This is not a book I would quickly recommend, and not one that I'm going to be in any rush to read again.

"I received this book from Blogging for Books for this review."

Grief Cottage

Grief Cottage by Gail Godwin

Marcus is eleven when his mother died.  He lived in foster care a short time before going to live with his great-aunt in South Carolina. Aunt Charlotte is an accomplished painter, and a reclusive woman.  She is the one who tells Marcus about Grief Cottage....on the far end of the island.

A boy and his parents disappeared in the cottage during a hurricane, fifty years ago.  Their bodies were never found and the cottage has been empty ever since.

There has been no talk of it being haunted, but being left pretty much on his own by his aunt, Marcus is the first person the ghost of the cottage has revealed himself to.

After Aunt Charlotte injures herself and may never be able to paint again, Marcus finds himself in sort of a courtship with the ghost boy.  He is both intrigued by and terrifyed by him, and wants to find out what happened to him, and his parents, who nobody seems to even remember the names of.
What I thought of Grief Cottage

Grief Cottage is Book 5/60 in my attempt to read 60 books this year.

It is not a typical haunting story.  No things going bump in the night. While Marcus has no doubt the ghost boy is real, as a reader I'm not sure I'm convinced.

Marcus is himself a haunted child.  Haunted by his past, more afraid of his present than he wants to admit, thinking a little of the future yet to come.  As he unpacks his belongings from his previous life, and relives the memories they stir in him the ghost becomes more solid.  I think it might be a solidification of his own uncertainties, since he really has no physical person that he feels he can reach out to.

Meanwhile, its a rough coming of age story, a finding of a surrogate mother, a desperate need of a father figure, and a fear of disappearing entirely manifested in acts of trying to find the identities of the nameless family.

This was a rough and emotional book, which can be taken at face value as a ghost story, or something deeper.

If you read Grief Cottage I would love to know what you think.  Is the ghost real, or not?

If you enjoyed this review you might also like:
Long Black Veil

Lullaby Road

When Ben Jones pulled into the desert with two children and a dog in his truck, I fell in love.

Lullaby Road is the sequel to another novel, The Never Open Desert Diner.  And while you do not have to have read the first novel (which I have not) to read this one I does allude to the first novel quite a bit.

Meanwhile, not having read the previous novel, I got to meet the residents of 117, and the quirky town at the end of the line, and I hope to see more of these people in future novels.

Meanwhile there is our protagonist, Ben Jones, a bad boy often in trouble with the law, but clearly with a heart of gold, taking both the baby of a friend and the child of a stranger on the road with him, just to keep them safe.

But how safe are they really?

This stretch of highway is dangerous. Death happens many times as Ben travels up and down, back and up again throughout the book. A true mystery throughout without the "sugary sweet" happy ending.

I'm looking foward to hunting down a copy of the first novel now as well.

(I received a copy of this book from Blogging for Books.  All opinions ar emy own.)

Camp So-and-So

The letters went out in Mid-February.  There were twenty-five letters, to twenty-five girls.  Each letter invited its recipient to spend a week at Camp So-and-So on a merit scholarship.  All twenty-five girls sent their completed applications to an obscure Appalachian town.

Except the town doesn't exist, and nobody has ever heard of Camp So-and-So.

Now Cabin 1 wants to beat the rival camp across the lake, home of the perfect beach.
Cabin 2 is being stalked by a murderer.
Cabin 3 is sent off on a magical quest t break a curse.
Cabin 4 has met their soul mates.
And what exactly happened to Cabin 5 anyway?

What Did I Think about Camp So-and-So

Camp So-and-So is book 3/60 of the 60 books I'm attempting to read this year.
It took me a little time to get into it.

The novel is set up weird.  It is set into "Acts" and each "Act" introduces its own cast of characters on a character page.  Its almost like a playbill.

As we "meet" each cabin we get to know its inhabitants to different degrees.  (The poor girls of Cabin 5 don't even get names!)

Now its one of those books where you are hopping from POV to POV.  This cabin, that cabin, the other cabin and back and forth.  Those can sometimes he hard to follow and keep track, but it was a little easier with this book since each cabin is doing something different.

Now, clearly, this is not your typical Summer Camp book.  There is something wrong, and apparently magical about Camp So-and-So.  Once I got past the weirdness of the set up, and each Cabin began its own trials and tribulations I was absorbed into the novel.

My favorite cabin was Cabin 3 and their quest.  I could have read an entire novel about them alone.
If you like YA fantasy fiction and don't mind a little violence I would recommend this novel to you.

On Turpentine Lane

Book 2/60 - On Turpentine Lane

On Turpentine Lane by Elinor Lipman is a little different than many books I would pick on my own, but is the 2nd book I chose to read in my quest to reach 60 this year.

What is On Turpentine Lane About?

Faith Frankel has returned to her hometown and bought a quirky little house on Turpentine Lane.  Her life is peaceful except that her fiance is on a crowdfunded cross-country walk.  He won't return her calls but has no problem using her credit card.  Then there are the problems at work, her parents problems, oh, and the creepy photos she found in her attic.
As things start to fall apart around her Faith hangs in there as best she can.

What Did I Think?

Its a CUTE book.  Really.

Stories where a female MC randomly buys a house and tries to change the tides of her own life appeal to me. (I reccomend Anybody Any Minute by Julie Mars in that vein)


On Turpentine Lane is not exactly that kind of book.

While she does buy a house on a whim, at first it seems like everything in her life starts going wrong.  Her traveling fiance wont return her calls, her job is in serious trouble, and her parents marriage is on the rocks and there are photos of dead babies in her attic!  Her whole life turns topsy turvy on Turpentine lane.

There is an element of mystery, a good bit of humor, and just a tinge of romance in this novel.
Recommended for a quick and fun read.

All the Little Liars Aurora Teagarden Book 9

Book 1/60 - All the Little Liars

All the Little Liars by Charlaine Harris is book 9 in a series of books featuring Aurora Teagarden.
Newly married Aurora (Roe) has her pregnancy confirmed.  Not long after that her fifteen-year-old brother goes missing.  Worse than that he's not missing alone.  Two of his friends are also gone, as well as an eleven-year-old girl.
During this time she takes a leave from her job at the library, and tries on her own to figure out what happened to her brother and his friends.
To her it seems to keep circling around to a group of bullies at the local middle school.  But how could they be connected?

Aurora Teagarden Mysteries Book #9

I picked this up knowing full well that it was a part of a series.  Anything tagged with "A So-n-So Mystery" usually means it is part of a long series, but that it can also be read as a stand alone novel.
This is the case here too, to an extent.  It gives some backstory on how Roe's brother came to be living with her.  It doesn't tell you exactly why the mild mannered librarian is also a super sleuth (sort of).
I am a fan of Charlaine Harris, if only a newbie fan.  I read and loved all 3 of the Midnight, Texas novels, and the 1st book of the Sookie Stackhouse series, along with one of her short stories in an anthology.  I had a good feeling I'd like this book, and I did.
I was a little taken aback, however, by the random characters that seem to drop in or call for no real reason whatsoever with information that just so happens to be exactly what she needs to figure out the next piece of the puzzle.
Her husband is also too good to be true.  A real, "I'll agree with whatever you decide to do even if it makes no sense" kind of guy.

A Movie Series!

Since All the Little Liars is new novel it has not been adapted into a movie, but 6 other of the Aurora Teagarden Mysteries have.  They star the lovely Candace Cameron Bure, who often acts for Hallmark, and you can get them in one convenient box set.


Charlaine Harris s a New York Times bestselling author who has been writing for over 30 years.  Aside from the Aurora Teagarden books she also has 3 other Mysteries seires as well as the popular Sookie Stackhouse novels.
The Author is no newcomer to having her books turned into visual works either.  Her Sookie Stackhouse novels were made into an HBO series called True Blood.
More recently her Midnight, Texas novels were made into a series as well (which has not yet been renewed for a 2nd season).