Zip-a-dee-do-dah! Zip-a-dee-day!

Whew! Just typing up those lines are making me tired. I've been sick with a cold and cough combo that's totally kicking me in the you-know-where. Instead of writing my last A to Z challenge post over the weekend, I took a lot of naps instead. It's hard enough being sick with a bug, but to be sick and not take anything for it (because of the pregnancy)??? It just plain sucks.

But! It is the last post so I gotta give you more than a few zzzz's to put you down snooze town. So get ready for the randomness 'cause here we go:

Z is for Zuma

This dude totally freaks me out. Zuma was a Filipino movie I watched when I was maybe 7 or 8 years old, and I still remember him after all these years. Well, I mostly remember cowering in fear. He's supposed to be some sort of Aztec demigod who got unearthed from a buried Aztec pyramid. He's big, he's green, he's strong, and he wears a freaking two-headed snake around his shoulders! Man, he gave me nightmares for a long time.

Z is for Zombies


Speaking of nightmares, I've had two consecutive dreams about zombies a few weeks ago. Both times I woke up disoriented and drenched in sweat. Now I'm not one who easily gets scared--in fact, I love to read horror books. I don't watch a lot of zombie movies, however, because (1) I don't watch a lot of TV/movies to begin with; and (2) I don't watch something that my kids can't watch (this is why books are great!) Anyway, I was surprised about the zombie dreams. Though come to think of it, prior to the nightmares, I dreamed about vampires. Not the sparkly kind. Just your ole regular blood-sucking pain-in-the-ass monsters.


Z is for Zeugma

This is your vocabulary word of the day! Zeugma (pronounced zoog-muh)is a figure of speech in which two or more parts of a sentence are joined with a single common verb or noun. (Wikipedia)

Example:

“Whether the nymph shall break Diana’s law,
Or some frail china jar receive a flaw;
Or stain her honour, or her new brocade,
Forget her pray’rs, or miss a masquerade;
Or lose her heart, or necklace, at a ball;
Or whether Heav’n has doom’d that Shock must fall.”
--The Rape of the Lock by Alexander Pope

Well, that's it for today, folks! Thanks to all who've come and visited me, and also for the new follows! A big thank you to Arlee Bird and the organizers of the A to Z Blog Challenge. It's been a cool month of posting. I'll try to catch up on your blogs this week for sure. I may be slow but I'll get there. Also, if you followed me and I haven't followed you back, let me know. Chances are, I couldn't find the link for your blog.

<3 ya!

Okay, so technically they're called the Unconsecrated in The Forest of Hands and Teeth; Mudo in The Dead-Tossed Waves; and I don't know what in The Dark and Hollow Places because I haven't had the chance to read it yet (It is sitting on top of my To Be Read stack). 

Carrie Ryan is a former lawyer from South Carolina turned NYT Bestselling Author with her debut novel The Forest of Hands and Teeth (The Dead-Tossed Waves is also a bestseller). This book was chosen as Best Book for Young Adult by the American Library Association, a Best of the Best Books by the Chicago Public Library, and a finalist in the Borders Original Voices program. Impressive, ain't it?  You can find her blog here.

If you're into post-apocalyptic zombie nations, this trilogy is for you. As I've mentioned above, I've only read the first two but I'll give you the blurbs for all three (as found in Author's website).




In Mary's world, there are simple truths.

The Sisterhood always knows best.

The Guardians will protect and serve.

The Unconsecrated will never relent.

And you must always mind the fence that surrounds the village. The fence that protects the village from the Forest of Hands and Teeth.

But slowly, Mary's truths are failing her. She's learning things she never wanted to know about the Sisterhood and its secrets, and the Guardians and their power. And, when the fence is breached and her world is thrown into chaos, about the Unconsecrated and their relentlessness.

Now she must choose between her village and her future, between the one she loves and the one who loves her. And she must face the truth about the Forest of Hands and Teeth. Could there be life outside a world surrounded by so much death?




Gabry lives a quiet life, secure in her town next to the sea and behind the Barrier. She's content to let her friends dream of the Dark City up the coast while she watches from the top of her lighthouse. Home is all she's ever known, and all she needs for happiness.

But life after the Return is never safe, and there are threats even the Barrier can't hold back.

Gabry's mother thought she left her secrets behind in the Forest of Hands and Teeth, but like the dead in their world, secrets don't stay buried. And now, Gabry's world is crumbling.

One night beyond the Barrier...

One boy Gabry's known forever and one veiled in mystery...

One reckless moment, and half of Gabry's generation is dead, the other half imprisoned.

Gabry knows only one thing: if she is to have any hope of a future, she must face the forest of her mother's past.


It's out now since March 2011!

There are many things that Annah would like to forget: the look on her sister's face when she and Elias left her behind in the Forest of Hands and Teeth, her first glimpse of the horde as they found their way to the Dark City, the sear of the barbed wire that would scar her for life. But most of all, Annah would like to forget the morning Elias left her for the Recruiters.

Annah's world stopped that day and she's been waiting for him to come home ever since. Without him, her life doesn't feel much different from that of the dead that roam the wasted city around her. Then she meets Catcher and everything feels alive again.

Except, Catcher has his own secrets—dark, terrifying truths that link him to a past Annah's longed to forget, and to a future too deadly to consider. And now it's up to Annah—can she continue to live in a world drenched in the blood of the living? Or is death the only escape from the Return's destruction?

Why I Recommend these books:

Carrie Ryan writes beautiful, haunting prose. The first time I picked up The Forest of Hands and Teeth, I couldn't put it down. (How awesome is that title?) We were out on a mini-vacation, and there I was itching to get out of the pool to get back to my room and read. She paints the setting so eloquently that it isn't hard to imagine yourself being there with Mary, surrounded by a moaning forest of undead people rattling the chain-link fences with rotten fingers as they hunger for the taste and smell of the living.

And why were the Sisterhood so hush-hush on matters of the Unconsecrated? See, I like love stories with lots of secrets. It's a sure page-turner. Plus, you have a classic love triangle with Mary and two brothers. Aha, I see you following me now. Throw in a fence breach, an unnaturally fast-moving zombie in red infecting every person she reaches, and there! You have a bestseller.

For The Dead-Tossed Waves, the plot runs parallel lines to the first one, with Mary's daughter Gabry finding herself torn between two guys (just like Mama), and her venture into the Forest to escape the Mudo and the Recruiters.It is another well-written book and it also gives us more glimpses of the state of the world they're living in. Although some of the questions I had from the first book were answered in this one, there are still more mysteries to find. So I was really glad to know there was going to be another one.

I will update this when I get to read the third installment. As always, bear in mind that the book business is a subjective business. If you're not into post-apocalyptic zombies ever, don't read these books and blame me for recommending them. But. Yes, there is  a big but. It never hurts to try new things.

I truly enjoyed Ryan's writing and stories and I'm looking forward to picking up the last one. 'Cause me like zombies =)