Zombies!

Come help us celebrate the Zombie Apocalypse next week! Stay after hours at the library on Friday, December 14 from 5:30-7:30. You'll be transformed into a member of the undead and we'll be playing games, making crafts, watching zombie flicks, and eating brains. Register at the Reference Desk.

Help set the mood for the apocalypse by reading one of these novels!

Zombies vs. Unicorns
Which is better, the zombie or the unicorn? This all-original anthology, edited by Holly Black (Team Unicorn) and Justine Larbalestier (Team Zombie), makes strong arguments for each side with eerie and amazing short stories from an all-star lineup of contributors, including  Cassandra Clare, Libba Bray, Kathleen Duey, Garth Nix, Maureen Johnson, Meg Cabot, Scott Westerfeld, and Margo Lanagan. Discover how unicorns use their powers for evil, why zombies aren’t always the enemy, and much more in this creative collection that showcases zombies and unicorns as you have never seen them before.

Bad Taste in Boys by Carrie Harris
Someone's been a very bad zombie. Kate Grable is horrified to find out that the football coach has given the team steroids. Worse yet, the steroids are having an unexpected effect, turning hot gridiron hunks into mindless flesh-eating zombies. No one is safe--not her cute crush Aaron, not her dorky brother, Jonah . . . not even Kate! She's got to find an antidote--before her entire high school ends up eating each other. So Kate, her best girlfriend, Rocky, and Aaron stage a frantic battle to save their town  . . . and stay hormonally human.

Dead Reckoning by Mercedes Lackey
Jett is a girl disguised as a boy, living as a gambler in the old West as she searches for her long-lost brother. Honoria Gibbons is a smart, self-sufficient young woman who also happens to be a fabulous inventor. Both young women travel the prairie alone - until they are brought together by a zombie invasion! As Jett and Honoria investigate, they soon learn that these zombies aren't rising from the dead of their own accord ... but who would want an undead army? And why?

Rot & Ruin by Jonathan Maberry
In the zombie-infested, post-apocalyptic America where Benny Imura lives, every teenager must find a job by the time they turn fifteen or get their rations cut in half. Benny doesn’t want to apprentice as a zombie hunter with his boring older brother Tom, but he has no choice. He expects a tedious job whacking zoms for cash--but what he gets is a vocation that will teach him what it means to be human. This is a detail-rich depiction of a post-apocalyptic world where humanity has fallen, the dead have risen, and danger is always imminent.

I Kissed a Zombie and I Liked It by Adam Selzer
Ali, the high school newspaper's music critic, meets an intriguing singer, Doug, while reviewing a gig. He's a weird-looking goth, but he seems sincere about it. She introduces herself, asking if he lives in Cornersville, and he replies, in a slow, quiet murmur, "Well, I don't really live there, exactly. . . ." Ali falls so hard for Doug that she doesn't notice a few odd signs: he never changes clothes, his head is a funny shape, and he says practically nothing out loud. Finally the paper's fashion editor, points out the obvious: Doug isn't just a goth. He's a zombie. Horrified, Ali breaks up with Doug, but learns that zombies are awfully hard to get rid of. . .

This Is Not a Test by Courtney Summers
Six students have taken cover in Cortege High but the dead outside won’t stop pounding on the doors. One bite is all it takes to kill a person and bring them back as a monstrous version of their former self. To Sloane Price, that doesn’t sound so bad. Six months ago, her world collapsed and since then, she’s failed to find a reason to keep going. As Sloane eagerly waits for the barricades to fall, she’s forced to witness the apocalypse through the eyes of five people who actually want to live. But as days crawl by, the motivations for survival change and soon the group’s fate is determined less by what’s happening outside and more by the unpredictable and violent bids for life—and death—inside.

Kimberly

When Technology Goes Wrong

We're celebrating technology this week but what happens when we relinquish too much control to our technology? The following books ask us to consider how much technology we really need in our lives and what happens when that technology goes wrong.

Feed by MT Anderson
For Titus and his friends, it started out like any ordinary trip to the moon - a chance to party during spring break and to play around with some stupid low-grav at the Ricochet Lounge. But that was before the crazy hacker caused all their feeds to malfunction, sending them to the hospital to lie around with nothing inside their heads for days. And it was before Titus met Violet, a beautiful, brainy teenage girl who knows something about what it's like to live without the feed-and about resisting its omnipresent ability to categorize human thoughts and desires. Identity crises, consumerism, and star-crossed teenage love in a futuristic society where people connect to the Internet via feeds implanted in their brains.

Ashes by Ilsa Bick
An electromagnetic pulse flashes across the sky, destroying every electronic device, and wiping out every computerized system. Not to mention that the EMP also kills most of the world's population, turning some of those who remain into zombies and giving the others superhuman senses. Alex hiked into the woods to say good-bye to her dead parents and her personal demons. Now desperate to find out what happened after the pulse crushes her to the ground, Alex meets up with Tom, a young soldier, and Ellie, a girl whose grandfather was killed by the EMP. For this improvised family and the others who are spared, it's now a question of who can be trusted and who is no longer human.  

Candor by Pam Bachorz
In the model community of Candor, Florida, every teen wants to be like Oscar Banks. The son of the town's founder, Oscar earns straight As, is student-body president, and is in demand for every club and cause. But Oscar has a secret. He knows that parents bring their teens to Candor to make them respectful, compliant--perfect--through subliminal Messages that carefully correct and control their behavior. And Oscar' s built a business sabotaging his father's scheme with Messages of his own, getting his clients out before they're turned. After all, who would ever suspect the perfect Oscar Banks? Then he meets Nia, the girl he can't stand to see changed. Saving Nia means losing her forever; however, keeping her in Candor, Oscar risks exposure . . . and more. 

Wither. The Chemical Garden Trilogy: Book 1 by Lauren DeStefano
At age sixteen, Rhine Ellery has four years to live. Thanks to a botched effort to create a perfect race, all females live to be twenty and males live to age twenty-five. While geneticists seek a miracle antidote, orphans roam the streets, polygamy abounds and girls are kidnapped and married off in order to repopulate the world. After Rhine is kidnapped and sold as a bride, she is desperate to escape from her husband's strange world, which includes a sinister father-in-law in search of the antidote and a slew of sister wives who are not to be trusted. On the cusp of her seventeenth birthday, Rhine attempts to flee--but what she finds is a society spiraling into anarchy.

A Long, Long Sleep by Anna Sheehan
It should have been a short suspended-animation sleep but this time Rose wakes up to find her past is long gone -- and her future full of peril. Rosalinda Fitzroy has been asleep for sixty-two years when she is woken by a kiss. Locked away in the chemically induced slumber of a stasis tube in a forgotten subbasement, sixteen-year-old Rose slept straight through the Dark Times that killed millions and utterly changed the world she knew. Now, her parents and her first love are long gone and Rose-- hailed upon her awakening as the long-lost heir to an interplanetary empire-- is thrust alone into a future in which she is viewed as either a freak or a threat. Desperate to put the past behind her and adapt to her new world, Rose finds herself drawn to the boy who kissed her awake, hoping that he can help her to start fresh. But when a deadly danger jeopardizes her fragile new existence, Rose must face the ghosts of her past with open eyes -- or be left without any future at all.

Unwind by Neal Shusterman
In a society where unwanted teens are salvaged for their body parts, three runaways fight the system that would "unwind" them. Connor's parents want to be rid of him because he's a troublemaker. Risa has no parents and is being unwound to cut orphanage costs and Lev's unwinding has been planned since his birth, as part of his family's strict religion. Brought together by chance and kept together by desperation, these three unlikely companions make a harrowing cross-country journey, knowing their lives hang in the balance. If they can survive until their eighteenth birthday, they can't be harmed -- but when every piece of them, from their hands to their hearts, are wanted by a world gone mad, eighteen seems far, far away. Unwind challenges readers' ideas about life -- not just where life begins and where it ends -- but what it truly means to be alive

Memento Nora by Angie Smibert
Nora is about to experience her first visit to TFC (Therapeutic Forgetting Clinic). Her parents are insisting she go after witnessing a horrible terrorist attack. Not everyone trusts the TFC though. When Nora meets Micah and Winter, she is thrust into a world of mystery and rebellion. Soon, the graphic novel, "Memento," based on their sad and frightening memories, becomes a hit. Copies are spread into different cities. Will they be able to keep their identities a secret? Will they be able to stay ahead of the people in the black vans? Will they be able to keep their memories?

From Voya

Kimberly

Die for Me by Amy Plum

After her parents are killed in a car accident, Kate Mercier moves to Paris with her older sister, Georgia, to live with their grandparents.  While Geogia enjoys Parisian nightlife, Kate spends her time alone in cafés and museums until she meets the handsome and mysterious Vincent.  Kate and Vincent begin dating but things become difficult when Kate discovers that Vincent isn’t entirely human.  When Georgia gets involved with Vincent’s sworn enemy, Kate and Vincent’s relationship takes a dangerous turn.

The most intriguing thing about this paranormal romance is the new creature the author has created: the revenants.  Vincent and his friends were once human but they all risked their lives and died while saving the lives of other humans and have now become immortal beings called revenants.  Revenants use their immortality to save human life wherever they can and they fight against the evil Numa--immortals who try to destroy humans.        

The Parisian setting and the dashing and handsome Frenchmen add to the romance.  Die for Me is the perfect book for Twilight fans.   

Kimberly                    

Rot & Ruin by Jonathan Maberry

In this apocalyptic world where zombies inhabit most of the area, Benny, who lives in a protected area, approaches his 15th birthday when he must find a job or forfeit half of his food rations. After losing half a dozen jobs, he reluctantly agrees to work as his brother’s apprentice in the “Family Business.” When the brothers travel beyond the fences into the Rot and Ruin, he witnesses things that change his opinion of his brother and forever alter his perception of the world.

Hold on tight! Rot & Ruin is a thriller with lots of action, zombies, and food for thought.
http://books.simonandschuster.com/Rot-Ruin/Jonathan-Maberry/9781442402324

Leona

Strange Angels by Lili St. Crow

Dru's psychic abilities helped her father battle zombies and other creatures, but now she must rely on herself, a werewolf-bitten friend, and a half-human vampire hunter to learn who murdered her parents, and why. This action-packed title has a butt-kicking yet relatable heroine in Dru. Sequels, Betrayals and Jealousy, can be reserved now.
KC