Government Sanctioned Rape.

Ugh. The "R" word.

It's tricky business writing about rights and government control. And it can go well or it can go wrong. Like, really, really, wrong. Like, "What the hell were you thinking?!" wrong.

But, when done right, it can be an interesting premise, yeah?

So. The end of the world has come and gone. Maybe it ended with a bang. Maybe with a whimper. Or perhaps a sneeze. In fact, a sneeze is usually a good way to go, if we're going with government control of your reproduction rights, a virus seems to be the favored way to wipe out humanity. Maybe it's a virus that kills of newborns. Maybe it's one that only affects females. Whatever the virus does, it's usually present and for society to continue, the government has to step in and lay down the law.

THE LAW OF YOUR UTERUS.

And here, here is where things get tricky.

I fell in love with a Cajun.

Poison Princess by Kresley Cole
Rating: 4 of 5 stars.






Right now, Nina and I are reading The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern, something we've talked about doing since before we even started Paper Boyfriends. In fact, The Night Circus was going to be our first collaborated review, most likely on our personal blogs and Goodreads and then Paper Boyfriends was born and now we're finally getting around to the book that sparked it all. In an effort to not get too far ahead of Nina while we read, I stopped myself halfway through and decided to start reading another book on my to-read list while I waited for her to catch up. (I'm a ridiculously fast reader who survives on little sleep. We joke that Nina is the old woman in this relationship, who goes to bed at 9pm and is up with the chickens, while I'm the frat boy, up all night partying and still awake the next morning. I digress.)

ENTER: POISON PRINCESS.

Have I ever talked about my deep and burning love for Post-Apocalyptic novels? Because it's there and it's A Thing. I love watching the world fall apart. I love when things get a little Lord of the Flies and when unlikely couples, people who would have never looked twice at each other before, end up together. I like seeing communities form and bands of people coming together to fight or to live or just to have human companionship. I love learning to navigate broken worlds and establishing new normals and I love watching characters rise up to become survivors.

I love guys like Jackson Deveaux. 

Nerd Girl Chats: Angelfall Edition.

Have you heard of Angelfall by Susan Ee?
Please. Stop everything.
Hold the phone and pump the brakes, because everything everyone is saying about this book IS ABSOLUTELY TRUE AND REAL AND MY EMOTIONS ARE EVERYWHERE RIGHT NOW.

So. Talking it out between Pen-rye-n & me was obviously necessary. We go through the whole book, with appropriate fangirling and end of the world worrying over body hair, so be warned of spoilers for those of you who don't know the pure AWESOME happening here, and if you do? Jump in, get your downy wings dirty because the world has ended and things are gonna get bananas BUT THERE IS A QUEST.

And smokin' hot shirtless angels. And girls who pack knives in their boots. And moms who are off the rails.
Yeah, I know. It's sooo good.

Willow: Also, ANGELFALL. How is this happening?

Pen-rye-n: RIGHT. OMG. How bloody amazing was it? Scale of 1 to ALL THE FANGIRLING?

Willow: ALL OF THE FANGIRLING. PUT THEM IN A JAR, SHAKE THEM, THEN SPREAD THEM OVER MY BODY.
  ....okay, wait.

A town bursting with vamps: Morganville 1-12

Morganville Vampire Series (1-12) by Rachel Caine.
Rating: 4 of 5 stars.




Oh, Morganville, I shouldn't love you like I do.

Here's the thing, The Morganville Vampires series aren't particularly good books. I can think of at least one major continuity problem. Apparently getting shot in Morganville translates to a stab wound? Pretty major screw up. They're rollarcoasty and often end with a cliffhanger and in books 10 & 11, we get treated to alternating POV's, often a shift from third person limited to first person then back to third. Claire Danvers is a strong character, with no real physical attributes given to her. In 11 books, all I can tell you about Claire is that she's on the small side and has short hair, which is probably brown but also maybe red. Basically, she could be anybody anywhere, and maybe it's so we can slip her on like a pair of jeans. I don't know. Aside from Monica and her pack dogs, everyone mostly loves her unless it's crucial to the plot that they don't. She's insanely smart, pretty talented, and despite going on and on about how she's the biggest geek ever, she ends up with one of the hottest boys in town who is insanely in love with her. She's a little Mary Sue, is what I'm saying here. Not the Maryest Sue that ever did Sue, she's no Bella Swan, but she is on the scale. And maybe a 5.

But, God, all that said, I could not stop reading. It's like the best crackfic ever. Things are always happening in Morganville and Claire and the Glass House gang are always smack dab in the middle, getting the hell beat out of them. This we can get to Caine hands down. She has no qualms about putting her characters through the ringer. Even if their wounds change over the course of the books.

Oh, Tina T, you're breaking my heart.

This is Not a Test by Courtney Summers
Rating: 5 of 5 stars.


There's some zombie books where things constantly happen. There's constant fights and narrow escapes and the entire story, you're on the edge of your seat, waiting for the next thing to happen.

This is Not a Test isn't that book.