2 Book Reviews: Monster Island & Before I Go To Sleep

I finished Monster Island by David Wellington a few weeks ago and it wasn't exactly what I was expecting when I pulled it off the shelf at the library. I was in the mood for another zombie book and this came up on the library search. It is the first in a series of three books and I thought if I liked it enough, I'd read the next two. The beginning half of the book was pretty good. The basic story starts a short time after a global disaster and zombies inhabit most of the earth. A man who works for the U.N. as a weapons inspector lives in Somalia with his daughter. He and a group of teenage girl soldiers have to travel to New York City in seach of medicine for one of the countries leaders. However, NYC is crawling with zombies. Among the dead is one zombie who was a doctor in life and managed to retain his intelligence after being bitten. So far so good. Then something really weird happened and a mummy showed up who somehow could rule all the zombies with his thoughts. All the zombies had to build this shrine thing and they were going to take over the world. I don't know it got really weird with the mummies and the zombies being controlled. It took me way longer than it should have to finish the book because toward the end it was just not my cup of tea. I'm not going to continue the series and I think I'm over zombie books for a while.


I also just finished reading the book club book from July, Before I Go To Sleep by S.J.Watson. I wasn't able to get it at the library to read in time for book club but my friend Shannon let me borrow it after she had finished it. Everyone was saying how much they liked it and that the ending was a total twist so I had to borrow it!! It was most definitely a "page turner" as people say. It only took a few days to read because it was so good and suspensful I just couldn't put it down! The story is about a woman who has lost her memory over 20 years prior and wakes up every morning with no idea where she is or who the man in her bed is. We are lead to believe that she has tried all different treatments to help regain her memory but nothing works. She lives with her husband who has pictures all around the house to remind her of her life and he has to tell her who she is every morning. When I read the description it reminded me of '50 First Dates' with Drew Barrymore and Adam Sandler. Some of the girls said it was similar to the movie 'Momento' but I've never seen it so I have no idea. Throughout the book the woman starts secretly seeing a doctor who believes he can help her. She starts keeping a journal that she writes in every day and then reads every morning to remind her of what her last few days have been like. We find out eventually that her husband has been keeping things from her, what really caused her memory loss, facts about her family, her friends, etc. The ending is soooo good and not at all what I was expecting!! I really suggest if you are looking for a good read to pick this one up!