Review + Giveaway: Rogue

Rogue
Croak, Book 3

Author: Gina Damico
Pages: 384
Publisher: Graphia
Publication Date: September 10, 2013
Read: August 3, 2013
Source: ARC from publisher

Description from Goodreads:
Lex is a teenage Grim Reaper with the power to Damn souls, and it’s getting out of control. She’s a fugitive, on the run from the maniacal new mayor of Croak and the townspeople who want to see her pay the price for her misdeeds. Uncle Mort rounds up the Junior Grims to flee Croak once again, but this time they’re joined by Grotton, the most powerful Grim of all time. Their new mission is clear: Fix his mistakes, or the Afterlife will cease to exist, along with all the souls in it.　

The gang heads for Necropolis, the labyrinth-like capital city of the Grimsphere. There, they discover that the Grimsphere needs a reboot. To do that, the portals to the Afterlife must be destroyed…but even that may not be enough to fix the damage. Things go from bad to worse, and when at last the fate of the Afterlife and all the souls of the Damned hang in the balance, it falls to Lex and her friends to make one final, impossible choice.

Prior Books in Series:
1: Croak
2: Scorch

First Sentence: "Grotton wondered, for a brief moment, if there were a special circle of hell reserved for someone like him, or if Dante would have to cobble together an entirely new one."

Review:

This review will be spoiler-free for the series.

Dear blog readers, today I shall exhort you to begin reading Gina Damico's Croak series, assuming you haven't already. If you stop by here often, then you probably know that I'm pretty stingy with my 5 star ratings, giving them out only in cases where a book has made me an emotional mess, sucked me in so much I forget the real world, AND been, from my limited perspective, unimpeachable in quality. Most series go out with more of a whimper than a bang, but, in this case, the finale is the strongest book in the series, which is why I am going to fangirl as hard as I can, and encourage all of you with good senses of humor to read this as soon as possible.

From Croak onward, Gina Damico has excelled at humor and narrative voice. She writes a mixture of black comedy and straight up silliness that I find positively enchanting. The sort of people who enjoy television shows like Dead Like Me and Pushing Daisies simply MUST read this series. Her style has a really unique flair. She chooses really weird terms or phrasing at times, but somehow they're completely perfect for the moment. A good example is her creativity in coming up with swear words. Ordinarily, I find invented swear words in novels irritating, rather than amusing or clever, but Damico's are perfection and likely to enter my actual vocabulary. Here are some examples: "shitballs," "everdeathing," and "douchecrate." While probably not to everyone's tastes, if those make you giggle, it's a sign that Damico's writing is meant for you.

However, there's more than just humor in this series. Though Croak is, so far as my memory can recall, largely a darkly comic fluffy book, with a bit of intensity right at the end, both Scorch and Rogue have far more serious moments. In Scorch, they weren't quite as well balanced and that ended up being my least favorite in the series. By Rogue, Damico's got it down, handling serious moments with proper seriousness, making me want to cry, and then lightening the mood on the next page so that I'm grinning like an idiot. It's a bit of an emotional roller coaster, with much of the comedy being of the sort to help keep them moving in the face of overwhelming odds.

The characters all sparkle with wit, vivacity and uniqueness. I love each and every one of them, basically, though Mort is my special favorite and going on my book boyfriend list. Gina Damico writes banter between characters like no one else. All of the grim reapers in their little group make fun of one another constantly, but there is real love underneath that, so completely evident through it all. Even better, Damico doesn't neglect the supporting cast at all. In fact, by book three, there almost isn't a supporting cast because they're all so important to the plot and accomplishing what must be done. There's an ending for all of the characters you've come to love, whether happy or sad, and it's not just about Lex and Driggs, who I do ship something fierce by the way.

Since I'm not going to delve into any spoilers for the series, I'll keep this high level and relatively brief (for me anyway). The last thing I need to say is that Damico has guts. She steps outside of traditional YA lines and takes big risks. The stakes are high and she kills a lot of characters, with rather a Whedonesque flair. She gets the utmost respect from me for that. The series also abounds with twists, some of which I called and some which totally blindsided me, all combining to make a wholly engrossing and emotional reading experience.

Gina Damico's Croak series is officially ranked among my favorite books ever, and rereads in the future will be essential. As of this writing, Damico has another book deal for a book called Hellhole about a devil, and I'm already wondering who I have to do what to in order to be able to read that ASAP. So, friends, if you have a similar taste in humor, then you want this in your life. Trust me. If you don't trust me, why are you here?

Rating: 5/5

Favorite Quote: "'My undercarriage is a national treasure.'"

Giveaway:
Because I love this series so damn much, I'm giving away all of the books or however many you need to complete your collection. Winner's choice as to which books in the series you want, so that you can complete your collection or get it started!

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Review: Scorch

Scorch
Croak, Book 2

Author: Gina Damico
Pages: 332
Publisher: Graphia
Source: Publisher at BEA

Description from Goodreads:
Sixteen-year-old Lex Bartleby is a teenage grim reaper with the bizarre ability to damn souls. That makes her pretty scary, even to fellow Grims. But after inadvertently transferring her ability to Zara, a murderous outlaw, Lex is a pariah in Croak, the little town she calls home.

To escape the townspeople’s wrath, she and her friends embark on a wild road trip to DeMyse. Though this sparkling desert oasis is full of luxuries and amusements, it feels like a prison to Lex. Her best chance at escape would be to stop Zara once and for all—but how can she do that from DeMyse, where the Grims seem mysteriously oblivious to Zara’s killing spree?

First Sentence: "Carl Scutner wondered, for a brief moment, what it would feel like to punt his wife off a cliff."

Series:
1: Croak (review|Goodreads)
2: Scorch

Review:
Gina Damico's Croak ranks as one of the funniest books I've ever read. She has this great, dark, absurdist sense of humor that I cannot get enough of. She has a way of making even the weirdest things sound believable. As such, Scorch was one of my most anticipated books and I was lucky enough to get an ARC at BEA. While, I didn't fall quite as in love with Scorch, though I cannot put my finger on quite why, it's still a wonderful sequel, hilarious and satisfying.

Something I had forgotten about the end of Croak was that someone died. Oh, my memory. Anyway, it surprised me all over again. Take that to heart, guys. Gina Damico's book may rank as humor first, but don't forget the dark part. She kills off and damages beloved characters when you're least expecting it and in ways you never could have anticipated. A lot of YA authors cringe away from things like that, even when turning their hands to dystopias, but not so Damico. This lends a darker, more serious feel to what, on the surface, appear to be lighthearded comedies about grim reapers.

Are you worried now about who will be killed? You should be, because Damico's characters are wonderful and just bursting with life. They're all, almost to a Grim, sarcastic, intelligent and people that I want to be friends with. All of our old favorites are back: Lex, Ferbus, Elysia, Driggs, Mort, and more, but there are also a few wonderful new characters added into the mix.

Lex, of course, is our indomitable heroine. She's clever, violent, and has a powerful sense of justice. She doesn't love easily, but, when she does, she will stop at nothing to protect the people she loves. Lex seems a bit softened by her time spent among good friends who understand her, but she definitely has not lost her hard edge just because she's happy with a boyfriend. Never will this girl stop being a powerhouse.

Driggs, her boyfriend, is just as charmingly rumpled as he was in the first book. Lex and Driggs are a bit of a disgusting couple, though that may be due to the gross-out descriptions of their make out sessions (Damico's not going for swoons here). The two of them spend pretty much all of their time together, and are surprisingly lovey-dovey and open about their feelings. I would be totally icked out by them, but they're just so weird and perfect for each other that I can't help but wish them the best. Rather than being stereotypes of perfection, they're just these two strange people who seem to be belong together.

Ferbus and Elysia continue to do their snarky banter back and forth. He grumps about completely everything. She has all of the perk and love of parties of Pinkie Pie. The new additions to the group, two new Juniors, I was initially skeptical of, but I came to love them just as much as the rest of the crew. Pip and Bang are step siblings. Pip talks constantly and drives Ferbus batty. Bang doesn't talk at all, instead communicating via arm gestures. These too seem obnoxious at first, but turn out to be every bit as capable and endearingly kooky as most Croakers.

The plot of Scorch follows Zara's reign of terror, as she Damns innocent people left and right, demanding that Lex and her gang fork over The Wrong Book, which contains the secrets to unmaking the world as they know it. Unfortunately, Lex isn't sure where or how to get the book, and most of Croak blames her for everything that's going on. Croak used to be idyllic, but not so much anymore.

The Croak series can best be compared to the television show Dead Like Me, sharing the quirky, dark humor as well as subject matter. If you, like me, love shows like Dead Like Me and Pushing Daisies, you NEED to read Gina Damico, because she wrote these for oddballs like us, and there are more coming!

Rating: 4/5

Favorite Quote: "'Here's the thing,' he said, his face strained. 'It's just that I've been treading really carefully around you and this whole Cordy thing all day, just like Mort told me to. And I had to make sure you saw her and were okay with it and got home safe — again, just like Mort told me to. And as much as I'd love to continue exploring the implications of Damning roadkill, the truth is' — he plunged his hands into his hair until it stuck up even more than usual — 'you've been back here in my presence for two agonizing hours now, and if we don't properly make out soon, I'm going to hurl myself off the roof.'"

(Don't Fear) the Reaper - Blue Öyster Cult

Croak
Croak, Book 1

Author: Gina Damico
Pages: 311
ARC Acquired from: Graphia via NetGalley

Description from Goodreads:
Sixteen-year-old Lex Bartleby has sucker-punched her last classmate. Fed up with her punkish, wild behavior, her parents ship her off to upstate New York to live with her Uncle Mort for the summer, hoping that a few months of dirty farm work will whip her back into shape. But Uncle Mort’s true occupation is much dirtier than that of shoveling manure.

He’s a Grim Reaper. And he’s going to teach her the family business.

Lex quickly assimilates into the peculiar world of Croak, a town populated entirely by reapers who deliver souls from this life to the next. Along with her infuriating yet intriguing partner Driggs and a rockstar crew of fellow Grim apprentices, Lex is soon zapping her Targets like a natural born Killer.

Yet her innate ability morphs into an unchecked desire for justice—or is it vengeance?—whenever she’s forced to Kill a murder victim, craving to stop the attackers before they can strike again. So when people start to die—that is, people who aren’t supposed to be dying, people who have committed grievous crimes against the innocent—Lex’s curiosity is piqued. Her obsession grows as the bodies pile up, and a troubling question begins to swirl through her mind: if she succeeds in tracking down the murderer, will she stop the carnage—or will she ditch Croak and join in?

Review:
Damico has a really interesting writing style; she definitely has a cadence of her own. She also puts a unique spin on things. For example, due to Lex's extreme violence, her mom ties her up in jump ropes to have a serious talk. Lex's mom also is obsessed with American history, particularly military history, so much so, in fact, that she named her children for Civil War battles; Lex is short for Lexington.

For example, here's a pretty typical quote from Croak: "She wished, as almost all kids wish at one point or another, that she could turn into a pterodactyl and fly away and never come back." Obviously, Damico's really funny, but it's definitely a quirky, dark humor. Her whole style definitely took some adjusting to, but I really appreciate the snarkiness of her writing.

My initial thought, and why I was attracted to this one (aside from the fact that Gina is an Apocalypsie) is because the premise sounded very Dead Like Me. If you haven't seen the show, I highly recommend you go watch at least the first episode, which is one of the best things I have ever seen ever. Anyway, they do have some things in common, like the grim reapers and the sarcastic heroine and the dark sense of humor. However, I also got a bit of a Eureka vibe from Croak, since the town is full of such strange, intelligent people. How can those things not add up to be some brand of awesome?

Thought your 9-5 job was bad?

So yeah, it's pretty freaking awesome. Lex is a cool character, strong, sarcastic and sassy. Plus, she's so not the typical heroine. For one thing she's as violent as Ashline from Wildefire. Also unlike most YA heroines, she really doesn't want anything to do with all of that stupid teenage hormone-driven love stuff. For that reason, she is not pleased at having to share a domicile with the unfortunately super hot (and often annoying) Briggs. All of the characters are vibrant and quirky.

If you like dark humor and stories out of the norm, do not miss Croak. Another stellar debut from the Apocalypsies! I am so excited that there's going to be more of this series!

Rating: 4.5/5