Death, Love and Alcohol

"Death lies dormant in each of us and will bloom in time." 

Dean Koontz

So, I am about 1/3rd of the book left. Secrets are coming to light, feelings are coming out and dead people are wandering around snacking on people. I will admit I find the story concept very intriguing. And having read most of Marr's other books, it is the a good quality story filled with many of her writing elements that I love.

One of my favorite "Marr-isms" is how truthfully she depicts and stays true to her characters. She writes them as they are and doesn't necessarily try to make them likable. And that is how I feel about, Rebekkah. I am not her biggest fan. I find her flighty,  unsure of herself and selfish, in regards to how she doesn't really consider the feelings of those around her. Horrible homecoming situation aside, I really hope to see some tremendous growth in the last part of the book. A lot of responsibility has been placed on her, and she really needs to pull on some big girl panties and deal.

Bryon on the other hand, is a whole different story. TAKE ME AWAY UNDERTAKER! Not only do I love his name (*wink*), but his assertiveness and openness really appeal to me. He learns what is going on and doesn't ran, but mans up and bares his mantel. Honestly, this doesn't surprise me. Marr has a history of creating great, sexy, take charge men. Probably one of the reason why I keep picking up her books.

I am interested to learn more about Rebekkah's ability to have one foot in life and one in death. One thing I am really surprised about is Marr going in the whole soul mate/fated direction. Which I haven't really seen in her other books. So, it will be interesting to see her spin on it. Because I know there is going to be a spin! It wouldn't be a Marr's book without it!

The Dead Continue to be Minded

I’ve come off Graveminder loving it. I would love to see Marr go revisit this world with another story. She has left it open to explore more aspects, like what Alicia’s ulterior motive might be. Something else that could be interesting to see is what Amity has kept writing in her journals. After saying she doesn’t want to forget anything, it makes me wonder what could happen by her keeping a log of things happening.

Discovering Charlie’s secret and why the deal was made in the first place made me a bit sad for Charlie. Granted, he’s a clever dude and clearly does a brilliant job of pissing off the Undertakers, it’s still sad for him that he did something so drastically bad to impress someone he fell in love with. This makes me think that Charlie is in love with all his graveminders. He’s said they’re his, and they are surrogate mothers to all the dead he’s the father of.

    

           Byron and Rebbekah learning  how to do everything without the guidance of their predecessors definitely made it an experience, one that we got to ride along with. The guidance they did have was extremely helpful and made me love those who were there to help even more. I did really like seeing Rebbekah coming to terms with Ella and her feelings for Byron. 

               I was honestly a little surprised by Cissy being the culprit. I knew she was angry that she had been passed over for Graveminder, but I hadn’t pegged her for being a murderer and creating her own little army of walking dead. I expected to see more of Cissy in a different capacity, especially since I didn’t think she knew enough about the dead to do anything. Since she got her mother’s journals, she clearly knew what to do. 

               Now, what I’d be curious to see is if Melissa Marr would write one of the graveminder’s journals for us. It would be really neat how to what others went through while they minded the dead. Since I’ve finished, I might just have to grab Carnival of Souls off my shelf and see what she has set up in that world J

Alluring Death

So, it appears in my decision to cut the chapters in half, I had us end this week on a cliffie chapter. Rebekkah has plenty of questions that could potentially be answered now!

First and foremost, I have to say, I love Melissa Marr as an author. She does a beautiful job of weaving together worlds and bringing her characters to life.  Originally I picked this book up when it came out in hardcover and got most of the way through it before I set it down somewhere and caused it to become buried under a mini mountain of things.  I've been wanting to finish it and this seemed like the best time to do it.

I really like the concept she has in this world. The relationships between Undertakers and Graveminders seem to be intimate, something that Maylene and William only allowed themselves to go so far. Byron and Rebekkah come off as going to have a much closer relationship than their predecessors.

I've still got questions about Ella. Right now, I'm assuming she took her life (and bare in mind, it's been awhile since I read the book so I don't quite remember either). I want to know what about the world of Mr. D lured her into taking her own life, if that's what she did. Did she find the responsibility to be too much and just couldn't take the idea of being Graveminder? What will Rebekkah do when/if she discovers why Ella did what she did?

Then there is Daisha. How many more people will she eat before Byron and Rebekkah get her to where she belongs?