The Dead-Tossed Waves - Carrie Ryan Well, this is one of those books that I had an annoying love-hate relationship with. Many things annoyed me a lot, yet I think I liked it over all. I'm not really sure yet. I think I'm still absorbing. The first book was kind of like that too, for me. But after I read it and thought about it I liked it more. Maybe the same thing will happen with this one. But over all, I just don't think it was as good as the first one, and it reminded me of all the little things in the first book that annoyed me. Be warned, I feel a long rant coming on. And it may contain spoilers. Okay, first of all there's Carrie Ryan's writing style. I wouldn't say it's bad. Most of the time it has a pretty good flow to it. It has great descriptions; I can see and feel everything clearly. Maybe she tells a little too much rather than showing, but I do understand the characters' emotions and whatnot so it doesn't bother me much. There's really only two things that irk me. First of all, she uses far too many fragments. Fragments … grrr. I want to bite their heads off. Fragments are like … that type of student that doesn't try and you're thinking like "Well, if you actually tried then you could be good at something!" A fragment is just a lazy avoidance at creating an entire sentence. Yes, fragments can be useful. They can be powerful. But just using them for the heck of it, just so you don't have to complete a whole thought … it just looks like laziness, as I said. So every time I saw a fragment in this book I was like almost grinding my teeth in frustration. The other thing that bothers me is where Ryan ends her chapters. They seem to end in the most random places, like she's in the middle of a passage, and then she's like "Well I don't feel like writing anything else today" and ends it for no reason. There were a lot of times where I turned the page and found a new chapter, and thought for a second that I'd missed something. Maybe I'm just being weird about this but I thought all the chapters ended pretty abruptly.My other big concern was the characters. Sigh. Well, to begin with there's the names. Not all of them … I mean, like, Elias is a pretty cool name. It was Gabry and Catcher that kind of threw me off. I mean, I understand Gabby, but Gabry? Ehh, it just looks/sounds ugly to me. And Catcher? I just … I don't even know. It makes me think of Catcher in the Rye or something. Which is a great book. But what I mean is, the name is just bizarre. Of course, I guess when it comes to the grand scheme of the book the names don't matter so much, I'm just being obnoxious. Anyway, moving on.Ah yes, so the characters. Gabry. I want to shoot her and then push her out a window. Really, the whole time I just wanted to reach into the book and smack her. Talk about the typical Mary Sue. She just seemed to waltz around and cry and blame herself for everything and say "Ohhh if only THIS and THAT hadn't happened …" And then of course she had two boys drooling over her for God knows what reason. She must be really hot, because they couldn't have liked her for her personality. As for the other characters, they were slightly better. I liked Elias the best probably, except for the fact that he liked Gabry. I think he's too good for her. Haha. And Catcher was okay too, although he was a bit over-dramatic … I guess I would be too if I was part-zombie though. But everyone else was pretty lame. Cira was pretty boring, which I guess is why she was friends with Gabry. And when she died I honestly didn't care. Wow that sounded heartless. But really, I didn't. I was like "Well, saw that one coming." I guess what really drove the book along was just its plot. I like the world that Carrie Ryan has created. Sure, the whole zombie apocalypse thing is a total cliché, but the book has a fairly unique setting. The action/violence is written very well and keeps me at the edge of my seat. The suspense is very good. Of course, there were some issues I had with the plot too … just two things, I think. First, there was the whole thing with Catcher's "immunity". It seemed a little like Carrie Ryan just made it up out of nowhere; you'd think she would have mentioned it in the first book if she hadn't. But just to be convenient, Catcher happens to be immune to zombie-ness and everyone's like "Oh yeah, well that doesn't happen very often, but yeah it happens" and I'm like "Really? And you don't mention it until now?" Of course I should shut up … I did something very similar in one of my own stories *blushes* heh heh. The other thing that confused me was the whole thing with Gabry's twin sister and how Elias was looking for her and blah blah … I mean, I sort of saw it coming. I actually thought Carrie Ryan was going to pull a Star Wars/Mortal Instruments on us and be like "OH SNAP WE'RE SIBLINGS!" But no … "I'm not looking for my sister, I'm looking for YOUR sister!" It's like "Uh, okay then." The whole thing also seemed a bit unplanned, or just … far-fetched I guess.But over all, I did enjoy the book. Yeahhh the characters and some plot points thoroughly annoy me, but I love the setting/world, the premise, etc. And for the most part the writing's good. The end ticked me off cuz it was kind of a cliff hanger, and instead of feeling intrigued or like "OMG I NEED THE NEXT BOOK" it's more like this feeling of slight annoyance that I will want to read the next book. I don't know how to explain what I mean. Well WHATEVER. I've been ranting for far too long now, and yes I do actually like these books just for the record. I just also love picking things apart. :)