Book Review: Bad Hair Day

Author: Carrie Harris
Publication Date: November 13, 2012
Publisher: Delacorte Press
Series: Kate Grable # 2

Senior year is positively hair-raising.

Kate Grable is geeked out to shadow the county medical examiner as part of her school’s pre-med program. Except when he’s arrested for murder, she’s left with the bodies. And when Kate’s brother Jonah stumbles upon a dead gamer girl, she realizes that the zombie epidemic she cured last fall was only the beginning of the weirdness taking over her town. Someone’s murdering kids—something really hairy. And strong. Possibly with claws.

Is it werewolf awesomeness like Jonah and his dorktastic friends think? Kate’s supposed to be a butt-kicking zombie killing genius...but if she can’t figure out who’s behind the freakish attacks, the victims—or what’s left of them—are going to keep piling up.

It’s scary. It’s twisted. It’s sick. It’s high school.

 

 

“The freshman elbowed his buddies before putting his back pack on his head and staggering around with his arms out-stretched. They laughed so hard I thought they’d burst something. Some people thought the zombie virus was hilarious. Obviously they hadn’t seen the victims; my boyfriend’s best friend was still in assisted living. Brain damage. So I didn’t think it was all that funny when zombie boy staggered over and accidentally grabbed my breasts, one in each hand. And when I say accidentally, I really mean on purpose.” – Hardback Copy pg. 2

 

“Aaron snorted. ‘You don’t need anyone to rescue you from anything, Kate.’” – Hardback Copy pg. 5

 

“‘Well,’ he said, ‘I’ll be completely honest with you, Kate. I’m not in surgery. The surgeons tried to claim you based on your…ahem…clearly stated preferences. But I haven’t had a student in two years, so I got first pick. I’d be honored to work with the girl who cured the zombie virus.’” – Hardback Copy pg. 10

 

“I swear I wasn’t being egotistical. It’s just that I was the infamous zombie girl, and I’d resigned myself to the notoriety. People recognized me in the bathroom at restaurants these days, for god’s sake. It just figured that my reputation failed me the one time I actually could have benefited from it.” – Hardback Copy pg. 16

 

“She led me into the so-called jousting room. The body was impossible to miss, because it was smeared across most of the floor. One look and my stomach threatened to rebel.  Yeah, I’d seen dead bodies before, but it didn’t mean I had to like it.” – Hardback Copy pg. 43

 

“Unfortunately, the rest of the body wasn’t so pristine. From the neck down, there was an explosion of gore and coconut bits. I was never buying an Almond Joy again.” – Hardback Copy pg. 46

This is the second book in the Kate Grable series and I must say that I expected to enjoy it a little more than I did. Don’t get me wrong, there were aspects of this book that I greatly enjoyed, but I expected to love it all. Our story once again focuses around Kate Grable as she defeats the supernatural. In the first book, Kate develops the remedy to cure the zombie curse. Kate develops quite a name for herself in the first book and is returning for more in book number two. Only in this book, she is fighting a whole different evil. The question is, what is it?!

Let’s start with what I didn’t like about this book first. I like the idea of Kate having a boyfriend and I like Aaron’s character for the most part, but Kate became a little too obsessed for my liking. A new girl steps on the scene named Elle, who has her sights equally set on Aaron. By the end of the book Kate had stopped going on so much about Aaron and Elle, but at first I found it rather annoying. It’s just all too predictable to me and I think it could have been cut out, especially because Elle was such a clichéd character. I mean come on, give us something different here! I am here to read about zombies and werewolves, not a silly and rather immature teenage girl who is trying to move in on another girl’s guy.

Now I am going to sandwich in the good things about this novel. Carrie Harris’ writing is always fast, smooth and very easy to breeze through. This is always important to me because I like being able to get through a book at a steady pace. I can honestly say that with Carrie’s books I seldom get bored and she keeps me in the action, front and center at all times. Carrie’s witticism came out through Kate and many of Kate’s one liners had me dying laughing. This is one of those stories that most anyone would probably breeze through and should be a fairly quick read for anyone.

Kate wasn’t necessarily a character that I connected directly to, but I am by no means saying that this is a bad thing. I mean she does fight zombies and werewolves with a passion, so I am glad that I don’t personally connect to her. Kate is witty, smart, and sometimes cynical, but I love her character and she is easy to follow. I love the almost sarcastic voice that Carrie has written for Kate. I usually hate science and any talk of anything medical, but because Kate has such a passion for it I think I was able to actually enjoy those parts of the book. The werewolves were a nice twist on the typical werewolves, but I don’t want to spoil that aspect for readers!

This book was enjoyable, but not as much as the first book in the series. I wanted to really love this book and instead I only liked it. I would still recommend this book to readers who like to pick up incredibly fast and easy reads. Also if you enjoy any part of science then you may really enjoy this book!

***A big thank you to the publishers at Delacorte Press for providing me with a copy of this book in exchange for my honest review***