The Birds and the Bees

Rating:
Summary: Sheer Insolence
Review: Dear reader, I sit here with a headache the size of Texas and palm full of aspirin catatonically repeating where? Did I miss it? Was it hidden? Was it so cerebral it went right over my head? Now I can hear you asking, " For all that is holy, what"? The Plot! I thought I saw a glimmer of it, but it was just a glare.

The atmosphere hung over my head in the shape of a hammer inscribed "Panic". It could have been very disturbing if not for the overwhelming knowledge that it screamed at you. The characters were emotionally appalling, each one filled with a desperate need known all too well. Again, if handled with less blatancy, I could have been moved with emotion. The pace in the story is all over the place. Shifting from characters to past events, it becomes disorienting at best.

On the flip side, Giron's style of writing is brassy, cocky and much needed in today's all too coddled entertainment. Her depiction of the cynicism and apathetic care shown daily, is spot on.

I give this book a 2 for sheer insolence. Next time you're at the library, get it. Is it a horrifying journey? Not so much, but hey, there are worst ways to spend an evening.

Rating:
Summary: Is This A Joke?
Review: I think this might be my first 1-star review. It's probably 1 and a half, but I can't give it that. Okay, where do I begin? The back of the book makes it seem like an epic battle between birds and bees and the entire existence of mankind. Well, in this 340 page book, the first scene of violence only starts on page 175 and the real danger starts on page 250. So what happened for most of the book? A bunch of tedious character studies and random sexual encounters that make this book seem like a romance novel with a few dangerous moments thrown in for good measure. No atmosphere. No scares. Spelling and grammar errors aside, the writing was simple and flowed rather nicely, but Ms. Giron simply forgot to add in a plot. Characters doing nothing for 75% of the book isn't a story! Leisure Books usually has the cream of the crop in the horror literary world (Simon Clark, Tom Piccirilli, Richard Laymon, T.M. Wright, Jack Ketchum, etc.), so how in the world did Don D'Auria choose Ms. Giron to become a member? If you want a good laugh, pick up the book at the store and read pages 239 and 240. It is unbearably bad.

Rating:
Summary: Great Horror, The Way It Should Be!
Review: I've always called horror "icky bug" and Sephera takes icky bug to the next level. She produces a unique twist that makes the story fascinating. I like the way she draws her characters and the plot weaves in and out with plenty of twists and turns. A fascinating read, I finished the book in two days where it usually takes me a week or more. I found myself putting off other interests to finish it and I am glad I did. The story drew me in and held my interest right to the end. A wonderful initiation to her world, I am now a fan for life!

Rating:
Summary: Delightfully Disturbing
Review: Ms. Giron has a delightfully disturbing knack for taking ordinary people who would be our neighbors, waitresses, and grocery clerks and exposing their emotional frailties to us in an ant-farm fashion. As morbid curiosity pulls our guilty scrutiny to the looking glass, Sephera turns on the sun lamp behind us, blasting alien light upon these people as we hold the lens. With wicked smile, she seems to say, "Watch and learn as they burn."
In "The Birds and the Bees," the cast is so wonderfully degenerate and dysfunctional, it would seem their personal tales were gleaned from an afternoon of eavesdropping at the local coffee house.
Then Ms. Giron sends in the bees...and then the birds. Seemingly random at first, each species attacks common people with unrelenting fury and violence, killing whomever they have chosen as their daily prey. But a few people find an inner strength and resolve to see past the apparent chaos of Mother Nature gone amok.
This brooding work by Sephera Giron, a rich and darkly enchanting vision of natural Apocalypse, can be consumed in one fast-paced day, only to be followed by an ill-slept night.

Rating:
Summary: A bit off the target
Review: Okay, I really wanted to like this book a lot more than I did. I met the author, and she was one fabulous lady, and she signed this for me and everything. She was interesting, and more importantly, she was witty. I had high hopes.

Now, perhaps that's the problem - this is a Leisure Books Horror line novel, and methinks that the emphasis for this series is more of a gorey horror/suspense feel, sort of like watching an episode of 'the Twilight Zone,' but bloodier. But, and this is doubly unfortunate as I no longer have a long bus ride to work in the morning and evening, I nibbled at this book for almost two full weeks and beyond the heroine's name (Gabrielle), I don't remember much about her, apart from her ludicrous taste in men.

Basically, there are random bee attacks. Then bird attacks. And between these, you jump, hap-hazardly, between various characters and get snippits of their lives, pasts, remembrances, and current stresses. All in all, it gets very jumpy and confused, and you're not sure it'll wrap itself up into a single plot conclusion.

Well, it does all end in one place and event, but it made me blink a little in confusion and disbelief.

Still, the ideas behind the plot of this book were really quite interesting, it's just that the implementation seemed a bit... off. It's unfortunate, but I imagine if you like (for lack of a better term) schlock horror that this might be your thing. It wasn't mine.

'Nathan

Rating:
Summary: Not just Nature amok
Review: There have been many tales of Nature striking back at man. This is and is not one of them. It uses some of the ideas from the genre but in ways that are totally new.

As we delve into the lives of various characters (in a Stephen King or Ray Bradbury fashion) we see occasional attacks and menacings by bees and birds. Eventually the plot lines tie together as we find out who is on what side in the battle of good and evil.

This is sort of a cross between a nature goes wild story and Stephen King's The Stand. Not a story for everyone as it does get a little weird, but a good and unpredictable tale.

Rating:
Summary: Hilariously Inept
Review: This is one of those rare books that's so bad, it's a glorious opportunity to experience, like a particularly awful sixties drug exploitation film. For the most part, bad books don't deliver the same kind of silly charm bad movies do, because they take so much longer to digest, for one thing--the effort seems wasted. However, if you passed the fifth grade and have since caught up on your naughty, naughty words, you ought to be able to read this in about an hour.

How to describe the plot, except to say there isn't one? Birds attack people. Bees attack people. In the meantime, a bunch of wholly ill-drawn and unpleasant-when-they-are-drawn urbanites do the nasty with each other. Birds and bees kill some of them. For no real reason, all of this has to do with some Carrie-esque spooky nerd girl a character went to high school with. Now I'm making this book sound like it makes any sense, just by laying out these elements in an ordered fashion. Tell you what, take the first five sentences in this paragraph, randomize the words, and then run the result through some cute Web filter, like the Swedish Chef thing. That'll give you an experience more akin to reading the book.

SPOILERS: The end really has to be described in order to give a sense of the sheer, dizzying depths of this novel (amd I use this term loosely). Out of nowhere, literally crashing into a climax that makes no more sense than the rest of the book, come the events of September 11th, 2001, transplanted to the book's city setting. Don't even ask how any of this fits with the rest of the story, such as it is, because it doesn't--pretty clearly, the author turned the final draft in right after the real world tragedy and just felt like jamming it in at the last minute.

Seriously, although I am giving it one star, I recommend this book, especially if you're at all skilled at reading while inebriated. It's a hoot.

I look forward to a sequel, perhaps in which a crack team of flowers and trees invades Iraq.

Rating:
Summary: where is the editing
Review: Well...Where do I start? Some people will like this book and some people will probably hate it. I doubt anybody will just love it! I fall somewhere in between. I will let other's get more into the plot and the characters, but let me say this...
This book has some birds and bees'alright, but mostly in the sexual vernaculer. I must warn you there is a lot of sexual content in this book. The Birds and the Bee's after all has a double meaning here. The little bugger's are attacking everybody that's for sure while the characters are attacking each other [know what I mean?] I was not offended myself but I know some readers will be. Ms. Giron really pushes the envelope between horror and porn. Not a great book but I do recommend it, for it is a easy read overall and did hold my attention for some reason?