Name: Rampant
ISBN: 9780061490002

Diana Peterfreund

After sixteen-year-old Astrid Llewelyn survives a vicious unicorn attack, she learns that she is a descendant of the most famous unicorn hunter of all time and she must travel to Rome, Italy, to train in the ancient arts in order to carry on her family legacy and save the world from the threat posed by the reemergence of lethal unicorns.

Rampant

Monicap

"Hey," he pulled away from me and put his hand on my cheek. "What are you thinking about?"
"Your butt," I admitted.
that is so full of pure, unadulterated AWESOME!

Excellent book! I absolutely LOVED the unicorn mythology, and our main character, Astrid, is awesome and tough.
so basically, it begins with Astrid, who does not believe unicorns are real. within three chapters, she's been shipped off to Rome to become a unicorn hunter. there she meets her new roommate, whom her first impression of is "psycho". her cousin also comes along with many, many other girls and they learn to hunt unicorns. (duh.)
Astrid and her cousin Philippa get boyfriends, however, and this is bad because one of the requirements for being a unicorn hunter is that you must be a virgin (a situation arises in the book wherein one character's virginity is lost, and I would not recommend this book for people who can't stand the idea/word "rape")
and, if unicorn hunting is not enough to make this book Awesome (Which, of course, it is) there's more: there's some whole conspiracy with an ancient big bad unicorn, Astrid's Ancestor Clothilde, this dude named Marten who's the head of a pharmaceutical company that's been funding the unicorn hunters, character development for the other character and, here's the best part: no love triangle! 
yes, that' right, there's love, but no love triangle!
which makes this the perfect book!

there is, in fact, only one thing wrong with this book. and that is that all the unicorn hunters are descendants of Alexander the great, and this is just a factual problem, because there's no WAY ANYONE could be descended from Alexander the Great, as he only had two children, only one lived past the age of five and both of them were assassinated anyway. Alexander's line ended there.
but besides that HUGE historical inaccuracy, which can be overlooked as this is a fiction book, it's perfect.

Sarah Sammis

When I first met Pam of Bookalicious, she was excited about Rampant by Diana Peterfreund. She hadn't started reading it yet but was eager to start. So I added it to my wishlist and it bubbled to the top, two years later.

Astrid ends up shipped off to Italy after she's attacked by the smallest species of killer unicorns. Think of a goat sized, blood thirsty beast with a poisonous horn. The only problem is, Astrid doesn't want to go to Italy. Her mother is the classic stage mother, except here she's fighting unicorns vicariously.

The set up to Rampant is an interesting one. What if the remembered virgin / unicorn connection is tied to Artemis's hunters. What if only virgins can see and kill unicorns? And what if they have to be of certain blood lines? It's an intriguing idea but it never quite plays out as I had hoped it would.

The character building, world building and plot all come together in a jumble. First there is Astrid's on again / off again romance with Giovanni. Then there is Astrid's cousin Phil who Astrid can't decide if she's best friends with or arch enemies with. Finally there are the unicorns themselves which come in so many different varieties and are constantly attacking the school that it's damn near impossible for the plot to progress at all.

In the end I found Astrid too dull of a character to keep me interested in this jumbled plot. It started out strong but it didn't keep my attention.

Courtney Gendreau

It was an interesting novel, very unique


http://rainydayreadingreviews.blogspo...

Marsh Wu

All it's got going for it are the killer unicorns.

Julia Seiser

I just couldn't get Into the book it was soo blah. I liked the plot of this book but maybe if she approached it a little bit differently maybe it would catch my attention. I hated this book. Lowest score ever. Let me tell you. JUST. DONT. READ. IT.

It actually pains me to rate a Diana Peterfreund book so low. This book had so much potential. What a unique concept. It just didn't work out for me. If I'm being totally honest, I probably skimmed the last third of the book. It took me almost the first third of the book to even kind of get into it. I feel let down. I may or may not read the second book in this series. I own it, so I'm sure I'll get around to it at some point. I'm definitely not in any rush to do so though.

SARAH OLSON

I really enjoyed this book. The whole idea of killer unicorns was interesting and well thought out. The characters were full and compelling. Great read.

Rampant

Reviews

Highlights