Review: Girl of Nightmares by Kendare Blake

Title:  Girl of Nightmares
Author:  Kendare Blake
Series:  Anna #2
Publisher:  Tor Teen
Publication Date:  August 7, 2012
Source:  finished copy from publisher
Purchase:  Amazon | Barnes & Noble

It's been months since the ghost of Anna Korlov opened a door to Hell in her basement and disappeared into it, but ghost-hunter Cas Lowood can't move on.

His friends remind him that Anna sacrificed herself so that Cas could live--not walk around half dead. He knows they're right, but in Cas's eyes, no living girl he meets can compare to the dead girl he fell in love with.

Now he's seeing Anna everywhere: sometimes when he's asleep and sometimes in waking nightmares. But something is very wrong...these aren't just daydreams. Anna seems tortured, torn apart in new and ever more gruesome ways every time she appears.

Cas doesn't know what happened to Anna when she disappeared into Hell, but he knows she doesn't deserve whatever is happening to her now. Anna saved Cas more than once, and it's time for him to return the favor.

Girl of Nightmares picks up about six months from where Anna Dressed in Blood left off.  Cas is mooning over the loss of his beloved Anna, and not much else has changed.  Well, except that instead of traveling from place to place sending ghosts on as he'd always done prior to coming to Thunder Bay, he's contented himself with tending to minor ghostly disturbances in the area.  You can take the ghost away from the boy, but you can't take the ghost hunter out of him.

I loved Cas's voice in the previous book, and even after a year without it, I still love it…or maybe I love it even more now because of how much I've missed it.  Either way, I very much enjoy reading from his perspective.  The male point-of-view can be difficult to accomplish realistically for a female writer, but Kendare Blake nails it.  Cas is so honest and says exactly what he's feeling, even it it's not what you want to hear.  But now he's having a really hard time dealing with Anna's absence.  I'm not the biggest Carmel fan, but I gave her a mental pat on the back when she said the following to Cas early in the book:

"Of course not," she snaps.  "I liked Anna.  And even if I didn't, she saved our lives.  But what she did, sacrificing herself -- that was for you, Cas.  And she did it so that you could live.  Not so you could walk around half dead, pining for her."

It was so odd to see Cas so out of sorts.  He was so very unCas-like in the beginning of this book, that I wanted to smack him around a bit and tell him to deal with it or move the eff on.  He was always so take-charge and charismatic in Anna.  Cas is still his sarcastic, witty self, but it's like a piece of him is missing, like the light has gone out of him.  But once he starts seeing visions of Anna, he finds his sense of purpose again.  He wants, no needs, to find out what happened to Anna after that fateful night when she gave up her existence to save him and his friends.  Once he gets over his little mourning period, the story really picks up the pace and he's nearly back to his old self again.  And throughout the novel, I had the urge many times to grab Cas by the shoulders and tell him he was doing the right thing.

"Everyone seems to know more than I do, and being on the shallow end of the information pool is starting to piss me off."

I think the fact that I have such physical reactions to what Cas is doing speaks volumes for the characterization, not to mention the writing as a whole.  I feel like I know these characters…they have personalities all their own and they've grown so much in such a short period of time.  Cas is pitted against a formidable potential ally and even though I never fully trusted her, I liked her, just as Cas did.  It's not fair for the author to make me like the competition, but she did it anyway.  That lady is one smooth talker.

And she brought the creepy back full-force, too.  Girl of Nightmares gave me just as many nightmares as Anna did.  Maybe more.  Not only was Cas living through his own personal hell, but his very skill and right to wield his father's athame were being questioned.  He's tested, put through the ringer to prove he is deserving.  There may even be a Suicide Forest involved.  Oh, and a trip to Hell.  All in a day's work for our favorite ghost hunter.  Don't worry, though, the humor that balanced out the scary in the first book hasn't disappeared either.

"No.  You're a cult.  A buttoned-up, prissy British cult, but you're still a cult."

I didn't realize until just recently that Girl of Nightmares would be the final book in the series.  Two books.  That's it, folks.  I wish some series would end at two novels, but not this one.  I could read about these characters forever.  However, I do believe that this ending for Cas and Anna is as perfect as it's going to get.  Kendare answered all of my questions by the end and although I'd like to see more of Cas's story, at least I have Kendare's new Antigoddess series to look forward to.

And so even though this is a sequel, it's also the end, and a brilliant end it is.  Some books are casual acquaintances and leave you feeling lukewarm towards them.  Others you might actually date for a bit before forgetting about them.  But this book?  This book I'd marry.  I could spend the rest of my life with this book and never look twice at another book.  I would be completely monogamous with this book, ya'll.  Yep, we'd have a very long and happy life together.  Well, until that Antigoddess series is out.  I can't make any promises then, not with the way Kendare writes for my soul.

And here is the last line to what is probably one of my favorite scenes from the book:

"No way.  Don't you get it, Cas?"  He looks at me disgustedly.  "I ate the fucking ginersnaps."

You'll just have to read it to find out what happened...but it's terribly funny.  ;0)

Rating: 

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Labels: anna dressed in blood, book trailers, favorites, ghosts, kendare blake, must-read, reviews, tor teen

In My Mailbox #45

In My Mailbox is hosted by Kristi at The Story Siren.  It's a weekly meme where we all get to brag about the books and swag we got in the mail, for review, won in contests, etc.

Does anyone else live with the fear of not getting anything new to read, only to sigh with relief when the mailman arrives with a package?  And then that relief turns into resignation once you remember you already have a ton of books on your shelf that you still haven't read?  It's a vicious cycle.  But I'm grateful for it.  :D


For Review/Won:

The Dark Unwinding by Sharon Cameron
Crewel by Gennifer Albin
Eve and Adam by Katherine Applegate/Michael Grant
The Diviners by Libba Bray, won from Claire Legrand, author of The Cavendish Home For Boys and Girls in her #ARCAPALOOZA giveaway on Twitter

 

Thanks to Macmillan for the review copies!!



Purchased:

The Summer I Turned Pretty by Jenny Han, $3.99 for Nook | Kindle
The Lorax by Dr. Seuss on DVD/BluRay for my daughter, though I've already watched it w/ her about 100 times
The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins on DVD/BluRay 'cause my husband hasn't seen it yet & I've already made every else I know fall in love with this story

 

Not a bad week, if I do say so myself.  How'd your mailbox fare?

The Week in Review:

On Tuesday, I teased you with a few lines from Burn Bright from Australian author Marianne de Pierres.  It was strange and otherworldy but such a captivating read.  I hope Random House decides to publish it in the states soon or I may have to shell out a pretty penny to obtain the rest of the series myself.

After I read Every Other Day by Jennifer Lynn Barnes last year, I knew I would read anything this author brought to the table.  So, you know that I put Nobody on my wishlist as soon as I heard about it.

The Feed Your Reader (Ebook only) Giveaway Hop is still going strong, so stop by and enter for your chance to win your choice of any YA August new release for Nook or Kindle.  This is an international giveaway.  :0)

On Thursday, I reviewed Defiance by C.J. Redwine.  It's a little fantasy-light, but I think any reader can appreciate the story.

My stop on the Inbetween Blog Tour was on Friday, and in addition to my review and an excerpt, there's also a giveaway for a signed copy of the novel!

The Week Ahead:

On Monday, I'll be hosting the one and only Cynthia Hand for my stop on the Authors are Rockstars Blog Tour, hosted by Fiktshun and Two Chicks on Books.  There's a fabulous interview and giveaway involved, so be sure to check it out!

Lots of reviews!  I'm STILL trying to catch up after participating in the Summer Wrap-up Read-a-thon and I haven't reviewed many of those titles yet!  o.O

My stop on the My Super Sweet Sixteenth Century Blog Tour is on Friday.  I'll have a review and excerpt for you.

I'll also be participating in the 2nd Annual Back to the Books Giveaway Hop, which starts at the end of the week.  Good luck to all the students returning to school soon, and parents, take a breather!  ;0)

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Labels: in my mailbox (imm)

Blog Tour: Inbetween by Tara Fuller - Review & Excerpt + Giveaway

For my stop on the Inbetween Blog Tour, hosted by Shane at Itching for Books, I'll be sharing my review of this super-cute reaper story, as well as an excerpt.  But first, let's meet that awesome author:

Tara Fuller writes novels; some about grim reapers and some about witches. All of course are delightfully full of teen angst and kissing. Tara grew up in a one stop light town in Oklahoma where once upon a time she stayed up with a flash light reading RL Stine novels and only dreamed of becoming a writer. She has a slight obsession with music and a shameless addiction for zombie fiction, Mystery Science Theater, and black and white mochas. Tara no longer lives in a one stop light town. Now she lives with her family in a slightly larger town in North Carolina where they have at least three stoplights.

Find out more about Tara and her books:
Website | Facebook | Twitter | Goodreads

Title:  Inbetween
Author:  Tara Fuller
Series:  Kissed by Death #1
Publisher:  Entangled Publishing
Publication Date:  August 28, 2012
Source:  galley from publisher via Netgalley
Purchase:  Amazon | Barnes & Noble | Book Depository

Since the car crash that took her father’s life two years ago, Emma’s life has been a freaky—and unending—lesson in caution. Surviving “accidents” has taken priority over being a normal seventeen-year-old, so Emma spends her days taking pictures of life instead of living it. Falling in love with a boy was never part of the plan. Falling for a reaper who makes her chest ache and her head spin? Not an option.

It’s not easy being dead, especially for a reaper in love with a girl fate has put on his list not once, but twice. Finn’s fellow reapers give him hell about spending time with Emma, but Finn couldn’t let her die before, and he’s not about to let her die now. He will protect the girl he loves from the evil he accidentally unleashed, even if it means sacrificing the only thing he has left...his soul.

I found Inbetween to be cute and clever, and although it wasn't completely original (what is these days, right?), it was still a very fun read.  It was engrossing to the point that I'd find myself skimming larger passages to read ahead and find out what happened, only to have to go back and re-read those sections to ensure I hadn't missed anything.  I love when a book has me in its clutches like that, but I also hate it because it feels like I have to read everything twice. 

Inbetween is set in our world but also in a location parallel to our world, aptly named the Inbetween, as it is that gray area between Heaven and Hell.  It is the place where souls are sent if they haven't quite earned their spot in Heaven or Hell, though if they are truly exceptional souls, they may be given the opportunity to return to the land of the living to really prove their worth. 

This novel is told as a dual narrative, from the perspectives of Emma and Finn.  They may not have known each other in this lifetime, but each feels a deep connection to the other after a chance encounter that leaves Emma without her father and reminds Finn of a painful loss he suffered some fifteen years earlier.  As a reaper, Finn takes some serious risks to ensure Emma's safety once he realizes who she is.  And Emma is in danger quite often, which leads to a lot of trouble for Finn, since he's not supposed to interfere in human affairs or "go corporeal" because his boss can sense it and will require a full report. 

Emma is a sneaky little minx, digging deep to discover things about Finn that he won't divulge himself.  Yet, she never quite figured out what I had deduced nearly from the onset of the novel.  I'm not going to sugar-coat it…this novel was a tad predictable, but that only kept the first half of the novel from being as enjoyable as it could have been.  Once the action -- aka attempts on Emma's life -- really got going, the book became a bit more suspenseful and engaging. 

The romance was sweet and cuddly but in the way a sad puppy at the pound is because there can't be a future for these two.  Emma is of the living, and well, Finn is most definitely not.  He's a reaper, meant not to develop feelings for a human but instead to send them on to the Inbetween to await their fates.  But he can't help himself.  His reaper friends -- Easton of Hell's domain and Anaya of Heaven's -- both try to convince him his intentions are fool-hardy, that he's wasting his time and causing trouble for all of them, but he's a lost cause.  He'd try anything, do anything to be with Emma. I kind of have to wonder if this guy has ANY scruples after some of the things he's done for her or even contemplated so that he can be close to her. 

Although this book is focused on the reapers and a rather forbidden romance, it has a little bit of everything in there, just to keep you on your toes:  possible body-snatching, Ouija boards, psychotic ghosts, overbearing mothers…you name it.   Oh, and a hot, if somewhat pervy, best friend who remains strictly in Emma's friend zone.  So, no love triangle…well, not in the most literal sense, anyway, so yay!  Wait, wait, wait.  I just remembered there's no cliffhanger either -- though I did feel that the ending was a little too perfect, a little too easy.  I guess this novel doesn't have everything then, but in this case, that's not a bad thing.  All in all, Inbetween is a great start to a new series that I definitely plan to continue.

Rating: 

**This is a rather long trailer considering it's mostly text, but I love the song by the xx that they chose as the background music, so I'll forgive it. :D It does give you a good idea what the story's about, more-so than even the synopsis above.

Finn

 It’s now or never, Finn.

            I exhaled and slipped through the cold brick until the warmth of Emma’s room surrounded me. I don’t know what I’d been expecting to find, but Emma huddled over a little plastic board on her bed wasn’t it. And the hope in her eyes…It was hope that she wasn’t crazy. Hope that the little board in front of her could prove it. She deserved so much more than this. She was so much more than this. She was determined and loyal and beautiful and everything I wanted to be. She took care of the people around her. She took care of me once. She took care of me when she should have hated me.

I sat down on the bed across from her and balled my fingers into fists. I hated this. Hated that she was resorting to something so ridiculous because of what I had done. What I had caused. That what I’d done had hurt her this badly.

Emma pulled her long blond hair over her shoulder and took a deep breath. Two of her fingers rested on top of the pointer. “Is there someone here?” she asked, eyes closed. “Please. Please talk to me if you’re here.”

Screw Balthazar and his threats. If I didn’t go corporeal, he’d never know.

I laid my fingers beside hers and moved the pointer to the word yes.

Emma

I froze, afraid to move my fingers. Afraid to breathe. My eyes stayed glued to the word under the wooden pointer.

Yes.

“Oh my God.” I jerked my hand away from the board and clutched it to my chest. My heart thumped until I could feel it in my palm like a pulse. I didn’t know what to do next. All I knew about Ouija boards was what I’d seen on lame YouTube videos, and that didn’t seem like much help to me now that someone—or something—was actually answering.

“Who are you?” I finally asked. When I realized my hands were still clasped to my chest, I dropped one down to the pointer, but it slid out from under my fingertips before I could touch it. “F,” I whispered, saying the letters out loud. “I. N.”

The pointer paused then slid around in a circle before coming back to N.

In that moment, the board was the only object that existed in the world. The mountains around my house could have come crashing down. The stars could have fallen from the sky. I don’t think I would have noticed any of it. This was one of those moments when everything changed. The kind of moment when reality becomes something else. When it didn’t move anymore, I looked around the room, expecting to find something. Finding nothing.

“Finn,” I breathed. “Your name is Finn?”

The pointer slid to yes and I sat up on my knees, my breaths rushing in and out of my lungs. That name…

“Say it again.”

I laughed at the shadow of a boy with green eyes and pressed my hands against his chest. “What?”

“My name. The way you say it…you say it like it matters. Like it still means something.”

I kissed the corner of his mouth and whispered, “Finn.”

I blinked the vision away. My heart thudded painfully in my chest. The green eyes, that voice… Oh God. I couldn’t catch my breath. It was him. He was the one at the school. In the forest. In my head. My dreams. I stared at the board. Finn.

“Can I see you?” I bit my lip, not letting myself think about what I was really asking for. I just knew I wanted it. Everything inside me wanted it. “Like I saw you earlier tonight?”

Nothing happened. No sparks of magic. No phantom light transforming into the boy I’d seen with jungle-green eyes. The pointer didn’t even budge. Disappointment twisted in my chest. This couldn’t be it. This couldn’t be all there was. I needed answers. I needed to know why he was here. I needed way too much for this to be it.

That memory was still inside me. His lips, his hands, the way I felt like I was going to explode if he kept touching me. Finn. What the hell did this mean? Was it even real? Or did I just want it so badly that my screwed-up brain had created it all?

“Finn?” I called in a shaky voice, staring at the pointer, willing it to move. Willing it to prove I wasn’t as crazy as the doctors thought.

It didn’t.

           So I was crazy, then. I squeezed my hands into fists so hard my nails left little crescent imprints in my palm, pushed myself off the bed, and stomped down the hall into the kitchen. Pills. I needed pills. I flipped on the light and one of the bulbs popped and went out, turning the kitchen a shade dimmer. I grabbed the little orange pill bottle off the counter. I’d already taken one today, but clearly I needed more clarity. I needed to get this memory…no. This hallucination out of my head.

“Don’t take those,” the now-familiar voice said.

I squeezed the cap until my fingers went numb and turned around. He was there, standing in my kitchen like he belonged there. Like he’d always been there.

Finn looked at the bottle in my hands. “You’re not crazy, Emma. You don’t need those.”

The pill bottle clattered to the tile floor. I jumped back, heart thundering in my chest, lungs eating up all of the air around me until I felt dizzy. It all clicked together. The guy in my dreams, the guy who had saved my life twice…he was here. Standing in front of me. How was this even possible?

“What are you?” I closed my eyes and pictured the agonized look on his face just before he’d dissolved and disappeared into the night like a ghost.

“I’m not…alive.”

And below you'll find your chance to win your very own signed copy of Inbetween!  U.S. entries only, please.

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Good luck & happy reading!

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Labels: blog tour, entangled, excerpts, giveaways, kissed by death, reapers, reviews, tara fuller

Review: Defiance by C.J. Redwine

Title:  Defiance
Author:  C.J. Redwine
Series:  1st book in the Defiance series
Publisher:  Balzer + Bray
Publication Date:  August 28, 2012
Source:  galley from publisher
Purchase:  Amazon | Barnes & Noble

Within the walls of Baalboden, beneath the shadow of the city’s brutal leader, Rachel Adams has a secret. While other girls sew dresses, host dinner parties, and obey their male Protectors, Rachel knows how to survive in the wilderness and deftly wield a sword. When her father, Jared, fails to return from a courier mission and is declared dead, the Commander assigns Rachel a new Protector, her father’s apprentice, Logan—the same boy Rachel declared her love for two years ago, and the same boy who handed her heart right back to her. Left with nothing but fierce belief in her father’s survival, Rachel decides to escape and find him herself. But treason against the Commander carries a heavy price, and what awaits her in the Wasteland could destroy her.

At nineteen, Logan McEntire is many things. Orphan. Outcast. Inventor. As apprentice to the city’s top courier, Logan is focused on learning his trade so he can escape the tyranny of Baalboden. But his plan never included being responsible for his mentor’s impulsive daughter. Logan is determined to protect her, but when his escape plan goes wrong and Rachel pays the price, he realizes he has more at stake than disappointing Jared.

As Rachel and Logan battle their way through the Wasteland, stalked by a monster that can’t be killed and an army of assassins out for blood, they discover romance, heartbreak, and a truth that will incite a war decades in the making.

I was pretty excited to get an advance copy of Defiance. Fantasy is one of my favorite genres because the story can take you anywhere and can cover any scope of what is considered possible. It is what its name implies: fantasy. And therein lies the biggest problem I had with Defiance.

Don’t get me wrong, there’s plenty of fantastical material here to make me happy, but it was the way it was presented that bothered me because it was such an odd mixture of illusory and modern-day ideas. Take the names of the characters, for example. In fantasy novels, I usually expect not to be able to pronounce the characters’ names and kind of skim over them as I’m reading – or make up my own names for them based off their given names. But in Defiance, the main characters are named Rachel, Logan, and Jared. That’s not a major drawback, and some probably appreciate being able to properly pronounce the characters’ names; it’s just something that bugged me and made the novel slightly less imaginative to me. Another thing that was less than imaginative was that the scientific elements were based on modern ideas, as well. Logan even mentions the Periodic Table in the second chapter. I suppose what I find most perturbing is that at times, it feels like our world, and at others, it returns to the fantasy world of Baalboden.

Other than some clumsy wording in a few places, that was really my only major gripe. The story flowed well overall, after getting off to a bit of a slow start, and the book kept me rather engrossed in its pages once the duo set off on their mission. Granted, that doesn’t happen until about half-way through the book, but they did have to prep for their adventure, after all. And during all that preparation is when they found time to fall in love.

I’m still not sure how I feel about the romantic aspect of this novel. Rachel was supposedly in love with Logan when she was a bit younger and he rejected her, not because he didn’t care about her, but because he was an outcast and had only just taken the apprenticeship with her father. He had nothing to offer her. Okay, so he’s a stand-up guy, I guess. But now that her father is missing and Rachel has been entrusted to his care, what does he go and do? He falls in love with her, despite the fact that nothing about his situation has changed. Rachel fights her feelings for Logan now, believing that they were the equivalent of a school-girl crush back in the day and he means nothing to her now, beyond his being her Protector. Yeah, right. I’d rather see both of these characters grow into their own individuals – especially taking into account their current circumstances – than fall into each other.

My favorite aspect of this novel was the mysterious monster, the Cursed One, that preyed upon the citizens of Baalboden...mostly because it's an enigma. Where did it come from? Why is it able to be controlled and manipulated? Where does it go when it’s not terrorizing the city? It’s described as having scales, possibly like a dragon, as it also apparently breathes fire, and yet it burrows underground and slithers like a giant snake, though it can’t technically be a snake because it has lizard-like feet. What exactly is the Cursed One? These are all questions I’d like to see answered in the next book. Less love story, more monster!

I love the world that the author has developed, and I’d like to see it further developed in subsequent installments. There’s plenty of room for this series to grow and become everything that I had hoped this first novel would be. Defiance is C.J. Redwine’s debut novel, though, and maybe I was expecting a little too much from the beginning, but I have high hopes for the rest of the series.

Rating:  1/2

You can order a signed copy of C.J. Redwine's Defiance here.

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Labels: c.j. redwine, defiance, fantasy, harper-collins, reviews

Feed Your Reader Giveaway Hop

Welcome to my stop on the Feed Your Reader Giveaway Hop!  This giveaway hop, hosted by I Am a Reader, Not a Writer and Books:  A True Story, features ebooks only.  For my prize, I'll be giving away your choice of any young adult August new release available for Nook or Kindle.  Here are some August releases, just to give you an idea:

I know which one I would pick.  Do you?  :P

Rules:

• This giveaway is open to anyone who can receive gifts for Nook or Kindle. 
• One entry per household. 
• All entries will be verified. Any entry found to be falsified will result in disqualification of all entries for that participant. 
• Winner will be notified via email. Winner will then have 48 hours to respond before another winner will be selected. 

And now on to the fun stuff! You only have to follow my blog to enter, but all other entries/follows are appreciated! :D

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Now that you've entered at my stop, check out all of the other great prizes offered on the Feed Your Reader Giveaway Hop:



Good luck & happy reading!

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Labels: ebooks, giveaway hops, giveaways