Book Review Wednesday: Girl of Nightmares (4 stars)

A few months ago I reviewed ‘Anna Dressed in Blood.’ Here’s the review for those that missed it: http://wp.me/p3Wf30-1l

I gave it five stars, it was that good. So of course when I heard about the sequel I had to read that too. Girl of nightmares wasn’t quite as good as the first book, but it was a decent enough book. What I liked about the first book is that Anna is genuinely scary at times. Too many times in paranormal romances the supernatural guy or girl seems like a normal if overdramatic brooding teenager. Anna doesn’t really brood that much, even though she has a lot to brood about: being dead for one thing, being made to pull people apart against her will, and the horrible event that led to her being how she is (revealed in the first book).

My first problem with the second book is that there isn’t much Anna in it. For most of the book she’s only there in bits and pieces. Now this wouldn’t be as much of a issue if our main character Cas had more direction, which leads us to my second problem with the book: Cas wanted to find Anna, sure, but he kind of meandered about for most of the book. He was all angst ridden and not doing much.

I think it would have been better if he’d had more of a journey to go on to get Anna back. Instead most of the book is him being angsty and asking people for clues, them saying ‘there’s no way,’ repeat a few times, and then out of the blue a clue lands in his lap, and he goes on a simple trip and gets his answers without much struggle. It was too easy. There’s some friend issues to deal with as conflict, but it didn’t take my mind off the lack of conflict in his journey to find a way to get Anna back.

Now after he finds his answers he gets conflict in bucketfuls . That’s where things got really interesting. The first chunk of the book wasn’t too bad, but the last chunk was awesome. The conflict was back and it was huge: life or death, and even bigger than that. There’s this heartbreaking decision he has to make near the end that had me on the edge of my seat.

My verdict is if you liked the first one, read the second. It isn’t as interesting, but does get better toward the end. And it has the same lovable characters that made the first book so enjoyable.

In case you want to read more reviews on this book follow the link: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/12507214-girl-of-nightmares

 

 

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Book Review Wednesday: Anna Dressed in Blood (5 stars)

Maybe you’ve heard of this one. It’s got a creepy looking cover with a girl in a blood soaked dress.

Cool looking huh? Now there is some gore in it, but overall I’d say this isn’t that much of a scary book. You might disagree. Remember I’ve read a lot of stephen king, so your definition of creepy may differ from mine.

Here’s the blurb:

Cas Lowood, armed with his late father’s athame knife, kills ghosts. In Thunder Bay, Anna, forever 16, drips blood on her white dress from throat slit in 1958, and rips apart anyone who enters her house – except Cas. He makes new friends – high school queen Carmel, jock Will, admiring nerd Thomas and Tom’s voodoo grandpa Morfran – to fight this demon.

Full disclosure here: why did I choose to read this book? Because it reminded me of the television show supernatural which I love. If you love love love some supernatural then get this book. You’ll enjoy it. I mean it has this guy called Cas, who by the way is nothing like that wonderful angel, but makes up for it by basically being a younger version of Dean. Go read the preview and see if you agree with me. He sounds so much like Dean Winchester. For the first few chapters my mind kept going ‘Dean, why are you calling yourself Cas? Do you miss him that much?’

Now, the book does have a couple issues. There is a vibe of insta love going on. And our Cas/Dean protag does spend a large amount of the book dealing with teenage problems. The whole ‘I don’t need friends, I’m a badass ghost hunter’ kind of thing. And I felt some of the adults – particually grandpa Morfran – were less fleshed out. It was a little like those kid shows, where the adults drift in when they’re needed and then conviently disapear into the background.

Saying that, I think the mother was done well. She knew her son had to do this, that if she didn’t help he would sneak off and kill ghosts anyway. She helped where she could, and worried when she couldn’t. I’ve read a couple reviews that shun her for not grounding him, but I think she did what she could. She didn’t want to lose her son. I can understand that.

Now my favourite character of all was Thomas. Think Xander from the television show buffy when he was all shy. (There’s also a Giles like character who helps with research.) Thomas was just so darn cute. All plucky and determined, and then a girl walks up and he’s blushing and falling over himself.

The plot wasn’t bad. There’s a decent amount of action here. One big twist near the end, but not much in the way of twistiness before that. For me it was like watching a television show (more like Buffy than supernatural). The plot was good, but not brilliant, but that didn’t matter because it was the characters that made me stick around. There were some hefty loose threads by the end, but there is a sequal that might explain those.

So if you like Buffy, or Supernatural then go read it. And as always here are some more reviews if you aren’t convinced: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/9378297-anna-dressed-in-blood