Anna

Girl Of Nightmares

Title: Girl Of Nightmares

Author: Kendare Blake

Series: Anna #2 (click here for my review of book1)

Pages: 336

Publisher: Tom Doherty Associates

Published: August 7, 2012

Goodreads Synopsis

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.

My Rating: ☆☆☆☆

Like Anna Dressed In Blood, Girl Of Nightmares is seriously creepy! Like don’t read it at night creepy! But the creepiness is toned down quite a lot in the second book. Anna Dressed In Blood gets a ten out of ten on Cheyenne’s scale of creepy, and Girl Of nightmares is somewhere around an eight. It may actually be the same level of creepy, but it’s a different kind of creepy. I’ve said the word creepy WAY too many times in that paragraph, so I think I’ll move on now!

I will admit that Girl Of Nightmares was a bit of a let down for me as far as plot and structure, but it still maintained the realistic characters that I fangirled over in book1. I’m a sucker for awesome characters, so that’s why I’m giving it four stars. Anna Dressed In Blood had a very tight plot structure, along with the realistic characters, and the end of the book left the readers wanting something more. Girl Of nightmares was that something more, but it wasn’t quite the tightly woven something more I was hoping for.

The main problem that I had with it was the romance subplot, and the ending. The subplot kind of seemed to me like it was just there for the sake of having a subplot with romantic issues, and the ending was just a little… anticlimactic. I mean… We went through all this stuff, and traveled half way across the world, and now it’s just gonna end, and everybody’s just gonna walk off into the sunset in a cloud of rainbows and butterflies! That might be a little exaggerated, but that’s what it seemed like to me. And ok! I have to add a spoiler because I have feelings!

Spoiler, Spoiler!!!

The whole break up thing with Thomas and Carmel… What on earth was that about?! I mean I get what it was about, and it totally made sense, but it just seemed a little down played/way over done to me! That was a conflicting statement, but it’s true! It was kind of taking over at first, and then it kind of got dropped, and then she showed up in England, and then it was all better! I guess I just think it could’ve been done better, but it’s nothing to stop anyone from reading the book.

End Of Spoiler!!!

In short, Girl Of Nightmares is an awesome book with a few minor plot problems that bug my writerly brain more than they probably should. It definitely shows Kendare Blakes amazing characters, and the writing style is very true to the series. It was a bit disappointing after the tight structure of the first book, but it isn’t enough to make me drop the series if a third book is released.

What do you think?

Did you like Girl Of Nightmares? Do you agree with my views? Disagree? Think I’m crazy? Don’t answer that last one! I love hearing from you guys, so drop me a line and tell me what you think! Happy creepy reading!!!

From Cheyenne 🙂

Anna Dressed in Blood

Title: Anna Dressed in Blood

Author: Kendare Blake

Series: Anna (#1)

Pages: 320

Publisher: Tor Teen

Published: October 17th, 2011

Find It On:

Synopsis From Goodreads

Cas Lowood has inherited an unusual vocation: He kills the dead.

So did his father before him, until he was gruesomely murdered by a ghost he sought to kill. Now, armed with his father’s mysterious and deadly athame, Cas travels the country with his kitchen-witch mother and their spirit-sniffing cat. They follow legends and local lore, destroy the murderous dead, and keep pesky things like the future and friends at bay.

Searching for a ghost the locals call Anna Dressed in Blood, Cas expects the usual: track, hunt, kill. What he finds instead is a girl entangled in curses and rage, a ghost like he’s never faced before. She still wears the dress she wore on the day of her brutal murder in 1958: once white, now stained red and dripping with blood. Since her death, Anna has killed any and every person who has dared to step into the deserted Victorian she used to call home.

Yet she spares Cas’s life.

Rating: ☆☆☆☆☆

Anna Dressed in Blood is creepy! Like we’re talkin’ voodoo creepy! When I say it shouldn’t be read at night, I am speaking with late-night reading experience! But at the same time it has some of the most realistic and relatable characters I have ever seen in a book of it’s genre.

I put off reading Anna Dressed in Blood for a long time because of the creep factor. I believe that some of that paranormal stuff can actually happen, and I tend to not open myself up to that kind of thing through books and movies, but multiple people insisted that I give it a try. I was hooked by the third chapter, and I read the book through in two days. It seems to me that most horror/fantasy books are largely plot driven and don’t allow much room for character development and reader connections, so I’m always super excited when I find a book in one of those genres that is strong in both aspects. If I can’t connect with the characters, even in the most basic of ways, the book will not hold my attention, and I’ll have a hard time even telling someone what it’s about. Anna Dressed in blood has a very strong plot with a very tight structure, but it has possibly the most beautifully written characters that I’ve read in a long time! Cas undergoes a full transformation. In the beginning he’s a loner; his philosophy is get the job done and move on without creating any attachments. By the end of the story he’s come to realize that it’s okay to open up to people, and that sometimes friends are needed to assist with rough times. He gains a close circle of friends that is bound together by all the things they’ve experienced over the course of the plot, and there is also a bit of romance that is SO sweet and amazing. I can’t say anymore about that though, because it would totally spoil the book, and then you guys would probably yell at me in the comments… Kendare Blake must be some kind of word witch herself, because this book is magical in more ways than one! I will be reading Girl of Nightmares, which is the second book in the series, as soon as I can get my hands on a Kindle copy.

That’s pretty much all I can safely say without spoiling the whole thing, so I’ll stop raving now! If you’ve read it or are planning to read it, I’d love to know what you think of my review! You can drop me a line in the comments, or tweet me @Cheyenne_writes. Until next time… Always remember to be bookish, stay writerly, and enjoy your creepy reading!

Cheyenne Raphael Writes

All Things Bookish, Writerly, And Random

Book Review: Girl Of Nightmares, (Anna #2), by Kendare Blake