My rating: 5 of 5 stars
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.
PARTY.
How often do you find a book which terrified the shit out of you and made you cry, really cry, like really ugly cry? If you know other books with these criteria, puh-lease recommend them to me! Because man, my heart is ready to beat a hundred times faster and gets broken again for a book as amazing as this!
In Girl of Nightmares, following the departure of Anna to Hell (because she needs to drag Obeahman's butt away before he murders Cas and his sidekicks), Cas is having trouble coping with the loss of Anna. Worse, he starts seeing gruesome image of Anna being tortured and mutilated regardless if he is awake or asleep. Kendare Blake dedicated about a quarter of this book just for the part where Anna is haunting Cas. Although we already know this from the blurb and usually I detest this because why would you spent about a hundred of pages for something we already know from the blurb, in Girl of Nightmares' case, it works. We get to know a different facade to Cas, I feel for Cas, I feel his loss, his desperation and his longing for Anna. And remember Cas is this butt-kicking ghost hunter! In wrong hands, I believe Cas would sound like Richard Gere, but hell yeah, Blake truly knows how to handle this intricate characterization because he is still the badass Cas I always knew.
Once Cas has some ideas as to how to find Anna, the story stalls a bit but that didn't make me stop reading. During this short time-out, we also get a valuable insights into Carmel and Thomas relationship which was cute. I also liked how Blake dropped a few hints and made me wonder if a couple of characters are the antagonists.
The biggest highlight of the book is definitely the Suicide Forest part. It was scary as hell and I IMMEDIATELY regretted my decision to read this book at night. Shit, I wish I can erase my memory of this scene. I'm not sure if I'm able to walk into ANY forest ever again.
THE ENDING! I won't lie, I was hoping for this kind of ending for Hereafter (yes, I wish this was a standalone). The rougher and more brutal tone of Anna Dressed in Blood didn't convinced me if Girl of Nightmares is deserving of such ending.
*Chuckles*
I surrender to your wicked writing skills, Kendare Blake. This series deserves such ending and more. Much more. I had to repeatedly read the same two pages in denial, and when I came to my senses, as you already know...
As always, I'm really suck at writing a positive review. But trust me, Girl of Nightmares is much better than Anna Dressed in Blood.
Somehow.
I'm not sure how my body was able to absorb this much awesomeness.
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| Sweet baby penguins! A 5-star! |
7 comments:
Glad you enjoyed this one. I haven't started the series at all, but will one of these days.
Happy reading,
Brandi from Blkosiner’s Book Blog
I absolutely love to read your reviews! You are so funny, so insightful, and although I might not always agree, I love how you just lay it on line.
I do agree with you on Girl of Nightmares-awesome book! I actually had the audio version and I was so stupid to listen to the Suicide Forest part: at night, late at night while everyone else slept. I have a very vivid imagination ( I think all readers do) and I had to put it up I was so freaked! Of course, my husband snoring helped add to the freaky sounds I would picture :)
YES! So glad you liked this one! I loved this one more than Anna Dressed in Blood, if that if even possible. I was worried you might not like it!
I find negative reviews easier to write as well, but this positive one of yours was great so don't sweat it!
Alise @ Readers In Wonderland
YA Blogger Book Club
@ Brandi:Hi Brandi! Thanks for stopping by. I totally recommend this series. It isn't awfully long and most importantly, the books are entertaining.
@ Amy: Wow. Thanks so much for your kind words. Ugh, I don't think I can handle listening to this book! Reading it was spooky enough LOL!
@ Alise: Haha! I know! Sometimes I have a tendency to hate even popular books.
I really should start these books and now I really want to put everything else I'm doing to the side and start. Thanks for sharing your thoughts.
I have both of these books staring at me from my bookshelf and I dont know why I pass over them time and again. I know they'll be good. So whats my deal?
They are book-books and sadly the only time I read is at bedtime and I use my e reader because its my light source. My lamp is waay too bright and keeps hubby awake. Ugh.
Now that I whined about that & you're bored to tears I must say I enjoyed your review and blog.
Oh yeah, its the blog template that wont allow that reply button. One of my first blogs was a similar template with a diff background and it was truly hard to customize.
I am a new follower btw. Glad to be here.
What's on Bella's Shelf?
Hi Bella,
LOL! I'm not bored to tears at all. I have the same dilemma because I shared a bedroom with a friend. Thanks for being a follower. I followed your blog too.
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Hi! I welcome comments and feedback! But because I suck at HTML code, I don't know how to add reply button to each comment (I tried googled it but I think this template doesn't allow such change), so I will be very lousy at keeping track of the comments but it doesn't mean that I don't appreciate your comments! ^_^