SBB Review: Girl of Nightmares by Kendare Blake

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.


Publication Date: August 7, 2012
Genre: Young Adult, Paranormal, Romance, Horror
Source: Thanks so much to Southern Book Bloggers for letting me be a part of this tour!


Review:
Girl of Nightmares more than lived up to what I had expected and hoped for from this book.  Somehow I had forgotten in between reading Anna Dressed in Blood and this book that besides being amazingly well-written and interesting...it's also effing scary :) I'll admit to being a huge chicken-faced wimp, so maybe creepy or unsettling would be better words to use. I'll let you decide that for yourselves.

I was reminded right from the start how genuinely great Cas's voice is in this book. My sister at The Elliott Review was the one that insisted that I read this book because it was awesome. One of the things she loved most was Cas as the first-person narrator.  She said he was her favorite male narrator in a book, ever. And I have to say that I 100% agree. He's such a thinking, serious type of person but it's blended perfectly with his snarky, smart-ass mouth. Add in the fact that he is in love with a dead ex-murderer girl that could rip his face off...and you get come to understand just how complex of a guy he really is. When it comes to Anna though, there are no complex issues for him to work out. He loves her and wants what's best for her, and he'll do whatever it takes for that to happen.

Now the first we see of Anna in this book is seriously messed up and creeptastic. If you are really aiming to make this a scary read make sure you are reading it at night because the parts with her in them are very unsettling. And I loved it :)

The story continues seamlessly from Anna Dressed in Blood.  Some second books have a slow start picking up where they left off, but even if it's been awhile since you've read the first one it will all come back to you in this book.  This one is another page-turner and you'll want to punch your clock when it tells you it's too late and you should go to sleep instead of finishing your book.

Review: Anna Dressed in Blood by Kendare Blake

Synopsis:
Just your average boy-meets-girl, girl-kills-people story. . .

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

So did his father before him, until his gruesome murder 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. Together they follow legends and local lore, trying to keep up with the murderous dead—keeping pesky things like the future and friends at bay.

When they arrive in a new town in search of a ghost the locals call Anna Dressed in Blood, Cas doesn't expect anything outside of the ordinary: move, 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, but now stained red and dripping 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.

And she, for whatever reason, spares his life.

Publication Date: August 30, 2011
Genre: Young Adult, Paranormal, Romance
Source: My own Tower of books :)


Review:

Anna Dressed in Blood is creepy and great. That pretty much sums it up for me :) I've seen some reviews that it wasn't as scary as some people thought it would be, but I don't think it's meant to be a Horror novel. AND I can say in all confidence that if you are up reading in your dark, quiet house at 12:25am . . . it's pretty eff-ing creepy. On to Cas. He's the ghost-killing hero in this book. He has some swoon-worthy moments throughout, but it wouldn't fit into the whole plot of h...moreAnna Dressed in Blood is creepy and great. That pretty much sums it up for me :) I've seen some reviews that it wasn't as scary as some people thought it would be, but I don't think it's meant to be a Horror novel. AND I can say in all confidence that if you are up reading in your dark, quiet house at 12:25am . . . it's pretty eff-ing creepy. On to Cas. He's the ghost-killing hero in this book. He has some swoon-worthy moments throughout, but it wouldn't fit into the whole plot of him having to kill Anna if he was all professing his undying (no pun intended) love for her the whole time. He's actually very conflicted because his life's purpose is to kill unruly ghosts . . . and seeing as Anna is highly murderous and rips people to shreds, he needs to get rid of her. Believe it or not their budding feelings for each other are pretty sweet :) All the other characters in the book serve a purpose and hold their weight in the story. I really liked bumbling, nerdy Thomas and wished there was a little more of him in the story. Preppy and popular Carmel is pretty good too, but she took a little longer to grow on me as she became more involved in the strange goings-on of Cas and Thomas. I've been meaning to read this one for awhile now, and I think it's one of the most unique ghosty-creepy-romancey stories that I've read. Oh! And I should mention that the words in the book are actually printed in a deep, maroon red. Just that one detail adds a little something to the experience of reading this one.