Review: The Dead of Winter

The Dead of Winter by Chris Priestley
Publication date: January 31, 2012
Publisher: Bloomsbury

After Michael's parents die, he is invited to stay with his guardian in a remote old country house. He begins to suspect something is not quite right on the day he arrives, when he spots a mysterious woman out in the frozen mists. But little can prepare him for the solitude of the house itself. His guardian is rarely seen, and there's a malevolent force lurking in an old hallway mirror. As the chilling suspense builds, Michael realizes that the house and its grounds harbor more secrets - both dead and alive.

The Dead of Winter is horrorlicious. It's a scary book that actually scared me. Priestley does a great job of giving his novel a classic Gothic feel. A few times I had to remind myself that this book wasn't written in the 19th century. The prose is classic and well-written. I loved it.

The horror:

The Dead of Winter is full of frightening scenes and these moments wouldn't have worked without Priestley's truly creepy descriptions. The book played out as a movie in my head and left me terrified. I can't say much without spoiling it, but one of the scenes involving the priest's hole scared the crap out of me. I was like, "OPEN THE DOOR OPEN THE DOOR OPEN THE DOOR!"

The negative:

The mystery solved is a bit...lackluster. Don't get me wrong, the climax is exciting but the sort of "whodunit" left me wanting more. It's also too short. Much too short. It doesn't read like a full length novel, but more as a novella. I finished the book in about an hour. I would normally have no problem with this but I wouldn't recommend spending $16.99 for it. It's more of a paperback purchase or a library borrow. Though, you can currently purchase The Dead of Winter for the Kindle for $4.66!

Review: Unraveling Isobel

Unraveling Isobel by Eileen Cook
Publication date: January 3, 2012
Publisher: Simon Pulse

Isobel’s life is falling apart. Her mom just married some guy she met on the internet only three months before, and is moving them to his sprawling, gothic mansion off the coast of nowhere. Goodbye, best friend. Goodbye, social life. Hello, icky new stepfather, crunchy granola town, and unbelievably good-looking, officially off-limits stepbrother. But on her first night in her new home, Isobel starts to fear that it isn’t only her life that’s unraveling—her sanity might be giving way too. Because either Isobel is losing her mind, just like her artist father did before her, or she’s seeing ghosts. Either way, Isobel’s fast on her way to being the talk of the town for all the wrong reasons.

First, I don't think that the cover matches the feel of the book. The cover, to me, says "Hi! I'm a happy and quirky book!" No, Unraveling Isobel, you are not a happy, quirky book. You are a psychological thriller (of sorts) meets contemporary meets mystery meets horror with a slightly depressing story line. I mean, Isobel, the main character is pretty darn snarky and pretty darn hilarious, but I don't think this should encompass the whole book. Anyway...

From the first page, I was immediately drawn into Isobel's world. I felt her pain when she experienced a huge life change: her mom marries a man she met online and has only known for three months. Isobel is forced to leave behind her old school and friends and move to a small island with an even smaller population. Plus, she has to deal with her new creepy step-father "Dick" and a step-brother who apparently doesn't want Isobel there either. I didn't have a problem with the romance of Nate and Isobel even though they are step-siblings. This is probably because they didn't grow up together, so it's not like their love is too taboo. If they had grown up together and then started to fall in love that is when I would have probably thrown up in my mouth a bit, but since they didn't, I found them to be adorable together. Unraveling Isobel can bring the  creepy and there were a couple of times I got goosebumps while reading certain scenes. I also enjoyed the book's view on mental illness. Mental illness isn't something discussed much in YA fiction (though a lot of this year's book releases look to change that, I've noticed) and I think the book sheds some light on a topic not normally dealt with in teen literature.

Now onto what I didn't like. There's a point in the book where Isobel's mom and Dick believe that they need to send Isobel away for treatment of schizophrenia. 1) She has yet to be diagnosed with it and 2) I don't think Isobel ever does anything bad enough to warrant this. It actually takes a lot to be put into 24 hour psychiatric care. This decision (and a supposed doctor's agreement with never having met her) seems too easy for me. The pacing is a bit here and there and I feel like there is a lot of build up to a so-so ending. Actually, it ended exactly how I thought it was going to, BUT there's a nice little bow that wraps it all up if you've been reading too many books with open/cliffhanger endings, like me.

All in all, it was an okay read for me. It's not a story that will stay with me, but I enjoyed it while I was reading it. Ultimately, I think Unraveling Isobel is more of a paperback buy.

Review: Bad Girls Don't Die

Bad Girls Don't Die by Katie Alender
Publication Date: April 21, 2009
Publisher: Hyperion

Alexis thought she led a typically dysfunctional high school existence: dysfunctional like her parents' marriage; her doll-crazy, thirteen year old sister, Kasey; and even her own antisocial, anti-cheerleader attitude. When a family argument results in tearful sisterly bonding, Alexis realizes that her life is creeping from dysfunctional to dangerous. Kasey is acting stranger than ever: her blue eyes go green; she uses odd, old-fashioned language - and she even loses track of chunks of time, claiming to know nothing about her weird behavior. Their old house is changing, too. Doors open and close by themselves, water boils on the unlit stove, and an unplugged air conditioner turns the house cold enough for the girls to see their breath.

Alexis wants to believe it's all in her head, until these seemingly harmless occurrences become life-threatening - to her, to her family, and to her budding relationship with the student council vice president. Alexis knows she's the only person who can stop Kasey; but what if that green-eyed girl isn't even Kasey anymore?

I love ghosts. I love revengeful ghosts. I hate dolls, especially haunted ones, but I love books about haunted dolls. Stories about possession are pretty cool too and Bad Girls Don't Die starts out with the scare factor and doesn't stop until the end. Once I picked it up, I didn't put it down. A ghostly light that runs after you and climbs trees, a ghost that breaks your air conditioner and boils your water for you, this all makes for some creepy crap. It's not the scariest book I've ever read, but it definitely has its many moments.

Alexis is an entertaining narrator and I enjoyed her sarcastic quips and her views of high school. The supporting characters are initially all introduced as stereotypes, but a lot of them eventually become more as Alexis talks to them and gets to know them. I liked this because we get to discover who is really inside that bitchy head cheerleader at the same time as Alexis does. I see what you did there, Katie Alender.

Bad Girls Don't Die is a squeaky clean YA novel. There's one kiss between Alexis and Carter and that's it. No language or sexual content. If you're looking for a scary book with hot, crazy make-out sex (I just coined this term right now. I don't even know what that would be) then this isn't for you. I found the relationship between Alexis and Carter cute and endearing and I'm hoping for more of them in the second book which is waiting for me at the library. Ultimately, Bad Girls Don't Die is a fun, quick, and creepy read.  My late maternal grandmother left me her porcelain doll collection and they have stayed in their boxes for years because of my fear of dolls. Unfortunately for them and because of this book, they will not be coming out any time soon in the near future.

P.S. If you want more scary doll books, check out The Dollhouse Murders. It's an elementary read, but that book could scare the pants off of an adult. 

Review: Death Watch

Death Watch by Ari Berk
Publication date: November 15, 2011
Publisher: Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers

One night, Silas Umber's father Amos doesn’t come home from work. Devastated, Silas learns that his father was no mere mortician but an Undertaker, charged with bringing The Peace to the dead trapped in the Shadowlands, the states of limbo binding spirits to earth. With Amos gone, Silas and his mother have no choice but to return to Lichport, the crumbling seaside town where Silas was born, and move in with Amos’s brother, Charles.

Even as Silas eagerly explores his father’s town and its many abandoned streets and overgrown cemeteries, he grows increasingly wary of his uncle. There is something not quite right going on in Charles Umber’s ornate, museum-like house—something, Silas is sure, that is connected to his father’s disappearance. When Silas’s search leads him to his father’s old office, he comes across a powerful artifact: the Death Watch, a four hundred year old Hadean clock that allows the owner to see the dead. Death Watch in hand, Silas begins to unearth Lichport’s secret history—and discovers that he has taken on his father’s mantle as Lichport’s Undertaker. Now, Silas must embark on a dangerous path into the Shadowlands to embrace his destiny and discover the truth about his father—no matter the cost.

I'm kind of shocked that I haven't seen this book featured or reviewed on other blogs. Somehow it flew under the radar and people seemed to have missed its release. Well, I think it's time to change that.

Death Watch is for fans of the horror genre. It's been a while since a book freaked me the heck out. Sure, Anna Dressed In Blood has its moments, but Death Watch takes it to a whole other level. This mainly comes from Berk's descriptions and prose. The whole book played exactly like a movie in my head and I saw every scary and sometimes horrific detail in my mind. And Berk's characters? AMAZING and so well fleshed out. I felt like they were all straight out of a Dickens novel. The whole book has a very classic feel to it even though it's set in modern times. It might be because the town of Lichport hasn't really changed since its founding in the 1600s. All of its inhabitants seem to be happily stuck in the past, though the outside world has changed around them.

This isn't a book for people looking for a quick read. It's a little over 500 pages which is mainly unheard of in the young adult category. Even I, the *Queen of Patience, struggled with it sometimes. Berk goes into GREAT detail about the architecture of Lichport and sometimes I found myself skimming those passages. Though if you like architecture, more power to you, and pick this book up. If you're more a fan of fast-moving books like Legend, as a most recent example, you may not like this one. Death Watch takes its time to get started, but when it gets there, it's full of fabulousness.

I can assume from the first book that The Undertaken Trilogy is going to epic. Unless the next two books are going to be, like, 300 pages, then not so much. I can't wait to see how Silas develops in the rest of the series!

*I am not the Queen of Patience, I lied to you. I am not even the Duchess of Patience. I am a person with no patience and always in need of instant gratification. But yet, I still enjoyed the book.

Review: Anna Dressed in Blood

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. 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: track, hunt, kill. What he finds instead is a girl entangled in curses and rage, a ghost like he's never faced before.

If you look at the starred reviews for Anna Dressed in Blood, you'll see people are crazy about this book. I, on the other hand, am daring to go against the grain and wish to express my disappointment. This book didn't scare me at all and I'm a gal who can get scared pretty easily. Examples:

• The film posters for The Last Exorcism that came out last year terrified me and those were just pictures.
• You know those moments in movies when things get tense and quiet and, as an audience member, you know that something "scary" is going to happen? Something that the movie makers are hoping will make you jump? Yeah, even when I know something is going to pop out at me, I jump. Every. Time.

This book is more like a slasher movie than a paranormal one. I found myself muttering "gross" more than actually being scared. If you like splatter films, then this book may have more appeal. Even though the scare factor wasn't there for me, I think the ghost story in Anna Dressed in Blood is fabulous. I found Anna, herself, to be immensely fascinating and she quickly became my favorite character. As for the other characters, mainly the minor ones, I found them to be stereotypes. I always knew who was going to die because Kendare Blake didn't give them their own personality.

Another thing that bothered me was the romance between Cas and Anna. I didn't feel it at all. In fact, it made me feel weird and squishy inside. It's a hard thing to write - love between a living human being and a dead person. Blake didn't quite achieve it for me.

I really hated writing this opinion. I wanted to love this book, I really did. I also wasn't aware it was going to be a series until I reached the end. This would have made for a great single book, I know it would have, but with it being a series things were left out and I found it to be lacking. I finished it, so I didn't dislike it and it obviously it kept me reading, but the book didn't achieve the 4 or 5 stars I was hoping to give it. Anna Dressed in Blood is more like a 3 for me, and this gives me a sad face. 

Review: White Crow

Synopsis from Goodreads:

Some secrets are better left buried; some secrets are so frightening they might make angels weep and the devil crow. Thought provoking as well as intensely scary, White Crow unfolds in three voices. There's Rebecca, who has come to a small, seaside village to spend the summer, and there's Ferelith, who offers to show Rebecca the secrets of the town...but at a price. Finally, there's a priest whose descent into darkness illuminates the girls' frightening story. White Crow is as beautifully written as it is horrifically gripping. A modern gothic thriller about what awaits us after death - angels or the devil.

Hey! Hey, guys! Remember in my last review when I said I was going to find a happy book to read? Well I guess I immediately forgot and said "ooh!" when my eyes fell on White Crow by Marcus Sedgwick. Dang you White Crow and your awesome cover.

First warning, do not start this book if you do not have the time to finish it in one sitting. I have been severely punished for doing this. All day. I began White Crow last night and got about half way through before I had found a place where I could safely stop. That spot I found seemed to be the only place to stop. Unbeknownst, I went to work and began to read it on my lunch break and the book got INTENSE. I don't think I've ever had this much anxiety over a novel before. I feel really bad for the first customer I had to help after lunch...

Second warning, the book has a very slow suspenseful build-up, which I didn't mind. I liked it, actually, because it made the action towards the end that much more exciting. I also really enjoyed how Sedgwick chooses to show and not tell. We don't get Rebecca's full back story at the very beginning and we don't get Ferelith's either. Their individual histories are revealed piece by piece until you have it all at the finish.

Third warning, the book is quite graphic in its gore. It's not a gory book, per se, but there are two scenes that I remember vividly and the first occurred while I was eating lunch. With the anxiousness I was already feeling, I ended up putting my lunch away.

The books gothic atmosphere and philosophical ideas of religion, the afterlife, and science make me recommend this to older teens. I'm not saying it's too smart for the younger ones, but the pacing may be a bit too slow for them. White Crow is not a book with a clean "wrap it all up in a bow" ending. Its intention is to make you think about you've just read. Also, the book is just plain creepy.

So, with that all said, there was just something missing for me when I finished it. I know, it doesn't make sense, right? I don't know why and it's so frustrating! If you've read it, I'm curious as to your own opinions. Maybe you can figure out what it is that left it feeling incomplete for me. And no, it was not the ending.