Girl of Nightmares Book Review

Tittle: Girl of Nightmares
Author: Kendare Blake
Publishing Details: Published August 7th 2012 by Tor Teen (first published August 1st 2012)
Genre: YA Horror/Paranormal
Format: E-Book
Number of Pages: 332
Series: Anna #2


Description:

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.

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My Review: 

        Last year I read Anna Dressed in Blood. I absolutely loved it! It was a thrilling dark story about a ghost hunter called Cas who is sent on a mission to track down a violent and bloodthirsty ghost but ends up falling in love with her instead. You may think that it’s your typical love story, it’s not. Anna, the ghost in question, while a tragic and sad figure never lets us readers forget the threat she poses. The novel was full of gory scenes. This book is not for just anyone but for those who love the thrill of a good scare. As the scenes will keep replaying in your mind long after you are done. I enjoyed every second of it and looked forward to the next book. This year I decided to hold a horror theme for October. And of course what book would be better to fit that theme than the sequel, Girl of Nightmares.

         Girl of Nightmares opens up several months after the events of Anna dressed in Blood. Despite being done with the job that brought him to the town, Cas hasn’t left. It’s not like him to stay in one place for so long but he can’t seem to leave the place where he met Anna. To say he is obsessed with her is a bit of an understatement. Soon things get a little crazy again. He begins to have nightmares about her and starts seeing her everywhere. This of course should be impossible as she has crossed over to the other side. But he soon finds out that Anna is stuck in a kind of hell. And here begins his journey to try and save her.

       This book had a completely different feel to that of the first one. But it wasn’t necessarily a bad thing. It had fewer creepy parts but the story was still enjoyable. This book was all about trying to expand the world and find a fitting conclusion to this story. And in my opinion it succeeded. Most authors would try to find a magical, out of nowhere, ending. In Girl of Nightmares things weren’t quite so simple. The ending is satisfying but not perfect or magical. It’s true and realistic. I really loved that. I found Cas to be a great and cool character throughout the series, but in this book I came to appreciate Thomas and Carmel as characters. While dubious of Cas and the things he was going through they still remained loyal to him. They supported him and put themselves in danger for him. Especially Carmel, who was never meant to walk this path. Even though she questions it, at the end of the day she remains a loyal friend. The characters aren’t perfect. They are not developed thoroughly but they were still fun. Despite the different direction this book took, I really enjoyed myself. I recommend the Anna series for fans of horror for a quick and fun read.

My rating: 4 out of 5 stars.