Girl of Nightmares (Anna #2)

Girl of Nightmares was a great sequel to Anna Dressed in Blood.
The plot was very captivating and the characters were interesting.
I liked Cas and Thomas. Thomad was a great friend to Cas. And Jestine was an intriguing addition to the story.
It was good to find out more of the athame and Scotland was described beautifully.
I really enjoyed this duology and I'm looking forward to more from Kendare Blake!

I honestly wasn't expecting a book 2.
Book one ended so well, I was caught off guard by book two.
But that didn't stop me from finishing it quickly.
I was expecting more from this book.
It seemed dodgy and seemed to drag by at a slow pace.
When the action did come up, it was a fight scene at the end and it ended to soon.
I feel like a lot was missing from this book.
I mean, I'm glad to know what happened to Anna, yet I'm not because now it just seems worse?

The bond between Anna and Cas was strong and beautiful.
Even a little creepy I suppose...

Anna Dressed in Blood was extremely good but this sequel is very disappointing. Anna barely has dialogue for 10 pages in the book. Most of the book is spent on a pointless quest to bring Anna out of Hell.

There's some lame sub-plot about the Order of the Black Dagger but that's hastily concluded at the end of the book. After bringing Anna out of Hell, the author chose to have Cas suddenly become selfless and release Anna into heaven, even though he knows that the manifestations in there, even that of himself aren't real. This was really predictable. This means that the whole book was about a quest from which Cas would return empty-handed.

I feel the novel would have been stronger if the author had made this a trilogy. The plots were concluded too hastily. You can even see unresolved plot lines. Cas should have brought Anna back into the world, only to realize their selfishness later in the third novel. That would have been more realistic and made a better read.

We often read novels that have characters doing the morally correct thing all the time. This novel would have been stronger if Cas had brought Anna back and faced the consequences of this decision later on. That would have made it stand out from similar novels.

Cas making the decision for Anna was out of character. She barely had dialogue in the book and it would have been interesting to hear what she had to say about moving on.

There was no gore at all in this book unlike in the first book. No new ghostly villains. This book lacked villains. The tone of this book felt very different from that of the first book. I felt kind of sad because the author had a good idea and she just wasted it with this sequel. This book might as well have been called "History of the Athame" because there was so much more backstory given to the athame than to Anna of any of the characters.

The story was really weak. I thought there was a serious danger in Cas and the others contacting Anna when she said they might be overheard. In the end, there was nothing scary and the final battle was an anti-climax.

The new character, Jestine was not significant to the main characters and did not bond with them even at the ending. Yet she received more dialogue than Anna who is the titular character of the series.

You'll be happier reading only the first book and making your own fanfiction about a sequel. I wish I had stopped at the first book.

What the hell was that ending? I had to read 170-180 bloody boring pages until there was an improvement with the story only to be stopped again because, surprise, surprise, nothing happened for the next hundred pages. It was all about waiting, sleeping, eating, washing dishes, that sort of things. Basically, the final confrontation with that dreadlock-wearing demon happened in the last 20 pages. And the ending was so abrupt. Stab-stab-kill-kill and poof... the end.

What a disappointment. Wish there is just Anna Dressed in Blood. I will erase this one from my memory. It won't be that hard.

Not as good as the first one.

It’s over? So soon? Already? Nooooo! I want more Anna! I want more Anna and Cas!

No? Okay. =(

Anyways, I ate this book up yesterday and oh-my-bloody-heart-and-soul, what an amazing treat it was. Tormenting, exciting and downright adrenaline pumping. I could almost feel as if I was a part of everything that was happening to Cas and Anna. Also, the surprises at the end were so good.

It could have been a teensy bit shorter, the pace a bit faster but I’m willing to look over that because the plot was as good as of Anna Dressed In Blood. A sequel that actually was at par with the first book, you don’t get that too often.

Read these books if you haven’t! Dead girl stories don’t get any better than this. I’ll be re-reading this soon.

Hope a third book can come.

I hate to say it, but I’m going to say it: I find the Anna duology to be highly overhyped. I enjoyed Girl of Nightmares in the beginning, but it was a steady downhill ride from about the halfway point. Is this a bad book? Nope, not at all. But is it outstanding, memorable, or in possession of some quality that knocked my socks off? Certainly not.

As with Anna Dressed in Blood, I found that Kendare Blake’s plot construction was sloppy at best. Once again, this novel tried to balance the mystery surrounding Cas’s ghost-killing knife with his relationship with Anna. And once again, that balance was not found. For an entire section in the middle there was absolutely no mention of Anna at all, because instead Cas and his gang were running around England trying to do something with some Order of Ghostkillers or whatever. It seems a little silly to have a book (or series) named after a person if that person is hardly a major player in that book.
Girl of Nightmares was also not scary at all. I don’t understand what I was supposed to find so terrifying about this novel. The paranormal elements were very well done, and Blake’s descriptions were vivid. But this isn’t really a “horror” novel, in my opinion.

So anyway. The beginning of this novel was actually really good, and it was set up to be better than Anna Dressed in Blood. The main focus had to do with Cas getting Anna out of hell, with the help of his sidekicks Carmel and Thomas. I enjoyed the voodoo people he met with and the rituals he performed. But then, after the first ten chapters, things got really melodramatic, and I was annoyed. Blake took things was over the top. From there, Cas ran off to London to meet with his godfather, and Anna was all but forgotten. Of course, she came back at the end, but the sickly sweet ending felt like a cop-out to me. Not that this book could have ended differently, but the treatment of said ending was a little lame.

In my opinion, Girl of Nightmares is a great example of great potential gone south. Don’t get me wrong: this is a decent book already, but in some respects, it kind of resembled a train wreck. Maybe it’s because I’m not an easily scared kind of person, but it feels to me like Blake was relying on the “horror” factor of her novel to mask the clunkiness of her plot.
So altogether, I liked this book on a large scale, but didn’t care for it in many respects. Good but not great, is my verdict.

Girl of Nightmares by Kendare Blake
ARC received by Tor Teen via ALA
Release Date: On Shelves Now
Reviewed by: Middle Sis Jenn
The Sisters Say: A gritty tale of ghosts and gore.
“This place is the thing behind madness. There is nothing good here. Off the map. If you eat frustration it chokes you. This place exists in the wake of a scream.” ARC, pg. 286

Grotesque and gorgeous, Kendare’s writing will drag you, kicking and screaming, into a world of ghouls and goblins; a world where evil lurks inside the shadows and death is only the beginning. She will plunge you head first into her hell, and if you make your way out, there will be blood on your hands. Kendare knows horror, and she doesn’t hold back—so prepare yourself for the ride of your life.
If you’ve read my review of Anna, then you know that I don’t do horror stories. Nope. Never. You can paint a sign that says “Big wuss,” and point it at me, and I won’t take offense. Because it’s the truth! But, I took a chance on Anna, and I am so glad I did. I loved her story, from the first meeting in the Victorian house all the way to hell. Anna, in all her splendid gore, swept me away. So, naturally, I went straight for the sequel, and I’m so glad I did!

While I didn’t like it as much as the first book (and I’ll explain why later), I still found myself loving this world. I love how the world of the living and the world of the dead coexist side by side, like spoons in a drawer. You can’t touch one without disturbing the other. Cas understands this, but he is still willing to go to hell and back to save Anna. And that is why I love him so much!

In GoN, you can see bits and pieces of Cas start to flake away as he falls deeper into despair over Anna. He keeps seeing horrible visions of her, and all he wants to do is save her, like she saved him. But, in order to do that, he must put the lives of himself and his friends in the crosshairs. Cas is such a great hero, and I loved going on this quest with him.

And of course, you couldn’t have a great story without the Scooby gang—Thomas and Carmel. We see Thomas break out of his mold in this book, coming to grips with his power, and learning to harness it for good. Yet, he was still the same bashful, quirky guy that is such great comic relief. I will admit, I got frustrated at times with Carmel in this book because I felt she was being selfish. Now I completely understand her decisions, but I felt like she flaked when she should have been stronger.

Kendare’s writing was brilliant. There were no loose ends, and no times when I felt like something was off. Once I entered her world, I was caught up in it, and I could not put the book down. I just had to know how it all ended! I love Kendare’s writing style—I’ll call it grotesque poetry. She knows exactly when the story needs a splash of blood and exactly when it needs a sympathetic word. Have you ever read a quote and felt the need to close your eyes and just think on it because it was just so great? I found myself doing that quite often (ex 1: the quote I started the review with). I’ll say it again, her writing style is brilliant. BRILLIANT!

Okay…so, why did I like the first book better? One word: Anna. This was the first series where my favorite character was the girl mc. Usually, I love the guy and focus on him. But, with this book, Anna was the star, and I was disappointed that she didn’t play a bigger role in this novel. I wanted more scenes with her—even if they were gory because she made the passion and the fear and the danger come to life.

I also had a slight disappointment with the ending. It was a good ending, and I understanding why it had to end that way, but a part of me wanted something different. I won’t tell you anything more; you’ll have to read for yourself!

So, I’ll leave you with a few more of my favorite quotes from the book:
“’We don’t have a choice,’ Thomas says. ‘The clock ticks. Caution’s become a luxury.” Pg 218

“But even now I feel the lake over my shoulder, sitting still and sinister as the yawning jaws of a trap. I must prefer Superior, with her waves and rages. She doesn’t keep her violence a secret.” Pg 219

“She crossed over death to call me. I crossed through Hell to find her.” Pg 326

This is going to be a really tough review to write, since I all but flipped out praising Kendare Blake's first book, Anna Dressed in Blood. I was so very excited to see what happened to Anna and Cas after the cliffhanger that Blake left for us in the last book. As soon as I was able to get my hands on a copy of Girl of Nightmares I did! I was eager for more of the stuff of nightmares that drew me in the first time around.

What I found though was a much different book. Anna and Cas are both back. However this time they're so different, and I'll admit that it threw me off a bit. If you'll remember from my review of the first book, I loved Cas' cocky demeanor and lone wolf attitude. What can I say? I'm a sucker for boys like that. The Cas that comes through in this book is a much more lonely and sad boy. Broken, sad, a little like a lonely puppy. Where was my Cas? In the same respect, Anna was there, but also not. I can't explain without spoiling, but I missed her so much.

After a few chapters I finally got used to Cas' new attitude, and was okay with it. Blake does a great job of showing his deep need to find Anna. So I kept reading on, hoping for some scary scenes to keep me up and night and sadly nothing happened. Seriously. There are multiple chapters where nothing exciting happens at all. Now, yes, I understand why. Kendare Blake spends a lot of this book explaining the history behind Cas' athame. She also introduces a new threat in the form of a sinister society with tons of secrets. However without the visceral imagery, the haunting happenings, and the Anna/Cas interaction, I found myself bored. It made for a slow read.

It's actually not surprising to me that I didn't love Girl of Nightmares as much as Blake's first book. I loved Cas as a ghost busting bad-ass. I adored Anna as a vicious yet gorgeous apparition. Everything that I loved about Anna Dressed in Blood was missing here. I applaud the character development, and can't deny that I enjoyed learning about the athame's past. Still, this wasn't my favorite sequel. This is worth a read for closure alone though, especially if you were waiting as eagerly as I was.