Review: Girl of Nightmares by Kendare Blake

BOOK STATS

Rating: ☆☆
Title: Girl of Nightmares
Author: Kendare Blake
Series: Anna #2
Genre: Horror
Audience: Young Adult
Format: Audiobook
Narrator: August Ross
Length: 10 hours (332 pages)
Publisher: Tor Teen; Sound Library
Release Date: August 7, 2012
Source: Library (Libby)
Content: suicide

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. 

MY THOUGHTS

Anna Dressed in Blood should’ve been a standalone. I really did not like the character development and the unnecessary teen drama in this sequel. I also wasn’t a fan of the expansion of the paranormal lore.

This book was not as scary as book 1, and it’s difficult to even classify it as horror. The only scene I found truly creep and well-written was the journey through the Suicide Forest.

There were so many different pieces in this book that just did not come together. I think a more effective direction for this series would’ve seen Cas move on to a new case rather than continuing the saga with Anna.