Review: Slasher Girls and Monster Boys

1. The Birds of Azalea Street  3/5 stars
This first story is written by Nova Ren Suma. I thought it was ok. it is about three teenage girls who live in this neighborhood with a pedophile who likes to bake and has a weird obsession with birds. The girls see him bring home a girl one night and she is a something that turns out to be a good thing. The inspiration behind this story was Alfred Hitchcock's The Birds and I grew up watching that movies and highly enjoy it. It's one of my favorites by Hitchcock.

2. In The Forest Dark And Deep  4/5 stars
Carrie Ryan is excellent at turning a Disney classic, that I have recently gotten into, into a freaky ass story. Bullying girls get turned into marionette puppets. The March Hare is scary as hell and I will never look at a white rabbit the same again and I am kind of scared of living in woods now.

3. Emmeline  5/5 stars
Takes place in 1918 France. The main character is a young girl named Emmeline who is in her ruined bedroom that was bombed. A young American soldier comes up to her room and befriends her. She eventually seduces him and wants to be his sweetheart after her last failed attempt to take a German soldier as a lover. She is hated by her family. This story was written by Cat Winters

4. Verse Chorus Verse  3/5 stars
A short story written by Leigh Bardugo. This is about a young Hollywood starlet who is another statistic. She got too drunk at a club and hit another kid with her car and had to go to rehab. Her mother only cares about their images. How she can spin the stories and get her daughter to lose the flab. Never know what kind of monster is lurking beneath the water.

5. Hide-And-Seek  4/5 stars
This story was inspired by Appalachian folklore and Final Destination. I used to watch the hell out of Final Destination growing up and the second movie. Something about cheating death was so interesting at the time and this story was a good one. A girl named Annie basically gets murdered and to return to the living, she has to cheat death and stay alive for 24 hours. She has to play a game with Death and she gets to pick. Such a good story. It was also written in parts, so it was not boring, but I am giving it 4 stars because this would have been a hell of a good full length novel.

6. The Dark, Scary Parts and All  3/5 stars
Inspired by the myth of Hades and Persephone, we are introduced to a girl who is severely bullied and unloved by her father. She gets called Marnie Monster and she has a deep connection with monsters because she believes that all monsters just want love and affection. it's the anniversary of her mother's suicide and weird things start happening. Freak accidents and the most popular and richest kid in school befriends her. He has some major major MAJOR secrets.

7. The Flicker, The Fingers, The Beat, The Sigh  5/5 stars
Written by the editor of this anthology, April Genevieve Tucholke. Back in 2015, I listened to this story on Spotify. They had put this as an excerpt of the audio book. Listening to it gave me chills and scared me and I remembered it. Re-reading it is just as creepy and terrifying. It is inspired by Carrie and I Know What You Did Last Summer. Actions have consequences!

8. Fat Girl With a Knife  1/5 stars
Written by Jonathan Mayberry and I don't know how to feel about the title. High school zombie story where the bullied fat girl turns into the hero. This was not very original and it was inspired by Zombieland and Night of the Living Dead and the author seems to have just taken certain parts of those movies, changed some stuff and left others the way they were. Not very good.

9. Sleepless  4/5 stars
Jay Kristoff must love writing in email and text form. I really enjoyed this because it was inspired by Psycho, the original. I grew up watching the remake with Vince Vaughn. I connected with this because I IM'ed so much as a tween and made a lot of internet friends and met some creepy people as well. Never met any IRL though. The writing style was not my favorite, but I enjoyed the story. Also, I like figuring out what the story is based on, on my own, but the capitalized PSYCHO's throughout the chat gave it away and that's the reason for the lost star.

10. M  3/5 stars
This was not as spooky as the other stories so far. It's about a blind girl named Misha and the story historical fiction set in England. Misha has severe anxiety around people because she can't see them and she can hear them whispering and joking about her. One night during a hunting party, she stumbles into a murder while it is happening and she is trying to catch the killer by scent. The inspirations behind this story, I have never heard of before.

11. The Girl Without A Face   2/5 stars
i didn't find this story very original. Imagine harming a person and that person eventually killing their selves and then haunting you and the only way to stop them from haunting you, is to harm yourself or kill yourself the way they did. A privileged congress woman's son is on the fast track to Harvard. They have just moved to a new house and new private academy to run away from his past, but the girl without a face just won't give up

12. A Girl Who Dreamed Of Snow   3/5 stars
Not scary but really good. It's about an ancient people and a land where the women and girls are dying and the ancient women and women from other lands are being taken to help repopulate. It's got black magic and devil and demons and blood sacrifices.  Written by McCormick Templeman.

13. Stitches  5/5 stars
Another favorite based off Frankenstein. Mountain folk meet a "collector" who will fix the father by taking his feet, ears, eyes and hands and replacing them with a "good" persons body parts. This was very morbid but also very well written. I will definitely have to read more by A.G. Howard.

14. On The I-5   2/5 stars
This is the first story that I have read that is written by Kendare Blake and it was OK. It's not scary but it is creepy. it takes place at a truck stop on the I-5. This girl named EmmaRae is hanging out until dark until she finds the right guy. She also knows a little secret about what is in the dumpster behind the diner.

Overall, this anthology was good. I liked some of the stories. Some weren't spooky enough and a couple were terrifying. my overall rating for this is a 3 out of 5 stars.

Ariana Owlcrate jr Unboxing

Review: The House by Christina Lauren

This is another ARC that I received back in 2015 through a Goodreads giveaway win. When I picked it up, I realized that it was written by Christina Lauren, who write amazing books that have been all over Booktube.

I planned to read this last year, but didn't get around to it and so I made it a priority this year and now it is one of my favorite books. It had the right amount of creepiness and fluffy romance.

The main character Delilah has just moved back home from going to a fancy boarding school on the East Coast because her parents can no longer afford to send her since they had to put her grandmother in a home. She goes to the local high school where all former classmates welcome her back, and of course, being a small town they know why she had to move back home because her father lost his job as well.

She reunites with an old crush named Gavin. Gavin is considered the weird kid in school and that is because he lives in a Patchwork House all by himself. No one knows his parents, he doesn't hang out with friends. he is basically a loner. They get reacquainted and start dating. She asks to see his house and that is when she learns that his House is alive and has been taking care of him and nurturing him and protecting him for the 17 years.

This book had me spooked and everytime I hearda groan or a creak while reading this book, I jumped.

Review: The Unquiet by Mikaela Everett

I have owned an ARC of this book since 2015 and I am just now getting to reading it and I am sad to say that it did not meet my expectations. I was expecting alien invasions and fighting, but it was mainly following a girl who is training to take over her double's life and it was really really REALLY boring.

This girl named Lirael is a cottage girl. A cottage girl is a child who has bee taken from one Earth to another to be trained as a sleeper to eventually take over her double's life. We go through her thought process which is very dull and bland and very repetitive. The girls and boys at these cottages basically learn to live off the grid and the girls and boys are pitted against each other. They are brainwashed to think of only themselves and that friendships and relationships are dangerous and will eventually get them killed.

They have to watch hours upon hours of footage of their double to learn movements, sayings, gestures, ticks and how they act to be able to take their place. They also have to do extensive weapons training for when the time comes and Earth two invades Earth one.

I was very bored and the action and some of the war scenes didn't start until almost the very end and it was very predictable. I rate this a 2.5 out of 5 stars. Not great. Not original.

Review: P.S. I Still Love You by Jenny Han

I believe that if I didn't watch the Netflix adaptation last month of To all The Boys I've Loved Before, I don't think I would have loved this book as much as I did. reading the first book, I had a hard time picturing the characters and then I saw the movie and then it was so much easier. I pictured the actors for the characters in this book, and I was practically swooning the whole time I was reading it.

The movie Kavinsky and book Kavinsky are still a little different to me, and I like movie Kavinsky more, but book Kavinsky this time was such a cutie and he did piss me off as well. He should have been on Lara Jean's the entire time and left Genevieve alone to deal with her own problems and not be her security blanket.

I did realize that some scenes from this book are also in the first movie, which kind of brought down the movie for me a little bit especially if they do a sequel and it ends up being bad. I didn't cry reading this one. I figured that the scene where Lara Jean is missing her mom would make me cry, but the only other emotion besides giddiness that I felt was complete hatred. I hated Kitty. She is selfish entitled spoiled brat and I wanted to jump in the book and just shake her. I can't stand Kitty.

Hollar.com Haul

Review: The Darkest Legacy by Alexandra Bracken

I read The Darkest Minds trilogy last year and feel in love with the series. These characters are everything and I love them. When I found out there was a fourth book coming out and it would be all about Zu, I freaked. Zu is my favorite and she had a place in my heart from the very beginning. This book came out at the end of July and I am just now getting to it at the end of October. I am still keeping my eye out for the Wal-mart special edition that is signed and has extra content.

It's 5 years after the camps have fallen and the US government is trying to rebuild. We folow Zu wh has become a mouthpiece for the kids and the laws and policies for the Psi community. She is giving a speech and she sees a threat on her teleprompter. After, her life once again gets ambushed. She is blamed for all bombings and she is the scapegoat for a non existent terrorist organization. She is once again on the run with new friends, Roman and Priyanka.

Halfway through the book, I was rating it around a 3 or 4 star. I was getting irritated with how Zu was just letting Roman and Priyanka control her and dictate to her what she should do and to give over her weapons and basically watching her every move. I also caught myself skimming some sections of the book because Alexandra Bracken is known for info dumping. It was a lot and mostly repetitive. In the last quarter of the book, two of my all time favorite characters were mentioned, but they didn't exactly "show up", and that bumped up my rating to a 5. I also felt the ending was a little rushed and it could have been the start of a sequel.. instead of the end.

Review: Pretty Little Liars by Sara Shepard

Here is another book that Cayce picked up from the Little Free Library. About 7-8 years ago, we watched The Lying Game on ABC Family and then I learned that it was a book series written by this author and of course I had heard of the show Pretty Little Liars.

There are a lot of books in this series and it is targeted towards high schoolers. I know basically what happens in this series because of spoilers from fans, youtube and general TV ad's.

We follow a group of 4 girls who are in high school and they all share a secret, and a traumatic experience. They are so freakin tight in middle school until the 5th girls that they are all obsessed with disappears. The group of girls fall apart and go their own ways, and live their own lives.

This book has a lot of bullying, slut shaming, fat shaming, eating disorders, mental health problems, neglectful parents, forbidden romance, inter-racial dating, racism, self harm, underage drinking.

I read this book in a day because it was short and very easy to follow. Not much suspense if you are an adult and it is very cliche. I will read the second book, but I doubt if I will continue to read the series or watch the show.

September Freebie Haul

Review: I Am Number Four by Pittacus Lore

Thanks to Cayce for stopping by a little free library to drop of some of our old children's books and picking up a few books for me. This was one of them. He has been wanting me to read this book since he watched the movie a few months ago and me telling him that I wanted to read the book first before watching the movie. He found it and was super excited and told me to read it immediately. that was a month ago...lol. I had already had my reading planned out and I added this book to my September TBR at the last minute, because this is a series that I have been wanting to read.

It's about aliens. I didn't think I would like it as much as I did and I thought it would take me a while to read it.. NOPE! I read this book in three days. It was gripping, action packed, and it was a very fast read. While reading it, I looked up the cast of the movie and that also helped while rading because I could actually picture the characters.

We follow this guy named John. Actually he is known as number 4. He was brought to Earth with 8 others kids and 9 guardians to escape the destruction of their planet. He has special abilities called legacies. He always has to be on the run. The people who are trying to kill him are from the planet Mogadore that destroyed their own planet, Lorien and want to take over Earth. They are searching for the 9 children and killing them because they are the only ones who can defeat and restore Lorien. They have to be killed in order. Number 1, 2 and 3 have been found and killed and now the Mogadoriens are looking for John.

I have heard that the movie is nothing like the book and that I will be disappointed. I gave this book a 5 out of 5. Of course it's cringy and cliche, but I found it fluffy and I was hooked and got through it quick. I am going to be reading book 2 hopefully before the end of the year.

October TBR

Here is my spooky TBR for October. I have had this TBR picked out since the start of the summer. I have two ARCs that I won from Goodreads giveaways back in 2015 that are on here and I am ready to read them and plus this month is going to be a whole lot of The Walking Dead. The first two books aren't exactly spooky but they are library books that are going to be due back soon. I am also going to be reading some other books with the girls for Halloween, but those will be included in my wrap up.