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Friday, May 22, 2015

The Boy Meets Girl Massacre by Ainslie Hogarth



I was given a copy of this novel from the publisher on net galley in exchange for an honest review

WARNING: While this does not contain true spoilers, I do use book quotes to get my points across.

Noelle takes a summer nightshift job at the infamous Boy Meets Girl Inn, even though she's well aware of the grisly murders that happened there decades ago. That's why she has a diary—to write down everything she experiences in case things go bump in the night. But the inexplicable freezing drafts, the migrating rotten-flesh smell, and the misplaced personal items don't really scare her. Noelle has bigger problems: her father's ailing health, her friend Alfred's inappropriate crush, and the sore spot on the back of her head that keeps getting worse.

When a party commemorating the anniversary of the original killings ends in a ghoulish bloodbath, Noelle's diary becomes the key piece of evidence for investigators. But the cryptic and often incoherent entries suggest there is more to the bizarre case than can be rationally explained...


This book was awful, there I said it. I HATED it. It was foul, not scary, and poorly written. The only interesting thing was the fact this was an "annotated" version. Which means the style this was written in is a found journal being reviewed to become a horror movie. So it has police footnotes and notes from the movie people. Which were the ONLY pieces of writing worth reading.

I can get what the author was trying for, a scary ghost story with a fucked up main character who feels a bit crazy and weird, with parts deemed to disturb, bother and disgust the reader into being freaked out. However, the author failed. All she managed to do was gross me out so that I didn't even want to finish it, not scare me and make the main character unsympathetic and revolting.( AND NOT IN A GOOD WAY.)

I made notes as I went and I am going to share them so that you can get a feel for why I didn't care for this book, at all.

1) There is WAY too much description in this book that needs a super good editor. Not just too much description but description that doesn't make sense.

"Amidst all the filling and spilling of patterned space, my sore brain just kind of vaporizes. And it hisses out of my ears like a really satisfying fart."

"Patterned space is the perfect temperature, moist warm insides of a just done cake; patterned space enters my body and fills it up and spills it back out again, scary at first but just for a split second, and then you let it happen, filling up and spilling out and filling up and spilling over and over again."

"Staring at the woman's floured eyes." MC uses this description so many times and I still have NO idea what it means. I didn't realize floured was a adjective.

2)Some things that the MC says are kind of real, bust mostly she whines and is annoying. Like she is kind of mean and her inner dialouge is totally what people think but would never say out loud...Then the author takes it too far and you are like, "Whoa, what the hell was that?"

3)She is SO angsty and over emotional and all over the place. The footnotes at one point state, "We're going to have to scrap all this touchy feely teenage stuff. That's what books are for." I was reading thinking, "cut this crap from the book too!"


4) At one point she decides her diary is alive and has a "birthing it" kind of ceremony. From then on she treats the damn thing like a living creature. While at times she seems normal then she does the weird living dairy thing and the creepy bits with the spot on her scalp and it's confusing... Was I supposed to decide this girl was legit crazy?

5)About 30 % into this book I had to stop and really think, "what is this book about? Where is the plot?" Cause seriously, up until then it was just a bunch of crazy writing, emo junk and over description of the weird canker sore in her brain and how she likes to dig her fingers into the sore spot on her scalp. (eeeww)

6)The author had so many comments about fat people it became less about describing the characters and more about how the author couldn't find any other way to make a character repulsive. She just kept using the words; fat, overweight, enormous and pudgy. She made every unsavory character like the MC's dad and the .... bad guy??? (to be honest never could quite figure out who the villain was) out to be a slovenly over weight person. In fact the fat people details just got worse and worse. Like this bit that honestly didn't improve the scene at all:

"He strapped her to the bed, not that she could have easily gotten up anyway being as big as she was, and over time severed each of her limbs with care, one by one, tying them off tight as sausage ends, stopping the blood off so she would remain alive."



7) This book was just plain nasty and not like torture porn or watching zombies eat brains...just nasty..Like watching a kid eat his or her boogers or watching someone lick up vomit.

8)At one point the MC is wondering whether or not she and her mom had the same vagina, like people inherit eye color. After asking around and from personalexperience I could find NO women who have ever pondered whether or not they inherited their mother's vagina. I actually wondered for a moment if a man wrote this based on how the female characters are written and portrayed...But no, it's a woman author.

9) Trigger warning; this book contains an emotionally and mentally abusive father figure. (who of course is a big fat sick lazy arse.)

SO yeah without giving anything away I cannot truly describe how revolting this book was to read, and I like horror. There were ghosts, but lame ones and it wasn't scary not one bit. It leaves things unexplained and unresolved, but not in a cool or interesting way and was just totally an uninspiring get-through-it-as-quick-as-you-can read.



Tuesday, May 19, 2015

Top Ten Tuesday Freebie -- Top Ten YA Books NOT Part of a Series








Top Ten Tuesday is a great Meme hosted by The Broke and Bookish. This week it's a Choose Your Own. I have chosen the top ten novels that do not have prequels, sequels, triologies, or Series, cause I am SICK SICK SICK of series books and wish there were more stand a lone novels, especially in YA.





1)Quiet misfit Rose doesn't expect to fall in love with the sleepy beach town of Leonora. Nor does she expect to become fast friends with beautiful, vivacious Pearl Kelly, organizer of the high school float at the annual Harvest Festival parade. It's better not to get too attached when Rose and her father live on the road, driving their caravan from one place to the next whenever her dad gets itchy feet. But Rose can't resist the mysterious charms of the town or the popular girl, try as she might.

Pearl convinces Rose to visit Edie Baker, once a renowned dressmaker, now a rumored witch. Together Rose and Edie hand-stitch an unforgettable dress of midnight blue for Rose to wear at the Harvest Festival—a dress that will have long-lasting consequences on life in Leonora, a dress that will seal the fate of one of the girls. Karen Foxlee's breathtaking novel weaves friendship, magic, and a murder mystery into something moving, real, and distinctly original


2)Ariadne is destined to become a goddess of the moon. She leads a lonely life, filled with hours of rigorous training by stern priestesses. Her former friends no longer dare to look at her, much less speak to her. All that she has left are her mother and her beloved, misshapen brother Asterion, who must be held captive below the palace for his own safety.

So when a ship arrives one spring day, bearing a tribute of slaves from Athens, Ariadne sneaks out to meet it. These newcomers don’t know the ways of Krete; perhaps they won’t be afraid of a girl who will someday be a powerful goddess. And indeed she meets Theseus, the son of the king of Athens. Ariadne finds herself drawn to the newcomer, and soon they form a friendship—one that could perhaps become something more.

Yet Theseus is doomed to die as an offering to the Minotaur, that monster beneath the palace—unless he can kill the beast first. And that "monster" is Ariadne’s brother . . .




3)Gorse is the thirteenth and youngest in a family of fairies tied to the evil king's land and made to do his bidding. Because of an oath made to the king's great-great-ever-so-many-times-great-grandfather, if they try to leave or disobey the royals, they will burst into a thousand stars.When accident-prone Gorse falls ill just as the family is bid to bless the new princess, a fairytale starts to unfold. Sick as she is, Gorse races to the castle with the last piece of magic the family has left--a piece of the Thread of Life. But that is when accident, mayhem, and magic combine to drive Gorse's story into the unthinkable, threatening the baby, the kingdom, and all.


4)Shrouded in mist and protected by a deadly reef, Trespass Island is home to a community of people who guard the island and its secrets from outsiders. Seventeen-year-old Delia grew up in Kansas, but has come here in search of her family and answers to her questions: Why didn’t her mother ever talk about Trespass Island? Why did she fear the open water? But Delia’s not welcome and soon finds herself enmeshed in a frightening and supernatural world where ancient Greek symbols adorn the buildings and secret ceremonies take place on the beach at night.Sean Gunn, a handsome young lobsterman, befriends Delia and seems willing to risk his life to protect her. But it’s Jax, the coldly elusive young man she meets at the water’s edge, who finally makes Delia understand the real dangers of life on the island. Delia is going to have to fight to survive. Because there are monsters here. And no one ever leaves Trespass alive

5)When Clementine was a child, dangerous and inexplicable things started happening in New South Bend. The townsfolk blamed the fiendish people out in the Willows and burned their homes to the ground. But magic kept Clementine alive, walled up in the cellar for ten years, until a boy named Fisher sets her free. Back in the world, Clementine sets out to discover what happened all those years ago. But the truth gets muddled in her dangerous attraction to Fisher, the politics of New South Bend, and the Hollow, a fickle and terrifying place that seems increasingly temperamental ever since Clementine reemerged.


6)Lucy Aimes has always been practical. But try as she might, she can’t come up with a logical explanation for the recurring dreams that have always haunted her. Dark dreams. Dreams of a long-ago place filled with people she shouldn’t know…but does.

When her family moves to a New Orleans plantation, Lucy’s dreams become more intense, and her search for answers draws her reluctantly into the old city’s world of Voodoo and mysticism. There, Lucy finds Alex, a mysterious boy who behaves as if they’ve known each other forever. Lucy knows Alex is hiding something, and her rational side doesn’t want to be drawn to him. But she is.

As she tries to uncover Alex’s secrets, a killer strikes close to home, and Lucy finds herself ensnared in a century-old vendetta. With the lives of everyone she loves in danger, Lucy will have to unravel the mystery of her dreams before it all comes to a deadly finish


7)Death hasn't visited Rowan Rose since it took her mother when Rowan was only a little girl. But that changes one bleak morning, when five horses and their riders thunder into her village and through the forest, disappearing into the hills. Days later, the riders' bodies are found, and though no one can say for certain what happened in their final hours, their remains prove that whatever it was must have been brutal.Rowan's village was once a tranquil place, but now things have changed. Something has followed the path those riders made and has come down from the hills, through the forest, and into the village. Beast or man, it has brought death to Rowan's door once again.Only this time, its appetite is insatiable.

8)When Connor's family moves to Amity, a secluded house on the peaceful banks of New England's Concord River, his nights are plagued with gore-filled dreams of demons. destruction, and revenge. Dreams he kind of likes. Dreams he could make real, with Amity's help. Ten years later, Gwen's family moves to Amity for a fresh start. Instead, she's haunted by lurid visions, disturbing voices, and questions about her own sanity. But with her history, who would ever believe her? And what could be done if they did? Because Amity isn't just a house. She is a living force, bent on manipulating her inhabitants to her twisted will. She will use Connor and Gwen to bring about a violent end as she's done before. As she'll do again. And again. And again.




9)She has spent her life fighting fate, and she thought she was succeeding. Until she woke up in a coffin.Ushers die young. Ushers are cursed. Ushers can never leave their house, a house that haunts and is haunted, a house that almost seems to have a mind of its own. Madeline’s life—revealed through short bursts of memory—has hinged around her desperate plan to escape, to save herself and her brother. Her only chance lies in destroying the house.

10)There's a girl who could throw herself head first into life and forge an unbreakable name, an identity that stands on its own without fathers or brothers or lovers who devour and shatter.
I'VE NEVER BEEN THAT GIRL.
Sixteen-year-old Ophelia Castellan will never be just another girl at Elsinore Academy. Seeing ghosts is not a skill prized in future society wives. Even when she takes her pills, the bean sidhe beckon, reminding her of a promise to her dead mother.Now, in the wake of the Headmaster's sudden death, the whole academy is in turmoil, and Ophelia can no longer ignore the fae. Especially once she starts seeing the Headmaster's ghosts- two of them- on the school grounds.At the center of her crumbling world is Dane, the Headmaster's grieving son. He, too, understands the power of a promise to a parent- even a dead one. To him, Ophelia is the only person not tainted by deceit and hypocrisy, a mirror of his own broken soul. And to Ophelia, Dane quickly becomes everything. Yet even as she gives more of herself to him, Dane slips away. Consumed by suspicion, rage, and madness, he spirals towards his tragic fate- dragging Ophelia, and the rest of Elsinore, with him.
YOU KNOW HOW THIS STORY ENDS.
Yet even in the face of certain death, Ophelia has a choice to make- and a promise to keep. She is not the girl others want her to be. But in Dot Hutchison's dark and sensuous debut novel, the name "Ophelia" is as deeply, painfully, tragically real as "Hamlet".


Honorable Mentions: