Girl of Nightmares by Kendare Blake

Release Date: Out now!

Publisher: Tor Teen

Pages: 336pgs

The Story

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 love - 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.

Cass 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.

The Review

Kendare Blake's Anna Dressed in Blood was one of my favourite YA paranormal books from 2011 and I was practically dying to read the next sequel! In the second installment of this series, GIRL OF NIGHTMARES begins several months after Anna Korlov, a ghost dressed in that bloody white dress that she has become famous for, sacrificed herself to save our ghost hunter Cas Lowood from his own death. Unable to move on from his ghost-girl Anna, Cas is doing whatever he can to find out exactly what happened to Anna, not only because he cares for her deeply and more than he can admit to, but because everywhere he seems to go - whether he's awake or asleep, Anna always seems to appear before him. Together with the help of some fellow friends and some new faces along the journey, Cas will need to put everything on the line in order to save his Anna, even if it means his own life being caught in the crossfire.

As I already predicted in Blake's writing, once again Cas's voice is stronger than ever before and boy I've never really realized until now just how much I missed him. I tell you, this boy always makes me smile no matter what! But unlike the Cas we know so closely from Anna Dressed in Blood, this time round Cas has become a much more vulnerable boy and an open person as well, and there's just this raw intensity radiating off on his character (his feelings for Anna especially) that continued to melt my heart and say a lot of things like 'awwwwwwww. . . .' all the time. I mean, for such a tough boy like Cas - someone who is full of witty comebacks and armored with a strong-willed personality, it's rather hard to imagine his messy lifestyle of killing dead things was slowly turning him into being a very loyal, protective and a honest friend, you know? But clearly, being loyal, protective, honest, and loving . . . well that's just our Cas being well Cas, even if he can't see the good qualities within himself just yet.

In saying that however, no matter how much I love Cas (seriously I want a boy like that!), but I did have a few problems with this book. I know, it's crazy! How could I have problems with this sequel when so many others had loved it! But even with a well-executed plot lead by a very fantastic hero with all sorts of awesomeness in him and some other great supporting characters in tow (even if some annoyed the hell out of me like Carmel), but the whole point of me reading this series and the whole reason why I had adored this series so much more was mostly because of our Anna. Our deadly girl dressed in blood.

Now I adored Anna completely in the first book and I loved her when she was working together with Cas, you know working as a team and sharing a good little romance (a friendship too) even if it wasn't exactly a proper nor a healthy relationship for them both. Still . . . I was all for Anna and Cas finding their happy ending. But that's the thing - where the hell was Anna in this book? *looks around* I don't know really. When she did eventually come up onto the page she was just . . . lost again to ous. Sigh. I do realize she was 'somewhere else' and in Hell to be exact but still . . . where the hell was she? I really miss her! But when she does come back however (finally!) and being kickass like the dead girl she is, I was so happy doing my little famous happy dances but then there's the ending that changed everything . . . oh the ending . . . wait until you read that ending . . . it ruined everything for me personally and I hated it. It needed to be done I guess . . . that ending . . . but it was just all too much!

Overall, the super-duper, creepy, kickass, deliciously-witty GIRL OF NIGHTMARES wasn't exactly a clear winner through my eyes compared to its first book, and while I was a little disappointed by our little no-show Anna and over some other little things that I thought could have been explored more, but on a whole and without spoiling both this book and the first, I have to say I'll be looking forward to seeing whether Kendare Blake decides to write another book in this series because according to everyone I know and from what the author had said in the past - it's only a duology! Yes, only two books and I KNOW . . . how could Kendare Blake leave me hanging like that? I'm dying over here, Kendare Blake! Dying!!!

The Rating

4/5 stars