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Mister Death's Blue-Eyed Girls

by Mary Downing Hahn (Goodreads Author)

3.64 of 5 stars 3.64 · rating details · 628 ratings · 164 reviews

Hardcover, 330 pages

Published April 17th 2012 by Clarion Books

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Community Reviews

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Sep 01, 2012 karen rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: why-yes-i-ya

mary downing hahn wrote one of my all-time favorite middle-grade books, wait til helen comes. i must have read that book hundreds of times in my blossoming youth. it was the perfectly-toned book full of creepy atmosphere and it just haunted me in the best way.

so i was delighted to come across this book at the library, when i was just going to pick up some books i had placed on hold. i mean, i knew she had written other books, but it was a surprise to see one of such recent vintage.

and i am so gl...more
mary downing hahn wrote one of my all-time favorite middle-grade books, wait til helen comes. i must have read that book hundreds of times in my blossoming youth. it was the perfectly-toned book full of creepy atmosphere and it just haunted me in the best way.

so i was delighted to come across this book at the library, when i was just going to pick up some books i had placed on hold. i mean, i knew she had written other books, but it was a surprise to see one of such recent vintage.

and i am so glad i made the time for it. this is a very personal book for hahn. the events related are events that actually occurred, when she was a girl in 1955: two girls whom she knew, walking through the woods on their way to school, were shot by an unknown gunman in the baltimore suburbs. this crime rocked the small community, fingers were pointed, but no one was ever convicted.

it is a great piece of historical fiction, but it is not a typical mystery novel. rather, it is more like a judy blume novel,where a girl comes of age and questions her faith and worries about her parents' disintegrating marriage and her future, and whose dreams are unattainable because of something as vulgar as money.

and there was real emotional resonance. it is heartbreaking the way her mother encourages her to go out and be with her friends, instead of moping around all summer. what friends? two have been murdered, and the rest have been shuttled off by their worried parents to get them away from the aura of fear that pervades the community. the only person left is the boy everyone in town suspects of killing the girls. it is so sad, this young girl dealing with so much fear and philosophical turmoil and doubting god in the middle of it all. where is she supposed to go? the woods, the outside are terrifying now, and she has no one to turn to, and even when she turns to a priest, he offers no real help.

buddy's story is no less heartbreaking. suspected but not convicted, he becomes a pariah, with nowhere to turn, clinging to his tough-guy attitude even though he is heartbroken that the love of his young life has been murdered and everyone thinks he could have done such a thing.

this is very atypical YA fiction. there are the romantic fumblings, naturally, but set as they are in the fifties, they are very tame and fraught with the need to be "a good girl" despite the natural hormones of teendom.

all in all, a really great book, but don't go into this thinking it is going to be a nancy drew-esque mystery story with a plucky heroine solving a crime. it is something more rewarding than that.(less)

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Aug 20, 2012 ~☆ Alice☆~ rated it 2 of 5 stars

Shelves: depressing-why-be-too-sad

When I got this book I thought it was going to be a ghost story but it really turned out to be based on the murders of two girls that the writer had known. I was very disappointed as I like ghost stories but rarely do I like to read about murders altho I do read them.

I have not been able to stick with a book lately but I was unable to put this one down and I am not quite sure why as you learn very quickly who did the murders and slowly learn his reasons. I felt very sad when I finally finished...more

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Aug 02, 2012 Dana rated it 4 of 5 stars

I wanted to read this book because I read an interview with the author about how this story had been a part of her for most of her life and her agent finally talked her into writing it down. I didn't think of it as historical fiction until I started reading it and was time warped into the 1950s. When I think of historical fiction I never think of the 50s. I always think of really boring novels written in depressing eras of history so this was really surprising. Historical fiction can be about a...more

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Sep 05, 2012 Alyssia Sampson rated it 5 of 5 stars

I read Deep, Dark and Dangerous I believe in the 7th grade and to be honest ... That book kinda freaked me out. I saw all her books in a schoolastic paper and I noticed they were ghost stories and I happen to love ghosts(:
Although I have only read one of her books I knew I would love her others. But weirdly I haven't come across any of her books: Either I didn't have money or I forgot.
I finally came across her name when I was scrounging the new material books at my local library and my first th...more

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Aug 17, 2012 Wendy rated it 4 of 5 stars

An intriguing book, like a might-have-been version of the beloved The Cheerleader. What might have made Snowy's angst even worse? If Linda and Judy had been murdered and everyone thought Norm Noyes did it. It takes the book (or the reader? I shouldn't be presumptuous) a little time to settle into the time period, for it to start seeming like real life and not the old part of Back to the Future with endless historical-period references. But eventually Nora, and some of her friends, become real pe...more

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Aug 04, 2012 Briony Zlomke rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: ya, realistic, j-teen-death

I am going to give this book a 4.5 to a 4.75 rating.

I have been a fan of Mary Downing Hahn since I first picked up Wait Till Helen Comes back in my wee days. Even till this day I still get excited to see when she has published a new book. I am hoping to catch up on her books that I missed in my high school and undergraduate days.

Mister Death’s Blue-Eyed Girls did not disappoint me and will probably hold a special place in my bookshelf for the day I read it on. Today was the four year anniversa...more

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Jun 09, 2012 Dolores rated it 3 of 5 stars

3 1/2 stars. My sisters were 10 and 12 years older than me, so I inherited their books. I grew up reading Donna Parker and Cherry Ames. In many ways this book felt very familiar to me. The time period was so similar to those books. It was such an innocent time. Of course, Mister Death had a much harder edge, but reading it felt like revisiting a slice of my childhood. Mary Downing Hahn books are a bit hit or miss for me. I thought she did a good job of introducing us to a fascinating and tragic...more

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May 22, 2012 Misty Baker rated it 3 of 5 stars

Death is complicated state of affairs. It messes with your emotions, it can send you in to a tailspin towards depression, and sometimes it has the uncanny ability to instill fear.

As we get older we learn to adjust to the inevitability of life. You live. You die. And somewhere in-between you become addicted to ridiculous things like ice cream or expensive shoes. We lose someone, we pay our condolences and we cope with it. Life moves on.

But loosing someone as a teenager is different. That loss eff...more

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Apr 22, 2012 Greenjasminetea rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: books-read-2012

I'm surprised at the not-quite-4-star rating of this young adult novel because I felt it was a 5-star novel.

Nora Cunningham is a junior in high school in a town in Maryland in the mid-1950s when an event that will effect her and her town in a way that they never really shake.

Mary Downing Hahn, the author, based the story on an event in her own life. Hahn gives the story an authenticity of voice to her characters in that she grew up in that time period. She came of age as they did and like the gr...more

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Apr 15, 2012 Dark Faerie Tales rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: reviewed-by-macie

Review Courtesy of Dark Faerie Tales

Quick & Dirty: A whole town is changed forever after two girls are killed in this 1950′s era thriller.

Opening Sentence: He opens his eyes. It’s still dark, way before dawn. He’d willed himself to wake at three a.m., and he’s done it.

The Review:

This book was not what I was expecting based on the title. I honestly would have enjoyed it more if I had read the Afterword first, since I was expecting paranormal elements. The title comes from a poem by E.E. Cummi...more

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Apr 03, 2012 Wandering Librarians rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: dark, fiction, historical-fiction, serious-issues, ya

It's the last day of school in 1956, and Nora and her friends are looking forward to summer. Then the unthinkable happens. In Nora's quite little suburban town where nothing ever happens, two girls have been shot and killed. In the park. In daylight. And they were girls Nora knew. The entire town breaks apart and the blame falls on one of the girls' ex-boyfriend, who swears he's innocent.

This was really heavy. It's based on a true event that Mary Downing Hahn lived through in June of 1955. While...more It's the last day of school in 1956, and Nora and her friends are looking forward to summer. Then the unthinkable happens. In Nora's quite little suburban town where nothing ever happens, two girls have been shot and killed. In the park. In daylight. And they were girls Nora knew. The entire town breaks apart and the blame falls on one of the girls' ex-boyfriend, who swears he's innocent.

This was really heavy. It's based on a true event that Mary Downing Hahn lived through in June of 1955. While Mister Death's Blue-Eyed Girls is fictional, it pulls heavily from Hahn's own memories of that time, which she has never forgotten. She talks a bit about the actual event at the end of the book and how she wanted to write about it for a long time.

The evening before the shooting there was a party and all the high school kids are together having a great time. The next day two girls, Cheryl and Bobbi Jo, have been shot and killed in the park. Cheryl's ex-boyfriend Buddy is accused of the crime. Everyone in town is sure he did it. Nora is not so sure, however. It difficult for her to voice this though, because everyone else is so certain.

After the death of the girls, the book more deeply explores two things: Nora's depression and how people treat someone who's been accused of a crime. Even though Nora wasn't close friends with either of the girls, she's incredibly affected by their deaths. She loses her faith in religion - why would God let a thing like this happen? She's freaked out knowing that if she and Ellie hadn't overslept and missed walking to school with Cheryl and Bobbi Jo, they'd probably be dead too. Most of all, it's the fact that the world she always imagined has been shattered. She is not safe, she never was safe and she can never feel safe again. There's no way to protect herself or the people she cares about from the bad things in the world. Nora feels alone in these thoughts. Everyone else seems to be fueled by either their faith in God, which Nora no longer has, or their anger at Buddy, who Nora doesn't think killed the girls. Nora sinks in to depression, not eating, not wanting to leave her house. It's the 50s, and depression as a result a traumatic event wasn't common knowledge. People become frustrated with Nora because she's not moving on.

Buddy is accused of the murders immediately. All Cheryl and Bobbi Jo's friends saw how angry he'd been at the party the night before. And then the next day they're dead. He's an obvious target. After several days of questioning, he's released. There's no evidence against him at all. The town, however, doesn't care about this. They've decided that Buddy is the killer, and now he's a killer who's going to get away with it. Buddy is shunned and at times physically attacked. He ends up joining the Navy to get away. This event stays with him his entire life, however. How could it not?

The book is told in the voice of Buddy and Nora, but there's a third prospective as well. It is the voice of the actual killer. The actual killer is also a high school student, one no one ever notices. He killed them because they had made fun of him, and they deserved it. The killer never feels any remorse over the girls' deaths, and he is never caught.

Mister Death's Blue-Eyed Girls comes out April 17, 2012.(less)

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Mar 30, 2012 Margo Tanenbaum rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: young-adult, mysteries, 1950-s

It's June, 1956, and school's just about out for the summer. Teenage Nora and her friends have a party with a few boys, dance, hang out and drink too many beers. But none of them can imagine that their lives are about to change forever because of a shocking murder.

The next day, the bodies of two of the girls from Nora's group, Cheryl and Bobbi Jo, are found shot to death in the woods near their house. Everyone thinks that Buddy, Cheryl's ex-boyfriend, who looks like an imitation of James Dean,...more

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Nov 12, 2012 Shazza Maddog rated it 4 of 5 stars

I literally grabbed this book because of the title: e.e. cummings' Buffalo Bill's is one of my favorite poems.

Nora is sixteen years old, and she and Ellie have just finished the tenth grade. They like Elvis, and Fats Domino, and are a little jealous of Cheryl, because she has a steady boyfriend, Buddy, and Nora is a little jealous of Bobbi Jo, even though she's just fourteen, because she's so cute, everyone loves her. And then, on the last day of school, when they have to go in and pay library...more

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Oct 04, 2012 Beverly rated it 4 of 5 stars

A compelling story. Too bad no one could answer Nora's faith questions to her satisfaction. The priest and her parents kept saying that the murder of the two girls in the story was "God's plan." Of course it wasn't God's plan. Nora kept wondering why God "let" the murderer shoot the two girls; but she never wondered why God "let" her, a 16-year-old teenager, drink beer (against the law), and why God "let" her allow her male classmate to grope her.
As with most people who do not understand the fu...more

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Apr 26, 2013 Samantha rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: tween-and-teen

The year is 1956. Little Richard, Elvis, Fats Domino, Rosemary Clooney, and Patty Page are on the radio. School is almost out for the summer. Nora and her friends are looking forward to fun, sun, and adventure before their senior year. On the evening of June 14th, a Thursday, everyone meets in the park. They dance to their favorite music, flirt, steal kisses, smoke cigarettes and drink illegal beers. They feel free, almost grown. The next day, two of these free spirited teens will be dead. Two o...more

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Jul 27, 2012 Jackie rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: coming-of-age, murder, grief, historical, ya-fiction, multiple-voices

This story is a fictionalized account of a true crime that revolved around the 1955 murder of two teenaged girls in Maryland. Cheryl, 16 and Bobbi Jo, 14 are shot like animals on their way to school on the last day of the school-year. Everyone assumes, based on circumstantial evidence, that Cheryl's ex-boyfriend, Buddy, killed them. He didn't. He passed two lie detector tests, the murder weapon was never found, and he knew nothing about the two small clues that police kept under wraps. But, the...more

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Jul 23, 2012 S.C. Langgle added it

Shelves: read-or-reread-2012, ya-2012, favorites

Based on an actual crime in 1955, this YA novel is at once a mystery and a coming-of-age story. The brutal murder of two teenage girls on the last day of Nora Cunningham's junior year in high school throws Nora into turmoil. Her certainties, friendships, religion, her prudence, her resolve to find a boyfriend taller than she is - are shaken or cast off altogether.

Most people in Elmgrove, Maryland, share the comforting conviction that Buddy Novak, who had every reason to want his ex-girlfriend d...more Based on an actual crime in 1955, this YA novel is at once a mystery and a coming-of-age story. The brutal murder of two teenage girls on the last day of Nora Cunningham's junior year in high school throws Nora into turmoil. Her certainties, friendships, religion, her prudence, her resolve to find a boyfriend taller than she is - are shaken or cast off altogether.

Most people in Elmgrove, Maryland, share the comforting conviction that Buddy Novak, who had every reason to want his ex-girlfriend dead, is responsible for the killings. Nora agrees at first, then begins to doubt Buddy's guilt, and finally comes to believe him innocent - the lone dissenting voice in Elmgrove.

Told from several different perspectives, including that of the murderer, Mister Death's Blue-Eyed Girls is a suspenseful page-turner with a powerful human drama at its core.

Mister Death’s Blue-Eyed Girls is absolutely stunning novel, but I did have to adjust my expectations a bit while reading. I grew up loving Mary Downing Hahn’s creepy, mysterious ghost stories, and while I realized this book is for an older audience and doesn’t contain paranormal elements, I still expected a mystery/suspense type read. The title, cover, blurb, and the first few chapters all support this expectation, and I actually think the marketing here does the book a bit of a disservice, since readers expecting a mystery or thriller are likely to be disappointed. This novel is really a dark, subtle coming-of-age story that drew me in completely and ended up being so much more than I’d expected.

Even though the story is set in 1956 and the heroine, Nora, lives in a very different world than our modern one, I completely identified with her as she dealt with the aftermath of her friends’ deaths, her new religious doubts, her depression, and the general difficulties of being a teenager no matter what era you live in. I especially felt for her as she wondered why she questions and is unwilling to accept things that others take for granted, and I loved her passion for poetry and the way poems were woven in throughout the novel.

I also loved the inclusion of Buddy’s point of view and the way his character developed throughout the novel. The early scenes in which he’s questioned by police, pre-Miranda law, are particularly nail-biting. His transformation in the eyes of the reader is total and very convincing.

This book is set in a (fictional, I believe?) suburb of Baltimore, and since I grew up in Baltimore, it was fun to recognize names and places and imagine what they would have been like back in the 1950s. Much of the novel brought to mind my parents’ stories of growing up in Baltimore in the 1950s and 60s.
What impressed me most about this novel was that, while the murders occur very early on in the novel, Hahn manages to build up the emotional impact of their deaths over the course of the book so that, by the end, I was nearly in tears. It takes a very skilled author to make us feel like we know and mourn for characters who aren’t physically present for most of the pages. Mister Death’s Blue-Eyed Girls is a haunting novel in the deepest, truest sense.
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Apr 14, 2013 Genesis rated it 1 of 5 stars

Shelves: 1-star-really-hate, not-romance-at-all-so-mad, 2013-reads

I have no idea why I chose to read this book before now that I finished it. I guess it was because I thought it was a romance crime,but I guess not. My most hateful problem is the ending. Why does every story I read have a Nora , but the story ends up in a bad situation. **HOWVER I do know this book is from the incident in 1955, but I still hate it. I do give the Author credit for this book, but lets be serious, I just hate this book.

MY BAD SITUATIONS
* The mother is just a bad influence and just...more I have no idea why I chose to read this book before now that I finished it. I guess it was because I thought it was a romance crime,but I guess not. My most hateful problem is the ending. Why does every story I read have a Nora , but the story ends up in a bad situation. **HOWVER I do know this book is from the incident in 1955, but I still hate it. I do give the Author credit for this book, but lets be serious, I just hate this book.

MY BAD SITUATIONS
* The mother is just a bad influence and just cruel. She doesn't try to help Nora with any of her problems. The father is also a bad influence. The parents are just terrible with helping their children.
* The priest is just a disgrace that be can't even be called a priest. He just comes to conclusions on Nora that don't even exist.
* The friends are just terrible. They can't even stay on Nora's side when she make a decision. She also has so called" friends", but I can't blame them because they "were trying to help her''.
* Nora just seems like a slut with all her all her thoughts." But I feel this…" " But he did this and I feel…" yah, she just isn't the type of girl you want to date.
* EVERY FREAKING guy wants her. " come follow me when…" blah blah blah! I HATe hearing go to her!
* Her BEST friend isn't tying to help her when she's losing faith. Both literally and spiritually losing faith. I mean come on, she should at least try to talk some sense into her!
* The police are just a dumb excuse for a police. They don't believe a guy when he says "But I …" and they're like" we'll son we're gonna kick your ass because your lying!" It's in the book so I'm just using it as an example. Maybe not in EXACT wording, but pretty close.
* The neighborhood is just freaking annoying! There like "He did it, he …" it's in the PAST! Get over it already!
* Buddy is so dumb to still love the girl that lied to her friends. Now they all hate him for such and such reasons. But I get it, forgive and love. But I still hate the girl, she deserves what she got!
* You can pretty much tell this was written by a senior author. I mean an old person wrote it. The writing just wasn't that good. It's just one of those books you just hate.
The "ok" news
The neighborhood "was" friendly before such and such happened. It's the kind where you knew everyone's grandma and they knew yours.(less)

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Apr 30, 2012 Jodi Papazian rated it 2 of 5 stars

Shelves: ya-reads

The concept of this book sounded so creepy to me and I was looking for a good, scary read. However, I was a bit disappointed with Mister Death's Blue-Eyed Girls.
There wasn't much mystery to the story. I had originally assumed that this was going to be a mystery - and while it was for the characters, it wasn't for the reader. Although you didn't know at the start of the story who the murdered was, you figured it out by the second or third chapter.
One of the biggest issues that I had with this...more

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Jul 16, 2012 Susan P rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: ya-fiction

The interview with the author made this sound SO good that I dropped everything to read it. When the author was in high school, two of her friends were murdered, and the killer was never found. In this somewhat autobiographical YA novel, Hahn explores this incident that she has had in the back of her head for 30 years. I thought I was going to love it, but I really didn't. The main character, Nora, is kind of a whiny, nervous girl, who I really didn't like - or sympathize with. She isn't popular...more

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Oct 10, 2012 Kelly rated it 5 of 5 stars

After reading other reviews I feel very inadequate as a reviewer. I don't know how to eloquently state what I thought about the book so I'm just going to speak from my heart. I thoroughly enjoyed this book. It is an incredibly sad story based on actual events. Death is hard to understand. Murder is harder to understand. And the senseless murder of two innocent young people is impossible to understand. However, it does happen. This is a coming-of-age story about a young teenage girl who was profo...more

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Apr 17, 2013 Meredith rated it 4 of 5 stars

I had read practically all of Mary Downing Hahn's ghost stories in about fourth grade (and loved them) but I didn't make the connection to these until I looked it up. I actually picked this up because of a) the cover. I think it's gorgeous b) the title! so creepy but sticking with you.

I loved this book. It was haunting, and let me tell you now- it's NOT a murder mystery. We know who killed the girls. This novel is more about Nora discovering herself and just the way murders can effect a communit...more

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Oct 17, 2012 Jess rated it 4 of 5 stars

I originally picked this up because I loved Mary Downing Hahn's children's books when I was a kid. The story sounded intriguing, but like several other reviewers, I also expected more of a mystery (though I'm not sure why, since it mentions right in the description that the murderer is one of the narrators). Less a mystery, and more a coming-of-age story about the main character, Nora, this was still an enjoyable read. There were a few odd grammatical things which I think were meant to illustrat...more

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Feb 26, 2013 Kate rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: 2013, age-ya, historical-fiction

Just before the summer of 1956, two girls are murdered. Nora and her friend Ellie were supposed to walk to school with Cheryl and Bobbi Jo, and they are stunned when Cheryl and Bobbi Jo are found shot and killed in the park. Cheryl's ex-boyfriend Buddy is brought in for questioning. As the summer goes on, Nora struggles with newfound realizations that God can't solve everything and her own belief that Buddy is innocent.

I had recognized the poem that inspired the title from reading The Silence of ...more

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Jul 15, 2012 Shelley rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: historical, mystery, youth

Haunting and sad. It's based on an incident from the author's life - the set up of two friends being murdered, supposedly by the bad boy ex-boyfriend - but fictionalized. This isn't really a mystery, more Nora dealing with the ramifications of what happened and trying to put her life back together. It wasn't what I was expecting, but I liked it and the 50s setting. It also felt almost like a short story or vignette, slice of life, etc, though - lots of details about people's lives that added to...more

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Apr 30, 2013 Kelly Thielen rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: mystery, coming-of-age, historical-fiction, high-school

On the night before their last day of school, Nora and her friends Ellie, Paul, Cheryl, Gary and Bobbie Jo head over to the park to dance, drink some beer and plan their summer vacation. Little do they know that before summer vacation starts two among them will be found dead in the park. That's how the summer begins and where the story really gets started. Cheryl and Bobbi Jo are shot walking to school on the last day. Their bodies are dragged into a grove of trees and found later in the day by...more

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Apr 27, 2013 DrasticallyMild rated it 2 of 5 stars

Shelves: wood

This book starts off quite well. At least, the first chapter or so does. Its characters and plot began to develop nicely enough, like your average healthy baby in the womb. There’s your normal teenage catholic good girl, Nora (the one who has a major crush on the most popular boy in school*), her friends Ellie, Cheryl and Bobbi Jo, a couple other people, and that really possessive ex-boyfriend, - Cheryl’s – Buddy.

They’re partying, having a good time, getting drunk, and doing sort of normal teena...more

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May 02, 2012 Queen Taco rated it 3 of 5 stars

I wish the Acknowledgements or closing statement was at the beginning, as it really helped me understand why this novel was written the way it is. I almost feel bad reviewing it, as to me, this novel seems almost like closure for Hahn.

Anyways, I enjoyed this book, the murder mystery was especially creepy (yay, all the more fun). The points of the book told from Mister Death's perspective were very interesting, and creepy. To be honest, I could easily guess the murderer from the beginning of the...more

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Apr 25, 2012 Tabitha Olson rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: recent-reviews, 4-to-5-stars

The title makes this story sound a bit like an adventure/mystery, but it’s on the quieter side. It’s a character-driven novel about a lost girl trying to find her way through life.

Nora is like most teens, not a leader and not a social pariah. In fact, everything about her is average, including her outlook on life. But then the deaths of two friends turn her world upside down, and she begins to doubt everything. All security she once had is stripped away: her faith in God, her unwavering friends...more The title makes this story sound a bit like an adventure/mystery, but it’s on the quieter side. It’s a character-driven novel about a lost girl trying to find her way through life.

Nora is like most teens, not a leader and not a social pariah. In fact, everything about her is average, including her outlook on life. But then the deaths of two friends turn her world upside down, and she begins to doubt everything. All security she once had is stripped away: her faith in God, her unwavering friendships, any connection with her family, etc. Her views on Buddy Novak further separate her from the community and she feels lost, adrift, lonely.

These emotions are fantastically conveyed. Nora doesn’t know what to do, so she goes from one thing to another, one person to another, looking for something, anything, to anchor her down in the whirlwind of life. I think many teens will be able to relate to this. I remember feeling that lost during high school, and did exactly what Nora did in order to feel a part of something. I’m sure I wasn’t the only one.

The story has a few other narratives: Mister Death (the killer), Buddy, Charlie, Ellie, and diary entries from Cheryl and Bobby Jo. Some might find all these perspectives a bit chaotic, but I enjoyed them. I got enough insight into each so that I better understood them, but not so much as to consider them main characters. Mostly, each perspective illustrated how the murders affected them on a personal level: the image each person portrays, and then what they feel inside. I enjoyed getting to see this.

To some, the end might feel anti-climactic, but I enjoyed it. This isn’t a story about justice and seeing wrong-doers punished. It’s about getting on the path to discovering yourself. At the end, Ellie doesn’t have a sudden epiphany and then all is well. Instead, she takes one step onto that path. I think it’s a very realistic portrayal of life.

If you’re looking for a formulaic mystery novel where the bad guy gets what’s coming to him, this isn’t the book for you. But if you’re interested in seeing how a horrific event affects a community, one girl in particular, you might like it. Actually, if you liked The Lovely Bones by Alice Sebold, you’ll probably like Mister Death’s Blue-Eyed Girls.
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Apr 02, 2012 Sara Grochowski rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: reviewed

Mister Death's Blue-Eyed Girls started slow, but built in intensity as the novel progressed. Once I felt a connection to the different narrators and understood how they were each dealing with the murders, I had to know how everything ended up and if the murderer was ever caught.

This novel started with a nightmare and, being set in the 1950s, continued on almost sleepily. The novel's intensity was driven by the characters and their internal struggles more than external action. Fans of plot-driven...more

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About Mary Downing Hahn

I grew up in a small shingled house down at the end of Guilford Road in College Park, Maryland. Our block was loaded with kids my age. We spent hours outdoors playing "Kick the Can" and "Mother, May I" as well as cowboy and outlaw games that usually ended in quarrels about who shot whom. In the summer, we went on day long expeditions into forbidden territory -- the woods on the other side of the t...more I grew up in a small shingled house down at the end of Guilford Road in College Park, Maryland. Our block was loaded with kids my age. We spent hours outdoors playing "Kick the Can" and "Mother, May I" as well as cowboy and outlaw games that usually ended in quarrels about who shot whom. In the summer, we went on day long expeditions into forbidden territory -- the woods on the other side of the train tracks, the creek that wound its way through College Park, and the experimental farm run by the University of Maryland.

In elementary school, I was known as the class artist. I loved to read and draw but I hated writing reports. Requirements such as outlines, perfect penmanship, and following directions killed my interest in putting words on paper. All those facts -- who cared what the principal products of Chile were? To me, writing reports was almost as boring as math.

Despite my dislike of writing, I loved to make up stories. Instead of telling them in words, I told them in pictures. My stories were usually about orphans who ran away and had the sort of exciting adventures I would have enjoyed if my mother hadn't always interfered.

When I was in junior high school, I developed an interest in more complex stories. I wanted to show how people felt, what they thought, what they said. For this, I needed words. Although I wasn't sure I was smart enough, I decided to write and illustrate children's books when I grew up. Consequently, at the age of thirteen, I began my first book. Small Town Life was about a girl named Susan, as tall and skinny and freckle faced as I was. Unlike her shy, self conscious creator, however, Susan was a leader who lived the life I wanted to live -- my ideal self, in other words. Although I never finished Small Town Life, it marked the start of a lifelong interest in writing.

In high school, I kept a diary. In college, I wrote poetry and short stories and dreamed of being published in The New Yorker. Unfortunately, I didn't have the courage or the confidence to send anything there.

By the time my first novel was published, I was 41 years old. That's how long it took me to get serious about writing. The Sara Summer took me a year to write, another year to find a publisher, and yet another year of revisions before Clarion accepted it.

Since Sara appeared in 1979, I've written an average of one book a year. If I have a plot firmly in mind when I begin, the writing goes fairly quickly. More typically, I start with a character or a situation and only a vague idea of what's going to happen. Therefore, I spend a lot of time revising and thinking things out. If I'd paid more attention to the craft of outlining back in elementary school, I might be a faster writer, but, on the other hand, if I knew everything that was going to happen in a story, I might be too bored to write it down. Writing is a journey of discovery. That's what makes it so exciting.(less)

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BBCode	[url=http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/12341309-mister-death-s-blue-eyed-girls?utm_medium=api&utm_source=blog_book][img]http://d.gr-assets.com/books/1344673019l/12341309.jpg[/img][/url] [url=http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/12341309-mister-death-s-blue-eyed-girls?utm_medium=api&utm_source=blog_book]Mister Death's Blue-Eyed Girls by Mary Downing Hahn[/url]

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