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Girl of Nightmares (Anna, #2)

Kendare Blake

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Something that makes me feel the same way divergent did
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Is Percy Jackson worth reading? If so what is the reading order?
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What Members Thought

Nov 26, 2012 Melissa rated it it was amazing

This is a frustrating, dark, interesting, compelling, great ending to Anna Dressed in Blood. Yep, it's only 2 books, but a satisfying conclusion to the first book. Hm... I guess you can't tell that I really enjoyed the book. Also, look at that cover, it's amazing!

The frustrating part was intentional. I was frustrated with people telling Cas to let Anna go when you just knew there was something more to what was going on. People who supposedly knew so much would try to stand in his way instead of ...more

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Feb 24, 2014 Sasha rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: paranormal, horror-suspense, young-adult

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here. In Girl of Nightmares, we return to the world and characters that Kendare Blake crafted so masterfully in her first novel, Anna Dressed in Blood. The result is a second book that, though different from the first, nonetheless manages to hold its own as a story which delves deeply into the mythos and intrigue of a world where the paranormal is very real… and very dangerous.

Cas Lowood and his little Scooby gang, which consists of the witch psychic Thomas and his significant other Carmel, return to In Girl of Nightmares, we return to the world and characters that Kendare Blake crafted so masterfully in her first novel, Anna Dressed in Blood. The result is a second book that, though different from the first, nonetheless manages to hold its own as a story which delves deeply into the mythos and intrigue of a world where the paranormal is very real… and very dangerous.

Cas Lowood and his little Scooby gang, which consists of the witch psychic Thomas and his significant other Carmel, return to ghost-fighting soon after the events of the first book, in which the powerful and cursed ghost Anna Dressed in Blood defeats a voodoo obeahman to save Cas and his friends. Cas, having fallen in love with this ghost he initially was supposed to send to the afterlife, feels her absence most acutely of his friends, knowing that Anna did nothing to deserve the suffering she underwent both in her life and in her afterlife. Now, Cas keeps having visions of Anna in every shadow, ever dark corner, and it’s affecting his ghost-hunting… and he is desperate to save Anna from whatever purgatory she is stuck in, whatever it takes.

Cas has quickly managed to be one of my favorite male YA leads. He’s sarcastic, smart, and compassionate despite his calling, in which he is regularly required to confront death and violence. Kendare Blake manages to channel his narrative voice perfectly, with a mixture of teenage angst, steely determination in the face of fear, and overall a clever amount of perception that I would expect of your average teenaged ghost hunter. I appreciated his friendships, especially the one he has with Thomas. Thomas is amazingly humble, and unwaveringly loyal to Cas (for some reason); his badassery and power as a witch truly come to the fore in some key scenes in this book, which I appreciated. Carmel is meh, as are all the other female characters in this series so far, Anna included. It makes me wonder if Blake actually knows how to write female characters that don’t grate. If the new girl who is introduced in this book is any indication, the answer might be no.

Girl of Nightmares starts out with some of the chilling, creepy ghost-hunting scenes that made Anna Dressed in Blood so spine-tinglingly good. Scary apparitions, blood, ghostly hijinks, the whole nine. However, as soon as Cas latches on to the idea of bringing Anna back from the dead, we get less of those scenes and more pining and drama on the human side of things. Honestly, I never bought that Cas had fallen so readily and deeply for Anna, despite her tragic backstory. There wasn’t a lot of substance to back them up and honestly? She a ghost! The very thing he should be cautious about! I mean, they could be friends, but in love? Questionable. Cas does seem to have an obsessive personality, however, so in this book I attempted to ignore the fact that he was willing to get not only himself but his friends and potentially extended family killed if it meant brining Anna back from the dead. However, Blake still manages to slip in some really disturbing (in a… good way?) scenes that reveal her as a true horror writer at heart (bless!). There’s one particular scene that takes place in a forest not unlike Aokigahara, with some Slenderman-meets-Weeping-Angels goodness thrown in for good measure. I’ll be having nightmares about that scene, I’m telling ya.

Then there’s the athame. Cas’ athame is his weapon, his tool against ghosts to send them out of this world. It’s a knife, it’s ancient, and it possesses a power that calls to him. As we get deeper into the heart of the Mythos that Blake has been setting up since the first book: that the athame has a higher calling, and that there are those who think that Cas hasn’t been using it for its intended purpose. Cas and his friends get sucked into something much, much bigger than just ghost hunting. This destiny takes him across the pond to England, where Cas must confront his dead father’s past, which appears to be more entwined with his own future than he originally thought. I loved the idea of Cas having a bigger purpose than just hunting ghosts, and I enjoyed reading about how much larger the supernatural world was than initially presented in Anna Dressed in Blood.

With a few missteps in pacing and plot, Girl of Nightmares nonetheless is a worthy successor to Anna Dressed in Blood and provides both closure and room for expansion should Kendare Blake ever choose to return to these characters. The horror elements were solid, and the fleshing out of the characters made it an entertaining read from open to close.

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Dec 09, 2012 Sherry Rampey rated it liked it

I was expecting more out of this book, but it really was not nightmarish; it was more like depressing. The chacacters grew slightly, but without having read the first, the reader would never know why the way they are in the second.

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