A Horror Story for People Who Don’t Like Horror Stories

I actually read this book a couple months ago, but it was such a great read that I’ve decided that I needed to spread the word before it gets lost in my memory with all the other books I’ve read the past few months.

Pitch Green is a YA horror novel full of monsters, suspense, action and even a bit of romance.  Overall, it wasn’t my usual go-to kind of novel (except for the romance part), but I am so glad I gave it a chance.

I met one of the authors of Pitch Green when I was browsing at Barnes and Noble (I love the smell of their books) and I saw that they were having an author signing in the back of the store.  There was no long line so my husband and I decided to get a closer look.  The author was an older gentleman, very friendly and very excited about his new books – apparently he and his brother had just published the second book in a series they were working on. I wasn’t sure I really wanted to read the book because horror really isn’t my genre, but the man was so enthusiastic about his book that I decided to try it. So we bought the book, got it signed and hesitantly began reading.

The book begins in our world from the perspective of both Cammy and the monster – an interesting literary choice but one that they pulled off brilliantly.  It is Halloween and Cammy is taking the neighborhood kids trick-or-treating and the monster is looking for prey.  By the end of the first chapter one boy has been kidnapped and you know he will never be seen again.

In the following chapters I felt like I really got to know the characters. I saw and felt the guilt Cammy struggled with, the feelings that come with losing a family member, and through the characters I was sucked into the world of Pitch Green. One of the biggest reasons I will stop reading a book is because the characters are too stagnant.  However, I never felt like I had that problem with this book.  The characters were intelligent, but not unrealistically so, and when they made mistakes, they learned and grew from them.

The 300 page book was fast-paced, and exciting. The plot was unpredictable but not so unpredictable that they were jumping the shark.  I enjoyed this book a lot, it would be a great read for Halloween, or anytime you want to get your heart racing a little bit. As a person who does not typically like horror stories, I would recommend this book to teenagers and above, for people who like scary stories and even those who don’t.

I hope you’ll give it a try, and let me know what you think.  Happy Reading!

Brandon Mull, On Repeat

I first discovered Brandon Mull’s books as a pre-teen with his Fablehaven series, which has since become super popular, but I didn’t really like Fablehaven very much. One of the characters in that book just ruined the whole thing for me; I would go into more detail but that’s for a different post.  Eventually I may get around to finishing the series, but for now I will content myself with his other books. Last summer I read his Beyonders trilogy for the first time and loved it! It was an easy but engaging read.  And while I liked the characters, and the plot was full of the right kind of twists and turns, it was the world of Beyonders that I fell in love with.

Photo courtesy of http://brandonmull.com/site/fivekingdoms-books

For the month of March I read Brandon Mull’s Five Kingdoms: Sky Raiders, the first book in the series. When I started this book I wasn’t sure what to expect. While I’d had a wonderful experience with Beyonders, I’d also had an awful experience with Fablehaven.  However, to my relief, I loved it. It was a fast and easy read, full of adventure, and characters you love but never get too close to.  Although, while I had trouble putting this book down, I also felt like I had heard the story before. I can’t vouch for the rest of the books in the series, as I haven’t read them yet, but at least this first book shared a lot of plot with Beyonders. 

The plot of Beyonders essentially involves a boy being sucked into a different world where he cannot return home unless he, with the help of a girl about his age and a few other people, takes down the evil emperor who has somehow found a way to live longer than he should.  Change emperor to king and you have the basic idea for Five Kingdoms. Of course there are some differences, such as the world they travel into and the smaller adventures they have along the way, and it is these changes that make it feel new.  While parts of the story felt like repeats, there were enough new elements to keep me turning pages, and I really enjoyed what I read.  This basic plot-line held together once again to create an entertaining adventure story which would be great for kids in elementary school, but is also a fun read for anyone older.

Happy Reading!

The Beginning

This blog is for books. I love to read and hope I can share some of the books I read for fun (and maybe even for school!) with you.  I have a love for YA novels, but I am also still learning the classics. Don’t you hate it when you read a really good book but five books later you can’t remember the title? I have that problem. So this is my solution: I am going to blog about new books I read in order to keep track of them.  My goal is to read one new book a month. Ready for some new adventures? I definitely am!