Tuesday, 13 August 2013

Mini Reviews: Anna Dressed in Blood, The Replacement, Wake

Anna Dressed in Blood by Kendare Blake

It's dark and twisty. It gets inside your head, sinks its claws into your brain and refuses to let go. Whatever you're expecting, let go because this probably isn't it. This is better. It's like James Herbert with a sparkly sugar-coating for the YA market. Cas is awesome, and I don't use that word lightly. I love his voice. Somehow this manages to be a proper ghost story, a journey of self-discovery and a teen romance all rolled into one. Prepare to be astounded.

 

The Replacement by Brenna Yovanoff

Mackie is one of my favourite characters ever. I love reading the boy point of view, and Mackie's voice is extremely addictive. His world is dark - a gloopy, thick kind of dark filled with proper freaks, the kind that do bad things involving blood. These creatures are casually terrible and old as the hills. Yovanoff's writing is full of brilliance, sneaking into your consciousness and making you believe things that shouldn't be possible. Roswell is possibly an even better character than Mackie. I want more of him.


Wake by Lisa McMann

It's a slim little thing, which worried me at first, as I like to get my teeth stuck into a chunky novel. The style of writing is unusual and full of brilliance though, and somehow makes it more than it is. Third person, present tense, in a series of time-stamps. Staccato sentences, the bare bones of the story, and a collection of important occurrences and conversations. Somehow, in this stilted version of story-telling, we learn, see and feel everything that's important. I don't know how she does it, but it's exceptional. I need to read the rest of the trilogy now, which my library doesn't have, which is so frustrating! Why buy the first book but not the other two? Grr.

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