Halloween Blog Hop: What book gave you goosebumps?

Don't forget to check out my giveaway!

Hosted by Ramblings of a Coffee Addicted Writer

Let me preface this story with an explanation.  Guys, I can't handle horror.  I won't watch any scary movies unless forced (to my friends who drove me to your house and then innocently put on Saw KNOWING I COULDN'T LEAVE BECAUSE YOU WERE MY RIDE...that was just cruel!) except the occasional zombie movies...although those are usually brought on under duress as well.  To put this into context, I had to stop watching Death Note because it gave me nightmares.  Guys.  This is an anime.  I can't even handle a CARTOON.   So I don't know why I thought I could handle scary books, but I did.  So when I had to stay up late to catch the camp girls sneaking out to meet the boys, I didn't think it would be a problem to start reading my first horror book...at midnight...alone... (*cue looks of everyone looking at me like I'm an idiot*)

That's right guys, I thought this book would be a piece of cake to read as my first scary book ever.  Alone.  At midnight. 

So needlesss to say when I finished this book at 3 AM everything was NOT OK.  That book is freaking terrifying!   I WAS SO WRONG ABOUT SCARY BOOKS.  They might be even worse than movies.  Scratch that, they're definitely worse because this is a time when having an overactive imagination is very, very bad.  I was barely holding it together when I heard noises out in the hallway.  Noises I most certainly didn't want to investigate.  Cautiously making my way across the room to grab a pair of pants to put on (only after checking under my bed of course.  Only dust bunnies were there, thankfully)...when...A SPIDER CRAWLED OUT OF MY PANTS!!!!!!   After quickly checking the hall for any errant students, I returned to my room.  Only to discover that I now had no idea where that spider had gone.  If there is anything worse than knowing there's a spider near you...it's knowing there's a spider is near but not knowing WHERE near you.   Now some of you might not know much about spiders and me.   Let's just say I don't usually handle them well, and my state of mind after reading Misery was not helping.  But I think anyone who was already in a Misery induced state of heightened terror could be excused by acting like this:

Which is more or less how I spent the rest of the night, until I fell asleep.  With the lights on.  And that my friends, is the story of how I read my first (and most likely last) scary book.

Top Ten Best Series Enders

Hosted by:  The Broke and Bookish

1.  The Amber Spyglass (His Dark Materials) - Philip Pullman

There is NO WAY this is not my favourite ending novel to a trilogy ever.  But oh the feels...

2.  Mockingjay (The Hunger Games) - Suzanne Collins

 I feel like this is a bit of a controversial choice because most people I know hated the ending.  I thought the ending of the book was perfect.  I won't say why because I know I have some readers who haven't finished the trilogy (hurry up damn it!), but I'm even talking that last chapter.  That's exactly who Katniss is as a character, and...I can't say why, but for reasons, I think the ending is so realistic and it's basically just perfect in my eyes.

3. Lioness Rampant (Song of the Lioness) - Tamora Pierce

This book has everything in it, and as I am an unabashed Tamora Pierce fangirl and this was my first quartet of hers I read, I really shouldn't have to explain why this is on the list.

4.  The End  (A Series of Unfortunate Events) - Lemony Snicket

 While I may have become distanced from the book for most of the middle of the series (it becomes quite repetitive)...the last book of this series is surprisingly mature for the series.  Again, I don't want to say anything with spoilers, but this book felt much more serious than the others.  I know many people were really upset by the ending, but *spoilers* I like that not every question is answered and the fate of the Baudelaire's is up to the reader to interpret.*spoilers*

5. Silver on the Tree (The Dark is Rising) - Susan Cooper

I haven't mentioned this on the blog yet I don't think, but this series was another set that I grew up reading.  I don't even remember the first time I read the books, but every time I go to them it always feels fresh.  And the tone of the books in the first couple through the end are so different!  The series definitely ended up more serious than I expected from the first book.  It's a bit like Harry Potter in that sense - comparing the first book to the last as far as tone goes.

6.  In the Coils of the Snake (The Hollow Kingdom) - Clare B. Dunkle

This trilogy is entirely overlooked which is a shame because I LOVE IT SO MUCH.  Wandering Meander is the first person I've met ever  in my entire life who has ever read this trilogy.  It's just...the world building, the lore, the NOT instalove, the love despite not having a heart racingly attractive love interest..it's just so amazing!  And the ending to the trilogy feels like the undertones are a bit darker.  In any case, if you take anything from this list other than the fact that judging by most of the endings to these series I'm sadistic, read this trilogy because I would love for it to get some love!

I'm honestly having a really hard time coming up with any others.  It's not because I don't think there are any more good ones, it's just that I don't have a great memory and some of these books I read years ago.  For example, I vaguely remember Wyvernhail being on of my favourite Atwater reads. I really wanted to have Isabel Allende's City of the Beast trilogy because I've never mentioned it on this blog but I remember it being AMAZING...but I have a vague memory that the first book was my favourite and I was undecided on the last one.  But again, I haven't read either set of books in years.  And there are plenty of other books I could name, but that's basically the whole point of this list that I am leaving incomplete, so there you are haha.

What books have I forgotten are fantastic trilogy enders?  Leave me a link below (and as always I mean that literally), and don't forget to check out my giveaway!

Enna Burning (The Books of Bayern #2) - Shannon Hale

Don't forget I've got a giveaway running until October 14th!

 

Summary

Enna and Princess Isi became fast friends in The Goose Girl, but after Isi married Prince Geric, Enna returned to the forest. Enna's simple life changes forever when she learns to wield fire and burn anything at will. Enna is convinced that she can use her ability for good--to fight Tira, the kingdom threatening the Bayern borders--and goes on secret raids to set fire to the Tiran camps and villages. But as the power of the fire grows stronger, she is less able to control her need to burn. In her recklessness she is captured by the Tiran army and held captive by a handsome, manipulative young captain who drugs her to keep her under his influence. Can Isi and her old friends Finn and Razo rescue her without sacrificing themselves? And with the fire still consuming her, will Enna find a way to manage the gift that threatens to destroy her?


First line - The woman bore a scorch mark from her chin to her brow.


Thoughts

I enjoyed this book overall, although not nearly as much as I did The Goose Girl.  I'm not sure why really.  Perhaps because fairy tale retellings have a special place in my heart - especially those not often done?  In any case, regardless of my comparisons to the first book in the series, Enna Burning is a good read on its own.

Enna Burning is definitely a little darker than The Goose Girl.  Enna discovers how to fire-speak, but the need to burn consumes her.  It almost feels like a slow possession as you see Enna morph from Isi's outspoken and loving best friend into a person who sneaks into enemy camps and sets tents on fire.  Little by little the power takes control, until she breaks her promise to never burn people.  Much of the book is spent in Enna's thoughts as she tries to fight her compulsion to burn.  Enna questions who she is, what she has become, as well as how her relationships with the people she loves has changed.  I can't really say much about the story without spoilers, but it's full of adventure and action, as well as love, and moral quandaries.  It's got a little bit of something for everyone, and Isi/Ani makes many appearances here, as does Finn.  I am quite fond of Finn, he's easily my favourite character of this book!  He's genuinely sweet and caring, and he's a sort of quiet soul.  He's got this sort of calm confidence which is refreshing after Ani and Enna's loud thoughts all the time (I love them both, dearly, but it does off set Finn quite a bit).

That being said, I felt a little disconnected from characters - things happened that I would have expected more emotional response from, but didn't and I'm not sure why.  Maybe it's because Enna's character is stubborn enough that she doesn't go through nearly as drastic a transformation as Ani did.  Agh here I am trying to figure out why I didn't love the story, when I've already said it was a good read!  It makes me sound ungrateful.  If you are a fan of Shannon Hale there is no reason not to read this book.  If you don't know who I'm talking about, go read The Goose Girl (the first book in this series) right now!  Or the Book of a Thousand Days, which was my introduction to Shannon Hale's writing and is another favourite of mine.  You could read this book without reading The Goose Girl if you wanted to I suppose, as the focus is on a different main character, but almost all the characters in this book were in the previous book as well, so you won't get quite the same feel for the story.

I was looking at the later books in the series to see who gets featured, and you know what I realized?  I want to know what happens Conrad!  What is he up to now?  Is he still a goose boy?  I'd like to think some of those questions might get answered, but I don't think it's likely.  Maybe I'll find a new fanfic to follow haha!


Bechdel Test  


Isi moved her chair closer and turned the wet cloth on Enna's forehead over to the cooler side.  Enna held her breath until she could control the desire to cry, then spoke with a stunned, sleepy calm.
"I killed.  Hundreds of people.  I burned them alive."
"It was war," Isaid Isi.
"It was me,"  Enna said bitterly.  "You were right about the fire, about its power being too much for one person.  But you should know, nothing forced me to do it.  I chose to...to.." She lifted up her hands and saw the smooth, natural skin. 
"Why aren't I burnt up?"
"You nearly were.  I heard rumor of you on the wind, and then I cooled you.  The wind had to keep at you, like putting out a hay fire that keeps relighting."  
"Ah," said Enna remembering.
They were quiet a moment.  Enna studied the way strips of light behind the curtains painted the wall

Ahh, I love Enna and Isi's relationship!  It makes me so happy.  Even if this is a particularly dark subject.  There's not quite as many female conversations in this book, but that's because it's set in a war camp, so that's not hugely surprising.

The best book you’ve read in the last 12 months

This is hard because I've read so, so many good books this year!  I think I'll make it a little easier and keep it to when I started blogging since I can't even remember what I read the first half of the year.  If I had to pick one...and only one...I'd probably have to settle on:

Instead of going on and on about how much I love this book, I'll direct you to my review where I've already done that.  I just read the sequel and despite some rather irritating and distracting drama that went down while I was reading the book, it was a great follow up to this book and I will review it as soon as I reread it as I was fuming the whole time and will likely sound angry in the whole review.  Which would be in bad form since I really liked the book.  Aaaand clearly I'm still angry.  No means no guys, especially if I'm reading a book.  ESPECIALLY THEN.  I get super irritable when I'm interrupted and reading.  Especially when it involves someone who doesn't understand the concept of no means no.  Sorry.  This was supposed to be about how much I love this book and angry me has clearly not left the building yet.  Suffice it to, this book is amazing, you should read it and I'm going to shut up.

Runners up include Crown of Midnight, Linked, and Soulbound

Everneath - Brodi Ashton

Curses!  The horrid command z key strikes again!  I managed to delete this entire post which I had completely finished weeks ago, so I've rewritten it just for you dearies.  It's not quite up to the wonderful snarkiness of the original, but I did my best!  And just a reminder that I've got a giveaway running until October 14th!

Summary

Goodreads:  Last spring, Nikki Beckett vanished, sucked into an underworld known as the Everneath. Now she’s returned—to her old life, her family, her boyfriend—before she’s banished back to the underworld . . . this time forever. She has six months before the Everneath comes to claim her, six months for good-byes she can’t find the words for, six months to find redemption, if it exists.

Nikki longs to spend these precious months forgetting the Everneath and trying to reconnect with her boyfriend, Jack, the person most devastated by her disappearance—and the one person she loves more than anything. But there’s just one problem: Cole, the smoldering immortal who enticed her to the Everneath in the first place, has followed Nikki home. Cole wants to take over the throne in the underworld and is convinced Nikki is the key to making it happen. And he’ll do whatever it takes to bring her back, this time as his queen.

As Nikki’s time on the Surface draws to a close and her relationships begin slipping from her grasp, she is forced to make the hardest decision of her life: find a way to cheat fate and remain on the Surface with Jack or return to the Everneath and become Cole’s queen.

Everneath is a captivating story of love, loss, and immortality from debut author Brodi Ashton.


Thoughts

Oh boy, here we go.  

I am so tired of heroines with crazy low self esteem!  I get it, I was a teenager too.  There were times where I felt like the gum stuck to the bottom of a shoe.  But at a certain point it becomes unrealistic. And almost insulting to read. 


First of Nikki and Jack are apparently childhood friends.  We're not shown even a hint of this, we are simply told it.  Over. And Over.  And Over.  And yet Nikki is constantly going on and on about how she isn't good enough for him, and how she can't BELIEVE she snagged the most popular guy in school.  He's not only a footballer player, he's the quarterback  (OF COURSE HE IS.)

To put this in perspective I have honestly no idea who the quarterback at my high school was.  In fact I don't think I knew who it was when I was in high school

It's like Jack is two different people - sweet childhood best friend and womanizing most desired guy in school.  Seriously I'm having a really hard time reconciling the two.  But most importantly...not good enough??  They're childhood best friends! Why on earth would she not be good enough?!?!  Correct me if I'm wrong, because after reading everyone's high school life in books I am quickly realizing that I had a different high school experience than most kids did.  But was there really a swarm of girls who would try and break couples up because the girl didn't deserve the guy?  Did things like that actually happen?  And sure, there were definitely guys I would have been surprised if they showed interest in me, but at no point would I have decided that I wasn't good enough for a guy.  If a guy showed interest in me, and I liked him back, what was to stop us from dating?  Seriously correct me if I'm wrong here because I've seen situations play out like this over and over in YA books and on TV so I'm beginning to wonder if I just had a lot more self confidence and a lot more naivete than I thought in high school.  Because stories like this feel like it's a caricature of high school, not what high school was really like for me.

We start the story after Jack and Nikki have already been dating for 3 months and they broke up for some reason and she got sucked into the Everneath.  In the Everneath time flows differently, so she's spent 100 years intimately in this little pod with love interest #2 - Cole.  It's just been the two of them, and 100 years of Cole sucking out her life force.  But in a totally enjoyable way of course, because there's nothing that says euphoria like slowly dying over 100 years.  At the end of this 100 years, which is where the reader enters, Nikki turns down Cole's offer of eternal life with him, instead choosing an eternity in hell.  Admittedly if she chose eternal life, she too would have to do the life sucking process, but that's not the reason she turns it down. Oh no, she turns it down because she wants to see Jack one last time.  *GAGS*.  Keeping in mind, this is the guy she dated for 3 months, was a ball of insecurity for those 3 months, and then he proceeded to betray her, which is why she was in the Everneath.  She doesn't even want to date him...she just wants to see him.  One last time.  Before she heads to eternal hell.  Yeah.

I'm sorry, I love my boyfriend very much and I've been dating him 5 years, but I'm pretty sure I would not choose to go to hell so I could see him one last time.  Just sayin.

And then there's Cole.  Who of course is madly in love with Nikki because she's special.  She's different.  Therefore he MUST love her.  And she doesn't like him because she keeps telling us he's evil, despite all evidence to the contrary (minus the life sucking, which honestly she doesn't seem too mad about).  So Cole is some evil ancient being.  Except he acts just like an angsty bad boy teenager.  I'm sorry, but if someone has been alive for 700 years or so, that's not how he would act.  Being alive that long changes you.  Especially if you're killing people, sort of.

So there's your main characters.  Two super hunky boys who for no apparent reason are in love with this totally normal nothing special about her girl.  Of course.  *Slightly spoilery next line, but not really because it's what happens throughout the whole book, but be forewarned* And of course when Nikki has the option between  eternal life with the boy she spent 100 YEARS with and the boy she dated for 3 months and who she thinks *SPOILERS* cheated on her *SPOILERS*, she keeps fighting to be with the 3 months boy.  Seriously?

Of course there's also the token bff who serves no purpose at all.  I mean, kudos that she isn't secretly a backstabbing bitch, but since she's one of the few characters I actually liked it would have been nice for her to...you know...do something.  She appears to be inserted to stir up love interest complications with Jack, except of course, she doesn't really.  I will give props where deserved though, so maybe she will serve more of a purpose in the next book.  I'll also say that Nikki has a family, and while things are rocky with them because up and disappeared for a few months, she at least cares about them, which was also a surprising turn of events.  Family mentioned in a not awful way in a YA book, who woulda thought?


Overall:

Here's an easy way to sum up this book:  Any time a character decides to do anything:

AND YET.  After an entire blog post's worth of spewing hatred....I am halfway through the next book, and have the one after that lined up.  Yep, I said that.  Because here's the thing...besides being 95% of everything I hate in a book...it's engaging writing with a great paced story.  It's addicting.  It may stand against all of my morals as a reader and a blogger, but it's seriously like crack.  I feel like a paranormal YA crack whore now.  But I'm going to keep reading it.