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Book Review: Where He Can’t Find You

Rating: 4.5 stars

From USA Today bestselling horror/thriller author Darcy Coates comes the chilling legend of a monster no one can escape.

DON’T WALK ALONE, OR THE STITCHER WILL FIND YOU.

Abby Ward lives in a town haunted by disappearances. People vanish, and when they’re found, their bodies have been dismembered and sewn back together in unnatural ways. But is it the work of a human killer…or something far darker?

DON’T STAY OUT LATE, OR THE STITCHER WILL TAKE YOU.

She and her younger sister live by a strict set of rules designed to keep them safe―which is why it’s such a shock when Hope is taken. Desperate to get her back, Abby tells the police everything she knows, but they claim their hands are tied.

DON’T CLOSE YOUR EYES, OR THE STITCHER WILL REMAKE YOU.

With every hour precious, Abby and her friends are caught in a desperate game of cat and mouse. They have to get Hope back. Quickly. Before too much of her is cut away. And before everything they care about is swallowed up by the darkness waiting in the tunnels beneath the home they thought they knew.

From beginning to end, Where He Can’t Find You was a thrilling read that I couldn’t put down as I wanted to find out what happened next to the characters within its pages. It tells a very creepy story that I could easily see haunting many people’s dreams as I myself got goosebumps from reading it.

The story told in this book is very chilling and I enjoyed it. I enjoyed reading this book because of the abnormal things that would happen when one of the people who lived in this town disappeared. Whenever someone was taken by the Sticher, there were always signs and as a reader you get to see them in the story. And I loved it because I felt like it added another layer to this book. The amount of detail the characters go into making sure they don’t become one of the people who goes missing by establishing rules for themselves with regards to the Sticher was also an interesting tidbit in this book to see. 

I also enjoyed that the setting of this story takes place in a small mining town as that adds even more elements to the story. I feel like this especially added another layer to the plot in Where He Can’t Find You because the main characters in the story along with all the other inhabitants already had a sense of who was involved with these disappearances. You could see it from the way the characters in the story act when it comes to him from them immediately putting distance between themselves and him whenever he’s nearby to people in the town leaving him offerings outside his home in the hopes that it will stop them from becoming one of the people who goes missing.

What I especially enjoyed about reading this book was the detail put into telling this story. For example, when talking about events that happened in this town in the past, usually they encompassed a chapter and were from the perspective of the person relaying the event. And I found those chapters particularly enjoyable for me to read because I felt like along with getting more information about the Sticher, I felt like I was learning a little more too about the character who was talking about what happened. It was another layer of the story being told here that I found I appreciated as it gave me more knowledge about the small town these characters live in and what all they’ve had to do to survive in this town.

If I had to choose anything with Where He Can’t Find You I didn’t particularly enjoy it would have to be lack of character development with these characters. I feel like from the beginning to the end of this book, Abby, Hope and their friends don’t really go through any development here. The events that happen in this story just happen to them and I feel like these events could’ve easily happened to anyone else in the town as none of these characters’ personalities changed or anything when reading. A perfect example of what I mean by this pertains to the new girl who moves into their town, Jen. She has absolutely nothing to do with the events going on in the story other than her and her father moving to this town. Yet I feel like she takes it upon herself to get involved with the group of characters in the story that we interact with even though she truly has no reason to. Especially because up until a certain point in the story, she believes the other characters in the story are just trying to scare her because of her being new in town. She doesn’t believe any of the things going on in the book that the people in town tell her are real but then ends up helping Abby and the rest of her friends with helping get Hope back.   

I also feel like there’s a lack of explanation with certain things that happen in the story too. Even with all of the details as a reader I get about the Sticher, I feel like there are some things that weren’t fully explained. The best example that comes to mind for me is Abby and Hope’s mom in the book. While reading Where He Can’t Find You, she acts really unusually in the very beginning of the book, and there’s no real explanation for this given to us. I know it more than likely has to do with the disappearance of her husband and the strange things going on in the town, but it never gets fully explained from what I recall. And then in the end of the book, there’s a bit about her that we get where she basically starts to act normal again after what transpires with her children. And that’s basically all we get when it comes to her character in the story, which bothers me as I felt like we would actually get more from her as to why she acts the way she does in the beginning of the book.

As a whole though, I enjoyed reading Where He Can’t Find You. It was the perfect creepy book for me to read as I enjoyed the storytelling within its pages and felt like the setting of a small mining town was the perfect backdrop for the events in the story that transpired with these characters. Highly recommend for those who enjoy spooky books and that describes what happens story wise very well as you will not be disappointed with this one.    

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Book Review: Lucid

Rating: 4 stars

What if you could dream your way into a different life? What if you could choose to live that life forever?

Sloane and Maggie have never met. Sloane is a straight-A student with a big and loving family. Maggie lives a glamorously independent life as an up-and-coming actress in New York. The two girls couldn’t be more different–except for one thing. They share a secret that they can’t tell a soul. At night, they dream that they’re each other.

The deeper they’re pulled into the promise of their own lives, the more their worlds begin to blur dangerously together. Before long, Sloane and Maggie can no longer tell which life is real and which is just a dream. They realize that eventually they will have to choose one life to wake up to, or risk spiraling into insanity. But that means giving up one world, one love, and one self, forever.

I enjoyed every minute I spent reading this book, wanting to know what I was in for and what was going to happen with these two girls. I wanted to know all about how they came to dream of each other’s lives, and how it would all end. As a result, this book was an enjoyable read for me.

What made this story in Lucid enjoyable to me was reading from Maggie and Sloane’s point of view. While there wasn’t much in the way of character development in the story regarding these two, I didn’t read this story for the purpose of learning more about them anyway. I was more interested in the world they inhabited and how they came to discover they were dreaming each other’s lives. And while I didn’t get an answer, I was so absorbed in their world that it didn’t bother me a bit.

I especially loved seeing the domino effect that took place once Maggie and Sloane had someone they could talk to about their dreams. How they started seeing people from each other’s lives to the point where they had interactions with them even though nobody else could see them. It was page turning to see how telling someone their secret could change the landscape of their world, and lead to the truth of who was really the dreamer.

I also enjoyed reading this novel from a teenager’s perspective. I especially enjoyed whenever Maggie would talk to her therapist Emma about these dreams because of the psychological conversations that would come about as a result. It also made it interesting because she’d explain things to Maggie in a way nobody else did regarding her dreams.

However, what I both enjoyed and have some criticism for when reading Lucid that most people didn’t seem to particularly care for was the ending. I know a lot of people found it confusing, which is understandable. However, I found it fascinating because this book didn’t end at all the way I had expected it to. Yes, I figured we would discover at the end who was dreaming everything, but it happened so quickly that it surprised me.

But at the same time, I also didn’t like the ending. I didn’t like it just because there wasn’t a thorough explanation of why this book ended the way it did with regards to who was dreaming. It made sense because out of the two characters, she was the one who had more family and friends in her life, but the reasoning behind it all didn’t really align. Especially because it was never fully talked about with her character, just implied.

However, I overall enjoyed reading Lucid. I found these two girls dreaming of each other interesting and was sad when I finished this book because I wanted to know more about the dreaming and how it all started. I highly recommend this young adult, paranormal literature to readers interested in a different type of story with an ending that leaves you questioning and thinking about dreams in a whole other way.

If you have any recommendations that sound like this book’s story or know of any other books that left you thinking, please leave a comment below. I’d love to hear from you!

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Book Review: Tigers, Not Daughters

Rating: 2 stars

The Torres sisters dream of escape. Escape from their needy and despotic widowed father, and from their San Antonio neighborhood, full of old San Antonio families and all the traditions and expectations that go along with them. In the summer after her senior year of high school, Ana, the oldest sister, falls to her death from her bedroom window. A year later, her three younger sisters, Jessica, Iridian, and Rosa, are still consumed by grief and haunted by their sister’s memory. Their dream of leaving Southtown now seems out of reach. But then strange things start happening around the house: mysterious laughter, mysterious shadows, mysterious writing on the walls. The sisters begin to wonder if Ana really is haunting them, trying to send them a message—and what exactly she’s trying to say.

I feel like I’m missing something here because this book wasn’t as haunting and dark as I was expecting it to be. Especially since it seems like a lot of people online enjoyed reading this book. However, I wasn’t at all enchanted by the journey this book attempted to take me on in its pages. But before getting into the meat of why this book didn’t meet any of my expectations, let’s begin with talking about what I enjoyed about it.

Tigers, Not Daughters is definitely a woman’s tale. All the main characters whose perspective we read from are women. The subject matter covered in this book’s pages is issues women deal with, and the story starts off interesting enough to get your attention. When I first started reading this paranormal story, I found myself interested in what I was reading, wanting to find out what happened next to the Torres sisters. The sudden shift in the story between the three sisters Jessica, Iridian, and Rosa didn’t bother me at all. It was interesting to see the three-player tennis match we were in when it came to the storyline going back and forth between these three siblings.

But after a couple chapters, I quickly realized how much of this book truly was a drag to read. Especially when I found myself not caring to hear the story from Iridian’s perspective. She was a character that while I can relate to a lot, I found it annoying when it was her turn to tell me what she was seeing and experiencing. When she had her first paranormal experience, I understood her reaction but simultaneously found myself not feeling very empathetic towards her when it felt like she was traumatized from it.

I felt like this story belonged to Jessica and Rosa, and that Iridian was the Torres sister none of us really cared to hear from. Her chapters provided nothing of context to the story because all she did throughout most of the book was stay in the house and read her book or write in her notebook.

Another criticism of this book I have is the lack of an actual story within its pages. You find out this family lost a sister, and that a year after her death, she’s haunting the house. You’d think after finding this out, we’d get a lot of paranormal activity in the house from Ana. However, that’s not what happened at all in Tigers, Not Daughters. The only time Ana gets seen is whenever she touches the bathroom shower curtain whenever Jessica is in the shower, and when she writes all over the walls in her room.

I also expected there would be some sort of explanation as to why Ana was haunting the home. Instead, she haunts the house without no real explanation that I could see from reading this book. I was also bothered throughout most of this book by Jessica’s actions, which made it difficult for me to read. Her actions bothered me so much that they make me wonder if, during the story, she was being possessed by her dead sister. If she was, that would add an interesting layer to this work of fiction that I didn’t think about. It would also explain some of the choices she makes since Ana’s passing, such as choosing to date Ana’s boyfriend John.

While this paranormal read was interesting at times to read, Tigers Not Daughters was a disappointing story to me. I struggled with reading this book and wasn’t satisfied with how it all came together. So if you decide this is a book you’d like to pursue, read it with caution and be prepared to be disappointed by what you find.

But there’s no possible way I’m the only person who’s read this book that didn’t enjoy it. So if you’re reading my review and found you didn’t enjoy this book, what about it did you not like? Was it some of the same things I’ve mentioned here or something else? And if you haven’t read this book but have a book you’ve recently read that you didn’t enjoy, what book was it and what didn’t you enjoy about it? Please comment below if you’d like to share! Until then, happy reading, and I can’t wait to tell you about my next read!   

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Book Review: Born at Midnight (Shadow Falls #1)

Born at Midnight Book Cover

Rating: 3 stars

Don’t miss this spectacular new series that will steal your heart and haunt your dreams, Welcome to Shadow Falls camp, nestled deep in the woods of a town called Fallen…

One night Kylie Galen finds herself at the wrong party, with the wrong people, and it changes her life forever. Her mother ships her off to Shadow Falls—a camp for troubled teens, and within hours of arriving, it becomes painfully clear that her fellow campers aren’t just “troubled.” Here at Shadow Falls, vampires, werewolves, shapeshifters, witches and fairies train side by side—learning to harness their powers, control their magic and live in the normal world.

Kylie’s never felt normal, but surely she doesn’t belong here with a bunch of paranormal freaks either. Or does she? They insist Kylie is one of them, and that she was brought here for a reason. As if life wasn’t complicated enough, enter Derek and Lucas. Derek’s a half-fae who’s determined to be her boyfriend, and Lucas is a smokin’ hot werewolf with whom Kylie shares a secret past. Both Derek and Lucas couldn’t be more different, but they both have a powerful hold on her heart. 

Even though Kylie feels deeply uncertain about everything, one thing is becoming painfully clear—Shadow Falls is exactly where she belongs…

Born at Midnight is an interesting read. However, it’s also a story that falls flat in a lot of areas too, making it a book series I’m still trying to decide if it’s worth investing time into.

The premise of the story centers on a young girl named Kylie who finds her life going wrong in every way. Her boyfriend breaks up with her, parents are getting divorced and her grandmother has recently passed away. To make things even more difficult, her parents send her off to camp for troubled teens after being arrested at a party even though she didn’t smoke or drink anything. But she soon discovers this camp isn’t for troubled teens like it’s made out to be, but for young teenagers who are supernaturals with abilities. Despite not knowing what she is, Kylie finds that for once in her life, she fits right in. But her life at camp isn’t quite so easy either with her attention shifted between discovering who she is, her feelings for two different boys, and the problems going on at camp that could result in it being shut down.

What made this book an interesting read for me was all the supernatural elements in the story and the characters themselves. While I feel like they didn’t highlight the supernatural parts of the story all that much, what I found of them in between the pages was interesting enough to make me continue reading. I found the idea of the camp to be interesting even though some aspects of it were poorly executed. It reminded me a little bit of Camp Half-Blood from the Percy Jackson and the Olympians series as well as the boarding school in the House of Night series. What I liked about the Shadows Falls camp that reminded me of both series was the one-hour session these teens had where they drew names and learned about the other person’s supernatural culture. While I felt like the way C.C. Hunter went about this wasn’t the best (aka, Kylie ended up most of the time getting the names of the two guys she’s debating between so I feel like most of the time was spent with her romantic interests), I still liked the idea and was intrigued to learn more about the different supernaturals in the story.

Another supernatural element in the story that interested me was learning about Kylie’s abilities. While during most of the story she tried the best she could to suppress her powers, I found that whenever Kylie did use them, it made the story that much more interesting to me. What intrigued me about her powers was that she didn’t have too much control over them, but also the way they were described in detail to the reader. It makes me interested in wanting to continue the story just to find out how as a character she grows into her supernatural identity, whatever that may be since that’s a mystery to us too.

While I enjoyed reading Born at Midnight, there are some flaws with this book too that need to be addressed. While I enjoyed learning more about the characters in the story and their different abilities, I wish there was more of a focus on character development. Yes, Kylie does undergo some changes because of where she’s at and her relationship with both of her parents completely shift. But at the same time, I still don’t see her character changing all that much. While she does seem to fully accept her powers and that she does belong at this camp, I still don’t see her fully coming into her own by the end of the story. Maybe that happens more so in the rest of the series, but I didn’t see that happening in this book. I know part of that struggle could be due to not knowing what type of supernatural she is, so I do applaud the author with having that struggle continue into the next book in the series. But for this book, it would’ve been nice to see her character develop more and see her fully come into her abilities.

Another criticism I have for this first book in the series is the love triangle between her, Derek and Lucas. It felt like with both boys there was an instant attraction, but for different reasons. Her feelings with Derek were due to him being a reminder of her ex while her attraction for Lucas seemed to stem from her past with him. But with both, it seemed like she was instantly attracted to them whenever she had some alone time to spend with them, which didn’t feel right to me. I also didn’t like this dynamic because I’m not fond of love triangles. I don’t like them because you as the reader get forced to choose between two different characters who both have an appeal but for different reasons. But in this book, I just didn’t see her having any chemistry with these two because it just felt like the author was forcing the romance when there wasn’t any.

Overall, I’ve enjoyed my reading experience with Born at Midnight. I loved all the supernatural elements included in the story because it made reading this book more enjoyable for me. I just wish there was a little more character development with Kylie and that she had some chemistry with her two love interests instead of the book forcing romance between them. Maybe the next book in the series Awake at Dawn will improve what’s missing from this first book and bring even more interesting details when it comes to the character’s supernatural abilities.

 

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