The House by Christina Lauren
Blurb:
He's always dressed in black, his head down, and shaggy black hair falls into his eyes. But when Gavin looks up at Delilah, his dark eyes shadowed with bluish circles seem to flicker to life.
Her lifelong fascination with him has been a mixture of longing and bearlike protectiveness, because he lives in that house, the one at the edge of town. Spooky and maybe haunted. Delilah thinks it might be something worse than haunted. Gavin tells Delilah he's hers- completely- but whatever lives with him inside that house disagrees.
Why I Chose This Book / What I think of it so far:
I chose this book because the description interested me and Gavin reminded me of Varen Nethers in the Nevermore Trilogy by Kelly Creagh.
I was right, this book is a perfect read for fans of the Nevermore Trilogy, but where Varen and Isobel's story was laced with Poe-ish nightmares that became reality, this book is about a house that is alive. And the house will do anything to keep Gavin, even if it means hurting Delilah to keep them apart. I love how everything in the house is called by its name... instead of saying Gavin was lying in bed, it goes "Gavin lay on Bed that night..." like each inanimate object is a character. I've never read a book quite like this before and even though I'm not even halfway through I can tell you this book is going to be one of my favorites. Sometimes you just know.
Here's what else I read in the past week...
Daughters Unto Devils by Amy Lukavics:
Blurb:
When sixteen-year-old Amanda Verner's family decides to move from their small mountain cabin to the vast prairie, she hopes it is her chance for a fresh start. She can leave behind the memory of the past winter; of her sickly ma giving birth to a baby sister who cries endlessly; of the terrifying visions she saw as her sanity began to slip, the victim of cabin fever; and most of all, the memories of the boy she has been secretly meeting with as a distraction from her pain. The boy whose baby she now carries.
When the Verners arrive at their new home, a large cabin abandoned by its previous owners, they discover the inside covered in blood. And as the days pass, it is obvious to Amanda that something isn't right on the prairie. She's heard stories of lands being tainted by evil, of men losing their minds and killing their families, and there is something strange about the doctor and his son who live in the woods on the edge of the prairie. But with the guilt and shame of her sins weighing on her, Amanda can't be sure if the true evil lies in the land, or deep within her soul.
What I thought of this Book:
This book wasn't at all what I thought it would be. Oh, the horror scenes are in there, you can be sure of that. I was interested in reading this book because it's rare for YA books to have any mention of sex in them, let alone teen pregnancy, and I wanted to see how the author would play it out. Disappointingly the author goes the religious-guilt route. Amanda feels she has sinned (not that it stopped her from lying with the post boy 8+ times) and hates that she's now pregnant. She wishes the baby would disappear. Amanda also wishes her baby sister Hannah, born deaf and blind after a difficult breach birth, would die. Those reasons alone make Amanda a very unlikeable main character. It's hard to feel any sympathy for her. If you're a hardcore horror fanatic the terrifying scenes of horror will please you. The plot is reminiscent of The Amityville Horror meets Motel Hell (a strange horror movie I watched once where the owner of the hotel buries people in the garden like human produce for his meat products - this reminds me of the man-eating-pigs scene) meets... I don't even know... Children of the Corn? And a certain scarecrow scene at the end would make the likes of Ed Gein (a killer from here in Wisconsin that made people into furniture and inspired movies such as Psycho and The Texas Chainsaw Massacre) proud. Mostly the horror scenes in this book made me nauseous, which must mean they were scary. Without the horror scenes, the book is mainly about whiny Amanda and her rotten, horrible life. A bit of a snore. The end of the book leads me to think this won't be Amanda's last encounter with the demon/devil from the prairie. I'm putting this book away where I don't have to look at it.
My rating 3 1/2 of 5 Stars
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