horror – Page 4 – One Chapter

The Halloweeners (MonsterStreet #3) by J. H. Reynolds

This series is fantastic! All the books are stand alones but you’ll want to read them all, once you get started. This is book #2 and it was loads of fun.

Fisher is getting tired of moving. He’s finally making friends at school and now, his mom notifies him that they’ll be moving soon. Fisher can’t hold back his frustration and he voices his opinion. Now grounded, he doesn’t want to miss trick-or-treating tonight, with the guys from school, so he sneaks away after his mother left to attend a school function.

Meeting up with Champ, Fisher meets the rest of the boys in a tree house and this section of the book, reminded me of the movie, Stand By Me. The boys gather for a meeting and now a serious tone takes over, as they discuss the night before them. They must win at Halloween Games and they talk about their secret weapon. The information that they discuss is important and it sets the mood for the rest of the night. The boys tell Fisher about the Halloweeners and Fisher decides that he would also like to be a member of this group.

Throwing on their costumes, the boys get ready to head out to collect their candy. It’s almost as if I’m out on the street with them as they tell their stories, encounter other individuals carrying their bags, and try to fill their bags. As they view the end house, the Halloweeners know that this house is off-limits yet Fisher is drawn to the mansion and what’s sitting on its front porch. As they approach the house, being a winner of the Halloween Games takes over their thinking and the boys see an opportunity. What an opportunity! An opportunity that changes the course of their lives.

What a fun, adventurous story. I liked what happened when the boys came up to the cauldron and they didn’t abide by the rules. What a ride! What a great imagination! Another great read in the MonsterStreet series.

MonsterStreet: The Boy Who Cried Werewolf #1

It’s a mysterious and surprising tale regarding a young boy who finally discovers his father and the grandparents, that he doesn’t recall. The story moves quickly; swallowing you in an adventure where you’re not sure what will happen in the end.

Max finds it strange that he’s off to spend a weekend alone with some relatives that he doesn’t even know or remember. Yet, somehow, he is told the time is right for this visit with his grandparents. Welcome to Creepville, in Wolf County. This can’t be the place when they finally turn off the engine and get out. The home has been taken over by cobwebs, some boarded up windows, and Max will discover later, no phone or electricity.

The place looks deserted but as they walk around, an older man appears clutching an ax, and then an older woman emerges in a bloodstained apron, lugging a hog. The stage is set for Max’s weekend as mom quickly makes her exit in her minivan.

I enjoyed how Max was fed the story of his family. Through a neighbor girl, his father’s diary, his mother, and his grandparents, Max learns about himself and his family. There are elements of surprise and anticipation in the novel and I liked how they flowed into the story. There wasn’t anything gross or descriptive in the novel, just mysterious and creature horror.

I think it’s a great book for kids who can handle some horror without getting scared.

“He was torn between his desire to obey his grandparents and the curiosity he now felt about what Jade was saying. He wasn’t sure who to trust.”

Nightbooks by J.A. White

5 stars Middle School/ Upper Elementary

I loved listening to this audio. It was like listening to stories within a story. I thought some of the stories that Alex told were just a good or better than the main story. There were times that I found myself crackling and laughing this sinister laugh as I listened to this audio, for the witch would make her appearance and she would shake things and of course, that would affect me too. There were a few twists in this novel too which I didn’t see coming. Such an enjoyable novel to listen to, one that the whole family could get involved in.

She lures them in, she knows exactly what entices them and then, when the door closes, they are hers. There’s no way out, at least not in the traditional sense and so they’re stuck.

Alex is lured into the apartment on his way down to the basement, for he was on a mission that he hoped would change his life. But now? His life is changed and he’s glad that he didn’t make it down to the incinerator because he needs his journals, those pages have his stories on them and he needs them now, more than ever.

Witch Natacha says she needs to hear Alex’s stories, his scary stories each night and so, she makes him write a new one every day. Natacha says she enjoys them but in reality, it’s really not her that needs these stories but Alex better keep the stories coming if he’s going to make it out of her apartment alive.

Alex meets Yasmin inside the witch’s apartment for she’s been trapped there for a while. Alex is determined to escape but Yasmin tells Alex to stop talking like that. The cat will tell the witch what he hears and you never know what the witch will then do to them. Alex is determined to escape yet he has to spend his days writing stories in the apartment, the apartment that is charmed by magic.

This was an excellent story, I really enjoyed the audio and hated to take it back to the library.

Wilder Girls by Rory Power

4.5 stars Fiction

Wow! Let me see if I can find the correct words to describe this book: enticing, captivating, startling, and remarkable. The more I read of this book, the more questions I had and the more I needed to know. The females who lived on this island fought for their own survival, barricaded behind a fence, they fought to live, yet somehow the Tox had made its way into their compound, so what is the fence keeping out?

They were all girls inside this huge house, originally labeled Raxter School for Girls, located on an island. What’s left of them, live in quarantine, staying alive by the rations supplied to them by boat and brought to the house by the Boat Girls and an adult, the only people allowed past the fence.

The authorities are still working on a cure and the girls were left in the dark about the Tox. Waiting and living with their conditions, each of them are growing older and watching each other, as each one of them receives their own form of the Tox and have their “first.” Individually, as one of the girls begins twitching and then shaking, I was eager for what was about to begin but nervous and scared for the actual event to occur.

The story is told by Hetty and compared to some of the other girls at Raxter, Hetty is down-to-Earth. Byatt sleeps next to Hetty on the bottom bunk and Reese sleeps on the top bunk, you really get to know these girls in the novel as they are very close to one another. One day, Byatt is missing. How can she be missing when no one goes outside the fence?

The novel felt creepy and mysterious, like there was a big secret that no one was telling you. What was beyond the fence was exciting and it felt like Little Red Riding Hood mother said, “stay on the path.” I really enjoyed the author’s writing, the imagery I had while reading was fantastic. I liked the storyline and how, there were times that I couldn’t turn the pages fast enough. This was one of those books that ran in a cycle for me, it was slow at times, then fast and this cycle continued as parts of the novel’s mystery was revealed throughout its pages. There were a few times that I had to go back and reread a few things, but other than that, I really enjoyed this novel. 4.5/5

Thank you, Penguin Random House, for providing a copy of this novel to me in exchange for an honest opinion.