Saturday, April 18, 2009

Review: Bad Girls Don't Die by Katie Alender

Publication date: April 21, 2009

Tags: YA, ghosts, horror, suspense, evil

Rating: 4 out of 5

Summary

Photography-lover Alexis Warren lives in an enormous, rambling, slightly creepy house with her dysfunctional parents and younger sister, Kasey. Alexis may dye her hair pink and disdain most of the people at school, but her Kasey seems to be REALLY crazy: she has an unhealthy doll-collecting obsession, and has recently been acting weird, alternately crying tearfully and acting unlike herself. Almost as if she were…possessed.

Alex is further convinced that something’s not right with Kasey when strange things start occurring in the house: doors open and close on their own, appliances turn on all by themselves. With the help of unlikely new friends—Megan Wiley, the head cheerleader at Surrey High, and Carter Blume, the popular new kid whom Alexis might like more than she should—Alexis is going to find out what the evil spirit that seems to be haunting Kasey and inflicting harm wants.

If she can manage to do this without be killed.

Review

Be forewarned: don’t read BAD GIRLS DON’T DIE at night, or you will feel the goosebumps on the back of your neck long after you reluctantly put the book down! Katie Alender’s debut YA novel is deliciously creepy; imagine the movie The Sixth Sense in novel form, and you can get an idea of what this book was like.

Alexis kicked butt as a protagonist; if Jessica Darling had a young sister who turns the popular crowd upside-down and unfortunately finds herself in a ghost story, you’d get Alexis. The majority of the story centers around the evil ghost’s mystery, which occasionally leaves the characters slightly incomplete, at least in my opinion. I would have no problem reading a hundred extra pages in order to better understand important characters such as Carter, Megan, Kasey, Alexis’ parents, and the ghost’s history and motivation.

Despite the sometimes overwhelmingly fast pace of the novel, however, BAD GIRLS DON’T DIE is truly a remarkable read, destined to send shivers down your spine.

Similar Authors
Megan McCafferty
Laura Whitcomb (A Certain Slant of Light)
Laurie Faria Stolarz (Blue Is For Nightmares)

Writing: 5/5
Characters: 4/5
Plot: 4/5

Overall Rating: 4 out of 5

21 comments:

  1. I have an award for you! http://greenbeanteenqueen.blogspot.com/2009/04/blog-award.html

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  2. Sounds really good! I'll definitely be sure to read this in the daylight lol. I'm not scared or anything...but just in case ya know? =D

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  4. It sounds so good! I really want to read it.. hmm... Amazon? Yes, I think so.

    Thanks for the review Steph!

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  5. i wrote that one down!! it sounds good, and any author who is similar to megan mccafferty is good to me!

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  6. This looks great! Thanks for the review!

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  7. OMG, attacked of the awards! Come get yours!

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  8. I really really really really want this one, it looks so good.

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  9. I just finished A Certain Slant of Light last week and loved it, so I'll have to add this one to my WL.

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  10. Really, really looking forward to reading this one.
    I've read A Certain Slant of Light by Laura Whitcomb
    and I want to read Blue Is For Nightmares by Laurie Faria Stolarz.

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  11. I've been wanting to read this since like, FOREVER. Great review!

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  12. Man, I have chills just reading your review!

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  13. I want this one so much. It just sounds amazinggg. :)

    -Lauren

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  14. Haha, I started BGDD at night, and ended up having to finish it the next afternoon. (But - I had school and it was late, yep, yep that was why ;)

    I agree, would've liked to see a bit more development between Carter and Alexis, and even a few more pages would've been good for that.

    Agreed though, overall 'twas a remarklable read!

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  15. This one looks awesome! Dolls kinda creep me out though...

    pepsivanilla14(at)hotmail(dot)com

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  16. I've read reviews on this, but I do have to say that yours makes me wanna read it even more! And AT NIGHT! :) I love a good scare!

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  17. I've been wanting to get my hands on a copy of this. It looks so good!

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  18. Sounds like I'd have to keep the lights on in the hallway while reading this! Thanks!

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Hello! I'm so excited to read what you have to say. Due to high amounts of spam, I'm forced to disabled anonymous comments for the time being. Sorry for any inconvenience this causes, and I hope you can understand and still appreciate the content here!

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