Jessi Reviews The Little Stranger by Sarah Waters

Title/Author: The Little Stranger by Sarah Waters
Publisher/Year: Riverhead Trade, 2009
Where I Got It: I picked up a copy from my library's used book sale
Why I Read It: Any book blurbed by Stephen King is a must-read for me!


Synopsis (from Goodreads): 



With The Little Stranger, Waters revisits the fertile setting of Britain in the 1940s - and gives us a sinister tale of a haunted house, brimming with the rich atmosphere and psychological complexity that have become hallmarks of Waters's work.

The Little Stranger follows the strange adventures of Dr. Faraday, the son of a maid who has built a life of quiet respectability as a country doctor. One dusty postwar summer in his home of rural Warwickshire, he is called to a patient at Hundreds Hall. Home to the Ayres family for more than two centuries, the Georgian house, once grand and handsome, is now in decline - its masonry crumbling, its gardens choked with weeds, the clock in its stable yard permanently fixed at twenty to nine. But are the Ayreses haunted by something more ominous than a dying way of life? Little does Dr. Faraday know how closely, and how terrifyingly, their story is about to become entwined with his.

Abundantly atmospheric and elegantly told, The Little Stranger is Sarah Waters's most thrilling and ambitious novel yet.


Review: 


This book came as a surprise to me in many ways.

I was surprised by how much I enjoyed it.

I was surprised by how quickly the pages flew by.

I was surprised by how good it was.

I mean, Sarah Waters can really write. When I first picked this up and saw that it was 500 pages long, I was wary. I thought it would take me forever to get through. After the first 40-ish pages, though, I was hooked. I felt like I was hypnotized. I'd sit down for what felt like ten minutes, and here it'd be hours later and I'd be hundreds of pages down the road. Even when I wanted to be doing other things, like blogging or whatever, I couldn't bring myself to put the book down. And like I said, Sarah Waters writes really well. Her prose is beautiful, but at the same time, I wasn't even really aware that I was reading. I was able to picture everything perfectly clear, and her story is one of the most atmospheric I've ever read. Hundreds Hall was so sinister, it was like I could feel it oozing off the pages. I was genuinely creeped out at parts, particularly that nursery scene.

I did have a few frustrations, though. By the end, Doctor Faraday made me want to scream, which I'm guessing was Sarah Water's intention. I get it. You have to play the rational card. But seriously--how much has to happen for you to start thinking that maybe something weird is happening that can't be explained rationally? Also, without wanting to give anything away, I found him to be too forward and definitely too persistent without having any reason to be so. Crazy obsessive stalker, much?

And finally, the ending just didn't really do it for me. I thought it was terribly anti-climactic. It was like, "Oh man, all this stuff is happening!" and then all of a sudden: "Oh...well...okay, I suppose that's it." Part of my frustration with the ending, too, is that Sarah Waters leaves it with one of those open-ended endings for the reader to decide what happened. Personally, I'm not a big fan of those, so it didn't work for me.

All things considered, though, it was an awesome read. Gothic, subtle, creepy, atmospheric, hypnotizing. I would definitely recommend it.

Jessi Reviews "Beautiful Darkness"

Title/Author: Beautiful Darkness by Kami Garcia & Margaret Stohl
Publisher/Year: Little, Brown Books for Young Readers, 2010
How I Got This: Interlibrary loan
Why I Read It: I've been dying to read it since I read Beautiful Creatures and with the upcoming release of Beautiful Chaos
Rating: 4 Stars 

Synopsis (from Goodreads): 

Ethan Wate used to think of Gatlin, the small Southern town he had always called home, as a place where nothing ever changed. Then he met mysterious newcomer Lena Duchannes, who revealed a secret world that had been hidden in plain sight all along. A Gatlin that harbored ancient secrets beneath its moss-covered oaks and cracked sidewalks. A Gatlin where a curse has marked Lena's family of powerful Supernaturals for generations. A Gatlin where impossible, magical, life-altering events happen.

Sometimes life-ending.

Together they can face anything Gatlin throws at them, but after suffering a tragic loss, Lena starts to pull away, keeping secrets that test their relationship. And now that Ethan's eyes have been opened to the darker side of Gatlin, there's no going back. Haunted by strange visions only he can see, Ethan is pulled deeper into his town's tangled history and finds himself caught up in the dangerous network of underground passageways endlessly crisscrossing the South, where nothing is as it seems.

Review: 


Wow. Again, Kami Garcia and Margaret Stohl have blown me away, and now I'm really counting down the days until Beautiful Chaos.

I had been waiting to read this since I finished Beautiful Creatures and I'm glad I finally got around to it. This time around, we get a deeper look into our favorite characters making this a more emotional read all around. Ethan and Lena have hit a bump in the road, so much of the time spent in this installment involves examining their relationship and what each of them are willing to do for each other. As someone who adores character development, I loved reading this one, and now I especially feel like I've known these characters forever.

I also really enjoyed how Kami and Margaret don't leave their readers hanging. It has been quite a while since I read Beautiful Creatures, so I was a little worried that this book would just jump into things and leave me behind in the dust. Never fear though--I never had that problem. At the same time, they did this so skillfully that I don't think it would be annoying to read this right after the first book. Sometimes, the beginnings of sequels are so mundane and repetitive that it takes like 50 pages to get into the actual story. Not in this case.

Above all, though, the writing is what takes the cake for me with this series. A lot of times, YA can come across as fluffy because of the writing style. Here we have a complex plot and stunning writing. Honestly, it reminds me of how everyone suggests the Harry Potter series for a well-written YA series. I adore the Gothic style. It's beautiful. Really, there's no other word for it.

And that ending?! Uh, hello, I need Beautiful Chaos like NOW!

Jessi Reviews "Beautiful Creatures"

Title/Author: Beautiful Creatures by Kami Garcia and Margaret Stohl
Publisher/Year: Little, Brown Books for Young Readers, 2009
How I Got This: From my lovely public library
Why I Read It: I've heard so many great things about it, and I was in the mood for something gothic! 
Rating: 5 Stars 
Quick Synopsisis:

 "There were no surprises in Gatlin County. We were pretty much the epicenter of the middle of nowhere.At least, that's what I thought.Turns out, I couldn't have been more wrong.

There was a curse.There was a girl.And in the end, there was a grave."


Lena Duchannes is unlike anyone the small Southern town of Gatlin has ever seen, and she's struggling to conceal her power and a curse that has haunted her family for generations. But even within the overgrown gardens, murky swamps, and crumbling graveyards of the forgotten South, a secret cannot stay hidden forever. 

Ethan Wate, who has been counting the months until he can escape from Gatlin, is haunted by dreams of a beautiful girl he has never met. When Lena moves into the town's oldest and most infamous plantation, Ethan is inexplicably drawn to her and determined to uncover the connection between them. 

In a town with no surprises, one secret could change everything. 


Wow. Seriously. Just. Wow.


I'm going to apologize beforehand for the following review because it's going to contain A LOT of gushing. And probably A LOT of capitalization.

First thing's first. I NEED Beautiful Darkness. Right now. And I'm gonna stomp around and conjure up a Lena-esque storm until I get it. Okay, maybe not. But still. I'm dying to keep reading.

I've read some pretty good books in my day. There are good books, and then there are those books that just haunt you, for lack of better words. When I wasn't reading this, I wished that I was. I thought about the characters constantly. I pulled two near all-nighters just to keep reading. Even today, when I was browsing books in Target, I found myself with a copy of Beautiful Creatures reading where I had left off, while my library copy sat waiting for me in the car.

There were just so many things that I loved about this book. This book was unlike anything I had ever read. I honestly don't think I'd be able to explain what this book is about to anyone. It's different and complex, and it takes a lot of background and explaining to get the reader where they need to be, but the journey is completely worth it.

Above all else, the thing that blew me away with this book was the writing. One night, as I was reading the first half of the book, I had stayed up until about 3:30 in the morning. When I finally stopped and put the book down, I let out this huge exhale. I hadn't even realized that I was holding my breath. I wanted to run out into the streets and find every person who claims that YA is "dumb" or "simplistic" or "inferior" or "below them" and push a copy of this book into their hands. The writing is just THAT good. The story had a very Gothic feel, and at times, the writing became eerie and creepy. It was perfect--totally put me in the proper mood for this story. Garcia and Stohl painted this excellent picture of the South. I wasthere. Even the dialect was spot on. I think it's completely amazing how, for being a book written by two people, the writing was seamless. There was never a point when I thought that I was reading two separate voices. It's hard to believe that this was written by two people.

I also particularly loved that this story was narrated by a guy. Maybe I just haven't read enough YA to know, but I feel like this is something that's sort of unique. I thought it was really cool. I loved Ethan. He's just this average guy who feels stuck in a small town. He reads. I mean, that won me over from the start. I think having Ethan narrate the story just worked so well, for the same reason why the first Harry Potter novel worked so well. We are learning about this other world at the same pace as Ethan, which makes it so much more believable.

The characterization is completely strong in this novel, too. This is a cast of characters that I won't soon forget. Poor Lena can't catch a break, but I really felt for her. I mean, who hasn't been there? The outsider wanting to fit in. I loved that she was this intelligent girl in a sea of bimbos, and I was so glad that Ethan finally had someone on his level. Link was another good character. I loved how goofy and yet loyal he was. Uncle Macon and Amma. Oh, how do I love thee, let me count the ways. There is one scene towards the latter half of the novel (during the Disciplinary Committee) where I wanted so badly to jump into the novel's pages and give Uncle Macon a big ole hug. Even some of the minor characters like the vile Mrs. Lincoln and the lovely Marian had distinct personalities.

For those of you who love the plot of a novel, Beautiful Creatures fails to disappoint. I was hooked into this storyline. To be honest, at first, I wasn't sure where the story was going. The beginning contains a lot of background info on the story of Gatlin and how the people in the town interact, which sounds kind of boring (but isn't). It's essential to understanding the story. For being a chunkster of a novel (at close to 600 pages), I felt like I flew through it. I definitely could have read this in a whole day, if I didn't need to sleep. Or eat. Or do anything else. There were times when I couldn't tear my eyes away from the pages, and then there were times when I could put the book down for a little bit. There were lulls in the story line, but they weren't bad. It was more like reading along knowing that even though nothing big was happening at the moment, it was bound to sooner or later, so it was still a hard time putting the book down.

Overall, this was an incredible book, and one I know I won't soon forget. This is Young Adult fiction at it's best, and for all the nay-sayers out there, I recommend giving this a try. For those who love and cherish the genre, you need to read this if you haven't already. I am dying for my library to get a copy of the next book so that I can keep reading!