Project 17 : The Spirits Lurk Among Us...

"Rock-A-Bye Christy, on witch's hill,

When the wind blows, the patients will kill,

When the nurse comes, I'll pretend I'm asleep,

And shoot her with needles so she won't make a peep."

This is my all-time favorite book. I'm not done with I Am the Messenger quite yet, and I ran out of things to talk about on that one, so I'll just talk about my favorite book in forever. This book kind of introduced me to the horror genre, and I love horror books now because of it. Honestly, it scared me a lot (I was a wimp) when I read it. It's about six high school kids that go into this haunted asylum, which actually does exist, it's called Danver's State Hospital, on the eve of its demolition to record a movie of their adventures for various reasons; one goes in for kicks, two in because they want to become big-shot actors, one is looking for any remembrance of her grandmother, another needs it for her college resume, and the other needs it for his future to not be flipping burgers.

The tale is wonderfully woven, and written by one of my favorites, Laurie Faria Stolarz. She writes from the perspective of each character for each chapter, and she doesn't do it blandly. What I mean is, she doesn't use the same writing style for any of the characters when she writes in their perspective. For example, one of them is written like a Screenplay.

Some would call it scary, other's wouldn't. It's kind of like a roller coaster ride, some people will love it, some will think nothing of it, and some will cry because it's just too much. It's a ghost story, so no gory scenes were depicted in it. It doesn't really make you want to go, "EW. OUCH." it sort of just makes the hairs on the back of your neck stand on end.

I highly recommend it for anyone who's looking for a thrill. I also suggest Stolarz's other books, like the Blue is for Nightmares series.

(AndnotBleed. Don't read Bleed.)

I Am The Messenger : Chosen to Care.

"Christ, it's deafening. Why can't the world hear? I ask myself. Within a few moments I ask it many times. Because it doesn't care, I finally answer, and know I'm right. It's like I've been chosen. Chosen for what? I ask.

The answer's quite simple:

To care."

I think I've found the drive for most artists. They try the walls of society, and see what it can take. Sometimes, the boundaries will change with the art movement, others will reject it, even though they know it cannot be destroyed. I think other artists try to make something different, and see how people will take it.

I'm not sure which this book is trying to do (conciously or subconciously), but it's really good so far. It's unlike anything I've ever read, really. It's about Ed, an underage taxi driver, who finds this card in the mail. This card has different adresses on it, and he soon becomes the messenger. Granted, he doesn't want to become the messenger.

It really gets you to think. In this uncaring world of ours, is there something or someone who actually does care about the poor, mangled souls crying out in pain? (Hello, melodramatic wording. It's nice to meet you.) Or will people be forced to care?

Need : Benign to Sinister.

"Pain shoots through my head. Fireworks. Explosions. All inside my brain. The white world goes dark and I know what's about to happen."

This book was seriously addictive. Some say that if you read a book really fast, it's good. I don't really agree with this, seeing as I tend to savor the book, but that wasn't the case here. I suppose I read this in about three days, I can't really remember. But what I'm trying to say in this long ramle of a paragraph is that it was a good book.

It was actually kind of Twilight-esque, which kinda dissapointed me. I tried to ignore it, but my thoughts kept going back to that book. Maybe it was just my head being stupid or something. But one of the things that made it not Twilight was that the characters had flaws! (Ohmugawd, call the cliche police, they need to hear about this great feat of awesome.) Insane, right? Who ever heard of a character that isn't perfect? It was also really creative.

What I liked the most about Need was that the author takes something that seems so benign, little and insignifigant and makes it this sisnister thing that could steal you in the night and make you bleed to death. It was lovely.

Fade : Your Dreams are Not Your Own.

Your dreams are not your own.

I love sequels.

I was waiting for this book for months. A friend of mine texted me from Barnes and Noble saying that she had it in her hands. She also thought it would be hilarious to tease me with a picture and the synopsis in another text. My response, was, obvioulsy, "I hate you so much right now."

Fade by Lisa McMann is the sequel to Wake, which is about a girl who can jump into your dreams (whether she wants to or not) going undercover to bust those on drugs. That sounds extremely lame because I am absolutely horrible at explaining things that are just too awesome to explain.

But McMann didn't let us down, like so many writers have in their sequels. She brings back the good ol' Janie and Cabel and the same old spook and chill like Wake had. It's kind of like another season to a popular TV show. (Prefferably Heroes...(: ) You get to revisit the characters and world after not having it for so long. Thankfully not like other TV shows that are just running because they were once popular, but are just running out of ideas, thus ruining its former image and turning just...stupid.