Eat Your Heart Out

Published: June 11th, 2013

Another Little Piece

By: Kate Kayrus Quinn

HarperTeen

ISBN-13:  9780062135957

The spine-tingling horror of Stephen King meets an eerie mystery worthy of Sara Shepard's Pretty Little Liars series in Kate Karyus Quinn's haunting debut.

On a cool autumn night, Annaliese Rose Gordon stumbled out of the woods and into a high school party. She was screaming. Drenched in blood. Then she vanished.

A year later, Annaliese is found wandering down a road hundreds of miles away. She doesn't know who she is. She doesn't know how she got there. She only knows one thing: She is not the real Annaliese Rose Gordon.

Now Annaliese is haunted by strange visions and broken memories. Memories of a reckless, desperate wish . . . a bloody razor . . . and the faces of other girls who disappeared. Piece by piece, Annaliese's fractured memories come together to reveal a violent, endless cycle that she will never escape—unless she can unlock the twisted secrets of her past.

Review

     Annaliese Rose Gordon has suddenly reappeared after being gone for a year, with everyone thinking she was dead.  The last time anyone saw her was at a party, screaming and covered in blood.  Now that she's back, Anna can't remember anything about her past or where she's been for the last year.  She begins to uncover the past with only a straight razor carved with the names of other girls, half-memories and a creepy boy following her around talking of someone called 'the Physician.'  But when she begins to truly investigate with the help of her outcast neighbor Dex, she discovers that some things are better left buried.  Anna just may have made a bargain with the devil and with a desperate, unholy hunger about to consume her she must decided whether to continue on the path to Hell or finally make the right decision.

      The book starts off with Anna in a mental ward, being assessed by Doctors after she has been missing for a year.  With a chunk of her brain missing and her memory gone with it, Anna is almost completely dissociated from reality.  She calls her parents "the Mom" and "the Dad" not really claiming them as her own.  It turns out this attitude is for good reason, as Anna is an interloper who got the real Annaliese to make a devil's bargain and give her body over for Anna's use.  Using the wishes of other girls and their desperation, Anna has been body jumping since her own life was abruptly shattered.  The whole concept of the 'deal' was completely and utterly creepy.  As someone who doesn't generally read horror, the especially graphic passage of text describing Annaliese cutting out Anna's heart and eating it could have been enough to make me stop reading - if I wasn't too damned curious for my own good!  One thing that almost did make me stop reading was the stalkerish behavior of Annaliese's previous 'boyfriend' Logan, but with the what could be called a curse working on his sensibilities, I had to cut him some slack.  But he was pretty disturbing.  

     The characters in this one are pretty abstract, although we get to know both Annaliese and the creature/lost girl Anna through flashbacks/memories as she starts to regain knowledge of her many lives and deaths.  Honestly the whole subplot with Frankie and the Physician just made things all that much more creepy.  Especially since Frankie's sick obsession is what propels his continued interest in Anna, even after she is in the bodies of other girls.  Quinn definitely captures the feeling of being an outcast in a world where you decidedly don't belong.  I thought the revelation of Dex's secret and why he's so obsessed with terrible things to be interesting, if a bit cliched.  The ending of this one was okay, but I think I would have been happier and it would have made a lot more sense if no second chances were afforded.  It just didn't sit right with me.  The connection between Anna, Gwen (Annaliese's best friend) and Annaliese was interesting and well drawn.  It was a believable way for Anna to ingratiate herself into the life of her next victim.  I give the author major props for keeping me so invested, even when my stomach was in turmoil! :)  I definitely see the parallels between this and the type of grotesque horror that Stephen King specializes in.  Even with paranormal undertones, the graphically horrific situations were enough to turn my stomach.  This may not have been the right book for me personally, but it was a really interesting debut and I'd definitely recommend it to fans of horror, who have strong stomachs for gore.

VERDICT:  3/5  Stars

*I received an Advanced Reading E-book Copy from the publisher, via Edelweiss.  No money or favors were exchanged for this review.  This book was published on June 11th, 2013.*

The Best Of Both Worlds

 

Published:  August 29th, 2005
Disney After Dark (The Kingdom Keepers # 1)
By: Ridley Pearson
Disney Press
ISBN-13:  9780786854448

In this fantastical novel, Disney's Magic Kingdom suddenly becomes a bit eerie. Finn Whitman and four other teens have been hired as Disney World guides, but with an odd twist: With cutting-edge technology, they have been transformed into hologram projections capable of leading guests around the park. What begins as an exciting theme park job turns into a virtual nightmare as Finn and his pals attempt to thwart an uprising by a menacing group of Disney villains.

Review

 

     Finn Whitman was really excited to be part of an experimental program run at Disney's Magic Kingdom theme park.  He and four other kids his age are to be the basis for holographic hosts, to give tours to all the park's guests.  But what he and the others don't know is that they are secretly being used as an experiment and will have new abilities that Disney hopes will save the park - from its own characters.  With villains from various Disney tales banding together and calling themselves 'the Overtakers', they won't quit until they've busted loose from the park and started taking over the world.  It's up to Finn, with help from Willa, Philby, Maybeck and Charlene to put a stop to the overtakers.  But with the truly evil Maleficent leading them, will good lose this time?  Like other people, I went into this expecting a lot more recognizable Disney character cameos.  But I had read reviews beforehand from disappointed readers, and so I braced myself.  But it reminded me a lot of the old video game, Kingdom Hearts, for Playstation.   It has a Disney feeling to it with hints of the old, but original characters are the focus of the story.  Finn was not a very in-depth character, yet it didn't bother as much as something like that normally would.  Probably because the holographic host situation and the kids waking up in the park at night reminded me a lot of those old Choose Your Own Adventure books.  It felt like a book you could put yourself in and therefore the characters should be a little bit vague!  And they weren't even necessarily vague, they just ready pretty young and naïve to me.  The whole relationship with Wayne, the old guard of Disney's Imagineers, was funny but also mysterious and I'm interested to see the interactions later on in the series between him and the kids.  The 'battle' scenes with the dolls from It's a Small World, the pirates from the Pirates of the Caribbean ride and the dinosaur from Thunder Mountain were something from the best part of being a kid - the kind that make you laugh and hang on to the edge of your seat, like watching your first action movie.  I have seen complaints about the characterization of Maleficent, but I thought she came across just as creepy and chilling as she does in the Disney film.  I was willing to suspend my disbelief and be terrified right along with Finn and his friends.  The revelation about seemingly evil new girl at school Jezebel and Finn's friend, Amanda, is not particularly surprising but does set up for future books quite nicely.  The majority of the plot was spent trying to solve Walt Disney's secret fable 'The Stonecutter's Quill' and use the answer to stop the Overtakers.  It was an interesting and original idea lacking depth of execution, but just as fun as deciding whether to turn to page 4 or 81 to find out who lives and dies.  Overall, a fun adventure read and one I would recommend for reluctant readers and middle school aged kids especially.  Only one noted, beware:  If you're looking for a character filled romp this is NOT IT.  This book is more behind the scenes, technology based.  One of the reasons I liked it a lot, but definitely not for everyone! :)

 

VERDICT:  3.75/5  Stars

 

**No money or favors were exchanged for this review. This book is now available in stores, online, or maybe even at your local library.**