Review: Haunted

Haunted by Joy Preble

publisher: Sourcebooks Fire

release date: February 1st, 2011

paperback, 290 pages

intended audience: Young adult

first book in series: Dreaming Anastasia (my review)

rating:


source: from publisher for review

description:
Anne is trying her best to live a normal life, but she's still got some power sparking inside her. She's hearing and seeing things that she tries her best to ignore-like being haunted by a Russian sea nymph that claims the princess Anastasia is still alive.

That's when Ethan Kozninsky-he of the stunning blue eyes, thick brown hair, and former immortal status-returns. Anne soon realizes that everything she's been trying to forget might be impossible to bury.

Review: Joy Preble has a knack for picking such intriguing creatures to act as her villains! After Dreaming Anastasia, I immediately hopped online and researched Baba Yaga, even though I was thoroughly freaked out by her gigantic detachable hands and iron teeth. This time, it's the Rusalkas...vicious mermaids who were once wronged women. No singing and giggling for these mermaids---these creatures cloud a man's brain, lure them to the water and drown them. Nothing cute about it. While this book wasn't nearly as creepy as the last, it has a few good eerie moments.

Anne is still a strong character, and I still love Tess and the fierce way she stands beside Anne. This time, Anne is a little lost---trying to deny her powers and do all she can to grasp any type of normalcy. She has started dating Ben, who is as normal as can be, bordering on simple. Not so much dumb, but just kind of uninteresting---lifeguard, hormones running on high, sweet but kind of doofy, and when Ethan shows up again, Ben pulls the usual possessive riot act. He didn't seem to match Anne at all, so it tipped the scales of this love triangle easily toward Ethan, as he was just as heroic and mysterious as always. But still, Anne wants normal and Ethan is anything but that, so you'll have to read and find out where she lands!

I really liked the mother/daughter angle of this story. Both of them lost for different reasons, and growing further apart by the day. I liked that the story behind her lost birth grandmother continues in this one and it made for a very interesting part of the plot!

Once again, as in Dreaming Anastasia, the chapters alternate between Anne and Ethan's point of view. I encountered the same problem as last time---their voices are not distinct enough from each other for this to really work for me. I often forgot whose point of view I was currently reading and would have to backtrack a little. I would come across something that I thought completely didn't make sense, and then realize that I wasn't reading who I thought I was reading.

There was also a lot of villain monologuing in this one. With a handful of villainous characters, they all had their moment in the sun. And while it was necessary in some aspects to explain what was going on, it was a bit tedious at times. I also had a hard time understanding the motive and purpose of all three villains, and the cryptic riddles that they spoke in were definitely no help in figuring this out. Still, the tidbits we learn about their histories are important and both answer and create more questions that will hopefully be addressed in a third installment.

I enjoyed this one, although not as much as the first---but I will definitely be eager to continue the story when the third book comes along!

Visit Joy Preble's website here.

Purchase Haunted at: Amazon • BN.com • BookDepository

Review: Dreaming Anastasia

Dreaming Anastasia by Joy Preble

publisher: Sourcebooks Jabberwocky

release date: September 1st, 2009

paperback, 310 pages

intended audience: Young adult

source: library

rating:


description: Anastasia Romanov thought she would never feel more alone than when the gunfire started and her family began to fall around her. Surely the bullets would come for her next. But they didn't. Instead, two gnarled old hands reached for her. When she wakes up she discovers that she is in the ancient hut of the witch Baba Yaga, and that some things are worse than being dead.

In modern-day Chicago, Anne doesn't know much about Russian history. She is more concerned about getting into a good college—until the dreams start. She is somewhere else. She is someone else. And she is sharing a small room with a very old woman. The vivid dreams startle her, but not until a handsome stranger offers to explain them does she realize her life is going to change forever. She is the only one who can save Anastasia. But, Anastasia is having her own dreams…

Review: This book was a total surprise to me. I've always been intrigued by the mystery of Anastasia and this completely turned the story on its head and added a new fantastical twist. I was not expecting this one to be as spine-tingling as it was. Strangely, I had heard of the witch Baba Yaga, but never actually heard her story, and let me tell you...it completely freaked me out. The thought of this decrepit old creepy witch with her gigantic detachable hands that would go out and do her devious bidding was enough to have me slapping the book closed until my shivers died down. In this story,those creepy hands swooped in and took Anastasia away from the massacre of her family, but Baba Yaga has held her captive for nearly 100 years and everyone involved in the mystery has been made immortal until the day when a mystery girl will come to her rescue.

Anne made for a really interesting protagonist. She is just a regular teen, trying to do well in school and studying ballet. She has a good head on her shoulders, and while being a little less outspoken than her best friend, Tess, she has a good confident voice. I love her first reactions to her encounters with Ethan. Instead of being one of those girls that swoons when she sees any hot guy staring at her incessantly and continually keeps popping up where ever she is, she thinks to herself "why can't I be approached by someone normal? Why do I get this guy who stares at me and seems to be a stalker." Not her exact words, but you get the idea. It takes her awhile to be convinced that the magical things happening to her are real, but when she does, she goes at it head on!

Tess was a good supporting character, an excellent best friend to Anna. She was tough and persistent and refused to be left out of the loop if it meant standing by Anna, even when she knew it might be dangerous. She was also funny and witty, a good balance to the intensity of the story.

The point of view goes back and forth between Anne and Ethan with a few interjections from Anastasia. While most of the time this worked really well and it was perfect to be able to get Ethan's side of the action, a few times (just a very few, really) their voices were not distinct enough from each other and I would forget whose POV I was currently in. It didn't take away from the story, though.

I did take one cupcake away for "presentation", I guess you would call it. In certain parts of this book, Anastasia is writing to her deceased family members. These sections were printed in a script font that was very near to being illegible. I came to actually dread getting to these sections! Her letters did impart some important information pertaining to the storyline, but the struggle to decipher the fancy font was enough to make the story feel like it was dragging.

Despite that, I loved this one. It was exciting and adventurous, and definitely chilling at times! A perfect, magical twist on the Anastasia legend!

The next installment is due out in February. I have it here and I can't wait to start it! The cover is just as gorgeous as the first, and this time around there will be a malevolent mermaid involved!! Sounds amazing!

Visit Joy Preble's website here!

Purachse Dreaming Anastasia at: Amazon • Barnes & Noble • Book Depository