Audiobook Review: The Girl of Nightmares

The Girl of Nightmares (Anna, 2) by Kendare Blake, read by August Ross, August, 2012. 10 hours. Published by AudioGo. Source: Audiobook Jukebox/Publisher.

It’s been months since the ghost of Anna Korlov opened a door to Hell in her basement and disappeared into it, but ghost-hunter Cas Lowood can’t move on.
His friends remind him that Anna sacrificed herself so that Cas could live—not walk around half dead. He knows they’re right, but in Cas’s eyes, no living girl he meets can compare to the dead girl he fell in love with.
Now he’s seeing Anna everywhere: sometimes when he’s asleep and sometimes in waking nightmares. But something is very wrong... these aren’t just daydreams. Anna seems tortured, torn apart in new and ever more gruesome ways every time she appears.
Cas doesn’t know what happened to Anna when she disappeared into Hell, but he knows she doesn’t deserve whatever is happening to her now. Anna saved Cas more than once, and it’s time for him to return the favor.

First Sentence:

I think I killed a girl who looked like this once.

Story

This was definitely one enjoyable book even thought it was not as scary as I thought it would be. I just wonder if this is the end of the series or...

I don't scare easily, so my judgment on whether or not a book is scary should be ignored...at this moment. Just saying. 

While it may not have been the scariest thing I've read, what really stands out is the great writing and the character growth from one book to the next. I think the character the showed the most growth would have to be Carmel. I really liked that you actually could tell how much she cared for Thomas by the end of the book. There were just quite a few reasons to like her more in this book, ones you'll have to read for yourself, but trust me she's changed for the better. 

Kendare Blake is exceptionally good at painting a vivid picture with her writing and blew me away with her description of the hell that Anna found herself in. I could literally not do anything when Cas and Anna were finally in the same place because the details of that place were downright creepy, but in such a way that you could just not stop reading/listening till you knew what was going to be the final outcome for the characters. It was just incredibly done.

The end of The Girl of Nightmares was both happy and sad. I liked that things regarding the fate of Anna and the villain, whose name I have no idea how to spell, from the previous book. While I liked the ending, I was still a little sad with the way it ended even though there was really no other way things could have drawn to a close that would have made sense. 

While I liked Cas in the first book, I did not love his personality. That being said, I found myself enjoying the changes that his personality underwent between books one and two. I liked that he was less of the lone-wolf character and how he came to really on and enjoy the friendships that he made with Thomas and Carmel. Even with that change, I liked that he still was essentially the same kick-butt character from book one.   

What I really enjoyed about The Girl of Nightmares would have to be the story between Anna and Cas. While they may not have been together long in the book, I liked the relationship between the two of them and how they went through so much just to help the each other. It was definitely one if the highlights for me as a reader to see how they, especially Cas, put the other ones needs above their own safety.   

As with Anna Dressed in Blood, the only thing I did not like about The Girl of Nightmares would have to be the swearing. There was just too much for me. What really made all the swearing disagreeable to me would have to be the ones that were used. I'm not going to say which ones were used, just that they were some of the worst ones. 

Narration

So, in Anna Dressed in Blood I was a little iffy on the narration, but in The Girl of Nightmares I thought it was quite good. Maybe the narrator, August Ross, grew on me the longer I listened to him. Either way, I really enjoyed the narration of the book and felt like the reader did the book justice.  

What I liked the most about the narration in The Girl of Nightmares would have to be that the reader did a great job hitting on the emotions of the characters. I really liked August Ross' range when it came to reading all the feels that Cas and Anna went through in this book. It was definitely a highlight of listening to the book since the tone matched  what they were feeling. 

The only thing I did not like about August Ross' narration of this book would have to be his English accent for Justine. I just do not think the female voices, with the exception of Anna, are his strong point. Especially non-American accented female voices. Of course, this is just my observation after listening to him read two different books.

Final Verdict: Girl of Nightmares was disturbingly dark and addictive. 

The Girl of Nightmares earns 4 out of 5 pineapples.