Fearscape book review + The Devouring book series review

Fearscape (The Devouring book #3 of 3) by Simon Holt

Hardcover, 314 pages
Read: Dec. 16 - 17
Rating: 2/5
Genres: Young Adult, Paranormal, Supernatural, Horror
Summery: The Vours: Evil demonic beings that inhabit human bodies on Sorry Night, the darkest hour of the winter solstice.
It's been a year since Reggie first discovered the Vours, and the winter solstice is approaching once again. It will be another night of unspeakable horror for those unlucky enough to be taken by the Vours, because this time, she won't be able to stop them. The Vours have imprisoned Reggie in a psychiatric hospital, where she is subjected to a daily routine of unfathomably sadistic experiments. Her life is a living hell, but she won't give up. They attacked her brother. They killed her friend. And Reggie will never stop fighting back.

Review: This story starts almost a year after the events of the first book, The Devouring, and almost six months after the events of the second book, Soulstice. Sadly I ended up with the same opinion of this book as I had about Soulstice. I like the psychological aspect, but everything else was just there, not really good, nor bad. The characters still had a disconnected feel for me. There were events in this book that did annoy me, and have me rolling my eyes, such as practically everything from chapter 11 and 12, and the beginning of chapter 19 was kind of stupid and felt unnecessary. Also, I was right about the romance, but thankfully it didn't take anything away from the story, but it also didn't add anything either. It seemed only hinted at a love triangle, which was/would have been stupid. the story really didn't have a open and shut ending, like there was the possibility of having another book, which if that did end up happening I would not be reading it.

Series Rating: 2.5/5
Series Review: While I really liked the psychological horror aspect, as well as the fearscapes, nothing else stood out or made me feel much, if anything, while reading it. The only character I liked was Henry, and he wasn't in the series much. The rest of the characters had a disconnected feel to them, like I didn't care whether they lived or died, they were just there. Most of the events in the second and third book felt over-dramatic, I don't think the all over non-feeling that I had with the characters helped, but most of the events that were supposed to be suspenseful or heart-racing weren't. I did enjoy the first book in this series and think it was a really good set-up for the rest of the series, but after reading the other two books, I wish it could have been left at just that first book, sure there would have been some unanswered questions, but having those questions unanswered would have been better than reading the other two books in the series. The thing is, that the events themselves, as well as the reason for the events weren't terrible and could have been really good, but the way that the whole book series was written made it boring and uninteresting. The disconnected feeling I got with the series wasn't very obvious in the first book, but became glaringly obvious with the other two books. Sadly, while I did enjoy the first book, I feel like I wasted my time reading the other two.

Hope everybody had/has a good day : )

Soulstice book review

Soulstice (The Devouring book #1 of 3) by Simon Holt

Hardcover, 266 pages
Read: Dec. 15 - 16
Rating: 3/5
Genres: Young Adult, Paranormal, Supernatural, Horror
Summery: The Vours: Evil, demonic beings that inhabit human bodies on Sorry Night, the darkest hours of the winter solstice.
Six month...
Since Reggie first discovered the existence of the Vours in a tattered journal. Since she learned to overcome her fear and destroyed a Vour to save Henry.
Now as the summer solstice approaches, the Vours still haunt Reggie, but only in her dreams - until one night, when an unexpected visitor turns her nightmares into reality.

Review:  This story starts out six months since the events of the first book, The Devouring. I still really liked the psychological aspect of the series, the rest is where I have a problem getting into it. While I enjoy and can respect what the characters in the story bring to it I don't really like them, they have a disconnected feeling. I still have no real connection or interest in the main character Reggie, or her friend Aaron, the only one I really liked was Reggie's little brother, Henry, In the first one you can't really get a feel on his personality but in this one, even though he's not in it much you can get a feel on who he is some, and I ended up really liking him. The only parts I really liked or that held my interest were the fearscape parts. I didn't really like the relationship that ended up happening between Reggie and the "unexpected visitor", I didn't like that she ended up trusting them, I also don't like that I have a strong feeling that their going to be the romance in the third book, from reading non-spoiler reviews I know there is going to be a romance, and it seems like it's going to be between Reggie and the "unexpected visitor". Also, the who are Vours felt... I don't know if this is the right way to explain it, but it started to feel soap opera Dramatic instead of suspenseful. While I will be reading the third/last book in this series next, I am not really excited or really interested to read it, the reason I will be reading it is that 1. there was a pretty big cliff hanger (that thanks to the third books summery I knew was going to happen), and 2. considering I own the last book I feel like I should just get it over with and read it.

Hope everybody had/has a great day : )

The Devouring book review

I ended up getting sick at the ending of Nov. and while I tried to read I couldn't get through chapter three, much less the rest of the book without getting extremely dizzy.

The Devouring (The Devouring book #1 of 3) by Simon Holt

Paperback, 256 pages
Read: Nov. 28 and Dec. 2
Rating: 4/5
Genres: Young Adult, Horror, Paranormal, Psychological Horror
Summery: When Reggie finds an old journal and reads about the Vours, supernatural creatures who feast on fear and attack on the eve of the winter solstice, she assumes they are just the musings of some lunatic author. But soon, they become a terrifying reality when she begins to suspect that her timid younger brother might be one of their victims.
Risking her life and her sanity, Reggie enters a living nightmare to save the people she loves. Can she devour own her fears before they devour her?
Bone-chilling, terrifying, thrilling...what are you waiting for?

Review: This story starts with the beginning of a story about Jeremiah getting taken over by Vours on Sorry Night, the darkest hours of the winter solstice. It was a good book, I enjoyed it, but there were definitely problems with it for me. The first and biggest one for me was that while the characters were okay, I didn't connect with, or get invested with any of them. Although I liked the fast pace I think that might have caused the problem with the characters for me. Also the more or less complete absence of parents, whether they weren't there completely or weren't there emotionally, bothered me. I did really like the psychological aspect, especially with the horror. The Vours, or as there called in the book, are these shadows/dark mists that take over your body a trap you in your worst fears in your mind, trying to keep hope that you will escape before you either die or become completely devoured by your fears. I really liked the Vours aspect of the book and there are a few cliffhangers/questions about one of the characters (Eben) that makes me want to read the rest of the series. I read this book once before back in 2012, and when I read the summery to the last/third book in the series I ended up not wanting to read the second or third in the series, because the summery for the third book gives a big spoiler to the ending of the second book away. So my advice is if you do read the first book and want to continue with the series, don't read the summery to the third book before you read the second book through. Although thanks to the third books summery I know whats going to happen at the end of the second book, I will be reading the rest of the series.


Thanks to first being very busy mid Nov. and getting very sick at the end of Nov. I had to put The Devouring series, The Montrumologist, and the 2 in 1 Chaos Walking Omnibus, onto Dec. T.B.R. list so I am now hoping to read and finish 13 more books this Dec., and finish 50 physical books for the year of 2014 (Not including the 6 short stories/novellas I have on my kindle).

Hope everybody has/had a great day : )

November T.B.R. List

I did not expect to become so busy last week of Oct.. So I was not able to read Howl's Moving Castle in Oct., so I will be reading it this month.

#1
Howl's Moving Castle (Howl's Moving Castle book #1 of 3) by Diana Wynne Jones

#2
Asylum (Asylum book #1 of 3) by Madeleine Roux

#3
Legend (Legend book #1 of 3) by Marie Lu

#4
SYLO (The SYLO Chronicles book #1 of 3) by D.J. MacHale

#4
The Darkest Minds (The Darkest Minds book #1 of 3) by Alexandra Bracken

#5
The Devouring (The Devouring book #1 of 3) by Simon Holt

#6
Soulstice (The Devouring book #2 of 3) by Simon Holt

#7
Fearscape (The Devouring book #3 of 3) bu Simon Holt

#8
The Monstrumologist (The Monstrumologist book #1 of 4) by Rick Yancey

# 9
Chaos Walking 2 In 1 Omnibus (Chaos Walking book #1-2 of 3) by Patrick Ness

So I have 9 books I'm hoping to read this month (technically 10 if you count the Chaos Walking Omnibus as 2 books). I'm hoping to read at least 50 books this year, so far I've read 34 books.

Hope everybody had/has a great day.