Kat Rosenthal – Amelia Anne is Dead and Gone

This book. Oh boy. I don’t really have too much to say on this one because I was totally absorbed while reading it. I wasn’t thinking about it critically at all. I’ve never read a book that grabbed me because it was so creepy and horrifying that I just couldn’t stop reading it. I never read books like that – this is the first one. The creepy and horrifying I usually like to read is more Gothic, more subtle, less real life. This book made me feel like how I do after a particularly gruesome episode of Criminal Minds – gross and uncomfortable and really disturbed. This probably has to do with the fact that I could really identify with Becca and it wasn’t just the deaths and activities surrounding them that got to me, it was that I could see and feel her losing some part of her sanity.

Before I got totally involved with the story, I did note that some of the writing seemed awkward and stiff – primarily the scenes that were supposed to convey how much a boyfriend and girlfriend like each other. They just seemed unnatural and over-the-top and a little sugary, making me want to gag. Amelia felt really unnatural for some reason, for the first parts of her story…maybe because I was subconsciously comparing her to Alaska. However, this is not the kind of book where those mushy scenes crop up a lot…it was mostly near the beginning and eventually as the story settled into itself I didn’t notice any more awkwardness (not to say that there wasn’t any – it’s probably because I was so drawn in by the story).

I loved the interspersed scenes sharing other perspectives, I thought they were really well-written. Especially the passages that elaborate on the connections of a small town, such as when the town’s only other murder is described. Very eerie.

So that’s my two cents…this book was very different from anything I’ve read before, which is something I rarely get to say! Check it out..