Dia Reeves

That had a promising beginning, especially when it drew me abruptly into one of Hanna's hallucinations. I wish there had been more of that. Once Hanna started having adventures in Portero, the book felt more like a series of one weird event/introduction of new monster after another, without much point until the last 150 pages or so.
I do like the idea that Hanna's mental illness made her more capable to deal with a town full of monsters and death, but the book rambled too much before getting to the meat of the story.… (meer)

Slice of Cherry is a 500 page book that is not sure what it wants to be: paranormal romance? comedy-horror? Supernatural magical realism? Or all of the above. Kit and Fancy Cordelle are the daughters of the “Bonesaw Killer” who is awaiting execution making the girls the town pariahs of Portero, TX. They get hate mail and fan letters, sightseers and stalkers but the townspeople avoid them, all except the sons of their father’s last victim, Ilan and Gabriel Turner, which is odd. Kit has gone boy-crazy beginning with Franken, short for Frankenstein, after they catch him in their room in the middle of the night looking for a souvenir. Kit begins to cut him and then sew him up again and after a while he begins to look like, well, Frankenstein. The secrets of the town and the girls’ powers, especially Fancy’s, are slowly revealed but to confusing effect. After Fancy discovers a portal to the “happy place” through a kinetoscope they found in the basement, the girls strike on a plan to kill only people who deserve it like the perverted old man who attacks Kit and dispose of the evidence in the happy place. This way they won’t get caught like their dad. There are many subplots that add nothing to the main narrative including excerpts from Fancy’s Dream Diary before each chapter adding to the confusion. This might find an audience among hardcore supernatural horror fans.… (meer)

The premise of this novel really intrigued me. The daughters of a serial killer? I'm in. Even better, they are kinda twisted themselves, rather than hate and shy away from what their father did, they are sort of like him. They like to kill as well. Sounds awesomely fucked up right? It could have been. The thing that I think ruined it for me was the town and the happy place. The town these girls live in is like a weird fantasy place. Monsters coming around to kill people is normal, casually mentioned from time to time and Fancy can see things in reflections. She can transport herself and her sister into what she calls The Happy Place. A paradise world where she can basically make anything she wants happen. For me, the fantasy portion ruined it. Not to the point where I disliked the book, but it could have been a supremely fucked up great mess of a novel that would have blew my mind, instead, it became a fantasy, which somehow lessened the kills. It made them seem like a fantasy as well. I still enjoyed the novel, but for a book about two killers, it wasn't very dark, in fact, it was hardly dark at all, and thats how I went into it thinking it would be. I was slightly disappointed I guess, but it was still interesting and worth a read. A quick read as well, despite its 500ish pages.… (meer)

Boy, this was a bizarre book! I don't often read YA books but I sometimes wander over to the YA shelf at the library to see what teenagers are reading now. I grabbed this because of the title and the cover picture and the description on the flyleaf. I was amazed to find this dark, disturbing, twisted tale about two teenage serial killers. The town they live in - Portero - is very weird with doorways to other worlds that monsters come through. I've since learned there's another book by Dia Reeves about the town.

I was just astounded this book was for teenagers. I'm not exactly sure that I liked the ending of it (once all that teenage angst about growing up and boyfriends kind of took over the actual serial killing) but it was definitely different and I did have to read until the end.… (meer)