Blue is for Nightmares
Author: Laurie Faria Stolarz
Release Date: November 2003
I read this book as part of a series of “read-alikes.” Essentially, a read alike is a book that is recommended to you as if you like ____, you’ll like ______. So far this has been a little hit and miss (Michael Chabon was recommended for Nick Hornby, and while “Telegraph Avenue” reminded me of Hornby, it’s wasn’t a great book; Greg Bear was recommended based on Robert Heinlein, and while “Cosm” was an awesome book, it didn’t remind me at all of Heinlein) this book was the best representative so far in terms of matching up with the base author, Christopher Pike.
I enjoy Christopher Pike’s writing because it’s usually a quick fun mystery with some supernatural elements mixed in in a not completely outrageous manner. That’s basically how this book read, as Stacy and Drea are trying to figure out who is stalking/possibly going to kill them Drea within a four day timeframe. Stacy believes she knows some spells and has some clairvoyance to aid her, which of course throughout the story is proven accurate.
The romantic subplots of this book were a bit more juvenile than I usually like in these stories, always a risk with reading in the Young Adult genre, however the mystery itself wasn’t totally predictable and there was a side plot of bed wetting that (although it didn’t have the best payoff) added to one of the more memorable scenes I’ve read in the genre. Based on this one, I’ll probably check out the sequels.
- 4 Barrels
- Read Alikes
