In Celebration of the Spooks Short Story Contest

 So, I love Halloween. It's my favorite holiday in the whole wide world. I love the candy, the creepy feeling at night, the pure excitement. But most of all, I love the stories and legends about Halloween. For instance, in fifth grade, we had to give a speech. Mine was on the legend of the Jack o' Lantern. Yep. That's how fangirly I am.

 Anyways, I decided that it would be awesome to hold a short story contest based on the theme of ghosts or murders, or, basically, anything that goes bump in the night.

 I'll be taking entries from tonight to October 11th. The winner will receive a SIGNED ARC of  Frost, by Marianna Baer. It is international!

 GUIDELINES: 
   -The story must be at least 200 words.
   -The story MUST have something creepy in it.
   -This is international!
   -The stories may be submitted until midnight on October 31st. I'll take a week to read and judje them all, and then announce the winner on the 28th.
   -The stories MUST BE emailed to me at rileygrisham@yahoo.com.
   -PLEASE leave a comment telling me if you will be entering.
 So that's it! I hope to hear from a lot of you!

 UPDATE: I HAVE EXTENDED THE DEADLINE due to not enough entries. It now runs till the THIRTY-FIRST of October, also known as HALLOWEEN. Tell your friends! What I have gotten so far looks fantastic, though- keep it coming guys!

Review: Frost

Review: Frost

Book Rating: 3 Stars
Cover Rating: 4 Stars
 
Reading level: Young Adult  
Hardcover: 400 pages                          
Publisher: Balzer + Bray (September 13, 2011) 

  Leena Thomas’s senior year at boarding school begins with a shock: Frost House, her cozy dorm of close friends, has been assigned an unexpected roommate: confrontational, eccentric Celeste Lazar. But while Leena’s anxiety about a threat to her sanctuary proves valid, it becomes less and less clear whether the threat lies with her new roommate, within Leena’s own mind, or within the very nature of Frost House itself. Mysterious happenings in the dorm, an intense triangle between Leena, Celeste, and Celeste’s brother, and the reawakening of childhood fears, all push Leena to take increasingly desperate measures to feel safe. Frost is the story of a haunting. As to whether the demons are supernatural or psychological . . . well, which answer would let you sleep at night?

THOUGHTS: I had really, really been looking forward to this book, and I have to say, it did not impress me. I love creepy books, ones that keep you thinking and plotting, and that is what I expected this one to be like. Well, it was set up to be that way, but I had the book figured out the moment Leena describes the weird, alluring feeling she had towards the house. It was really predictable. I also got to places where it was completely and totally boring- absolutely nothing of interest was going on. The parts where you would want something to jump out and scream "BOO!" were left bare, and the places where that did happen were few and far between.
 
 SETTING: The setting, of course, is Frost House, a dorm that is said to be haunted. Leena feels an immediate attraction to the place, and pulls some string with connections so that she can live there. But while the book attempts to play the house up to be this spooky, sinister place, I never really got that from it. I would have liked to see more nightmares, doors slamming, messages on walls, ect. You know, the kind of stuff that makes you look around your room and turn on every light possible. This book just didn't pull it off.

 CHARACTERS: The characters in this book did seem real, even though I did find myself annoyed with Leena. She thinks everything she does is best, even though a lot of the time it's hurting other people. But, the way I see it, we shouldn't judge a book on how we liked the character, but rather how the character fit the story she or he was placed in and how real that character seems. And the writer definitely has done an excellent job of making her characters seem real.
  
PLOT: Here is my biggest problem. You get all this buildup for a heartbreaking, sucker punch to the gut, knock-down, drag-out climax. The whole book is setting you up for this one moment and.............. BOOM! NOTHING AT ALL HAPPENS. This is one of my pet peeves in books- anti-climatic endings. I want drama, despair, action.... anything. This book consists of sitting in a closet. You can't even really tell when the climax occurs. It left me beating my head against the wall. It also had one of those unresolved endings, which irks me to no end. On a good book, I find them intriguing. In this one... not so much. It never even really discusses the ghost haunting frost house. All you get is that it was a girl who lost her baby and likes Leena but not Celeste. Whoooo. Scary. Overall, not a book I would recommend.

WHOA. A POST? *world ends*

 This is how I feel without you, dearly departed laptop.
 All cold an upside down. And see how I'm missing the middle snowball? That's where my heart was. But you took it with you when you went away from me.
 *My Heart Will Go On now plays*
 Just know that I miss you. And you will always, always, be my first laptop.
 *closes eyes* * a single tear rolls down cheek*
 I love you.

 *rolls eyes* Okay, okay, so enough of me being dramatic. I do need to apologize for my lack of posting, I am SO sorry. My poor blog has been seriously ignored. I still don't have a new computer, and I might not for a while, but I will try and get beck to posting as normally as possible. I also feel really bad about completely neglecting book of the week, but it should be updated again tomorrow. If not, I give you all permission to gather the legions of rouge fire-unicorns and unleash them on my house. I give no promises that I will hold back my army of gremlins, however.

 And, now that I have proved my insanity, I must tell you the sorrowful tale of what became of my  computer.

  One day, a girl named Riley was doing her daily rituals: Wishing Harry Potter was real, eating brownies, and watching TV. She could otherwise be known as a Nerd. She, being a Nerd, decided to get on her laptop and creep around on twitter. (Yes. I creep. Hide your children.) But, to her displeasure, her STUPID FACE MEANIE HEAD laptop would not work correctly, it's blank screen only giving off flickers of life.
 Now, Riley is not your conventional Nerd. She is also an Insane Asylum escapee. So, naturally, she did not try to fix the laptop normally. No, she first made angry grunts. Then she pounded her fists against the table, and tied a sock around her head. She emitted a battle cry, one so fierce the six-pound chihuahua-beasts next door began to bark. Whacking the computer, she felt triumph course through her veins. Whacking, as we all know, is the correct way to fix anything that is broken. So you can imagine the horror, sadness, and utter shock when her laptop did nothing. At all. It's blank, lifeless screen just gazed at her blankly.
 It was too far gone.

 Anyways, I SHOULD be getting a new laptop soon! So cross your fingers that the Halloween Pumpkin and Thanksgiving Monkey (They're sort of like Santa and The Easter Bunny, but WAY cooler) leave me moneys. I have also been quite busy. By busy, I mean laying around my house on days I don't have other things to do and singing obnoxiously loud until my aunt comes and yells at me. So..... yeah. You'll just have to bear with me.

And to all you who are still following me, even though it's been like a month since I've posted: YOU ARE FLIPPING AMAZEBALLS.
 Anywhowhathway,
     Bye!