BLUE IS FOR NIGHTMARES by Laurie Faria Stolarz

Blue is for Nightmares by Laurie Faria Stolarz is a book that is well worth the time we all seem to spend reading books. Main character Stacey Brown attends Hillcrest Prep-School and has a secret that she doesn’t want anybody else to know about. Drea, her roommate, doesn’t like the Wiccan spells Stacey casts nor does she like the nightmares Stacey has every night. Stacey has been having nightmares about people she encounters ever since she was born.  When she starts getting threatening notes form an anonymous writer, she has to face the fact that someone she is close to is in danger. Can she figure out what her dreams are trying to tell her before it is too late?

In this book by Lauria Faria Stolarz, there is no way to stop turning pages once you begin. Stolarz does an amazing job with imagery throughout the whole book. Since most of us aren’t Wiccan, we don’t know what exactly to picture in the book when Stacey is casting her Wiccan spells. But Stolarz makes this amazingly easy by doing a great job with the narrative voice for many of the characters. It is very important to have a good narrative voice for a book of this sort, because books like Blue is for Nightmares are hard to picture in terms of action, and seeing through the main character’s eyes. The fact that Stolarz has written this with such an insight makes this one of the best books I have read with a first-person voice. Character development was very important in this book, since the storyline was so complicated.

“Veronica. She’s lying on the ground, a collection of textbooks surrounding her head, as well as Madame Lenore’s clay planter, still in one piece. There’s a narrow stream of liquid running from her head, pooling itself into a pear-shaped puddle. I shake my head over and over again, swallowing the bile down, telling myself that the running liquid it just a water spill from the planter or a leak from the ceiling. But I know it’s really blood. That she’s dead. Her moss-green eyes stare up at me, wide open and disappointed, asking me why I didn’t get here sooner. I glance up toward the window shade, slapping against the wooden ledge. The chilly November air filters into the classroom, plays with the wisps of cinnamon-brown hair at the base of her forehead, now stained bright Valentine red. I cover my face with my hands. That’s when the darkness in the room folds in and swirls all around me. When my body hits the floor.”

                While I read this I was shocked at how well Stolarz created suspense in such a short amount of time. I couldn’t stop reading until I finished the book completely. The way Stolarz spreads the suspense throughout the whole book amazes me. In some books I have read in the past, the author waits until the last fifty pages and decides to suddenly cram in all the action they didn’t put in the whole other three-hundred or so pages. Another thing I found surprising was that she didn’t use short and choppy sentences as most authors use in suspenseful parts of their novels.

                I would rate this amazing book a 9 out of 10 for its storyline and use of imagery.  The reason I did not rate it a full 10 is because it lacked a sense of one thing I always look for in a book. Relation. I couldn’t relate to the characters in most parts of the book because there was a totally different type of lifestyle in the book than I could relate to. But overall it was an amazing book and I intend to read more of Stoarz’s novels in the future.

Reviewed by Jenny McCrummen

8th Grade

This is a fan made book trailer by "signingupagain" for Blue is for Nightmares. Very creepy, but cool!