Welcome to Gizmos Reviews Virtual Blog Tour Stop for The Outside. Today's stop includes my review, thoughts on The Outside as well as some other interesting tidbits about the book and author.
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The Outside
The Hallowed Ones Book Two
Laura Bickle
Genre: paranormal YA
Publisher: Harcourt
Date of
Publication: September 3, 2013
ISBN:
978-0544000131
ASIN: B00AUZS6PQ
Number of pages:
320
Word Count: 85000
words
Cover Artist: Shane
Rebenschied
Book Description:
One girl. One road.
One chance to save what remains…
After a plague of
vampires is unleashed in the world, Katie is kicked out of her Amish community
for her refusal to adhere to the new rules of survival. Now in exile, she
enters an outside world of unspeakable violence with only her two “English”
friends and a horse by her side. Together they seek answers and other
survivors—but each sunset brings the threat of vampire attack, and each sunrise
the threat of starvation.
And yet through this
darkness come the shining ones: luminescent men and women with the power to
deflect vampires and survive the night. But can these new people be trusted,
and are they even people at all?
In this
edge-of-your-seat thriller, it’s up to one Amish girl to save her family, her
community, and the boy she loves . . . but what will she be asked to leave
behind in return?
Advance
Praise for The Outside:
“Top-notch. . .
. A horror story with heart and soul.”
—Kirkus, starred
review
“At once horrifying, hopeful, and hauntingly
beautiful, this gorgeous read with its rich textures and spine-tingling
suspense kept me glued to the pages in utter fascination. Laura Bickle is a
master storyteller.”
-Darynda Jones, NY Times Bestselling author of
The Darklight Series
Praise for The Hallowed Ones
"This is a book to make you fear the shadows--a
horrifying and gruesome tale of faith, and things that blink red eyes in the
night. I began reading in the daylight, and read on into the late hours,
leaning close, biting my lip. I could not look away; I was obsessed. Katie is
an unbreakable soul."
—Lauren DeStefano,
New York Times Bestselling author of the Chemical Garden Trilogy
"What an eerily believable, unique story! I can't
stop thinking about it--or shivering."
—Melissa Marr, New
York Times bestselling author of the Wicked Lovely Books
"Tight pacing, suspenseful scenes, Wow! moments
of tension, and exposure into a world I knew little about, The Hallowed Ones is
an exciting, terse read. . . . Laura Bickle's debut novel for young adults has
quickly become my favorite dystopian novel of 2012. . . . It left me wanting
more, so much more."
—readergirlsblog.com
"Readers will find it hard to put down this
suspenseful, scary, compulsively readable adventure."
—Kirkus Reviews
"Katie's an original character, and her
thoughtful rebellion makes her an interesting addition to supernatural
fictions's gallery of strong heroines."
—Bulletin
Thoughts/REVIEW:
Upon finishing The Hallowed Ones last year, I was more than
ready to finish this series by reading The Outside in hopes of more of the
same; dark and creepy vampires, a determine heroine who attempts to stick to
her faith and do what's right, and hopefully, an answer as to what really
happened that created the vampirism that has spread world wide, and whether or
not there really is a cure, or a way to stop vampire's from spreading.
The Outside picks up two weeks after the end of The Hallowed
Ones. Our heroine, Katie, along with "English" Alex Green and Ginger
Parsall, have been kicked out of the Amish community for refusing to adhere to
the new rules by overbearing and uncaring Elders, and find themselves hoping to
survive in a world that has been over run with vampires. The Outside is a
terrifying place to be where it is only safe for Katie and crew to be out
during the daylight hours. It is a daily struggled to find a hiding place, as
well as food to survive on. Katie's faith is continually challenged when she
has no choice but to turn to killing in order to remain alive and human.
I will say this for Bickle, she continually pushes the
envelope and her characters are tried and pushed to the limits of their ability
and it really is a challenge to remain alive, and not turned into one of the
Darkness (Vampires). Katie faces challenges to her faith and whether or not it
all matters in the end. Is she really a good person after she slays a vampire
trying to eat her?
I think the romance between Alex and Katie is done very
well. I think that Katie remains hopeful that just because she was kicked out
of the Amish community, doesn't mean that she's a bad person or that God has
turned his/her back on her for falling in love with Alex who isn't Amish. I
think there is an underlying debate that happens over the course of this series
between faith and science. I personally think it's a persons right to choose
what they do or don't believe in, and it is nobody's business whether a person
believes in God or science for that matter.
I won't spoil anything that happens in this book because
that would be absolutely awful. I will say that things aren't exactly as they
seem, especially if you have read the synopsis. There are some interesting
things that happen, along with some possible surprises, as well as some scary
scenes, and a possible way to finally fight back against the spread of
vampirism. Will Katie, Alex, and Ginger survive until the end? Will the Amish
community eventually welcome them back, or will they continually push them
away? Read the book to find out folks!
About the Author:
Laura Bickle’s
professional background is in criminal justice and library science, and when
she’s not patrolling the stacks at the public library she’s dreaming up stories
about the monsters under the stairs (she also writes contemporary fantasy
novels under the name Alayna Williams).
Laura lives in Ohio
with her husband and six mostly-reformed feral cats.
The
Presence of Evil
By
Laura Bickle
“One does not sleep in the presence of
evil. Not when you can see it and it can see you.”
This
is one of my favorite lines from THE OUTSIDE. It’s from the perspective of
Katie, a young Amish woman who is facing the end of her world. She’s been
exiled from her community for failing to adhere to the new rules of survival.
The world beyond Katie’s Amish settlement has been devastated by a plague of vampirism.
Katie’s chief challenges are her own survival and
protecting those she loves…and she’s surrounded by evil.
This is not the evil that she feared as a child. When she was
younger, she was told that the world beyond the gates of her community was rife
with temptation and vice. Human temptations and human vices. She was
discouraged from participating in many of the things that those of us on the
outside take for granted, things like movies, television, modern clothing, and
makeup. Katie was always curious about these small transgressions, flirting
with the thrill of the forbidden. But these are vanishingly small sins compared
to the total darkness that has fallen upon the world.
The vampires Katie faces are creatures from old world legends,
bloodthirsty and amoral. There is no velvet seduction in them, no struggling
with the fate of their immortal souls. They simply want to feed, to devour the
flesh of the living…and the survivors are dwindling in number.
Cities and nations have fallen, food for the vampires that seek
flesh and blood for sustenance. There are no communications, no phones, no
radio, no internet, no electricity, no transportation. Katie and two of her
outsider friends struggle to find signs of human habitation on a lonely and
desolate road.
And the shadows at the edge of the road are listening, watching,
waiting for sunset. They wait until darkness to reach toward Katie and pull her
down into the shadows with them, to make her part of the evil that has washed
over the land.
