From Bad to Cursed (Bad Girls Don't Die #2) by Katie Alender

I got this book for a good deal at a Scholastic Book Warehouse last December, bought it the same time as I bought the first one, Bad Girls Don't Die, which you can see by clicking the linked title that I loved!  This one was still good, but kind of seemed a bit longer and maybe went on a bit longer than it needed to.  I don't know, it was still good.
Our same characters are back in this one, Alexis and her sister Kasey, Alexis's best friend Megan, Alexis's boyfriend Carter, and even Lydia, who had been one of her friends at the beginning of the first book.  We start out and Kasey is away at a special place for people who need to get away.  The family now lives in a neighborhood where all the houses look the same.  Kasey comes back from school and will be going to high school with Alexis.  She soon meets some girls to be friends with, and joins the Sunshine Club.  All the girls in this club start dressing very nice, and wearing makeup, doing better in school, and holding each other to the high standards.  Kasey tells Alexis that she thinks there is something weird with the group.  Some weird things happen with a Ouija board, and then when Alexis goes to pick Kasey up at a party, so she kind of believes her.  In order to try to save or stop or just find out what is going on, Alexis and Morgan go to one of the Sunshine Club meetings with Kasey and join.  Only now they've said the oath, and they're in.  At the same time Alexis has entered a photography contest, and actually becomes one of the finalists.  Turns out that the famous photographer that Alexis has admired was also once in a similar club, they are all Aralt's girls.  Aralt is a ghost, or a man that lost his love, and was put in the book by his lover.  Things just get better and better the more they belong to the club.  The only thing that doesn't seem to be working right is Alexis's relationship with Carter.  And this is when she starts thinking maybe Aralt isn't all he's cracked up to be.  Not to mention other things she learns about the whole back story and the "book" online.
It's really hard to describe this story I think.  It was pretty detailed.  In a good way though!  I still enjoyed it, especially the beginning.  But once Alexis and Megan got sucked into the whole Aralt thing, I began not liking them quite as much.  And maybe that is why I didn't like this book just as much the first one.  I'm going to read on, I still like the author's writing, and the characters.  And I want to know what happens next with them.

Bad Girls Don't Die by Katie Alender

I'd seen these books on the teen shelves in the bookstore where I work for awhile, and always wondered.  Then last December I went to the Scholastic Warehouse sale and got it for half price, which was a good deal.  I finally got around to reading it this past week, and all I can say is, I can't believe it took me so long!  This was a book that hooked me, and when I'd pick it up and say I was just going to read a little bit, I'd get so into the story that when I looked up to see what time it was, I'd read longer than I planned!  In fact it was so good I had trouble finishing the e-galley that had a deadline before I finished this.
The main character is Alexis, and she lives in a really cool, but really kinda creepy house.  She's kind of one of those girls who are goth, but not really, but she isn't a fan of the "in crowd", like the cheerleaders.  Especially since one year they made a slide show about being healthy, and featured her best friend as the before picture in a fat slide, and made her move away.  Alexis likes to take pictures, in fact her cool house has its own dark room so that she can even develop her own film.  And she does that, doesn't use the digital cameras, does it the old fashioned way.  Her family is interesting.  Her dad seems to hardly be there, as well as her mom who is trying so hard to get ahead at work and get a big promotion that she spends all her time there, and when she's home she's doing things to help her get ahead at work.  Alexis is a high schooler, I'm guessing 15 since she doesn't really drive.  She has a younger sister in middle school, named Kasey.  Kasey has been getting weirder every day.  At first Alexis just thinks it is part of being a middle school age.  But when she hears a rumor from one of the hated cheerleaders at school, about how Kasey's friend, the cheerleader's little sister, actually got hurt at their house because Kasey hit her over a doll, she starts noticing other weird things going on in the house.  Like when her sister wanders to the basement for like no reason, she goes down with her and tells her a story.  A story that is kind of creepy and just comes to her.  Kasey has been also getting really obsessed with dolls as well.  And soon Alexis notices that Kasey is acting weird, the way she speaks, walks, and even thinking her eyes are green instead of their normal blue at times.  While all this is happening, one of the cheerleaders, Megan, seems to know what is going on, and reaches out to Alexis to help her.  And then there is a boy at school, Carter, the class vice president, who seems to kind of like her, and he is cute.  And when she is around him, they seem to get along seamlessly.  Things at home get scarier, their father is in a car accident that the police soon say isn't an accident.  And then Kasey says she is going to tell the police that Alexis did it.  They find a connection between the house and Megan.  And in the end, Alexis must get through all the history of the house and the town, and even her family, in order to try to save her sister, and stop anything bad from happening to anyone else in the town.
I loved the main character, which normally I don't always like the girls who are so anti-social, but this girl wasn't the kind that irritates me.  She was snarky and sarcastic in a way that I know she's someone I'd like to hang out with.  And the meet cute with Carter, and really just all of her relationships were pretty realistic to me.  A fun, but spooky, and well set up ghost story, and I can't wait to read on.  I have the 2nd one from that same book sale.  So will just have to find the third one when I get to it!