Review: The Bargaining by Carly Anne West (COYER Challenge #9)

First, thanks to Simon Pulse and Edelweiss for allowing me to read an e-galley of this.  I didn't remember that this was a ghost story, or I might not have read Horrorstor right before it.  This book also had some pretty scary scenes in it.  Not that it's a bad thing, just that I don't always want to read the same kind of books back to back. 

The main character is Penny, and Penny is what you'd call a troubled girl.  She lives with her mom and has recently been part of a big tragedy where her "best friend" died, as well as another girl getting beat up.  We don't know exactly what happened, although we get filled in a little throughout the story.  Her mother is done with her though, and ships her back to her dad when Penny beats up another girl at school.  The only part that Penny can really stand at her dad's house is her younger stepbrother Rob.  Well when summer comes around her dad has to go out of town for business, and her stepbrother has soccer camp, so she ends up having to go help her stepmom April flip a house up in a small town in Washington state.  The house is nestled in the woods, pretty scary looking woods.  April wants to turn it into a bed and breakfast.  Now April is pretty understanding and nice to Penny.  But Penny starts seeing weird things before they even get to the house.  She's been having hallucinations with her dead friend for awhile, and they get even weirder in the forest.  And when they get to town the people in the town are very unfriendly once they find out what house April and Penny are going to live in. 

There is a cute boy in town, Miller, but he has a connection to the woods, to the very house that they are living in. Miller's family, along with a few others have a secret.  And it has to do with his older brother, along with some other kids who disappeared into the woods, and when they returned, months later, they were changed.  Most of the kids and families moved away from town.  But Miller is still there because he feels it was his fault what happened, and he wants to make it right.  So he is fighting his own demons, just like Penny. 

There were definitely some scary moments, and what could have been a really good back story.  But I feel like while we kind of got the story, I was still a little unsure about what exactly happened.  I don't know if I read through some part too fast and missed it, but I was left with a few questions unanswered.  That left me a bit unsatisfied with the story overall.  I did like the way it ended, very horror movie-esque.  So, if you pick it up and read it, for a great scary story, and you don't have the same questions left that I had, would you come back and let me know so that I can ask you about those things?  Read this for a good scary story for sure!  Oh yeah, and she moved with her mom to Phoenix, and then goes back to her dad in Washington state?  Twilight details much?

Reading Road Trip: Washington

I joined into the Reading Road Trip on Day 1, and here I am again, almost at the very end.  This time I get another state that is a favorite, and it is because one of my favorite series takes place here, Twilight.  But that's of course not all that is cool about Washington.  While the state flag is kind of boring (in my opinion), I still want to include it!

• Like the flag shows, the state was actually named for George Washington, and is of course the only state named after a president.
• Its nickname is the Evergreen State.
• The capital city is Olympia, while Seattle is the largest city.
• Mt. Ranier is there, and is the highest point.  But it also includes Mt. Saint Helens, a volcano that erupted back in 1980.  And when I visited it a few years ago, it was active again, although nothing has really happened.
• The state fossil is the Columbian Mammoth.
• As it is summer, I thought it would be appropriate to share with you that it is where the world's first soft-serve ice cream machine was located.
• You probably know that Starbucks was founded in Seattle.
• Washington contains the only rainforests in the continental United States.
• It became the 42nd state on November 11th, 1889.
• The state of Washington is one of only 7 states that doesn't levy a personal income tax.  (Hmm, maybe I need to move there)

Some famous people from Washington state are:

• Bob Barker, the original host of The Price is Right
• Octavia E. Butler, a science fiction writer, Orson Scott Card - author of Ender's Game and other science fiction books, Ann Rule- best selling author of true crime books, Gary Larson - cartoonist and creator of The Far Side, and Chuck Palahniuk - author of Fight Club.
• Famous singers such as Jimi Hendrix, Bing Crosby, and Kurt Cobain.  And a favorite rapper of mine, Sir Mix-A-Lot.
• Bill Gates, one of the world's richest men
• Several actors and actresses such as Anna Faris (Loved her in What's Your Number, based on the book 20 Times a Lady), Rainn Wilson from The Office, and Joshua Jackson from Dawson's Creek and more recently Fringe.
• Apollo Anton Ohno, US Olympic Speed Skater, also starred on one season of Dancing With The Stars.

Unlike my giveaway at the beginning of the month, I will only be keeping this one going for a week.  You will have a choice of one of the books below, they include books by authors from Washington, or that take place in Washington.  And it is International as long as The Book Depository ships to you.

• Beyond the Far Side, It Came from the Far Side, or The Hound of the Far Side by Gary Larson
• Any book from the Ender that is available in paperback
• Any paperback copy of any book from the Twilight series by Stephenie Meyer
• Any paperback true crime story by Ann Rule
• The Boyfriend List, The Boy Book, or The Treasure Map of Boys by E. Lockhart
• Stuck in Neutral or Cruise Control by Terry Trueman
• Misfit by Jon Skovron

Fill out the Rafflecopter below to enter.  There are no mandatory entries, in fact the first one is free!  You may choose to follow my blog or any of the other choices for more entries though.  And when you're done filling it out, you can click on the button on the sidebar to go to the other stops on the tour.  

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