Customer Reviews

Blue is for Nightmares (Stolarz Series)

5 star:		(57)
4 star:		(26)
3 star:		(5)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

The target audience for a book like this is teenage girls, but this book breaks all stereotypical boundaries. I am not interested in wicca or he said she said girl fight drama; however, this book has all of the aforementioned elements and it can still draw in ANY reader of any age.

This book is full of suspense and can not be put down.

Laurie Faria Stolarz weaves a story of great interest and takes her knowledge of wicca and fortune telling to draw readers in to this unpredictable tale of mystery.

The author makes you want to grab Stacey(main character) and have her conjure up answers to the mysterious happenings RIGHT NOW because the book INVOLVES the reader--you really feel like part of the action.

I felt for Stacey's enormous responsibility of knowing what might happen in the future and trying to avoid a repeat of knowing and not changing the course of the future a few years prior.

Anyway, this is a great book from start to finish! It is so refreshing to continue to find so many different types of riveting Young Adult literature out there.

I hope this author replicates this type of writing with each new book!

I was walking through my local Barnes & Noble and decided to peruse the teens section. There wasn't really anything there that I hadn't seen before, until I saw "Blue is for Nightmares". I was SO right to go with my intuition and buy this book. I really enjoyed it.
The book is filled with magic and wonderful suspense. I love how you never really can guess who's behind everything till the end. I also love the characters. Laurie Faria Stolarz is and amazing author for this being one of her first works.
I can't write too much about the book itself, because its all mystery and fun, so you'll have to take a chance and buy it. Enjoy!

It takes me a long time normally to read any kind of book, sometimes even a month. This book was so good, however, that I managed to finish it within three days. And it actually had me laughing in parts, which in books is rather hard to do to me. A must read for the fantasy-oriented reader!

This is a great book! One of my favorites. I would HIGHLY recomend it.

*summery*
Stacy Brown is a kind of wiccen (type of witch). She inherited it from her Grandmother, who died when she was about twelve.
Now Stacy is in her junior year at Hilcrest, a boarding school, where she finds need of her grandmother and her powers. She is having dreams, dreams that are like warnings, about her friend/roomate Drea's death. Soon after the dreams start someone starts stalking Drea, leaving her notes, calling her, and giving her lilies~the death flower~. A girl is killed a Drea disapeers, will Stacy get there in time????? Read and find out!!!

GREAT READ~a book you definetly won't regret buying!

16-year-old Stacy has a remarkable gift, the ability to concoct spells, foresee the future through her dreams, and interpret card readings and omens. If only she could explain the recurring nightmares that have been disturbing her slumber for the past year, causing her to wet the bed. If that's not bad enough, Stacy resides in a coed boarding school where she dorms with her best friend, Drea who knows nothing of her secret. That's the predicament Stacy finds herself in in Laurie Faria Stolarz's Blue Is For Nightmares.
The nightmares are always the same; Somehow Stacy finds herself in the woods following a faint cry in the distance. With each step, the crying becomes louder and before long, she recognizes that the sound is coming from Drea. When Stacy starts running towards the whimpering, the displeasing sensation of having to pee overcomes her. She hobbles as best she can , trying to get through to Drea when she walks into a seemingly bottomless pit of muck. She pulls her foot out of the mud but ends up losing her sneaker in the process. Somewhere in the darkness, a male voice whispers her name. With Drea screaming her name and the male voice taunting her, Stacy goes ballistic and grabs a massive rock for defense. Suddenly out of nowhere, a man's figure appears before her. He extends his arms to show that he's holding white lilies- the symbol for death. Stacy runs from the figure as fast as her feet can carry her. That's when a shrill wail escapes her throat as a narrow branch stabs into the arch of her bare foot. Now she could no longer hold it in. Stacy awakes, the sheets wringing wet from under her.
Stacy uses spells and magical recipes to help expunge the nightmares, but deep down inside she knows she can't ignore these dreams. The last time she overlooked her dreams 3-years-ago, Maura, the little girl she used to baby-sit, died. Although Drea may be one of the prettiest, most popular girls in school, and the ex-girlfriend of the boy Stacy has been crushing on, Drea is still Stacy's best friends and she wouldn't want anything bad to happen to her. At first, Stacy's premonitions and Drea's situation didn't connect. But when Stacy becomes aware of the secret admirer that has been calling up Drea and Drea had been going along with it, things start to link up. And a card reading only confirmed her nightmares. When Drea finally starts listening to her friends and stops fooling around with this perv, he begins stalking her, and sending her white lilies and weird letters which count down the days till they meet face-to-face. This pretty much freaks out Drea, Stacy, and Amber.
Drea relies on Stacy and Amber to help her expose this psycho, but it's proving to be very difficult because everyone's a suspect even Chad, the hot stud both Stacy and Drea are infatuated with. But a mishap where Drea finds Chad spending the night in her dorm with Stacy, pins the two friends against each other. If things can't get worse, Drea discovers Stacy's secret that she wets the bed and in her anger, Drea reveals it to their friends including Chad. Even though Stacy was hurt by Drea's malicious act, she's still determined to help her. It just seems sad that there had to be a murder of a girl at school before Drea realized how frightened she was and how much she really needed Stacy. But it seems it's too late and Drea finds herself in a position where even Stacy, with her Wicca, can't save her alone.
I found this book suspenseful and riveting. It started out on a slow note, but once the mystery started being worked into the plot, I couldn't put it down. At times I thought I knew for sure who the stalker/killer was but then the book would throw something at you that would make you think otherwise. It's also a prime example of how friendship prevails all without being too sappy. If you enjoy a good mystery with drama, humor, suspense, and teenaged characters, you'll love Blue Is For Nightmares. Althouh it contains some fould language, I'd advise this book to any young adult.

Secrets -- there seem to be lots of them at Hillcrest boarding school. Even Stacey has one. Since the start of the school year, she dreads sleep because she's been having nightmares about her roommate, Drea. But that's not her secret. The real reason she performs a ritual with candles and sage before bed is not so much to make the nightmares go away, but to make the bedwetting stop. Yup, that's right. In the midst of these nightmares where she's desperately trying to find Drea, 16-year old Stacey wets the bed. Combine that horribly disgusting secret with the fact that the last time she ignored her nightmares, a little girl wound up dead, and you've got a real sense of urgency within a carefully crafted maze of a plot.

You see, Stacey is descended from a long line of witches, or Wiccans -- as in followers of the Wicca religion. She knows card reading, potions, and spells, passed down from her grandmother. And she knows the nightmares and the bedwetting are happening for a reason. Even the cards spell out trouble for Drea, who eventually confesses to getting strange, anonymous emails, phone calls, and messages. So Stacey knows she has to pay attention to her dreams, in spite of the miserable bedwetting. When the same lilies that appear in her nightmares show up in the girls' bathroom, Stacey and Drea know that the stalker's not out there somewhere, but right nearby -- in school. Yet their attempt to find out the stalker's identity with the help of their friends, only leads them in circles. In the middle of it all, another student is murdered. From then on, Stacey's nightmares take on an even greater urgency. And everyone's paying attention. Which is a good thing when it comes to keeping Drea safe, but a bad thing when it comes to the bedwetting.

As is the nature of secrets, they are eventually revealed, and it seems like even their closest friends have something to hide when it comes to the unfortunate dead student. Could someone they eat lunch with and gossip with, someone they sit next to in class, actually be capable of murder? Through Stacey's spellbinding race to save Drea's life, she unravels the string of secrets and understands everything -- even the bedwetting.

Lovers of the hocus-pocus, Harry Potter style of witchcraft might be disappointed. But lovers of the spiritual side of Wicca will be in heaven. Into this real life mystery, Laurie Stolarz weaves an education about true witchcraft combined with a lesson in dream interpretation. She truly has a gift for lifting witchcraft out of the shadow of the broomstick and into the modern world. "Blue is for Nightmares" cast a spell on me.

It's funny - when you're in a class, you don't seem to have much worry about what the teacher says. You want to see proof!

I took Laurie's Creative Writing classes for two years and listened to her tell me to "bleed!" on the pages. I never knew what she meant until last November when I finally received my copy on the mail. She definitely had every right to critique my work.

Blue is for Nightmares is Laurie's first novel. While, like any other work of art, it won't appeal to all readers, Blue really did appeal to me. I actually sat down and read the entire thing in one sitting.

THIS IS NOT A BOOK TO READ DIRECTLY BEFORE YOU GO TO BED... unless, of course, you don't plan on sleeping. I promise, you won't be able to put it down!

If you want a comparison, watch Sixth Sense. Laurie so powerfully weaves tiny little clues into her story that you are basically oblivious to them until the end, when you can look back and so, "Oh! So that's why!" and "Now why didn't I notice that before?"

Even I couldn't figure out who the stalker was, and I know the writer!

Read the book. :)

My friend read this book before me and when she described it I was a bit sceptical. I mean, she said it was about a girl who practiced Wicca, had nightmares and wet the bed. Who could like a book about a teenager who wets the bed? It wasn't until a year or so later that I read the book myself. I found that it was well written. Plus it had what I always search for in a book, romance with something attached to it. This book is a supernatural base set in the modern world, about a girl with modern problems. The only weird thing is that she has premonitions. These premonitions while she sleeps add the eerie and mystery to this book, which I absolutely love. It had me ready to read more the minute I was done with it and I was only too glad that the sequeal was there for me to read.

This was a great book. When my librarian suggested it to me I was definitley intruiged, she told me the girl was phsycic and that she thought I would enjoy the book. So I started reading it yesterday and let me tell you, my first thoughts were a little apprerhensive, with all of the bed wetting and what not I was thinking the title was misleading. But no, the bed wetting actually was very clever and I'm glad I continued reading.
If you haven't read the book please do not contiune!
Maybe it is just me but, I thought this book was one big red herring, while I was reading it I swtiched my #1 suspect about 3 times, mainly I focused on Chad and then when the stalker was reavealed it fit so well I couldn't help but just kind of slap my forehead and go, "DUH!" That is where I would say the book is well written.
Overall I loved this book and shall be getting the rest of them.

At first I was a little unsure about the book since I prefer 3rd person writing to 1st person writing( most of the time) but this book...once I started reading I was hooked. I highly recommend this book and the books that follow in this awesome series.
I also recommend Cate Tiernan's Sweep and Balefire Series.
And any book by L.J. Smith.