Review: The Outside by Laura Bickle

We still have lots for you as our month long tour continues hosted by Heidi at Rainy Day Ramblings, Candace at Candace Book Blog, Maja at The Nocturnal Library and of course me!

Keep checking back every day for more fun stops, posts and giveaways. Also, don't forget to enter or big giveaway for a $50 giftcard to Amazon! The giveaway can be found HERE. 

Today's stop is with:

Candace@Candace's Book Blog: Michael Pierce
and
Heidi@Rainy Day Ramblings: Elizabeth Norris: Unbreakable

A huge thank you not only to my co-hosts but also for everyone who has participated so far and is signed up for more great posts throughout the month. This truly has been a blast and I am so excited to see what else is in store for us!!

Make sure and check out the next few stops!

Oct. 17th:
Candace@Candace's Book Blog:
Heidi@Rainy Day Ramblings: Suzanne Johnson: Fields of Elysium

Oct. 18th:
Candace@Candace's Book Blog: Natalie D. Richards
Ginny@Gin's Book Notes:  Tia Silverthorne Bach: Chasing Memories 

What better way than to celebrate a month of the paranormal and the creepy than with Laura Bickle's Hallowed Ones series. If you have checked this series out then you really need to. One of the best vamp/dystopian series out there. 

Title: The Outside
Author: Laura Bickle
Series: Book Two in the Hallowed Ones
Published By: HMH Young Readers (September 3, 2013)
Source: Purchased
Genre: YA Paramormal/Dystopian

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?

*Amazon*Barnes and Noble*

My Thoughts and Review:
Laura Bickle really has created something completely wonderful in her duology The Hallowed Ones. Not only it is different, creepy, suspenseful and downright hard to put down but it is also something almost unheard of in the paranormal genre right now let alone the YA paranormal genre. It has vamps. 

I know what you are thinking, what is so special about that? Vamps big deal!

But these aren't your ordinary sparkly, fall in love with them vamps. These are the real creatures of the night. Disgusting, vicious, ugly and horribly monsters. They thirst for blood and blood alone. They destroy, they reek havoc and they are far from nice as they can get. They are pure unadulterated evil. 

I fell in love with Ms. Bickle's writing after reading the first installment and knew the second was going to be a must read.

I admit to being on the good vamp bandwagon but these vamps, these vamps are something else. And even though I am not suppose to fall in love with them, I did because they were everything vampires and nightmares were suppose to be and I loved it. The made my skin crawl thinking about them and made me want to turn lights on at night to scare them away and most of all, they made me fear them and hate them all in one. These were vamps done right. Lost Boys, Dracula done right. 

I loved watching Katie grow from a very sheltered naïve girl into the strong woman that she is by the end of the book. Never once questioning her faith and standards although she doesn't stay the same nor feel the same way about everything, she does stay true to herself and I loved her for that.

Alex is just amazing and once again I fell in love with his strong character and just how much he has Katie's back and the fact that he never pushes her to be anything other than what and who she is just makes him that much more endearing. 

Bickle is an amazing storyteller, telling a tale that will clutch you in it's grasp and refuse to let go and even though there are things that are terrifying and things that go bump in the night, you won't want to be let go of. You will relish the ride and have the time of your life while on it. 

The insight into the Amish world, the horrific-ness of the Darkness and the theories behind it were all so well done, so well researched and plotted that I really couldn't have asked for a better conclusion to the series or a better YA read. 

Bickle has made a fan out of me and I will pick up whatever else she writes in the future.

*All thoughts and opinions are my own and were not influenced by the author or publisher. I was not compensated for this review.*