Egmont USA Blog Tour & Review: Amity (Micol Ostow)

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Hardcover, 368 pages

Expected publication: August 26th 2014 by EgmontUSA

ARC Provided by Publisher in exchange for an Honest Review

For fans of Stephen King and American Horror Story, a gruesome thriller suggested by the events of the Amityville Horror.Connor's family moves to Amity to escape shady business deals. Ten years later, Gwen's family moves to Amity for a fresh start after she's recovered from a psychotic break.
But something is not right about this secluded house. Connor's nights are plagued with gore-filled dreams of demons and destruction. Dreams he kind of likes. Gwen has lurid visions of corpses that aren't there and bleeding blisters that disappear in the blink of an eye. She knows Amity is evil and she must get her family out, but who would ever believe her?
Amity isn't just a house. She is a living force, bent on manipulating her inhabitants to her twisted will. She will use Connor and Gwen to bring about a bloody end as she's done before. As she'll do again.
Alternating between parallel narratives, Amity is a tense and terrifying tale suggested by true-crime events that will satisfy even the most demanding horror fan.

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Micol Ostow has written dozens of books for children, tweens, and teens, but Amity is her first foray into horror. I turns out, writing a ghost story is almost more terrifying than reading one. (In a good way.) Her novel family was called a “Favorite Book of 2011” by Liz Burns at School Library Journal, and her illustrated novel, So Punk Rock (and Other Ways to Disappoint Your Mother), was a
Sydney Taylor Notable Book for Teens. In her spare time, Ostow blogs with the National Book Award-winning literacy initiative readergirlz.com. She lives in Brooklyn, NY, with her husband, her (utterly fearless) daughter, and a finicky French bulldog named Bridget Jones. Visit her online at www.micolostow.com or follow her on Twitter @micolz.

"Here is a house of ruin and rage, of death and deliverance,

seated atop countless nameless unspoken souls.

Here is where I live, not living.

Here is always mine."

When I first saw Amity on Goodreads, I immediately knew I had to read it. I owe a huge thanks to EgmontUSA for sending me an ARC of this book. I immediately started reading the book on the day it arrived. 

The cover of the book is so creepy and amazing. It gives the reader a feel for what they are in for when they read this book. The house, Amity, IS the main character and is truly alive. Amity toys with its tenants and literally makes them psychologically crazy. The main action and suspense of the book comes from when Amity is interacting with the tenants of the house. 

I was really expecting a gore, horror-filled book and while it did have most of that I just still felt like something was lacking. The story is told from dual perspectives and ten years apart and I had trouble with that. I kept trying to place the characters and their experiences together. 

There are two characters that the book is narrated by: Conner and Gwen. Gwen moves into Amity 10 years after Conner lived there. The story does build up the main characters and give you a good feel of who they are. Conner and Gwen experience Amity in completely separate ways. Conner is drawn to the evil and wants to learn from it while Gwen is completely scared and horrified by the evil. 

"She was a part of me, Amity. Growing, gaining power, every day. Amity wanted me.

And I welcomed her in."

Both the characters have to face the evil of Amity and the ending of the novel was very fast-paced and quick. I enjoyed most aspects of the book but found my interest being lost at certain points. There was not as much intense horror that I was expecting but then again this book is set towards Young Adult so I can see why it was written this way. 

**The quotes from this book have been taken from an Advanced Reading Copy and are subject to change when the final book is printed. Please refer to the final, finished copy for exact quotes!**

**I want to say Thank You to Egmont for the opportunity to review this  book!!**

Click here to visit Egmont USA website!!