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Hi, my name is Kristy and I'm addicted to Susan Beth Pfeffer.This week has been a gobble fest for me, I'm at the beach and have yet to read a "beach book", but who cares right?!???!!This book is nothing like the Life or Someting like it series.. at all.This book is about a girl who never knew her father or her step-brother and sisters. A Father who is a killer. Digging into your past. Finding out if your past defines you. Figuring out no family is perfect. Acceptance. Peace. Fear. Regrets. Makin...
Willa Coffey is a quiet girl who doesn't expect much. She lives with her mom, step-dad Jack and her two step-sisters, Alyssa and Brooke. Jacks ex-wife Val makes sure that Alyssa and Brooke have everything that money can buy and Willa is usually left on the outskirts looking in. Her mom and Jack cannot afford those things for Willa. She doesn't express her discontent, but instead hides in the basement and cuts herself. When she receives a phone call from her mom's best friend while she is home al...
Willa has always felt like she needed to do her best and stay under the radar. Living with her mother in a house paid for by her step-father's ex-wife for Willa's step-sisters, she's always done without while her step-sisters had whatever they wanted. Willa never knew her father, and so it comes as a surprise when she learns that he has just killed the half-sisters and step-mother she never knew she had. Now the country is scandalized by the horror he has brought down upon his family, and Willa
Willa is a part of a blended family that appears to have it all. She and her two step sisters seem to get along great and she loves her stepdad as if he was her real dad. But then one phone call changes all that when she finds out her biological father has murdered his second family. The police think that her father is headed to kill her and her mother and so Willa and her mom must go into police protection. Willa soon finds out that her mother has held a lot of the truth from her and now her fa...
When I read the synopsis for this book I thought I was in for a suspenseful, action-packed thriller. Yeah, I was wrong. I was thinking I would be reading about Willa in a Witness Protection kind of program while her crazy father stalked her and she found out crazy secrets her mom had kept. Hmmm...yeah, wrong again! I was very disappointed in this book. This is not to say that you won't like it but it wasn't what I expected at all.Willa is living with her mom and step-dad and two step-sisters. He...
I read through some of the other reviews for this book before settling in to write mine--I sometimes do that out of curiosity, and lately out of worry that I'm going to be the first negative review if I didn't like a book. This was one of those cases--but I was relieved to see I wasn't the only reader who had issues with this book.On the surface, it seems like a really deep and relevant book. But that's the problem--the whole thing is surface. None of it gelled for me, and the story and characte...
Grade: DWilla's biological father goes on a rampage killing his wife and daughters, and the police think he may be coming from her. Her mom is a wreck and stepfather flies her two step sisters to their mother's fracturing the family Willa believed was so solid. Now she wonders whether her family will ever be whole and happy again, or if they ever were.BLOOD WOUNDS scratches the surface of some difficult issues and provides easy answer and explanations for complex problems. Susan Beth Pfeffer wro...
It is a terrible book. Why I kept reading it is a mystery to me. She isn't a likeable character and the way she talks is in an adult voice. Maybe things are different in Texas and middle America, but out here on the coast kids aren't always ready to say 'yes please, no thank you, I'm so sorry', etc.. This is supposed to be a girl in crisis--someone who is cutting. It is an important topic but I never felt the angst.Everyone is so lovey-dovey especially for a blended family with three teenage gir...
Rebecca WeimertContemporary Realistic Fiction Willa lives with her mother, stepfather, and two stepsisters. Always feeling left out Willa cuts herself to relieve the stress she feels in her home. Willa’s mother worked hard to give her a good family life, but her past comes back to haunt her. Willa’s biological father has murdered his wife and children and is coming for Willa, but is caught and killed by the police. The horrible deaths of her family shakes Willa’s world and she is not sure who sh...
In this book, Pfeffer turns from a life-changing natural disaster to a more personal disaster with consequences for all those directly involved as well as those who are only the fringes of the event. High school junior Willa seems to have a perfect life. Her stepfather and mother are devoted to her, and she and her two stepsisters get along just fine. If their access to money through their mother means that they have much material objects than Willa, she has never really minded. However, there a...
Willa's life in the beginning is awesome. A freaking holy grail of a blended family. Particularly with her stepfather, Jack, and his ex-wife, there seemed to be a real sense of 'do what's best for the girls', the 'girls' being Willa's two stepsisters. I was actually really happy to see that kind of compatibility for a blended family happen in a book. Made me think it could be real. Too bad it was a setup. Blood Wounds, in case you can't tell by the mugshot cover, is not a happy times book. In fa...
Not quite what I expected, but maybe better? The actual violence and suspense are over and done with in the first quarter of the book (though Pfeffer spares no quarter in describing gruesomeness as far as teen-book content can be stretched, later even imagining the killings from the murderer's perspective), but the idea of "blood" in all its meanings is continually tied back to the story. The majority of this book is about a meek girl beginning to struggle with her place in a blended family, the...
In a nutshell, I liked this book. The pacing is great. The story is entertaining, even with the serious themes it carries. It carried my attention well and was easy to digest. I do have a few additional thoughts, however, that I would like to share: 1. Willa. Willa has been through so much in this story...from being a part of a blended family, to feeling inferior to her (much wealthier) stepsisters and always having to rearrange her life around their activities, to finding out that she has sibli...
Susan Beth Pfeffer is a master story teller in such a unique way, she portrays immense levels of human emotions in her characters.Blood Wounds will be released later in the year and in it is the story of Willa, a high school aged girl who tries so hard at living the perfect life, that when her past catches up to her it comes in the grisly package of her estranged father and the horrible crimes he has committed against his family.Susan brings into her story such immense emotion on some normal act...
Killer dad on the loose! Yes, this book has an awesome hook, and a serious amount of bloodshed. If you get queasy at the thought of blood, avoid! But that's only half the story, with the other being dysfunctional family, with a quiet but prickly girl, Willa, stepping up to an unusual situation. The two stories fit uneasily together, and the underlying metaphor couldn't be more heavy handed. Willa is a cutter, which explains the title. Her perfectly happy (yes, that's meant ironically) blended fa...
I've finally realized that while author Susan Beth Pfeffer may be good at creating amazingly complex situations, she is not so good at writing well rounded characters who experience growth or change as a result of the situations she puts them into. In Blood Wounds protagonist Willa is a seventeen year old living with her mother, stepfather and step sisters. Although "step" families are so common today, Willa's not-by-blood family is the focal point of much drama (despite the fact that Willa's mo...
I won this arc from following the Authors blog. She had a little contest, and my name got pulled from the hat. yay! Anyway, I loved her moon books. If you know this Author, then you know what books I'm speaking of. If not.. go to her profile and check them out.. they are a must read! :) What I love about this Author is the realism she puts into her writing. I was happy to see that in Blood Wounds as well. I can see how the description can be a little misleading though. It really is mostly about
I was so disappointed w this book. I gave it a lot longer than I normally would with a book because I love this author's previous works, but I realized halfway through last night that it was more of a chore than a pleasure to read. Every author has a dud occasionally and I'm sad to say this is hers. The main character's voice is very immature - she sounds more like 12 than 16. This may have been intentional but in the end, everything here just felt off.
"No saints in this world, sweetie. Just different kinds of sinners." —Faye, Blood Wounds, P. 164 Susan Beth Pfeffer has a way with suspense. She can make readers feel as if the cold-blooded killer could be hiding around any corner, or could outwit even the most well-planned security net to burst through the door at any moment and commence his murderous rampage. And, for the first seventy pages or so of Blood Wounds, that's just the sort of tense, suspenseful writing that we get, loaded with all
I normally wouldn't have picked this book up but it was written by Susan Beth Pfeffer and I loved her Life As We Knew It books. I recommend those books to just about everybody I come in contact with (so if you haven't read them, go out, get them and read them. They're terrific.) Blood Wounds centers on Willa. Willa is part of a blended family and has two stepsisters who she likes but also envies and resents. Her stepsister's mother pays for them to go to fancy schools, travel and compete in very...