All Hallows Eve
by Vivian Vande Velde
Non-series
Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
ISBN-10: 0-15-206473-7
ISBN-13: 978-0-15-206473-0
Publication Date: September, 2010
List Price: $8.99
Review: Murder, suspense, horror and the supernatural are words that describe All Hallows Eve by Vivian Vande Velde. This is one of the many horror tales written by this author that will make some people want to sleep with the lights on. In one of the 13 stories, “Morgan Roehmar’s Boys,” a dead murderer strikes in the form of a ghost. Ashley, a 16 year old girl, is working in a barn used in a haunted hayride. While working her shift, she is creeped out by the fact that she is standing on the spot where seven boys were murdered. When a storm hits, the power goes out and Ashley is forced to take shelter in the barn until her friends come out to get her. What happens next will excite the reader.
This isn’t the only chilling story. In the story “When and How,” four friends decide to pay a visit to a psychic on Halloween night. This psychic tells them when they are going to die. The psychic says three of them were going to die that same day. The remaining one of them will die when she is 72 in a plane crash. How it ends is full of suspense.
This book made me want to sleep with the lights on. I think it is amazing how she put this many spine chilling stories into one book. The author is very descriptive. In most of the stories she writes, she writes in the perspective of the victim. It made me feel like I was the victim that was about to meet my fate. I also enjoyed the fact that, unlike one long book that takes time to get to its climax, there are 13 stories. This means there are 13 individual climactic endings. She is able to keep me excited through all 13 stories. I could not wait to read the next one. On a scale of 1-5, I gave this book a 5. If you like horror films, you will enjoy reading the 13 stories written in All Hallows Eve .
Review written by Zach (6th grade student).
We would like to thank Houghton Mifflin Harcourt for providing a copy of All Hallows Eve for this review.
Have you read All Hallows Eve ? How would you rate it?
Well written review with good summaries of some of the stories. The advantage of short story collections is that you can get a wide variety of different characters and plots all in one book. The disadvantage is that you always want to read just one more before you close the covers ... and pretty soon you've finished the whole book!
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