"Spooky" Reads
Well, I initially intended to do a post about some "spooky" reads for Halloween, and then I realized that I have an overactive imagination and was reading alone in my house which is haunted. (That's a story for another time.) All that to say, reading actual horror books was not going to be a good idea for my already tenuous relationship with sleep, so I went for four Horror Lite/supernatural books instead. Here they are, from best to worst:
Lovecraft Country—Matt Ruff
I cannot tell you how many times this book has been recommended to me. (I didn't realize that the author lives in Seattle, though, which is pretty cool.) Set in Jim Crow America, and though it's technically one cohesive storyline, it reads more like a collection of short stories that come together to create one narrative. The story starts with Atticus Turner returning to see his father, only to find that his father has disappeared. With his uncle and a childhood friend, Atticus seeks out his father, who has been taken captive by a strange cult-y cabal. The remainder of the story is about Atticus and Braithwaite, one of the members of the cabal, who is hoping to capitalize on a unique aspect of Atticus' history in order to achieve the power that he craves. Mixed in are confrontations with race in the 1950s; almost all of the characters in the separate chapters are African American, but are occupying or entering spaces that are not typically reserved for them in that time period, so they come face to face with the expectations of society. Several of them also have intersections with race, like Atticus' aunt Hippolyta, his childhood friend Letitita, and her sister Ruby, who must navigate not only being Black but being Black women.
While there are definitely supernatural elements, this book capitalizes more on the horrors that human beings inflict upon each other, and the things we have to fear from those who fear what is different from them. Which is even more terrifying for its basis in reality.
I'm excited to read other works by Matt Ruff now that I've enjoyed this one so much.
Also, there's apparently an HBO adaptation in the works, with Jordan Peele executive producing. So that should be good.
Spellbook of the Lost and Found—Moira Fowley-Doyle
This one was really unexpected for me. It's definitely a young adult novel, but the cover art was not representative of the content. Set during a stormy summer in a small Irish town, things begin to disappear. Olive and her best friend Rose have both lost things following a big bonfire party, when they meet Hazel, her twin brother Rowan, and their friend Ivy, runaways living in an abandoned housing development. A spellbook comes into their lives, with a spell for the finding of lost things. Meanwhile, pieces from a mysterious diary also start appearing, various days to each of the members of the group. The diarist, Laurel, and her girlfriends, Holly and Ash, had cast the spell, and Laurel documents the boy they find after they cast the spell, and the chaos he causes. But Olive, Rose, Hazel, Rowan, and Ivy decide to cast the spell anyway. But can all lost things be found? And what might they lose to balance out the universe bringing back the lost things? I can't tell too much more without giving away some big reveals of the story, but I really appreciated some representations that I don't often see: Hazel is deaf in one ear, and wears a hearing aid. AND Olive and Rose are both bisexual, and Hazel is a lesbian. (Which plays out later in the story, but I don't encounter a lot of bisexual characters, so that was refreshing and lovely.)
There were some great twists and turns in this one, and the writing is just gorgeous. I finished it in less than a day because it was so engaging, and I'll definitely be watching this author for more. (And reading her previous novel, The Accident Season).
Evil Librarian—Michelle Knudsen
Okay, this one was really just fun. It was not the next Great American Novel, but there was a musical theater tie-in, a Waiting for Guffman reference, and some decidedly entertaining antics, so it's definitely worth a read. I finished this one in less than a day as well. Cynthia's best friend Annie falls for the new librarian, but in a creepy, cult-following kind of way. There's something weird about that new librarian, and whatever it is is causing havoc all over the school, and in Cynthia's relationship with Annie. But Cynthia is also distracted by the upcoming musical—Sweeney Todd—and her crush on athlete and also lead actor Ryan. Spoiler alert, the new librarian Mr. Gabriel is a demon. And everyone knows, demons favourite musical is Sweeney Todd, so he waits until the show opens to descend into hell with Annie as his child bride.
I didn't LOVE the tired "girl obsessed with boy gets into a situation that draws them together and even though she didn't know him before, now she REALLY knows him and they're totally in love" thing, BUT add musical theatre to something and I'm totally a sucker for it. Especially Sweeney Todd. There were a couple of good exchanges that I really wanted to include that were the highlights for me. (I mean, the book is really quick, and I would recommend it, but really these two highlights might be the best parts...)
This conversation between Mr. Gabriel and the newly arrived demon, Principal Kingston:
Mr. Gabriel sounds surprised. "Alliance?"
"Why not? Truce, at least. Maybe pool our resources. Then we can divvy up the school however makes the most sense, focus on getting ready for the big event."
There's a moment while the librarian apparently thinks this over. "Well, I'll admit, George, I would prefer not to deal with more distractions right now. I've got a lot on my plate."
"so, deal?"
"With terms."
"Of course," Principal Kingston agrees.
"I've selected a consort. She's off-limits, obviously."
"Obviously."
"And they're doing Sweeney Todd for the fall musical."
"Oh, yeah?" Principal Kingston is visibly arrested by this news. "Well, so the cast and crew is off-limits then, too, right? When's the show go up?"
"End of next week, actually. Perfect timing. I can get you the performance times."
"I adore Sweeney Todd. Have you seen any of the rehearsal? Do they have a good cast?"
"Excellent cast. Sweeney is amazing."
Principal Kingston shakes his head in happy disbelief. "I'm so excited." (212-213)
And this, which perfectly encapsulates my feelings about musical theatre, and also mentions The Secret Garden, for which I feel a special affinity at the moment because we revived it at The 5th last season:
But that is part of the magic of musical theater, dammit. That it can be awesome when everything else is awful, that it can make you feel better when life kicks you in the face and then stomps on your head while you're lying there on the ground whimpering and then makes out with your boyfriend while making you watch, when there seems to be no hope and you have trouble seeing the possibility of happiness or a future or anything else. Musical theater can save you, even if only for two or three hours at a time. Sondheim especially can save you, although, of course, he's not the only one, and personally I think Sweeney Todd can save you almost more than anything else, except maybe Les Miserables (Schonberg/Boublil) or, possibly, The Secret Garden (Norman/Simon). Oh, or Chess (Tim Rice and those guys from ABBA). Or Into the Woods (see? Sondheim again). But I don't know—right now I am thinking that Sweeney has them all beat. (271)
Ten—Gretchen McNeil
Oh boy, was this one bad. It did not work for me in any of the ways. As you might be able to discern from the title, it's intended to be an homage/retelling of And Then There Were None by Agatha Christie. With teenagers. Set on an island in Washington State. (Shout out to Washington State, though! You deserved better than this book... and Twilight...and 50 Shades of Grey...I'm so sorry....)
Teenagers lie to their parents and sneak away to an island for what promises to be an amazing weekend of partying at a classmate's parents' house. When Meg and Minnie, best friends forever, get there, they discover that classmate has not yet arrived, but among the guests that HAVE arrived is their mutual crush T.J. Only thing is, Minnie doesn't know about Meg's crush on T.J. because Meg has insisted that she doesn't have a crush on T.J. because Meg is afraid of telling her bipolar friend for fear she'll go crazy and hurt her. (Great treatment of someone with mental health. Just awesome.) When one of the guests "hangs herself" overnight, along with a mysterious red slash appearing on one of the walls, and no phone service and no access to internet, the teens start realizing that something is terribly amiss.
Okay, there are going to be some spoilers here for both And Then There Were None and this book. The whole conceit of Agatha Christie's book is that the people are being killed because they are actually murderers who got away with it. We find out that there was a classmate of all of the people who were there, and she committed suicide months ago, and the killer is her brother, wreaking revenge because he blames all of them for her death. I get how there can be a correlation drawn between those two plotlines; however, it just doesn't work with teenagers. Especially when our "hero" teenager is concerned about her bipolar friend going "crazy" (we learn that Minnie's meds have been taken from her, but even so, this is not the way to handle mental illness), and that same "hero" teams up with her crush to try to survive. At the end, about three seconds after her best friend has been murdered, when the killer is finally down for the count, Meg says that the only "good thing" to come from the whole thing was that it brought her and T.J. together. I beg your extreme fucking pardon? THE GOOD THING ABOUT EIGHT PEOPLE BEING KILLED, INCLUDING A GIRL WHO YOU CLAIM WAS YOUR BEST FRIEND, WAS THAT YOU GOT TO BE TOGETHER WITH YOUR CRUSH?! That's something a sociopath would say after eight people were killed around them, even if they weren't the killer.
Also, the writing was just BAD. In a seeming effort to include diversity, the author added characters of color. (Who, of course, horror-movie style, die before the white kids.) HOWEVER, the only time that any of the characters are described based on their skin color, it's when they're non-white. Here's an example: "Two guys sat on opposite sofas, controllers in hand, eyes fixed on the game. One looked like your average skinny shredder who spent mom and dad's money most weekends up at Whistler—tight thermal shirt, baggy jeans, and long, stringy hair he kept tossing out of his eyes with a violent flip of his head. The other was a big Samoan dude. Really big. Like linebacker in the NFL big." Look at the comparison of the length of those two descriptions, and the amount of detail in the description of the first dude and the amount of description of the second dude. It's not diversity if you just conspicuously shove minority characters into your story. Just ugh.
So yeah, don't read that last one, but the other three were great and recommended from me. Happy Halloween!
BEST
I cannot tell you how many times this book has been recommended to me. (I didn't realize that the author lives in Seattle, though, which is pretty cool.) Set in Jim Crow America, and though it's technically one cohesive storyline, it reads more like a collection of short stories that come together to create one narrative. The story starts with Atticus Turner returning to see his father, only to find that his father has disappeared. With his uncle and a childhood friend, Atticus seeks out his father, who has been taken captive by a strange cult-y cabal. The remainder of the story is about Atticus and Braithwaite, one of the members of the cabal, who is hoping to capitalize on a unique aspect of Atticus' history in order to achieve the power that he craves. Mixed in are confrontations with race in the 1950s; almost all of the characters in the separate chapters are African American, but are occupying or entering spaces that are not typically reserved for them in that time period, so they come face to face with the expectations of society. Several of them also have intersections with race, like Atticus' aunt Hippolyta, his childhood friend Letitita, and her sister Ruby, who must navigate not only being Black but being Black women.
While there are definitely supernatural elements, this book capitalizes more on the horrors that human beings inflict upon each other, and the things we have to fear from those who fear what is different from them. Which is even more terrifying for its basis in reality.
I'm excited to read other works by Matt Ruff now that I've enjoyed this one so much.
Also, there's apparently an HBO adaptation in the works, with Jordan Peele executive producing. So that should be good.
Spellbook of the Lost and Found—Moira Fowley-DoyleThis one was really unexpected for me. It's definitely a young adult novel, but the cover art was not representative of the content. Set during a stormy summer in a small Irish town, things begin to disappear. Olive and her best friend Rose have both lost things following a big bonfire party, when they meet Hazel, her twin brother Rowan, and their friend Ivy, runaways living in an abandoned housing development. A spellbook comes into their lives, with a spell for the finding of lost things. Meanwhile, pieces from a mysterious diary also start appearing, various days to each of the members of the group. The diarist, Laurel, and her girlfriends, Holly and Ash, had cast the spell, and Laurel documents the boy they find after they cast the spell, and the chaos he causes. But Olive, Rose, Hazel, Rowan, and Ivy decide to cast the spell anyway. But can all lost things be found? And what might they lose to balance out the universe bringing back the lost things? I can't tell too much more without giving away some big reveals of the story, but I really appreciated some representations that I don't often see: Hazel is deaf in one ear, and wears a hearing aid. AND Olive and Rose are both bisexual, and Hazel is a lesbian. (Which plays out later in the story, but I don't encounter a lot of bisexual characters, so that was refreshing and lovely.)
There were some great twists and turns in this one, and the writing is just gorgeous. I finished it in less than a day because it was so engaging, and I'll definitely be watching this author for more. (And reading her previous novel, The Accident Season).
Okay, this one was really just fun. It was not the next Great American Novel, but there was a musical theater tie-in, a Waiting for Guffman reference, and some decidedly entertaining antics, so it's definitely worth a read. I finished this one in less than a day as well. Cynthia's best friend Annie falls for the new librarian, but in a creepy, cult-following kind of way. There's something weird about that new librarian, and whatever it is is causing havoc all over the school, and in Cynthia's relationship with Annie. But Cynthia is also distracted by the upcoming musical—Sweeney Todd—and her crush on athlete and also lead actor Ryan. Spoiler alert, the new librarian Mr. Gabriel is a demon. And everyone knows, demons favourite musical is Sweeney Todd, so he waits until the show opens to descend into hell with Annie as his child bride.
I didn't LOVE the tired "girl obsessed with boy gets into a situation that draws them together and even though she didn't know him before, now she REALLY knows him and they're totally in love" thing, BUT add musical theatre to something and I'm totally a sucker for it. Especially Sweeney Todd. There were a couple of good exchanges that I really wanted to include that were the highlights for me. (I mean, the book is really quick, and I would recommend it, but really these two highlights might be the best parts...)
This conversation between Mr. Gabriel and the newly arrived demon, Principal Kingston:
Mr. Gabriel sounds surprised. "Alliance?"
"Why not? Truce, at least. Maybe pool our resources. Then we can divvy up the school however makes the most sense, focus on getting ready for the big event."
There's a moment while the librarian apparently thinks this over. "Well, I'll admit, George, I would prefer not to deal with more distractions right now. I've got a lot on my plate."
"so, deal?"
"With terms."
"Of course," Principal Kingston agrees.
"I've selected a consort. She's off-limits, obviously."
"Obviously."
"And they're doing Sweeney Todd for the fall musical."
"Oh, yeah?" Principal Kingston is visibly arrested by this news. "Well, so the cast and crew is off-limits then, too, right? When's the show go up?"
"End of next week, actually. Perfect timing. I can get you the performance times."
"I adore Sweeney Todd. Have you seen any of the rehearsal? Do they have a good cast?"
"Excellent cast. Sweeney is amazing."
Principal Kingston shakes his head in happy disbelief. "I'm so excited." (212-213)
And this, which perfectly encapsulates my feelings about musical theatre, and also mentions The Secret Garden, for which I feel a special affinity at the moment because we revived it at The 5th last season:
But that is part of the magic of musical theater, dammit. That it can be awesome when everything else is awful, that it can make you feel better when life kicks you in the face and then stomps on your head while you're lying there on the ground whimpering and then makes out with your boyfriend while making you watch, when there seems to be no hope and you have trouble seeing the possibility of happiness or a future or anything else. Musical theater can save you, even if only for two or three hours at a time. Sondheim especially can save you, although, of course, he's not the only one, and personally I think Sweeney Todd can save you almost more than anything else, except maybe Les Miserables (Schonberg/Boublil) or, possibly, The Secret Garden (Norman/Simon). Oh, or Chess (Tim Rice and those guys from ABBA). Or Into the Woods (see? Sondheim again). But I don't know—right now I am thinking that Sweeney has them all beat. (271)
WORST
Oh boy, was this one bad. It did not work for me in any of the ways. As you might be able to discern from the title, it's intended to be an homage/retelling of And Then There Were None by Agatha Christie. With teenagers. Set on an island in Washington State. (Shout out to Washington State, though! You deserved better than this book... and Twilight...and 50 Shades of Grey...I'm so sorry....)
Teenagers lie to their parents and sneak away to an island for what promises to be an amazing weekend of partying at a classmate's parents' house. When Meg and Minnie, best friends forever, get there, they discover that classmate has not yet arrived, but among the guests that HAVE arrived is their mutual crush T.J. Only thing is, Minnie doesn't know about Meg's crush on T.J. because Meg has insisted that she doesn't have a crush on T.J. because Meg is afraid of telling her bipolar friend for fear she'll go crazy and hurt her. (Great treatment of someone with mental health. Just awesome.) When one of the guests "hangs herself" overnight, along with a mysterious red slash appearing on one of the walls, and no phone service and no access to internet, the teens start realizing that something is terribly amiss.
Okay, there are going to be some spoilers here for both And Then There Were None and this book. The whole conceit of Agatha Christie's book is that the people are being killed because they are actually murderers who got away with it. We find out that there was a classmate of all of the people who were there, and she committed suicide months ago, and the killer is her brother, wreaking revenge because he blames all of them for her death. I get how there can be a correlation drawn between those two plotlines; however, it just doesn't work with teenagers. Especially when our "hero" teenager is concerned about her bipolar friend going "crazy" (we learn that Minnie's meds have been taken from her, but even so, this is not the way to handle mental illness), and that same "hero" teams up with her crush to try to survive. At the end, about three seconds after her best friend has been murdered, when the killer is finally down for the count, Meg says that the only "good thing" to come from the whole thing was that it brought her and T.J. together. I beg your extreme fucking pardon? THE GOOD THING ABOUT EIGHT PEOPLE BEING KILLED, INCLUDING A GIRL WHO YOU CLAIM WAS YOUR BEST FRIEND, WAS THAT YOU GOT TO BE TOGETHER WITH YOUR CRUSH?! That's something a sociopath would say after eight people were killed around them, even if they weren't the killer.
Also, the writing was just BAD. In a seeming effort to include diversity, the author added characters of color. (Who, of course, horror-movie style, die before the white kids.) HOWEVER, the only time that any of the characters are described based on their skin color, it's when they're non-white. Here's an example: "Two guys sat on opposite sofas, controllers in hand, eyes fixed on the game. One looked like your average skinny shredder who spent mom and dad's money most weekends up at Whistler—tight thermal shirt, baggy jeans, and long, stringy hair he kept tossing out of his eyes with a violent flip of his head. The other was a big Samoan dude. Really big. Like linebacker in the NFL big." Look at the comparison of the length of those two descriptions, and the amount of detail in the description of the first dude and the amount of description of the second dude. It's not diversity if you just conspicuously shove minority characters into your story. Just ugh.
So yeah, don't read that last one, but the other three were great and recommended from me. Happy Halloween!
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