Extremely fun and with some good turns in the tale, but flawed. I loved the way it ended. I hated the dialogue. I totally saw the twist comin3.5 stars
Extremely fun and with some good turns in the tale, but flawed. I loved the way it ended. I hated the dialogue. I totally saw the twist coming. Moldavsky has a good touch with mingling the darker elements of her story; I especially loved Samantha/Lydia/Baby/Jennifer's recollections of her father's death. However, I found the way the girls spoke to each other, and the relentless Tumblr-isms (for lack of a better word), both poorly executed.
Each of the girls (and each of the Ruperts) can be summarised in one or maximum of two personality quirks. Isabel is Dominican so she "knows crime" and takes a remarkably cool attitude to shoving a dead body in a suitcase. Erin is the (never-named) main character's actual friend from school, but more importantly, she's gorgeous. Apple is obese and Moldavsky makes an extremely irritating point to mention it every single time she appears. She knocks the least loved Rupert out with her sheer body weight attempting to give him a hug. Even when she smiles, Moldavsky describes the creases of fat around her face. When none of these tics are mentioned, Apple is still always eating.
To be honest, all of Kill The Boy Band was so shallow and superficial - albeit fun! - that I found it hard to be exactly offended by any of this. The problem is that none of the girls, except the never-named main character, had any depth at all. I actually found Apple the most enjoyable of the characters.
The Ruperts, however, were incredibly grating. American writers often struggle with (British) English dialogue, which is a pet peeve of mine. I suspect that it was intended to be fizzy satire, but I just found it dull and 1970s that none of the boys could open their mouth without shouting "Oi" or something similarly on the nose.
Yet I still really enjoyed the surges and falls of the plot, and I read it in a single day. There were also moments of grace, provided by some interesting insights into the nature of fan culture. This was a fun, fast read, but it was also far shallower than I hoped it would be....more
In one sense, this is a tribute to how powerful writing can be. If you summarised the plot of Annihilation, it wouldAnnihilation in one word: DIVISIVE
In one sense, this is a tribute to how powerful writing can be. If you summarised the plot of Annihilation, it would sound like any other fairly average "scientists-venture-into-the-unknown; are gruesomely killed off for their pains" fiction. Yet Annihilation is not average in any sense. It is one of the most profoundly frightening, unusual, and disconcerting novels I've ever read - at least, in places. One of the other things about VanderMeer's mad skills is that it's impossible to point to one single feature of the novel which sets it so apart from this rather crowded genre. It's in the description of Area X. It's in Vandermeer's bold in media res style. It's in the portrayal of the ominous other women on the trip, where it truly feels like anything might happen.
Area X is described as a place which holds some kind of mysterious grip on the people who come to explore it. As the Biologist spookily tells us, many times, everyone who's ever come back from there is, if not dead, different. It's in the profound differentness, which Vandermeer weaves brilliantly into every aspect of the narrative, that makes it truly unlike anything I've ever read before. I honestly got to some sections - like the Biologist finding the first corpse, or the psychologist's confrontation, or the discovery of the diaries - where I was convinced I'd give this 5 stars. It really was that "holy shit" good.
Now, for such a short book, it does admittedly occasionally feels like it drags. However, that's redeemed by how often the book springs a nasty surprise on us and, even if this is something that is a horror trope, Vandermeer gives it a wonderful literary makeover. I was truly gripped and fascinated by this strange little book, even when my eyes glazed over from all the rabid description, because it was just so - special. And horrifying. Don't forget horrifying.
The Biologist too is such a strange narrator. She's blank and has that often-seen-in-novels obsession with science and everything empirical. At times, this is both charming and ominous, such as when she discovers the writing from previous victims on the walls and tells us she knows they're dead because they've revealed things nobody would have ever revealed, unless they did so in their dying moments, or when she tries to convince the others to rise up against the psychologist. It was also refreshing to have such an intensely, at times it seemed almost freakishly, self-possessed and calm protagonist in a horror novel. It gave the novel itself that unique atmosphere of calm and charm - despite the horrors within - and also prevented it from becoming too grating and stereotypical as the stakes rose. However, I thought the Biologist was infinitely more interesting and compelling when acting as a foil to outside stimuli - whether reacting to a new terrible discovery in Area X, or rebelling against one of the members of the crew - than she was when she was talking at great length about her backstory. It was interesting, and could've potentially been one of the most chilling aspects of the book - that scene with her returning husband! - but it also felt dragged out and I must admit that I just didn't care enough. It's a rare protagonist that can carry a large section of the novel completely alone, without any other characters, and I didn't think the Biologist passed the test. It is a very hard test.
I also felt that VanderMeer's supreme gifts in tension and world building deserted him for the few most crucial pages of the book: the climax and ending. He really came into his own (view spoiler)[when depicting the death of the other expedition members, and the Biologist's conflict with them (hide spoiler)] but unfortunately I didn't think he really maintained that level of suspense and terror with the monster. I was actually quite confused for most of the Biologist's final meeting with the monster, which was a real shame after the clear-eyed psychological horror of the rest of the book. While not as bad as many of the other "no-ending" endings that populate fiction, I also found the last couple of pages a little disappointing and deflating.
Please don't think this is a negative review. There really were so many things that I thought was excellent about the book. It perfectly captures one of my things that all my favourite novels have in common - they all portray a world which is close to being our own, but there are just enough disturbing, disconcerting details - or pure darkness - that it feels almost as if a door has opened up inside my normal world, and I realised all this time that I was so close to another place, where things are nearly the same, but...not quite.
it's one of the sad parts of a reading experience that you might feel more negative about a book that has been close to classic for 90-95% of the book if the remaining 5-10% has been downright poor/mediocre, than you might if a book suddenly took a turn for the better. So this could have been a classic, but unfortunately wasn't quite there for me. It will, however, be with me for a long, long time, and I'm not sure what else you can want from a book....more
I love Shakespeare. I love Shakespeare so much, more than I can explain - so much so that I am considering frittering away thousands of pounds to contI love Shakespeare. I love Shakespeare so much, more than I can explain - so much so that I am considering frittering away thousands of pounds to continue studying him. I love Shakespearean tragedy. I love his plays. I even love whiny, sceptical, moody Hamlet.
So, for me, the retelling is both fertile and suspicious ground. On one hand: yes. I love reading new slants, hearing words and contexts picked out and rearranged, being prodded and invited to ask - is this still Shakespeare? On the other hand, why would I read this book when I could just read Shakespeare's original, or see any one of many wonderful productions of his various works?
"Nutshell" is perhaps one of the most successful retellings of its kind, in this case. The idea is incredible. The decontextualisation of what might be described as Hamlet's "love/hate relationship" with Gertrude - and the tenderness that underlies both of those - is phenomenal. So is the new twist on the questions that haunt the revenge tragedy part of Hamlet. What can Hamlet, not yet born and so both everything and nothing, do? What should he?
As long as it sticks to these primal nerves, Nutshell is frankly great. But McEwan can't help being…well, Ian McEwan.
I wanted to learn about Trudy. We learn endless amounts about Claude and John (especially John), yet nothing of Trudy. I know T.S. Eliot picked his bone with Gertrude, hated Hamlet for being about a problem like Gertrude (namely, a bland and unknowable one), but this is no excuse. Hamlet's dead father is certainly no more graspable in the original than his mother, yet McEwan's John is such a vital and well-developed presence.
Some things should've been jettisoned, some things should've been developed. The ghost I really could've done without. Yes, I know it's in Hamlet. However, I personally felt the better "ghost" was when Trudy is haunted by the eulogies to John in the newspaper. Elodie is a baffling addition. Another problem. When McEwan grasps at the underlying questions in Hamlet - which I would argue are in fact the whole play; there is a reason why Hamlet is just so long and foggy and slow in comparison to a more traditional Shakespearean "revenge" tragedy, Macbeth - he excels. He spins. Hamlet (unnamed, as unborn) lives in Trudy's womb. He worships her. He hates her. The most extraordinary moment in "Nutshell" is when the foetus dreams of being his mother's accomplice, despite being in no such position, simply by being born; knowing that his mother is unprepared for him - plans to give him away, it appears - the baby pitifully pleads that Trudy can't do that, for then she deprives herself of the best alibi: that of the nurturing mother, of which the son is an inescapable piece.
Such extraordinary moments are littered throughout. Yet too often, McEwan's own irritating archness and overt cleverness - a particularly unflattering carnival trick, like the exaggerated showman - gets in the way. This manifests itself less damagingly in the incident of the book turning out more and more like a traditional "will they get away with it" 'thriller' of sorts, complete with inscrutable police more clever than they appear and Roald Dahl references (a frozen leg of lamb is suggested as the murder weapon).
However, perhaps the most unbearable aspect of any truly good book I've read in a long, long time is the baby's incessant fucking monologues. I can accept that this foetus needs to know more than is possible by human development. I understand that he needs to be able to be a keen, witty observer of Trudy, John, and Claude. However, what I cannot accept is a baby's apparent ability to monologue on the state of current affairs. I know Trudy listens to the radio. I get that he inflicts insomnia upon her so she'll listen to podcasts. I don't care. The fact remains that this is a pissing cheat, and, more importantly, seems to signal a deep lack of confidence. The baby chatters on for WHOLE CHAPTERS on global warming, the refugees in Calais, Syrian refugees, and the state of the nation. He also has a love for wine, which would be comic if not for McEwan's insistence upon over-egging and overplaying it. This might've been an attempt to turn the foetus into a kind of "prince," (a king of infinite space, if you will), but having comprised a decent 65% of this fairly short book, it just seemed both too clever-clever and incredibly self-important, both in the sense that a) it seemed like McEwan meant the stuff he was writing more than he was willing to admit, and b) it just was neither funny, nor especially insightful.
This is beside the point, but as Trudy lives in central London and has apparently at one point slept with two millionaires - her husband and his brother both inherited 7 million each, largely spent now - I wondered if it wasn't a bit of a missed opportunity to make her clearly so uninterested in "Hamlet." He doesn't even have a crib, which is a plot line that bizarrely seems to go nowhere; there are a few suggestions that Trudy is deeply negligent and behaves as if she is not having a baby at all, but I wanted this to be more expanded upon. After all, what WAS she planning to do with the baby once he was born? Even so, I still felt that, given all the coverage which suggests being a rich - or, even worse, in Trudy's case, no longer rich but expected to put up the pretence of such - mother is competitive, spiteful, flashy hell, like being queen without the perks, I wondered if this wasn't something of a missed opportunity. I wanted to see Trudy hobnob with the unbearable mothers, or mothers-to-be.
When rooted in the genuine human (or subhuman, or nearly-human) drama, however, this book is genuinely brilliant. Though the less said about the rest the better, I still thought this innovative novel was worth 4 stars. ...more
This is just a stunning reworking of Aeschylus's Oresteia. It is exactly what a retelling should be - recognisable, true to the spirit of the originalThis is just a stunning reworking of Aeschylus's Oresteia. It is exactly what a retelling should be - recognisable, true to the spirit of the original, yet profoundly disturbing, haunting, and fresh. It's a little overwrought in places - even taking into consideration the heightened and anachronistic nature of Greek drama - and the ending is disappointing for its abruptness - if only Klytemenestra's speech had been longer. Though I don't doubt that Farber's admiration rests with Elektra, the slave and victim of horrific torture and atrocities from her mother, her truly majestic, beautiful, and unforgettable rhetoric rests with Klytemenestra. Perhaps because Klytemenestra is the only member of the cast not asked to bear any strong moral significance, she is allowed to act and respond in a way that makes her perhaps the greatest (and worst, and most terrifying) Klytemenestra from the modern stage....more
Individual reviews are below, but this is an incredibly strong and enjoyable collection. The best thing about it is the individual flavour that even sIndividual reviews are below, but this is an incredibly strong and enjoyable collection. The best thing about it is the individual flavour that even stories I panned - like Paige's The Dark... - or were underwhelmed by - Jay Kristoff's Sleepless - have their own distinct atmosphere. Scrolling through the list, I can remember every story vividly, and so I think it richly deserves the solid 4 stars overall.
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THE BIRDS OF AZALEA STREET by Nova Ren Suma 4.5 stars
i know I should love Nova Ren Suma. She writes the kind of books that I know should be exactly calibrated to my tastes - eerie, creepy, female-driven, suspense novels. Yet, despite my appreciation of all things sisterly and sinister, we've never quite agreed on what constitutes plot, as I personally don't think atmosphere is enough to sustain a novel. Nevertheless, this has forced me to concede quite how masterfully talented she is. Since I finished it twenty minutes ago, I have been plagued by delicious shivers ever since. It's an ominous and incredibly well-written tale about three girls against a predatory neighbour. The mounting sense of dread has stayed with me.
I had to deduct a half-star because I personally found the ending underwhelming, simultaneously under-explained but too on-the-nose. It was done in the best horror movie tradition, but even so, as Suma has such a masterful way with imagery and dialogue, something more definitive and original would've gone across better with me, but this is personal, and shouldn't detract from how chilling and genuinely creepy this short was. To illustrate, I'll leave you with a couple of my favourite lines:
Paisley told us she could sense the hunger coming off him, like she was plump and roasting and he hadn't eaten for a week.
It was the saddest thing I've seen all year, even worse than the time Miranda from school showed us her suicide notes and asked us to pick the best-written one so she could impress her dad.
IN A FOREST, DARK AND DEEP by Carrie Ryan 2.5 stars
When I read before that this was based on Alice in Wonderland, I steeled myself. There are so many variations on Alice that I seriously doubted the need for another, especially when there are so many other things that could've inspired a story; did we really need a version of something which is essentially middle-grade horror? Obviously Ryan's writing suffered in comparison to the amazing Nova Ren Suma, but it was decent enough, with some genuine scares and jolts, and some creepy images. However, the structure was just far too disjointed. I felt like I was never 'getting' it, but I also couldn't really be bothered to flip back and clarify anything. There was also a large cast and fairly complicated story for such a short piece, but none of them ever grabbed or interested me; they felt flat and dull.
EMMELINE by Cat Winters 2 stars
Not really scary like the first and second, more sad and a little unsettling than really disturbing. It's hard to mess up World War creepfests, as the horror pretty much writes itself, but Winters is clearly a real pro: there's Lillian Gish, burning magazines, and a lot of nice period details, including a pitch-perfect mid-century tone of voice from both Emmeline and the mysterious American soldier who appears in her bombed-out home. However, the story isn't really distinctive and, in contrast to Carrie Ryan's story, it seems a little too long for the idea as is. Still, it gets major props for not ending as I was sure it would, but I can't really rate it any higher because, unlike Nova Ren Suma's, it just sort of fell off my radar after I finished it. It felt like a throwback, and not always in a good way - so built on other aesthetics that it didn't feel like there was an individual voice in there.
VERSE CHORUS VERSE by Leigh Bardugo 5 stars
FUCK. This is what I'm talking about. It's not without its problems, as a story - with the particular use of one very overused plot point, please no more - but what I loved the most about it was that, after all my bitching and moaning about how ambiguity felt like a cop-out, here was a story that pitches its own ambiguity exactly right. I didn't quite "get" it, but there was so much here to chew on and think about. Also, there was something so crystallising about what I love in YA horror about how Bardugo pitched the setting - a rehab joint where a teen singer, struggling with addiction, is forced to go, especially in the notion of being both on your own and terrifyingly at the mercy of other people. I felt like Bardugo's little talking doll, how I shivered at the nurse's teeth, or Louise assuring Jaycee that "no-one gets over that fence," among many other moments. It's terrifying, but with sympathetic, believable, and incredibly interesting characters at its centre, and so many interesting points swirling around its premise to unpick.
I particularly loved the mother-daughter relationship, even though I have no idea where it went on that last page. I can only say that I loved it nonetheless. "In that minute, Kara had hated Jaycee. She'd understood that she would always be standing in that parking lot. No matter how many tickets they sold, or how many charities they gave to, they'd always be trash."
HIDE AND SEEK by Megan Shepard 4.5 stars
What this one lacks in character development, it makes up for threefold in visceral thrills and excitement. I'm not sure if I would call this horror - it certainly draws on ideas and scenes we would think of as being horror, it has a particular novel spin on fear - I was never really afraid when Annie raced through her North Carolina town looking for a way to cheat death, but I was afraid for her, of the consequences if she failed, because I desperately didn't want that to happen. The twist involving her friend, Suze, and the final challenge made me nearly yelp out a "Hail Mary" for brave Annie at the near end of her journey. I genuinely raced to the end, gasping for breath and, in a genre that always seems so intent on bleakness and misery, it was simply delightful, and surprisingly emotional, to read one that tacitly acknowledges the resilience, bravery, and strength of spirits both human and inhuman. "Death is not a person. Death cannot be reasoned with. As life, as in death, nothing is fair."
THE DARK, THE SCARY PARTS AND ALL by Danielle Page 1.5 stars
This, strangely, was the one I was most anticipating, as my favourite horror film of all time is Rosemary's Baby, one of the very few film adaptations that are better than the books. The best part of this novel is the ingenious title. Other than that - seriously, I am BAFFLED. To call this an archetypal YA romance, especially circa 2010-2011, would be almost a joke because it's so much like every single trope from paranormal romance I have ever read, almost to parodic levels. I actually spent most of the story hoping that it would turn out to be some great self-aware joke, that Marnie had read too many Twilight knockoffs and thus felt compelled to brag about how much better she was than all the other stereotypical mean girls because she was the cleverest girl in class, compare her half-baked romance with the unbelievably handsome, chivalrous rich guy to Heathcliff (of course!), and he was also fulfilling her tweeny fantasies when he told her that she wasn't like other girls because she read books (oh my god!) except he was - gasp! - the Devil. If that's what Paige was going for, the other shoe never dropped.
It remained nonsensical. What could've been an atmospheric and intensely creepy YA horror about a girl tapping into the Devil within, intermingled with some Satanic kissing - don't judge me, okay - stayed so silly and stupid that I rolled my eyes continuously throughout it. Page's writing isn't bad so I kept desperately hoping she would elevate it, but nothing ever did. The mean girls are completely ripped from, well, Mean Girls, complete with some rather half-assed chanting and stupid nicknames. Whenever she mentioned Damian Thorne's special eyes, or his sense of intense empathy - hey, for the Devil's only son, he isn't all bad - I somewhere between shuddered and cringed, but not in the horror way. The unravelling of the plot was absurd at best, with absolutely no creep or surprise factor; it felt like the most routine plodding through what could've been an incredibly creepy plot, all the set pieces were moronic. I have never seen pentagrams or self-inflicted suicide look dumber. This short was so unoriginal that they literally had to borrow mutilated Barbie dolls from another murderous couple, Heathers.
There was one really good line, though: "But pretty wasn't always symmetry and flawless skin. Pretty was sometimes a verb. And Evelyn prettied better than anyone."
THE FLICKER, THE FINGERS, THE BEAT, THE SIGH by April Genevieve Tucholke 3.5 stars
Highly unoriginal and really quite sparse, I expected more from this one, simply because there's not much of a plot. Of all the others that have been mostly 'inspired' by their "sources," this one pretty much just takes the same idea - from "I Know What You Did Last Summer" - and repeats it, with a little bit of the climax of "Carrie" - the other inspiration, which gets bizarrely name checked in the beginning, in an unrelated incident - thrown in. It's pretty good, and has some truly creepy moments, especially during the "what happened next" epilogue but this, again, felt much shorter than some of the others, as it was basically one not-very-fresh idea at the centre. Still, it's a good piece of B-movie fun, and we must that April Genevieve Tucholke, our queen, for making this collection possible. Eerie and with a certain type of nice bluntness, if uninspired.
FAT GIRL WITH A KNIFE by Jonathan Maberry 3 stars
This one felt like the classic 3-star read. While the vast majority of these little stories I've rated in the region of 2-3 stars were more like bumpy experiences - some great moments, some less stellar moments - this is one of those that just feels straight-up 3 stars. It potters along at a perfectly fine pace: starting tense and suspenseful, before finally wrapping up in a satisfactory, if predictable, manner. Dahlia is an interesting character, but I must note something that slightly annoyed me about this story and the last. In both, it felt like the "stimulus" had been somewhat misused. Yes, I know, these authors owe me nothing but, in contrast to, say, the Hitchcock mashup that Nova Ren Suma presented first, I found it not really stretching the phenomenal thing connecting these stories: the genius idea of using different areas of horror literature as inspiration for short stories of all kinds, when it felt like Maberry, obviously a zombie fanatic judging by his other books, basically picked the two stimuli he knew best (Zombieland and Night of the Living Dead), and made a short story out of it. That's fine, but it lacked the truly creative punch of many of these tales.
With all that said, there's a reason why the idea of the zombie apocalypse in a high school is so absolutely creepy and terrifying, and Maberry taps into that well. Although I loved the very last scene, I did find it somewhat contrary in comparison to what we know about Dahlia. Still: "Yeah. She was smiling as she said that." Shivers ran down my spine.
SLEEPLESS by Jay Kristoff 3.5 stars
When I realised this was a horror short about online relationships, I rubbed my hands together in glee (typo'd as flee the first time, that sounds about right for a horror collection). Speaking from personal experience, there's something so claustrophobic, important, and innately mysterious about online relationships that I couldn't wait to see Kristoff use. When I heard that there were several mind-boggling twists, I got even more excited. HOWEVER - I would seriously advise anyone who reads on Kindle not to click forwards on this story in particular. You will get the first source inspiration for this pretty easily, as it's one of those pop-culture must-knows that have been referenced and remade all over the place, but the second area of source inspiration is basically a total spoiler. I alternated between clicking and waiting till the end to find out, and I wish I'd waited for this one.
So, yeah, I got the twist, but luckily there is another - which, sadly, I also got, thanks to a massive hint that Krisotff drops early and pretty heavily. Though it does rip off the big twist from the big film it's based on, Kristoff livens things up with multiple twists, all of which, to his credit, fit together seamlessly but this is a story that relies, sadly, on its surprise value for the enjoyment factor. Once I knew everything, it felt flatter and dumber, like I was just waiting to get there. Also, one of the twists bothered me because I felt like it took me out of the premise of the anthology, and what it was "supposed" to be - that's as clear as I can be without plot spoilers. Don't get me wrong, it's a well-written and atmospheric short story, and I spent most of the time hoping I was wrong about it, but I wasn't. Also, do kids still talk in the most abbreviated slang? I get they're supposed to be young, but it hurt my eyes and, from my brief frequenting of teen-dominated web spaces, like tumblr, kids now only abbreviate very infrequently, preferring full sentences. There was quite a lot of it and it was annoying and even, dare I say, unrealistic.
"Sometimes I wonder if the right girl is out there. Sometimes I wonder if Momma isn't right about all of them."
M by Stephen Bachmann 2.5 stars
Well, that was...strange. I definitely didn't think it was horror, to be honest. It seemed to be essentially an Agatha Christie mystery, not that there's anything wrong with that. There was the potential for creepiness and sometimes there was, such as Misha marking the maybe-murderer with ink, but, given it was in third-person, it seemed almost too focused on Misha. I liked the relationship that developed between Misha and Kerstin, the servant girl who helped her in her expedition but, for such a short story, too much of it felt like it was focused on Misha sitting down not doing very much, for its intensely abbreviated length. There were creepy moments, especially with the children, but much of it felt random and strange. Naturally, for a densely-populated short where only two characters really lead, the "revelation" meant it so I couldn't care less, as I'm pretty sure we never saw the doer before. Bachmann has a great eye for dialogue, though, and I did enjoy this one - I think it mostly threw me off balance because it just didn't seem like a horror story. Also, as the much more common way to spell the servant's name is Kirsten here in England, where the book is set, it kept giving me cross-eyes looking at it.
"That sounded nice. Being a secret. 'It's not like that at all,' Misha said. 'It's miserable here.'
'Isn't it everywhere,' Kerstin said matter-of-factly.
THE GIRL WITHOUT A FACE by Marie Lu 4.5 stars
I'm glad I waited to review this one. I actually read it almost a week ago, but kept starting the review and not being happy with it. Clearly something wanted me to just wait. I was split between a fairly underwhelmed 3-3.5 stars, as I'd been so hyped for this and found it, well, rather mediocre in terms of plotting. It was nicely written, but the elements just felt too archetypal. It didn't help that this one, like the aforementioned short, also featured a Harvard-admitted character attempting to cover up a crime they'd committed. That's not even factoring in the two "source" materials, neither of which I've seen. I've never read anything by Lu because her usual stuff (dystopian/fantasy about chosen ones etc) are very much not my thing, but this one came to me quite hyped, and I hoped for something a little, well, fresher.
Aided by a couple of claustrophobic closet dreams, I reread this one not once but twice, and realised what kept me thinking. While I deduct a half-star for failing to make me shiver and wonder like the eerie newness of Leigh Bardugo's teen rehab did, or gasp and race like Megan Shepherd's Hide and Seek (i.e. the enjoyment factor of feeling like you're encountering originality or something truly new), it actually doesn't really matter how original a short story is, because it's just freaking good. Lu conjured up the sense of oppression in private school student Richard's everyday life as he begins to realise that someone is watching him from the closet in his new house, and made me develop very complicated feelings towards Richard even in a very short and quite elusive short: wanting him to get away from the ghost's power while not being sure if he really deserved it. The ending is duly haunting and creepy.
She looked different somehow. Did she always have light hair? Why did Richard remember that she was supposed to be a brunette?
THE GIRL WHO DREAMED OF SNOW by McCormick Templeman 3 stars
The highest rating I can give to a story I had to skim. This one has serious potential - the idea is creepy and the setting is unique and gave me the appropriate chilly feeling, both metaphorically and literally, because it's set somewhere very cold. The writing is good and, when Templeman is on, this story is really on. However, it felt, like Carrie Ryan's story from earlier in the collection, needlessly complicated and convoluted. I will admit that I almost felt cross-eyed from all the changes of perspective that just seemed to muddy a fairly simple basic idea. I wanted to love it and got close a couple of times, as this story throws in some of my favourite things - a vivid setting and human sacrifice (to clarify: I don't love human sacrifice, but feeling compelled to do it in a horror story is one of my favourite creepy tropes). The ending is pitch perfect, and there are serious scenes which rival to be the best in the collection, but the overall feel of the story is one of too long and too confusing, not helped by the fact that it just didn't grab me. Sorry.
"All he saw was his daughter's smile. All he saw was the gift of salvation, born of the sacred dream of snow."
STITCHES by A.G. Howard 4 stars
AHHHH!!! Arguably the most traditionally scary story in the collection, this is so gory, bloody, and take-no-prisoners that I read it wincing. Honestly. I flinched every time I turned the page in my Kindle, worrying what was going to come next. Sad though it is, that great recommendation is also what made me dock it a half-star. It's an inspired short story, with real depth behind it, but it's also so nasty and unrestrained that I could not enjoy it at all. I'm actually trying to push this idea back into the recesses of my mind and forget about it, that's how much the repeated descriptions of mutilations and amputations freaked me out. Good, but only for certain tastes.
"Your family is at peace now. I hope at last we can have all the pieces we deserve."
ON THE I-5 by Kendare Blake 2 stars
Sorry. This one is just fine to me, not helped by being last in the collection. It was just a little too quiet and tropey to really make its mark, and knowing that Blake has a serious horror background, I had high expectations. Despite the GR character limit, I'm still disappointed I don't have more to say about this one....more
Until Tatiana reviewed this, I realised I'd actually forgotten to do so myself. And, frankly, skip this one. Please. I'm saying that to protect you.
ThUntil Tatiana reviewed this, I realised I'd actually forgotten to do so myself. And, frankly, skip this one. Please. I'm saying that to protect you.
The Bunker Diary made me think of my seriously unsettled view of True Art Is Angsty. The Bunker Diary is relentlessly miserable, depressing, and unforgiving. Think of the worst ending you can think of and triple it. It's well written, it's well structured, but it's not good.
Yes, I have no doubt that those of you who loved it (and possibly Brooks himself) will think that that's just part of the territory when it comes to writing a book as dark and raw as this one: "You just didn't get it." But, you guys, I love dark. Really, I do. I am the audience for this book.
But there is a significant difference between a type of dark that resonates, and one that doesn't. The Bunker Diary is nasty. I love horror, and nobody can deny that horror has its own propulsive power, whether or not you like it. Horror is thrilling and involving and haunting. The Bunker Diary is sort of haunting because Brooks thinks that he can cram in every possible atrocity that man does to man, and it probably won't be panned because a. he's Kevin Brooks and b. True Art Is Angsty.
I concede: it's incredibly suspenseful and many of the clues (were there multiple kidnappers? was one of the 'hostages' actually an accomplice themselves?) are fascinating, so I can't give it one star. Brooks IS too good a writer for one star.
But it builds to nothing. Realistically, perhaps - but the problem with this kind of realism, that sticks with nihilism at all costs, is that it has to be justified, for me at least. The darkest ending I've ever read (1984) is also my favourite, because it feels like the only (galling, frustrating, despairing, beautiful) ending the book could've had. The Bunker Diary occasionally pretends to have thematic resonance...of any kind. It doesn't, not really. The Big Brother cameras, the clues, the arc words ("You just think about that") build to nothing except gore, violence, death, violence, gore. There's no other reason for its existence, and I actually feel kind of pissed off because Brooks essentially implies there's more going on for the whole novel. He keeps teasing and teasing and teasing, and it's not the fact that it's unsolved, either. It's the fact that there seems like there was never a solution, and no answer in the first place. The Guardian review asked: "Is there less here than Brooks is implying?" Yes, there is. There's not really anything here.
Seriously, I don't really care if (view spoiler)[everybody dies (hide spoiler)], but I want to be made to care for some reason. I wasn't (except for Jenny, who basically only counted because Brooks threw in every "child in distressing situation" trope he could think of.) I did also like Linus, and his backstory was incredibly interesting, but you can only get so far on a plot that's been done better (if not with any more justification per se) by short stories. Yes, it was intense, it was compelling, but it wasn't WORTHWHILE. It had nothing new to say about man's cruelty to man, abduction or even violence. This is not early-day Saw, with its violence paid off by serious questions and plot twists. This is latter-day Saw, with gratuitous violence and perhaps some pretence at intelligence or depth, but nothing more so than that. Of course Brooks can make it sound good; he's Kevin Brooks. But that doesn't make it good.
Horrible, yes, but more unforgivingly - flat and pointless. Pass. ...more
Frankly, for how often people in this novel write this, the reader themselves may find themselves staring at the 1,400+ tigh4.5 stars
"I cannot go on."
Frankly, for how often people in this novel write this, the reader themselves may find themselves staring at the 1,400+ tightly-packed remaining pages in horror, and thinking, if only you bloody hadn't.
No, I did not read it all. I think my abridgement probably totalled over 1,00 pages though, which, in three days, is not bad. I was actually surprised by how much I enjoyed this once I started. It's a surprisingly modern novel in many ways; though Clarissa may be a perfect, luminous "angel" - aren't many of the eighteenth-century heroines? - Richardson spares no blushes in his totalling of Clarissa's treatment and the novel was bizarrely addictive. It's thrilling in places, Clarissa is no passive fool, and the dialogue sparkles between Clarissa and her best friend, Anna, and particularly Clarissa and the horrible Lovelace, a preening, self-indulgent, narcissistic villain of whom writers of twenty-first century psychological thrillers would be proud. It really does feel like a pioneering classic in places, stretching its use of form and Richardson's talents.
Until it pushes its conceit too far. After the immediate fallout from Lovelace's sexual assault of Clarissa, the novel just seems to run out of steam, a sad thing given that there were still at least 500 pages to go. I read an abridgement of the Penguin edition that my supervisor recommended and, despite missing out chunks of the text, when Belford repented his actions and Clarissa levelled up so completely in sainthood that one could be forgiven for expecting her to suddenly grow wings at any moment, it seemed like I had missed absolutely nothing. (Unlike earlier in the text, where I could tell that I was missing nuances of the plot by skipping letters.)
Nevertheless, I'm giving this one 4 stars because...it's the classic, okay? I enjoyed this one a lot more - and read it a hell of a lot faster - than Richardson's other novel, Pamela, despite the fact that Pamela is about 1/3 of the length (still no mean feat - you will wonder if anybody in the eighteenth century experienced hand cramp.) In many ways, they could almost be two different variants on the same story, both featuring a virtuous young woman being pursued by a rakish and seemingly unreliable potential lover. However, while Pamela is stilted, dry, dull, and slow, Clarissa is dark, mesmerising, and fluent in its sustained skill. Its main dark topic - rape - is handled with a sensitivity, comprehension, and quiet devastation that many modern authors could learn from. Am I really giving 4 stars to a book for it not being Pamela? Yes. Yes, I am....more
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