Rachel Smith's Blog: Guinea Pigs and Books, page 22

“We ain’t gonna stand for any weirdness out here!”

129. Scarecrow – Richie Tankersley Cusick

Pamela, who has recently lost her husband and son, has just been in a car crash in the middle of nowhere and wakes up on a farm where they’re essentially doing everything like there’s no reason to modernize. She was carried there because a sort of psychic small child named Girlie knew she was there and got her saved so that she could end up meeting the whole family in the backwoods: Seth, the extremely gruff and grumpy father figure who clearly doesn’t want her there, Rachel, the mother who keeps saying, “Mercy!” and has to do all the chores ladies in this situation do, Franny, the willful teenager who kind of wants to get out, Micah, the mostly silent fearful boy who is missing a hand, and Girlie, the youngest, psychic one.

No one will straightforwardly communicate with Pamela about why exactly it’s impossible for her to leave once she has rested some. No one will be straightforward about what this family’s deal is, it’s all weird obfuscation and “you should talk to” followed by someone else who doesn’t communicate well because they’re all hiding something. One thing they are straightforward about is that they all make scarecrows and then all of them have to be burned. All of them. So when Franny wants to keep hers, it freaks out Micah and it seems like it’s freaking out Micah because Seth won’t like it…but…is Micah actually a small child psychopath?

It has to be annoying to be trying to ferret out who is actually a murderous backwoods psychopath when you have nothing to work with but your suspects. It’s like no one wrote anything down on this farm like ever. And I really mean it’s annoying for me. I didn’t feel like Pamela was ever actually in danger of anything but being further confused by the various family members and then I abruptly left being on her side when she suddenly decided she was in love with Seth. It came absolutely out of nowhere for me. So by the end when the killer breaks their facade and is just getting after that whole dead people at the dinner table kind of thing, I was dead to reacting to the final twist.

 

Snuffy isn’t good at hiding things…like how much she enjoys napping, which isn’t dangerous, per se.

And the cover doesn’t match anything in the story.

82. Haunted Heirloom – Marjorie Eatock

This is a case of a good title on the wrong book. There’s nothing haunted about the heirloom, a letter only very shortly authenticated as being from Abraham Lincoln before the authenticator is murdered. I was intrigued because this involves an Iowan librarian and murder and had the potential for ghosts alongside library work and yet that was unfounded and a lot of it was convoluted and annoying and the love story was a bit of a blindside.

There are sisters who run the library and who employ Jenny, whose mother has passed but used to work there too and also worked for Ross Gilead, famously interesting man in town who has a serious collection and authentication powers. The sisters have been dating Ross, who was also married, and this guy named Bill Taylor, who seems to be trying to get himself into Jenny’s good graces rather creepily.

Jenny’s mom’s things, like her car and house, all seem to require some sort of smack or kick before they work, which was charming enough, but Jenny just does not seem like she’s going to get anywhere with selling her mom’s house, using her library degree to work with these weirdo sisters, or with the functional fiancée she has back in Coralville, who she needs to get a better library job. I’ve been to the public library in Coralville, it was nice but quite small and probably does not have a huge staff… Anyway, Jenny gets the job of cataloguing all of the dead Mr. Gilead’s library and this leads to the best part of the book when a family member of his asks if he can help her and she asks him if he knows library science. He does not. He will not really help.

Jenny finds out some secrets about her mom and a certain lack of integrity while also finding that the Gilead household is hiding a lot too and so are the sisters running the library and Bill too. The thing is they’re not very dynamically presented secrets. This is a Gothic, but it’s lacking some intrigue and suspense. Maybe the house is too close to town.

 

Pickles and Murderface are waiting for something suspenseful or ghosty to happen instead of just romantic intrigue without much interesting foundation. They will be waiting quite some time.

“Well just stay on your side of the car.”

39. Survive the Night – Riley Sager

Charlie’s roommate has been murdered by someone she saw, but didn’t see, and now she’s just leaving school. She finds a serendipitous ride while putting up her sign that she needs to get home and now…she might be in a car with a murderer. It’s a college thriller set in the 1990s, so there are no cell phones, all calls for help must be made with pay phones so you need change or the kindness of strangers! I do like reading books set before the present time for the tension. No one has to drop their phone. No one is staring at their phone. It’s great and I will probably never shut up about it.

I find Riley Sager’s writing very easy to read and plow through entire books in one sitting under most circumstances. This one I managed that on the second try. I wasn’t in the right mood the first time, I don’t think. And Charlie’s not in the right mood for college after Maddie’s murder, yes, that was an excellent segue. Charlie blames herself for Maddie’s murder because when she saw the murderer, she also wasn’t seeing what he really looked like. She was hallucinating a film noir. Charlie has what she calls “movies in her mind” instead of calling them hallucinations and after Maddie’s murder she stopped taking the medication she was given for them so she’s having more during this car trip with a new person who didn’t want her to see what was in his trunk, where her bags now are…

Being trapped in a car with a potential murderer is no fun and Charlie gets stressed as all hell and then sort of decides she’s going to get vengeance because there is no twist coming like there would be in a movie and she’s sure this dude’s the killer because he’s lying about several things. I did like the twist, but not the killer. I guessed that too early.

 

Horace and Peregrine were stuck in the car together many times, but since no one in the car was a murderer or trying to ferret out a murderer, there wasn’t much suspense beyond trying to get them not to nip each other.

 

If only everything could take place in the “snuggery.”

23. The Silent Halls of Ashenden – Dorothy Daniels

I, for some reason, expected this to be set in the 1970s, but it’s totally not. It’s way earlier, when you needed a horse and carriage to get around. And the Satanism that took down the school of Ashenden in scandal was 10 years earlier. Mara’s father supposedly hanged himself over Satanism after three students also supposedly hanged themselves over their initiations into Satanism and so closeth the school. Mara’s mother is dying and she went essentially silent right after the scandal and now she wants Mara to reopen the school and clear her father’s name.

Mara wants to live there alone, after all there is a “snuggery” to hang out in, but her father’s lawyer and his housekeeper don’t want her to do that for lots of reasons. And she spends one night alone there and wakes up with weird fragmented memories of being taken from her room, chloroformed when she wakes up a bit, put on some sort of cold altar, essentially not violated – lucky her, and then is back in her room in a robe with a bleeding knife and her father’s initials embroidered on it facing a black candle and a drawing of Satan with part of a poem on it. Well then.

Then the former students come and one former professor and Mara’s suddenly suitor, Jethro, and one of the student’s former suitors now turned fiancee, and then it all goes to hell somewhat politely. Mara’s very serious about her investigations, but incapable of keeping hold of the evidence she finds. The former student who doesn’t need a fiancee is now a medium and an eccentric and she’s just got to have a seance in that gymnasium. That doesn’t go well for anyone and the ending is quite rushed, but turns out exactly how you’d expect.

 

Finny could create his own “snuggery,” at least if one interprets that as a place to snuggle, at a moment’s notice.

“Julie, you’re not responding to my maleness.”

19. The Violent Season – Sara Walters

The whole urban legend thing about violence in Wolf Ridge, Vermont ticking up every November was doubtlessly not started by someone who works in law enforcement or in any proximity to survivors of domestic violence because they would know that as the holidays approach, there are more domestics, but, they’re happening all the time anyway. All of the time. Everywhere. And without anything actually supernatural in this story – downer – it’s mainly a tale of a toxic relationship between two teens. Wyatt, who won’t give up, and Cash, who constantly pushes her away and then lures her back, over and over and over. It’s not a very fun read. There’s also a mystery so we don’t have to just wallow forever, but it’s not the biggest mystery if you just look at the roles the characters are playing.

Toxicity and teenagers go together like wine and cheese or weed and Taco Bell, and they’re not glorifying it here, I imagine if you were a teenager who didn’t realize that this person who keeps leading you on needs to be left in the dust so you can have your own life, this might be useful. But, one other thing I’ve noticed regardless of how many violent relationships/almost relationships/even non-violent almost relationships or dysfunctional relationships there are is that everyone thinks theirs is different. It’s not. It’s really not. There are so many more emotionally unavailable people to find, don’t stick to just one, teens. I’m being facetious, but really, there are a lot of people out there incapable of a healthy relationship and it’s impossible to “fix” someone who doesn’t want to be “fixed,” even if you think you can do it. Perhaps they could learn lessons about being violent towards others in jail while they take a nice break and learn about no contact orders. There’s nothing supernatural there either.

I don’t mind the aims of this story, but I did mind the execution. The lure of the potential ghostage that didn’t happen, the obviousness of Cash as a character who barely had a grey area (I know, I wouldn’t understand. Except I do, I have experience.) and the whole rich dude sweeps her off her feet so she knows that she’s not alone and can overcome this one craptastic situation through a class project bit. Really.

 

Find someone who respects your napping space and your authority over yourself, like Salem and Hen Wen.

Demerits for no animal masks, though, those are cool.

124. Moorstone – Bernard Taylor

After the death of their child, librarian and writer turned housewife and writer Rowan and writer with a successful book Hal are not really getting on well in London. Especially Rowan. She came from the country and in her grief is not doing well with all the London hustle and bustle. A chance meeting with a young doctor in a pub leads Hal and Rowan to Moorstone, a town entirely made up by creepily pleasant young successful types and the creepily pleasant elderly and no one in between. Of course, they buy a house there. And on the drive in, Hal sees an elderly woman in the middle of the road, who he almost crashes into, and when he goes to check on her, she says something about having painted the trees by the chalk pit, almost tells him something that is clearly very important, and then promptly jumps to her death. This leaves Hal with some suspicions that all is not as it seems in the village.

And it’s not. This is very much like the 1982 English village version of Get Out. Moorstone’s standing stone looms over the proceedings to make sure we know what country we’re in and the stark differences between village life and London life are made all the more stark by Hal’s conflicted nature about living somewhere so quiet and deceptive. This is English Folk Horror at its most sensible.

 

Pammy is suspicious of the villagers and she is telling Thaddeus.

“I suggest you look into your own neurotic behavior.”

64. Signal to Noise – Silvia Moreno-Garcia

Meche is not the most likeable of misfits in 1980s Mexico City. She’s obsessive, disagreeable, and doesn’t really make great decisions a lot of the time. She also manages to develop magic through music along with her also socially awkward friends Sebastien and Daniella. And their intense teenage bond is messy and dramatic and very realistic regardless of spell casting.

Meche stays her disagreeable self into the 2009 timeline, in which she’s left Mexico entirely for Norway and has to come back because her father passed away. She bonded with her father over music as well, of course, because that’s kind of the only opportunity she had to bond with him while her parents’ marriage is essentially dissolving.

Signal to Noise is Moreno-Garcia’s debut novel and it’s a story that uses the magic minimally in favor of the drama of family life and being the kind of socially awkward kid that Meche is. If you’re the type that grew up frowning a lot and just not really that keen on pretending to be happy so that others liked you, it’s quite nice to see this type of character represented. It’s not a super fun story by any means, but it did resonate with me because I also care a lot about music and nostalgia and I liked experiencing that through the lens of 1988 Mexico City.

 

It may or may not be obvious from Danger Crumples’ naturally extravagant hair, but he’s my one guinea pig who actually did like 80s music. My first guinea pig liked to nip through my headphones cord. She did it several times.

It’s enough Halloween nostalgia to brain you with a rock, drag you through the woods, and sacrifice you to a witch in another dimension, but in a nice way.

80. All Hallows – Christopher Golden

This neighborhood is seriously falling apart even without the intrusion of creepy little possibly ghost children that may or may not truly need help and some super scary dude with flames for eyes. There’s the family that sets up the local haunted attraction in their woods who won’t be able to do it anymore because they’re losing their house. There’s the family with the drunk cheater husband whose wife finally draws a line in the sand after he disappears and shows back up like he didn’t inconvenience every member of the family for the umpteenth time. There are the best friends who are in their last Halloween together because school’s going to be over and then they have to live their own lives, but first one’s family’s annual party. And that couple who moved there under weird pretenses and everyone isn’t sure if they’re actually child molesters or not. Plus the other gossips and assorted elderly who don’t want whippersnappers on their lawn. It’s 1984 in the suburbs, a perfect time for Halloween frivolity, like, really perfect.

When the weird little ghosty seeming children show up, everyone wants to help them, which is clearly a mistake. If I’ve learned anything from all those evil child movies and books, it’s to avoid children, especially on Halloween and especially if they look old timey (even on Halloween), because they probably have some agenda beyond getting sick on candy that involves sacrificing people who don’t avoid them. That’s not exactly what’s happening in this story, but, it does back me up to some extent. They’re running from the “Cunning Man,” who has flames for eyes and then takes over the absolute worst dude in the neighborhood who isn’t part of the child molesting and killing couple. It’s not a good look, but even this ancient style folklore dude isn’t keen on that couple.

All Hallows is told through many perspectives of different ages, which is different and gives you more inner life of the neighborhood. Although speaking of that, I would have liked a bitter cynical recluse perspective, someone who knew what was happening and mumbled about it, just for fun. Overall though, All Hallows has an ensemble worth spending a Halloween with for certain.

 

Horace can see all the Halloween action and watch out for kidnapping folkloric creatures.

 

Wisting, however, being new, takes phone calls from the folkloric creatures and ghosts too. Happy Hallow-Wisting!

“They’re from Medieval England… Iowa.”

115. Midnight Horror Show – Ben Lathrop

When I find something tailor-made for my interests and it works it feels rare. Ridiculously. But, Midnight Horror Show is tailor-made to several of my interests and it works very well. It’s set in your basic small town Iowa, which could be annoying, but it’s not because it works a lot better to have an alienated teen obsessed with a horror host who burned to death in the small town during a Halloween night show because, clearly, that’s the only interesting thing that’s ever happened there. Worth being obsessed over if horror is your arena, for sure. And when the detective who befriends this alienated teen a little, while also sort of endlessly crumbling himself, decides to do some research into the possible connection between that major point of interest for the town and the currently happening murders…he does so via microfilm at the library…because the librarian hands him just the right thing after he asks a question that’s not quite direct. It’s one of the best depictions of that random kismet of knowing exactly what’s needed and where it is that always made library work so enjoyable for me. It also makes you look sort of psychic, which is fun. Anyway, I wasn’t all that surprised to find out the writer is a librarian and native Iowan who has been a horror host and may very well be a drive-in mutant.

 

Thorfy would make a good horror host, he gets scared kind of easily though.

 

A seal of approval has been won by this research scene. Swooper, the bat scratch and sniff.

It is quite displeasing to have to live close to people.

51. The Neighbors – Mary-Rose Hayes

I can definitely say I wouldn’t want to move into this neighborhood. From the overly attentive ones across the street to that one house where you just know something sneaky is happening because it doesn’t seem like anyone lives there, but other people keep telling you about this benevolent older woman who will meet you someday, she’s just so great and everyone loves her…I would feel like I was being hit in the face with red flags. And if I had a daughter that the neighbors seemed way too interested in taking care of like Chetty in this 1970s occult horror, well then, run down the street. Run.

It’s a fun enough read and if you have the deep red and yellow cover I’ve got, it’s got a great cover. Getting Chetty’s perspective on her path to ending up severely neglected because the neighbors are influencing her mother in increasingly gross and creepy ways was pretty interesting. I did like how saving the day was incredibly difficult to do even when there were people with psychic inklings looking out for them and it just didn’t end neatly. I also have some images stuck in my head from the ending involving cobwebs. Ick.

 

Thaddeus is in a painting inspired by the color scheme on the cover of this book. It’s not a creepy occultist painting; he’s just on the phone looking cute.

 

See?