Rachel Smith's Blog: Guinea Pigs and Books, page 25

“If you were happy every day of your life you wouldn’t be a human being. You’d be a game-show host.”

26. Secret, Silent Screams – Joan Lowery Nixon

If we may recall the words of Big Fun from Heathers, “Teenage suicide, don’t do it.” Secret, Silent Screams combines a little bit of Heathers – teenage suicide and teenage suicide that is really murder – and combines it with some heavy metal panic about an imaginary band named Flesh. Now, not unlike reality, heavy metal bands do not cause suicides and so the fact that the person staging a suicide decided to use the same music is one of those moral panic triggers, plus the song is called “Sudden Death,” which is on the nose, so on the nose that the parents and squares don’t realize how it’s too on the nose – especially if the person whose murder is being staged as a suicide doesn’t normally listen to that type of music. I believe the traditional reaction to accidentally listening to metal if you didn’t intend to is to turn it off.

Anyway, Marti’s best friend who she really, truly knew in and out was Barry. And Marti knows that Barry wasn’t just covering up some kind of serious problem that led him to listen to music he wouldn’t like and a gun – Barry didn’t have a serious problem along those lines. But someone had a serious problem with Barry and wanted revenge and thought they’d go on trend and create some moral panic and get their revenge because everyone would assume they’d missed something in that person’s life or mental health or that they were struggling when they really didn’t. Marti’s not willing to let that happen and she’s not willing to shut up about how Barry was murdered. And it’s true, lots of people go through a lot of denial when they aren’t aware of someone’s inner turmoil and just like in this book, if you keep saying someone was murdered when it was ruled a suicide, people are going to look at you with pity and keep asking you about counseling and not making a scene about your strong feelings.

Marti enlists the help of Police Officer Karen Prescott, who is willing to do some extracurricular investigating and make sure there’s nothing that needs to be reopened. Marti, being a teenager, wants things to move quickly because clearly she’s right. And she is right, but Officer Prescott provides a good grounding for the story because she really is concerned about facts and not letting Marti run away with her theories and even though it sucks when you totally know something is right but don’t have enough proof. Proof is a necessary thing and sometimes investigations don’t go the way we want them to. But sometimes, they do, especially if you can catch the perpetrator in the act in your den and stab them with a lamp.

As you can seen in this extreme close up of Snuffy, she is not silently screaming, nor is she complaining about the music I’m not listening to out loud because she doesn’t like it.

 

Just Right for Snuffy, in which she is totally calling into Hot Probz on her lips phone.
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This is not the Mark Harmon 80s classic with Chainsaw and Dave.

97. Terror Academy: Summer School – Nicholas Pine

So, once again in a Terror Academy novel we are asked to side with the popular rich kids and instead of having the twist of Cara’s best friend actually being a vengeful creep, he’s just a pining nice guy who saves her life from those disgusting punks. It just feels weird not being on the underdog side, I thought that was the main territory of YA, but it sure hasn’t been in Terror Academy where they don’t thwart traditional ideals of what an upstanding citizen is.

The initial punk action is good, saving Cara from her current boyfriend when he decides that his reaction to her breaking up with him is that he should rape her. She only manages to get away because of punk Eddie, who then wants her to avoid telling the police he was involved. Cara’s ex-boyfriend, who is not an upstanding citizen and has much power as a sports-guy, then hides in her car and tries again when Cara is on her way to Chris’ house. So now Chris has a chance to save her as well and he does via his compass, which she stabs her ex-boyfriend in the hand with to distract him.

Eddie the punk calls in the favor Cara owes him after her ex-boyfriend is found dead in the river in the morning of supposed suicide. He comes to dinner at her rich kid house dressed in a suit and deceives her parents and also Cara, saying they’re going to the movies when he’s actually taking her to a lake and the implication is she will be gang raped as a result of being saved from ex-boyfriend rape. Wonderful. Thankfully, Cara runs and Chris, who isn’t creepy following her, he’s just following her, picks her up and then Eddie the punk and his gang of punks cause an accident and Chris and Cara are both injured enough to have to go to… summer school! That’s right, most of the book is gone before the title comes into play at all.

Once again, I was reminded of Class of 1984 when the final confrontation between Eddie and his gang of punks in an empty school and Cara and Chris. Both Cara and Chris have casts and they were only there because the coach let them into the library after Cara’s dad’s secretary “forgot” to type her footnotes and bibliography when she typed Cara’s paper up for her from Cara’s notes. I did keep wondering why she didn’t look at it before she turned it in. Check the work, Cara. In this case it could have helped you avoid killing at least three punk dudes before graduation.

 

“She just turned it in? Without even looking at it? Ridiculous trusting popular people.” Peregrine is aghast.

 

Twiglet is not cleaning up after the carnage in the library, but she will shelve and straighten like the champ that she is. Threadless
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“Alright just remember, everything is illusion and reality, except for the grade you get at the end of the term.”

5. Private School: Academy of Terror – Steven Charles

The fuzz are in on it! The conspiracy Jenny and her friends are uncovering anyway. In this second in the series, which also isn’t really a whole story, Jenny, her townie boyfriend Lee, Marysue (who is a southern lady and will never let anyone forget it), and Conrad aka Zucco get chased by those green eyed werewolf-looking things, well, one, into finding a murder victim who used to be the dean of Thaler. He also apparently wrote a pamphlet about Thaler which is kept in a section of the library that’s coated with dust. Very scary. I do like a nice “alone in the library” scene. I’ve written some of that sort myself. Plus these girls are plunged into darkness. I do think Esther never should have let them stay in there without a chaperone though, bad form, student library assistant.

Anyway, the murdered former dean has something worth finding in his house, which the four break into after the ladies get chased by the werewolf sort of through the woods. Jenny gets what seems like a concussion, but she’s chipper, so they can break into his house and find star charts and not realize Sirius is the dog star, which I believe will come up later, and then…they find out someone they trusted is one of them. Them. The aliens. Because this series is about aliens and not werewolves. For me, this is not a bonus as I like werewolves better. I was never into the alien parts of the X-Files. I was in it for the monster of the week episodes, they were funnier. But, personal preferences aside, I don’t recall reading any other YA series from the 80s about aliens (on purpose) and since this one snuck them in, fine. Let’s see if the series actually concludes somehow within six volumes though. That is more of a problem than aliens who look like werewolves.

 

Hen Wen is a pig trustworthy enough to leave in the library alone, even if she was looking for aliens and not pamphlets revealing a dark history.

 

Speaking of being plunged into darkness, Hen Wen is napping in Henebrae, axe by her side in case anyone comes sneaking around shoplifting her novels or something.

The best detail in this story was that Dennis took Jan to see An American Werewolf in London, excellent choice, Dennis.

6. Dark Forces: The Ashton Horror – Laurie Bridges

Dennis moves to Ashton and he’s a dude with a computer and an interest in fantasy games, but he’s also a cross country runner and clearly a bit of an All American type…not unlike Jan, the cute blonde junior he meets at her parents’ restaurant and is promptly totally into. She warns him about Adrian, a total MTV’s Sweet Sixteen type, but with taxidermy and too much love for Lovecraft instead of the wrong car. He’s in charge of the local fantasy roleplaying game group and he is also very self-interested to the point where he doesn’t even care about murdering animals. He is super controlling and for Dennis, that’s not really going to work because he doesn’t just have gaming. Dennis has athleticism and Jan; although he does also break out in “miladys” every so often, so clearly he is susceptible.

Speaking of not generous locals who are interested in Adrian, the cave where they play their fantasy game is also a very old site for sacrifice to Mogar, a snake-like beast with one giant eye who smells terrible and has been eating people and other beasts for ages, especially when the winter is super cold. Like, super cold even for Vermont. Like, this year is supposed to be.

It was interesting that in this book in the Dark Forces series, they didn’t get as heavy handed as they usually do about the dangers. Sure, they had the ancient farmer guy warning Dennis off the cave area. Sure, Jan was like, don’t hang out with Adrian, he’s a creepy jerk…but then she got sucked in by his hypnotic powers and her possible past life responding to being in those scary caves. But Dennis, he was not on his own. He and the gaming group were talking to each other about how weird Adrian was getting, he researched local history on his own, he used his dad’s computer without being lured to the dark side, he participated in occult ritual without being sucked to the dark side either. It was a nice surprise.

 

While standing in front of the painting of him and Snuffy parodying the very beginning of An American Werewolf in London, Thorfy shudders. He would never call Snuffy miladypig, that might make her shift into werepig form at worst and ruin his evening at least.

 

Reprise! Because it’s relevant, here we go again with American Guinea Pigs in Lancashire.
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What’s that, Thorfy? You don’t think it’s okay to wholesale reuse a painting I used last year? Thanks for calling in from a new painting to say so. He’s a first time caller, that’s for sure.
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“Will you check her out? Talk about a ‘box lunch.’ “

25. The Girlfriend – R.L. Stine

Be careful who you take out while your girlfriend is in Paris, she could be an escaped juvenile delinquent who will trick you into thinking you murdered her when she’s just playing dead. Scotty thinks his life is perfect and he can do no wrong, he’s football All American! He got into Princeton! That’s not murderer stuff. Scotty even thinks he’s doing nothing wrong when he’s cheating on his girlfriend Lora because she went to Paris without him. Just to be clear, always go to Paris. Anyway, Shannon seems cute, but then she gets obsessive and creepy and won’t leave. I’m sure she’s a future episode of Deadly Women or Who the (Bleep) Did I Marry? Or Snapped. Totally Snapped. That is, if she ever gets out of juvenile hall again and manages to stay out long enough to start a new relationship with someone who doesn’t know her. I’m sure Shannon will love the internet.

 

Ozma tries to look menacing climbing down from the back of the couch. She’s climbing down to sternly remind someone to go to Paris, even if they have a boyfriend. Go to Paris.

 

Even Ozma flying around in a coffin knows that once she defeats the priest, she’s going to Paris. She’s flying her coffin right to Paris.
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Letter opener or mini-fridge?

92. Nightmare Hall: The Roommate – Diane Hoh

Lacey, Danni, Maureen, or Margot – which one will be the roommate on the brink of insanity? Lacey is very messy and loud. Danni is incredibly put together and has golden hair. Maureen is super quiet and has a paper clip holding her glasses together. And Margot is late, but then barely brings anything besides a letter opener that looks like a weapon. We get little snippets of each of their viewpoints and all the same, I didn’t realize who was the one who behind the very unhinged prologue. Salem University’s background check system really let that one go, but she was pretty good at playing sane until she just couldn’t handle it anymore, couldn’t play a good roommate or suitemate any longer.

 

Merricat and Peregrine were roommates when I adopted them and they didn’t bond over their homicidal tendencies, as far as I know.

 

Peregrine and Merricat don’t want any more roommates. Ever.
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“Beer, Coke, water, and goat’s milk.”

76. Dark Forces: The Charming – Jane Polcovar

Kathy wants to be an actress, so when her boyfriend chooses another girl to be the lead in his play, she runs away very dramatically…right into the arms of the devil aka some dude playing the devil for a Dodge Demon commercial. Cool. An actress in that car commercial filming in the park tells Kathy about an agent – in her town, a mere 30 miles from New York City – and she follows a black cat to a neighborhood she’s never been in and begins the process of becoming an actress, which apparently involves eating spoiled raw meat and losing oneself to dance. I have never truly wanted to act, but I assume this is accurate. Oh, and she’s not supposed to tell anyone. ANYONE!

So she breaks down and tells her parents and the first thing they ask is if she signed anything, and I know this is the Dark Forces series, so I was wondering if they were thinking paper contract or the master’s book. They don’t say, because she didn’t sign anything. And now that she told, her acting teacher is mad and makes her go to school dirty and weird and now everyone is suspicious of what’s going on with Kathy. Shocker, she’s becoming possessed. I thought they were just going to ask her to join a coven, but, no, I guess the dancing and opening herself up to really feel her own emotions actually was inviting demons in. Fine.

Is this a primer for how to avoid cults masquerading as self-help? It could have been, but then Kathy’s perspective is no longer necessary because her boyfriend and her godfather the youngish priest who has exorcism experience from his youth (he got right on talking to the bishop) are going to redo scenes from The Exorcist for the rest of the book, even after she said no to drinking the ram’s blood. Kathy said no and then her internal monologue was no longer part of the story.

 

Finny doesn’t remember who he’s not supposed to tell about the whole acting turned ram’s blood drinking thing.

 

Finny probably wasn’t supposed to tell Belvedere, but Bel is very convincing.
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This “Private School” series might be too private.

91. Private School: Nightmare Session – Steven Charles

Maybe this is a case of not realizing a series should have complete stories the whole way through – even in book one. Maybe it’s not. I guess I’ll find out if book two doesn’t seem complete either or abandons these characters completely. It is quite annoying to not have a feeling of completeness after you finish a book though. Quite.

I’m going to blame the “posh” part of “Posh Thaler Academy,” as the blurb starts, for the idea that nothing about the supernatural elements needed to be explained with any actual details. For me, the central mystery of the story is “what’s going in the lab” and not “did they get rid of that body Jenny found and then insult it,” which is the only real resolution. I mean, Jenny’s a scholarship-type student, not a normal rich kid attending a boarding school, so, of course she has ideas and asks questions and must be hysterical thinking she’s seen a teacher with a furry arm. So entitled.

When she finds her fellow student dead in the woods while sneaking around and tries to investigate, she almost gets to an answer, but then the lab blows up. So nothing is answered that might be interesting like how the student died or what’s going on in the lab. I really hope that’s explored at least a little bit in the next five books or so, otherwise the horror is just incompleteness.

 

Salem knows that in order to investigate, you need to be good at keeping quiet and not asking questions until it’s really time to ask questions, Jenny.

 

Snuffy, Thorfy, Salem, and Hen Wen could definitely run into some werewolves or aliens or just scared students in these woods in I Remember Pigoween.
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“Where in the hell are you getting all this stuff from?”

25. Twilight: A Deadly Rhyme – Gloria Gonzalez

Angela is being sent to a private school called Glencora since her mother is working nights in New York City at their family restaurant. And Glencora is populated mostly by rich kids and a bunch of teachers who all seem to be romantically involved with each other and everyone lives on campus essentially, in cottages (which is not a word to me that means six people or more can live in it comfortably and share all the facilities).

This story blipped along and did a lot of telling. There’s a ghost and when he wasn’t a ghost he wrote a poem foretelling the ending of the school and someone is trying to make that happen. Is it the cranky old history professor who takes walks in the graveyard? Is it one of the students setting fires and poisoning people and dogs and also running around the school in a blue cape spying on anyone who might get in their way?

Well, the reader will be told that the culprit is deranged and has romantic problems and a whole fantasy about said romantic problems and no one ever actually sees said culprit doing anything in the course of the story, except for Angela, who sees them lighting their romantic rival on fire during the school play in which she is one of the leads. That’s part of the blipping – investigating old yearbooks – blip – now she’s on vacation with her best school friend in NYC – blip – now they’re the leads of the school play – blip – chess championship – blip – everything’s on fire and no one had to practice before the play was on! And now her mom’s engaged and the culprit is dead.

Any number of these events could have been the basis for a fully fleshed out story, like things happening during play practice or someone framing Angela for several things while she’s just trying to get by around all these snobs and yet she becomes the love interest of the cute townie (forgot that happens too). But instead, they’re just mentioned as we keep moving along to another event we’re not really shown that corresponds with the poem. Either this book needed to be way longer or way tighter, I feel like I read something that didn’t take.

 

Duncan and Murderface are wondering how Angela had time for all these activities and how there was enough space for everyone. How do space and time work in this novel? How?

 

Duncan’s Gothic tale of finding a cool four horned ram skull in this painting of her Gothic book cover is a lot tighter than this book.
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Final Destination: Detention

52. Deadly Detention – Eric Weiner

There’s the couple that get caught making out, the fat girl, the jock, the super nerd, and the smart but shy girl and they all have detention with the alcoholic former Marine teacher who threatened to kill all of them. Somehow, these are also the best and brightest of Harrison High, a school with bars and chain mesh over the windows which also sends everyone to the Ivy League schools. Sure. Totally seems plausible even before they got locked in the school with no doors that open from the inside and no phones.

The slashing ensues first with the super nerd and he ends up in a basketball hoop somehow, which is really quite an impressive way to fall after your throat’s been cut. Always achieving. And that is what it’s all about, achieving. See there’s some sort of prize and they all want to win it and increase their chances of getting into a good school. The fat girl, who jokes about eating and has an anxiety attack and just seems like a walking stereotype based on how she gets killed (No one thought she would live, did they?) needs a full scholarship to go anywhere at all for college.

The popular cheerleader not being able to keep her hormones in check, like, at all, and having a Walkman stashed in her jacket and also being smart enough to get into Yale was a big stretch, so she seemed like a solid red herring instead of a person. The jock who does really good imitations and created one coincidence that made them all think it was totally plausible for their teacher to both drink at school and teach and also kill students didn’t seem a likely killer to me even if he was strong. The cheerleader’s boyfriend who kind of wanted to break up with her for the shy girl seemed annoyed enough missing practice, but, annoyed enough to kill? And then there’s the shy Fran. Is she really shy? Is she one of those quiet ones you have to watch out for?

This is a very simple slasher with some interesting kills and a lot of actions that would never pass muster in a school these days. These days there are cameras, so, the next day they’d know who is still alive and totally not getting an academic award.

 

Ozymandias is well aware that if he ever got detention, it would be because of Danger Crumples leading him astray once more in search of fortune and glory and academic scholarships.

 

I mean, Danger Crumples has a history of getting into trouble of a sort.
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