Rachel Smith's Blog: Guinea Pigs and Books, page 4

The title could have meant so many things.

58. Dark Forces: Devil Wind – Laurie Bridges & Paul Alexander

Peter Wardwell loves sailing. His ancestor, Simon Wardwell, loved evil and his whistle (that’s literal). Peter has just found a whistle in the foundation of a house being dug up and it’s a weird one. He decides to blow it while out on his sailboat and suddenly there’s a storm with heavy fog that drives him into this really weird, smelly cove.

The next day, he goes out sailing again with Mary Anne, his girlfriend who he’s very innocent with, and they re-find the cove, sit down in the heavy smells for a picnic (I guess, it seems to ebb), and guess what comes out again? Whistle mania, it is. This time the smelly fog separates Peter and Mary Anne by being so dense no one can see through it and Peter gets hurt while Mary Anne manages to get in the boat and be rescued by a helpful old timer, who also rescues Peter. And he’s heard of the very cove they were in. It’s got a history.

Peter seems different after they get back, colder for sure, and way more tired all the time. Meanwhile, the town’s founding families that weren’t so focused on evil are experiencing some gruesome pet deaths. Truly gruesome. Mary Anne, meanwhile, is avoiding Peter and making friends with Mrs. Durham, an elderly lady with a serious tea set and serious roots in the town. And primary source materials! A good way to find out what the hell is going on, but stopping it is much more muddled and possessiony.

 

Hen Wen and Thorfy’s idea of a picnic, or a hay buffet, really. It doesn’t involve a smelly cove, but there usually is some level of whistling.

 

Hen Wen understands vengeance, whether it be water based or traveling across time. And she’s got an axe instead of a whistle, although she was a very effective whistle pig as well. Formidable.
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“Keep looking. Keep listening. Keep living.”

151. The Listeners – Bebe Faas Rice

Moving into a murder house comes with unfortunate extras, like the coldest landing ever. And a ghost dog. Both of which scare real elderly dog who makes it through the entire story thanks to some very clever pantyhose usage, Mitzi (I told Ozma that was a dog’s name when I met her classified with it at the Humane Society). Also, a treehouse, so, bonus, but wait… there’s a ghost kid in the treehouse. Fine.

Kathy is stuck being the main person in her family who knows that something is deadly wrong, as teenage girls in YA novels often are. She’s right, of course, and unfortunately the murderer was never caught and he’s still around and thinks Kathy and her little brother Timothy look really familiar. But Kathy doesn’t know about him, not exactly, but she does know how to kick her research on the murders into high gear with the newspaper on microfilm at the library! Yes she does.

 

Wisting wouldn’t like a haunted house much, or a haunted treehouse for that matter. He would definitely warn me if he found haunted conditions.

 

Although in the book they properly use microfilm to look at the newspaper, Wisting has a more targeted resource – Look Who’s Haunted, which is an imaginary newsletter on microfiche.
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Duncan and Twiglet seal of approval for this one. Swooper!

Evil horsey!

42. The Nightmare Club: The Initiation – Nick Baron

Getting out of being the one bullied girl at the Cooper Riding Academy is a lifeline for Kimberly. But, it comes with nightmares about children being fed to a lake by a grey horse with red eyes. She also gets a pack of friends with a very innocuous name, the Predators (no laser arm weapons to be found), and a boyfriend! Griff the vulnerable who listens to radio shows on tape in his Tempo and likes to drive around at night. He’s very helpful for packs of teen girls who want to sneak out and just lost their smoky and Nietzsche quoting original ride, but he only has eyes for Kimberly.

There’s guilt and hormones and that unfortunately spiteful brand of teen girl friendship in here, plus ghosts and a “lord” aka a spirit or demon that Kimberly realizes maybe wouldn’t be the best “social worker” in a funnier moment of realization.

 

Thorfinnur wants to know why the “Predators” in this book were not more like the alien movie version as that would have given a stronger contrast with the whole “driving a Tempo” dude in terms of temptation.

 

Thorfinnur (Thorfy) wouldn’t make a very good social worker either, but he looks awesome on a skeleton horse.
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“I’d have thought you’d be pleased. Ghosts must love this kind of night.”

107. Footsteps on the Stairs – Stella Pevsner

It is so rare that I read a book with a character like Arnold that I have to mention him right away – He has very serious allergies. Arnold spends a ton of time sneezing and you know what else? He brings up his allergies all the time…because they effect him all the time. Also, he was able to get allergy shots in the 1970s and still has issues all the time. My favorite instance is when he is at the Halloween carnival and wants to win a goldfish because it’s like the only pet he won’t be allergic to! So relatable. So much.

And there’s another awesome thing about Arnold, he’s super interested in ghosts and this haunted house by Chip’s aunts and while hanging out with Chip and Maury (the kid who lives in the house), he suggests they research when the lady the house was built for died by going to the library…and then says this when Chip is whining about not knowing what date and how they could spend all day looking: “Then we will,” Arnold said briskly. “No one ever said research was easy.” Damn straight, Arnold.

Chip is not as interesting as Arnold, but he gets them into the haunted house and is the catalyst for things, so, whatever. He’s all not confident about his swimming test for a good portion of the book and gives away his gerbils just like that so his sister can get a kitten. That’s ridiculous. Pets aren’t disposable just because they’re little rodents, Chip. Maybe that ghost should have saved someone else from the electrical fire possibility. I guess she did though, Maury, although his kitten also got an electrical shock. I think we all know they could have benefitted from some more cautiousness and concentration, like Arnold. I will give them one point in that Arnold is kind of a stick in the mud about reasonable explanations for the supernatural but you have to have a skeptic or your ghost hunting is not going to work out.

 

Snorri is taking delicate steps into everything. He’s a skeptic, a very agile skeptic.

 

Another thing that makes research more difficult, an unwilling library pig.
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A sprained ankle and binoculars in unfamiliar territory

37. The Window – Carol Ellis

Jody’s best friend got the flu had to miss the ski vacation, so now Jody is stuck with a bunch of people she doesn’t know in a van. She’s sizing them up on the way up to the ski town and she’s got twins who look good and are known as being good skiers, she’s got one fragile looking girl who keeps staring at Drew – traditional handsome guy, another with spiky hair and a bad attitude who also keeps staring at Drew, Drew, and Billy – the funny one who believes he is just the comic relief. However, turns out they all hate/love the same girl, Leahna Calder, who isn’t in their cabin. She’s in the one next door.

Then Jody sprains her ankle and is stuck indoors in an A-frame with huge windows… and she has binoculars near her as well. And presumably not enough reading material/she’s an active person on a ski vacation, just reading is going to be difficult to keep her in check. She, of course, sees questionable, somewhat argument looking things next door with Leahna. Then, she sees someone dragging a big amount of trash out of that cabin. And then, where’s Leahna? Nobody’s seen her, she was supposed to go to Antigua, but that clearly wasn’t her taking the giant trash from her cabin.

Jody does manage to start a romance and figure out what happened all while stuck in a cabin, because this is YA and that’s the deal.

 

Thorfy meeting Camille to not stare out the window at murders. Not that time, anyway.

 

Being stuck in an A-frame is not that bad according to Thorfy and Camille, maybe Jody just needed some warm carrot juice.
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“Pleasant nightmares.”

156. The Spider’s Child: Keeper – Jessica Pierce

This is for the really young folks, but it has some scary moments I must say. The book within the book involves a young kid whose parents are away in India and leave him with an older lady who isn’t keeping a handle on her diabetes well as a babysitter. He tosses her medicine after she does things like lock his brother and sister in their rooms, take away the phones, leave the tea kettle on the stove until it’s starting a fire, and ignores the endless crying of his baby brother. It was a bad choice and the fire the ends up happening while they’re all locked in their rooms was quite a scene.

The kid reading the book has lost his brother and his parents just won’t let him do damn near anything at all. They almost make a concession for a camping trip with the guys he asks to go on, but instead his dad just takes him camping. Way to miss the point, dad. Then, of course, something bad happens and it’s all up to the kid to get help. pretty intimidating but also a solid chance for bravery and changing the way his parents look at him.

 

This is the closest Peregrine got to being lost in the woods – a mushroom embroidered pillow on a chair in an attic. Close enough for a guinea pig if you ask me.

 

Peregrine is inside a painting reading a book not written by a spider who is vaguely malevolent.
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If this was in Wisconsin and had no backwoods dudes, it would be The Chill Factor and way more terrible.

58. Terror Academy: Spring Break – Nicholas Pine

Spring break in the snow! In Maine with backwoods dude creepery! Weirdly, Laura the high school student already has a pre-engagement ring before the backwoods oaf decides she should be his bride. She knew she didn’t want to come on her family vacation and leave her pre-fiancee Charlie. She is really, really concerned he’ll be usurped if she’s gone for two weeks.

Anyway, the backwoods dude family is watching her family and driving slowly in front of them and staring at her in the woods and that’s all fine and good, but then her best friend Kimmy visits the cabin as Laura’s birthday present and brings her an Ouija board, which we all know always ends well, and somehow Laura gets the one decent helpful spirit checking out the boards. I feel like the spirit was some other woman the super creepy dudes “made mind” who didn’t get away, but they never explore who the spirit is because apparently they’re mean. I wanted some background on it.

Laura ends up Wrong Turn-ing the majority of the family herself after they shoot her dad in the shoulder…after trying to kidnap her when she drove her friend to the bus, but that pesky state patrol thwarted that.

And when she gets home, she’s not so concerned about her pre-fiancee being taken. She’s traumatized by having had to kill several men in the woods instead. There’s a little more to it, based on the Ouija board, but it’s a really odd mixture of a story. There really didn’t need to be a supernatural element, it’s scary enough when some guy takes a look at you and just decides you’ll be his bride in the deep woods without you having any say so and the state patrol says he’s “harmless.” He ain’t harmless.

 

Dagmar says Wisting’s not allowed to bring an Ouija board to the cabin, even if it would enliven their wintry spring break. He’s also not allowed to invite anyone he meets on the road, lest they get ideas about pignapping her.

 

These pigs (Snuffy, Thorfy, Hen Wen, and Salem on the balcony, Wisting, Dagmar, and Camille downstairs) understand the need to get away somewhere safe and snowy and vaguely supernatural.
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“The flavor of actual roots, bark, and herbs.”

70. Snow Bound – Harry Mazer

In 1973, Tony gets really mad about his landlords turning out his newly found stray dog, King Arthur, then steals his mother’s car when he can’t find him and decides he’s heading to his uncle Leonard’s. Or is he? It’s snowing super hard and Tony’s angry and impatient, so he’s not making good choices in relation to the weather.

Cindy, meanwhile, is supposed to go home from her grandmother’s, so at least she has a tin of cookies to occupy herself with at the bus station, but like Tony she’s impatient and not keen on the whole weather-related three hour wait for the bus. So she decides to hitchhike. Not smart.

These two champions of patience and level headedness meet up on a snowy Highway 11, where no one else is, and then Tony decides to take a short cut which ends up with them leaving the road and crashing into some rocks and stuff on a plateau where no one will be looking for them…because no one knows where they went.

Cindy panics, Tony takes more cookies than he should, Cindy starts a journal, and they try their best not to burn themselves to death/not let the fire go out either while the snow continues to fall and they continue to not be found by anyone. It’s a bit harrowing, but the ending is also kind of rushed. Reminder, keep blankets in the car and don’t get your matches wet.

 

Thorfy and Camille would absolutely have stuck together the entire time they were out in the snow, as demonstrated by them in this indoors fake winter wonderland.

 

Thorfy’s version of insurmountable snow is far less harrowing.
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So terrible at gifting.

90. Twilight: The Power – Betsy Haynes

Never trust anyone who gives you a lock of your own hair as a “present.” I mean, especially if the note it comes with does not apologize for breaking into your home in the middle of the night and instead says: You are in my power, but in all caps (I don’t like yelling).

Meredith and her friend Misty learn a shitload about controlling relationships. Lucky for Meredith, her friends realize what’s going on before it’s too late. They don’t take her brush offs and weird choices and sudden lack of interest in student council elections as a new way of life for her.

 

Ozma never needed to play games to have power.

 

If you want real power of the not corrupt and evil kind, just say, “Showtime, Synergy!” It works for Ozma.
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“Super strong, supernatural, and Superbad.”

146. Bad Blood – Debra Doyle & James D. MacDonald

The first of the Val Sherwood is a werewolf series starts with a little Ecology Club camping trip. Junior high kids on a camping trip, what could go wrong? One admitted werewolf kid, that’s what’s going to go wrong. He’s threatening them all through his ghost story, or werewolf story, and then he’s threatening them with his teeth. Geez, Jay.

Val takes part in trapping Jay the werewolf, along with the help of her friends Freddie and Di and another werewolf actually, one who isn’t an adolescent, their teacher. I’m sure the teacher thought that as a werewolf he would be good protection in the greater outdoors than a normal teacher. Kind of. Val gets bitten, not very hard, but still, at least she has a teacher to explain to her what will happen. And now she has to enter high school as a werewolf who on most days is a girl with a ravenous appetite.

She’s getting second and third school lunches alongside Jay, who hasn’t forgotten she’s responsible for trapping him and ruining his opportunity to eat all of their Ecology Club. Jay challenges her essentially to the death and since their teacher is suspiciously missing from town, there’s nobody else to help her but school friends. Good thing they believe in werewolves and Val.

 

Salem’s all for many lunches and Ecology Club too.

 

147. Hunter’s Moon – Debra Doyle & James D. MacDonald

Now Val’s got to deal with vampires. I mean, really. This series posits that werewolves can’t tolerate garlic and yet that’s not what the vampires are there to argue about. Also, there’s this thing that dead werewolves become vampires. Okay.

Val’s kind of dealing with vampires on her own as her new best friend Elise (after Di gets sent to boarding school) is kind of sucked up by one like in Fright Night. Freddie’s there with his backpack and mythology to help her, but this was honestly a weird vampire story. A little bit Fright Night, a little bit Salem’s Lot, plus the teen werewolf version of Buffy and an American Giles with a backpack and no library. They did cover library books in the first book though because all three of them knew research was important.

 

Ozymandias doesn’t know where the vampires are, but he’ll find them while Danger Crumples does the library research (in theory).

 

148. Judgment Night – Debra Doyle & James D. MacDonald

The conclusion to the trilogy and it made the least amount of sense. Val, Di, and Freddie are back together and trying to go back to the beginning – their Ecology Club camping trip location, to save Jay who tried to eat them and Elise who became a vampire from an ancient evil which shows up occasionally in the form of a rotting bird and can change their reality quite a bit. Was it all a dream? Could it be all a dream? Could they wake up with none of it having happened? No, but yes, but also no, and they have to kill that bird.

 

Horace is not going to kill that bird, then again, neither is Danger Crumples. Not even if it stops the cyclical woods evil. Sorry.

 

These boars know how to investigate the Beast of Bray Road and they will cross space and time and death itself to do see if this is actually a bear skull or a real Wisconsin werewolf skull. Paintings make it possible.
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