Rachel Smith's Blog: Guinea Pigs and Books, page 52

“See you in the cemetery.”

58. Blood Promise – Richelle Mead

Blood! Beasts! At least two parts of the Drive-In are well represented in this fourth book in the Vampire Academy series. There is some holding back on the breasts part of the Drive-In, this is a teenager book and not an 80s film…but there is much allusion. Anyway, let’s go to Siberia! It’s not as cold as you think apparently. Downer. Rose is hunting down Dmitri and finds much more than she bargained for in several ways. There are people who don’t take the “rules” of vampire society as seriously as she was led to believe. There are also parts she didn’t even know about, like the alchemists who clean up after all those filthy creatures of the night are slain by, according to Sydney the Alchemist, all those other filthy creatures of the night. I liked Sydney. I usually like difficult people, they have some standards.

In Blood Promise, Rose also has to face the worst of what can happen to her as a lady dhampir – the trashiest of potential futures according to her- and loses her pride quite a bit while wearing a sweater dress and also getting plied by shiny jewelry. Chicks, man. It can be so easy to distract them while they’re trapped in a penthouse suite instead of a penitentiary.

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At least we didn’t have to read about Rose and Dmitri watching movies like in that ridiculously unedited Derek the vampire series, that would have been SOOO boring- Horace provides an important perspective.

Seriously, those cast iron coffins…

97. The Bone Lady – Mary Manhein

One of the jobs I would most like to have but can’t because of my allergies is forensic anthropologist. I love that bones tell stories, I love fine detailed research, I love that bones are always going to be primary source materials, and I love figuring things out that aren’t obvious. If I never had to touch anything or breathe, I could have had many opportunities. Anyway, The Bone Lady is an extremely short telling of case tales with memoir and it is awesome if you want an overview about what bones can tell you and the kind of career that is not for everyone, yet haunts my dreams.

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Ozma’s an investigative bone ladypig at heart too.

It’s no Tales from the QuadeaD Zone

88. My Soul to Take – Yrsa Sigurdardottir

I was watching a documentary about collecting VHS (Adjust Your Tracking) and one of the featured collector dudes was talking about collecting the covers that were clearly “bad decisions, like, who signed off on this?” and it struck a nerve as I have also always been interested in this sort of bad decision. VHS, figurines, general artwork, toys, and advertising haunted by bad decisions and a serious lack of taste are always things I will be interested in pointing out and sometimes also owning. I love a terrible VHS cover as much as I love a master-level painting, as long as both strike some kind of specific reaction for me, mainly a smirk. But, bad decisions can be easily recognizable as bad decisions in lots of contexts. And My Soul to Take is also haunted, both literally and figuratively, by bad decisions- flirting with Nazism, child murder, opening a bed and breakfast in the middle of haunted nowhere, those sorts of bad decisions.

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Thaddeus never made a single bad decision.

Unearthly

76. Wylding Hall – Elizabeth Hand

So short, yet so incomprehensibly scary. I’m glad there’s been a sort of spurt, I guess, of books and movies that involve folk horror in the past few years again because I really like that sort of thing. Mount that old school dread. Live deliciously.

And in this case, it even involves a folk band, which is really what makes the whole thing. Even if you haven’t been a musician or accidentally dated one, you’ll still get the horror of it from the kind of band that’s supposed to be affiliated with nature. But nature’s evil. And selfish. Like the lead singer, but, he’s a lead singer so it’s never going to be a surprise that he’s selfish and stuck in his own head to the detriment of others, it’s, like, classic. He even likes the word “ensorcelled.”

Anyway, the classic cliche lead singer disappeared in this old English country house and now, years later, there’s a documentary being made about it and people are sharing their memories. Their super chilling memories.

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Can you spot the ensorcelled lead singer?

“Come with me and sing the song of misery. Share my world!”

36. Unbroken – Paula Morris

This sequel to Ruined, a YA ghost story set in New Orleans, does not resemble Candyman 2: Farewell to the Flesh, a decidedly not YA sequel set in New Orleans. There are ghosts in both, male ghosts, but…one ghost has a reason to be very angry and murder people like drunk Veronica Cartwright while also letting his descendants know what’s what about being in his family. Instead of that, Unbroken has a ghost named Frank who needs his locket for his unfinished business- which is in a building about to be torn down, not unlike the dilapidated set piece house in Farewell to the Flesh. It’s all connected. Obviously.

Unbroken was not as engaging as Ruined for me and didn’t stick with me as much as Candyman 2: Farewell to the Flesh did; which is unfortunate, because it was nicely written and interesting and yet again covered New Orleans areas I’m aware of in a way that makes me miss it… I can say that Farewell to the Flesh did not make me miss NOLA- because I watched it before I ever went there. That rambled, I like both.

And I have not seen Candyman 3, for the record. Candyman the first and Farewell to the Flesh were enough for me because I like both of them quite a bit, just like Ruined and Unbroken.

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Duncan was born in my home, but since she passed I’ve only seen her in a dream once that I remember, so I assume that means she’s happy in Pighalla and just visiting when she feels like it. I’m not sure if she’d do it more if I said her name five times in a mirror.

Pour one out for the blood feast.

39. The Chosen – L.J. Smith

Vampires and vampire hunters and their Romeo and Juliet, Hatfield and McCoy style crossover romance. It seems that in many cases, one becomes a vampire hunter by having someone one loves killed by a vampire. But there’s always more. There’s grey area, especially if a newly met vampire turns out to be attractive… and there’s always somebody around who only sees denizens of the night in black and white terms. They’re bad. Kill them all. This story is familiar on certain terms, but at least the lady main character, Rashel, is fun to follow on her vengeance goals and smart. She has also superhero named herself “The Cat,” because it is possible to be smart and not clever, as all romantic stories of star-crossed romance generally display.

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Thaddeus and Pammy were the Romeo and Juliet of my herd because the way their houses were set up was balcony-esque and since they were smart and clever guinea pigs, they did not commit suicide in order to be together. They just waited until Pammy had to be spayed. No vampires were involved.

I didn’t come here to make friends.

47. Weekend – Christopher Pike

A mystery is afoot in beautiful beachy Mexico. What really happened that night the “accident” happened to Robin? Who in this group is worth rooting for? Did Lena put the wrong date on some of the invitations or were only people present at a certain party invited? Inviting a bunch of recent high school grads to your beach house sounds like a recipe for disaster – and it is! And not just the way I think of involving stickiness and an inability to clean up after themselves because some are entitled, some are goofy in group situations, and some just want to fit in by being filthy.

Christopher Pike’s world building is always a scoch more structurally sound than a lot of the 80s and 90s YA writers. It’s probably why in middle school I thought his books would be for older kids than me and also scary. These kids are scary, but that’s in line with the general “who poisoned my sister” kind of narrative. It’s tense. Super tense because it’s 1986 and they can’t just Uber/Lyft the hell out of there… or stare at their phones and not interact. These teens are present, accounted for, fighting, or exploded.

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Snuffy knows it was you.

A Shakespeare lesson in disguise.

80. Deadly Sleep – Dale Cowan

The photos are coming to life! It is hard to get shuteye when an ancient ghost keeps trying to talk to you and get you to help with her unfinished business, which includes maybe killing your host family for the summer because they’re descendants of some peeps who betrayed the ghost…and because this is set in Scotland and there are awesome old ghost possibilities there – it’s connected to Macbeth, one of the most famous. And our heroine, Jaynie, has not even read that play. Geez, Jaynie. Take an AP class or some shit.

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Twiglet understands the need for vengeance. She’s all about curses.

“Motoring…What’s your price for flight”

9. Sister Dearest – D.E. Athkins

Vicki is not my favorite protagonist. All I saw was a superficial girl with very little to redeem her. Just like her sister.

Her BFF Janet is an artist- a secretive artist – and a cheerleader.

Her other friend Lolly is, well, something, she seems a bit giggly and also like an amorphous blob.

Her dad is strict.

Her sister is popular and somehow part of a sorority organization in high school (we didn’t have that stuff at my high school).

Her brother, her sister’s twin, is a little creepy but used to be her very best friend before the accident.

Her ex-boyfriend sounds like he got left back a year or two and his chin was described as “gravel.”

Her enemy wants gravel chin.

Her new dude, Dace, yes, Dace, is apparently cool and very attractive.

Are there too many characters for a 106 page book? YES.

Do these characters have a little too much going on for a 106 page book? YES.

Janet could just be a secretive artist, you know, Deathkins, she didn’t have to also be a cheerleader and date Vicki’s creepy brother. Lolly could’ve not existed, it’s not like she did anything that in any way added to the story besides just being a person that was there during Vicki’s accident. Maybe she could’ve had a monologue in which she explained that the reason all these dorks were in an accident like the one they had was that all of them suck as people AND perhaps their interpersonal relations might have had just a bit more to it.

Does the central mystery get lost while you’re trying to figure out who all these people are? YES.

Vicki’s smoking in the bathroom while I’m unconcerned about who is trying to bother her and then ramping up their threats. “I thought you quit,” says Janet. Who are these people?

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When guinea pigs get confused about the “plot,” they do what Ozymandias is doing. Nap.

It’s no Waxwork II: Lost in Time, but it’ll do.

42. Black Dawn – L.J. Smith

This one’s in a castle. And there’s a shapeshifting falcon. It is a nice break from the mostly modern houses and apartments and schools and malls that the others in the series are set in. And again, a shapeshifting falcon provides a nice change of pace. Oh, and there’s blue fire. And a shapeshifting falcon. Unfortunately, it is not the falcon which must find its soulmate. The falcon has been denied such outcomes.

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Merricat has just told Peregrine that she is not actually a shapeshifting falcon, she just bears resemblance to Sam the Eagle and has a falcon name. Merricat was very clever.