Rachel Smith's Blog: Guinea Pigs and Books, page 60

This was published before Cyndi Lauper’s “True Colors” came out. Missed title opportunity.

1. The Seeing – William P. McGivern & Maureen McGivern

Orphan poet psychic Jessica Mallory has quite the story. After her parents die in a plane crash that she “sees” via colors, her social worker (a wearer of “durable double-knit” pantsuits “in subdued colors”) attempts to find her next of kin. They turn out to be a racist anxiety-riddled Aunt Maud and biological Uncle Eric the alcoholic gambling addict…but they want nothing to do with her – Phew. Jessica gets adopted and ends up living at a huge estate in Ireland. Unfortunately, Uncle Eric sees her in a magazine about horse racing because the Irish estate she lives at has horses- which is what many preteen girls want. She also has access to a priesthole and a cove and a dog AND a parapsychologist who she has a weird relationship with. He’s testing her for years and listening to her poems and then he goes to California to do some academic thing. Note: she’s underage.

When her benefactor dies her villainous aunt and uncle show up with New Jersey gangster dudes in tow and appraise the crap out of the art objects in the house, drink the good wine and whiskey, murder one of the servants, then slap Jessica around and plot her murder, to be delayed only until she predicts which ponies will win. It’s nice when relatives reconnect.

Little Orphan Poet Psychic Jessica has some friends to help her out though. One is an elderly Irishman who has magical praying powers in addition to being as psychic as her. Another is that Dr. Julian who went to California, he’s recalled by a poem in which Jessica essentially predicts their being together just like Dr. Whatshisface and Michelle of Michelle Remembers, which is pretty creepy to read. Note: she’s underage. Like so underage she can’t even drive. She barely knows anybody who doesn’t work for the estate, she never quite got to boarding school- this isn’t cool, not even for the late 1970s. The weirdest part of that is he never arrives. The book ends and Dr. Julian Future Statutory Rapist hasn’t even shown up. He somehow managed to charter a military plane and he still never gets there. The elderly Irishman does get there and manages to inadvertently kill the New Jersey gangsters. He also invokes the old gods and a variety of Druidy things to make Jessica super psychically powerful for a hot minute. Helpful.

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Peregrine and Merricat survey their domain from atop the pumpkins. They see all.

“Tonight the stars shine favorably over the gallows’ hill.”

7. Devil’s Call – J. Danielle Dorn

This is how you write a fantastical western. The head we’re in is a totally different kind of heroine, she’s not well liked, and yet, she’s making things happen. She’s taking revenge seriously, she’s got some drunk in the cart with her like a fun western version of Arya and the Hound’s road trips, she’s pregnant but she’s not soley defined by that, the villain in the story is a horrorshow but also decently defined, the stakes are very high, and frankly, this was just a seriously excellent read.

It’s an unpleasant metaphor for how much women really do and how badly they can be treated in relation to what they know, their choices, and who they are by those who represent the status quo and other monsters.

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Murderface would like the author of Unbury Carol to read this and take notes for any future western outings.

 

I always thought when you mix Satan and wizards you get Electric Wizard albums.

60. You Should Have Left – Daniel Kehlmann

A mere 111 pages- You Should Have Left is written as though you’re reading the notebook of a screenwriter trying to work on his latest project while in a vacation house with his wife who makes him feel inadequate and his daughter Esther who is very young and loves television.

It’s a weird conceit, being a notebook; but it works pretty well in this story. There’s one scene with the general store proprietor that could have been outside the notebook and of course that’s the scene in which we get the most information. There’s also a phone call with the general store proprietor that’s similar. Why does the main character get a little plastic triangle ruler? Because the angles don’t match up.

Apparently Satan and a wizard argued over the land where the vacation house now stands. Satan built a tower, the wizard didn’t like the tower because he was not a Satanist wizard…highjinks ensue every time something else is built on that land.

This book manages to feel complete and not at the same time, which is quite a feat to me.

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Salem’s checking out all the angles. He’s prepared for anything.

“Girl, you don’t need make up.”

56. The Girl with the Lower Back Tattoo – Amy Schumer

I have to say, I really liked Amy’s show and this book more than I like her stand up. Her show was just awesomely clever. Her stand up seems to have an edge to it like she wants to be who she is, but she’s intimidated by who she has projected at the same time and doesn’t want that to get through. The book though, it reads much more realistically for the most part.

There’s a lot more vulnerability in her book than I expected and that is what’s missing from most of the living celebrity books I’ve read. So many of them just skip over anything difficult like “Well, I got through it, so whatever” instead of realizing that’s where the story is. Amy Schumer didn’t do that as much. There’s a lot of difficulty that I respect her for discussing and some parts that maybe didn’t need to be there, and that seems as much like a life metaphor as anything else so it’s totally fine.

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Pickles just got back from the Museum of Boyfriend Wardrobe Atrocities. She’s hiding from the psychic wounds braided belts inflict.

Lemonheads do not lead to interdimensional children taking you hostage, just so we’re clear.

52. Sour Candy – Kealan Patrick Burke

You can’t react perfectly all the time – and in this case, it will cost you quite a bit to show even a hint of recognition.

In this novella, noticing a small child in a grocery store ruined a man’s life and brought him into contact with some creepy antler beasts. And of course, the child won’t let him eat or leave or talk to anyone or call the police and report being held hostage by a terrifying, whiny, otherworldly child. Parenting, am I right? Well, no, I’m not for two reasons: 1. That wasn’t his child! He just invaded and took over! Evil child. 2. I will never parent a human. Never! And I now know that ignoring human children while in stores is a reasonable choice if I wish to avoid netherworldly responsibility.

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Taking care of Finny is the kind of netherworldly responsibility I accepted. Willingly.

“Look out honey it’s the big black witchcraft rock”

49. Hex – Thomas Olde Heuvelt

In some ways the witch’s hex on the town of Black Rock really screwed her over too. No good deed goes unpunished, as they say. And poor Katherine is just as stuck as she made everyone else, which would leave something to be desired after you’d already had your mouth sewn shut – if you can’t complain about small town life, what’s the point? Especially 350 years in.

Anyway, though, Katherine’s made it so EVERYONE is stuck in Black Rock, so if you move in, you are now also stuck. The scenes of townspeople trying to get away were very anxious and reminded me of the beginnings of a solid asthma attack. Her curse also extends itself to her showing up in various people’s homes for periods of time, just standing there, which is both creepy as all hell and would totally suck if you were her.

And, as with most assumed witches in addition to real ones in these kinds of stories, there are people in the town who think they weirdly relate to Katherine, people who feel protective over her when she definitely doesn’t care, a woman who tries too hard for her cursed friendship, and teenage boys who torment her. All haunting choices which generally lead to badness. Also, I do not know Dutch, so I read the English ending, which is pretty gnarly.

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Peregrine’s revenge on Finny would not take 350 years. 350 seconds, tops. He was really good at being defiant.

Pizza Hut date!

38. Back from the Dead – Carol Gorman

I have liked every book by Carol Gorman I’ve read thus far and this one was no exception. It’s got lots of fun stuff to work with: popular teens who are total dicks and burn down a cabin with an unpopular teen inside, intriguing investigations taken on by the honorable girls of the school newspaper, mystery solving via breaking and entering to look for a typewriter (basically), and the hysterical popular girl – Nikki – who acts just like all actual mean popular girls trying to cover up a murder. One thing I realized as I was finishing it though, I recalled that Heath had no dental records and was not the real murderer (spoiler alert) or a ghost murderer, but I’m not sure it was ever truly established that he was definitely dead. Perhaps this imaginary town elected a coroner with no medical training.

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Murderface knows you have to dig to uncover the real truth and Pickles will follow her to the end.

Mixtape:

1. You Want the Candy – The Raveonettes

2. It’s a Party – The Subways

3. When the Stars Begin to Fall – Tomahawk

4. Mile Markers – The Dead Weather

5. Leather Feather – Torche

6. Neat Neat Neat – The Damned

7. NARC – Interpol

8. She’s Lost Control – Joy Division

9. Neighborhood #2 (Laika) – The Arcade Fire

10. You Could Never Tell – The Horrors

11. I Don’t Know – Uncle Acid & the Deadbeats

12. Crypt Key – Windhand

13. Rough Detective – The Dead Weather

14. Christine – John Carpenter

15. She Bangs the Drums – The Stone Roses

Do not haggle with Xanthu.

55. My Soul to Keep – Jean M. Favors

The main reason I bought this book is because the cover kicks ass. I want to parody it with the guinea pigs, but I can’t because it’s too absurd already and I’d just be sticking a pig in there and that’s not enough, frankly. It features a UFO beaming twin neon green lights onto a cat sitting on top of a tombstone in a cemetery. Yes!

The cat is important and its name is Sekhmet, just like the cat in the book about stupid teen Satanists I covered earlier this summer. Both Sekhmets I’ve read about were smarter and cooler than the teen lady protagonists in their respective books. Sekhment is guarding April, who isn’t that cool, but has been signed up for an ESP “experiment” by her cousin Sherm, who is a little bit of a maniac. The overall plot of this book was very odd, but, worth it to read (like people have said about my work on anonymous internet forums) and as mentioned, the cover is amazing.

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Ozymandias holds the fate of many souls underneath his sweet little fuzzy feet.

Mixtape:

1. King of the Rumbling Spires – T Rex

2. Killer – Midnight Force

3. Wooden Cross (I Can’t Wake the Dead) – Witchcraft

4. The Horned Goddess – The Sword

5. Captain – Ween

6. Infinity – Queens of the Stone Age

7. The Wizard – Black Sabbath

8. Blood Runner – Uncle Acid & the Deadbeats

9. Creeping Flesh – Terrortron

10. Power of Darkness – Danzig

11. The Lost – Uniform

12. Burn the Black Flame – Terrortron

13. Division Ruine – Carpenter Brut

14. Against the Door – Pinkish Black

Why yes, she did make them journal.

33. Secrets to Tell – Ann Gabhart

Camping with your therapist! I’m sure that at this point in time, the legal liabilities of taking several therapy patients on the same wilderness hike where they have tools and are supposed to be honest with everyone would shut this story down before it even began. That said, it was a good read. Things did not go well, ankles were twisted, allergic reactions were caused (Damon is a shitty human being and he’s lucky Gayle had an epipen, I mean, shit, being allergic to wasps is nothing to play with.), a fourth degree assault happened, they ran out of food, and got lost; but, lessons were learned along the way about resilience and how it’s not great if you step into a bear trap in the dark.

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“If they ran out of food, why didn’t they just whistle for more treats?” – Pammy, a clearly seasoned outdoors pig.

Mixtape:

1. Invasion A.D. – Carpenter Brut

2. Take Me to the River – Talking Heads

3. Roaring Waters – The Darkness

4. Skin Moth – Torche

5. These Thoughts – Sweet Knives

6. Feel the Love Go – Franz Ferdinand

7. Never Let You Down – Greenskeepers

8. Get Away – Jeffrey Lee Pierce

9. Keep Moving On – Gallon Drunk

10. Black Jack – The Hives

11. Treason! Animals. – Franz Ferdinand

12. Life Means Nothing, Death Means Nothing – Ice Dragon

13. Habit – Uniform

14. Skull Eyes – True Widow

30 Helens agree.

27. The Man in the Woods – Rosemary Wells

It’s easy to get jaded when reading YA as a cynical adult, so whenever I read a YA novel that was published in the YA version of the trade paperback format that has a really good story, I get confused. The Man in the Woods has a good story, solid characters, a thorough characterization of a town, and was written by an author whose children’s books involve guinea pigs! Sometimes!

One thing, this is the first book I will be covering this summer that involves solving a mystery of who is being threatening by finding a typewriter, which seems weird, but, also okay as I do like typewriters and have now learned that I should never type threatening letters on a distinct one. Done.

Anyway, Helen is a fun character to follow while she tries to solve the mystery behind an accident she witnesses, navigate the horrors of joining her new school’s newspaper, and make decent friends while basically ruining the town’s legacy. It’s not very easy.

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There were no typewriters under the blankets. Twiglet’s search continues.

Mixtape:

1. Almanac – Widowspeak

2. Until the Night Is Over – Timber Timbre

3. Far from Any Road – The Handsome Family

4. Wither – True Widow

5. Old Shoes (and Picture Postcards) – Tom Waits

6. The Argus – Ween

7. Woke Up This Morning – Abner Jay

8. For the Love of Ivy – The Gun Club

9. Ceremonial Secrets – Glitter Bones

10. Bedlam – Gallon Drunk

11. The Apple & the Tree – Graveyard

12. A Thousand Years – Gallon Drunk

13. Light Into Dark – Windhand

14. Rope on Fire – Morphine