Sara's Library: Girl of Nightmares

I had an unexpected hospital stay, which has delayed a number of my posts.  I'm going to try to get at least two up a week until I'm caught up, but a friend just asked me to critique his manuscript, so I'm not sure how I'll be dividing my time just yet.
***

Girl of Nightmares by Kendare Blake
Sequel to Anna Dressed in Blood
Tor Teen 2012
A

Summary from Goodreads: "It's been months since the ghost of Anna Korlov opened a door to Hell in her basement and disappeared into it, but ghost-hunter Cas Lowood can't move on. 

"His friends remind him that Anna sacrificed herself so that Cas could live—not walk around half dead. He knows they're right, but in Cas's eyes, no living girl he meets can compare to the dead girl he fell in love with.

"Now he's seeing Anna everywhere: sometimes when he's asleep and sometimes in waking nightmares. But something is very wrong...these aren't just daydreams. Anna seems tortured, torn apart in new and ever more gruesome ways every time she appears.

"Cas doesn't know what happened to Anna when she disappeared into Hell, but he knows she doesn't deserve whatever is happening to her now. Anna saved Cas more than once, and it's time for him to return the favor."

Review: Readers will remember that when I picked up Anna Dressed in Blood, I had rather low expectations but ended up enthralled with the characters and story.  I am happy to say that Girl of Nightmares is a worthy successor and conclusion.

As stated in the description, Cas is seeing Anna everywhere, but it's after a ghostly encounter that endangers both Thomas and Carmel that Cas decides that something must be done.  His intuition tells him that Anna is not properly at rest, and cryptic statements made by Thomas's uncle, Morfran, and Gideon, Cas's advisor, lead him to believe that Anna is in Hell.

While the adults in Cas's life warn him not to meddle with the afterlife and move on, Thomas and Carmel support his decision to investigate Anna's whereabouts and free her, if necessary.

Ms. Blake continues to write a likeable Buffy-esque gang of ghost hunters, who manage to deal with normal teen problems while juggling their eerie escapades.  With this installment taking place over summer vacation, we get less of Cas's interaction with the general student body and more of his growing friendship with the unlikely couple Thomas and Carmel.  As with the first book, Ms. Blake shows a penchant for writing sarcastic, disaffected teens.

New character Jestine, raised by a British cult, is a great foil to Cas, who never asked for the power and responsibility of the athame.  She also provides fresh perspective on the task at hand, as she is not affiliated with Cas and has motives of her own for crossing the threshold to Hell.  Her presence definitely raises the stakes.  The book wouldn't likely have been a flop without the Jestine subplot, but it's certainly greater for her presence.

The ending offers an unexpected resolution where Anna is concerned, but leaves room for further adventures with Cas and the gang should Ms. Blake choose to deliver them.

Dream Factory: Lo

Lo
Directed by Travis Betz
Theatrical release: Drexel Box Productions 2009
DVD release: Entertainment One 2010
NR; mature content
C

Justin's girlfriend April has been taken by demons.  Desperate to save her, he summons the demon Lo with a mysterious book she left behind.  But the crippled Lo is not all he seems, as Justin reflects on his time with April and the sacrifice he's willing to make.

This is a low-budget independent film and obviously so.  However, that does not mean it's equivalent to The Room or the works of Ed Wood.  While it has its problems, Lo is a solidly made indie that is meant to be enjoyed, not laughed at (although some of the dialogue is intentionally funny - feel free to laugh at that).  

Some of (okay, probably most of) the acting is pretty wooden.  Aside from Jeremiah Birkett, who portrays Lo, the cast seems like a small-town community theatre troupe.  The acting is never so bad as to distract viewers from the story being told, but it is definitely noticeable.  It's also the primary reason I awarded the rating I did.

That being said, the effects make-up for the demons is pretty good.  I personally love old school effects, and I expect most of the budget was used on them here.

What really made this particular film enjoyable for me, though, was the story.  While Justin's character wasn't explored in-depth, his relationship with April was.  As Justin described events like their first meeting and first Christmas together, a new version would be acted out as a scene by the actors portraying Justin and April, revealing new information to Justin that altered his perception of events.  Given the limited budget and set constraints, I thought it was an interesting way to convey the story.

In addition to the theatre segments, there are other quirky devices like a soft rock ballad interlude performed by a demonic band (Jeez and the Go-to-Hells) and internal monologue.  While I anticipated the twist ending before the big reveal, I thought it was well-done and not completely predictable.

If you like off-beat love stories and don't mind low budget stuff, please give Lo a chance.

Here's the trailer:

Sara's Library: Anna Dressed in Blood

First of all, apologies for the lack of updates.  While I had started this post almost two weeks ago, I found myself suddenly very busy with real life.  Between staffing a local convention and a couple of job interviews, I just haven't had time to work on the blog.  I'm hoping to catch up over the Thanksgiving holiday.

Anna Dressed in Blood by Kendare Blake

Tor Teen 2011

YALSA Best Fiction for Young Adults 2012

A

There have been few books I can recall where my initial reaction to the premise and my final reaction are so completely disparate.  Going in, all I really knew about the plot was that the protagonist, Cas Lowood, went around the country (and Canada, apparently, given the novel's Ontario setting) slaying ghosts with his father's magic dagger (an athame).  It sounded like a lame attempt at writing a prose version of Bleach.  I have never been more wrong about a book.

Shortly after traveling to Thunder Bay, Ontario, in order to rid the town of the infamous Anna Dressed in Blood, events spiral out of Cas's control.  Not only does a prank played upon him by the school football team result in the death of one of the jocks at the hands of Anna, but Cas, so accustomed to the nomadic lifestyle that is part of his job, begins to develop attachments.  He befriends a psychic witch-boy and the most popular girl in school, both of whom insist upon tagging along during his midnight slayings, and eventually learns that he cannot complete his task without the aid of others.  Yet, more interestingly, he develops a strong bond with the ghost herself, Anna, whom he learns is a tragic, fragile creature trapped inside her place of death.

While Ms. Blake's work never shies away from the violence and gore that denote the work as horror, it is her juxtaposition of horror with sarcastic, referential humor that sets this work apart from others in the genre. Fans of Buffy the Vampire Slayer will definitely see shades of the Scooby Gang here, which is all for the better.  Without the humor, this tale would likely have proven too grim for the average reader.

The characters, especially Cas and Anna, are well-thought out and complex for the book's relatively short length, and the brisk pacing ensures that readers never tire of the dark events that could easily have become mired in a lengthier work.  A new sequel, Girl of Nightmare, continues the story, which ends somewhat abruptly, and promises to give fans another thrill ride, if the reviews I've read are any indication.

Sara's Library: This Dark Endeavor

This Dark Endeavor by Kenneth Oppel
Simon & Schuster 2011
ALA Teens' Top Ten Nominee 2012
Bram Stoker Award for Young Adult Novel Nominee 2012
A-

I have been a fan of the macabre and gothic for as long as I can remember.  I think I first read Poe in third grade, which I followed up the next year with Hugo's Notre Dame de Paris.  Although Frankenstein was assigned reading during my senior year of high school, I had read it years earlier.  So when I began to see reviews for Kenneth Oppel's prequel, This Dark Endeavor, I knew I had to read it.

In this prequel, Victor Frankenstein has an identical twin brother, Konrad, who he believes to be his better at just about everything.  When Konrad becomes ill with an unknown (and perhaps incurable disease), Victor, his cousin Elizabeth, and their friend Henry decide to save him...through alchemy.  The trio discover a secret library of alchemical texts in the Frankenstein manor, but cannot decipher the archaic texts.  Learning of a disgraced alchemist, Dr. Polidori, living in the slums of Geneva, the group seek out his aid and soon embark on dangerous adventures for the ingredients required for the Elixir of Life.

Meanwhile, the family solicits the advice of an experimental doctor who determines that Konrad's disease is what we now know as leukemia.  While he is able to improve Konrad's condition, he cannot cure it, driving Victor to try yet harder to create the Elixir.

But is it truly brotherly love that drives Victor into this frenzy?  Or the desire to excel at something which his brother never can?  Darker yet, is Victor's secret desire to usurp his brother, especially in the heart of Elizabeth.

One of my only qualms with this book is that it doesn't stylistically mirror its "descendant."  While that marvelous work was an epistolary novel, this one is not.  The prose attempts to affect the style of the period, though I did find Victor's sense of humour a tad out of place, feeling somewhat modern at times.  While the characters are not the most complex or original, often falling into tropes of young adult fiction (snarky protagonist, headstrong girl, etc.), the work substantially reworks Ms. Shelley's story, leading readers to piece together that Victor's later creation is not a mishmash at all, but his brother.  Given the love triangle developing between the brothers and Elizabeth, one can imagine there will be bad blood between the two before events lead to the Modern Prometheus.

Mr. Oppel has already written a second work in the prequel sequence, titled Such Wicked Intent and released at the end of August.  While I've not yet had a chance to read it, I certainly intend to, and if the title is any indication, we can expect it to grow considerably darker.

Exploring Humanity's Dark Side...Again

The Curse of the Wendigo
by Rick Yancey

After reading the first installment of The Monstrumologist last autumn, I greatly anticipated the release of the sequel. I received a copy for Christmas and began to read it on the bus home to Chicago (completing about half of it during the trip). While Will and our Byronic doctor return, none of the other characters from the first novel make an appearance in this installment (my husband was rather disappointed with the absence of Kearns, though I've read that he is in the upcoming third novel). As in the first installment, the writing attempts to mimic that of the Victorian Era in which it is set and utilizes several apt literary allusions throughout the course of the work, including that of Dante's Inferno. This installment also includes several historical figures (Jacob Riis, Bram Stoker) in secondary roles, which I felt helped the work with its goal of being read as truth.

While the first book's monster is clearly presented as such, things are not so black and white in this second installment. When Warthrop's best friend goes missing in Canada while investigating the wendigo myth, his wife Muriel (Warthrop's former fiancee) convinces Warthrop to search and retrieve him. Numerous bizarre events occur during the hunt, but Yancey never clearly states if the wendigo is a supernatural being or the psychological ailment that shares its name. This may disappoint younger fans looking for monsters, but we older readers know well that mankind is often the most terrifying monster of them all. Just as the monstrous actions of Dr. Alastair Warthrop were juxtaposed with those of the anthropophagi in the first book, here we are asked once again if one's actions can lead us to become monsters. Was it Chanler's jealousy, both of his wife's love for Warthrop and of Warthrop's superior skills as a monstrumologist, that ultimately led to his dissent into madness? Or did he truly ride the wind and become a wendigo?

The first installment was quintessentially gothic. The action took place in a small town remote from the rest of society, and there were various forays to cemeteries and mad houses. We questioned humanity through the lens of a Byronic hero, who, though extremely intelligent, was equally moody and arrogant. And while he remains in this installment, the shift between the frontier gothic reminiscent of Charles Brockden Brown and the urban gothic that dominates the latter half of the book is a bit jarring. Rather than trying to pay homage to both sub-categories of gothic literature, I feel that the work would have been stronger should it have focused on one or the other. But this is a minor complaint.

Those who enjoyed The Monstrumologist will surely also enjoy The Curse of the Wendigo. And any who complained about a lack of character backstory in the previous installment will be quite gladdened by the amount of information given about our good doctor.

Once again, I look forward to reading the next installment, Isle of Blood, which is to be released this fall. Given its setting in the Middle East, I am curious if it will include any references to William Beckford's Vathek, but I suppose I shall see soon enough.

Grade: A-

Into the Woods

The Forest of Hands and Teeth
by Carrie Ryan

As a Pittsburgher born and bred, some might think I would have a great appreciation for the zombie genre created by hometown boys George Romero and Tom Savini, but aside from greatly enjoying The Walking Dead, I am not really a fan of zombies or of horror, in general. However, when I heard the premise of The Forest of Hands and Teeth, I was intrigued, as it transported the genre to a puritanical society steeped in secrecy.

Unlike many works about the zombie apocalypse, Ryan's debut novel is set a century or more after the initial outbreak, rather than at its onset. The protagonist, a teenage girl named Mary, has never known the world outside of her small village, which is surrounded on all sides by the Unconsecrated, as the zombie population is called. They are protected by a fence that was constructed at the village's founding, and most villagers believe they are the only people left in the world. As such, the people of the village are expected to marry at an early age and aid in the repopulation process.

When Mary's mother is bitten by an Unconsecrated, she is forced to join the Sisterhood, the religious organization that presides over the village, as she has not been claimed as a bride. While there, she is spoken to by Gabrielle, an outsider that somehow made her way to Mary's village, which, along with a few other events I do not wish to spoil, leads Mary to journey outside of her village.

I cannot stress enough how unlikable the heroine in this book was! She is ridiculously selfish, to the point where I honestly didn't care if she lived or died. Despite having the love of a boy she was childhood friends with, Mary prefers his brother, who she still pursues despite his engagement to her best friend. When the group finds a refuge from the Unconsecrated, Mary is unsatisfied and insists that the group keep moving forward. She just seems to take everything she has for granted, and I was extremely frustrated with her. Why is it that so many YA writers have been creating such wretched female protagonists as of late?

Aside from the characterization of Mary and the inexplicable love all major male characters seem to have for her, this was a fantastic debut. The pace was a bit languid for the first five or so chapters, but it picked up significantly following the introduction of Gabrielle. The writing was gloomy and atmospheric, and though description could be sparse, especially where the characters themselves were concerned, it suited the book well.

Unfortunately, there were many loose ends at the conclusion of the novel. No reason is ever given for the outbreak of the Unconsecrated, for example. Ryan has since written two other companion novels (The Dead-tossed Waves and The Dark and Hollow Places), but if the protagonists are anything like Mary, I do not intend to read them.

Grade: B

What Makes the Monster?

The Monstrumologist
by Rick Yancey
Michael L. Printz Honor Book 2010

Every October, my book club tries to read a spooky YA book. Last year's selection was The Graveyard Book, so I suppose with that in mind, I can understand why other members of our group were expecting harmless ghouls to be the focus of Yancey's new work. Of course, they were terribly wrong, as the book is extremely graphic and reads somewhere between a penny-dreadful and 18th century Gothic literature. To give an example, the book begins with a vivid description of how an anthropophagus (the featured monster of the book) has not only eaten the corpse of a virginal girl, but impregnated it, as well. Worse, the anthropophagus fetus is still alive, so our twelve year old protagonist, Will Henry, must watch as his master, Dr. Pellinore Warthrop, aborts the abomination. This book is definitely not for the squeamish.

Will and the doctor spend the entirety of the novel trying to thwart other massacres at the claws of the anthropophagi, which we learn much later in the novel are in New England because of a failed experiment of Warthrop's father. Both Doctors Warthrop, as well as the characters of Dr. Starr and Jack Kearns, present various degrees of morality, and through them, one of the major themes of the work is explored: What makes a monster? Is a monster a creature of nightmare who feeds upon human flesh? Or can it be something more human? A man so dedicated to the pursuit of knowledge that he endangers innocents? Or a man who becomes his monstrous prey, no longer retaining any sense of compassion or empathy? Though Yancey never directs the reader's thoughts to any particular answer, the well-planned plot leads the reader to question the motives of all involved.

Presented as a journal compiled by Will later in life and given to the author, The Monstrumologist is written in a characteristically Victorian style, replete with verbose sentences spanning several lines of text and sundry literary allusions. For a reluctant reader, it may prove a bit challenging, but the subject matter and amount of gore should be enough to keep the attention of most. Being a fan of Victorian and Gothic literature, this book was a welcome change to much of the YA I have been reading recently, and I highly anticipate the next installment Curse of the Wendigo, which was released several weeks ago.

Grade: A+