4 stars Archives - Page 27 of 39

‘Salem’s Lot by Stephen King: Book Review

Author Ben Mears has returned to the town of Jerusalem's Lot, Maine, where he spent the best years of his childhood. He had a traumatic, horrifying experience there, and he wants to write it out of his system at last. Around the same time, two other men move into town, R. T. Straker and Kurt Barlow. They buy and move into the local house that has haunted Ben for years. And then people start disappearing... Parts of this felt a little familiar. Little Mark Petrie reminded me of Jake from The Dark Tower series and the kid from The Talisman. Ben reminded me of someone too, I just can't put my finger on who. And then there's the name Susan. I wonder if there's a Susan in King's past. That slight familiarity aside, I did enjoy this. I think part of what gives me the willies when reading King's work is that he doesn't back away from using children in his horror stories. He kills them off when he has to and he turns them into evil little beings too. He uses children to chilling effect in this novel. One of the subplots that I really liked was Father Callahan's struggle with faith. Maybe that's because I did read The Dark Tower series first, but I enjoyed "meeting" Father Callahan and learning more about him. His part in this book comes pretty late, so I'll refrain from discussing him more. I want to re-read his part in The Dark Tower now that I know more about him! I really liked that the vampires in this book were real, true, evil vampires. Granted, this was written in the mid-70s, well before the current vampire love story craze (not knocking it at all), but it's still refreshing to read right now. This…

Horns by Joe Hill: Book Review

Ignatius Perrish wakes up after a drunken night with honest-to-goodness horns growing out of his head. At first, he thinks he's just going crazy. But as he ventures out into the day, he finds that other people can see them too; they're just too busy telling him their deepest, darkest secrets to really comment on them. Oh, and if they know him, they're telling him exactly what they think of him. That would be bad enough for anyone, but when you've been (falsely) accused of raping and murdering your girlfriend and the whole town thinks your famous father got you off, what people have to say to you gets real vicious real fast. I hate the name Ignatius. Even shortened to Ig or, heaven forbid, Iggy, it's just awful. And then to pair it with Perrish. I couldn't help but think of Iggy Pop. That aside... This was scary but not in a horror-y way. Well, not for the most part. There's the thing with the horns, but the real scare here is how this kind of thing happens every day. Again, not the horns, but the rape/murder of an innocent girl. And we always think it's the significant other who did it. Sure, most of the time it is, but what living hell the innocent ones must go through. Not only have they lost a loved one but they've been accused of doing it as well. *Shudder* Ig shows us exactly how little it feels that life is worth living after that. What makes this so hard to read is that Ig was about to have it all. He and Merrin have a fantastic relationship. They're high school sweethearts who look like they're really going to live the happily ever after. They're both pursuing their career dreams and then…

The Monstrumologist by Rick Yancey

Twelve-year-old Will Henry finds himself in the unenviable position of assistant to a monstrumologist. What is a monstrumologist, you ask? Why, it's exactly what it sounds like--it's someone who studies monsters. One dark and eerie night, a grave robber brings a delivery to Dr. Pellinore Warthrop. After removing the coverings, Will is horrified to see the body of a young girl entwined with a monster who has to have come straight from the bowels of hell. Headless, with eyes in his shoulders and a maw in his belly full of teeth like a shark's, the monster is dead too. But this species of monster shouldn't be in this location at all. And so begins a race against time as Will Henry and Dr. Warthrop try to prevent more deaths and unravel the mystery of how the Anthropophagus, for so the monster is called, came to be in a New England town called New Jerusalem. This book scared me to death, I swear. It's shelved in the young adult section of my library, but I would say it's definitely more for the older set, and adults who like horror should seek it out. Anyway, reading about the Anthropophagi had me jumping out of my skin. Just break that name down into its component parts. I'm reading it as being something about a maneater. Great name for a monster, right? Anyway, I forgot to turn my alarm clock off one morning as I was reading this and heard it buzzing incessantly as I got out of the shower. My first thought? "Oh, no it's going to call them to me." Yeah. Them being the Anthropophagi. My husband accidentally booby-trapped a cabinet (at least it better have been an accident), and as stuff came pouring out at my feet and my heart pounded…

I Am Legend by Richard Matheson: Book Review

Review of I Am Legend Several GR friends have read this and raved about it recently. I've been doing a lot of Halloween-related books this month, so I decided to give it a try. It somehow wasn't exactly what I expected, and I mean that in a good way. I've seen bits of the Will Smith movie (and what I've seen has very little in common with the book), I've read my friends' reviews, but it's still something that I think you have to experience for yourself to understand. I would definitely call it a horror book, but not exactly for the reason that I expected. There are the vampires, and there are a couple of intense scenes with them, but that wasn't what made the book scary to me. It was more about the absolute aloneness that Neville experiences. He truly is the last man in the world. How would you deal with that? Would you give up? Would you keep fighting? Would you start searching for others? Would you search for the reason behind the horror that has become your life? Matheson explores all of these avenues and more. Neville's reactions felt very real to me. I experienced all of his emotions with him. The vampires were scary at first, and then they just sort of become background noise. Then there's the rage, despair, curiosity, really the whole gamut of emotions that you would feel in that position. There's even one scene that just broke my heart. It's all in here, it all feels very real, and I am very impressed. Highly recommended. Review of the other stories I finished out the other stories and they were pretty good. They weren't on a level with I Am Legend, but there were some genuinely spooky pieces in here. My…

We Have Always Lived in the Castle by Shirley Jackson: Book Review

"My name is Mary Katherine Blackwood. I am eighteen years old, and I live with my sister, Constance. I have often thought that with any luck at all I could have been born a werewolf, because the two middle fingers on both my hands are the same length, but I have had to be content with what I had. I dislike washing myself, and dogs, and noise. I like my sister Constance, and Richard Plantagenet, and Amanita phalloides, the death-cup mushroom. Everyone else in my family is dead." And so begins Merricat's story about life for the last surviving members of the Blackwood family. There has been some sort of tragedy in the past, but Mary Katherine doesn't want to talk about it. She does want to talk about how much the villagers hate her family, how much she hates them, and how she wishes she could live on the moon. Unsettling. That is by far the best word to describe this book. Odds are that you didn't make it through high school without reading Shirley Jackson's short story, "The Lottery." It would be a tossup between that and "The Yellow Wallpaper" by Charlotte Perkins Gilman for my choice as most disturbing short story ever. Jackson somehow kept that same tone alive throughout a novel. Short stories are generally creepier for me than novels are. Authors end up explaining too much in a novel and I'm able to put them out of my head. But all those unresolved questions in short stories cause them to stay with me in a way that very few novels do. But Jackson pulled that off here. Wow. So much of the eeriness comes from Mary Katherine, or Merricat, herself. She's eighteen, but it's almost like her mind stopped progressing at twelve, which is when…

Heart-Shaped Box by Joe Hill

Rocker Judas Coyne thought it was a joke when he bought a ghost off the internet. Still, he's a collector of the arcane, so what could it hurt? An old man is haunting his daughter and granddaughter, so Judas might be helping them, but even if it's a joke, Judas can easily afford it. But the price is higher than he thought. What a creepy, twisted ghost story! It was perfect for Halloween! Judas and Georgia, the latest in his string of much-younger lovers, really don't know what hit them when this ghost shows up. The dogs know something is up and immediately react to the haunted suit. It starts out fairly innocuous, with the radio turning on in the middle of the night, a horrible smell in the house, and the ghost just sitting out in the hall, but this ghost quickly amps up his attack, and before they know it, Judas and Georgia are fighting for their lives. I loved all the twists this took. Just when I thought it was going to be a fairly straightforward ghost story, the ghost would get even more creative in his haunting, the stakes would be raised, I'd find out something about the ghost's abilities that made him terrifying, and then there's the ghost's agenda and past. I can't say that this book ever kept me awake or made me jumpy, but I'm surprised it didn't. This is one evil ghost. Highly recommended for horror fans. It's very well-written, and I am coming to realize that I love Joe Hill's style. I'll be seeking out Horns soon. Read an excerpt. Find author Joe Hill on his website and Twitter (he's one of my favorite authors on Twitter). Buy Heart-Shaped Box at Malaprop’s | Better World Books I have an affiliate relationship…

East of Eden by John Steinbeck: Book Review

Synopsis from GoodReads: In his journal, John Steinbeck called East of Eden "the first book," and indeed it has the primordial power and simplicity of myth. Set in the rich farmland of California's Salinas Valley, this sprawling and often brutal novel follows the intertwined destinies of two families--the Trasks and the Hamiltons--whose generations helplessly reenact the fall of Adam and Eve and the poisonous rivalry of Cain and Abel. Adam Trask came to California from the East to farm and raise his family on the new, rich land. But the birth of his twins, Cal and Aron, brings his wife to the brink of madness, and Adam is left alone to raise his boys to manhood. One boy thrives, nurtured by the love of all those around him; the other grows up in loneliness, enveloped by a mysterious darkness. First published in 1952, East of Eden is the work in which Steinbeck created his most mesmerizing characters and explored his most enduring themes: the mystery of identity, the inexplicability of love, and the murderous consequences of love's absence. A masterpiece of Steinbeck's later years, East of Eden is a powerful and vastly ambitious novel that is at once a family saga and a modern retelling of the Book of Genesis. I am surprised by how much I liked this book. I had to read Of Mice and Men and The Grapes of Wrath for school, and I pretty much hated them both. Of course, I hated almost everything I had to read for school, so I don't know if that says more about Steinbeck or about me. Either way, I was left with bad memories of Steinbeck. I have several friends on GoodReads comment on how much they love this book, so when I found this edition with this cool…

Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close by Jonathan Safran Foer: Book Review

Nine-year-old Oskar Schell adores his father, Thomas. Oskar is something of a genius, so he never fits in at school, but his dad sort of becomes everything to Oskar. And then Thomas Schell dies in one of the towers on 9/11. Two years later, Oskar still isn't handling this well. Snooping around his dad's closet one night, he finds an unusual key. Oskar becomes obsessed with finding the lock the key opens. His dad used to set up complicated scavenger hunts for Oskar, so this is sort of one last game they can play together. But for Oskar, it's really more than a game. He's hoping to find some answers about his father and maybe even finally find some peace. I don't think I would ever have picked this up had it not been chosen for one of my group reads GoodReads. But I'm so glad I read it. I was in love with Oskar within the first five pages or so. He's too smart for his own good, he's funny, and he's broken. What a combination. He's every bit as endearing as Scout from To Kill a Mockingbird or Reuben and Swede from Peace Like a River. He really makes this book. So I'm reading along, and I'm thinking, "This book should really be called Extremely Funny and Incredibly Heart-Breaking." That's how it was. Oskar would have me giggling out loud one minute and then he would talk about how he's invented a bird-seed shirt, so that if you're ever falling off a skyscraper, the birds would all come get you and fly you to safety. Just heart-breaking. But by the end, for me, anyway, it just got to be all heart-breaking. That's why it only got four stars. It was really, really, good, I loved Oskar, it handled…

Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston: Book Review

Janie Crawford is only 16 years old when her grandmother decides to marry her off to a man who is well-respected in the community. Nanny has had to work hard all her life and she wants Janie to have an easier life. She marries her off as soon as she notices boys noticing Janie. It comes from a place of love, but Janie wants to live life, not just settle for comfort. So she sets out to live the kind of life she wants to live. You just have to admire Janie. My gosh, does she just take a big bite out of life and chew it with gusto! She does not have an easy time of it by any means. But she weathers the hard times and she wrings every drop of sweetness out of the good times. She learns early on that she shouldn't be too concerned about what others think of her choices. She's the one who has to live with her decisions, so she's the only person she needs to please. And besides, you can't make everybody happy, so why even try? I already knew a little about the town of Eatonville, Florida, the first incorporated all-black town in the US, from reading Zora and Me by Victoria Bond and T.R. Simon. That was getting a little out of order, but I did like reading this and seeing where some of Bond and Simon's ideas about the young Zora came from. The town and the alligator stories were especially interesting to me. I did have a little bit of a hard time with the dialect that the book is written in. I think for about the first half of the book, I was laboriously sounding out each word and translating it in my head. I finally…

The Adventures of Captain Underpants by Dav Pilkey: Book Review

George Beard and Harold Hutchins are the 4th grade pranksters at their school. They change school signs around to say funny things, they fill cheerleader pom poms with black pepper, and they fill footballs with helium. Perhaps their favorite pastime, though, is writing comic books. They steal into the school office and make copies to sell when the secretary's back is turned, then sell their comics to the other kids at the school. Their best superhero is Captain Underpants, who fights with Wedgie Power. "Tra-la-laaa!" Their mean school principal, Mr. Krupp, really dislikes Harold and George for all the chaos they cause in his school. He blackmails them into behaving, but George and Harold find a way to fight back. Mr. Krupp never knows what hits him. Oh my goodness. What a fun book! I was giggling away reading this by myself at the age of 33. I would have laughed to the point of tears as a child. But then, I've always loved a good fart joke. Unsophisticated, I know, but farts happen. Might as well get a laugh out of them. George and Harold are a couple of comic geniuses. They have a talent for getting into trouble but their real talents lie in getting out of trouble. Their imagination and creativity seems to be limitless! And what they do to Mr. Krupp... I loved it! What kid, no matter how well-behaved, doesn't dream of rebelling against some authority figure? If we're honest, we never lose those dreams. It feels so good to see someone acting out like that, even if it is just in the pages of a book. There is one chapter that features flip-o-rama. I had such a good time with this! The book has reached a crashing climax and all of a sudden you…