Introverted Reader

Character Connection: Ebola

Yup, you read that right. We are venturing into microbiology here. Hey, I was a bio major back in the day; gotta get some use out of that degree, right? The Hot Zone by Richard Preston is a non-fiction book, and it is absolutely horrifying. Or, rather, terrifying, as claimed in the subtitle. Preston decided to make his readers lose some sleep at night by writing about how close the United States came to an outbreak of Ebola. You might have heard of it. An awful little virus that leaves you bleeding out of all orifices. So, I'm scrolling through my shelves on GoodReads, as I do every Wednesday night (yes, I am a procrastinator), trying to choose villains for an October Character Connection. Up pops The Hot Zone. "Scary book," I thought as I scrolled by, as I always do. Wait for it... "Scary. Book!" Ding ding ding! What could be scarier than the Ebola virus? It's a definite villain in this piece. You might argue that in order to be a villain, there should be some evil intention involved. You'd be right. But I'll go ahead and argue for the sake of it that when your purpose in "life" is to replicate, and you do that when your host dies an agonizing, beyond-messy death, there's a (weak) argument to be made for evil intention. I was going to post some of the descriptions of exactly how Ebola victims die, but I decided that is a little bit much for me. I'll just introduce you to the beginning of an agonizing end (Here's an excerpt with more details if you're curious). It apparently starts with a monster of a headache and then a backache and then progresses into nausea and vomiting. Later, "His eyes are the color of rubies,…

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October 13, 2011

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…

Ruined by Paula Morris: Book Review

Rebecca Brown is a 15-year-old New Yorker. She loves everything about her life in New York. You can imagine her dismay when she finds out that she has to go live with her aunt in New Orleans for six months because her father is going to China on business. The traditions and groups in New Orleans mystify Rebecca at first, but she eventually finds a girl who hangs out in the cemetery whom she considers to be a friend. Eh. I grabbed this when I was on the prowl for some Halloween reads, and it wasn't a huge hit with me. It's a good ghost story for younger young adults, but it felt very tame for this 30-something-year-old. It's pretty obvious what's going on. I won't say that I guessed the entire story right away, but as I got little hints, I could definitely see the big picture developing. There was a little too much high school drama with "She doesn't like me," "He's so hot," and "I'm never going to be asked to the dance." Perfect for the right age group, not so much for me. It did finally get exciting in the last few chapters, just in time for everything to be resolved. I just felt like the rest of it crept along. I do recommend this as a decent little ghost story for, oh, let's say the under-fifteens, but if you're looking for a spine-chilling ghost story, this isn't for you. Read an excerpt. Find author Paula Morris on her blog. Buy Ruined at Malaprop’s | Better World Books I have an affiliate relationship with Malaprop's, my local independent bookstore located in downtown Asheville, NC; and Better World Books. I will receive a small commission at no cost to you if you purchase books through links on…

Bookish Miscellany

Weekly Update for October 10, 2011

Welcome to my weekly update for October 010, 2011! It's Monday! What Are You Reading? is hosted by Sheila at Book Journey. It's beginning to look a lot like Halloween around here! I've been posting reviews of horror-ish books and diving headlong into more spooky reads. I'm hoping to devote Character Connection to villains this [....]

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October 10, 2011

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…

Introverted Reader Features

Character Connection: William Hamleigh

My intention for the month of October is to feature either villains from any genre or heroes from horror/thriller novels. I don't always follow through with my intentions, so we'll see how this plays out. Boy, do I have a doozy of a villain this week. William Hamleigh. Words cannot begin to express my deep loathing for this bully of a character. I think if he were real and walked into a room, I would have to launch myself at him and beat the crap out of him. Seriously. I hate this guy. You can find William in The Pillars of the Earth by Ken Follett. The book is set in 12th century England, when times were probably pretty brutal. William represents the brutality. See, William is from a little nothing middle-class family that has ambitions. Oh, the dreaded a-word. Ambition in moderation is definitely a good thing. Overweening ambition is nothing but destructive. The Hamleighs have decided that they need to be an aristocratic, titled family. Unfortunately, there is another family and a community of monks that stand in the way of the the Hamleighs' plans to get titles and riches. Too bad for the townsfolk. William, a jerk who cries for mommy when he doesn't get his way (I won't even get started on the mommy-complex he has; I don't want to sicken anyone), thinks that it's okay to rape, pillage, and destroy--well, anything. He's horrible. The book is a monster at around 1000 pages, give or take a couple of hundred, and I just kept reading, thinking, "He's got to get what's coming to him now...Okay, well, maybe now....Or now?....Ok, is anybody going to teach him a lesson?!?!?!" He just kept sinking lower and lower and lower. His evil mommy spurred him on to some of his…

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October 6, 2011

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…

Bookish Miscellany

It’s Monday! What Are You Reading?

It's Monday! What Are You Reading? is hosted by Sheila at Book Journey. Posted: Banned Book Review: The Color Purple by Alice Walker Banned Book Review: The Adventures of Captain Underpants by Dav Pilkey Banned Book Review: Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston Banned Book Character Connection featuring Neville Longbottom Banned Book Review: Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close by Jonathan Safran Foer Banned Book Review: East of Eden by John Steinbeck Read: When You Are Engulfed in Flames by David Sedaris, read by the author Currently Reading: Horns by Joe Hill Ballad of the Whiskey Robber: A True Story of Bank Heists, Ice Hockey, Transylvanian Pelt Smuggling, Moonlighting Detectives, and Broken Hearts by Julian Rubinstein The Penderwicks: A Summer Tale of Four Sisters, Two Rabbits, and a Very Interesting Boy by Jeanne Birdsall, read by Susan Denaker Up Next: The Whiskey Robber will probably be the only book I finish soon, so I will need a new non-fiction book. Right now I think that might be The Bookseller of Kabul by Åsne Seierstad. I might stop by the library tomorrow after work and look for something else though. What are you reading this week? I have an affiliate relationship with Malaprop's, my local independent bookstore located in downtown Asheville, NC; and Better World Books. I will receive a small commission at no cost to you if you purchase books through links on my site.

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October 3, 2011

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…