Sad Sadie

Sadie by Courtney Summers 

New York : Wednesday Books, 2018. 

311 p. ; 21 cm.

I think I picked up this book after a student returned it last month and said they liked it. It's a thriller dealing with a dead girl and a her missing older sister. The novel is woven from two strands. The narration from the missing older girl - Sadie - and the transcripts of a fictional podcast "The Girls." The podcast is one that was set in motion when the producers heard of the murdered young girl and her missing older sister. We follow the podcast host as he tries to figure out - through visits, research and interviews - what happened to Sadie.

In the narration from Sadie we figure out that her young sister was probably raped and killed by someone she may know and she has taken off in a car to see if she can find him. Along the way she interacts with people and tries to figure out who killed her sister and where he lives. We also learn that Sadie has been the victim of pedophiles and is in search of revenge for both her sister and herself. You might be wondering about parents. Her father has never been in the picture and her mother is a long-time addict who abandoned Sadie and her little sister.

So the novel is a mystery, a road trip, a podcast, and a revenge tale - one that will leave you with as many questions as answers when you finish.

I think Sadie is a good novel and I'd recommend it for someone wanting a thriller/mystery dealing with murder/family troubles/ and sexual abuse. However, I just never really found myself taken with the book. I think there were too many times where the plot felt a little overwrought and many times where I got confused about who was who (after all there are several abusive men involved and one of the villains has several aliases). The who podcast set-up also didn't resonate with me, but it might with other readers. I'd say it's a solid read, but one that just didn't appeal so much to me.       

Bent Twisted Broken

Bent Heavens by Daniel Kraus

New York : Square Fish, Henry Holt and Co., 2021.

1st Square Fish ed. 

291 p. ; 22 cm.      

Pretty much everything I wrote about Kraus' earlier novel, Scowler, applies to this novel. I wanted to like Bent Heavens, but I found it profoundly unsatisfying on several levels. I feel bad being so negative because Kraus explains (in an author's note at the end of the book) that he wrote this as a protest against the torture regime implemented under the Bush-Cheney administration.  It feels odd to dislike this book so much since it got starred reviews in Booklist and School Library Journal. 

The premise of the book is interesting. High schooler Liv's father (a high school English teacher) had a complete mental breakdown years previous when he insisted he was abducted by aliens. Then after being released he actually disappears and has been gone for two years. He left behind gruesome contraptions for trapping said aliens. Liv and her loner friend, Doug, check the traps weekly until one day, they catch an alien! 

Instead of turning the creature in to the authorities, Doug suggests torturing it as a way of both punishing it for what the aliens did to Liv's father and possibly getting it to reveal what happened (it can't speak but can squeal and whimper). There's a lot of gruesome beatings, cutting, and hurting that goes on in a torture shed on Liv's property - and I just NEVER believed Liv would go along with it.  I also think that Doug is that stereotype oddball loner type that supposedly is predisposed to sadism. By two thirds of the way through the book, I had guessed at the "wow" plot twist that ends the novel and so was neither surprised nor moved (unlike reviewers).

Well, obviously I did not like this novel. Instead of the heavy handed torture, a more subtle use of torture like that endorsed by Bush-Cheney would have been more pointed - e.g. forced nudity, sleep deprivation, sensory deprivation, water-boarding, etc.  Also having the alien able to communicate in some basic ways would have been more effective, too. Instead the plot zig zags into the nonsensical and absurd which left me wondering if I even read the same book as the people who starred this mess.

Got Blood?

Foul is Fair by Hannah Capin

New York : Wednesday Books, 2020.

326 p. ; 22 cm. 

This novel calls up the Elizabethan & Jacobean revenge tragedy.  I had to chuckle in that while looking for references on revenge tragedies I found this in an article by Justin Cash in The Drama Teacher:   

Revenge tragedies typically consisted of one or more of the following:

• ghosts and the supernatural
• murder
• insanity/mad scenes
• a character seeking revenge against a strong(er) opponent for a real or imagined wrongdoing
• personifications of revenge / the supernatural
• a clear villain (although interestingly the character of Hamlet was a hero seeking revenge)
• onstage violence, often sensational
• blood-filled conclusions
• disguise
• corpses
• often isolated revenger(s)

Yep, Foul is Fair has most of that in spades! The novel is about Jade, a wealthy it-girl who is drugged and gang raped by wealthy/arrogant prep-boys after she and her "coven" of friends crash a party.  The assault is not graphically portrayed, but the victim recalls the words and brutality of the four assailants and their accomplices and promises murderous revenge. Let's just say she keeps her promise! 

This book got a starred review from Booklist which notes: "...this isn't a how-to-murder-your-classmates manual; it's a ferocious, frenzied reaction to a world that has, for too long, treated women as collateral damage in stories that have been deemed more important than theirs....The plot is not rooted in any sort of reality; it is a fever dream, a vicious fantasy, an allegory with bloody teeth." That gets it about right.  In my mind it gets to what is the strength and weakness of the novel.  

I liked a lot about the novel; it is a good escapist read, but Jade and her friends who assist with the bloody revenge plot are extremely unlikable souls themselves. There are no heroes in this tale, just a group of depraved characters who get to exact revenge on a set of even more depraved villains.  I also found some of the supernatural overtures a bit distracting (weird flocks of birds, sudden storms, visions of winged flying characters, unhinged stream of conscience, etc.). But some will love that overwrought drama, and if they do fair enough (of should I say foul enough!). 

If I mention the book to a student, I would definitely let them know it deals with some serious triggering issues - sexual assault, violence, and murder. But if they are looking for a bloody read, I'd suggest it. Oh, and it also strongly echoes Shakespeare's Macbeth, something that students who are reading the play might really enjoy.

  

Nothing About Everything

Patron Saints of Nothing by Randy Ribay

New York : Kokila, [2019]

323 p. : maps ; 22 cm. 

I know I ordered this book for the strong reviews it received, but what finally made me grab it off the shelf to look at one more time is the captivating cover.  So, yes, covers matter! But there is so much more to this book.  I think it is one of the best YA books I have read in a long time.

So what makes me hold this book such high regard? I think what I love is that it manages to do so many things at once and never condescends.  What is Patron Saints of Nothing about?  So many things: letting a friendship drop, family secrets, political violence, drug trafficking, the immigrant connecting with the home country, American naivete, the complexities of the truth, and growing up. Let me offer an example.

In the middle of the novel, the main character, high school senior Jay confronts his reactionary, violent uncle about the situation in the Philippines. The confrontation between them rings so true.  The uncle who knows so much more about the Philippines than Jay, cuts him down to size as nothing but a spoiled, arrogant American coming back to the country he left as a baby.  Jay knows the moral truth he is committed to, but is no match against the harsh and cynical adult and loses that argument.  I've never read such a well conveyed interchange that captures this dynamic. 

There is so much more.  The novel is a coming of age novel, it's a murder mystery, it's a family conflict drama, it's a bit of a romance - and yet it manages to weave all these strands together without feeling forced.  

I will recommend this book to our students and hope I can find someone who likes it as much as I did.

  

Insanely Plotted, but Complusively Readable

A Madness So Discreet by Mindy McGinnis
New York, NY : Katherine Tegen Books, an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers, 2016.
376 p. ; 22 cm.    

There is a lot to like about this revenge tale of murder and mystery set in the late 1800s.  The writing is smart, the characters are interesting and the novel has a dark edge that will appeal to readers who don't like their plots sweetened with syrupy romances and neat, happy endings.

The main character, Grace, is a striking figure - a young woman of a wealthy, influential family who is imprisoned in a Boston insane asylum because she has become pregnant.  The author has done a bit of research into the treatment of the "insane" and of women declared insane and developed a disturbing and satisfying novel out of the material.  If you want to see the benign asylum where Grace escaped to in Ohio, you can check out this page from Ohio University.

A lot of the plot springs out of the fact that Grace is an incest survivor who - having escaped Boston - wants to protect her younger sister from the perpetrator, and wants to exact revenge on him.  Did I also mention that she works undercover with a doctor in order to solve (by profiling) murders, particularly a murder involving a serial killer.  Her victimization, escape, hopes for revenge and protective zeal for her sister all come together in a dramatic conclusion that strains credibility, but is satisfying nonetheless.

Overall, I wasn't crazy about A Madness, but I will recommend it - with its historical background, strong female characters, and grim storyline it has a lot to offer a reader.

Yeah, I'm Scowling

Scowler by Daniel Kraus
New York : Ember, 2014.
289 p. ; 22 cm.     

I wish I could say I liked this book - I really do.  It's supposed to be a devilishly good Midwestern Gothic tale. It is an intense, twisted, psychological horror story of human depravity and domestic violence - which just didn't move or captivate me.

It's an odd tale of a 19 year old young man who at age ten survived his father's attempts to kill him after beating and torturing his wife.  Unfortunately for us and for the young man, his psyche is a twisted bin of delusions, violence, sexual frustration and anger - embodied in his three vividly imagined "living" playthings - a bear, a little Jesus, and a toothy, vile looking toy with very sharp edges - yep, Scowler.  All of this comes exploding to the fore when there  are the surreal impacts of several small meteorites in rural Iowa where this tale takes place.  This cosmic event breaks open the prison where his father is being held - setting him free to come after the family again, and plants a weirdly magnetic and never cooling meteorite on the farm where the family lives.

There were times as I read it that it just felt sordid and creepy.  I'm okay with dark and violence, but for me it has to have more than the goal of just entertainment or creating the "ick" factor (which this book definitely does).  However, I think I'm in the minority in my lack of enthusiasm for Scowler.  The book has received many rave reviews (check out the book's official page), and is popular with those wanting mature and gruesome horror tales.

It's not a book I'll be pushing, but if someone finds it and likes it, that's okay with me.

Admit It, You Loved It

Confessions by Kanae Minato
New York : Mulholland Books/Little, Brown and Co., 2014.
234 p. ; 21 cm.

Ok, maybe I didn't love it, but it is a good read.  It's funny to see a book praised as "a nasty little masterpiece" or "the most delightfully evil book you will read this year" - but that is the verdict on this well received first-book phenom of Japanese author, Kanae Minato.    

I found the opening of the book to be slightly disorienting - the avenging teacher at the heart of this novel is addressing her students in a way that no middle school teacher would in the US, but once you get past the slightly different mannerisms of the opening, the novel quickly pulls you in and doesn't let go. The novel opens with a punch, a teacher knows that two of her young students have killed her child, and she is leaving the school - but will get even.

The novel has been compared favorably to Gone Girl, and like that novel, it presents a really nasty view of human relationships - in this case between parents and children, children and children, and teachers and children.  There's really no redeeming characters in the book, but that doesn't stop it from being well plotted and compelling.  Part of Minato's success is the shifting narrative viewpoint.  We hear the story from about six different characters' perspectives - and from each come disturbing and/or shocking revelations.

I would definitely recommend this to a student who wants to read a good murder-thriller, revenge novel.  After all it's a vile little read that you just can't put down.

Predators and Prey

Knockout Games by G. Neri
Minneapolis, MN : Carolrhoda Lab, [2014]
293 p. ; 20 cm.

In spite of the generally positive reviews for this book, I've got to give this novel a mixed review. I appreciate what G. Neri is trying to do - get inside the minds and hearts of kids involved in "knockout games" - the brutal crime of attacking a random stranger with the idea of knocking them out with one vicious blow. He tries this through the main character, Erica, who has landed in a rough area St. Louis after her parents split up.  She has a talent for video editing and ends up involved with  the group of high school/middle school kids who are victimizing strangers in her neighborhood with their random assaults.  She especially gets in deep emotionally with Kalvin, the charismatic leader and "Knockout King" of the group.

The novel is set in St. Louis and closely parallels the real knockout game story that transpired there. Neri does a pretty good job of showing how peer pressure, boredom, and machismo create a lure for the "game" but I just never found myself drawn in to the main character's motivations.  Frankly, she's kind of a repulsive character, getting off on editing videos of the attacks and even assaulting one of the victims herself.

Neri seems to want to just tell the story, and not preach a lot, which is fine.  But I think what he really fails to convey is the absolute terror and life altering experience that being a victim of the knockout game would be.  He tries to in the one case that goes horrifically wrong, resulting in a murder - but that is it.

I will say that the pace of the novel picks up as it goes on, especially as all of Erica's really bad decisions and actions begin to have consequences for her and those around her.

I won't be recommending it to students, but I will be curious to see and hear what students think of it if they do read it.

Ghostly Thrills

Famous Last Words by Katie Alender
New York, NY : Point, 2014.
312 p. ; 22 cm.

I'm usually no fan of books about serial killers - but I decided to read this one since it got many positive reviews, including being chosen for YALSA's 2015 Top Ten Quick Picks for reluctant readers.

I found Famous Last Words an entertaining read.  I liked that its focus is not so much on the details of the murders that are happening in the world of the main character, but instead on the life of teen protagonist, Willa, as she has wrestles with grief over her deceased father and her radically new life in Hollywood where her new step-father is a well-known and very wealthy movie director.

To complicate matters, there is a ghost in the new house where Willa and her mother now live.  Willa also has to navigate life as a new student in a new high school where she makes one new friend, Marnie, and comes to have a reluctant friendship with Wyatt, her lab partner who has a creepy obsession with the murders. Throw a very cute and romantic young assistant to her new father into the mix and the plot just zooms along.

It's not a great read, but it's a fun read, and one I'd recommend to any student asking if we had a good thriller, or murder mystery, or ghost story, or romance - or all of the above!

Fine Read - Yes! Teen Read - Not So Sure

House of Purple Cedar by Tim Tingle
El Paso, Tex. : Cinco Puntos Press, 2014.
326 p. ; 24 cm. 

I truly enjoyed reading House of Purple Cedar.  Tingle's novel is filled with mystery, surrealism, danger, great characters and rarely told history.  But, I found myself wondering why it is being targeted toward young adults instead of an adult audience.  Publisher's Weekly noted that "much of the dialogue and exposition feels more appropriate for young adult literature" and I would take issue with that assessment.  I believe the book is a fine literary novel that adults would enjoy and appreciate.  

The story centers around events that happened in a young girl's life in the late 1890s in Choctaw territory in the state of Oklahoma.  The novel is an exploration of violence, accountability, redemption, community and family relations, racism, and spirituality. 

Along the way, there are murders, wildlife attacks, a panther that may or may not be a ghost, and humorous and touching romances.  The novel is written in a literary style that at times called to mind, Bless Me Ultima. I will definitely be recommending it to adults that I know and occasionally to the teen reader who wants something serious and challenging.

  

Solid Gone

Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn
New York : Broadway Books, [2014]
422 p. ; 21 cm.

Publisher's Weekly describes Flynn's Gone Girl as the "tale of a marriage gone toxically wrong" which "gradually emerge[s] through alternating accounts by Nick and Amy, both unreliable narrators in their own ways."  I couldn't have said it better myself - so I won't!  Booklist calls it a "compelling thriller and a searing portrait of marriage" which it is, though I'd say it's a pretty twisted and horrible portrait to be sure.  Booklist does note that Flynn "possesses a disturbing worldview, one considerably amped up by her twisted sense of humor." That is definitely true.

Almost all reviews note that it is compulsively readable and I have to agree.  But it does present a rather sordid and extreme view of human relationships and has some pretty crude generalizations about men, women and their interactions.

I think the strength of the book is the plotting (which is creative and unpredictable) and the use of the unreliable narrators - which keeps the reader guessing and on edge.  

Anyone working with young adults should be aware that though there is not a lot of graphic sex in the novel,  sexual situations are frequently referred to - and occasionally described in very explicit and crude terms.  It's definitely a novel for mature readers, but there will be a lot of requests for the book given its phenomenal success and the successful movie version of it which opened the day I finished the book, Oct. 3, 2014.

The title of this post is a nod to a Carter family song - and it's wonderful performance by the late Doc Watson. 

Nothing Natural About It

The Naturals by Jennifer Lynn Barnes
New York : Hyperion, [2013]
308 p. ; 22 cm.

It's probably no surprise that I didn't care for this novel.  Most of what I wrote about Barry Lyga's I Hunt Killers applies here.  I'm just not interested in being entertained by the lurid retelling of serial killer exploits, but this novel scored VOYA's perfect 10s, so I kind of felt like I had to give it a chance.

So how was it aside from the serial killer aspect?  It was all right, but I just never could really believe that the characters were real people.  The novel for me felt like watching a TV show (and it's interesting that many of its fans reference TV shows in their reviews).

I don't want to be too negative about the book, so I'll just defer to fans of serial killer and murder/thrillers.  They love it! So if there's a student who is interested in this topic, I'll be sure to mention that this is a fun, thrilling and interesting read in that direction - with a plot that is sure to satisfy.

I Hate Killers

Cain by Henri Vidal, Paris

I Hunt Killers by Barry Lyga
New York : Little, Brown, 2012
359 p. ; 22 cm.

"Serial murder is a relatively rare event, estimated to comprise less than one percent of all murders committed in any given year. However, there is a macabre interest in the topic that far exceeds its scope and has generated countless articles, books, and movies." -- FBI Serial Murder Report, 2005

I guess I'm just a bit of a contrarian when it comes to many things that popular culture offers as entertainment, and the popularity of serial killer entertainment (e.g. Silence of the Lambs or Dexter)  is one of them.  It's a form of entertainment that leaves me feeling manipulated and repulsed - and that's how I felt after reading Lyga's serial killer novel - I Hunt Killers. I know this puts me in a minority, because the novel is very popular.

The novel attempts to be a compassionate and complex thriller whose hero is Jasper, a 17 year old raised by his now imprisoned father who is a sadistic, methodical, diabolical, and sickeningly brilliant serial killer.  The father exposed young Jasper to all the gruesome details of his crimes in the hopes of turning him into a killer like himself.  And so the conflict - as Jasper becomes a man, will he be a normal person, or is he fated to become like his father - a remorseless pathological killer?  And this conflict plays out in Lyga's novel with the onset of a series of gruesome murders in the town where Jasper lives and grew up.  Jasper - wrestling with his tortured history and trying figuring out his identity - is determined to use his intimate knowledge of serial killers to help the police catch and stop the murderer.

The novel features many of the tropes of serial killer entertainment - some gruesome gore, a riveting battle of wits, an evil genius of a serial killer (ala Hannibal Lecter), and heart stopping danger and action.  Oh, and the novel ends with a plot twist that sets up the novel for it's sure sequence, Game, which we also have.

I think one of the things that saddened me about this novel, is that Lyga is really a very talented writer.  His plotting and dialog are very effective - and he is able to skillfully convey the ambiguity of self that confronts anyone trying to come to terms with his or her identity.  But it ultimately feels sleazy and voyeuristic to me.

I do understand that people are fascinated with gruesome crimes and events - I'm not immune to it myself.  There is a certain thrill of terror and relief to knowing what horrible things could and have happened - and yet that one has so far avoided.  The world is definitely filled with horror and terror, but for myself, I'd rather read true histories or case studies, and wrestle with my own existential questions of "Why?" - instead of be taken though a fictional - supposedly entertaining - and at times manipulative account of murderers and murders.

Tattoos Dragons and Serial Killers

The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo
New York : Vintage Books, 2011, c2009.
1st Vintage Crime/Black Lizard premium mass-market ed. 
644 p. : maps ; 20 cm. 


With the recent US release of the movie, The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, requests for Stieg Larsson's novels really started to pick up here in the library. When I heard someone who saw the movie say how violent and disturbing some of it was - I thought I should read the bestseller and see what I thought of it myself...

Having just finished The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, I can definitely understand the success of the novel.  Like Dan Brown's Da Vinci Code, it is tightly plotted, well told and filled with unexpected twists and turns.  Though the novel deals with very disturbing incidents of rape and murder - it is not luridly gratuitous.  The plot is also quite complicated and requires the concentrated attention of the reader - so it is a book that would appeal to mature readers only.

For myself, I don't think I'll be reading the following two novels in the trilogy - The Girl Who Played with Fire and The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest.  As compelling as the plot was, and as relevant as the plot elements of corporate and financial criminality are, I frankly find the world of the novel too disturbing to be entertaining - and that is what these novels excel at.  I know that there are serial killers, abusive sadists and rapists - but reading fictional thrillers about them just doesn't appeal to me all that much.