Title: The Harrowing

Author: Alexandra Sokoloff

Genre: Horror (Supernatural Horror)

Publisher: St. Martin’s Press (US) / Little Brown (UK)
Publication Date: August 2006 (US) / October 2009 (UK)
Hardcover: 256 pages (US)

Stand alone or series: Stand alone novel

How did I get this book: ARC from the Publisher (UK)

Why did I read this book: I have heard of Alexandra Sokoloff before, and have been meaning to try her work for a while now – ever since I learned of The Harrowing’s nomination for Stoker Award (Superior Achievement in a First Novel). When we were offered a review copy from the UK publisher, we thought, what better way to get Halloween Week underway than to review this title?

Summary: (from AlexandraSokoloff.com)
Mendenhall echoes with the footsteps of the last home-bound students heading off for Thanksgiving break, and Robin Stone swears she can feel the creepy, hundred-year old residence hall breathe a sigh of relief for its long-awaited solitude. Or perhaps it’s only gathering itself for the coming weekend.

The five unlikely companions establish a tentative rapport, but they soon become aware of a sixth presence disturbing the ominous silence that pervades the building. Are they victims of a simple college prank taken way too far, or is the unusual energy evidence of something genuine – and intent on using the five students for its own terrifying ends? It’s only Thursday afternoon, and they have three long days and dark nights before the rest of the world returns to find out what’s become of them. But for now it’s just the darkness keeping company with five students nobody wants — and no one will miss.

Review:

On the eve of Thanksgiving Break, quiet, self-contained Robin Stone finishes her last classes and prepares herself for a long, lonely weekend in her dorm room. An outsider since birth, Robin is both looking forward to and dreading her reprieve from her bitchy, beautiful roommate and other Mendenhall peers. When the torrential rain starts to fall and Robin makes her way down to her dorm’s common room, she sees that she isn’t as alone as she thought – four other students join her for the weekend, each of them with their own secrets and personal baggage, each of them an outsider, just like Robin. When the electricity goes out, one of them finds an old ouija board – and eager for entertainment, Robin and the sexually suggestive Lisa decide to use the board. Robin doesn’t believe that anything will happen, but when they seem to have made contact with the other side, things start to get weird. The entity moving the pointer knows each of the five’s most intimate secrets – things that Robin and Lisa should not, could not know. The five have made contact with something, and it will not be ignored. As the weekend wears on, strange things begin to happen in the dorm – the common room is destroyed by unseen hands. Strange noises and whispers are heard. Each character has strange visits and encounters with a shadowy menace that grows stronger each day. Robin and her newly united friends must discover what the creature is and what it wants, before it destroys them.

Overall, I was surprised with how much I found myself enjoying The Harrowing – in a totally guilty pleasure, teen horror kind of way. The book reads quickly and is very cinematic; in fact, as the book progressed I could see the screenplay developing in my mind (incidentally, after finishing the book and checking out Ms. Sokoloff’s website, I see that she is in fact a screenwriter as well as a traditional prose author). This isn’t a bad thing – in fact, it gives her otherwise simplistic story a good, fun-cheese boost. Though her prose is basic and straightforward, Ms. Sokoloff manages to capture images that will have B-movie fans giggling with delight (I say “giggling” because these images are rather over the top, in a good way) – a possessed character licking a bloody axe, flickering candlelight in a dusty attic as characters surround an Ouija board, and, of course, quippy, horrible one-liners abound. There’s even a requisite research scene, for crying out loud! (No microfilm/microfiche though, unfortunately.)

Relying so heavily on these teen horror tropes is risky business – this novel easily could have been terribly bland and unreadable – but it all pays off in The Harrowing. It’s the perfect blend of fast paced writing and good, predictable nacho-grade cheese that makes it all inexplicably work. I truly enjoyed myself while reading this book.

While Ms. Sokoloff sticks to the script in terms of form, she does make one important deviation that makes The Harrowing that much more memorable, in this reviewer’s opinion. Instead of using the usual “enraged spirit” or Christian pantheon demon from Hell channeled through the ouija board, Ms. Sokoloff takes an ideological minority – her demonic entity emerges from Jewish lore. And this, dear readers, is really freaking cool. How often are demons or entities of evil portrayed through the lens of Catholicism in modern horror? Almost always. Ms. Sokoloff dares to take a different faith, a different pantheon in her novel, which pays off beautifully. I certainly was impressed.

As for weaknesses, well, besides the ideological shift, Ms. Sokoloff’s book isn’t really anything new or groundbreaking. Her writing, as I’ve said before, is straightforward and simplistic, as are her characters. The writing manages to work because of the aforementioned tongue-in-cheek look at teen horror tropes, but the characters are lacking. Protagonist and third person narrator Robin is a fleshed out character whom readers can relate to because of her loneliness and strength despite her initial fragility. I liked that Ms. Sokoloff took a chance by writing her story through the eyes of a heroine who has serious issues – she’s not the sweet, pretty, quiet virginal brunette that usually is the teen heroine. Though she is pretty, quiet, virginal and brunette, she’s not very sweet and her life is a hot mess – she’s depressed and suicidal at the beginning of the book, but she has a great character arc over the course of the story as she connects with others, finally. Unfortunately, Robin is the sole character who has this depth. The other five characters are enjoyable, but caricaturish – there’s the brainiac, the jock, the jock’s blonde sorority type girlfriend, the slut, and the “bad boy.” Again, the tropes are fun enough to make the story enjoyable, and I did like that each one of these characters are inherent “outsiders” and unite over their shared differences. I just wish I got to know each of them a bit more.

Still, despite the lack of depth in terms of character or subtlety in storytelling, I found myself enjoying The Harrowing immensely, in the best schlocky horror movie kind of way. It’s nothing new or exceptional, but it’s fun enough to pass a rainy, Halloween afternoon. I’ll definitely be on the lookout for more from Ms. Sokoloff.

Notable Quotes/Parts: From Chapter 1:

It had been raining since possibly the beginning of time.

In the top tier of the cavernous psychology hall, Robin Stone had long since given up on the lecture. She sat hunched in her seat, staring out arched windows at the downpour, feeling dreamily disconnected from the elemental violence outside, despite the fact that every few minutes the wind shook the building hard enough to rattle the glass of the windowpanes.

In milder weather, Baird College was the very definition of pastoral. Wooded paths meandered between ivy-swathed stone buildings. Grassy hills rolled into the distance, dotted by trees . . . all unmarred by the slightest sight of civilization.

But now the old oaks lashed in the wind under roiling dark clouds that spilled icy rain on the deserted quad. In the bleak light of the storm, the isolation seemed ominous, the campus hunkered down under the pelting rain like a medieval town waiting for the siege.

The cold of the day had sunk into Robin’s bones. The wind outside was a droning in her ears, like the hollow rush of the sea. Inside, Professor Lister’s soft German accent was soporific, strangely hypnotic, as he quoted Freud from the wood-planked dais far below.

“ ‘The state of sleep involves a turning away from the real, external world, and there we have the necessary condition for the development of a psychosis. The harmless dream psychosis is the result of that withdrawal from the external world which is consciously willed and only temporary. . . .’ ”

Robin’s moody reflection stared back at her from the window: dark-eyed, somewhat untidy, elfin features framed by a tumble of nearly black hair. All in all, a chance of prettiness if she weren’t so withdrawn, guarded.

She pulled herself away from the glassy ghost of herself, blinked around her at a sea of students moored behind tiers of wooden desks.

People were shifting restlessly, looking up at the clock above the blackboard. A little before three, Wednesday. Tomorrow was Thanksgiving, and everyone was impatient, eager to escape for the holiday. Everyone except Robin. The four-day weekend loomed before her like an abyss.

Thanksgiving, right. Thanks for what?

At least there would be no roommate.

She sat with the thought of no Waverly for four days, and felt a spark of something—not pleasure, nothing so life-affirming as that, but a slight relief, a loosening of the concrete band that lately seemed to permanently encircle her chest.

No mindless, venal chatter. No judging cornflower blue eyes.

And no one else, either, Robin reminded herself. No one at all.

You can read the full excerpt online HERE.

Additional Thoughts: Ahh, sweet teen horror. The Harrowing puts me in the mind of delicious, guilty-pleasure teen horror flicks.

You know which ones I mean, the ones you used to eat up in middle school and high school. Films like I Know What You Did Last Summer, Scream, Urban Legend, Disturbing Behavior, The Faculty, Final Destination, The Craft, etc. *Note, I’m not including the ’70s and ’80s classics, because that’s a different “feel” altogether! These ’90s-onward teen scream flicks are embodied beautifully in The Harrowing.*

Verdict: Good, sexy, teen horror flick fun, The Harrowing is an entertaining read recommended for anyone looking for a lighter horror novel. This is a fantastic debut novel effort, and I’ll certainly be back to read more from Ms. Sokoloff in the future!

Rating: 6 – Good

Reading Next: Hater by David Moody

Title: Give Up The Ghost

Author: Megan Crewe

Genre: YA

Publisher: Henry Holt & Co
Publishing Date: Sep 15, 2009
Hardcover: 256 pages

Stand alone or series: Seems to be a stand alone (but there’s room for a sequel).

Summary: (from amazon.com)
Cass McKenna much prefers ghosts over “breathers.” Ghosts are uncomplicated and dependable, and they know the dirt on everybody…and Cass loves dirt. She’s on a mission to expose the dirty secrets of the poseurs in her school.

But when the vice president of the student council discovers her secret, Cass’s whole scheme hangs in the balance. Tim wants her to help him contact his recently deceased mother, and Cass reluctantly agrees.

As Cass becomes increasingly entwined in Tim’s life, she’s surprised to realize he’s not so bad—and he needs help more desperately than anyone else suspects. Maybe it’s time to give the living another chance….

Why did we read the book: The book was already on our wish lists, and when the author offered an ARC, we were more than happy to accept!

REVIEW:

First Impressions:

Thea: When I finished Give up the Ghost, I found myself at a loss at how to write this review. It’s a deceptively simple story, a sliver of the life of a teenage girl struggling with her own improbable powers and her feelings of anger and inadequacy. As Ana and I were exchanging emails about how we felt after finishing the book, I came to the realization that Cass’s story is meant to be simple – and I love that about this book. There’s no undying forevah love story, there’s no happy ever after ending where everything in her life is fixed again and she’s popular and whatever. Ms. Crewe writes a debut novel that is refreshingly free of sensationalism, and instead offers a quiet, simple story that is all the better because of it. This is one of those books where the more I think about it, the more I like it.

Ana: One of the things I love the most about doing these joint reviews is the opportunity that we have to discuss a book as soon as I finish reading it when the story is still fresh in my mind. In the case of Give Up the Ghost it helped me understanding the impression I had whilst reading it: that of the simplicity of the story. I really enjoyed reading Give Up the Ghost from page one for the very subdued, simple nature of the story. Instead of a book with a protagonist that worries about a possible lifetime Mission or about a love that needs to be forever, I got a story that was a nothing more than a glimpse into the life of a girl who can communicate with ghosts better than with living people. It is simple (without being simplistic) yet original enough (more on that later) to make this a solid debut.

On the plot:

Thea: As I’ve said above, Give up the Ghost is a fairly simple, straightforward story. Cass McKenna can see ghosts – ever since the death of her older sister Paige four years back, she has been able to see and speak with those who stay behind on the mortal plane…and understandably, this causes her some social problems at school. Once a popular kid with her beautiful best friend Danielle in middle school, Cass has become a surly, antisocial teenager that prefers to speak only to the ghosts at her high school rather than the human “breathers” that populate its halls. And with the ghosts’ help, Cass develops a reputation – when she overhears one ghost complaining about a cruel prank, Cass decides to step in, and from there her trade in the secrets and dirty deeds of others has grown until Cass herself becomes something of a creepy legend. She also has her own agenda, to bring down the popular kids, especially her former best friend Danielle. But when one of the popular kids she despises comes to Cass for help and guesses at the secret of her witch-like psychic powers, Cass decides to help him out, and ends up helping herself out in the process.

On the surface, Give up the Ghost is a very straightforward story without much flair…but that’s all part of its charm, in my opinion. What I enjoyed the most about this story is how very realistic Cass’s tale felt. Despite being a supernatural story about a girl that can speak with ghosts, this is truly a book about a teenage girl struggling to find her place in a messy world – and she doesn’t even realize what she wants or how she feels until she meets Tim and reluctantly agrees to help him talk to his dead mother. Cass’s high school rang true as a place where kids sometimes do what they want without regard for others, all in an attempt to fit in – but it also shows the lighter side too, for example, when Cass finally decides to make an effort and step out of her comfort zone by the end of the book. Though the title, kitschy book summary and Cass’s powers suggest it, this isn’t really a book about ghosts. It’s a journey of a teenage girl as she comes to terms with her past, with her family and old enemies, and how she begins to gather the strength to be herself, a good friend, a daughter, and a person who cares about something.

I guess the major complaint with the novel would be that it is rather subdued and straightforward. Even the writing is simplistic (though I did like Ms. Crewe’s little flourishes through Cass’s narration in the form of lists and observations), but I don’t see that as a bad thing. Not every book has to have mortal stakes and blood pounding action – and I really liked the quiet, emotional book that is Give up the Ghost.

Ana:I am forever fascinated with the American High School dynamics with its cliques and social divide. This reality is not only completely different from my own High School experience (seriously, best time of my life) but also alien to the Brazilian school system as a whole (as far as I know, of course). Give up the Ghost takes place in one of those High Schools and the most original thing to me was the set up: the bullied girl who is not a victim and decides to fight back on her own terms and avenge herself. There is no knight in shining armour to come and elevate her in the eyes of the popular kids, for example.

Her plan is very simple: she talks with ghosts; ghosts hear everything because really what else do they have to do? ; then dish out all the gossip to Cass. The things she learns reassure her that everybody in school is a back-stabber poser and that she is more than right to uncover their lies. This book is all about facades and perhaps Cass’ is the greatest poser of them all – pretending to not care when she really does but the coin only drops when she starts to help the popular guy, Tim with his own grief.

This book is not about finding out why Cass speaks to ghosts or what is her “Mission” or whatever. Cass ‘s ability to speak with and to see ghosts is a given and there is no attempt to explain it and make it more important than it should be.

In some points, that became a small problem for me as I am used to and wished for, more gravitas. I wished for more consequence for her actions. Like, an exploration about Cass’ responsibility for the lives she touched. But then again, this is not really the point of the story: there is no “greater good” and no one here plays Uncle Ben and say that with “great power comes great responsibility”. This is something that Cass has to learn for herself and in the end I was wholly convinced that even though she would not become a super-hero , she would also no longer play the vigilante: not because of some underlying moral dilemma but because she faced her own past and overcame it , giving it the closure it needed. Simple and yet effective and whole lot more realistic.

On the characters:

Thea: There’s no doubt that Give up the Ghost is a character-driven story. This is Cass’s journey, and as a heroine she is raw, emotionally fragile, and so very real because of it. I loved that Cass isn’t flawless or even reliable as a narrator. She’s abrasive to others, but since we’re privy to her thoughts through her narration, we understand why she is so prickly and slow to trust anyone. And despite all her big talk of revenge and bringing out dirt that will destroy the kids she hates so much, she isn’t a venomous person – rather, she’s hurt and trying to make herself strong. Her vulnerability (though she’d never admit that she’s vulnerable or lonely) makes her such an endearing character, and makes her easier to like and relate to despite her outwardly harsh attitude.

Then, there’s Tim. We don’t know as much about him as we only see him through Cass’s eyes, but it is painfully clear that Tim has some really big problems. After the death of his mother the prior year, Tim – popular, attractive, student council VP – has spiraled downward. He skips classes, drinks heavily, and is desperate for any help that Cass can give him. I loved that Ms. Crewe does NOT go the romantic route between these two characters, each with their own issues, though it would have been an easy copout. These are two kids that have some serious, deep-rooted problems and by the end of the book it isn’t all happy happy sunshine – they still have a ways to go. But they are both trying and growing as characters, and that’s more than enough for me.

The other character I really liked was Cass’s mother, even though she’s only in the book for a few chapters. The relationship between Cass and her mom is a volatile one and had the most emotional impact on me while I was reading this book. It’s very realistic, very raw, and I really give kudos to Ms. Crewe.

Ana:Yes, Give Up the Ghost is most certainly not a plot-driven novel but more of a character piece and of course that is the reason why it resonated so much with me.

This is Cass’ journey in which she departs from her need to defend herself and from being lonely and apart to deciding to finally become integrated with her surroundings – be it with her family or her friends.

The fact is, Cass begins the book angry and bitter. And with good reason: she is a girl who survived the worst sort of bullying which was committed by someone she trusted and loved. Her reputation was in tatters and she is basically invisible to the popular kids and to everyone one else. Then it becomes clear that there is so much more about her. First of all, that is the clear, sad fact that Cass is also to blame for her loneliness and aloofness. The facts behind her bullying took place over 4 years prior to the book opening and yet she has made no effort to finding new friends. She doesn’t even try. Being burnt once by her BFF did not make Cass a very trustful person.

Behind her anger and bitterness, there is really a lonely girl whose only friend is her dead sister, Paige, the first ghost she ever saw, who drowned on the night of her graduation and now lives in their parent’s house and ONLY Cass is able to see her and talk to her. There is real grief and guilt here – and the part where Cass thinks about how she used to fight with her sister and hoped she would one day disappear and when she does and comes back she thinks to herself as any child would, “I DID THIS” , it nearly made me cry. The sisters’ relationship made the book for me to be honest: it was sad and poignant and so very real. It reminded of my relationship with my own sister, all the good and bad parts.

I loved how Cass constantly examined her relationship with people – how they evolved, be it with her sister or her mother and eventually the one with Tim. I have to echo Thea’s thoughts here: I am so grateful that their relationship did not go the romantic way and Tim wasn’t OMG HAWT. He was just a regular, even if popular, guy who had real, shitty problems. I loved the progression of their friendship and how it truly engaged them both in exchange – it was a two-way road in which BOTH gained a lot from being with each other. Especially how Cass tried really hard to overcome her trust issues so that she could help him. Pretty good stuff.

Final Thoughts, Observations and Rating:

Thea: I really liked Give up the Ghost – even more now upon reflection than when I first finished the book. I liked its simplicity and its rawness, its emotional appeal and its frankness. This slim novel is deceptively strong and thought-provoking, and I cannot wait to read more from this talented new author. Definitely recommended.

Ana:A character-driven piece which truly resonated with me, emotionally, of one girl’s journey from being an aloof vigilante to finally opening up for possibilities. This is the sort of book I LOVE to read. Highly recommended.

Notable Quotes/ Parts: From Chapter 1:

You would think it’d be easy to get along with a person after she’s dead. Not Paige. She took her big sister duties very seriously. It’d been four years since she drowned, and she still got on my case.

“You’re not really wearing those to school,” she said, perched in the air just above the wrought-iron headboard of my bed, her ankles crossed and tipped to the side. It was the way she used to sit at the dinner table, way back when–pretending to be hooked on Dad’s every word while her mind wandered off to choicer topics. Except these days she did it without a chair.

“What’s wrong with them?” I asked, zipping up my jeans. She was wearing jeans, too. Of course, her jeans were tight, low cut capris. Mine were big and baggy. I’d stepped on the hems so many times they were as thready as my violet carpet, but hey, they were comfortable.

Paige wrinkled her pert nose and shook her head. Very few things got her as worked up as my untapped fashion potential. Most of the time she had this faded tissue-paper look, so filmy I could see right through her. Get her interested, though, and she brightened up like a Chinese lantern. Right then, she was beaming from her bleached-blond hair to her strappy sandals.

A few years ago it would have pissed me off. These days, I was used to it. It was like a game: how bossy could she get, how bratty could I get. Playing at being normal.

You can read the full excerpt online at the book’s website HERE.

Additional Thoughts: The title Give up the Ghost is a clever, very fitting one, as it also happens to be an idiom which means “to die” or “to stop working.” In Cass’s case, it perhaps holds a deeper significance of something else she has to give up…

For more on Give up the Ghost, make sure to check out Megan Crewe’s blog.

Rating:

Thea: 7 – Very Good

Ana:7 – Very Good

Reading Next: The Well of Ascension by Brandon Sanderson

Title: The Hollow

Author: Jessica Verday

Genre: YA (Paranormal/ Romance)

Publisher: Simon Pulse/ Simon & Schuster Children
Publishing Date: Sep 1 2009 / Oct 1 2009
Hardcover: 544 pages / Paperback: 528
Stand alone or series: first in the Hollow series.

Summary: When Abbey’s best friend, Kristen, vanishes at the bridge near Sleepy Hollow Cemetery, everyone else is all too quick to accept that Kristen is dead and rumors fly that her death was no accident. Abbey goes through the motions of mourning her best friend, but privately, she refuses to believe that Kristen is really gone. Then she meets Caspian, the gorgeous and mysterious boy who shows up out of nowhere at Kristen’s funeral, and keeps reappearing in Abbey’s life. Caspian clearly has secrets of his own, but he’s the only person who makes Abbey feel normal again…but also special.

Just when Abbey starts to feel that she might survive all this, she learns a secret that makes her question everything she thought she knew about her best friend. How could Kristen have kept silent about so much? And could this secret have led to her death? As Abbey struggles to understand Kristen’s betrayal, she uncovers a frightening truth that nearly unravels her—one that will challenge her emerging love for Caspian, as well as her own sanity.

Review:

I was very keen about reading The Hollow ever since I learnt that the story was a re-working of Washington Irving’s The Legend of Sleepy Hollow. Even though I did not read the original, I am acquainted with the story mostly via Tim Burton’s awesome Sleepy Hollow (which I hear, is not a very faithful adaptation – but still, the basics are there: a small town called Sleepy Hollow haunted by a ghost, The Headless Horseman).

The Headless Horseman Pursuing Ichabod Crane; oil by John Quidor

The Hollow opens with a funeral, that of Abbey’s best friend Kristen. They had known each other since they were very small and shared everything as BFF do – but now Kristen is gone and Abbey is having a hard time letting go. The first few chapters of The Hollow are an exploration of Abbey’s grief – from her lack of sleep, and need to listen to Kristen’s voice by listening to her mobile phone’s message to her loneliness and attempts at adapting to the new reality of life without her best mate. Even though she refuses to believe that Kristen is really dead – the body was never found – the truth is that she is not there. And that truth is claustrophobic and the author excels at showing grief and sadness. In that sense, the beginning of The Hollow is thoroughly absorbing and creepily atmospheric as the reader is able to relate to Abbey and her loss as she wanders around the small town revisiting their favourite spot – the Sleepy Hollow cemetery and Washington Irving’s grave.

Then Abbey meets Caspian and The Romance begins: Caspian is very unoriginally Gorgeous!Dark!Mysterious! They first see each other at the cemetery and later on the same day at Kristen’s house after the funeral. They talk a little and Abbey is immediately taken with the boy and they keep on meeting at the strangest places and times –mostly by chance. Abbey can’t help but to fall in love with him and struggles with guilt and to accept that she can feel happy when Kristen is gone.
It is Caspian who insists that Kristen’s disappearance and death were weird and they start to investigate until one day, Abbey finds a journal; a journal that she did not know Kristen kept and which has secrets that may lead to finding out what happened on the night she feel in the river.

The moment that Abbey started to investigate Kristen’s death came so late in the book , almost like an afterthought , so much so that I did a double take when I realised I had lost the sight of what the book was ABOUT. AND it is not until even later in the book that we learn how exactly does the legend of the headless horseman ties in with the town and Abbey (going beyond a literary connection, if you get my drift).

And that is basically my main gripe with the novel: discounting the great beginning and the great ending (more on that later), the book is oddly…hollow (pun intended) and uneven. The start, and the end show me that the author CAN write a gripping, interesting tale but for a number of pages all we get is a very detailed , pointless examination of Abbey’s daily life:

“I made my way over to the bathroom, pulled the plug on the tub, and turned on the water, wiggling the knob until it reached the temperature I liked. Then I added a heaping scoopful of bath salts and shut the door behind me as I left the room to take the necklace off”

And this bath went on for 3 pages! It may well be that what the author tried to do was to create a connection between the reader and Abbey but I think she utterly failed in her intention because it backfires. Yes, I do get to know Abbey intimately: every single thing she likes and dislikes. She is actually a great character and I like her voice and her self-deprecating sense of humour. I also admired how she was so thorough about her one passion: making perfumes and how she had a business plan for her perfume shop. She is organised, thoughtful and intelligent and it is because I know her so well by the middle of the book that I could not grasp the way she behaved with Caspian – it was as though there were two Abbeys and this is what I simply abhor in these attempts at romance (it is no surprise that the book’s marketing flier links this one to Twilight) : when the Girl loses herself when she meets the Guy. For all that Abbey is smart as evidenced by all the pages we spend with her alone, she shows little or no evidence of that trait when with Caspian, to the point where she falls in love with a guy she knows NOTHING about: where he lives , his telephone number or even his surname. She doesn’t even think about asking until it was way too late. To me, it smelled as an attempt to keep Caspian as the Mysterious Guy at the expense of the Girl’s character – it was not realistic and it did not agree with everything I knew about Abbey.

At a whopping 544 pages(!) , there is very little to show for it. I basically finished the novel knowing only a bit more than I knew when I started reading it except for a couple of major revelations near the end. I was completely frustrated by the end of The Hollow because after reading so many pages I had more questions than answers, and knew more about Abbey’s bathing preferences than about the main plot! What frustrates me even more were the glimpses of great ideas, great plotting – there is a lot of potential here and the ending, OMG the ending was freaking good- not only for the twists but for the utterly surprising direction that the author takes Abbey, THAT being realistic, sad and just about enough to bring me back to being interested in the story all over again and marginally curious about the sequel.

A most bipolar read that one was.

Notable Quotes/ Parts: I really liked Abbey’s visits to the cemetery, as creepy as it sounds.

Verdict: an uneven read with a few glimpses of brilliance. The author has potential but The Hollow is not IT yet.

Rating: to be honest, I am torn between a 4 and 5 – the ending nudges the rate towards a middle ground between Good and Bad , me thinks. So… 5. Meh.

Reading Next: Rosemary and Rue by Seanan McGuire

Title: The Strangely Beautiful Tale of Miss Percy Parker.

Author:Leanna Renee Hieber

Genre: Gothic Romance/ Paranormal Romance

Publisher: Leisure Books
Publishing Date: 25 August 2009
Paperback 324 pages

Stand Alone or series: First in the Strangely Beautiful series

Summary: What fortune awaited sweet, timid Percy Parker at Athens Academy? Hidden in the dark heart of Victorian London, the Romanesque school was dreadfully imposing, a veritable fortress, and little could Percy guess what lay inside. She had never met its powerful and mysterious Professor Alexi Rychman, knew nothing of the growing shadows, of the Ripper and other supernatural terrors against which his coterie stood guard. She saw simply that she was different, haunted, with her snow white hair, pearlescent skin and uncanny gift. This arched stone doorway was a portal to a new life, to an education far from what could be had at a convent—and it was an invitation to an intimate yet dangerous dance at the threshold of life and death….

Why did I read the book: The buzz around this release , the cover, the adorable title and the blurb, all made me want to read it.

Review:

London, England, 1867.

The Guard are searching. Six children are gathered and taken to a school, The Athens Academy and to a secret room where they are welcomed by a Goddess and are told that they are now the hosts for The Guard and they have a mission. Their Circle has started in ancient times and The Grand Work needs to be done. Each children carries a new power and together they must keep the Ghosts away from the people of London. They must fight Darkness. Alexi, the oldest of the children is to be their leader and his role is intrinsically connected with the Goddess who predicts that she will return as their Seventh, as the Prophecy at their greatest time of need: when the forces of Darkness are about to take over. When she returns there will be war. Her sign will be a door but beware for there will be another pretending to be the real Prophecy. Alexi alone will be the one to know who she is, for there is Love between them – since the beginning of time.

20 years later.

The Guard is still doing their job whilst trying to lead normal lives. Together they stand against ghostly disturbances, keeping at bay evil forces. Right now, the Ripper is attacking, taking lives and they are losing the battle. Where is Prophecy? They need their Seventh because their fight has taken its toll. The Guard is tired, tried, especially Alexi whose loneliness is overwhelming. He waits for his love and he knows she must come and soon.

Enter Miss Percy Parker. An 18 year old girl, who recently left the convent where she grew up at, to join the Athens Academy as a student. Percy is different: she is albino and her appearance keeps people away. She can speak several languages and she can see and talk to ghosts. All through her lonely life, sweet, gentle, virtuous Percy has been plagued with visions and the fear that she will be thought mad if she ever talked to someone about them.

Then, she meets Professor Alexi and is completely smitten and falls in love. Alexi, on the other hand starts to take an interest on the girl and offers to tutor her in mathematics. During their sessions, Alexi begins to suspect that Percy may well be the Seventh as Percy’s visions come more regularly. The girl has no idea what is going on and is increasingly terrified and only her adored Professor stands between her and them maddening suspicion that she may be someone with a Destiny.

The Strangely Beautiful Tale of Miss Percy Parker has been described in reviews as Fantasy or Paranormal Romance but in the opinion of this reader, the book is a Gothic Novel if ever I seen one; complete with all the extreme, dramatic emotion and the alluring atmosphere. On the latter, the author is highly successful in capturing the feel of the genre: the wonderful descriptions of a London plagued with ghosts and fog; the eventful meetings between the members of the Guard and their powers; the Ancestral Prophecy that drives their lives to the events that spiral out of everybody’s control. On the Fantasy side, the book is highly entertaining, and I was especially excited about the interesting twist to the Ripper’s tale and by how the author incorporated (and made her own) the Greek Myth of Persephone and Hades.

Having said that, the Romance between Alexi and Percy did not work as well for me. Mind you, from a Gothic Novel perspective the romance is extremely well done and fits the genre superbly. The DRAMA of their relationship fills the page with such force: it is a forbidden romance to start with because they are professor and student. Alexi is dark, brooding, aloof and tormented and the possibility that his Prophecy is so young and timid only adds to the angst. The visions that Percy has completely terrorise her and this fear is tremendously distressing.

It is this exaggeration of emotions, that even though suited to the genre, appear to not suit me as a reader, especially when it comes to Percy. She is extremely meek, gentle, timid and because of her difficult life, lacked confidence. To begin with, it is impossible NOT to sympathise with the heroine: Her loneliness is poignant and ever so sad. I can only but imagine how life for an albino miss who sees ghosts cannot be easy in Victorian times, if ever. But there was a point where her timidity and lack of self-esteem became too repetitive. Plus, Percy is a crier. She cried for everything: when happy, when sad, when scared, when lonely, when grateful, when angry. And the more she cried, the more I became impervious to those tears. I do appreciate that within the context of the story it is realistic that her character did not go from timid to powerful in one go but still. There is one scene in particular when Percy thinks that Alexi has left her for good and she is overcome with so much sadness and grief that she runs into the rain and wails and cries and sobs and then collapses. Alexi, watching from afar utters the words:

“Persephone, you godforsaken romantic”

The scene is wonderfully evocative of Gothic romance and this scene actually reminded me of the Drama of Wuthering Heights – like that scene when Cathy realises Heathcliff is gone and screams his name to the windy outdoors. It is highly emotional indeed but I find myself disliking it – and I realise how important strong heroines have become to me.

But there are a couple of scenes where Percy showed potential, a lot of it actually.

“Have I rattled you so very much?” he pressed, his voice like faraway thunder.
She paused. Then, in a moment of fleeting bravery she removed her glasses and stared into his eyes. “Always.”
The professor almost smiled.
“Finally, you are honest with me.”
She was quick to reply. “I’ve never been dishonest.”
“Be of good cheer, faint heart, you are too easily hurt,” he chided.
“My heart is fortified with passions, Professor; it is my confidence that is too easily undone.”

And that is the heart of who Percy is – a girl fortified by passions (her love for Alexi is her driving force towards the climax of the story) and undone by her self-image.

The good news is that, this is the first in series and the next book follows Percy and her role in the life of The Guard. It is my strongest hope that Percy as time passes, grows more confident. Because I have no doubt that I shall read the next one because even though the romance aspects of the novel did not totally win me over, The Guard’s adventures did and I can say days after reading it, for all of its drama and overwrought emotions, the Strangely Beautiful Tale of Miss Percy Parker remains with me.

Notable Quotes/ Parts: I loved all the scenes with The Guard: Josephine, “the Artist,” Jane, “the Healer;” Rebecca, “the Intuition.” Michael “the Heart,” Elijah, “the Memory.” and Alexi: “the Power.” The dynamics when together worked really well and added some needed lightness to the story:

“The Guard broke into conversation as they ascended to the nave of the chapel. Michael remembered a pun he’d heard in the pub earlier that day, and he was quite desperate to tell it to Elijah who would surely denounce it as the stupidest thing he had ever heard. Jane, still a bit weak, discussed with Josephine through a minor coughing fit the romanticism of becoming a consumptive invalid and wondered if the scars on her cheeks gave her character. “

Additional thoughts: Leanna Renee Hieber is our guest today talking about her Inspiration for writing the Gothic tale and you have a chance to win a copy of the book. Check it out here.

Verdict: a gothic tale of prophecies and love with a wonderful atmospheric and VERY dramatic emotions.

Rating: I am actually torn about how to rate the book. For the fantasy aspect and atmosphere I would give it a 7. The romance did not work very well for me though so I would give it a 6 which I think is the grade I should go for.

6 – Good.

Reading Next: The Corinthian by Georgette Heyer.

Title: Everlost

Author: Neal Shusterman

Genre: YA (Fantasy/ Paranormal)

Publisher: Simon Pulse (US) / Simon & Schuster Children (UK)
Publishing Date: Nov 6 2007/ Jul 6 2009
Paperback: 384 pages

Stand alone or series: First in the Skinjacker trilogy

Summary: Nick and Allie don’t survive the crash, and now they are in limbo, stuck halfway between life and death, in a netherworld known as Everlost. Everlost is home to those who didn’t make it to their final destination: A magical yet dangerous place filled with shadows where lost souls run wild. Shocked and frightened, Nick and Allie aren’t ready to rest in peace just yet. They want their lives back. Desperate for a way out, their search takes them deep into the uncharted regions of Everlost. But the longer they stay, the more they forget about their past lives. And with all memory of home fading fast and an unknown evil lurking in the shadows, Nick and Allie may never escape this strange, terrible world. In this imaginative, supernatural thriller, Neal Shusterman explores questions of life, death, and what just might lie in between.

Review:

Everlost was not at all what I was expecting. When I was harassed enlisted by Thea to read a Ghost story I was half expecting to be scared to death (since Ghosts are the Things That I Fear The Most) but Everlost is not an usual ghost story. Instead it is an adventure of the highest calibre.

It begins thusly:

“On a hairpin turn, above the dead forest, on no day in particular, a white Toyota crashed into a black Mercedes, for a moment blending into a blur of gray”.

Nick and Allie don’t survive the crash and as they go into that tunnel towards the light, they end up bumping into each other, going off course and missing the light altogether. They sleep for nine months and wake up confused, now in Everlost (a limbo-like place for children only) and are greeted by Lief, a lonely boy who has inhabited the dead forest for a long time. Overwhelmed with happiness at the prospect of company, he explains a few things about Everlost to Nick and Allie but as Greensouls the questions pile up and Lief’s answers are not enough.

They decide to embark on a trek to where they used to live and find out if their parents survived the crash. You see, as any Greensoul recently arrived in Everlost, they sort of still believe that they can revert their deaths. This is a journey fraught with perils like Gravity Fatigue, where if you walk in places that are alive, you start to descend thought the earth down to its centre, so the first thing they need to learn is how to find a way to walk without losing themselves. Plus there are bullies like Johnny O. or monsters like the McGill on the loose.

As they go on, they realise that they are really death and there is no return. All that is left to them is to accept it and to learn the rules of the afterlife, beginning with lessons from Mary Hightower, one of the oldest inhabitants and responsible for a large group of kids who live in the ghostly Twin Towers of Manhattan. Mary knows a lot about Everlost , about the place itself and about the things that cross from the land of the living via either the dead spots or because they were so loved that they have an eternal presence in the world. As the author of many loved books such as The Gravity of Gravity (whereupon Gravity Fatigue is explained ), Spectral Visions: An Afterlight’s Guide to Looking One’s (the importance of reminding oneself of how one looks lest you become less of yourself) or Death Be Not Dull (in which she explains about the Greensouls and about the important of Routine), Mary is their light at the end of the tunnel (pun so intended) and Allie, Nick and Lief join her ranks.

HOWEVER, soon Allie, the more inquisitive and rebellious of the kids starts to realise that most of the children are living in a rut: their movements are repeated every single day and she starts to mistrust Mary’s lessons. Nick, on the other hand, who is a more accommodating kid, is perfectly happy where he is , especially when he starts to fall in love with Mary. Until he too, realises he is falling into a routine and together they leave to find out more.

This is when things get really interesting. Even though Nick and Allie start the book and their journey together, their paths in Everlost are not the same. Each undertakes their own adventure and go through life-altering experiences. For Nick, his story is connected with Mary’s whereas Allie ends up having to deal with the McGill. There are plenty of twists and turns and the plot expands over time and space within Everlost. Even though I saw from a mile ahead the twist involving the McGill, still this book was completely unpredictable in many ways plot-wise, or the way the character’s arcs – Nick’s, Allie’s, Mary’s and others – were executed. The biggest surprise though was how imaginative this book turned out to be.

Everything about Everlost was so creative and interesting that I kept turning the pages to see what wonders the author would throw at me. It also helps that many a thing about Everlost is of a brand of ironic humour which I am most fond of. Like how important Chinese Fortune Cookies, A.K.A. Evil Chinese Pastry of Death, are and how they plan such an important role in the story. Or how each kid in Everlost remains as they were at the time of death. For example, when Nick died , he was eating a chocolate bar and he is to spend eternity with chocolate smudges all over his face. He is not as unfortunate as the kid who died wearing a swimsuit though – Speedo is his name, by the way.

There is high adventure, real danger, pain, loss, love, hope and all the way to its perfect, bittersweet ending, I totally, totally loved this book and had a great time reading it. For once, I was extremely happy to find out it was only the first one in a trilogy and the next book, Everwild is out in a couple of months. Ellie and Nick have plenty of adventures and important roles to play in the future of Everlost and I can’t wait to read more.

Notable Quotes/ Parts: There are many things worth quoting in Everlost, but of course, I need to go with silly-funny. This one , cracked me up:

“Allie was alone in an elevator the following morning, when a human skeleton got in on the ninety-eighth floor.
Allie gasped at the sight of him.
“Get over it”, the skeleton-boy said as the elevator doors closed.
Allie quickly realised who it was. He wasn’t a skeleton at all. He simply had white makeup all over his face, with black around the eyes, and wore a cheap Halloween skeleton costume. His Afterlight glow merely added to the overall effect.
“Sorry”, said Allie. “You just caught me off guard”
There were two kids here who had the supreme misfortune of crossing on Halloween: this kid, another green face-paint and fake peeling skin. Everyone called them Skully annd Molder.”

Verdict: A great, imaginative adventure of the highest calibre with many unexpected turns. It is a great plot-driven novel without losing sight of its characters and their personal journeys in their brand of Afterlife.

Rating: 8 – Excellent

Reading Next: The Strangely Beautiful Tale of Miss Percy Parker by Leanna Renee Hieber

Today we look at ghost stories in the Young Adult cannon – secrets, hauntings, and love from beyond the grave…

Ruined: A Ghost Story by Paula Morris

Publisher: Point (Scholastic)
Publication Date: August 2009
Hardcover: 304 pages

Summary: (from Amazon.com)
Rebecca couldn’t feel more out of place in New Orleans, where she comes to spend the year while her dad is traveling. She’s staying in a creepy old house with her aunt. And at the snooty prep school, the filthy-rich girls treat Rebecca like she’s invisible. Only gorgeous, unavailable Anton Grey seems to give Rebecca the time of day, but she wonders if he’s got a hidden agenda. Then one night, in Lafayette Cemetery, Rebecca makes a friend. Sweet, mysterious Lisette is eager to talk to Rebecca, and to show her the nooks and crannies of the city. There’s just one catch: Lisette is a ghost.

As Rebecca learns more from her ghost friend — and as she slowly learns to trust Anton Grey — she also uncovers startling truths about her own history. Will Rebecca be able to right the wrongs of the past, or has everything been ruined beyond repair?

Review:

When Rebecca Brown lands in New Orleans, she realizes that she is a long, long way from her Central Park West apartment in New York City. Rebecca and her father are inseparable – after the death of her mother when she was a child, she and her father are the only family each other has in the wide world. When her dad gets a job contract in China for six months, he has no choice but to send Rebecca off to Louisiana to stay with his good friend Claudia and her daughter Aurelia, as they are the closest thing to family the Browns have. Sixteen-year old Rebecca is not thrilled with being uprooted from her comfortable New York life, having to leave her home, friends and school in the middle of the school year, but when she meets her Aunt Claudia and cousin Aurelia for the first time in years, she’s even less enthusiastic about her new home. Claudia works as a tarot card reader/fortune teller in the French Quarter, Aurelia is only twelve (though she is a sweet, excited girl)…and then she sees their house – an overgrown, leaning ancient looking “shotgun” house, complete with voodoo decorations.

When Rebecca starts school at the prestigious, elitist, all-girls Temple Mead Academy, she knows her life has completely gone down the tubes. Full of rich, snotty debutantes, Rebecca wants nothing to do with the school’s ridiculous social hierarchy. The one interesting thing about her new home, however, is that it is across from the historic Lafayette Cemetery that Aunt Claudia has forbidden Rebecca from even entering. When Rebecca sees some of the Temple Mead teen royalty enter the graveyard one night, she decides to follow. And then she meets a girl in a torn dress named Lisette – who happens to be a ghost. As Lisette’s sad story unfolds, Rebecca learns that the old aristocratic families of New Orleans are all implicated in an old curse – and now Rebecca is involved.

Ruined is the first book I’ve read by Ms. Morris, and it is a beautifully executed ghost story with Creole flair. This is a novel whose strongest point is its setting and Ms. Morris’s eye for detail and atmosphere. Set in post-Katrina New Orleans, the city seen through Rebecca’s eyes is a gumbo of thick humidity and crumbling historic buildings, the splendor of bright parades and debutante balls set against an era of rebuilding. New Orleans, especially the Garden District where Claudia, Aurelia and Rebecca live comes to life in Ruined, evoking images of manicured mansions juxtaposed next to overgrown cemeteries and more run-down buildings. Ms. Morris’s skill for descriptions is strong in Ruined, and reading this book I felt immersed in New Orleans – from the dusty, oddball clutter of Claudia’s ramshackle house to the vibrant sounds and smells of the French Quarter.

The world Rebecca enters is a far cry from her sophisticated city girl life – Temple Mead Academy is as rooted in blue-blood as elitist schools come, where the world revolves around whose father is in which exclusive krewe and whose debutante debut luncheon is set for the next weekend. One of my favorite conversations comes between Rebecca and her younger cousin Aurelia, as the younger girl explains the hierarchy of the school:

“She’s just a Pleb.”

“A what?”

“A Pleb. Short for pleb-ee-an. We learned about them in Latin [...] We say Pleb because it rhymes with Deb, and everyone is pretty much either a Pleb or a Deb.”

“What are you talking about?” Rebecca was confused.

Temple Mead is split into a hierarchy of Plebs (commoners, wannabes), Debs (wannabe Patricians, higher than Plebs), and Patricians (Temple Mead elite). It’s like the classic social hierarchy of high school, taken to the extreme based on a family’s historical standing and considerable wealth.

But beyond the excellent setting of the novel, Ruined is an old fashioned ghost story at its heart. Lisette, a beautiful sixteen-year old girl in life becomes a friend to Rebecca, and gradually shares her own tragic story with the human girl. Rebecca, in turn, becomes a good friend to Lisette, choosing to spend time with the ghost that no one else can see. I think it is in the relationship between these two characters, separated by the thin veil of reality and from two different worlds that is the most appealing part of Ruined. The other characters are sufficiently well-drawn, but my heart was with Lisette and Rebecca instead of the somewhat lackluster requisite love story with the attraction between Rebecca and blue-blood Anton. Another thing this novel does well is create an atmosphere of menace with the “villain” characters – maybe it’s not the most original story with old families protecting each others’ dirty secrets, but it’s an effective one.

The plotting of the book drags a bit in the early chapters, but works up to a frenzied finale – complete with Mardi Gras beads, costumes, and murder. I highly enjoyed Ruined and certainly recommend it. I’ll definitely be checking back for more from this talented author.

Rating: 7 Very Good

A Certain Slant of Light by Laura Whitcomb

Publisher: Graphia
Publication Date: September 2005
Paperback: 288 pages

Summary: (from Amazon.com)
In the class of the high school English teacher she has been haunting, Helen feels them: for the first time in 130 years, human eyes are looking at her. They belong to a boy, a boy who has not seemed remarkable until now. And Helen—terrified, but intrigued—is drawn to him. The fact that he is in a body and she is not presents this unlikely couple with their first challenge. But as the lovers struggle to find a way to be together, they begin to discover the secrets of their former lives and of the young people they come to possess.

Review:

A Certain Slant of Light is a book I’ve had on my TBR for a very long time. It’s a book that I’ve seen sitting there and dusted off to read only to put it back on the shelf. Later, I’d tell myself. The time’s not right. What can I say? I’m superstitious about these sorts of things. But, when I realized that both Ana and I had a few ghost-themed titles to read, it was finally time to really give this book a read.

This is a different type of ghost story, as the protagonist is herself a ghost and the one doing the haunting. Helen, as she was known in life, is Light. She can only remain free of her cold, watery personal hell by cleaving herself to a host, and over the near 200 years since her death, she’s clung to her different saviors, passing from one literature lover to the next (the title of the novel, you may recognize, comes from one of her hosts). Her current host, Mr. Brown, is a young high school english teacher with a passion for books and for writing, and Helen is content with being next to him and sharing in his life. That is, until one day when she’s in class with him and one of his students looks at her. He sees her. Helen cannot believe it, for as long as she has been in her ghostly state she has never been seen by a human, nor has she ever seen one of her own kind. The seventeen-year old boy, Benny, has been in the class for the whole year and has never been able to see her until that fateful day – and he seeks out Helen, to talk to her to tell his story. Helen learns that the boy she sees, is not Benny at all, but a kindred spirit named James. James tells Helen that Benny recently had overdosed on drugs in the nearby park that James used to haunt. When Benny’s soul left, James watched in horror as something dark and evil threatened to take over the empty body, and he acted quickly by throwing himself into Benny’s unconscious flesh. And since then, James has seen other ghosts but no one that has known they were dead – that is, no one like Helen.

The two are drawn together, as the only two of their kind. They fall in love, they connect as two souls, and when Helen has the chance to occupy an empty body of her own, she seizes it. But gradually they realize that their stolen flesh cannot last forever, and they question their purpose and their future as they learn more about the bodies they have possessed.

A Certain Slant of Light had me from the opening sentence. Written in flawless prose telling Mary’s story in the third person, Ms. Whitcomb creates a haunting, heart-wrenching tale about life after death, about love, fear, and redemption. Unlike other Young Adult novels that are so much into obsessive teen love, the instant attraction and the desperate way that James and Helen cling to each other in A Certain Slant of Light actually resonates true and works. Both characters are lost souls who have been achingly alone after their own tragic deaths for many, many years – so when they find each other it truly is like the proverbial life preserver in a churning ocean, or the oasis in the shimmering heat of a desert. James and Helen find each other in the realm beyond their mortal lives and are given a second chance, fleeting as it may be, in borrowed bodies that only appear young. The way that they struggle with their own deeply buried personal devils and find salvation through each other is what makes their love story so poignant. Both characters are distinct, and Ms. Whitcomb does a flawless job in making Helen and James believably old (Helen from a time before the car was invented, and James from just before the end of WWI), as they were in their twenties when they died and do naturally not think or speak like current teens, but she also gives them an innocence when they are returned to the bodies of teenagers, struggling to fit into their stolen lives.

And therein lies the rub – because though the souls have fled the two teenage bodies both Helen and James possess, there is no denying that these two creatures of Light have stolen their lives. This is a topic that both Helen and James must confront – the first of many thought-provoking questions that Ms. Whitcomb raises in this book.

A Certain Slant of Light is a spiritual book. And by that I don’t mean it’s “religious” – because it’s not really. I admit that I tune out when books start talking about God (capital G), His will, etc in the Christian biblical sense – usually this is because I get the feeling of being preached to, and that does not sit well with me. But A Certain Slant of Light manages to walk the line between being spiritual and being religious, never preachy or moralizing. The message of the novel isn’t one of biblical salvation – in fact, the body that Helen possesses is the child of two overly-strict, zealous religious parents who have driven their daughter’s soul from her body by their inability to accept any differences. Rather, this novel manages to convey a bittersweet story of redemption and love, and being able to forgive oneself. And that, dear readers, is a hell of an accomplishment.

Another notable read for 2009, and Ms. Whitcomb has now become an auto-buy for me. Absolutely recommended.

Rating: 8 Excellent

Reading Next: Wake by Lisa McMann