Title:Dust

Author: Joan Frances Turner

Genre: Horror, Zombies, Post-Apocalyptic, Speculative Fiction

Publisher: Ace
Publication date: September 7 2010
Hardcover: 384 pages

Nine years ago, Jessie had a family. Now, she has a gang.

Nine years ago, Jessie was a vegetarian. Now, she eats very fresh meat.

Nine years ago, Jessie was in a car crash and died. Nine years ago, Jessie was human.

Now, she’s not.

After she was buried, Jessie awoke and tore through the earth to arise, reborn, as a zombie. Jessie’s gang is the Fly-by-Nights. She loves the ancient, skeletal Florian and his memories of time gone by. She’s in love with Joe, a maggot-infested corpse. They fight, hunt, dance together as one—something humans can never understand. There are dark places humans have learned to avoid, lest they run into the zombie gangs.

But now, Jessie and the Fly-by-Nights have seen new creatures in the woods—things not human and not zombie. A strange new illness has flamed up out of nowhere, causing the undeads to become more alive and the living to exist on the brink of death. As bits and pieces of the truth fall around Jessie, like the flesh off her bones, she’ll have to choose between looking away or staring down the madness—and hanging onto everything she has come to know as life.

Stand alone or series: Stand alone

How did we get this book: Review copies from the publisher

Why did we read this book: Thea loves zombies and Ana has a new found appreciation for the creatures. When we first heard about the book, we both went: WANT.

Review:

First Impressions:

Thea: According to the marketing promo behind Dust, the novel promises to be…different than the average zombie novel. It promises to tell the story of life after death, from the walking dead’s perspective. It promises to make readers question what they know about life and death, through the eyes of a not-so-young heroine, named Jessie. These are a whole lotta promises for a debut novel to deliver, but deliver Dust certainly does. It’s a haunting, elegiac portrait of life after death, of relationships and emotions from the perspective of a character that is no longer human, but not a monster either. Dust is one of those books that gets better the more that I reflect upon it. I loved it. (And, I think that you should listen to me and not Ana, because she is wrong and I am right, and that is all there is to it.)

Ana: I had very much the opposite reaction to the book – the more I reflect upon it, the less I like it. It starts well enough but half way through the book, it loses its steam. The marketing promo, the blurb, the cover of my ARC (a letter from the marketing department) all tell me how different the book is going to be and I think that ultimately it does not deliver on its promise. I think that story-wise it doesn’t work that well and the basic themes of life and death and being human x being a zombie, were extremely heavy-handed. I didn’t like it.

On the plot:

Thea: Dust is the story of Jessie, or Jessica Anne Porter that was, a girl that was fifteen when she was killed in a car accident only to rise days later as a zombie. Fighting her way out of her cement sealed grave under six feet of dirt, Jessie finds refuge of a kind with a gang of other undead, that call themselves the Fly-By-Nights. After taking their brutal initiation of beating, breaking her bones and causing her to retch up a dark mixture of fetid, congealed blood (“Coffin Liquor,” as the zombies call it), Jessie becomes an official member of the gang, and she finally feels at home. Roaming the forest together for deer, possum and other wild prey, Jessie is respected by her fellow gang members as a fighter – even one-armed, as the book opens with Jessie finally losing her right appendage, Jessie is perhaps the fiercest fighter of the group. But then, something strange disturbs Jessie’s comfortable routine. First, there’s the strange blonde “hoo” (zombie slang for human) that stumbles into their woods, so far from the protections of civilization. Disoriented, sweating a strange, non-human, chemical smell, the girl seems like something caught between living and dead – not quite hoo, but not quite zombie either. Then, gang leader Teresa starts acting strangely, smelling eerily like the not-hoo girl from the woods. Something frightening is happening to the undead and living alike, and not a soul will be left untouched.

Well, what can I say about Dust? It is a haunting story that lingers with you long after finishing the novel. It is deeply unsettling, unique, and beautifully written. It is a story that is, more than anything else (and contrary to what Ana will tell you about romance or whatever) about people that have lived, died, and been born again in a cold, cruel world. Yes, they are flesh-hungry, but they aren’t “monsters” – at least, not any more than humans are monsters. From a plotting perspective, Dust is a quiet novel, a loving macabre ode to sinew and blood, of decay and the maggots and blowflies that feed upon the flesh of the dead. But instead of being gratuitous or overly gory for the sake of being gory, Dust is in actuality a beautiful, melancholy book – Ms. Turner manages to make the sight of dusty, parchment-thin skin beautiful, the warm blood and entrails of a fresh kill vibrant and delectable. Dust isn’t a book that aims to shock and disgust; rather, it simply is an honest recording of the life of Jessie and her gang.

Dust also is a mystery of sorts, and a book of discovery and reconciliation. There is the question of the cause and nature of the strange new infection that sweeps the forest, a biological mystery that unfolds beautifully and gradually over the course of the novel. The cause of the apocalyptic bacteria is insignificant though, really, as the more important, underlying theme is not on the macro but micro level – personal guilt, family loyalty and perceived betrayal. Though the idea of the microbe unleashed by humanity ultimately leading to the species’ demise is nothing new, Ms. Turner handles this aspect of the novel beautifully, creating a tempered, well-paced tale that I devoured whole in essentially a few short hours.

On the more technical, zombie-fan sort of stuff, I must say that I loved Ms. Turner’s take on the life cycle of the zombie, as I did the newly imagined method that they communicate with each other, although I will say that certain aspects felt underdeveloped (the strange, literal “danse macabre” and the way they hear thoughts in terms of music – or perhaps only Jessie does this?). Still, I loved their new, superior neuron-firing capable brains, and most of all, their perceived “superiority” to the idiot, stinking hoos. They aren’t superior of course – this is the beauty of Dust, with its flawed characters, laying bare the faults of both humanity and zombie, the difference between the two not so dramatic as one might suspect. I loved that the book doesn’t feel the need to explain everything explicitly, that Ms. Turner makes some unorthodox choices towards the end of the novel, too. And, contrary to the notion that Dust is romantic or some sort of cautionary tale, I will say that, in my opinion, this misses the point of the book. In my opinion, I didn’t find this book romantic at all (certainly not in the conventional, human interpretation of the word) and it certainly is not a factor in anything that Jessie chooses to do – take, for example, Jessie’s last huge decision to walk to the sands. If this were all about true love, wouldn’t she have dragged her true love with her? No. She goes by herself. Very, very late in the book (i’m talking the last 30 pages) there is, I guess, what can be interpreted as a romantic development, but Jessie isn’t exactly a romantic person. I didn’t see this relationship as a romance so much as it is a reunion between people that thought they would never see each other again. But this is all moot, and I don’t even want to spend any more time on this because the book is really not a romance, it’s only a teeny tiny 1% of the overall book, and it’s distracting from the main point:

Dust is above all a deconstruction of the zombie myth.

Instead of using the undead as a catalyst for human ugliness, it instead approaches zombies as people…that have died and been born again. It is their story, through one of their own’s eyes. It is not a cautionary tale about the evils of humanity or the presumptions of science or whatnot; to reduce the complexity of Dust to such an interpretation does the book a grave disservice. I’d liken Dust to a novel such as Kazuo Ishiguro’s Never Let Me Go, which plays on the same human/inhuman blurry areas (but more on that in the character section below).

I will say, however, that Dust is a book that clearly is NOT for everyone. Take the ending, for example (which I think, as a zombie fan, is an homage to a cornerstone of scifi horror) – it’s a risk and understandably, not for everyone. But for me? I loved it.

Ana: Dust has a promising start and I loved the first half of the book: with gore and violence and a wonderful look at how Jessie lives now. I especially liked how zombies are still decaying and will eventually, and very slowly, go through what all dead bodies go through: all the stages of decay but with the different that it happens to the zombies whilst they are conscious. It is in fact the living dead in all their horrifying glory.

But is Dust really that different from the average zombie novel? I don’t think so. Sure, it is from a different perspective ,ie from the living dead themselves but at its core it still deals with fear, love and what it is to be human. THAT’s what bothers me the most about the book – that it promises a world of difference, but that it doesn’t deliver.

I will agree with Thea when she says that Dust is above all a deconstruction of the zombie myth but beyond that, is where we fundamentally disagree. I think that this deconstruction is not well done at all, it is heavy – handed and yes, with an underlying message. I think that the idea that zombies “are just people who died” is hammered over and over again in a less than subtle way. In trying to show the other side’s story, I believe the author did in fact a 360 turn going right back at the starting point – by making them just like humans only with a different diet. The more the story progresses, the more Jessie and her companions sound like humans and when the virus hits they even start to look like humans. Which brings me back to the point I am trying to make: the story to me is not unique, or original; it simply deals with flawed characters who can be as good and bad, as violent or not, as humans are. Perhaps that is actually the point. In which case, it is just another story that doesn’t have anything special to it, at least not for me.

It is also very predictable: I saw the resolution coming a mile away, I saw the identity of one the characters as soon as she walked into the novel and I saw the romantic development between Jessie and another character basically from page 1 and yes, there is romance there although not – I agree with Thea here – central to the story. And although I don’t think that the book is about messages, they are undoubtedly THERE : in what humans are capable of, what science is capable of, what people would do for misguided love. It is so there that at one point Jessie muses:

“typical human and no, I refused to start thinking of myself as one too. “Speaking,” I said, as coldly and calmly as I could muster, “as someone with a little actual afterlife experience? This isn’t hell. There is no hell. It’s just what your kind always do to the world in one form of another, so pull yourself together and keep walking”.

I kept thinking about “identity” and how what really differentiates zombies and humans is simply how each chooses to consume their food: zombies like it raw, humans like it cooked. At first, it seemed to be more than that: it seemed that there was going to be MORE that identified the zombies as separate entities– perhaps their aggressive culture, perhaps their danse macabre – but the former can be put down as another thing that is actually remnants of their humanity and the latter is never truly explored. I think this makes the book less complex and more simplistic, as a matter of fact.

But beyond that: the novel has problems with pacing as well with the second half dragging itself to a conclusion full of navel gazing. With regards to the ending: count me in as one that did not like it, but then again, I am not a horror-sci fi fan and probably failed to see as the homage that it possibly is.

On the characters:

Thea: Dust is one of those books that gets better upon reflection, especially from a character perspective. As with any book filtered through the perspective of a single character, there is a degree of unreliability – and I think that it is important to keep in mind that our narrator, Jessie, is a flawed character that sees what she wants to see, and interprets things in the way she wants to interpret them. Again, the important thing to remember about Dust is that it is a book about the life after death – about people that have lived and died, and have been reborn. As such, Jessie and her ilk experience emotions that are very human and familiar – and yet at the same time, they are not exactly human (which makes sense – if all of our life experiences contribute to how we see things and interpret the world around us, the effect is even more dramatic on those that have been killed and reanimated). And this is the main point of contention between Ana and myself, because Ana thinks that the emotions that Jessie feels are TOO human to be zombie, to which I ask, what then makes a zombie? Must they only be mindless creatures hungering for braaaaaains? And then I would ask, why this hate against the zombie? In other books featuring vampires or fairies or werewolves or angels, they all experience “human” emotions, and those are considered successes or acceptable, but when it’s a zombie this is a failure? It seems hypocritical to me. Zombie discrimination, I tell you! Again, this is Ms. Turner’s deconstruction of the zombie, by making them something other – not human, certainly not, but not so unfamiliar either. Not living, not dead, but something in between.

As a narrator and protagonist, Jessie is a mess of sharp edges, tough attitude, and strangely, vulnerability. Jessie’s narration is by turns funny, astute, and hard. Though she was only fifteen when she died, death and revival have a way of changing a body, both physically and emotionally. Through her memories, we learn about her less-than-ideal human life, and her final ability to find a home only beyond the grave. Her relationship with her gang, especially the tangled, complicated relationship with Joe, is fodder for reflection. Yes, Jessie feels emotions – remorse, love, hate, guilt, although I would argue that her brand of emotion is twisted and if human in origin, no longer exactly human in expression – and over the course of the book she grows and changes as a character, as do the other main characters in the book. And, unlike vampires locked in eternal youth, or zombies in films locked in eternal hunger, Jessie and her crew’s desires for food do not dictate who or what they are. They are not in permanent stasis, as each zombie has a life cycle of its own. When the shit hits the fan later in the book and both zombies and humans begin to change again, mutating from undead to..sort of living again, these emotions and needs morph as well. I think it’s a pretty awesome catalyst for character development, and an original way to take a look at the connection between eating, and (non)humanity.

“How many kinds of living and dead and living dead and dead living had I been in just these few months, these few days, after the stasis of plain old human living and dying? I deserved some kind of existential medal.”

As for the other characters, I thought they were all wonderfully handled and written, in particular ‘maldie Renee (lost and friendless and discriminated against for the fact that she was embalmed), the dustie Florian with his pacifism and insightful senility, the quiet and less aggressive (yet courageous) Linc, and of course, the manipulative, screeching electric guitar that is Joe. If there’s anything that will differentiate the zombie from the human, I think it is apparent in Jessie and Joe’s relationship, in which they crush each other’s bones and fight to the point of threatening each other’s deaths as a normality, but find solace in that rage. It is what by hoo terms we would call an abusive relationship, but our interpretations don’t really apply to the walking dead. Theirs is a tangled mess of hate and trust and love, and while there are glimpses of humanity and these characters (or at least Jessie) has some semblance of right and wrong, the zombie rulebook is completely different from the human one. It is this otherness that makes the deconstruction a success, in my opinion.

I will briefly address what I know Ana will bring up (based on our emails back and forth). I just want to say that I do NOT think the author assigns any moral judgements to her characters, to Jessie’s relationships, or to any aspect of the story. Jessie does have a sense of morality, although it clearly has changed since her time as a human (from a vegan animal rights activist to an animal huntress and zombie killer as one of the most fierce of the gang’s fighters, and in the end, eating anyone and anything – human, plant, inanimate object, friend, enemy – in order to survive). The presence of Jessie’s ability to make decisions based on her own concepts of morality does not equate to a moral message or judgement for the book, however. In my opinion, this just confirms how these biological changes effect the experience and perception of each character in this book. I think that it is important to remember that Dust is a book about what are by definition non-human characters, with vestiges of humanity – they remember who they were, certain things from their lives, and they feel emotions. But it is vital to keep in mind that they are creatures that have died and been reborn, their very brains rewired and reconfigured. They do not think in the same way that we do, as much as a twenty-year old thinks and behaves in the way that an eighty-year old would, and so for that reason their motivations may sit strangely with us hoo readers – but that, I think, is the point. There is no underlying message, no judgement or subtext that says that zombies are GOOD and humans are EVIL or any such nonsense. I urge everyone to please, please, for the love of all that is good in the world of literature, to try to step outside of your comfort zone and view Jessie’s world through the eyes of someone that is neither living nor dead, but someone caught in between.

Ana: What are zombies? I don’t know. They might not be all about braaaaaaaaaiins but I think it is clear that they are not simply “humans who died” either. They are “other”. And this is indeed the greatest point of contention between Thea and me when it comes to the book: I think that the book completely fails in capturing this “otherness” of these characters and fully exploring and developing it. I think that the zombies here are utterly familiar, completely humanised and to me that include human moral judgments as well or else Jessie would not mind eating humans; or else Jessie would not know that there is “right” and “wrong” and that her abusive relationship with Joe for example falls under the latter. That is definitely this awareness here and I honestly don’t see a complete re-wire of their brains. Dust might be a book about non-human characters but still so very human that they still have very human concepts of morality and emotions.

Jessie is very much still human, (even though she will tell you that she is not and I am agreeing on the unreliability of her narrative here), wanting to be loved and accepted which is in direct contrast to what happened to her when she was alive – she was neither loved or accepted when alive. Which is why she fell into the relationship with Joe – not because as a zombie she doesn’t care anymore, or her brain has been re-wired but because of her very human characteristics of wanting to fit in, be accepted. At one point she thinks:

“Even knowing then and later that I should have collected my strength and wits, turned around and left for good, no looking back. I stayed because of him. Like I said, I was fifteen”

and then:

“I hated that look. I hated that I could never even see the sorry part of it anymore, the part that really mattered, all I could see was how it was still always me that was wrong and him that was right. Always. No matter what.”

This reads as though it could apply to anybody. I would have loved to see the “otherness” or a true Zombie 2.0 story. To me, I just read another book of a character that had family issues and carried them to grave and beyond – with a bit of mystery on the side.

Final Thoughts, Observations and Rating:

Thea: Clearly, Dust is not for everyone. At times funny, at times painful, this reimagining of the zombie resonated for me, like the strings of the electric guitar or quiet plink of piano Jessie hears in her undead brain. It’s a strange book, but a memorable one for all that. A notable, if not favorite, read of 2010 for me.

Ana: Definitely not for everyone and above all, definitely not for me. Dust left me completely cold and underwhelmed.

Notable Quotes/Parts: From Chapter 1:

My right arm fell off today. Lucky for me, I’m left-handed.

In the accident that killed me I rocketed from the back seat straight through the windshield–no seatbelt, yeah, I know–and the pavement sheared my arm to nothing below the shoulder. Not torn off, but dangling by thin, precious little bits of skin and bone and ligament. I had a closed casket, I’m sure of it, because they never wired the arm or glued it or any other pretty undertaker trick. I managed to crawl back out of the ground without its help anyway, and of course after nine perfectly uneventful years of fighting and dancing and hunting and getting by fine with the left arm, the right finally shuffles its coil right on the banks of the Great River County Park’s not-so-Great River, smack in the middle of a meat run. Joe, my boy, my backup, was not sympathetic in the least….

You can read the full excerpt online HERE.

Additional Thoughts: Dust has a pretty cool website, complete with extras such as the following book trailers (this one is hilarious, if not really having anything at all to do with the book):

You can see the other trailers HERE.

Rating:

Thea: 8 – Excellent

Ana: 5 – Meh

Reading Next: Dead Beautiful by Yvonne Woon

Giveaway Details:

Courtesy of publisher Ace, we have FIVE copies of Dust up for grabs. The contest is open to addresses in the United States only, and will run until September 4th at 11:59 pm (PST). To enter, leave a comment here telling us what your favorite zombie novel is. Only ONE entry per person, please! Multiple comments from the same I.P. address will be automatically disqualified. Good luck!

Welcome to our newest feature on The Book Smugglers: SMUGGLED! For this new feature, we briefly video interview authors. Today’s guest is Kelly Creagh, YA paranormal fantasy/horror author of Nevermore (which Thea read and loved).

Please give a warm welcome to the lovely, talented Ms. Kelly Creagh!

And now for the rest of our Chat!

The Book Smugglers: Thank you for the taking the time to chat with us, Kelly, and welcome to our blog! Your debut novel, Nevermore is a Young Adult book blending the harsh realities of high school with a twist of the fantastic and a generous dose of the horrific. Can you tell us a bit about your book, and what inspired you to write Nevermore in all its Edgar Allan Poe glory?

Kelly: Thanks for having me! I’m a huge fan of your blog and I love reading your reviews and articles.

Nevermore is a tale about a goth boy and a cheerleader who are paired together for an English project. Varen, my goth character, chooses Edgar Allan Poe as the focus of the project. Needless to say, bright and sunny Isobel is less than thrilled about studying gothic literature let alone being paired with Trenton High’s foremost weirdo. Yet she is also somehow drawn to Varen and she can’t seem to grasp what makes him tick, or why he’s so scathing and aloof. Or why, ever since being paired with him, strange things have begun to happen.
When I first began writing Nevermore, I had only two things—an unnamed goth boy and a cheerleader. At the time, Poe was not yet a major factor in the plot. In fact, he was simply who my goth character happened to pick. So, in between writing, I conducted a bit of surface research on Poe. I soon learned about the strange circumstances surrounding the poet’s death in the fall of 1849. From there, Poe’s presence in the novel became more prominent. I continued with my research and, as I did so, all of these Poe elements began to surface, arising out of my subconscious to spread through every chapter until Poe (and the mystery behind his demise) became the very backbone of my tale.

The Book Smugglers: Is it safe to say that you are a huge Poe fan? Can you remember your first exposure to his work? And – if possible – do you have a favorite poem/story/Vincent Price movie adaptation/etc?

Kelly: Yes. I’m a total fan girl. And even though I’ve always been into Poe and his works, I don’t think I reached the true status of being an official die-hard fan until I started writing Nevermore. Since then, I have traveled to Poe’s Baltimore house and gravesite on three separate occasions. Actually, the last time I was in Eddie’s house, I had a bit of a mishap. I followed the tiny enclosed spiral staircase up to his attic room. Then, while positioning myself to perch on the top stair so that I could snap a photo, I accidentally touched the floor beyond the security point. The alarm sounded and blared through the entire house! When I came hurrying back downstairs, the looks that I received from fellow museum visitors made me want to crawl beneath the floorboards. It was like they thought I’d tried to steal Eddie’s boxer shorts or something!

In regards to my first exposure to Poe, I think that must have happened when I read The Masque of the Red Death in middle school. That one in particular can make quite an impression on a young mind.
But the moment that sticks out most vividly in my mind happened during my sophomore year of High School. Everyone in English class had to choose a poem to read aloud. I chose Annabel Lee, which sparked a huge classroom debate. I remember the class splitting into two teams, one half of the room arguing that the poem was “creepy,” the other insisting that it was “romantic.” I love this memory because I think so many of Poe’s works, particularly his poems, often incite similar disputes.

My favorite story written by Poe is William Wilson, which is a doppelganger tale. I’m also partial to The Raven because it seems to be the epitome of a classic Poe tale. It contains everything that makes Poe’s stories his own. Not only that, but it’s so rhythmical and precise. It’s truly the work of a genius.

In terms of my favorite Poe adaptations, I like Vincent Price in The Fall of the House of Usher. I also love the Simpsons spoof of The Raven and Tim Burton’s short film “Vincent,” which contains several Poe references.

The Book Smugglers: Of the real-world teen heroines out there today, it seems that the quiet/studious/artsy/cute-but-awkward type dominates YA fiction – especially in books that deal with the paranormal. Your heroine, on the other hand, is a popular, perky, pretty cheerleader – and her love interest, the sardonic, aloof goth boy. What made you write Isobel as your heroine and Varen as your hero?

Kelly: I chose a cheerleader and a goth because I liked the idea of opposites being forced to collaborate. With this recipe, the conflict is immediate and engaging and also very fun to write. But as my story evolved, I realized that I wanted to go deeper with this idea of opposites being joined against their will. With Nevermore, I strove to go beyond creating the type of tale involving themes of tolerance, reconciliation and acceptance. As a result, I think that Nevermore is not only a supernatural tale, but a story in which labels are tested and the very foundation of stereotypes are challenged.

The Book Smugglers: On the same subject, recently we’ve seen some interesting discussion about stereotyping in YA novels. In particular, there is something of a derisive attitude towards girls that dress a certain way (“slutty”) or behave in a certain way (go out to clubs/parties, etc). It’s not much of a jump to equate “stupid” or “silly” labels to popular cheerleader types, like Isobel. What do you think of this sort of stereotyping, and did any of these factors cross your mind when writing Nevermore?

Kelly: I have to admit that this kind of stereotyping drives me crazy, especially in regards to cheerleaders. I think cheerleaders are too often picked on in YA fiction and singled out as the best choice when casting the “mean girl.” Now, with that said, I do think that there are mean girls out there who happen to be cheerleaders. Just like there are mean girls who happen to be goths. Or chess club members. Or drama club members. As long as the motivation behind a character’s behavior is at least hinted at, I think that a popular girl can (and does) work as an antagonist inYA fiction. It only really irks me when I perceive that a character is mean (or stupid or slutty or silly) because she is a cheerleader—or as a result of whatever sport, activity, hobby or social sphere she is involved in. It is as though the author is insinuating that the activity itself is what insights the character’s behavior or defines her personality. But these stereotypes do exist in real life and naturally, this became a large part of my story. Though it’s not just Isobel who finds herself battling the popular, pretty, dumb cheerleader label. Varen, too, struggles with all the preconceived notions and fears associated with gothic culture. And even though Isobel and Varen each suffer from stereotyping, they are also guilty of labeling each other. This was just one dynamic which made their interactions and dialogue so interesting and enjoyable to write.

The Book Smugglers: Paranormal is hot right now in YA – especially anything of the fanged, furred or fey variety. Your take on the supernatural, however, is a little different. Can you tell us a bit about your version of the otherworldly in Nevermore?

Kelly: It’s true. You will find no vampires, faeries or werewolves in Nevermore. Instead, the supernatural elements center around the existence of a dream world, one which (in my universe) Poe visited and later wrote about and described in his poetry and fiction. Like Poe, my goth character, Varen, is a writer and it is through his writing that Varen stumbles upon this same alternate dimension that Poe discovered. That’s not to say that there aren’t supernatural characters in Nevermore because there certainly are! Beyond that, I don’t think I can reveal much more without spoilers.

The Book Smugglers: Why did you choose to write a young adult novel? Do you have any YA authors you particularly admire? Do you have any intention of writing for adults one day?

Kelly: I wanted to write a YA novel because, when I began Nevermore, the voices that popped into my head were those of teenagers. This happens with most of the stories I write. I think that, in many ways, I am a perpetual teenager. So, for the moment, I’m happy writing fiction for young adults, though my hope is that my work will appeal to adult and teen readers alike.

The Book Smugglers: The zombies are coming! The zombies are coming! You only have time to save ONE book, ONE movie, and ONE TV show. QUICK! What are they?

Kelly: OMG. Okay. Book = Phantom by Susan Kay. Movie = The Nightmare Before Christmas (though I know I would waste precious seconds trying to decide between that one and Edward Scissorhands. Actually, I’d probably waste too much time and get eaten over that decision.) And I don’t get to watch a lot of television, but I freaking love Sponge Bob.

The Book Smugglers: We Book Smugglers are faced with constant threats and criticisms from our significant others concerning the sheer volume of books we purchase and read – hence, we have resorted to ’smuggling books’ home to escape scrutinizing eyes. Have you ever had to smuggle books?

Kelly: I work at the library so when I hear about a new YA book that’s coming out I immediately put myself on the reserve list for the next available copy. I check out YA books in droves and either cart them home or keep them stuffed in my cabinet at work. That way, I get to sneak little sips whenever I get a moment. So I suppose I don’t smuggle them as much as I hoard them! I also purchase a lot of books and usually in hardback. So sometimes my bank account gives me a grumbly look though my dog, Annabel, never seems to mind.

As a child, Kelly would hold elaborate one-kid plays for patient relatives, complete with song, dance, and over-the-top melodramatics. Then, whenever Mom or Grandma called for a break, she would venture outside to slay dragons, run from make-believe ghosts and create magical feasts for fairies out of mud and pinecones.

Kelly holds an undergraduate degree in Theatre Arts and Master of Fine Arts in Writing for Children and Young Adults. Today, she finds true joy in transcribing her dramatic daydreams onto the stage of the blank page. When not writing or curled up with a good book, Kelly can be found teaching, learning and performing the ancient art of Bellydance.

Thank you, Kelly for the wonderful interview! For more about Kelly Creagh, make sure to check out her (beautiful) website www.kellycreagh.com. Also make sure to check out our review of Nevermore HERE.

Title: Nevermore

Author: Kelly Creagh

Genre: Paranormal, Fantasy, Horror, Young Adult

Publisher: Atheneum Books (Simon & Schuster)
Publication Date: August 2010
Hardcover: 528 pages

Cheerleader Isobel Lanley is horrified when she is paired with Varen Nethers for an English project, which is due—so unfair—on the day of the rival game. Cold and aloof, sardonic and sharp-tongued, Varen makes it clear he’d rather not have anything to do with her either. But when Isobel discovers strange writing in his journal, she can’t help but give this enigmatic boy with the piercing eyes another look.

Soon, Isobel finds herself making excuses to be with Varen. Steadily pulled away from her friends and her possessive boyfriend, Isobel ventures deeper and deeper into the dream world Varen has created through the pages of his notebook, a realm where the terrifying stories of Edgar Allan Poe come to life.

As her world begins to unravel around her, Isobel discovers that dreams, like words, hold more power than she ever imagined, and that the most frightening realities are those of the mind. Now she must find a way to reach Varen before he is consumed by the shadows of his own nightmares.

His life depends on it.

Stand alone or series: Book 1 in a planned series

How did I get this book: Advance Review Copy from the author

Why did I read this book: I, like most people in their right mind, love the stories and poems of Edgar Allan Poe. Take that love, added to a young adult novel with a horrific twist inspired by Poe’s work (and his mysterious death), blended together with a sort of ’star-crossed lovers’ type of deal and I am instantly sold. I was ecstatic to get my hands on a copy of Nevermore.

Review:

Isobel Lanley appears to be your typical popular cheeleader – blonde, pretty, perky as hell, with a hot football playing beefcake of a boyfriend, a shot at Cheerleading Nationals, and a circle of tight-knit friends. Varen Nethers is, on the opposite side of the spectrum, your typical goth kid, complete with dyed black hair, pale skin, a morose wardrobe, a particular taste in the obscure and macabre, and an imposing “stay away” attitude. Both Isobel and Varen have their own circles and comfortable niches, content never to have to challenge the status quo. So, when Isobel and Varen are paired for an english project, neither one of them is exactly thrilled at the prospect of having to work together – Varen finds Isobel vapid and ridiculous, Isobel thinks Varen is a rude, judgmental jerk, and more than a little bit unnerving with his cold demeanor. The uncomfortable situation only becomes even worse when Isobel’s overprotective boyfriend Brad gives a truly disinterested Varen the macho territorial treatment, and Isobel’s friends give her grief for having to spend time with Varen to work on their project. Social foibles aside, Isobel and Varen gradually come to understand each other, accept each other, and even become something more than just acquaintances and casual friends – against every instinct and social rule, Isobel finds herself falling for the aloof, guarded Varen. But there’s more than social expectations and rules that will keep the two apart, as Isobel comes to discover only too late that their project on Edgar Allen Poe has a deeper, more significant implication for Varen. And soon, Varen’s waking nightmares follow Isobel too – and she’s the only one that can help him break free of the darkness that threatens to consume them both.

Against all expectations, I fell in love with Nevermore. After reading the synopsis for the book, I was excited for it, true, but i was also wary – Nevermore had the potential to be incredible, but also the equally opposite potential to be incredibly bad. Happily, Kelly Creagh’s debut proved to be the former. At first glance, Nevermore looks like a stereotypical starcrossed lovers tale – but what makes Nevermore so effective and memorable is the play on tropes and stereotypes. I loved that the heroine of this novel is Isobel – a happy, perky, popular cheerleader. The girl cheerleader is anathema in YA lit, so often portrayed as the villainous airhead/bitch/slut (see Karen Healey’s excellent recent guest article about the phenomenon). I loved that narrator Isobel is a different type of heroine – she isn’t the common shy/awkward/geek gal – in fact, Isobel isn’t much of a reader or brain, and she’s more caught up with the pressures of school and her fiercely athletic love for cheer (again, COOL). As she tells Varen at one point, she likes the sun and cheerleading and she’s not ashamed of it. By that token, Varen also isn’t some noble hero or sparkly outsider that is instantly drawn to Isobel. In this novel, Isobel is our intrepid heroine, and instead of waiting for Varen to stick up for her or break down barriers, instead of crumbling under the expectations of her friends and her meathead boyfriend, Isobel is the one that takes a stand (there is one scene in the cafeteria with her confrontation and it is amazing – it will break your heart and make you furious and fall in love with Isobel even more). That, readers, is pretty freakin’ awesome.

That’s not to say that Isobel or Varen are perfect creatures, because both are incredibly textured, layered and wonderfully flawed. I love that Ms. Creagh takes her time building these characters, starting with initial mutual dislike, and slowly peeling back the layers of their personalities. If there’s one criticism I have of YA romance (or even romance in general), it’s that there’s a lack of tension and build-up – two characters almost always find themselves inexplicably drawn to the other’s ravishing good looks, or air of mystery, or whatever. With Nevermore? Not the case. The chemistry is perfect and it simmers slowly throughout the novel at a beautiful, restrained pace. There are no happy endings here, there is a ton of pain and grief that goes their way – both natural and supernatural.

And…this is where the novel’s strengths falter a bit. I *love* the idea of this dream world that Ms. Creagh has created in Nevermore, replete with ghouls and living nightmares and shades; I love the idea of a cold Morella/Ligeia type of character and all the horrific allusions to Poe’s works. It’s clear that Ms. Creagh has done her homework and has beautifully integrated many favorite Poe stories and poems (“Dream Within A Dream,” “The Pit and the Pendulum,” “The Masque of the Red Death,” “The Raven,” “The Cask of Amontillado,” etc) into the overall novel, through the surreal dream world that threatens to trap both Varen and Isobel. However. For all that the ideas of the dreamworld are fascinating and unique, there is some stumbling with the executionof this realm. If anything, the hazy dreamscape is a little too amorphous, and unevenly paced as these supernatural-heavy turns all take place for the book’s last act. The result is a bit disjointed – for the first two thirds of the book, Nevermore focuses on character development and the harsh realities of high school drama, tinged with a bit of a spooky supernatural vibe. But the last third of the novel is chock full of supernatural dealings – Nocs and Shadows and the legacy of Poe and the mysterious Reynolds. That said, I think both the realistic and the surreal elements are done very well – they just aren’t integrated and married as a whole very well. I loved the ending of the novel and that Ms. Creagh isn’t afraid to draw things out – as I mentioned before, there are no simple happy ever afters here – and of course, now I’m impatient as hell for the next book. Nevermore is a book that I really and truly enjoyed, with only a few executionary flaws to hold me back from loving it with complete abandon. Absolutely recommended (and this is coming from someone totally burned out with the teen YA paranormal romance novel at large).

Notable Quotes/Parts: From Chapter 1:

1
Assigned

By the end of fourth period, Isobel’s espresso buzz from that morning’s venti latte had long since worn off. She yawned, fast approaching crash-and-burn territory and shifted in her seat as Mr. Swanson droned on and on about the green-eyed monster, Desdemona, thus, thou, and yea verily. She traced and retraced the looping spiral design she’d all but ground into the front of her blue notebook.

“And with that,” Mr. Swanson said, finally snapping closed his ultrathick teacher’s copy of their text, cueing the rest of the class to follow suit with a unanimous thunk, “we’ll leap into further discussion about Iago and his supposed honesty on Monday.”

Isobel straightened in her seat, brushed her sheet of blond hair behind one shoulder, and shut her own book with relish.

“But hold on, hold on,” he said above the rustling and scraping of chairs. He raised both hands and lowered them through the air, as if such a motion somehow held the power to still the room and reinstate the Elizabethan-literature-inspired stupor he’d managed to cast over all.

Kids jonesing for lunch and already halfway out of their seats sank back down again, their butts reconnecting with their chairs like magnets snapping together. All around, backpacks slipped from shoulders and chins returned to hands.

They should have known better, Isobel thought wryly. Swanson never let them out early. Never. Especially not as early as a quarter till.

“Don’t go and get antsy on me yet, folks,” he warned, now brandishing a stack of what looked suspiciously to Isobel like fresh-from-the-copier pages.

“Heads-up to the syllabus being passed around,” he called, licking a finger and leafing through the first few. Then, rewetting his fingertips, he sent out the next stack, and the next.

Isobel blanched as she watched the papers make their way toward her, and she hoped she’d be lucky enough to snag one relatively free of Swanson saliva.

“We’ve avoided it long enough.” He sighed in mock remorse. “Now, I’m sure the seniors all warned you about this one. Well, here it is. The big one. Better to get it over with early in the year, I say. You guessed it—the Swanson project.” He announced this last bit cheerfully (if not maniacally), and a grin spread its way beneath his wiry gray-white mustache.

Groans arose from key points around the room, Isobel’s own buried in the back of her throat.

Projects took time. A lot of time.

“This is to be a partner project,” Swanson continued, “due the last Friday of the month. That’s Halloween, for those of you who haven’t got your iPhones or BlackBerries or Kicksides or whodiwhat calendars handy—which I hope for their sake no one does.”

The boredom that had only a moment ago made Isobel’s limbs heavy and her mind sluggish slipped away from her in a quick whoosh, like a magician’s cloth.

Hold up. Did he say Halloween? Uh, yeah, where was his calendar? Did he not know that was the night of the rival football game against Millings? Lift up the rock, Swanson. Breathe. It’s called air.

Isobel’s grip tightened around her pen. She kept her gaze steady on her English teacher, all dials now tuned to the Swanson channel.

“This project,” he said, “will consist of both a presentation and a detailed ten-page paper. I want you and your partner to select a famous American author—any American author. Though, in the spirit of Halloween, let’s make sure they’re dead, okay? In other words, no Stephen Kings, Heather Grahams, or James Pattersons. Also, this is an assignment to be completed outside of class, since we’re currently in the middle of Othello.”

Ten pages? Ten pages. That was epic. That was like . . . the freaking Gettysburg Address. Was Swanson really going to sit down and read all those papers?

Probably, she thought. And love every minute of it too.

She just didn’t get it. Why did Swanson have to assign a huge project due on the day of the rival game? No one ever got any work done that week. He could have at least given them that weekend.

It always amazed her how teachers seemed to think that students didn’t have lives outside of school. They couldn’t seem to grasp that by the time she got home from cheer practice, ate dinner, and scribbled down something on the mound of homework she already had, it was practically time to go to bed.

Isobel started an immediate scan of the room. This was serious, and she needed to locate a brainer—stat.

She eyed Julie Tamers, marching band geek extraordinaire, and began to plan a strategic route to the open chair next to hers when Mr. Swanson spoke again.

“FYI,” he began, class roster poised in one hand, chin tilted down, wire-rim glasses perched at the tip of his nose, “I’m trying something different this year in hopes it will both broaden your perspective and improve overall project results. That said, I’ll take a moment to include my little disclaimer that all pairings have been made at random. So after I read your names off the list you can partner up, brainstorm among yourselves, and then head to lunch. Starting with Josh Anderson and Amber Ricks.”

Isobel felt her jaw unhinge.

Wait, she thought. Just wait. Random pairings were so third grade. He could not be serious.

“Katlyn Binkly and Alanna Sato,” he continued. “Next we have Todd Marks and Romelle Jenkins.”

Around her, those whose names had already been called rose from their seats to find their corresponding partners. Isobel sat stunned at their willingness. For real? Was she the only one who felt the burn of injustice? Wasn’t anyone else going to say anything?

“Isobel Lanley and Varen Nethers.”

She felt her chest contract.

Oh.

Oh, no. No way.

She turned her head slowly and took a long, reluctant look to the opposite end of the room. He sat in the back row against the far corner, slumped in his seat and staring straight ahead through shreds of inky locks, his thin wrists lined in black leather bands specked with hostile silver studs.

This could not be happening.

You can read the full excerpt online HERE.

Additional Thoughts: Author Kelly Creagh pays a wonderful, gothic homage to Edgar Allan Poe with Nevermore – and as a fellow Poe fan, this is a truly delightful treat. My favorite Poe poem is “El Dorado” (it’s the first poem I learned by heart when I was a kid), story is a toss-up between “The Tell-Tale Heart” and “The Cask of Amontillado,” and – of course – Vincent Price adaptation has to be The Black Cat, The Raven, or Morella (these are each wildly different than the source material, but are awesome in true Vincent Price fashion). (And yes, one of my favorite collections was Vincent Price’s Tales of Terror – costarring the wonderful Peter Lorre. AWESOME.)

Make sure you stick around, as author Kelly Creagh stops by to answer some of our burning questions for another segment of “SMUGGLED!”

Rating: 7 – Very Good, and with bucket-loads of upside potential.

Reading Next: Mockingjay by Suzanne Collins

Title: Zombies vs. Unicorns

Authors: Team Unicorn edited by Holly Black – Kathleen Duey, Meg Cabot, Garth Nix, Margo Lanagan, Naomi Novik & Diana Peterfreund; Team Zombie edited by Justine Larbalestier – Libba Bray, Alaya Dawn Johnson, Cassandra Clare, Maureen Johnson, Carrie Ryan & Scott Westerfeld

Genre: Speculative Fiction, Young Adult

Publisher: Margaret K. McElderry (Simon & Schuster)
Publication Date: September 2010
Hardcover: 432 pages

It’s a question as old as time itself: which is better, the zombie or the unicorn? In this anthology, edited by Holly Black and Justine Larbalestier (unicorn and zombie, respectively), strong arguments are made for both sides in the form of short stories. Half of the stories portray the strengths–for good and evil–of unicorns and half show the good (and really, really bad-ass) side of zombies. Contributors include many bestselling teen authors, including Cassandra Clare, Libba Bray, Maureen Johnson, Meg Cabot, Scott Westerfeld, and Margo Lanagan. This anthology will have everyone asking: Team Zombie or Team Unicorn?

Stand alone or series: Stand alone collection of short stories (although some stories fit in established universes for other series’ – i.e. Carrie Ryan, Diana Peterfreund)

How did I get this book: ARC at BookExpo America 2010

Why did I read this book: Did you SEE that author list? Although I’m not really a huge anthology fan or unicorn lover (Diana Peterfreund’s killer unicorns the exception), I am always down for a zombie collection. Not to mention, we got to meet the lovely Justine Larbalestier and Holly Black (as well as Scott Westerfeld and Diana Peterfreund) at BEA this year as they were signing galleys for Zombies vs. Unicorns. Put all that together, and there was no way I was going to miss out on reading this promising anthology.

Review:

An anthology is a tricky thing to put together – there are almost always a few gems, sparkling ever-so-brightly (not unlike a unicorn’s pretty, pretty sheen) and there are some stinkers (not unlike a zombie’s dessicated stench). The general trend of Zombies vs. Unicorns, I am happy to report, is toward the positive. While there were a couple of stories I could have done without, overall, I was entertained by and pleased with the quality of the stories in this collection. Mostly.

Here’s my take on each of the stories.

“The Highest Justice” by Garth Nix (Unicorn)

A strong start to the anthology, Garth Nix writes probably the best self-contained short story in the whole book. Featuring both a zombie AND a unicorn in the same story – on the same “side” too (I think this counts as breaking the rules) – “The Highest Justice” is a fantasy tale about a grieving young princess, her unfortunate (zombified) mother, poisoned at the hands of her treacherous father and his twisted lover. And there’s justice too. This one is a bit old school (Garth Nix is one of my favorite authors from childhood, and reading this new story reminded me of how much I love his style of fantasy and writing), and I mean that in the best way. A phenomenal start to the book – well done, editors, for beginning with this one.

Rating: 8 – Excellent

“Love Will Tear Us Apart” by Ayala Dawn Johnson (Zombie)

This short story, one of a surprising – refreshing! – many that feature a same-sex romance, is a frustrating mix of AWESOME and not-so-awesome for me. I loved the sardonic, mac-and-cheese loving voice of teen infected protagonist Grayson. The food comparisons alone are wonderful, and I loved the very real, astonishingly deep relationship portrayed between him and the delectable Jack. Lust, hate, revulsion, love all rolled into one complicated package of emotion, fueled by violence (and set to a killer soundtrack), the overall characterizations and direction of the story is brilliant. The ending line is EPIC. But, there were some stylistic choices that irritated the crap (brains?) out of me. The story is divided into different mini-chapters, alternating the realtime storyline with Grayson’s little asides about his past – and, for the most part, the little asides (in my opinion) were largely unnecessary, dragging down the irresistible momentum of the actual story. Plus, the cheese factor in the asides was high – the “Dirty Harry” chapter in particular, with cringe-worthy rules such as, “Use your brains! Or someone else will eat them for you” didn’t do anything for me, not really flowing well with the heavier, more dramatic tone of the story. But again, just my opinion. Overall, another winner.

Rating: 7 – Very Good

“Purity Test” by Naomi Novik (Unicorn)

I have had Naomi Novik on my shelf for a while now, but have yet to read her Temeraire books. As such, “Purity Test” was my first introduction to the author, and I was thrilled to finally try some of her work… but, unfortunately, this was one of the few duds (for me). Working the humor angle with a trapper-keeper unicorn on the hunt for a certain young woman, “Purity Test” as its title suggests plays on the bond between virginity and unicorns. Unfortunately, the dialogue felt kitschy, the jokes pretty bad, and the story (though well-executed), ultimately forgettable.

Rating: 5 – Meh

“Bougainvillea” by Carrie Ryan

My favorite story of the anthology. I adored The Forest of Hands and Teeth and thoroughly enjoyed The Dead-Tossed Waves, so I was thrilled to discover that “Bougainvillea” fits in the same universe, albeit at a much earlier time. Alternating between past and present (or “Then” and “Now”), “Bougainvillea” follows Iza, a young woman on the island of Curacao shortly after The Return. Daughter of a ruthless – but effective – leader, Iza struggles with her own sense of worth, her relationship with her father, the growing threat of pirates offshore, and the ever present Mudo surrounding them all. Iza’s is a beautifully crafted, bittersweet character arc (this is right in Ms. Ryan’s wheelhouse) and I loved it from beginning to end. Especially the end. “Bougainvillea” provides valuable insight to The Return and Mary and Gabry’s world in TFOHAT and TDTW, also provoking some interesting questions, too.

I would LOVE to see Iza’s journey continue in another story or book…whaddya say, Ms. Ryan? Pretty please?

Rating: 10 – Perfection

“A Thousand Flowers” by Margo Lanagan (Unicorn)

If “Purity Test” was kitschy and plays with the technicalities of virginity and its connection to unicorns, “A Thousand Flowers” takes that virginity connection and perverts and twists it beyond recognition. Ms. Lanagan is not one to shy away from gritty, less-palatable elements and she explores the darker, more complicated side of sexuality (this is the author of Tender Morsels we’re talking about, after all). Ms. Lanagan’s work might not be for everyone, certainly not for the faint of heart, but this is an author with a gift for storytelling as she interweaves magic and wonder together with the uglier side of human nature. Is “A Thousand Flowers” a little sensationalist and exploitative? Yes. But it also is an effective, brutal explication of female sexuality and “virtue.” I’m not really sure if I particularly liked this story, but it’s certainly thought-provoking and memorable, to say the least.

Rating: 7 – Very Good

“The Children of the Revolution” by Maureen Johnson (Zombie)

This story was my first exposure to Maureen Johnson’s writing – I’ve been dying to read something by her ever since her awesome keynote speech at Book Blogger Con earlier this year. Funny, charming, incredibly witty – these are the words I would use to describe the lovely Ms. Johnson. And, just as I hoped, “The Children of the Revolution” was similarly enchanting (well, you know, in a more slimy, guts and brains and raw sinew kind of zombie way). Following a college freshman duped into following her stoner boyfriend out to the UK for a study abroad program only to learn that said program is essentially slave labor and said boyfriend is a grade-A jackass, “The Children of the Revolution” also pokes fun at Hollywood celebrities and their penchant for truly insane religions. Little adorable toddler zombies. Sponge Bob. How could I not love this story? Ms. Johnson’s voice is wry, flippant, and totally winsome. I’ll be back to sample her other work, very soon.

Rating: 7 – Very Good

“The Care and Feeding of Your Baby Killer Unicorn” by Diana Peterfreund (Unicorn)

This story, along with Ms. Ryan’s and Mr. Westerfeld’s, were my most highly anticipated stories of this collection, and I am happy to report that Diana Peterfreund once again delivers. “The Care and Feeding of Your Baby Killer Unicorn” might sound like a playful, lighthearted title, this is a surprisingly moving story about a girl struggling with her terrifying new-found abilities, her family expectations, her relationships, and, of course, a baby killer unicorn. One of the longer stories in the bunch, “Baby Killer Unicorn” actually feels like more of a novella than a short story. I love that protagonist Wen is markedly different from the other female leads in this collection, and in fact from Ms. Peterfreund to date – she’s not as rough as Astrid (of Rampant) or as assured as Amy (of the Secret Society Girl books). Wen is quieter, religious (which stands out in a sea of usually agnostic/atheistic or religion-free genre stories), and confused – but when she does stand up for herself, it’s an awesome, empowering feeling.

While I loved the story overall, what didn’t quite work for me, however, was the question of time frame. First, the integration of unicorns into modern society sits strangely. In Rampant, the existence of unicorns isn’t really something people take as fact – but in this short story, a jump has been made where unicorns are commonly known of (they are on the news, for example) and universally feared. Also in terms of time frame, Flower/Flayer (titled killer baby unicorn)’s growth and Wen’s caring for him felt rushed and abrupt.

That said, this is one of the strongest unicorn pieces in the book, and one of the keeper memorable stories in the collection.

Rating: 7 – Very Good

“Innoculata” by Scott Westerfeld” (Zombie)

My second favorite story of the book, “Innoculata” proves to me, yet again, that Scott Westerfeld is the bees knees. Once zombies have taken over the planet and only a handful of humans remain in a basically safe enclosure, equipped with food, water and shelter, what else is there to do? “Innoculata” is a story about a rarely examined side effect of the zombie apocalypse: boredom. I love the idea of completely random inoculation (and the idea of the cowpox/smallpox explanation); I love the characters (a F/F pairing this time!); I love the idea of apocalypse survivors on a weed farm led by a former DEA raider; I love the action-packed awesomeness of it all.

Another gem of a self-contained story.

Rating: 9 – Damn Near Perfection

“Princess Prettypants” by Meg Cabot (Unicorn)

Ahh, Meg Cabot. How I loved this story – my favorite Team Unicorn entry of the whole bunch. “Princess Prettypants” (truly awesome name) pokes fun at the Lisa Frank type of unicorn:

On Liz’s seventeenth birthday, she gets an honest-to-goodness unicorn from her crazy Aunt – one that literally farts rainbows and is named “Princess Prettypants.” Seriously. What begins as the worst birthday ever turns into a sweet revenge tale, with the help of one really, really pretty unicorn. Hilarious, smart and just…cool, written with Meg Cabot’s trademark wit and verve, “Princess Prettypants” is absolutely delightful.

Rating: 8 – Excellent

“Cold Hands” by Cassandra Clare (Zombie)

Cassandra Clare’s take on zombies is slightly different than the usual “no room in Hell”/pathogen/demonic possession sort of deal – in this story, one town is plagued by a curse that brings deceased loved ones back to life as zombies. These aren’t the eat-your-brains types of zombies; rather, they are the forlorn undead that only want to be with their families and lovers. Because the undead will follow those loved ones wherever they go, no one from “Zombietown” (as Lychgate it is known to the rest of the world) is allowed to leave. That doesn’t bother Adele so much, however, because she has her true love, James, who also happens to be the next Duke of Lychgate, by her side. But when James is killed by his Uncle, their love is tested to its limits, as James returns to claim his place, and to be with Adele.

A solid entry, I liked how earnest and romantic this story was as both Adele and James are tragic characters. Although the time period felt a little oddly anachronistic (Dukes? Really?) and the overall story leaned towards the melodramatic, I finished the story feeling basically satisfied and entertained.

Rating: 6 – Good

“The Third Virgin” by Kathleen Duey (Unicorn)

I’m not going to lie, this story was a near DNFer (“Did Not Finish”). Maybe it’s because the story is so exposition-heavy, and almost entirely internalized for the majority of the tale, from the perspective of a unicorn. Most likely it’s because “The Third Virgin” is yet another unicorn story dealing with the unicorn-virginity connection – which is unfair to Ms. Duey and her story, because had this been placed earlier in the anthology, I probably would not have had such a hard time getting through it. I’ll schedule it for a reread later, but I simply could not get hooked with the slow moving plot, and the lackluster voice of the narrating character. At this point, I think I was a little unicorn’d out.

Rating: 5 – Meh

“Prom Night” by Libba Bray (Zombie)

Well, talk about going out with a bang. “Prom Night” is one of the more haunting stories in the collection, by virtue of that ending. I loved the moral quandary this particular story posed – which is something that none of the other entries attempted. Even though the world has turned into kill or be killed, eat or be eaten, what is the moral thing to do? Did the teens of “Prom Night” do a terrible thing by sending their infected parents beyond their walls? At what point does the veneer of civilization begin to wear thin?

Libba Bray’s closing is a fitting end for a pretty one-sided showdown. Sorry Team Unicorn – from where I’m sitting, Team Zombie is the clear victor.

Rating: 7 – Very Good

On the Introductions…

The book and each story are prefaced by quick exchanges between editors Holly Black and Justine Larbalestier – and while I enjoyed this quippy rapport, and the general idea of a zombie-unicorn throwdown, my only quibble is that after a while, these introductions felt a bit repetitive and the teeniest bit self-serving and silly. I’m absolutely certain that it was a blast to write and work on this collection together – but as a reader, the introductions seemed to be more fun for the authors than perhaps they will be to their audience.

That said, overall, Zombies vs. Unicorns is a solid anthology, and well worth checking out. I definitely recommend it – especially for the zombie or unicorn lover.

Overall Rating: 7 – Very Good

Reading Next: Dark Life by Kat Falls

Giveaway Details:

And would you look at that? We’ve got TWO copies of Zombies vs. Unicorns up for grabs. The contest is open to addresses in the US and Canada and will run until Saturday August 21 at 11:59pm (PST). ONLY ONE ENTRY PER PERSON – multiple entries from the same IP address will be disqualified. Entry is simple – just let us know which team floats your boat – zombies? Or Unicorns?

Good luck! We will announce the winner on Sunday in our weekly Smuggler Stash.

Title: Dark Goddess

Author: Sarwat Chadda

Genre: YA/Fantasy (Contemporary)

Publisher: Puffin/ Disney (US)
Publication Date: July 1 2010 / October 2010 (US)
Paperback: 384 pages

After the death of her soulmate Kay by her very own sword, Billi SanGreal has thrown herself into the brutal regime of Templar duties with utter abandon. There is no room for feelings any more – her life is now about hunting down the Unholy. But when Billi and another Knight Templar are caught at the heart of a savage werewolf attack, only Billi survives – except for a young girl at the scene who Billi unthinkingly drags away with her as they escape. But Vasalisa is no ordinary girl. She is an avatar with an uncontrollable power – and it’s not only the werewolves who want her. Billi has to flee to the frosty climes of Russia, with a human timebomb who, it seems, could destroy the world . . .

THE DARK GODDESS will take Billi to Russia to rescue Vasalisa, a young girl Billi’s promised to protect. To save her, Billi must defeat the werewolves that serve the witch Baba Yaga – and the Dark Goddess herself.

Baba Yaga is sickened by the destruction and corruption humanity has spread across the natural world. She recognises mankind has become a plague upon the Earth, and her duty is clear: to cleanse the planet and rid it of the pestilence of Man. Billi is sent to stop her, but does she have the right?

Betrayed and alone, Billi faces a final mighty battle in the abandoned ruins of Chernobyl.

Stand alone or series: book two in the Billi Sangreal series

How did I get this book: Bought.

Why did I read this book: I recently attended an event at the book store Foyles, where the author talked his writing, his research and I was sold after that and bought the book on the spot.

Review:

Dark Goddess is the sequel to Devil’s Kiss. In the first book, Billi SanGreal becomes the first ever female Knight Templar, following on the footsteps of her father. Her calling is not one that come easy as the life of a Templar is not all ponies and rainbows as evidenced by the sacrifices she has to make, including killing her best friend (and potential love interest) Kay to save the world (vibes of Buffy – season two finale here).

In Dark Goddess, it’s been three months since those events and Billi is still struggling with her feelings and trying to deal with her grief by throwing herself into the fray and shutting her heart out. The book opens with a bang and an excellent fight sequence against a group of werewolves who are after a small girl. Her family is entirely decimated and Billi just about escapes with the child – Vasilisa. Turns out, Vasilisa has the potential to be the next Oracle for the order but her budding powers prove to be exactly what the werewolf pack need to appease their Goddess. When Vasilisa is kidnapped and taken to Russian, the crazy action pacing increases as the Templars must face the werewolves and the Dark Goddess, also known as Baba Yaga or Mother Russia herself and thwart her plan to rid the world of humans. But they have the help of a local religious/military order who is led by a descendant of the Romanovs whose son, Prince Ivan becomes a close ally to Billi but not before some bickering.

First and foremost, something needs to be said about Billi: what an incredible teen character. It is easy to relate to her and to feel for her, from her difficult relationship with her ruthless, removed father to her constant musings about duty. She is strong and a fighter but also vulnerable especially when having to make choices. I find it incredibly compelling that she has to go through the same conflict as before: when the time comes will she kill someone she loves to save the world?

Another fascinating aspect (and something that worried me before I started the book) is how the religious aspect would be played out. The author opted for an interesting twist and basically removed the religious aspects from the Knights Templar by replacing their historical enemies with a new one, the Unholy: werewolves, vampires and other assorted dark creatures. But if the Templars are no longer a religious order per se, religion still plays a role but possibly not how I expected. The Knights do believe in God and hope to be doing his will but that does not necessarily mean that ONE religion is the right one. In fact, Billi’s mother was muslin for example and Billi at one point asks herself:

She could pray in Latin, Greek, English and Arabic. She knew the direction of Mecca and the psalms. Did God really care?

This balance is also applied to the characters and central storyline: most of the former are presented in a grey light and the latter, with Baba Yaga trying to remove humans from the equation is rooted in what we, as a race have brought to our own world. The horror of plot, which is truly terrifying, comes from partly realizing that hey, perhaps the witch has a point.

The Russian setting is unique and it seems to be well-researched (I saw the author speaking about his trip to Russian) including the incorporation of the Baby Yaga myth.

Also extremely vivid and well-paced are the fight sequences with a myriad of different weapons. This is a bloody and dark tale with a dash of romance on the side although Billi’s feelings for Ivan develop perhaps a bit too fast considering both their surroundings and current predicament and her very recent history with Kay.

I really enjoyed Dark Goddess and will definitely be following more of Billi Sangreal’s adventures as a teenage Templar Knight.

Notable Quotes/Parts:

The Rottweiler’s head lay in a bush, just off the snow-sprinkled path. One eye was gone, leaving a blood-encrusted socket. Its tongue hung out stupidly from a broken jaw. The body was a few metres further, its chest carved open so the ribs stuck out of the skin like a row of gruesome lollipops.

Billi covered her face with her sleeve. The cold night air was fresh with January frost, but the corpse stank of
spilt intestines. The dog was, had been, brutishly big, but its size had not saved it from being torn apart.
‘Well?’ asked Pelleas as he searched further along the path, scanning the ground with his torch.
They were on the edge of the woods, spiny trees to one side and a low hedge bordering a white-coated field to the other. The dense snow clouds of the day had lifted, leaving the velvet-black sky hazy with starlight and the crescent moon. The sky over London never looked like this – vast and fathomless.

Billi snapped off a twig and used it to bind her long, black hair in a loose bun. She leaned over the corpse,
directing her torch at the wounds. She’d seen the pictures of the other slaughtered victims, but the artificial eye of the lens had made them seem remote, fake even. This was sickeningly real. She poked at the body with a stick and grimaced as semi-congealed blood oozed from the gaping tears. They hadn’t been made with knives – that much was obvious.

They’d been made with claws.

Without touching, Billi spread her hand carefully over the line of the wounds. Five ragged talons had been
dragged through the dog’s guts. Judging by the width of the wounds, the beast was big. ‘Definitely a Loony,’ she said. Pelleas peered over his shoulder. ‘You mean “were-wolf”, of course.’

‘Of course.’

Additional Thoughts: The author wrote an article about writing Dark Goddess including links to several quite interesting guest posts in other blogs including:

1. Why research trips are always good. Or ‘Sarwat’s excuse to go to Russia’.
2. Why Conan the Barbarian is a 21st Century feminist icon.
3. The baddest of the bad bad-ass heroines through history. Or ‘where Billi SanGreal came from’. 4. Why Pride and Prejudice would have been so much better with elephants.
5. Tragic romance.
6. Supernatural horror.
7. Swordfights. Lots of swordfights.
8. Why your mother should read Dark Goddess.

Verdict: An interesting twist on the Knights Templar’s stories with a compelling female character in Billi and a vivid setting make this book a great read. I really enjoyed it.

Rating: 7 – Very Good

Reading Next: 8th Grade Super Zero by Olugbemisola Rhuday-Perkovich

Title: Fat Vampire – A Never Coming of Age Story

Author: Adam Rex

Genre: YA – Paranormal

Publisher: Balzer + Bray
Publication date: July 27 2010
Hardcover: 336 pages

Doug Lee is undead quite by accident—attacked by a desperate vampire, he finds himself cursed with being fat and fifteen forever. When he has no luck finding some goth chick with a vampire fetish, he resorts to sucking the blood of cows under cover of the night. But it’s just not the same.

Then he meets the new Indian exchange student and falls for her—hard. Yeah, he wants to bite her, but he also wants to prove himself to her. But like the laws of life, love, and high school, the laws of vampire existence are complicated—it’s not as easy as studying Dracula. Especially when the star of Vampire Hunters is hot on your trail in an attempt to boost ratings.…

Leave it to Adam Rex to create a thought-provoking novel that takes on teen angst, sexuality, identity, love, and undeath in ways that break it out of the genre.

Stand alone or series: Stand alone

How did we get this book: We both got signed ARCs at BEA

Why did we read this book: Because the cover looks awesome, the blurb sounded hilarious – and it didn’t hurt that the author was pretty nice in person too.

Review:

First Thoughts and Impressions:

Ana: First of all, I need to get something off my chest: the cover, the blurb of this book are completely misleading. This book is far from being the breezy comedic novel that it promises to be. Having said that, what IS this book? A mess. It starts out well enough, with a sympathetic protagonist then it is downhill soon enough once same protagonist turns out to be a complete, unrepentant douchebag. I carried on and ended up with the feeling that I either read the most craptastic book ever or a very brilliant one. After a few days letting it sink in, I fall somewhere in between – I do think the book has brilliant ideas but the execution is very flawed and in the end, I did not enjoy reading it, at all.

Thea: I think I have to disagree with Ana on this one! At least, in my opinion of the book, if not with the interpretation of its content. Yes, Fat Vampire is not some breezy comedic romp following an overweight vampire boy in his search for love, though the cover and synopsis speak to that angle. But as I read the book, I found myself entertained and rather intrigued with Adam Rex’s choices with the direction of the novel. This is much more of a black comedy; a character study, following a protagonist that is neither a hero nor a victim. He’s a selfish, flawed, unlikable character (yes, even a douchebag, as Ana says above)…but I kinda like that Adam Rex goes there. This is a bold, intriguing book – and I gotta say, I liked it.

On the plot:

Ana: 15 year old Doug Lee has been accidently bitten by a vampire which means that he will be stuck as a teenager – and a fat, unattractive one – forever. If that wasn’t enough, Doug can’t quite get the being a vampire thing right: does he get to transform into bats? If so, how exactly does one do that? Then, there is the feeding part of it and Doug has been drinking mostly from cows so far until the gets the first taste of human blood. Meanwhile, a new exchange student arrives from India. Senjal has The Google an addiction to the Internet that caused a tragic incident back home and something that she wants to put past her in this new life in America. Add to that a TV show called Vampire Hunters, whose anchor is bent on finding a real vampire and you have the plot of Fat Vampire.

What strikes me the most about Fat Vampire is how the book doesn’t seem to have a driving plot. Things happen seemly at random and some of the plotlines appear and disappear throughout the novel. I am never sure about the worldbuilding (as Thea will tell you below) or about the characters (but I guess that was the whole point). To me, it reads as though the story is an excuse to make a point and the point seems to be: being a vampire is not all that is cracked up to be. Imagine being stuck looking like a teenager forever and one that doesn’t even look good. It seems to make fun of the majority of the current paranormal YA where vampires are eternally beautiful and hot. It definitely points out to something else as well: feeding, drinking blood from humans – how does that affect a person? These points are definitely part of what could be described as being brilliant – coupled that with the ending and the book could have been great if it wasn’t for the sloppy writing and the horrible characters.

Thea: From a pure plotting perspective, Fat Vampire is somewhat lacking (and I think this is my main criticism of the book). It’s been a month since Doug has been turned into a vampire, and the book follows Doug as he gets used to the vampire lifestyle (the pros and cons of feeding from animals versus humans), his changing friendships, his vampire mentors, and as he tries to avoid the team of reality tv vampire killers. Fat Vampire has a minor mystery element mixed with a dash of suspense as the reality tv guys close in on Doug, but these plotting elements aren’t particularly developed (or even convincing). The mystery in particular is pathetically transparent, and there are a number of elements strewn haphazardly throughout the book that are of absolutely no significance (werewolves? “The Google”?). But that’s not really what Fat Vampire is all about. This is much more of a book about characters – ugly characters, mind you, but characters nonetheless.

If the plotting left something to be desired, the same could be said for Mr. Rex’s writing. Clearly, this author has a great knack for characterization (more on that in a bit) and has a great dark comedic perspective…but Fat Vampire left me wanting in the storytelling and world-defining department. The alternating points of view were a little messy, and the suspense of the reality tv vamp hunters insignificant and, well, boring. The thing that irked me the most, however, was how ill-defined supernatural creatures and their place in this world was. Doug is a vampire, and there are other vampires present, but it’s never really clear if this is some parallel universe where everyone knows vampires (and werewolves too – a completely extraneous race of supernatural creature thrown in the mix for no discernible purpose) exist, or if Doug’s world is more like our own (i.e. we know what vampires are, but they don’t exist). The presence of a “reality” tv show about vampires seems to suggest that folks in this book do accept the existence of vamps as common knowledge, but the reactions of the human characters speak to the contrary.

That said – I think the climactic final scene is BRILLIANT, as is the ending. Brilliant…It’s just a shame that it was so awkward getting to that point.

On the characters:

Thea: Ahh, here is where Fat Vampire pulls its weight (sorry, lame pun). As I said above, this book is much more of a character piece. The voices for each of the characters are beautifully detailed and distinct; there are point of view shifts in the book, but they never are confusing – because Sejal’s voice and thought process sounds completely different from Doug’s. But, while I loved Sejal’s flowy cadence and descriptions, really, the book is all about Doug.

“I think…I think sometimes you think you’re the hero of the story, and sometimes you think you’re the victim,” said the voice. “But you’re not either.”

As Ana will tell you, protagonist Doug is not the nicest dude. In fact, he’s kind of a huge doucher – a terrible friend, homophobic, self-entitled, and utterly, ridiculously, self-absorbed. But the thing is…we all have known people like this. Doug’s selfishness, whether it be result of a physiologically underdeveloped region of the brain or simple psychology, rings true. His inner narrative, his justifications for the way he behaves – his decision to compliment people to make himself look better, for example – make sense and fall in line with his calculating character. More believable than anything else, Doug manages to convince himself that his justifications are infallible (with someone this ego-centric, the possibility of being wrong never crosses his mind).

But the even more interesting and thought-provoking questions is: how much of what transpires (Doug’s behavior and choices, etc) in the book is because he’s a selfish, flawed human, and how much is it because he’s a vampire? Certainly, Doug’s attitude and his decisions change over the course of the book – indeed, early in the novel there seems to be some redeemable spark to Doug (for example, when he honestly admits to his best friend Jay that he’s sorry he’s not a better friend). But as the book continues and Doug’s vampirism becomes more intense and ingrained, Doug’s actions rapidly head downhill. What I love here is the ambiguity – and the metaphor of what vampirism could mean for humanity. Are vampires – or any supernatural creatures – truly the evil, soulless monsters of paranormal lore? Or are they simply flawed human creatures with superhuman abilities? If one had the ability to hypnotize others, drink their blood and become preternaturally strong and nearly immortal, wouldn’t they abuse these powers? Is that evil…or human nature? Does Doug try to justify his actions BECAUSE he thinks himself a monster? With Doug and mentor Stephan as reference points, this is a very, very interesting quandary.

That’s the stuff of classic horror, dudes. And, intentional or accidental, I loved how Fat Vampire poses these subconscious questions by virtue of its characters.

Ana: This quote is quite possibly the most important quote of the entire book, and it happens right in the first few pages too:

“I think…I think sometimes you think you’re the hero of the story, and sometimes you think you’re the victim,” said the voice. “But you’re not either.”

I didn’t pay enough attention to it and I wonder if I had, if my reading of the book would have been different.

Because, friendly readers, this book was hard to read. At first, I actually really liked Doug and his struggle with being a vampire and a teen at the same time. But little by little, things change to worse – just like Thea points out. The more Doug reveals himself, the less I like him and I felt myself lost – isn’t he supposed to be the hero of this piece? (see what I mean, where paying attention to that quote would have helped me?). At one point, I felt like throwing the book against a wall and that was when Doug’s homophobia became too much to bear:

He didn’t think he really had much of an opinion about gay people. He didn’t know why. Except maybe Ophelia, now. If anything, he was possibly a little sick of them. They were always popping up in shows and movies and in books he read. They used to be comic relief, but at some point it was like you weren’t allowed to laugh anymore, and the gay characters were Very Serious. Their whole character would be about them being gay, and how serious and unfunny and also completely normal it was. In each new book, especially there seemed to be one or two. Like the author wanted to prove what an open-minded, big-tent guy he was.

I actually had to stop reading and breathe in and out. It helps that then I read an interview with the author in which he says:

I did sort of write a treatise on douchebaggery.

Yes, he did. The point then as a reader, is to decide how this information impacts on your reading. I get what Thea says about the horror, for example and the subconscious questions this book asks and I agree with her. Those are all good.

This is also about characters being flawed and realistic because let’s face it, the world is full of homophobic, selfish douchebags. But the decision I make, as a reader is this: at the end of the day I just don’t feel like reading about them. This is very much a personal, subjective reaction to the book and I am clear about that.

I did love Sejal though – her keen observation of America, her openness to try different things (even possibly sexual experimentation with same sex characters) , her guilt about what The Google caused her. She was a fabulous counterpoint to Doug and perhaps even the real hero of the piece.

Final Thoughts, Observation and Rating:

Ana: Objectively speaking, there is something about Fat Vampire which makes it sort of good, in a very weird way, in spite of lacklustre plotting and unlikeable main character. Subjectively speaking, I didn’t like it, didn’t enjoy reading it for most part.

Thea: Maybe this book won’t appeal to everyone – especially for folks that want a traditional story, with traditional heroes and villains. And objectively, the weak plotting and world-building do not do Fat Vampire any favors. But, there’s a BUT! The awesome ending, the strength of the characters (whether you like them or not is irrelevant) and the questions that the book poses are so tantalizing that I can’t help but be pleased overall. I recommend Fat Vampire, but only for the informed reader that doesn’t mind the douchebagery and lackluster plotting.

Notable Quotes/Parts: From Chapter 1:

My Dork Embrace

DOUG SAID, “Hi,” and the girl turned. The perfect girl with red hair and a nearly empty cup of yellow beer turned and looked at him. He tried to relax his eyes, take all of her in at once—the blue belly shirt, the bottomless cleavage—without appearing to ogle. He didn’t know her or practically anyone else at the party. She didn’t know him. She wouldn’t have any reason not to talk to him.

She found a reason. Look—it was all there on her face. She’d seen through his disguise—the hair gel, the too-tight shirt from Apparel Conspiracy. He was a completely surprising form of life, something that should not be at a party, shouldn’t be addressing her. A gorilla maybe, frantically signing Koko want kitten. Koko want kitten.

“What?” she said. Not superinviting.

“Hey. I’m Doug.”

She seemed hesitant to give her name, like she might get it back with gunk on it. But then, “Carrie. My friend’s coming right back.”

“That’s . . . cool. So what school do you go to?” he asked. Not that he knew any schools in San Diego.

“Garfield,” said the girl, but as she did so she arched her neck to look over his shoulder. Her long, soft, beautiful neck. Koko want kitten.

“It’s . . . kind of crowded in here,” said Doug. “Don’t you think? You want to go outside? Get some fresh air?”

“I’m waiting for my friend,” said the girl. And then her whole posture relaxed, and a sudden brightness in her eyes told Doug that she’d just seen this friend, the friend was close, like the friend had just pressed the button on her key chain that made the headlights flash and the locks pop.

“Just for a second,” said Doug. “Really quick. I want to show you something.”

“Ew.”

“No, it’s not like . . . Just trust me . . . Come outside . . . It’s totally amazing . . .”

The friend was back. The friend was right there, and Doug heard himself say, “I’m a vampire.”

Both girls stared at him for an airless moment, possibly deciding how they were going to take this. Funny or Scary? Funny or Scary?

“A creature of the night,” Doug continued. “Cursed like Cain to wander—”

“Aren’t you a little fat for a vampire?” asked the friend.

Funny it is, then. Doug sighed. “I guess.”

You can read the full excerpt, along with the first 70 pages of the text, online HERE using HarperTeen’s awesome Browse Inside feature.

Additional Thoughts Check out the official book trailer:

Rating:

Ana: 5 – take it or leave it

Thea: 6 – Good, Recommend with Reservations

Reading Next: Sisters Red by Jackson Pearce

Title: I Am Not A Serial Killer

Author: Dan Wells

Genre: Thriller/Horror, Speculative Fiction

Publisher: Tor (US) / Headline (UK)
Publication Date: March 2010 (US) / March 2009 (UK)
Paperback: 272 Pages

John Wayne Cleaver is dangerous, and he knows it.

He’s spent his life doing his best not to live up to his potential.

He’s obsessed with serial killers, but really doesn’t want to become one. So for his own sake, and the safety of those around him, he lives by rigid rules he’s written for himself, practicing normal life as if it were a private religion that could save him from damnation.

Dead bodies are normal to John. He likes them, actually. They don’t demand or expect the empathy he’s unable to offer. Perhaps that’s what gives him the objectivity to recognize that there’s something different about the body the police have just found behind the Wash-n-Dry Laundromat—and to appreciate what that difference means.

Now, for the first time, John has to confront a danger outside himself, a threat he can’t control, a menace to everything and everyone he would love, if only he could.

Dan Wells’s debut novel is the first volume of a trilogy that will keep you awake and then haunt your dreams.

Stand alone or series: Book 1 in a planned trilogy

How did I get this book: Review Copy from the publisher

Why did I read this book: It’s no secret that we book smugglers are fans of Dexter – so when I Am Not A Serial Killer graced my doorstep, I was intrigued. This, plus the cool cover, AND a blurb from Brandon Sanderson basically sealed the deal for me (after some initial hesitation).

Review:

John Wayne Cleaver may seem like a typical teenage boy, but he’s anything but normal. For one thing, he’s got an unnatural fascination with death and serial killers. For another, he’s a clinically diagnosed sociopath, sharing many of the same red-flag traits – pyromania, enuresis (bed-wetting), and cruelty to animals – with the killers by whom he is so fascinated. And the thing is, John knows he’s at a high risk of becoming something…monstrous. Even though he doesn’t process emotions the same way that normal people do, John acutely understands that killing is wrong, and that he must not cross certain lines. So, to keep his darker urges in check, John creates rules for himself – for example, he won’t fixate on any single person. Following people around, learning their habits, or obsessing about any single person is strictly off limits – if John finds himself paying attention to anyone for too long a period of time, he will make sure not to think about them or cross their path for a week. If someone bullies him at school, or if he grows angry with any single person, he forces himself to think of something nice and pay them a compliment. And all of John’s rules have kept him relatively safe and normal.

That all changes, however, when a bonafide serial killer begins a string of violent murders in John’s town.

As the bodies pile up, John is alternately fascinated and increasingly convinced that he is the only one that can discover and stop the killer. And when he discovers the gruesome truth of the murders, John must break his careful rules, and tear down the carefully constructed wall that keeps his inner monster contained – because only John can stop the killer. But at what cost?

The first thing I thought of when I read the synopsis for I Am Not A Serial Killer was that this sounded a whole lot like my favorite sociopathic murderer – i.e. Jeff Lindsay’s Dexter (played on the small screen by the incomparable Michael C. Hall), which is both a good and bad thing. Good, because I love freakin’ love Dexter. Bad, because, well, it sounds a lot like Dexter (a very popular show, and a bestselling, firmly established series). I Am Not A Serial Killer kind of reads like “Dexter: The Early Years” – that is, if Dex didn’t have the “Code of Harry” but his own rules to keep him relatively under control. The similarities are obvious, even down to the alter egos that both characters possess – Dexter has his Dark Passenger, John his Mr. Monster – and in fact, it was this level of similarity (at least in terms of background if not truly in spirit since Dexter nourishes his Dark Passenger, whereas John isolates his) that initially put me off reading this book. But you know what? After resolving myself to give Mr. Wells’ first novel a fair chance, I can safely say that in spite of the similarities, I Am Not A Serial Killer totally stands on its own as a pretty damn solid, entertaining book.

Realistic, gritty and decidedly un-romanticized, from a plotting point of view I Am Not A Serial Killer is kind of like Young Dexter on an episode of The X-Files. There’s the delightful conceit of a having sociopathic future-killer as narrator wrapped up in a murder-thriller novel with a (surprising! but totally welcome) supernatural twist. Mr. Wells’ debut novel, marketed as an adult book in the US (although I believe as a YA book in the UK), is short but excellently paced, with an interesting explication of what truly makes a monster. I loved the very clever juxtaposition of the supernatural “demon” with the very real, human darkness within narrator John. Clearly John does the right thing by setting out to stop the killer from continuing his path of murder, but John takes pleasure in his darkness, whereas the demon does not. The demon experiences love and the range of human emotion – while John does not. It’s an interesting quandary, that of what determines a monster, to say the least.

And while I enjoyed the general direction of the story and found the book well-paced, the only true reason why I Am Not A Serial Killer works and makes a lasting impression is because of its protagonist, John Wayne Cleaver. I mean, take the beautiful absurdity of the name – a cowboy hero (John Wayne), a killer (John Wayne Gacy), and a sort of twisted Leave it to Beaver reference. John is…unexpected. He struggles earnestly with his monster, struggling to do what he objectively knows is the “right” thing – even if he, emotionally, is dissociated from morality. His strict set of self-imposed rules, revealed through his first person narrative and throughout the book with conversations with his therapist, and his dedication to keeping his darker side in check gives him a human, sympathetic side. And yet, Mr. Wells doesn’t take the easy road and make John some toothless dude that’s actually a nice, likable guy with a heart of gold underneath his antisocial personality disorder and dark fascination with death. John is likable to a certain extent (hell, he’s our “hero”), but there are a few scenes in this book – especially the ones involving his mother and then one particular decision towards the end – that remind readers that, hey, this is a dangerous young man with some serious issues.

I started I Am Not A Serial Killer somewhat skeptical – because, let’s face it, the Dexter shadow is a long, dark one – but I finished the book entertained and intrigued. Though he lacks the dark comedy of Jeff Lindsay’s anti-hero, John Wayne Cleaver is certainly an interesting and memorable character. And I am eager to see what happens next, especially considering that Mr. Monster is out of his cage.

Notable Quotes/Parts: From Chapter 1:

Mrs. Anderson was dead.

Nothing flashy, just old age—she went to bed one night and never woke up. They say it was a peaceful, dignified way to die, which I suppose is technically true, but the three days it took for someone to realize they hadn’t seen her in a while removed most of the dignity from the situation. Her daughter eventually dropped by to check on her and found her corpse three days rotted and stinking like roadkill. And the worst part isn’t the rotting, it’s the three days—three whole days before anyone cared enough to say, “Wait, where’s that old lady that lives down by the canal?” There’s not a lot of dignity in that.

But peaceful? Certainly. She died quietly in her sleep on August thirtieth, according to the coroner, which means she died two days before the something tore Jeb Jolley’s insides out and left him in a puddle behind the laundromat. We didn’t know it at the time, but that made Mrs. Anderson the last person in Clayton County to die of natural causes for almost six months. The Clayton Killer got the rest.

Well, most of them. All but one.

We got Mrs. Anderson’s body on Saturday, September Second, after the coroner was done with it—or, I guess I should say that my mom and Aunt Margaret got the body, not me. They’re the ones who run the mortuary; I’m only fifteen. I’d been in town most of the day, watching the police clean up the mess with Jeb, and came back just as the sun was beginning to go down. I slipped in the back just in case my mom was up front. I didn’t really want to see her.

No one was in the back yet, just me and Mrs. Anderson’s corpse. It was lying perfectly still on the table, under a blue sheet. It smelled like rotten meat and bug spray, and the lone ventilator fan buzzing loudly overhead wasn’t doing much to help. I washed my hands quietly in the sink, wondering how long I had, and gently touched the body. Old skin was my favorite—dry and wrinkled, with a texture like antique paper. The coroner hadn’t done much to clean up the body, probably because they were busy with Jeb, but the smell told me that at least they’d thought to kill the bugs. After three days in end-of-summer heat, there had probably been a lot of them.

A woman swung open the door from the front end of the mortuary and came in, looking like a surgeon in her green scrubs and mask. I froze, thinking it was my mother, but the woman just glanced at me and walked to a counter.

“Hi John,” she said, collecting some sterile rags. It wasn’t my mom at all, it was her sister Margaret—they were twins, and when their faces were masked I could barely tell the difference. Margaret’s voice was a little lighter, though, a little more . . . energetic. I figured it was because she’d never been married.

You can read more online HERE.

Additional Thoughts: Originally released in the UK, I Am Not A Serial Killer has some US content too. Check, for example, the following book trailer:

(Although I’m not really crazy about the voice or look of John here)

Also, in the UK book 2 of the trilogy has been recently released, titled Mr. Monster. Here’s the rundown:

From the author of I AM NOT A SERIAL KILLER…

John Wayne Cleaver has always known he has a dark side but he’s fought hard to oppress it and live a normal life – separating John from Mr Monster to survive. But after confronting and destroying the vicious killer that was terrorizing his town, his inner monster is getting stronger and harder to contain.

And now more bodies are being discovered…

With the police failing to catch Clayton County’s second serial killer John is going to have to use his secret knowledge of the first demon-killer to trap the second…but will he be able to avoid suspicion falling on him, and, in the face of extreme horrors, will he be able to restrain Mr Monster?

I’ve already got my copy – to be reviewed, very soon.

Rating: 7 – Very Good

Reading Next: Kraken by China Mieville

Title: Monsters of Men

Author: Patrick Ness

Genre: Dystopian, Science Fiction, Young Adult

Publisher: Walker (UK) / Candlewick (US)
Publication Date: May 2010 (UK) / September 2010 (US)
Hardcover: 608 pages

In the riveting conclusion to the acclaimed dystopian series, a boy and girl caught in the chaos of war face devastating choices that will decide the fate of a world.

As a world-ending war surges around them, Todd and Viola face monstrous decisions. The indigenous Spackle, thinking and acting as one, have mobilized to avenge their murdered people. Ruthless human leaders prepare to defend their factions at all costs, even as a convoy of new settlers approaches. And as the ceaseless Noise lays all thoughts bare, the projected will of the few threatens to overwhelm the desperate desire of the many. The consequences of each action, each word, are unspeakably vast: To follow a tyrant or a terrorist? To save the life of the one you love most, or thousands of strangers? To believe in redemption, or assume it is lost? Becoming adults amid the turmoil, Todd and Viola question all they have known, racing through horror and outrage toward a shocking finale.

Stand alone or series: The third (and final?) book in the Chaos Walking trilogy

How did I get this book: Review copy from the UK publisher

Why did I read this book: If you didn’t know, I’m a huge fan of this series. Seriously. I loved The Knife of Never Letting Go, was blown away by The Ask and the Answer, and so it’s only natural that I had incredibly high expectations for Monsters of Men – especially considering it’s the final book in the series. Of course, I did whatever I could to get my greedy paws on a review copy.

Review:

**WARNING: THIS REVIEW CONTAINS UNAVOIDABLE SPOILERS FOR THE FIRST TWO BOOKS IN THE SERIES. IF YOU HAVEN’T READ THE FIRST TWO NOVELS AND DO NOT WISH TO BE SPOILED, AWAY WITH YOU! Consider yourself warned.**

Oh, Chaos Walking. How much do I love thee? This series is basically an insane roller coaster of action and emotion – torn apart by forces much larger than themselves, Todd and Viola are separated at the end of The Ask and the Answer, as New Prentisstown is under impending attack from the native Spackle. Unable to take on the invading army by himself, Todd reluctantly has to enlist the Mayor’s help to stave off the Spackle attack long enough to make peace. Though Todd hates to rely at all on Mayor Prentiss, at least he’s gratified by the fact that he has beaten the Mayor before, and knows he can do it again with his Noise. Meanwhile, Viola rushes back to the camp of the Answer, where her she must confront Mistress Coyle for her brutal tactics – and to intercept the colonizer landing party of her former teachers and friends before Mistress Coyle can manipulate them into causing an all-out annihilation of the Spackle and men of New Prentisstown.

As the tensions mount, Todd and Viola struggle towards their goal of peace, even when a whole planet seems set against them.

Well, damn. Monsters of Men is nothing if not action-filled, and makes for a frenetic, dramatic conclusion to one of the finest Young Adult dystopian/science fiction series’ out there. If you’ve read the prior books (and presumably you have, since you’re reading this review), you already know that Patrick Ness’s world of Haven is awesomely unique, from its troubled origins in the Spackle/Colonist war, to the unprecedented effect of the planet itself on its new human and animal residents – laying bare every thought in a torrent of uninterrupted and indiscriminating NOISE (well, everyone except females, that is). A parable for our modern onslaught of information? Perhaps. But more impressive than that is how Mr. Ness has taken an awesome premise, and has built upon it over the course of the series – and Monsters of Men is no exception. In the first novel, the revelation that there are in fact other colonies on Haven – and women in those colonies – shocks and awes; in The Ask and the Answer, we learn the extent of the Mayor’s machinations, and are introduced to a contingent dedicated against him at any cost. And in this final book, we gain insight to the Spackle, and all the tensions of the prior books come to their inevitable head. Mr. Ness certainly has a gift for scope and creating a story that you want to come back to – heck, the series is over (maybe not?? Hmm, Patrick Ness, are you listening?), and I STILL want to come back to Haven.

So far as technicals go, the plotting for Monsters of Men is suicidally fast-paced, giving a whole new meaning to “white knuckle.” This is both a blessing and a curse – a blessing because the book is so damn absorbing, and there’s no putting it down once you’ve started it; a curse because in all the action and drama, there’s less finesse and subtlety in terms of themes, especially where certain characters are concerned (more on that in a bit).

In terms of the cast, the characters are, per usual, fantastic – Todd and Viola are heroes to make your heart bleed with all their raw emotion and integrity. In this final novel, Todd goes through a very Luke Skywalker-Darth Vader thing with the Mayor, staving off the Dark Side – I AM THE CIRCLE AND THE CIRCLE IS ME – with mixed results. Viola too goes through her own tests in this book, learning the limits of what she won’t do to ensure Todd’s safety, versus the future of the colony and the Spackle. These are both characters that have grown so much over the course of the series, and to see them finally come to terms with how they feel for each other, what they will do for each other in this final book…well, it’s breathtaking stuff.

What I loved the most about this book in addition to these two protagonists, however, was the voice of 1017 – known amongst the remaining Spackle as “The Return” – the sole survivor of “The Burden” (those Spackle sacrificed and left behind in the truce with the invading colonizers, whom the Spackle refer to as “The Clearing”). The voice of the Spackle, as told through the Return (1017), the Sky, and the Land, is a fascinating, wholly original thing. Confusing, initially, but I love that Mr. Ness understands that his readers are clever enough to figure it out. The Return in particular is a conflicted character that oscillates between blind hatred for Todd (whom he and the Spackle refer to as “The Knife”) because of Todd’s ongoing participation in the Spackle slaughter, and struggling to understand the peace-seeking ways of the rest of his people. The Return is an outsider in the same ways that Todd and Viola are, and even more so besides. Different than The Land – those wild Spackle – The Return struggles with his very human-emotions and his ability to conceal his Noise, anathema to a people that are connected to each other, to the very planet by virtue of their speechless communication.

And, of course, what would this series be without its villains? The Mayor is, perhaps, the most terrifying and formidable of all the forces Todd and Viola have encountered, and his crushing presence in Monsters of Men continues the cycle. So too is Viola’s “mentor” the prickly Mistress Coyle. And yet…neither of these characters are simply EVIL – they have their own reasons for the ways that they act, and given this insight to their pasts, it’s impossible to label them as “bad” people. Like everything in life, these are complicated characters, and I loved seeing this complex treatment of characters – especially in a Young Adult novel.

With all the strengths of Monsters of Men, however, there were a few flaws worth mentioning. Most disappointing was the heavy-handed treatment of certain themes in this book. Whereas in the prior novels, there was a certain thematic subtlety, in Monsters of Men, everything is laid out, point-blank – Mistress Coyle is a terrorist! Mayor Prentiss is a Dictator! In other words, the political/ideological thematics have all the subtlety of an incoming missile.

This criticism aside, I absolutely loved Monsters of Men. While The Ask and the Answer is still my favorite book in the series, this final novel is a beautiful, fitting send off to a truly superior series. And…I’m really sad to see it go, but at the same time, I think it ended perfectly. Absolutely recommended to readers of all ages and preferences.

Notable Quotes/Parts: From the Prologue:

“War,” says Mayor Prentiss, his eyes glinting. “At last.”

“Shut up,” I say. “There ain’t no at last about it. The only one who wants this is you.”

“Nevertheless,” he says, turning to me with a smile. “Here it comes.”

And of course I’m already wondering if untying him so he could fight this battle was the worst mistake of my life–

But no–

No, it’s gonna keep her safe. It’s what I had to do to keep her safe.

And I will make him keep her safe if I have to kill him to do it.

And so with the sun setting, me and the Mayor stand on the rubble of the cathedral and look out across the town square, as the army of Spackle make their way down the zigzag hill in front of us, blowing their battlehorn with a sound that could tear you right in two–

As Mistress Coyle’s army of the Answer marches into town behind us, bombing everything in its path Boom! Boom! BOOM!–

As the first soldiers of the Mayor’s own army start arriving in quick formayshun from the south, Mr Hammar at their front, crossing the square towards us to get new orders–

As the people of New Prentisstown run for their lives in any and every direkshun–

As the scout ship from the incoming settlers lands on a hill somewhere near Mistress Coyle, the worst possible place for ’em–

As Davy Prentiss lies dead in the rubble below us, shot by his own father, shot by the man I just set free–

And as Viola–

My Viola–

Races out on horseback into the middle of it all, her ankles broken, not even able to stand up on her own–

Yes, I think.

Here it comes.

The end of everything.

The end of it all.

“Oh, yes, Todd,” says the Mayor, rubbing his hands together. “Oh, yes, indeed.”

And he says the word again, says it like it’s his every last wish come true.

“War.”

And it’s KILLING ME not to post my favorite part of the book, because it is spoiler-ridden…so I’m succumbing and posting it below. Spoiler tagged, of course – to read, highlight the seemingly empty space below:

“It’s almost over,” Todd says. “We’ll have peace, he’ll have his victory, and he won’t need me, even tho he thinks he does. The convoy’ll come, he’ll be the hero but he’ll be outnumbered, and we’ll get the hell outta here, okay?”

“Todd–”

See how he feels the skin of my hand against his, see how he wants to take it and press it to his mouth, how he wants to breathe in the smell of me and how beautiful I look to him, how strong after all that illness, and how he wants to just lightly touch my neck, just there, and how he want sto take me in his arms and –

“Oh, God,” he says, looking away suddenly. “Viola, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean–”

And it feels like, finally.

Finally.

Verdict: A beautiful, emotionally wrenching finale to one of the best series’ in the dystopian canon. I loved Monsters of Men as passionately as I loved The Knife of Never Letting Go and The Ask and the Answer. If you haven’t read Patrick Ness yet, you need to get on this bandwagon. Absolutely recommended.

Rating: 8 – Excellent, and one of my favorite reads of 2010 so far.

Reading Next: I Am Not A Serial Killer by Dan Wells

Welcome to guest dare! For those new to the feature, our Guest Dare is a monthly endeavor in which we invite an unsuspecting victim to read a book totally outside of their comfort zone. You can read all previous Dare posts HERE.

This month’s daree is Kris of the cleverly named Voracious YAppetite. When we dared Kris and learnt that there was only one genre she feared reading above all and that was Horror, we knew which book we had to dare her to read House of Leaves by Mark Danielewski one of Thea’s favourite horror novels. HOWEVER, the experience did not go down that well….but we will let Kris tell you all:

Title: Dark Places

Author: Gillian Flynn

Genre: Psychological thriller, murder mystery

Publisher: Shaye Areheart Books
Publishing date: May 5, 2009
Hardcover: 345 pages

Stand alone or series: Stand alone

I have a meanness inside me, real as an organ.

Libby Day was seven when her mother and two sisters were murdered in “The Satan Sacrifice of Kinnakee, Kansas.” As her family lay dying, little Libby fled their tiny farm-house into the freezing January snow. She lost some fingers and toes, but she survived — and famously testified that her fifteen-year-old brother, Ben, was the killer. Twenty-five years later, Ben sits in prison, and troubled Libby lives off the dregs of a trust created by well-wishers who’ve long forgotten her.

The Kill Club is a macabre secret society obsessed with notorious crimes. When they locate Libby and pump her for details — proof they hope may free Ben — Libby hatches a plan to profit off her tragic history. For a fee, she’ll reconnect with the players from that night and report her finding to the club…and maybe she’ll admit her testimony wasn’t so solid after all.

As Libby’s search takes her from shabby Missouri strip clubs to abandoned Oklahoma tourist towns, the narrative flashes back to January 2, 1985. The events of that day are relayed through the eyes of Libby’s doomed family members — including Ben, a loner whose rage over his shiftless father and their failing farm have driven him into a disturbing friendship with the new girl in town. Piece by piece, the unimaginable truth emerges, and Libby finds herself right back where she started — on the run from a killer.

Kris’ Review:

If you keep up with The Book Smugglers’ monthly guest dare feature, you’re aware that pretty much everyone completes the book that they’ve agreed to read, no matter how much they don’t like it. Then I came along.

I didn’t set out to be the problematic, wishy-washy dare-ee, but this is how it happened. See, I suffer from a lifelong aversion to horror stories. Now don’t get me wrong, I’ve got a bloodthirsty streak like most everyone else: I like violent action flicks, gory war movies, supernatural books with fights to the death. But I do not enjoy being afraid. I find no pleasure in scary movies or books. After each time that I watch a horror movie (which I never fail to regret), I end up terrified of every single unexplained sound, the slightest hint of darkness — even the doorbell (it could be a serial killer disguised as a pizza delivery man, for all I know). The farthest I’ve gotten in a Stephen King book was the first chapter.

So when Ana and Thea dared me to read a book in a genre I tend to stay away from, horror was really the only honest answer. And I tried. I really did. I chose The House of Leaves, got to page 50…and couldn’t go any further. I was already starting to turn on all the lights in the house, my imagination running wild the moment the sun went down. Pathetic and embarrassing, but the truth.

But then I came across Dark Places by Gillian Flynn. I’d never heard of the book or Gillian before, so I picked it up and found myself reading the following:

“I have a meanness inside of me, real as an organ. Slit me at my belly and it might slide out, meaty and dark, drop on the floor so you could stomp on it. It’s the Day blood. Something’s wrong with it. I was never a good little girl, and I got worse after the murders. Little Orphan Libby grew up sullen and boneless, shuffled around a group of lesser relatives — second cousins and great-aunts and friends of friends — stuck in a series of mobile homes or rotting ranch houses all across Kansas. Me going to school in my dead sisters’ hand-me-downs: Shirts with mustardy armpits. Pants with baggy bottoms, comically loose, held on with a raggedy belt cinched to the farthest hole. In class photos my hair was always crooked — barrettes hanging loosely from strands, as if they were airborne objects caught in the tangles — and I always had bulging pockets under my eyes, drunk-landlady eyes. Maybe a grudging curve of the lips where a smile should be. Maybe.

I was not a lovable child, and I’d grown into a deeply unlovable adult. Draw a picture of my soul, and it’d be a scribble with fangs.”

With that first page, I knew I’d found my book for the dare.

I could tell by reading that excerpt that this story would be an intense psychological thriller, possibly scarier than I’m comfortable with — but I had to know more. The summary makes it seem as though Libby is in for the surprise of her life: that maybe her brother, Ben, wasn’t the murderer after all. But if not Ben — whom she testified as having been the culprit — then who?

It is obvious from early on that there is more to the murders than Ben’s quick trial and sentencing suggests. This mass murder was decades in the making; the twisted, horrific result of extreme depravity, small-town life, midwestern farm culture, discrimination against the poor, shoddy policework, and the “Satanic Panic” of the ’80s, as well as the desperate actions of a well-meaning mother and a son that could never quite take control of his problematic life.

Whenever I read a book with a mystery element, I find myself second-guessing the clues, wondering if they should be taken at face value or if they are red herrings meant to throw me off-course. With Dark Places, there were many times that I made more or less out of the clues than I should have. There is a complicated history and a lot of players in this mystery, which form a web of possibilities that ultimately left me unsure as to all the details of the crime until the very end. Gillian had me at the edge of my seat the whole way through, keeping me confused, increasingly anxious — even feeling guilty.

Why guilty? Well, like Gillian’s plotting, her characters are layered, complex, full of surprises and contradictions. On the surface they are dark, dirty people, the kind you want to write off as bad and worthless. In the case of a few of them, that’s all they are; sinister, greedy, sociopathic characters, the degenerate outliers of society that gave me a serious case of the creeps. But part of the reason this book’s scare factor was so effective for me is because of how I felt towards the Day family. I found myself helpless against empathizing with them, and in some ways, even identifying with them. Particularly frightening was how close I felt to Ben. He’d been a troubled, unpopular kid who overcompensated for his insecurities and inferior reputation by getting involved with the wrong crowd, whose lack of a backbone he more than made up for with anger, resentment, and a slew of bad decisions. That I was able to connect with a character I knew was a criminal left me feeling guilty, and even more so because exactly how severe his crimes were I was never sure of until the end.

Those who like and regularly partake in horror stories might not find Dark Places to be as gruesome as I did, nor feel that the characters were both twisted and easy to empathize with. But Dark Places was the perfect read for me; I felt it satisfied my dare with what I found to be a suspenseful, horrific, and yes, quite gruesome tale — without leaving me scared out of my wits.

A big thanks to Ana and Thea for (gently) pushing me to expand my reading limits. I ended up enjoying Dark Places and I am honestly excited to read more by Gillian Flynn.

We thank YOU Kris, for sticking to the dare!

Next on the Guest Dare: Janice of Janicu reads Daughter of the Forest a Book Smuggler Favourite by one of our most adored writers: Juliet Marillier

Title: The Passage

Author: Justin Cronin

Genre: Horror, (Post-)Apocalyptic, Fiction, Speculative Fiction

Publisher: Ballatine (US) / Orion (UK)
Publication Date: June 2010 (US & UK)
Hardcover: 784 Pages

“It happened fast. Thirty-two minutes for one world to die, another to be born.”

First, the unthinkable: a security breach at a secret U.S. government facility unleashes the monstrous product of a chilling military experiment. Then, the unspeakable: a night of chaos and carnage gives way to sunrise on a nation, and ultimately a world, forever altered. All that remains for the stunned survivors is the long fight ahead and a future ruled by fear—of darkness, of death, of a fate far worse.

As civilization swiftly crumbles into a primal landscape of predators and prey, two people flee in search of sanctuary. FBI agent Brad Wolgast is a good man haunted by what he’s done in the line of duty. Six-year-old orphan Amy Harper Bellafonte is a refugee from the doomed scientific project that has triggered apocalypse. He is determined to protect her from the horror set loose by her captors. But for Amy, escaping the bloody fallout is only the beginning of a much longer odyssey—spanning miles and decades—towards the time and place where she must finish what should never have begun.

With The Passage, award-winning author Justin Cronin has written both a relentlessly suspenseful adventure and an epic chronicle of human endurance in the face of unprecedented catastrophe and unimaginable danger. Its inventive storytelling, masterful prose, and depth of human insight mark it as a crucial and transcendent work of modern fiction.

Stand alone or series: Book 1 in a planned trilogy

How did I get this book: ARC from the Publisher

Why did I read this book: You don’t have to search hard to find some sort of promotional material for Justin Cronin’s The Passage – down the street from my apartment, there’s an honest to goodness billboard with an advertisement for the book. At BookExpo America, banners were strewn willy-nilly across the Javits Center, and even press/attendee badges bore advertisements for the book. The Passage has come so highly rated by literary types and genre fiction types alike (hi-yo, Stephen King endorsement!), and given the synopsis of the book (a world overrun by a deadly vampire-like plague, a struggling group of humans fighting for survival in a ravaged post-apocalyptic America, and a girl-that-is-not-a-girl who could save them all)…well, this is has my name all over it. Thea-crack.

Review:

When I have seen by Time’s fell hand defac’d
The rich proud cost of outworn buried age;
When sometime lofty towers I see down-raz’d,
And brass eternal slave to mortal rage;
When I have seen the kingdom of the shore,
And the firm soil win of the watery main,
Increasing store with loss, and loss with store;
When I have seen such interchange of state,
Or state itself confounded to decay;
Ruin hath taught me thus to ruminate
That Time will come and take my love away.

~ William Shakespeare, Sonnet 68

So begins the The Passage – with a fittingly eerie, portent ode to the end of the world. The book begins with the story of a teenage mother, Jeanette, and her beloved daughter whom she names Amy Harper – for Harper Lee, the author of Jeanette’s favorite book. Though Jeanette loves her daughter more than anything else in the world, she finds herself in an impossible situation, and is forced to give young, solemn Amy up, leaving her with a convent of nuns. Sister Lacey immediately feels a connection to Amy, understanding that there is something different, something important, about the six-year old girl, and takes her in, deflecting the questions of the other nuns in the convent. Meanwhile, Doctor Jonas Lear continues his top secret medical research, borne of a dream to find a miraculous cure for mankind’s ailments, under the jurisdiction and protection of the U.S. Army. FBI agent Brad Wolgast is sent to procure the subjects of Dr. Lear’s human trials, twelve deathrow inmates whom Wolgast persuades to sign their lives away. But Wolgast’s final mission has his conscience ill at ease as he and his partner are sent to pick up one final test subject; a six year old girl, abandoned by her prostitute mother. A girl named Amy.

Lear’s research, the twelve variations of the Project NOAH virus, are unleashed on the world in a single night as security is breached and each of the inexplicable, ravenous test subjects escape. Infecting and multiplying, the Virals sweep the North American continent from coast to coast in a wave of blood, horror and death, their only vulnerability exposure to daylight. The survivors – what few survivors remain – band together in isolated fortresses, armed with weapons and shielding their settlements with bright lights from dusk till dawn. But many decades later, when the power stutters and batteries begin to fail in First Colony, its only a matter of time before the lights go out and all is lost. But when a strange young girl with the ability to keep the Virals at bay arrives at the Colony walls, the fate of those precious few human survivors holds a glimmer of hope in a world of endless death.

As I mentioned above, The Passage is one of the most hyped new releases (if not THE most hyped new release) of 2010. And, having been burned by hype this year countless times, it was with a high level of anxiety that I began The Passage.

Well, folks, it is with exuberant, unfaltering joy that I can say, this book is every bit as epic, as horrifying, as magnificent as promised.

From a world-building perspective, the tropes are instantly recognizable, familiar to the genre fiction fan. There’s nothing new about the premise of the book – an apocalypse, born of good intentions gone awry; a pandemic that converts the planet’s population into monsters, the remaining humans defenseless lambs to the slaughter. Justin Cronin’s take on the vampires myth is also somewhat familiar, his mutated “smokes” reminiscent of the recent film version of I Am Legend (not to be confused with Richard Matheson’s original envisioning), and Guillermo del Toror & Chuck Hogan’s more recent The Strain. To those skeptically reading this review, thinking to themselves that this is just another vampire book in a market oversaturated with supposedly “new” takes on vampire lore, what with their Bill Comptons, Edward Cullens, or even Kurt Barlows (for the horror afficionado), rest assured that The Passage is not just another vampire book. Rather (as remarked on Twitter earlier this week), The Passage is “just” another vampire book so much as The Road is “just” another post-apocalypse novel and Dawn of the Dead is “just” another zombie movie.

The Passage is the real deal. It is a book that not only lives up to the gargantuan hype, the impressive scale of its marketing machine, the carrot of its Ridley Scott movie deal – it surpasses expectation because it is just that damn good a story.

While on the one hand these genre tropes are safe and familiar, on the other it’s incredibly smart on author Justin Cronin’s part – these are classic premises for a reason, and Mr. Cronin embellishes his own mythology in just the right places. Instead of trying to reinvent the wheel, Mr. Cronin blends the familiar, imbued with his own particular take on apocalypse-by-monster. There are secrets and revelations enough to satisfy the scrutinizing apocalyptic aficionado (believe me, I’m one of the most discriminating of the bunch), but more than just worldbuilding or setting, the most impressive thing about The Passage is how effortless the storytelling is. Yes, it’s a doorstopper at 800 pages long – but it’s the best kind of doorstopper. Have you ever read a book that you didn’t want to end? A book that makes you feel the pang of regret, even as you race to the next page? Such is The Passage. The book is very much like Stephen King in its heft, but with one rather sizeable difference – in King’s books, there is a lot of, shall I say, excess. In The Passage, each page, each side-plot, each character history plays a vital, invaluable role in the book.

And I’ve yet to say anything of the characters! The cast of The Passage is large and varied, covering not only an array of human and infected, but across almost 100 years, as well. And for all that, each character is impeccably detailed; from the tragic Jeanette Bellafonte to the faithful Sister Lacey, the hardened Agent Wolgast to the heartbroken Dr. Lear, the self-doubting Peter, always in the shadow of his brother Theo, to the fiery Alicia. Each has their own distinct voice, their intricate and genuine histories, and I found myself profoundly caring for all of them – even the Virals themselves. Because, with the “monsters” and thematically, I think Mr. Cronin does with The Passage what so many dystopian and apocalyptic authors forget matters the most – he keeps hope alive in his story. Instead of villifying and labeling the vampires in his book as monotonously evil, bent only on blood and death, he shows them in a different light (which I won’t spoil for you, dear readers).

Finally, I do think that “the hype” must be formally addressed – especially for a book which has been pushed so much as The Passage. This is undeniably a genre fiction novel, brought to a mainstream audience – and I cannot express how overjoyed am I that an honest-to-goodness horror/post-apocalyptic mashup garnered such a huge marketing campaign and budget. Not to mention the movie option – seriously, throughout the book, I kept wondering, who is Russell Crowe gonna play? Heh. (I’m thinking Agent Wolgast, or a certain Army Major. Heck, why not Babcock? But therein lie spoilers, and I promise not to go there.) With the hype, however, comes the fear – I am a little nervous because this is not an easy blockbuster read such as, say, The DaVinci Code. I can see where reader opinion may vary and why the book’s intimidating length and large-scale approach to time and characters might lose readers – especially casual readers in our instant gratification era of teh internets – but I’m here to tell you that those naysayers? They miss the point. The Passage is a magnificent gift of a novel about the journey, not the answers (bear in mind, this is the first book of a trilogy). Beautifully written on an epic scale, it is a book that transcends genre.

The Passage is undoubtably the best book I have read in 2010. Absolutely recommended for anyone not scared to take on a book that shatters the mold of mass produced, predictable tripe that looks and reads like every other book on the market; for anyone that enjoys a truly Great read; for anyone that wants wants to be swept away in a torrent of flawless storytelling.

The Passage awaits.

Notable Quotes/Parts: Using Random House’s “insight” widget, you can read the first 80 pages of The Passage below.

Additional Thoughts: As I mentioned above, the marketing campaign for this book is nothing short of impressive. For extras and downloads – everything from iPhone Apps to Twitter avatars and screensavers – check out the official book website HERE.

Once you’ve had your fun there, make sure to check out spinoff website Find Subject Zero (a tie-in blog) and enjoy the goodies, including videos, blog posts, tweets, and more. (I’m a huge sucker for these things, so I highly recommend you visit if you’re similarly inclined). For more content, check out Amazon’s Omnivoracious Page, where you can catch Justin Cronin’s podcasts about the book.

Rating: 9 – Damn Near Perfection; and I wait with bated breath for the next book in the trilogy.

Reading Next: The Magician’s Apprentice by Trudi Canavan