Book Reviews – Darker Subjects

Daughter of Chaos by Jen McConnel

This is Book One of the Red Magic Series published in 2014. In 2015, Book Two, Gods of Chaos, was published, and Triumph of Chaos, Book Three, was published in 2016. Let me start this review by saying that I will not be reading books two and three. Not that this book was particularly bad, but because it wasn’t good enough to for me to want to go back for more. Part of the problem is me, of course. I don’t really like young adult fiction. Most of it is too simplistic for my tastes.

Another part of the problem is one fundamental to series fiction. Book one always needs to set up the main character and the world in which the series takes place. Typically, book one lacks an essential element: the tension of a central conflict and MC’s struggle to resolve it. There are several threads of tension in this book, but none of them are strong enough to carry the story.

The story is about Darlena, a teenage witch, forced to choose her witch path. She has the options of Black, White, or Green. Forced to decide, she rebelliously blurts out “Red, I choose Red.” When she said it, she didn’t even know that red witchcraft was a thing. Now, she’s becoming a red witch whose power is chaos.

Be aware, spoilers to follow.

There’s the conflict between Darlena and her parents. Her parents want her to be a white or green witch and are, naturally, disappointed when she chooses red. They are not involved in her later adventures, being neither helpful nor obstructive. Although they do say that if she’s going to be a red witch they can’t help her, even though her mom is a white witch.

There’s the conflict between Darlena and her boyfriend, who is also a white witch. This relationship plays out very awkwardly. It doesn’t read like a true portrayal of teenage romance to me. Instead, it reads like an adult trying to write about teenage romance. Appalled by her choice, her boyfriend begins to hold her at arm’s length. Her continuing love, and aching for him, seems contrived.

There’s the conflict between Darlena and her best girlfriend. When the girlfriend turns against Darlena, the reader is surprised because there is no sign that this could be happening, there’s no set-up to make it realistic. The friend’s betrayal seems to be there because the author needed to find an antagonist.

Then there’s the blending of Greek and Roman myths with the story of witchcraft. For me, this mix simply does not work.

The story wanders. Darlena’s main goal doesn’t seem clear. Then she takes off to another country without any good explanation of why. Next, she journeys to the underworld. Now, I suppose, the author has the right to create the underworld and red magic that pleases her. Unfortunately, neither one worked for me. Sorry, Ms. McConnell.

On the rating scale of one to five (five being best), I give this book a two.

Chasing the Boogeyman by Richard Chizmar

This book is a true crime horror story, or is it? I picked this book up because I thought it was horror fiction. However, as I began reading it, I wondered if I had inadvertently picked up a true-crime tale. The book contains a foreword by true-crime writer James Renner, which sets up the idea in the reader’s mind that this is not fiction. The book also includes photographs of people and locations involved in the case. Even after I had finished reading it, I was still questioning the genre. The writing is that convincing.

Richard Chizmar supposedly tells the true story of a serial killer in his hometown in writing that reads like part documentary and part memoir.

A serial killer is mutilating young girls and leaves few clues. The town becomes afraid as more murders happen while the police aren’t able to find the killer.

Written like an autobiography, the author narrates how, after he graduated college and moved back in with his parents, he became interested in trying to solve the murders. He works with a journalist friend, and they do a little unauthorized snooping. The story feels personal as the narrator talks about growing up in this small town and seeing people he’s known most of his life. Filled with flashbacks from the narrator’s youth, the murder mystery gets lost in the small-town slice-of-life tale.

The writing style is unique and so well written in the true-crime genre that I still don’t want to believe it was fiction.

On a rating scale where one is ‘just don’t bother with it’ and five is ‘this will change your life,’ I give this book a three. Although it was compelling, it didn’t make me want to drop everything and read it, which is what five demands and it wasn’t suspenseful enough that I thought about it when I wasn’t reading it. So, it gets a three.

Summer Sons by Lee Manedelo

Although the coroner has ruled his adopted brother’s death a suicide, Andrew doesn’t believe it and seeks to find the truth about how Eddie died.

I’ve seen that literary trope so often that it doesn’t interest me anymore. However, this book has so much more to offer. There’s the gothic atmosphere, street car racing, academic stress, a throbbing uncurrent of sexuality, and a revenant that haunts people instead of houses.

In the opening chapter, the haunt (used here as a noun to represent the ghost or spirit or whatever you wish to call it) comes when Andrew is sitting in the driver’s seat of Eddie’s car. Andrew scrambles into the passenger seat to get away from it. The spirit then “…lifted a hand from the wheel to reach for him, uncanny as a marionette; searing cold fingertips tapped the tattooed bone of his wrist.” Bonded by a horrific experience when they were teenagers, Eddie continues to reach out to Andrew from beyond the grave.

Visitations from the haunt fill the book. Andrew struggles to understand messages from the spirit while also trying to investigate Eddie’s death. Andrew becomes roommates with Eddie’s roommate, moves into Eddie’s bedroom, and begins taking graduate-level courses at the university where Eddie studied. He believes that getting close to Eddie’s friends and academic advisors will help him understand how Eddie died. Eddie had been working on a research project that involved interviewing people in this Southern community about ghosts and hauntings they’ve experienced. Andrew picks up where Eddie’s research left off and finds himself “Running straight into the mouth of danger after it found him and invited him along for a ride.” Andrew tries to continue his graduate studies, but his obsession with discovering how Eddie dies prevents him from getting very far. He makes friends with Eddie’s friends, using Eddie’s muscle car to engage in street races and participating in hot, steamy, sweaty parties with plenty of alcohol, drugs, and sexual energy.

Andrew experiences a sort of re-coming of age. He loses his illusions about love, academics, and the spirit world and begins to comprehend things he never thought possible.

Summer Sons is a literary horror. The writing is beautiful and evocative, with an elevation of prose not often found in horror fiction. It requires slow reading, periods in which the reader can take the time to sink into the words, while the plot simmers in a slow burn, igniting a more conventional horror story climax. In addition to being a horror story, it is a mystery in the classic who-done-it genre and a vibrant tale of love and grief.

Mandelo combines the horror of haunting with the emotional battleground of academia and the angst of twenty-somethings struggling to become adults. They have earned a fan who will eagerly await their next book.

Ranking: Invest the time to read this book because it’s worth it.

The Chalk Man by C. J. Tudor

Reading the back cover of this book irritated me. The plot sounded like the novel It by Stephen King. Young kids find some criminal or supernatural activity. Later in life, they are called back to it only to finally uncover the real truth about what happened in their youth. One of the reviewers called it “an utterly original novel,” which only irritated me more. I have difficulty finding any original story with the number of books I read in various genres.

The story is about a rag-tag gang of kids (four boys and one girl). The narrator of the story is one of the boys. The kids have a game in which they leave secret messages for each other drawn in chalk. Then, they find chalk drawings that lead them to a dismembered body in the woods. The head of the murdered young woman is missing. The murder is never solved. Thirty years later, they begin to receive chalk drawings that will open up the entire mystery once again and, perhaps, lead to revealing the murderer.

The story alternates between 1986 when the children find the dead body, and 2016, when the chalk drawings appear again. I’m not particularly fond of this writing device, but it does work in creating suspense.

So, I began reading this book with a predisposed irritation and bias against it.

But then, the book caught ahold of me. I didn’t want to put it down after my allotted reading time. One afternoon, I blew off everything I was supposed to do to sit in my easy chair and finish reading it.

While this book has many twists and turns, I suspected what had happened to the head early on in the reading and was correct. However, I didn’t have any idea who had murdered the girl. Although somewhat surprising, the final reveal made sense with the story beats leading up to it.

The writing is beautiful: “The blue had been scoured from the sky by Brillo-gray clouds.” At one point, a character says, “…my life is one long wreck of ‘should haves’ crashing into each other in a big, tangled mess of regrets.” For a first novel, I would even call it brilliant. The characters are well-developed and engaging. The writing is crisp. The plot does not sag in the middle. The setting is well-drawn.

I had expected this to be a horror novel. However, it’s a ‘who done it’ and contains nothing scary. I was kind of disappointed with that.

On the horror rating scale, this rates a zero out of 5.

On the books to read, because they are entertaining, this book rates a 4 out of 5.

The Final Girl Support Group by Grady Hendrix

The Final Girl Support Group is a slasher horror story with a brilliant premise. The final girls are the ones who survived a psychotic killer’s rampage. They get their name by being the last ones alive. They now have post-traumatic stress syndrome (PTSD) and meet in a therapy group to work through the trauma.

The story begins when yet another psychotic killer starts picking off the women in the support group, one at a time, and they must again fight for their lives.

The viewpoint character, Lynette Tarkington, is violently forced out of her apartment, where she has been isolating herself to stay safe. No longer safe, she begins pursuing the culprits who attacked her. Lynette thinks she knows who is killing the final girls and goes after them, but she’s wrong. Her next theory is wrong, also. It’s annoying that Hendrix never gives the reader any credible explanation of why Lynette suspects anyone she’s chasing. Of course, in Lynette’s final theory, she’s correct. But, again, the reader has no idea why she settled on that suspect.

When Lynette chases one suspect after another, there’s abundant blood and gore. The various serial killer scenarios should satisfy the carnage many slasher fans seek.

My preference is psychological horror. Slasher horror, such as this, is my least favorite horror type. I read this mostly because of Grady Hendrix’s reputation as a horror master. I’ve read Horrostor and My Best Friends Exorcism, so I knew the writing style I was getting into. I’m not sure why I chose to read another of his books. Perhaps I wanted to see why he has so much commercial success. Or maybe I subconsciously like his writing. If you see me reading another of his books, refer me back to this paragraph.

The Cabin at the End of the World

The Cabin at the End of the World is another apocalyptic story. The setting is a vacation cabin in the middle of nowhere. Eric and Andrew have come here with their young daughter Wen for vacation. It’s a quiet, secluded place next to a lake with no nearby neighbors.

While Eric and Andrew get settled in the cabin, Wen plays in the yard. A man comes and begins to play with Wen. He says his name is Leonard. Wen becomes uncomfortable with him and goes into the cabin. Now three other people join Leonard. They all carry odd makeshift weapons, sledgehammers, rakes, and blades, all attached to the ends of long wooden handles. One is “…a flower of rusty hand shovel and trowel blades, nailed and screwed to the end…” of a long handle.

Eric and Andrew lock up the cabin to keep these strange people out, but the peculiar people break in anyway. Eric and Andrew are tied up while seven-year-old Wen is left free. The rest of the book concerns the conflict between Eric/Andrew/Wen, and their four strange captors.

The book is action-packed. The first sixty pages are about the couple and daughter trying to keep invaders out of the cabin. Then, the attacker’s purpose is slowly revealed, and the terror grows. Very beautifully written at a rapid pace. The point of view shifts between Eric, Andrew, and Wen as the invaders hold them captive. This book starts with a bang, and the dynamic tension doesn’t stop. The predicament of the main characters is interesting, and I kept reading to find out what the next jaw-dropping revelation would be.

The story feels unbelievable and therefore isn’t scary. The motivations for the villains are as truly baffling as those real-life fanatics who believe the world will end. In the end, the reader is left with the feeling that all of it has been meaningless.

The Cabin at the End of the World has a world of suspense going for it. The reader keeps asking, ‘why is this happening’ but the answer, when it comes, isn’t very satisfying. This book rates a two on the horror scale, where one is not scary, and five is sleep-with-the-lights-on scary.

in a dark, dark wood by Ruth Ware

Ruth Ware is proving herself to be a master of suspense, in the twisty-mystery style. In a dark, dark wood is her first book and is full of tension from the first line “I am running” to the very last line “And then I click.” What happens in between those two lines is an amazing story of toxic friendships.

The book is a quick read, but that doesn’t mean it’s superficial like some of the other best selling authors. Ware digs deep into the emotional impact the outer events are having on the main character, Leonora. Leonora is sometimes known as Lee, sometimes as Leo, but in the present time of the story goes by Nora. From inside Nora’s head, the reader feels the same sense of dread, of foreboding, that the Nora feels.

It is the story of a group of friends in their mid-twenties who gather for a ‘hen’ weekend. That’s a weekend to celebrate the bride-to-be, like a bridal shower but extended to an entire weekend of fun and games. They gather in a remote house in the middle of a woods. The house has all glass walls so one can view the woods from inside the house, or someone from outside can see what is happened inside the house. As if the setting is not creepy enough, the character, Flo, who organized the hen weekend is offbeat, almost as though something is wrong with her.

Five people gather for the weekend: Nora, Flo, Clare (the bride-to-be), Nina (a friend from school), and a man named Tom. Clare is planning to marry James, Nora’s teen age sweetheart. Nora never really got over James and resents him because he broke her heart. When Clare, Nora and James were in school together, Clare had the hots for James. But, at that time, James preferred Nora, then known as Lee. The weekend involves a lot of drinking, skeet shooting, and Ouija board play.

A thoroughly enjoyable read, I completed it in one afternoon. The suspense is engaging enough that I read well beyond my allotted reading time. It’s suspenseful without being scary. Nora is relatable and I found myself hoping she would come out all right in the end.

This book does not lag in the middle as some books tend to do. The suspense begins on page one and holds all the way through. The middle of the book is every bit as interesting as the opening and the ending. Ware’s writing is like Dean Koontz; suspenseful but not scary. It won’t keep you up at night, unless you live in a house with glass walls. Then you might have a problem.

House of Echoes, by Brendan Duffy, 2015

House of Echoes, by Brendan Duffy, horror fiction, 2015

House of Echoes, the first novel by Brendan Duffy, is another story set in an old house (the Crofts) filed with the spirits of prior residents. The story is reminiscent of The Shining: a big old building, a spooky cellar, a couple with a troubled marriage, a young son. But the Crofts is not the Overlook and the terror is not restricted to the house. This eerie house is surrounded by a creepy forest containing all manner of horrors.

The story is set in an isolated village where people have strange beliefs. To quote Duffy there are “Demons in the woods and devils at the door.” Duffy succeeds in creating a creepy environment where the setting, the village and forest surrounding it, become characters.

Crofts is an old four-story building with 65 rooms built over the years, the huge home of the Swann family who have lived here for generations. It overlooks the ‘drop’, a valley surrounded by mountains. The village is the Town of Swannhaven, a “a place between places”.

Ben Tierney, his wife Caroline, son Charlie, and baby Bud have moved here along with their dog Hudson. Their intention is to turn the Crofts into a country inn. Caroline is a recently laid off banker and Ben is a writer. They are looking for a place to restart their lives. Ben is distantly related to the Swann family, a fact appreciated by the villagers.

Eight-year-old Charlie enjoys exploring the forest that surrounds the Crofts, until he meets the ‘watcher’. Then, “Fear…sat next to his heart.” Ben gets acquainted with the villagers and begins to uncover their secrets and their primitive history. Meanwhile, Caroline is struggling with severe depression and has a breakdown after baby Bud disappears.

This is a highly readable book, paced well, with interesting characters. On the horror scale, where one is not scary at all and five is sleep-with-the-lights-on scary, this book rates a two. There is an element of horror, but most of the elements meant to be frightening are more gross than scary.

The Exorcist

The Exorcist by William Peter Blatty (1971)

First published in 1971, The Exorcist received the accolade “the most terrifying novel every written.” Rereading it in 2018, it is less terrifying than it was back in the 1970’s. Still, it holds up as a truly scary work of horror fiction.

It’s the story of a demon that Catholic priests cannot exorcise. In order to explain that statement I’ll need to discuss the ending. So spoiler alert for anyone who has not read the book or seen the movie.

We tend to think that the story is about a young girl possessed by a demon. It is that, but the story, in its deepest essence, is about the efforts of two priests to exorcise the demon. The first priest is Father Merrin who we meet in the prologue when he is in Iraq on an architectural dig. A statue of the demon Pazuzu fills him with foreboding. Father Karras, the second priest, is a psychiatrist. A young girl’s mother asks him to treat her daughter who has been experiencing bizarre systems including frenetic behavior and increasingly violent aggression. Although Father Merrin is the older, experienced priest who leads the exorcism, I’d say that Father Karras is the Exorcist of the title.

Chris MacNeil is an actress making a film in Washington D.C. Her twelve year old daughter, Regan, is with her. Chris has recently separated from the child’s father. When Regan begins to exhibit strange behavior, Chris takes her to doctors to find out what is wrong. They attribute her behavior to the recent breakup of her parents’ marriage. However, Chris believes this to be wrong and as the behavior becomes increasingly disturbing, she turns to the Father Karras for help.

Father Karras is experiencing a crises of faith brought on by the death of his mother. He suffers terrible guilt that he hadn’t done enough for her. His psychiatric training makes him skeptical that a demon is possessing Regan. Rather, he thinks she is having some sort of psychotic break. Through Father Karras, Blatty examines every other possible diagnosis of Regan. Father Karras eventually rules out everything but demonic possession, and we, the readers, agree.

SPOILER ALERT: Now here’s the SPOILER: both priests die. Father Merrin dies of heart failure. Father Karras is thrown out of the window by the demon, falls several stories, and is killed. Upon Father Karras’s death, the demon leaves Regan. But where does the demon go? Is it inside Father Karras and dies with him? Blatty gives us a hint of the answer in the Epilogue wherein he states: “…exorcists themselves had at times become possessed….strong feelings of guilt…” make them susceptible to possession. Another hint is a reference to the look in Father Karras’s eyes as he dies on the pavement far below the window. But does the demon die with Karras? The only way for Karras to rid Regan of the demon is to transfer the demon from the girl to himself. That isn’t an exorcism. That’s just transference, which is why I say that the priests were unsuccessful in exorcising the demon.

If I were rating this in the 1970’s, it would get a 5 on the terror scale, but now, in 2018, it gets a 3. I promise you that back in 1973 I did not go to see the movie because I knew it was scare me too much. Back then, I was young and impressionable. Perhaps the current rating isn’t a 5 because I am so familiar with the story now and it doesn’t keep me up at night. Also, demonic possession was a shocking thing in the 1970’s and today it has become a stock horror plot. Nonetheless, The Exorcist treats evil as real and for this reason it will remain a horror classic.

Cycle of the Werewolf

Cycle of the Werewolf by Stephen King, Illustrations by Berni Wrightson (1983)

A werewolf has killed during the full moon in the small town of Tarker’s Mills. The book is twelves chapters long, each chapter covers one month from January to December during the full moon. It isn’t until July that the reader meets Marty Coslaw, a crippled boy who gets around in a wheelchair. July is the longest chapter in the book as King sets up the ten-year-old Marty character.

Marty has an encounter Marty with the werewolf, but is the only one who encounters the werewolf and does not die. Marty loves the fourth of July, especially the fireworks. But the town leaders have canceled the fourth of July celebration because it occurs on the full moon and people are getting murdered every month during the full moon. Marty’s Uncle Al gives him some fireworks. He waits until everyone is asleep before he goes outside to set them off. He sets off the quiet ones. Then, the werewolf comes out of the woods and approaches Marty, intending to attack him. Marty lights firecrackers and throws them into the werewolf’s face, injuring its eye.

There’s the clue who the werewolf is when not in werewolf form. Marty begins searching for a man with an injured eye but many obstacles, including getting sent out of town, stand in his way.

The story shows the courage of a Marty in battling a vicious monster. It’s a quick, easy read with beautiful illustrations. You might spend more time looking at the illustrations than reading the text. This was not in the least bit scary. On the 1-to-5 scary meter, 5 being scariest, this rates a 1. But the desire to know who the werewolf is and whether he lives or dies keeps the reader interested. One finds oneself punching the air and shouting, “Yes!” at the end.

The movie Silver Bullet (1985) is based on this book. Both the movie and the book are good entertainment.