Tag Archives: Netgalley

Book Review: Children of Chicago by Cynthia Pelayo

Rating: 5/5

For Fans Of: Tana French, Christina Henry, dark fantasy and crime novels

Trigger Warnings: Murder (both of children and adults), violence, gun violence, death of family members, abandonment, missing persons, mental illness, divorce, bullying

I first discovered Cynthia Pelayo’s work with her collection Loteria, which features dark fantasy short stories and flash fiction based on the Mexican game with the same name. I own a copy of the game and absolutely love the illustrations associated with it. Sometimes for fun I’ll pull Loteria cards and then flip through Pelayo’s book to read her entry on that specific card. It’s a wonderful way to go through that collection. Pelayo is a well established name in horror and crime writing, especially for her poetry. Her most recent poetry collection, Into the Forest and all the Way Through, honors the life and stories of over one hundred missing or murdered women.

When I heard that Pelayo had a novel coming out this year, I rushed to Netgalley with the hopes it would be available. It was. I smashed the download button so hard. Children of Chicago is dark, gut-wrenching, emotional, and relatable. After having heard Pelayo talk on several panels and reading her past work, I know the deep admiration and affection she has for Chicago and its Latinx populations, having grown up there herself. It is clear that Children of Chicago is another tribute to this world she holds so close.

Detective Lauren Medina has dealt with loss her entire life, but now that her father has passed away, her divorce is finalizing, and her partner on the force is retiring, things seem to be coming to a head. When teenagers start turning up dead around Medina’s childhood neighborhood in Chicago along side new graffiti announcing the Pied Piper, Medina realizes that her painful past is anything but behind her. In fact, the deaths of her sister and stepmother are more closely connected to Medina’s current case than anyone could guess. What appears to be instances of gang violence and children attacking other children might have a deeper, more sinister origination. Something that has been around for centuries, and does not care about the rules of our world. Can Lauren stop the cycle and free the city and herself from terror in this dark modern retelling of an old fairy tale?

Pelayo writes about painful realities with a patina of folklore. I recently did some research on folklore, urban legends, and how we communicate, and the histories and connects between in all are really fascinating. It was incredibly fun to see this melding of urban legend with folklore and fairy tales in Children of Chicago. The book felt a lot like Candyman and Slender Man — Slender Man, in particular — which have both transcended urban legend status and gone on to a sort of mythological standing. The plot is an example of old folklore tropes being communicated through urban legend and interpreted through new technology to cause real harm, much like what happened with the Slender Man killings. But Children of Chicago is much more than that. It’s a look at real violence in real communities and the darkness that stretched across generations, across centuries, that causes it. And it’s about a beautiful, complicated city, which feels a lot like a stand-in for our society at large.

I think most people are familiar with Pelayo as a poet, so Children of Chicago is a bit of a change-up. Her skill as a poet is very apparent in her prose. I enjoyed her style of writing, especially for this dark fairy tale retelling. It had something like an affectation to it, which I felt added necessary atmosphere to the plot and characters. Her characters felt very present on the page. I really enjoyed Pelayo’s mixture of genres, adding a bit of crime, mystery, horror, and dark fantasy. Children of Chicago is dark and can be pretty terrifying at times. I recommend it to fans of authors like Tana French and Christina Henry, shows like The Killing and The Fall, and anyone who likes dark secrets coming home to roost.

Children of Chicago will be out on 02/09/21. Thank you to Netgalley and Agora Books for providing me with a digital ARC.

Book Review: Karma Moon: Ghost Hunter by Melissa Savage

3 stars. Middle Grade Audience. Published 1/19/21. Thanks to Crown Books for Young Readers and Netgalley for providing a digital ARC in exchange for an honest review.

Sometimes the twists life throws at you make you stronger. They teach you who you truly are and what (who) is most important to you. And sometimes they also makes you really good at hunting ghosts. Karma Moon is a 12-year-old compulsive worrier and believer in all things “woo woo”. She lives in the West Village with her dad and helps him with his documentary company when she’s not hanging out with her best friend Mags. She also regularly sees her therapist, because ever since her mom left, Karma’s worries have been debilitating. But when her dad gets a call from Netflix about filming a ghost hunting documentary at a famous hotel in Colorado, she just knows everything is going to change for the better!

With Mag by her side, Karma tries to help her dad with this life-changing opportunity. They only problem? The ghosts don’t seem to want to cooperate. Can Karma, Mags, and their new (super cute) friend Nyx uncover the mysteries of the haunted hotel, save Karma’s dad from bankruptcy, and even maybe get Karma’s mom to come home finally? Karma soon learns that having the right people in your life means everything, and the ones who are gone are gone for a reason. And you know what? That’s ok.

This book is fun and cute, but it’s also very emotional. It tackles the pain and confusion of parental separation and abandonment, but also illustrates the power of family (both biological and chosen). The ghost story, which is genuinely creepy at times, is a fun mystery with several twists. But the main meat of Karma Moon: Ghost Hunter is Karma’s relationships with the people around her and herself. She experiences growth, grief, and joy, and her by the end of the book she is a different girl.

This book is perfect for young readers who enjoy Harriet the Spy, Scooby-Doo, and the idea of watching classic horror movies they’re still a bit too young for!

Book Review: Misfits by Hunter Shea

5 Stars. Triggers for violent rape on the page, child abuse and neglect, extreme violence, extreme gore. I discuss the rape in this review.

Hunter Shea’s Misfits is a brutal, wild ride about found family and belonging. It’s incredibly entertaining, packed with frenetic energy, and will remind you what it was like to be a teen fighting against the world with just your friends as allies. That said, Misfits is not for everyone. It’s aggressive and will leave you feeling like you’re covered in mud. But it asks the questions, what lengths would you go to, and what would you sacrifice, to protect your own found family when the world seems to be literally ripping each of you apart?

Remember in high school, driving up and down back roads at night in your best friend’s car, music blasting, windows down, maybe passing a joint or splitting a cigarette, swapping stories? Remember how your whole crew would pile in and someone would put on whatever album completely captured your teenage experience, and you would all tool around, killing time? I guess that’s not necessarily universal, but one of the qualities of Misfits is that it brings back that particular memory for me, that specific brand of nostalgia.

Each setting we visited throughout the book felt so reminiscent to those I grew up around. In fact, if it hadn’t been explicitly stated that it takes place in Connecticut, I would have sworn this was the Finger Lakes region of New York. The mental image of driving down dark wooded back roads to someone’s cabin while Chris Cornell’s voice echoes hauntingly out of the car stereo is a personal memory of mine that I was able to inject directly into this book.

Mick, Vent, Chuck, Heidi, and Marnie are best friends, living in a small Connecticut town in the early 1990s. They’re the stoner grunge kids at their high school; more outcast than not. Most of them come from broken, abusive, or (at the very least) challenging homes. Most of them are neglected. But they have each other, and that’s what counts. When one of their own is brutally assaulted, they decide to take justice into their own hands. They take the attacker out to the woods and leave them for the Mellon Heads. The Mellon Heads are an old Connecticut folktale: deformed, violent, feral humans living out in the dark depths of the New England forests. Their plan backfires, however, and they find themselves in more trouble than they could have ever imagined.

This was my first Hunter Shea book, and all I knew about him going in was that he did creatures and monsters well. I can now confirm that is true, and I will add that he is also a master of character, action, and setting. The horror in this book stems from both fantastical folklore and the real world. Misfits deals a lot with the concept of belonging, as the name suggests. Our main characters and heroes feel themselves to be misfits and are certainly viewed that way by others. Their status as such make them easy targets for those looking to cause harm or take advantage. The villains of the story are also all misfits, some in a more conventional sense than others.

It’s not hard to feel sympathy for our main crew. We’ve all known kids like this or were kids like this. Shea builds that attachment between reader and heroes, and then exploits the fuck out of it. It’s made clear from the beginning that this is a group of kids who bad things happen to in life, regardless of whether it’s a monster delivering the blows or society at large. Despite knowing this, or perhaps because of it, you become invested in their journey. Just be prepared.

Shea’s writing had me on the edge of my seat throughout the entire book. Misfits starts with a crushing bang and increases in pace throughout. There are twists, insurmountable odds, extreme acts of love and heroism, and heart-wrenching losses. It was this characteristic of Misfits in particular that really hooked me and left me thirsting for more of Shea’s writing.

While I loved this book and think it will end up being one of my favorites of the year, I feel that I need to address the rape. There is a violent, though quick, rape scene that occurs within the first 10% of the book. It is the inciting incident that sets all the action in motion. The ongoing and important discussion about the use of rape as a plot device in entertainment, especially as a way to grow a female character, should always be considered for narratives like this. In this case, I feel that there could have been a different catalyst to the action that would have worked, but that being said I also feel that Shea handled the rape and subsequent fallout very well.

The character who is assaulted in Misfits does not suddenly become a brave warrior woman who exacts brutal and total revenge. No, she is broken and scared. She leans on her friends, terrified to make her attack public knowledge (an accurate reaction). She mourns the damage her body has gone through and how the assault has forever changed her life. It was believably and honestly written, and the event itself is not lingered on or glorified except to demonstrate the true love and support of her found family.

I think I understand why Shea chose rape as a device here: there needed to be an extraordinary crime committed against them for the misfits to do what they did, risking their own lives and ultimately setting off the extreme and terrifying events of the rest of the book. But I do wonder if the rape was completely necessary. After about halfway through the book you start to forget about it entirely. Could another inciting incident have gotten the job done?

Sexual assault is incredibly serious and needs to be used with extreme caution in all media. Each instance is different, however. Misfits is a brutal book. Much of it sheds light on everyday brutality along with the fantastical brutality of creature features and slashers. The brutality of the crime matches the tone of the book, and ultimately I think Shea navigated it well. That being said, I am not an assault survivor, and I believe that we need to listen to and take seriously the opinions of those who are in instances like this.

I recommend Misfits to people who enjoy The Hills Have Eyes, Mandy, Alice in Chains, and lots of blood and guts. It feels kind of like getting wasted on Smirnoff Ice in your friend of a friend’s cousin’s barn. It leaves you rattled and probably sick as hell, but there is a lot of heart there and a hell of a lot of entertainment.

Published 9/8/20. Thank you to Flame Tree Press and Netgalley for providing the ARC.

Book Review: Basket Full of Heads by Joe Hill

4 Stars. Trigger warnings for suicide, extreme gore and violence, rich entitled assholes.

I was so intrigued by Hill House Comics’ selection when it first crossed my path. This horror comic pop-up, started by Joe Hill and housed at DC, offers an eye-catching collection with great cover art, great summaries, and great names attached! I was very excited when I was approved for the ARCs by Netgalley. And the first collection, Basket Full of Heads, did not disappoint.

Story by Joe Hill, Basket Full of Heads is a gory, campy adventure full of twists and humor along with the appropriate horrors. June goes to visit her boyfriend Liam in the sleepy fishing town of Brody Island where he’s working as a part-time cop over the summer. They’re having dinner with his boss when word that four escaped convicts are on the loose, reigning terror on civilians. As her boyfriend’s boss leaves with the other full-time cops on the force, the four escapees break into the boss’ house and attack June and Liam. They kidnap Liam and whisk him away, leaving June to fight off one remaining escapee herself. Luckily Liam’s boss has a huge collection of old Viking artifacts stored in the house, including weapons. June gets her hands on an axe, but it doesn’t exactly do its job quite as one would expect.

This collection of issues #1-7 was well paced, very funny, and incredibly entertaining. It reminded me of all the things I love about ridiculous ’80s slashers. I also appreciated that it was a one-and-done, so to speak. I don’t need to hunt down more issues or wait for them to come out. The entire story is contained in this one volume, and it wraps up very nicely! The artwork is likewise excellent and fits the story incredibly well. I tip my hat to Leomacs (Illustrator), Riccardo La Bella (Illustrator), Dave Stewart (Colorist), and Deron Bennett (Letterer).

I appreciated June as a main character. She is brave, savvy, capable, and full of love for herself and those near and dear to her. That is not to say she is naive. Despite being accused of that multiple times, June proves herself to be otherwise. In fact, when the gaping maw of the patriarchy comes for June in a painful and hurtful way, she does not hesitate to take action and fight for herself and all the women wronged by evil men. I have to applaud Joe Hill for his character work across the board, but especially with June.

Basket Full of Heads is the first installment of Joe Hill’s Hill House Comics pop-up. Next up is my most highly anticipated installment: The Low, Low Woods by Carmen Maria Machado, out 09/28/20.

Out 09/08/20. Thank you to NetGalley and DC Comics for providing the ARC.

Book Review: The Ghost Tree by Christina Henry

4 Stars. Trigger warnings for death of a loved one, racial violence, murder and gore, inappropriate relationships between an adult and a minor.

Holding on to her dark fantasy roots, Christina Henry delivers a brutal dose of nostalgia with her 1980s throw-back small town horror novel The Ghost Tree. Lauren is about to turn 15, and her life has been difficult lately. Her mom has been on her case about every little thing, her best friend Miranda is more interested in boys than hanging out at the Ghost Tree in the woods like they used to, and, oh yeah, Lauren’s dad was brutally murdered in those same woods a year ago. But her life is about to get a whole lot harder when the dark curse that has a tight hold on their small town of Smith’s Hollow starts to go off the rails and things get even more dangerous and terrifying than they already were.

Henry does an amazing job revealing the dark underbelly of small town life. As someone who grew up in a small town, the world Henry builds is very realistic and all the more terrifying for it. Smith’s Hollow feels so much like my own small home town. The woods we would play in, the rumors about witches and big scary houses, the annual festival and fair days every summer, the relationships you would have with everyone else in town, the politics unique to small town life…but I hope my small town was never in the clutches of a centuries old curse that delivered carnage and terror in exchange for prosperity.

There are many twists and reveals throughout The Ghost Tree that will keep you on your toes. Henry includes a rich mythology, and while there certainly are many moving parts and increased complications in her narrative, she succeeds in keeping a very tight plot. Her writing style is exciting and intimate, making you very invested in the story and characters.

The Ghost Tree felt a bit like Stephen King’s IT in that Lauren is faced with the dark events of her childhood and her coming of age. And the way that hate works as an infection and a tool of dark supernatural forces throughout the town feels a lot like Pennywise to me (in the best way). And I feel I must mention that fans of Stranger Things will surely enjoy this book. This was my first Christina Henry read, and I cannot wait to dig into her other series!

Out 9/8/20. Thank you to NetGalley and Berkley Publishing Group for providing an ARC.

Book Review: When No One Is Watching by Alyssa Cole

4 stars. Triggers for racism, white supremacy, gaslighting, racial violence, poverty/debt, death of a loved one, housing insecurity, gentrification.

Alyssa Cole is a huge favorite of mine. Her romances are so much fun (and quite steamy), so when I saw she was coming out with a thriller I knew I needed to pick it up asap. That combined with the pitch of Rear Window meets Get Out…my excitement cannons were blasting! And let me just tell you, When No One Is Watching lives up to the excitement. It’s all the good stuff: excellent writing, rich and relatable characters, intrigue, thrills, romance, concise and relevant social commentary. But it’s also incredibly anxiety inducing, because it is so real.

Sydney Green has returned home to her mother’s Brooklyn brownstone after surviving a horrible marriage full of gaslighting and abuse. She was hopeful that the presence of her mother, best friend, and beloved neighborhood would offer her the love and support she needed to heal and thrive, but with her mother’s failing health and the predatory gentrification exploding around her, Sydney feels her life is spiraling out of her control.

As neighbors and familiar businesses start disappearing suddenly without a word, only to be replaced by white yuppies and their over-priced boutiques, Sydney starts to think there is a larger nefarious conspiracy going on…or is she going crazy? Everything happening around her goes against everything she’s known about her neighbors and herself, and when she can’t buy cigarettes or take an Uber without being directly or indirectly threatened by mysterious white people, how can she take action to discover what exactly is going on in her neighborhood?

It turns out that Sydney is not crazy at all. Something evil and insidious is happening, and Sydney might be her neighborhood’s last hope. Luckily she has a bit of help along the way from an unlikely source.

When No One Is Watching sheds a bright light on predatory and targeted gentrification and systemic racism and white supremacy. I live in a very gentrified city, and as I was reading this book I was thinking about the people I know who have been evicted from their homes that they’ve lived in for 15+ years, or folks who can’t afford to stay in a neighborhood that, for generations, meant home and community for them. All so that the Whole Foods can move to a larger lot. I even wondered about my own apartment building and neighbors. It was definitely hard to read some parts of this book, because it just felt so real.

While When No One Is Watching is not horror in the fantastical sense, it certainly is in the realistic sense. This is real life horror. Cole’s humor and style of writing make the book entertaining and exciting to read, but you would be wrong in thinking that When No One Is Watching isn’t making a clear statement. For people who are trying to understand more about systemic racism (as we all should be), this would be a good book to pick up followed closely by The Color of Law by Richard Rothstein. I look forward to more thrillers by Alyssa Cole!

Out 9/1/20. Thank you to Netgalley and William Morrow Paperbacks / HarperCollins Publishers for providing an ARC in exchange for an honest review.

Book Review: The Boatman’s Daughter by Andy Davidson

4 Stars. Trigger warnings for violence against women, self harm, assault, sexual assault, lots of blood and gore.

Do you like action? Brooding? Cults? Women highly skilled with a bow and arrow? Ancient swamp magic? REVENGE?? I’m sure your answers were all ‘yes’, and so I highly recommend to you The Boatman’s Daughter by Andy Davidson. This book is a thrill ride with plenty of bloody action, terrifying folk magic, and beautiful found family vibes. It feels like Winter’s Bone meet Beasts of the Southern Wild, and it’s amazing.

Miranda Crabtree is an orphan and has been since her father disappeared in the bayous of Arkansas when she was eleven. The only evidence left behind was a shotgun shell and a baby Miranda could have sworn was dead when her father and an old witch took it deep into the woods. Miranda barely escaped that night with her life. Something in the bayou wanted her.

That night, Miranda lost the last of her family, but she gained a new brother in the abandoned baby and a new grandmother (Baba) in the old witch, who found her and nursed her back to health. To keep them safe, Miranda aligns herself with bad men: an unstable and washed up preacher/cult leader, a weed grower, and a corrupt and murderous constable who tries to hurt her in more ways than one. Luckily, Miranda knows how to handle herself. When the preacher and constable start making some dangerous moves, Miranda finds herself having to fight for not only her life, but the lives her brother, her Baba, and a new arrival who turns out to be more significant to her family and the people of the bayou community than Miranda realizes. The balance of the ancient magic in the swamps depends on it.

Turning to her learned survival skills to defend herself and her family, Miranda also has to turn to a darker more dangerous power. Her Baba is a true witch, a woman deeply connected to the spirits of the bayou and the spirits brought over from her homeland. Her power and magic has deep roots in Slavic folklore, and they seem to feel just as at home in the American South as they do in Europe. But this power does not come without sacrifice and pain (and blood). And even with those sacrifices, these spirits are not in the business of customer satisfaction, if you know what I mean. Miranda must take this risk and call on the power of the bayou, unsure of if and how it will answer.

The Boatman’s Daughter is over 400 pages long, but the writing sucks you in and seamlessly ushers you through the split narratives. Davidson’s writing is so vivid, you can feel the sticky heat of the bayou as you read. He handles extreme and graphic situations with a kind of beautiful fluidity. This book is not without its gore and trauma on the page, and yet Davidson has a skill for making it feel significant and real without over sensationalizing.

The characters are rich and inventive, and some of them are absolutely terrifying. I will also give Davidson credit for writing what I thought was a wonderful female character. Miranda is strong, vulnerable, and competent. She’s incredibly skilled, but woe to the first person to tries to call her a Mary Sue. I loved reading her and going on her journey.

I would absolutely classify this book as horror, but it’s an interesting blend of subgenres that make it feel different from a classic horror novel. The real world horrors are front and center through most of this one. And while there is a heavy dose of paranormal creeps, most of those elements appear at the end. So if you like slashers and thrillers, I would definitely recommend picking up The Boatman’s Daughter.

This was my first experience reading Andy Davidson and I can 100% say that I will pick up anything else he writes in the future.

Published 2/11/20. Thank you to Farrar, Straus and Giroux / MCD x FSG Originals and NetGalley for providing an advance review copy in exchange for an honest review. Review originally published on jocelyniswrong.com.

Book Review: The Twisted Ones by T. Kingfisher

4 Stars. Trigger warnings for hoarding, death of a loved one.

A few years ago, I went with my Mom to stay with her and my Aunt at my aunt’s new cabin on a kettle lake in upstate New York. Kettle lakes look like ponds, but they were formed by ice blocks melting many a year ago. Bloody Pond, the kettle lake my Aunt has her cabin on, is spring fed so the water is crisp and clear. It’s very refreshing! My Aunt’s cabin is set deep among some pines, and it feels very bewitching to be there.

We had a lovely weekend in her adorable cabin, swimming, reading, eating, and drinking. There was, of course, an amazing campfire, and we stayed up late talking and laughing. But the later we stayed up (and the more red wine I drank), the more I couldn’t stop looking out into the pines. It got really creepy. What could be in those pines? Were there creatures watching us? What kind of creatures?

I was also raised on a very healthy dose of creepy folklore. My family has a lot of Scottish and Irish blood, so stories of changelings and brownies and selkies etc. were very common. I’m convinced my mom is in good with some faeries. I think it’s because of all of this that I loved T. Kingfisher’s The Twisted Ones so much. I think I love folk horror best now.

Mouse lives in Pittsburgh (heyo, local gal!), and she doesn’t see much of her immediate family. Her Aunt raised her after her Mom died, but she talks to her Dad every week on the phone. Her Grandma lived in rural North Carolina (I also have family in North Carolina…too many coincidences), but now that both she and her Step-grandpa are dead, their house is just sitting vacant. Mouse’s Dad calls her up and asks a huge favor…would she please go down and clean the house out so they can decide what to do next with it? She can’t say no.

The house is a disaster. Her Grandma was at hoarder status before her death, and Mouse knows it’s going to take forever to get through the piles she left behind. But she’s got a radio and her lovable (if doofy) coon hound Bongo by her side. She also has her Step-grandpa’s old journal for reading material, and boy is it a doozy! He talks about carvings on stones, twisting about like the twisted ones, laying down like the dead ones, poppets, not being able to sleep, and of course how generally awful Mouse’s Grandma was.

Mouse gets hooked on the journal and begins searching for a book that her Step-grandpa keeps referring to, but as she hunts the stuffed house for this missing book (or anything related to her Step-grandpa’s ramblings), things go off the rails. I don’t want to spoil anything, because the plot is so twisted and fun, but Mouse and Bongo soon learn that they are in a place where the veil between their world and a different, more ancient and magical one, is very thin. The woods behind the house are a dangerous place. There are monsters out there, and Mouse’s Step-grandpa knew it. The monsters knew about him too, and now they know about Mouse.

I blew through The Twisted Ones! T. Kingfisher’s writing is so entertaining and juicy. The imagery is rich and shocking, the characters are well developed and a ton of fun, and the lore is fascinating. As a piece of folk horror, I found it gripping and compelling. When you take old-country stories and beliefs and you bring them into stark contrast with the modern era, sometimes the juxtaposition itself is unsettling. This book goes way beyond unsettling, however. There is one image that I will never get out of my head. Now, when I stare out at a sea of dark, damp pines at night, I will think about that image and probably run screaming back into a well-lit house.

But The Twisted Ones isn’t a beat-you-over-the-head scary book. It’s full of creeping dread, and there are some horrific images (as mentioned above), but it’s mostly a well told adventure with some solid scares and a well developed setting. Something I appreciate the most about it is its sense of humor. Mouse is hilarious, and the neighbors she makes friends with at her Grandma’s house are so fun you find yourself wanting to have dinner with them yourself.

The Twisted Ones is a well-rounded novel for those who are intrigued by the darker side of things. It’s steeped in old-timey lore and family secrets, with a healthy dose of humor and adventure. If you enjoyed The Ritual by Adam Nevill or The Blair Witch Project, you’re sure to enjoy The Twisted Ones. But I recommend this book to both horror and non-horror readers alike! It’s truly a romp of a story.

Published 10/1/19. Thank you to Gallery / Saga Press and NetGalley for providing an advance review copy in exchange for an honest review. Review originally published on jocelyniswrong.com.

Book Review: The Tenth Girl by Sara Faring

3 Stars.

I say with no exaggeration that Sara Faring’s The Tenth Girl contains the biggest twist and flip I have ever witnessed in fiction. This book is a slow burn that ends in the most unexpected way. In my wildest dreams, I could never have predicted what happens at about 80% of the way through. I can’t even truly review it because I don’t want to spoil anything!

A split perspective narrative, The Tenth Girl bounces back and forth between Mavi, a young woman in 1970s Argentina beginning work as an English teacher at a secluded prestigious boarding school in Patagonia (such a stunning place on this earth), and Angel, an American teen in the 21st century (I think) suffering from the loss of her family. Through a series of events, Angel’s spirit finds itself at the very same boarding school as Mavi, and she soon learns that other spirits are hunting and feeding from the residents of the school.

Angel and Mavi make an unlikely connection but strong, and together they decide to fight the seemingly paranormal forces bent on destroying everyone and everything around them. These forces seem linked to an old indigenous Zapuche (mapuche) legend, where the tribes attempted to protect themselves and their lands by inviting back the spirits of their departed, but instead opened the floodgates of hell. The only way to quell The Others, as these destructive spirits are called, is to sacrifice a young girl.

If it seems like I’m being cagey here with details, it’s because everything I thought I knew about this book through 3/4ths of it is a lie. One of the biggest twists I have ever experienced in a book (perhaps even bigger than Gone Girl), occurs with only a fourth of the narrative to go, and from there on out it completely defies genre and expectations.

Up until that twist, I felt like The Tenth Girl was really dragging, lacking in character development, and uninventive with its plot. Most of the book, and it’s not a short book, is rather dull. After the twist, those potential faults are explained away, but I honestly don’t know if I like it any better. I wish the twist occurred sooner, and we got to spend more time acclimating to the new reality of the situation. And what Faring explores in the last ten percent of the book is more fascinating than anything that happened in the preceding ninety. I desperately want her to write THAT book, exploring the events that lead us to the conclusion and after.

Faring’s writing is beautifully descriptive, but it can drag in places. The Tenth Girl is written for a Young Adult audience, but it contains some very dark creepy moments. As I mentioned, it is hard for me to nail down an actual genre for this book, but predominantly I would say it’s a YA psychological thriller with elements of horror and historical and science fiction.

The Tenth Girl is Faring’s debut, and while I only rated it a 3/5 stars, I would definitely pick up another of her books in the future. She intrigued me with this one, and her sensational end saved it for the most part. Once you’ve read it, I’d really like to know what you all think!! It’s really frustrating to not be able to talk about the most interesting part of this book.

Published 9/24/19. Thank you to Macmillan Children’s Publishing Group and NetGalley for providing an advance review copy in exchange for an honest review. Review originally published on jocelyniswrong.com.

Book Review: A Cosmology of Monsters by Shaun Hamill

Out 9/17/19. Thank you to Pantheon and Netgalley for providing an ARC. Original review posted to jocelyniswrong.com. Trigger warnings for suicide, child abduction, child abuse, child murder, and inappropriate teacher/student relationships.

There are monsters in the world, unspeakable evils that rob us of that which is most precious to us. Life can break your heart and rip you apart, but Noah Turner has more to contend with than the familiar horrors of human existence. Noah can see monsters, like real monsters. Big harry creatures. And they can see him too.

Shaun Hamill’s A Cosmology of Monsters is an incredibly touching story about the Turner family. What starts off as a cute love story quickly turns to sorrow as Harry and Margaret Turner and their three children face tragedy after tragedy over the years. But in the midst of their struggles (struggles that many of us would recognize and be acquainted with), a fantastical element rears it’s furry, sharp-toothed head. A true monster has had its sights on the Turner family for decades, and Noah, the youngest, decides to let it into his home, his family, and his heart. What Noah doesn’t know is that his father also saw monsters, and his mother knew something was wrong.

I knew from the cover art that this was a book I needed to pick up. Once I read the synopsis I was hooked, and I couldn’t put it down. This stunning literary horror debut hit me in all the right places. I was up way past lights out flipping the pages, fully invested in the Turner family’s story and the monster(s) that haven’t stopped haunting them for generations. I couldn’t get enough of the throwback 80s/90s vibes mixed with Lovecraftian horror! Despite it being a horror/fantasy novel, I found it oddly relatable.

Not only did Hamill tell an amazing and spooky tale, but he successfully created a cross-genre masterpiece. When people think of horror, their minds usually go to slashers or haunted houses. It is actually an incredibly rich and diverse genre with a little something for everyone. The beauty of horror is that it can act as an incredibly effective mirror to society. The really timeless horror writers recognize this and build their spine-tingling tales on elements rooted in real life.

Good horror is like a good lie, there’s a lot of truth mixed in with the rest. In A Cosmology of Monsters, I would say that truth element is generational trauma. The Turner family faces a lot of hardship, but their biggest struggle is one of communication and forgiveness. It’s a story of regret, reconciliation, and family healing. But don’t get me wrong, it’s also about big scary monsters and a hidden inter-dimensional city hungry for your soul. Don’t worry, there are true horror elements wrapped up in the interpersonal family drama. Hamill’s writing is so beautifully descriptive that it will make you cry and shiver in equal measure.

A Cosmology of Monsters has absolutely landed itself on my favorites of 2019 list. If you enjoy family sagas, literary fiction, horror, or science fiction I highly recommend this debut novel by Hamill. I definitely recommend it if you are a fan of the TV shows Stranger Things and This Is Us (weird, I know). I would also compare A Cosmology of Monsters to Lovecraft Country by Matt Ruff, both pulling on Lovecraftian elements and involving family stories over generations.

Forgotten Corners

A horror book blog run by a spooky librarian.