Thirsty by M.T. Anderson: Review Posted by Tiffany at 11:34 AM

Title: Thirsty
Author: M.T. Anderson (site)
Published: 1997 by Candlewick
Pages: 256
Price: $8.99 Amazon  (Unavailable from) Book Depository
Series: N/A, but set in same world as story from Gothic!
Source: Bought
Rating: 5/5
Synopsis: All Chris really wants is to be a normal kid, to hang out with his friends, avoid his parents, and get a date with Rebecca Schwartz. Unfortunately, Chris appears to be turning into a vampire. So while his hometown performs an ancient ritual that keeps Tch’muchgar, the Vampire Lord, locked in another world, Chris desperately tries to save himself from his own vampiric fate. He needs help, but whom can he trust? (Anderson's site)


Initial Thoughts: I sought this book out after reading Anderson's amazing short story, "Watch and Wake" in the Gothic! anthology. I was looking for something in the same world, and alternate modern America where old superstitions are still a major part of everyday life, as are the monsters that inspired those superstitions. This appears to be the only one of his books written in the same world, but I'll probably move on to the others after this. I love his writing style.


Review: I usually wait a few days (at least) to start on a review for a book, giving myself some time to stew in my thoughts. However, after I put this book down last night, I was dying to start writing about how good it is. It's the kind of book that makes me want to call my friends immediately, gushing about its awesomeness. I'm not sure that I can put my finger on exactly what I loved, although there are several things, it just left me with such a sense of satisfaction. Without further ado, here are my thoughts on Thirsty.

Christopher is a very normal, believable teenage boy. His friends aren't unwaveringly loyal or understanding, they're just self-absorbed teenage guys who happen to have grown up nearby. I'm not saying that there aren't friends like that, I'm just saying that I get tired of every main character having amazing friends. You have to sort through a lot of fairweather friends before you find someone who would follow you through a magic mirror into Goblin Land to rescue your brother. It annoys me that the main characters in books always seem to have friends like that. It was nice to see someone struggling with friends of convenience. The plot behind this book wasn't really anything overly complicated. A teenage boy thinks that he may be turning into a vampire. What really makes this book amazing is the fantasic writing and the very original, dark world that it's set in. Anderson has a beautiful way with words. His descriptions are sometimes darkly gorgeous, sometimes disturbing and original, and sometimes he's just having a little laugh at his character's expense. You want an example? Here ya go:
      "And then I lift my eyes above the houses, above the comfortable roofs, and see the woods on the hills. And I sense then, in the way the moon drapes itself easily, obscenely over them all, that there is something wicked all around us, something staining the aluminum siding and the four-door sedans." (p. 46)


closely followed by:

      "My father looks at me over his glasses. He chews three times like the Swamp Thing learning how to use crutches." (p. 60)


His writing is such an odd mix of dark humor, off-the-wall jokes and comparisons, and beautiful descriptions that it kept me absorbed the entire time, even when nothing much was happening. This is a slow, agonizing story about a boy who is gradually becoming a monster. In this world, vampires can't just sip here and there, feeding from their girlfriends or random strangers at clubs. Once they start to drink, they have to kill. If they don't drink, they die. Therefore, any vampire found is stakes. After all, if the're still alive, they must have murdered someone. Christopher doesn't know any vampires, his family doesn't know that he might be one. He has no way to get information about his condition, no idea where he contracted the disease. It's a very dark, confusing time for him. I read a few other reviews of this book after I read it, mostly because I couldn't believe that I hadn't heard of it before. I read two things that I would like to comment on. The first is this: one person said that the whole book is a metaphor for a boy who starts to realize that he is gay. I can see where this person would get this idea, but I haven't been able to find any mention of this by the author, so I'm thinking that it may mirror the struggle of someone coming to terms with their sexuality, but I don't think that the book should be taken as only a metaphor. I feel that a book is cheapened by ulterior motives like that. It's kind of like those Sci-Fi movies that end with the main character waking up, the whole thing having been a dream. I enjoyed this book while taking it at face-value, so read what you will into it, but it is (at heart) a great story first, social commentary comes second. The second thing that I kept seeing pop up was, "I love vampire books and this was such a disappointment. Nothing happened!" If by nothing happened you mean that he didn't fall in love with a girl whom he fed off of in a romantic way, expose a tortured poet's soul, or fight off a group or truly evil vampires on principle, then you're right. This was the story of a boy who realizes that he's becoming a monster. Vampires in this book aren't romantic, misunderstood lonly creatures. They kill everyone they feed from. He's having to come to terms with becoming a   murderer, for Pete's sake! It may be a bit slow, but it's not by any means dull!


Quick Review: Okay, I'm done ranting now. Bottom line? Great book; writing that really made me feel a part of the story, a struggle that was agonizing and painful, and a very original world that was only briefly explored. Go out and give this one a chance, I honestly can't believe how deeply it got under my skin. If you just want a taste, to see if the writing is for you, read "Watch and Wake" in the Gothic! anthology.

The Ghost of Crutchfield Hall: Review Posted by Tiffany at 7:39 PM

Title: The Ghost of Crutchfield Hall
Author: Mary Downing Hahn
Available: September 6th 2010
Publisher: Clarion Books
Pages: 162 (Hardcover)
Price: $11.49 Book Depository $11.56 Amazon
Rating: 4/5
Synopsis: When twelve-year-old Florence boards the crowded horse-drawn coach in London, she looks forward to a new life with her great uncle and aunt at Crutchfield Hall, an old manor house in the English countryside. Anything will be better, she thinks, than the grim London orphanage where she has lived since her parents' death. 

But Florence doesn't expect the ghost of her cousin Sophia, who haunts the cavernous rooms and dimly lit hallways of Crutchfield and concocts a plan to use Florence to help her achieve her murderous goals. Will Florence be able to convince the others in the household of the imminent danger and stop Sophia before it's too late? (Goodreads)

Initial Thoughts: I went into this with reservations. I don't usually read middle-grade books, but I just kept reading great reveiws everywhere and I remember loving Mary Downing Hahn when I was younger. Also, vengeful ghosts are always fun.

Review: The Ghost of Crutchfield Hall was a very fast, easy read. Hahn's writing style is suspenseful, creepy, and very smooth. I expected it to be a bit harder to get into, due to the target age, but I was swept up pretty quickly. There was a definite Secret Garden feel to the book, except for the murderous ghost of a cousin who was evil even when alive. The ghost was actually my favorite character.  Florence could be a bit too one dimensional (which happens a lot in MG books) and it was nice to have someone causing trouble to keep the other characters on their toes. The ending wasn't quite as I expected, but I liked it. There was room for doubt, which makes for a much more effective scary story. Nobody's going to be scared if the evil ghost is completely vanquished at the end. After finishing the book, I kept thinking about what a great YA book this could've made. The story itself was well-thought out and well-written, it was only the constraints of writing for younger readers that kept it from being truly terrifying. I would love to see Mary Downing Hahn jump into the YA genre. 

Quick Review: A very creepy, quick read. I would definitely recommend it for younger readers, especially boys. 

R.I.P. Challenge Posted by Tiffany at 9:16 AM

First of all: how much do you love that banner? I'm thinking about printing them on sticker paper to hand out to the people in book club who participate. Or maybe bookmarks? Stainless Steel Droppings is hosting the R.I.P. (Readers In Peril) challenge again this year and I'm going to participate. I've got a collection of Poe and a collection of Lovecraft, along with a few other creepy books, just sitting around, waiting for an excuse to be picked next. I'm thinking that I'll aim for these two:

Peril The Third:
"This peril involves reading one book that fits within the R.I.P. definition."
Short Story Peril:
"I am a big fan of short stories and my desire for this is perhaps no greater than this time of the year. I see Poe and Lovecraft in my future for sure. You can read short stories any time during the challenge. When I can, I like to read short stories over the weekend and post about them around that time. Feel free to do this however you want, but if you review short stories on your site, please link to those reviews on the Book Review site."

There is also a new Peril this year, Peril On The Screen, which involves watching scary movies, as well as different levels of the novel perils. Also, random giveaways of Jennifer Gordon’s (the banner artist) prints and bookplates. 

World War Z by Max Brooks: Review Posted by Tiffany at 7:11 PM

Title: World War Z
Author: Max Brooks (site)
Published: October 16, 2007 by Three Rivers Press
Pages: 352 (Paperback)
Price: $9.99 Book Depository $10.17 Amazon
Rating: 5/5
Synopsis: The Zombie War came unthinkably close to eradicating humanity. Max Brooks, driven by the urgency of preserving the acid-etched first-hand experiences of the survivors from those apocalyptic years, traveled across the United States of America and throughout the world, from decimated cities that once teemed with upwards of thirty million souls to the most remote and inhospitable areas of the planet. He recorded the testimony of men, women, and sometimes children who came face-to-face with the living, or at least the undead, hell of that dreadful time. World War Z is the result. Never before have we had access to a document that so powerfully conveys the depth of fear and horror, and also the ineradicable spirit of resistance, that gripped human society through the plague years. 

Ranging from the now infamous village of New Dachang in the United Federation of China, where the epidemiological trail began with the twelve-year-old Patient Zero, to the unnamed northern forests where untold numbers sought a terrible and temporary refuge in the cold, to the United States of Southern Africa, where the Redeker Plan provided hope for humanity at an unspeakable price, to the west-of-the-Rockies redoubt where the North American tide finally started to turn, this invaluable chronicle reflects the full scope and duration of the Zombie War. 

Most of all, the book captures with haunting immediacy the human dimension of this epochal event. Facing the often raw and vivid nature of these personal accounts requires a degree of courage on the part of the reader, but the effort is invaluable because, as Mr. Brooks says in his introduction, "By excluding the human factor, aren't we risking the kind of personal detachment from history that may, heaven forbid, lead us one day to repeat it? And in the end, isn't the human factor the only true difference between us and the enemy we now refer to as 'the living dead'?" 

Note: Some of the numerical and factual material contained in this edition was previously published under the auspices of the United Nations Postwar Commission. (Goodreads)

Initial Thoughts: I almost didn't pick this book up, mostly because the whole zombie element is a bit played down on the cover. However, after reading the small text, I couldn't wait to get started. A first-person account of the zombie apocalypse? With witnesses from all over the world? Written as a serious 'documentary' by the son of Mel Brooks? Yes, please!


Review: The first thing that surprised me about this book was how scary it was. One of the best things about zombie movies is that there's always some comedy mixed it, mostly unintentional. (The exception being those fast ones in 28 Days Later, so freakin' scary) I generally avoid Horror novels, due to my overactive imagination. I'm one of those people who become completely immersed in what they're reading. It takes me a while to disconnect from a good book. Needless to say, there was much contemplation of my home's defensibility and my odds of making it to the car and getting out of the neighborhood if a zombie horde started smashing in. (Not great; big window in the living room near the garage door, bedroom all the way upstairs.) If I'd really thought this through, I'd have realized that my imagination wouldn't add in funny zombie hijinks, it would take the tone of the novel and amplify it. The fact that I had to run to my car and lock the doors real fast when I left the house is an indicator of how thoroughly engrossing this novel was. It's written seriously, with reports from everywhere. The cultural information is the book is amazing. He must have done a heck of a lot of research. I enjoyed reading about the different cultures as much as the zombies. It really felt like I was reading the accounts of WWZ survivors. There were snapshots of both military and civilian experiences, starting in China where the zombies originated and ending on the sea, where most of the survivors were. The stories didn't all connect together, giving it a more realistic feel. It wasn't until about halfway through the novel that you began to see the overall story come together. I loved the different ways the governments responded; this guy has spent a LOT of time contemplating the ramifications of a Zombie Apocalypse.


Quick Review: World War Z a creepy and realistic read. The civilian stories were heartbreaking, the military accounts sometimes cold and clinical, and the overall feel was very realistic and terrifying. You'll definitely think about coming up with a Zombie Emergency Plan.

Also By This Author:

On Deck: Ruined by Paula Morris Posted by Tiffany at 6:49 PM

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

A ghost with a deep, dark secret, and a serious score to settle. 

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

I love the cover for this book! I'm excited about the setting too: I love books set in the south, and New Orleans is so romantic. The private school with snooty girls thing has been done to death, but I'm hoping the focus is more on the angry ghost. Review coming soon!