tiny pink books

House of Stairs by William Sleator
(first published 1974)

A small group of unrelated 16-year-old foster teens finds themselves trapped in an endless room full of impossible stairs and ledges.  They don’t know how or why they got there or what they are supposed to go.  They find a machine and quickly learn that it will give them food when they perform seemingly random tasks.  As the machine manipulates them to further and further degrees, personalities among the group begin to clash.  Tensions grow and the stakes are raised in this strange psychological mystery.

I can’t say that I loved The House of Stairs (however, I can say that I LOVED this cover…I mean, just look at it!).  Despite the teen age of the characters, this is most definitely a children’s book rather than a teen book.  I liked the intriguing plot elements and setting, however, the emotional drama of the book was really predictable, with the characters acting more like archetypes than people.  I picked it up after hearing that it was a good readalike to The Hunger Games or even Maze Runner and, after reading it, I could not disagree with the comparison more!  The plot is simple, the characters are whiny and act much, much more like children than teens and the story, while mysterious, does not actually include any action.  I think kids and tweens who are really into science fiction might enjoy this one, but I’d be much more likely to direct them to John Christopher’s work instead.

The Passage by Justin Cronin
Ballantine Books, 2010.

You may have been wondering, “Where the heck is Laura?” during these past few weeks.  Well, dear friends, I’ll tell you where I’ve been–stuck with my nose buried in this monster of a book, The Passage.  I received an ARC of this at a conference and, despite the 700+ pages, decided to start a long process of lugging this brick around until I finished it.  It’s not exactly a page turner, for me anyway, but I slogged through every page for, despite it being the opposite of the type of books I like, it was compelling enough that I absolutely had to finish it.

A suspense/horror/scifi novel, The Passage is about vampires (or a vampire-like monster anyway), the end of the world, the last remaining people of the human race and their salvation.  Epic plot to go with the page length.  Recommended for readers who like Stephen King’s epics.  For me, I found The Passage more intriguing and interesting than frightening, but that’s fine by me.

The Dead Tossed Waves by Carrie Ryan
Delacorte Books for Young Readers, 2010

I was very excited about this sequel to last year’s chilling Forest of Hands and Teeth and was even more thrilled to see the audiobook version out so quickly.  Contrary to the buzz surrounding this book, I found it to be a slight disappointment.

Almost nothing like her mother, Mary (the protagonist of Forest of Hands and Teeth), Gabry lives happily within the barriers of her small, seaside town of Vista.  The barriers around Vista keep out the mudo–hordes of undead zombies that have overrun most of the world. Everything about Gabry’s life changes one night when she and her friends sneak over the barrier and are attacked by mudo.  Death, adventure, infection, love triangles and revelations of Gabry’s past follow in this muddled sequel.

I was bothered by the abundance of melodrama in this book.  The romance plot lines, in particular, were overly dramatic and felt forced.  I think the audio format enhanced this…it was almost unbearable at parts!  When there was action was where The Dead Tossed Waves shined.  Although I’d still highly recommend this book to fans of the Forest of Hands and Teeth (as well as other books in the genre), Dead Tossed Waves lacks the mystery, pacing and strong characters of Forest that made it so appealing.

Liar

Liar by Justine Larbalestier
Bloomsbury Children’s Books, 2009

Told from the point of view of an admittedly compulsive liar, Liar is a psychological mystery with just a dash of the supernatural.  Micah lies constantly.  From pretending to be a boy at school, to her father’s occupation, Micah is compelled and fascinated with telling lies.  When her classmate and secret boyfriend Zach is found dead in Central Park, everyone suspects Micah, the liar, as his killer.  As Micah takes readers through the last few days of Zach’s life, she spins a web of strange and dark secrets.

Liar was an odd book.  From the very beginning, it has a strange, haunted feeling to it.  The lonely and dark tone of the writing at first reminded Speak (and books like it), but with a plot so uniquely crafted, I can’t fairly compare Liar to anything.  Without giving too much of the book away, I will say that there is a major revelation, mid-book, that changed the story completely.  At first I was frustrated (I actually threw the book down, shouting, “Seriously?!”), but I plodded on and became quite fascinated by the end.  Liar was definitely one of those books that grows on you over the read and in the aftermath.  Thought provoking and strange, writing becomes somewhat captivating.  I wouldn’t recommend it to reluctant readers, but for a special reader who wants a book that is intriguing and mysterious, this is your book!  A little bit science fiction, a teensy bit fantastic, and a lot of deep, almost tortured, character study, Liar is quality book that will hopefully find an audience between these genres.

The Vampire Diaries:  The Awakening and The Struggle by L.J. Smith
HarperTeen, 2007 (originally published in 1991)

Originally published in 1991, Book 1, The Awakening, and Book 2, The Struggle, have been released as one, thickish paperback beginners of The Vampire Diaries, which has also been made into a television series to air this fall on the CW.  I don’t have much to say about these books other than this-they certainly contain the elements of melodramatic, sticky teenage love at first sight AND glamorous, sexy vampires that made Twilight so popular, however, they are much more poorly written.  I think these books will made a decent readalike for the younger fans of Twilight, but more sophisticated readers will probably find them as painfully cliché as I did.  Still, younger readers who enjoyed Twilight will probably enjoy these quick and disposable books.  As for me, I actually read these a month ago and promptly forgot everything about them.  I look forward to the TV show though!

Forest of Hands and Teeth by Carrie Ryan
Delacorte Books For Young Readers, 2009

Mary lives in an isolated village surrounded by fences that have been there for as long as anyone can remember.  On the other side of the fences, zombies, “The Unconsecrated,” as they are known in this book, walk freely.  Trapped by the hordes of zombies outside the fence, life in Mary’s village revolves around survival.  People marry, the have children, they maintain the fences, and they kill off anyone who becomes infected with the zombie plague.  The Sisterhood, a secretive sect of nuns, controls most things in the village and tells the people nothing of their history or what lies beyond the forest.  Fueled by stories of the ocean and a world before the Unconsecrated, Mary is determined to find more to the world than what lies within the fences of her small village.

There’s nothing brilliantly original about The Forest of Hands and Teeth.  It is very reminiscent, almost overly so, of the M. Night Shyamalan movie The Village in many ways.  There’s also, of course, the element of the zombies, which, aside from being called “Unconsecrated” behave very much in the way that zombies do in most zombie movies and books.  Additionally, there’s a love story in The Forest of Hands and Teeth that feels forced and a little tired.  Despite these faults, the story is gripping enough to keep a reader up late into the night and has a powerful emotional impact.  The Forest of Hands and Teeth is one of those rare blends of exciting, page turning adventure and quality, heartfelt writing.

Recommended for teens and adults who like their horror mixed with melodrama.  Yes, there are some pretty exciting zombie scenes here, but there are also quite a lot of meandering passages where Mary questions heavy topics such as faith, the world beyond the fence, and love.  Likewise, sensitive readers should beware that there are some intense scenes of gore, violence, and hair raising action.

Pride and Prejudice and Zombies:  The Classic Regency Romance - Now With Ultraviolent Zombie Mayham!
by Jane Austen and Seth Grahame-Smith
Quirk Books, 2009

Preserving most of the original text of Pride and Prejudice, this modified classic now includes zombies and a horror twist.  The “strange plague” going around England is actually that of zombies.  Elizabeth Bennet and her sisters have been trained in “the deadly arts” to be, no longer just well-mannered young ladies, but zombie slayers of the finest caliber as they putter about society before being married off.  Mr. Darcy has also been transformed into a gentlemanly, zombie slaying hero.

And now to admit something that perhaps will sway your view of me as a reader–until it was available in zombie fused fashion, I have never read Pride and Prejudice. Although I was forced to read some other Austen novels in high school, they never moved me, a true tomboy at heart, enough to seek out anything more.  It wasn’t until there were zombies and a concept so hilarious (fancy, well-mannered ladies zombie slaying!) that I just had to pick it up.  Pick it up I did and it was in doing so that I realized that, while the zombie bits are funny, the real goodness of the book is in Austen’s original work.  I found myself enjoying the characters and the original humor enough that, at times, the zombie interruptions felt just like that–like interruptions.  Although I credit Grahame-Smith for coming up with such a wonderful concept and for fusing it in some seamlessly, the quality of the book still lies in the original work.

All in all, the postmodern, zombie mashup concept is a good way to get reluctant readers slightly more interested in Jane Austen.  I could see this being successfully used in high school English classes to make Austen (slightly) more appealing to boys and girls.  At the same time, I can see why Austen fans might be offended at the addition of ironically place gore and grossness in such a beloved classic.  I think it’s important to recognize that this zombie version of Pride and Prejudice, will never replace the original text.  It’s just a fun twist that may get non-Austen readers (like me) to pick up and *actually enjoy* Pride and Prejudice.

Coraline by Neil Gaiman
Harper Collins, 2002

Is it just me or is Neil Gaiman everywhere these days?  He’s gone from comic book and scifi/fantasy author, celebrated by gothgirls and teenage alterna-types everywhere in the 90’s, to multi-award winning children’s, adult, and young adult author, celebrated and praised by just about everyone.  And the funny thing is, he totally deserves it.  Coraline is Neil Gaiman’s masterpiece for children, combining just the right touches of creepy darkness and quirky, light-heartedness that makes a book memorable and beloved by children and adults.

In Coraline, Coraline Jones becomes bored one day when her parents are busy working and no one seems to be around to play with her.  She discovers a secret door in her flat that leads to an alternate world where the toys are alive and, more creepily, another, more doting, set of her parents live.  The other parents, most specifically, the “other mother,” want Coraline to stay in their world forever and when Coraline does eventually go back to her own world, she discovers that her real parents have gone missing.  Back in the other world, Coraline senses the darkness that lurks under the surface and must demonstrate all the intelligence, bravery, and cunning that she can to escape this weird other world and save her real parents.

I personally didn’t love this book in the same way that other do (especially given its long list of notable awards); however, I did think that it was a very well-written and exciting book that will hold up well to a vast range of audiences.  Children, who will read this more as an adventure, will be delighted with the character of Coraline and the fantastic elements throughout the book.  Teens and adults, on the other hand, will be sucked in by the subtle darkness that adds a real sense of urgency to Coraline’s dilemma.  I’ve seen many a review that compares Coraline to Alice in Wonderland. I can see the parallels in that both books are creepy to the core and surreal in their execution, however, I think that Coraline is a much more accessible book for most readers, young and old.  I adore Alice in Wonderland, of course, but I admit that it can be a challenging read, even for some adults.  Coraline, however, has that special place in that it is readable at many levels, allowing it to be interesting and enjoyable for all ages.  I would recommend this book to just about anyone who is in the mood for it.  I think it would work especially well as a family read.

I listened to the audiobook, read by Neil Gaiman himself.  Unlike many authors in their “read by the author” produced audiobooks, Gaimen does a good job of reading the book.  Music by the Gothic Archies is interspersed between disks, which I found a little irritating and out of place, though the musical interludes are short enough so as to be tolerable.

The Unspoken by Thomas Fahy
Simon and Schuster, 2008

The Unspoken is about the teen survivors of a creepy cult that their parents belonged to. The kids escaped five years ago, when they set fire to the cult’s headquarters, killing Jacob  Crawley, the powerful and frightening leader of the cult.  Split up and sent to foster families across the country, the teens have not kept in touch with each other…until one of them ends up dead.  They meet up together for the funeral, returning to Meridian, the small Southern town where it all happened.  It seems as if Jacob’s terrifying prophecy is coming true-five years later, they are all being hunted down and murdered by their worst fears.

The Unspoken reminded me a bit of the Fear Street books that I used to read as a young adolescent.  Violently gory and a little bit naughty (the f-word makes an appearance here and there), but clearly written for the younger set of the YA audience.  The Unspoken is a bit higher quality (especially in terms of creating scarier jolts), than a lot of the Fear Street books, however, it’s really not that far off a comparison.  I found it hard to read at times, in part because it’s extremely cheesy, but also in part because it slips into present tense, third-person narration.  I can’t explain why I found this irritating to read.  An example:

“Allison pushes away from her desk with a jolt.  Goose bumps run down her spine, and she can feel her stomach dropping away.”

All in all though, I’d say that The Unspoken has its place on the shelves for younger teen horror fans.  It’s simple and it’s scary in the same way a PG13 horror movie can be.  It’s also short and certainly moves along at a reasonable pace.  I would not recommend it, however to any older teens (or adults, for that matter) or readers seeking something at all sophisticated or truly chilling.  There are better and scarier books out there for older teens (and adults).

Living Dead Girl by Elizabeth Scott
Simon Pulse, 2008

Living Dead Girl is told from the point of view from Alice, only that’s not really her name.  Alice was abducted by Ray, a sadistic, abusive kidnapper when she was ten years old.  Now 15, and outgrowing her child’s body, despite the fact that Ray underfeeds her to keep her small and underdeveloped, Alice knows that her time is limited. Alice knows that there was another Alice before her and that she was killed when she grew up.  Ray wants her to find a new Alice for him, help him kidnap her, and train her to his tastes.  Alice wants nothing more than death to escape her captor, however, she is trapped to Ray’s will as he threatens to return to her childhood home and murder her parents if she does not do what he says.  It’s about the darkest and twisted a subject matter you could have in a book.

I can’t say that I enjoyed Living Dead Girl exactly.  It’s one of those books that’s just so horrific and dark that it should be hard to read.  At the same time though, the plight of Alice is so frightening that I could not put this book down.  Written in a sparse, painful voice, the character of Alice is compelling and, though most of us can only imaging what it would be like to be her, easy to identify with in a strange way.  I found this book to be disturbing, but I also thought that there is a removal from reality that makes it readable.  This type of subject matter is hard to read about and it seems a bit sensationalized about the way it is treated in Living Dead Girl that is sort of like a teenage Lifetime Original Movie…but darker.  I would recommend this book to fans of Speak who can handle the subject matter.  Reader seeking an equally compelling, but more sensitive treatment of sexual abuse and violence should stick to the excellent The Lovely Bones or Lucky by Alice Sebold.