Scary Books (BOO!) - Week 12

Ghost Town by Rachel Caine

In this 9^th book in the Morganville Vampire series, Claire Danvers has once again been ordered by Amelie, the town’s vampire leader, to help Myrnin, the town’s resident vampire super genius/psychotic, reconfigure his steampunky machine that controls the town’s portals and memory.  Claire and her housemates, Eve, Shane, and Michael, start to realize that living in a vampire run town isn’t as scary as what’s happening to the memories of the town’s vampires and humans. The delicate balance of Morganville is in jeopardy by the miasma that has resulted. 

I chose this story because I am a HUGE Rachel Caine fan and have enjoyed her previous 8 books in this series.  In this frightening town, there is a mixture of unknowing college students, townies, and vampires (both good and bad).  Sometimes realizing who is good and who is bad is always shifting and you can never make assumptions on how any given day things will turn out.  One constant for Claire, the incredibly understated prodigy, is that her housemate and boyfriend, Shane, cares for her along with her two housemates.

Speak by Laurie Halse Anderson

School has just started and after calling the police to a party over the summer, Melinda went from a normal teen with her circle of friends to a social pariah.  Melinda is a freshman at Merryweather High and nobody seems to care about what really happened.  Melinda gradually shuts down verbally and emotionally.  Her only joy is art.  Her art teacher imparts some wisdom to her in regards to her tree drawing assignment.  He tries to reach out to her when he tells her that without emotion you slowly die inside.  Not willing to see her former friend hurt as well, Melinda takes steps to protect her and in doing so she finds her own voice.

I found this Printz Honor Book at my library.  I had previously heard about it and sought it out.  I was intrigued by the cover art.  The face of a teen without a mouth done in greens and browns trying to blend into the sparsely leaved tree in front of it symbolically looked like a lost empty being.  This isn’t your scary vampire or werewolf type of book.  It is a different kind of scary.  In this book the thought of a teen being shunned and teased by her school for an act of self-preservation after enduring a heinous violation was just horrific.  I know that this is a very likely scenario and that is what makes it scary for me.

Project 17 by Laurie Faria Stolarz

Liza, beautiful but focused Harvard wanna-be, Greta and Tony, the drama club divas, Mimi, the secretive goth girl, and Chet, the class clown with the sad home life, all agree to help Derik, the school Romeo, shoot a movie at the closed and soon to be demolished Danvers State Hospital.  Derik wants to enter this movie in a contest that will save him from a life of working in his parents’ diner and further his interest in film.  In theory capturing the classmates’ reactions as they spend an evening in the abandoned hospital sounds like a great idea, but the doubts and shivers start as the group enters the grounds and strange feelings and sounds surround the group.

I decided to look for this book after my oldest daughter had read it last year and had the benefit of meeting the author through a library author lunch.  She really liked this book and while she found it scary it was definitely one that broadened her scope of reading materials.  I liked that the setting was a local well-known scary venue.  As a kid, when you thought of real-life scary there was no scarier than Danvers State.

The Blue Mirror by Kathe Koja 

Maggy Klass finds peace and beauty in her art that she loves to sketch at The Blue Mirror, a diner in her city that has a beautiful window that showcases the world in a dreamy blue light.  Staying at home with her alcoholic mother is stifling so Maggy finds refuge in The Blue Mirror and her friend Casey who is interested in her art.  All that changes when one day Maggy notices a tall dark boy with a breath-taking smile that is accompanied by street urchins.  The next day Maggy sees him again and this time he comes in and introduces himself as Cole.  His charm makes her feel light-headed and extremely special.  His words of “I love you” and intense passionate attention blind her to the reality of her new surroundings and the shell of her former life.  Before her very eyes, he has used her and brought her into his life of street crime and violence with his sugary sweet whispers and feather-like kisses.  Slowly she starts to really see what he is and her life has become.  This book shows her struggle to understand his life and overcome his hold on her.

I found this book mentioned on the School Library Journal’s website under a column titled A New Era of Gothic Horror.  The article spoke of helping teens “develop their moral compass.”  I liked this story because I could very easily see this scenario of seduction, manipulation, isolation, and abuse playing out in any big city with a young girl looking for someone that cares for her.