Review of Cursed Objects--Beware, this book may be cursed...or not.

 

I own Mr. Ocker's book, Poeland, and I really enjoy his humor and his deep research into his subject. (Poe, if you weren't able to guess.)  Although I still liked his humor, I felt he was having to stretch to have enough cursed items to fill a book. At one point, he says there aren't that many cursed items out there. (Haunted items and cursed items are two different things.) There is a chapter on things that ought to be cursed, but aren't. Even the chapter on cursed items sold on ebay didn't garner too many examples.

Maybe he should have put out a nationwide notice. "Who out there has cursed stuff?" A friend of mine's great-great grandmother survived the Chicago fire as a little girl, but her family lost everything. A lady, who also lost her house, gave her a ceramic dog to play with. The dog was pockmarked and blistered from the fire, but the child kept it and handed it down from generation to generation. Everybody in the family who owned that dog through the years had their house catch on fire. Cursed? I'd say so!

There's probably a gazillion things out there in families that are believed to be cursed. Mr. Ocher should make a general shout-out for cursed stuff, then use his humor to make a book. Maybe call it Cursed America. I'd buy it.

Thank you to Netgalley and Quirk Books for this digital ARC.

The only thing wrong with this book is the title.

 A couple of years ago, I saw Michael Dahl, the writer of middle-grade horror, at the Oklahoma Writers Federation Inc. conference in Oklahoma City (first weekend in May, if you're interested.) He said horror for middle-grade is huge and they can't buy enough of it. With that in mind, I've been reading some middle-grade and YA horror. 

Of Salt and Shore, by Annet Shaape, is a good book for a ten-year-old (or thereabouts) who wants scary but not too scary. In it, what we think of as monsters turn out to be good, and the people who are supposed to care and protect us, turn out to be monsters.  The folks in the freak show are good and kind, even though they get stared at for a living. Mermaids are lovely but they bite. Even humans without supernatural magic can create with their hands, like Nick, who always builds with wood something that people and merboys don't know they need until they have it.

But, does the title convey the magic, the pirates, the horror, and the existence of mermaids? It's a lovely book but I don't think a kid looking for mermaids and mermen who bite will pick it up based on the title and cover.

There is some child beating which can be disturbing. As I said, some of the humans are more monstrous than the monsters. Most of the humans are good, though, and willing to help the protagonist, Lampie. 

If you're interested in writing middle-grade horror, try a book like Of Salt and Shore because there are limits to how much you can scare kids. This seems like just about the right amount of scares.

A big thank you to Charlesbridge Publishers for this digital ARC copy of Of Salt and Shore.

Where the Wild Ladies Are from Soft Skull Press

 Where the Wild Ladies are has to be the most unique collection of ghost stories I've ever read. The ghosts are sometimes pushy, sometimes annoying, often exasperating, usually surprising, and occasionally fed up with people. Some of the dead are way happier as ghosts than they were when alive. Almost all of the stories have a surprise including one where you think the ghost sleeps and patrols with her cat...but it turns out to be something entirely different.

Another surprise is that after reading a few stories, you start to realize they're interconnected, so read from the beginning to the end since characters in stories reappear in others. 

If you're tired of scary stories where you can predict everything that is about to happen, try Where the Wild Ladies Are. You don't know what frightening is until you're confronted with two lady salespeople ghosts who refuse to leave your house until you buy a peony lantern (that you really don't want)  from them.

The author, Aoko Matsuda explains, at the end of the book, the ancient Japanese ghost stories these were based on. Her stories, though, are updated. These ghosts are not putting up with the crap ghosts of the past endured.

Thank you to Netgalley for the chance to read and review a digital ARC of Where the Wild Ladies Are.

Review of The Lost Village or The Protagonist Should Have Planned Better

The Lost Village is a book I both did and didn't like. It would probably make a good movie as there were plenty of jump scares--strange figures seen in the night, strange sounds, people falling through floors. Isolated place with no phone signal. The final, virginal girl, or in this case, two.

Nine hundred people in an old mining village go missing. The great-granddaughter of one of the missing enlists a former friend who is a film-maker, the money man who is financing the expedition, the film-maker's boyfriend, and another relative of a survivor into coming with her to scout out the abandoned village for a documentary. The protagonist suffers from depression, was never successful like the other film school graduates, and thinks this documentary will be the key to her success.

All right so far. But, Alice, the protagonist, doesn't seem to know a lot for being a film school graduate.. Her goals for the five days were rather slipshod and she didn't know her rented camera took videos in addition to still photos. I began to realize why she was the least successful student in her film classes. I'm not a film student and I can tell if a camera takes videos or not.  Alice mostly accidently discovers stuff instead of having a plan. 

Of the five people in the group, two are on medication for mental problems and they both happen to be women. Why, in the books I read, is it always the women who are suffering? The two men seem happy as clams, although I don't know how happy clams really are.

So, the protagonist spent a bundle on rented vehicles and camera equipment but doesn't seem particularly prepared. Her former friend takes over and we're supposed to resent this as does Alice. But, geez, Alice didn't get her act together before the trip.

I like strong women in my books and Alice wasn't it. There were other strong women, especially Elsa who is in the background story, but the protagonist just let things happen to her. I also figured out who the culprit was and where the villagers disappeared to long before the characters did.

There were characters who I felt sorry for like Brigritta who had autism, characters to dislike like the over-the-top minister, but, except for Elsa in the backstory, the characters were mainly blah.

It would still make a good movie because people fall through floors on a regular basis. But, in a movie the rusty fire escape will have to break and somebody will have to swing on it, hanging on for dear life. I wonder if they need a script writer? I'm on a roll here.

Thanks to Netgalley and St. Martin's for the digital advance reader copy.

Review of The Hollow Places-----Humorous Horror

T. Kingfisher's novel, The Twisted Ones, was one of my favorite books from last year, so I was excited to get this review copy from Netgalley and the publisher. I wasn't disappointed. T. Kingfisher writes the best characters. Except for the spooky killer characters, and/or the annoying spouse, these are people who you'd like to know. They're just odd enough to make them interesting and endearing. 

Although I'd like to hug the characters, there are frightening and chilling "things" and victims of the "things" that are a constant and dangerous menace. 

There were times I foresaw what would happen. For instance, I guessed the evil object creating the havoc before the protagonist did. But, the humor (Kingfisher is very funny) and the fun characters (even the cat is fantastic,) and the peril more than make up for the fact the sometimes the reader is ahead of the game.

 I love both The Twisted Ones and The Hollow Places. I look forward to future Kingfisher novels.