Lots of horror and fantasy packed into one small town. A review of Cicadas Sing of Summer Graves.

 If Cicadas Sing of Summer Graves isn't one of the prettiest titles, then I don't know what is. Now on to the review.

I lived in Arkansas for seven years, right next to a large lake. After reading Cicadas Sing of Summer Graves I realize I got out of Arkansas in the nick of time! I was always suspicious of that lake.  Even though there were snakey things and alligators in it, I swam there anyway because, like the people in Prosper, Arkansas, there wasn't much else to do. 

Everything is weird in Cicadas Sing of Summer Graves but in a good way. Telescopes watch characters, even turning by themselves to keep watch. An elderly man runs into the water every night and weeps. Another older man (how old? perhaps millennia old) makes grotesque fireworks. Flowers grow wherever one young woman goes. They even grow in her hair while she sleeps. A dead desiccated catfish on a bar's wall spits pearls occasionally. And there's a mysterious box that won't open. But there's more!

All the characters in Prosper, Arkansas, both alive and dead, have something strange and magical about them.  I have to admit that sometimes the strangeness became more than my suspension of disbelief could handle, but all in all it was an enchanting, and sometimes horrifying, read. And there were more bees than cicadas, but Bees Sing of Summer Graves doesn't have the same ring to it.

Thank you to Netgalley and Sourcebooks for allowing me to read and review Cicadas Sing of Summer Graves. Now I'm going to catch a catfish down at the creek to see if it spits pearls.

                          Beautiful cover There's a raccoon that lives under my house. It loves to crunch up dead cicadas and eat them. Not that this has anything to do with the book.

We can't pretend history didn't happen. A review of Say Anarcha.

 I read a lot of fictional horror, but the real horrors in the world are the things people do to each other. After reading Say Anarcha, I'm almost speechless. Fortunately, author J.C. Hallman found the words because this is an important part of the history of racism, patriarchy, surgery, and women's rights. Thankfully, the afterword is hopeful, or I'd finish this book really depressed.

Dr. Sims did experimental surgery for fistula on enslaved women. He didn't make any attempt at anesthesia beyond telling the suffering women that they'd be punished if they cried or screamed. Anarcha had 30 or more experimental operations, with no painkillers. All the operations failed. Never-the-less, Dr. Sims wrote articles and gave speeches claiming success.   HIs ultimate goal wasn't curing as much as it was getting wealthy off of rich white women who also needed surgery for fistula. (Fistula is the tearing of the vagina during difficult pregnancies allowing feces and urine to escape through the birth canal.)

Anarcha and the other enslaved women learned to assist during the surgeries and proved to be better at providing aftercare than the doctors. What did they get for their heroism and hard work? Nothing but being sent back to plantations to be overworked and unpaid. Plus, Sims pretended he didn't know Anarcha because he didn't want the rich women to know his surgeries on her failed. How's that for gratitude to the woman he experimented on more than 30 times?

This book also includes a lot about the history of the times. Included are biographies of the various surgeons. Much of the thoughts and feelings of Anarch are conjecture because her history before and after her surgeries wasn't recorded. Though she was a fine doctor herself to the enslaved on the plantations, and to the white families in the big house, she was never taught to read or write. Anarcha delivered countless babies and had a deep knowledge of medicinal herbs from the forests.

As I mentioned, if it wasn't for the optimistic afterword about the care of fistula today, this is an emotionally difficult book to read. There is horrible abuse of the enslaved, very sexist treatment of all women, and the descriptions of experimental and cruel surgeries on women and animals.

It's an important story, though. I learned much about the history of slavery, medicine, and attitudes of the past. Thank you to Netgalley and Henry Holt publishers for allowing me to read and review Say Anarcha.

It's hard to make friends when you're possessed by an ill-tempered ghost. A review of We Don't Swim Here.

 With all the collateral damage, the punishments the ghost Sweetie hand out seem harsh. But vengeful ghosts aren't known for their gentleness. If only she'd possessed someone decades sooner, a lot of people could have avoided sizzling to death in a lake.

When Sweetie finally does possess a high school girl named Bronwyn, all hell breaks loose. Have you ever tried fitting in as the new kid in school while being inhabited by a ghost intent on murder? It's not the best way to make friends.

I do wonder, though, why the parents don't leave Bronwyn back at their big city home. The girl was about to make the freaking Olympic swim team. Instead, they bring her to a small town where "nobody swims here." That should be a really big clue that the Olympic trials won't be held there. All the town's pools are drained, the lake sizzles, and unfortunate rituals rule the small city. Of course, if her parents left Bronwyn with an accommodating friend, the novel would have been two pages long and the Sweetie ghost would never tell her story or rid the world of icky people.

Lots of eye rolling and smirking. I dusted off both the eyeball-roll-o-meter and my smirk-o-meter for this one. If you read my other reviews, you know that eyeball rolling and smirking drive me nuts because I want the authors to be more original than that. They come up with unique stories only to have all the teens doing all the same things. 

Thanks to Netgalley and Sourcebooks Fire for allowing me to read and review an eARC of We Don't Swim Here.

Sourcebooks, your source for...Watch Out! He Has a Gun! A review of Four Found Dead.

 If a producer doesn't nab Four Found Dead for a movie, Hollywood will be missing out. Nothing much scares me because I read a lot of horror, but the suspense in this thriller was killing me. I was nearly the fifth found dead.

The first murder happens early in the book. The book was written with so much suspense that I kept saying, "Who's next? Who is next!" I got a lot of weird looks because I was grocery shopping at the time.

Because the mystery was well written, I never knew who would be joining the choir invisible. It's gonna be this guy, No, it's gonna be this teenage girl. No, it's gonna be... You get the idea. There are notes at the end of several chapters. It's the same as the murders. "Who's writing these." I thought it was her, then him, then her, then him.

Lots of action, mystery, suspense, icky blood. Lots of t-shirts,j too. They soak up blood well.

Thanks to Sourcebooks for sending an ARC that made me shudder and shiver and for an honest review in return.

Where is this place? Where is this place! Cult or not, I want to go. A Review of The Merry Dredgers.

  

The Goblin amusement park is so awesome that if it never existed it ought to be created. The cult members who live there eat magic mushrooms and the park gets even more awesome. (Not that I'm condoning drug use. I would never do that. Pardon me a moment while I bite into this fungus.)

If you've read my other critiques, you'll know how I feel about characters rolling their eyes as an answer to everything. Really, my eyeball-roll-o-meter is burned out. But in this novel, there are two, count them TWO, eyeball trees.  And the eyeballs roll in random directions. If the characters in other novels had eyes that roll in random directions when their mothers say something dorky, that would be A-OK in my book.

Corrina (aka Seraphina) suspects that a cult has critically injured her sister. She infiltrates the cult known as the Dredgers. Except for the "strange" leader, the cult members are kind of fun. In fact, they're merry. (Not that I'm condoning cults. Most of them don't come across as merry.) Corrina and Nichelle have some clever banter between each other and develop a trusting friendship. All this and mechanical goblins. And rabbits with wings. And spooky rides.  And, and, and eyeball trees!  Where is this place?! I'm packing my bags right now.

Thanks to Netgalley and Meerkat books for allowing me to read and review The Merry Dredgers. Reading it was a lot of fun.

Not Happy Campers: A Review of Tell Me What Really Happened.

 

Tell Me What Really Happened is one of my favorite books of 2023. Five friends (some of whom only tolerate each other) go camping. Four of them end up in police interrogation. Each chapter begins with one question from a detective. The rest of the chapter is each teens' answers. Suspense!  Creepy! Also a unique way to write a novel. 

Murder...or is it? Friendship...or is it?

I kept reading this book long after midnight because I was asking myself, "What next? WHAT NEXT!" Full of surprises. A couple of the characters I kind of wished would be eaten by bears. They weren't. Maybe one of them was eaten by something big and hairy. Maybe not. A real "who done it." Or what done it.

Mystery. Action. Romance...or maybe not. Definitely death. But who, how, and why?

Thanks to Netgalley and Sourcebooks for allowing me to read, review, and be frightened by Tell Me What Really Happened.

Books are not the enemy.

 “It wasn’t until I started reading and found books they wouldn’t let us read in school that I discovered you could be insane and happy and have a good life without being like everybody else.”

– John Waters

Mr. Wilde Should Know

 

The Goblin Forst, It Is. Don't Get Lost or You End Up Green and Hairy

 A jerk for a father keeps frightening his daughter but it all works out because a whole herd of Yodas show up. Wait a minute, it was a whole herd of gremlins who talk like Yoda, they did.

So, things are looking bad what with a battle going on between goblins, humans, and Yoda-wannabes but then the cavalry with John Wayne arrives, oh wait, I've got movies on my mind.

Here's what really happened. The gremlins sounded so much like Yoda that I pictured every one of them green with big ears and some kind of little monks' robes, wear they did. And then, just like in old Western films, a big group of warriors shows up. Instead of a bugle call, they honk a horn on a police car.

The Goblin Forest is a good story but it's not as well written as it could be. There's a crucial difference between a good story and a well-written story. A good story can become a great story with some extra revisions and some more editing. Because the plot is engaging, I think it could be an excellent novel if an agent or a few more beta readers took a look at it.

The characters don't have to grin on every page. Attributes don't have to look like a thesaurus was on hand. It's okay to use the word said as an attribute.  It's a great plot but could use some more polishing.

Thank you to Netgalley and the author, Mark Stary, for allowing me to read and review an eARC of The Goblin Forest

                                                  Green with envy? No, green with goblins.