ISBN: 0061562491
256 pages
published in 2008.
Oh God was this a disappointing book. I think the worst part was that I had such high hopes for it, really, considering I’ve really loved everything I’ve read by Barker in the past and I really find all of his work really rich in imagination and innovation. What also sucks is that this book clearly had potential. I don’t know if it was just lack of direction or laziness or what, but it was REALLY not executed correctly, at all (I realize how arrogant that sounds, by the way, haha!)
The story is about Jakabok Botch, a minor demon from the 9th circle of Hell, Dante’s Inferno-style, who gets fished up onto Earth and does all sorts of horrible things. We get some sketches of what his life was like growing up, what his experiences were on Earth, his problems, insecurities, feelings and relationships (including one heated romantic relationship with another demon.) All of this really seems quite interesting at first, and it’s certainly the only book I’ve seen that seems to want to approach a story like this from this point of view. The fact that the book is written so that it seems that Botch *is* the book and has been trapped within the pages is also quite creative and fun. It opens with him insisting that you burn the book, and while this is startling and capturing in the first few pages, one of the book’s major downfalls is that this just continues. incessantly. for. half. the. length. of. the. book. Honestly, if I had the time I would subtract a page from the page count for each page where Barker repeats Botch’s requests to have you burn the book and all of the horrible consequences there will be for you if you don’t. I’m sure the book would lose most of its bulk. How it was allowed past the editor in that way is astonishing to me.
This also means that the little time story was given, it was poorly fleshed out and the characters especially suffered from this. You’d think you’d get a better feeling for Botch considering he is the narrator, but he is still only a shadow of a character — you have a sense of anticipation throughout the whole story, thinking you’re going to actually get to know what his deal is, but you never do. The rest of the characters, then, are just laughable. They may as well not be in the book, as the reader has little chance of attachment or interest in them at all.
I hate to give Barker such a low rating, but he really missed the boat. It wasn’t even a little bit spooky, for the record. Maybe next time!
ISBN: 0385736843
419 pages
published in 2010.
The sequel to Carrie Ryan’s The Forest of Hands and Teeth. While definitely sequel in content (and quite enjoyable in its own right), I don’t know if I would say that it is its sequel in spirit. While the original book was full of mystery and excitement, this one just doesn’t seem to cut it. Part of me wants to blame the characters, as I didn’t particularly like any of them. While the teenage characters in The Forest of Hands in Teeth seemed new and original and quite unlike the way teenagers are portrayed in most YA novels, these characters seemed just the opposite. I felt as if I had met them all before — and not in the good way. They were all incredibly whiny, incredibly predictable and not very likable at all. I kept getting the feeling that I wished I could just skip all of the story about them and just hear more about the atmosphere and the world-situation, which was just as interesting and vivid as in the first book.
On top of that, the “big secret” in this book was not nearly as fun as the one in the first, and I felt as though it was stretched a bit. It seemed as if Ryan wanted something to keep the reader turning pages through loads and loads of teenage drama (with zombies!) hoping that when we reached the end we’d feel fulfilled because we’d know more about the lives of her characters — which, I might add, we hoped would make us actually care whether they lived or died. Unfortunately this was not the case.
Still, I give this book four out of five carrots for the sheer originality of the setting and the writing quality. There is a third (and final?) book coming out next year, and I will most likely pick it up right away. It’s not very often that I buy books in hardcover unless I already know I really like the series, and I bought The Dead-Tossed Waves in hardcover. This, too, attests to Ryan’s writing skill. Although I would have been more impressed if she would have put new puzzles in!
ISBN: 0385736827
336 pages
published in 2009.
This was an extremely encouraging and welcome find for young-adult literature — especially in the horror genre. I was pleasantly surprised throughout the entire novel, and that’s saying something. Not that it was completely free of predictability — but for the most part it managed to avoid all of the overused and painful cliches that seem to be earning barely talented writers tonnes of money currently.
Despite the fact that the action kicks off pretty quickly, you don’t really quite know what’s going on at first. That’s good. Let me emphasize this. That’s REALLY good. Too many times has a good plot been ruined for me by a poor publisher’s choice of giving the secret away on the back of the book. This is not the case here, and it truly works in the benefit of the story. You do not go in expecting a run-of-the-mill zombie story, and you don’t get one either. Sure, the zombies are what you would expect — shambling, brainless, cannibalism-machines — but the world they inhabit is rich in a way that is difficult to describe. While the main character is not perhaps the strongest or most interesting character in the world of young adult lit, she is a good storyteller and her naivety (though frustrating) is appropriate, as we too find we are naive coming into this world and find ourselves figuring out its secrets while Mary does.
The story is fast-paced, vivid, very well written (because of and despite the often awkward present-tense.) Mary’s world is one that we are grateful we don’t live in, yet are compelled to return to. It is heartbreaking and full of despair, yet not entirely hopeless. It is difficult to give up on Mary and the other characters while Mary herself is so full of determination and expectation.
ISBN: 0312596308
338 pages
published in 2008.
Another installment of the House of Night series and nothing new has really happened. Oh, of course there have been new events and new characters and all of that stuff that is supposed to make a series progress, but there is no added depth, no intrigue, no mystery and all of the characters are as predictable (and occasionally outright offensive) as usual.
The Native American mythology that the Casts have attempted to infuse within the story add quite a deal of interest into the book, yet just like anything else original they try to write into it, it falls flat on its face while amongst such poorly written characters. Considering the fact that all of the characters seem even more dismally obsessed with sex and teenage romance than even the worst real-life 16-year-old, it’s amazing that they have the time to go off and save the world and things like that. Once again, it reads like a poorly written roleplay sequence between two teenage girls and it makes me wonder who added what into the story, as it must be terribly embarrassing for P.C. if she is writing on the same level as her young daughter, who one would expect — as they would with most other college students — to be obsessed with sexy vampires and poorly constructed plot created to mask the embarrassing pornography.
ISBN: 0312360304
320 pages
published in 2008.
Another installment of this House of Night series. There really isn’t too much else to say about it, honestly and unfortunately. It’s beginning to read like a book version of a predictable teen romance, or an online text role-playing session gone out of control. That doesn’t devalue the entertainment potential of it — and it’s true that I tore through this book like I tore through the rest of them. That’s something that this series (and these writers) seem to be good at — a fast-paced plot, lots of page-turning action, etc. But it fails to be anything above that. It has the value of a daytime TV soap opera — which isn’t completely value-less, but should not be taken too seriously.
This book (as can be seen leading up to it by the previous two) concentrates way too heavily on Zoey’s sexual relationships and while she does manage to get herself into some pretty serious predicaments regarding how she conducts herself within them (and how she manages to keep secrets from her friends) it is a bit silly that these seem to be constructed only to take some of the perfection away from Zoey’s character. The mistakes she has made up until this point seem small and insignificant, and her powers and skills are numerous. She was due to fall, but to have her fall because she is apparently so amazing that three men are interested in her? It’s a bit much for me and I couldn’t help but roll my eyes at many of the scenes in the book where some guy or another is professing their undying devotion to her. At times it just seems like the written manifestation of a teenage girl fantasy, which while it may be appropriate to the age group and maybe even to the genre, is not conducive to the longevity of the series.
