Once there was a town that made a deal. The deal was made when the town was just a village, a hamlet, a collection of hovels. Now the town is a middle class suburb called Gentry. But the deal still holds. In exchange for prosperity and health, the town agrees not to notice that every seven years, one of their children disappears and is replaced by a sickly thing that is not human and doesn’t live for long. “We take for granted that sometimes you lose a child. And sometimes everyone else gets hit by the recession. Everyone else’s unemployment skyrockets…but not ours. Never ours because if you feed the ground, the ground feeds you back.” Except one time, one of them lives to grow up. Mackie knows he’s different, but his friends and family love him anyway. The problem is, he can’t love himself, not when he knows what he is. Not when he knows who’s rightful place he took. A human boy who’s blood was spilled so he could live. Now Mackie has the chance to save another small soul that will be sacrificed so the town can prosper. But with friends and family in both worlds, is he strong enough to make the ultimate choice that will decide the future of Gentry? Haunting and melancholy, this debut horror novel is full of small, perfect moments of exquisite foreboding that almost made me hum with pleasure (you know if you read this blog regularly how much I love me some scaretasticness) I wish I could tell you more, but I’m afraid of giving away the sick little secrets at the rotten heart of this darkly gorgeous gem. I did feel like newbie author Brenna Yovanoff pulled a few punches at the end when it came to a gruesome character called The Cutter, but other than that, I was wholly satisfied. And while I saw interesting elements of books like The Last Days
Month: October 2010
Behemoth by Scott Westerfeld
In this steaming, clanking sequel to Leviathan
The Julian Game by Adele Griffin
Raye Archer is a lowly scholarship girl at swank private school Fulton. Her only friend is Star Trek geek Natalya, and Raye’s getting a little tired of spending Saturday nights at Nat’s house watching marathons of Next Generation on the Syfy channel while consuming copious amounts of Duncan Hines instant brownies. So when Ella Parker, one of the ruling members of the uber popular Group, offers Raye a shot at high school stardom by allowing Raye to become her Mandarin tutor, Raye jumps at the chance. But soon she starts losing Ella’s attention, so to keep the Queen Bee interested, Raye offers to help her get back at Julian Kilgarry, the hottest dude in school. Apparently, Julian had the gall to diss Ella at a party, and now Ella wants revenge. Julian’s comeuppance appears in the form of a blue-haired girl named Elizabeth, Raye’s online Facebook creation. Raye and Ella use Elizabeth to gain Julian’s trust in order to lure him places where he’s bound to run into trouble. But Raye’s conscience won’t let her keep up the ruse, so she ends up confessing to Julian, who is not only unexpectedly grateful, but ends up asking Raye out. Raye can’t believe her good luck. But just how long does she have before ruthless Ella discovers that she and Julian are more than just friends and her luck runs out? Ella will stop at nothing to show Raye who’s boss, even if it means using the Internet to cyberbully Raye into submission. What can you do when your frenemy is as elusive as a nasty email that can’t be deleted or website that won’t disappear? In terms of just really good writing, this mean girl thriller is heads and shoulders over those tired old Gossip Girls.