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Book Review: The Fourth Whore by Ev Knight


The Fourth Whore by Ev Knight (Bookshop.org | Amazon.com)

Raw Dog Screaming Press, 2020

ISBN: 978-1-947879-16-4

Availability: paperback, Kindle

 

The Fourth Whore is the debut novel from Ev Knight.  It’s the eclectic, and often bloody, story of Kenzi, a young, woman with hard luck, caught up in a centuries-old struggle of the gods.  Written from a number of character viewpoints, The Fourth Whore is a dark tale combining the ugliness of humanity with the insanity of the deities who are involved with it.

 

Kenzi is the focal point of the book, and her life sets the overall grim tone of the story in the first few pages.  She’s saddled with trying to pay for a slum apartment and supporting her junkie mother, which she does by peddling dope.   She also peddles herself to the landlord for rent.  Despite the fact that she’s quintessential street trash, it’s easy to like her.  She does have dreams of a better life, and her upbringing hardly resembles re-runs of The Brady Bunch.  Her pseudo-guardian, Sariel, is also intriguing; he’s a study in contrasts.  Kenzi knows him as the ‘Scribble Man,’ but he’s actually Death, the collector of souls for God.  However, he’s no faithful servant: his job is a punishment, not a blessing.  Also, his occasional sympathy for the dead, and sometimes aiding Kenzi in her times of extreme need, render him all too human.   His collecting allows for some hilariously bleak humor at times, such as when he grows impatient waiting for a young man to throw himself into a river with a load of heavy chain, thereby drowning himself.  Very morbid, but the thoughts Sariel voices are also quite amusing in a twisted way.

 

Kenzi and Sariel’s lives are quickly tied into the ‘god’ story thread, as both of them become targets of Lilith, a demi-god.  The story takes a nice turn here, as the author has re-worked the Bible story of Adam and Eve.  In this version, Lilith was the original wife of Adam, but she was tossed from Eden and tormented for failure to be a 1950’s style, submissive housewife to Adam.  Needless to say, when freed from her prison, she’s angry and wants revenge on…everything, and everyone.  She’s the closest thing to pure evil in the book, although some readers, especially women, may actually find her quite sympathetic, perhaps more so than any other character.

 

Therein lies Knight’s primary strength: she’s very good at painting her characters as somewhat sympathetic, or at least relatable, to all types of readers.   The story itself is good, but it’s the characters and how they feel that carry the book to its conclusion.  The only minor drawback is the occasional lack of cohesion around some of the plot elements in the book.  Things happen, but the reader might be questioning how they happened, as no hint of reason is given.  Events don’t always relate to each other, and seem occasionally random.  A little more explanation for some sections would have helped boost the story to the next level.

 

Overall, a solid first effort from Ev Knight, and worth reading.

 

Contains: profanity, graphic violence and gore, graphic sex.

 

Reviewed by Murray Samuelson

 

 

 

 

Posted on June 12, 2020 by , Reply

Book Review: Rules for Vanishing by Kate Alice Marshall

Rules for Vanishing by Kate Alice Marshall

Viking Books for Young Readers, 2019

ISBN-13: 978-1984837011

Available: Hardcover, paperback, Kindle edition

 

 

The legend of Lucy Gallows says that 12 year old Lucy Callow ran into the woods after an argument with her mother, and when her brother went after her, he saw her step onto a road, and as she walked away, both she and the road vanished, never to be found.

Sara Donoghue’s sister Becca was obsessed with the legend of Lucy Gallows, going so far as to fill a notebook with thoughts, drawings, photographs, and clues that could lead her to the vanished road and find Lucy.  A year ago, on April 18, Becca disappeared, and Sara is certain her sister found her way to the road. Now everyone in her school has received a text message to find a partner and a key to find the road by midnight. Anthony, Trina, Kyle, Mel and Nick were Becca and Sara’s closest friends, and despite doubts, all of them show up to see if the road appears. The road has seven gates, and you need a partner to hold on to as you take the thirteen necessary (and disorienting) steps through each gate.  Becca’s notebook contains rules for traveling on the road:

Don’t leave the road.

When it’s dark, don’t let go.

There are other roads. Don’t follow them.

The road does appear, but since three of the friends have shown up with partners for the game, there is an odd number, meaning someone won’t have a partner. And in the dark, it’s easy to get separated and accidentally step off the road. The teens are not on a friendly stroll here; they are on a terrible road with frightening and sometimes deadly obstacles, and once they’re through the gate, they can’t turn back. But they also can’t help breaking the rules. If the reader isn’t filled with dread at the beginning of their journey, it won’t take long for that to happen.

Marshall constructs her story in a complicated way. First, we get Sara’s relatively straightforward narrative, told entirely from her point of view.  Then we move to a point past the events on the road,  with transcripts from interviews with Sara, and others who were on the journey, by Andrew Ashford, a discredited researcher of the paranormal.  There’s also documentation of what happened before the teens stepped onto the road (through text messages between Sara’s friends) and while they were on it (cell phone recordings and videos, and photographs) suggesting that maybe Sara’s story is not as straightforward or reliable as it seems to be. Marshall balances these nicely to create a cohesive, if sometimes hallucinatory, story.   The creativity of the story and the work that goes in to structuring a book like this are impressive. I wasn’t a big fan of most of the characters, but the world-building is outstanding (although I am curious as to why the author chose to ground her story in a legend from Brittany when the book is set in Massachusetts), and the suspense is terrific.

I wonder if this is meant to stand alone (it certainly can) or if it’s meant to be part of a longer series about Andrew Ashford’s investigations of the paranormal, which I would find intriguing. Either way, for those who like the puzzle of pulling a story together, it’s a compelling and worthwhile read. Recommended.

Contains: Violence, gore,  murder

 

Reviewed by Kirsten Kowalewski

 

Editor’s note:  Rules for Vanishing was nominated to the final ballot of the 2019 Bram Stoker Award in the category of Superior Achievement in a Young Adult Novel.

Posted on March 31, 2020 by , Reply

Book Review: Pan’s Labyrinth: The Labyrinth of the Faun by Guillermo del Toro and Cornelia Funke, illustrated by Allen Williams

Pan’s Labyrinth: The Labyrinth of the Faun by Guillermo del Toro and Cornelia Funke, illustrated by Allen Williams.

Katherine Tegen Books, 2019

ISBN-13: 978-0062414465

Available: Hardcover, paperback, Kindle edition, audiobook, audio CD

 

 

Who better to take Pan’s Labyrinth, Spanish filmmaker Guillermo del Toro’s critically acclaimed dark, surrealist fairytale of a film and translate it into a children’s book than German children’s fantasy author Cornelia Funke? Ofelia isn’t your ordinary princess in a tower with a life under the control of a vicious, dictatorial stepfather: she is a child caught in the middle of a revolution in Fascist Spain, who discovers she is also the main character in a mythical story.  Although she is the protagonist, the film was not a children’s movie, and the story is framed by adults’ actions and points of view (specifically, the sadistic Captain Vidal, who is Ofelia’s stepfather, and Mercedes, their housekeeper, who is a rebel spy).

The book alternates between Ofelia’s view of the world as a magical place; the story of her family (including mother, stepfather, and new brother) and the battle between the soldiers (headed by Captain Vidal) and the rebels; and intertwined fairytales that touch on their reality. All three of these together lead Ofelia to take on a magical quest at the entrance to an ancient labyrinth on their property at the urging of the elemental, Pan, a faun who tells her that she is really a princess, the daughter of the king of the underworld.  The faun tells her she will have to undertake three tasks in order to rejoin her parents in the underworld. The obstacles presented by dinner parties, a sick mother, a baby brother, an angry stepfather, the violence of the Fascists toward the rebels, and Mercedes the housekeeper’s subterfuges, all must be navigated in order for Ofelia to sneak off and try the terrifying tasks for a faun she isn’t exactly sure she can even trust.

Cornelia Funke’s poetic and fantastical language and style of writing perfectly suits the fairytale nature of the story.  Yes, Ofelia’s story takes place in a specific historical setting, but the reader doesn’t have to know the history of the Spanish Civil War to fall in love with this tale (although I wouldn’t have been averse to a historical note). Due to its being based on a film targeted to adults, however, there are some disturbing moments of violence and implied torture and cannibalism, as well as a significant amount of bloodletting. There is plenty of foreboding and horror in play here, even presented as a children’s book.

Allen Williams’ illustrations really make the book work. Many pages are framed with bending tree branches around the text, giving the reader a feeling of really traveling through a portal into an ancient forest. The individual fairytales are printed on gray paper and have a full page black-and-white pencil illustration facing them, bringing the fantastical to life. The drawing opposite the story “When The Faun Came To Life” is strikingly similar to the creature in the film. I strongly recommend that if you choose to purchase this, you spend the extra few dollars for a hardback for the pleasure you’ll get from the combination of text with illustration.

This isn’t a simple novelization. Cornelia Funke has created something special here, making del Toro’s darkly magical film and narrative accessible to young people.  Highly recommended, especially for del Toro and Funke fans, for ages 12+.

 

Contains: violence, blood, murder, brief scenes of torture, implied torture, death in childbirth, implied cannibalism

Posted on October 17, 2019 by , Reply
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