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Book Review: The Girl and the Ghost by Hanna Alkaf

cover art for The Girl and the Ghost by Hanna Alkaf

The Girl and the Ghost by Hanna Alkaf

Harper, 2020

ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0062940957

Available: Hardcover, Kindle edition, audiobook  ( Bookshop.org  | Amazon.com )

 

 

When a dark witch who is the master of a pelesit dies, the pelesit must go in search of a new master.

 

A pelesit is a Malaysian ghost in the shape of a grasshopper that has been bound to a master, created through dark magic and used to give the master power and protection. The master uses it for monetary gain, directing the pelesit to create trouble, so its victims will pay for solutions. It must feed regularly on the blood of its master and is bound to its master and the following generations. Without a binding, it causes chaos that can’t be controlled. This pelesit knows he needs to be controlled to keep darkness from completely taking him over.

 

When the pelesit finds the witch’s closest relatives, he discovers the witch’s daughter has shut herself off completely from the supernatural world. Her young daughter, Suraya, is another story. Unlike her grandmother, she makes the world a brighter place, and he binds her to him with three drops of blood in her sleep. Once the pelesit is bound to her, she changes: trouble seems to follow her, but nothing bad ever happens to her, and people start to avoid her. She names the pelesit Pink, and he becomes her only friend. But he is a dark spirit of chaos and it is a struggle for him to hold it back, especially when he perceives a threat to Suraya, and later when she does make her own friends, out of jealousy.

 

As time passes, struggle between Suraya’s brightness, widening world, and increasing independence and Pink’s darkness, and possessiveness can only lead to more and more terrible things, and also many, many Star Wars references. If insects and maggots bother you, be warned.

 

According to the author, this is a retelling of a Malaysian folktale, but she has very much made it her own. This story about family, friendship, grief, and the supernatural is compelling, unusual, occasionally funny, and sometimes disturbing, Seeing events from Pink’s point of view provides a more nuanced look than if we only witnessed events from the outside, and the author’s careful description of Malaysian ghosts, spirits, and exorcisms, contributes significantly to world-building. Highly recommended for grades 4-8.

 

Contains: child death, mutilation, insects and maggots, blood

 

Reviewed by Kirsten Kowalewski

 

Posted on November 12, 2021 by , Reply

Book Review: Ghost Wood Song by Erica Waters

cover art for Ghost Wood Song by Erica Waters

Ghost Wood Song by Erica Waters

HarperTeen, 2020

ISBN-13 : 978-0062894229

Available: Hardcover, Kindle edition, audiobook  ( Bookshop.org  | Amazon.com )

 

 

Shady Grove grew up in a haunted house, and her father owned a violin that could raise ghosts, but it disappeared when he died in a car accident when she was twelve. Like him, Shady is a talented bluegrass fiddle player, but she’s never gotten over her father’s death, and is obsessed with the violin.

 

After her father’s death, Shady’s mother remarried to his best friend, Jim. Shady, her troublemaking older brother Jesse, her toddler half-sister Honey, her mother, and Jim live in a trailer on the edge of town. Jim is an alcoholic with an anger management problem, and he and Jesse are always clashing.

 

Shady and her friends Orlando and Sarah enter a music competition at a local cafe. They discover Jim’s son Kenneth is also participating, as are his friend Cedar and Cedar’s sister Rose. Shady is impressed by Cedar and Rose’s playing (and a little by Cedar himself) but is unsure about asking to play with them out of loyalty to Sarah and Orlando. Jim and his older and more respectable brother Frank show up as well. Kenneth gets into an altercation with Jesse that ends with Kenneth in the emergency room. Jim and Jesse end up in a fight, Jesse storms out, and the next morning Jim is found dead, killed with a hammer. The logical conclusion is that Jesse did it in a fit of anger, but Shady refuses to believe that Jesse could be responsible and decides the only way to find out for sure is to find her father’s violin and raise Jim’s ghost for the true story. But there is a dark and terrifying price to pay for playing the violin.

 

Set in small-town Florida, Erica Waters tells this Southern Gothic tale of grief, guilt, shame, anger, and family secrets, with gorgeous prose. Her poetic language flows through wild areas, jolting both characters and readers with electrical shocks from emotional events. Hauntings unsettle, and Shady’s violin pulls her deep into shadows that may lead to her destruction… or to discover what her family has been hiding all these years.  Waters describes the setting in such a way that I could see stepping right in to the forest or climbing into the attic of Shady’s former house.

 

In addition to the ghosts, the mystery of Jim’s death, and the secrets of the house she grew up in, Shady has to navigate relationships. She has deep feelings for her best friend Sarah, but is getting mixed signals. She’s also attracted to Cedar, who loves the same music, and is waiting for Shady to figure out how she really feels. Sarah and Rose are both lesbians, but with very different personalities, and it’s nice to see varied representation there. While it’s more common to see gay and lesbian protagonists in YA fiction, bi protagonists (and characters) are less frequently seen. With bi erasure a problem in society as well as fiction, I was glad to see bisexual representation.

 

Ghost Wood Song is a beautifully, darkly told story filled with moments of terror and deep feelings of love, grief, obsession, and fear, most certainly worth its place on the Stoker ballot and an excellent contender for the award.

 

Contains: attempted suicide, violence, murder

 

Reviewed by Kirsten Kowalewski

 

Editor’s note: Ghost Wood Song is a nominee on the final ballot for this year’s Bram Stoker Awards in the category of Superior Achievement in a Young Adult Novel. 

Posted on May 19, 2021 by , Reply

Graphic Novel Review: Spectre Deep 6 by Jennifer Brody and Jules Rivera

Spectre Deep 6 by Jennifer Brody and Jules Rivera

Turner, 2020

ISBN-13: 9781684424139

Available: Hardcover, paperback, Kindle edition ( Bookshop.org | Amazon.com )

 

Spectre Deep 6 tells the story of a diverse team of black ops called “Spectres”, an elite squad of soldiers who died in the line of duty and were reanimated by military scientists as ghosts. Their mission is to carry out various illegal or secret missions for the United States government in exchange for day passes to “haunt” their previous lives. When the team takes care of a target, the victim simply appears to have had a stroke, heart attack, or other naturally caused death. Unfortunately, these missions also exhaust the powers of the Spectre team, rendering them needing “recharge”. The spirits are locked in containment, located in a secret military bunker under Area 51 ((of course) when they are not on duty.

Brody and Rivera include a diverse cast of characters for Spectre Deep 6. Captain Bianca Vasquez was an undercover agent who died as she was searching for her missing husband. Now she is a member of the six-person Spectre squad, and during her day-pass time, haunts her daughter, who is in a foster home as a result of both of her parents being missing or dead. John Song is a sarcastic Asian-American soldier with a volatile temper. The cat-loving Kim Masters is a Black agent who takes no crap. Bart Bartholomew, who was a surfer in his former life, loves video games and deeply misses his best friend… and the feeling is mutual. Kacey Flame is a beautiful pink-haired transgender woman who haunts her old place to keep those who she cared most for out of her old space, in case they can’t accept her for who she wanted to be in life. James Sparks is a Black former aircraft engineer who discovered some nasty secrets his boss was keeping, and which resulted in his death. At times, the teammates most definitely do not get along, as their personalities clash over personal ethics and codes of honor, but they always manage to get the job done. Once Bianca’s missing husband Zane enters the picture, things get more complicated.

The story was a bit slow going at first, but after the first chapter the pace picked up considerably. I would recommend this for readers who enjoy a good sci-fi ghost story. The characters are well-developed in such a short time, and Brody and Rivera devote plenty of space for readers to get a handle on the characters and their motivations. Recommended.

 

Reviewed by Lizzy Walker

Editor’s note: Spectre Deep 6 is a nominee on this year’s final ballot for the Bram Stoker Award in the category of Superior Achievement in a Graphic Novel. 

Posted on May 4, 2021 by , Reply
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