Home » Posts tagged "human monsters" (Page 6)

Book Review: Are You In The House Alone? by Richard Peck

Are You In The House Alone? by Richard Peck

Puffin, 2000

ISBN: 0141306939

Available: New and Used

 

Editor’s note: Are You In The House Alone? was first published in 1977. I first read it in 1985, and our review of it is one of the earliest we published. While it is dated, given current events, it seems eerily relevant, and even more terrifying.

—-

    This is probably the first young adult novel to deal frankly with rape and its aftermath. Gail, a high school junior living in a charming New England town, is getting obscene notes and phone calls. She doesn’t want to think about it, her best friend pretends nothing is happening, and when she finally tells a guidance counselor she isn’t taken seriously. Isolated and terrified, she opens the door one night to let her boyfriend in and is surprised by her stalker, who happens to be her best friend’s boyfriend and the son of the wealthiest family in her small town.

    The chief of police tells Gail he will not arrest the boy, and a sympathetic lawyer explains that pressing charges would mean an attack on her personal life. Gail decides not to press charges, and returns to school. Another girl with an identical raincoat is then attacked on her way home and is left in critical condition.

     This story shows that the rapist is not the only monster. Every person who turns a blind eye to Gail’s situation, from her best friend to the chief of police, shows an ugly side that should horrify anyone who has ever needed to tell a terrible secret.  Richard Peck, a brilliant young adult author, is effective at creating Gail’s world and is able to express the horror of her situation without getting graphic.

Contains: sexual situations, violence

 

Reviewed by Kirsten Kowalewski

Posted on October 3, 2018 by , Reply

Book Review: Berserk by Tim Lebbon

Berserk by Tim Lebbon

Leisure Books, 2006

ISBN: 0843954302

Available: New and Used

Tom’s son Steven was killed in a military accident, or so he was told. While at a bar, Tom overhears two military men talking about monsters at the base where Tom’s son died. One of the men tells Tom that Steven’s body wasn’t in the casket that he received, but rather was buried at the old base. Tom goes on a quest to find his son’s body and the truth about how he died. In searching for his son’s body at the base, he uncovers the corpse of a young girl, Natasha, who telepathically tells Tom that his son isn’t dead, and that if he helps her she will bring him to his son. The girl is a  berserker, a monster that was part of a military experiment. This leaves Tom and Natasha seeking other berserkers who escaped from the military base, and Tom’s son, while they are being hunted by Cole, a former military man who was part of the berserker project. This book goes fast. Once the action starts, it continues to flow, and Berserk ‘s plot keeps you turning the pages.

Contains: violence.

 

Reviewed by Dylan Kowalewski

 

 

Posted on September 6, 2018 by , Reply

Book Review: Siphon by A.A. Medina

Siphon by A. A. Medina

Hindered Souls Press, 2018

ISBN-13: 978-06980217

Available: Paperback, Kindle edition

 

Siphon by A. A. Medina describes an unhappy nebbish who becomes possessed, and, eventually, controlled, by an urge to drink blood and act out his sexual fantasies.  Dr. Gary Phillips is a hematopathologist, orphaned as a child and raised by an abusive grandfather.  He is tortured by unfulfilled sexual fantasies and dotes on a sexy phlebotomist whom he follows on Facebook.

Dr. Phillips’ compulsion to drink blood (hematophagia or Renfield’s syndrome) arises from his own psychosis, not from vampirism or a supernatural entity.  When he “blanks out”, his “God” takes more and more control of his thoughts and actions.  His mania increases from sneaking sips of lab blood, to drinking menstrual blood, to siphoning blood from living humans.

Siphon is a horror story, but not a fantasy.  Although the plot is shocking, it is not altogether unbelievable.  I wish the author had delved more into the origin and power of Dr. Phillips’ psychosis.  His duties in the laboratory are those of a hospital lab technologist, rather than that of a hematopathologist.  The book contains profanity and intense sexual scenes.

 

Contains: profanity, graphic sex, gore

Reviewed by Robert D. Yee

Posted on January 15, 2018 by , Reply
First « 34567 » Last