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Help a Reader Out: A Book List for Teenage Boys

Stephanie Ellis, a participant on Monster Librarian’s Facebook page, noted that right now there is a lot of great YA horror with girls as protagonists or major characters, but she’s having trouble finding any with boys as protagonists (writers, take note). I personally think it is lovely that we’re seeing more girls take on major roles in horror fiction, but in looking at this list by Kelly Jensen of YA horror fiction for the second half of 2019, 28 of the books have women as authors or editors (there is one anthology, slanted significantly toward women authors) and just three have men as authors. So many women writers getting published and lots of girls and women as protagonists or major characters is a great problem to have… unless you are looking specifically for YA horror with boys as protagonists and major characters. There are a lot of boys who are reluctant readers and an engaging YA read will grab them. Of course we shouldn’t all expect all books to be mirrors of our experiences, but there are now many more options for boys to read stories that showcase girls as protagonists and point-of-view characters, so there are more windows to look through, and doors to step through, in YA horror than ever before.  A note: I’d like to see alternatives to traditional depictions of masculinity in future YA horror. It makes for some pretty great writing when you see it!

A few things about teens who seek out horror. In a very small 2007 study, Sharon McKool discovered that there are many kids who jump straight from reading Goosebumps to reading Stephen King (this included her own son).  Based on my even earlier experience as a college student in the 1990s, I had more than one classmate who first engaged in reading when he first discovered Stephen King, and thought he was the greatest writer ever. A teenage boy was the first to hand me Anne Rice. My brother, not a reader, was gripped by In Cold Blood. YA is not a stopping point for these boys.

But many boys aren’t ready to make that jump and take the path that leads through YA fiction, and that’s awesome, because there are some great books available for them. There are even outstanding authors who first wrote for adults who have now also written YA horror, like Jonathan Maberry, Jeff Strand, and Steven Wedel (author of Murdered by Human Wolves, written for an adult audience, as well as co-author with Carrie Jones of one of the books Jensen mentioned as coming out later this year). These authors have the opportunity to introduce the adult horror genre to their young adult audiences craving more. However, since the current crop of upcoming YA horror fiction doesn’t seem to offer much in the way of boys as protagonists or major characters, here are a few older titles you can turn to. They are very different in tone, level of gore, age appropriateness, writing style, type of creature, and quality, so you can’t just hand the list over to any teenage boy and say “pick one.” But it is a starting place for making recommendations to the right kids. We’ve reviewed many, but not all, of these books. If the book was published before 2014, you’ll need to search the original MonsterLibrarian.com.com website to find it, but it should be pretty simple to find most of these reviewed elsewhere as well.

 

A Bad Day for Voodoo by Jeff Strand (2013) This Bram Stoker nominee is both funny and violent. Strand has written other books for younger readers that aren’t as violent, and comic horror for adults that can get very gory.

A Monster Calls by Patrick Ness (2011). This outstanding book should be in every collection. It is powerful and wrenching, and gorgeously illustrated.

Anna Dressed in Blood (2 book series): Anna Dressed in Blood (2011), Girl of Nightmares (2012) by Kendare Blake. Anna Dressed in Blood is consistently recommended as a “book to read” on recommendation lists for YA horror.

Escape from Furnace (5 book series): Lockdown (2009), Solitary (2010), Death Sentence (2011), Fugitives (2012), Execution (2012)  by Alexander Gordon Smith. This action-packed dystopian series about a brutal underground prison for delinquent teenagers has some really difficult torture and body horror scenarios.

Five Nights at Freddy’s (2 book series): The Silver Eyes (2016), The Twisted Ones (2017) by Scott Cawthorn and Kira Breed-Wrisely. These are based on the popular video game Five Nights at Freddy’s. 

Gone (8 book series): Gone (2008), Hunger (2009), Lies (2010), Plague (2011), Fear (2012), Light (2013),  Monster (2017), Villain (2018) by Michael Grant

Heap House (The Iremonger Trilogy, #1) by Edward Carey (2014)

Lockwood & Co. ( 5 book series): The Screaming Staircase (2013), The Whispering Skull (2014), The Hollow Boy (2015), The Creeping Shadow (2016), The Empty Grave (2017)  by Jonathan Stroud. These will probably appeal more to younger teens and are slanted toward mystery.

Miss Peregrine’s Peculiar Children (6 book series): Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children (2011), Hollow City (2014), Library of Souls (2015), Map of Days (2018), The Conference of the Birds (upcoming)  by Ransom Riggs. The use of vintage photographs and documents really sets these apart. A movie was made of the first book in 2016.

Peeps by Scott Westerfeld (2005)

Red Eye (10 book series): Flesh and Blood, Bad Bones, Savage Island, and Whiteout all have boys as protagonists. Tony Jones has done a summary of the 10 books in this UK series here.

Rot & Ruin (4 book series) : Rot & Ruin (2010), Dust & Decay (2011), Flesh & Bone (2012), Fire & Ash (2013). by Jonathan Maberry. This Stoker Award-winning series is essential. Bits & Pieces (2015) collects shorter pieces that take place in the same fictional world, and Broken Lands (2018) is the first book in a follow-up series.

Rotters by Daniel Kraus (2011)

Skeleton Creek (5 book series):  Skeleton Creek (2009), Ghost in the Machine (2009), The Crossbones (2010), The Raven (2011), The Phantom Room (2014) by Patrick Carman. Skeleton Creek is an interactive series that directs readers to YouTube videos and websites intended to give the story a feeling of realism.

Slasher Girls & Monster Boys edited by April Genevieve Tucholke (2015). This is on HWA’s “Summer Scares” list for 2019.

The Apprenticeship of Victor Frankenstein (2 book series): This Dark Endeavor and Such Wicked Intent by Kenneth Oppel (reprinted 2012) I fangirl these ones! Kenneth Oppel is a very talented writer.

The Abused Werewolf Rescue Group by Catherine Jinks (2019)

The Devil’s Engine (3 book series): Hellraisers (2015), Hellfighters (2016), Hellwalkers (2017)  by Alexander Gordon Smith

The Enemy (7 book series): The Enemy (2010), The Dead (2011), The Fear (2012),  The Sacrifice (2013), The Fallen (2014), The Hunted (2015), The End (2017) by Charlie Higson. This post-apocalyptic series begins after nearly all the adults have been turned into cannabilistic zombies, and the children and teens are banding together in gangs, in hopes of surviving.

The Graveyard Book by Neil Gaiman (2009). This Newbery Award-winning book is outstanding and covers a boy’s life from young child to young man. The artwork by Dave McKean is startling and effective.

The Graveyard Book (graphic novel) by Neil Gaiman and P. Craig Russell (2018)

The Illuminae Files: Illuminae (2015), Gemina (2016), and Obsidio (2018) by Amie Kaufman and Jay Kristoff. These look more intimidating than they actually are. The stories are set up as a series of chat logs, emails, video transcriptions, photos, sketches, maps, and impressive double page illustrations, so even though the books are substantial they don’t need to be intimidating. They have a futuristic science-fiction setting.

The Monstrumologist (4 book series): The Monstrumologist, The Curse of the Wendigo, The Isle of Blood, The Final Descent by Rick Yancey. Will is the 12 year old apprentice to a “monstrumologist,” both scientist and monster-slayer, writing of his experiences. Set in the Victorian era, the language can be difficult and flowery.  Although The Monstrumologist is a Printz Honor book, it is not for everyone. It will appeal most to readers with advanced vocabulary and a very strong stomach for gore and body horror.

The Thief of Always by Clive Barker (1992,  reissued 2014). Clive Barker takes a different tone in this story of a house where it’s always a holiday. Many, many horror fans and writers have mentioned this as a gateway title to adult horror.

The Thief of Always (graphic novel) by Clive Barker, adapted by Kris Obrisko, art by Gabriel Hernandez (2010)

Thirsty by M.T. Anderson (1997, reissued 2010) Published in the days when YA horror was a rare treat, nobody had heard of that Harry Potter guy, and Amelia Atwater-Rhodes was a big deal, Thirsty remains memorable to me.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Posted on June 12, 2019 by , Reply

Book Links: Stoker Awards 2018 Final Ballot for Superior Achievement in a Young Adult Novel

In our continuing effort to review as many of the books on the final ballot for the Stoker Award, Monster Librarian has hit another landmark we have now reviewed all five of the novels on the final ballot for the 2018 Stoker Award in the category of Superior Achievement in a Young Adult Novel. Want to know what we think? Here are links to the reviews. There are many fine books that did not make the final ballot, but of those that did, I think the standout is clear.

The Dark Descent of Elizabeth Frankenstein by Kiersten White

Sawkill Girls by Claire Legrand

Broken Lands by Jonathan Maberry

The Night Weaver by Monique Snyman

Dread Nation by Justina Ireland

 

Posted on April 28, 2019 by , Reply

Book Review: Dread Nation by Justina Ireland

Dread Nation by Justina Ireland

Balzer + Bray, 2018

ISBN-13: 978-0062570604

Available: Hardcover, paperback, Kindle edition, audiobook, MP3 CD

 

 

Editor’s note: Due to its topic and content, Dread Nation contains racial slurs and outdated language. I’m using “Negro” in this review as it is the term used throughout the book.

 

In this alternate history, the Civil War ended after the dead rose at Gettysburg, forcing the Union and the Confederacy into a truce while they fought off cannibalistic “shamblers.” A law passed shortly after required all Negro and Native children, starting at age 12, to be trained to fight the shamblers in single-sex combat schools, for the protection of white Americans (Ireland writes in an author’s note that she got the idea for the schools after reading about the Carlisle Indian Industrial School, a boarding school intended to erase Native American culture and language and assimilate the children). Just as before the war, there are opposing movements regarding the treatment of Negroes: the Egalitarians, who believe they should be treated equally, and the Survivalists, who believe they are naturally inferior to white people.

Sixteen-year-old Jane McKeene, the biracial, dark-skinned daughter of a white woman married to an absent Kentucky plantation owner, has been training at an exclusive combat school that trains girls as Attendants, bodyguard companions for wealthy white women and girls who are trained not just in combat but in social skills and etiquette. Intelligent and talented in combat, Jane is rebellious when it comes to conforming to society’s demands and has more interest in helping others survive than in good manners, good looks, and appropriate conduct. Her frenemy, Kate, is not only talented in combat but attractive, well-dressed, well-mannered, and light-skinned enough to pass for white– enough to earn Jane’s enmity– and stubborn enough to eventually earn her respect. Jane’s insistent ex, Jackson, comes to her in secret to ask for help in discovering what happened to his younger sister, Lily, who lives with the Spencers, a prosperous white farming family of Egalitarians, passing for white. The family has disappeared, and he’s afraid they’ve been taken by shamblers. Jane, Kate, and Jackson sneak out to the family’s farm to discover that the family has disappeared, and that the mayor, a Survivalist, is covering it up.

In the meantime, Jane and Kate save the lives of the attendees of a lecture about a vaccine to inoculate people from becoming shamblers when bitten, including the mayor’s wife, and are invited to attend a dinner party at his house. They use the opportunity to sneak Jackson in so he can search for evidence about the mayor’s involvement with the disappearance of his sister and the Spencer family. but are caught and sent to a remote Survivalist utopian communty, Summerland, where white people live in relative luxury, protected from shamblers by cruelly treated and poorly armed Negroes. Jane is able to convince the authority figures of Summerland that Kate is actually white, saving her from the deadly labor of protecting Summerland from shamblers, and giving her a set of opportunities and problems that come along with attempting to pass as an attractive white girl in a community built on unabashed white supremacy.

I suppose what technically qualifies Dread Nation as a horror novel are the “shamblers,” who, while we aren’t certain by the end of the book, are probably carriers of an infectious plague that turns them into mindless, uncoordinated, cannibals with an endless urge to feed. But the zombies merely illuminate the true horrors that take place in the book, those grounded in arrogance and vicious white supremacy. The sheriff and the preacher are truly cruel men who use every opportunity to punish the Negro characters and establish their superiority, but even the overseers are casually brutal, and the white townspeople are willfully blind. Even before the girls are sent to Summerland, it turns out that characters who are supposed to care for them are absolutely horrible under their genteel surfaces. Every time Jane attempts to save lives by stepping in between another person and a shambler, she is punished for overstepping her place.  Ireland demonstrates that even sympathetic white characters are complicit in the preservation of what they know is an unfair and cruel system.  Mr. Gideon, a white scientist and engineer who wanted to provide electricity to frontier communities using natural resources, is an ally in many ways, but is trapped in Summerland, forced to use shamblers’ “manpower” to run the town’s generator, which preserves the image that all is going as it should and perpetuates the racist system the town is built on.  Jane and Kate are both aware of how they can use negative stereotypes to manipulate white characters, and Kate is very conscious of how she can use her “whiteness” to her advantage, as well as how vulnerable she is.

In this #OwnVoices novel, Ireland portrays shifting vulnerabilities and loyalties as marginalized individuals attempt to navigate the racist system they are forced to function within are evident here in a way they might not have been if a different person had written this book. The Lenape character Daniel Redfern is somewhat of a mystery. One might think he and Jane would be natural allies, but while he saves her life early in the book, he is also responsible for her getting caught and sent to Summerland. Jane’s relationship with her mother, told in flashbacks and in bits and pieces, ends up putting a surprising light on what you think her story actually is. Jane’s relationships with both her mother and Kate contribute to a nuanced portrait of the damage, as well as the advantage, of colorism and “passing.” The other Negroes Jane works with in Summerland are more than a mass of victims– Ireland gives those that Jane interacts with names and personalities, and their agendas and fears sometimes set them against each other. The way the difficulty of being female intersects with the difficulty of surviving as a Negro is amply illustrated, not just through one set of eyes but through the experiences and stories Jane shares with many of the other characters. In addition to race and gender, while it isn’t an emphasis of the story, Jane expresses interest in both women and men, and Kate is pretty solid that she has no interest in romance or a relationship with either sex. As this is the first book in a series, it will be interesting to see how (or if) Ireland develops that further.

Dread Nation is a great read as a YA horror novel, and if that’s all you want from it, you can certainly read it that way. But it’s also a really intelligent, well-plotted book with great characters that has the ability to appeal to a widespread audience (including people who do not traditionally read either YA literature or horror) due to its nuanced exploration of race and white supremacy, character development, world building, approach to the past, relevance to the present, and its just generally fantastic writing. I have sold so many people on trying this book who would never in a million years have picked up a straight zombie novel. It’s not short, so I don’t know that reluctant readers will jump on it, but for the YA reader who likes independent-minded female protagonists, alternate histories, doesn’t mind a little gore, and can handle the racial slurs, this is an outstanding choice that more than deserves its place on the final ballot for the 2018 Stoker Award. Highly, highly recommended.

Contains: Gore, violence, murder, torture, slavery, racial slurs, references to sexual violence.

Reviewed by Kirsten Kowalewski

 

Editor’s note: Dread Nation is on the final ballot of the 2018 Stoker Awards in the category of Superior Achievement in a Young Adult Novel. 

 

 

Posted on April 25, 2019 by , Reply
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