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Book Review: The Blonde Dies First by Joelle Wellington

The Blonde Dies First by Joelle Wellington

Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers, 2024

ISBN-13 : ‎978-1665922456

Available: Hardcover, paperback, Kindle edtion, audiobook

Buy:   Bookshop.org | Amazon.com

 

 

In The Blonde Dies First, Joelle Wellington tries to subvert the teenage horror slasher movie. She takes an interesting approach, but ultimately there are too many loose ends, unrealistic situations, and undeveloped characters for the book to be successful in its approach.

 

The book follows a group of six teens living in the same neighborhood who have been friends since childhood: Leila, a would-be artist; Gael, a horror lover who has already directed a short film; Malachi, a black queer boy; Devon, twin sister to genius Drew; Drew, the skeptic, who attends private school, and Yaya, Devon’s longtime crush. Most of the friends are Black, with the exception of Leila.

 

When Drew announces her early graduation, Devon is crushed. Although they haven’t been close for many years, Devon makes plans to spend time with Drew and their friends before she leaves for college.

 

The friends go to a party with Drew, held by her school friend Avery in a tony part of town.  During the party, he decides they should summon a demon using a Ouija board and an athame. Devon tamps down her misgivings and participate, but the friends are disturbed by the summoning attempt. Gael recognizes the ritual from a horror movie, Read Your Rites. Avery claims the athame is real, and that his mom contributed to the research behind the movie as part of her job as a museum curator.

 

Gael talks about horror movie tropes: the blonde dies first, the black queer guy dies next, then the asshole, the nerd, the independent girl, and the final girl. Sex will summon the movie’s demon, and the person who summons the demon has to be eliminated to get rid of the creature. The demon summoned in the movie has to go through these character tropes in a specific order and can’t go backwards.

 

Devon, who bleaches her hair, is the first to encounter the demon, at the convenience store where she works with the annoying Alexis.. It drives them out of the store and shoves Alexis, also blonde, into the street, where she is hit and killed by a car. The requirement satisfied, Devon survives. No one believes Devon, with the police insisting Alexis must have jumped in front of the car..

 

While the friends, especially Drew, don’t believe Devon at first, soon Malachi is attacked, but the demon takes his date instead. With two of them vouching for the demon attacks, Gael tries to figure out the rules the demon is following, based on the movie.

 

Gael assumes he’s the asshole and will be next, The others film him and Leila making out in Leila’s bedroom in hopes of summoning the demon,, but it turns out the demon wants Drew for that role . As they battle the demon, Leila falls down the stairs and breaks her ankle. While they’re waiting at the hospital, they spot the demon, who is still after Drew. Leila’s racist doctor follows them into a room and demands they leave, and the demon attacks and kills him instead of Drew.

 

These kids get away with a lot, even for YA fiction. Leila’s parents know they are smoking weed, drinking, and involved in some pretty risky behaviors that they never outright address. Because they are involved in a group chat with the other kids’ parents, all of them must be pretty aware of what the kids are into. It’s only when Leila breaks her ankle that the parents clamp down.

 

Drew and Devon’s mother has been planning a summer block party every year for years and it is the big summer event in the community. The friends are sure the block party will be the final act in their living horror movie and plan to face it together, but Drew and Devon have a blowout fight and Devon takes off to see Yaya, finally tells Yaya she likes her romantically. In a surprise twist, (spoiler) it turns out that Devon is the final girl, and Yaya is the love interest who is supposed to be killed at the end of the movie. In another surprise twist, the demon is controlled by entitled neighborhood creep Keith, whose gentrifier mother Kendra was a production assistant on Read Your RItes,(meaning Avery has nothing to do with the monster stalking them). Kendra has no qualms about Keith eating the friends to satisfy the demon and make the neighborhood quieter.

 

The story touches on issues but doesn’t really address them. After Alexis is hit by the car, Devon is hostile to the police in her interview. Her hostility and interactions with the police are a potential plot thread, but Wellington does not explore it. Kendra, determined to gentrify the community, who is generally disliked also threatens them with calling the cops.

 

This gentrification storyline could be stronger: trusted neighbors and friends give Kendra and Keith the benefit of the doubt, treating them as if they are annoying, not dangerous. There’s also room to explore privilege and entitlement further: Keith, in his 20s, is routinely excused for his predatory behavior towards Yaya, and Drew, usually a skeptic, humors Avery’s pushy, irrational actions. Alyssa Cole did a great job dealing with class, race, police hostility, and gentrification in When No One Is Watching. Wellington is not as successful here. But it’s an ambitious book: Wellington had to integrate a supernatural element, a metafictional approach to horror movie elements, and a fair amount of teenage and sisterly drama involving six kids. Despite the unwieldy number of characters and missed opportunities, she keeps the reader entertained and turning the pages.

 

Reviewed by Kirsten Kowalewski

 

 

 

 

 

Posted on September 15, 2024 by , Reply

Book Review: The Raven’s Crux by Julie Boglisch

Cover art for The Raven's Crux by Julie Boglisch

The Raven’s Crux by Julie Boglisch

Black Rose Writing, 2024

ISBN: 9781685133672

Available: Paperback, Kindle edition

Buy:  Bookshop.org | Amazon.com

 

The only drawback to The Raven’s Crux is the cartoonish, completely uninspiring cover of the book.  It doesn’t do justice to the thrilling ghost story contained inside, a story that manages the “crossover” between young adult and adult fiction perfectly.

 

The book provides an exciting story, and at the same time does a good job exploring the nature of friendship among kids–  in this case, middle schoolers.

 

Noah and Aiden Raven are forced to relocate their lives constantly due to their dad’s job as a private investigator, and the small town of Herisdell is just another stop in their nomadic lives.  Dad isn’t a normal PI however: some of his cases involve the paranormal.  He unexpectedly disappears early in the story, and Noah and Aiden are essentially on their own.  Somehow, they have to take care of themselves, while at the same time they are desperate to solve the mystery of dad’s disappearance, since the cops seem to be making no headway.  They have the advantage of having the ability to see and speak to ghosts, which helps, but at times puts them in some pretty terrifying situations.

 

While the brothers make decent detectives, the author did a good job of making it realistic for the age group. The two of them are pretty bright and can make deductions, but they aren’t infallible, like the Three Investigators were back in the 80’s.  (if you remember that far back)  Plus, they do get some help, in the form of their one friend, Stephen (called Phen), his mother, who provides the boys a place to stay,  and young girl ghost, Mia, who accompanies them throughout the story, alternating between being helpful, protective,  and madly cryptic.

 

It’s the dynamics between the four new friends that really holds the reader’s interest.  Noah befriends Mia, while Aiden distrusts her, and the supernatural.  Phen has a crush on Aiden, complicating their friendship, since Aiden doesn’t feel the same.  Truth be told, as good as the brothers are for lead characters, Mia is the scene-stealer and the best part of the book.  She’s perfectly drawn, as a young spirit in form who has existed for many years and feels the weight of time and her unhappy afterlife weighing down on her.  It’s a real heartwarmer as she slowly gets accepted by the others and finds herself remembering some of what it was like to be human.

 

Oh, and did I mention the scare factor?  No mistake, the author knows how to put terror into the pages: the scares in this would easily hold up in any adult horror novel. While there is no real blood needed, and implied violence only, a number of scenes are good for some real mental screams.  One of the early scenes in the Raven home is quite creepy, and the scene in the deserted home full of ghosts is a real fear factory. It might actually be enough to dish out some nightmares to young readers!  Based on this book, the author could certainly write an adult horror thriller, if she chose.

 

Time to ghost into the bottom line: this is a good one.  It holds up as well or better than most of the ghost stories I have read over the past few years, and I read a lot of them.  Give it a chance, it won’t disappoint.  Recommended.

 

Reviewed by Murray Samuelson

Posted on April 29, 2024 by , Reply

Book Review: The Forest Demands Its Due by Kosoko Jackson

The Forest Demands Its Due by Kosoko Jackson

Quill Tree Books, 2023

ISBN-13: ‎978-0063260795

Available: Hardcover, Kindle edition, audiobook, audio CD

Buy:  Bookshop.org  |  Amazon.com

 

I have enjoyed Kosoko Jackson’s previous YA books, the dystopian Survive the Dome and the time travel novel Yesterday is History, both with Black queer boys as protagonists. The Forest Demands Its Due once again changes genre, to a combination of dark academia and folk horror.

 

Douglas Jones was arrested for arson and manslaughter when a lawyer offered her services pro bono if he would agree to attend an elite boarding school in an isolated area of Vermont. The school is bordered by a forest that students are warned away from as there have been many who disappeared into them never to be seen again.

 

As the only Black queer boy attending Regent School, Douglas is a target for bullies. He also hears loud, disturbing voices he can’t  turn off that he is certain come from the forest. Just the first few pages and Jackson had me deep in his story.

 

Early in the book a bully drags Douglas into the forest and is killed. Everett Everley, a member of the Everley family charged with protecting students, bargains with the Emissary, a vengeful creature of the god of the forest, to save himself and Douglas. Douglas learns that whenever there is a suspicious death the headmaster “erases” the existence of the person from everyone’s memories, so no one is aware of how many students and teachers have been lost to the forest.

 

There is a curse on the forest, nearby town of Winslow, and the five founding families of the town preventing them from leaving because they participated in the burning of Henry, the forest god’s lover, generations ago. His grief and anger have caused the death and anguish of many students and locals.  Everett and the headmaster are both descendants of the founding families. Everett helps Douglas investigate the history of Winslow, the school, and the forest, and after some awkward misunderstandings they start to develop a romantic relationship. The headmaster convinces Douglas to enter the forest  in hopes that he can find the gate to the forest god’s retreat and break the curse. Everett goes with Douglas to protect him. The forest is nightmarish, twisty and changeable and they easily get lost, then attacked by Emissaries and their grotesque servants, called Perversions. When they find the gate, Douglas goes through to try to convince the god to let go of his grief and anger and release the forest and town from their curse. As the god dies, he transfers his powers to Douglas, tying him to the forest and freeing Everett.

 

This was a very emotional story with a lot of darkness and trauma. The two boys have had very heavy responsibilities set on their shoulders and see and experience things no one should have to. They witness the aftermath of a suicide and there is a fair amount of gore and body horror (the Perversions are a grotesque combination of human and animal parts) Jackson’s writing is descriptive and atmospheric, although it’s a little slow in places, and he has created an immersive experience of the dark fantastic.

 

Jackson frequently addresses the injustice and inequality of institutions such as the legal system and education, and that is evident here. I love that he puts power for change in the hands of someone marginalized, who has only ever felt powerless. Recommended.

 

Reviewed by Kirsten Kowalewski

Posted on October 3, 2023 by , Reply
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