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Book Review: Down Among the Sticks and Bones by Seanan McGuire


Down Among the Sticks and Bones (Wayward Children #2) by Seanan McGuire

Tor, 2017

ISBN-13: 978-0765392039

Available: Hardcover, Kindle edition, audiobook

Down  Among the Sticks and Bones is a companion novella to Seanan McGuire’s award-winning novella Every Heart a Doorway. Every Heart a Doorway explored the question of what happens after children who walk through a door to a fantasy world return to our own. In that novella, the main character was sent to a boarding school specifically for children who have returned, to help them readjust. It’s a spare, magical, heartbreaking, and brutal mystery that explores identity, destiny, and desire in multiple ways.

Down Among the Sticks and Bones is the story of Jack and Jill, twins who play major roles in Every Heart a Doorway, and their lives in the world they walked into. The girls escaped a life of strictly enforced gender roles by entering a door to a world with many dangers called “The Moors.” There, the girls are able to discard their parents’ expectations, although they are shaped by new ones.  Unfortunately, what the girls’ parents wanted for them affected not just their outward actions, but their interior thoughts and emotions, so the characters are very flat. Jack has a little more self-awareness and develops a genuine loving relationship with another girl, so her character is slightly more developed. The story is more of a fable than a work requiring deep character development, but it means the reader feels much less invested.

In Every Heart a Doorway, Jack and Jill are a mysterious and disturbing pair, but Down Among the Sticks and Bones dispels a lot of that mystery, in the process making their actions, or lack of them, more explicable and sympathetic. The story also lacks tension: it’s the story of growing up over time, and doesn’t have the urgency or bloodiness of the mystery in the earlier novella (this isn’t to say it lacks blood and gore: in a Gothic world of vampires and mad scientists, there’s always going to be blood and gore, but I feel like it’s dialed down in this story).

Seanan McGuire is a fantastic writer, and I’m glad she wrote this second novella, because almost the first thing I wanted to know after finishing Every Heart a Doorway was Jack and Jill’s story. Despite the events of Down Among the Sticks and Bones taking place first, though, and although it can stand alone, readers should read Every Heart a Doorway first, to prevent spoilers and preserve its suspense and wonder. Recommended.

Contains: murder, gore.

 

Posted on September 13, 2017 by , Reply

Book Review: Demon Freaks by J.R.R.R. Hardison

Demon Freaks by J.R.R.R. (Jim) Hardison

Fiery Seas Publishing, 2017

ISBN-13: 978-1-946143-16-7

Available: Paperback, Kindle edition

 

Jim Hardison’s Demon Freaks pits high schoolers on the eve of their SAT exams against wicked would-be wizards and monsters, with the fate of the world at stake.  The story is written with irony and humor from the viewpoint of teenagers.  The protagonists are members of an ad hoc school band, including twin boys who don’t look or think alike.  The drummer, who is the low-achieving son of a high-achieving family, is the comic foil. The female member is a “brain” who is happiest taking a shower.

The night before the SAT, the band members plan to meet to jam and cram, but are caught in the middle of a deadly rivalry between two groups of elderly, evil golfers, the Servants of Darkness and the Golfers’ Association.   The Servants of Darkness are led by the teens’ sarcastic, vindictive English teacher, while the Golfers follow his power-hungry brother, who looks like a twisted Santa Claus.  Both groups want to possess a magical dagger that traps souls, communicates telepathically with its victims, and can control their minds. Think of the Ring of Power in J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Fellowship of the Ring.

Each group plans to use the dagger for a human sacrifice, in order to open the gates to Hell and release a powerful demon that they hope will help them dominate the world.  Two of the teens are captured, possibly to be the human sacrifices.  The rest of their friends, along with commandos from a clandestine division of the McDonald’s Corporation called McODD (McDonald’s Occult Dangers Division) fight the Servants, the Golfers and Teethheads (scaly, fish-headed monsters with hundreds of teeth) in tunnels and chambers under the golf course.

The story is told in an engaging, fast-paced, tongue–in-cheek style.  The teenagers are quirky, but discover hidden talents that help them outwit the adults.  The adults are caricatures of hubris and greed.  The plot will appeal to children and teenagers.  The monsters are scary, but not frightening.  The violence and gore are mild.  The author has written another novel, an epic fantasy Fish Wielder. Recommended.

 

Contains: Not applicable.

 

Reviewed by Robert D. Yee

Posted on September 1, 2017 by , Reply

Book List: Schools for Peculiar Children

      

 

Miss Peregine’s Home for Peculiar Children hits theaters this week, and it will be interesting to see how it measures up to the book. It looks cool– click here for a link to the trailer. For me, the letters and the real photographs used, and the scrapbook-type format, were much of what made it intriguing, and I can’t imagine how that will translate to the screen. But the trailers look pretty awesome, so even if the movie doesn’t turn out to be just like the book, perhaps it will stand well on its own.

Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children is far from the first book to be set in a school or home intended for particularly unusual children, though– some really excellent books for middle grade and teen readers exist in this category.  Here are a few you might check out.

 

Down a Dark Hall by Lois Duncan

Kit Gordy is attending an extremely exclusive, isolated, boarding school. Spoiler: it’s also haunted by ghosts who take possession of the students to create amazing works of art. Nothing could possibly go wrong here, right? This is a good one for tweens and middle schoolers, although, in my opinion, you don’t outgrow Lois Duncan.

 

 

The Cavendish Home for Boys and Girls by Claire LeGrand

This is a disturbed fairy tale of a book. Victoria, a perfect 12 year old in every way, living in a picture-perfect community, has chosen just one friend, the very imperfect, messy, and musical Lawrence. When Lawrence disappears, Victoria goes on a search for him, uncovering some very unpleasant things. As more children disappear, and creepy creatures start invading, Victoria becomes even more determined to solve the mystery. She discovers that the orphanage across the street is actually a deeply disturbing, magically operated facility with the mission of turning all the imperfect children that have disappeared, including Lawrence, into identical, perfect children, Stepford-style. Mrs. Cavendish, the headmistress of the school, is truly diabolical, and the school itself is creepy, disquieting, and disorienting. This one is not for the faint of stomach, but people who liked Coraline  or the more nightmarish writing of Roald Dahl might very well like this. This is Gothic children’s horror at its best– highly recommended, but for no younger than age 10.

Contains: body horror, cannibalism, insect hordes, torture.

 

Matilda by Roald Dahl

Speaking of Roald Dahl, Matilda is surely every book lover’s favorite story of a peculiar child. While her school isn’t specifically for peculiar children, the people who work there certainly qualify as peculiar, especially the headmistress. You can’t help cheering for Matilda as she uses her unusual powers to defeat the sadistic Miss Trunchbull.

 

The Grounding of Group 6  by Julian F. Thompson

What’s a parent to do when a child repeatedly breaks the rules, gets thrown out of school again, or breaks that last straw? You send them to the school of last resort– Coldbrook County School– and then never worry about them again. That’s right, the school will take care of your problem child for you, in a permanent way, while the students are out on retreat in a wooded area full of sinkholes. Nothing supernatural in this book, all the horror is in the way humans treat each other.
I’d wait until high school to read this one– it’s got some harrowing moments. There’s also an implied sexual relationship between one of the students, in her late teens, and her “counselor”, who is in his twenties.

 

A Great and Terrible Beauty by Libba Bray

After the death of her mother, Gemma Doyle is sent from her home in India to a young ladies’ boarding school in Victorian England. Gemma has visions, and her unusual upbringing and uncanny knowledge mean a chilly reception from the other girls. Gemma learns to control the visions so she can visit magical realms. As she makes friends, she involves them in her journeys, but while the girls enjoy the power and escape they have in the realms, Gemma learns there is also a darker side. This is the first book in a trilogy: the other two books are Rebel Angels and The Sweet Far Thing. Recommended for middle school and up.


Posted on September 28, 2016 by , Reply
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