This novel sneaks up on you. You’re lulled into comfort with descriptions of old video rental places, suburban living rooms, and the polite peace of the Midwest before being startled awake by sudden glances of violence and fear. These shocks originate from movies. Movies within movies. Were they intended for you to see? Why are they here? Who spliced an almost still image of heavy breathing and a woman with a bag over her head into She’s All That? Uncertainty creeps around every corner- breeding fear, […]
Cheating Death Never Ends Well
I have a cute model, so here you go. :) I got this from Ale as part of the Cannonball read book exchange. I read it only in the daytime, because I am wimpy. Vicious tells the story of two college boys Victor and Eli who start experimenting with cheating death to become EOs, people with extraordinary abilities. There are a lot of interesting ideas in here about good and evil and souls. Eli gets his abilities and becomes a vigilante, killing other people who […]
In Which Jane Kicks Efficient Ass, Especially the Undead Variety
Yes, we might be living in the darkest timeline—or the dumbest, hard to tell. But be glad that you’re not our girl Jane, who contends with cruel racism and incompetence while also decapitating hungry “shamblers,” the reanimated corpses of the Gettysburg fallen and any poor soul bitten thereafter. Some years ago, the paddy wagon plucked Jane McKeene from her home at Rose Hill plantation so that she might learn the finer points of combat and decorum at Miss Preston’s, Baltimore’s finest school for Negro girls. […]
“When the mist rises, and the smiling man comes walking, you must avoid large places at night.”
Ollie hasn’t been much of a people-person, but since her mother died the only solace she can seem to find is in books. On a bike ride home from school, she comes across a woman sobbing by the lake, trying to talk herself into throwing an old black book into the water. On a whim, Ollie steals the book and discovers within its pages a strange and spooky old story about the Webster family and their tragedy brought on by a sinister “smiling man.” The […]