ISBN: 9781442442917
YA: Ghost Story
Read October 21, 2013
Creepy
as hell, and buggy to boot. Needs to be made into an animated version
by the Coraline crew, or the Nightmare Before Christmas people in charge
of Oogie Boogie, or whoever from Anastasia did the excellently nasty
sequence celebrating Rasputin.
Victoria is the perfect child, and is very aware of
her perfection - works for it. Strives for it. Her only imperfection
is Lawrence, who is decidedly imperfect, but she's decided that he's
permissible as a "project," until he goes missing.
Victoria's town is likewise perfect, the streets,
the people, the school. Until she begins hearing rumors of vanishings,
and notices that so many people have the same nervous tics, or odd looks
in their eyes, or weird personality changes.
Victoria's departures from perfection stem from her
independent mind, and her stubborn streak. She is about to discover
that those two qualities may get her into a lot more trouble than her
perfectionist streak ever prepared her to handle. She's going to have
to learn more about friendship and loyalty in order to make it out
alive.
This book was DAMN CREEPY. There are some seriously
disturbing things in there - several children are turned into misshapen
poppet-like creatures with just a few limbs and features remaining to
them, who, (if that isn't bad enough) are cannibalized unknowingly (and then later knowingly)
by the other children, and the tortures and punishments are inventive and
horrid. Also, if you don't deal well with bugs, maybe this one isn't
your best bet.
However, it never QUITE goes too far over the
gruesome line - just far enough to really make the reader sweat - will
Victoria and Lawrence make it out? The ending is terrific, but in true
ghost-story fashion, the epilogue will bring those terrors right back
for another round, and make the reader wonder if all that anguish and
effort really accomplished anything after all.
Recommended for DAYTIME reading.
No comments:
Post a Comment