Kate’s Reviews – Page 94 – The Library Ladies

Kate’s Review: “I’m Thinking of Ending Things”

Book: “I’m Thinking of Ending Things” by Iain Reid

Publishing Info: Gallery/Scout Press, June 2016

Where Did I Get This Book: The library!

Book Description: You will be scared. But you won’t know why…

I’m thinking of ending things. Once this thought arrives, it stays. It sticks. It lingers. It’s always there. Always.

Jake once said, “Sometimes a thought is closer to truth, to reality, than an action. You can say anything, you can do anything, but you can’t fake a thought.”

And here’s what I’m thinking: I don’t want to be here.

In this deeply suspenseful and irresistibly unnerving debut novel, a man and his girlfriend are on their way to a secluded farm. When the two take an unexpected detour, she is left stranded in a deserted high school, wondering if there is any escape at all. What follows is a twisted unraveling that will haunt you long after the last page is turned.

In this smart, suspenseful, and intense literary thriller, debut novelist Iain Reid explores the depths of the human psyche, questioning consciousness, free will, the value of relationships, fear, and the limitations of solitude. Reminiscent of Jose Saramago’s early work, Michel Faber’s cult classic Under the Skin, and Lionel Shriver’s We Need to Talk about Kevin, I’m Thinking of Ending Things is an edgy, haunting debut. Tense, gripping, and atmospheric, this novel pulls you in from the very first page…and never lets you go.

Review: I am constantly running the risk, given my fiction tastes and predilections, that when I close a book I may be saying to myself ‘what the EFF was THAT?!’ And knowing this, I kind of try to brace myself for it, especially when a book is described as ‘edgy’ or ‘literary’ in a horror sense. Usually this jives with me just fine. With “I’m Thinking of Ending Things”, I’m having a harder time making sense of what I read, what it meant, and what I thought of it. And I’ve been thinking about it! It’s one of those books that I think I’d have to go back and read again to really pick up on everything and to totally be able to unpack it. But…. I don’t have time, man. Not right now. Right now, there are other books to read.

So now I need to figure out what to say about this book without giving things away. Tricky tricky tricky.

Well for starters, Our Narrator, nameless as she is, has a very well done stream of consciousness voice. Her thoughts and feelings flow out, in regards to her boyfriend Jake, parts of her life before the events of the story, or just random passing musings. We know that she and Jake are going to meet his parents at their farm, her first meeting with them; we know that she’s been getting mysterious, stalker-esque phone calls; and we know that she’s thinking of ‘ending things’ with Jake, certain that it just won’t last. Why she thinks this is unclear, but her mind is pretty much made up. We know far more about Jake than we do Our Narrator, as she talks about how analytical he is, how his personality ticks, how he has bursts of passion but is almost always grounded in his earnestness. He works in a lab and is quite brilliant, but never lords it over her or puts on airs about it. It’s really quite stunning that we learn so much about Jake through her eyes, and yet learn so little about her outside of bits and pieces of stories.

This book builds up with unease from the get go. Our Narrator shares a number of disconcerting stories as the book goes on, stories from her experience in the past or moments happening as we read the book. They are always less in your face scary, and more ‘well that’s just weird and unsettling’. Like seeing a very tall man outside her window at night when she was a child, only seeing his chest and his hands and he wrung them together. Or the story of a neighborwoman bringing cookies to her family, asking her if she was ‘good or bad’, and then the Mom getting food poisoning from said cookies. It’s little things that just set your nerves on the slightest edge, that by the time you reach the serious crux of things that’s referenced in the description, you feel like you’re about to fall out of your chair. The suspense is taut and well done, and the imagery of shadows, unfamiliar hallways and faces, it’s all placed very well. You see clues and hints that come back later, but then when you’re done with it all you still have to go back and find everything. It’s meticulously crafted, and it definitely unsettled me.

But at the same time, the big confrontation came so late in the book, and it was so haphazard and chaotic, I had a hard time following it. Plus, there would be moments where the reader would be taken right out of it again, as Our Narrator would start on a tangent of waxing poetic on other, not as pressing matters as, say, the fact she’s lost in a strange labyrinthian school and can’t find her boyfriend. These moments of stopping and starting made the climax feel interrupted and jostled. There were other interruptions in the narrative as well, as between chapters we would get snippets of an italicized conversation between two faceless, nameless people, commenting on a terrible crime that has occurred. Obviously it has to do with what we’re all leading up to, but these interruptions worked a bit better because they felt like placeholders, and because they did give us more clues and puzzle pieces.

So what did I think of this book overall? I think I liked it. I know it disturbed me. I didn’t see where it was going at first, but then looking back at clues and references it started to come together. The problem was that getting there was so crazed and maniacal that at the end I was more overwhelmed than satisfied.

Rating 6: I THINK I pretty much liked it okay? But it gets kind of disorienting and also has the ability to take us into journeys that would amount to nothing, and distrupt the plot. It’s well done in a lot of ways, but you’ll have to read it twice (or more) to get it, I think.

Reader’s Advisory:

“I’m Thinking of Ending Things” is included on the Goodreads lists “ALA Midwinter 2016”, and “Thrillers with Big Plot Twists”.

Find “I’m Thinking of Ending Things” at your library using WorldCat!

Kate’s Review: “The X-Files Origins: Devil’s Advocate”

Book: “The X-Files Origins: Devil’s Advocate” by Jonathan Maberry

Publishing Info: Imprint, January 2017

Where Did I Get This Book: The library!

Book Description: How did Fox Mulder become a believer? How did Dana Scully become a skeptic? The X-Files Origins has the answers in this young adult origin story.

The X-Files Origins: Devil’s Advocate will explore the teen years of Dana Scully, the beloved character depicted in the cult-favorite TV show The X-Files. Her story is set in the spring of 1979, when serial murder, the occult, and government conspiracy were highlighted in the news.

The book will follow Scully as she experiences life-changing events that set her on the path to becoming an FBI agent.

Review: Who is one of my very favorite TV queens? Who is one of the TV characters that I love for her inspirational strength, her smarts, her snark, and her perseverance? Who is up there in my personal hall of fame of badass ladies on the small screen?

Dana. Freakin’. Scully.

So the very moment that I discovered that both Mulder and Scully of “The X-Files” fame got their own origin stories, I knew that I’d save Scully for second. I wanted to savor her. I wanted to bask in her story and her background. Jonathan Maberry had a huge character to take on, and I really wanted him to do her justice. And it took me a little while, but eventually I decided that Maberry did.

This story, since again we don’t get much background in the description, finds Dana as a fifteen year old adjusting to a new life in Maryland. She’s close with her sister Melissa, and trying to fit in in school, even though she knows she’s more introverted and reserved than her sister and her peers. And she’s also been having dreams, visions of violence and carnage. She’s seeing an ‘angel’ in her dreams, an angel who is killing. As teenagers in the area keep dying in accidents, Scully can’t shake the feeling that they are connected to the dreams that she doesn’t understand. What she doesn’t know is that she may be in a more dangerous situation than she realizes.

So this book takes the “Scully is a psychic’ theory and totally runs with it. There have been hints at her intuitive abilities throughout the series (in “Beyond the Sea” she sees a vision of her father right before his death; “Irresistible” finds Scully kidnapped, and she sees her kidnapper’s face shifting into different iterations of evil), but it was never truly confirmed. But I liked that Maberry decided to take this theory and give it a lot of life in her background. I was kind of wondering how he would make it believable that she could have psychic visions in her youth, and then have such a skeptical foundation in the series when it starts. Without spoiling anything, I can tell you that he pulls it off, and that I really liked how he did it. And seeing Dana react and manage these very scary visions was fascinating to watch. I think that she is still very much within her character, even as a fifteen year old. She feels younger and perhaps less secure in herself, but still feels like Dana Scully, even when in a situation that is so not something you’d think she’d be in. I sort of liked the mystery that she had to solve, because it’s foundation was a good harkening to her faith, her abilities, and her ultimate road to skepticism. I had a feeling I knew what was going on from the get go, so it wasn’t terribly surprising in it’s completion. But it wasn’t about the mystery itself for me. It was about how Dana was going to solve it with her strengths and wits.

I really enjoyed seeing the Scully family as well. In the series you get to know a few of her family members, specifically her sister Melissa and her mother Margaret, though you also get some solid and touching insight into Dana’s relationship with her Dad. You know that she was close to him in a lot of ways, from her reaction to his death in Season 1, to their nicknames for each other (Ahab and Starbuck!), to her seeing him in other visions as the series went on. In “Devil’s Advocate” we see how that close relationship is also a bit strained, and that Captain Scully was a bit more closed off from his family than maybe we realized. There were many moments between Dana and Captain Scully that made me misty eyed, as well as a wonderful scene with them reading from their favorite book “Moby Dick”. Whenever he called her Starbuck, I practically began to cry. I also loved seeing Dana and Melissa close and partners in crime, because their relationship on the show, while loving, was a bit contentious because they were so different. Having Melissa and Dana go to a New Age coffee shop and store for yoga and advice from local New Age practitioners just tickled me completely. Maberry also made an interesting choice of taking one of the Men in Black from the original series (the Red Haired Man), and gave him a role in a side plot. This was kind of a weaker part of this book for me, just because it took away from the main plot. In the Mulder book the surveillance parts involving X and Cigarette Smoking Man felt like a foregone conclusion; Mulder’s life had been intertwined with Cigarette Smoking Man since the beginning. Scully having this surveillance stuff in her life just felt… odd. Yes, later in life that aspect was there. I just had a harder time swallowing it in her youth.

I generally liked the new characters that Maberry created to interact with Scully, be it Corinda the New Age guru (her shop also makes an appearance in the Mulder book “Agent of Chaos”), or Scully’s love interest Ethan. Like in “Agent of Chaos” I was skeptical that a love interest had to happen in this book, since we know that he’s not going to be around ultimately, but Ethan was an okay addition. He was really there to give Scully some support from someone who was more like her, which I appreciated. Her relationship with him was also a good platform to show some of the casual sexism that Dana, as a fifteen year old girl in the late 1970s, could run into, even from someone who really does care about her. Seeing her push back against that was very gratifying, and seeing Ethan try to learn from it was refreshing and a good message to modern teens who may read this. While Ethan wasn’t as strong of an original character as Phoebe was in “Agent of Chaos”, I liked having him there for Dana to bounce more down to Earth ideas off of and help her find her voice. I liked that their partnership was it’s own thing, not just a predecessor to her eventual partnership with Mulder.

“The X-Files Origins: Devil’s Advocate”, showcased my girl Scully. I know that we probably won’t get anymore teen books about Scully and Mulder, just because it would feel a bit absurd to take it too far with their backgrounds, but I really enjoyed how Scully was showcased in this one. It did a good job of speculating how she became the person she was when “The X-Files” started.

Rating 8: While the mystery itself wasn’t as entertaining as it could have been, the character study of Dana Scully as a questioning teenager was incredibly effective, and very well done.

Reader’s Advisory:

“The X-Files Origins: Devil’s Advocate” is fairly new and not on any Goodreads lists yet. But I think it would fit in on “X-Files Related Books”, and “YA Novels about Psychic Abilities”.

Find “The X-Files Origins: Devil’s Advocate” at your library using WorldCat!

A Revisit to Fear Street: “The New Girl”

9851339 Book: “The New Girl” (Fear Street #1) by R.L. Stine

Publishing Info: Simon Pulse, August 1989

Where Did I Get This Book: Ebook from the library!

Book Description: Welcome to Fear Street.

Don’t listen to the stories they tell you about Fear Street. Wouldn’t you rather explore it yourself…and see if its dark terrors and unexplained mysteries are true? You’re not afraid, are you?

Dying for a Kiss

She’s pale as a ghost, blond, and eerily beautiful—and she seems to need him as much as he wants her. Cory Brooks hungers for Anna Corwin’s kisses, drowns in her light blue eyes. He can’t get her out of his mind. And the trouble has only begun: Shadyside High’s star gymnast is losing sleep, skipping practice, and acting weird. All the guys have noticed, but only Cory’s friend Lisa knows the truth: Anna Corwin is dead and living on Fear Street. Now Cory must explore its menacing darkness to discover the truth. He has already been warned: come to Fear Street and you’re dead!

Had I Read This Before: No

The Plot: Sweet baby Jesus, jumping back into this series right at the beginning and I have learned that it didn’t slowly turn into a batshit bananasfest, it was ALWAYS this way. We first visit Fear Street because of high school gymnast and lovesick puppy Cory, a boy who sees a beautiful new girl in the cafeteria one day and just has to find out who she is. He’s oblivious to the fact that his best friend Lisa is in love with him, and would rather cuddle up next to this blonde who ‘haunts’ him and practically ‘floats’ down the hallway. All Lisa knows is that girl is named Anna Corwin. After asking around and getting a phone operator complicit in his stalking (she gives him Anna’s address even though she isn’t supposed to, because he ‘seems nice enough’ and ‘it’s [her] last night anyway’), Cory calls the number only to be told there is no Anna there.

Not to be deterred in his obsession, Cory asks Anna if the number he has is right, to which she says yes. But when he calls, a woman answers and says that Anna isn’t there, despite the fact he can hear her screeching in the background. So, deciding that this is obviously a messed up situation, he ventures off to Fear Street, the street that Anna lives on. And this is where it starts to get crazy. A man answers the door and tells Cory that Anna isn’t there, because Anna is DEAD!!!!!!

Still undeterred, Cory refuses to believe that she’s dead in spite of the fact that he’s presented with newspaper articles, testimony, and an obituary that Anna Corwin is dead and buried. By all accounts, she’s no more, ceased to be, etc. He even breaks some pretty serious privacy ethics when he looks for her file in school and cannot find one for her. Signs are pointing to ghost. So how come whenever he kisses her (and boy does Anna REALLY like to kiss him, like all the time), she feels alive, warm, and supple? And why is it that she’s always asking him to save her and take her away and be with her FOREVER AND EVER AND EVER? Nothing fishy about that. Everything must be on the up and up.

Well, after a few too many meetings, Cory finds out that Anna’s brother Brad wants to keep him away from her, so much so that she’s taken out of school for a bit. Though Cory continues to pine, when Lisa asks him to the Turnaround Dance, he accepts, only to find out that Anna has returned, saw the whole exchange, and also wants to go with him. By complete coincidence, Lisa later opens her locker to find that someone has thrown a dead and gutted cat inside of it, with a note that says she is up next for the killing. Cory is convinced that it MUST be Brad, Anna’s deranged brother!

Come the night of the dance, Cory goes with Lisa even though he really wishes he was there with Anna, and then Brad shows up and shoves Lisa down some steps, though he claims it’s a mistake. But, mistake or not, dude, that’s uncool. Luckily Lisa gets away with just a swollen ankle. The harassing phone calls up until this point seem like cake now.

Cory eventually confronts Anna about her crazy brother over pizza, and Anna tells him that she and Brad had a sister named Willa, who fell down the basement stairs. It broke the Mom, and Brad as well, and now they moved to Shadyside as a family to start over. Anna says that Brad, sad about Willa and dealing with a recently dead girlfriend named Emily (who died in a plane crash, what the HELL?!), got the names mixed up when he sent the obit to the newspaper. Hence why everyone thinks Anna is dead. It’s not Anna, it’s Willa who’s dead. Because of course. Not strange at all. But then Brad is outside the pizza parlor, staring in at them, Anna runs off.

SO WE ARE BACK AT THE CORWIN HOUSE, and Cory comes to take Anna away with him to keep her safe from Brad. But as he’s confronting Brad, suddenly Anna starts to turn exceedingly violent with a letter opener. She takes a few swings at Brad, and then turns on Cory when he tells her to maybe knock it off. And it is then (after an asinine moment with a window) that we find out that Anna is NOT Anna, she is WILLA. Willa, jealous of Anna, killed her sister, and Brad covered up for her, but never got her the help she needed, thinking he could keep her safe. Good one, Dr. Frasier Crane.

Our story concludes with Willa possibly getting the help she needs, and Cory and Lisa finally coming together as a man and his silver medal. And that, guys, is how the very first “Fear Street” book ends.

Okay, let’s unpack it all, shall we?

Body Count: One, being Anna before the events of the actual story. Well, and a cat. So I guess two. Poor cat. A pretty low number for a Fear Street book, really.

Romance Rating: 5. Anna was far too creepy from the beginning and Cory was so heartless to/oblivious about Lisa until basically the end. But ultimately I was happy that Lisa was happy because she was pretty decent.

Bonkers Rating: A solid 9. I expected this kind of craziness from later books, but apparently it was there from the get go.

Fear Street Relevance: This book introduced Fear Street as a concept and a lot of the important plot points took place on it, so I will give it a 9 in this category as well.

Silliest End of Chapter Cliffhanger:

“The passenger door swung open. He started to scream.”

….. And then we find out it’s just Anna opening the car door. Stine is known for these kinds of things. Sometimes you gotta improvise when every chapter needs to end with suspense!

That’s So Dated! Moments: So the copy I found of this book was actually an updated version, trying to make “Fear Street” hip and relevant to the youth of the early 2000s. But it was done in an incredibly lazy way, such as replacing a Walkman with an iPod and Phil Collins songs with Missy Elliott songs (I did my research), and yet leaving in references to video stores, records, and actual human phone operators. PET PEEVE! Will be looking for the originals from now on.

Best Quote:

“Go get more paper towels,” Lisa said. “Ucccch, I think I’m going to be sick. It’s a good thing I hate cats.”

That’s Lisa after she finds the dead cat in her locker. I swear, they’re all psychos in Shadyside .

So “The New Girl” really gets things going with the Revisit to Fear Street! Next up is “The Prom Queen”, Fear Street #15 (I’m jumping ahead just this once because I had access to that one right away, I’ll be trying to go in order after that).

Kate’s Review: “Cold Calling”

Book: “Cold Calling” by Hadyn Wilks

Publishing Info: Dead Bird Press, February 2017

Where Did I Get This Book: An ARC provided by the author in exchange for an honest review.

Book Description: You spend your days staring into a computer screen, trying to sell life insurance to young couples with new babies.

You spend your nights staring into a computer screen, extracting filth from and injecting bile into the internet.

You still live with the same dickhead housemate you went to university with.
Your only respite from computer screens are nights spent getting smashed with him at student bars, watching him prance around, trying to pull much younger girls.

Your life sucks and you suck at it.

One drunken night, you try something new.
Something terrible.
But something that brings you new energy, new drive, new desires.

You start eating the young.

Note: THERE WILL BE MANY SPOILERS IN THIS REVIEW.

Review: Oh, hey, hi! What’s up? Uh huh, uh huhhhhh, yeah, that’s cool. Oh, how did I spend my night, you ask? Oh you know. Watching ‘Top Model’… Eating some cake…

Reading a novella about a guy who eats babies…

giphy11 — You read that right. Also, spoiler alert. (source)

Terrible etiquette, I apologize. But yeah. “Cold Calling”‘s main character eats babies. Okay, just hold on, hear me out here. I felt a need to get that spoiler out there because 1) I had no idea it was coming and I could have used something to soften THAT blow, and 2) I think that if you read the description you can kind of maybe guess that’s the end game. Even if you didn’t really want to believe that’s what was happening. Me getting this out there was not out of malevolence or spite, even if I was pretty well put off by it when I was reading this book. But, in spite of the fact that is just a reprehensible reality of this story, I do believe that there was a point to it. And once I kind of came around to that point, well, I was more willing to think about what the baby eating was kind of really about.

Our protagonist (“You” as he is referred mostly, as this is written in the second person, but Rhys by everyone else) is living a monotonous life in modern day Britain, working a cold calling job that is utterly thankless. Then he goes home and exists in the same sphere as his roommates, masturbates a bit to web cam porn, occasionally goes to the pub with his mates who aren’t really that good of mates if we’re being honest. His mates and those around him barb and bitch about the problems of society, usually pinning it all on immigrants, and then Rhys goes back and repeats it all over again, and again, and again. Until in a drunken blackout he finds the home of someone he’d cold called, murders the entire family, and brings the corpse of the baby home. And then he cooks it and eats it. And decides that yeah, he could do it again. It actually kind of smacked of an old school Ketchum novel, with balls to the wall violence and depravity that is meant to make the reader squirm and shake and question whether or not they could continue. I could also see the undertones of Chuck Palahniuk at his most disgusting and wretched (looking at YOU, “Guts”). I mean, horrific imagery and themes aside, I have to admit that Wilks can write, can craft words and sentences and soliloquies that leapt off the page as I was reading this book, my jaw fully agape in abject horror. Sometime the second person didn’t quite work or came off as scattered, but I do understand the choice behind it. And I think that I do see where Wilks was going. For me, the point is that for some people, the more deplorable realities of society crushes them and twists them into monsters that do absolutely horrible things. And then in turn, that same society refuses to see just what it was that really happened, or the role that it played, and then instead focuses on scapegoats that fit a narrative that are far more comfortable (i.e. everyone assuming that it had to be some ‘immigrant’ that had kidnapped these missing babies). Just to let the cycle start over again. It was as if ‘you’ were the symbol or product of an apathetic, cynical society that chewed people up and spit them out as mutants, which eventually led to the sacrifice and violent consumption of the innocent and innocence in itself. Which I really appreciated in these times.

And THAT, my friends, is why I really have no idea what to do with this story when it comes to saying what the HELL I thought about it!!!

I guess I will say this. I definitely appreciated the underlying metaphor here that lots of innocent people get caught in the crossfire of awfulness that could have been prevented if perhaps an overarching selfishness or apathy was done away with or combated by those who have the power to do so. Yes, by having our protagonist devolve to a point and literally eat babies it was hitting the reader over the head. But I can’t say that it’s untrue. So fine, “Cold Calling”. Ultimately I jive with what you had to say. But DAMN if it wasn’t an absolutely nasty ass read and NOT for the faint of heart. It was too much even for me.

Rating 6: The writing is pretty good and the ultimate metaphor was one that I got and found pretty powerful. But I personally had a hard time with the implementation of said metaphor.

Reader’s Advisory:

“Cold Calling” is new and hasn’t found it’s way onto any Goodreads lists yet. But it would fit in on “Maneaters”, and “Cannibal Books”.

“Cold Calling” isn’t available of WorldCat as of now, but you can find it on Kindle Unlimited at Amazon.

Kate’s Review: “The X-Files Origins: Agent of Chaos”

Book: “The X-Files Origins: Agent of Chaos” by Kami Garcia

Publishing Info: Imprint, January 2017

Where Did I Get This Book: The library!

Book Description: How did Fox Mulder become a believer? How did Dana Scully become a skeptic? The X-Files Origins has the answers.

The X-Files Origins: Agent of Chaos explores the teen years of Fox Mulder, the beloved character depicted in the cult-favorite TV show The X-Files. His story is set in the spring of 1979, when serial murder, the occult, and government conspiracy were highlighted in the news.

The book will follow Mulder as he experiences life-changing events that set him on the path to becoming an FBI agent.

Review: When I was growing up, my family had three different Family TV nights as time went on. The first one was “Lois and Clark”. The last one, up until the end of high school, was “Buffy the Vampire Slayer”. And the middle one, the one that I have the fondest memories of, was “The X-Files”. I started watching “The X-Files” with my Dad when I was in fifth grade. I was both terrified and enthralled by it, and I loved both Fox Mulder and Dana Scully as they investigated the weird and unexplained happenings of potential supernatural malarky and/or government conspiracies with aliens. The revival last year was enough to keep me sated for a bit, though I was definitely left wanting more. And since it looked to be awhile before we were going to get more, imagine my delight when I found out that two books about teenaged Mulder and Scully were coming out. I started with the one about Mulder, “Agent of Chaos”, which was written by YA heavyweight Kami Garcia. I started with this one because while I’m probably more like Mulder, I have a deep, deep love for Scully, and want to savor her and save her for last. So off we go into teenage Mulder in 1979. It’s like “That 70s Show”, but far more insidious.

To give a bit more description than the one above: Fox Mulder, a seventeen year old living in Washington D.C., is still feeling the pain of his sister Samantha’s abduction from a few years prior. His family has been shattered, and he is trying to adjust to his new life with his Dad, as his Mom is still back on Martha’s Vineyard. His best friend Phoebe is back on the island, but he’s made a new friend in Gimble, the nerdy son of an unbalanced former Air Force Major. When children in the area start disappearing, Mulder is reminded of Samantha’s abduction, and decides that he and his friends need to try and solve this case. This was so wonderfully Mulder, convinced so deeply of something and so entrenched in his belief of it, that he would throw everything he has into trying to figure it out. I also appreciated that this harkened back to the greatest tragedy of Mulder’s life, the disappearance of his younger sister. Though we all know now what did end up happening to her (and while this truth is touched upon in this book ever so briefly), the sadness and pain revived right away, and quite effectively (side note: anyone who thinks that “Closure” is a sappy episode of “The X-Files” can seriously bite me). It was a pretty obvious idea to make Mulder’s story about Samantha at it’s heart, but at the same time Garcia did it in such a delicate way that it was masterful and touching.

We got to see some old favorites in this tale otuside of Mulder. While I kind of had a feeling that The Cigarette Smoking Man was going to make an appearance, because how could he not, I was very pleasantly surprised to see X, a ‘man in black’ and FBI operative from the series, play a fairly large role in this story as well. But along with these old characters, Garcia created some very fun new characters to act as foils for Mulder. The first is Gimble, Mulder’s best friend in D.C. who is a D & D playing Trekkie. Gimble served us some very appreciated, if not sometimes awkward, comic relief. But even he has a bit more tragedy to him, as his father is a mentally unbalanced man who believes in all kinds of conspiracy theories due to his former involvement with the Government. The Major, as he calls himself, was the weakest part for me in this book, as it seemed a bit too on the nose to have Mulder bond with a man who is both brilliant, and yet bogged down by lunacy and paranoia. Plus, it was just hard to watch The Major interact with Gimble, because MAN that has to be a hard way to grow up. Granted, the government conspiracy stuff was always my least favorite part about the show, so to have it kind of leak in here, while totally understandable, wasn’t really for me. But by far my favorite new character was Phoebe, Mulder’s best friend and sort of love interest. So sure, it’s clear that Mulder and Phoebe are not at all end game, given that his real true love is Scully. But I liked that Garcia took a risk and put a capable, smart, supportive yet no nonsense girl into this for Mulder to have as a foil. Because why couldn’t Mulder have two great loves of his life? Phoebe is the anchor that Mulder has always needed in his life, serving the Scully role and keeping him in check. Plus, her love of all things geek made her very relatable, and kind of refreshing. The girl’s first appearance has her hair done up in Princess Leia buns for God’s sake!

Overall this was a fun origin story that I think did justice to Fox Mulder. I can’t say if hardcore “X-Files” fans will like it, but this pretty big fan quite enjoyed the journey it took me on. I really can’t wait to read the one about teenage Dana Scully now.

Rating 8: A fun little origin story to give one of my favorite TV characters. Though I sometimes felt that parts of it were a bit too over the top, seeing Mulder, X, and The Cigarette Smoking Man doing things again was a delight, and reliving the sadness of Samantha Mulder was tragically beautiful.

Reader’s Advisory:

“The X-Files Origins: Agent of Chaos” is pretty new and not on any Goodreads lists. But I think it would fit in at “X-Files Related Books”, and “Government Agencies Dealing with Paranormal”.

Find “The X-Files Origins: Agent of Chaos” at your library using WorldCat!

A Brief History and Introduction to “Fear Street”

Call me inspired or call me unoriginal, but when Serena said that she was going to do a re-read of the “Animorphs” series, I began thinking about my own favorite childhood books. As you may recall in our “Childhood Favorites” post, the “Fear Street” series was one of the most influential reads of my girlhood. I have the fondest of memories of being in fourth grade and reading these books in our classroom during free time before the school bell rang to send us all home.

Now let me tell you, on and off I’ve been hunting for copies of these books, as mine have either disappeared into my parents’ attic never to be found again, or were long given to Half Price Books or thrown in the trash by my Mom. And now that I’ve fully embraced the goodness of eBooks and InterLibrary Loans, I can finally go back and re-read this series that meant so much to me when I was a girl, and no doubt helped kick off my lifelong obsession with the horror genre. Not long after I outgrew these books was I moving on to Stephen King.

So for the uninitiated, “Fear Street” was a series that R.L. Stine wrote in the late 80s and early 90s, which takes place in the small town of Shadyside. Within Shadyside is a street known as Fear Street, a neighborhood that is said to be cursed. There is a cemetery, a burnt out manor (that originally belonged to wealthy resident Simon Fear), and a creepy old woods. The stories in this series don’t necessarily all take place on Fear Street, but there is almost always something that will bring the revolving characters back there for one reason or another. There were many spin off series from “Fear Street”, but I mainly stuck to the original series outside of an occasional “Super Chiller”, and the first book in the “Cheerleaders” spin off series, called “The First Evil”. The plots usually revolve around a first person protagonist, a series of murders, teenage hormones, and a mystery that will almost always be twisted and looney, supernatural elements or not.

After the initial run and success (over 80 Million copies are in print, guys), Stine took some time off from “Fear Street” until 2014. Until then, he’d been under the impression that no one wanted books like these anymore. After all, these books were at their most popular when publishers thought that kids and teens couldn’t handle more than 100some pages, and needed a tried and true formula they could keep coming back to. And we all know what changed that perception. But then St. Martin’s Press asked him to revive it. So now teens have a whole new generation of “Fear Street” they can enjoy, though the new books have been lengthened and made more violent and sexier to better match the sensibilities of modern YA fiction. And I guess there is talk of a potential movie adaptation of the series, which both intrigues and worries me. I just don’t think that any movie adaptation could capture as much of the heart of these books as the covers already have.

71srokmwuos-_ac_ul320_sr196320_ — She soon found herself in an A Ha video… (source)

So here is my plan. I am going to try and re-read as many of the original “Fear Street” books (and perhaps the occasional “Super-Chiller”) that I can get my hands on, and then review them here, much like Serena is doing with “Animorphs.” There will be snark. There won’t be much critical thinking or deconstruction, though hey, if something tickles my fancy in that regard, I’ll give it a whirl. And I will definitely be pointing out the funnier things, as well as the quirks that really jump out at me. Starting in February, these will be alternating on Tuesdays every other week, until I run out of “Fear Street” books (be it by finishing or unavailability), or my sanity snaps. Whichever comes first!

So join me if you will, and let’s take a walk down that one street in Shadyside that has all the kids talking. Revisiting “Fear Street” could be fun for everyone.

Kate’s Review: “Fear the Drowning Deep”

Book: “Fear the Drowning Deep” by Sarah Glenn Marsh

Publishing Info: Sky Pony Press, October 2016

Where Did I Get This Book: The library!

Book Description: Witch’s apprentice Bridey Corkill has hated the ocean ever since she watched her granddad dive in and drown with a smile on his face. So when a dead girl rolls in with the tide in the summer of 1913, sixteen-year-old Bridey suspects that whatever compelled her granddad to leap into the sea has made its return to the Isle of Man.

Soon, villagers are vanishing in the night, but no one shares Bridey’s suspicions about the sea. No one but the island’s witch, who isn’t as frightening as she first appears, and the handsome dark-haired lad Bridey rescues from a grim and watery fate. The cause of the deep gashes in Fynn’s stomach and his lost memories are, like the recent disappearances, a mystery well-guarded by the sea. In exchange for saving his life, Fynn teaches Bridey to master her fear of the water — stealing her heart in the process.

Now, Bridey must work with the Isle’s eccentric witch and the boy she isn’t sure she can trust — because if she can’t uncover the truth about the ancient evil in the water, everyone she loves will walk into the sea, never to return.

Review: So look, on paper this, to me, sounded like a straight up thriller with a supernatural twist to it. That’s why I’m reviewing this book that is, in actuality, pretty much just a straight up fantasy. Sorry, Serena, this is my genre today! That being said, there are definitely a number of strange and creepy things that really added to the potential of “Fear the Drowning Deep”. A witch’s apprentice? Murdered girls? ANCIENT EVIL IN THE WATER?

giphy3 — Sign me up, I’m there! (source)’

But sadly, while I was all in and totally stoked, when I got to it, it didn’t quite live up to what I hoped it would. I think that what tripped this book up for me were a couple of things. One, my expectations were not met, and while that’s not the book’s fault, it nonetheless made it so I was setting myself up for a fall. The second thing is that it fell into too many traps of the fantasy romance YA genre, which I have become less and less forgiving of as time has gone on. You combine these two things, and then throw in a description that really played up more of a horror thriller angle than it was, and well, we’re bound to have some problems.

But hey, let’s start off with the things that I DID like about this story before we get into the negatives. First of all, I enjoyed the setting of this book, taking place on the Isle of Man in 1913. I don’t know much about the Isle of Man outside of the fact that the Bee Gees were from there, so seeing it in a historical setting with some of the mythology from the area were fun themes to explore. Bridey was an alright protagonist. I liked that she was a responsible teenager of her time, and while sometimes her aspirations kind of treaded towards the less pragmatic and more fanciful, by 1913 I think this is a more acceptable mentality for a teenage girl to have. I also really liked the storyline involving her and Morag, the island ‘witch’ whom Bridley apprentices for, just as her mother did when she was a girl. The parts of the story where Bridley was learning how to find ingredients for medicine, charms, and protection, were very intriguing to me, and I liked Morag’s role in the story as the misunderstood outsider. True, it got a bit aggravating when Bridey would dismiss Morag’s advice or warnings as superstitions or useless, because she has spent her whole life believing her to be some kind of witch! I have a hard time believing that she’d be so dense or haughty that she’d just toss this woman’s opinions out the window! It didn’t feel like it matched Bridey’s character, and that got a bit annoying.

I also liked the take and portrayals of various mythological creatures that you may not see as much in fantasy stories. Sure, we’ve all seen our fair share of dragons, vampires, and ghosts, but in this book we get sea serpents, Little Fellas, and fossegrims. Marsh has taken some long neglected mythologies and has given them a fresh perspective, and I think that this book could easily encourage interested parties to take a gander at these stories when they may not have otherwise.

However, a big strike against this book, for me, is that once again, we are met with the Dreaded Love Triangle. THIS time it’s between Bridey, her childhood friend Lugh, and the mysterious visitor Fynn, who washes up on shore one day with no memory of who he is or how he got there. Boy, a girl is torn between her true blue best friend and a strange and enigmatic newcomer. I sure haven’t read anything like THAT before.

This is only compounded by the fact that a day before Fynn showed up, Bridey had been kissed by Lugh, and she had really quite liked it. But the moment that Fynn arrives, Lugh is completely out of her thoughts. It’s one thing if she was always a bit ambivalent about her feelings for him. It’s tired and worn out, but at least it’s realistic. Because MAN did she shift on a dime without any second thoughts. Plus, we got a ridiculous scene in which Finn and Lugh start fighting each other over her, and everyone felt a bit out of character all just for the drama. Lugh just didn’t feel like a character who even needed to be there, in all honesty. There was plenty of dramatics without Bridey having to be in the middle of a fight between the two stereotypes of romantic entanglements.

This book definitely had some things going for it, but overall “Fear the Drowning Deep” found itself in a couple of ruts that it never really pulled itself from. I really enjoyed the mythology aspect and the witch aspect, but there were too many well worn ideas that weren’t really reinvented to make it a complete stand out. Come for the mythos, try and tolerate the repetitiveness.

Rating 6: Though original in some ways, “Fear the Drowning Deep” wasn’t what I had hoped it would be, and fell into too many YA traps.

Reader’s Advisory:

“Fear the Drowning Deep” can be found on the following Goodreads lists: “Sea Creatures”, and “All Things Celtic”.

Find “Fear the Drowning Deep” at your library using WorldCat!

Kate’s Review: “American Heiress”

Book: “American Heiress: The Wild Saga of the Kidnapping, Crimes, and Trial of Patty Hearst” by Jeffrey Toobin

Publishing Info: Doubleday, August 2016

Where Did I Get This Book: The library!

Book Description: From New Yorker staff writer and bestselling author Jeffrey Toobin, the definitive account of the kidnapping and trial that defined an insane era in American history

On February 4, 1974, Patty Hearst, a senior in college and heiress to the Hearst family fortune, was kidnapped by a ragtag group of self-styled revolutionaries calling itself the Symbionese Liberation Army. The already sensational story took the first of many incredible twists on April 3, when the group released a tape of Patty saying she had joined the SLA and had adopted the nom de guerre “Tania.”

The weird turns of the tale are truly astonishing — the Hearst family trying to secure Patty’s release by feeding all the people of Oakland and San Francisco for free; the photographs capturing “Tania” wielding a machine gun during a bank robbery; a cast of characters including everyone from Bill Walton to the Black Panthers to Ronald Reagan to F. Lee Bailey; the largest police shoot-out in American history; the first breaking news event to be broadcast live on television stations across the country; Patty’s year on the lam, running from authorities; and her circuslike trial, filled with theatrical courtroom confrontations and a dramatic last-minute reversal, after which the phrase “Stockholm syndrome” entered the lexicon.

The saga of Patty Hearst highlighted a decade in which America seemed to be suffering a collective nervous breakdown. Based on more than a hundred interviews and thousands of previously secret documents, American Heiress thrillingly recounts the craziness of the times (there were an average of 1500 terrorist bombings a year in the early 1970s). Toobin portrays the lunacy of the half-baked radicals of the SLA and the toxic mix of sex, politics, and violence that swept up Patty Hearst; and recreates her melodramatic trial. American Heiress examines the life of a young woman who suffered an unimaginable trauma and then made the stunning decision to join her captors’ crusade. Or did she?

Review: I grew up in an upper middle class neighborhood in St. Paul, Minnesota, and my usual stomping grounds were also in upper middle class areas. One of those neighborhoods was one that I could bike to, to hit the local Barnes and Noble, get a Starbucks mocha, and maybe go see a movie. This neighborhood also happened to be the same neighborhood that Sara Jane Olson, aka Kathy Soliah of the Symbionese Liberation Army, was found in after decades on the lam. My parents, both former anti-war protestors and pinko liberals of the 1960s and 70s, were pretty stunned, and when they explained who Soliah and the SLA were, I was stunned too. It was around this time that I was first introduced to the story of Patty Hearst, the heiress to the Hearst Fortune who was kidnapped by the SLA, only to join up with them. Sure, Hearst has kind of entered the pop cultural zeitgeist after all these years, that famous ‘Tania Picture’ pretty recognizable to even those who don’t necessarily know the significance of it. Hell, I had this picture on my bedroom door in high school (in vague protest of local gun legislation, but I digress). But outside of knowing the very basics of the case, I knew very little about Patty Hearst outside of this photograph. So when “American Heiress” ended up at my library, I decided it was time to learn more.

Toobin, a writer for the New Yorker, tells a comprehensive and detailed story not only about Patty and her kidnapping, but the crimes that the SLA committed before, during, and after, the trials and scrutiny that Patty faced, and the social and political climate of the United States in the 1970s. Gone were the idealistic days of the 1960s, and the 1970s was a time of much anger and frustration, as well as uncertainty. Nixon had recently been exposed for his corruption with the Watergate Scandal, gas prices were astronomical, and tensions were high. The Symbionese Liberation Army fancied itself a revolutionary group, but was less akin to peaceful protest and discourse, and more interested in bombs and murder (including the assassination of school superintendent Marcus Foster). Toobin does a great job of profiling our main players in the SLA, and his profiles are expansive and in depth. He also does a very good job of profiling Patty and her life pre-kidnapping. She was a student at Berkeley, engaged to an older man, and already feeling a little bit unappreciated and approaching a stagnancy. His descriptions of all these factors, as well as explanations of various societal events and views, all mix together to bring the reader right into this setting. I could almost feel the tension in the air.

What I also liked was that Toobin was pretty good at presenting a lot of this neutrally and seemingly without a conclusion he wanted the reader to draw. That may be in part to the fact that Patty Hearst didn’t have anything to do with this book, and declined to work with him on it. Because of that, Toobin has to work with other sources. He still managed to present a well thought out analysis of many factors within this crime. One of the biggest turns of the crime was the fact that Patty ‘joined’ her captors and began to commit crimes with them, releasing propaganda images and films denouncing her former life. She was eventually tried and convicted, in spite of the defense’s arguments that she was suffering from Stolkholm Syndrome. Eventually she was pardoned by President Carter. Toobin has really set out just to tell the story as it was, and how the SLA could have influenced her choices to cooperate. While the SLA didn’t have the competence to actually systematically brainwash her, it was, in a way, their short sightedness in their plan that may have led to her cooperation. They kidnapped her with no plan, and were constantly threatening her life and waffling with what to do with her. Because of this, through a need to survive and adapt, it could be argued that Hearst decided that to save herself, be it consciously or not, she needed to become one of them. But not once does Toobin go so far as to suggest that there is no responsibility there. After all, he also points out that she was angry with her parents for how they seemingly handled her kidnapping, and felt that they had turned their back on her. And by the end, I don’t really know where I fall in the argument. I jumped between ‘If she wasn’t a Hearst, or a white woman, or rich, she would have been in prison for far longer than eighteen months’, and ‘this poor girl was a complete victim and was completely railroaded!’. I still don’t really know where I stand, but I appreciate that. It shows that Toobin knows that it’s almost too complex for any solid answers to come out of it, especially after all this time. Honestly, it’s a combination of all those things. She was certainly a victim. But many victims don’t get the luxury of being seen as one.

The book is a little dense, so I hard a slower time getting through it, but in it’s density we get a whole lot of really interesting facts. I had no idea that so many familiar names were involved in this case. This runs the gamut from perhaps obvious people, like Ronald Reagan who was the Governor of California of the time (who said some pretty wretched things about poor minorities in relation to this case, surprise surprise), to the less obvious like Desi Arnaz (who was a family friend of Patty’s parents and whisked them away on a vacation to help them take their mind off of things). While sometimes this book could get a little off track with these things, I found it all pretty engrossing.

I think that true crime fans would like this book, but so would history buffs, and possibly even people interested in psychology and sociology. Patty Hearst is still around, making public appearances here and there, be it at the Westminster Dog Show or on TV. I don’t think anyone can really know everything about her outside of her, and she isn’t going to address it anytime soon. Nor should she have to. That said, Jeffrey Toobin does a great job of postulating and assessing various factors in her kidnapping fairly and in an insightful way. “American Heiress” was a good read, and I’m happy I know more about the poor girl whose chilling photo was on my bedroom door.

Rating 8: An in depth and interesting book about a notorious crime that never goes for sensation or salaciousness, “American Heiress” looks at the Patty Hearst Kidnapping through many lenses.

Reader’s Advisory:

“American Heiress” has not been out long, and isn’t on many relevant Goodreads lists. It can be found on “Fresh Air 2016”, but I think it would also fit in on “California True Crime”.

Find “American Heiress” at your library using WorldCat!

Kate’s Review: “When We Go Missing”

Book: “When We Go Missing” by Kristen Twardowski

Publishing Info: CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform, December 2016

Where Did I Get This Book: An ARC was provided by the author in exchange for an honest review.

Book Description: Once, Alex Gardinier was a successful physical therapist and a happy wife. Now she is trapped in a crumbling hospital room. Seven years ago Alex’s ex-husband, Nathan, was convicted of murdering five girls, and he has been rotting in prison ever since. Except the doctors say that Nathan isn’t in prison. In fact, they don’t believe that he is a criminal at all. According to them, Nathan is a devoted husband who visits her every week. But Alex can’t recall ever seeing him at the hospital, and the last time they met he was holding her hostage on a boat.

Maybe the doctors are right – maybe these memories of his crimes are her own personal delusions – but if they are wrong, then Nathan somehow escaped from prison. If they are wrong, he has trapped Alex in a psychiatric ward.

If they are wrong, he is hunting her sister.

Review: During my time studying psychology in my high school and college careers, there were a number of case studies that freaked me out. Be it because of ethical problems (The Milgram Experiment), animal cruelty (Harlow Monkey Experiment), or just flat out human terribleness (The Stanford Prison Experiment), many studies have told us a lot, but have ridiculous messed up connotations. But one that seems perfect for a horror story is the Rosenhan Experiment, where non-mentally ill people faked symptoms to get inside mental institutions… and then found it pretty near impossible to get out, even when they stopped reporting symptoms. So when “When We Go Missing” ended up in the blog email box, and seemed to touch on exactly that, I thought “Oh yes. This could work.” And on top of that, it was written by fellow book and literature blogger Kristen Twardowski! So of course I gotta give a shout out of solidarity to her!

And there may be mild spoilers here, but I promise that I won’t give too much away, nor will I give away anything that I don’t think isn’t established pretty early on, and therefore fair game.

Though the description makes it sound like it’s going to be mostly from Alex’s point of view, “When We Go Missing” actually follows the experiences and points of view of a number of women, all of whom are connected to Alex in one way or another. All of them have their own unique perspectives and experiences, and I appreciated the pieces of the larger, overarching puzzle that they provided. I do think that the description may be a little misleading in some ways, as I feel that through these multiple perspectives we find out quite early that Alex is not necessarily crazy, and that Nathan has somehow gotten away with sticking her into a Portuguese mental institution after he escaped from prison. But this still works, because now the mystery is how did he do this, how is Alex going to escape when she has been diagnosed as insane, and is Nathan going to get away with it. I am far more interested in figuring this out as opposed to ‘is Alex an unreliable narrator?’, a trope that I am pretty much well and over at this point.

Besides Alex’s story, be it before her time in the asylum or during it, we get the stories of Carolyn, Sandra, and Lucia. Carolyn is Alex’s sister, a woman who has never felt comfortable or trusting around Nathan, but doesn’t know how to say so. I really appreciated how her character progressed, and I totally believed her choices when it came to her sister and her sister’s marriage. While some may wonder how Carolyn couldn’t tell Alex her reservations, I found it to be pretty realistic that she may not feel it her place, or that she doesn’t have a leg to stand on. I’m someone who isn’t terribly close to her sister, and while the girl has a great head on her shoulders and has yet to make a terrible decision in regards to her personal life, I wonder if I’d have the courage to say if she had. So that resonated with me. Another character, Sandra, is actually the character I was most intrigued by, and found to be the most tragic. Sandra’s daughter disappeared, and she is trying to make sense of what happened to her. This journey takes her to the realization that a lot of women, many whom society may not miss, have gone missing, and that they may be connected. Her story was the one that I most looked forward to in terms of plotting, as it was definitely the saddest and the one that made me feel the most of all of the threads. And finally there was Lucia, a nurse at the asylum that Alex was being held in. She was another very interesting device for the story, acting as detective for the reader as we followed the hospital storyline through her eyes as well as Alex’s. I liked seeing Lucia try to figure out if the woman being detained in room 203 is insane, or if there is a larger conspiracy going on around her, and just how high up it goes. Because really, while the Rosenhan Experiment was upsetting in how it exposed the ineptitude of psychiatric hospitals diagnostic practices, wouldn’t it have been so much worse if it had all been one big conspiracy to keep the ‘patients’ in? And THAT is the thing about this book that freaked me out the most.

giphy1 — No drinking fountains in sight to throw through a window either. (source)

There was a fair amount of jumping around in this book, timeline wise, which was a little confusing at first. Once I got the hang out it, however, it went a lot smoother, and I didn’t feel as lost as when I started. I think that it’s just a matter of getting used to the pacing and the jumping, which took a little bit of patience from me, a girl with ADD and a need for instant gratification.

“When We Go Missing” was an entertaining read that kept me guessing in a number of ways up through the last pages. It definitely hits a number of original themes and plot points, and I think that it would appeal to those of us who want something fresh from our psychological thrillers.

And be sure to come back here on Monday, January 23rd! Because the author of this book, Kristen Twardowski, is publishing a guest post here about writing, inspiration, and the creative process!

Rating 8: An entertaining and suspenseful book with a lot of well fleshed out characters, “When We Go Missing” was a very unsettling and tense novel with twist, turns, and a solid mystery!

Reader’s Advisory:

“When We Go Missing” can be found on the following Goodreads lists: “Fancy a Debut Psychological Thriller Author?”, and “Female Psychological Thrillers/Suspense”.

“When We Go Missing” is not available on WorldCat yet, but it can be found in paperback and ebook form at amazon.com.

Kate’s Review: “Moonshot (Vol.1): The Indigenous Comics Collection”

Book: “Moonshot (Vol.1): The Indigenous Comics Collection” by Hope Nicholson (Editor)

Publishing Info: Alternate History Comics, 2015

Where Did I Get This Book: The library!

Book Description: Produced by AH Comics Inc. (Titan: An Alternate History, Delta, Hobson’s Gate, Jewish Comix Anthology) and edited by Hope Nicholson (Brok Windsor, Lost Heroes, Nelvana of the Northern Lights), MOONSHOT brings together dozens of creators from across North America to contribute comic book stories showcasing the rich heritage and identity of indigenous storytelling.

From traditional stories to exciting new visions of the future, this collection presents some of the finest comic book and graphic novel work in North America. The traditional stories presented in the book are with the permission from the elders in their respective communities, making this a truly genuine, never-before-seen publication. MOONSHOT is an incredible collection that is sure to amaze, intrigue and entertain!

Review: I had another impulsive moment at work recently, where I went to our New Books Wall and took a look at what there was to offer. Since these books don’t go to the usual request list, sometimes you can get really lucky and find something that’s in demand or brand new. I was immediately taken in by the gorgeous cover on a new graphic novel collection. I mean, DAMN, look at the cover for “Moonshot (Vol.1)”! Is it not staggering and beautiful!?

giphy — Absolutely blown away, no lie (source)

I gave it some time on the wall, because I had a big stack at home and wanted to give the patrons a chance to snatch it up. But after waiting awhile I just had to have it. And I am so glad that I was entranced by the cover, because “Moonshot” as a whole was an entrancing collection!

The first thing to know about “Moonshot” is that it is a collection of one shot stories that are written by people from Indigenous Nations across North America, as are the artists. The second thing to know is that it is a collection filled with stunning variety because of all of these differing perspectives. I wasn’t sure of what to expect from this collection, but whatever my expectations may have been they were blown out of the water by what I found. While there are a number of stories in this book, a few of them really stood out to me, so I will focus my attention on them. That isn’t to say that the others aren’t as good, however. These are the ones that left the biggest impression because of story or artwork.

“The Qallupiluk: Forgiven” by Sean and Rachel Qitsualik-Tinsley, and menton3 (Ill.).

This story is from the Arctic regions, and concerns themes of death and forgiveness. This was also the one story in the collection that had minimal artwork, as it was mostly text with a few large pieces that stood out for the most important parts of the story. I liked a couple of things about this story. The first was that it was creepy as all get out, as the Qallupiluk is a creature that hides beneath the ice and takes unsuspecting victims under the water and kill them. This story is about a Qallupiluk that takes on the form of one of it’s victims in hopes of stealing away a child, until a dog calls it out. I liked the personal journey that the Qallupiluk took, as odd as that sounds, and has to confront the concept of forgiveness. The art, as I said, was scattered, but the images that were there were absolutely breathtaking and visceral. As someone who loves creepy imagery, this one was a true treat.

“Siku” by Tony Romito, and Jeremy D. Mohler (Ill.)

Another story from the Arctic region, and another one that involves malevolent forces and scary imagery. This one is about a hunter who witnesses a conflict between two otherworldly beings, one of which is a demon. Boy do I love the demon stories. This book definitely was more set up like a comic, with panels, bubbles, the works. It felt like an old school horror comic, and like something that I would pick up at the comic book shop when looking for something twisted. And the end, WAHH, so unsettling. The art didn’t stand out as much in this one, but that didn’t matter because the story really kept me interested. I don’t want to spoil anything, so I won’t go into much detail, but it kind of cut to the quick in that it definitely touched on one of my bigger freak out factors in horror.

“Coyote and the Pebbles” by Dayton Edmonds, and Micah Farritor (Ill.)

I’ve grown up hearing many iterations of the Coyote myth, as Coyote is a very prominent character in many Indigenous narratives and mythologies. This one sounded familiar, but Edwards really made it his own. I’ve always liked Coyote, be he a troublemaker or sympathetic, and in this story I really liked how he was portrayed as somewhere in the middle (but being me, I still felt for him). It concerns the nocturnal animals of the world hoping to see more at night when the sun is down, and thinking that they should draw portraits of themselves to light the way. And Coyote thinks that he is the best artist of them all. This story is a straight up ‘how this came to be’ myth, but I really liked it. This was also my favorite art style in the collection, with animals shifting between animal form and human form, but even in human form still evoking their animal identity. Farritor has a real skill for pulling animal characteristics from his drawings, be they animals or not.

e5a2865273415b875ddf4ff9d3c53e4a_original — Coyote and Raven discuss his artistic prowess (source).

This story was lovely and melancholy, and I really, really enjoyed it.

“Moonshot (Vol.1)” is a collection that was so fun, and breathtaking in a lot of ways, and I seriously cannot wait for Volume 2 to come out (YES, there is going to be a Volume 2, isn’t that great?!). I think that it’s also a very important work, especially since Indigenous representation is one of the lowest in Children’s and YA Literature. I cannot recommend this book enough to comics enthusiasts, and I think that everyone should consider picking it up. If the cover alone doesn’t get you, the stories inside certainly will.

Rating 8: With gorgeous and varied artwork and sweeping stories, “Moonshot (Vol.1)” is an important collection with talented writers and artists at the helm.

Reader’s Advisory:

“Moonshot (Vol.1)” can be found on the following Goodreads lists: “Graphic Novels & Comics by the Aboriginal, Indigenous, and Native People’s of the World”, and “Canadian Graphic Novels & Comic Books”.

Find “Moonshot (Vol.1)” at your library using WorldCat!

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