Bitter In Black

Had a bout of insomnia the other night...so that means I got to finish another book so YAY!  This of course means time for a haunted rambling to continue our October of awesome.  The book is The Woman in Black by Susan Hill which is the inspiration for the movie by the same name.  Was I to scared to sleep?  Let's find out...as always SPOILERS AHEAD!

Arthur Kipp starts us off by telling us where he is at now.  He is happily married to his second wife after being widowed at a young age and now enjoys his later life with his wife, step-children and grandchildren.  The family starts telling ghost stories which triggers a pretty intense memory in our narrator Mr. Kipp.  He takes us back to his younger days where he was working on making partner at his law firm.  He ultimate goal was to provide a comfortable home for his fiancee Stella and their future family.  To this end he is sent by his boss to the remote town of Crythin Gifford and further out to an old manor Eel Marsh House.  A crumbling pile that is regularly cut off by the high tide.  Mr. Kipp's job is to attend the funeral and then the business affairs of the late Alice Drablow, the last remaining Drablow to live at Eel Marsh House.  Mr. Kipp finds himself quit comfortable in the little town and sets off with the local solicitor Mr. Jerome.  During the funeral Mr. Kipp see's a gaunt and wasted figure in all black.  He enquirers about her and only receives fear and silence in answer.  Mr. Kipp heads out to Eel Marsh House and again encounters the Woman in Black and determines that she is not only unhuman, but potentially malevolent as well.  As Mr. Kipp continues to go through the house he is stuck in a fog and in that mist he hears the sound of a pony and trap go off the road and the screams of a child as they are sucked down and drowned in the treacherous marsh.  Mr. Kipp is shaken up until he is picked up by his man and realizes that what he heard was not real.  He decides to get provisions and stay at the house until his business is complete.  To this end a new friend insists that he borrows his little terrier Spider to accompany him.  Mr. Kipp is woken in the night by a sound coming from a locked door.  He breaks it open and discovers the room of a young boy and a rocking chair in motion.  After going through various documents in between being scared and startled by various noises he finally get's the tragic story of Eel Marsh House.  Turns out that Alice Drablow had a sister Jennet who gave birth to a child out of wedlock.  Because of the circumstances and time period, Jennet was forced to give the child to her sister to raise.  Jennet could finally no longer stand to be away from her son and came to Eel Marsh House.  One day, while Jennet was standing at the window she watched in horror as her son, his nursemaid and the driver of the trap and pony lost their way in the mists and were instantly sucked down and drowned in the marsh.  These are the screams Mr. Kipp kept hearing in the marsh.  Jennet died 12 years after her son, bitter, angry and blaming everybody for her sons death, haunting the town many years after her demise.  After some more terror, Mr. Kipp is brought to his friends house to recover.  It is here that Mr. Kipp learns the horrifying aftermath to the story.  Apparently every time the Woman in Black is sighted, a child dies a horrible death.  Mr. Kipp goes back to London to try and forget the terror of his trip.  He marries Stella and they have a son.  One day Mr. Kipp, his wife and infant son are at a fair.  Stella takes their son on a carriage ride while Mr. Kipp looks on.  As the carriage rounds the corner on its return trip, Mr. Kipp sees the Woman in Black step in front of the carriage, causing it to crash into a tree.  Mr. Kipp's son is killed instantly and Stella is grievously injured.  After 10 months of pain, Stella finally succumbs to her injuries, leaving Mr. Kipp as another victim of the bitter and angry spirit of the Woman in Black.

World Building - The atmosphere created by the author of this book was complete and enabled one to get lost in the moody and damp landscape.  The only real issue I had with the world building was how much of the book was spent describing the environment instead of showing it.  It felt like at least a third of the book was just descriptions of the dank marsh and the spooky, musty house.  While making a complete world, this also had the detrimental side effect of making the first 3/4 of the book a bit boring.  That being said, the setting was pretty perfect for the story.

Story - The actual ghost story part of this book is pretty awesome.  It was a story that was scary on two levels.  One, the story made sense, you could understand why the ghost was so angry and why she got revenge the way she did.  The second level of scary is that it involved innocent children.  It's bad enough when an adult with resources and reasoning is haunted, but when you involve children the chill factor jumps a ton...at least for me.  As for the rest of the story, again, the first 3/4 of the book was long drawn out set up that made me want to skip pages.  It wasn't until the last quarter of the book where I got super engrossed in the story so...

Characters - The characters where pretty much your average ghost story characters, slightly naive man, haunted villagers unwilling to part with information, the convenient friend, the cold recluse old lady, the angry spirit.  Nothing spectacular.  Nothing bad, just no real character development in anybody other then Mr. Kipp.  It was nice to see that he had overcome his past to a degree and found some happiness instead of letting it destroy him, but other then that pretty run of the mill characterization.

Editing - The combination of having this book be narrated in the first person and wanting this to be a full length book made most of it angsty and boring.  I am torn between blaming the author and blaming the editor for the pacing of this book.  The contrast between the excruciating slow bulk of the book and the amazingly creepy end of the book left me pretty frustrated and wondering how most people got far enough in to appreciate the spectacular last fourth of the story.  I personally feel that this would have been perfect for an under 100 pages story but that's just me.

Ghost Story - Let's get back to the ghost story part of this book for a minute shall we?  I was seriously scared for this part of the book.  After a ton of pages of feeling like I just wanted to put the book down it got really scary very quickly.  I really loved how squirmy and heart in the throat this part of the book made me.  I was in bed and even had a big strong Marine sleeping next to me and I STILL had the covers over my head!  This is what I look for in a good scary story.  Blood and gore don't really do it for me, but a great ghost story gives me all the chills.  I am pretty stoked that after slogging through so much blah, the pay off at least was pretty awesome.

The Movie - I loved the newest movie adaption of this book.  They definitely changed some things, but I felt, especially in movie format that the changes made the story even better.  In fact I liked the movie so much it inspired me to go hunt down other great ghost stories.  I totally got where the book inspired the creepiest parts of the movie, and the Eel Marsh House and surrounding environs were spot on match for the book.  Overall for a movie adaption I would strongly recommend it to anybody who prefers atmosphere and story over blood and gore for their chills.

Cause and Effect - I think the reason the actual ghost story part appeals to me is that it follows my own personal appreciation of cause and effect.  My favorite stories are ones where I can follow a reason for something to happen.  Many times, especially in supernatural tales, a ghost or spirit or monster is malevolent just because it makes the story scarier.  In stories like this, human actions have long term consequences AND the consequences are logical (or a logical as a bitter child killing ghost can be) to the actions that spawned them.  In this story a woman was forced to give up her child then had to watch him die a horrible death.  The consequences are that she now takes children away from their parents...makes sense in a way.  To me this is the potentially scariest thing ever 'cause it means that you have to be responsible for your actions or you or potentially innocent people will suffer for it.

Overall Impression - This is another case of a book I wanted to like a lot more then I did.  It was really excruciating to get through the majority of this book and the awesome chills I got from the last part may or may not make up for it.  In all honesty I will probably just skip to the good part if I ever read this book again.  I recommend it for anybody who has patience...or doesn't mind skipping right to the end.  I am torn because it was almost like reading two books, so I guess I give the first 3/4 of the book a 4 out of sheer boredom and the last 1/4 a 9 'cause it was super awesome...which averages to I don't know...maybe a 6 or 7 unreadable gravestones.  Anyways Happy Reading Everybody!

Fantasy In The City

Hi All, I have just realized how long it's been since I've posted, sorry about that.  To make it up to you, how about a rambling?  Cool.  Now that we are into the best month of the year, I thought I would start us off with some short stories of the urban variety.  A few werewolves and zombies to get this month of awesome started if you will.  The book is The Urban Fantasy Anthology edited by Peter S. Beagle and Joe R. Lansdale.  It was one of my awesome finds at my new used book store.  Shall we get on with it?  Here is a sampling of my favorite stories in the collection.  As always SPOILERS AHEAD!

A Bird That Whistles by Emma Bull - The first story in the collection made me happy right off the bat.  We have a typical urban farie that makes unwordly music meeting up and influencing the life of the young college crowd.  The difference in this story is that instead of your typical human/farie love story, it is actually about an odd sort of friendship between the human musician and the faire one that is not romantic in any way shape or form.  I really enjoyed this different type of fae interaction.

Julie's Unicorn by Peter S. Beagle - A girl with mysterious powers "rescues" a unicorn from a tapestry.  The following adventure shows us what can happen when an ancient mythological creature gets stuck in our modern world.  This feels like a story set in a world that is ongoing, so now I'm gonna try and find the rest of the stories.

A Haunted House of Her Own by Kelley Armstrong - This slightly humorous story features a woman with an inheritance, a potentially haunted B&B, a gruesome murder...and another gruesome murder all culminating in a bit of a twist ending.  I like how this story is set up.  You think it's a potential haunted house story...and it is, just not in the way you think.  Also wifely ghost revenge is the best!

Kitty's Zombie New Year by Carrie Vaughn - A typical New Years party takes a gruesome turn when a woman with a mysterious ailment shows up at the shin-dig.  Our girl Kitty pretty much recognizes this new girl as a zombie of the voodoo slave variety and goes about trying to figure out what happened.  Turns out this poor girls ex boyfriend used a zombie powder he bought on ebay to try and turn his lover into a mindless sex slave, the result of which turns out to be actual zombification.  Perfect for a quick Halloween read.

Boobs by Suzy McKee Charnas - I love this story.  For real, seriously love this story.  Our poor heroine has been dubbed Boobs by her juvenile classmates for her development of...well boobs.  She is humiliated and upset and to make it worse she gets her period for the first time.  Our girl discovers though that instead of her period, she turns into a werewolf...so she has that going for her.  She runs around eating annoying dogs, then moving on to the creep who dubbed her Boobs.  She is now empowered and happy and this story is awesome, seriously go read it.

Gestella by Susan Palwick - So another werewolf story.  This time we have a beautiful European woman by the name of Gestella.  She met an American by the name of Jonathan who essentially tames the young werewolf.  He calls her Stella when she is human and Jessie when she is in wolf form.  He takes her back to the states where she stuns all of his friends.  The problem though is that Stella ages in dog years, seven to one for those who don't know.  As she starts to overtake Jonathan in age, he starts to lose interest and eventually does his worse.  This story is sad and heartbreaking, yet still has some great moments that make it very readable.

The Coldest Girl in Coldtown by Holly Black - This is a short story that I think was the basis for the book.  This story however has different characters and a different story, so that made me happy 'cause I loved the book and this was like a bit of bonus.  It follows a girl who has been bitten and infected and tries to beat it, but eventually purposely succumbs to help save the sister of a friend.  She ends up a permanent resident of Coldtown and starts her own campaign against the infection.  Good times were had by all.

I felt this collection was pretty hit or miss for my own personal taste.  The stories I liked, I really really liked, the rest of them I felt suffered from a bit of esoteric existentialism.  This is a problem I sometimes run into when I read Urban Fantasy stories in their various forms is that the author's can too easily get into the urban angst, or go into borderline nonsensical.  All that being said, I did enjoy a number of the stories here, and am now going to go look up several of these authors to read more, which makes this a very successful book.  I give it 7 out 10 zombiewolfwitchghosts and recommend it to anybody trying to get into the widespread genre that is Urban Fantasy.  Happy Reading Everybody!

Scarey Ghosts

Who's ready for a quick rambling?  Cool, I'm a bit exhuasted after a 48 hour shift, but I think I can manage a quicky on our next October book of scares.  The book is Thirteen Chairs by Dave Shelton and is a collection of short stories threaded together with an underlying thread.  As always SPOILERS AHEAD!

The book starts with a boy Jack going into a spooky old house and opening a door.  What he finds is 13 chairs, on unoccupied and an invitation to sit down.  Jack sits and the stories begin.  Each person around the room tells a scary story, blowing out their candle when finished.  This is normally where I would list my favorite stories, but they are all only between 5 and 10 pages long, so not really worth summarizing.  Each story is prefaced with conversation and a bit of back ground by each person telling the story, and each story is different and scary.  The second to last story is told by Mr. Osterley who tells his own story.  Turns out he was a mortician in life and when he died continued to help the dead.  Jack is then invited to tell a story and he decides to tell his own as well.  He tells the other story tellers that he knows that they are dead, and that they tell each other scary stories to feel that thrill of fear they felt when they were alive.  He then goes on to describe to them from a living boy's perspective how scared he felt with each story, giving the ghosts a taste of life.  The book ends with a girl headed towards the house after hearing about it from a boy named Jack.

I told you this would be quick teeheehee.  The book was pretty good, the stories were varied enough to keep my interest and the illustrations that went with each one were pretty cool.  I guessed pretty quickly that the story tellers were dead, but I wasn't sure about Jack until about half way through.  The only real issue I had was that I wanted the thread linking them all together to be different...more of a story instead of just a bunch of ghosts trying to scare each other.  The book itself looks spookier then it is (it was a complete impulse buy because of it's awesomely all black cover), but does its job as a ghost story book.  Overall not much to say about it, it is what it is, and it works just fine.  I give it 7 out 10 chairs and recommend it to anybody who wants a quick read, some good ghost stories or a really cool looking book to display around Halloween.  Happy Reading Everybody!

Hitchhiking Ghost

Usually I like to save my ghosts stories for Halloween, but sometimes, a ghost story falls into the campfire ghost story category and therefore must be read in the summer/camping season.  Sparrow Hill Road by Seanan McGuire is just such a book and thus has been read in heat of summer.  How did I like it?  I'll tell you, but first, as always SPOILERS AHEAD!

I'm gonna try and get back go shorter synopsis 'cause if you want that many details, I'm gonna assume your gonna go read the book.  Rose Marshall is dead and has been dead since 1952.  Her manner of death (car accident) has led to her becoming a hitchhiking ghost. She is able to gain a measure of "life" if a person voluntarily gives her the equivalent of a jacket and she is able to use/taste/feel, anything given to her willingly.  She travels the dayside world thumbing for rides and either helping people avoid accidents, or when unavoidable, she helps guide people where they need to be after they die (almost always in a car accident).  When she isn't dayside, she inhabits the twilight side of life/death, hanging out with her bean sidhe friend Emma (who can act as a human to let her taste food) at the Last Dance Diner.  We learn that Rose was killed when she was run off the road by a man by the name of Bobby Cross. Bobby Cross made a deal at the crossroads which allows him eternal youth as long as he feeds his cars souls that he can take as long as they fit certain criteria (I never understood exactly who he could and couldn't take).  Rose's spirit got away from him and now she spends her time avoiding him and hitchhiking.  Since she has been doing the hitchhiking ghost thing for so long and all around the country, several legends have grown up around her, she is called The Girl in the Diner, the Phantom Prom Date, or the girl in the Green Silk Gown.  Most of the book is little snippets and stories of her time in the dayside, interspersed with her battle (or lack of) with Bobby Cross.  The book ends with Rose challenging Bobby for her friend Emma's life, which she wins, with the understanding that he can keep chasing her.  Rose gets Emma back to the Last Chance Diner and she end by telling us she will continue hitchhiking on the dayside.

Let's start with the good.  I liked the stories of Rose's time hitchhiking the best.  I enjoyed the different people and situations she encountered and I liked how she had to work within the confines of the rules of her ghosthood, and how she also used them to her advantage.  I liked how the various stories and legends about her death and subsequent hauntings/appearances grew and changed and spread.  The vibe was neat as well as it was very North American road inspired...almost like a cross country road trip with a ghost.  I always like it when North America gets it own shot at making mythical history.  On to what I didn't like so much.  The overall vibe of the ghost world was a weird mix of confusing and complicated, and overly angsty.  The book was written in first person, which we all know is not my favorite, and this is an example of why.  I felt (and this is strictly my opinion) that we got stuck in Rose's head way to much as she would wax philosophical about life, death and the afterworld.   It got very repetitive, using the exact same phrases over and over.  It's possible that since the book was broken up into different time period snippets that the author was trying to create the feeling of being in that moment, and that other moments were being written at different times, but to me the result was a lot of repetition that wasn't needed.  Rose would also allude to other types of ghosts, and types of living that touched to varying degrees into the twilight...but we never really got a whole lot of solid info on these beings.  Take routewitches for example.  They play a pretty significant role in this story, but I never really got a clear picture into who or what they were, what there actual role (other then moving the story along) was, or what the rules for their existence was.  Overall it made for a bit of an uneven read that I would have liked better if it had either stuck with mostly "ghost" stories, or a more cohesive world.  I give the book 6 out of 10 malted milkshakes and would recommend it to people who like a good ghost story with heart. Happy Reading Everybody!
What type of ghost would you be?  How far would you go to obtain eternal life?  Is it bad that the idea of being able to change my clothes at will makes it almost cool to be a ghost>

Schizophrenic Writing Of The Dead

In case you all haven't noticed, I love atmosphere.  I love to read just the right book, at the right time, in the right place, for the right mood and no month is more atmospheric then October.  To this end I picked up the book Death Watch by Ari Berk because both the cover and the description sounded perfect for a dreary October afternoon.  Unfortunately a lack of focus made this book less then it should have been, but first as always SPOILERS AHEAD!

I will do my best with this synopsis, but I have to warn you that this book was all over the place.  As best as I can tell there is a town called Lichport that has some sort of deal where the dead wander all over the place in various forms.  We get zombie like creatures, ghosts, ghouls and people who just refuse to be dead.  Enter the Umbers, an old family from Lichport who take on the role of Undertaker, who's job it is...well...I'm still not 100% sure what their job is.  I think an Undertaker is their mostly to help the dead along, fix troublesome dead people, and chit chat with the dead who hang around and are helpful.  The story part comes in when we meet Sila Umber, a teenage boy who just recently graduated from high school.  Silas is an odd duck, there is no real reason given, other
then he is weird.  Silas's mother has done her best to force his father to appear to lead a normal life.  The family lives in Saltbridge, a town close to Lichport.  Silas's mother insists that no word about his fathers real work be told to him, and Lichport is rarely mentioned in their home.  One day Silas's father does not come home.  Silas's mother does her best to keep things normal, but her excessive drinking and inability to understand her son makes her mean.  They move back to Lichport to live with Silas's rich Uncle (who is brother to his father) and right away he senses something is wrong.  He eventually discovers the house that his father worked out of while he was in Lichport and is given the keys and free reign to it by Mrs. Bowe a woman who helps the Undertaker with his ambiguous work. Silas finds a watch in his father's belongings that when stopped allows him to see the dead in their spirit forms.  The watch is called a Death Watch and is one of a zillion partially explained artifact that an Undertaker can use in his work.  About 37 different storylines appear and disappear through out the book.  In the end I guess part of what happened was that Silas's Uncle had a son who died and he has spent the last couple of years killing people to try and appease his ghost, including his wife, and Silas's dad.  He wanted to figure out a way to keep Silas with him, thinking that giving his ghost kid a "brother" would some how make him happy.  Uncle is chased out by assorted ghosts, ghouls, living, dead, zombies and birds that had something to do with the story and he eventually was trapped aboard a ghost ship of evil people...which also had its own partial storyline.  Silas takes up his dad's work and there are two more books to confuse us with.

This book took me forever to get through. It was long, meandering, and never really went anywhere. The overwhelming feel of the book was that the author had all of these ideas and stories and really wanted to get every single one of them into the book.  He also seemed to want to get every type of death ritual ever performed in the whole entire world a bit of spotlight.  All of this combined with the feel that the author was trying to keep us in suspense through out the whole book made it fell very muddy and boggy.  All of this could have actually worked if his editors had made him flow the story a little more.  I think the main story needed fleshing out and to flow beginning to end, with the rites and stories put in as vignettes or prefaces to the different chapters.  Instead it was all mixed together until you could not tell if what you were reading was part of the story, or a separate story, or if they had anything to do with each other at all.  These little mini-stories were not even kept together, even these were broken into pieces and scattered through out the other stories, so I spent a lot of time trying to piece everything together, with no real pay-off.  The town of Lichport itself caused me a lot of problems.  I think the author was trying to make the town its own character, which I have seen

done very well before so it is possible.  Unfortunately the town did not make a whole lot of sense.  It also suffered from way too much going on.  In some places old houses were inhabited by zombies that were not zombies, other places had crumbled into ghoulish unsafe place, there are random ghosts, some friendly some not, there are marshes that are haunted by mother/bird combo's, a pond that has a very frisky ghost that may or may not have anything to do with the story, there are random undefined beings that are helpful sometimes...or not.  There are also a very few living people who all except Uncle are keen to help Silas in his undefined work.  There are no rules at all for this town, there is random tidbits of history, but nothing to actually tell us what the heck is going on.  You also get the feeling that the undead WAY outnumber the living, and that the living are all leaving at some point anyways...which makes me ask what you need an Undertaker for if you are all on your way out?    The most frustrating thing about this book is that it could have been really cool and perfect for Halloween/Fall.   If the author had done better organizing the various stories, maybe added an appendixes for the parts that were not easily explainable in prose, and limited his stories to a few well told ones, instead of a zillion fragments I think it could have been a great book.  Alas as it stands this book is a great idea, but way to scattered and nebulous to be read with any real enjoyment.  I will have to give this book 5 out of 10 honey preserved bodies.  I do however seem to be in the minority as I know there have been several glowing reviews, which is awesome.  This is the best thing about books, I can think one thing, you can think another and we all get to decide for ourselves, YAY BOOKS!
What makes or breaks a book for you?  Is there such thing as too many stories?  Am I just not smart enough for this book?

Ghosts and Pumpkins

I have been inspired by my own blog to make myself some spooky literary decorations.

It's a little hard to tell from my amature photography, but I made these out of heavy card stock that I had printed lines and lines of my favorite book quotes.  I have to say I am quit proud of my artistic prowess and may quit my job to sit around making arts and crafts out of quote paper :-)  Happy Reading Everybody!

Ghostly Reading

October is the best month of the year and anybody who does not agree is wrong :-)  One of the best things about October is that it is the month of spooky reading.  This year is the year of the scary story, you know the ones you used to read when you were little and even though you won't admitt it to anybody they still scare you a bit.  There are a couple full length books tossed in for good measure, just to round things out.  Here is a list of books I'm gonna try and get through in the next month.

Uncle Montague's Tales of Terror

Horror Stories to Tell in the Dark

Stories from the Twilight Zone

The Ghost Writer

Blackout

Death Watch

The Girl Who Soared Over Fairyland and Cut the Moon in Two

I realize that this is quit an ambitious list...and I will probably add more to it as I discover new stories...but what is life without a little challange.  Now I am going to go pack my books, find a tree with changing leaves and read my little brains out.  Happy Reading Everybody!

Smells Like Peaches

I have been saving The Peach Keeper by Sarah Addison Allen for the perfect rural summer day.  I have found the books by Ms. Addison tend to be very atmospheric and I always forget to bring a summer book with me to the farm so this one seemed to be a perfect match.  I have mixed feelings about this book, but first, as always SPOILERS AHEAD!

In Walls of Water North Carolina, socialite Paxton Osgood has finally finished refurbishing the old Blue Ridge Madam.  A manor house built and then lost by the Jackson family.  Paxton plans on using the manor to host the 75th anniversary gala commemorating the formation of the Women's Society Club by Paxton's grandmother, Agatha and her friend Georgie, who is the grandmother of Willa Jackson, another Wall of Water resident.  Strange little things start happening throughout the town, culminating in the discovery of a skeleton buried beneath a peach tree in the manor yard.  Willa and Paxton, who were never friends in high school, form a friendship to discover the truth behind the skeleton.  Meanwhile, Paxton's brother Colin comes home for an extended visit to help Paxton with the renovations and falls in love with Willa.  Sebastian, a guy with a mysterious air has returned as the town dentist and befriended Paxton.  This is a bit of a problem when Paxton ends up falling in love with him, even though she assumes he is gay from a past encounter.  Things and stuff happen and the partial truth of the skeleton is revealed.  Back before the Jackson's lost the manor, a travelling salesmen by the name of Tucker Devlin came and charmed the whole town, ripping friendships apart and promising everybody the world.  He eventually moved into the Blue Ridge Madame on the premise that he would help Mr. Jackson plant a peach orchard (even though they do not grow at that altitude) and reverse his fortunes.  While living there he raped Willa's grandmother, Georgie several times, resulting in her pregnancy and Georgie smashing him upside the head with a frying pan.  When Georgie turned to Paxton's grandmother Agatha for help, they buried Tucker under the lone peach tree he had planted and formed the Women's Society Club to help each other and other women in town that may need a shoulder to lean on.  Back in the present Paxton resigns as president of the club, stating that she feels it has gotten to far away from its roots.  Willa and Colin come to an understanding about their living situation and reconcile their past with their present and future.  Sebastian turns out to be not gay and him and Paxton hook up.  Agatha and Georgie continue to keep their secrets and the peach smelling ghost of Tucker Devlin is finally laid to rest.

I have to admit, I like this authors other books more then I did this one.  The other books seemed to have a more defined magic touch to them, where this one only had the nebulous ghost, and I missed the magic.  The author did set the feel of the town beautifully, the atmosphere being everything it should be.  The best part of the book, I thought was the history of the town itself.  It's origins as a logging town, it's economic decline when the government turned the forest into a protected national park, the evolution of the town into a tourist spot, all culminated in a believable history.  I also liked how the story focused on friendships as being so important, especially between women.  When Paxton and Willa become friends through a shared experience, like their grandmothers before them, I cheered.  Both friendships were great examples of why women can take over the world if we quit being so petty and fought together.  I also liked the idea that people can change as they grow.  Sometimes a person who can't wait to leave a place, find that they are happy when they finally return, sometimes not staying is good, sometimes staying is the best thing, and sometimes a person has to do both during their life. The author aslo kept in her trademark magic food, this time in a much smaller form of Rachel, the barista who is trying to figure people out according to their coffee order.  The book tried to show how one's perception of oneself is usually different then other peoples, and that can be both good and bad, I'm not sure it got it across as clearly as the author intended, but the point was still there.  I thought the story of Tucker Devlin was ok, nothing to special or inventive, but it served its purpose. One thing I did not like was the whole is Sebastian gay or not thing.  I understand the author wanted to show how people categorize people, with no real information.  Sebastian was very pretty, and a bit odd, so apparently in this town that makes you gay.  Since he did not fit in anywhere else Sebastian hung out with the gay kids, because they would accept him.  As he became an adult, he just didn't address his sexuality until Paxton conveniently came along, and then he strung her along, causing her much anguish.  Again I understand what the author was trying to do, but it seemed a bit too pat, and a bit too drawn out, and a bit too disingenuous for my personal comfort.  I wanted more of a mystery, or more magic in the book, as that is what I loved about the authors last couple of books, but that is a personal thing.   So that is what I thought of the book.  I give it 6 out of 10 peach smelling ghosts and recommend it if you have read the authors other books, or you are looking for a book about a small town, a mystery and new friendships.
Are you ever disappointed in an authors later book?  How do you feel about straight characters falling in love with gay characters? Do I read way to much into every book I read?

Hauntingly Beautiful Crazy Scary Perfect

Happy Halloween Everybody!  So far I have spent my Halloween week up to my elbows in real gore (seriously why do people feel the need to stab each other at 2am on Halloween, it's way more common then one would think) so I am a bit on the absolute incoherently exhausted side of things, but I really want to talk about this super perfect creepy scary book...which actually goes along perfectly with my state of mind right now.  I had asked for suggestions for a book that would make me sleep with my light on, I wanted a really good scare and I got a ton of recommendations for The Haunting of Hill House by Shirley Jackson and it was everything I wanted it to be and more!  I will start by attempting to summarize it, which might be a bit tough, but I will give it a go as always (SPOILERS AHEAD!)

Eleanor Vance steals her sisters car (which is technically half hers anyways) and sets out to Hill House after receiving an invitation from Dr. Montague, a specialist in the supernatural. Eleanor's sister does not want her to go, but seems more concerned over the lack of car and controlling her sister then she does anything else.  So Eleanor steals the car and heads off to Hill House this is her story.  She drives through the countryside, head full of all kinds of thoughts and stories, each inspired by a sight she sees on her drive; a pair of stone lions, a path lined with Oleanders. She arrives at Hill House and is greeted by Mr. Dudley the scary gate keeper who tries to scare her away, Eleanor knows she should be more frightened, but is determined to go to the house.  She is let in and when she finally catches site of the house, well this quote sums it up nicely " The house was vile.  She shivered and thought, the words coming freely to her mind, Hill House is vile, it is diseased; get away from here at once." The sheer force of wrongness this house exudes hits her
like a physical blow.  She is still determined to follow this adventure through and finally ends up inside the vile house where she is greeted by Mrs. Dudley the housekeeper/cook.  She is a cold creature, informing Eleanor that she leaves before dark and nobody can hear you scream.  Eleanor meets up with Theodora (no last name) a vivacious, attention seeker, Luke Sanderson the caddish soon to be heir to Hill House, and Dr. Montague who invited them all to the house to experience  the supernatural and record there experiences.  Things are wrong right off the bat, Dr. Montague informs them that all of the angles are off just a slight bit, just enough to disconcert a person.  The history of the house is told, and while not horrific, it is not a happy one.  The doors don't stay open, windows and curtains close of there own accord, there are rooms within rooms making it impossible to not get lost, all kinds of crazy stuff.  The first night they are all together the Dr. makes a point to tell them to never go anywhere alone, to always have somebody with them.  He can't tell them why it just is so.  Eventually the house starts to go crazy...or the people inside the house start, I can not do the terror justice, trust me you just have to read it to really get the effect.  This story is about Eleanor and it is inside her mind we dwell the most.  She seems to vacillate between sheer terror and an odd need to accept the insanity.  At one point the phrase "Help Eleanor Come Home" is painted in what appears to be blood at different spots in the house.  Eleanor is jokingly (kind of) accused of painting it herself to get attention, something she adamantly denies.  There seem to be big chunks of time missing, not in a confusing manner per se, more in a Eleanor is living inside her head for bits and pieces of time.  I am not doing a very good job explaining this, needless to say it is very cerebral at this point.  The big thing is that the group as a whole is experiencing certain things, while Eleanor is also experiencing something more personal.  This all culminates one night with
Eleanor (who has been acting more and more erratic) climbing up a very dangerous and rickety staircase, claiming she has surrendered to the house and is now one with it.  She is brought down safely by Luke, and the rest of the group decides that it would be best if Eleanor left and went home, forgetting Hill House and all its horrors and getting back to her own life.  Eleanor does not want to leave, she feels like she now belongs to Hill House.  The rest of her group pack her up and even bring her car around.  As she goes to leave she decides that it is not what she wants, what she wants is to stay, so she drives her car as fast as she can straight into a huge tree.  Her last thoughts as she goes hurling into the tree are finally clear and lucid "Why am I doing this? Why am I doing this? Why don't they stop me?" The other three go back to there mundane lives and Hill House continues to stand empty besides the ever present Dudley's dutifully maintaining the estate, as long as they leave before dark.

I cannot even begin to do this little book justice, every word oozes with atmosphere and double meanings.  It is a perfect example of what really scares me, which is the unknown.  For me the scariest thing is the one that is nebulous and undefined.  The horror that could be anything, but is never given actual form or substance is terrifying to me because there is no rational defense against it.  I think the biggest problem supposedly scary books and movies have is that they feel the need to define the fear, which to me instantly makes it defeatable, or at least named, and a named fear is always better then an unnamed one in my book.  This book does this type of scare beautifully, it is the type of fear that you never know if it is real, or imagined or some combination.  The fact that the whole group experiences the same terrors together indicates that it might be a real evil presence, of course the fact that the next morning there is no evidence of the mayhem of the night before, and the group itself feels silly about being scared makes it possible that it may have been group hysteria (think girls scaring themselves silly at a slumber party by sheer suggestion).  There is no doubt that there is something off about the house, but whether it is a presence or that it is just
atmospheric enough to mess with peoples heads is left up to the reader.   Eleanor in particular is very affected by Hill House (which becomes a character itself very early on).  She is the one we follow, her mental state is the one we dwell in as the reader, and she is our main link to the whole madness. Her odd connection to the house partly stems from her hatred of her old life, where she felt used and unwanted.  In this place, as horrifying as it is, she feels a sense of belonging while still being terrorized.  Her little day dreams and imaginings give us a chilling insight into how her life to this point and the house and stories have affected her mental state.  There are things that may lead us to believe that there are really poor spirits in the house who just want Eleanor to stay with them, which to me is one of the best parts of the book...you are never sure.  To me Eleanor's desperate suicide at the end as an attempt to stay at Hill House, coupled with her final thoughts can be read either way, is she possessed by the spirits of the house, doing everything in there power to make her stay, or is she just caught up in the atmosphere, maybe going a little crazy?  Who knows it's chilling either way.  The sheer foreboding of Hill House and it's actual presence almost like a living being is deliciously scary playing on fears anybody who has come home to an empty house has probably felt at some point.  I think in the end the best part of this whole book is the writing, the author manages to pull of amazing feats of horror, sadness, melancholy, hysteria, desperateness, despair and terror in the most eloquent of words.  Reading through the book (which is pretty short, most people should be able to finish it in a couple sittings...if you don't get too scared) the book, like Hill House, does not seem like it should work, it is slightly off, a little not right, a wee bit disturbing and it all comes together in one of the most chilling books I have ever read. I give this book 9 out of 10 haunted houses.  Go read this right now!
A quick note to those of you who have seen the movie The Haunting the 1963 version is hella scary and sticks with the same vibe as the novel.  The 1999 version however turns it into more of a slasher type movie killing off several people and just vaguely using the novel as a reference.  Remember don't judge a book by its movie!
What is the most terrifying thing you can think of?  What is more scary, the unknown or the known fear?  Why do I like to scare myself silly when all it does is result in a lack of sleep?

Living With The Dead

October is my month for reading, every book I have read so far this month has been pretty wonderful and The Graveyard Book by Neil Gaiman and illustrated by Dave McKean is no exception.  I have to admit, I was a tad bit anxious when starting this book because while I love Mr. Gaiman's graphic novels and short stories, his full length novels usually are not my favorite.  But the premise of this one sounded interesting, and it was in both the kids section and the adult section so I thought I would give it a go, and boy am I glad I did.  As always SPOILERS AHEAD!

A man makes his way through a house in England, killing a mother, father and sister, he has only one victim left, the baby. The baby however is a curious sort and took advantage of the door left open by the killer to crawl to a little graveyard near his house where he is adopted by a pair of ghosts (Mr. and Mrs. Owens) and promised to be looked after by a not dead, yet not alive being by the name of Silas.  This is how Nobody Owens (called Bod) came to live in a graveyard and be raised by ghosts.  We follow Bod as he grows from a baby to a young boy, making friends with the other ghosts and sleeping in the cozy tomb of his adopted parents.  As Bod grows a bit older he befriends Scarlett a little girl who sometimes plays in the graveyard
(which has been turned into a historical nature preserve).  He takes the girl to a very ancient tomb deep under ground and becomes acquainted with the Sleer, an ancient guardian who uses fear to protect his treasures and awaits a new master.  Scarlett eventually moves away and Bod is given a living tutor by the name of Ms. Lupescu, while Silas is out on a secret mission.  Bod is not thrilled with the lessons he receives from his tutor, which include calling for help in every language imaginable. Feeling upset Bod is lured through a ghoul stone and taken to be made into a ghoul.  Lucky for him he is rescued by a huge grey dog, which just happens to be Ms. Lupescu.  This bonds the two and Bod is more willing to learn from her.  As Bod grows, he realizes that he needs to learn more and asks to be let out of the graveyard to go to school.  Silas is very against this, as they cannot protect Bod if he is not in the graveyard.  Bod is then told of the man who killed his family, and has vowed to kill Bod.  Bod uses this knowledge to get Silas to allow him to go to school so he can be prepared to meet the killer (who is called Jack) when the time comes.  Bod slips into school and uses his graveyard skills of Fade to remain largely unnoticed, until he helps out a couple of kids who are being bullied.  After a narrow escape from the police, Bod agrees to not go back to the school, but rather get his learning from, libraries and other sources.  Scarlett moves back into the area and meets up with Bod again.  She also befriends a gentleman by the name of Mr. Frost who is interested in the history of the graveyard.  Meanwhile, Silas and some of his friends have gone off on another mission, losing compatriots along the way, but eventually succeeding at the cost of all but Silas. Back at the graveyard we find out the Mr. Frost is actually the killer Jack, who belongs to a secret society who perform evil deeds to increase there power.  The reason they are after Bod is that it was prophesied that a boy from that family would be the groups demise, and killing the rest of the family was just for evil fun.  Bod enlists the help of his ghost friends and Scarlett and traps all of the men who are after him.  This effectively ends the secret society of evil as Silas and his crew have been traveling the world eliminating all of the other members.  Scarlett is pretty messed up over the whole deal and Silas erases her memories of the graveyard and sends her home. After some time has passed Bod realizes that it is getting harder to live in the graveyard, he cannot touch or even speak to all of his friends and he is getting restless.  Silas tells him now that the danger is passed it is time for Bod to rejoin the living.  The story ends with Bod bidding his ghost family fair well and setting out to live his life.

I think part of the appeal of this book is that I started it right after visiting that amazing grave yard in Pennsylvania, so I already had the perfect setting in my head. From there this book just burrowed into my head and lived there very happily.  This book is the perfect mix of story, characters, and just enough spooky to make it perfect dark and stormy night reading.  I loved watching Bod grow up in this unusual environment, seeing the challenges of raising a living child among the dead and how they overcame them was pretty cool. The various creatures and inhabitants of this graveyard all lent character, humor, and sometimes a bit of
sadness to the whole story, really giving it some depth.  The ghouls in particular where my favorite, there macabre sense of humor, the obvious crazyness, and just the sheer weirdness of their own little realm really popped for me, I kind of picture them a bit like the Lonesome Ghosts.  A lot of my love for this book comes from the acceptance of the ghosts of this little living child, and the sheer normalcy for Bod growing up in this strange place.  The illustrations add some great atmosphere, kind of giving you a glimpse of what the story looks like, while not robbing your imagination of filling in the gaps.  I seriously want to go to every graveyard I can find now and see what stories I can piece together from the tombs, headstones, crypts and general atmosphere.  The only criticism I would have is the reason for the killer chasing Bod down so relentlessly, for being the whole reason for Bod's growing up in a graveyard I thought it was glossed over pretty quickly with a pat answer and very little detail.  That being said the story was more about Bod and his everyday life and less about constant action and danger. Overall I very much enjoyed this book, and it will probably get reread and will most definitely be given to the nephews when they are a little older.  I give it 8 our of 10 ghoul stones.

What is your favorite kind of ghost story? Does visiting certain places make reading books set there better, or do you prefer to leave it all to your own imagination?  Is it creepy that I want to go live in a graveyard for a little while?

Creepy Dolls

Finally the weather is starting to cooperate, we had a week that was in the 90's which completely disrupted my reading schedule.  Yesterday however we had a nice gigantic storm that has dropped the temps to fall levels and now the leaves are finally starting to turn.  In celebration of this wondrous event I shall ramble about a bit of a ghost story I recently finished.  Doll Bones by Holly Black.  I usually prefer this authors MG stuff to her YA stuff so I had high hopes for this one, plus creepy dolls are awesome.  As always SPOILERS AHEAD

Three 12 year old friends Zach, Poppy and Alice have an extensive imaginary game that they all play together.  They use customized action figures, scenes built from stuff they find and of course their own imaginations.  They have been playing the game for years and it is the focus of their friendship.  At this point in time the central figure in the game is an old doll that Poppy's mother keeps locked in a cabinet, hoping to sell it to an antique dealer some day. The kids call her the Queen and imagine she is locked in the cabinet under a curse.  We learn a bit about our trio.  Zach has recently joined the basketball team and is excelling at it, his favorite character to play is William the Blade, a pirate with unknown parentage.  His father who left three years ago has recently come back and the three of them (Mom, Dad, and Zach) are trying to adjust to being a family again.  Alice lost her parents when she was young and is being raised by her super strict grandmother.  Her main character in the game is Lady Jaye a thief who is as wild and impetuous as Alice is careful and thoughtful.  Alice lives in fear of her grandmother taking away the things she loves, being in school plays and hanging out with her friends being chief among them.  Poppy is one of several siblings, all of whom (besides Poppy) have a hoodlum like reputation that they delight in perpetrating. Poppy tends to play the villains and is able to keep the story going better then anybody.  Of the three she is most attached to the

game.  Zach comes home from school one day and finds his back of action figures he uses to play the game missing.  Turns out his father was concerned that he was not focusing enough on his basketball and that he might get teased in school, so he threw them out.  Of course this sends Zach into a bit of a tailspin, ultimately deciding to never play the game again.  He harshly tells Alice and Poppy that he is to old to be playing it anymore.  Alice accepts it sadly, but resigned.  Poppy however does not accept it and bugs Zach about it incessantly.  Finally late one night Zach gets talked into meeting with Poppy and Alice outside.  Poppy produces the Queen doll and proceeds to tell the other two that she had a dream/vision that a girl named Eleanor came to her and told her that the doll they call The Queen is actually made from her body.  She said she had died and her father so overcome with grief could not let her go and made a clay from her bones to make the doll, used her hair for the dolls hair, and then placed the remainder of her ashes inside the dolls body.  The ghost girl told Poppy that she couldn't rest until she was buried in her empty grave.  Zach and Alice are both skeptical, but are finally convinced to go on an a quest to bury the doll.  They board a bus in the middle of the night and are a little confused when people continually refer to the four of them, and their quiet blond friend.  At first they thing people are referring to the doll which Poppy has taken to carrying around like a baby, but it becomes more obvious that people really think there is a fourth member of the party.  The original plan was to be back before dark the next day so Alice would not be in trouble, but like all good adventures that quickly becomes impossible.  Many adventures follow including, pop rock donuts, a stolen sailboat and a night in a library.  Zach starts having dreams about the ghost girl along with Poppy and while it is never 100% explained it seems that after her mother died Eleanor's strict Aunt came to help raise her.  She never let her play with the dolls her father made her, and continually tried to mold the girl into a proper young lady.  For some reason Eleanor ended up being chased to the roof of her house where she fell
to her death.  Zach, Alice and Poppy have many fights and find out that adventuring in real life is not at all like it is in the stories (where they never seem to have to take a bathroom break).  Eventually they are able to complete their quest and bury the doll in her proper grave.  The adventure gives them a new game to play, on that is more verbal and story based and less play based, a more grown up version if you will.
Ok so I obviously glossed over a lot of detail in the synopsis, but you should go read it for your self anyways.  I wasn't sure what to expect when I started reading this book.  I had read a couple good reviews on it so I was hopeful.  Over all I really really liked it and kind of want to give it to every 12 year old I know. Best parts-I loved the friendship between the three kids.  With each one coming from a different family dynamic, there interplay obviously helped to fill holes in each others lives.  The anger Poppy felt when Zach seemingly callously quit the game was indicative of the deep hurt she felt, not so much about the game, but Zach's dismissal of it.  Alice was a great character because unlike fierce Poppy and leader Zach who were constantly vying for control (even if it was mostly subconscious) she had to be the peace maker, the one who always had to try and balance everybody else, her friends, her family, her freedoms vs restrictions.  Her life was balanced so that she could do what she loved, while trying to not give her grandmother a reason to take it away from her.  When Zach and especially Poppy seem to disregard this when it came to the quest, Alice finally explodes, and it is glorious.  I always have a soft spot in my heart for kids who try and do the right thing and get teased for it, especially now when being "bad" is the cool thing.  Poppy's comments about the other two growing up and leaving her behind is a great look at how every kid, every person grows at their own pace, and sometimes that causes problems.  And of course they explore the whole what does it mean to grow up, when should a kid have to grow up, why is imagination and play reserved only for the very young?  All kinds of great thinking things in this book.  The only real down side was I wanted it to be a bit creepier, the cover promised a creepy ghost story on which it only partly
delivered.  There were moments, but the focus was so much on the friendship, that the ghost story was like tertiary to the other storylines.  I wanted the actual story of our little ghost girl to more fleshed out as well, the reasoning behind her being so angry was mushy at best, leaving me unconvinced that she was all that bad.  Of course part of that may have been to keep some ambiguity on weather it was really a ghost story, or a shared imaginary story between the kids.  Overall it was a great read, it had an old school adventure story feel, like the books I used to read when I was in middle school which was pretty awesome.  I would recommend it to anybody who likes friendship adventures, not to scary ghost stories, and does not have a phobia of creepy dolls :-)  I would seriously recommend it to any middle schooler especially because I think as readable for us adults as it is, it would very much speak to a person of that age group.  I give it 8 our of 10 creepy dolls.
For an added bonus check out this great creepy doll post over on Epbot funny, creepy and just awesome!
What creeps you out?  Do you like your scary books sleep with the lights on scary or just need an extra stuffed teddy scary?  Do you ever have the urge to put a super creepy figure on somebodies pillow?

Birds Of A Feather

One of the books I finished during The Best Weekend EVER! was one that had been on my TBR pile for awhile.  The Aviary by Kathleen O'Dell was one I had bought last summer and wanted to save for a literal rainy day,  I then put it on my overstuffed book shelf and promptly forgot about it until Hubbin found it and asked me what it was.  His finding it was perfect timing to start my fall reading so off I went.  As always SPOILERS AHEAD!

The Aviary is about Clara Dooley a 12 year old girl who has spent her life in the old Glendoveer mansion with only her mother, the cook Ruby and the old widowed Mrs. Glendoveer.  Clara has been told her whole life that she has a heart condition that makes it necessary to stay at the house and avoid any strenuous activity, this has led to Clara spending the vast majority of her life inside the walls of the Glendoveer mansion.  Besides the humans there is a huge aviary full of five different birds.  A myna bird, a cockatoo, a grackle, a kiskadee and a honey creeper .  These birds have been around longer then Clara and her mother have lived at the mansion.  One day when Clara is out tending the birds (even though they frighten her) the myna bird says "Eliott" very clearly.  Clara tells this to Mrs. Glendoveer and is told that Elliot is the name of her

youngest son who was kidnapped when he was a mere 5 months old along with his five older siblings.  Sadly Mrs. Glendoveer dies and leaves the house with a small stipend to Clara's mother and Ruby with the stipulation that they keep it in the family until the end of a set 50 year period, which will be up in a few months.  This change cause Clara's mother and Ruby to run errands outside of the house, leaving Clara completely alone for the first time in her life.  Clara starts exploring the house, discovering a long locked up nursery.  While she is up there she catches sight of a girl on her way home from school.  The next day a note is pushed through the slot of the door asking telling Clara that she had been seen at the window by the little girl the day before (who's name is Daphne) and would like to be her friend.  Clara agrees but has to sneak her friend in for visits because her mother does not want her playing with any outsiders. Daphne is curious about all the mysterious bad juju the house seems to have with the local town folk, Clara being stuck inside the estate has no idea what happened.  At some point there is a huge storm and one of the birds, the small honeycreeper is injured.  Clara takes it inside and nurses it back to health, discovering along the way that it can answer yes or no questions.  Oddly enough the bird likes to dance as well.  Clara snoops around some more and finally figures out what happened to the Glendoveer children.  The nanny had helped to kidnap the children and taken them out on a boat to take them to one of the little islands when a storm came up and sank the ship.  The bodies of the nanny and the five older children were found shortly thereafter.  Nobody knows for sure what happened, but there was nasty speculation that the children's father (a magician) had done it as a stunt to revive his show.

 Eventually Clara discovers that the birds are actually the spirits of the dead children, Mr. Glendoveer had cast a spell to bind them to the bird bodies, stuck until all six children were reunited.  The problem being that the youngest Elliot was never found.  In the almost 50 years since the incident the children have been trapped as birds waiting for there baby brother to release them.  Clara's mother finally figures out everything that she has been doing and gets very upset, Clara finally puts her foot down, asking why she is stuck at home when she feels fine, and why can't she have friends, and why is her mother afraid of her finding the truth about the Glendoveer family?!?  Clara's mother tells her that her father grew up an orphan with a cruel adoptive father.  One day he found cuff links that had belonged to Mr. Glendoveer and was convinced that he was the baby Elliot that had gone missing.  He set of to discover if this was true and dissapeared.  Clara's mother having a young baby and a missing husband went to the mansion to see if he had appeared there, he was not there, but that was when she got the position of live in caretaker.  She kept Clara hidden because she was afraid she might get mixed up with all the badness too. Clara's mother allows Daphne to come over and the girls devise a trap for a hypnotist that worked with Mr. Glendoveer for his show.  The birds have become very conversant with Clara and are able to tell her everything they are able to remember, including how the nanny had "cold eyes" which leads

Clara and Daphne to realize that she had been hypnotized. The Hypnotist (who is quit old now) and his burly bodyguard Mr. Dooley are eventually trapped in the Aviary and confess to everything.  The hypnotist did it because his family had cut him off when he went on stage, turns out he did not need the money as the family took him back eventually.  Mr. Dooley was the thug who was manning the boat during the kidnapping and managed to save baby Elliot, raising him as his own. When Elliot went back to try and find the hidden money the Hypnotist hypnotized him into staying on the island for the last 10 years.  Elliot returns to his childhood home and to his beloved wife and daughter.  The money is recovered, the spirits of the children are set free and it is assumed they all live happily ever after.

Depending on how you read this book, it is either an enduring story of friendship, family and period elegance, or it is a meh mystery with some non spooky ghost elements.  I have read several reviews of this book (after I had finished it of course, didn't want to be influenced ahead of time) and most people seemed to look at it as less a mystery/ghost story and more of a period, Gothic children's story.  I think it works best if thought of in that manner.  The character of Clara is great, the author set up a believable reason for her to be isolated, which gave credibility to her almost complete naivete when it came to the family history.  It made the process of finding things out with her exciting instead of eye-rolling.  Daphne, who may be my favorite character ever is just awesome.  She is spunky and dramatic and reminds me a bit of Anne of Green Gables getting her ideas from books (especially Boys Adventure Magazine).  She is a true friend to Clara with no stupid interruptions from boys or jealousy or any annoying stuff like that.  The relationship between Clara and her mother is also wonderful and about as realistic as a book with ghosts and spirit bird children can be.  The

birds were a pretty cool addition, kind of creepy and yet not scary.  The setting was awesome, I totally want to go visit this mansion and poke around in all the rooms now. The style was a great throwback/reminiscent of the way books used to be written before they all had to be preachy or super dark or hip, when family and friendship where the most important part of life, and telling a good story is all a book needed.  The mystery itself was not that impressive, I had it all figured out in the first couple of chapters and the biggest mysteries were solved about 2/3 of the way through the book, not leaving a whole lot of tension for a dark and stormy night which I would have preferred given that it had all the elements for a bit more of a good old fashioned ghost story.  Overall it was a great little book, suitable from anybody from the 9 year old range all the through the adult who loves a good period tale.  The story is simple, sweet, fun, and with just enough supernatural to make it a bit spooky but not scary (so no nightmares for you wussypants :-) ). Also this book has one of the coolest covers ever.  I give it 7 out of 10 peacock feathers.
What sort of YA books do you like to read?  What time period is your favorite to read?  What animal would you want your soul to be trapped in for 50 years?