Home » Posts tagged "monsters"

Book Review: Dear Mothman by Robin Gow

It’s the first day of the #TransRightsReadathon, so to start it out right here’s a review of a recent favorite middle-grade novel I really enjoyed. You can’t go wrong with cryptids!

 

cover art for Dear Mothman by Robin Gow

Dear Mothman by Robin Gow.

Harry N. Abrams, 2023

ISBN: 9781419764400

Available: Hardcover

Buy:  Bookshop.org

 

 

This middle grade verse novel dealing with grief, identity, and monstrosity is lyrical and vivid. Sixth graders Lewis and Noah (closeted trans boys) have been best friends for years. Lewis has a great imagination and Noah is pulled along in his wake in exploring all kinds of strange things. In the time just before Lewis was killed in a car crash, he had been obsessed with cryptids, especially Mothman. Noah deals with the loss by writing journal entries to Mothman in a journal he leaves in the woods each night. He wants to believe that Mothman is real even if he can’t see him, and decides to do his science fair project on whether Mothman exists.

 

Noah also begins to make friends with Molly, Hanna, and Alice, and develop feelings for Hanna, while slowly coming out and deciding how much of himself, and Mothman, he wants to share.

 

Although he is outed to his classmates before he’s ready, the people around him accept the news pretty quickly, even if they don’t entirely understand. Unfortunately, they are not as accepting of the existence of Mothman, which leads him to run away to do a solitary search in the woods that changes him, helps him deal with his grief over Lewis, and move forward.

 

Noah is autistic and that comes through clearly and is written with respect and sensitivity, as is the bisexuality of two of the characters.

 

Noah’s grappling with monstrosity, magic, and the unknown isn’t subtle, but Gow gets the kinds of thoughts on paper that you would expect a journal of private thoughts (or written to a cryptid of dubious existence) to contain. In the acknowledgements. Gow credits a childhood fascination with monsters with his ability to understand his own identity. Recommended for grades 5-8.

 

 

Reviewed by Kirsten Kowalewski

 

 

 

 

Posted on March 22, 2024 by , Reply

Book Review: Siren Queen by Nghi Vo

cover art for Siren Queen by Nghi Vo

 

Siren Queen by Nghi Vo

Tor.com, 2022

ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-1250788832

Available: Hardcover, paperback, library binding, KIndle edition, audiobook

Buy:    Bookshop.org  | Amazon.com

 

 

This is not so much a horror novel as it is an homage to classic monster movies and a critique of golden-age Hollywood. Readers looking for blood and gore will not find it here. What they will find is a dark, beautifully written warning about the dangers of ambition. Told in first person by the protagonist, the story reads like a memoir.

 

CK is a Chinese-American girl obsessed with acting in the movies, at the beginnings of the talkies. She is working bit parts for children off the books for a director at Wolfe Studios, who wants to present her as his new discovery once she turns 18. CK is impatient and tracks down a retired actress who gives her information that will get her an audience, and a contract, with Oberlin Wolfe, using blackmail photos. Due to this leverage she is able to demand that she not be cast in stereotypical roles for Asian women (an issue faced by real-life Chinese-American actress Anna May Wong in this time period).. She takes the stage name Luli Wei, a name that happens to also be her sister’s.

 

Getting a studio contract is similar to making a bargain with faeries. In exchange for fame and fortune, the studio owner controls your life (this is a fairly accurate description of the Hollywood studio system at the time, even without faeries’ involvement). There’s even a version of Tam Lin that takes place within the story.

 

Directors don’t know how to cast CK since she can’t be cast in stereotypical roles, but finally she is cast as a monster, the Siren Queen, and the movie and its sequels are blockbuster hits. Despite her ability to cause scandal and her defiance, the studio can’t get rid of her. CK has a lesbian romance with rising star Emmaline Sauvignon which the studio ends because it interferes with their narrative of the kind of person Emmaline is supposed to be. Later, she gets involved with a scriptwriter hired to do edits on the script of the last Siren Queen movie.

 

Despite knowing her contract would eventually have negative consequences for her, I couldn’t help loving CK for her ambition and refusal to let studio officials and directors walk on her, and for her own love of playing the role of a vengeful monster and loving it. The classic monster movies are clearly an inspiration to the author, and the critique of racist stereotypes and queer erasure in casting at that time is something I am glad to see brought to the attention of modern readers. Highly recommended.

 

 

Reviewed by Kirsten Kowalewski

Posted on March 7, 2024 by , Reply

Book Review: Monster Club by Darren Arnofsky and Ari Handel

Monster  Club by Darren Aronofsky and Ari Handel

HarperCollins, 2022

ISBN: 9780063136632

Available: Hardcover, paperback, Kindle edition

Buy:  Bookshop.org  |  Amazon.com

 

If you’ve seen The Wrestler, Black Swan, or The Whale, you know Darren Aronofsky is a serious director who directs serious films.  Who knew that he and Ari Handel could write such a seriously fun kid’s book?  A loving tribute to the nerdy, role-playing gamers who still hide amongst the ‘cool’ students in junior high schools across the country, it’s impossible to dislike Monster Club.  It has it all: cool, comic-book styled monsters, light, frothy action that’s its easy to enjoy and laugh along with, and of course, the nerdy kid gets the girl!

 

Set against the backdrop of the famed Coney Island boardwalk, Eric “Doodles” King and his junior high pals, who go by the nicknames of Yoo-hoo, Smash, Hollywood, and Beanie, spend their time outside of school playing Monster Club, an RPG game they designed themselves, a cross between Dungeons and Dragons and pro wrestling. Their characters consist of monster drawings created by the players, each with hit points and attack skills, using some dice and a spinner from the old boardgame LIFE to determine their actions as the characters battle it out for superiority. 

 

Fortune strikes in the form of a Sharpie with magic ink, which allows Eric to draw characters that come to life off the page.  Can he use this gift to help save his dad’s carnival, which is threatened by land developers?  

 

The story sells itself with the characters and breezy, happy nature of the writing. It’s easy to root and relate to the Monster Clubbers since we all knew kids like them when we were kids, charming in their goofiness. Brainy Beanie is a member of a club that designs drones and Smash tends to crash her skateboard, often into lockers.  Of course, they get picked on by the big kids, and can’t play sports worth a damn.  The story picks up the pace and shifts into the crazy fun section when the Sharpie falls into the wrong hands, allowing for creatures such as Noodle Monsters and Crumple Noodle.  The last quarter of the book is insane fun,  reminiscent of the movie Gremlins.  You knew that the gremlins were bad and were wrecking the town, yet you had to laugh at how they did it, thanks to the presentation.  It’s the same with the Noodle Monsters as they go wild on Coney Island.

 

However, the Monster Club creations of Brickman, BellyBeast, Robokillz and their ilk stand ready to do battle and save Coney Island.  The fights themselves are some of the best parts.  They aren’t bloody, they are fun, Gremlins-style.  BellyBeast picks his nose and sticks it in Brickman’s ear, while Brickman himself dishes out some pretty mean ball-shots with his cannonball on a chain to neighborhood bullies.  Readers will be enthusiastically cheering on the good guys in their quest to smash those evil Noodle Monsters and save the carnival.

 

Bottom line here: this is lighthearted fun with a lot of bounce to it, and it’s one all readers of this site would enjoy.  It’s oriented towards the middle grade/early teen crowd, but it’s plenty of fun for adults too, especially those who grew up like the main characters, they will see themselves in the story.  Recommended.

 

Reviewed by Murray Samuelson

Posted on September 13, 2023 by , Reply
12345 » Last