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<\/a><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n( Amazon.com<\/a> | Subterranean Press limited edition hardcover <\/a> | Subterranean Press ebook edition<\/a> )<\/p>\n\n\n\n Dying With Her Cheer Pants On: Stories of the Fighting Pumpkins <\/em>by Seanan McGuire<\/p>\n\n\n\n Subterranean Press, 2020<\/p>\n\n\n\n ISBN-13 : 978-1596069978<\/p>\n\n\n\n Available: Direct from Subterranean Press (limited edition hardcover, ebook edition), and Kindle edition<\/p>\n\n\n\n Into every high school class a cheerleading squad must come to fight against the forces of darkness: aliens, mud monsters, and eldritch creatures. Squads that don\u2019t survive until graduation are forgotten, and a mysterious force chooses a new cheer captain to recruit a new squad. This tight-knit group of cheerleaders, who may or may not be supernatural themselves, are the Fighting Pumpkins of Johnson\u2019s Crossing, California. These are their stories.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The stories have been published over time, in different places: I first encountered them in the story \u201cAway Game\u201d, a clever, if predictable, story that appears in A Secret Guide to Fighting Elder Gods<\/em>, edited by Jennifer Brozek, and have been seeking out their stories since then. I\u2019m so glad they have now been collected together. Originally a limited edition published by Subterranean Press, the collection is now available as an ebook.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Because there have been many cheerleading squads over a long period of time, the stories can be set in a variety of time periods, with different characters. While the majority of the Fighting Pumpkins stories are linked stories about the same varsity squad, with half-vampire cheer captain Jude, squad historian Colleen, Laurie, who has a command voice, supernaturally strong Marti, and undead Heather, a few take place in other time periods and with other squads, such as the titular \u201cDying With Her Cheer Pants On\u201d, in which the team dies calling Bloody Mary from a mirror during an alien invasion to exterminate the aliens, and \u201cSwitchblade Smile\u201d, which features Jude\u2019s mother Andrea, a vampire, as a cheerleader in the 1930s.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Character development is strong, and there is a lot of humor (how can there not be with a team called the Fighting Pumpkins?). McGuire draws from a kitchen-sink universe where any creature of the imagination can be real, and remixes tropes to create her stories, but the sisterhood of the girls on the cheer squad is what makes the stories of the Fighting Pumpkins really enjoyable. Although a story might center on a specific character, these stories aren\u2019t about a single individual or chosen one bound to save the world on her own. The girls are a team, and they stick together even when things are scary, or dangerous, or one of them turns out to be a monster. Two related stories that involve cheerleader Heather Monroe stood out as favorites, \u201cGimme a Z\u201d, in which she rises from the grave and defends her sister Pumpkins from an undead mob, and \u201cTurn the World Around\u201d, an often poetic story in which she helps a girl who mysteriously shows up in a Fighting Pumpkins uniform make a life-and-death decision that will affect the entire community. \u201cSchool Colors\u201d covers a cheerleading competition between the Fighting Pumpkins and an alien cheerleading squad that could decide the fate of the planet.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The stories of the Fighting Pumpkins are a little scary, but mostly a lot of fun. Those looking for a break from heavy or intense reading will find a lot to like, as will Buffy lovers. YA readers may enjoy this collection as well.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Contains : strong language, violence, some gore. The story \u201cFiber\u201d received some criticism from First Nations people regarding McGuire\u2019s interpretation of the wendigo.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Reviewed by Kirsten Kowalewski<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" ***Cross Posted from The Circulation Desk*** ( Amazon.com | Subterranean Press limited edition hardcover | Subterranean Press ebook edition ) Dying With Her Cheer Pants On: Stories of the Fighting Pumpkins by Seanan McGuire Subterranean Press, 2020 ISBN-13 : 978-1596069978 Available: Direct from Subterranean Press (limited edition hardcover, ebook edition), and Kindle edition Into every high school class a cheerleading squad […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[337,171],"tags":[213],"class_list":["post-2261","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-book-review","category-paranormalsupernatural","tag-seanan-mcguire"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3Eu9f-At","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.monsterlibrarian.com\/ReadingBites\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2261","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.monsterlibrarian.com\/ReadingBites\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.monsterlibrarian.com\/ReadingBites\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.monsterlibrarian.com\/ReadingBites\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.monsterlibrarian.com\/ReadingBites\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2261"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.monsterlibrarian.com\/ReadingBites\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2261\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2262,"href":"https:\/\/www.monsterlibrarian.com\/ReadingBites\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2261\/revisions\/2262"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.monsterlibrarian.com\/ReadingBites\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2261"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.monsterlibrarian.com\/ReadingBites\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2261"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.monsterlibrarian.com\/ReadingBites\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2261"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}