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Book Review: What We Saw by Mary Downing Hahn

Cover art for What We Saw by Mary Downing Hahn

 

What We Saw by Mary Downing Hahn

Clarion Books, 2022

ISBN-13: 978-0358414414

Available: Hardcover, paperback, Kindle edition, audiobook.

(  Bookshop.org | Amazon.com )

 

 

Abbi and Skylar are best friends. Skylar has a way of talking Abbi into doing things she isn’t allowed to do. One day Skylar talks Abbi into riding their bikes to the town limits. They end up at a dead end, Marie Street, near the woods. They discover a treehouse there and claim it as theirs. Jason and Carter, two boys in their grade find, mock, and threaten them but they are determined to make it their hideout.

 

Abbi and Skylar notice that every Thursday afternoon a man and woman, disguising their identities, rendezvous at the end of Marie Street. At first they imagine the two are spies, but Skylar is convinced they are “cheaters”, with the man stepping out on his wife, similarly to what happened in her own family. Abbi takes photos on her phone as evidence.

 

One day the couple in the car have an argument and the woman runs off into the woods. Shortly after, their art teacher, Ms. Sullivan, is reported missing, and is later found dead in the woods. Skylar and Abbi want to turn their evidence over to the police, but don’t want their parents to know they broke rules about where they can go, so they decide to ask a teacher they trust, Abbi’s English teacher, Mr Boyce. Mr. Boyce borrows Abbi’s phone overnight, and when she comes back he tells her not to go to the police.

 

After Abbi discovers Mr. Boyce deleted the photos from her phone, Abbi and Skylar decide to go to the police after all, but without the photos as evidence, the police don’t take the girls seriously. The girls go back to the woods to look for more evidence, and run into Jason and Carter. Spoiler: Carter’s uncle Paul is a violent drug dealer who lives in the woods. Jason and Carter have been selling drugs to high school students for him and witnessed Ms. Sullivan’s murder.

 

Once Abbi and Skylar escape, the police move in, arrest Paul, and find help for the boys, who have been badly beaten. Abbi’s mom decides Skylar is a bad influence, and Skylar finds other friends. She can’t forgive Mr. Boyce for his role in Ms. Sullivan’s death. Abbi forgives Mr. Boyce, and begins looking forward.

 

This was not one of Hahn’s best, and she can really write. Abbi was really underdeveloped, her character overshadowed by Skylar, who wasn’t a sympathetic character. There were a lot of loose threads at the end, and I couldn’t tell what the ultimate aim of the story was, unless it was to demonstrate what a toxic friendship looks like. While the scene in the woods where Jason and Carter defend the girls is gripping, I don’t think this really succeeds as a thriller. Fans of Hahn’s other books may enjoy this, but there are better thrillers for this age range.

 

Reviewed by Kirsten Kowalewski

Posted on January 19, 2023 by , Reply

Book Review: The City by S.C. Mendes

Cover art for The City by S.C Mendes

The City by S.C. Mendes

Blood Bound Books, 2017

ISBN: 9781940250335

Available: Paperback, Kindle edition  (Amazon.com)

 

The City is a well-brewed mix: one part early 1900s detective story, one part horror, and one part insanity.  It’s a potent recipe, and this book sizzles from start to finish, but it’s an extremely disturbing novel as well.  Some of what you read in this book, you may wish you could unread.  Despite that, it’s a powerful story that keeps pulling you along.

 

The book is set in San Francisco’s Chinatown. Max Elliot is the proverbial grizzled vet detective called back to duty for a murder case similar to the one that cost Max his wife and daughter.  The story quickly veers away from the usual, as Max learns of a city (the City, as it’s known) located many miles beneath San Francisco,  accessible only to certain topdwellers, and run by lizard-men called the Mara.  That’s where the case leads him, and where most of the book takes place.  Max finds answers, but he also finds a hell that makes Dante’s Inferno looks like a children’s playground.

 

This book has everything you want: outstanding characters and development, twisting plot, and a fast pace, but it’s the City itself that is the true star of the book.  That’s what will keep readers burning through the pages, wondering what else the City can throw at Max and his allies.  It’s a place of pleasure and pain, where every vice and perversion is available.  It’s somewhat similar to the attitude of the Hellraiser franchise.  Think of the worst things you can, then sit back and read, because the author thought of worse things and used them in the City’s pleasure gallery.  Readers who, (for whatever reason) have a knowledge of ancient torture methods will recognize a few, as the  bronze bull from Roman times makes an appearance.  It’s another world, and a very well thought out one: the location is a character in itself.  This is also where the true ugliness in the book takes place. It’s not the unspeakable atrocities performed on humans (although that’s bad enough) but it’s the people in the city that happily pay to watch such atrocities, often pleasuring themselves at the same time. If you have doubts about the nature of the human race, this won’t help.  The City is a depressing, bleak look at a segment of humanity, and will leave you feeling drained afterwards.

 

Bottom line here: this is phenomenal stuff, but it’s likely to make readers bottom out as well.  There’s no sunshine and roses, no happy endings; this is dark, sunless material.  If you liked Clive Barker at the peak of his storytelling abilities, you will love this. It’s the same wild nightmares on overdrive.  No doubt about it, based on this book, S.C. Mendes is a force to be reckoned with in horror.  Highly recommended.

 

Reviewed by Murray Samuelson

Posted on January 19, 2023 by , Reply

Graphic Novel Review: Klaus: How Santa Claus Began by Grant Morrison, illustrated by Dan Mora

Cover art for Klaus: How Santa Claus Began by Grant Morrison, illustrated by Dan Mora

Klaus: How Santa Claus Began by Grant Morrison, illustrated by Dan Mora

BOOM! Studios, 2019

ISBN-13: 9781684153930

 

Klaus arrives in the town of Grimsvig during Yuletide to trade furs, and finds it a sad shell of what it once was. Grimsvig is under the control of Baron Magnus, a harsh man who insists his wife is mad and that Jonas, his ill-tempered and self-centered son, is the only child who is permitted toys…all of them. The baron works the men in the town to death in the mines. When the workers hear voices underground, the baron insists they are hearing things and demands they work harder. 

 

After the guards run Klaus out of town for defending a child merely holding a rock from an armed soldier, he spends time in the forest with his wolf friend Lilli and is visited by spirits. He awakens in the morning with aching hands and finds he is surrounded by small toys. He sneaks through the town, delivering them to the children of Grimsvig.

 

When the baron discovers this, he does his best to destroy the happiness the children have found in the mysterious gift giver, the Santa. The baron, desperate to keep his power and get rid of the Santa, summons an ancient evil from the belly of the earth, a demon hungry for bad children. What will the baron do when the demon’s first target is young Master Jonas? 

 

Morrison delivers a great dark fantasy version of the origin of Santa Claus. The characters are great. Klaus is not what we see in other origin stories. He’s both brawn and brains, outwitting the town guards at nearly every turn. Baron Magnus is devious and terrible, keeping his wife, Dagmar, someone from Klaus’ past, away from the townspeople. Jonas is an insufferably spoiled child. Mora’s artwork for Klaus is beautiful. The characters are well drawn, and the winter landscapes are gorgeous.

 

While not strictly horror, there are horror elements, such as spirits, demons, and humans being horrid to each other. If you are looking for a nontraditional Santa Claus story for the holiday, check this one out. Highly recommended

 

Reviewed by Lizzy Walker

Posted on January 11, 2023 by , Reply
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