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Book Review: The Raven by Dani Lamia with Gwendolyn Kress

 

Cover art for The Raven by Dani Lamia with Gwendolyn Kress

The Raven by Dani Lamia

Level 4 Press, Inc.

ISBN-13: 978-1933769707

Available: Preorder paperback, Kindle edition, MP3 ( Bookshop.org | Amazon.com )

 

I received a .pdf ARC of this from the publisher.

 

Rebekah is bullied horrendously at school, mostly cruel jokes originating with popular Coralie Renner and her friends. Things get much worse when Beka accidentally spills a drink on her skirt at a party and Coralie nicknames her “piss bitch.” Not only does she face name calling and humiliation but someone pees in her locker, destroying her textbooks, clothes, and sketchbook.

 

As a young child Beka had a dream friend, the Raven, who eventually stopped visiting but left her with a special edition of the works of Poe. She starts dreaming of him and carrying the book again. This time her dreams are vengeful. The students who have been tormenting her begin to appear one at a time as she watches, waking up the next day with real physical damage- a broken tooth or arm, hair pulled out in a clump. They claim the damage is from accidents but all remember bad dreams.

 

This wouldn’t normally be concrete enough for a police investigation, but after parents insist, a cop is sent to investigate, who happens to be Beka’s neighbor, Mike Wilson. Mike is a couple years older than Beka and has a crush on her. Despite her being a potential suspect and it being completely inappropriate, they start dating.

 

Meanwhile things with the Raven are escalating inside Beka’s magical Poe-inspired dreams. She asks the Raven, who has stepped things up and is now killing, to stop, and he refuses. She realizes he is not merely a dream creature, but a person who can invade dreams who has taken a personal interest in her.

 

I liked the premise a lot, but I felt like the story started to go off the rails with the police investigation and other plot threads once we got closer to the end.

 

Contains: bullying, brief description of rape, scenes of torture and murder.

 

Reviewed by Kirsten Kowalewski

Posted on January 8, 2023 by , Reply

Book Review: Howl by Shaun David Hutchinson

 

Howl by Shaun David Hutchinson

Simon & Schuster, 2022

ISBN: 978-1-5344-7092-7

Available: Hardcover, paperback, Kindle edition, audiobook ( Bookshop.org | Amazon.com )

 

Virgil Knox is a gay teen who has moved from Seattle to live with his grandparents in his father’s rural hometown in the South with his father while his parents resolve their divorce. Following a party, he finds himself in rags with bloody claw marks and a bite mark, certain he has been attacked by a monster but unable to remember what happened or how. He is told by multiple people it didn’t happen. Captured on video, he goes viral and receives a lot of hate and nasty jokes from other students. The only class he cares about is theater, and a student from that class, Tripp, and his cousin, Astrid are his only friends. As the cuts heal, he notices his body is changing in disturbing ways. His classmates Finn and Jarrett swing from being friendly to being cruel. Virgil is afraid there is a monster inside him trying to get out. The question is, will he become a monster or master it?

 

This is a supremely uncomfortable book to read. While there is no explicit description of rape the description and narrative around the main character’s attack is suggestive of trauma caused by sexual assault combined with gaslighting (it is unclear what actually occurred as he is blackout drunk). There’s self-harm, body dysmorphia, hazing, severe bullying and cyberbullying. The town’s treatment of Virgil is the real horror of the story.

 

 

Reviewed by Kirsten Kowalewski

Posted on November 26, 2022 by , Reply

Book Review: The Honeys by Ryan La Sala

Cover for The Honeys by Ryan La Sala

The Honeys by Ryan La Sala

PUSH, 2022

ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-1338745313

Available: Hardcover, paperback, KIndle edition, audiobook.

( Bookshop.org |   Amazon.com )

 

 

When genderfluid teen Mars Matthias’ twin sister Carikube dies violently in front of them after running away from summer camp, Mars insists on attending the camp for the rest of the summer. They agree to placement with the boys, but their real goal is to rediscover Caroline, especially through The Honeys, her girlfriends in Cabin H, which tends to the camp’s beehives.

 

Mars’ previous experience at camp involved the other boys tying them to a wooden scoreboard and setting it on fire so their experiences are mixed. Camp authorities prefer to let campers solve conflicts on their own, not great news if you can’t defend yourself. While the rest of the camp participates in mandatory activities, the Honeys do their own thing, and they invite Mars to be a part of it.

 

But the Honeys aren’t just tending bees, they are the hive– the collective mind of all the bees, seeking a queen, and being pressured by the adults around them to create umbral honey (created as it feeds on living, albeit predatory creatures (such as camp counselor Brayden), that will give them real-world power.

 

This is an interesting look at how genderfluidity and societal and parental expectations affect teens in a different environment and a genuine and authentic exploration of grief and the complicated feelings that arise when someone you have mixed feelings about dies.

 

Early in the book, a counselor points out that an aspen grove is actually a colony, with one original tree, effectively making the aspens around the camp disturbing. The whole collective hivemind, blood honey and giant honeycombs, is incredibly creepy, too. It’s one thing to know you are surrounded by interrelated creatures out in nature (nature being something you expect to encounter at summer camp), but it’s horrifying to  experience being absorbed into them against your will. Recommended for grades 9+

 

 

Reviewed by Kirsten Kowalewski

Posted on November 7, 2022 by , Reply
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