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Book Review: The Last House on Needless Street by Catriona Ward

cover art for The Last House on Needless Street by Catriona Ward

The Last House on Needless Street by Catriona Ward

Tor Nightfire, 2021

ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-1250812629

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

 

The Last House on Needless Street takes as its starting point the abduction of a little girl, Lulu, from the beach, ten years before the events of the present. Lulu’s disappearance was a turning point in the lives of two children at the beach that day: her older sister Dee, and a young man, Ted Bannerman, who was briefly suspected of carrying Lulu off.  Since then, Dee has been obsessed with finding Lulu and the man who abducted her. A photograph from a news article about the search for Lulu sends Dee in Ted’s direction, and she moves into the house next door to observe him and look for evidence of Lulu.

The book alternates between a variety of first person narrators, and the reader will soon pick up that none of them are reliable. Tragic, violent, and terrible things happen but it’s not clear to whom or when. Characters are not who they seem to be and their actions and thoughts are often scrambled or inexplicable. Ward has constructed an intricate, layered, maze of a book with tragedy, horrific abuse, and trauma at its core.

Mental illness is often demonized in the media and especially in horror fiction and Ward avoids that, writing with compassion and respect. Her author’s note indicates that she did detailed research before writing the book. While it’s possible to read through this quickly, it deserves the time it takes for the reader to process. It will stick with you long after you are done. Highly recommended.

 

Contains: emotional and physical abuse, child abuse, suicide. violence.

Posted on October 24, 2021 by , Reply

Book Review: The Final Girl Support Group by Grady Hendrix

 

The final Girls Support Group by Grady Hendrix

The Final Girl Support Group by Grady Hendrix

Berkley, 2021

ISBN-13: 9780593201237

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

 

 

The Final Girl is the lone survivor of horror movies. She fought valiantly, defeated the killer, and avenged her friends who were each gruesomely dispatched by the killer. But after the truck drives away, the sirens fade, and the credits roll, what happens to our heroine, other than the potential for franchise sequels? We find out in Hendrix’s new novel, The Final Girl Support Group.

Hendrix, as with We Sold Our Souls and The Southern Book Club’s Guide to Slaying Vampires, displays an uncanny ability to write complex women. Combining this with the concept of the Final Girl works quite well. Twenty-two years ago, Lynnette Tarkington survived a harrowing massacre. For more than a decade, Lynette and other women meet in the Final Girl Support Group led by their therapist, Dr. Carol Elliot. Lynette keeps herself locked safely in her home with her best friend, a houseplant named Fine. She has no identification paperwork or ID, no social life, and keeps her head on a swivel when she does gather up her strength to go outside, usually to the support group. In the support group, we meet Adrienne Butler, the first Final Girl; Dani Shipman, who along with her partner Michelle owns a rescue ranch for abused and abandoned horses; Heather DeLuca, whose life has gone off the rails with bad decisions and jail time; Julia Campbell, the talkative and angry paralyzed survivor of her own story; and Marilyn Torres, the wealthy wife of a CEO, who is a recovering alcoholic and activist in the community. When one of the women doesn’t show up for their regular meeting, Lynnette’s paranoia kicks in full-bore. Someone knows about the Final Girl Support Group and wants them all to suffer, and then die. The suspect knows where they live and congregate, and what they do. It comes to light that someone in the group has written a tell-all book about the women in the group. Who betrayed the Final Girl Support Group? Lynette sets out to find the killer and expose the truth.

There is so much going on in this book, I had a hard time putting it down. If you like the slasher subgenre and have ever wondered what happened when the Final Girl’s story ended, pick up this book. Interspersed throughout the book are articles and reports about the Final Girls, which add that extra touch to each character. Highly recommended.

 

Contains: violence, gore, body horror, descriptions of torture

Reviewed by Lizzy Walker

 

Posted on August 17, 2021 by , Reply

Vault Review: Crank by Ellen Hopkins (#1 Crank, #2 Glass, #3 Fallout)

Boxed set of the Crank Trilogy by Ellen Hopkins  The Crank Trilogy by Ellen Hopkins (  Bookshop.org | Amazon.com )

 

We are revisiting our reviews of the Crank trilogy today, due to a recent challenge to Crank in my own school district (you never REALLY think it will happen in your area until it does).  Yesterday we published an interview of Ellen Hopkins from our vault, which I hope you’ll read. Today, we present our reviews of The Crank Trilogy, consisting of Crank, Glass, and Fallout. 

 

Crank by Ellen Hopkins

Margaret K. McElderry Books, 2010 (Reprint edition)

ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-1416995135

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

 

Crank is Ellen Hopkins’ controversial, and sorely needed, verse novel. Kristina Snow’s life changes forever when her father and the boy she’s crushing introduce her to meth. Unlike Impulse, which is raw and shredding in its emotion, Crank is almost cold at times, brutally showing a girl on the edge of being a woman, who should have the kind of life that discourages drug use, choosing to ride with the monster time after time. Likewise, the people in her life who should be able to step in, fail, leaving Kristina alone to fight a beast that defeats most adults.

 

Crank is a difficult book to handle, but it’s far closer to reality than any drug awareness program I went through in school. Hopkins’ books are strongly positioned to be of great value as fiction, as poetry, and for their educational value, as they boldly strip away pretenses and sensitivities to show addiction as the cruel master it is. Highly recommended for public collections as well as recommended reading material for those whose lives have been scarred by the real life monsters on our streets.

Contains: sex, language, drug use, rape

 

Glass by Ellen Hopkins

Margaret K. McElderry Books, 2009 (Reprint edition)

ISBN-13: 978-1416940913

Available: New and Used  ( Bookshop.org | Amazon.com )

 

Glass is the direct follow up to Crank. Glass continues the story of Kristina Snow after she’s had her baby, and kicked meth and nicotine, shortly before her eighteenth birthday. It follows her relapse in her struggle with the meth monster and goes farther than Crank imagined. Sharp and painful,  Glass is hard to read. For one, Kristina seems to not even care that she’s making such horrible mistakes. Almost on autopilot in her quest to fill simple needs, this reader more than once wanted to reach into the lines and try to shake some sense into her.

 

While Crank goes very far to combat drug use as an introductory tale, Glass is Anti-Drug 201, a hardcore look at more of the nasty side effects of addiction, as good as an uncut marathon of Intervention with viewers thrust, uncomfortably, inside Kristina’s head. There’s no doubt it will be too much for many readers, either too brutal, or too close to home. Hopkins savagely slices through any illusions of “normal life” with beautiful poems and style that makes the story she’s telling all the more horrific. Highly recommended.

Contains: sex, drug use, language, domestic violence

 

Reviewed by Michele Lee

 

Fallout by Ellen Hopkins

Margaret K. McElderry Books, 2010

ISBN-13: 978-1416950097

Available: New and Used  (  Bookshop.org | Amazon.com )

 

In Fallout, the third book in the series that started with Crank, centered on meth addict Kristina Snow, Hopkins moves on to show the effect Kristina’s selfish ways still have on her children, and covers a wide spectrum of emotional and psychological problems. Fallout is told through three narrators: Hunter, Kristina’s first child, born of rape and trying to deal with rage; Autumn, who struggles with OCD and turns to alcohol to get her through a major life change; and Summer, who is unaware that she has siblings, and has been raised by a series of abusive foster homes and her own addict father.

 

Fallout is raw, as can be expected from Hopkins, sharp and yet beautiful as well. Hopkins manages to bring new sympathy to the subject, even to characters readers are already familiar with and have started to hate. While the full scope of the story would be missed if readers started the series here, this is the book that will most call to the loved one or friend struggling to support (or justify not supporting) an addict. Highly recommended.

Contains: drug use, sex, language

 

Reviewed by Michele Lee

Posted on August 9, 2021 by , Reply
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