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Book Review: Burn Our Bodies Down by Rory Power

cover for Burn Our Bodies Down by Rory Power

Burn Our Bodies Down by Rory Power

Delacorte Press, 2020

ISBN-13: 978-0525645627

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

Seventeen-year-old Margot, trapped in a disturbing codependent relationship with her abusive mother, finally finds an escape after discovering she has a grandmother living just outside Phalene, a small town only a few hours away. Arriving in Phalene, Margot quickly meets Tess, daughter of a wealthy landowner whose property is next to Margot’s grandmother’s farm, and Tess’ friend Eli. Tess and Eli tell Margot her grandmother has a reputuation as an eccentric, but offer to walk her to her grandmother’s house. On the way, the three teens discover the property is on fire, and Eli carries a girl out of the fire who is identical to Margot in looks and age, but who Margot has never seen before. The police are suspicious and take all three to the station to question them, but are clearly focused on Margot, especially because this isn’t the first fire to take place on her grandmother’s property, and the two girls are so identical it’s hard to believe Margot doesn’t know her.

A significant part of the book has to do with Margot’s developing relationship with her grandmother. At first, her grandmother is loving and welcoming, if inflexible, but early on Margot realizes that her grandmother is also being evasive and, at times, outright lying to her. The reader will see clearly the similarities between the behaviors of Margot’s grandmother and mother; it becomes clear early on why Margot’s mother never wanted to speak about her family. Margot also begins a close friendship with Tess, which has the marks of the beginnings of a crush on her, but this is never followed through on. Margot, Tess, and Eli are determined to solve the mystery of the girl who died and how that might be related to the earlier fire, and Margot as well wants to learn about her family’s past. There is clearly something going on that her grandmother is hiding, and a diary Margot finds contains clues as to what led to her mother’s behavior and some of the reasons she may have passed the trauma of her own childhood on to Margot.

The science-fictional twist at the end leads to some particularly gruesome body horror, and thoughtful readers may still find themselves disturbed by the long-term consequences of not eliminating all of the loose ends. Burn Our Bodies Down punches up the action faster than Wilder Girls but meanders in the middle, until it reaches its fast-paced and gory conclusion. Power has done a great job of showing the effects generational trauma and the difficulty of breaking that cycle. Even in relationships that haven’t sustained the kind of damage as the family in this book, there are very few girls who want to grow up to be just like their mothers, and Burn Our Bodies Down does an excellent job of portraying a time of life when most girls are separating to explore and form their own identities.

Posted on August 6, 2020 by , Reply

Book Review: The Good Demon by Jimmy Cajoleas

Life would have to be pretty awful and lonely for a person to agree to be possessed by a demon, but Clare has had a pretty traumatic life, and her demon not only takes her away but protects her from danger. Several years after she discovered her addict father dead from an overdose, her secret is revealed, and her stepfather, an abusive alcoholic, has the demon, who Clare calls her Only, exorcised by an evangelical preacher and his son, Roy.  Bereft, Clare is on a mission to retrieve and reintegrate with her Only, the one being who truly knows and loves her, but clues left by the demon instruct her to make friends with Roy, and despite their rocky beginnings, Clare and Roy become friends.

The One Wish Man has the power to grant Clare’s wish, but there is always a price.  In her eagerness to reunite with her Only, Clare chooses to overlook some obvious red flags: a cardinal crucified upside down at the entrance to the One Wish Man’s property, a nightmarish walk to his house, a stolen scroll of human skin, and others. As Clare’s investigations reveal a rottennness and lust for power at the center of town that is more than its terrible place in history (the Trail of Tears, the KKK, and tornadoes, among other disasters). Clare has to decide how far she can trust her Only, and whether her Only’s love is worth enough to sacrifice the new relationships she is building.

The Good Demon takes place in the deep South and has some great Southern Gothic trappings, and the trope of rottenness under the surface of a small town plays out well here. Clare is an unreliable narrator, and there’s a strange feeling of unreality enfolding her story. Oddly for a book set in the South, outside of Clare’s brief mentions of the town’s history with slavery, the KKK, and Native American genocide in the context of “terrible things happen here”, there aren’t actually any identifiable African-American characters and the book doesn’t really touch on race, which would pretty much flavor everything there. Of course, we are seeing all of this from Clare’s point of view, which is pretty narrow, since her life appears to be basically doing nothing at home, stealing from the secondhand store, or going to the library, and rarely encountering people other than her mother and stepfather, who spend much of their time drunk and arguing, so maybe she is really just that isolated from her community. The more time you spend with her, the more you can see why Clare wants her demon back so badly, and that any child would be in that position may be the saddest and most terrifying thing of all. Recommended for YA collections.

Contains: occultism, body horror, sex, gore, mild violence, attempted rape, references to suicide, drug and alcohol abuse.

 

 

 

 

Posted on January 11, 2020 by , Reply

Book Review: How Quickly She Disappears by Raymond Fleishmann

How Quickly She Disappears by Raymond Fleishmann

Berkeley, 2019

ISBN-13: 978-1984805171

Available: Hardcover, Kindle edition, audiobook

 

This novel has been billed as the cross between The Dry and Silence of the Lambs.  That’s a boast if I ever read  one. Is it accurate? Read on to find out. If nothing else, it’s a fine thriller that has a great comparison line.

Set in 1941 in the wilds of Alaska, the story begins with Elisabeth Pfautz living in a small town with her husband who works as a teacher, and her daughter. Everything seems normal– boring, even– but they’re content with life.

The postal plane arrives on a regular schedule, their only connection the outside world. One day, a different pilot and carrier, Alfred Seibel, lands and asks a small favor: to be put up in the family home as the agreement states as part of an old town rule. Alfred departs the plane and inserts himself into Elizabeth’s life. With Alfred being German, the situation could get ugly, easily, for both sides.

Once he’s settled into the house, Elizabeth is plagued by dreams of her twin sister, Jacqueline, who disappeared twenty years prior, never to be found.

Alfred quickly inserts himself into her family, and the town. Yet one day, he murders a local, a close friend of Elizabeth’s. Once in prison, Alfred tells her he has information about Jacqueline and how he might be able to solve the mystery that has plagued Elizabeth for most of her life. With a poor marriage and no life in the desolate land, she accepts his request to visit him in prison.

He offers her this: for each gift she gives him, he’ll take her one step closer to her sister.

She accepts, and finds that although Alfred begins innocently enough, he quickly steps up his game. As Elizabeth discovers the cost of each gift she gives, he has her hooked with the puzzle he hands her.

Alfred turns out to be a quality villain who is much more than he seems to be, full of flaws that Lecter never revealed. Elizabeth is no Clarice. but she’s not meant to be. Her surroundings, family, and town, all serve as antagonists in her quest to find her sister, or at least the final piece of the puzzle. This literary fiction novel masquerading as a thriller/horror hybrid lulls the reader into a stark place that ultimately delivers in all three genres.

A challenging, yet highly rewarding, read for this new year.

 

Reviewed by David Simms

 

Posted on December 31, 2019 by , Reply
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