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Book Review: Slasher Girls & Monster Boys edited by April Genevieve Tucholke


Slasher Girls & Monster Boys edited by April Genevieve Tucholke

Speak, 2015

ISBN-13: 978-014751408

Available:

 

 

Slasher Girls & Monster Boys  is an anthology of stories by YA authors, including Kendare Blake, Jonathan Maberry, Carrie Ryan, Leigh Bardugo, and Marie Lu. Each story is based on a horror movie, television show, or fiction, or some combination. Strangely, the inspirations for the stories are only indicated at the end of each story, upside down in tiny print at the bottom of the page. Observant fans with a wide knowledge of the genre will probably be able to hazard some good guesses, but it really doesn’t matter– the theme is incidental, and the stories stand on their own.

Some stories stand out more than others. Nova Ren Suma’s “The Birds of Azalea Street” is a creepy tale about three girls who uncover a neighborhood pedophile. April Genevieve Tucholke’s “The Flicker, The Fingers, The Beat, The Sigh” riffs on I Know What You Did Last Summer, with an outcast girl from school as the victim. The awfulness of the teenagers, and the regret and memories of the narrator, as well as the eventual consequences, are what make this a horrific and tragic story. In “Fat Girl With a Knife” Jonathan Maberry gives us a great character with a taste for revenge who discovers a talent for zombie-killing. I would love to see him do more with this character, as it felt like this ended too quickly.  Megan Shepherd spins a story about a girl who outwits death in “Hide and Seek.”  In “Sleepless”, Jay Kristoff pulls the rug right out from under your feet, just when you think you’ve figured out what’s going on. This is one of the best stories in the book.  In Marie Lu’s powerful “The Girl Without A Face” a boy at the height of privilege is forced to face the consequences of raping a girl who died by suicide by her ghost. What part of this story is most horrifying is up to the perception of the reader. “Stitches”,  by A.G. Howard, while it required a significant suspension of disbelief as regards medical procedures, is an imaginative twist on Frankenstein, and a great character study of a girl whose abusive father makes a deal with a “collector” to have her amputate his body parts and replace them with others in order to pay the bills. Finally “On the I-5” gives us the story of a hitchiker ghost out for revenge.

Some stories didn’t hit quite the right note with me. Carrie Ryan’s “In The Forest, Dark and Deep”, is a surreal, disturbing, and bloody take on Alice in Wonderland. It’s one of the truly horrific tales in the set, but I’m not sure most teens will have the patience for the style. “Emmeline”, by Cat Winters, mixes up several movies and books to create a supernatural tale set in the era of World War I, setting up an uneasy Angela Carter-esque romance that can only end badly. While I enjoyed the story I don’t know that it has a contemporary enough tone to appeal to modern teen readers. “Verse Chorus Verse” gets into the price a parent is willing to pay for their child’s fame, and the build-up is freaky, but as it’s mostly told from the parent’s point of view, it didn’t seem to really belong in a YA anthology.  In”The Dark, Scary Parts and All” a bullied, grief-stricken girl is offered the power to do her worst, if she’s willing to take it. The relationships and decisions in this story just felt off.  “M” is a strange little story that seems to belong more in an Agatha Christie novel than in an anthology of horror stories. I wanted to like it more, as there was a very Edward Gorey-esque influence, and the choice of a blind main character was interesting, but it wasn’t enough. “A Girl Who Dreamed of Snow” seemed more like fantasy than horror, with a shaman girl  sacrificing the men who kidnap her to appease spirits who will end a plague and save humanity from extinction.

A strong majority of the authors in this anthology are women, which seems to be the case overall in YA horror right now, as are the majority of the protagonists. In the cases where the story is told from a boy’s point of view, he is not usually presented in a terribly sympathetic manner, and generally it’s difficult to believe he isn’t getting his just desserts. Very few stories stood out to me as presenting a woman with agency: “Fat Girl With a Knife” has a main character who’s already out for revenge against the school bullies when a zombie outbreak starts, “A Girl Who Dreamed of Snow” has a girl with a plan in place that she carries through, and the girl in “Hide and Seek” is smart, strategic, and tricky. I loved seeing these characters take charge.

While I found this anthology to be a mixed bag, it covers a lot of ground, and I think most readers, especially girls, will find something to enjoy. Recommended.

 

Contains: gore, violence, murder, torture, references to pedophilia, references to rape, references to suicide, body horror

 

Editor’s note: Slasher Girls and Monster Boys was a 2019 Summer Scares YA pick. 

 

Posted on September 11, 2019 by , Reply

Book Review: Foul is Fair by Hannah Capin

Foul is Fair by Hannah Capin

Wednesday Books, 2020

ISBN-13: 978-1250239549

Available: Hardcover, Kindle edition, audiobook, audio CD

 

Sixteen year old Elle and her friends Jenny, Summer, and Mads, are glamorous, vicious, daughters of the ultra-rich whose parents have given them a lot of freedom, When the four girls crash a party for the lacrosse team for the elite prep school, St. Andrews, what starts out as fun becomes a lot less so as the girls are separated and most of the lacrosse team colludes in drugging and raping Elle.

But this is not the story of Elle as either a victim or a survivor. This is the story of how Elle plans to kill off every member of the lacrosse team who had any kind of involvement in orchestrating or participating in her rape, backed by her friends, or “coven”.  As she looks at a photo of the St. Andrews lacrosse team, she spots one boy who was not involved, and decides she’s going to manipulate him into killing his teammates.  Cutting and dyeing her hair, she transfers to St. Andrews to get close to her future victims, and especially, to get close to Mack, the player who didn’t take part, so she can convince him that knocking off his teammates is the right thing to do, and set him up as the fall guy. Even falling in love with him– and she thinks she might be falling in love with him– isn’t enough to take her mind and her heart off vengeance.

Foul and Fair takes its inspiration from Shakespeare’s Macbeth, positioning Elle’s friends as the three witches, Elle as Lady Macbeth, and Mack as Macbeth. Rather than convincing him to kill out of ambition, though, Elle convinces him he is killing out of righteousness.  Elle’s murderous anger slashes through the book.

Unfortunately, the scenario of entitled, rich, white guys raping a girl at a party without having to face consequences isn’t an unrealistic one, and certainly Elle’s feelings, and the bonds of her friendships, are strong. But the likelihood of the girls getting away with tormenting and setting up the members of the lacrosse team, especially without getting caught, is something the reader really has to buy into, as is the likelihood of Elle convincing a guy she’s known less than a week to kill his best friend.

Elle is not a sympathetic character (neither is Lady Macbeth, to be fair) although we get to see a few heroic moments in flashbacks to the beginnings of the four girls’ friendships, like her defense of Mads, a trans girl, on the day Mads outed herself at school (Mads is a great character who doesn’t get enough time, and Capin writes her wonderfully). Whatever else they are, Elle and her “coven” have each other’s backs. These four girls, and the way they’re described, although poetic, reveals that they are a pretty terrifying bunch. I’m doubtful that this will appeal to boys, even though it does a pretty good job of laying out the complicity of even those who aren’t directly involved, and they’re the ones who need to see that. But readers looking for a revenge fantasy with sharp teeth won’t be disappointed. Recommended.

Contains: flashbacks to rape, sexual assault, abusive behaviors, bullying, transphobic bullying, brief depictions of suicide, substance abuse, cursing, violence, gore, murder.

Posted on September 3, 2019 by , Reply

Book Review: Escape from the Isle of the Lost (Descendants, #4) by Melissa de la Cruz

Escape from the Isle of the Lost (Descendants, #4)  by Melissa de la Cruz

Disney Hyperion, 2018

ISBN-13: 978-1368020053

Available: Hardcover, Kindle edition, audiobook

 

Escape from the Isle of the Lost is the last book in Melissa de la Cruz’s media tie-in series to Disney’s Descendants franchise. For those not familiar with Descendants, be warned that this review is packed with all kinds of spoilers. The premise is that in the fairytale kingdom of Auradon, where all the “good” heroes, princesses, and sidekicks from Disney movies live (mostly) with their children in (mostly) harmony and privilege, the villains and their children have been banished to the Isle of the Lost, a barren, isolated place behind a force-field that prevents them from using magic. The Isle of the Lost has pro-Auradon propaganda everywhere, but the buildings are falling apart, the food, clothing, and supplies brought in from Auradon are spoiled, and the villains’ kids are growing up in abusive homes where evil and villainy are celebrated, becoming angry, defiant, deceptive, and mean. With the current king and queen retiring, their teenage son Ben is about to be crowned king, and, believing that it’s unjust to imprison children for their parents’ wrongs, he successfully argues in favor of allowing four kids from the Isle of the Lost to attend school in Auradon. This is the perfect beginning for an enjoyable, dark reimagining of Disney’s fairytale characters. Mal, the daughter of Maleficent, who revels in her wickedness, plans to use the opportunity to free everyone from the Isle of the Lost and help Maleficent take over Auradon. Instead, she finds herself becoming friends with the three other “villain kids” (VK’s) and appreciating the advantages, friendships, and even love that she discovers in Auradon.

Unsure of whether they can ever really belong in Auradon, the VKs have to overcome the messages they’ve received from their parents, and decide to use their powers for good instead of helping their villain parents escape the Isle to conquer Auradon. Jay, son of Jafar, turns out to be a great athlete. Evie, daughter of the Evil Queen from Snow White, channels her obsession with beauty into creating beautiful clothes for friends and classmates. Carlos, son of Cruella de Vil, overcomes shyness and his fear of dogs. Mal, however, finds herself in love with King Ben, and as a VK is unsure of whether she can meet Auradon’s expectations that she be ladylike, or whether she wants to. Running back to the Isle, her friends (and Ben) follow her there. Before they can convince her to return, her childhood enemy, Uma (daughter of Ursula the sea witch) kidnaps Ben and threatens to kill him if Mal can’t bring her the magic she needs to escape the Isle of the Lost. Mal and the other VKs save Ben and keep Uma from taking over Auradon, with Mal accepting that she can do what needs to be done in order to be both the lady and hero that Auradon needs.

That’s where Escape from the Isle of the Lost begins. Ben, Mal, Jay, and Evie are all about to graduate from high school, and the VKs have all discovered that it feels good to be good. That dark reimagining I expected to stick with the series has dissolved on the part of the four kids from the Isle. Auradon’s Council expects Mal to travel to all the kingdoms on a “listening tour” and are dismayed that she wants to include the Isle of the Lost on her itinerary. Ben’s suggestion that students on the Isle of the Lost be allowed to apply to school in Auradon meets with disapproval, and as he’s about to back down, Mal finally convinces him that four new students should be allowed to apply in a general application process (unfairly included in this number is Dizzy, Cinderalla’s step-niece, who was specifically invited to attend school at the end of the last movie. My daughter is a huge fan of Dizzy, so this was a giant disappointment) A failure for the program to catch on (Isle kids don’t really see the appeal of being “good”) causes Mal, Evie, Jay, and Carlos to visit the Isle in order to promote it, at first unsuccessfully. After promising a huge celebration for the students who are successfully accepted, though, the Isle kids stampede to apply. In the meantime, Uma teams up with Hades to attract Mal into a dangerous undersea battle. Jay, Carlos, and Evie break into the Evil Queen’s castle in hopes of using her magic mirror to find Mal. Before Uma can defeat Mal, Evie dives through the magic mirror and pushes Mal up from the bottom of the ocean and away from Uma, although afterwards none of the VKs can remember what happened.

In addition to the drama on the Isle of the Lost, there are the events and decisions that go along with senior year and graduation.  Jay’s athletic ability has drawn the attention of three prestigious schools who want him on their team; Evie makes enough money from selling designs to her classmates to buy a house and open a fashion line; and Carlos, now with a girlfriend and dog, seems to have become a creative, caring, leader and support for his friends. Mal’s character, disappointingly, seems to have faded as she works to become the “Lady Mal” that the Auradon Council expects as King Ben’s girlfriend. The VKs prank the school, participate in a senior scavenger hunt, say goodbye to good friends, and go through the graduation ceremony.  The book closes with the reader’s knowledge that next year will bring four new VKs to Auradon, with Evie and Carlos to mentor them.

Descendants is a transmedia franchise, and it’s hard to evaluate the book outside of its context. De La Cruz’s books have each preceded (or followed) a movie musical, with the movie Descendants 3 set to appear at the end of July. While the idea behind the series has a lot of promise, the potential conflicts that could rise between VKs and the students of Auradon Prep have sort of fizzled as Mal, Jay, Evie, and Carlos have adjusted to living by the rules in Auradon. In the last movie, Mal used magic to cover up her insecurity and discomfort at trying to fit into the role she was being expected to fill. Now, she’s no longer using magic or rebelling, instead allowing herself to be molded into what the Auradon Council wants. Forgetting what it was like to be on the Isle of the Lost, she tries to sell the kids there on the benefits of being “good”. While other characters have grown and changed for the better, everything that was appealing in Mal has sort of drifted away in the wake of being the king’s girlfriend. Dizzy and her friend Celia (daughter of Dr. Facilier) both get some attention, but their characters don’t get developed as much as I hoped they would. Mal’s nemesis, Uma, who stole the last book and the last movie, gets a little attention, but she isn’t as dynamic or successful a character. Hades is introduced and given a fair amount of backstory and character development, but his contribution to the story is minor. I am sure some of these issues will get more attention in the upcoming movie, but there are an awful lot of loose ends. Evie and Carlos are the ones who really shine in this book.

There is an opportunity in the Descendants franchise that de la Cruz didn’t touch on, that I hope Disney hasn’t missed in the upcoming movie, and that is the opportunity for social justice to take center stage. Mal has proximity to the most powerful people in Auradon because of her relationship to King Ben, even though neither of them has really taken a major stand that the Council disagrees with. If her VK friends stand in solidarity to support allowing the Isle kids in who want to come to school in Auradon, what position would she take? If Ben opposes her, would she back down or support the VKs?  I can’t think of a more relevant moment to bring in the idea of letting imprisoned children go free rather than punishing them for the actions of their parents.

Cameron Boyce, the actor who played Carlos, died last week from SUDEP– sudden death by epileptic seizure. I suppose it’s possible for the Descendants franchise to continue with a new cast, but it’s certainly possible that this is the end of any new material. I hope we get to see what the VKs can really accomplish as they move forward, because it is our last chance to see the original four characters in action, and I really want to see what the resourcefulness, creativity, and determination of Isle kids can lead to when combined with the motivation to really do good instead of just “being good”.  If the movie continues to present Mal in the same “follow the rules, do what you’re told” model that appears in the book, I will be very disappointed.

Some of the relationships may be a little advanced for elementary-aged kids, but nothing goes further than a kiss. The first of these books came out when my daughter was just finishing third grade, and she has followed the Descendants franchise ever since.  If, like her, you are a fan of the franchise who has kept up to date (or know one), you will want to read this. If you haven’t read the previous books and seen the movies, you’ll feel, for lack of a better word, lost. Appropriate for grades 4 and up.

Recommended with reservations.

Posted on July 14, 2019 by , Reply
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