I love a good horror story. I also love a book that can blend more than one genre together into something new. Recently I read two horror hybrids that take their readers interesting new places!
Publisher: William Morrow. June 21, 2016.
Genre: Horror & Mystery
Source: Publisher
Pages: 327
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She can't tell her that people always do things that their friends and loved ones never imagined they would do. Not only is everyone more than capable of making the worst decisions possible, those kinds of decisions are frighteningly commonplace and easy to make.
Paul Tremblay, author of one of my favorite horror novels ever, is at it again with a new horror story with mystery/crime/thriller elements. Disappearance at Devil's Rock is about a very real horror: the disappearance of a child. After Tommy, a young teen, disappears in a park, and nobody seems to know why or how this happened. And then his mother is convinced she sees his ghost in the house. All sorts of weird shit goes down and I don't want to say much more than that plot-wise.
When I first finished this novel, I wasn't sure if I liked it or if I would categorize it as horror, though it definitely had horror elements. That was until I remembered that Paul Tremblay is totally a horror fan's writer. He had heavy allusions to several books/movies in Head Full of Ghosts, which led me to remember a favorite horror movie of mine, Lake Mungo. The plot of this book is heavily influenced by the Australian film: beloved teen goes missing, mom believes in ghost, sibling admits something, we eventually discover teen had secrets, doppelganger/future-seeing stuff. I'll stop my analysis before I spoil both film AND book.
What I'm trying to say is that having seen this movie made me completely understand what Tremblay was going for. I believe he was trying to recreate the slow burn pacing of the mockumentary film, because it has a very particular creepy tone. And, unfortunately, while I love the Lake Mungo plot similarities, I don't know if the pacing/tone was captured. Disappearance often just felt slow, regardless of whether some of the reveals and creepy bits were super intense and original, leaving them less scary for me. Another complaint some readers had were of too many Minecraft references. But as someone who teaches Minecraft, I can tell you that if anything Tremblay went light on them for the reader's sake. He captured awkward, annoying, approval-needing teen boys perfectly in this dark, eerie tale of the secrets people close to us keep.
Publisher: Quirk Books. May 17, 2016.
Genre: Horror & Comedy
Source: Publisher
Pages: 336
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"Corn dogs," the exorcist said, "are all the proof I need that there is a God."
If you're looking for a lighter horror novel, My Best Friend's Exorcism is the book for you. Grady Hendrix is responsible for Horrorstor, the horror novel that looks like an IKEA catalog. The gimmick this time? An 80s theme with binding that looks like an old yearbook. Normally gimmick turns me off, but this book had enough substance and good storytelling to cause me to "have fun." I started reading this book, looked up for air, and realized I was 100 pages into the book. Oops!
Super readable and fun (and that's coming from someone who hates fun), this is a story about teen girls in private school and a possession. Something happens to Abby's best friend, Gretchen, in the woods one night and she's a little different afterwards. And then she's a lot different. In a series of disturbing scenes, we start to see Gretchen's transformation and the havoc she wreaks on his friend group. Even though Gretchen turns on Abby in horrible ways, Abby is determined to save her friend. And she may get a body building god-enthusiast in on it. I laughed several times throughout the book.
There are a lot of things to love about this book. Every chapter title is the name of an 80s song, for example. There weren't quite enough scares for me, but it makes up for it with how fun it is. And the ending is surprisingly moving (I cried). Early on, I was very nervous the plot was going down a "girl gets raped and manifests itself in ways that look like possession" path. Which is a tricky path to navigate. But then that potential plot sort of gets dropped? Which is overall good, but then also feels like a loose thread. I don't know. I also paused for a number of days in the middle of reading, so it's possible that's what caused the feeling of a break in that plotline. Overall, a fun horror novel if you're not looking to get too scared.
What horror combo books do you love?
