I had a hard time coming up with an assignment for Kate. My originally thought about assigning her first books in four different series but I had a trouble narrowing it down and most of them are series that she would totally have read if she hadn’t been so busy the last couple of years working on PhD. Which kinda defeats the purpose since the assignments are supposed to be of books that we normally wouldn’t read on our own. So I decided on four different standalone horror and suspense novels. All four of these books I enjoyed for different reasons. I think it’s good to have a scare every now and then but also like how genre can comment on social issues without being in your face about it but also to an audience that normally wouldn’t seek out such material on their own. So I’m excited to see how she like them.
I’m starting off Kate with Cryer’s Cross. I would say is kinda of a ghost story. Kendall loves her small town in Montana but she has dreams of going to school in New York. When tragedy strikes and her friends start to go missing, she teams up with the new boy to solve the mystery. Race, mental disorders and small town secrets all come into play in this well written mystery.
The Coldest Girl in Coldtown by Holly Black
Holly Black is a master story teller and this is in my opinion one of her best books. She takes the vampire genre to a new level with this one. I have to say it’s right up there with Sunshine by Robin McKinley. Cities have been walled up to quarantine off vampires from the regular populations. Tana wakes up the day after a party to find herself the only survivor of a vampire attack with the vampire and her ex-boyfriend both tied up. She must make the decision to take them to a Coldtown. Depression and the search for fame are also examined as they make their journey.
The Waking Dark by Robin Wasserman
They called it the Killing Day when regular citizens go on a killing spree out of nowhere in a small town in Kansas. Five teenagers from different parts of town are thrown together as they try to survive the night and the mysterious virus goes through the town. Social classes, privilege, abuse all play apart of the narrative as they figure out what’s going on and how they can escape it.
I changed my final book. I originally was going to have Kate read another Holly Black novel but it didn’t really fit the whole horror theme. This one kinda gave me nightmares. So good Luck, Kate. Ry and his mother and sister are trying to save their Iowa farm when a meteorite hits nearby and their past comes back to haunt them. Their abusive father is on the loose and Ry must rely on his old imaginary friends to helped him survive his father before. Can they do it again?
I hope Kate and everyone who chooses to read along will enjoy their Summer of Horror and Suspense.
I admit that I still have nightmares from this series. Particularly since I live in New York City and ride the subway through many of the same stations that they talk about in this book and I can’t help but wonder if they are vampires down there. You may have seen the show. I haven’t so I don’t know how it compares but I can’t imagine it as scary or creepy as the book because I’m pretty sure most of the book is not cable ready material. New York because the epicenter of a virus that turns people into vampires. Instead of the traditional being bite on the neck by a vampire to be turned, people are turned by little worm like things. Gross. Eph and his team at the CDC investigate several mysterious illnesses only to find themselves in the middle of a epidemic that deals with ancient vampires. As they try to stay alive and figure out what’s going on and how to stay alive and not to mention dealing with family drama. It’s the perfect scary series to read for Halloween. The ending of the series is truly heartbreaking.
Ok, so this is scary or spooky as the others but the make no mistake the story of the Baudelaire siblings is truly terrifying. When their parents tragically die and they are sent to live with Count Olaf. Things get worse from there. A Series of Unfortunate Events is truly an understatement as the unfortunate events are usually the faults of the adults they are put in the care of. Violet, Klaus and Sunny are put in one bad situation after another from the very first book when Count Olaf tries to marry 13 year old to get a hold of their fortune. Is there really anything more horrifying then that? The first couple of books are a little formulaic but once you get to book five things really start to pick up and things get really scary.
2 Women, So Many Books 