So my #blogtunes was this ultra spooky Halloween music, but it was really freaking one of my dogs out. To the point that she was driving me crazy enough to just turn it off all together. She's grateful. C'mon, it's Halloween Eve! Is anybody else excited! October is by far my most cherished month of the year (and it's not because of my birthday or wedding anniversary). I love fall, and October is fall for me, plus Halloween! Who doesn't love Halloween! So, to keep up with this awesome month of the year, I chose all scary books for my reading list. Wait, what?! Yes! All horror, mwah, mwah, mwah! And to tell you the truth, it was a bit of an undertaking (*slaps knee), for real, next month will probably be full of romance and young adult to counterbalance. Who am I kidding? I just set aside about a dozen psychological thrillers that caught my eye this week alone! Btw, I broke out my light box for these pics (don't they look fantastic?); anyway. Let's get started."The Ritual"- Adam Nevill
I have to say, I was pretty stoked about this book, the blurb about it basically sells it as a survivalist situation gone awry. Picture four college friends on a weekend hiking holiday in the Scandinavian wilderness who take a shortcut; only to find themselves more lost than ever. As they settle into their dire situation, they notice the woods are not as they seem, and when they stumble upon a cabin filled with what appears to be ancient voodoo, things take a turn for each of them. Right off the bat I'm thinking, "Ok, Blair Witch Project". Right? Bumbling around in the woods, getting lost and then some uber freaky shit starts happening; things hanging from trees, alters made from twigs and branches? Sound familiar? I will say this book scared me; at least the first half. Imagine you watch this TV show and you love the characters and the story line, then you find out your beloved show is doing a crossover episode with another show. You watch it, right? Only to find out that the other show sucks and you can't believe anyone would muddle something so great with something so mediocre. That is this book. It is broken into two halves, literally Part One and Part Two. And Part One was freaking awesome, evil blackness in the night, people getting snatched up, perfect! Had me holding my breath! Then Part Two came and blew it all to shit. At first you think it's a rescue, then it's not. And after about ten pages you get bored. There is some freaky stuff in Part Two, but it sort just lays it all out instead of suspense building like in Part One. It feels as if it was written by two different people, honestly. Don't get me started on the ending, we're not even going to discuss it!All in all, this book did have it's moments, and as someone who likes hiking and backpacking it was fucking terrifying. This is the kind of shit that scares me when I hike alone. So, read at your own risk. If you do read it, I would LOVE to discuss it with you!
"A Head Full of Ghosts"- Paul Tremblay
This book. This BOOK! Winner, winner, chicken dinner! This book took the prize this month. I had heard of Tremblay, but hadn't got a chance to read any of his work; now I know why his books are always hard to come by. So, for all of us, we have a specific type of scary book/movie that we know will scare us. For me, it's the paranormal. Always. I love getting scared by film and pages; honestly. And if I'm going to dedicate my time to watching/reading something "scary", I want to be scared. Paranormal does that for me. And "based on true happenings" shit; um yes! So, when I decided to do all horror this month, I knew there had to be a paranormal book in the lineup. This is an usual find. It's a story within a story. Meredith, Merry, decides that after fifteen years to come forward and work with a writer to tell her side of the story of what happened to her family; namely her older sister Marjorie. So we are in the present, then jumping back over the years in a memory to when Merry was only eight years old. Can you remember being eight? I mean, I sort of can, but if I had a year like the Barrett family; I'd remember it too. So, Marjorie starts having some... issues, we'll say. Outbursts, night mares, aggressive behavior; eventually, after her parents have accepted it's more than just teenage B.S. (Marjorie was fourteen, after all) they decide sending her to a therapist is best. As if that's not enough happenings, the Barrett's are not all that well put together. This coming at a time when Mr. Barrett has lost his job and they are struggling to make ends meet. Things descend quickly, more and more strange things occur with Marjorie; to the point that Merry's father, a very newly religious man, turns to the church for help. Oh, yes. An exorcism! Wait, wait! That's not all! On top of this, they've been asked to be part of a paranormal reality TV show. Yes! All the while Merry is revealing to us her memories, we also get this interjection of a blogger who is breaking down the TV series, episode by episode, telling us that it's all fake and how they made it all look real. So as Merry is telling us the real story, we have this blogger putting a bug in our ear about how maybe it's not all real. Maybe this girl isn't possessed, maybe she's just fucking crazy. Schizophrenic, even.
The ending? Perfect. Absolutely perfect. You will be mad and dumbfounded simultaneously. And you'll be left asking yourself, was it real? Was Marjorie really possessed, or was she just really, very ill? You choose.
Also, if you like books about paranormal, check out Andrew Pyper's "The Demonologist". Will not disappoint!
"House"- Frank Peretti and Ted Dekker
It threw me off a bit that this book was "officially" written by two people. I mean, everyone gets help with their novels, have you ever read the acknowledgements sections? But, to be legitimately written by two people, I really didn't know what to expect. It begins with a couple, Jack and Stephanie, who are driving through the backwoods of Alabama when they run over a spike strip, effectively rendering their car useless in a no reception zone (of course). So they walk until they find a house, an Inn actually, and upon arriving they run into another couple with an identical story, coming from the direction they were heading. Coincidence? When they finally find the owners of the establishment, you immediately know they are not normal. It feels like a sick slasher movie right off the bat; inbred backwoods hillbillies trap couples at an Inn? Sounds pretty good. Then shit gets weird. The lights go out, a mysterious man appears outside who the innkeepers fear and liken to the Devil. Then a can gets dumped down the chimney with instructions to "the game", including which, if one person is killed the others can go free. Interesting motive, yes? Eventually everyone ends up in the basement of the house, which at the beginning of the book we are warned never to go, and the book takes another turn. So, is this book about a slasher killing? A deranged lunatic playing a game? A haunted house? Ghosts? Good vs. Evil? God vs. the Devil? A psychological bender? Group fear induced paranoia? Yes. It is all those things. It's as if Peretti and Dekker couldn't really decide which way to go with this book, so they went every direction. The further into it I got, I just got numb to all the plot twists; I really couldn't keep up and not being able to really understand how the book was set up made it harder to enjoy. Just when I started getting settled into the knew line that Peretti and Dekker fed me, they changed it again. There was a lot going on. And it had it's moments, but it was too widespread for me. Don't get me wrong, this book scared me, but it was a thinker, that's for sure. It was also turned into a film in 2007; which I will be getting my hands on soon. I will also be looking into Peretti and Dekker's individually published books (all horror or psychological thrillers, naturally); maybe some of them will pop up here in the future.That's all I have for you this month! Thanks for the read, I hope you found a new book to dive into. Please like, comment, share and subscribe! Oh... and Happy Halloween!
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