Tunnel of Bones by Victoria Schwab

Cassidy Blake and her ghost best friend Jacob follow her parents once again on their TV show about the world's most haunted sites. This time, they travel to Paris, France where the food is delicious and the Catacombs are full of ghosts. When she is pushed through the Veil into the ghost world there, she accidentally allows a strong, malicious ghost to resurface in the human world. Its antics start out small and then eventually threaten the city at large. Cassidy has to remind the ghost who it was before she can send it on and delve into the mystery with old friends and new while keeping her family in the dark about her abilities.

Tunnel of Bones is the second book in the Cassidy Blake series. She survived the Red Raven but not unscathed. Cassidy is still exploring her powers and their purpose that has put a bit of a rift between her and Jacob. She releases ghosts stuck in memory loops to go wherever they go after here. Jacob obviously feels uncomfortable with this and the only other person with these powers (Lara) keeps saying he will grow more and more powerful and dangerous. It's never far from her mind that she might have to do eventually free a dangerous Jacob since he's getting stronger all the time. The rift between them grows as they both keep their true feelings from each other. This aspect felt so real because friendships suffer when secrets and grudges are kept. Their relationship is most of what keeps the story grounded beneath the supernatural elements.

This new ghost threatens not only Cass and Jacob like the last book, but all of Paris. As its power grows, bigger and bigger catastrophes happen. It feeds off of chaos and causes more and more violence. The ghost Cass loosed has forgotten who he was in life and the normal methods of freeing him won't work unless they remind him, forcing them to investigate this poor little boy who died in the Catacombs. Cass is forced to make new French friends in order to help her out. The Parisian setting is rich with dark aspects of history such as the creation of the Catacombs, the bodies moved there, and the people who subsequently died there plus other various disasters and battles. The Catacombs is a place that is so incredibly creepy, dangerous, and mysterious which is captured so well in Schwab's prose.

Tunnel of Bones is a wonderfully dark middle grade that centers Cass and Jacob's friendship. I do think the first book was a bit better because she was exploring this world and establishing everything. This book is more of a straight forward action book. The problem between Jacob and Cass simmers for most of the story until they have a breakthrough in the very end. It didn't feel as deep as the first book and it felt pushed to the side until the main action was done. I still very much enjoyed it, but a tiny bit was missing from the first to the second book. I am still so excited for the third book and anxious to find out what's going to happen to Jacob!

My rating: 4.5/5 fishmuffins

Women in Horror: The Girl from the Well by Rin Chupeco

Okiku died 300 hundred years ago and roams the earth killing men who murder children. She travels all over the world, largely unnoticed, ignoring everyone except her targets until she sees a boy with moving tattoos. His name is Tark and she finds herself drawn to him. For the first time in centuries, she becomes embroiled in his life and cares about protecting him from another spirit who follows him wherever her goes.

The Girl in the Well takes a trope, changes the perspective, and makes it feel fresh and new. Okiku, a vengeful spirit, tells this story directly from her own point of view. She travels as she likes around the earth, not always truly conscious, and kills murderous men. The spirits of those he has killed are tethered to him and unable to escape for the duration of his life. It's a truly chilling prospect for those poor spirits to not only die horribly, but to be forced to witness others dying the same way and following around their own killer for decades. When Okiku kills the men, the spirits are freed while she is still stuck on earth, looking for more spirits to free. Her descriptions feel a bit detached because she's lost much of herself in death and views most things with little emotion. My favorite part of her narration is the dramatic page breaks that both slow the tempo of reading and accompany a rare glimpse of intense emotion within her (usually followed by her attacking or scaring someone).

The legend of Okiku, or at least her image, is familiar because of Japanese films and American remakes like The Grudge and The Ring. She has long black hair, usually obscuring her face, and wears a white dress. In life, she was a servant who tried to serve her king well by warning him of treachery by a trusted advisor. The traitor broke one precious plate in a set of ten and in turn accuses Okiku of breaking it. The king believed him and allowed her to be tortured and killed, thrown down a well to drown. There are a few variations on this story, but she always ends up in the well in the end. Because of her background, she targets murderous men and continually counts everything: people, cars, dolls, ceiling tiles, anything in any given place. If she ever counts only nine, she has a violent outburst to destroy one of the objects to change the offending number. This trauma from her past hundreds of years ago persists to this day.

Even Okiku is surprised when she's drawn to Tark and the ghost woman in black tethered to him. She forms a sort of friendship with him as she becomes entrenched in his life. Callie, his older cousin, doesn't quite warm up to her and set to remind the audience that Okiku is still dangerous, not quite human. The plot involving Tark takes a lot of surprising turns, subverting the tropes of Okiku type stories. My favorite development was looking into his mother's background as a shaman. She gave up a life of protecting people and capturing evil spirits to be with Tark's father. She came from a powerful collective of women that served their community for the greater good that Tark later returns to for help with the spirit bound to him. The conflict between Okiku and the masked woman is pretty epic and leads to inner growth in Okiku.

The Girl from the Well definitely surprised me with its change in perspective and complex view of Okiku. On one hand, she's an avenging death angel who kills murderers without remorse and on the other, she's rediscovering her humanity and connecting with living humans. Her point of view is refreshing because this figure seems to always be painted as a malevolent presence when she was wronged in life and didn't start out that way. Her journey and narrative in the novel are fascinating and it took me almost no time at all to read. There is a sequel called The Suffering that I immediately bought and I can't wait to get to.

My rating: 4.5/5 fishmuffins

Pulse (2001)

Two separate groups of people discover a mysterious website. Kudo Michi is introduced to it when a co-worker casually commits suicide while she's in his apartment and finds images of it on a CD of his. Ryosuke stumbles upon the site when connecting to his new internet and sees videos of people acting strangely. Both people struggle to find out about the website and what it means.

Pulse is a strange movie that doesn't feel as familiar as others in its genre. The two parallel stories are a little odd because they don't have anything to do with each other save the website until extremely late into the movie. Both main characters are nice, well meaning people. Kudo wants to know why her coworker committed suicide and in such on odd way, leaving behind a black grease mark. Ryosuke wants to know more about the website that seemed almost like snuff films. He understandable shut off in terror after a man put a plastic bag over his head. He befriends a woman named Harue who drastically changes since he introduced her to the site.

The film brings up the fear of death and the possibility of contacting the dead. Harue is one of the people that can't handle being faced with her own mortality, but becomes comfortable with it when she's convinced she won't be alone as she feared. The situation worsens until it's a complete apocalypse situation. I didn't completely enjoy it because this aspect seemed to come out of nowhere. We follow these two characters' stories and then suddenly Tokyo is deserted. The film also moves glacially slow and didn't have enough scares or interesting events to keep my interest throughout the movie. It started off so well with unnerving images, but couldn't keep up the momentum for me.

Pulse is a unique film in it's approach, tone, and story telling. The concept of the dead returning to create a world wide situation is interesting, but the actual story lost me somewhere along the way. There are interesting concepts and images, including this red duct tape that somehow denotes the involvement of the dead and the stains left on the wall by the dead. However, they didn't seem to connect and weren't explained at all. They came off as a not well thought out collection of unsettling images. It might be a cultural reference or concept that I'm not familiar with. I can't say I recommend it.

My rating: 2/5 fishmuffins

Sisters of Blood and Spirit

Lark and Wren Noble are twins who are very different. Lark has white hair while Wren has red hair. Lark is more sarcastic while Wren is more sunny. Lark is alive while Wren died when she was born. They can communicate and see each other, but no one else can see Wren. Rumors abound as they grew up when Lark's imaginary friend never went away and it stopped being cute. Lark attempted suicide, was saved by her friend Mace, and was sent to a mental institution for her supposed delusions. She's back and a bit traumatized and more jaded, but better than ever. Now, Mace needs her help. A group of his friends stupidly pissed off an old and very powerful ghost at a dilapidated mental institution and desperately need their help. Can Lark and Wren beat this powerful ghost or will they die trying?

I loved Kady Cross's Clockwork Century series, so I had to read her new supernatural book with a modern setting. The strength of the novel is in the sisters. Lark and Wren are fully realized and have very different outlooks on life. Lark is snarky, sarcastic, introverted, and kind of cold. Some might find her unpleasant, but I understood where she was coming from. Most view her as a crazy freak and don't care to get to know her. She recently went through a dark patch where she tried to kill herself and ended up in a mental institution. There, she had herself almost convinced that Wren was a delusion, but came through stronger than ever. Now, she has to lay low and keep attention from herself to ensure never returning to that awful, ghost infested place. She owns her mistakes and learns from them. She can be a bit reckless, but she's crazy brave and willing to fight for those she cares for. The power she shares with her sister is strong and not fully understood by either of them. Not everything can be Googled. I liked that they learned their limitations and abilities over time through experience.

Wren is a bit different. She obviously can't talk to a lot of people and has minimal contact with other ghosts because of her close bond to her sister. Loneliness is pretty familiar for her. Then, she suddenly has a few more friends and a living boy who both likes her and can communicate with her. Wren is definitely more friendly, warm, and much less jaded than her sister. I felt for her because she doesn't really have a life of her own. She can explore the Shadowlands and meet other dead people, but she chooses to stick close to her sister and the land of the living. It simply isn't enough to have only one person to interact with. Wren also has a dark side that she rarely indulges in, but it's definitely disturbing and she relishes in it. She hides it from Lark and it'll be interesting to see how deep into it she's willing to go in future books.  

The story itself is pretty cool. I liked how Cross wasn't afraid to delve into some darkness and gore, but it was fairly predictable. I expected some wrenches thrown into my expectations, but was a bit disappointed. I also didn't really like many of the human characters beyond Lark. Mace kind of seemed sleazy because he clearly has a crush on Lark, but also has a girlfriend. That girlfriend (her name escapes me) is insufferable. If you thought Lark was a bitch, this girl takes the cake. She's mean for absolutely no reason and stays that way. The writing for Lark and Wren is so good, but this girl is super flat and every time she showed up I wanted to throw the book across the room. Kevin the clairvoyant was mediocre and the other human characters just kind of jumble together in my mind. The cover really bothers me. The concept is good, but the photoshop looks awful.

Overall, Sisters of Blood and Spirit was a fun book. I always like dark stories with fun characters. Everything was not always gloom and doom. Cross brings in humor to lighten the mood and break up some of the heaviness. The ending is satisfying without tying everything up too neatly and I would eagerly pick up the next book.

My rating: 4/5 fishmuffins

Anna Girl of Nightmares

Anna Korlov, better known as Anna Dressed in Blood, has been gone for months. She opened a door to hell in the basement of the Victorian house she haunted in order to defeat Cass's archenemy, the Obeahman. Unfortunately, she was sucked into that door as well. Cass, a formidable ghost hunter, is in love with her and has unresolved feelings. He knows having her at rest is better than having her hang around the living world, cursed to kill anyone who disturbs her house. Then, horrific visions of Anna pop up everywhere: at the mall, at his house, at school, while he sleeps. Desperate to find out how to get her and save her, Cass starts to research ways of opening up his own door to hell. Unfortunately, other occultists (like Thomas's grandpa and his own mentor) discourage him from even looking into it and want him to leave Anna alone. Anna saved his life and he loves her, so he continues his search. Their warnings did have some merit, made apparent when he invites the attention of an old cultish order that knows much more about Cass and his power than he does.

I read Anna Dressed in Blood, where the amazing and frightening Anna Korlov is introduced, last year and it shot up to the top of my favorite horror reads. Of course I had to read the follow-up novel that once again brings together Cass, Thomas, and Carmel, our intrepid ghost hunting trio. I can't get enough of these characters. All of them are amazing in their own way, but also not perfect. Cass is singleminded and unrelenting in his quest to free Anna. He would do the same for any of his friends, but she's also the girl he loves (even though he realizes how weird and fucked up it is). His sense of loyalty and morality makes him one of the best characters. Rather than follow someone else's belief system blindly like that creepy cultish order, he figures out his own moral code to follow. He also has a dark humor and wit that colors the narrative beautifully. Thomas once again proves his badass witch skills and sticks with Cass like a real friend even though everyone else thinks he should give up. Carmel is a little infuriating through most of the novel, but still has her good qualities even though she makes mistakes. Her fear doesn't deter her from fighting fiercely against things that outmatch her. These characters are so realistic and fun to read, making it even sadder that this series is over.

The scares are spaced out, but phenomenal. I was expecting more because of the previous book, so I was a teensy bit disappointed. The suicide forest scene and a couple of others (I don't want to spoil too much) were pulse pounding. This book is more about an emotional and psychological journey for Cass and completely different than the first book. I was also slightly disappointed that Anna didn't have a huge role in the book. She's talked about a lot and she definitely has a presence in the novel, but not as pronounced as the first book. I also didn't like seeing her as an damsel in distress, but when faced with a power so much stronger than her, I guess it was unavoidable. I have mixed feelings about the ending (among them being sadness, happiness, and anger), but I felt it was a truly satisfying end.

Anna Girl of Nightmares isn't as good as Anna Dressed in Blood, but it's still one of my favorites reads of this year and a very good novel with amazing writing and memorable characters. The more introspective and personal journey aspects are different from the first novel, but interesting and important to the story nonetheless. I will read anything Kendare Blake writes from now on and I highly recommend this to horror and YA fans.

My rating: 4.5/5 fishmuffins