True confession: I've never much cared about Halloween. After about age 7 I really hated the costume thing; I was always afraid of being judged about a terrible costume and thus probably wore a terrible costume as a self-fulfilling prophecy. Plus we lived in a rural neighborhood so trick or treating involved a lot of driving around and you have to worry about stupid rednecks who don't chain up their dogs or stuff like that. It seems more efficient to me nowadays to just go buy a bag of candy for myself and screw the rest of it--except the movies; I like some scary movies.
Now for Halloween it's a ghost story! Written by one of those online "friends" who does nothing for me. What, you think you're better than me with your fancy publishing contract and agent and stuff?
The Unquiet
by Jeannine Garsee
(4/5 stars)
Anyway, I'm glad I did win this book because it was a fun read. I recently read an advance copy of the new Amanda Hocking book that is in the same genre and I have to say I liked "The Unquiet" a lot more. I think the primary reason being that the main character Rinn is a lot brighter than the main character of Hocking's book. That and there weren't obvious typos and bad writing, just one slight factual error concerning slasher movie killer costumes.
As I said the plot involves a girl named Rinn. Like so many of these type of books or movies, Rinn and her mom are new to town. Or at least Rinn is new to town; her mom used to live here before college. They've fled La Jolla, California after Rinn accidentally burned down her grandmother's cabin with her grandmother inside. The main cause for the fire is that Rinn is bipolar and at that time was off her medication and thus careless.
In River Hills, Ohio, she figures she'll get a clean start. She even makes friends with the head cheerleader Meg and her friends Tasha and Lacy. She also makes friend with the neighbor/landlord's son Nate.
Her new friends introduce her to the legend of Annaliese Gibbons, a girl who drowned in the school pool about 20 years ago, back when Rinn's mom went to the school. The pool area is now closed, but Annaliese's spirit is said to live on.
After Rinn and her new friends hold a seance around Halloween, strange things begin happening. The lives of Rinn's new friends begin to unravel and then one dies. Is it Annaliese striking from beyond the grave? Or is it just that Rinn is having a relapse?
I figured out most of the plot well before the ending. If you're familiar with either the original or remake of "A Nightmare on Elm Street" then you might be able to figure it out as well.
Still, as I said, it's an entertaining read that I breezed through in a few hours. As far as the young adult books I've read it might not be more or less wall-to-wall action like "The Hunger Games" but it's less dull and stupid than "Twilight" or that new Amanda Hocking novel I mentioned.
So I would definitely recommend reading it, even if you weren't lucky enough to win a copy of your own.
That is all.
6 comments:
Sounds intriguing.
I like the term "less dull and stupid." That just sounds so great in a review.
You must read a lot of books. It must be hard to decide which ones to pass on and which ones to devote time to.
Note to self: don't buy stock photos unless you can afford exclusive rights.
Greetings human, Pat,
Thanks for the review. I shall unquietly go back to my garden for a well deserved dump. Happy Howloween!
Penny the Jack Russell dog and modest internet superstar!
There was just a bunch of people on the Internet talking about something that Bill Nye posted about the "Birthday Paradox," which is essentially that in a group of about 23 people it's almost a certainty that two people have the same birthdate. That kind of stuff drives me insane because it confuses probability with ACTUALITY. In terms of PROBABILITY, sure, that's correct, but in ACTUALITY people are motivated by more than random chance and that's why it never actually happens all that often. Although in Mr Bunches' class three kids have the same birthday, and there's only 20 kids in that class. That's actually not that unlikely, though, in that they were born right at the beginning of September, and that's the cutoff for starting school, so kids born on 9/4 would be a year ahead of them.
Anyway, I digress; someday I'll do another post pointing out how wrong the scientists really are, like I did the time that guy actually claimed to have recreated the Infinite Monkeys Shakespeare thing. But not today, not in a comment on your blog.
This book: Meh. Not only is it YA, which makes me not want to read it even if the premise sounds interesting, but I feel like it's been done about a zillion times. So unless it's REALLY REALLY good, then I'd skip it. But "done a zillion times" is what gets people publishing contracts with mid-size publishers, so I guess I can't fault her for retelling the same old "Is she crazy or is someone coming back from the dead" story. (My guess? She's crazy, right?)
Post a Comment