Dear TBR,
FRIENDS. This scary book business is getting serious. I double-checked BOTH of these for age group, and acknowledged again that myriad children are braver readers than I am!! These were VERY SCARY!
BLOOM: The Overthrow, by Kenneth Oppel – (The School Library Journal lists this novel as for ages 5-7. Be advised: there are fatalities.) This novel begins with a scene that is a flash forward into… chaos, and I was immediately hooked, intent on finding out how the story had gotten to that point…
Anaya is allergic to EVERYTHING – gluten, lactose, ragweed, dust, pine dander – the list goes on. Oppel gives us a really solid intro to a character SO relatable for many people who feel allergic to the world. (Shout out to my fellow autoimmune folk.) Anaya wakes with her eyes glued closed by allergens (ew), and with the deepening of puberty is developing a pretty nasty case of cystic acne. Oh, the joys of adolescence – Anaya’s body is freaking out with out of control reactions to everything. Her ex-best friend, Petra, is having the same issue – kind of. Without the acne and swollen eyes, though. Petra is allergic to water. It’s insane how she milks it, too. Poor Pretty Petra. She and Anaya were besties, but when Anaya got too ugly with her swollen face and her acne, Petra vanished – only good-looking allergic reactions allowed, thanks. Anaya’s over it, though. She’s just going to concentrate on being smart, on spending time on yearbook with Tereza, and hanging with her botanist Dad, who is goofy and enthused and frankly embarrassing, but at least he’ll never dump her, even if the new black grass he’s working on is taking up all his time. It grew the day after the big rain stopped – and it’s growing blindingly fast – like, a foot a day.
On the day of the big rain – which comes down for three days straight – Petra’s not thinking straight. Furious at being unable to see a alternative medicine doctor without her parents’ permission – which her MD father will never, ever give her – she forgets her good umbrella, and gets stuck with one of her backups. Water – even in the form of rain – is dangerous to her, but this rain doesn’t hurt – at all… It makes her skin feel good for a change! Petra’s collecting it in basins and jars – despite the fact that it’s making some of the most interesting things grow…
For Seth, living on a farm is new – he’s never had a foster situation land him anywhere with so much… outside before. Seth’s usually inside, sketching the wild dreams that seep into his brain at night – dreams of flying and stuff. He’s never really had friends in his foster homes, but he’s met a few people who are actually really nice. It’s starting to feel like Seth is finally in the right place – and he might get a family. With this crazy rain coming down and kick-starting some wild growth cycle, his new foster dad needs him to help weed their organic garden. They start hoeing… and then mowing, and decide to try burning the invasive stuff, but the black weeds produce a caustic smoke that nearly takes Seth’s foster father out. He’s a hero for pulling his foster father to safety, but, the smoke… it just didn’t bother Seth’s lungs… at all…
This novel begins with a quasi-normal life for all three main characters, and then “blooms” into true horror. Environmental horror, with the known and familiar world of plants abruptly and globally spiraling out of control as plants become no longer a benign and easily controlled thing, but a semi-sentient, malevolent, and voracious thing intent on snuffing out humanity. This book also contains body horror, reflecting the out-of-control changes which a pubescent body encounters, heightened into other out of control changes in the three main characters which they cannot explain – and are afraid to examine too closely. There’s mounting anxiety and horror which segues almost automatically into downright disturbing, and I’d actually consider reading the sequels. Maybe. The next titles sound even worse, though. (We go from Bloom, to Hatch, to… Thrive? Kenneth Oppel is really, really too good at this writing style.)
SPIRIT HUNTERS, Book 1, by Ellen Oh: The ‘horror’ in this novel is of a more banal sort, to begin with – a New York to D.C. move, in the height of summer, into a house with non-functioning AC. THIS IS A TRUE HORROR, PEOPLE. The house is creaky-old and our main character, Harper, immediately loathes it – for more reasons than one. It’s slowly revealed that Harper isn’t necessarily a reliable narrator — she has blank spots in her memory from an incident that happened at her old school, and then her residential new school. What was disquieting in this for ME is that her parents don’t necessarily believe that she didn’t do what she said she didn’t do – yet as a reader I somehow immediately believe her about the house.
Harper’s memory issues heighten the sense of unease which permeates the narrative…. and this is not a happy Korean-American family, regardless of how they look on the surface. Harper’s older sister hates her and blames her for everything, for reasons Harper’s not quite sure of – those danged memory blanks again – and her four year old brother has gone from being a cuddly snugglebug to a howling, tantrum-throwing monster. Harper escapes into the sweltering outdoors as often as she can. Meeting Jamaican neighbor Dayo’s mannerless little dog reminds her of her grandmother’s perfectly behaved pooch – which abruptly brings up the question, where IS her grandmother!? Harper hasn’t seen her grandmother since she was five, and her little brother has never even met the woman. Why doesn’t she come and visit anymore? They used to be so close – and the family is now near enough to Maryland where her grandmother lives to visit? But a request to do so enrages Harper’s mother, for some reason – which only adds to the unstable pile of questions in Harper’s mind.
The reader is gradually led into the Really Scary stuff – the weird movements Harper sees out of the corner of her eye. The antique toy she nearly trips over in the hallway. The near fall she takes down the long, twisting, hard, wooden stairs. The disembodied voices that seem to whisper her name, unless she pulls her bedroom door closed. The VERY creepiest thing is the sense that all of this has happened before. Harper knows one true thing: she’s been unhappy, and the recent past has been awful for her and her family. She needs another ending to the story, so she finally stops trying to pretend nothing is happening – and reaches out for help. Dayo’s suggestions on what to do next set Harper on a course that change her whole way of thinking – and reunites a broken family.
I admit that the title of this book gave me pause, but in the steady hands of Ellen Oh, while the reader is certainly plunged deep into ectoplasm and blood-weeping walls and EEEK, there’s somehow still a confidence that that there’s going to be a way through to the other side. Full props to Ms. Ellen for managing to speak to racism and inclusivity even in a novel where this isn’t the topic, and I appreciated the Buddhist/Catholic exorcism traditions that she researched and combined.
But – not gonna lie, I LEGIT expected nightmares from this one. Possession is NOT my favorite topic… and little kids and possession is straight up brutally scary. But Ellen Oh pulled it off – admirably. Though I’m still not going to dig into the sequels.
Fresh onto the TBR:
- A Sorcerer Comes to Call, T. Kingfisher
- City Spies, James Ponti
- Small Spaces, Katherine Arden
It’s that time of year – my library holds list runneth over. So much great stuff is out there! Be reading!
Until the next book, 📖
Still A Constant Reader
