When Good Ideas Fall Flat: Danielle Rollins’s Burning

Ever wonder what happens when you write a book in which all of your characters are one dimensional? Curious abut whether those incredibly flat characters can be brought to life with some interesting, supernatural-istic events? Well, look no further!

When I read the synopsis of Burning by Danielle Rollins, I was certain I’d stumbled upon a find. A girls’ juvenile detention center in upstate New York? Check. A girl with creepy Firestarter-esque super powers? Check. A lead character who’s in for . . . something that must be bad, because she’s been there for 2 years? Check.

Yet something about this all in reading it just didn’t propel me along in the way I tend towards when the book is super engaging. As in, it wasn’t the kind of read that annoyed me when I had to peel myself away from the book. It wasn’t the kind of listen that made me a headphone using, walking zombie for 8 hours. I did listen to it on Audible, though I didn’t think the narrator was particularly good–she tended to make everyone sound a little boring, a little unexcited, even in the most exciting situations.

The book’s about Angela Davis, a young woman short of her 18th birthday, who’s been in the detention center for over a year. We follow her and her 2 cellmates on their day to day, through the routine of the center, through detailed explanations of what they do and why, how they go about doing it, what the limits and parameters set on them are. There are occasional moments when you get a vague Orange is the New Black vibe, but I mean very occasional.

What I’d been hoping for was a tale actively reflecting the realities of young women in a juvenile detention center. Or a really creepy story. Or both. What I got was none of the above. Don’t get me wrong, it’s still interesting, and I’m still somewhat curious about the next installment (somewhat being the key operative), but it really lacked that spark (ha!) that usually leaves me waiting for more.

Essentially, Angela and her cell mates are going about their lives, waiting for when it’s time to be released. They get in fights, they tell each other stories, they watch each others’ backs, they work in the food hall. And that’s about it.

Until 10 year old Jessica arrives–a tiny wisp of a girl, immediately sent to the segregation wing. And with her appearance, their world turns upside down. A new doctor shows up with fancy technology, money, and a flashy program to lure the girls to submit to her every test and whim. The previous director leaves without a trace. The guards all start acting weird. Cameras appear everywhere. Strange events start occurring around Jessica.

When SciGirls, the doctor’s pet project to help girls succeed, is introduced, magically the entire detention center is turned upside down, with girls all clamoring to study archaic science facts and pass “the test.” Angela and Jessica are maybe the only 2 completely uninterested in it. Angela because she just wants out by her little brother’s birthday, and Jessica because at 10, she’s apparently smarter than all the other girls in the center.

As the mad doctor takes ever-more-constrictive and crazy measures to seek out Jessica’s teddy bear (ahem, yep), and lays down increasing threats on Angela to do so, things only become more complicated.

A Few Thoughts:

1. Well, I liked that there was a highly diverse cast of characters racially; on the toss side, they are in a juvenile detention center, so I’m not sure how I feel about it ultimately. Sadly, the touches that would have made these characters round–like backstories, more detailed development and personalities–was missing. We only see them through Angela’s perspective, and she’s pretty wrapped up in herself.
2. Angela’s awfully self-focused. I mean, there’s an entire SciGirls thing happening, and she can’t be bothered to at least know what others think about it? To try to understand why it’s a deal? To question why Dr. Gruen would single her out for favors and to be Jessica’s buddy? Even in terms of what she did to be sent to the center, it’s almost as if the author’s trying to convince us that it wasn’t that bad–that her acts are excusable because she took the moral high ground in ratting out her ex boyfriend. I dunno–maybe I’m missing something, but I wasn’t impressed.
3. The whole security guard romance? No. Just no.
4. Jessica is probably–no, definitely–the most interesting character in the book, yet we get almost nothing from her. She’s the one with the interesting powers, but somehow no one notices this other than Dr. Gruen and Angela? I don’t buy it–especially if she’s had as much difficulty controlling those powers as is eluded to repeatedly. And why isn’t Jessica speaking? And what has she experienced that would lead her to be constantly terrified? If her home life was bad, it seems she might have developed some coping skills of some sort . . . and if not, why not? This was another character that lacked rounding–she’s basically the young, scared, superpower one, but that’s it.
5. The teddy bear’s a thing, and we do get a really long, kind of boring, monologue by Dr. Gruen about why it’s essentially the most important thing in the world to her that kind of makes sense, but not completely. I’m still not entirely certain I understand Dr. Gruen’s interest in girls like Jessica, especially with the big reveal that (spoiler!) she’s a firestarter, too! Sooo . . . not certain why she feels the desperate need for this stupid bear? And, if it’s so important, why didn’t she just offer Jessica a new one in exchange for the old one?
6. Have you noticed I keep using the word firestarter to refer to Jessica? It’s a classic Stephen King book reference, and one of several seen throughout. Another is the librarian, who keeps pets in the library, like the librarian in “Shawshank Redemption.” There are likely others, but I was struck by these the most.
7. Jessica, from what I can tell, never lies to anyone. She will remain quiet (back to the being scared thing), she will act weird (back to the firestarter thing), and she is a loner, but she never lies. Yet when shit hits the fan, it seems that the assumption by all the girls–including Angela–is that Jessica must be lying, to the point where they’re probably traumatizing the kid. I dunno. Again, like with the teddy bear situation, it sort of seems like there were other ways to handle the situation, but because every character is so flat, they couldn’t imagine it.

Overall:

Meh. It’s ok. At no point was I anxious to get back to the story, and in all honesty, found my mind wandering pretty often. You want a kid who can make fires with their mind? Try Mr. King’s Firestarter. You won’t be disappointed with that one.

One to Skip: Heather Brewer’s The Cemetery Boys

Cemeteries? Check. Creepy monster things? Check. Mental infirmity leading to greater issues? Check. Exciting romance between the new kid and the goth girl? Check. Creepy, slightly sadistic, slightly Flowers in the Attic grandma? Check. References to the King (that’s Stephen, for anyone who worships a different literary god)? Check!

Based on this exciting and definitely not often seen together checklist, one would think that Heather Brewer’s The Cemetery Boys was, seriously, the hottest release to come to YA Lit! Unfortunately, despite the long list of positives, there are just too many missing chunks; too many pieces that don’t quite mesh together; too many eyebrow raising coincidences; too many times when I thought a connection was going to be made, but somehow it didn’t. Sigh. So close, yet so far away!

The story follows Stephen, who’s forced to move to his father’s hick small town home from his own native Denver when his mother is checked into an insane asylum for (vaguely, we never really get any clear details on this point) raving about large winged things. Stephen’s dad is trying to pay her medical bills, which are ever-mounting, and when he loses his job, breaks the news to Stephen that they have to move in with his much-hated mother in order to not become homeless.

As one might expect, Stephen fights this, though it’s unclear what exactly he’s fighting. The fact that his dad lost his job? That they don’t have any more money? That his continuing to live near a mother whom he doesn’t see much is more important than anything else? That he’s having to switch schools (though he really doesn’t mention having any friends keeping him in Denver)? Even when his father finally lays out the facts to him, Stephen acts like a small child throwing a tantrum over something they don’t even know what they feel about.

Sooo. . . they move to his dad’s hometown of nowhere, called Spencer, and Stephen immediately acts awkward and weird, and seems to think that it’s perfectly normal that he, supposedly a major dork in Denver, would move to this tiny town and sweep the area’s leading goth girl right off her feet? Only to learn her mother’s also not all there, her brother’s the leader of the creepy guy pack and he, Stephen, has magically by virtue of moving become this intriguing, angsty, studmuffin dude he never was before. All while throwing regular temper tantrums about how terrible his life is/how horrible his dad is/how unfair the world is/etc.

He also decides–randomly and out of character–to befriend the band of wild ruffians because . . . all of a sudden uncharacteristically sneaking out all night to get wasted in cemeteries is now his “thing”? Hm.

What I Liked About The Book:

1. The premise is fascinating, and the first few pages really set up the scene for some super interesting/dramatic awesomeness. Seriously, it’s like the author had a checklist of awesomely creepy elements to throw into a story and went down the list.

2. References to Stephen King works? YES!!!! WAY better than more yawn-inducing quotes from ancient classics, and WAY more fitting for the setting. This should happen more often.

3. I liked the different personalities that hypothetically made up the group of cemetery boys, and the fact that it’s a group of boys, but there’s so little on them individually (and for the couple that get more attention, there’s so little that clearly connects and makes sense) that they all might as well be just a random pack of kids at school.

. . . and that’s all I got on what I liked.

What I Didn’t Like About the Book:

1. There are so many potentially great ideas scattered throughout here, but none of them are fully developed. Yes, it’s a shorter YA piece, but that doesn’t mean it can’t be a full and well-developed story. It just means that the author–and a good editor–need to decide what aspects need some axing to make the story a solid, believable whole.

2. The writing. So much was told that could have been shown, and those things shown were so unclearly connected. Seriously. We see half a chapter about the weirdness of the old guys sitting in the heat watching the road, but to what end? In such a short book, there just isn’t space for this unless there’s a reason for it. And here’s the thing: there just isn’t a reason for it. Same thing with two of the cemetery boys disappearing into the woods together and the speculation going along with it: with just the one mention–no further development, no explanation, no nothing–it loses the impact that it could have had and the nod to even small town diversity that might have been there–and instead simply becomes another false trail. Even with some of the larger characters we see this. A big deal is made about Devon “accidentally” dropping his journal in front of Stephen’s window one night, and this point is returned to repeatedly. Same deal with the fact that Stephen decides to keep it, that it has strange pictures drawn in it. When Devon finally gets it back, it’s such an anti-climactic reaction for so much build up, it’s almost comical.

3. We keep getting hints that don’t go anywhere. Kind of related to point 2, but enough to stand on it’s own. We get hints that dad hated his mom . . . but why? No, no–no need to elaborate. Just let us guess, right? We also get hints that Stephen’s mom’s delusions are related to rants about large, winged things . . . but don’t consider tying these ideas together at all. No need, right? (Note sarcasm dripping here). I guess what got to me is that there seemed to be a lot of loose ends in terms of the details of the story. Places where ideas could have been better connected, places where the plot could have been better developed, places where the characters could have been brought to life. But they weren’t.

4. Speaking of characters . . . sigh.  Again, there was a lot of possibility. But why would a dork move to a brand new place and then suddenly believe that a super hot chick is going to find him absolutely amazing? I don’t buy it–not only because, well, there’s nothing suggesting that he’s changed at all but also because any adolescent who’s grown up believing that they’re on the geek end of their peer spectrum is not suddenly going to believe themselves to be amazing overnight. Same thing with the band of boys he’s suddenly rolling with. These are cool, punk, breaking-into-buildings, staying-out-all-night, drinking-till-we’re-wasted dudes. How is Stephen not in the least bit suspicious of their open-armed acceptance of him into their group? And even their group is mischaracterized on the cover. Never once did I get the impression that these are die-hard, support each other come what may, friends til the end guys. Actually, quite the opposite: it felt more like they were together because they had to be, for reasons never actually revealed.

5. Um, parents much . . . or at all? We have dad–who’s jobless and trying to do chores around his mom’s house with his son. We have grandma–who’s mean and crusty around the edges, but for some reason gone all the time. We have mom–locked away for some reason. So it’s clear why mom’s not able to see any changes in Stephen, but seriously? Dad doesn’t notice/take issue with/have concerns about/etc the fact that his son, since this move to a town that he repeatedly emphasizes is dangerous, has taken to going out and staying out all night? To coming home wasted at all hours? To being hungover all day the next day? That dad has no interest in the friends his son’s making? And grandma’s supposed to be a horrible, heinous beast–and we get some tickling around the edges that that must be the case, but then there’s . . . well, really nothing.

6. So do people believe in these things or not? At the end of the story, I closed the book and haven’t thought about it since. But in writing this, it occurs to me that I still don’t know the answer.

Overall:

You can do better. Honestly, I’d just recommend you read anything by Stephen King, and that would be much, much better. However, to keep it in YA, if you want the goth element, consider anything by Gina Damico; if you want the insanity element, consider Madeline Roux’s Asylum books; if you want the creepy monster element, try Random Riggs’s books; if you want the band of boys friendship element, well, Stephen King’s The Body and It would work beautifully where this flopped.

What do you think? Anyone else out there read this one?

Quit Your Whining and Read the Darned Book!: Micol Ostow’s Amity Lives Up To Its Claims

I love me some scary stories. The scarier the better, too. However, rarely will you hear me say that I love me some rewritten scariness. I mean, once it’s done, it’s done, right?

And that’s where I’d have to be wrong. To say that I flew through Ostow’s Amity would be an understatement. This revisit of the original tale, The Amityville Horror by Jay Anson (which was the basis of the infamous movies) extends the story of the house–the locus of the fear–through the eyes of two different families, living in it at different times, 10 years apart.

Ten years earlier, we see Connor, a teenage textbook sociopath in the making. He’s unemotional, triggered to anger quickly, fascinated with the torture of animals and fire, unable to empathize, unable to communicate easily or clearly with peers, is easily combative, etc. Sounds like a great guy, right? Well, he also has a twin sister, Jules (AKA “Annie”), who lacks her brother’s sociopathic tendencies, yet is still moved to anger and frustration by the deeds and misdeeds of their horrible, abusive father.

In present day, we meet Gwen, accused of having suffered a mental breakdown and being hospitalized for it, and now looking to start anew with her family, including her brother, Luke. But Gwen doesn’t really seem to be crazy; she’s got a touch of ESP about her, which is completely unappreciated/misunderstood by her parents. Quickly she recognizes the house for what it is–and that is certainly nothing positive–and watches as her brother Luke falls under it’s influences.

The story weaves together the narratives from these two times, two families, two sets of twins/almost-twins. It’s creepy, blending together classic haunting elements with psychological issues, create a high-tension pitch to the whole affair.

I took a quick peek at what other people were saying about this book, expecting positive reviews. What I saw was a lot of people who clearly had never realized that the Amityville Horror movie franchise was itself based on a book, which wasn’t anywhere near as enthralling as this one, largely because it was nonfiction. What I also saw were a number of people who seemed to think that by lauding this book as being for Stephen King fans, it needed to rise to the heights of an adult Stephen King novel.

To this I have two arguments (and I’ll reiterate what I’ve said on a number of posts: Stephen King is a god in my household).

First, this is a YA Lit book. It’s marketed as such, it’s published as such, and it’s protagonists are all such. Stephen King has no books marketed as YA Lit. Automatically, for the intelligent reader, that’s going to create a distinction. But even ignoring that–let’s say we accept The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon as YA Lit, for example, it’s still not going to be on par with, say, The Shining, because that would be considered inappropriate for the target demographic. If what the comparative claim of Ostow to King had meant was that the plot and gore in on par, then no, that’s not viable. If what the claims meant were that she is using writing techniques, styles, and characters reminiscent of King’s greater works, then absolutely she does.

But speaking of The Shining, a number of parts of Amity are reminiscent of it. You have Gwen, who sees the ghosts that her family can not, and even talks to them. Her ESP also helps her to see that scary things around her that her mother doesn’t want to believe in. Gwen sees the scary, which the adults seem to work hard to shake off and ignore. Luke becomes increasingly absorbed in “projects,” becoming distant and obsessed with the boat house, not to mention with an ax. (Hmm. . . wasn’t an ax the weapon of choice in The Shining, also?) And in Connor’s time, there’s constant abusive behavior by the father. This all sounds an awful lot like a famous King book I know. . .

My second argument is that it seems most reviewers haven’t actually thought through what they’re saying: the comparison of Amity to King and THE Amityville Horror isn’t about the movies. It’s about the books. And many of the whinings and whimperings of reviewers seemed to be in nit-picking differences between a YA book based on the events of the BOOK, with an added King spin to it, not on the movies. For example, a number of reviewers seemed to harp on the author’s mention that the house was a “bargain price.” Well, if you read the book, you’ll learn that that was one of the reasons why it sold to the Lutz family (the original family of Amityville fame). Many of the little nuances of the house addressed in Ostow’s book also come directly from the real-life version of the Amity house, not from the movies.

Thus, I respectfully disagree with the reviewers who suggest that this book doesn’t live up to it’s promises. It certainly does, if you actually READ what it claims to live up to and not just watch the movies!

What I Liked About The Book:

1. It’s spooky! The author did an impressive job of weaving together different times, different narrative strands, and different types of scary events in a way that feeds all sorts of fears. I actually appreciated, as well,  the varied cast of characters and the differences/similarities in how they each responded.

2. 2 pairs of brother/sister pairs, 1 creepy house, 2 pairs of incompetent parents, many potential ghosts. Add them together and you get this story, but you also get a legit scary story. There are no pretenses at trying to blend together a scary tale with, say, a romance or a mystery.  It’s pretty much just straight up scary, which I definitely appreciated.

3. The author keeps those pages turning like nothing I’ve seen! She focuses on very short sections (there aren’t really official chapters), separating who’s speaking and when, but also subdividing those sections further, really keeping the eyes moving across the pages. (Especially after reading Aguirre and Dawson, I feel like there’s something to be said for interesting writing that doesn’t take forever to wade through).

4. The author blends together narrative along with psychiatric records, which adds to the chill-factor of the story. I would have loved to have had her include the “articles” about the house and it’s history that she mentions repeatedly, but that’s not completely necessary for the story, more just gratuitous (and greater tension creating).

5. The ending is creepy–and the story itself actually tells a full story, without the need to continue the tale into a multi-book series. I actually really appreciated this, as (again) it seems unnecessary for a story to need to be a series every time.

What Could Have Been Improved:

1. Although it is a YA Lit book, and so I know that the author was trying to tailor it to a younger audience/readership, I still think there could have been a few more scares and surprises added. I don’t think that these would have taken a lot of space to develop, either. Perhaps a little more about Luke sleeping in the basement? A bit more about what, exactly, Connor did to the kitten? Another instance or two of Gwen and Annie? More connection, generally, between the different isolated haunting-type events that occur?

2. Again, I would have liked to have had the contents of Aunt Ro’s binder of articles made available to the reader. Yes, we can obviously use our imaginations, but as this book has chosen to be computer/cell phone/regular phone free, that would be interesting.

3. I didn’t really like the pigeon-holing of Aunt Ro because she has a spiritual tendency. Indeed, what she believes in, exactly, isn’t really made clear, but she seems to be maligned for it nonetheless. My feeling was, as I read, that she was the stand-in in the book for the priests that the Lutz family had come to the house in the original book. I liked that the author expanded the effects of the house to non-traditional religions, but I would have liked this explained a little more. I think she made an important counterpoint, but because she’s considered odd and eccentric, there is no “normal” to balance the weight of events at the house against. I think including a “normal” adult weighing in on the house–above and beyond the weird occasional sighting of a person from town–would have further legitimized the situation.

4. The mental conditions of Gwen and Conner could have used further hashing out. Some connection, perhaps, as to why they would be more greatly affected by the stimuli from the house than others. And, because Gwen’s brother Luke is actually the one most negatively influenced by the house, perhaps more on what he’s experiencing. Also, perhaps more on why Conner hasn’t been receiving any greater treatment and why Gwen received quite so much treatment.

5. The parents of both sets of twins are pretty messed up. For a number of reasons. I did feel that these issues were somewhat minimized–obviously, there’s only so much an author can do in one book and still keep the plot at a fast pace and still keep the focus on the creepy events of the house, and I felt her writing style really did a great job with that. But as a YA Lit book, and particularly one that not only keeps the parents in the story but who are the impetus for the families’ moves to Amity, I would think they’d serve enough of a force to be worth dwelling on, at least a bit.

Overall:

I really enjoyed reading this book, and would certainly recommend it to others who enjoy horror, especially younger YA Lit readers. It’s far more engaging than the vast majority of other YA Horror Lit that’s been coming out, and certainly remains true to it’s claims. The characters themselves won’t keep you clamoring for more, but that’s not really the point within this genre.

What do you think? Anyone else out there had a chance to try this one?

At the Intersection of Fantasy, Magic, Realism and Fancy: Neil Gaiman’s The Ocean at the End of the Lane

For the sake of full disclosure, I actually listened to this book some time ago. But I felt like a neglectful blogger, as currently I’ve run into the conundrum of a) listening to a boring book; b) partially finishing a  book that had to be returned to the library; c) continuing reading a lengthy series I’ve already posted about several times; and d) being assigned some spectacularly dull reading for my grad classes. Sigh. But I’d wanted to address the interesting literary realm that is Neil Gaiman anyway, so here we are!

I’m a very big Neil Gaiman fan, I’ll say that from the get go. But not just because his tales walk the line between fantasy and reality, and not just because they allow our imaginations to groove in the direction they want to go, but that we don’t often get a chance to let loose and enjoy. The Ocean at the End of the Lane is being billed as YA lit, and I suppose I can see that: it’s not the hard-boiled Alice In Wonderland on crack that Neverwhere is, and it’s not the graveyard fairy tale of The Graveyard Book. This story’s focused on the in-between of these two extremes: a normal boy growing up with his family, and the spectacular series of events that occur in his coming to know the little girl that lives, well, down the lane.

I liked that it had this interesting blend, and it touches on witchcraft, which seems to be a continuously popular topic that keeps coming up in writing. However, I had a little trouble enjoying all of it, as I felt there were a number of times when there was a good deal of talking and not a lot happening. Gaiman is always good for spinning a yarn, but if I were to compare Mr. Gaiman to Stephen King for a moment, this is his The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon. There’s an on-going low-level tension throughout the relatively short tale, and there’s an end climax, but in terms of surprises along the way, there wasn’t much there (other than a fairly surprising sex scene).

It’s interesting, though, the lines he draws between the characters. Almost like a parable, there are clearly good characters, clearly bad characters, an evil to be overcome, a sacrifice to be made. And in the end, survival, hope, clarity and sadness. The simplicity with which the narrative can be dissected lends it to seem almost childish (like Mr. King’s Tom Gordon), yet it manages to maintain a more mature tension throughout.

In all, I’d say there are probably a few other YA Lit books that are a bit freakier (Ann Aguirre, I’m looking at you), but Gaiman is a household name and classic author for all levels, and this is a fine addition to a collection.

So what did you think? Anyone out there read this and enjoy it? Or think there were better out there?