Beelzebub's library

“Leap days” by Ian Bennett and “Anya’s Ghost” by Vera Brosgol Since these two graphic novels are somewhat similar and neither is particularly long, I figured reviewing them together would make sense. Both take place in high school and they are both coming of age stories. They also both involve a high schooler befriending a supernatural force who allows them to cheat in school. LEAP DAYS We’ll start with Leap Days since it’s the relatively less emotionally charged of the two.             I was surprised by this book. When it opens, it’s pretty grim. Being more realistic, it depicts the crushing boredom of school and the frustration of a sense that you are wasting your time and not really learning anything. The protagonist’s name is Jake and he drifts through the day, unknown by everyone and uninterested in everything. The only thing that snaps him out of the malaise aside from eventually getting to go home and go to sl...

YA novel: Spy, m ystery, gothic fiction This review contains minor spoilers.  This book could have been what it bills itself as. It could have been a series of accounts regarding the titular character’s background, none of which is necessarily confirmed, with a lot of allusion to events referenced in A Series of Unfortunate Events and The Beatrice Letters (The latter of which I have not read, it’s possible that the thing I wanted was in there instead of here).             That’s not what this book is. In fact, after starting with some backstory on Lemony Snicket’s early childhood and induction into the VFD, the book quickly descends down rabbit hole after rabbit hole into a series of obscured and never totally explained mysteries that surround people tangentially related to him and the secret organization he is involved with. And that’s fine. Daniel Handler, the man behind the pseudonym, has made a point of not ans...

Graphic novel: Noir/Thriller/Horror, Contains Gore, Obscenity, Adult implications, and Disturbing imagery. This review contains spoilers When I was very young, I got a fungal infection in my ear from prolonged exposure to water. I have had trouble with congestion in my ears since that point. Usually, it’s not too bad, but sometimes it can feel very irritating.             Silverfish by David Lapham is a graphic novel that takes advantage of our paranoia regarding our ears. You think it’s disgusting to think about earwigs crawling into your ears? It’s about ten times worse when its hundreds of tiny fish (which resemble viperfish) crawling to your brain.            (The above is a Viperfish, in case you were unaware)   Silverfish is neither about hundreds of tiny viperfish nor about a man with a fish head, as would be indicated by the drawing on the back of the book. It’s not ...

Novel: Horror, Cosmic Horror, Existential  WARNING! This review not only contains minor spoilers but  views expressed regarding uh, God, and uh, the meaning of existence and such. So if that’s not your thing, turn around.             Yup. So, this is the fourth book of  King’s which I have reviewed. Or is it  the third?  You can check… I’m sure. I’m very tired as I’m writing this, I just got finished writ ing something which was very sapping. I might upload a hint of it.             But, onto the review!             A bunch of folks are all traveling through the American Southwest, and  they end up getting pulled over/arrested/generally dependent on a small town Sherriff who turns out to be exceedingly violent and disturbed.         ...

Novel: Murder-mystery Isn’t it a shame how little we get of the infamous Professor Moriarty in the original Sherlock Holmes series? I assumed, upon reading the title of this book, that it was going to dive into the Moriarty’s past, that it would be more about him than Sherlock Holmes (ala Horowitz’s previous book taking place in Conan Doyle’s universe, “The House of Silk”). Alas, it was not to be so. The book is, for the most part, devoted to the work of two characters, Pinkerton Detective, Fredrick Chase, and Inspector Athelney Jones. These two meet at the Reichenbach Falls, post the great duel between Moriarty and Sherlock Holmes and meet up to inspect a body believed to be Moriarty’s. They quickly discover that the man Chase had tracked to England, a crime-boss on par with Moriarty, had in fact been communicating with Moriarty (per Chase’s suspicions). They decide to team up in hopes of bringing down this dastardly wrongdoer and thus starts the main conflict of the...

Novel: Thriller, horror. Contains violence and disturbing imagery.  Warning: This review contains minor spoilers.             Do you like tragic thrillers, bordering on horror? Stories which seem like they originate from the pits of humanity which we do not understand and do not wish to? Small towns with big secrets? Twists that you know are coming from a mile away, but find yourself too surrounded by fog to know the nature of this twist until it is footsteps are right upon you and your heart is tearing to get out of your rib cage???             If any of these apply to you (or god forbid, them all), then Borrasca may just be the book for you.             The book starts out with the old “I’m moving to a small town because of my dad/mom’s new job. Of course, in this book, the change of job is a lot more...

Novel: Sci-fi, Apocalyptic fiction.  The first review I posted here was for Stir of Echoes by Richard Matheson and I suggest you check it out, as it pertains to the subject of telepathy, a major theme in this week's book, The Chrysalids .         The book takes place in a post-apocalyptic world, one which is heavily implied to be the result of an atomic war. Civilization has collapsed and reformed under a new order. The civilization in North America is ruled by a government, but that government must conform to a number of religious rulings, the majority of which regard mutations. The new world order prescribes the destruction and incarceration of all mutations since evolution doesn’t exist, everything was made perfect in the beginning by god. Of course, since there’s a whole lot of radiation hanging around like a bad guest at a dinner party, mutations aren’t exactly few and far between.         Our protagonist is one of these mutati...

Novel: Supernatural, Horror, Mystery. Contains violence and disturbing imagery.  This review contains minor spoilers.  I finished this book a while ago, I have just been so busy with my practice writing that I haven’t gotten around to this review. The book is about a secret government operation called Southern Reach who has been sending teams of researchers into a closed off stretch of Florida designated as Area X. It is one-third a mystery, one-third a cosmic horror story, and one-third a mind-blown-makes-no-sense-but-is-cool-anyway type story. The narrator is one of the researchers, who becomes more and more unreliable as the situation degrades.  This helps the atmosphere a lot. First things first, I should mention that I have actually met the author of the Southern Reach trilogy, Jeff VanderMeer. I took several presentations in which he taught about writing. So with that out of the way, if I’m not particularly hard on him at certain points, it...

Novel: Sci-fi, horror. Contains: Violence and disturbing imagery. “The Martians understood doors!” – H. G. Wells That quote is no doubt the most comedic (and I have no doubt unintentionally so) sentence in the book, War of the Worlds, which ends on a rather grim note. Not that a story about aliens invading and causing  destruction can’t end on a grim note , I would be disappointed any other way. But the books beginning isn’t nearly as interesting (or grim) as its end. Of course, you don’t want a book to end as it starts, otherwise the reader will feel that they, the author, and all the characters involved have simply walked around in circles a bit.  But you want some sense of cohesion, and the beginning feels a little bit too “Oh, what wonderful astronomy!” for the rest of the book, which goes into themes of war, madness, starvation, and desperation. Those themes are dived just deep enough to keep the story on track, but Wells can surprise you with the sudden brut...

Novel: Sci-Fi.  This review contains spoilers.  Our story starts off innocently enough, with an optimistic man named Joseph Swartz in the late forties strolling down a Chicago street. His fate is quite a tragic one, as moments later he steps over a doll and gets sent tens of thousands of years into the future. Interestingly enough, the book doesn’t really dwell on the fact that he loses his wife and three children in this manner. Later on, he laments over it, but it can’t have been mentioned more than one or twice. After much deliberation, he begins to understand this new world. As it turns out, a great catastrophe since his day has not only caused Earth to become infertile but also for earthlings to be treated as lesser humans.  The Galactic Empire treats earthlings as less-than-humans and they don’t allow them to leave the planet Ior ship goods and products of the planet) because they believe that everyone born of earth carries toxic radiation....