Month: April 2019

Posted in Book Review

March Mystery Madness Part Four

Posted on by writingkat95

The last two books from my March marathon of mysteries are my favorites of the bunch.

Sawkill Girls by Claire Legrand and Bone Gap by Laura Ruby are two exquisitely dark mysteries that are sure to keep you reading all night and leaving the lights on for nights to come.

Sawkill Girls is a gorgeous feminist horror novel that explores both the great violence and intense loyalty teenage girls are capable of. I found myself thoroughly engrossed before I realized how truly terrifying this book would get; one moment I was wondering if there was romantic subtext between two characters, and the next moment I was reading a line that mentioned cleaning up a dead body.

The true horror of this book is that by the end of it, the gore and violence seem casual and even commonplace, made mundane by sheer saturation. The emotional weight is carried not by the violence itself, but by the empty spaces it leaves behind, the characters killed off and then missed acutely.

On the flip side, Bone Gap was almost happy by comparison. It had moments of intense, skin crawling creepiness, that much is true. But despite being a shivery mystery shrouded in Midwestern gothic folklore, the beating heart of the story is something else entirely. It is, at it’s core, one of the best love stories I’ve ever read.

Not only does this book explore the gasps and yelps of first love, it also looks at the way we are shaped by the other great loves of our lives. Familial love, friendship love, love of a town, love of oneself, all of these play a role in the outcome of this story. The root of it pits against one another the ideas of love and possession, and it is scarcely a spoiler to say that in my opinion, love prevails.

I highly recommend both these books to anyone who has a hankering for things that go bump in the night.

Happy reading!

-Kat

Posted in Book Review

March Mystery Madness Part 3

Posted on by writingkat95

Continuing on with my reviews of all the mystery novels I read in March, the next group of reviews feature three books I felt like captured the perils of teen life.

One of Us is Lying, by Karen M. McManus, The Cheerleaders, by Kara Thomas and Follow Me Back, by A.V. Geiger are all thoroughly enjoyable mysteries. Although nearly all the books I feature here are YA, these in particular felt as if they captured the distinct feeling of being in high school.

One of Us is Lying features a murderous version of The Breakfast Club, with new archetypes of modern teens. The characters, all of whom have secrets and fears of their own, are thrown together as suspects in the murder of their classmate, Simon. Each of them stood to gain from silencing Simon and his gossip blog, and yet each of them shines through the text as deeply believable characters one cannot help but root for. So who killed Simon? You’ll have to get to know each of the other students before you find out the answer.

The Cheerleaders is also filled with secrets, some of which may just keep you awake at night until you’ve unearthed all the answers. Tightly plotted, this mystery was so full of twists, I’m unsure how to describe it without spoilers, but I’ll try. Five years after a town tragedy, the protagonist sets out to discover what happened to the cheerleaders who died. Convinced that the series of accidents were actually a series of murders, she digs into the dark secrets in her hometown and finds out things she never expected. The high emotions and realistic portrayal of trauma really stuck with me, and I think this book is worth a read for mystery fans everywhere.

Follow Me Back may not be set in the halls of a high school, but the love story unfurling beneath the dark mystery is distinctly teen. The rush of first true love spooled together with a twisty mystery make for a cocktail of excitement. This book kept me guessing until the very end, and I’m told that I made a “tiny howling” sound when I read the last twist.

I highly recommend all these delightful, twisty mysteries.

Happy reading!

-Kat

Posted in Book Review

March Mystery Madness Part 2

Posted on by writingkat95

In keeping with my promise to review all the mystery novels I read over the month of March, today’s review is of The May Queen Murders by Sarah Jude and Broken Things by Lauren Oliver.

Fans of Nova Ren Suma’s Imaginary Girls are bound to enjoy these well crafted mysteries and their questionably reliable narrators. Fraught with high emotional stakes, these were two of the most intense books on my March reading list. Without resorting to excessive gore or gross-out scares, these stories simply captivate you with strong characters and refuse to let go until you’ve confronted the darkness within.

The reason I chose to pair these up for my second review is that they share a common element which drives the narrative in both novels. That element is the inexplicable -sometimes consuming- power of stories. In The May Queen Murders, local legends and town lore feature heavily. The lines between legend and reality start to blur as girls go missing and frightening things begin happening in the community.

In Broken Things it’s not myths that become to real, but a beloved children’s book that may have led two girls to murder their best friend. As they try to parse through what really happened the night she died, questions arise about how much of what they remember is real.

If you like artful storytelling that leans more towards suspense than terror for it’s source of tension, these are definitely the murder mysteries for you. The added factor of surreal events and questioning what is real is the icing on the cupcakes of these delicious books.

Both novels also heavily feature the power of female friendship, a theme I’ll be delving into even more in my next set of reviews for March Mystery Madness. Until then, happy reading!

-Kat