SQUID FACE GIRL & A WRETCHED LITTLE BOOK OF POEMS

In Isom’s YA horror debut, a unique teen finds a dark book of poetry with a secret.

In Hays, Kansas, high school student Kali has no friends and wears a mask almost everywhere. She has to hide the tentacles sprouting from her upper lip, which have earned her the nickname Squid Face Girl. A bully named Brett invites her to a party to make amends, he claims, to everyone he’s tormented. At the party, however, the other teens push Kali into a closet with Stephen Coombs, hoping they’ll make out. When Stephen vomits on Kali, she runs from the party mortified. A few days later, after more bullying in school, she cries in an alley on the way home. She then notices a curio shop, run by an old blind man. He gives her a book called A Wretched Little Book of Poems. It’s full of short horror stories written in verse. At the end, Kali sees several blank pages. She adds her own story about persevering and falls asleep in tears. When she wakes up, she’s apparently entered the book, a violent realm filled with mist and monsters. Kali eventually meets Gary, a seemingly normal young man also looking to escape. Isom’s debut mixes fun and horror while showing teens how to turn their quirks to their advantage. Kali’s adventure unfolds via chapters that play like creature features. She and Gary, after escaping his nightmare of a murdered family, jump from poem to poem and battle zombies, a tentacled “Karen” monster, and a house full of cultists. They also make allies along the way, like the fortuneteller Madam Shirin, who warns them of “the man in the mask.” Some of the best advice Kali receives comes at the start of her adventure, from the blind merchant, who asks, “What kind of world would we be living in if people only did what was required of them and never any little bit more?” A clever, hopeful final scene leaves room for further scares.

A uniquely imaginative YA debut laced with irony and optimism.