A quick, freaky read.
A girl finds herself unwillingly connected to her classmate’s spiritual possession.
After Marin’s mother’s suicide—a source of survivor’s guilt—Marin started seeing people’s pain, manifesting as colorful lights and shapes revealing information about the nature of the malady. To avoid being overwhelmed, she’s purposefully aloof, wearing sunglasses indoors and always looking down. At a Mass at her Catholic school, a popular classmate shrieks at the holy host and has a classic Exorcist-style seizure before stopping directly in front of Marin with a message. Marin knows it has to do with the time Cassie invited her over, months ago, trapping Marin into helping with a ritual she desperately wants to forget. Not letting her forget is Cassie’s hot older brother, who has noticed his sister’s decline and wants to know its cause so he can help her. Despite her dislike for Cassie and her terror over the afternoon they shared, Marin’s feelings for Dominic—and compassion for Cassie’s suffering as he describes it—pulls her into their family’s supernatural horror. The classic possession is well-executed and decorated with some top-notch horror elements; readers who don’t love this sort of suspense will find refuge in the romantic and realistic familial (Marin’s new family dynamic and the siblings’ family drama) subplots. The quick pacing may cause occasional confusion but provides ample reason to keep reading to the end, which is sweeter than conventional for the genre.
A quick, freaky read. (Horror. 13 & up)Pub Date: April 28, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-385-37274-9
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Random House
Review Posted Online: Jan. 9, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2015
A descriptive and atmospheric paranormal social thriller that could be a bit tighter.
After a Nigerian British girl goes off to an exclusive boarding school that seems to prey on less-privileged students, she discovers there might be some truth behind an urban legend.
Ife Adebola joins the Urban Achievers scholarship program at pricey, high-pressure Nithercott School, arriving shortly after a student called Leon mysteriously disappeared. Gossip says he’s a victim of the glowing-eyed Changing Man who targets the lonely, leaving them changed. Ife doesn’t believe in the myth, but amid the stresses of Nithercott’s competitive, privileged, majority-white environment, where she is constantly reminded of her state school background, she does miss her friends and family. When Malika, a fellow Black scholarship student, disappears and then returns, acting strangely devoid of personality, Ife worries the Changing Man is real—and that she’s next. Ife joins forces with classmate Bijal and Benny, Leon’s younger brother, to uncover the truth about who the Changing Man is and what he wants. Culminating in a detailed, gory, and extended climactic battle, this verbose thriller tempts readers with a nefarious mystery involving racial and class-based violence but never quite lives up to its potential and peters out thematically by its explosive finale. However, this debut offers highly visually evocative and eerie descriptions of characters and events and will appeal to fans of creature horror, social commentary, and dark academia.
A descriptive and atmospheric paranormal social thriller that could be a bit tighter. (Thriller. 14-18)Pub Date: Sept. 26, 2023
ISBN: 9781250868138
Page Count: 384
Publisher: Feiwel & Friends
Review Posted Online: June 8, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2023
BOOK REVIEW
A fresh, generous, wide-ranging compendium of frights.
Spooky stories covering multiple subgenres, plus some added attractions.
Few horrific tropes or creepy conventions are overlooked in Duplessie’s debut. The stories are arranged into six sections: “Short Frights for Dark Nights,” “Anatomical Anomalies,” “Five Minutes in the Future,” “Be Careful Who You Trust,” “The Dark Web,” and “The Unearthly, the Ghoulish, and the Downright Monstrous.” Some of the best entries are grounded in familiar setups, but Duplessie is careful to avoid repetition. The stories’ relatively short lengths and the crisp, direct writing style make this volume inviting for even reluctant readers, but it doesn’t shy away from the truly terrifying and grotesque. That said, the grisliest events are often described with poetic elegance rather than gratuitous violence: “His face collapsed like an empty paper bag.” The stories frequently conclude with the suggestion of frights to come rather than graphic depictions. One ends with an overly curious girl getting sealed up in a brick wall. Another foreshadows the murderous power of a cellphone. Highlights include the eerie “The Reaping,” in which the prick of a rose’s thorn triggers a spate of bloodlust, and “Chamber of Horrors,” which features a murderous iron maiden. Each story ends with a bonus in the form of a QR code and instructions to “scan the code for a scare”—if readers dare. Short, eerie poems are peppered throughout; there are even a handful of riddles. Most characters read white; names cue some ethnic diversity.
A fresh, generous, wide-ranging compendium of frights. (Horror. 13-18)Pub Date: Oct. 10, 2023
ISBN: 9780063266483
Page Count: 224
Publisher: Clarion/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: Aug. 11, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2023
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