An atmospheric, creepy ghost story best read at night.
Gabe Ashe deals with friendship drama while a supernatural mystery closes in on him.
After a fire destroys his home, Gabe and his family move into his grandmother’s mansion in a small Massachusetts town. Gabe quickly befriends his neighbor, Seth Hopper, and the two play a dark fantasy game in the woods between their houses. Wraithen (Seth’s character) and Meatpie (Gabe) are Robber Princes of allied kingdoms, endlessly pursuing a baby-eating, “mutated humanoid-beast” called the Hunter in lush fantasy interludes. When not playing Prince Meatpie, Gabe desperately avoids his social label from his old school—dorkface. As the other kids extend invitations to Gabe under the condition that Seth not be included, he fears Seth’s obsession with the game has designated Seth the school dork. Gabe’s resulting internal conflict about friendship, realistically executed, is ably characterized through action and decisions. Seth, possessive of Gabe’s friendship, is openly hostile toward the other boys verbally and with immature pranks. But some of those pranks might not be Seth’s responsibility—a mysterious figure terrorizes Gabe’s house and follows kids from school. The strange happenings fit the modus operandi of Seth’s monster-foe, the Hunter. Gabe must solve the increasingly intensifying mystery before someone gets hurt—or worse. While he occasionally gives too much away, Poblocki (The Ghost of Graylock, 2012, etc.) creates danger by not pulling punches.
An atmospheric, creepy ghost story best read at night. (Horror. 10-15)Pub Date: Aug. 1, 2013
ISBN: 978-0-545-40270-5
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Scholastic
Review Posted Online: May 28, 2013
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2013
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Light on gore and corpses; otherwise a full-bore, uncomplicated shriekfest.
Does anyone who volunteers to spend a night in a derelict haunted hotel on a dare deserve what they get?
“The hotel is hungry. And we aren’t leaving here until it’s fed.” In what reads like a determined effort to check off every trope of the genre, Alexander sends new arrival Jasmine, along with two friends and several dozen other classmates, to the long-abandoned Carlisle Hotel for the annual seventh grade Dare—touching off a night of terror presided over by the leering, autocratic Grand Dame and complete with sudden gusts and blackouts, spectral visions, evil reflections in mirrors, skeletons, a giant spider, gravity reversals, tides of oily black sludge sucking screaming middle schoolers down the drain, and so much more. (No gore, though, aside from a few perfunctory drops of blood from one small scratch.) The author saves a twist for the end, and as inducement to read alone or aloud in the dark by flashlight, both his language and the typography crank up the melodrama: “He walks toward us, past the mirror, and I see it— / a pale white face in the reflection, / a gaunt, skeletal grimace, / with sharpened teeth / and hollow black eyes, staring at him / with its mouth / wide / open / in a scream….” Jasmine presents White; her closest friends are Rohan, whose name cues him as South Asian, and Mira, who has dark skin.
Light on gore and corpses; otherwise a full-bore, uncomplicated shriekfest. (Horror. 10-13)Pub Date: Nov. 2, 2021
ISBN: 978-1-338-70215-6
Page Count: 224
Publisher: Scholastic
Review Posted Online: Sept. 14, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 2021
A tale full of set pieces meant to lead kids to home truths but that might not get them there.
When narrator Gus is rescued from neighborhood bully Bo by the very capable Rossi—who sacrifices her beloved dirt bike, Loretta, in the doing—an unlikely adventure in the nearby Dead Frenchman’s Mine is triggered.
Equipped with a pickle jar of water and some sandwiches, Gus sets off into the mine in search of treasure to buy Loretta back, with the unwanted company of Bo’s lackey Matthew. Shortly after, Rossi shows up in the mine with Jessie, Gus’ former best friend. (Readers learn early on that Rossi is Native American and Jessie is Mexican-American; Gus and Matthew are implied white.) Naturally, the mine tunnel collapses, leaving them trapped. In a series of narrative contrivances, the four 13-year-olds happen upon discoveries that may lead both to their escape and to the truth behind an old local legend. Even as they struggle to find their way—and amid encounters with a mountain lion, bats, and javelinas—the kids take time to discuss many of the challenges they face in the outside world and among one another. These interludes may strike readers as ill-timed given the danger, but they offer Bowling ample opportunity to play Gus’ cluelessness and Matthew’s casual malice against Rossi’s and Jessie’s firsthand familiarity with American racism. Although Gus is careful to point out that Rossi is Tohono O’odham, and later Rossi reveals some factoids about her heritage, his fascination with her dark ponytail and her general inscrutability reinforce stereotypes—as does the obviousness of the setup.
A tale full of set pieces meant to lead kids to home truths but that might not get them there. (Adventure. 10-14)Pub Date: Sept. 4, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-4549-2924-6
Page Count: 256
Publisher: Sterling
Review Posted Online: May 27, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2018
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