Fun supernatural thrills.
A Massachusetts sixth grader reckons with malevolent forces when trouble returns to her hometown in the follow-up to The Peculiar Haunting of Thelma Bee (2016).
Science-minded Thelma previously learned that she was a Disiri, a descendant of a magical matrilineal lineage. Her own fire-starting power is connected to the heat of her emotions. Thelma and her friends from the Riverfish Valley Paranormal Society are investigating strange happenings around town, beginning with Mrs. Moses, who has detected a shadowy humanlike figure smelling like goats and stealing gasoline from her farm. Later, eighth grader Aimee Cho is accused by her brother, Bobby, of being a member of a coven disguised as the school’s a cappella group, Toil and Treble. Bobby crashes the next RVPS meeting, asking to join them and bearing evidence of witchcraft. That’s when twins Myst and Malfus, hosts of the provocative paranormal show Ghost Slayerz, roll into town. Skeptical about their abilities, Thelma keeps a close eye on their investigations in Riverfish. Meanwhile, Jenny Sullivan, the newest member of Toil and Treble, goes missing—and Thelma thinks that Aimee has a secret. This sequel is accessible to readers new to the series. Filled with many chilling and suspenseful moments, the text is also witty and humorous and addresses relationship issues, such as Thelma’s growth in navigating her feelings and her distress over her mother’s Disiri business travel. Main characters default to White; the Cho siblings’ surname cues them as East Asian American.
Fun supernatural thrills. (map) (Paranormal mystery. 8-12)Pub Date: Sept. 6, 2022
ISBN: 978-1-952667-67-1
Page Count: 268
Publisher: Snowy Wings Publishing
Review Posted Online: June 7, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2022
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Funny delivery, but some jokes really miss the mark.
An animal ghost seeks closure after enduring aquatic atrocities.
In this sequel to The Incredibly Dead Pets of Rex Dexter (2020), sixth grader Rex is determined to once again use his ability to communicate with dead animals for the greater good. A ghost narwhal’s visit gives Rex his next opportunity in the form of the clue “bad water.” Rex enlists Darvish—his Pakistani American human best friend—and Drumstick—his “faithful (dead) chicken”—to help crack the case. But the mystery is only one of Rex’s many roadblocks. For starters, Sami Mulpepper hugged him at a dance, and now she’s his “accidental girlfriend.” Even worse, Darvish develops one of what Rex calls “Game Preoccupation Disorders” over role-playing game Monsters & Mayhem that may well threaten the pair’s friendship. Will Rex become “a Sherlock without a Watson,” or can the two make amends in time to solve the mystery? This second outing effectively carries the “ghost-mist” torch from its predecessor without feeling too much like a formulaic carbon copy. Spouting terms like plausible deniability and in flagrante delicto, Rex makes for a hilariously bombastic (if unlikable) first-person narrator. The over-the-top style is contagious, and black-and-white illustrations throughout add cartoony punchlines to various scenes. Unfortunately, scenes in which humor comes at the expense of those with less status are downright cringeworthy, as when Rex, who reads as White, riffs on the impossibility of his ever pronouncing Darvish’s surname or he plays dumb by staring into space and drooling.
Funny delivery, but some jokes really miss the mark. (Paranormal mystery. 8-12)Pub Date: May 4, 2021
ISBN: 978-0-7595-5523-5
Page Count: 224
Publisher: Little, Brown
Review Posted Online: March 15, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2021
Atmospheric but at times frustratingly flat.
A recent transplant wrestles with her seaside town’s complicated and ghostly history.
Twelve-year-old Mallory Denton has moved from Chicago to a tiny New England town. Eastport, Massachusetts, is a popular tourist destination, relying on its long and spooky history to keep its economy thriving. Its attractions include Mallory’s parents’ creepily themed restaurant that abuts a cemetery. Sweet Molly’s is Eastport’s most famous story, commemorated as the chief attraction in an annual parade. The legend tells of the time Molly Flanders McMulligan Marshall lost her twin brother, Liam, at sea when the townspeople pressured him to go out in his fishing boat even as a dangerous storm approached. After Mallory begins to see Molly in visions and nightmares, she must find a way to break Molly’s curse on the town before the vengeful ghost can exact her furious otherworldly revenge on the town that monetizes and celebrates her trauma. In tense, fast-paced chapters, Currie concocts a chilling setting replete with haunting spectral scares set in a town with an accessible but intriguingly complicated history. However, the thrills ultimately fizzle, as much is told rather than shown and pivotal plot points are revealed too soon and resolved too quickly and tidily. While some scenes are chillingly rendered, they lose their panache when juxtaposed against moments of cloying predictability. Most characters read as White.
Atmospheric but at times frustratingly flat. (Horror. 8-12)Pub Date: Sept. 6, 2022
ISBN: 978-1-72823-654-4
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Sourcebooks Young Readers
Review Posted Online: June 21, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2022
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