Boxers and Saints by Gene Luen Yang YP FIC YANG

Boxers- Little Bao was happy with his simple life in his small village, but when foreign missionaries smash the harvest idol it leads to a path of destruction for his family.  A strange man come to town that teaches the ways of kung fu, he becomes his disciple and later the student of the man's master.  He learns the skills to drawn in spirits and gods to become invincible warriors.  They realize they must drive out the foreign influence that is killing their nation and kill any, including women and children, that stand in their way. 

Saints- Four-Girl.  She doesn't even get a name. Born fourth means born unlucky. Four means death, so when she meets a strange doctor that gives free cookies and tells her that a Christian church will giver her a new name, she jumps at the chance.  She is reborn as Vibiana, but that rebirth marks her for death. Her visions of Joan of Arc make her want her own calling, but what will it be and will it call for her to suffer the same fate as Joan? The Boxers are slaying Christians wherever they find them and she has put herself right in their path.

This is a brilliant look at cost of war, violence, and oppression.  It makes no excuses for the atrocities on either side, while populating the book with all too human characters.  Little Bao is driven by heartbreak, desperation, patriotism, and hope.  Unfortunately, he is driven to commit atrocities against innocent people.  Vibiana is driven to find some sort of destiny after being born cursed.  Her early attempts to be a devil are one of my favorite parts of the whole story, as are the young Little Bao's love of Chinese opera.  It was very hard to follow Little Bao down a path of darkness and watch him continually betray his own principles. It was hard to watch Vibiana blindly head straight to her own destruction, but in crossing paths they find a way for the death to actually have some meaning, if only for one person. This story of childhood to adulthood makes the death and murder that comes later all the more tragic.  Yang has taken a very tricky historical period and looked at it on a human level.  He populates the book with various characters of Chinese culture and Christian culture, never questioning their 'reality'.  This makes the book a work of not just warring people, nations, and ideas, but of the power and dangers of stories themselves.  The book offers no clear heroes and few clear villains, it also offers no easy answers.  It does ask very good questions.  I think it will lead most readers to seek out more information on the Boxer rebellion and Chinese history, which is always a great thing.  Even if it doesn't, it stands by itself as a powerful example of what comics can do.

You can find Boxer in our catalog here and Saints in our catalog here.

SHOCKTOBER The Waking Dark by Robin Wasserman YP FIC WASSERMAN

In Oleander they call it the Killing Night.  One night, five murderers, no motives.  Only one of the five lived and she's locked away. Locked away like the memories.  Until the storm.  The storm that rips the city wide open. The town is surrounded by troops, quarantined. Something dark has woken up in Oleander.  Something that can make anyone a killer. And it's inside everyone.

The story is told from the perspcetives of Ellie: a girl that thinks God is speaking to her, West: a popular jock with a secret, Daniel: son of the local crazy man, Jule: unwilling part of the town's infamous meth family, and Cass: the only killer to survive Killing Night.  The jumps in perspective help keep thing interesting and help build a sense of closeness to the book's characters.  It also helps us see lots of the town slowly unraveling from different points and builds the tension to a fever pitch.  Wasserman does a good job of developing the characters, so that even if you won't be crazy for all of them, at least one will speak to you.  Then she starts the slaughter and no one is safe, so the fear gets ratcheted up fast and furious.  I've read several reviews that compare this book to early Steven King and I think that is accurate and very intentional.  It has a secluded small town going crazy, authority figures turning into mad despots, and several other classic King touches.  It is bleak, depressing, terrifying, and totally riveting.  It is definitely a long read and after some early mayhem goes for a long slow build, but it truly pays off.  Wasserman handles the emotional moments and the building relationships with a deft hand.  This makes the first deaths all the more shocking and the later violence almost numbing, with jolts of terror.  It's quite effective as horror and also a clever look at the idea of the violence within our society.  I'd definitely only recommend it to people that can stomach dark and violent reads, but for fans of serious horror this is one of the best books in a long while. 

You can find The Waking Dark in our catalog here.

War Brothers: The Graphic Novel by Sharon E. McKay Illustrated by Daniel Lafrance YP FIC MCCAY

 They came in the night. They killed anyone that got in their way and they took the boys.  They march them through the jungle. They are told they fight for God now and only soldiers eat. They are the Lord's Resistance Army and they are ruthless killers that use children as soldiers. They are told that God does not protect the weak, so anyone that falls from hunger is left to die. This is the story of one group of friends that tries to escape before they become killers or killed.  

This is a harrowing book.  The immediacy in which the LRA comes and turns the kids lives completely upside down is horrifying.  The depiction of the LRA as indiscriminate murders, rapists, and enslavers of children is sadly very accurate. The horror that the book explores could actually have been far worse than it is.  Wisely, McCay shows us just enough to shock and appall us without becoming exploitative of the very real tragedies this book is based on. The dialogue is sometimes a little straightforward and stiff, but the book manages to shine in so many of the pivotal moments of carnage or heartsickness. The art works very well for the story. The panels stay very tight on the faces of our protagonists and villains intensifying the trapped sensation.  Lafrance uses shadow and color to intensify the tension and violence, without having to have gratuitous gore.  I think this is a wonderful use of the medium to explore the horrors of war, especially a war fought by children.   

You can find War Brothers in our catalog here.

Extremities: Stories of Death, Murder, and Revenge by David Lubar YP FIC LUBAR

A group of girls give their gym teacher a dose of her own medicine, a boy plots the perfect murder of his 'perfect' parent, a boy falls for a girl so beautiful she's to die for, and ten more tales of doom from David Lubar.

David Lubar opens by saying "This is not a book for children," but honestly I think this would be a pretty good read for horror fans of many ages.  Sure it has a good amount of death, dismemberment, and murderous teens, but the carnage and gore is kept to a nice minimum.  It makes for a nice alternative to the likes of Charlie Higson and Darren Shan's hyper-gory scare fests.  I love all the guts and grime of their books, but its nice to have creepy alternatives that don't get so vivid about viscera.  It reminds me of a modern update to the Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark series (J 398.25 SCHWARTZ), which is my gold standard for creepy!  The stories are almost all very quick.  Just long enough to set a mood and pull off a fun or sick or shocking (or a combination of the three) twist and end strong.  But he's really good at pacing the longer stories, so they are just as compelling as the quick ones.  His writing is super simple and very easy to read, which works very well for the type of page turning, look over your shoulder, goosebump raising stories he's writing.  A really fun and classically creepy read for the horror fans from casual to serious.
You can find Extremities in our catalog here.

October Mourning: A Song for Matthew Shepard by Lesléa Newman YP FIC NEWMAN

Then and Now -Lesléa Newman

Then I was a son

Now I am a symbol

Then I was a brother

Now I am an absence

Then I was a friend

Now I am a memory

Then I was a person

Now I am a headline

Then I was a guy

Now I am a ghost

Then I was a student

Now I am a lesson

On October 6, 1998 a 21 year old young man was brutally beaten, tied to a fence, and left for dead. Matthew Shepard became a symbol of victims of hate crimes everywhere and his case drew worldwide attention.  This book of poems from Lesléa Newman looks back at the crime, its aftermath, and the person behind the symbol.  Poems from the perspective of Matthew, the killers, the community, and the silent witnesses of the fence and other inanimate objects paint a chilling and heartbreaking picture of a life tragically lost.

This is an absolutely stunning work of poetry.  Lesléa Newman uses different voices, styles, and structures to approach the crime and tragedy form many different angles.  This works to make the story about more than a crime, but also to bring the person of Matthew to the forefront.  The poem above is an excellent example of her sparse language and use of pounding repetition to hammer hard truths home.  In other poems she uses a completely different style and structure.  She also uses poems taken from almost random inspirations like Now Showing, a list of film titles that appeared in theaters in 1998 formed into a poem. The variation is key to capturing different feelings, ideas, voices, and moods.  She does a wonderful job of giving voice to not just many people, but also things like the fence Matthew was tied to, the rope that tied him, the gun of his killers, their truck, the road they drove on, and more.  I think this should be read by just about everyone, because regardless of your feelings on homosexuality we can all come together to agree that no one should be murdered for who they are, what they believe, or how they love. This is a slender volume that you could easily read in a few hours, but will stay with you long after.  

You can check our catalog for October Mourning here.

BZRK by Michael Grant YP FIC GRANT

The future war is fought on the nano and the battleground is the human mind.  This new war is played like a videogame but the stakes are life and death. The Thompson twins are building the perfect utopia.  No pain, crime, war, sadness, poverty or want. And all for the low, low price of the eradication of humanity’s free will.  That’s if the hackers known only as BZRK can’t stop them. But when you fight a war in a human mind, any mistake leads to irreparable madness.

This is a fast paced thriller with a fascinating premise, killer action, and wonderful twists and turns.  I loved the video game style and the fight to the death battles. All this is to be expected from the author of the megahit Gone series, but unfortunately Grant’s gift for building fascinating characters with substance and depth are not at their peak in BZRK.  I did really like the books “villains”, Grant does a commendable job of making them have motivations beyond loving evilness. However, the books main protagonists Noah and Sadie are sort of bland and never really grow in an interesting way.  On the other hand, this book has awesome bloody warfare inside human bodies and that is always great! Really, the book works so well in its strengths that its weaknesses never keep it from being immensely readable. The idea that there could be a secret war along my skin and in my very innards made me feel itchy and very creeped out.  The book ends with a huge climax and loads of loose ends, because of course this is a new series.  I do hope that Sadie and Noah get a bit more fleshed out as characters in the sequels, but this is still an absolutely original and high on the can’t-stop-reading-it-into-the-very-wee-hours-of-the-morning scale.

You can check our catalog for BZRK here.

Amelia Anne is Dead and Gone by Kat Rosenfield YP FIC ROSENFIE

Amelia Anne is dead but she isn’t gone quite yet.  Becca is ready to get away.  Get away from her small town and everyone that knows her, but the sudden violent death of a stranger keeps Becca stuck as her life seems to spiral out of control over a long summer.  She soon learns that she has more in common with a dead stranger than anyone she thinks she knows and loves, and that the people around her know more about the stranger’s death than they’re letting on.

This book is a weird hybrid between small town coming-of-age tale, gritty murder mystery, and poetic look at the similarities and differences between love, sex, and death. That may seem like an odd combination, and at times it does veer perilously close to melodrama, the end result is an original and powerful look at the perilous period between adolescence and adulthood.  The book occasionally gives chapters from Amelia Anne’s point of view, teasing the reader with knowledge the main character doesn’t have.  This also highlights how much Amelia and Becca have in common and how (and this is sort of a major theme of the book) people that never even meet in life can be connected by death and how violence has ripple effects no one could ever anticipate.  The slow reveal of what REALLY happened to Amelia really builds the tension and having the mystery develop from two points of view makes the story richer and more entertaining. 

Honestly, I had a hard time liking Becca at first because she’s going through a hard time and doesn’t handle it all that well at first.  Also, I immediately liked Amelia Anne and that made the comparison sort of unflattering, but Amelia is several years older than Becca and as I read on I started to see why the death of a total stranger was having such a bizarre effect on Becca. It’s to the author’s credit that she never spells it directly out for the reader and allows you to figure it out for yourself what lies beneath the surface. The prose is truly the shining star of the book.  Rosenfield makes the ordinary seem vital (which is crucial in a book that takes its time to build to any climax) and is able to slowly unfold a moment with her words.  I think Ellen Hopkins fans will appreciate this book (even though it isn’t in verse it’s beautifully written words often feel like poetry), but it moves slower than some of her novels.  It’s dark, sad, and offers no easy answers, but I think honest books about violence ought to be complex.  A very good and very rewarding read that isn’t for everybody, but that will stay with everybody that reads it.

You can check our catalog for Amelia Anne is Dead and Gone here.

Mister Death’s Blue Eyed Girls by Mary Downing Hahn YP FIC HAHN

It was the last day of school. 1956.  Nora’s life was so simple, her biggest worry finding a boyfriend. Mister Death changed all that. BANG. BANG. Cheryl and Bobbi Jo were dead.  All fingers point to Cheryl’s ex-boyfriend, Buddy.  No one knows about Mr. Death.  Nora doesn’t know what to believe any more. Not about the murders, not about Buddy, not about God, life, love, death, or any of the rest of it.  Told through the eyes of the kids left behind, this is the story of the last summer of innocence.

This is a sad and haunting mystery about all that death robs from those left behind.  The violence is left off screen and the shifting focus is on the teenagers that knew the victim. The shifting focus keeps the suspense building and helps underscore how violence has such large ripple effects.  This let’s Hahn explore much more than just a mystery, but also a lot about 1950s society.  This is based on a real event that happened when Hahn was a teenager and she does an amazing job of bringing that to life in a way that feels immediate.  She is able to write as a teenager and also finish with an epilogue written at the age she is now and have both feel totally genuine.  The story is a great look at a different time, but also the way that childhood has to end for everyone.  I recommend this to fans of historical fiction and anyone that wants a well written, suspenseful read.

You can check our catalog for Mister Death’s Blue Eyed Girls here.

In Darkness by Nick Lake YP FIC LAKE

“Shorty” is no stranger to darkness.  Even before the earth swallowed him up it was a familiar companion in Haiti.  Now, after the quake, trapped under the rubble, it is all he has.  But when he hears a voice in the darkness it is not one he knows, but one that stretches across two hundred years of the past to reach him.  It is Toussaint L'Ouverture, a slave, a leader, a man that died in darkness like Shorty is certain he will die.  What is the hero of Haiti telling Shorty, and can it save him?

I picked this up because the cover is gorgeous and I love Nick Lake’s Blood Ninja series.  To call this a departure would be understatement.  This is a dark book about darkness and about how evil, poverty, and tyranny can destroy souls and entire nations.  The blend of contemporary Haiti and that of the past really works well to show the timelessness and universality of the message of the novel: that in the greatest darkness there is still hope even if it remains unseen.  I was very pleasantly surprised that an author that excels at action-horror could write such a serious and moving work.  I felt the fear and hopelessness in Shorty’s life and the darkness encroaching.  It’s rare that a writer can transport you to a place so different from your own life and Lake pulls it off remarkably.  I was really impressed that the jump between modern day and the past didn’t feel gimmicky; it really adds something to the book and makes it special. I recommend this to fans of both contemporary and historical fiction, because it handles both so well.  In Darkness may not be a “fun” read, but it is one you’ll be glad you read. 

You can check our catalog for In Darkness here.