Happy Halloween! :)

I love Halloween! I already have the candy bowl ready (and it's a BIG bowl), and I can't wait to see the little ones dressed up at the front door. I've invited all my sixth graders to stop by for some candy tonight, as well, so it'll be a fun night!

I'm sorry I haven't posted lately, but life has been a blur. It usually is this time of year. I did manage to go on vacation early this month, but that's a story for another time.

I just popped in to tell you about a good book I read yesterday. I've been a bit under the weather, so I stayed in bed all day and read. One of the books I read was In a Dark, Dark Wood by Ruth Ware. It was an excellent choice to read the day before Halloween. I enjoyed it thoroughly. I'd say it's a cross between Agatha Christie and Gillian Flynn. It's a psychological thriller, to be sure. It is well-written, suspenseful, and interesting. I liked it so much, I already ordered Ware's next novel, The Woman in Cabin 10. I can't wait to start that one!

Sorry to rush off so soon, but Halloween is howling for me!

Until next time...

Happy Reading!

Creepy,...but Fun?

I decided to give this subject its own blog entry. It doesn't belong with "Enchanted and Unexpected." I'm not even sure where to start (or where it belongs), so...bear with me.

Creepy and spooky isn't really my thing (I've mentioned this before). Well, not when it comes to books, anyway. I've always loved to watch a good horror film, late at night, with my daughters. It's something we all enjoy when we're in the mood for it. I've never really been into creepy books, though,...until now. What's changed? Well, let's see if I can figure it out. (After all, I write to know what I'm thinking.)

I'm not quite sure how it happened. It started with The Butterfly Garden by Dot Hutchinson. I was a bit unsure of that one. But there was something about it I liked. I also enjoyed the short novel The Grown-Up by Gillian Flynn (both were mentioned in my June 5th post). I decided to test out a few more "creepy" ones to see if I actually liked the genre, or if I was just fascinated with something new. 

I just finished Don't Breathe a Word by Jennifer McMahon, and I can definitely say I'm now hooked on weird, creepy novels where I'm never quite sure where they're going to end up. Don't Breathe a Word definitely fits that bill! The funny thing is, I actually became interested in this particular book because of the vast differences in reviews I read on Goodreads when I was trying to scope out some creepy books for my "testing" process.

One review gave McMahon's novel one star, and the reviewer ranted and raved about how stupid the whole premise of the novel was. She ranted so much, I had to stop reading the review because I was afraid she'd spoil it for me. I also read a couple of reviews where people just loved it. I was...perplexed. I decided to read it for myself and see which side I was on. You know, just for fun. :)

I can definitely say I'm in the category of people who loved it! (Maybe that one-star-reviewer is a Twilight fan?) It's even hard for me to use the word "love" when talking about a creepy book, but I DID love it - creepiness and all. I think the real fun for me is how busy it keeps my brain, as it tries to figure out how the tale will turn next, what is real and what isn't, and trying to decide if it trusts the narrator. 

Don't Breathe a Word is about a woman, Phoebe, who finds herself in the middle of a family mystery. Her boyfriend's sister disappeared fifteen years ago, and the mystery has come back to haunt them. It's difficult for Phoebe to know what is real and what isn't. She's haunted by her own demons, while she tries to help him figure out his and what happened to his sister. The novel goes back and forth between present day and fifteen years earlier. It is dark, it is twisted,...aaaaaand it is plays on that little girl "niggle" in the back of my brain that remembers (quite clearly) when I used to jump as far out from my bed as possible for fear of something grabbing my feet. 

The story really pulled me in, and I finished it much faster than I wanted (3 days),...but I couldn't help it. It is a definite page-turner! I am happy to say that McMahon has other novels along this same line, and I have just started the next one, The One I Left Behind, and I am thrilled!

I'm still wondering, though, why I'm suddenly interested in this genre of books. Hmmm...

I am aware I read books for a variety of reasons. Most of the time, it's to understand more about myself and the people around me. It's to find connection, comfort, insights, adventure, and laughter. When I think about the books I usually read, I know all the things I love about them. 

So, why the attraction to the weird, the morbid, the demented, and the creepy? 

I like that it's a puzzle I'm trying to solve, that's certainly part of it, but there's more to it than that. I think it's because...there's no love. (Wait, I'm checking my brain.) Yes,...yes, I do believe that is part of the appeal. I've never really read "romance" novels but, as my youngest daughter pointed out to me not too long ago, almost every story has some kind of love story in it. And she's right. In fact, I just remembered the reason I found The Butterfly Garden. My daughter told me she'd read more novels if I'd find books that didn't have a love story in them. THAT is how I got started down this warped (but enjoyable) path! And, I admit it, I'm enjoying the books being about the mystery, the weirdness, the oddities, the crime, and NOT being about who ends up with who in the end. 

Well, I'm glad we figured that out. ;) 

Do I Like Dark?

Well, I'm not exactly sure. I don't think I've ever sought out what I consider "dark" novels. Dark humor? Yes. Read books that were somewhat dark? Yes.  I've read a few murder mysteries over the years and, while I enjoyed them, they really aren't a genre I reach for very often.

I guess the darkest book I ever read before was Stephen King's novel, It. I read that back in the 80s. I remember the book giving me the creeps. I also remember, quite well, finding out that I was pregnant with my first child when I was only halfway through the novel, and I felt unable to keep reading it. It was just too warped and had children being harmed in it. I remember wondering what kind of man (King) slept by his wife, had four children of his own, and could write about a clown that mutilated and murdered small children. Pennywise still freaks me out...

I did, however, finish the novel eventually. I wanted to know how it ended. I picked the book up and finished it some time after my daughter was born. I thought most of the book was well-written, but I thought the ending was stupid. Really stupid. Needless to say, the ridiculous ending helped to relieve some of the terror I'd felt over the book. It no longer scared me (as much...) because I thought the ending was an unrealistic, cop-out compared to the rest of the book.
 
Wow, didn't mean to go down that road...

Books do that to me, though. I relate other times and memories and people to them. I remember what I was reading when certain things happened in my life. I associate some books with people I know or have known. Some are good memories, some are not. It is what it is. When reading books are a part of your life, you tend to remember what book you were reading when something important happened.
 
I'm jumping the track again, aren't I? No worries. I'm famous for it. ;)
 
Back to my original question: Do I like "dark" novels? It sounds weird for me to say, "Ooooh, I read this novel about this family that gets murdered and chopped up and...it was really good!" Doesn't that just sound wrong?! I have to say, though, when my friend, Tammy, recommended Gillian Flynn's Dark Places to me, she warned me it was different and dark. She didn't want to tell me much about it, which I appreciated. She and I usually like the same novels, though, so I trusted her judgment.

It is a good book, but it is a dark book. It is definitely one that I read every chance I got because I wanted to know what happened next. I sympathized with more than one of the characters, and they just felt so...real. The premise of the story is that one child survives when most of her family is murdered (her mom and two sisters) by her 15-year-old brother, and she was the only witness to it. Her testimony, at seven years of age, is part of what helped convict her brother. The book opens in present day with the child grown into adulthood and her brother serving a life-sentence in prison. Her life is going nowhere, she's numb and has never recovered from what happened to her family. She's still in a dark place. Almost against her own will, she begins trying to figure out exactly what happened the night of the murders and why it happened.

The novel goes back and forth between present day and the past (1985), which is something I don't usually like. It all flowed together well, though, in this novel. Both stories are good stories - what the main character is struggling with and leading up to in the present, as well as, what events back in 1984 led up to the tragic events of one night in early 1985.

So, who knew? I do like dark,...I just don't like to stay in it for too long. I think my next read needs to have some magic and some faeries in it. Now, if Patrick Rothfuss would just finish that third book I want to get my hands on...

Happy reading! :)