The Monstrumologist

By Rick Yancey
Ages 15+
If you like the TV show Supernatural and you don't mind being really grossed out, you will love this book.

Set in the late-1800s in New England, Will Henry is the 12-year-old apprentice to Pellinore Warthrop, a brilliant and self-absorbed monstrumologist (a scientist who studies (and when necessary, kills) monsters). The newest threat is the Anthropophagi, a pack of headless, shark-toothed bipeds. The great mystery is how they got to this continent as they are indigenous to Africa.

As the action moves from the dissecting table to the cemetery to an asylum to underground catacombs, Yancey keeps the shocks frequent and shrouded in a splatter miasma of blood, bone, pus, maggots, and great vocabulary. The prose style is The industrial-era setting is populated with leering, Dickensian characters, most notably the loathsome monster hunter hired by Warthrop to enact the highly effective “Maori Protocol” method of slaughter.

The story is great. The writing is fantastic. The sentiment feels real. It is a wonderful and scary book.

The Compound

By S.A. Bodeen
Ages 12+
In a burst of panic about a nuclear attack, Eli, his sisters, and his parents move into an underground bunker built by Eli's billionaire father. It's an enormous complex. Only his grandmother and twin brother, Eddie, don't make it in. The first six years of the planned 15 have been fairly routine, but now some food has spoiled, and certain things just don't seem right, or even possible. Eli, who is now 15,  is starting to have doubts about his father's motives, explanations, and sanity.

The novel becomes full of tension and suspense and turns into a true edge-of-the-seat thriller. As far-fetched as the premise may be, Bodeen keeps Eli's actions true to life and uses clues planted fairly and in plain sight. The audience will feel the pressure closing in on them as they, like the characters, race through hairpin turns in the plot toward a breathless climax.

The reader will feel connected to Eli's character even though he is a spoiled, self-centered child. As the years pass, Eli is full of teen angst and anger that develops into a realization of what he must do in order to help his family survive. He may even find that he loves his family--something he never thought he would admit.

Vampire Forensics

Uncovering the Origins of an Enduring Legend
by Mark Collins Jenkins

In Vampire Forensics, Mark Jenkins probes vampire legend to tease out the historical truths enshrined in the tales of terror: sherds of Persian pottery depicting blood-sucking demons; the amazing recent discovery by National Geographic archaeologist Matteo Borrini of a 16th-century Venetian grave of a plague victim and suspected vampire; and the Transylvanian castle of "Vlad the Impaler," whose bloodthirsty cruelty remains unsurpassed.

Mark Jenkins’s engrossing history draws on the latest science, anthropological and archaeological research to explore the origins of vampire stories, providing gripping historic and folkloric context for the concept of immortal beings who defy death by feeding on the lifeblood of others. From the earliest whispers of eternal evil in ancient Mesopotamia, Greece, and Rome, vampire tales flourished through the centuries and around the globe, fueled by superstition, perversion, mystery, fear of disease and death, and the nagging anxiety that demons lurk everywhere.

Jenkins navigates centuries of lore and legend, weaving an irresistibly seductive blend of superstition, psychology, and science sure to engross everyone. Some parts were grotesque but I still couln't put it down. I was horrified and titilated.

Going Bovine by Libba Bray

I admit that I haven't quite finished the book yet. But this is my take so far.

So this kid, Cameron, is kinda a stoner and a loser even though his perfect sister is, well, perfect. Things get worse when after an outburst at school poor Cameron is diagnosed with bovine spongiform encephalopathy. Yep, poor Cameron is going bovine with Mad Cow Disease. Basically, his brain is getting spongy--you can imagine the outcome, but you don't have to because Libba tells us all about it.

After possibly hallucinating an "angel" Cameron goes on a road trip with the hypochondriac little person (dwarf? I am not sure what is the PC description) named Gonzo who shares his hospital room and who Cameron saw a couple times at school.

They traipse all around the country looking for Mr. X. And I have to say, thus far I am concerned about Cameron and Gonzo's safety. Apart from Gonzo who is in the hospital all the time because he and his mother always imagine illnesses, people are generally in the hospital for a reason. I mean Cameron's brain is turning to mush and he is riding buses from Texas to New Orleans to Flordia. It just doesn't seem like a safe environment or one condusive to regaining health.

Okay. Aside from that the book is really funny. Cameran talks like a normal teenager--actually, like a really funny teenager. You hear his inner monologue and it is just funny. I feel like I know people who think and act like him. He thinks his parents are annoying (when really, to this reader they seem normal and concerned). He cusses. He hates his job, ironically flipping burgers. He has a crush on a cute girl at school. Normal kid.

*UPDATE*
I have finished the book...I hate to say it but I didn't like it. I felt like it needed a good editing to reduce the novel by AT LEAST 100 pages.

Did anyone feel differently?

The Pox Party (The Astonishing Life of Octavian Nothing, Traitor to the Nation, #1) by M.T. Anderson

It is a very strange storyline. Octavian is a slave in 18th century America but he is not a slave the way generally understand the word. He is a boy dressed in silks and white wigs and given the finest education, raised by a group of rational philosophers known only by numbers. But as Octavian grows up he begins to realize that he is an experiment and begins to find shaming evidence that he and his mother are not always treated as equals. Everything would have remained the same until the house of scholars changes hands and the new master is not so kind to Octavian and his mother. When the disquiet of Revolution reaches Boston, everything changes.

The title comes from an interesting practice held among the rich during this time. Small pox was the scourge in the cities. People were dying. In a immunization-like fashion, people would gather as if to attend a party, purposely expose themselves to the pox, and then hang out and wait around for people to get sick. With the plague being monitored and only being exposed to small amounts of the pox, it was thought that people would have more of a chance to live. The smart thing was, that once exposed to the pox, you are immune. This is described in more detail in the book.

Historically and emotionally this is a very curious and interesting book. We have a Black narator/protagonist telling us a story about being a slave before we really think about slavery. I feel conflicted about the way Octavian is treated. At first he is very well cared for and but on the other hand, he is a SCIENCE EXPERIMENT! That is just so degrating that I can't reconsile the care put into the "project." There are so many interesting discussion points.

This is the first in a series and I really wonder where it is all going.

Wintergirls by Laurie Halse Anderson

Lia and Cassie are best friends, wintergirls frozen in matchstick bodies, competitors in a deadly contest to see who can be the skinniest. But what comes after size zero? When Cassie succumbs to the demons within, Lia is haunted by her friend’s restless spirit.

In her most emotionally wrenching, lyrically written book since the multiple-award-winning Speak, Laurie Halse Anderson explores Lia’s descent into the powerful vortex of anorexia, and her painful path toward recovery.

This is a illuminating story about one girl's struggle with anorexia. It is stream of consciousness but it has more structure and you can follow with ease what is going on; it jumps around a lot in the narrator's head. I rather like this style because it makes the characters feel so real. I really get inside her head.

I am not sure how helpful books like this are. While it is important to have these issues out in the open, it seems like more sensationalizing the issue that, I think is linked to this "emo is cool" some teens embrace. Now, I understand that some people just tend towards dark expression; I think of Edgar Allen Poe. While, Poe was certainly not a mood/happiness/general life achievement role model--he died drunk in a ditch-- he was being himself and that honesty is commendable. But there are plenty of people who jump on the band wagon and think "it's cool to act like X" or "I will get attention by acting like X." In reality, such behaviors are dangerous and you might end up drunk in a ditch dead. Not a good way to go.