Review of Break My Heart 1,000 Times

Waters, Daniel.  Break My Heart 1,000 Times.  Hyperion, 2012.

The Event, which caused sickness, environmental damage, and chaos, took the lives of between one and four million people, according to government estimates.  It has left heartache, ghosts, and ghostly holograms behind.  There is a boy teenage ghost living in Veronica Calder’s house, and her father’s ghost makes an appearance every morning at the same time.  More and more ghosts are showing up, and their presence is getting stronger by the day! 

Veronica, “Ronnie”, and her friend, Kirk Lane, begin investigating the ghosts for one of the teachers at their high school and stumble upon a set of related “cold case” serial murders.  What they also discover is that Mr. Bittner, another one of their teachers, has been waiting for his daughter’s ghost to show up for years in another girl’s body.  Kirk thinks he has set his sights on Ronnie to be the vessel to give his daughter another chance at life!  His dilemma is to convince Veronica and to keep her safe!

What a creepy, suspenseful ghost story Daniel Waters has written!  The meshing of the ghosts and their stories with serial murders was simply ingenious on his part!  I loved how Brian, the teenage ghost living in Ronnie’s house, played a large part in the story and was actually trying to protect her.  His story was just heart-wrenching, but tied right in with one of the murders and added a great twist in the plot!

Ronnie and Kirk are both strong, brave characters, even going so far as to hunt ghosts in the middle of the night in abandoned buildings!  No way would you catch me doing that!  It is Ronnie’s friend, Janine, who really grows and matures throughout the book.  Even though she is deathly afraid of ghosts, she ends up being courageous enough to overcome her fears and help Ronnie near the end of the book.

History teacher August Bittner, is a most deceptively sinister character.  He is obviously mentally disturbed, and is possibly both schizophrenic and manic depressant.    While his outward demeanor exhibits concern and passion for Ronnie, it is extremely obvious he has malevolent ideas.  He absolutely oozes creepiness!

Throughout the book there are a lot of complex theories about the afterlife and peoples’ memories.  There is also an abundance of foreshadowing, and many of the characters exhibit signs of mental problems, possibly caused by PESD, “Post Event Stress Disorder” (Daniel Waters’s term).

Break My Heart 1,000 Times is a real-page turner!  My disclaimer:  Don’t read it alone at night in the dark!  Readers who enjoy thrillers and ghost stories will love it!  I highly recommend it for middle school, high school and public libraries!

**Reviewer’s note:  The copy reviewed was an ARC received from Edelweiss in exchange for an honest review.

Review of Darkness Becomes Her

Darkness Becomes Her by Kelly Keaton.  Simon Pulse, 2011.

Thirteen years ago, New Orleans was destroyed by two hurricanes, which also decimated the southern half of Louisiana. Now called “New 2”, the old New Orleans and the surrounding area has been bought and rebuilt by the Novem, a group of powerful Louisiana families. The rest of the United States believes the rumors that exotic, mysterious New 2 is a sanctuary for paranormals. (And it is!)

Seventeen-year-old Ari Selkirk, who has been different all her life, is searching for her biological mother who gave her up for adoption at age four. What sets Ari apart are her teal-colored eyes and silver hair, which can never be cut, curled or colored. She has grown up in the foster care system, and her search leads her to New 2. Ari is befriended by Sebastian and his unusual friends, who try to help her discover why monstrous demons are trying to kill her and why her mother abandoned her. It all has to do with a family curse, and she must try to break the curse. Otherwise, she could end up dead, like her grandmother, at the young age of just twenty-one!

Darkness Becomes Her is the first young adult novel for Kelly Keaton, who has previously only written for adults, under the pen name “Kelly Gay”. The author has managed to incorporate quite a lot of Greek mythology into the story, along with the paranormal element. Since I grew up in Louisiana, I really enjoyed the descriptions of New Orleans, with its voodoo undercurrents and mystical references. Ari is a cool, but tough heroine, who doesn’t realize just how beautiful she actually is. Sebastian, who turns out to be her love interest, and the other outcasts who live with him, are just as intriguing, each in their own way. I expect these characters will be more developed with the next two books in the series.

Unfortunately, I did find a mistake in Ms. Keaton’s research. On page 28, she refers to the area around New Orleans as having counties. Louisiana is the only state in the U.S. that does not have counties; instead, it has parishes, due to heavy influence of the Catholic Church on Louisiana’s heritage. I am surprised that this error was not discovered during research, or caught by the editor.

Darkness Becomes Her is a dark, necromantic read, sure to keep the reader turning pages! Look for two more additions to this series! I recommend it for high school and public libraries.

Review of The Curse of the Wendigo by Rick Yancey

The Curse of the Wendigo by Rick Yancey; Simon & Schuster, 2010.

In this sequel to Rick Yancey’s The Monstrumologist, Dr. Pellinore Worthrop and his young apprentice, Will Henry, travel to snowy Canada to search for fellow scientist and former best friend, John Chanler. Chanler had gone off to hunt for the Wendigo, known by the Indians as outiko, aka Lepto lurconis, a type of cannibalistic monster which is perpetually starving, even after gorging, and can travel on the wind! While in Canada, Dr. Worthrop and Will Henry are “deserted” by their guide, who has gone insane, and must travel back to civilization, carrying the ill John Chanler through freezing temperatures and many feet of snow. Once back in New York, Chanler seems to be getting worse, and Dr. Worthrop, who is in town for the annual congress of the Society for the Advancement of the Science of Monstrumology, orders him to be taken to the hospital. Much to Worthrop’s dismay, his teacher, Abram von Helrung, has decided to present a proposal to the society about the Wendigo, which Worthrop believes to be a myth! Will Henry is introduced to von Helrung’s thirteen-year-old niece, Lilly, who tries to lead Will astray, while Chanler escapes from the hospital and begins leaving a trail of blood and gore in his wake! He leads a band of monstrumologists on a chase to capture and kill him before he can kill, eat, and mutilate the poor immigrant residents of the New York City tenement neighborhoods.

Rick Yancey has produced another fantastic gory thriller! Many of the new characters in this book are extremely funny and likable! Muriel Chanler, John Chanler’s wife and Pellinore Worthrop’s former fiancé’, is elegant, and presumptuous. Chanler, on the other hand, is portrayed as cynical and mean-spirited, and then, of course, as a monster! I find it interesting that Chanler’s monster speech patterns are reminiscent of Gollum’s in Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings trilogy. Lilly, the teenage niece of von Helrung is a talkative “know-it-all”, and the scenes with Will and her are quite amusing! There are a number of cameo appearances by well-known historical figures, the most famous being Thomas Edison. The inclusion of Abram von Helrung is a veiled reference to Bram Stoker’s Van Helsing vampire hunter. The descriptions of 1888 New York City and, especially, its manure blocks, “crossing sweepers” and slums are dark and depressing, contrasting with those of the more prominent and wealthy parts of the city.

Readers will again have to get out their dictionaries, for there are many unusual words in the novel. There is plenty of blood and guts to keep the pages turning until the end! Even though this book is a sequel, readers will not necessarily need to read the previous volume. However, I do prefer The Monstrumologist over Rick Yancey’s most recent work. I highly recommend it for high school and public libraries!