Book Review: "The Mary Shelley Club" by Goldy Moldavsky

The Mary Shelley Club is an excellent YA thriller about a group of horror movie-obsessed students, with dashes of Gossip Girl thrown in for good measure.

“There’s nothing more visceral than being scared. It’s why some people love watching scary movies. I love being scared.”

Rachel is a scholarship student at tony Manchester Prep. It’s a fresh start after a tragedy forced her and her mother to leave their old home. But rather than dwell on traumatic memories, Rachel has taken to watching horror movies for comfort.

When her proximity to a prank involving a popular student gains her the kind of notoriety she doesn’t want, she also catches the attention of the Mary Shelley Club, a small group of students obsessed with horror movies. She’s thrilled to finally be a part of something, after feeling like she was on the outside looking in for so long.

The club conducts Fear Tests, elaborate pranks designed to significantly scare someone. Each club member gets to design a Fear Test, and all club members must participate in everyone's tests. But it’s not long before the tests seem to veer out of control and become dangerous, with components that seem to awaken the horrors Rachel has tried so hard to hide. Is someone in the club targeting her? Is someone else?

Man oh man, The Mary Shelley Club was so good. It’s rare that a nearly 500-page book is so addicting but I didn’t want to put it down. I loved the conversations about movies and how they foster a shared sense of belonging, and I loved how all of the horror movie tropes were played out—and I’m not even a horror movie fan because I’m a total chickens—t.

I hope there will be a sequel to this one. I loved discussing this during my buddy read with my friend Phil. We finally found a book we loved!!

Book Review: "The Sea of Monsters (Percy Jackson and the Olympians, Book 2)" by Rick Riordan

"Humans don't exist on the same level as the immortals. They can't even be hurt by our weapons. But you, Percy—you are part god, part human. You live in both worlds. You can be harmed by both, and you can affect both. That's what makes heroes so special. You carry the hopes of humanity into the realm of the eternal."

I mentioned last month that I had started participating in a buddy read of the Percy Jackson and the Olympians series with some Bookstagram friends. We're reading one a month, and since I had never picked these up when they were initially released, this has been a fun discovery for me. (Here's my review of Book 1, The Lightning Thief.)

In Book 2, Percy has nearly made it through his entire seventh-grade year without getting expelled. But when a game of dodgeball in gym class turns dangerous, because instead of fending off the school bully and his minions he has to fend off some giant cannibals, everything starts to go awry. And before he knows it, he and his friend Annabeth, along with a new friend, Tyson (who has some special skills of his own), are headed back to Camp Half-Blood, because all of the demigods are in danger since someone has weakened the borders which protect the camp.

In order to save the camp, Percy and his friends have to travel to the Sea of Monsters, but that will be tough, since no one wants he and Annabeth to be heroes once again. But when they realize a close friend is in danger as well, they decide to go anyway. Once again, they'll face dangers they're not expecting, not to mention threats closer to home.

I enjoyed The Lightning Thief but found it at times to be a little too much tell and not enough show, as various characters described things to Percy and, as often happens in superhero movies, the evil characters have to dramatically explain their nefarious plans.

However, in The Sea of Monsters everything really hit its stride. I found Percy to be much more well-developed and all of the other characters were more complex—even the ones you're supposed to hate weren't as annoying! I particularly loved Grover and Tyson, a new character in this book.

I'm really looking forward to reading the next book in the series. I could totally see why kids and adults alike enjoy it!

Book Review: "I'm Thinking of Ending Things" by Iain Reid

Seriously, what the hell was this?

"I think what I want is for someone to know me. Really know me. Know me better than anyone else and maybe even me. Isn't that why we commit to another?"

In Iain Reid's I'm Thinking of Ending Things (I'll admit I thought of ending my reading of this book more than a few times), an unnamed woman is on a road trip with her boyfriend, Jake. They've been dating six weeks, and she enjoys his intelligence, his sense of humor, his intensity, and the way he surprises her with simple gestures that show how much he cares, yet she's thinking of ending things with him. But since they're traveling to see his parents, she figures she'll wait and see how the trip goes before making any decisions.

As the drive progresses, the pair have a number of conversations, about the imperfection of memory, the importance of relationships, the value of faith, science, free will, and fear. Periodically the peace of the trip is interrupted by a persistent caller on the narrator's cell phone, but she refuses to answer those calls or discuss them with Jake, although he can clearly see she is agitated by them.

When they arrive at the farm where Jake was raised, the tenor of the visit starts to disturb her. She is left feeling ill-at-ease by Jake's parents, although they're doing their best to be pleasant; she is troubled by Jake's swift mood change as he interacts with his parents; and she sees and experiences a number of things that unsettle, even frighten her. She doesn't know what is going on or what she's supposed to do, but she does know she absolutely must end things with Jake when they return home. Then things utterly disintegrate on the trip home, beginning with an ill-advised stop at a Dairy Queen (in the midst of a snowstorm), and ending with an unexpected detour.

The story of the road trip is interspersed with flashbacks of the past six weeks since she met Jake, as well as snippets of a conversation between two people about a tragic incident.

I had no idea what to expect when reading this. Much of the hype I've seen talked about how terrifying and unsettling the book was, and I guess I agree with the latter part of that statement. To be honest, I am not sure I understand some of what happened in this book, and I guess I don't think any book should purposely be this obtuse. The story just kept getting weirder and weirder, and I couldn't discern what was actually happening and what was the work of an unreliable narrator.

There's no denying that Reid is a talented writer. He kept me wanting to find out what was going to happen even as I kept shaking my head and getting squeamish from time to time, and his use of language was extraordinary. The issues raised in the conversations during the trip were also fascinating and thought-provoking. But in the end, I found this unsettling and ultimately unsatisfying, partially because I think the book took a very strange turn, and partially because I just wasn't sure what I just read.

If you've read this and enjoyed it, we should talk!! I'd love to get someone else's take on this book, especially if you're among those who enjoyed it.