Teens seeking intense scares, or really, any scares at all, should look elsewhere.
Cooper delivers two original novellas inspired by the popular Creepshow films and television series.
In The Taker, after her family moves to a new town, eighth grader Bea enters a middle school where she’s thrilled to join the dance team, even if her fellow dancers aren’t the nicest girls at school. When Bea meets the ghost of a seemingly friendly teen girl named Kimmie—who has a penchant for swiping small items and who is haunting her room—she welcomes the company. However, as Bea bends under the toxic influence of her new friends, she discovers that her friendly ghost may not be so friendly after all. In Pretty Polly, 13-year-old animal lover Casey, who lives with his struggling single mom, is thrilled when he’s allowed to adopt his dream pet, an African grey parrot. Dorian Grey was advertised as free to a good home, and Casey quickly realizes that Dorian is preternaturally smart but has a dangerously wicked streak. Utilizing neat twists to emphasize well-known cautionary tales are a trademark of the Creepshow franchise, as is its particular brand of twisted humor. Cooper somewhat successfully pulls off the former but not the latter, and the straightforward, rather simplistic prose doesn’t allow for much nuance. However, in another nod to the source material, the comic-book panels in the preface are a nice touch. All characters seem to be white.
Teens seeking intense scares, or really, any scares at all, should look elsewhere. (Horror. 12-14)Pub Date: Sept. 1, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-338-63123-4
Page Count: 224
Publisher: Scholastic
Review Posted Online: June 15, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2020
BOOK REVIEW
A trilogy opener both rich and strange, if heavy at the front end.
Riggs spins a gothic tale of strangely gifted children and the monsters that pursue them from a set of eerie, old trick photographs.
The brutal murder of his grandfather and a glimpse of a man with a mouth full of tentacles prompts months of nightmares and psychotherapy for 15-year-old Jacob, followed by a visit to a remote Welsh island where, his grandfather had always claimed, there lived children who could fly, lift boulders and display like weird abilities. The stories turn out to be true—but Jacob discovers that he has unwittingly exposed the sheltered “peculiar spirits” (of which he turns out to be one) and their werefalcon protector to a murderous hollowgast and its shape-changing servant wight. The interspersed photographs—gathered at flea markets and from collectors—nearly all seem to have been created in the late 19th or early 20th centuries and generally feature stone-faced figures, mostly children, in inscrutable costumes and situations. They are seen floating in the air, posing with a disreputable-looking Santa, covered in bees, dressed in rags and kneeling on a bomb, among other surreal images. Though Jacob’s overdeveloped back story gives the tale a slow start, the pictures add an eldritch element from the early going, and along with creepy bad guys, the author tucks in suspenseful chases and splashes of gore as he goes. He also whirls a major storm, flying bullets and a time loop into a wild climax that leaves Jacob poised for the sequel.
A trilogy opener both rich and strange, if heavy at the front end. (Horror/fantasy. 12-14)Pub Date: June 7, 2011
ISBN: 978-1-59474-476-1
Page Count: 234
Publisher: Quirk Books
Review Posted Online: March 30, 2014
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
Not much forward momentum but a tasty array of chills, thrills, and chortles.
The victory of Jacob and his fellow peculiars over the previous episode’s wights and hollowgasts turns out to be only one move in a larger game as Riggs (Tales of the Peculiar, 2016, etc.) shifts the scene to America.
Reading largely as a setup for a new (if not exactly original) story arc, the tale commences just after Jacob’s timely rescue from his decidedly hostile parents. Following aimless visits back to newly liberated Devil’s Acre and perfunctory normalling lessons for his magically talented friends, Jacob eventually sets out on a road trip to find and recruit Noor, a powerful but imperiled young peculiar of Asian Indian ancestry. Along the way he encounters a semilawless patchwork of peculiar gangs, syndicates, and isolated small communities—many at loggerheads, some in the midst of negotiating a tentative alliance with the Ymbryne Council, but all threatened by the shadowy Organization. The by-now-tangled skein of rivalries, romantic troubles, and family issues continues to ravel amid bursts of savage violence and low comedy (“I had never seen an invisible person throw up before,” Jacob writes, “and it was something I won’t soon forget”). A fresh set of found snapshots serves, as before, to add an eldritch atmosphere to each set of incidents. The cast defaults to white but includes several people of color with active roles.
Not much forward momentum but a tasty array of chills, thrills, and chortles. (Horror/Fantasy. 12-14)Pub Date: Oct. 2, 2018
ISBN: 978-0-7352-3214-3
Page Count: 496
Publisher: Dutton
Review Posted Online: Sept. 1, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2018
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
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