Books are a Girl's Best Friend

“You have two days to pass your audition. You better pass it, feller. You’re joining the circus. Ain’t that the best news you ever got?”

Delivered by a trio of psychotic clowns, this ultimatum plunges Jamie into the horrific alternate universe that is the centuries-old Pilo Family Circus, a borderline world between Hell and Earth from which humankind’s greatest tragedies have been perpetrated. Yet in this place—peopled by the gruesome, grotesque, and monstrous—where violence and savagery are the norm, Jamie finds that his worst enemy is himself. When he applies the white face paint, he is transformed into JJ, the most vicious clown of all. And JJ wants Jamie dead!

Pitch-perfect blend of horror and dark humor.  This novel will play on your fear of clowns in an entirely different way than when you were eight years old and you caught Stephen King’s It late at night when you weren’t supposed to be awake.

What are the key components that make a book excellent? Setting? Personally, I’ve always been a fan of the evil carnival/circus trope and this book delivers with a carnival from hell where neither the guests nor the sideshow acts are immune from the routine (and sometimes not so routine) danger.

Characters? From the sociopathically zany clown troupe to the demonic but devoutly religious circus owner Kurt Pilo to the everyman protagonist Jamie and his cruel clown persona JJ, every single character in this novel contributes something to the ambiance of twisted circus life.

Writing? Clear and concise, excellent pacing, and the jokes are delivered perfectly. It’s the kind of book that can be read in one sitting so I highly recommend setting aside the time for one night, stocking up on some chips and dip, and enjoying the horrific performance.

Trigger warnings: Violence, gore, small mention of sexual assault.

Trigger warning: Child sexual abuse, child abuse, prostitution.

At the age of eight Brian Lackey is found bleeding under the crawl space of his house, having endured something so traumatic that he cannot remember an entire five–hour period of time.

During the following years he slowly recalls details from that night, but these fragments are not enough to explain what happened to him, and he begins to believe that he may have been the victim of an alien encounter. Neil McCormick is fully aware of the events from that summer of 1981. Wise beyond his years, curious about his developing sexuality, Neil found what he perceived to be love and guidance from his baseball coach. Now, ten years later, he is a teenage hustler, a terrorist of sorts, unaware of the dangerous path his life is taking. His recklessness is governed by idealized memories of his coach, memories that unexpectedly change when Brian comes to Neil for help and, ultimately, the truth.

This is a powerful novel about how two very different boys deal with the same traumatic experience. It alternates between them and both of their voices are uniquely crafted. The rich, atmospheric setting and descriptions were what first pulled me into this novel and what I remember most about it now, a few years after reading it. 

It’s rather dark and desolate in places, and the characters and setting often reflect that. Most of all, it’s haunting. One of the most unique coming of age stories I’ve read.

Trigger warning: Rape.

Themis Academy is a quiet boarding school with an exceptional student body that the administration trusts to always behave the honorable way—the Themis Way. So when Alex is date raped during her junior year, she has two options: stay silent and hope someone helps her, or enlist the Mockingbirds—a secret society of students dedicated to righting the wrongs of their fellow peers.

In this honest, page-turning account of a teen girl’s struggle to stand up for herself, debut author Daisy Whitney reminds readers that if you love something or someone—especially yourself—you fight for it.

I want to make as many people aware of this book as I possibly can. It’s one of those books that needed to be written. It’s an issue that needs to reach audiences and be discussed. Sadly, I can only think of one other YA novel that deals seriously with date rape, which is Speak, a novel that I also highly recommend even though I’m sure everyone has already read it. While Speak is more of a novel about recovery, The Mockingbirds deals more with justice and it gets very in depth with consent issues.

Give it a try. I hope that after you’re done as compelled to spread the word as I am.

Trigger warning: rape, violence, murder, gore, drugs, and plenty of generally squicky things like necrophilia and cannibalism.

After escaping prison, serial killer Andrew Compton heads for New Orleans to pursue the art of what he calls “the art of killing boys.” He joins up with a dissolute playboy who has pushed his art to limits even Compton hadn’t imagined. Together they set their sights on a young Vietnamese-American runaway, whom they cast as the perfect victim.

I have to give some face time to one of my greatest book loves aside from YA, and that is horror. Are you familiar with Jeffrey Dahmer? Imagine if he acquired Dennis Nilsen as a partner at some time during his killing spree and lived in the French Quarter—that’s Exquisite Corpse in a nutshell.

So I have this tremendous love for Exquisite Corpse because it does two things that I love in horror fiction yet rarely see—the first is that it features gay protagonists. Yes, I love gay protagonists in everything, be it my YA or horror or fantasy or what have you. Poppy Z. Brite, in fact, has gay protagonists in all of his novels so if, like me, you’re kind of upset over the lack of queer representation in horror (or, for that matter, queer representation in contemporary lit about chefs in New Orleans), he’s always a good author to turn to.

The second thing is the twisted writing style. What could be more disturbing than the gruesome, gritty descriptions you might find in your typical horror novel? How about tender and loving and poetic? The sensuous tone of Exquisite Corpse is what sets it apart and makes it truly chilling. There is a quote on the back with which I have to agree:

“[Poppy Z. Brite] is the only writer I know who could write a guide-book to hell that would make me want to go there.”

Falsely accused of treason, the young sailor Edmond Dantes is arrested on his wedding day and imprisoned in the island fortress of the Château d’If. Having endured years of incarceration, he stages a daring and dramatic escape and sets out to discover the fabulous treasure of Monte Cristo, and to catch up with his enemies.

This is the second classic that ties for the number one spot on my favorites.

The correct word to describe The Count of Monte Cristo is EPIC. I don’t use that word a lot since it’s tossed around so leisurely but there’s no other word that quite does it justice. It’s one big 1200-page web of revenge, betrayal, lies, and Evil Sinister Rich People. It’s brilliant, fast-paced, action-packed—there are no shortage of adjectives I could apply to it. And if I could fawn over it all day, I would. The twisting and turning story speaks for itself in ways I never could.

Note that if you haven’t yet read this one, make sure you get an unabridged edition. (Check the title page for the word ‘abridged.’) Trust me, you don’t want to miss one second of the action.

Oscar Wilde’s story of a fashionable young man who sells his soul for eternal youth and beauty is one of his most popular works. Written in Wilde’s characteristically dazzling manner, full of stinging epigrams and shrewd observations, the tale of Dorian Gray’s moral disintegration caused something of a scandal when it first appeared in 1890. Wilde was attacked for his decadence and corrupting influence, and a few years later the book and the aesthetic/moral dilemma it presented became issues in the trials occasioned by Wilde’s homosexual liaisons, trials that resulted in his imprisonment. Of the book’s value as autobiography, Wilde noted in a letter, “Basil Hallward is what I think I am: Lord Henry what the world thinks me: Dorian what I would like to be—in other ages, perhaps.”

This is one of the books that ties for my all-time favorite classic. It’s lyrical, it’s gruesome, and, above all, it’s witty. (But how can you think Oscar Wilde and not think wit?) It’s also funny in a dark, cynical way. I’ve read it in its entirety three or four times now, though sometimes I go back simply to re-read my favorite passages and quotes. (I pick it up off the shelf regularly to re-read the beautiful preface alone—I must know it from memory by now.)

The Picture of Dorian Gray has to be one of the most often quoted books in existence. The quips alone make it worth reading but beneath the snarky witticisms is a truly frightening Faustian tale rife with deceit and corruption and more than just a little homoerotic subtext.

Interestingly, I recently learned from a book on the Zodiac killer that Oscar Wilde knew the identity of Jack the Ripper and placed clues throughout The Picture of Dorian Gray. Perhaps this means it’s about time to give it another re-read.

Trigger warning: suicide.

So be prepared. :3c

What if you had only one day to live? What would you do? Who would you kiss? And how far would you go to save your own life?

Samantha Kingston has it all: the world’s most crush-worthy boyfriend, three amazing best friends, and first pick of everything at Thomas Jefferson High—from the best table in the cafeteria to the choicest parking spot. Friday, February 12, should be just another day in her charmed life.

Instead, it turns out to be her last.

Then she gets a second chance. Seven chances, in fact. Reliving her last day during one miraculous week, she will untangle the mystery surrounding her death—and discover the true value of everything she is in danger of losing.

This is turning into a YA rec blog, isn’t it? Oh well. Here’s another YA offering for you.

Before I Fall is precisely the kind of YA book I’m wary of—it got a lot of promotion when it was released and it featured prominently on the Highly Recommended shelves at every bookstore I entered. Also, it had an interesting but rather dramatic premise. I’m not against interesting and dramatic premises but I’m never sure if the books themselves will match up or if they’ll segue into a bland romance and not much else. This one struck me as the latter so I refrained from shelling out for the hardcover copy. But when I saw it all new and pristine on the shelves of my local library I figured I might as well give it a chance before it got snatched up by everyone else for the next six months.

Here and now I take back every misguided preconceived notion I had about this book. I started it the night I got it and stayed up well into the morning until I finished all 400-something pages. My heart raced the whole way through. I choked up a few times.

I don’t often describe books as beautiful but that’s the most fitting description that comes to mind for Before I Fall. Samantha, the protagonist, is a well-drawn teenager who is often misguided or thoughtless in many of the same ways I remember being in high school. But that doesn’t mean she doesn’t have her likeable qualities—as the story progresses she grows and learns even under the extreme and desperate circumstances in which she finds herself. Her friends averted the worries that I had for them when I first started the story—instead of your typical popular crowd who are irredeemably unlikable archetypes, you have a group of people who are massively flawed, sometimes downright cruel, but still compassionate at times and overall incredibly human.

I couldn’t recommend this book enough. Don’t go in without tissues.

Trigger warnings: suicide and bullying.

Seventeen-year-old Louisa Cosgrove longs to break free from her respectable life as a Victorian doctor’s daughter. But her dreams become a nightmare when Louisa is sent to Wildthorn Hall: labeled a lunatic, deprived of her liberty and even her real name. As she unravels the betrayals that led to her incarceration, she realizes there are many kinds of prison. She must be honest with herself - and others - in order to be set free. And love may be the key…

This book is a blatant case of a novel not getting the publicity it deserves and I hope to rectify that even if only by the smallest of margins. Wildthorn uses Victorian England as a backdrop to explore and criticize sexist attitudes which, sadly, still exist in the world today. And while it is a queer novel, the queerness is more incidental to the story than it is the primary focus. But primary focus or not, it’s heartwarming all the same. At the heart of the story is a young girl who’s fighting against a repressive society for her dream of being a doctor.

Take my word, if you’re looking for a gripping, well-researched, and well-written feminist novel with interesting characters, you need Wildthorn in your life.

Trigger warnings: depictions of sexist attitudes, mental illness, and abuse of mentally ill people.

Lifelong best friends Nina Bermudez, Avery Dekker, and Melanie Forrest face their first separation the summer before their senior year when Nina attends a ten-week summer program at Stanford. Nina returns home bursting with stories about Steve, her summer romance. But she soon learns the shocking truth about what her friends were up to while she was gone when she sees Mel and Avery … kissing. The friendship is rocked by what feels like the ultimate challenge. But it’s only the beginning of a sometimes painful, sometimes funny, always gripping journey as three girls discover who they are and what they really want.

I thought it best to kick off this blog with The Bermudez Triangle by Maureen Johnson since it seems like I go on a hardcore reccing-spree for it once every few months—probably because that’s how often I reread it. I recently finished it for the twentieth? thirtieth? time and I want to make everyone who hasn’t been around to witness my Bermudez-related histrionics is made aware.

The Bermudez Triangle is a romance on the outside but a story about friendship at its heart. I’ve never related to characters in a YA novel the way I relate to Mel, Nina, and Avery. When you read this book, you could be reading about yourself or your friends. And those are the best kind of characters, in my humble opinion—the ones you can see yourself in, be it the good parts or the bad parts. Rarely do I find one character—let alone three—where I can see, not one side, but both. For bonus points you also have the goofy but endearing guy friend thrown in there. We all have those. (Don’t we?)

Maureen Johnson realizes that it’s not just how a character is described or how a character acts that is a prime marker of characterization—it’s the relationships between the characters and how they interact and how their personalities bounce off of one another. This is especially important in a book about friendship and it’s one of the many aspects that makes The Bermudez Triangle shine through triumphant.

The book chronicles a year in these characters’ lives together and it’s full of poignant moments, sometimes hilarious, sometimes sad, usually bittersweet. It’s organized with holidays as time-markers and it serves to remind that even in the midst of jubilation or crushing heartbreak, life doesn’t stop.

And besides all that, I’m just a huge fan of Maureen Johnson’s writing. She’s adept at bringing any scenario to life with her trademark style of humor. The lesbian relationship is (of course) what drew me to this book in the first place and if I’d have to choose, it probably stand number one on my shelf of Queer Relationships And How They Are Handled. Sexuality is a big theme: not only is it about two girls in a relationship, it’s about discovering yourself, coming out, questioning your identity, dealing with homophobia, and learning how to deal when your two best friends begin a relationship.

There is honestly nothing I don’t love about this book and I could wax poetic some more about WHY but I think you get the idea. It’s one of the first books I go to when I need a heartwarming, comforting read. Read it. I can’t recommend it strongly enough.

Trigger warning: some depictions of homophobia.