Book Review: Show Stopper by Hayley Barker

In my house we are born in our master's houses.  Okay, I've got nothing for this line.

Ben, the teenage son of a powerful government minister, attends on opening night and falls under the spell of Hoshiko, the tightrope walker and star attraction. 

But as he steps beyond the dazzle and spectacle of the area, to reveal the horrors of that lurk beneath, can he find the courage to resist, to rebel, to help end the cruelty and the carnage?

Step right up for this heartbreaking and heart-racing story - the darker the danger; the louder you'll scream...

 This is a dystopia. I didn't realise that until I started reading it. I was disappointed because I wanted cool, spooky circus fun and not expecting a half-baked political message with ill-conceived world building.

The story is told from Ben, pure rich boy, and Hoshiko, a dreg who is forced to perform in the circus, which is designed to kill dregs for the entertainment of Pures.

I found the world building to be lacking. Death circus is cool idea but the rest of the world is poorly consulted to run it.

As this is a dystopia it has it share of stupid name changes like Parliament is now PowerHouse. We have had several Parliament building in history and it now being a statue-like building. This is meant to be near future, so who got away with that stupid change. I'm also surprised that non-English heritage names are allowed in this world.

There's also a bit where they turn the circus tent to look like a Pumpkin, but Pumpkins are foreigners and therefore unpure. Okay, no one, not even the racists think about squash that way. Crave a turnip. The Tradition Irish/Scottish Halloween.

Another big problem is that is very surface racism/prejudice. It never explain in detain who are considered a dreg. It's not done just by skin colour as there is a Blond pale dreg. The Author to my best knowledge is English so probably didn't consider how prejudice the English are towards the Celtic (Keltic) countries that surrounded it e.g. the rest of the UK. Sure, we have been prejudice to them. This mostly seen in government policy now. Poor Wales. What I'm wondering is, are they straight up Nazis? Like is it only Anglo Saxon for the win. The main character is Blonde and there are European Heritage dregs. Racism ain't logical in real life, but this is more a lack of world building. Though, there's going to be a sequel so maybe it explain in there.

The actual problem with this book is the romance. I don't buy it at all, it's instant Love and everyone that's a "good" guy accepts it. I feel like there's a scene missing. I buy Ben's side of things but not Hoshiko's. She risks her family for a boy she see as the enemy. Her mindset changes when the plot calls for it. Maybe if they had had a conversation before she started risking her life for some random. So much of the plot relays on it and its just not very strong. Baker tries to show Hoshiko's conflict but it comes across as so flickle. I think if this could have been done right, I would have probably let most my other issues go but I go annoyed and started motivation at lot so I notice the other issues more.

Hoshiko when not throwing away everything for a boy was a compelling character...sometimes. Ben is doing the whole discovering his life is a lie thing and getting people killed. He does act with abandon after his moment of clarity. They are okay characters. Plot more than anything actually drives this book, but it very much established as being no win scenario and I wouldn't have guess sequel was coming till I was googling around for the info on Baker's background. It probably have been stronger for me if Baker had embraced the impossible for these characters but with them starting something bigger.

Overall, I give this book 3/5 stars for Freezer Brains. This book wasn't what I was expecting when I started reading it, which definitely effected my enjoyment level. It has a big subject that taken from Britain increasing uncertain political future but I don't think it comes closes to hitting that. This is probably more for a young, unpolitical knowledgable teen and does a good job of tricking an unaware reader into reading it with the novelty of a circus.  I don't think I will read the sequel, Show Stealer, unless the description is more interesting.

Book Review: Fir by Sharon Gosling

Forests are obviously evil.

Moving from Stockholm to an isolated pine plantation in northern Sweden is bad enough, but when the snows come early and all links between the Strombergs and the outside world are cut off, it gets worse. With only a grudging housekeeper and increasingly withdrawn parents for company, there is nothing to do but to explore the old plantation house. Anything to stay out of the endless pine trees pressing in on them. But soon it becomes clear that the danger within the old plantation house is even greater than what lies outside…

A chilling YA horror, perfect for fans of Dawn Kurtagich, Juno Dawson and Stephen King.

I just want to comment on the Stephen King being added on to YA horror writers. Sure, they on the same level as King's horror (Well, I know I rather read Kurtagich or Dawson again. King though...?). So finally with this book I have read all of the released books of the Red Eyes series (I don't have connections to get a book five months, that has a preview in Fir so is probably finished. We can compare in April).

So this is unique setting of Sweden (though I know of another British Horror book out there that is set in Northern Sweden and involves the Forest. Stay out of the Forests in Northern Sweden I guess).

The book is told in the POV of a unnamed protagonist in sort of a diary form, with poem from the forest every second chapter, which is why is probably compared to Kurtagich with her 'Dead House'.

The parents are generic have their own issues going on so lets solve our problems by moving to nowhere without a support unit to run a business that they know nothing about it. We also have a guide and much of kids that part of programme to educate kids about the forests. Then there's the creepy old maid that's worked at the house her whole working life.

The forest is also personified with tales of creatures in it.  The house is spooky as well so the setting is great and the mystery side works.

Overall, I give this book 4/5 stars for secret hidey-holes... I'm now conflicted because this book levels with Frozen Charlotte or is better. It has similarity with isolation and supernatural beings messing with people. Also spooky child/ren. I would recommended if like that book and just if you like YA Horror.

Dis: This is the only Red Eye book that I have currently not gotten this for Review off NetGalley. Just saying so you know I didn't forget the disclaimer.

Buy.

Book Review: The Travelling Bag: And Other Ghostly Stories by Susan Hill

Yeah, I don't know why I keep reading Susan Hill either.


From the foggy streets of Victorian London to the eerie perfection of 1950s suburbia, the everyday is invaded by the evil otherworldly in this unforgettable collection of new ghost stories from the author of The Woman in Black. 

In the title story, on a murky evening in a warmly lit club off St James, a bishop listens closely as a paranormal detective recounts his most memorable case, one whose horrifying denouement took place in that very building. 

In 'The Front Room', a devoutly Christian mother tries to protect her children from the evil influence of their grandmother, both when she is alive and when she is dead. 

A lonely boy finds a friend in 'Boy Number 21', but years later he is forced to question the nature of that friendship, and to ask whether ghosts can perish in fires.


So I have a hate-hate relationships with Hill, I find her horror to be boring and pretentious, with a lack of sympathic characters. I have reviewed two of her works (read 4 I think): The Small Hand and The Woman in Black. This book contains four short stories, which feel like Hill's abandoned works. Some of them don't feel like they have proper endings. Unlike my usual way of reviewing short stories, I'm reviewing them indivdiually from memory instead of writing mini-reviews as I read them.

The Travelling Bag: So this is the Victorianish set and we learn the story of someone getting revenge and then random fear of moths for no reason. This has a weird Narrative device as someone telling their fellow club memember the worst, spookest case they ever worked. How he knows the information he does is never explained and doesn't feel like him actually tellling the story. This feels like a series idea and I thought all the stories were going to be told as if they were cases this guy had, had, but no it was just one off. It adds nothing, but set up for disappointment. If we had just been the actual story instead of the weird narrative deice, I would have enjoyed it better. 2/5 stars for sweeping bodies.

Boy Number 21: This is the worst story. So very little happens in it and I was expecting something big with the set up. The big problem is a bigging up to nothing. Not a field trip and a possible psychotic break. 1/5 stars for squished Sandwiches.

Alice Baker:  This is probably the best. It doesn't have a weird narrator and has a concise ending that makes sense. It also from a female character's POV and it wasn't Hill's typical, terrible ghost motivation. This one takes place in an old office building where a new staff member cause a stink. I Not sure why it's was the one left out of the burb. 4/5 stars for Office Politics.

The Front Room: It's Hill's favourite thing. A spiteful person for the sake of being spiteful. Then she a spiteful ghost. A family does a nice thing by taking in an old lady, the father's step-mother. Most of it is set up and then dur-dur-DUR. 1/5 stars for only a shower.

Overall, I give this book 1/5 stars for mediocre nonsense. This book is just bad. There's one story that's worth a read but the others' are Hill's typical mess of work, except some of these feel like Hill just gave up and declare them short stories instead.

Book Review: Fleshmarket by Nicola Morgan

Fleshmarket does not contain cannablism. Only Jokes about Cannabism,

"Footsteps echoed through the towering corridors as the woman walked...followed by her silent family. No One could touch her. She touched none of them. She was different. Robbie, young as he was, felt it...had felt her pain as if it was his. It had burned him and left its mark. The mark was the empty space where his real mother had been. The place where she had left him.'

It is Edinburgh, 1828 and Robbie is haunted by the horror of his mother's death at the hands of the famous surgeon, Dr Robert Knox. The Operation was intended to save her life. Instead it brought her intolerable pain before it killed her. Now her family is torned apart, and living in appalling poverty. A desperate Robbie is intend on Revenge on Knox. But how far is he prepared to go - and what will he lose in the process?


This is a book I wanted to read since 5th Nov 2007 when I heard about, brought it 7 years later and read it almost 10 years later. It sounded cooler, I tried to buy when I heard about it, but I don't think I had enough money on me. The lady selling the books also seem confused that I would want that one also.

So this book is about Robbie who blames his family's poverty on real historian person Dr Robert Knox. The book goes during the birth of Modern Medicine, as in they didn't know about bacteria and inflections yet. Nor much about the Human body as no one was willing to have their body cut for science as religion says that you need your body to rot for God for some reason.

This book does have lot questioning of God, because of the time period and the list of bad things that have happened to our main character. It's a few pages of the book, and think is reflective of the time the book is set. The bodies rotting for god does come into play of the plot. If you recognize Doctor Know, then you probably guess how it relates. I didn't and strangely I never guess what a book called Fleshmarket set in 19th century would involved such a famous Edinburgh thing so I will leave you to discover it or already know.

I think a big problem is that Robbie is a bit desperate to blame Knox for his problems that it comes across as dumb. Yes, he 14 and hormonal, but there's several "error of my ways" moments that happen in this book. He also abandons his 8 yr old sister several times, making him unlikable.

Overall, I give this book 3.5/5 stars for bread barrow. I prefer Nicola Morgan's The Highwayman's Footsteps series better than this book. It was okay, I don't know if Young me would have liked it better. If more a fan of historian fiction involving real people then this might be the book for you.

Book Review: Sleepless by Lou Morgan

Don't take pills you brought off the internet...that ain't googable victims.

The real nightmare begins when you’re awake…
 
Young, rich and good-looking, Izzy and her friends lead seemingly perfect lives. But exams are looming – and at a school like Clerkenwell, failure is not an option. Luckily, Tigs has a solution. A small pill that will make revision a breeze and help them get the results they need. Desperate to succeed, the friends begin taking the study drug.

In terms of don't mess with drugs messages that have appeared in Red Eye books this is the better one. So this was one of the first Red Eye books that were published and I have owned a physical copy since then. It's one of the better ones, so it shame I left it for so long. I have read all the Red Eye books now but Fir by Sharon Jones (working on it).

The Red Eye books are quite happy to have terrible ending which is one of the reasons I appreciated it. The characters stop sleeping and therefore go insane. There are some background stuff hinted at and I feel like we don't get a straight answer about. It doesn't matter.

The Horror starts after Lizzy and her pals take terrible smelling pills (the first major red flag) and after the horror of exams, the shadowy images start appearing from the group and they turn against each other.

The book is in first person, in Lizzy pov, which works well, especially when they start betaying each other. 

Overall, I give it 4/5 stars for Exam freak outs .I think I rank it under Frozen Charlotte but higher than the other four stars books in the series ( Flesh & Bones, The Haunting and Charlotte Says). Actually, I don't know. The Red Eye Series started badly for me, but overall the series on avange the series sits at 3.6. Yeah, one star can really tank an avenge when you do the maths. It could be rounded to 4 stars which is what the series actually sits at for me.

I technically got this book for Review off of NetGalley from the Publisher Stripes. But I was gonna do this anyway and this is my own mission now.

Book Review: The Dead House by Dawn Kurtagich

If you tell me not to do something, I'm probably gonna do it.

I CURSE ANYONE WHO READS THIS BOOK. 
SCREW YOU, HAPPY READING
 
TWENTY-FIVE YEARS AGO.

Elmbridge High School burned down. Three Students were killed in the braze, twenty were injured, and one, Carly Johnson, disappeared.

For two decades, little was uncovered about what became known as the 'Johnson Incident'.

UNTIL NOW.

This is another book I requested off of NetGalley years ago and found in the library so decided to finally started reading it. It was really good so I wished it was of the NetGalley unread books I had brought (there's a large collection of them).

This is a really good horror book, with horrifying outcome.  It has a lot of Horror Tropes, Boarding School, insane asylum, magic, ghost demon things. The Main character Kaitlyn has mental illness issues but it some what a question what is mental illness and what is magic. 

There's is a made-up Scottish Magic in this book which I enjoyed. It was really well thought out so much so I started wonder if this was real thing that I had somehow had not heard about it. It's not a real, just really well done. 

The characters are all quite likeable and started to feel panicky about the character's outcome, which is great considering the amount of horrors that don't even try to have likeable or realistic characters. There is an odd romantic relationship and its up to question.
 
This book is told in "discovered" documents, mainly Kaitlyn's diary. It really works for the mystery thriller side of it.

Overall, I gave this book 4/5 stars for Church Pews. I really enjoyed this book and I am going to autobuy Dawn Kurtagich. I would recommend this to any horror buffs out there.

I got this book for Review off NetGalley years ago and it's published by Orion Children's Books.

Buy

Book Review: Thriteen Chairs by Dave Shelton

You shouldn't go into abandoned buildings...by yourself.

 In an abandoned house, the ghosts gather. They argue, they laugh, and they tell their stories. Some tell their own stories, some tell stories they have heard elsewhere. Some of them are true, some are not. But each tale draws you closer.

One by one, the storytellers depart, until suddenly it's just you and the narrator, alone in the dark...

Usually I read and rated short stories as I read them, but as this is all by one writer I didn't. Instead I'm going back and rated them. This book also has the benefit of illustrations at the start of each story which I will share my favourite of.

Let Me Sleep: This is the standard past deeds coming back to haunt you, typical beware of actions. Probably is a weak start. 3/5 stars for bling.

The Wrong Side of the Road: The standard past deeds coming back to haunt you. Okay, this makes me think of The Midnight's society's first episode, but only because Taxi. Woods. Spoilers. Don't drink drive kids. 2/5 stars for smashed glass.

Oswald: Cats are evil. Oswald is an evil cat, a cat eviler than usual. Basically, torments his owner. Going with the motif of these being stories told, this is the first one that really feels like character telling the story. It works okay. 3/5 stars for ticker bell.

The Red Tree: This is an old grim fairy tale thing going on, matching the character telling the story. It's a good imitation and creepy idea. 3/5 stars for fool's gold.

Tick Tick Tick: This is another mash up. There's this clock tower, the character goes there, you can probably guess what happens. Though, apparently left the other characters 'shaken' besides Jack, when its a pretty dull, obvious ending that makes me want to go read Poe. 2/5 stars for cloak, cloak, cloak.

Beneath the Surface: A boy loses his parents and brother in a boating accident and is haunted by water. I had forgot this story and had to look it up which is one of the reason, why I won't be reviewing short story collections this way again. 3/5 stars for Death Puddles.

Razor: A journalist hears a ghost story about a murder house at a pub and goes for it. 4/5 stars for tidying spirits.

The Girl in The Red Coat: A revenge story, sort of. 4/5 stars for Eyes.

The Patchwork Sailor: A revenge story where Daddy finally comes home. 3/5 stars for odd handed.

Unputdownable: My favourite story in this book. Someone moves into a Writer's Cottage and then must write and write. 5/5 stars for fill-out notebooks. 

Snowstorms: This is set in the North Pole or somewhere really snowing.  The snow messes with you. 4/5 stars for snow globe.

Among the Dead: This is the life story of the leader of this ghost telling affair and what this thing is about. These last two stories connect the narrative

device with the stories. 4/5 stars for coffins.

The House Where the Ghosts Meet: Jack tells us what lead him to the house and just what the deal is. 3/5 stars for bike safety.

Overall, I give this 4/5 stars for ghost meetings. I think it pretty good for Juvenile Horror, people on Goodreads are really harsh towards this book and I don't understand why. The choice of story placement could have been better, especially as the start stories are very similarly theme wise.  It does contain some standard horror stories but it does them well. They're not scary, but I find it odd that adults are rating Juvenile Horror for its fear level. I found this Teen/YA section of the library, I probably place in the kids' section going off the other Juvenile Horrors.

Book Review: Submarine by Joe Duntorn

Starting October with the Horror of Pretentious Teenage Boys.

Meet Oliver Tate, fifteen years old. Convinced that his father is depressed ('Depression comes in bouts. Like boxing. Dad is in the blue corner') and his mother is having an affair with her capoeira teacher ('a hippy-looking twonk'), he embarks on a hilariously misguided campaign to bring the family back together. Meanwhile, he is also trying to lose his virginity - before he turns sixteen - to his pyromaniac girlfriend Jordana. Will Oliver succeed in either aim? Submerge yourself in Submarine and find out . . .

No, I never did find out why this book is called submarine.  This opens greatly and has a lot of good one liners, especially towards the start but after page 200 (the edition I read was 290 pages) I was done with Oliver. Especially, as all of the plot stuff that this novel has was completely resolved (or as much as it gets in this novel). If I liked Oliver as a person or character, then maybe those 90 pages of pointlessness would have been fun. 

Oliver is realistic teenage boy, the sort I personally would hated even as a teenager. His actions make him so unlikable and never learns from his actions. He's really immature for a fifteen, he comes across as thirteen. Sure, they are people like that, but I don't want to read about them. Though, I still want to watch the movie. Less about this book, more to do with who was involved in making it. 

This book has mental illness, relationships in trouble and the teen hormones that lead to what that usually does. It's just there. If you want a glimpse into the life of really annoying person. 

The writing style is meant to be a diary but also obviously breaks that format a lot. Oliver is pretentious so there's some attempt at depth and Dunton manages to capture that pretentious voice of a 15 year old boy that needs to grow up.

Overall, I give this book 2/5 stars for shoe stealing. I don't the main character so I didn't like the book, that's the risk with character driven characters. I didn't anything from this. I don't know who this book is for, teenage boys you want to throw off a bus?