SYNOPSIS:
J is a student at a school deep in a forest far away from the rest of the world. J is one of only twenty-six students, all of whom think of the school’s enigmatic founder as their father. J’s peers are the only family he has ever had. The students are being trained to be prodigies of art, science, and athletics, and their life at the school is all they know—and all they are allowed to know. But J suspects that there is something out there, beyond the pines, that the founder does not want him to see, and he’s beginning to ask questions. What is the real purpose of this place? Why can the students never leave? And what secrets is their father hiding from them? Meanwhile, on the other side of the forest, in a school very much like J’s, a girl named K is asking the same questions. J has never seen a girl, and K has never seen a boy. As K and J work to investigate the secrets of their two strange schools, they come to discover something even more mysterious: each other. This one was a DNF for me (sortof; I skimmed through the last half). There were some things I really enjoyed. Malerman's writing style continues to be very clear and conversational. Some great lines-- "His beard as dark as misinformation." "And the only thing worse than receiving all your information from one source is believing it entirely." "Needs, to him, was more a painting than a book. Let someone else hang it in their home." And using 'Time Enough At Last' for the chapter title where J starts reading the book was perfect. 💗 But. About a quarter in, I wrote: "Book's well-written, but not enjoyable. Slow burn beginnings can work, but not when children are being gaslit, tortured, and murdered." In the end, that was too much for me, along with the other big issue I had, the same one I had with Owen King's 'Sleeping Beauties': Queer people EXIST. All the women in the world fall asleep? Trans people exist. Genderqueer people exist. Boys and girls are separated, given no knowledge of the other to avoid 'distraction'? One of those forty-something kids (at least) is gonna be queer. If either book had been written in the 40s/50s, then I could understand. Not that we didn't exist back then, of course, but we weren't a consideration. But it's 2019. I've read plenty of recent books, horror and otherwise, that never mention queer people, and it's not a deal-breaker for me. But if we're going to have gender issues/essentialism as a big part of the plot? Different story.
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I'm sorry. 😕 This one was a DNF for me.
I loved parts of it- the nod to Tom Savini with Brad's last name was nice; the description of Teddie 'screaming and firing like a bit player in Full Metal Jacket' made me laugh. A lot of the descriptions were wonderful, and the premise is a lot of fun (where else will you ever read the line "She was bringing them a zombie in a gagball and fuzzy handcuffs"?). 😄 Parts I did not love below: I'm just not much for "fleeing across a zombie-infested landscape only to run into human rapists and cannibals" plotlines. I think I got too much of it on The Walking Dead. I had a hard time getting into the protagonist's head, and after descriptions of her captors as "dyke cannibal", "Munchkin enforcers", "minikin abductors", and finally "bull dyke", I didn't really want to. Again, apologies, I really wanted to love this one without reservation. |
A WORLD WITH A BLUER SUNMy reviews are set up a little like live-tweets: I write down lines I like/impressions as I read, and then transcribe. Reviews will contain spoilers, but I'll give a warning before they start. Archives
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