Lois Duncan - Reviews

Down a Dark Hall

A Lois Duncan Thrillers book
Lois Duncan
Little, Brown Books
Fiction, YA Thriller
Themes: Classics, Ghosts and Spirits, Schools
***+

Description

When she first heard her mother and stepfather talking about the private Blackwood School for Girls in upstate New York, Kit Gordon thought it sounded exciting, especially if her best friend could go with her. But somehow only Kit got past the unusual entrance exams, and when she sets eyes on the restored mansion in the remote woods for the first time, she has only one thought: evil.
At first, she thinks it might just be her nerves. The place is old and spooky and the headmistress Madame Duret is peculiar, to say the least. But she can't shake the feeling that something's not right at Blackwood. There are only four students including her, such an odd mix that Kit can't imagine how they were all selected when her own brilliant best friend was rejected. The teaching staff is just one old professor, the headmistress's young adult son Jules, and Duret herself. Then the nightmares begin... and the students start displaying unusual talents, things they could never do before they arrived.
What is going on? What is Madame Duret doing to the children - and why? And can Kit escape before it's too late?

Review

It's a classic setup by a familiar old-school author... but, like the Blackwood School for Girls, something felt a little odd about this story from the start - such as why an old-school author would bring up cell phones, social media, and the internet in a tale that feels like it's from the mid-twentieth century. Apparently, this is an "updated" version of the original, which was published in 1974. It probably would've been best just to leave it in its original time; it does a disservice to modern young readers to assume they're incapable of comprehending or enjoying what, to them, would be "historical fiction". As it is, the updates come across a little forced, like a parent overusing slang from a younger generation without quite getting the nuance and context right, muddling an otherwise reasonably decent (for its original time) and atmospheric thriller.
Kit doesn't want to be at Blackwood from the beginning, especially not without her best friend; her remarried mother and stepfather, however, are going on an extended European honeymoon and need somewhere for Kit to stay, and Blackwood promised a premium experience they couldn't deny. At first, she thinks maybe that's why she has such a visceral reaction the first time she lays eyes on the school, formerly the home of a local eccentric... but, this being a thriller, her gut instinct is correct, and from the moment she sets foot on the property Kit is in more danger than she can understand. Students and staff are familiar characters one would expect in this kind of tale, from the intimidating headmistress (who is clearly hiding sinister secrets) to the bubble-headed blonde classmate to the swoonworthy young music instructor (and Duret's son) Jules to the kindly cook who provides backstory as needed for the plot and more. Nobody is particularly deep, but nobody really needs to be in this kind of plot. It's more about the slowly unfolding horrors, the nightmares and unusual expressions of spontaneous "gifts" that catch all the children off guard and elicit different reactions from each, as Kit slowly pieces together just why the four students were selected and what Duret intends for them. There are some logic stretches, but overall the tale does a decent job immersing the reader in Kit's hellish experiences as the horrors unfold and her efforts to resist and escape (which she does at least try, to her credit) are thwarted. The climax could've been punchier, the wrap-up quick in a way the left me slightly disappointed, but overall the story delivers the boarding-school-with-a-dark-secret thriller that it promised... though I still question the publisher's insistence on the "updates", especially when the first thing the story does is deprive the children of access to nearly all of the modern technology it itself shoehorned into the story. Why bother introducing the tech at all, anyway?

Killing Mr. Griffin

Lois Duncan
Little, Brown Books
Fiction, YA Suspense
Themes: Classics, Schools
****

Description

High school is one of the most stressful times of a young person's life, and one bad grade can derail a teen's future. In Mr. Griffin's English class, failure isn't just an option, it's almost a given. Nobody pushes students harder, with a zero-tolerance policy for everything from tardiness to late assignments (even with legitimate excuses, such as family emergencies). Nothing is ever good enough for him. He doesn't actually seem to like anyone or anything, and never bothers explaining what he actually wants or clarifying his demands. He's the kind of teacher many students wish would just drop dead.
Nobody actually expected him to die...
It was just supposed to be a prank, a way to rattle the stiff-necked man, maybe remind him that everyone - even he - has a breaking point. Five of Mr. Griffin's students - shy good girl Susan, basketball star Jeff, senior class president Daniel, head cheerleader Betsy, and troubled teen Mark - conspire to kidnap him after school and take him to a remote spot in the hills, make him beg for his freedom, so he can feel one ounce of the desperation and helplessness that kids feel in his classroom every day of the semester. But something goes terribly wrong. Now Mr. Griffin is dead. The more the teens try to cover up the truth, the more comes undone, a snowball that will destroy far more than a failed class ever could... and possibly claim even more lives.

Review

Every high school has at least one teacher that nobody likes, the relentlessly strict one who seems utterly incapable of conceiving of students as human beings and never has a kind or even neutral word to offer, who walks a fine line between setting "high expectations" and outright tormenting and degrading their classes (and would step over that line more than once). Killing Mr. Griffin plays out the secret fantasy of more than one student of said teachers, showing how they're pushed to the brink even as it shows his (somewhat faulty) reasons for being so harsh that he often openly crosses into cruelty. It's one thing to set high standards, but it's another to completely ignore students who are flailing and asking for help, or to forget that teenagers are still kids, and also humans, and therefore perfection at all times and in all things is an unrealistic expectation. If you keep kicking kids while they're down, flaunting your power over their lives and futures and setting up "damned if you do, damned if you don't" as their only experience, something is bound to give.
What starts as a somewhat impulsive act spurred by frustration quickly snowballs out of control, little things going wrong at every step to accumulate into much bigger problems down the line. The five teens each have their own reasons for feeling justified in taking vengeance on the teacher, but once they find themselves with a dead body on their hands, momentum and peer pressure keep them bound together in an increasingly ugly and messy conspiracy, dragging even good girl Susan down to levels of deception she never imagined herself capable of. The story unfolds at a decent pace, establishing why each kid feels justified in seeking vengeance against the teacher, what they think they'll get out of it, and what they have to lose - and how everything goes sideways when the prank becomes more than just a simple kidnapping. This being from 1978, there are some tinges of sexism that date the story, particularly the assumed roles and capabilities of women (especially mothers), but the core high school experience hasn't changed much in the intervening years; it's still a pressure cooker of hormones and confusion and bewilderment over a future rushing headlong at kids who feel (and often are) entirely unprepared for adult expectations that are about to be thrust upon them. I also found a few elements of the finale a bit too neat, given how everything else was falling apart by the climax. Overall, though, this is a solid, decidedly dark tale of suspense and plans going terribly awry in the worst possible way.