Since he first saw Night of the Living Dead, young Alex has been obsessed with monsters and scary stories. He writes his dark tales in journals he
calls his "nightbooks" - until the night he sneaks out of his apartment to burn them all, tired of being the weird kid in school.
Alex never makes it to the boiler room.
On his way to the basement, he finds himself drawn to Apartment 4E, lured by the sounds of his favorite movie and the smell of pumpkin pie. Once he crosses the
threshold, his fate is sealed. Trapped by modern-day witch Natacha and her cunning feline familiar Lenore, Alex must tell a new story every night to stave off
a fate worse than death... only he's running out of stories, and Natacha is running out of patience.
Review
This modern-day fairy tale crosses "Hansel and Gretel" with Scheherazade and a healthy dose of terror. Alex loves scary stories even as a part of him worries
that his obsession is proof of some flaw in his soul: maybe he really is a monster like his classmates seem to think. Finding himself trapped in a scary story
of his own proves far less fun than he anticipated, but even then he can't help being awed and even excited by some of what he finds in the magic apartment,
where the living room is crowded with creepy artifacts and doors are as likely to lead right back to the room you left as anywhere else. Natacha is a wicked
witch straight from an old fairy tale, terrifying and powerful and no easy opponent to outmaneuver; she spies a kindred spirit in Alex long before he admits his
own weakness. Alex hopes to find an ally in Yasmine, another captive, but she has her own pains and problems, while the often-invisible Lenore threatens to
unravel any escape plan he manages to concoct. Worse, the stress and despair hamper his ability to write the very stories that are keeping him alive.
Periodically, the reader is treated to short tales from Alex's nightbooks, creepy confections that tend to dark endings; White does not pull punches or water
down the horror side of this story. It moves fairly quickly, through several terrifying incidents and more than one failed escape plan, to a fitting finale. The
whole is a memorable tale full of twisted, nightmarish imagery and characters who truly feel the horrors they are forced to endure.
Kara Westfall was five years old when she learned how cruel her village of De'Noran could be - the night that she and her mother were both accused of
witchcraft. The village is dedicated to the Path, the teachings of the savior who, two thousand years ago, sacrificed himself fighting a plague of
witches and monsters who nearly destroyed the world. Her mother did not survive that night of accusation and judgment, but Kara did... only to live as a
pariah, same as her broken-hearted father and sickly kid brother Taff. To them, the Westfall family is still tainted by association, even after years
have passed and neither Kara nor Taff have shown any signs of magic. Kara refuses to believe her mother was actually a witch. Witches are evil things,
after all, and she knows her mother loved her, and no evil thing could possibly love.
Then the strange bird with the single eye draws her into the Thickety, the forbidden wood that spawns evil weeds and worse beasts, to a buried book that
whispers of great powers. A grimoire - possibly the very one that belonged to her late, doomed mother.
As Kara finds strange powers wakening within her, she begins to see her village in a new light. But magic is as much a curse as it is a gift, and if
Kara isn't careful she could destroy everything and everyone she loves.
Review
I read and enjoyed J. A. White's chilling standalone tale Nightbooks (reviewed above), so I figured I'd give this story a try. Like
Nightbooks, it skews toward the dark side; while generally nongraphic, it doesn't shy away from danger or death, or the gray areas of morality
that separate good from evil and right from wrong. After her innocence was shattered at a young age, watching her mother killed by her friends and
neighbors (while her father stood by, apparently one of the very "witnesses" who turned her in to the town leader), she learned just how unfair and
cruel the world could be, even as she strives to stay on the cultlike Path of the Puritan-like religion the islanders practice. No matter what she
does, though, she and her brother are treated like monsters, shunned and bullied, while her father drifts in a state of deep depression that makes him
more child than man. Kara can't help resenting his behavior, even as she struggles to keep him and her brother fed on an increasingly lifeless farm
against increasingly insurmountable odds. For all that she can't bring herself to truly hate her tormentors, there's only so far a girl can be pushed,
and she's just about at her limit when the odd little bird shows up to tempt her across the forbidden boundary into the Thickety.
Like everyone else in the village, she fears the Thickety, and has ample evidence from her own eyes of just why it's to be feared: the weeds and
saplings at the forest's edge regrow almost overnight, and at least half the plants are toxic in some way. But there are also healing herbs to be
found in the fringes, as Kara's mother taught her. This duality of nature is echoed throughout the book, from the neighbors who can be kindly (at
least to each other) and cruel, the father who loves her yet inexplicably betrayed her mother, even to the magic that Kara discovers when she's led to
the buried grimoire. There is, she discovers, great potential for good in it, chances to right wrongs and heal wounds and even explore the wonders of
her world in a new and interesting way... but there's also a terrifying temptation with the power it offers, and a price to be paid. And even if Kara
can manage to avoid the temptation, others in the village may not; she is not the only one in De'Noran consumed with resentment and frustration over
the hypocrisy of the people and the Path. Through it all, she strives to protect her often-sickly brother Taff, born the very night the villagers
killed their mother, even as she fears her very presence endangers him more than any illness. It's for his sake as much as her own that she pushes
herself farther than she thinks she could go, endures things she did not believe she could endure - and wades into deeper, darker, and murkier magic
than she knows is wise.
From the first few pages, where a young Kara is snatched from her bed by neighbors and forced to stand trial before the village, the plot moves at a
decent clip, showing its darkness early on and only skewing darker as the tale unfolds. The villagers may be ignorant of much about magic and witches,
but they aren't entirely wrong to fear the potential of magic or the power within the Thickety - truths driven home when Kara finds she's not the
only one with the talent, building to a climax pitting her against everything she was raised to fear (and then some)... and an epilogue that reveals
a final twist of the knife, setting up the next installment of the series and the next stage in her personal journey. It made for interesting, if
occasionally chilling and brutal (especially given the middle-grade age range) listening. I wavered a bit on the rating, but wound up giving an extra
half-star for not pulling its punches.
