Hide and Seeker by Daka Hermon

Formats: Print, audio, digital

Publisher: Scholastic 

Genre:  Demon, Monster, Psychological Horror

Audience: Children

Diversity: Black author and characters

Takes Place in: Tennessee 

Content Warnings: Child Abuse, Child Endangerment, Death, Forced Captivity, Gaslighting, Police Harassment (Highlight to view)

Blurb:

One of our most iconic childhood games receives a creepy twist as it becomes the gateway to a nightmare world. I went up the hill, the hill was muddy, stomped my toe and made it bloody, should I wash it? Justin knows that something is wrong with his best friend. Zee went missing for a year. And when he came back, he was . . . different. Nobody knows what happened to him. At Zee's welcome home party, Justin and the neighborhood crew play Hide and Seek. But it goes wrong. Very wrong. One by one, everyone who plays the game disappears, pulled into a world of nightmares come to life. Justin and his friends realize this horrible place is where Zee had been trapped. All they can do now is hide from the Seeker.

You'd think I'd eventually learn that kid's media can be just as scary as horror aimed at adults. After all, Over the Garden Wall, Coraline, and Skeleton Man all managed to scar me permanently. And yet, I went into Hide and Seeker foolishly assuming that it would be tame in comparison to my usual horror fare. Well, boy was I wrong. This book was INTENSE. I mean, just look at that cover! Suddenly I was a child again, hiding under the covers from the monsters in the darkness but still unable to put the book down despite the nightmares I knew it would cause. I haven't had a good scare like that in a while and it was absolutely wonderful. 

Over the Garden Wall: nightmare fuel for the whole family!

Jason is coping with the death of his mother and the disappearance of his best friend, Zee. Despite support from his sister and counselor he still struggles to accept her death and deal with his panic attacks (major kudos to Hermon for portraying an accurate depiction of panic attacks and anxiety). Then Zee reappears suddenly, covered in scars and speaking in riddles about a monster called the Seeker. What should be a joyous occasion quickly turns sour when children in the neighborhood start to disappear after a game of hide & seek. Jason and his friends Lyric and Nia soon learn that the kids were whisked away by the demonic Seeker to a place beyond their worst nightmares, and it looks like they’re next.

Of our trio of heroes, I’d have to say Nia is my favorite. She’s clever, rational, and despite her photographic memory and love of trivia she struggles with schoolwork. It was a nice change of pace to see the token “smart kid” suck at test taking and homework, a reminder that schoolwork is not an accurate measure of intelligence and ingenuity, and learning disabilities don’t mean you’re stupid. Nia uses her wits to help the kids out of more than one scrape and pushes her friends to be their best. She also knows enough about horror movie tropes to advise against splitting up the group. Nia is awesome. Not that Lyric or Jason are slouches. They’re fiercely loyal to each other, and it’s incredibly heartwarming. Even at their worst moments, the kids stick together and support their friends. 

This is the perfect book for kids who love Goosebumps and Stranger Things but are still too young for Stephen King and R-rated Slashers. Hermon is amazing at creating atmosphere and building terror without relying on blood and gore (there are minor injuries though, like bug stings, burns, and minor cuts). Her dialogue conveys the intensity of the situation without swearing. By implying Nowhere is a place where all your greatest fears become real and leaves its victims traumatized and covered in scars, our imaginations are able to come up with the worst possible scenarios. Not that Hermon leaves everything up to the reader’s imagination: there are plenty of giant bugs, living dolls, needles, and rat-snake hybrids to convey how truly terrifying Nowhere is.

Justin faces a lot of scary things, but racists and systemic oppression aren't among them. It was nice to have a middle-grade book with a Black hero that didn’t deal with racism. Black folks already have to deal with racism All. The. Time. We deserve escapist stories where Black kids get to exist without having to worry about discrimination. Nic Stone, author of Dear Martin put it best in her article for Cosmopolitan:

“…I can’t help but wonder how different the world would look if we’d all grown up seeing Black people do the stuff White people did in books. Going on adventures. Saving the day. Falling in love. Solving mysteries. Dealing with a broken heart. Getting caught up in a riveting love triangle. Taking down oppressive regimes. (I mean, HELLO, a bunch of farm animals took down a dictatorial pig in a book that’s been on middle school curriculum lists for decades. Yet Black people can’t survive the first book in a dystopia trilogy?) What if we’d seen Black people in books just being human?”

The closest the book gets to dealing with racism is when the kids get harassed by a police officer while riding their bikes though a nice neighborhood. Ironically, it’s the one White kid in the group that hates cops the most due to his father being sent to prison for a crime he didn’t commit, and he warns the others not to ask the police for help. And it’s such a nice change to see Black kids fighting make-believe monsters rather than real ones. 

The Butcher's Wife by Li Ang Translated by Howard Goldblatt and Ellen Yeung

Formats: Print, digital

Publisher: Peter Owens

Genre: Psychological Horror, Blood & Guts, Historic Horror

Audience: Adult/Mature

Diversity: Taiwanese characters and author

Takes Place in: Taiwan

Content Warnings: Alcohol Abuse, Animal Abuse, Animal Death, Body Shaming, Bullying, Death, Gore, Illness, Sexism, Slut-Shaming, Police Harassment, Physical Abuse, Rape/Sexual Assault, Sexual Abuse, Attempted Suicide, Verbal/Emotional Abuse, Victim-Blaming, Violence (Highlight to view)

Blurb:

Chen Jiangshui is a pig-butcher in a small coastal Taiwanese town. Stocky, with a paunch and deep-set beady eyes, he resembles a pig himself. His brutality towards his new young wife, Lin Shi, knows no bounds. The more she screams, the more he likes it. She is further isolated by the vicious gossip of her neighbors who condemn her for screaming aloud. As they see it, women are supposed to be tolerant and put their husbands above everything else. According to an old Chinese belief, all butchers are destined for hell—an eternity of torment by the animals they have dispatched. Lin Shi, isolated, despairing, and finally driven to madness, fittingly kills him with his own instrument—a meat cleaver. A literary sensation in the Chinese language world with its suggestion that ritual and tradition are the functions of oppression, this novel also caused widespread outrage with its unsparing portrayal of sexual violence and emotional cruelty. This tale has made a profound impact on contemporary Chinese literature and today ranks as a landmark text in both women's studies and world literature.

Warning: the rape scenes in this book are graphic and disturbing. They're meant to be, though not in a way that feels like a cheap scare or exploitative. t's still incredibly hard to read. Li focuses a lot of the injuries, both physical and emotional, that her main character endures as a result.

"Among Taiwan’s third-generation writers, Li Ang is the most controversial woman writer”

– MIT biography of Li Ang

Feminist author Li Ang published the Butcher’s Wife during the White Terror, the period of martial law between May 1949 to 15 July 1987 that started with the 228 incident, notable for its harsh censorship laws. When the Communists gained complete control of Mainland China in 1949, two million refugees fled to Taiwan. The Kuomintang (KMT) party of Taiwan arrested anyone they thought to be Communist sympathizers, including members of the Chinese Nationalist Party, intellectuals, the social elite, and anyone who criticized the government. Once arrested, inmates would be subjected to horrific torture or execution. In this way the KMT was able to rid themselves of anyone who might be resistant to their propaganda. Books that were suspected of promoting communist ideas were banned, including books from the Japanese colonial era, anything that went against traditional sexual morality, depicted characters challenging authority, went against popular sentiments, or “endangered the physical and mental health of youth” (if you enjoy horror games check out Red Candle’s Detention to learn more about the White Terror). Needless to say, anything by Karl Marx was also banned, even books by authors with names that started with “M,” such as Max Weber and Mark Twain, were suppressed because their first names sounded too similar to Marx in Mandarin. Most famously writer Bo Yang was jailed for eight years for translating Popeye cartoons because the KMT felt the comic was critical of leader Chiang Kai-shek. So what Li Ang did was incredibly risky, considering her book criticized traditional gender roles, Chinese society, and included frank depictions of sex and sexual violence. Critics, government officials, and self-proclaimed "moral guardians" were outraged when the United Daily News awarded Li's novel first place in their annual literary contest.

The Popeye cartoon that led to Bo Yang's arrest. From the Taipei Times. 

The Butcher’s Wife starts with a news article reporting Lin Shi's murder of her abusive husband. She kills him not only to protect herself, but to avenge the countless animals he butchered (Lin Shi can't bear to see living things suffer, and her husband would torture her by forcing her to watch him kill animals). The newspaper seems convinced Lin Shi has a secret lover, claiming her confession "defies logic and reason" since the only possible reason a wife would have for murdering her husband is because she's unfaithful and not as an act of self-preservation against an abusive monster. Others believe Lin Shi did it because she was "mentally unbalanced" after watching him kill animals. Locals are convinced it was a case of her mother reaching for revenge beyond the grave. Lin Shi is then paraded around on the back of a truck as a warning to others, before her execution. Men complain she's not attractive enough, and that it would have been exciting if her non-existent secret lover were found. The article then goes on to complain about women who want equality and to attend Western schools, and the decline of "womanly virtues". "Such demands are actually little more than excuses for a woman to leave house and home and make a public spectacle of herself. They comprise a mockery of the code of womanly conduct and destroy our age-old concepts of womanhood". Lin Shi literally tells the police why she killed her husband, and they still don't believe her.

Lin Shi has had a rough life. Her father died when she was nine and a greedy uncle used this opportunity to throw Lin Shi and her widowed mother out of their home, the one thing they had left, so he could have it for himself. The two are then forced to wander the streets doing odd jobs. One winter, when food is scare, Lin Shi's starving mother prostitutes herself to a solider in exchange for food. When she's discovered, her family ties her up and beats her, then takes Lin Shi away to live with her uncle, and they never see each other again. Lin Shi is forced to work as a servant for the very same uncle who stole her home and would like nothing better than to sell her off. With no mother, Lin Shi's menarche comes as a shock, and the neighbors laugh at her as she screams "Save me, I'm bleeding to death!" Her uncle betroths the unfortunate girl to a pig-butcher who no one else is willing to marry. He brutally rapes her on their wedding night. Lin Shi's cries of pain are compared to a dying pig, which arouses the butcher. He gets off on humiliating and hurting women and refers to them as "sluts", "whores", and "cunts". Ironically, the only woman he seems to respect is Golden Flower, a prostitute. We only get glimpses of his past and humanity when he's with her.

In Taiwan butchers were believed to go to hell upon their death where they're tortured by the animals they've killed. There's even a shrine outside the slaughterhouse dedicated to the souls of the animals where monthly ceremonies are held. In the netherworld, wives are considered equally guilty and also punished for their husband's crimes. Chen Jiangshui kills Lin Shi's ducklings in a fit of drunken rage and slaughters a pregnant sow when he first starts out as a butcher. The aborted piglets give him nightmares and the other slaughterhouses workers tell Chen Jiangshui that the piglets will demand the right to live from him and cause him to die a horrible death if their spirits aren't appeased. Despite his initial fear, he suffers no ill fate, and eventually the butcher stops believing in spirits and retribution. He is filled with anger he is unable to control, and everything seems to anger him. Fear, discomfort, confusion, conflict, all transform him to a raging monster. Chen Jiangshui conflates sex and slaughtering pigs. Plunging his knife into their throats gives him great pleasure, as does forcing his wife to scream like a dying pig when he rapes her and beating her if she doesn't cry enough. For him, the spurting of blood has an orgasmic effect. Ironically, while he's aroused by bloodshed in violence and death, he's disgusted by Lin Shit's menstrual blood which he believes brings misfortune on a man. That's how deep his hatred of women goes.

 Like many people in abusive relationships, Lin Shi can't leave. She has no support network, no money, and nowhere to go. She's totally dependent on her husband for her survival. Lin Shi is pressured by her community to be a "good wife" and is blamed for anything bad that happens in the relationship.

It's not only her husband who abuses her, Lin Shi is mocked by the other women, ones she considers friends, who look down on her for having sex so frequently (they too refuse to belief she's being raped) and claim she's a "slut" like her mother. They spread vicious gossip behind her back and belittle her to her face. Lin Shi is so used to mistreatment she doesn't even try to correct them. Eventually, with no one to trust, she becomes terrified of everyone, walking with her shoulders hunched and avoiding the other women as much as possible. The one thing she loves, the ducklings she tries to raise, are killed by her husband. Auntie Ah-Wang, argues that Chen Jiangshui is a "good man" and can't possibly be abusive since he saved her life. Lin Shi literally has no allies. The traditional patriarchal family system in Taiwan puts women in a subservient position to men. Even with updated laws to protect women, Taiwan still had a shockingly high rate of domestic abuse. "In 2016, 117,550 domestic violence cases were reported to officials in Taiwan. That is 322 each day, or one every five minutes" (source) and that's only what's been reported. The actual number could be much, much higher.

Li Ang’s book is a criticism of traditional patriarchal power structures and paints a stark picture of the everyday violence suffered by women not only in Taiwan, but the world over. Horrifying and beautifully written everyone owes it to themselves to read this unflinching tale of one woman’s domestic horror.

The Taking of Jake Livingston by Ryan Douglass

 

Formats: Print, audio, digital

Publisher: Penguin Random House

Genre: Ghosts/Haunting

Audience: Y/A

Diversity: Gay, Black main character, Black side and major characters

Takes Place in: Somewhere in the US

Content Warnings: Alcohol Abuse, Bullying, Child Abuse, Child Death, Child Endangerment, Death, Drug Use/Abuse, Gaslighting, Homophobia, Incest, Oppression, Mental Illness, Physical Abuse, Racism, Rape/Sexual Assault, Slurs, Suicide, Verbal/Emotional Abuse, Violence (Highlight to view)

Blurb:

Jake Livingston is one of the only Black kids at St. Clair Prep, one of the others being his infinitely more popular older brother. It’s hard enough fitting in but to make matters worse and definitely more complicated, Jake can see the dead. In fact he sees the dead around him all the time. Most are harmless. Stuck in their death loops as they relive their deaths over and over again, they don’t interact often with people. But then Jake meets Sawyer. A troubled teen who shot and killed six kids at a local high school last year before taking his own life. Now a powerful, vengeful ghost, he has plans for his afterlife–plans that include Jake. Suddenly, everything Jake knows about ghosts and the rules to life itself go out the window as Sawyer begins haunting him and bodies turn up in his neighborhood. High school soon becomes a survival game–one Jake is not sure he’s going to win.

Being the only gay Black kid in a preppy, White private school sucks and I would know. Ryan Douglass does a perfect job capturing my high school experience in The Taking of Jake Livingston.  Teachers are racist and assume everyone is straight. There are never any Black characters (besides slaves) in the books read for English class, and slavery gets glossed over in history. Black history isn’t mentioned at all except for maybe a day or two in February so the school can look woke. The whole thing feels like a scene from Get Out. I relate to Jake Livingston quite a lot. Except for the gender difference, he’s basically teenage me. He’s so paralyzed by anxiety and the thought of getting in trouble that Jake never lets himself have any fun, take risks, or even learn to drive. His low self-esteem means he doesn’t even recognize when a hunk named Alastor starts hitting on him. In fact, Alastor has to explicitly state that he’s interested and even then, Jake doesn’t seem entirely convinced. Reminds me of when my now-wife first asked me out on a date and I didn’t realize that it was a date because there was no way that tall, smart, hot chick could possibly be interested. 

But hey, at least I never had to deal with seeing ghosts. Poor Jake sees the dead everywhere. Normally it’s just like watching a recording of someone’s final moments stuck in an endless loop, but occasionally the ghosts are sentient. Even more rarely, they can interact with the world. As you can probably guess, this makes life even harder for Jake who’s already living with the “weird kid” label. Jake was fine (or at least surviving) just keeping his head down, avoiding confrontations, and doing everything he could to stay out of trouble and avoid the school bully, Chad. That is until the ghost of Sawyer, a malicious ghost with a troubled past who seems to have it in for Jake, shows up. Sawyer is, or rather was, a school shooter. He died by suicide after bringing a gun to school and killing his classmates. Apparently that wasn’t enough death for him because Sawyer is hell bent on terrorizing Jake and increasing his body count. 

There’s an interesting contrast between Sawyer and Jake. Both boys were abused by men in their lives, bullied by classmates, in the closet, and were introverts who felt alone in the world. But only one of them became a school shooter. Despite being put through a very similar hell, Jake never resorts to violence except once, and even then it’s fairly minor and honestly kind of justified (Chad was being a racist jerk and totally deserved it in my humble opinion). Jake fights back, Sawyer murders innocent people who had nothing to do with his abuse. So why the difference? 

The majority of mass shooters are White men. According to Statista over the past 40 years 66% of mass shooters are White, nearly three times higher than the number of Black mass shooters. A study on school shootings by Joshua R Gregory states: 

“Popular theories suggest that gun availability, mental illness, and bullying bear some relationship to school shootings; however, levels of gun availability, mental illness prevalence, and bullying victimization do not differ substantially between whites and non-whites, indicating that these factors might account for school shootings within, but not between, races.”

One theory is that men often lack the support networks needed to cope with loss, tragedy, and low self-esteem. Sawyer is alone and struggling with his mental health. His largely absent mother is more concerned with the perception of having a “weird” son than actually getting her son any help. She unfortunately buys into the common belief that having a mental health condition is somehow shameful for a man. As a result, Sawyer never gets help for his violent tendencies outside a handful of visits to a therapist who barely listens to him. He feels alone and unable to reach out. In contrast, Jake does develop a support network of family, friends, and even the ghosts of his ancestors to help him out when things are looking bleak. But that still doesn’t explain why White men are more likely to be school shooters than Black men. Is it because most White terrorists are racist extremists? In 2020 they were responsible for almost 70% of all domestic terrorism plots. But Sawyer doesn’t give any indication of being racist at any point. Or it could just be that he had access to a gun, as White men are 50% more likely to own a gun than Black men and most school shootings were carried out with legally purchased firearms. To be honest, I don’t know the answer. 

For dealing with such a sensitive topic I think the book did rather well. Even though Douglass gave Sawyer a tragic backstory, it was never used as a justification for his actions. Trauma was also handled well and appropriately. Of course, the book was not without its flaws. The world-building felt undeveloped and I was unclear on the rules of “Dead World.” Why could some ghosts interact with Jake and others couldn’t? I really enjoyed the idea of Jake’s ancestors supporting him, to the point I was moved to tears, but it also left me puzzled. Were they ghosts too? Why hadn’t Jake noticed them before? It’s unfortunate, but I felt that the ghosts were the weakest part of the book. I found myself much more invested in Alastor and Jake’s adorable, developing relationship than anything that had to do with specters. Which is pretty weird for me, usually I hate romantic subplots and just want the story to focus on the scary parts. A lot of the story just felt confusing and messy, which hindered it from being a four-star book no matter how much I loved the characters. Despite its flaws, The Taking of Jake Livingston is still a good book, especially for queer Black kids, and worth checking out.