Malicia by Steven dos Santos

Formats: Print, audio, digital

Publisher: Page Street Publishing

Genre: Blood & Guts, Demon, Monster, Mystery, Myth and Folklore, Occult

Audience: Y/A

Diversity: Gay and bisexual man characters, Dominican Americans, character with anxiety disorder

Takes Place in: The Dominican Republic

Content Warnings: Ableism, Child Death, Death, Forced Captivity, Gaslighting, Gore, Medical Torture/Abuse, Mental Illness, Suicide, Torture, Verbal/Emotional Abuse, Violence, Vomit (Highlight to view)

Blurb:

Four friends, three days, two lovers, and one very haunted theme park. On a stormy Halloween weekend, Ray enlists his best friends Joaquin, Sofia, and Isabella to help him make a documentary of Malicia, the abandoned theme park off the coast of the Dominican Republic where his mother and brother died in a mass killing thirteen years ago. But what should be an easy weekend trip quickly turns into something darker because all four friends have come to Malicia for their own Ray has come to Malicia to find out the truth of the massacre that destroyed his family. Isabella has come to make art out of Ray’s tragedy for her own personal gain. Sofia has come to support her friends in one last adventure before she goes to med school. Joaquin already knows the truth of the Malicia Massacre and he has come to betray his crush Ray to the evil that made the park possible. With an impending hurricane and horrors around every corner, they all struggle to face the deadly storm and their own inner demons. But the deadliest evil of all is the ancient malignant presence on the island.

I received this product for free in return for providing an honest and unbiased review. I received no other compensation. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255: Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.

The story is told through alternating first-person perspectives between the four main characters; Raymundo, Joaquin, Sofia, and Isabella. The friends are traveling to spend Halloween weekend in Raymundo’s family’s abandoned, horror-themed amusement park, Malicia. The park was closed after a mysterious mass murder took place, claiming the lives of Raymundo’s mother and brother. The island on which Malicia was built is only accessible by boat, and there’s a massive hurricane headed right toward them, so good luck trying to escape if anything goes wrong. You may question the teens’ decision to go to what is very obviously a cursed murder island during a hurricane, but each of the four have their own reason for being there. Raymundo wants to try and summon his brother’s spirit, Isabella wants to film a documentary about the island, and Joaquin wants to sacrifice Raymundo because the cult he belongs to told him to. (Don’t worry, that’s revealed early in the story, so it’s hardly a spoiler.) Sofia is  there because her friends are, and because she very firmly doesn’t believe in the supernatural or scare easily.

I think the characters were somewhat underdeveloped and one-note, and the exposition felt awkward at times. But honestly, the characters were just an excuse to explore the super cool setting. I mean, an abandoned, horror-themed, cursed, amusement park? Could there be a more perfect location for a horror story? And Santos clearly put a lot of thought into describing Malicia in loving detail. There’s an entire map in the beginning of the book (and I’m a sucker for maps) showing the different areas of the park, like Serial Springs, Paranormal Place, and Creature Canyon. I also liked the ride descriptions, which all sounded like tons of fun.

Malicia strongly reminded meof the island setting in Umineko When They Cry, where the characters are trapped by a typhoon on a remote island that is slowly overtaken by the supernatural (and everyone there dies horrible deaths). As both stories progress, the scares move from strange shadows and murders that could’ve been committed by a human to horror that’s clearly the work of demonic forces.

I enjoyed how the author not only used Spanish frequently throughout the book (which I appreciate that the publisher did not italicize) but words and phrases specific to the Dominican. The friends name their little group the Quisqueya Club, a word of Taíno origin that refers to the inhabitants of Hispaniola. Raymundo and Joaquin refer to each other as pana and tiguere, the friends informally greet each other with “Qué lo que” (what’s up?), Raymundo calls his parents Mai and Pai, and he admits to himself that he’s a Jablador (liar). Many of the monsters are also specific to the Dominican like Los Biembiens and La Jupia. The four friends also prepare Dominican food like mangú and yaniqueques.

Malicia an incrediblya spooky, gory, fun read. Even though it’s a 300+ page book, it felt like a quick read because the chapters are short and the suspense was able to grab my attention, although, admittedly, the story did drag a bit in the middle. The shifting viewpoints throughout the book helped build the suspense as the characters all started to become suspicious of each other. Because it was written for teens, it felt like a PG-13 horror movie with R-rated violence, which, of course, you can get away with in a book. The descriptions of mutilated bodies and rotting flesh are very graphic so this one is definitely not for the squeamish horror fan.

It's Only a Game by Kelsea Yu

Formats: Print, audio, digital

Publisher: Bloomsbury YA

Genre: Mystery

Audience: Y/A

Diversity: Chinese American main character and Taiwanese Chinese author, Black major character, Indian American major character, transgender major character

Takes Place in: Seattle, Washington

Content Warnings: Bullying, Child Abuse, Child Death, Child Endangerment, Death, Forced Captivity, Gaslighting, Mental Illness, Physical Abuse, Self-Harm, Stalking, Suicide, Transphobia, Verbal/Emotional Abuse, Victim Blaming (Highlight to view)

Blurb:

In this twisty, fast-paced YA thriller, a dangerous game becomes all too real when Marina and her friends are framed for murder. When Marina Chan ran from her old life, she brought nothing with her-not even her real name. Now she lives in fear of her past being discovered. But when her online gaming team is offered a tour of their favorite game company, Marina can't resist accepting, even though she knows it might put her fake identity at risk. Then the creator of the game is murdered during their tour. Whoever killed him plans to frame Marina and her friends for the murder unless they win four rounds of a dangerous game. A game that requires them to lie, trespass, and steal. A game that could destroy everything Marina's worked so hard to build…. A game that she might not survive.

It’s Only a Game is a story about parental abuse, found family, and video games, all wrapped up in a murder mystery.

The beginning of the book really grabs the reader and makes it clear this is going to be a gripping narrative. At the start, all we know about main character Marina Chan is that she’s a runaway teen living illegally in a Chinese restaurant/game café, and that she must hide her identity from everyone. That means no school, no ID or paper trail, and no letting anyone get too close. The only relationships Marina has are with the owners of Bette’s Battles and Bao, who kindly allow her to live there, and her three online friends: RockSplice (Rock), Dreadnaughty (Dread), and Syldara (Syl). Marina has a MASSIVE crush on Syl. The four of them met through a PC game called Darkitect, a combination MMORPG (short for massively multiplayer online role-playing game) and level designer where Marina plays under the alias Nightmar3 (Night for short).  Their favorite level designer is a mysterious programmer named Cíxĭ (pronounced like tsuh-SHEE), who took her name from an Empress Dowager who ruled China during the late Qing dynasty. I like that Cíxĭ’s name has the accents when Marina says it, indicating that she uses the correct Mandarin inflections, as compared to her non-Chinese friends who pronounce it as Cixi (without the accents).

After beating an especially challenging level she designed, the four gamers score exclusive invites to one of Cíxĭ’s new levels. As thrilled as Marina is at the prospect of playing a new level designed by the elusive programmer, she’s even more excited knowing that tomorrow she’ll be meeting her online friends in real life for the first time on top of getting a tour of getting a tour of Apocalypta Games (the creators of Darkitect). Things couldn’t be better.  Meeting her friends for the first time goes exceptionally well, and Rock, Dread, and Syl immediately accept Marina as one of their own.

 Rock is a slender Indian American guy whose parents run security for Apocalypta Games. Dread is a tall, white guy, and the oldest, who interns at Apocalypta. Finally there’s Dread’s cousin, Syl, a gorgeous and glamorous Black girl who’s the girly-girl to Marina’s tomboy. I love that Syl’s character enjoys girly things, like makeup, dresses, heels, and stylish nails, while still being very into video games. While the rise in popularity of Twitch has shown that women who play video games are a diverse group, I remember when feminine gamers were accused of only doing it for male attention, and “real gamer girls” were tomboys. While this stereotype has somewhat changed over the years, women gamers are still subject to a great deal of harassment. But the guys in Marina’s gaming group are completely supportive of the two girls and the friends manage to avoid most of the toxicity in the gaming world.

Marina and her crush, Syl

The tour is great, with the owner of the company, Ethan Wainwright himself, showing the group around. He even invites Marina to contribute her art to Apocalypta’s quarterly magazine, and offers her and her friends exhibitor badges for PAX West. Originally known as Penny Arcade Expo, PAX West, along with the other PAX conventions, is one of the largest gaming conventions in the US, so this is a HUGE deal. Marina can barely contain her excitement and is having the best day of her life, that is, until she and her friends find the body. What follows is a page-turning murder mystery that tests the limits of Marina’s newfound friendships.

Marina’s mysterious past is slowly revealed over the course of the book. She lived with her overprotective mother, but never knew her father (her mother says he was a “bad man”). We know she must hide who she is, but we’re not sure why. We also discover that Marina suffered from emotional abuse. Trauma from her past has made her private and slow to trust, as her mother made sure Marina was completely dependent on her. The Confucian concept of filial piety (Xiao) an important aspect of Chinese culture, seems to play a role in Marina’s abuse. Chinese American reddit user CauliflowerOk7056 argues in his college essay entitled “Beat Him till the Blood Flows”: How Confucianism and Traditional East Asian Culture Can Enable Child Abuse that, in addition to poverty, a major contributor to  Chinse and Chinse American child abuse is filial piety. In it he states “Sadly, as well-intentioned as Confucius’ ideal may have been, filial piety has its issues that can be exploited to justify child abuse. For one thing, its undue emphasis on strict obedience from children sets a precedent that can provide some leeway for abusive parents.”

However, he is quick to explain that Confucianism in and of itself does not encourage abuse, and even suggest that children hold their parents responsible. Psychotherapist Sam Louie explains "As [Asian American] clients talk about the emotional and/or physical abuse, they will often defend their parents saying something to the effect of, 'They did the best they could,' or 'I knew they still loved me.' It isn't until more trust is developed that I can confront their inability to see how abuse can and often does happen within 'loving' households and relationships in general." One of the reasons it takes so long for Marina to recognize her mother’s abuse is because her mother constantly tells her how much she loves her. When Marina asks to go over to a friends’ house, her mother refuses explaining she “loves [Marina] too much” to let her go. Additionally she guilts Marina for wanting friends and successfully isolates her (another hallmark of abuse), asking “Am I not enough for you? Am I so bad that you have to get away from me?”

Asian Americans, especially Asian American immigrants like Marina’s mother, also underutilize mental health services creating a “major mental health disparity” according to entitled Use of Specialty Mental Health Services by Asian Americans With Psychiatric Disorders. While it’s certainly not an excuse, and plenty of mentally ill individuals still make great parents, her mother’s mental health may have also played a role in the way she treated Marina. It's important to note that, while Marina’s abuse may have cultural elements to it, child abuse is not unique to any one race or culture, and in fact a research study entitled Child Maltreatment Among Asian Americans: Characteristics and Explanatory Framework points out that "The reported rate of child maltreatment among Asian Americans is disproportionately low” compared to other racial and ethnic groups (though this may be partially due to under reporting). When calculating the risks of child abuse, poverty and inequality are leading factors, along with intergenerational trauma, stress, isolation, and a lack of a support system.

Yu puts a lot of emphasis on the importance of building supportive relationships, especially when you don’t have family to rely on. I appreciate that Yu believes that online friendships can be just as important as face-to-face ones. As a millennial, I grew up in the early days of the internet when adults firmly believed everyone online was a predator and forming online friendships was new territory. Yet, despite the warnings from overprotective adults, I still formed meaningful relationships with people I met online.

I met one of my best friends on LiveJournal. I would have never known my wife if she hadn’t joined our friend’s group through Meetup. For a kid who grew up in a small town who had trouble finding others my age with the same niche interests as me, the internet gave me a way to feel less alone, just like it did for Marina. These days 57% of teenagers meet a new friend online, and those relationships can be just as meaningful as face-to-face ones.

While you don’t have to be a gamer to enjoy It’s Only a Game it definitely helps since non-gamers are unlikely to recognize some of the references and terminology, which Yu doesn’t bother to explain or elaborate on (I had to look up what AoE stands for). Most of the action takes place within the world of Darkitect so readers who have never felt the excitement and suspense of playing a video game with fighting elements may not get as much out of those scenes. On the plus side, all the gaming elements are likely to appeal to reluctant readers who prefer World of Warcraft over books.

Out on a Limb by Luis Paredes

Formats: Print, digital

Publisher: Platypus Book Press

Genre: Dark Fantasy, Mystery

Audience: Adult/Mature

Diversity: Mexican-American main character and author

Takes Place in: Ney York City, New York USA

Content Warnings: Child Endangerment, Death (Highlight to view)

Blurb:

"How many perverts d'ya think sucked on those toes before the police rolled in?" With that question, Out On a Limb kicks off an irreverent, foul-mouthed, and horrific urban fantasy noir series following the exploits of private occult investigators Rebecca Suarez and Peyton Marx. In this fast-paced novella that readers can devour in an afternoon, Rebecca and Peyton are stumped by their strangest case yet--a tree growing human legs. The dangling gams become the least of their concerns when nearby trees start consuming more than just carbon dioxide. Now the investigators must use their powers and the NYPD's magical tech to find the mage responsible for this heinous crime and stop a bloody disaster from creeping across the Empire State.

I received this product for free in return for providing an honest and unbiased review. I received no other compensation. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255: Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.

As those of you who follow my Twitter (I refuse to call it by that other name) know, I have a rabbit named Aramis who enjoys violence and horror movies. She thinks more horror should have rabbits in it, especially rabbits that murder people like in Night of the Lepus. So, Aramis was very excited that Out on a Limb has a Holland lop as a main character. But this rabbit doesn’t murder anyone. She’s a heroic rabbit, albeit a foul mouthed and very sassy one (much like Aramis would be if she could speak) named Peyton Marx.

Aramis is seen here plotting murder

Ten years ago a statue of Hecate walked out of a museum in Greece, and magic was brought into the world. Thousands of people (and some animals, like Peyton) found themselves gifted with different types of magical abilities. There are different types of magic, and people can specialize in more than one kind. Unfortunately, magical powers were distributed randomly which means criminals also ended up with magical abilities. And that’s where Peyton and her human partner, Rebecca Suarez, come in.

Rebecca and Peyton are struggling, private occult investigators who specialize in unexplained paranormal phenomena (UPP) and hunt down magical criminals using their own array of charms and spells. The story starts with Rebecca and Peyton arriving in Queens, having been called in by the police to assist on a particularly strange crime, an oak tree full of human legs. Clearly the work of an incantation (possibly one that backfired), but who cast it is unclear.

Out on a Limb is a fun, quick read filled with lore and humor. I also liked all the rabbit-y things Peyton does like binkies when she’s happy or getting offended when a child points out that rabbits eat their own poop. The world building is exquisite, and there’s a surprising amount of it for such a short novella, but not so much that you feel overwhelmed with information. The relationship between Rebecca and Peyton is cute, and much of the humor comes from how they play off each other. While this novella leans more towards dark fantasy then straight horror it’s still creepy enough that most horror fans should enjoy it. 

I Feed Her to the Beast and the Beast Is Me by Jamison Shea

Formats: Print, audio, digital

Publisher: Henry Holt and Co.

Genre: Dark Fantasy, Mystery, Occult, Thriller

Audience: Y/A

Diversity: Black main character and author, bisexual main character

Takes Place in: Paris, France

Content Warnings: Body Shaming, Bullying, Death, Racism, Self Harm, Verbal/Emotional Abuse (Highlight to view)

Blurb:

There will be blood. Ace of Spades meets House of Hollow in this villain origin story. Laure Mesny is a perfectionist with an axe to grind. Despite being constantly overlooked in the elite and cutthroat world of the Parisian ballet, she will do anything to prove that a Black girl can take center stage. To level the playing field, Laure ventures deep into the depths of the Catacombs and strikes a deal with a pulsating river of blood. The primordial power Laure gains promises influence and adoration, everything she’s dreamed of and worked toward. With retribution on her mind, she surpasses her bitter and privileged peers, leaving broken bodies behind her on her climb to stardom. But even as undeniable as she is, Laure is not the only monster around. And her vicious desires make her a perfect target for slaughter. As she descends into madness and the mystifying underworld beneath her, she is faced with the ultimate choice: continue to break herself for scraps of validation or succumb to the darkness that wants her exactly as she is—monstrous heart and all. That is, if the god-killer doesn’t catch her first. From debut author Jamison Shea comes I Feed Her to the Beast and the Beast Is Me, a slow-burn horror that lifts a veil on the institutions that profit on exclusion and the toll of giving everything to a world that will never love you back.

I received this product for free in return for providing an honest and unbiased review. I received no other compensation. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255: Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.

I went into I Feed Her to the Beast and the Beast is Me expecting Laure to be an unlikeable female protagonist (something I actually enjoy in a story), but I was not prepared for just how relatable she was. If I ever become a supervillain, my origin story will be me finally getting fed up with all the bigotry and microaggressions I have to deal with every day and deciding to get even, rather than continuing to either educate or ignore the people hurting me. And that’s exactly what Laure does. Can you blame her? Every other ballerina in her company is rich and white, with powerful parents just dripping with privilege. The ballet is cutthroat, with ballerinas actively trying to sabotage each other (dancers often finds glass and tacks in their ballet shoes) and praying for one another’s downfall, and Laure is at a distinct disadvantage. Even though she works the hardest and performs the best of all of them, she’ll always be the Black girl who has to steal to pay for her tights. So, she cheats to level the playing field. Once she does, her talent and hard work is immediately rewarded. And honestly? It’s cathartic to watch Laure stoop to the level of the other ballerinas and their awful parents. It is SO exhausting to always have to be the bigger person in the face of abuse. I may agree with Michelle Obama’s “When they go low, we go high,” but I still don’t like having to “go high” when I would rather be a petty asshole. So, in a purely fictional world? It’s wonderfully satisfying to watch a Black woman choose the role of the villain and get even with all those rich white girls.

 

Ballet is still one of the least diverse performing arts, fraught with racism that ranges from subtle to overt. This is especially true in Europe. In her book Turning Pointe, Chloe Angyal discusses ballet's racism problem. She describes an encounter with a racist dance mom and her implied message to her daughter: “[Black dancers are] not really good, but they are allowed to be here. In this space that is rightfully yours, in this art form that is rightfully yours. They’re never as good as the white girls, a sweeping generalization that grants no individuality, no humanity, to any nonwhite dancer. They’re all the same, and they never deserve to be here. But don’t worry. Your excellence is a given. You belong here, while their presence is conditional or even ill-gotten.” I think this quote sums up Laure’s struggles beautifully. The only difference is that these are struggles faced by real dancers.

Even something as simple as buying pointe shoes is no easy task for Black dancers. Most dance garments are traditionally “European pink,” and don’t match darker skin tones. Black ballerinas often have to pancake their shoes in dark foundation to match their skin tone and dye their tutus and tights. It’s only recently that brands like Capezio, Freed of London, and Bloch have offered shoes in darker skin tones. In the book Laure must purchase her own ballet shoes and tights because the ballet will only pay for pink ones. Black bodies are also discriminated against in ballet. In an interview with Sheila Rohan the Black ballet dancer described racism in ballet. “Racism in the ballet arts… meant people would make remarks about the Black ballerinas’ bodies — such as their chests being ‘too busty’ or their thighs being ‘too thick.’” A Black dancer in Berlin was told to lighten her skin with white makeup in order to play a song in Swan Lake. Laure straightens and gels her curly hair into place so she won’t stand out from the other dancers, but is still told she’s too “exotic” for a French ballet by a drunk patron. The controversial ballet La Bayadère was performed in Blackface by Russian dancers (white dancers have also worn stereotypical clothing and makeup to portray Roma and Chinese characters). The same ballet put on by Laure’s company in which she plays a shade.

After being abandoned by both parents, Laure’s only source of support is her best (and only) friend, Coralie, who is… not great. She’s kind and supportive of Laure, yes, but she’s also a subpar ballerina who just assumes she’ll get a spot in Paris’ prestigious ballet due to her famous mother. She’s essentially an entitled slacker and just as oblivious to her privilege as the other rich white girls. Coralie is also a snob, turning her nose up at anything that doesn’t come with a high price tag, which grates on permanently broke Laure’s nerves. Coralie really does seem to love her best friend, but their relationship comes with a power imbalance. So, she does not take it well when that balance of power shifts and Laure starts beating her out for roles. Because she has no one else, Laure is terrified of losing her only friend (as difficult as she can be), that is until she meets the étoile of the ballet, Josephine. Josephine gives her friendship freely without expecting anything in return, and treats Laure as an equal. She introduces Laure to her friends and shows her how she too can become an étoile. Slowly, Laure starts to see what a true friendship is like and begins to pull away from Coralie, although she still refuses to drop her completely and makes excuses for the wealthy girl’s bad behavior. I liked that while Laure does pursue a romance with a man later in the book, the story is mostly focused on her female friendships. It’s also a nice change of pace to see a toxic platonic, non-familial relationship explored. I don’t think enough people talk about how friendships can be abusive and how hard “breaking up” with a friend can be.

Another interesting theme in I Feed Her to the Beast and the Beast is Me is the idea of “perfection.” As a burned-out former “gifted kid” I know what it’s like to be expected to be perfect, then destroy yourself trying to do the impossible and ultimately have a mental breakdown when you realize perfection can never be achieved, and therefore that makes you a “failure.” The ballet expects Laure and her peers to be no less than perfect, and anyone who doesn’t make the cut is thrown aside and forgotten. While Coralie can get by half-assing it because of her mother, Laure must be the best there is to even think of if she wants to compete with the others. And it means giving up everything. This kind of perfectionism is extremely damaging to your mental health. Laure also believes that acceptance and respect from the others is entirely dependent on being perfect, not realizing she deserves respect regardless of her performance.

I Feed Her to the Beast and the Beast is Me is one of those books that I absolutely devoured. It held my attention throughout the story (no small feat when you have ADHD), save for a short part in the middle that felt like it was dragging. But other than that small criticism I can’t think of anything negative to say about this book. It’s a unique setting for a horror story, and a fresh spin on a Faustian bargain narrative. 

The Spirit Bares Its Teeth by Andrew Joseph White

Formats: Print, audio, digital

Publisher: ‎Peachtree Teen

Genre: Blood & Guts, Body Horror, Ghosts/Haunting, Mystery, Gothic

Audience: Y/A

Diversity: Neurodiversity (Autism), transgender characters, queer character

Takes Place in: London, England

Content Warnings: Abelism, Animal Death, Bullying, Child Abuse, Child Death, Child Endangerment, Death, Forced Captivity, Gaslighting, Gore, Homophobia, Kidnapping, Medical Torture/Abuse, Medical Procedures, Miscarriage, Oppression, Pedophilia, Physical Abuse, Rape/Sexual Assault, Self-Harm, Sexism, Slurs, Slut-Shaming, Torture, Transphobia, Verbal/Emotional Abuse, Victim Blaming, Violence  (Highlight to view)

Blurb:

Mors vincit omnia. Death conquers all. London, 1883. The Veil between the living and dead has thinned. Violet-eyed mediums commune with spirits under the watchful eye of the Royal Speaker Society, and sixteen-year-old Silas Bell would rather rip out his violet eyes than become an obedient Speaker wife. According to Mother, he’ll be married by the end of the year. It doesn’t matter that he’s needed a decade of tutors to hide his autism; that he practices surgery on slaughtered pigs; that he is a boy, not the girl the world insists on seeing. After a failed attempt to escape an arranged marriage, Silas is diagnosed with Veil sickness—a mysterious disease sending violet-eyed women into madness—and shipped away to Braxton’s Finishing School and Sanitorium. The facility is cold, the instructors merciless, and the students either bloom into eligible wives or disappear. When the ghosts of missing students start begging Silas for help, he decides to reach into Braxton’s innards and expose its guts to the world—if the school doesn’t break him first. Featuring an autistic trans protagonist in a historical setting, Andrew Joseph White’s much-anticipated sophomore novel does not back down from exposing the violence of the patriarchy and the harm inflicted on trans youth who are forced into conformity.

I received this product for free in return for providing an honest and unbiased review. I received no other compensation. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255: Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.

Silas is an autistic trans boy living in Victorian London who wants nothing more than to be a surgeon like his brother, George, and his idol James Barry. Unfortunately for Silas, the world still sees him as a young girl with violet eyes.

In White’s alternative history people born with violet eyes are Speakers, those who can open the Veil that separates the living and dead to communicate with ghosts. But only violet-eyed men are permitted to be mediums. It is believed that women who tamper with the Veil will become unstable and a threat to themselves and others. Veil sickness is said to be the result of violet-eyed women coming into contact with the Veil and is blamed for a wide range of symptoms from promiscuity to anger, but is really just the result of women who don’t obediently follow social norms. Thus, England has made it strictly illegal for women to engage in spirit work. After Silas’ failed attempt to run away and live as a man, he is diagnosed with Veil sickness and carted off to Braxton’s Finishing School and Sanitorium to be transformed into an obedient wife. Braxton’s is your typical gothic school filled with sad waifs and dangerous secrets, namely that girls keep disappearing. The headmaster is a creep and his methods for curing young girls are abusive. Despite the danger, Silas is determined to get to the bottom of the mysterious disappearances and find justice for the missing girls.

Violet-eyed women are highly valued as wives who can produce violet-eyed sons and are in high demand among the elite. Silas is no different, and his parents are eager to marry him off to any man with money. If being made to live as a girl weren’t bad enough, the idea of being forced to bear children is even more horrific to Silas. As someone who struggles with Tokophobia myself, I found White’s descriptions of forced pregnancy to be a terrifying and especially disturbing form of body horror. Because of Silas’ obsession with medicine, the entire book is filled with medical body horror. There are detailed descriptions of injuries and surgeries, medical torture, and an at-home c-section/abortion. Personally, I loved all the grossness and the detailed descriptions of anatomy and medical procedures. But The Spirit Bares its Teeth is most definitely not for the squeamish or easily grossed-out. I appreciated that in the afterword White made a point of mentioning that in the real world, it was usually racial minorities who were the subject of medical experimentation (rather than wealthy White women), and then recommended the books Medical Apartheid by Harriet A. Washington and Medical Bondage by Deirdre Cooper Owens for readers to learn more.

I was also happy to see an autistic character written by an autistic author. Stories about Autistic individuals often are told by neurotypical people who characterize autism as “tragic” or as an illness that needs to be cured. In The Spirit Bares its Teeth, neurodiversity is humanized and we see how harmful a lack of acceptance and understanding of autism is. Silas is forced to mask by society, and we see how difficult and harmful masking is to him. He is taught by his tutors to ignore his own needs in favor of acting the way others want. They reinforce the idea that acting “normal” (i.e. neurotypical) is the only way anyone will tolerate him. Silas’ tutors use methods similar to the highly controversial Applied Behavior Analysis (ABA) to force him to behave in a manner they deem appropriate. He is not allowed to flap his hands, pace or cover his ears at loud noises, and is forced into uncomfortable clothing that hurts his skin and to eat food that makes him sick. He is mocked for taking things literally and punished if he can’t sit still and keep quiet. It’s horrible and heartbreaking.

Although I’m not autistic, I do have Attention Deficit Disorder (ADD), a condition which has many overlapping symptoms with autism, including being easily overstimulated by sensory input. I have texture issues and White’s description of the uncomfortable clothing Silas is forced into made my skin itch in sympathy. It sounded like pure hell, and poor Silas can’t even distract himself with stimming so he just has to sit there and endure it. After meeting a non-verbal indentured servant whose autistic traits are much more noticeable, he also acknowledges that his ability to mask gains him certain privileges as he can “pass” as neurotypical (even though he should never have to pass in the first place and doing so is extremely harmful to his wellbeing).

In addition to its positive autism representation, White also does an excellent job portraying the struggles of being a trans person forced to live as their assigned gender. Interestingly, this is the first book with a transgender main character I’ve read where said character isn’t fully out or living as their true gender. Part of the horror of the story is that Silas can’t transition as he’s in an unsupportive and abusive environment. I also found it interesting that Silas is both trans and autistic as there’s an overlap between autism and gender identity/diversity.

The Spirit Bares its Teeth is a suspenseful and deeply disturbing gothic horror story about misogyny, ableism, and how society tries and controls women. I was absolutely glued to this story and could not put it down, no easy feat when my ADD demands constant distraction. Each revelation was more horrifying than the last and by the end I was terrified of what secrets Silas would uncover next. 

Conquer by Edward M. Erdelac

Formats: Print, digital, audible

Publisher: Self Published 

Genre:  Historic Horror, Monster, Mystery, Myth and Folklore, Occult, Vampire

Audience: Adult/Mature

Diversity: Black/African-American, Hispanic, Trans, Gay

Takes Place in: Harlem New York, NY, USA

Content Warnings: Animal Death, Body Shaming, Child Abuse, Death, Drug Use/Abuse, Forced Captivity, Gore, Homophobia, Kidnapping, Necrophilia, Oppression, Pedophilia, Physical Abuse, Police Harassment, Racism, Rape/Sexual Assault, Sexual Abuse, Slurs, Transphobia (Highlight to view)

Blurb:

In 1976 Harlem, JOHN CONQUER, P.I. is the cat you call when your hair stands up...the supernatural brother like no other. From the pages of Occult Detective Quarterly, he's calm, he's cool, and now he's collected in CONQUER. From Hoodoo doctors and Voodoo Queens, The cat they call Conquer’s down on the scene! With a dime on his shin and a pocket of tricks, A gun in his coat and an eye for the chicks. Uptown and Downton, Harlem to Brooklyn, Wherever the brothers find trouble is brewin,’ If you’re swept with a broom, or your tracks have been crossed, If your mojo is failin’ and all hope is lost, Call the dude on St. Marks with the shelf fulla books, ‘Cause ain’t no haint or spirit, or evil-eye looks, Conjured by devils, JAMF’s, or The Man, Can stop the black magic Big John’s got on hand!

I received this product for free in return for providing an honest and unbiased review. I received no other compensation. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255: Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.

Conquer is the story of a Black mystical detective named John Conquer (a reference to John the Conqueror) and a homage to 70’s detective fiction and Blaxploitation films. It’s fun, well written, and full of creepiness, including a fetus monster haunting an abandoned subway station and a man shrunk down and boiled alive in a lava lamp. I greatly enjoyed the book, but like most Blaxploitation, it wasn’t without its problems.

It’s important to point out that Erdelac is a White author writing a Black story (something not uncommon in Blaxploitation). I usually prefer to promote “own voices” books, and stories by cishet White men are a rarity on this blog. After all, folks with privilege do not have the best track record when it comes to writing marginalized groups. As Irish author Kit de Waal said, “Don’t dip your pen in someone else’s blood”. Take American Dirt by Jeanine Cummins and The Help by Kathryn Stockett. They’re both terrible for numerous reasons including, but not limited to: not doing enough research, using the White Savior trope, watering down their narratives to make them palatable for White audiences, cultural appropriation, speaking over marginalized voices, etc. That’s not to say White authors shouldn’t write BIPOC characters at all. Not having any diversity in your story can be equally problematic. It just needs to be done carefully and respectfully. Very, very carefully. Yes, I know that can be a fine line to walk, but if an author can research what kind of crops people were growing in 1429 to make their book more accurate, they can research American Indians and people of color. Besides, that’s what hiring sensitivity readers and using resources like Writing with Color is for. Of course, there’s also the problem of White voices being given preferential treatment by publishers and audiences over BIPOC trying to tell their own stories.

To his credit, Erdelac has done an impressive amount of research to make his book feel authentic. John Conquer wears a dime around his ankle for protection and a mojo hand (another name for a mojo bag) for luck. His name is a reference to High John de Conqueror, a Black folk hero with magical abilities. Conquer also has one of the most accurate representations of Vodou I’ve ever seen in fiction. Hollywood “voo doo” is a pet peeve of mine, so I appreciate Erdelac’s dedication to portraying the religion and loa/lwa (the powerful spirits Vodou  practitioners worship and serve) accurately. He also doesn’t try to portray an idealized version of 1970s NYC. There’s racism, anti-Semitism, homophobia, and cops and criminals spewing slurs. And while it’s jarring, it does make the story feel more authentic. The police are racist and homophobic and there’s tension between the many communities that make up 1970s New York. John Conquer’s Uncle Silas was disowned by his family for being gay, and when John is asked to solve his murder, he has to confront his own homophobia and transphobia. That doesn’t mean it always works, though. There were definitely a few times I side-eyed and wondered if a certain line really needed to be in there.

My favorite part of the book is Eldelac’s excellent world building. White vampires go up in smoke when exposed to sunlight, while vampires with more melanin are protected from the sun’s rays. Vampirism also halts a corpse’s decay, but all that rot catches up to them when they’re finally killed. Each culture has their own magical practices with distinct rules, and magic doesn’t cross cultural lines. For example, only Vodou practitioners can become zombies, and non-Christian vampires are immune to crosses. Conquer is especially powerful because he’s learned many different traditions and practices, but the catch is that this opens him to a wider variety of spiritual attacks. Street gangs utilize black magic to wage wars with each other. His work is clever, original, and something I could really get into. But…having White authors tell BIPOC stories still feels problematic to me when White authors are still so heavily favored by the publishing industry. I’ve reviewed books by White authors before, but because Conquer is based heavily on Blaxploitation it feels, well, more exploitative than those I’ve reviewed in the past. I’m still going to go ahead and recommend Eldelac’s work because—in the end—it is well written and interesting, but I can also completely understand if some of you want to skip this one.

The Loney by Andrew Michael Hurley

Formats: Print, audio, digital

Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

Genre: Gothic, Folk Horror, Psychological Horror, Mystery

Audience: Adult/Mature

Diversity: Disability (Speech Disorder - muteness, Cognitive/Learning Disability, PTSD)

Takes Place in: Lancashire, England

Content Warnings: Abelism, Alcohol Abuse, Animal Death, Bullying, Child Abuse, Child Death, Child Endangerment, Death, Racism, Forced Captivity, Gaslighting, Gore, Homophobia, Illness, Medical Torture/Abuse, Medical Procedures, Mental Illness, Physical Abuse, Racism, Slurs, Suicide, Verbal/Emotional Abuse, Violence (highlight to view)
Blurb:

When the remains of a young child are discovered during a winter storm on a stretch of the bleak Lancashire coastline known as the Loney, a man named Smith is forced to confront the terrifying and mysterious events that occurred forty years earlier when he visited the place as a boy. At that time, his devoutly Catholic mother was determined to find healing for Hanny, his disabled older brother. And so the family, along with members of their parish, embarked on an Easter pilgrimage to an ancient shrine. But not all of the locals were pleased to see visitors in the area. And when the two brothers found their lives entangling with a glamorous couple staying at a nearby house, they became involved in more troubling rites. Smith feels he is the only one to know the truth, and he must bear the burden of his knowledge, no matter what the cost. Proclaimed a “modern classic” by the Sunday Telegraph (UK), The Loney marks the arrival of an important new voice in fiction.

Autumn is normally considered the season for all things horror, due to holidays like Samhain, All Hallows' Eve/Halloween, and the Day of the Dead in Europe and the Americas, but the other seasons have their own share of scary stories and traditions. Summer is perfect for slasher flicks, spooky stories by the campfire, and the Ghost Festival is celebrated in East and Southeast Asia. The long, dark nights of winter inspired the Victorians to tell ghost stories and Algonquin-speaking people associated the season with the monstrous Wendigo. But spring, generally associated with new life, rebirth, flowers, and cute baby animals in the Northern Hemisphere, is the odd one out. Other than Bram Stoker's famous short story, Dracula's Guest, which takes place on Walpurgis Night, The Loney is the probably the only scary story I've ever read set during the Spring.




 

I mean, I guess if you're scared of flowers and baby animals Spring might be scary....

The Loney was written by an English Teacher, and boy does it show. It's overflowing with symbolism, deeply complicated characters, religious imagery, and all the other stuff that gets pretentious professors all hot and bothered. This is the kind of book that lends itself well to long, dry, dissertations about death and rebirth, or some other equally clichéd thesis, like how everything is a metaphor for sex. Not that any of this is bad, mind you, just don't expect a classic horror story so much as a coming-of-age character exploration set in a gloomy, shit hole town that leaves you feeling creeped out and disturbed. There's a lot more focus on the environment and characters than there is on the actual story (or lack thereof). It reminds me of one of those artsy games with no plot or clear goals where you just wander around and explore the gorgeous environment, like The Path (the game,  not the TV series). Which, again, isn't a bad thing if you're into walking simulators, but I miss having a three act story structure, and a build up of suspense. So my reaction to The Loney was along the lines of "bored, bored, bored, do something already, wow that's creepy, damn these people are messed up, bored, bored, is something going to happen now or what, so borrrreeed, stop talking for fuck's sake, bored, HOLY SHIT WTF OMG, oh, well I guess that's the end." And then I was left wondering what the fuck I had just read.

While the pointless milling about can get tedious (really, REALLY tedious), it's still an entertaining and creepy book. I wouldn't exactly call it horror, since The Loney isn't scary per se, but it is definitely disturbing. There are still a few of the standard horror "shock value" scenes you'd expect, y'know, the kind where any person with common sense would take it as an obvious sign to turn the fuck around because it's clear they just stumbled into some Blair Witch, demonic serial killer, Eldritch abomination crap? But most of the creepiness comes from the irrational religious fervor of the adults (except, ironically, the priest), and their disturbing obsession with "curing" the unnamed protagonist's disabled brother, Hanny. Not for his own benefit, since he seems perfectly happy as is, and could probably function on his own just fine if given a chance, but as part of some selfish desire to see a miracle and be closer to God.

Now here's the thing about being a disabled person in horror fiction, you can come in one of three flavors. You can either be a victim (Audrey Hepburn in Wait Until Dark, the mute woman in The Tingler, Mark from Friday the 13th Part 2), the "psycho" (pretty much every movie killer ever, because mental illness apparently makes you evil), or some sort of disabled version of the "magical negro" trope (the little girl from the Langoliers, "Duddits" from Dreamcatcher, Tom Cullen from The Stand, and every other disabled person in a Steven King novel). But Hanny doesn't seem to fall into any of these groups. He's certainly not helpless, a monster, or "magical", despite what those around him may think. For example, late in the book Hanny manages to uncover and successfully load a rifle (despite having little to no experience doing so), sneak out of the house by muffling his foot steps on a blanket and bribing the dog with treats, then find his way across dangerous terrain in the middle of the night. And when the narrator tries to follow him? He ends up almost drowning, and Hanny has to save his pathetic butt. Hell, I can barely find the bathroom in my own house without turning the light on, much less load a gun in the dark and go for a night hike in the English equivalent of Lovecraft country. But despite being able to do things military personnel take months to learn, Hanny is still considered "helpless" by those around him because he has a learning disability and doesn't communicate in a way anyone else has bothered to learn. And he CAN communicate. Hanny is clearly shown using hand gestures and objects to try and communicate his emotions and desires, but is mostly ignored by everyone, save his brother, who apparently can't wrap their brains around the concept of non-verbal communication. The priest, probably the only moral, well adjusted adult in the whole story, is also the only person to question if Hanny even wants to be cured. Like, he would literally have been fine if someone had just thought to equip him with an Alternative and Augmentative Commination system. But no, they want a miracle, they want Hanny to give it to them, screw what he wants or needs. And that's pretty much how everything goes to shit. Because most of the characters in the story can't seem to comprehend that anyone outside their narrow view of normal could possible be happy. The narrator describes how determined his mother and her church buddies are to reject anyone different, like a fundamentalist Catholic version of Mean Girls.  



Hanny has to put up with so much crap from his neurotypical family

So often in fiction "curing" a disability is automatically seen as a good thing, because it's just assumed that being able-bodied and neurotypical is the only way to have a happy, fulfilling life. And if a disabled person does seem happy? Then they're considered some sort of inspirational martyr for the able-bodied to admire. Obviously this attitude is really freaking ableist and arrogant, as numerous disability advocates have pointed out. If a person with a disability would prefer to be rid of it, that's an extremely personal decision, and not one intended to serve as a happy ending for the able-bodied and neurotypical. Basically, assuming everyone with a disability feels the same way about it is pretty shitty, as is acting like they can't make their own decisions. And that's what makes The Loney different, it's not a typical "oh, the poor disabled person was cured by a miracle, now they can be happy!" fairy tail. Instead it's a gothic horror story about how fucked up that attitude is, and how trying to "fix" someone without their knowledge or consent so they can serve as an inspirational story is seriously messed up. Of course, in this case it's taken to an extreme where the parent's misguided stubbornness results in the death, misery, and despair of a lot of people. Hanny makes it out more or less okay (albeit now suffering from some serious guilt he doesn't understand), with his oblivious parents none the wiser, but the narrator becomes an unstable wreck with PTSD who stalks his brother until Hanny forces him in therapy. Essentially, The Loney is the antithesis of inspiration porn (yes, the link is safe for work, chill).



It's actually because she ate two jumbo orders of nachos by herself, now that is truly inspirational. I should point out I have no idea what people wear at clubs, so one of them is a semi-goth chick, and the other looks like Jem.

The plot still drags though. Like, a lot. And Hurley uses the word "said" too much. Replied, snapped, exclaimed, responded, mused, just pick a different freaking word! Seriously, you're an English teacher, use your thesaurus.  But while it wasn't quite my cup of tea, I can still recommend it to people looking for a rich, gloomy story full of atmosphere and some truly messed up characters. 

Ten by Gretchen McNeil

Formats - Print, digital

Publisher: Harper Collins

Genre: Mystery, Psychological Horror, Killer/Slasher

Audience: Y/A

Diversity: African American character, Japanese American character, Asian American character, Samoan character, Bipolar character

Takes Place in: Seattle, USA

Trigger Warnings: Sexist Language, Abelist Language, Racist Language, Sexism, Mental Illness, Drug Use, Violence, Death

Blurb:

SHHHH! Don't spread the word! Three-day weekend. Party at White Rock House on Henry Island. You do NOT want to miss it. It was supposed to be the weekend of their lives—an exclusive house party on Henry Island. Best friends Meg and Minnie each have their reasons for being there (which involve T.J., the school’s most eligible bachelor) and look forward to three glorious days of boys, booze and fun-filled luxury. But what they expect is definitely not what they get, and what starts out as fun turns dark and twisted after the discovery of a DVD with a sinister message: Vengeance is mine. Suddenly people are dying, and with a storm raging, the teens are cut off from the outside world. No electricity, no phones, no internet, and a ferry that isn’t scheduled to return for two days. As the deaths become more violent and the teens turn on each other, can Meg find the killer before more people die? Or is the killer closer to her than she could ever imagine?

Ten is inspired by Agatha Christie's bestselling mystery thriller, And Then There Were None, a tale of ten strangers with dark secrets trapped on an island with a killer who terminates them in ironic ways and publicly marks the deaths one by one. McNeil takes Christie's original concept, sets it in modern times, changes the terrible, unlikeable adults into a bunch of terrible, unlikeable teens, does away with racism, xenophobia, and anti-Semitism, and replaces it with a diverse cast.

Like the original Christie novel, Ten starts off with ten (get it!?!) people gathering on a remote island under false pretenses only to discover that it was all a trick by the killer, who has kindly left them a Ringu-esque DVD (a gramophone record in the original) to inform the victims of their inevitable demises and remind them how shitty they all are (in case you started feeling bad for any of them). At first, no one believes the sketchy murder announcement is legit, at least until they start dropping like flies, and then all hell breaks loose. Both books involve distrust, everyone accusing each other, the fear of knowing there's a wolf (or possibly wolves) hiding among the sheep, and of course, a party with a body count. Why do so many parties in these kind of stories end up with a bunch of dead guests? Does the Red Death just go around gate crashing every party in the horror genre? Why does every gathering of three or more people that involves alcohol inevitably end in someone's demise? Being an introverted nerd who would rather gnaw off my own hand than attend most social gatherings, I honestly have no idea what happens at parties, so I'm just going to assume that it's pretty standard for them to end in either mass murder or demon summoning (and now I wish I went to more parties).


A liver laceration is a small price to pay to avoid social interaction

Last, but not least, is the diversity, which pretty much only applies to Ten since Agatha Christie was a racist asshole, so it's pretty obvious who the winner is here, but let's go over it anyway. Ten features a fairly diverse cast, with about half the characters being POC, in addition to a character with a fairly realistic depiction of bipolar disorder. Of course, most of the characters don't get enough of a chance to develop anything close to a personality before they get offed, so they're all pretty one-dimensional characters. There's also a "rebellious" East-Asian girl with a rebellious blue streak in her hair, so Ten isn't completely free of stereotypes either. But at least the diversity is there, even if it sometimes leans more towards "early 90's kid show" diversity.


I can just imagine Wheels being like "My name is Jordan, you insensitive, ableist jerks." Well, at least it's better than JaWs, his names looks like a typo. Why do none of these children have normal names?! Is their mom Gwyneth Paltrow? And how come the white kids get to be in the front?

So how does the re-imagining stand up to the original classic? In terms of writing, McNeil is a decent-ish author, but there's just no competing with Agatha "The Queen of Crime" Christie. I mean, Agatha is the world's best-selling mystery writer (that's not an exaggeration, she's actually in the Guinness Book of World Records), while Ten contains the line "The whole thing had been a perfect storm of not awesome." So yeah...any comparison between the two would be downright unfair. However, it seems like McNeil realizes this, and isn't trying to outdo her inspiration. Plot-wise, both books have a good mystery, although the original is unbelievably difficult to solve, and requires an extensive epilogue to explain what the hell just happened because the clues are so vague. Even knowing who the killer was on subsequent readings of And Then There Were None, I couldn't pick up on any hints as to their identity. In fact, I'm not entirely convinced Christie didn't just randomly pull the ending out of her ass at the last minute, but whatever, at least I couldn't guess the culprit after a few chapters. Meanwhile Ten gives the reader enough clues to figure out the ending without being super obvious. That is, unless you've already read And Then There Were None in which case you're probably going figure out the killer (or killers) almost instantly. So yeaaaaaaah, sorry about that. The scary parts of Ten are done well, but the rest of the story (especially the beginning) feel forced. All the dialogue is generic teen bickering and cookie cutter conversations about crushes, school, and beer and it only exists as a quick set up before the murder spree starts.

While Christie's novel is a psychological thriller that focuses heavily on the characters, McNeil's work leans more towards the classic horror genre, specifically the teenage slasher/cabin in the woods kind. The characters in both stories are awful human beings, which works fine for And Then There Were None, where they're at least complex and interesting, and we're more interested in solving the mystery than anyone surviving. The closest thing we have to a primary cast in Christie's book are Vera the governess, Philip Lombard the solider, Armstrong the doctor, and Blore the private investigator. And it's still really ambiguous if any of them are the killer until the end. Christie switches the point of view frequently, so her reader becomes just familiar enough with each character to get a basic understanding of their personality, but not so much as to clue them in to the killer's identity. In Ten we're given a clear and likeable protagonist to root for, the shy Meg, along with her best friend, Minnie, and their shared love interest, T.J. (ugh, love triangles). This lends itself better to a slasher story where we need at least one character whose safety we fear for, and then a bunch of cannon fodder characters to satisfy the reader's bloodlust. (Let's face it, if you're reading a book like this you're looking for a body count.) The rest of the cast is one dimensional and just needs to hurry up and die. However, this does add a wrinkle to the whole revenge thing, you can't very well root for a main character that did something terrible, so we know the killer/killers are either overreacting or there's been a terrible misunderstanding. It also means we can rule out Meg as the killer (and assume it's probably not Minnie either), but there are still enough potential killers left over to fuel plenty of paranoia.

Having most of the characters know each other in Ten adds an extra layer of creepiness because no one wants to believe their friend is a murderer, and the killer is quite literally backstabbing people who trusted them. In Christie's setup, you don't really care who gets the ax (literally and figuratively) because everyone is awful. Lombard's an arrogant chauvinist who left a bunch of natives to die because he barely saw them as people, Blore is an overconfident idiot who falsifies evidence, and Dr. Armstrong is a spineless alcoholic who cares more about recognition and his reputation than the patient he killed while he was drunk. The only character who is sort of sympathetic is General MacArthur, and that's only because his victim was a world class jerk who slept with the guy's wife, and MacArthur feels genuinely remorseful about sending him on a death mission. And that's not even including the minor characters and all the reasons they suck. The mystery and the identity of the killer are really the only things that matter in And Then There Were None (okay, and maybe whether or not Vera survives, she's slightly more likable than her companions), which makes it a captivating read, but not particularly scary.

Because Ten is aimed at teens, McNeil threw in a completely unnecessary love triangle (as is apparently required for any book in Y/A section) because apparently a murder spree wasn't dramatic enough. To her credit, McNeil makes the clichéd romance slightly less terrible by actually giving Meg a legitimate reason for not wanting to upset Minnie by going after their mutual crush. Minnie suffers from bipolar disorder, and even though she's finally getting treatment, she's still prone to making bad decisions while manic, including turning into someone Meg didn't recognize and lashing out when she found out her best friend was also interested in T.J. Because she's been friends with Minnie for so long, and the mental illness is a more recent development, Meg still hasn't quite figured out a balance between an overprotective enabler and a supportive friend when Minnie is having a depressive or manic episode. Because Minnie is still in serious denial about her Bipolar Disorder and tends to minimize the severity of her symptoms Meg also feels responsible for her best friend's wellbeing and acts like a mother hen. It also doesn't help that Minnie's dad has asked Meg to "take care of his daughter" and placed an unfair burden on her unqualified shoulders. As a result, the two girls have developed a toxic, codependent relationship with Meg treating Minnie like she's some sort of fragile doll who will shatter at the slightest hardship. Honestly their dysfunctional relationship was about 100 times more interesting than their stupid crush on T.J.
It's still about five hundred times better than the Christie's original novel (not that that's saying much), which, by the way, wasn't originally called And Then There Were None. The actual title of the novel was considered too racist for American publication, 25 years prior to the Civil Rights Act. That's right, a country where racial segregation was totally legal was like "Whoa, Agatha, that title's pretty offensive, don't you think?" So she can't even use the "oh well, attitudes were different back then" excuse, (which is a bad excuse anyway) because it was still considered fucking offensive at the time it was published. Mark Twain's used racial slurs in The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn to make a point about the evils and ugliness of slavery, but the racism, anti-Semitism, and xenophobia in And Then There Were None have literally no reason to be there. Christie, like Lovecraft (who I complain about in detail here), is one of those writers whose obvious talent is often marred by her bigotry, which sucks because her work is otherwise really enjoyable. Of course, that's like saying "This ice cream sundae is pretty enjoyable, except there's a dead rat in it." I mean, you could probably eat around it, but the experience is still going to be severely tainted by a rodent carcass.

I mean, I'd probably still eat it... but I have problems.

These days, there are editions of Christie's book that have been edited to varying degrees to make the work less jarringly racist (and before anyone starts screaming about censorship, the original, unedited version is still in print too, so you're free to read whichever version you want), but it's still super uncomfortable. Even in the edited versions that aren't dropping the N-word every few pages, the ugly attitude still hangs heavy in the air throughout the story, and it's difficult to immerse yourself in the mystery with that hanging over you. Plus, none of the anti-Semitism was edited out in the audiobook version I listened to, so I still got to "enjoy" hearing that in the first chapter. Fun! Of course, how many problematic elements you're willing to put up with before the book becomes irredeemable depends on the individual. I liked... aspects of Christie's book well enough, but I can understand if someone has zero desire subject themselves to 272 pages (or in my case 6 hours) of bigotry.

So, which book is better? Ten preserves some of the spirit of the original story, but does away with the blatant racism, although it leans more towards slasher horror than suspense. But And Then There Were None is considered a classic for a reason. The quality of the writing is obvious, Christie does an excellent job building the suspense, and the characters are unique and interesting (you could probably write an entire English paper on each of them). Ten isn't a bad book, but it's never going to be a literary classic. So, which would I recommend? Well, it really depends what you're looking for: a fun horror story, or a classic murder mystery (and whether or not you want to deal with Christie's racism). From a literary perspective, yes, Then There Were None is the better work (no surprise there). But in terms of straight horror? You'll probably get a lot more scares from reading Ten. You could always read both, like I did, just make sure to read McNeil's book first to avoid spoilers.