Book 42 The Screaming Staircase

 

Book 42 The Screaming Staircase

The Screaming Staircase, Lockwood & Co Book 1 by Jonathan Stroud fulfilled the category “Book with a Character with a Vision Impairment or Enhancement (a nod to 20/20 vision)” for the PopSugar 2020 Reading Challenge. Wow, that sentence was a mouthful.

The Screaming Staircase is a post-apocalyptic middle grade/young adult novel about a ghost invasion. They call it “The Problem.”  In this new world, something has awakened spirits who prey on humanity. Scary stuff, right? To make it worse, only children up to a certain age can see the spirits. Young teens with the sight work in teams with adult supervision to help combat the supernatural menace. But Lockwood and Co is different as Lucy Carlyle soon discovers.

Lucy is out of work. She left her position at another ghost hunting company due to circumstances beyond her control. People lost their lives, and she is wracked with guilt. Now the only place that will hire her is Lockwood, run by Anthony Lockwood, a teen himself. Lucy can’t imagine how he, along with George and she, can handle the job, and that’s before Sir John William Fairfax challenges them to rid his home of spooks.

Together, the three combine their powers of empathy touch, sharp sight, and supernatural hearing. They plan to spend the night in Combe Carey Hall, solve the mystery of the screaming staircase, and make the reputation of Lockwood and Co as the premier ghost hunting outfit in London. Will they survive?

I know that sounds like a book blurb, but man, this story deserves it. It’s got all the best haunted house tropes, horror traps, and young adult problems. They are a bunch of unsupervised kids working to save the town. Check—independent kiddos. The world (or maybe just England) is swallowed up in this Problem, where the ghosts roam the night, and no one can go outside, much less have a window open. Check—post-apocalypse setting. And the horrors are the worst around. None of the agencies are able to discover what happened in that house, much less calm the ghost and vanquish them. Check—uber haunted, and they are the chosen ones. It’s a perfect mix of horror and YA. The scares are real, the feelings of the characters are real, and the angst is real.

The book reminded me of A Series of Unfortunate Events. I enjoyed those tales of the three siblings against the world, fighting their way to survive, not just perils but the adults who caused them. The Screaming Staircase has those same elements, including some of the doom and gloom. And of course, as I read, I see the actors from both the TV series and the movie of ASOUE playing the roles (not to mention someone from Umbrella Academy playing Lockwood). The novel/series would make a wonderful Netflix project, especially with the themes of horror, YA, and unconventional humor.

I give The Screaming Staircase Lockwood & Co Book 1 by Jonathan Stroud Five Haunted Lockets.

 

 

Book 41 A Clockwork Orange

 

A Clockwork Orange by Anthony Burgess fulfilled the category “Book with a Made-Up Language.” All I can say is I am so glad I listened to this title on audio.

A Clockwork Orange, a novella about a bleak future full of ultra-violence perpetrated by the very young, explored some serious societal issues. Topics mentioned were youth and violence, drugs, the penal system, government—it’s influence and control, parenting, psychological conditioning, and the ramifications of personal actions. I could go on and on. The story was chock full of topics to discuss.

First, let’s talk about the language. As I mentioned I listened to the story on audio. The reader was fantastic. He spoke in a rolling, almost cockney British accent and made the language of the book sing. The youngsters in the novel (mid-teens) speak in a rapid-fire of invented words. Everything has a slag name to it, from body parts to food to names for other people. And even then, the narrator mentioned that kids younger than him had their own slang too! I can’t imagine writing a book like this. It’s almost completely another language. I had to immerse myself in the novel to understand everything. (A second read wouldn’t hurt.) I isolated myself to listen, and it took me quite a while to finish the six-hour audio. Frequently, I had to stop and translate Alex’s words in my head.

It was a real thinking book.

For many reasons…

My husband was thrilled to talk about the book once I finished. We discussed the various topics introduced in the novel for hours. Particularly, we focused on the issues of teens and authority. We have two teens and could see how it got out of control. What kind of authority can you have over your children if you fear them? Alex was a violent thug. His parents could do nothing to stop him. And we laughed at how he was surprised when they rented his room. I sympathize with them so much.

But another huge topic we discussed was the abridgment of the book (and the movie). The author wrote the forward of my copy. In it, he discussed how his American publisher cut the last chapter. In this section, Alex starts to grow up and learn the errors of his youth. He dreams of a regular life with a wife and kid. Hubby had never heard such a thing associated with the book or movie. We went over it for a long time—how it changed the story, the implications of a publisher changing a book that way. It miffed me a publisher would just cut a chapter, and the final one, to boot. With power like that, what’s an author to do?

I could write a dissertation on that novella, but I won’t here. (You do NOT want to read that.) But I will say it’s one of those few classics I think should still be taught in the high school. I’m an advocate of books relevant to students. Give them The Hunger Games, The Hate You Give, and Fangirl rather than Native Son, Tess of the D’Urbervilles, and Jude the Obscure. But man, a listen to A Clockwork Orange…still relevant, still stimulating, still scary!

I give A Clockwork Orange by Anthony Burgess Five Slooshy Moloko Pluses.

 

Book 40 House

 

House by Frank E. Peretti and Ted Dekker fulfills the category “Book with the Same Title as a Movie or TV show but is unrelated to it” for the PopSugar 2020 Reading Challenge. The novel is a haunted house adventure while the TV show is a fanfic of Sherlock Holmes and very awesome.

It’s October, and there are five Fridays this month. I saved all my horror stories (well, most of them) for Halloween season. I thought I should warn you ahead of time that it will be five scary books for October. After House, I plan to do A Clockwork Orange, The Screaming Staircase, Frankenstein, and If It Bleeds. I love a good fright!

House starts with a married couple lost on a back road in Alabama. A police officer directs them to a better route. They follow it, but their tires are sabotaged, and they discover an old Bed and Breakfast in the middle of nowhere. Typical horror set up. Lost, alone, ending up Frank N. Furter’s place…wait, that was a movie. Anyway… Once in the old Victorian house, we meet the weird homeowners and another lost couple. The tropes are strong. We feel scared and insecure, and a little trepidatious. But once the players are set, House takes another tack on horror stories.

The home is attacked by a mad man who insists one person must kill another for everyone to live. And the chaos ensues. As the book progresses, hope fades, the house gets weirder and new, seemingly innocent characters are introduced. I could see this as a movie. The twists and turns are predictable, but at the same time, not. We expect a certain outcome and are shocked when the story does a reverse.

I love a haunted house story. There’s something about having the place where you should feel the safest be dangerous. And I especially love it when the house has a mind of its own. The Haunting of Hill House is one of my favorites as a story. The movie/TV spin offs of the tale are even better. The weird, 1999 movie, the recent TV adaptation and the best of them all, Rose Red by Stephen King. I love that miniseries. Talk about a great haunted house! King pulled in all of Shirley Jackson’s elements, added the Winchester House, and a bit of Salem’s Lot. If you haven’t seen it, go get it now.

Why was House scary? It didn’t quite hit Rose Red standards. It was a fun run through the chaotic maze of a basement where you weren’t sure what was real. The feelings of loss and confusion were overwhelming. Who could we trust? Not even our protagonists! And we were lost…in a house…how does that happen? We had no one to root for, except that seemingly innocent…oops, spoiler.

Anyway, I’m glad I picked the novel for this prompt.

I give House by Frank E. Peretti and Ted Dekker Four Mystery Basement Rooms.