Book 29: Annihilation by Jeff VanderMeer (Southern Reach Trilogy no.1)

Four women—a biologist, an anthropologist, a psychologist, and a surveyor—are sent on an expedition into the mysterious Area X. Previous expeditions either come back changed or don't come back at all, and the border between Area X and the rest of the world is expanding. The book follows the biologist, a loner determined to find out what her husband experienced in the eleventh expedition, and determined to find out everything she can about the laws of nature-defying Area X.

This book was creepy creepy creepy. I loved it. I was impatient to finish each page; like the biologist, I just wanted to understand as much about Area X as I could before I ran out of time, or rather pages. The book was very Lovecraftian in its creeping sense of dread and the gradual revelations about the horrors of the lighthouse and the wall-scrawling creature that lurked in the Tower. The biologist was the perfect narrator for us to follow into this world—intelligent, focused, driven—and the parallels in the discoveries she made about Area X and her relationship with her husband were emotionally resonant in a character that could easily have been dismissed as cold and emotionless.

I was so excited to read that the rest of the trilogy would be published in 2014 as well! A.

Top Ten Tuesday: Top Ten Ghost Stories

 Top Ten Tuesday topic is a meme hosted by The Broke and the Bookish.

This week's topic is Top Ten All-Time Favorite Books in X Genre, so I picked my top ten ghost story books! Not all of these are scary, so even if you're not into horror you might find something you'd like. :)


1. A Fine and Private Place by Peter S. Beagle: This is one of my favorite books of all time. It's sort of like a grown-up version of Neil Gaiman's The Graveyard Book. Both the prose and the story are heartrendingly beautiful.

2. The Ghost and Mrs. Muir by R. A. Dick: This is the sweetest little story that left me feeling warm and happy. The relationship between Captain Gregg and the widowed Mrs. Muir is adorable. I haven't seen the 1947 film adaptation yet, but it's on my list!


3. Heart-Shaped Box by Joe Hill: By Stephen King's son, Heart-Shaped Box is one of the scariest books I've ever read, but the journey of aging rock star Judas Coyne, who bought a vengeful ghost on the internet, is compelling.


4. A Certain Slant of Light by Laura Whitcomb: Another favorite of mine in any genre. The love story between the two ghosts is one of the best I've ever read, and the writing is gorgeous.


5. Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark by Alvin Schwartz and Stephen Gammell: A childhood classic! These stories and illustrations were burned into my subconscious from many a late-night sleepover reading.

6. The Ghost and Goth by Stacey Kade: More funny than spooky, this YA book has humor and heart. Popular cheerleader-turned-ghost Alona and goth loner Will have a great dynamic together.

7. From the Dust Returned by Ray Bradbury: The inspiration for The Addams Family, this book is best read under covers on a chilly October night.

8. The Graveyard Book by Neil Gaiman: I alluded to this one earlier, but it really is a sweet book . . . about a boy living in a graveyard, befriended by ghosts. Neil Gaiman  has a wonderful handle on the parallel sensations of magic and fear that are so integral to childhood.

9. The Shining by Stephen King: You can't mention ghosts without thinking of the infamous Overlook Hotel!

10. The Woman in Black by Susan Hill: The book is much spookier than the Daniel Radcliffe film. Haunted houses isolated by haunted swamps, secret rooms, and tragic histories are the perfect backdrop for a good spine-tingling ghost story.

Book 16: Stranger with My Face by Lois Duncan

I hate how the ebook editions of these have been "updated" for modern readers! Just let the story have happened in the early eighties; that's much easier on my suspension of disbelief than awkwardly explaining away cell phones and e-mails. Stranger with My Face is an atmospheric, spooky book taking place on an isolated New England island (one of my favorite spooky settings). Teenage Laurie is being spotted in places she hadn't been and soon begins seeing a spectre that looks eerily like herself. Astral projection is a rare enough book topic (for me at least) that it held my interest, and I loved Laurie's family and her friends Helen and Jeff.

Book 10: The Shining Girls by Lauren Beukes

Super-interesting book premise: time-traveling serial killer versus his only victim that got away. I generally like time-travel plots in theory, but so many of them seem to start out with an awesome idea, begin to struggle with the conundrums posed by time travel, and finally get so bogged down in trying to work out the rules and details of time travel that the plot drowns (Man in the Empty Suit, I'm looking at you!), but this book manages to avoid that fate.

I also liked how Beukes dealt with the victims. They're only around for a short while, but they're nonetheless fully fledged characters, full of goals and hopes and doubts, which is a bit of a trick to do with any character we see for only a chapter, let alone one we know is not going to survive going in. It just makes their murders all the more senseless and tragic, and I appreciate that their deaths and murder were definitely not glamorized.

And Kirby is great! Smart, snarky, and funny. Her clever banter with Dan is one of the highlights of the book;  somehow she's always quick with the witty comeback that eludes most of us until hours after the conversation has ended.

The murders are pretty horrible, so if you've got a weak stomach this may not be the book for you, but it's fast-paced and suspenseful, and I had a tough time putting it down.