Book Review: The Reapers are the Angels by Alden Bell

"You know what I think? she says.
What do you think?
She points through the hole into the dark throat of the diseased landscape.
I think you're more dangerous than what's out there.
Well, girl, he says, that's a funny thing you just uttered.
Because I was just thinkin the same thing about you."




Older than her years and completely alone, Temple is trying to live one day at a time in a post-apocalyptic world, where the undead roam endlessly, and the remnants of mankind seem, at times, to retain little humanity themselves.
This is the world she was born into. Temple has known nothing else. Her journey takes her to far-flung places, to people struggling to maintain some semblance of civilization - and to those who have created a new world order.
When she comes across the helpless Maury, she attempts to set one thing right. If she can just get him back to his family in Texas then maybe it will bring redemption for some of the terrible things she's done in her past. Because Temple has had to fight to survive, has done things she's not proud of and, along the road, she's made enemies...

The Reapers are the Angels is not so much a book about a Zombie Apocalypse as it is about the living humans left alive afterwards. 25 years ago the world went straight to hell and so for 15 year old Temple - this is the only world she's ever known. Taught not to read and write but to shoot and survive. Carrying with her the memory of her almost-brother Malcolm, Temple encounters groups travelling the country, cities of people attempting to rebuild a civilization and some very strange mutations. Oh. And lets not forget the Zombies. Countless 'slugs' of which Temple has no problems dealing with.

The narrative is almost beautiful in its' violence and gruesomeness. The strength of this book is seen so acutely through the clarity of the landscapes and each of the characters; which makes it so unbelievably easy to inhabit the world and it's subsequent dangers. The characters Temple meets are each special in themselves - the silent Maury, the easy-going Lee, the sickening Abraham. But it is her sadistic dance with Moses that has to be my favourite. The depth of understanding they have for each-other is none that I have seen before.
Talk of God and Religion is apparent throughout - as you might have guessed simple from the title - but it fits in well with this broken and wasted husk of a world. Also the lack of speech marks takes a bit of getting used to, a-la-McCarthy's The Road, but like The Road I think it fits in well. If I had a rating system on this site I would give it five stars! *laughs*

Published: September 2010 by Macmillan

Book Review: The Dead - David Gatward

"The Dead envy the living. It consumes them. They will do anything to take what you have, for even the briefest of moments, to experience life again." p.45






Lazarus Stone is about to turn sixteen when, one night, his normal life is ripped to shreds by a skinless figure drenched in blood.
He has a message: The Dead are coming.
Now Lazarus is all that stands in their way. To fulfil his destiny, he must confront not only the dark past of his family, but horrors more gruesome than even Hell could invent. And it all begins with the reek of rotting flesh...

Hell is coming... and David Gatward means business!

All his life Lazarus has been a fairly ordinary kid - causing mischief at school, playing computer games and hanging out with his best friend Craig. With his father constantly away at work, Lazarus has had a great deal of independence. So when he first learns of the world of the Dead and his dad's role with them Lazarus is naturally very confused and scared; wanting to do whatever it takes to get back to the 'normal' life he had before.
But even through all of the chaos and horror, Lazarus still remains switched-on and has a very commanding presence about him that gives the reader a glimpse into the person he must become if he is to find his father and prevent the Dead from crossing over into the real world...

I feel quite privileged to have received a proof copy of The Dead as it is not quite like any other horror novel I've read before. David's writing is so sense-driven that it wasn't like I was just seeing the story like a particularly gory horror movie but also living and smelling it! Yeuch! It was SO much fun (though far too short for my tastes) and I will be hanging out for book two - The Dark - due in October 2010.

Published by HodderChildren's Books - July 2010

Book Review: The End of Alice - A.M. Homes

"Just because something scares you, just because you say this is awful and repulsive, it doesn't mean that it is insignificant." - A.M. Homes




The End of Alice sneaks us in the back doors of our upright suburban neighborhoods to reveal the impulses that even in our frank, outspoken times we don't talk about.
This is a tale told by a paedophile in his twenty-third year in a maximum security prison. He is intelligent; he is witty; he is profoundly dangerous. Beyond the reality of his stark cell and the violent perversion of the other inmates lies his imagination, which he turns to his past, to an "accident" with a little girl named Alice, and now to the erotic life of a nineteen-year-old suburban co-ed who draws him into a flirtatious epistolary exchange.

At home on summer break from college, she writes to the prisoner about her taste for young boys, her lust for one twelve-year-old in particular. She is inspired by the convict's crimes; he is excited by her peculiar obsession. Into the veneer of middle-class convention—the tennis lessons, baby-sitting, and family dinners—she casts her line for the boy. He bites. As her reports of their strange affair progress, the prisoner's memory unravels, revealing the appalling circumstances of his captivity, his deadly and lingering infatuation with Alice.

The intertwined fixations of these unlikely correspondents give The End of Alice its haunting, unsettling power.

A rather dark and sadistic first review for my brand-spanking new blog and though my reading is generally focused towards children's fiction, I sometimes veer off into somewhat darker places. And this is certainly no exception.

I came across The End of Alice a few years ago while I was working in a bookshop in Melbourne. A friend of a friend of mine asked if I could order in a book for her university course. Naturally when she told me about it, I was intrigued.
There's incest, homosexual rape, sex with minors - and that's just the base ingredients of the cake. If Homes has succeeded in anything; it is her ability to shock even the most toughest of readers. I imagine it would make the average reader feel sick to the stomach.

So why read it?

...

That is a good question. Unless you're a university psychology student, what would the average joe gain from this peverse horror? I couldn't answer honestly. But I think, every once in a while, we like to explore the very depths of the human psyche. And this is one such tale that is not likely to be forgotten easily.