REVIEW: Bob - Wendy Mass and Rebecca Stead

• Year first released:  2018
• ISBN of the edition I read:  1250166624
• Publisher of the edition I read:  Feiwel & Friends
• My rating (out of 5):  4

First and foremost, I have to say: I find this book's name to be deeply unfortunate. Just try to search online for Bob and see what comes up. On Amazon, the book is the 15th result. On Barnes & Noble, it's the 19th result...on page 2 (so 39th overall, basically). And on Google...forget it. I didn't have the patience to scroll enough to figure it out.

So, despite the fact that it's only a few months old, Bob isn't the most findable book out there. It's worth finding, though. (Luckily for you, I've made it easy by giving you not only the authors' names, but also that B&N link at the top. You're welcome.)

Bob is a rather adorable book about some sort of little critter named Bob who's been hiding in Gran's closet for the past five years waiting for Livy to return. Luckily for him, the book begins with Livy's return. (Gran is Livy's grandmother who lives in Australia - whereas Livy lives in Massachusetts - hence why it's taken now-11-year-old Livy so long to return.)

Unluckily for Bob, though, it turns out that Livy completely forgot about Bob in the time since her last visit.

So begins Livy and Bob's quest to figure out what precisely Bob even is (is he a zombie? a chicken? - of course he's not either, but the two ideas are woven into the book in fun ways), where he comes from, and why Livy forgot everything about him over the course of the past five years.

At only about 200 pages - and with smaller-than-normal paper size and larger-than-normal font - Bob is a quick read. (I read it in less than a day.) This quickness is mostly to its credit, but it also hides Bob's biggest flaw:

There isn't a whole lot of note that happens in the book. It certainly doesn't feel slow, but once the adventure really kicks off, I suddenly felt as though I'd just finished reading a rather lengthy prelude. And since the adventure kicks off about three-quarters of the way into the book, that's a lot of prelude. Again, it wasn't in any way a bore to read - it was cute in the meantime, and passed by quickly enough - but I still had to ask: shouldn't the heart of this adventure have started a bit sooner?

Instead we have a nice, simple, but somewhat featureless story for about 150 pages, then a fun, energetic adventure for about 50. It's not overly jarring, but it feels unbalanced.

Having dual authors as it does - and added to the fact that I've not read any other books by either author - I can't identify which author is responsible for what parts of the book. It's told in alternating voices - the odd chapters are from Livy's perspective, the even from Bob's - so perhaps one author wrote all of Livy, and the other all of Bob(?) I couldn't tell you. Either way, though, regardless of who wrote what in the book, the entire package comes off with a sweet, consistent tone that was warming to read. Even if the first 150 pages felt a bit flat compared to the final 50, they were still pleasing to spend time in.

I don't know that I see Bob becoming a classic, nor "standard" reading for children. (And it is very much a children's book - there isn't necessarily a lot for adults to be captivated by here.) Regardless, it was still a pleasant, endearing read that I was glad to have experienced.

REVIEW: Doubt (vols. 1 and 2) - Yoshiki Tonogai

• Year first released:  2013
• ISBNs of the editions I read:  9780316245302 and 9780316245319
• Publisher of the editions I read: Yen Press
• My rating (out of 5):  4

Doubt begins normally enough: a group of high-schoolers who play an online game together - Rabbit Doubt - decide to meet up in-person for the first time. They have a good evening together shopping and eating and singing karaoke, and then suddenly wake up in a creepy, abandoned warehouse with bar code tattoos, the corpse of one of them hanging from the rafters, and the idea that they have to kill one other to flush out the murderer. 

I guess I should say: Doubt begins normally enough...if you're a Saw movie or an Agatha Christie novel.

I loved the premise. It's not really a spoiler to say that, of course, each of the kids has his (or her) own secrets he's hiding which sure makes him seem to be the guilty one. These secrets and red herrings roll out over the course of the books - as the corpses quickly stack up - until the person behind the game is finally revealed. 

There's a very Agatha-Christie-like conceit to the entire set up (think especially of And Then There Were None) which Tonogai pulls off brilliantly, and without making it feel as though he's simply rehashing the ground she started nearly 80 years ago.

The art, too (which Tonogai himself does) is fantastic. He moves deftly between scenes of warmth and humanity, and scenes of shocking violence (and/or the aftereffects of it). Doubt certainly isn't for the faint of heart, though it never comes close to crossing into grind territory - this is definitely a thriller, through and through, with nothing gratuitous or supernatural in play. There is plenty of violence and gore throughout, but it is always meaningful to the story as a whole.

The premise (of high-schoolers being trapped together in an abandoned building to play a twisted, murdery game) worked so well in Doubt that Tonogai repeated it almost exactly for his two other series, Judge and Secret. To his credit, he was careful to fill each series with a different host of secrets and clues, and even a different approach to who the game-maker is behind each. If you like any one of the three series, there's simply no way you won't like the other two. 

That said, though you're certain to like all three series, there's no getting around the fact that they all feel highly correlated, for better or worse. The twists and secrets are unique to each series, but the overall type of twists and secrets remains largely unchanged between the three (except, importantly, for who the ultimate villain is behind each - having read one won't give you any sort of clues or logical patterns that you can use to guess who the villain is in either of the other two).

Also, in reading just any one of them all of the characters look and feel distinct. When you begin in on another of the series, though, you'll quickly realize that these are basically the same personalities and quirks, just re-skinned and renamed for the next story. It's not so bad if you allow a gap between reading each of the three series, but a haze settles over them if you read them too closely together. 

It's an interesting idea, though: this recycling of personalities feels like a misstep on Tonogai's part - and yet, if I'm only reviewing one of the series for you (which, technically, I am), it's not as though it affects this one series on its own. This isn't a problem you will notice by only reading Doubt (or only Judge, or only Secret). I suppose, then, it's more of a warning for you if you decide to keep up with Tonogai beyond just this one series, rather than something I can fairly hold against just this one series.

These small inconsistencies (actually, ironically, I suppose I should say these small consistencies) don't keep Doubt from being what it attempts to be, though: a fun, solid, intricate thriller full of twists and personality, with interesting plotting and a clever ending. It has everything you could want from a manga thriller - and, I would venture, would be a good starting-off point if you're into thrillers but haven't yet approached the wonderful world of reading manga.

(Note: If these books sound familiar, I’ve actually already mentioned them once before - along with Judge and Secret - in my list of books to read if you’ve played certain games. Specifically, I mentioned that these books are great to read if you've played any of the three games in the Nonary Games series: 999, Zero Escape: Virtue's Last Reward, and/or The Zero Time Dilemma.)

Illustrations in Horror Literature

It’s too bad that more books aren’t illustrated. Images can truly bring an entirely new mood and idea to a book, deeply altering the way you experience it - especially when the pictures are poignant, beautiful, or unsettling.

This idea is no less true in the horror genre. Of course an illustration will never jump out at you like something on the movie screen will,* but they can certainly cause a sense of dread, and add to the already eerie, foreboding atmosphere that the written words produce.

That monster that's stalking the innocent townfolk at night? - it's one thing to read about it and know it's there and form a mental image of it. It's another thing entirely to actually see it on the page right in front of you, lurking in the darkness; ravenously eyeing its prey with its too-deep yellow eyes; baring its horrible, gangrene, gnarly fangs moments before the pounce.

(Ironically, do you see what I'm doing here? I'm using words to create an image in your mind, in order to show you how illustrations do this. Very meta, I know.)

Neil Gaiman, for example, has been re-releasing a string of his books and stories in illustrated formats (most of them illustrated by Chris Riddell) that add to the unsettling nature of his already unsettling books. (If you're curious, Barnes and Noble's page for Neverwhere has a selection of illustrations from the book that are delightfully creepy.)

Similarly, this is one thing that makes horror manga so particularly effective. Yes, reading about the girl with long, black, scraggly hair covering her face while crawling out of the TV can certainly be disturbing enough,** but actually seeing her right there in front of you is a whole different beast - something that a non-illustrated book can't quite match for thrills. (In fact, if you look at my manga shelf, you'll see the horror manga outweighs the non-horror selection about 5:1.)

Recently, I discussed The Strange Library by Haruki Murakami, as well as Witches! by Rosalyn Schanzer, both of which are fantastically - and highly effectively - illustrated. (I've got a couple more such books/reviews lined up for you before the end of the month, too, while I'm at it. 😉 ) The manga version of Yukito Ayatsuji's Another is incredible as well - one of my favorite manga out there.

Yikes and a half, am I right?

Even if you don't know what's going on here, this is a pretty dang unsettling image.

What do you think of this, friends? Are there any illustrated horror books you've read, in which the images added to the overall tension and fear of the book? Let's hear about them!

*I guess an exception to this would be pop-up books, but I'm not really thinking about those right now. Then again, I'd be highly interested in the pop-up book The Babadook...

**You probably know I'm referencing The Ring here. Ironically enough, though, this doesn't actually happen in the book - it was merely added to the movies. Yes, there's a sinister girl behind a lot of the horror, but we never have a scene of her crawling out of a TV. 

REVIEW: Witches! The Absolutely True Tale of Disaster in Salem - Rosalyn Schanzer

• Year first released:  2011
• ISBN of the edition I read: 
• Publisher of the edition I read:  National Geographic Society
• My rating (out of 5):  4

Despite what we may sometimes hope, not all horror belongs to the realm of fiction. The bookstore is rife with true crime books, some representing cases which have been definitely solved, others which to this day remain unsolved (and, unfortunately, some which may forever remain unsolved). Yes, there are plenty of twisted individuals in our world and our history – about whom fascinating, disturbing stories can be told – but sometimes the scariest events don’t revolve around individual people so much as cultures and ideas that, scarily, become the norm. Nazi Germany can certainly be an example of this. And, as Schanzer points out with her book Witches!, so, too, can the Salem Witch Trials.

If the very essence of the “trials” weren’t horrifying enough – which they certainly are, you’ll realize only a couple pages into Schanzer’s book – Witches! also contains a selection of eerie, even disturbing woodblock prints (done by Schanzer herself) which masterfully represent the terrifying ideas that ran rampant through Salem in the early 1690’s. Considering their gruesome imagery, I don't think "beautiful" is quite the right word for them - they're certainly fantastically done, though.

If you’re unfamiliar with anything regarding the “trials” (except for the fact that they existed), Schanzer’s book is certainly a great intro to the subject. She does an excellent job at displaying the moods and culture that surrounded the horrifying events that lead to the torture and executions of dozens of people – women mostly, but also a few men – through the spring and summer of 1692.

It’s also worth pointing out: the subtitle of the book, The Absolutely True Tale of Disaster in Salem, is highly apt. Unlike many other writings on the subject, Schanzer does not present us with loads of conjecture (there is some bits in there, yes, but she is always very careful to point out what is fact versus what is inference). There is no imagined dialogue in the book, no guessing at what any given individual may have been thinking at one point or another throughout the happenings. Witches! truly deserves the moniker of “Absolutely True.”

All of this leads into my one half-complaint about Witches! though, which, I freely admit, must be presented with a grain of salt:

I was careful to say that this is a “great intro” to the subject for a reason. Witches! really is only an introduction to the subject matter. Though there’s good information in the book – and it is expounded very well – it ultimately only scratches the surface of that fateful year. The story which Schanzer weaves for us is really quite simple.

Then again, Witches! is targeted for 10-13 year-olds, which is, for better or worse, precisely what it feels like. This simplicity is probably just about right for that age range. The writing style, too, was certainly meant for the pre-teen crowd.

I can’t, per se, hold this simplicity and writing style against the book, of course. It wasn’t written for me. It was written for kids 20 years younger than me. Trying to look at it from that perspective, I imagine these complaints are probably a wash. Would a pre-teen think this book has lots of good information? – likely, yes. (Also, note that I tried to give the book a numerical rating taking into consideration this viewpoint.)

I bring up these complaints, though, to point out two things:

First, I’m jealous these wondrous woodblocks are to be found in a children’s book, rather than in an “adult” book on the matter. Clearly we need to have more illustrated "adult" books.

Second, I’m actually a big fan of children’s books, many of which seem to transcend ages and become tales in which anyone and everyone can find joy and inspiration. Unlike such timeless children’s books, though, Witches! has an “upper age limit,” so to speak.

If you’re looking for recommendations on good horror books, I would say that Witches! has the potential to be one of them. It’s a deeply troubling story presented in a wondrously eerie package. And, unlike most other horror you’re likely to encounter this Halloween season, Witches! has the added bonus of being both educational and Absolutely True. I would almost say that these things alone make it worth adding to your reading list – merely keep in mind that you may find the depth of information and the writing style a bit beneath your age (depending on how old you are).