The Raven Boys

 

by Maggie Stiefvater, adapted by Stephanie Williams, illustrated by Sas Milledge

In the town of Henrietta, a private school for boys is known for the wealth and privilege of its students, who are called the Raven Boys.

Blue Sargent is a local teen girl who knows all about the reputation of the boys who attend the school, Aglionby. She doesn't set out to defy her mother's strictures about those boys, but meets a small group of them when they stop in for some food at the diner where Blue works part-time. They get off on the wrong foot with Blue but she finds one of the boys' journal that they accidentally left behind. Snooping, she discovers that the boys are trying to locate in or near the town of Henrietta, something called ley lines which are supposed to be conduits of magical energy. One of the boys, Gansey, is trying to track down the final resting place of a Welsh rebel, Owain Glendower, who lead an uprising against the British in Wales back in the 1400s. The journal left behind in the diner belongs to Gansey and contains writings about his search which has led him to Henrietta where he expects to find the grave of the rebel near a powerful ancient ley line.

As Blue delves deeper into Gansey's journal, she realizes she knows where this ley line is. It's known locally as Corpse Road and it runs past an old abandoned church. She also realizes that she had a vision while on Corpse Road one night of the boy, Gansey, and that some strange fate awaits him. Blue, who is not psychic, is told by a psychic that the only reason she could see a vision of Gansey was because he was either her 'true love' or because Blue will kill him. Which fits completely because Blue has been warned by various psychics, including her own mother, that if Blue kissed her true love, he would die. 

When Blue gets the journal back to Gansey and his friends Adam, Noah and Ronan, she joins them in their quest to find Glendower.  Mainly because they are interesting teen boys and because, as a non-psychic in a family of psychics, she has always felt left out of the magic. And being with Gansey and his friends enables her to be an active participant in something mystical, instead of just an observer. 

But Gansey is not the only one who wants to track down the ley lines in Henrietta. Two others are trying to find the lines and both of them are dangerous and willing to kill to get what they want.

I enjoyed this graphic novel which is based on a fantasy series by Maggie Stiefvater, The Raven Cycle, of which The Raven Boys is the first book in the series. I have not read the book from which this graphic novel is crafted. 

At times, I was a bit lost though, which is typical of my experience with graphic novels. They lack the details which I need to understand what is going when reading a graphic novel.  But that's just me, I think. Another problem I have with graphic novels is sometimes the artist draws the characters to look too similar to each other and I have trouble telling them apart. But again that's probably just my problem.

One thing that I really appreciated about this book, other than the actual story, is that it is in full color. Very nice!

The Housemaid

 

By Freida McFadden

The Housemaid, Book 1

Millie hopes her new job is also a new start for her, a young woman who has not had the easiest of lives so far. She has been hired as maid to the wealthy Winchester household which consists of Andrew, Nina and their little girl, Cece. 

Starting a new job is always a bit stressful but it's even worse when your boss is as capricious and unpredictable as Nina Winchester turns out to be. At times Nina is reasonable and understanding only to turn around and make crazy accusations against Millie. Eventually Andrew lets Millie know that Nina has been hospitalized for mental problems in the past. And that at one point she tried to drown baby Cece and kill herself with an overdose. 

As Nina becomes even more erratic and unreasonable, Nina finds comfort in Andrew's understanding and gentle arms. She never intended to fall in love with the handsome and wealthy spouse of her employer. Or he with her. In short order, loony Nina is sent packing and Millie finds herself the cherished object of Andrew's affection. 

Or so she thought. Because nothing is as it seems to be in the Winchester household. And everyone is playing a deep game, including the groundskeeper, the closed-mouthed giant from Italy, Enzo.

Overall, I didn't care for this story and I admit I skipped vast quantities of it. Turns out I don't enjoy reading about people treating other people like garbage for no reason. But I will say I greatly enjoyed the conclusion of the story where nearly every guilty party got their just desserts. 

B.C. Strikes Back

 

By Johnny Hart

Another collection of newspaper cartoons by Johnny Hart, copyright 1961 and 1962. These earlier cartoons about the world of B.C. are some of Hart's funniest and most charming, I think. Here are a few from the book to enjoy:

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Betting On You

 

By Lynn Painter

Charley and Bailey met onboard an airplane and Bailey decided Charley was Mr. Nothing and wrote him off. But then they both got jobs at the same place and eventually became friends, of a sort.

Bailey's parents are no longer together and Bailey's mom has a serious boyfriend, Scott, that Bailey finds too intrusive. Charley is in a similar situation except his mom is actually pregnant by her lover. So teenage Charley and Bailey have this in common, along with their jobs at the same place. 

Charley made a bet with Bailey. He claims boys and girls can't be just friends. Bailey maintains that they can be just friends. But of course, these two kids fall for each other. This is a romance, after all. And of course complications occur and the kids break up! But good news! Yay! They get back together! 

This was an OK read if a tad boring. I'm a bit too old for a book like this but I imagine younger people might enjoy it quite a bit. A couple of quotes I found amusing are, first, when Charley describes his response to his mother's boyfriend constantly being at the house: "I say, Dude, why don't you stay at your own house like you aren't a mooching loser?" And when Charley is talking about Bailey's  mom and boyfriend being concerned about Charley and Bailey spending too much time alone together on a group trip to Colorado: "They think we're only friends, but they still need to guarantee—because they're responsible adults—that we're painfully aware that we can't sneak into each other's bed and bang one out in the Rockies." I thought that was funny!

Here a review by Kirkus Reviews.

With A Vengeance

 By Riley Sager

Born into wealth and influence, it all turned to dust when Anna Matheson's father was accused of a heinous and terrible act that resulted in the deaths of many innocent people, including US soldiers on their way to fight in World War II traveling on a train built by Anna's father's company. The train engine was deliberately designed to self-destruct because, according to the accusations, Matheson was a Nazi sympathizer. Supposedly Matheson didn't care that his own son, a soldier, was on that train too.

Matheson never made it to trail to face the accusations because he was stabbed to death in prison. After he was murdered, Anna's mother basically gave up on life and died soon after. Young Anna was alone in the world, stripped of mother, father, brother and of a life of comfort and wealth. She went to stay with her Aunt Retta, who taught Anna that life is pain. But also taught her to stand up to it.

When Aunt Retta died, Anna inherited from her along with a small fortune, a box of documents that proved Matheson was framed by a business rival, Kenneth Wentworth. So Anna comes up with a scheme to bring the guilty parties, of which there are six including Wentworth, to justice. She sends out invitations to a train trip from Pennsylvania to Chicago. Included in each invitation are ominous messages Anna is sure will guarantee the invitees attendance on the train trip. And she is almost correct. Five suspects show up. But the number one guilty party, Kenneth Wentworth, is not there. Instead it's his son, Dante, who intercepted the invitation and took his father's place. Because Dante and Anna used to be a couple but Wentworth put a stop to the relationship and now Dante is hoping for a second chance with Anna.

Anna's plan is confront the suspects with copies of the proof of their guilt and then hand them over to the police when the express train arrives at its only stop in Chicago. Of course, it doesn't quite go the way she intended. First of all, Dante is not his father. Secondly, almost immediately, one of the suspects ends up dead, poisoned, it appears. Third, an uninvited person crashes the party, claiming he got on the wrong train. This person, Reggie Davis, is as welcome as a skunk at a barbecue, and even more unwelcome when he reveals he is actually an FBI agent, placed on board to make sure all the involved parties make it to Chicago alive. And he has already failed at that with the poisoning death of one of them. Before much longer the body count increases again. Anna and Reggie have lost control of the situation and their goal of getting the remaining suspects to Chicago alive is seriously in danger of failure. 

An interesting murder mystery with lots of red herrings and, I think, too many suspects. Also, with Anna being an attractive young woman and with three young single men on board the train, I assumed a romance was going to be part of the story. But, as it turns out, although a couple of advances are made, that never happens. So between the lack of a little romance and the shifting list of suspects, I found the story less than enchanting.

 

Witchcraft For Wayward Girls

 

By Grady Hendrix

Neva (Fern) is a hapless teen girl who fell for a boy and then lost him when she found out she was pregnant. This being in the early 1970s before Roe vs Wade court decision in 1973 that gave females the right to control of their own bodies, her parents placed Neva in a home for Unwed Mothers. For the sake of anonymity, none of the girls staying there used their real names and were given names by the woman who ran the facility, Miss Wellwood. She gave all the girls botanical names and Neva became Fern.

Life in the home was pretty strict and straitlaced. But overall, the girls were treated well. They had to work, maintaining the home, cleaning and doing chores and laundry. And the woman running the place, Miss Wellwood, was religious, so religion was a part of their every day lives, especially as they are viewed by the society of the time as wayward and in need of redemption. The worst thing about the experience was the pressure placed on the girls to give up the babies for adoption, for the girls' and the babies' own good they were repeatedly told. The second worst thing was the home was located in Florida and the building did not have central air conditioning. Only a few of the offices had air conditioning and summer temperatures and humidity were uncomfortable, to say the least. 

But the girls were well taken care of by the onsite doctor who monitored their health and guided them toward optimal outcomes for themselves and their unborn babies. Fern was only fifteen and she may have found the treatments a bit surprising and unpleasant but the treatments were entirely appropriate, if a bit overly strict at times. For example, some of the girls were experiencing higher than normal blood pressure and so salt was limited for all the girls, not just those  affected. 

Every few weeks, a bookmobile would stop by the home and the girls could check out books. The librarian, Miss Parcae, helps Fern with her bladder problem (having to go too frequently) and gives her a slim paperback titled How to Be a Groovy Witch, and she advises Fern to keep it hidden from the adults in charge of the home.

It doesn't take the girls, Fern's roommates and friends, too long to figure out that the book is magical and that the spells in the book actually work. But once they successfully cast a spell that helps one them suffering from really bad morning sickness by casting it onto the doctor who did nothing to help her with the sickness, Miss Parcae tracks them down and explains the book's magic is mostly hidden from them because they are beginners at magic. As they gain more power and knowledge, more information will become available in the book. But that won't happen if the girls don't "renounce God and turn your back on the world of man and pledge eternal loyalty and obedience to me" [Miss Parcae]. Tempted by the power of the magic and looking for some control over their own lives, the girls agree and perform a ceremony led by Parcae who pricks their thumbs and presses each bloody thumb to a page in the magic book. The four girls, including Fern, do this willingly and thus their coven is formed and their oath to Parcae is enacted. Which was probably a stupid thing to do and shows why contracts signed by children are, for the most part, not binding.

The main reason the girls got involved in this magic business is because one of them, Holly, is only fourteen and destined to end up back at home and under the control of the man who abused her and got her pregnant. This man intends to adopt Holly's baby who will become his next victim. Although Holly spoke up about the abuse, no one believes her because he is pastor of a church. She even told the social worker at the Home about it and was ignored. The girls see magic as the only way to keep Holly and her baby safe from being sent back to her abuser. However, as the days pass, one of the girls get cold feet about their oath to Parcae and refuses to help when the other three attempt to call up a storm they hope will cover Holly's tracks when she runs away from the home to join Parcae's coven. But you know what they say about the best laid plans.

This was an interesting book and I enjoyed reading it. However, I was expecting a more lighthearted book about pregnant teens and witchcraft and this was not that book. It is quite serious in tone. At the end of the book, Neva finds the phone number of the woman who was her baby and calls her. The woman asks, "You're the one who gave me away?" Neva replies, "No" I say, and my voice is louder now because you have to understand. "No, I didn't give you away. I didn't give you away, my baby. I never gave you away. You were taken." Beautiful way to end the story!

Den of Vipers

 

By K.A. Knight

Story of a criminal gang in a large city in what, given by the language used, is the United Kingdom.

Everyone in this story is perverse, sadistic and masochistic. Basically, they all have survived various forms of abuse, both physical and psychological. 

It starts with a young woman, Roxy, who runs a dive bar. Her father owes money to the Vipers, the criminal gang, and to pay it, he gives Roxy to the gangsters. 

Naturally Roxy does not go along with this idea willingly and she puts up a fight, but she ends up under the control of the gang, the leaders of which are four men who consider themselves brothers although only two of them are actual brothers. All four men have taken the last name of Viper and all four are lunatics. 

Once Roxy figures out that she cannot escape, she lets herself become their sex doll. Oh, they have lots of sex. Turns out Roxy is insatiable and kinky and doesn't mind being hurt because she gets off on it. The four men are constantly horny and they enjoy hurting people and they have no qualms indulging Roxy sexual quirks. 

And there is a gang war with the Triad who are trying to take over the Viper gang's businesses. So the war starts and people get brutally murdered and there is also lots of painful sex, lots of gruesome torture and blood spilled and people just acting really icky, all within the thin structure of gang war. Roxy and the Vipers fall in love and Roxy joins the gang, screwing and killing her way through the story in a way that the gangsters find irresistible. 

If you enjoy reading about graphic sex and torture and murder with very little plot to interfere with the sex and gore, then you will love this novel. It was overloaded with it and the plot was paper thin. Everything in it was overblown and exaggerated and so extreme as to almost be a parody of itself. At one point Roxy is being tortured by the enemy gang and is bound to a chair. Left alone, she manages to escape by rocking the chair until it falls over and shatters: "The chair starts to wobble, rocking with me, the creak loud in the room, but it's drowned out by the fight going on. I swing harder, and with a yelp, the chair falls to the side. Crashing to the floor, I groan as I bang my head, but the chair explodes. I roll on to my back and moan." I guess the gangsters messed up when they used a balsawood chair instead of a standard cheap metal folding chair. I'm surprised it didn't collapse by her just being sat upon it.

Anyway, this is not exactly a work of art, and besides having very little plot, it was much longer than it needed to be. The paperback version I had was about 450 pages long. It actually had the kind of shallow plot typically associated with porno movies. I wonder if the author watches a lot of pornos. I would guess they do.