Whispers From the Dead (1989)

By: Joan Lowery Nixon

Genre: Young Adult, Mystery, Suspense, Thriller

After a near-death experience due to an accident while out swimming with friends, Sarah Darnell has contracted a serious fear of the water and a connection to the spirit world. When her father gets a promotion, Sarah’s family is uprooted from their Missouri home and moved to a beautiful house in Houston, Texas. Almost immediately Sarah has a bad feeling about the home and soon enough she begins having visions and hearing cries of “¡Ayúdame!” late at night. It soon becomes clear that someone is reaching out to Sarah from the grave and she must help this spirit before she ends up meeting a similar fate.  

As someone who has read several of Ms. Nixon’s mysteries over the years, I was relatively disappointed in this one. The story itself was interesting – it’s a twist on the “we got a great deal on this murder house” trope, in that the family purchasing the house was unaware of the horrific events that occurred within the walls. Apparently the fact that a murder took place on the premises is not something a realtor is required to disclose – or at least it wasn’t in Texas in the 1980s. That’s always fun.

Sarah soon befriends her chubby, bubbly neighbor Dee Dee and becomes acquainted with Eric, a teenage boy that lives down the street. While Dee Dee is sweet and naïve, Eric is a douche right out the gate. He calls Dee Dee “Chubby” like it’s her name and criticizes Sarah for being too tall for him. He does, however, introduce her to the love interest of the story, Tony – a guy who is handsome and charming, but also has that bad boy edge. Sarah is immediately smitten and ignores any and all red flag behavior because “he’s so cute, though!”

Both Eric and Tony are friends of Adam Holt, the boy who used to live in Sarah’s house – a boy who is believed to have murdered a pizza delivery girl in the foyer of the home but released on a technicality. A boy who was also accused of sexually assaulting a classmate – but people don’t believe that happened because she “has a reputation.” (Yay, the nasty belief that someone who is sexually promiscuous cannot be sexually assaulted. 

Promiscuous people still pick and choose who they get involved with and still have the right to say no to anyone who they don’t want to be with. Also, if she’s owned up to her easy reputation, why would she lie about being with Adam?) Knowing that his friends stuck by him through the sexual assault accusations and murder charges is enough for me to say, “throw everyone in the damn trash,” but Sarah continues to hang out with Dee Dee and Tony.

From the details of her visions and evidence she finds within her home, Sarah realizes someone other than the pizza girl was likely murdered there and she is determined to solve the mystery so the young woman’s spirit can finally rest.

Sadly, Sarah is not the brightest when it comes to detective work and even more oblivious to potential dangers around her. She trusts people far too easily, even when it’s clear the spirit she’s communicating with is trying to warn her away from someone very specific. She gives away exactly how much she knows when fishing for information from people who very easily could be the murderer. She only tells one person where she hides the evidence of a second murder victim and then her house is broken into, the only thing stolen is said evidence. When she discusses the fact that a therapist told her the only way to stop the visions is to face her fears and get back in the water, a certain someone is very insistent on helping her get over her phobia, just the two of them alone at a very secluded pond. Absolutely no ill intentions there, nope.

Source

It’s pretty obvious who the killer is early on and the “twist” (or, rather, how Sarah figures out who it is) feels shoe-horned in within the second to last chapter. After this wakeup call she does get her wits about her and is able to come up with a strategy to bring the killer to justice. This includes outsmarting them in the final act.

The strongest element of the story was not the whodunit or the protagonist, but the spirit herself. The mystery around who she was and what really happened to her was the most intriguing. I also really liked the commentary on how the upper middleclass suburbanites viewed undocumented immigrants (cheap labor, easy to exploit, disposable). They too could live like the rich elite and have servants. These immigrants were also seen as easy victims – they can’t tell anyone if they’re being abused because they could risk deportation and many have no one that would miss them if they disappeared altogether. The excerpt at the beginning of the novel includes the spirit speaking Spanish so I was clued in pretty quickly that the victim was Hispanic and likely an undocumented immigrant once I noticed the trend of Latina maids in Sarah’s neighborhood. 

Oh my God! Exploitation of desperate poor people is so fetch! (Source)

This book is a product of its time, however, and does refer to these individuals as “illegal immigrants” or simply “illegals,” and while it’s not pleasant to read, it does help the reader see how this community views the folks they employ.

There are also some suspenseful sequences. I did worry for Sarah when she was alone in her house and realized there was an intruder, leading to her being trapped in a bathroom with them trying to break down the door. Also, despite seeing it coming, the pond sequence was also quite tense (because of course she went, the fool!). I felt her panic as she was pulled toward the water – and this was just from her water phobia, she had no idea her companion had nefarious plans for her.

I'm not a fan of Sarah’s mother. She’s tries to guilt Sarah into not having the visions because Sarah’s pain “hurts her mother and father.” Like Sarah wants to have this connection to the spirit world? Gee, Honey, have you tried NOT being psychic?

Sarah: 

Source

Her Mom: “Have you thought about how this affects ME?!”

Her Mom is also the one who encourages her to go to the pond with the aforementioned insistent individual. Maybe I was spoiled by having a mother who could easily read people but there is no way she would have let me go on such an excursion. Especially if I had a friend that worked as a life guard and access to the local pool like Sarah does.

I feel this is one of Ms. Nixon’s weaker works – the story is still interesting and I liked the social commentary, but normally the killer isn’t as easy to figure out and the protagonist is usually a lot smarter. It’s like she meets a boy she’s attracted to and her brain oozes out her damn ears. I did want to find out what happened to the spirit and I did care enough about Sarah to worry when she was in danger, but overall this was a slightly disappointing revisit to a favorite author from my childhood.

6/10

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** Credit to the Creators of all images and gifs used in this blog entry. I've sourced the ones I could but some have been sitting on my computer for a long time. If you see an image without a source and know/are the content creator, please comment below so I can credit accordingly. 

Twisted Summer (1996)

By: Willo Davis Roberts

Genre: Mid-Grade / Young Adult, Mystery, Thriller

Every summer Cici’s extended family gathers at her grandparents’ “cottage” (more like mansion) at Crystal Lake for a few weeks of fun and relaxation. Her immediate family has only ever missed one summer at the lake, and as CiCi learns when she arrives for her current visit, she missed a lot more than some fun in the sun. The previous summer a girl was murdered and her crush's older brother was convicted of the crime. After speaking with her crush and his mother, Cici is convinced the real killer is still out there and decides to investigate the murder on her own. As the clues start to add up, Cici is shocked to find a member of her own family may be the true guilty party.

I was disappointed by this book. I’ve been on a big nostalgia reading kick these past few months, digging out books from authors I adored in childhood and my teen years. As a kid I devoured Willo Davis Roberts’s books, even checking Babysitting is a Dangerous Job and The Absolutely True Story … How I Visited Yellowstone Park with the Terrible Rupes out from my local library numerous times. (They were the only two books by this author my library had.) Now I’m afraid to revisit them as I may not like what I find upon a reread. Or, it could simply be that Roberts is better at writing stories that involve robbery and kidnapping than murder mysteries. I’ll save that determination for another day.

I did like the basic premise of the story – Cici has grown up with both the murdered girl and the boy wrongly convicted of the crime; it’s obvious that would catch her interest. The reason why she chooses to investigate the murder, however, is not because she was close to the victim or the alleged killer, or even that she likes to solve mysteries and is intrigued by this case – it’s because she wants to prove “she’s a big kid now” to her crush and win his romantic affections.

Jack-y, Wow! I'm a Big Kid Now!

Not to say she really does much in the way of investigating. She makes a list of suspects (that she foolishly leaves out for anyone to find), asks a few questions of the neighboring regular vacationers / locals, and draws a circle on a map to determine towns the victim may have visited in the days leading up to her demise. She doesn’t take the opportunity to look over the crime scene, try to retrace the victim’s steps the night of the murder, or even question anyone’s alibis. It’s just dumb luck when some incriminating evidence falls (literally) into her lap. She’s foolish and puts herself in unnecessary danger, while also not really having any idea what she’s doing at all.

Cici doesn’t really have much of a personality outside of being a naïve, whiney brat and obsessing over her crush, Jack. While on her current stay at the lake, her grandmother has a stroke and subsequently passes away after a few days. Cici acts like this is more of an inconvenience to her summer plans than being upset she lost her grandmother. She whines about going to the hospital to see her, then whines about the Viewing of the Body and even about attending the funeral. She claims it’s because she doesn’t want to remember her grandmother as the feeble woman in a hospital bed or as a corpse – I get that fear and I understand that people grieve in different ways. This could have been explored through a conversation with a parent, aunt, older cousin or friend, but it isn’t and she comes off as a selfish brat. Having lost a grandmother at around the same age as Cici, I would have given anything to see her one last time and wouldn’t have ever thought of skipping the funeral, so her behavior is baffling to me. I even understand the lack of closeness she feels with this particular grandmother, as she seems to be one of many grandchildren. Being a member of a very large family with many cousins, I get that it’s hard to get one-on-one time with your grandparents, but that doesn’t make it hurt any less when they pass on. Suck it up, kiddo.

Cici honestly doesn’t really seem to care about anyone but herself and Jack. Her feelings for him border on obsession. She’s fourteen (though she insists on calling it ‘almost fifteen’) and desperate for any bit of attention seventeen-year-old Jack might give her. While an age gap of two and a half to three years wouldn’t typically bug me, it does here due to the vast difference in maturity between the ages of fourteen and seventeen. He’s got his license and a part time job. He's also thinking about college. She’s barely hit puberty and hasn’t even started high school yet. She’s not ready for the things that he likely is when it comes to romantic relationships. Thankfully, despite her best efforts, their relationship remains mostly platonic, aside from his random comment that she’s “no longer flat chested,” when they’re reunited for the summer. 

Cici whines regularly that he still treats her like a little kid, and yeah, that’s because you’re still acting like one.

CiCi to Jack, Wondering Why He Doesn't See How Mature She Is.

Jack himself is an okay character, but him commenting on her chest almost immediately upon seeing her soured me to him very early on. He also talks negatively about Zoe, the murdered girl, stating, “There were a couple times before that I felt like smacking Zoe’s face – or her butt – but the way we were brought up, a guy doesn’t hit a girl, even if she deserves it.” (pg. 118) Um, maybe your Mama should have taught you that violence is rarely the answer? We don’t hit people simply because they are annoying, Jack! Also, spanking? As this is supposed to be a book for preteens, I’m assuming we’re not delving into the sexual connotations, so is Jack thinking himself Zoe’s disciplinarian? She’s your peer, bro, that’s not your job.

Aside from the aforementioned gross, misogynistic comments, Jack does prove himself a valuable ally to Cici. In fact, I doubt she would have figured anything out without him, really, since he’s the one that gathers the truly damning evidence. He’s also fiercely protective of her, which comes in handy when she does something stupid.

Zoe, poor Zoe, not only was she murdered but her name has been dragged through the mud ever since her death (and I’m assuming it was before as well). While it sounds like Zoe wasn’t the best person, she didn’t deserve what happened to her, nor the way everyone talked about her in the aftermath. Only one person mentioned her actual crimes of petty theft (stealing people’s money, rifling through purses, “borrowing” a neighbor’s vehicle), the rest focus on what a flirt she was. Numerous people refer to Zoe as “throwing herself at anything in pants” and a tease, believing she “got herself killed” by leading Brody (the alleged killer) on only to reject his sexual advances. Cici disagrees with that, not on the grounds of defending Zoe, but because “he wouldn’t have had to force her” or “she wouldn’t have said no.” So, either she was killed for being a tease or she wouldn’t have been killed for that reason because she’s actually a slut? Either way, this theory disparages Zoe long after her death. I thought we weren’t supposed to speak ill of the dead? 

We don’t slut shame or victim blame in this house. Also, “sluts” can and do have the ability and autonomy to say no. She could have hooked up with every guy at the lake that summer and still rejected her killer because it’s her body and her right to say who can and can’t touch her.

The adults thought her promiscuous, lacking proper discipline (it wasn’t just Jack that mentioned wanting to spank her), inappropriately dressed, and headed down a bad path. The kids and young adults thought she was nothing more than a pest. Only two middle aged women, Lina and Ellen, seem to have some empathy for Zoe – acknowledging she might be acting out for attention, especially from males, as her father is never around. So, Daddy Issues – got it. 

Maybe Zoe would have benefitted from this interaction.

They believed she would use her body and her looks to catch male interest but was too naïve regarding what would be expected of her once she got it. However, this just circles back to the theory she was killed for being a tease and that’s her fault because “men don’t handle rejection well.”

Cici is no less naïve in her dismissal of the “killed for being a tease” theory. Aside from assuming Zoe would let just anyone have their way with her; Cici also finds it unlikely a guy would kill a girl for rejecting him. 

Ah, the pre-Elliot Roger days, where this was likely still happening but we didn’t hear about it as much because the internet hadn’t really taken hold yet. It happens all the time, so much so that there’s a famous quote regarding this:

“Men are afraid women will laugh at them.
Women are afraid men will kill them.”
~ Margaret Atwood

Oh to be a fourteen-year-old in the early to mid - 1990s, so blissfully sheltered from the horrors of the world. Zoe very well could have been killed for this reason, but that’s due to the killer’s rage and sense of entitlement, not her telling him no.

Another theory was that Zoe flirted with the wrong guy and his significant other felt threatened enough to kill the competition. No mention of how wrong it would be for some of these guys (ex: the grown-ass men) to return her advances – straight to “that hussy’s trying to steal my man!” If a sixteen-year-old girl is that much of a threat to your relationship, just leave him honey. Either he’s tempted to cheat / already a cheater or you have some serious trust issues and neither makes for a healthy relationship. Also, if he’s a grown man encouraging her antics, he needs to be kept away from the underage girls.

The mystery itself is interesting – the more the characters dragged the victim, the more I wanted justice for her. As this is a book for tweens, the mystery isn’t very complex, which is fine. I did figure out the twist three chapters from the end, again no big deal in a book made for a young age group. However, the ending itself was fairly anticlimactic, leading to an underwhelming resolution.

The writing could have used more editing. There are a few points where Cici’s cousin Ginny is referred to as Ginger instead, but the text never clarifies if Ginny is a nickname for Ginger or if this was a mistake that slipped into publication.

The line “she threw herself at everything in pants” is repeatedly used and it becomes redundant very quickly. As the saying is only supposed to refer to males it seems outdated and nonsensical in an era where all sexes wear pants and Zoe was only targeting one.

The dialogue is often rambling – sometimes for the sake of exposition and sometimes just going off on something unrelated to the conversation that is never referenced again. Many of the characters barely exist in the story and most are indistinguishable from the others when they speak. No one is particularly well developed and there are times where it is obvious a decision was made in order to move the story along, even if it doesn’t make sense for the character. For instance, when Cici has a chance to climb out a window and escape the killer while they’re distracted, she chooses not to in order to stay and listen to them monologue so she can get all the details. 

What good is that going to do you if you’re dead? Is your ghost going to testify against them in court?

Lastly, a silly thing that I happened to notice and find amusing because I’m a horror movie nerd: Early on in the story Cici states, “There couldn’t have been a murder at Crystal Lake.” 

Jason Voorhees begs to differ ...

Side note: I know Crystal Lake, Michigan is a real place, but I couldn't let that slide without a Friday the 13th reference. 

I’ve dragged this book pretty hard, but it wasn’t terrible – I just didn’t really like it either. I don’t think I even would have liked it at the age it was aimed towards and it definitely hasn’t aged well enough for kids in that age bracket to embrace it today. It was an okay mystery and did hold my interest but the whiney heroine, her obsession with a questionable dude, the minimal investigation, the lackluster climax and the slut shaming / victim blaming of Zoe brought it down for me.

5/10

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SCREAM #3: Wanted to Rent (1993)

 

By: Jessica Pierce (AKA: J. M. Morgan, Morgan Fields & Jill Morgan)

Genre: Young Adult, Horror, Thriller, Suspense

Things are tight for the Baker family. Having recently divorced, Laura is trying to make ends meet on her single income as a librarian. To bring in some extra funds she decides to rent out a room in the house to a handsome older seminary student named Ethan Palmer. Much to her sixteen-year-old daughter, Christy’s dismay, Ethan is given her room, forcing her to bunk with her ten-year-old sister, Charlotte. While the rent Ethan pays is helpful, there is something about him that unsettles Christy, making her feel unsafe in her own home. In order to protect her family, Christy decides to investigate Ethan and determine whether he is the creep she thinks he is.

The SCREAM series, like Point Horror, is a collection of young adult horror/thriller novels from the early 1990s that have no connection to one another. The novels are contributed by various young adult authors and each one can be read as a standalone story. As there is no reason to read them in any sort of order, I picked this one as the plot sounded the most interesting.

The story definitely feels heavily inspired by the 1987 film The Stepfather mixed with the “Unhinged House Guest/Roommate” trope popular in the late 1980s and early 1990s so it doesn’t exactly tread new ground. While it is fairly predictable, the characters are well rounded and the story still manages to retain tension and suspense.

We know from the book’s summary and the blurb at the beginning of the novel that Ethan definitely is dangerous, so it’s a matter of seeing how quickly the family he’s staying with realizes this and what happens to them once they do. Christy is the only one in the house that picks up on Ethan’s weird behavior but can’t get anyone with authority to listen to her suspicions. She has to go into Nancy Drew mode if she has any hope of finding peace again.

I really liked Christy. For an early ‘90s YA horror heroine she’s developed pretty well. She makes no effort to hide that she’s struggling with her parents’ divorce or her anger at having to give up her bedroom, both of which are used against her frequently when she raises her concerns about Ethan. However, she is fairly cognizant of her emotions for a sixteen-year-old girl, and often doubts her own instincts for the same reasons. Despite her doubts she pushes forward in her investigation of Ethan because she cannot ignore the nagging feeling that something is wrong and she feels the need to protect her family however she can. She even proves herself to be a bit of a badass in the end, so take that, Ethan!

Thankfully Christy isn’t entirely alone in her probe into the real Ethan Palmer. Her two best friends Keith and Lisa are by her side most of the way. Despite a small fight between Lisa and Christy about 75% into the story, both friendships are strong and these two supply Christy with the support she needs to take action. Lisa always makes time for Christy, even if she’s about to run out the door for a date or didn’t get to sleep until 2:30 AM, but Christy needs her at 6:00 AM. She does get frustrated that the Ethan debacle seems to be taking over Christy’s life and misses her friend, which is why they fight, but in the end they make up as best friends always do. Keith treads the line between supportive friend and possible love interest, but nothing really develops between him and Christy aside from some minor, shy flirting. While Lisa even begins to doubt Christy at one point, Keith never does, and that is something that works in Christy’s favor many times throughout the course of the novel. (Side note, I’m still tagging this as a healthy love interest as there is something there, just not acted upon within the context of the story. Also, we love a male friend side-character that is a genuine, good person without an overt romance plot.)

The character that caused me the most rage aside from Ethan himself (oh, we’ll get to him!) is Laura, Christy’s mother. This whole thing could have been avoided if she wasn’t so dense. I get that money was very tight, but what single woman invites a strange man into her home almost immediately with two young daughters in the house? There didn’t seem to even be twenty four hours between Laura talking to Ethan about the room and him moving in. Did she even check his references? Also, who the hell were his references since no one seems to know him? (I’m picturing Ethan with multiple phone hook ups ala Bobby Singer in Supernatural, answering each one pretending to be someone else.)

Just Replace the Government Agency Names with "References"

I know that Laura is also reeling from the divorce and having her husband run off with another woman and that she was super vulnerable, making it incredibly easy for a smooth talking sociopath to slither into her good graces. However, if your teenage daughter is telling you that the boarder creeps her out and has come into her room at night, maybe listen to her concerns, and not, I don’t know, start dating the dude? Yes he’s attractive and makes you feel wanted or “flattered” as you call it, but your daughter is visibly terrified of the man.

“I think you’d like something to be weird about him. You’re looking for trouble where there isn’t any.” (p. 33)

“It’s not that I doubt you’re telling me the truth, at least what you think is the truth … Only it was very late. You were sleepy … You were asleep. The fire engines woke you. Maybe, if you were dreaming then, you were dreaming earlier.” (p. 59)

“… He’s been very understanding about the way you’ve been acting since he’s been with us. You’ve made it pretty miserable for him, Christy.”
“Mom, he scares me!”
“I’m sorry about that, I really am. I wish things could be the way they used to be when your father and I were together, but I can’t make that happen. I know our divorce has been hard on you. Things have changed in your life. I wish I could make them better. Christy, you love your father, I understand. But, you have to understand something. Our financial situation isn’t the same as it used to be. We need the money we get from renting the room. Without it we can’t afford to live here.” (p. 68)

You can’t rent the room to anyone else?

“He’d like to be friends with you too. I know you love your dad. No one’s trying to change that. It’s just … Ethan wants to be someone special in our family. He’s told me how important we’ve become to him. I’d like it if you could give him a chance. Try a little harder to be his friend, Christy.”
“I don’t need him as a friend.”
“Then, do it for me. Maybe I need him. Maybe I don’t want to be alone the rest of my life. Your dad has his girlfriend. Be fair. Maybe I need someone for me.” (p. 89)

Ugh, the guilt trip and the gaslighting. No one said you couldn’t date, Laura! Just maybe don’t date the guy that scares your teenage daughter? I don’t know, just a thought.

I don’t want to victim blame. Laura was in a very emotionally vulnerable state and Ethan is a charming man that preyed upon her. He also rapidly becomes emotionally abusive to her. For that, I am empathetic. However, her teenage daughter has told her multiple times that she’s scared of the man and cited numerous examples, from the way he looks at her to him coming into her room at night to him getting physical with her, and he even admits to doing some of these things. He just finds a way to twist them so Laura sees the events the way he wants her to and she falls for it every time! 

He Literally Corners Christy Like This in Her Room.
But That's Totally Normal, Right Laura?

I’m sorry, nothing you say is going to make me okay with you in my child’s room and especially not if you lay hands on her. If this were my Mom, the guy would be lucky to only be kicked out of the house and not end up six feet under. (Of course, my Mom would never let a strange man into the house in the first place, no matter how hard up for money we were or how attractive and charming he was, but I digress.)

This brings us to the man himself, Ethan Palmer. I hate him so much. He’s undeniably the villain. As aforementioned, the book makes no attempt to hide what he is. He does, for the sake of Laura and Charlotte, but completely drops the mask around Christy most of the time. He blatantly stares at her, calls her ‘special,’ seems aware of her every move in the house, yells at and manhandles her when he gets her alone, listens in on her phone calls, etc. It’s obvious he gets a sadistic pleasure out of playing with Christy’s head and turning her family against her. He’s cocky, thinking that because he has Laura wrapped around his finger there’s nothing Christy can do to stop him. Oh, but sir, you’re in a Young Adult horror novel and Christy is the heroine. You should know better than to underestimate her.

Christy's About to Channel Her Inner Buffy Summers

The plot itself, though predictable, flowed well and kept me reading to find out what happened next. I often had an idea what Ethan would do, but Christy’s movements occasionally surprised me. She was smart and she was aided by good friends who would help her brainstorm what to do. She makes other people aware of her current situation – her mother might not take her seriously, but other people suspect she might be onto something. Her investigation into Ethan was more interesting than his increasingly erratic behavior, but seeing how the two combined and played out was entertaining.

It was easy to get emotionally invested in this one as I cared about Christy and I was so frustrated for her. Having the advantage the book’s synopsis and blurb provided, I knew Christy was onto something and wanted her to succeed in protecting her family from Ethan. It’s a product of its time for sure, and a bit derivative of popular horror and thriller films of the era, but I still enjoyed this quick little read.

7/10

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