Feb 5 - Feb 17, 2011

Dust
Joan Frances Turner
Horror
Published September 2010
474 pages

2/10

    In the near future, zombies, although still terrifying, have become a commonality.  However, where our story begins, the Zombie Plague is evolving into an epidemic of far greater consequence, for us and for them.  And did I mention, the zombies are emo?  Now THAT'S a terrifying plague of the undead!
    Like a Libertine college student with a successful career ahead of her and a dopey boyfriend who can't work a condom, every brain cell was screaming "ABORT!  ABORT!" before I was halfway through this story, it was so dull and insipid.  But, like a Catholic schoolgirl with overbearing parents and a boyfriend who really REALLY loves her, I let my moral complex get the best of me and I carried on until the bitter end. 
    I haven't NOT finished a book since I was 16 (it was Kushiel's Dart - long book, longer story).  Honestly though, this has to be the most disappointing zombie book I've ever read.  I mean, our author graduated from BROWN and HARVARD LAW.  Are they letting just anyone in, now?  Because this book had to be written by the saddest, most lonely emo EVER.  She made ZOMBIES EMO.  All our undead characters did was stand about mournfully or indignantly (or indignantly mournful) and talk about their feelings and the shitty situations that suck for them.  "I'm so angry the new leader killed the old leader."  "I miss being alive, and my family; if only I could see them again..."  "One of our zombie companions died; lets bury him and have a funeral and cry about it."  "Eating people just feels so wrong!" ad nauseam.  You know what zombies should be talking about?  BRRRAAAAIIIIIIIIIIII-IIIIIIIINNNNNNSSSS. 
    The only emotional plot line of any interest was the zombie romance (for the obvious reasons, of course; i.e. zombie fetuses) and it didn't even pan out (and don't get me started on how much that unexpected exit disappointed me). 
    The book only started to pick up three quarters of the way through with the somewhat original storyline arc, but by then it was too little, too late for an attempted redemption. 
    This was probably the saddest excuse for a zombie novel I've ever read.  You could easily replace any word related to the word "zombie" with "emo" and any reference to flesh eating with drinking black coffee and smoking cloves and menthols.  GOD, this book was lame.

Nov 7 - Nov 13, 2010

Scream Queen
Edo Van Belkom
Horror
Published April 2003
301 pages

2/10

A group of sexy adults must stay in a haunted house overnight for a chance to win the lead role in a shitty B-movie, all while being filmed for a reality TV show.
  First off, I expected a mad doctor.  The blurb on the back expressly stated that there would be an insane member of the healing class.  There was NONE.  Naught.  Niet.  Nada.  Not even an allusion to a guy who practiced back-alley taxidermy.
Secondly, the book was written terribly, technically and metaphorically.  The punctuation was horrific, there were missing words, and the sentences were awkwardly worded and clunky.  Gems like, "Jody often spent afternoons gazing out at the setting sun and contemplating what the sun meant to her family and friends... 'What are you thinking?  Are you nervous?  Scared?'... Jody shrugged.  'Just looking at the sun...' "  Nobody just looks at the sun, unless they want to go blind.  It's not something one picks up as a hobby, to while away the time.  The anecdote did not conclude with, "Then Jody's retinas were permanently damaged and she was eliminated from the contest because TV will never seriously use anyone who's handicapped, only as a short lived gimmick."  Another sweet piece I enjoyed was, "There were still sounds coming from various parts of the house, but she'd gotten used to them by now.  What was the old saying?  'Sticks and stones can break my bones but names will never hurt me.'  Well, that was what the noises were to her now... names."  Jody, noises are not names.  If we could vocalize the sound of a door slowly creaking shut or mysterious heavy footsteps, there would be a lot more variety on our birth certificates.  Therefore I find the comparison laughably asinine.
  On top of all these heinous literary crimes, it took more than a hundred pages before any real action even started.  No three hundred page cheesy horror novel requires one hundred plus pages of set-up.  The reading was slow as hell until until the characters actually got into the house (which is what the whole damn story is supposed to be about).  However, once they finally got in there, there was enough gore and stiff nipples  to keep things moving along nicely, and I zipped through the rest of the book, fairly engrossed.
  The culmination was a complete cop-out.  I was disappointed not once, but twice.
Altogether, it was a pretty bad book, but I certainly wasn't expecting much once I realized that the person who wrote the back cover synopsis hadn't even bothered to read the damned thing.