Fear Street Read-Along: First Date

What a killer way to put a spin on the [first] date from hell experience us lucky few got to partake in in high school.  I should back pedal a bit and state that I was not actually one of those lucky few I just mentioned.  High school and dating were polar opposite topics from one another.  First I had to figure out whether the person I was interested in was available (and I mean "available" beyond simply dating another).  Next I had to figure out how to take ownership of that interest--should it exist--to propose a date.  All this done under secrecy of course.  Needless to say, I never got to the ownership portion because trying to figure out whether a person was interested in me took the energy of a Hercule Poirot investigation to find a conclusion.  And said conclusion was always one of complete and utter disappointment.  Therefore, I stuck with my books as a general rule.  First Date by R. L. Stine being one of them.  No, actually, I wasn’t even thinking about dating sometime in middle school when I first read it.  

So here I am re-reading the book and my dating game hasn’t grown by anything other than a centimeter.  But that’s neither here nor there at the moment.  Staying on topic, I picked up and re-read First Date as a Booktube Read-Along orchestrated by me and another Booktuber named thefictionfairy.  I drew the book out randomly, sticking my hand in the light blue tub that I sadly keep all of my 52-Plus-Some Fear Street books today.  I need a bookshelf, naturally.  Nevertheless, First Date was what I drew out.  I frowned in a curious manner, realizing that it seemed almost coincidental that I picked this book up blindly and could not remember a single incident that took place between its 165 pages.  Like I said, it’s been years.  I stopped reading/collecting Fear Street at the end of ‘97, so it had to have been at least seventeen years since I read it.  And while I can easily pick up the majority of Fear Street titles and recall their stories, this one I couldn’t.  This led me to the realization that this might’ve been one that I read only once back in the day.  Fast-forward to 2014 and you can consider me pleased to have spent my morning reliving the nostalgia created by venturing back into an R. L. Stine thriller.  Honestly, it was like slipping into an old pair of shoes, but with a fresh pair of eyes. 

Like many of Stine’s Fear Street books, the plot to First Date is simple--as well as the writing.  Fifteen-year-old Chelsea Richards is the new girl at Shadyside High, and she also comes across as terribly unself-confident.  Seen as shy, and often self-serving nasty jabs at her weight, Chelsea is quiet and lonely; however, she has created one friend, Nina, at her new school.  It doesn’t help that Chelsea’s one friend often (but not always) disregards Chelsea's personal concerns to relish her own, particularly in the form of her turbulent relationship with her boyfriend Doug.  This bit of aloof behavior from her friend only stirs further insecurities in Chelsea.  Additionally, so does to the un-ignorable fact that Nina has a boyfriend, as opposed to Chelsea's boyfriend-less reality.  Nevertheless, high school life gets a little more interesting when Chelsea encounters a new boy named Will, who appears equally shy as her.  In chorus to the plot, a boy who goes by the name Spark converse with the shy Chelsea while she‘s on the clock at her father‘s restaurant.  Suddenly Chelsea has two guys coming for her attention.  The problem is that one of them is a neurotic murderer on the lam!

First Date was probably R. L. Stine lite, at least in my estimation.  I can recall a few gorier books where some scenes were to wild to forget.  Remember the wheelchair girl who stabbed her friend with an ice skating blade in Broken Hearts?  Or Holly strangled with her own scarf in What Holly Heard?  And let us not even forget to mention the characters that stick with you.  Of course my favorite is Corky from his cheerleader series, but also Emily from The Stepsister.  Not to mention the rich, snobby Reva Dalby from the Silent Night trilogy and Honey from Best Friend.  In any regard, the death count and memorable characters in First Date are limited, but Stine provided a strong peek into the killer’s psychology as well as that of Chelsea’s.

I can never decide which do I like most between Stine’s murder mysteries and paranormal style books.  Actually, that’s not even a legit question.  I love them all.  Well, there are a handful of Fear Street books I didn’t to much care for and one that I never managed through.  Nevertheless, what I will say is that Stine is certainly the numero uno author on my list of writing influences.  And that was evident as I read First Date.  It brought me back to days in school where I was happy for in-house suspension because I could sit at a desk all day--for a whole exciting week--writing stories similar to his.  Many of those stories I still have, both a combination of murder mystery and paranormal stories.  He is responsible for my love of the mystery genre and is probably a solid example of urban fantasy and the YA fiction of today.  Per your taste, of course.

Now I want to stick my hand in that big blue tub and pull out another one.

Did you grow up with reading R. L. Stine--Goosebumps or Fear Street?  What is your fondest memory engaging with this numerous catalog of middle grade to teen thrillers?

"Innocent Blood" by P. D. James ~ The Spoiler Edition

Having the desire to read this book for years, it did not turn out nowhere near how I expected it to.  In both a good and bad way.  So I shall warn you NOW!  I will probably spoil this entire book right here… right now!

Excuse me for stating this, but this book was on some twisted shit, and I’m not even going to attempt to go for P. J. James for this one.  I’ve read a few of her books and am slightly familiar with her psychology-thriller template.  However, Innocent Blood just had me looking sick and crazy in the end.  Okay, I’ll reframe and state that it wasn’t as radically rendering as I’m crying out to believe.  It’s not something that I won’t get over in a couple of days, to be fair.  And I’m certainly interested in reading another of her books.  Nevertheless, I dedicate this blog post to spilling a little on the summary of the book, and answering the Reading Group Guide questions that are present in the back of the book.  I thought this would be a much more interesting way of speaking about the complexities of Innocent Blood.  For me to present and answer those questions, I would have to give away parts of the book.  So be warned now!

Here we go, a condense (hopefully) summary.  First, the story takes place in Britain.  It begins with the adopted Philippa Palfrey introducing herself to a social worker.  Armed with her passport and drivers’ license, eighteen-year-old Philippa is prepared to employee the Children Act of 1975 to gather information regarding her birth parents.  In Philippa’s circumstance the passing of the Children Act of 1975 grants her further documentation of her adoption at eight-years-old; though, at one point, those documents were listed under confidential.  The social worker makes a slight show of hesitation, hinting more or less that Philippa might not like what she finds.  Naturally, Philippa isn’t discouraged.  She was adopted into a well-off family (Maurice and Hilda Palfrey), and coated with a certain level of prestige, is determined to have things her way.  Besides, she’s never felt love within her adopted family, and driven by her dreams, can only open her arms to the possibility of finding love through her biological parents.  Love in the form of identity.

Leaving the social worker’s office, Philippa is encouraged to find her birth certificate.  That will reveal the names of her biological parents.  She does so, receiving the envelope from the Registrar General soon after her visit to the social worker's office.  The first thing she notice is that she was named Rose Ducton.  The second: the address of her birth parents from the year she was born, 1960.  Philippa keeps this information from her homemaker/juvenile court juror adopted mother, Hilda, as well as from her sociology professor adopted father, Maurice.  In the meantime, Philippa makes personal plans to reach her birth home in Seven Kings, Essex.  After all, her adopted father appears to occupied to care.  A knowingness that Philippa is familiar with.  

Philippa arrives in her birth neighborhood only to find that her original home is presently vacant, yet occupied by another tenant.  Therefore, she goes to speak with the neighbors.  It's here that the news slams into her that her birth father and mother were condemned to prison years ago for the rape and murder of a twelve-year-old named Julie Scase.  Further information reveals that Philippa’s biology father died in prison whereas her mother, Mary Ducton, was coming up on a release.  Neither of the provided information cripples Philippa’s resolve to find her parents, or her mother in this case.  It only reinforces her need for common identity, so she sets forth in seeking out her mother and pulling the woman into her life.  However, before she begins, she confronts her adopted parents on the issue.  They could come up with no explanation concerning Philippa’s parents' crimes, only that it was best that Philippa realize that there was never a good time for them to have shared this information with her.  Also according to them, it wasn’t a good idea for Philippa to seek out her mother.  Nevertheless, her adopted parents do little to stand in her way, reassured that she would find what she’s looking for and return to them.

Philippa uses her adoptive parents' unhinderedness as a means to find the necessary information on her mother’s prison whereabouts.  Once discovered, she requests a visitation, driven by the romantic idea that she can take care of her mother even if she should put her Cambridge dreams on hold to do so.  And that’s what Philippa manages.  Instead of leaving her mother alone to a hostel after her release date, Philippa leases a bodega-like flat (below her is a small grocery store run by a man named Edward) and retrieves her mother for the growing experience.  After her mother’s probation officer comes to solidify the conditions, Philippa and her mother proceed to get jobs at a local diner.  All the while, they are unaware that poor Juliet Scase’s father has been tracking Philippa’s mother’s prison sentence, and subsequent releasing.  Why?  To exact revenge, of course.

Used from Archivia Caltari

It sounds straight forward, but trust me when I say that this novel is anything but straight forward.  Sure, some areas may come across as predictable once you settle into the stream of James’s storytelling, but the psychological aspects will leave you in wonder.  Let me first make it clear that Philippa isn’t the only narrative you follow as the reader.  Thankfully so.  You also follow the neurotic musings of Juliet Scase’s father, Norman.  From his beginnings as a thief, to the lost of his daughter and wife, Mavis.  His character blossoms under some psychological complexities that both harden his resolve for revenge, as well as link his abilities/skills to implement his plan smoothly.  We also get a glimpse into Maurice Palfrey and his wife Hilda Palfrey.  As Philippa’s adoptive parents, James does not let each of their mental intricacies slide.  We know who they are and why they do and live as they do.  Even as some of their most disturbing behaviors come to light, it is not without reason.  And probably one of the most missed, as well as important, narratives lie in the frame narrative (via Mary Ducton’s letter to Philippa) James uses to illustrate the psychology behind Philippa’s mother and her crime.  And as atrocious as it sounds, this piece of framed narrative is where I grew to understand Mary Ducton.  James makes matters clear concerning Mary's emotionless reasoning behind the murder.  In essence, she, herself, was abused as a child and it is terrifying upon its disclosure.

Having only read into James's Cordelia Grey Mysteries, I believe it's time I start packing the dollars to take on her whole catalog of books.  And so should you if you are behind on P.D. James.

Reading Group Questions

1.  When Philippa first learns that her mother was a murderess about to be released from prison, did you expect that her mother would be a threat to Philippa?  Were you surprised to find her a gentle, even sympathetic character?  Where does the suspense in the novel come from?

I absolutely did believe Mary Ducton was going to be a threat to Philippa.  I was sure that she would take full advantage of the clout Philippa managed to gather from the status of Maurice Palfrey.  Additonally, to the extend of his deceased ex-wife, Helena, an earls daughter.  An earl is considered a person of nobility.  

Nonetheless, I was surprised to find Mary to be gentle, but held my breathe in the thought that she was buying time before she made her move.  Now I know, once a killer always a killer.  But there seems to be no sympathy for Mary Ducton by other readers.  She has paid her price (though I thought a life term would be the court's decision), and is now living her life under the social stigma of a child murderer.  Yet, I rooted for Mary once the narrative switched to share her fated letter to Philippa, soon after the two became roommates.  Mary was trying again at life by putting her trust in Philippa.  And when it came to light that Mary gave Philippa away months before the murder of Juliet Scase, James did not relent as she shed a clear light as to why.  I mean, James dug into Mary’s psychology that I couldn't help but feel for her in the end.  I’ve seen reviews where readers claim she got what she deserved, delivered by the awfulness I come to learn that made up Philippa.  Speaking of which, I had to remind myself that Philippa was eighteen--therefore a child as the novel's events unfolded.  I stress that even more when later she goes to an even lower point to find that love she felt her mother failed to give her.  

As far as the suspense in the novel, most of that came from Norman Scase and the thrill as to whether or not he would get away with this murder he has so plotted.

2.  How does Philippa change in the course of the novel?  What does her final encounter with Norman Scase reveal about her growth?  Do you accept as true that "it is only through learning to love that we find identity"?

I believe the last line fully.  Learning to love yourself and those who show you love, but can not always express it, does blend and create an identity.  For someone to show you even a semblance of concern and care is to show you love.  It's just often shown differently.  Philippa couldn't accept the sort of callus, non-spoken love which she recieved from her adoptive parents.  Most of their love manifested in the development of her future, and further success as a respectable woman.  Now, I could point out her adoptive father's disturbing fondness for her, later expressed sexually (though legal), but I won't go there considering I felt like that was a downfall on Philippa's overall development.  

Nevertheless, the fact is that her own biological mother was a murderess, did not want Philippa because of her own troubled childhood baggage/tramua, and came across as "useless" to Philippa's journey for identity.  In doing so, Philippa gave up the battle when she learned the truth; her mother never wanted her, and can not give back that love she should have provided to Philippa as a child.  In turn, Philippa allowed Norman Scase to do as he will to her mother.  Still, poor Mary Ducton had given up on life, as she wasn't able to find her identity because she was unable to love her own child.  Had she learned to love Philippa, Mary may have kept from murdering Juliet--without much thought.  This leading to the trauma they both share, and Mary's eventual suicide.  I'm still upset at the fate of Mary and Philippa, though.

Have you read Innocent Blood or any other P. D. James psychological thriller?  Please share your thoughts or suggestions.  Should I start her Adam Dalgliesh series now?

Rhodes, Voodoo Queen and Lackluster

Jewell Parker Rhodes's voodoo mystery trilogy started out with a celebrated, spirited bang; however, it ended like a teary-eyed Toni Braxton love song.  SAD PANDA INDEED!  I still recall that dazzled-tongue dude (talking about myself here) walking into a used bookstore and happening across the first book in the series, Voodoo Season.  Here he was, between the stacks, holding back a jovial scream as the synopsis read the likes of voodoo, murder mystery, and a woman of color playing as the lead.  Damnit, what more could he ask for?  So let him hear his dreams!

Well, evidently he could have asked for much more.  Hate to say it.

I’ll be first to admit that the first book in the Marie Levant Mystery series wasn’t the best piece of fiction.  To make this quick, it introduced Marie Levant, a Chicago defect who decided to port back to the South where her deceased mother’s roots lie long underneath the stretch of the famed Voodoo Queen, Marie Laveau.  Nevertheless, in doing so, Marie [Levant] becomes a doctor at New Orleans’s Charity Hospital.  This is where she runs across her first murder mystery case in the form of a seemingly dead girl wheeled into the ER.  However, this seemingly dead girl is pregnant and the baby is safely retrieved and later adopted by Marie.  As the police move in, and Marie’s fondness for the child increases, she implements herself in the case.  Marie discovers that the girl was a part of a prostitution ring and her state of zombification was brought by dark voodoo magic.  This investigation awakens Marie's own voodoo power, as well as her sleuthing skills that later go sour as the trilogy continues.

Voodoo Season had its airy moments, where swinging swirls of poetic narrative/dialogue took over the necessity for elaborating details needed to further character development and the mystery plot.  Some pages read like a James Patterson book; sparse on ink.  Nevertheless, it still contained those elements that I loved.  Marie Levant was black.  She is the ancestor of the famed and historically bona fide Voodoo Queen of Louisiana, Marie Laveau.  And while she has an appetite for sex, it doesn’t hinder her from being both an indomitable doctor at New Orleans’s Charity Hospital or an amateur sleuth.  Basically, Marie carried the book just fine for my personal taste.  Along with the other cast.  Though some are questionable, like Charity Hospital’s top dog, Dulac, and his penchant for being drunk on the job.  As well as the handsome Detective Reneaux who guides Marie on her case (or his case).  Topple in the subjects of cryptograms, death gods, ghosts, ancestral tales, and some Creole culture, and you can consider me absorbed.  Then there’s that extra layer where Rhodes demystifies some subjects pertaining to voodoo, or the Vodun religion.  The ending had a cinema exploitative reel to it, but that was actually my favorite part as Marie called on the darker voodoo gods to exact revenge for herself, the be-spelled prostitutes, and someone close to her who didn't survive.

The second book, Yellow Moon, turns its eye a little more toward the paranormal side of Marie's journey.  Citizens over the city of New Orleans are turning up dead, wheeled into Charity Hospital’s morgue in conditions mysteriously close to an immoderate case of exsanguination.  Puncture marks riddle their wrist, leading Marie, and our newly casted detective, Park, to attribute the cause of death to a type of vampiric draining.  Nevertheless, matters gather more interest for Marie as the ghost of these victims begin to haunt her, pushing her to seek their justice.  What Marie and Detective Park don’t anticipate is that an ancient, African vampire spirit called wazimamoto is behind the deaths.  Having a taste of Marie’s essence--or spirit--as the Voodoo Queen of Louisiana, the wazimamoto turns its sights on draining her to end Marie Laveau’s bloodline (can you keep up with the difference between Marie Levant and her ancestor Marie Laveau?).  As it comes to light, Marie realizes that the wazimamoto and her ancestor Marie Laveau are enemies from the past  And it’s this wazimamoto that’ll take several of Marie’s closest friends with it to death before she manages to pull all of her ancestor's powers together to stop it from taking hers.

Writing that short summary kind of made me realize that I liked the mystery of the book a lot more than that dull feeling I felt after finishing the last page.  I wouldn’t say that Yellow Moon was a complete dud, but I will say that it wasn’t as dark or swallowing as I’d anticipated.  Written much the same as the first book, it had that same airy quality of poetic prose/dialogue, however, not nearly as much.  Some events felt like an unnecessary action to the plot, including central characters’ death.  I say this mainly because it’s hard to grieve for characters that you’re expect to, yet have little awareness of them outside of their involvement with the main heroine.  In that respect, many should have survived just as Marie did, to sort of compound the trilogy and keep its character flavor.  In a roundabout way, I kind of want to blame this on how the books were released two to three years apart; Rhodes wasn't looking ahead.  However, the book did establish more of Marie’s inner struggles being a Voodooienne priestess, enough so that those struggles overpowered the hunt for the wazimamoto while exposing nuggets of information on the subject of voodoo.  Nevertheless, Rhodes made up for shuffles of plot verses complex inner monologue by introducing new themes.  Rich, authentic Jazz, African folklore, personal inner demons come manifested, and other cultural concerns were a few.  Quite frankly, Yellow Moon didn’t read like a mystery, which is the backbone of my interest in the series.  Rhodes can throw everything she can at me to tickle my interest--those are a given.  Nonetheless, I strongly, strongly need the careful sleight-of-hand of a mystery and Marie’s ability to think for herself to keep me holding on.  Yellow Moon could easily arrive on the doorstep of urban fantasy.

And that’s where my main draw with the last book, Hurricane, comes into play.  Hoping Rhodes would get back into the mystery element of the trilogy, I was let down in the final book.  From the beginning I knew something was off.  Marie is led by a vision/dream of some sort to town outside of New Orleans called DeLaire, bayou country.  An hour or two on the highway something (I emphasize “something”) causes her to pull onto the berm where she follows a path to a house.  Furthering her need to investigate, Marie uncovers the bodies of three people--it appears to be a family.  Father, mother and daughter.  Dead.  It quickly becomes obvious to Marie that they were murder, each one shot and killed as she looks closer.  Naturally, she sought the local’s police station.  There she meets Deet Malveaux, the town sheriff.  It seems that Deet was halfway expecting Marie’s presence, driven by the fact that his dying grandmother had a vision of Marie coming to save the afflicted community of DeLaire.  And those afflicted show up in droves when Deet takes Marie to his dying grandmother.  The announcement is made clear: Marie Laveau’s ancestor is there to heal the people of DeLaire.  Deet’s sheriff brother, Aaron, seems more or less impressed as he sets off to investigate Marie’s claims while she’s stuck at the Malveaux’s house attending to the line of ill towners.  Pushing medical science over shamanism for their illness upsets the desperate gathering.  Marie is mostly at a lost for their haggard cries for healing, but she deals.  Upon Aaron's return, Marie realizes through the ghosts of the murdered family that now accompanies him, that Aaron did nothing more but blaze a fire to destroy the crime scene.  In turn, concealing the murders.  The question now becomes why and what exactly is going on in the town of DeLaire?  And here I was hoping Marie would be stuck there surviving something out of a Stephen King novel where every bit of her wits are needed to find out DeLaire's secrets.

Unfortunately, it takes ages before DeLaire's secret is clear, and its unfolding is so rocky that I almost gave up.  In the end my attempt wasn’t to solve the crime before Marie.  It was to understand the crime and purpose of it.  While it later becomes clear, though nowhere near as believable or compelling as Rhodes may have hoped it would be, I still felt like there were no leads or further evidence for Marie to trace down toward the culprit of the events in DeLaire.  After the described visit, she goes back to New Orleans where she informs law enforcement there on the murders.  It’s proposed to the reader that an albino detective has his doubts, therefore, pushing Marie out of the precinct underneath an entailing fact that he is involved.  He's probably the only notable villain to the mystery, while coming across as uncompelling to the mystery.  Basically, he is not interesting as a character, and later his role provides absolutely no suspense to the already suspense less mystery.  While once again Marie loses someone close to her, it becomes evident at this point that her losing friends are a weak plot device.  I hardly gathered the feeling of despair through this lose; not as a means to sound unsympathetic, but as a means of sounding too aware of Rhodes’s techniques.  She needs to learn how to keep her characters around longer, moving and breathing well on their own before she kills them off.  And slices of back story won't do.  

With all that being said, it’s clear that above her two previous books in the series, the themes in Hurricane overrides all else without hesitation.  Here Rhodes explores not only the wake of Hurricane Katrina, but also environmental destruction and its proceeding domino effect.  She also explores racism a little more fatally here, as we later learn the township of DeLaire is paying the price of some rather ruthless others.  And where the wazimamoto played the malevolent spirit in Yellow Moon, the benevolence of an African water goddess spirit called Mami Wata helped encourage the power of Rhodes environmental theme.

In closing, I will more or less miss this series.  I give it kudos for Rhode’s proposal on exploring the subject of voodoo underneath a mystery and sassy lead.  But much of that execution did not totally win with me.  The balance between her need to unload on the reader certain interesting themes seemed to push aside the complexities of creating a profound mystery throughout each book.  And in essence, I needed that strong, powerful mystery to help fill in the desire to soak in the other elements provided by Rhodes.  So while the first bite was an unaware party on the taste buds, after awhile it didn't go down so easily.

Any thoughts on my take of Rhodes's series?  Have you read them or suggest any books piled with mysteries and voodoo spells gone wrong?  Add your comments here.

Teaser Tuesday #1

My first Teaser Tuesday video--thanks to the glorious inspiration of thefictionfairy--with a little twist.  The Youtube/booktube thing is fun, but I feel as if I sometimes hold back with all the vigor I have and wish to convey, unless I’m speaking on a book where I would wish to be clear.  Then sometimes I don't feel like people get what I'm conveying.  In any regard, this was fun because I definitely don't try to take myself to seriously.  This was an opportunity to be my usual silly, blunt self.  The purpose of Tuesday Teaser is to read two passage/quotes from a specific book that you're currently reading.  Should said passages entice the viewer, he or she may go about purchasing the book.  Nevertheless, I added a twist where I shared four books and leave it to the viewer to guess which contains the passages.  Kind of advertising/pushing the book, and kind of totally not.  Such the conundrum that makes up me.

With that said, goodbye February 2014.  You will kinda be missed.  No, actually I just prefer Spring at this point.  There is so much I want to write about concerning books and series.  I hope I manage to get to them after I tie up these last conversations.  

Thanks for stopping by.

Last Thoughts on "A Thousand Lives"

I almost didn't make it through this book, deciding that maybe it was too dark and truthful to read.  Much of that trepidation was brought to me after my first reading session, having had a nightmare related to the Jonestown event afterwards.  Nevertheless, I proceeded forward with reading A Thousand Lives, and the experience got easier.  So much so that in the middle of the book my sadness slipped away in place of an absolute, running inquisitiveness for how this ugly event unfolded.  And Scheeres didn’t seem to hold back--according to my intelligence on the subject.  She revealed a mountain of startling information/back story on the Jonestown event that had me scratching my head and sparkly-eyed at the same time.  It’s also interesting that the more I read it, the more I saw parallels between Jim Jones’s ill-intended actions surrounding the Jonestown community, and Mao’s actions over the larger-scaled China.  Toss in a few shared terms like “communism” and “socialism” and I was sold by the connection my feelers kept picking up--having experienced reading Jung Chang’s Mao: The Unknown Story a month previous.

My current dilemma is that I don’t know exactly how to tackle this surfacing of thought diligently.  Or without branching into another web of topics concerning the two.  What I’m pondering sounds both sensitive and insensitive.  So much so that I just want to disregard the entire subject.  Still, it’s clear to me that Jones and Mao used politics and lies to reign on their followers.  They practiced some intense chicanery.  They purged their many enemies and rivals without too much hesitation.  They used the power of hunger and defeatism.  And they repeatedly pounded their maniacal-based mantas to subjugate their defenseless crowds.  In the end many wearily walked into their deaths, after living with the broken hope for change promised by their leaders.  And both leaders' imploded on themselves in the end.

This is me keeping much of my troubling thoughts simple.

Nevertheless, through my reading of A Thousand Lives, I kept asking myself what everyone else may have asked themselves: “What would I do in this situation?”  Then I would ask myself do I know of anyone in my life that would be susceptible to something like Peoples Temple's (Jones’s organization) religious doctrines?  Or not so religious... as apparently seen.  

Would I have fought or spoken up come Jones’s final speech, much like Christine Miller did?  Nonetheless, a speech where Jones pushed and encouraged the sacrificing of the Jonestown community behind his contemptible lie that a war was about to storm the township after the murder of Congressman Ryan by his own men?  What ways would I have ran if I could run, just as some survivors did?  Would I have managed like the brave Leslie Wilson and her child, along with a handful of others who escaped into the jungle the morning Congressman Ryan stepped into Jonestown?  Would I have spoken up to leave with Ryan, just as Tommy Bogue and his father did?  Would I have been slick and brave like Stanley Clayton, who managed to slip pass the armed guards surrounding the perimeter for defects?  Or would I have been like the elderly African-American woman named Hyacinth Thrash, who followed her sister to Jonestown?  Hyacinth had a body so worn that she stopped attending the pavilion meetings in Jonestown (partly because she disagreed with Jones's message).  Her staying in her cottage this one night saved her life.  She hid underneath her bunk when the last of Jones’s men went about shooting other individuals who did not report to the pavilion to drink the poison.  While I couldn't recall her name, Hyacinth’s story as a survivor was one that I could remember after watching a documentary on the event years ago.  There was a “she is the woman they were talking about” moment as I read her piece on surviving.  

Nevertheless, the biggest question I kept asking myself was would I have ran if I saw my family die before me?

Even as I write this I get a little emotional at the thought.

Therefore, I will close this out by not only declaring that this book was an eye-opener, but that it also reminded me of how good it feels to be grateful to have those that I love still in my life.  And if I should take one thing from this book to keep me going, it would most certainly be the courageous story of the few Jonestown survivors.

What would you have done?  Hard to really answer, right?

AH! Year of the Demon!

Steve Bein (who I’m often accidentally touting as “Steven” for some reason) has done it to me again with his second book, Year of the Demon.  I am completely--utterly--sold on his Fated Blades series.  There is absolutely no going back at this point, and I am thankful for that.  So thanks, Steven--Steve(!).  Thanks for saving me from abandoning the urban fantasy genre, whether you consider your series urban fantasy or not.  See, while I understand and have spoken on the crossing of genres in you series, the fact still remains that I read fantasy books following a female lead for the sheer enjoyment of watching a lady kick paranormal ass.  And what makes the Fated Blades series so adoringly special?  You don’t dress said lead underneath a Chick Lit vanity lamp.  No.  Your main character (much thrills to the fact that she’s Japanese) is too busy solving narcotic cases, with ancient and paranormal glamour.  No, your main character isn't off swooning over any bare-chested bad boy with an agitated haircut.  She has a job to do, and it doesn’t involve her following the romantic blooms of her heart.  Praise Jesus!

Year of the Demon (book two in the Fated Blades series) takes place about two good skips (relate that to time) away from where book one ended.  After her gutted, near-death experience during her final battle with one of Japan’s yakuza (specifically labeled Kamaguchi-gumi or “clan“) crime syndicate henchmen, Fuchida, Mariko is now the proprietor of an ancient samurai blade known as Inazuma steel.  Nonetheless, there were a total of three blades pounded out by the fabled Master Inazuma, and each contains a different, mystical characteristic that presses into the spirit of its wielder.  Mariko manages to survive the fight with Fuchida with the blade--Glorious Victory Unsought--acting as a savior to her entry level samurai skills.  I state this in opposition to Fuchida's hedonistic-driven techniques, tickled by the bloodlust of his particular Inazuma blade, Beautiful Singer, screaming for Mariko's life.  

Known for its ability to turn on its wielder should its wielder seek the pride of battle victory, Glorious Victory Unsought seems a perfect fit for the usually skeptical Mariko.  So despite Mariko’s skeptisim in all things related to the blade and its power, she now officially owns a hard-sought Inazuma blade.  And what it’s worth in the power it draws from its wielder is universes more than the millions she could pawn off it.  Needless to say, that is the least of Mariko’s interest anyway.  She treasures the blade, as it harbors a sentimentality she wishes to hold on to (no spoiler here). 

Japanese demon mask from the movie Onibaba

Unfortunately for the reader, Mariko does little with the sword in Year of the Demon; however, that doesn’t slow down the general interest in its power.  Besides, Mariko couldn’t help it that the blade was stolen from her within the first 33 pages of the book.  Talk about hard luck.  Nevertheless, such thievery isn’t done without forwarding the plot.  Apparently an ancient Japanese cult, referred to simply as The Wind, has its eyes set on reuniting Mariko’s sword with a centuries-old traditional demon mask.  Placed on its adorner, this mask is said to create the strong desire to inflict torture or death on others.  The adorner implements the mask’s dark cravings through a multitude of murderous/torturous avenues, as we‘re shown through the eyes of several of the book‘s villains.  Nonetheless, it is also made apparent that the mask truly hungers for the blood shedding potential of Inazuma steel.  In Mariko’s case, the only one of the three available to The Wind is her Glorious Victory Unsought.  



The Wind obtains Mariko’s blade.  Together with the demon mask, they set forth plans to construct mass destruction over the city of Tokyo‘s population.  Mariko wouldn’t have much of a stake in the matter if she weren’t a detective assigned to a narcotics case linked to The Wind’s infernal plan.  And that’s besides the fact that her blade was stolen from above her slumber, as well as the fact that Fuchida's underboss has a bounty out on her.  Nevertheless, said underboss is the previous owner of the mask and offers to waive Mariko’s bounty should she return it.  And that is where Year of the Demon takes off.

And yet… that’s not exactly what sends Year of the Demon sparkling into the night sky.  The narrative of the book divides itself throughout the voices (though not in first person) of multiple protagonists, or loosely labeled, B Plots.  We have Mariko’s segments plugged into modern day Tokyo, or the Heisei Era according to the book; our familiar underdog from the last book, Daigoro, resumes his tale and dealings with the mask in the Azuchi-Momoyama period; and a new face, Kaida, in Japan’s Muromachi era shares the third narrative string.  Kaida takes us to places within the demon mask’s origin, while lightning us up with her troubles as a one-handed pearl diver tormented under her stepsisters' nasty little codes of conduct.  Each story lends the history of the mask and sword, forming the backbone of the book which lie in Mariko’s present investigation.  

Hardly formulaic, this jumping between periods was introduced in the first book and is even more engaging and plumped with ancient tales in this one.  And while I have no qualms about slipping into the predicaments of ancient Japan, and the delightful characters who unveil its ruthless politics and seemingly misogynistic nature, that slipping oftentimes makes me forget about Mariko’s journey.  As I mentioned in a previous post on the first book, I seldom found a connection with Mariko.  I blame part of it in the book’s technical sense; many more pages are dedicated to characters of the past and their individual stories.  So in reverse, Mariko’s story is the appetizer to Diagoro’s struggle to uphold his family name through the villainous actions of a twisted General who wears the demon mask with pride.  And even I felt Mariko played second to Kaida’s full blitz-style entrée where we witness the longings of a girl who will risk her life to be set free from her family.  Actually, Diagoro reads like the entrée and Kaida is the satisfying dessert dish.

So I’ll admit that I wasn’t totally pulled into Mariko’s investigation.  Nor was I completely wowed by its conclusion.  It almost felt like the interruptions of leaping-into-the-past killed the buzz and structure of her storyline and plotting.  It didn’t leave without its highs, however, including a couple of raids and slick bantering between characters.  But it wasn’t as astounding as the other stories.  I would hope that the third book thickens more in Mariko‘s favor.

Are you currently thrilled by Steve Bein's series also?  Looking forward the the third book as much as me?  Do you like Bein's push more toward historical fiction?  Or do you want more of his modern crime thriller forward by Mariko?  Do you also think a balance should be carefully laid out between the two?  Comment below.

Booktube Newbie Tag

What's up, people?  Coming to you live and in person (psyche!) with another tag video.  This is a Booktube Newbie Tag--as you can see.  It was brought to my attention by thefictionfairy who received her tag from its creator, Brenda C.  It looked like fun--and since I don't have a channel introduction video--I decided to take part in it.  Hope you guys like it and I'll provide all the referenced links down below.  Much love!

Comic Towel Zazzle Shop:  http://www.zazzle.com/towel_and_cornbread

Thefictionfairy: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XM0NYfTTahg

Brenda C.: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_ZMdn-2aTSU

QUESTIONS:
Booktube Newbie Tag
1. Why did you start this channel?
2. What are some fun and unique things you can bring to Booktube?
3. What are you most excited for about this new channel?
4. Why do you love reading?
5. What book or book series got you into reading?
6. What questions would you ask your favorite booktuber?
7. What challenges do you think starting a booktube channel will be the hardest to overcome?