On the Day I Died

If you'd asked me back when I read Fatal Throne if I would read a book by the author that wrote Catherine of Aragon's random-Spanish-peppered chapter, I would have said no way. 

However, after skimming the works of all the authors, one of her books was the only one that jumped out at me as something I wanted to check out. And it was surprisingly great. 

This is an anthology of stories told by ghosts. The book begins in the present with a teen driving a car. He picks up a hitchhiker, takes her to her house, notices the saddle shoes she left in the car, goes back to the house, and is told he's driven a ghost home. Instead of him going to a cemetery to find his jacket as happens a lot, he's told to take the shoes to her grave if he wants to return them to her. He ends up finding a cemetery for teenagers...and a huge pile of saddle shoes by this girl's grave. I really enjoyed that detail. That the shoes weren't ghostly, but instead accumulated on this girl's grave, one pair returned to her each year. 

Now that he's in the cemetery though, all the other ghosts rise and want to share their stories. Each one takes place around Chicago where the cemetery is and during different years. 

Gina 1964: An Italian-American girl likes to spin untruths so when she tries to tell about her new classmate and his love of arson, she's not believed. I enjoyed this one, mostly because I liked Gina as a character. 

Johnnie 1936: Kid during the depression plays a trick on a spooky old teacher that accidentally leads to her death. He ends up becoming a runaway and gets into petty crime. Then he gets the idea to rob dead bodies in funeral homes, comes across this former teacher's, and learns why it's not a good idea to challenge anyone whose specialty is "Sumerian witchcraft." I enjoyed this one, too, though it was more because the annoying kid got what he deserved. And the idea of Sumerian witchcraft is just fun. 

Scott 2012: Know-it-all skeptic photographer wants to do a photo project in an abandoned asylum. Another annoying protagonist who gets what he deserves, though points off for it not being in an interesting way at all. 

David 1958: This one was so random. It's like a comic sci-fi horror story. I hated it because it felt so out of place with the others. 

Evelyn 1893: Set during the World's Fair, Evelyn and her twin sister are checking it out. Her sister is gorgeous and she's plain, plus the sister is also a bitch. Evelyn gets away from her and goes to a closed off floor of one exhibit building only to find an evil mirror that likes to suck in people who represent the seven deadly sins. This one was fun. I like haunted mirror stories, though no one will ever do it as well as Stephen King. 

Lily 1999: Shakespeare-obsessed girl, her boyfriend and her boyfriend's little brother in a retelling of The Monkey's Paw. I didn't hate this, but The Monkey's Paw is so well-known that it just didn't feel necessary. 

Rich 1981: Cool kid and his nerdy friend find a demonic hood ornament. Not the best but not horrid. I feel like there were some elements borrowed from Stephen King's "Mrs. Todd's Shortcut."

Edgar 1870: Mentally ill boy abused by father. Edgar Allen Poe's "Berenice" meets "The Yellow Wallpaper." I liked the fusion.

Tracy 1974: Girl is sent to briefly stay with her great aunt only to have said aunt be an ex-gangster. Not great, not awful. 

I liked the different assortment of time periods and situations so much that the overall picture of the book somehow holds up better than each individual story. If you like horror anthologies written for younger audiences, give this one a try.