Graveyard Girls 1

This brand new middle grade supernatural series is set in the town of Misery Falls, where a hundred years ago a man with a wooden leg was bullied so much that he snapped and killed a teenage girl. Every year, the town comes together to celebrate the town and ward off his evil spirit. 

The Grim Sleepers are:

1) Whisper, who's on the cover there. She's a track star and an environmentalist. Her dad recently remarried and she's adjusting to having a snobby stepsister. I think she and her stepsnob each have a little brother, too, but I can't remember clearly. They weren't important. 

2) Gemma, the leader. She's the one who really believes in the supernatural because her mom and aunt run a new agey shop. 

3) Sophie, the smart one. Massive overachiever because she wants to outshine her perfect older sis. Has been silently flirting with the cute guitar-playing boy that has lessons at the same time as her piano lessons. Starts texting with him near the end of the book. 

4) Frannie, the actress. Playing Audrey in the school's performance of Little Shop of Horrors. Has big drama with Whisper's stepsnob's BFF. Miranda? I think her name was Miranda. They hate each other. Miranda put a tarantula on Frannie, who was so scared she wet her pants during show and tell, though Miranda's side is that she got Frannie into acting and then how dare she be better than Miranda. Yeah, seriously. 

So the girls are a little club that has sleepovers and tells scary stories, which they have to write themselves. It's been bad lately though because no one's come up with anything scary. Then they each get a text to meet in the graveyard. There are chapters from the PoV of "Silas Hoke," who's the old town murderer, and he's the one luring them there, but as the girls quickly learn, this is actually Zuzu. Zuzu is a model for her family's very popular fashion brand. She's also BFFs with Whisper's stepsnob and Frannie's nemesis. 

Zuzu however is really awesome. She wants to be a horror writer, so the Silas chapters were her basically getting into character. She's a cool fashionista but also a horror lover, so she's quite interesting. But she's also very frustrating because she wants to join the Grim Sleepers yet is afraid to tell her snob friends that she has other friends. And she never tells why exactly she's friends with these nasty bitches. All three of them liking fashion is no good reason. 

Once Zuzu joins them, she injects the horror love back into them and right there in the graveyard, Whisper tells the title story, which is about how people's thumbs develop tiny brains from phone overuse and detach themselves from their humans. Clearly inspired by her stepsnob. It's more gore and gross than scary. 

The girls then decide to sneak into the jail where Silas was executed and have some scary times. At the end, they also discover that his grave has been dug up. 

The book is divided into PoV chapters for each girl, which helped with characterization, although they mostly fell flat. Gemma doesn't have much character aside from wanting to be leader and being the one who's into the supernatural. Frannie likewise has her past trauma and her acting. You get a little more out of Whisper, but her Dawn Schafer moments ruin any good she does. Sophie is the most likeable of the main four, but her obsession with being better than her sister is annoying. As I said, Zuzu's a really awesome character and I want to see more from her. All of them have promise but suffer from flaws. Possibly because the book could have been a lot longer. But it's part of a 5-book series, presumably so each girl can tell a story, and hopefully the characterization grows in future volumes. 

The Pack 1 & 2

 
Lisi Harrison, the author of the old Clique series, currently has three middle grade series out. I've reviewed the Girl Stuff series here. Definitely a fan of those. The newest series is what I'm going to review in the post after this. The Pack is her first dip back into the supernatural kids world since Monster High. 

The first book in the series came out in summer 2021. The second came out a year later, this past summer. 

The premise is that some girls are born with animal "lights." They basically have physical features and superpowers based on whichever animal they are. Main girl Sadie is a lion light, which she finds out partway through the book, though it's pretty obvious. She's nocturnal, has a big frizzy mane of hair, likes meat, and is very strong. Tiger light Lindsey is similar yet different. Chameleon light Taylor can use her camouflage to become invisible. Snake light Amy is always cold unless it's very hot in the room, has fangs and a tendency to swallow hard-boiled eggs whole, and uses a ton of moisturizer. Other lights mentioned include giraffe, hyena, eagle, monkey, rat, and dingo. 

So the girls are hidden away in Charm School, where they learn to control their lights to blend in with "typicals," lest they be kidnapped by the sinister science organization that wants to study them. I think it was the Institute of Behavioral Science or something like that. 

Naturally, there's a boys' school very close by. And Sadie meets a boy and falls in crush, only to eventually learn his grandmother is the Charm School headmistress, his mother is one of the teachers (and a badass eagle light), and his sister...is Lindsey. Only Lindsey doesn't know it. She was so uncontrollable and still wants to just be out in the world showing everyone how special she is that the headmistress developed an elixir from Amy's snake venom that helps suppress Lindsey's memories. 

It's basically typical tween drama but with animal powers and a mystery to solve. It's not the best thing ever, but it's fun. 

I finished Claw and Order a couple days ago after letting it sit around since summer. 

I thought this one was weaker than the first. Sadie and her pack form a spa for their club project but charge the other students for services. The hyenas rat them out and they get in trouble. Amy and Taylor each go do their own thing, Lindsey is more rebellious than ever and doesn't want to do anything, and Sadie is worried her parents will yank her from the school if her grades don't improve, so she's obsessed with starting a new club. She tries running, but then sees the boys next door at football practice and comes up with cheerleading. The other girls are basically useless and they're in some serious trouble when Sadie spills Lindsey's identity secret to Taylor and Amy, who both get super pissed and stop talking to Sadie. Lindsey and her family have to briefly leave school because Lindsey stopped taking her elixir and was remembering too much. Seriously, that kind of secret was too big for one tween girl to be trusted with. Come on. 

Upon her return, Lindsey is introduced in her real identity, which is good. It's about time they let her see she has a family. Everyone makes up. The animal lights all go to a football game and the boys are losing, so the entire school of girls does an impromptu cheer session, showcasing their various dance and athletic skills. The coach loves it and wants them all there the rest of the season. 

Then Lindsey tells Sadie she wants to break into the Institute and free the captive lights. Beak, Lindsey's brother and Sadie's crush, is in. And so is Sadie. 

Will this be popular enough to get a third book and let us see what happens? Who knows? The best part by far of this one was the budding romance between Amy and hyena light Mia. That needs more screentime. They're both cute characters.

The Gathering Dark

The Gathering Dark is a YA folk horror anthology that just released last week. I'm not exactly sure what the qualifications for folk horror are. It just felt like horror to me. 

I'll break down the stories in blurb and my opinions, trying to avoid spoilers. 

"Stay:" This one is almost impossible to describe without spoiling it. A teen girl lives with her cousin and grandmother, but something is immediately off from the start. There's a lot of emphasis on taking care of the graveyard and hints that cemeteries in her town aren't normal. She's attacked by the unsatisfied dead a couple times. I feel like the writing was held back by the author's determination to keep the big reveal a secret. 

"The Tallest Poppy:" The vaguest of the lot, I think. Teen is trying to earn money for her plane ticket overseas to start college the next year. Takes job in creepy house. Things get creepy. But it's never revealed exactly what is going on. I didn't care for it. 

"Loved By All, Save One:" Three misfit teens staying in one of their houses. The girl's parents are internet personalities so it becomes a target for a break-in. One teen is killed and the other two dragged into the woods and about to be killed. Thing is...the house and woods are haunted. I'm just gonna spoiler this one. The ghost kills the bad guys and saves the other two kids, asking them to remember. This I liked. I was worried after the first two, so this one was a welcome change. 

"One-Lane Bridge:" Four idiot teens go to the local haunted bridge. Three smear blood on it and basically make wishes. The fourth, the main character, doesn't get her blood on the bridge, but her anger rouses the elemental being that's the source of the so-called haunting. The kids are basically all assholes so you don't care what happens to them, but the elemental starts getting into the heads of the three that bled on its bridge and they lure the angry girl back out there, because it wants her. She ends up defying it and walking away, her anger strong enough to make it back off. I liked the idea of this one, but not the execution. I feel like it would have made a decent longer book in the hands of Christopher Pike. When you have unlikeable characters, you need more time to make the reader give a shit. 

"Ghost on the Shore:" A girl drives to the lake where her friend drowned. Her life has been ruined by her friend's death because she was in love with her and never got to tell her. The dead are supposed to return every night at 2am, and the friend does, asking to be driven to a certain address, but disappears before they get there. The girl is warned by a young waitress that what she's seeing is the lady of the lake and not really her friend. She tries again to rescue her friend but that time it becomes clear that the waitress was right. She escapes and it turns out her friend was seeing the waitress, so her confession wouldn't have gone well, had she gotten to really make it. I liked the ending of this one. 

"Petrified:" Three kids are members of the Children of the Aspen, which are never fully explained. It's just made obvious that it's a group of people that work with nature to protect themselves and the forest. This one is a revenge story because the POV character was raped. I'm always up for a good supernatural revenge story. My favorite in the book. 

"Third Burn:" A town cursed by a witch to burn three times. Shitty town doesn't like people that aren't like all the rest, so it victimizes a woman who doesn't want to get married and have kids, a lesbian, and the modern character, who's poor. These are the ones who burn the town over the years. I liked this.

"It Stays With You:" Kids play Bloody Mary and a supernatural force immediately kills one, then hunts the other two in the form of their deepest fears. I liked the characters better than the actual plot, which was nothing new. 

"Truth or Dare:" A girl and boy go into these mysterious tunnels that are supposed to make a person choose to leave someone behind. She's trying to not be in love with him anymore because it's unrequited. I didn't hate this, but it was more dull than the others. 

"The Burning One:" Mother and daughter live high up away from people, but eventually people come to their island. The daughter is tempted to get nearer, despite her mother's warnings, and becomes close with one of the boys and it doesn't end well. This is the other vague one in the book because they're some sort of supernatural something but it's not made clear what. The daughter feeds on the people but I'm not sure if it's just blood or full-on eating. I liked it despite its vagueness. 

Broken down, it seems like I disliked more than I liked, but I did enjoy it while I was reading for the most part. 

Various Middle Grade Graphic Novels

The third Goddess Girls graphic novel came out recently and it was fun but suffered from the same problem as the first two. Namely, some of the character designs just aren't up to par. 

I still don't think Aphrodite would wear a ponytail. 

Makeover Athena was cute.

Hephaestus was really cute. He, Medusa and Pheme have my fave graphic novel looks overall. 

Atalanta was a little too girly for my taste. 

We didn't meet anyone else new. The story goes along with the original book, although they followed it a little TOO closely, because there are multiple mentions of Ares' blond hair and blue eyes...neither of which the graphic novel version has. 

These are cute but could be done a lot better. 

I don't know if I've ever talked about Kayla Miller's Click series here. The stories follow fifth grader Olive on her various trials. Click was about her finding the right act in a variety show. Camp had her meeting new friends at summer camp while dealing with her wet blanket friend Willow's constant clinginess. Act has Olive starting sixth grade and running for student council against two of her friends. Clash deals with cool new girl Natasha and how she randomly hates Olive. And Crunch is about Olive learning not to over-extend herself with too many activities. There's also a spinoff series featuring one of the BFF pairs in the supporting cast.  

This is a fun, light-hearted series that's less heavy-handed than some of the middle grade graphic novels. I love Olive's cool librarian aunt, who clearly has a crush on Olive's female guitar teacher. So cute. 

I've reviewed the first two in the Witches of Brooklyn series here before. I reread the second one before tackling this third one and I think this might be my second fave series after Berrybrook. I LOVE the art. 

It's summer and Effie is off to camp for a month. Witch camp! Apparently, green thumb is a real thing and it's a big deal for witches, so Effie is leaving the city to connect with nature for a month at this camp. She does so on her very first night there, waking up to find ivy entwined in her hair and her palms glowing bright green. This is way more than most witches get and it provokes envy in the cabin mean girl. 

I loved seeing all the different witch kids and their varied powers. That was great. The mean girl and Effie never came to terms with anything, although it was the girl's meanness that actually got Effie out of a tight bind (she accidentally woke a dragon and had to put it back to sleep). And there's a side plot involving that panda. He's the one whose room Effie is actually sleeping in. I forget how he's related to either Selimene or Carlota. But he connects with animals and when he got his heart broken, he turned into a panda and went to live in the Bronx Zoo. A girl came and sketched him one day and then his hands transformed back to human, so he came back home, only to have to go along to camp with Effie and be a counselor. The artist girl actually is one of Effie's counselors so their little sideplot romance is adorable. 

Definitely highly recommend this series. 

Then I tried out a new series called Peapod Farm. Jen (on the left) is dragged from the city to the country after her mom and dad get divorced. Her mom bought a farm to run with her boyfriend. Jen is forced to help and, on the weekends, the boyfriend's daughters come to help, too. 

This one was good but also frustrating. The boyfriend character is an ASSHOLE. He's not full-on abusive but he isn't very nice and he frequently gets away with it. Both Jen's mother and his eldest daughter Andi (on the right) excuse his behavior basically as "He's an asshole but that's just the way he is and we all deal with it." I mean, one of the things was really minor. Jen likes to be called Jen, not Jenny, but he keeps calling her Jenny. This is when the mother should step in and ask him to please call her kid by the name she wants to be called. It's not difficult but it never happened. There is a moment nearer the end where both his daughters side with Jen though and that was good. But Mom needs to grow a hell of a backbone. This is definitely semi-autobiographical, but there's a time when the author needs to realize that replicating reality is less important than good writing, unless you're writing an actual autobiography. Her stepdad never changed and she's choosing to portray that, but she should definitely give her dad character here some comeuppance. Stop showing the mom as weak and unable to stand up for her own child. 

I really enjoyed this other than the bullshit from the boyfriend character. The oldest daughter takes a while to grow on you, but she gets there. The younger daughter is awesome. I loved her. 

This one brings us to the fall. Jen is worried about school. She and Andi are working at the pumpkin farm's haunted hayride because the farmer's market is closed. Andi has a thing for the pumpkin farmer's nephew and Jen begins to feel left out. 

At school, the closest friend she finds is the boy in her class that's younger than everyone else. The class bitch teases them. The other kids seem to be liking her more nearer the end though. 

Jen's big frustration this time is that everywhere she turns there are people in relationships. She gets mad when people assume her male friend has to be a boyfriend, and not one but two people spout bullshit about how men and women can't be friends. I don't believe this is ever corrected by an adult and it needed to be. It's like I really want to fully love this series, but in each volume there's one major incident of bad writing that irritates me.

Everything works out in the end and even the class mean girl comes around. Turns out she's envious of Jen's art skills.