Halloween Has Come and Gone

But I don't feel my usual post-holiday depression.  Maybe just a wee bit, but not like I used to when I did so many Halloween-ish things.  On Halloween itself I listed to The End of Summer:  Thirteen Tales of Halloween and that was very cool.  I did so when I was running (slowly, slowly) around different neighborhoods and it was particularly fallish and there were many spooky lawns.  It was cool.  Good Lord willin' and the creek don't rise, I hope to do that next year, too, with another good Halloween book. 

More Like 3.5

Again it would be nice to have the 1/2 star option on goodreads.  I think that I Call Upon Thee was a 3.5 way more than a 3.  I read it in a book drought and was so thankful to have it.  It did have very interesting characters, I thought, even though the plot was a little hard to follow sometimes not because it was complicated but because it was spotty.  I found the characters so interesting that I wouldn't have minded it being a little longer, just to get to know them better and here more about their stories. 

More King?

See, see, I am trying to be better!  I am trying!  And The Bazaar of Bad Dreams was pretty good.  It's short stories, but of course, with King they are never short.  I don't think any of them were particularly bad dream invoking for me anyway.  Afterlife was funny.  Obits was a good idea.  The one about the fireworks is one to skip.  Mortality was really good.  The Dunes was good. The rest were decent.

One Post, Three Books

So again, it was October.  And I needed those good stories.  I found Creepy, Creepy 2 and Creepy 3 on audible.  I didn't find any.  The first one was really good, I thought.  It seemed that this collection had more fictional stories that were decent.  As the books went on though, there were more stories that were just random, "this happened to me" kinda deals that were hit and miss with quality.

Amish Vampires!

I haven't read a book like The Hallowed Ones before, and that is saying something.  I couldn't put it down and now I hope there is a sequel.  This is a dystopian/paranormal story, but it is unlike any other.  Set in Amish country, it is told from the POV of a teen girl who is about to go on Rumspringa but all of that is called off, as the rest of the world has been overrun with vampires.  The Elders in Katie's community say that no one goes out of the community and no one comes in, while the disaster is taking place, but Katie sees a wounded young man on the edge of the fence and hides him a barn, nursing him back to health.  
Katie's character is strong and smart and easily likable.  It is really interesting to learn about the Amish community AND be terrified by red-eyed, undead, blood-suckers at the same time.  This is a coming of age story in a messed up world and is one of the most different and compelling stories I have read this year.   

If I homeschooled my kids

Now first of all, there is NO way that I would ever homeschool my kids. Why?

The answer is simple, I don't have any kids.

But if I had kids, and if I homeschooled them, and if I picked up the book or listened to the audio version of What the Night Knows I would be so angry at Dean Koontz, I would probably write him a letter. I've heard people rip on homeschooling before but I have never, ever read anything that ripped on homeschoolers as much as this book. It is clear that Koontz is making a serious anti-homeschooling statement here. The three kids in this book, ages 13, 11 and 8 are the most backward and weird, strange kids that ever lived. There aren't kids like this in the real world. Well....the youngest one might be normal. But the other two? Oh my gosh. Koontz is headed for a lot of criticism from homeschool parents with this kind of stuff. It is really ridiculous.

If you can get past that, this book is pretty decent. It drags in places, but it is scary. I haven't been able to sleep well ever since I started listening to it, and I think that says a lot about its scare-factor.

John is a robbery homicide detective with a sorrowful past. When he was just teenager the rest of his family was murdered by a true monster who committed ritual family killings of the most graphic and grisly kind. Koontz has a seriously twisted imagination and a great way with words. Twenty years later, across the country, in John's community it appears that the same ritual murders are taking place, even though the killer of John's family was killed all those years ago.

Like Koontz's other books, the reason is supernatural, the spirit of the serial killer, the "Rider" finds away to attach himself to others who then go and commit horrific acts similar to the killing of John's family. Now John fears that his own wife and children will be next.

The "Rider" was a little too close of a term to "Dark Passenger" for me, and I would have thought that Koontz would have come up with a better term for it, just because has been used with Dexter.

Ariel

Ariel was a song from the 70s and I just couldn't stop thinking of it as I was listening to Ariel on my way from Pittsburgh to Goodlettsville, TN.  In the song, the name is pronounced AIR iel, as you can see from that very funny video.  But the narrator of Ariel pronounced it more like the thing that bring in radio and tv signals.  When I first look up the Ariel song, I was going to say that it was a terrible song, and yeah, I guess it is, but listening to it after all these years, like someone posted on youtube, I couldn't help but smile.  I remember owning this on a 45 even.  It might have been my mom and dad's record, but I remember loving it.  

I can't say I loved Ariel the book.  I do love Lawrence Block.  I love him SO much!  It was just so different from his other books that I think I had different expectations for this book.  And I think that I was feeling kind of lonely, on the road on the second day of the year, alone, with the sun not shining.  It was just a tough book to listen to because it is definitely not a happy book.  It has a very Ice Storm-y feel to it.  And I really didn't like that movie at all.  It was just far, far, too depressing.  Ariel is set around the same time, the 70s, it seems and two of it's characters are extremely selfish adults.  Roberta and Jeff, who are married, but not to each other.  Which is a great song by the way.  Roberta and her husband David have an adopted daughter, Ariel and a new born son, Caleb.  Much is made about Ariel being and unusual name, and it was at the time, but after Disney's Little Mermaid, you'll find Ariels everywhere!  

Roberta has an affair with Jeff and then she doesn't want to be with him any more and then she does.  And then she loves Ariel and then she doesn't.  And then she makes David move to an older house and then she wants to move out because it's haunted and well, Roberta is a jerk.  

It was hard to do anything but dislike Roberta and Jeff so much that it ruined the book for me!  

The book is part supernatural and part something else.  Part rotten people I guess.

Although I think I discovered who Margaret Simon's real parents might be!  Roberta and Jeff!  

The writing is great though, total Block.  I just think it was too disturbing for my taste.