Shivers 7: The Awful Apple Orchard

This book is a very hard one to review. I'll refer back to The Haunting House, where the characters and eventual survival theme redeemed the book, which it desperately needed when the ghost turned down the thermostat and opened windows. This book is pretty similar, but with the usual two-dimensional characters. But the ending, I will admit, actually surprised me so much my eyes widened, which I never expected would happen during a Shivers book.

Daniel is the stereotypical protagonist, annoyed by his sibling, yet noble when he/she is in trouble, going from a big city to the countryside, but this time on vacation (which is at least a little different, but still the same opening to A Ghastly Shade of Green... maybe M.D. Spenser finally realized that if you make trivial stuff exactly the same in every book, you know, stuff like the characters, setting, and plot, that people will actually start to notice). Daniel is twelve, and Sara, the artsy, easily-excited sister, is 11. The duo, along with their parents Mary and Bill, who have actually been given names, are traveling to New York to vacation and pick some apples at a nearby apple orchard. I don't want to spoil anything, but it's awful.

Bill reveals that the nearby orchard is haunted, which frightens Sara. Daniel reminisces on how he almost ruined the family's chances of vacation when he fell off his bike, injuring himself. He ended up begging the principal for 2 weeks of vacation time after the break had ended, but this presents a nice foreshadowing opportunity: "But if I had known what was going to happen at that old cider mill, I would have been glad to just stay at home and go to school. At least the school doesn’t have ghosts that try to kill people." Daniel's keen observation on the nature of school residents reminds me of my childhood, when a friend of mine made a habit of ruining the ending to episodes of shows created by Joss Whedon. I despised him for it, since I loved Joss Whedon, and decided to get him back. So, many years later, after the release of the newest season of Arrested Development, I texted him a list containing every twist in every episode in chronological order, but with no title, so he had gotten more than halfway through before realizing that I had just ruined his favorite show. The moral of the story is this: M.D. Spenser is terrible at using literary devices.

So the family is driving past the orchard when suddenly, an apple splatters against the window.  They look out, but there's nobody there. When it comes to ghosts, I think that M.D. has seen one too many Casper movies. The dad reveals that the orchard is haunted, and that the legend is that two children got caught in the cider-making machine. The next morning, after the family is settled in to their new vacation home, the parents send the children to the orchard for apples and cider. They take their bikes, and the orchard is all nice and merry and stuff. Daniel and Sara eat donuts, but when Daniel goes to get seconds, he finds that Sara is gone! He immediately comes to the conclusion that she got kidnapped, lost, killed, or- wait for it- drowned. In an orchard.

Our pessimistic protagonist finds Sara entering the gift shop. She shows Daniel the machine where the apples are ground up, and he gets scared and decides to run away. Realizing that he looked like an idiot, he decides that it would be a great time to leave. Sara wants just one more snack, so she grabs an apple from their bag. She bites into it, and she sees a worm that she nearly swallowed. She freaks out and drops the apple, and when Daniel looks back at it, there is no worm. Worst. Ghost. Ever.

Daniel explains the peculiar situation to Sara, how nobody must know or else they'll get sent to a looney-bin, a nuthouse, a cracker factory, una casa de loco, a mental hospital... and she gets the point. They ride back in companionable silence, and realize that their car is filled with apples when they get back. Obviously they don't realize that a car full of apples doesn't actually do anything to them, so they rack their small brains for solutions. Daniel finally decides to act like nothing happened and take care of it later.

The family eats dinner together, and the cider glasses filled with blood, which was admittedly more likely paranormal than a packaging error. Bill and Mary didn't see anything, so Daniel does a terrible job of not acting paranoid. I guess he's just a paranoid person. The siblings find that the car is now invisible, but that doesn't stop them from rounding up the invisible apples and tossing them off the property. Their dad catches them and indirectly calls them psychos, which is a softer approach than I would have taken, directly calling them idiots.

Just then, Mary decides that she needs a different kind of apple, so she needs them to go back. Daniel is disappointed that he couldn't spend time researching conspiracy theories, like whether or not the government caused 9/11, but he agrees. On the way down, an invisible fence appears and launches Sara off her bike, hurting her ankle and head. An invisible fence. What exactly kind of ghost uses something like that? Honestly, the maid ghost from last post would have done a better job.

For a moment Sara seems to have lost her memory, or suffered a concussion, or just had something bad happen to one of these characters, but nope, she's fine. Daniel says that they should try a different route, through the orchard, and at that point I had to realize that this character is pretty much the spitting image of a dumb-ass. Would it have been too easy or safe to go home? I feel like Daniel is totally forgetting that he has a house, like I forgot that I was reading this book even as I was reading it. This was so boring.

I'm only 70% through the book so far. I'll go fast. The siblings get to the barn, despite Sara's ankle, which Daniel didn't care about, or was maybe just too proud to admit that he was not smart enough to remember where the ankle was located. Daniel leaves Sara against the wall in the barn while he retrieves the new apples. When he gets back, Sara is rising towards the apple crusher, her shirt caught in the machinery.

Daniel saves her using his body weight, and the two escape. Sara reveals that she was pushed by a ghost. When they got home, they refused to eat apples due to safety reasons and Daniel's paranoia, and there are lots of family interactions. There is still a substantial amount left, so I'll try to finish fast.

So here is where things get weird. I'll give you my best interpretation of the ending. If I'm wrong, feel free to comment that. So: The siblings are talking in the middle of the night. Sara becomes convinced that it was all just a hallucination, their imaginations tricking them. Constantly. Even Daniel is not that dense, though, so he doubts her.

Sara's voice changes slightly in ways that Spenser doesn't know how to convey into words, since such words would require a vocabulary at at least a third grade level. She thinks that they should go back to the mill, just to prove that nothing spooky is happening. Daniel tries to refuse, but can't, because that would require words at at least a kindergarden level, and he's just not ready yet. The two sneak out and bike to the orchard, where no harm befalls them, and Sara seems not to be in the least bit out of breath.

When Daniel asks why she suddenly turned insane, she has deep, hollow eyes and a sad voice. She asks him if he understands, and he says he has no idea what she's talking about. She takes his hand, which feels cold and clammy, and leads him to the mill. She becomes more and more distant, she's not her anymore, and she keeps reassuring him as they walk. He starts to become disoriented, and the two open the barn door.

As Sara asked him to open it, her voice sounded more normal. When the lights inside the building flashed on and the protagonist steps back from shock, her face seemed completely normal, which was now almost more terrifying than her past state. Then, in excruciating detail, M.D. Spenser describes the sibling's dead bodies jammed inside the apple machine. They are ghosts now.

Sara said that she just didn't feel right in bed, and she knew somehow. I guess they died when Sara got caught in the machine the first time. Daniel is at first scared, then interested. Then they start laughing.

Then, in the Amazing and Best Twist Ending Yet:
They decide to close the door and shut off the lights, so as not to ruin the surprise. They will wait to see what happens when they are discovered, and then, when another pair of unintelligent children just like them come along, they will have some real fun.

Insight into the Complex Minds of Characters:
"“We’re going to sneak through the orchard, but we’re going fast. Sort of sneak-running,” I said." Genius. Pure genius.

Beautiful Imagery: Every single time it references the apple-grinding machine, it makes the sound "globbeta-glotch" just imagine that sound for a moment. Let it wash over you.

Hip References: None. There are no hip references. Not a'one.

Conclusion: This book was dreadfully boring. The ending, for a Shivers book, was spectacular, and I guess Daniel and Sara's minds snapped. Pretty creepy. But ask yourself: is one hour of merciless torture really worth five minutes of chewing gum afterwards? Trust me, it's a perfect metaphor. The ending made the ending to The Haunting House, The Locked Room, and pretty much all the rest combined lame in comparison, but it was just so terribly boring. The ghost didn't do anything until the whole apple machine incident, and that scene lasted all of one page. In the end, it's a serious case of in-betweenness.

Shivers 6: The Haunting House

So, can you guess what this book's protagonist is doing in the beginning of the book? I'll give you a hint: it's Mr. Spenser's favorite activity. Spoiler alert: she's moving.

That's right, gang, this book starts out the way every other book does. I feel like I don't even need to include that anymore. But anyway, I'll start off by saying that this one, despite the terrible title, is actually a pretty good book. As Shivers book go. Only problem was, in terms of criticism, this book gave me an automatic weapon and then threw bullets at me so fast my head might spin while writing this.

So the reason that this book is O.K. is mostly because of the characters, but also because it's reasonably scary. These lovable opposites, Caitlin and Lynne, are just about as different as two sisters can be! Caitlin is wimpy, girly, quick-thinking, and fat. Lynne is tough, skinny, a bit slow-minded, and phat. These two lil' troublemakers are moving for their dad's new job. He's a scientist. The mom is in there too, but I assume that she doesn't have a job. This family is moving into a big, old, creepy house. Some might even say that the house was spooky, uncanny, sinister, unearthly, scary, frightening, spine tingling, or maybe even... haunting!

So Caitlin, the twelve-year-old older sister to nine-year-old Lynne, is the narrator for this hair-raising roller-coaster, and she says something that connects to the reader. Go ahead, read that again. It's true, though, she complains about her parents saying hip words to sound "cool". And I can sympathize! My jaw literally dropped to the floor (that sounds like a line out of a Shivers book), but looks like ol' Spenser really did pull out the stops. Let's see what comes next.

So Cait and Lynne start acting like the jovial Even Steven and Odd Todd that they are, when suddenly they notice a gaping hole in the backyard. Right behind the house. Looks like the previous owners left in a holely. Get it, instead of hurry.

O.K, before we continue, I'm going to take a pledge, right here and now. Last post, I went out of control. There were puns everywhere, I was forced to see a psychiatrist for six days because I wouldn't stop making "punny" jokes, so I promise that this will be the single last pun that will be entered in to this post. The last pun. Now I will continue.

So Lynne tricks Cait into going into the hole, where the two of them wrestle it out. See, the characters may seem cliché and stupid, but I kinda like the whole opposite thing, with each character having actual strengths and weaknesses instead of acting the same way at every obstacle with the help of their idiot prankster siblings. So all of a sudden, the giant dirt pile that is obviously left next to the hole mysteriously collapses in on them after Lynne says that she hated the house, and Lynne saves them both with her strength and reflexes.

After that, team Hot and Cold decide to hightail it back into the house, where Caitlin goes exploring. She discovers that the house feels... wrong, and she finds footsteps in the dining room. She follows them, and discovers that it's... Lynne, who wore her big fuzzy slippers. Caitlin yells at her for wearing slippers, though it's more because she got frightened then the actual crime: against fashion. So anyway, Caitlin is mean to her little sister over absolutely nothing, and claims that she's the cause of everything that goes wrong with the family. Lynne shakes it off and goes to make the two of them sandwiches when the drawer mysteriously slams on her finger.

Caitlin tells Lynne that she accidentally did it, but Caitlin thinks that the force at work here might be even worse than clumsiness. Drawer-Shutting Gremlins! Then Caitlin goes upstairs to discover something even more terrifying: her window is open and her clothes are repacked! Now I'm no detective, but from what I can deduce, this is your typical maid ghost who left too much uncleaned, and now annoyingly packs up your stuff, closes your drawers, enjoys the cold, and passes the vacuum when you're just trying to read a good book. This might be the most terrifying book yet.

So Caitlin, of course, accuses Lynne, who pleads innocent, and Caitlin finds that someone also turned the thermostat off. She actually deduces that some presence doesn't want her in the house with such remarkably small evidence. She tries to convince Lynne, who is actually sane and tells Caitlin that Caitlin is not. So Caitlin shows her a book on haunted houses that she carries around for good luck and plot convenience, and the book claims that ghosts don't hurt people, just move stuff around, and Lynne believes her.

Then, a banging noise from downstairs. The two rush down to discover their father washing his hands, having cut his finger on a knife that seemed to jump out at him. He pulled the drawer out in shock, and the girls propose a very sound and rational theory as to why this madness is occurring: ghosts. The dad laughs at them and then, something incredible happens. Something so important that I am going to bolden and underline it. Something so unbelievable that it gets its own paragraph.

“'Wait, wait, wait. Hold on here, girls,'” their father replied. 'This all sounds like something you saw on TV or read in one of those Shivers books.'" Yeah. You read that right. M.D. Spenser just made a reference to Shivers books inside a Shivers book. He did it. What is that called, when you reference yourself? Masturbation? No, I'm pretty sure it's called being self-referential. Well, there is actually so much wrong with that my emotions got all mixed up and I don't know what to write, or even think, about this. It's just... wrong, somehow, like having the sun rise in the west.

So, Dad brushes off his children, and Caitlin gets mad at Lynne again for no reason, and they notice that the silverware has mysteriously gotten packed into the moving box while they were chatting. I'm still pretty sure that this ghost just wants to clean up after them, but if Caitlin thinks that it's an evil presence bent on securing their departure, who am I to judge?

The family meets up for dinner, and the adults say that they will be going to a neighbor's house to chat. Now imagine how terrifying hearing that would be. You're going to be in a haunted house for hours with no adults, and on top of that, you have an annoying older sister who blames you for everything. I know, it's pretty scary.

So Mom and Dad leave, and all of a sudden, a ghostly moan comes from the basement. And then, of course, all the doors in the house start locking, one by one, as well as the windows. The phone is cut, and a door slams into Caitlin's face. Kitchen drawers start launching themselves, so Cait finally has a smart thought and gets them out of there. They head up to Caitlin's room, where they do some more research and find out that these aren't just harmless ghosts, this is a haunting house, a living house that hates people.

Caitlin breaks a window to escape, but the house nearly murders them with its own glass shards. The shutters close, which makes the experience even more horrifying. Lynne says that she hates the house, which might not be a good move since you never insult the guy who has you tied to a chair. The duo decides that the only way to survive would be to go down into the basement, where they might find one of Dad's tools to break a door or the poor house's heart with. They head down, and the basement door shuts closed behind them, and the lights go out. They run to the kitchen to grab a flashlight, and then they head on down to adventure.

Team Survival goes on to try to wrangle up a tool or two, but are instead greeted to the basement beams being destroyed. Now I may not understand the things this house is going through, but I'm pretty sure that collapsing in on itself will not solve any problems. Still, the sisters make it upstairs just in time not to die.

After Lynne saves Caitlin from the basement, the pair rack their heads for a new plan. Lynne reveals that she has a secret tunnel in her room, but she didn't want to tell Caitlin because her diary is in there, but if they were going to die anyway, Caitlin might as well just know. O.K, now I understand why Caitlin gets a tad angry.

So, plan B: Lynne squeezes through the tunnel to ditch her sister and get help from mom and dad while Caitlin tries not to die in the killer house. It would go perfectly, but the tunnel empties out through the ceiling onto the stairs, so Lynne gets a headache and the house gets to laugh with Caitlin at Lynne's stupidity, so only one party loses. The sisters run from locked door to locked door, and just as all seems lost, and Lynne is whining about hating the house, Caitlin says that she feels sorry for the poor guy. Just then, the doors start to open.

Lynne doesn't see why she would feel sorry for something like that, so she talks about how much she hates the house as it tries to murder her. Caitlin stops this by saying that she loves the house, but Lynne just doesn't catch on. So she spells it out for her. I imagine it went a little something like this: "S-a-y-i-n-g t-h-a-t y-o-u h-a-t-e t-h-e h-o-u-s-e m-a-k-e-s i-t a-n-g-r-y y-o-u a-c-t-u-a-l d-u-m-b-a-s-s." So, using the power of love, the house and the people start to get along, and they all live happily ever after. Still, though, I feel like M.D. Spenser is overestimating nonhuman entities' ability to understand English.

Insight into the Complex Minds of Characters:
"She walked over to the thermostat and found something very peculiar. The heat was turned off. Not just turned down, but completely off. As if there were not a house full of people that needed heat. As if no one were going to live in the house at all." I'm sorry, I just feel like maybe Caitlin is reading too much into this.

Beautiful Imagery:
"Then every window locked itself, one after another after another, all around the old home: Ppphhheewwwtt! Ppphhheewwwtt! Ppphhheewwwtt! Ppphhheewwwtt! Ppphhheewwwtt!" This might be the worst onomatopoeia I have ever witnessed.

Hip References:
“Wait, wait, wait. Hold on here, girls,” their father replied. “This all sounds like something you saw on TV or read in one of those Shivers books. Now just stop and think about it. How could these things really happen?” I'm sorry, I just can't let that go. Just let it soak in for a little while.

Conclusion: So this book was actually not bad considering all the little mistakes it made. The characters were fun, at one point the scientist dad corrected Caitlin's grammar, so that was definitely a plus. The whole house survival thing was fun and creepy, so overall, I can happily give this a reasonably positive review.

Shivers 5: The Locked Room

Protagonist: Brittany. 11 years old. Relative: younger brother Eric. Self-righteous prankster personality. They moved from a big city I'm pretty sure is New York, and are now in the middle of nowhere, California. You know the drill.

So her mom just married a dude named Bill, a nice guy whom both siblings despise for no sensible reason. Brittany has a locket of her mother and father, but she looks at it and her mom is replaced by some other woman with a red line across her throat. O.K, I know it seems pretty boring and standard, but as Shivers books go, this one is pretty gnarly. I've been waiting way too long to say that.

Then her brother throws her locket in the stewardess's trash bag and watches while Brittany fishes through it, which is going away from the lovable prankster side of the spectrum and floating dangerously towards just being a dick. He could seriously take a page from David's book. What a jokester.

So the siblings, their mother, and the stepfather, Bill Beard, drive to the old homestead and talk about how little stores there are near their future house. They get to the incredibly old house, where Bill gives them the lowdown on the history. His ancestor, William Beard, struck gold during the big Rush and bought a nice, quaint little quaint cabin, one of considerable quaintness. He brought his beautiful, gold-digger (see what I did there?) wife to share it with him, but then she stole the money and burned the house down, tearing the roof off of his heart. He survived, but they apparently never found the woman. The new house was the one in which they are going to be living.

The team goes inside and Bill blows a gasket when Eric tries to touch his keys. Looks like he needs to get his anger locked up (god, I am on fire today) now that there are children on the property. The Brittany and Eric duo go to their rooms to discover secret hideouts in the closets. Cool.

So Eric scares Brittany, and she goes to see her mom. All the rooms are hideously decorated, but that's the least of Brittany's problems when her mom's reflection is a pale, creepy dead woman that Mom conveniently doesn't notice. She ignores it, and they go down to the kitchen to carry out the most boring and pointless conversation I have ever read about. They talk about redecorating, and have a conversation about different shades of blue, and the effects of blue on the mind. Did you know that there's apparently a shade called "nearly white?" I didn't, but that's okay because I actually don't care.

Brittany volunteers to keep Billwatch (in case you didn't notice, that is a reference to the 1989 series Baywatch), to let her mom know when to start dinner. She startles him during his designated creepy grinning time, and he hisses at her. Really. Like a snake.  Like a Diamondbill snake. O.K, I'm sorry, I'll stop now.

Night falls. Our adventuring party goes to sleep. But, in the middle of the night, Brittany hears mournful violin music sobbing, and realizes that it's not Eric, but she sleeps in his bed anyway. The next day, the siblings go on a hike and Brittany explains all the terrifying occurrences of late. He doesn't believe her at first, but he shows that he's actually a pretty nice guy when he doesn't laugh or make fun. They eventually stumble upon a very quaint little cemetery, one that perfectly matches the "quaint" theme for the whole property. All six gravestones show the names of women with the last name "Beard," and they all died young. Including the wife from the house's origin story.

When they got back, their aunt and uncle, Bonnie and Ian, arrive. Bonnie sees a different face in Brittany's locket, so Brittany isn't crazy, just clueless, like every other Shivers protagonist. Just to prove my point, Brittany gets her brother to stay up late in her room that night. To hear the moaning. The ghastly, depressing moaning that doesn't have a source and only haunts her room. Pure genius.

Sherlock and Watson junior get freaked out when the sobbing begins and scream for their mommy, then Bill sneaks up and chastises them for being in a Shivers book and making it glaringly obvious through their actions. The next day, the crew decorates the house, when Eric falls right through the wall of Brittany's secret hideout. They decide to just let it go. For the first day. Then the exploring began.

The siblings find a secret room, with a ton of random possessions, plus some portraits with Bill standing next to a different woman in each one, each taken during a wedding, complete with a lock of hair, a scarf or rose, and the finger with the wedding ring. Whoops. That's one hell of a relationship status.

The kids ruin Mom's new painting, and she gets furious and refuses to listen to their logical claims of an immortal man who collects and kills wives. Also, I'm pretty sure that this was based off of a Twilight Zone episode.

Finally, Bill leaves, and the kids show Mom what a horrible man she married. She realizes that they now need to be more careful than ever not to damage Bill's house or car, since insurance is a bitch when you've got a social security number from the 1800's. Bill comes to kill them all, insulted that Mom betrayed him by snooping and forced him to attempt to absorb her youth. Poor guy.

All of a sudden, Uncle Ian shows up and saves them, with a little help from Bill's ghost wives.

But then, in the first twist ending ever...
The family goes safe and sound to the airport. When Brittany opens the locket for comfort, though, her father has been replaced by Bill.

Insight into the Complex Minds of Characters:
“'Blue’s my favorite color these days, Mom. I read in a magazine that blue is a great color for sleeping. It’s peaceful. The magazine said people who like blue are good listeners. Also, we’re creative.'” I'm not even joking, this conversation goes on for, like, four pages.

Beautiful Imagery:
"The faces I had just seen in the mirror were hideous and hard to identify, but something told me they were female."

Hip References:
“'No, I want to call Dad,” I said coolly. “Tell Bill not to worry. I’ll call collect.'” Nobody uses collect calling anymore.

Conclusion: A pretty darn bad book. I snuck in some good puns, but reading about boring Beverly left me feeling blue. Did you see that? I'm really sorry, but I honestly had to put that one there. It was awesome. Anyways, monotonous storyline and characters, but the evil stepfather really made Bev and Eric Bill'd a stable relationship. Thankfully, the last few pages were full of finger-licking (in case you didn't catch that, it was a reference to the severed fingers found in Bill's closet), Eric-of-your-seat terror. Please help me. Seriously, I think I'm developing a problem. So see ya next time, hopefully in my next pun-free update. I'll try to lock up my problem.

P.S. I made a rough schedule. I will write a new post every weekend during either Friday or Saturday night.

Shivers 4: The Animal Rebellion

This book opens as our computer-geek protagonist, Winston, is out driving with his cousin, Brad, and his uncle, Bob. Winston and Brad are all buddy-buddy, even though Winston is a geek and Brad is a jock. Their specialty is saying something that obviously isn't true, getting the other person to believe it, then punching them in the arm and calling them geekhead/jockhead. So Winston is a city kid, staying at his comfortable house in the city. Psyche, gotcha geekhead! He's forced to go on a vacation out in the country where everything is unfamiliar. It's the 4th book and I can already predict the beginning. Oh, and also Winston's twelve. Obviously.

So the Brad/Bob farmer duo trick Winston into believing that the car and farm are infested with animal ghosts, which he believes because he think he's smart but, gotcha geekhead, he's not. So they get to the farm and it turns out that Brad has a computer. With computer games. Winston feels right at home until Brad tells him that his room is haunted because the previous owner was brutally murdered in it and gotcha geekhead and oh my god there are way too many of these.

So they go back to Brad's room where Winston reveals that he follows sports, even though he's a nerd. It doesn't help convince the reader that he calls the athletes on Brad's wall "sports guys". So then Winston pretends to get electrocuted and his cousin starts to give him CPR, which is a little awkward since Winston was faking and could have punched Brad at any point. Gotcha, jockhead! I hate these characters.

So they start to install such obviously fake games as "Terrible Battle II" and "Dogfight to the Death". Maybe this book should be titled "Terrible Book II", amIright? Then Brad gives Winston a tour of the barn that ends with a friendly horse named Demon brutally biting Brad's arm. Maybe they should have named him Snuggums instead. They show uncle Bob his bite, which he dismisses with a "you must have spooked him" instead of the necessary "holy shit my horse just bit my son for the first time ever". Then Winston and Brad go back to Brad's room, only to find a new game called Animal Killers.

The title showed horses that looked just like Demon eating human limbs with a beautiful, redish-orangish sunset painted sky, a smiling sun complete with sunglasses, and the kind of surreal animation only found in programs attempting to convey the true power of friendship. So Winston freaks out, Brad claims coincidence-ies, and they forget about the game.

One of the farm-hands, Zeke, gets bitten and kicked by another horse named Tornado, and Bob takes him to the hospital, leaving the other boys alone. I can only assume that Zeke was given better treatment than Brad only because of the comparative amount of work that each can do. On a farm, family don't mean nothin'. It's all about the productivity. So they both decide to disregard everything that had previously happened even though horses were literally running rampant and go to bed. All of a sudden, Winston gets a surge of bravery (the better word would actually be stupidity) and decides to check out the barn for no reason at all other than the fact that he just feels like it. See, on a real farm, that kind of attitude would get him whupped. He would get whupped bad.

He goes out to the barn, where the animals just stay in the back of their stalls and watch him. Then a rooster scratches his head, and the damaging of the stupidity cells used by his brain as substitution for actual brain cells causes him to want to get out. Without closing the barn doors.

He goes to his bed and looks out his window and sees all the farm animals in a huge crowd, talking together and looking at him simultaneously. My Goat is a little rusty, but I believe one of them suggested that they "whup some sense into that one". Then he goes to get Brad and, of course, only Demon and Tornado were still there. They go outside to round them up, but the horses try to bash their brains out. Then Winston has the brilliant realization that maybe they should check the video game that seemed to prophesies all these events in the first place. The instruction manual says that the animals are rebelling (WHAT? NO!) and that they can run, hide, or try to capture the animals. If they harm one, though, ten more will come. The goal is to survive the surprise attacks. Now that the rules are set, let's see how our hero plays the game. Spoiler alert: He's a spastic, idiotic geek. So probably not well.

The animals chase them into the kitchen, then back down the hallway, where Winston trips over a table or something, which I admittedly laughed at even though I don't think that it was for comedic effect. Then they go to the bathroom and then the attic and then they jump out the window and make it to the barn. Winston, in a moment of genius, decides to go back and finish reading the instruction manual that he left behind. He has Brad distract the animals because he's not comfortable around dangerous situations and sneaks into Brad's room. Then he and the rooster from earlier have a showdown which ends with Winston taking the video game hostage.

The instruction manual says that the game is endless fun, meaning that it actually never ends, like the amount of books that Dean Koontz creates. Then Winston realizes that if the video game dies, the whole barnyard murderfest thing dies too. The video game burns, Brad is saved from having to keep sitting on the barn roof, the animals keep attacking, the computer is wiped, then things go back to normal. Hurrah.

Insight into the Complex Minds of the Characters: (When burning the game) "My parents taught me never to play with fire but this was an emergency. Even they wouldn’t mind me lighting a match to protect my life! And my cousin’s life, too!" Everything you do, Winston. Every damn thing you do.

Beautiful Imagery: "The animals seemed like football players before the Super Bowl — pumped up and ready to get into the game. Only this time, Brad and I were the footballs." This isn't exactly imagery, but this line is so ridiculous I had to include it somewhere.

Hip References: Star Trek is literally mentioned, like, every second page. The main character tries to compare himself to Kirk all the time, he compares his escapes to Scotty beaming him up, which did make me laugh, but I'm afraid your preachin' to the wrong crowd, Spenser. The kids these days probably haven't actually seen the original Star Trek. But never mind that.

Conclusion: A pretty good book so far. Not amazing in terms of the quality of the writing, and you couldn't tell from reading it, but this is by far the scariest and most suspenseful book in the series. Also, Player 2 (Brad) wins, and Winston was awful.

Shivers 3: Ghost Writer

As the book opens, our protagonist Amber Elliston is mourning for the loss of the life that she loved due to having to move to Georgia. Amber is exactly like Nicole: loves to complain about switching houses due to her father taking a new job, not very social, loves to read, has a sibling that annoys her, and is haunted by the undead. So Amber is sitting in a car with her family, which is also the opening to A Ghastly Shade of Green, except without the heart-wrenching jokes. So far so good.

So Amber is indirectly telling the reader that her life is now over, and that she's never going to see her friends again and all the little things she misses about New York City. She's sitting next to her brother, David, who is fourteen and reading an adventure book about dragons and castles. I think M.D. Spenser is getting a fourteen-year-old mixed up with a ten-year-old. Not that I don't like dragons and castle, even now, but you'll see what I mean as I go along.

So Amber reveals that they moved because her dad got mugged and stopped feeling safe, because he never expected that such a thing could happen in New York. It's honestly too shocking for me to fully comprehend. But anyways, now he's working at a different newspaper. And there's another thing that Amber and Nicole have in common. I'm sensing a pattern.

Upon hearing the news that they will be moving, Amber bursts into tears and- get this- David locks himself in his room with a sign on the door that says "Parent Free Zone", and plays video games for a week straight. That doesn't quite sound like high school behavior to me, but maybe it's an east side thing, I don't know. But back to the car, all of a sudden this song goes on, complete with creepy piano music, that says, "Come to me, come to me, oh beautiful one. Come to me, or I will come to you". This song is constantly referenced as a strange yet beautiful love song, but personally I have never seen a song with creepier lyrics.

So then some weird stuff happens and she sees a creepy little girl face in the window. She screams, and her brother makes fun of her with the crushing burn of saying that maybe a velociraptor jumped out at her, and then proceeds to bite her arm like a velociraptor. It makes sense, since she's scared of Jurassic Park, but that still doesn't quite justify it. Then a little girl in a white dress with flowers in her hair appears in front of the car, making them swerve and nearly crash. Their car is crushed by a falling branch, which David mistakes for a dragon, but just then the sheriff shows up and drives them to their big, old, unfurnished house.

An accident was mentioned by the sheriff, but then the adults changed the subject. So they go to their new rooms, and Amber decides to look out the window. When she does, an old lady looks straight at her. And then she falls asleep even though she's twelve and afraid of Jurassic Park. The next morning, she tells her mom, who tells her that it wasn't a witch, but their estranged great aunt Hannah McAfee. She tells her that there used to be three McAfees: Helen, Hannah, and Harriet. The accident that was referred to earlier was Helen's death at the age of sixteen. She was found in a river, and the prime suspect was Hannah because Hannah found her, they were in love with the same boy, and they had been mad at each other. And the death was claimed accidental. Looks like a classic case of OJ Simpson. She did live in shame the rest of her life, though, so at least she had that to look forward to. Also, Harriet is their grandmother, but nobody cares because she's like the third Manning brother.

Just then, the sheriff comes by again, but this time with his daughter, Kelly, who's Amber's age. Kelly is the opposite of Amber, totally country born and raised, complete with her own four-wheeler motorcycle. The two decide to go up to Amber's room, where she trips over a loose board. Underneath they find a message on light blue paper. Before they read it, Amber asks Kelly about Helen. She says that she was a girl who wore white dresses and picked flowers, just like the girl in the road. Coincidence? Probably not, but the suspense is about finding out.

They read the beginning of the letter, and of course it's the creepy song that they heard on the radio that would get you maced in the eyes if you ever recited it to a person. But then they get distracted and they totally forget about it. Amber's mom asks the pair to go down to the mailbox and mail the bills, so they ride down on the four-wheeler and Amber, in the most intense and frightening part of the book, heart pounding, teeth chattering, body shivering, eyes closing, sleep falling, time wasting, accidentally mails the blue letter. They get back to the house, where Kelly is sent home and David and the dad gets back from picking up the now repaired car.

David, being the little rascal that he is, tells Amber that he was bitten by a shark when really, he joined a swim team called "The Sharks". Haha! Looks like we have a little Dennis the Menace. The dad chastises David for that searing burn he laid down on his sister. I don't know, maybe you had to be there. Right before he could use the old "Hey, your shoes are untied. Psyche!" line, Amber goes inside and decorates her room. Night comes, and she decides to check her email. To her surprise, she actually got one. The email is a picture of a young blonde girl. It's Helen. She turns her head and asks Amber to "help me help her." She understandingly freaks out and goes to bed.

The next morning, David is all chummy and wanting to explore. Usually, he just sits in his room and plays with his medieval action figure set. He reveals that the same ghostly stuff has been happening to him, and that he wants to check out the river where Helen died. Then Amber gets a light blue letter addressed to her that tells her go with her brother and "help me help her". So she goes, because ghosts are in the top 3 list of people to take advice from, right behind the sassy black sidekick in romantic comedies. They go to the river and Kelly shows up, so the three of them eavesdrop on a dirty old guy with a pit bull going up to the river and ripping up a light blue letter.

Team Junior Ghostbusters decides to split up and meet at three at their dad's office to see if they can find a helpful newspaper. The siblings get seen by the old man, but run away before anything can happen. Then they hear John Wayne Gacy's ringtone, most likely titled "Come to Me", and hightail it home. The trio meets up at the newspaper office, and finds that the newspaper with news of Helen's death has the same picture that was emailed to Amber. Then the receptionist said that Hannah committed the crime after the newspaper said that she was missing at the same time as her sister, which, to be fair, is pretty good evidence. It turns out that the love interest, Jim, played the guitar, and he and Helen made a sort of band. Hannah got really jealous, so she wrote him a song on the piano. They had a fight in front of the school, and Hannah said that she hated Helen so much that she could kill her. OK, so I could see why everyone blames her.

Of course, the song that Helen would have sung was "Come to Me My Beautiful One". I was pretty close. Kelly decides to sleep over, and in Amber's room, the song begins to play and Kelly freaks out, breaking into tears and saying she's scared. Amber and David sneak off without her and jump in the back of Hannah's truck as she leaves her house. She goes to the river and walks into a log cabin belonging to the old dude from earlier. They go up to the door and hear him arguing with Hannah, and the old dude drags the two kids in there after the dog gives them away.

They had all gotten letters, and then Mr. Grouchypants decides to blame the kids. David makes a run for it, but accidentally activates a record player and they listen to "Come to Me My Beautiful Victim One", and then Helen materializes and points out that the old dude is really Jim. Also he's a total dick now.

It is revealed that Jim really killed Helen "by accident", when he was shaking her shoulders trying to "calm her down" after the talent show. Helen tells Jim to set things right and stop being such a wuss, so he goes on a rampage and smashes everything. Jim and David do some good ol' fashion country wrastling after he tries to kill Hannah, while Amber screams and watches, wishing that she still had all those superheroes from New York. Then the sheriff shows up with Kelly. Right then. Of course.

Hannah's name is cleared and the sheriff actually believes them even though they're talking about an actual ghost. They all go home happily ever after, and Hannah becomes friends with the Ellistons. Oh, and Jim hates himself now. But that's part of the happy ending.

Insight into the Complex Minds of the Characters: (When talking about Kelly) "She didn't look like the friends Amber had had in New York. She didn't sound like them either. She bet Kelly had never even been to Central Park. She probably didn't like to read, and never even painted her fingernails pink."

Beautiful Imagery: "They heard a dog bark. It was not a friendly bark, like the yip-yip of the little poodle that used to live down the hall from them in New York."

Hip References: "She clicked on the E-mail program and heard the familiar sound of the modem hooking into the phone line. She entered her password, and watched the color picture of a mail box flash on. She was surprised when the flat computer voice said, "You've Got Mail."

Conclusion: Not bad. Maybe this series won't be terrible after all. Unfortunately, though, it was too good to make any good jokes about it, so hopefully the next one will be a little worse.