Shivers 28: Watch 'Em Kill

You know a book's going to be fantastic when it opens with "Why does everyone call me a geek?" Take a page from M.D. Spenser's book: hook in the audience from the very first page. And how about the next sentences, "Or an egghead? They use that word sometimes, too." Egghead? I think M.D. Spenser's getting twelve-year-olds confused with nobody.

Speaking of twelve-year-olds, our protagonist's name is Philip. He loves monsters, everything about monsters, and he's also an aspiring writer. In fact, Watch 'Em Kill, is his first book. I hope he has a backup plan, since his idea of foreshadowing is "[The events] were really terrifying, I can tell you!" Anyway, he's not very good at sports because he's kind of a loser, but he likes to tag along anyway even when it's clear he's not wanted. Gee, I wonder why people call him a geek. He reminds me of pretty much every male live-action children's movie protagonist ever.

So I bet you're thinking to yourself: "Why, Jonathan, he does seem pretty geeky, but he doesn't quite fit the bill as a full-fledged dork." Well, try this on for size: "Sometimes I even solve high school physics problems my teacher gives me. I like reading Shakespeare's plays, and I enjoy poetry and awesome books like Moby Dick and The Grapes of Wrath." I like these Shivers books because they're so relatable. Who doesn't remember their exciting middle school years of solving high school physics problems just for kicks. Also, a 12-year-old reading The Grapes of Wrath leads me to believe that maybe M.D. Spenser never actually read The Grapes of Wrath. Oh, and because I'm gonna forget, Philip's best friend is named Steven and there's a super athletic neighbor named Ronny. So... remember that.

Philip just loves those Watch 'Em Grow pills, where you put them in water and they turn into little spongy dinosaurs/animals/sea creatures monsters. So as our tale begins, little Philip is reading the witches' cauldron scene in Macbeth, which he describes as "really scary." OK, no, I'm sorry, this kid completely brings it all on himself, he is awful. As he is sitting there, he sees Ronnie and his brothers, Louie and Tubs, dribble past his house. This gives rise to one of the most painful scenes in the series as Philip follows them to their house and asks to play as the six kids already there, minus Ronnie, mock him. Ronnie's pretty polite about the rejection, and says that he can stay and watch them play if he wants. Now, in all seriousness, everything he did up to this point would have been excusable, but then he actually stays and watches them play for a few minutes before he started to feel kind of "out of place." At this point, the only thing I feel for this character is pity.

So, in a fit of depression, Philip rides his bike to the local... store, I guess, and buys four packets of Watch 'Em Sprout, a new product which is supposed to have monsters "even better than the Watch 'Em Grow ones." And just to top it off, "every monster you can think of was included: Frankenstein and Dracula, the Mummy, Wolfman, even the Creature from the Black Lagoon." Every monster you can think of, all five of them! And these are even better than the Watch 'Em Grow ones; what kind of monsters set the bar that low?  I can think of six more right now: Godzilla, Bigfoot, Cthulhu, that crazy dog from that one Steven King book, Charizard, Mothra. Also, Frankenstein's not even the monster, it's the scientist that made the monster, who is literally referred to as "Frankenstein's Monster." God, this book is lazy.

Unfortunately for Philip, he trips on his bike and spills a few of his pills. He rides away, thinking that it's no big deal until he hears some loud pops behind him, followed by red smoke. Knowing that it's not July 4th, Philip automatically assumes that someone is trying to murder him in broad daylight and runs away. His parents call the police, they go to investigate, and they find four huge sets of footprints. But even after all this happens, Philip's parents leave him alone that night to go to some party. They almost care about their son's safety less than I do.

During this alone time, the reader is exposed to more of Philip's hilarious antics, like when he mistakes his reflection in the window for a mummy. For someone who's so smart, he's a dumbass. After this charming scene, the power goes out, so Philip calls Steven and the two of them chat. Steven is babysitting his little sister while his parents are also gone. Is it just me, or are all the parents in this book atrocious? They all seemed to conveniently forget about the shooter in the woods with four huge sets of feet.

Then, somebody starts rattling Philip's doorknob, so he grabs a baseball bat, waits until it stops, and then goes outside (but because whynot?, right?). Philip finds a huge set of footprints, which doesn't actually make any sense considering it turns out to be Ronnie, Louie, and Tubs, but logic isn't exactly this book's strong suit. Philip finds Ronnie, who lost his brothers, and they team up to look for them. But first, Philip has an idea. The pair races up to his room, and he counts the remaining tablets, realizing that five are missing (four from the forest, one that I guess he knocked out the window at some point), and tells Ronnie that they must be alive, "It's the only logical explanation." It's the only what? Aliens would be more logical than that, a giant sharknado from the movie Sharknado would be more logical than that, because what kind of sense does it make that, I kid you not, "They've got some extra chemicals in them or something." I'm sold.

So, Ronnie gets a call from Louie saying that the Wolfman stole Tubs. I miss writing sentences like that. Ronnie decides to go home, so Philip goes upstairs and accidentally knocks another pellet out the window. Oh, and it has been raining the whole time. You can't see, but I'm slowly clapping right now. The mummy forms, breaking in and getting ready to kill Philip. My heart's beating, my hands are gripping the sides of the book, I'm thinking, "Is it finally going to end, will I finally be done with this terrible protagonist?" No, because Steven, with inhumanly impeccable timing, bursts in and hits the mummy with a baseball bat, which somehow knocks it out. Philip responds by saying, hand to God, "Now I know what a real friend is." Oh, so that's what a real friend is. I thought it was whoever convinces you not to see The Watch.

So Philip goes upstairs to change when he sees the remaining 72 boxed pills. He decides to bring them all with him, in one container, when he goes outside. He doesn't hide them, he brings them out in the rain. I'm just wondering how the hell he survived as long as he has, what with absolutely no survival instinct. I'm still baffled that he survives until the end of the book. When the duo gets outside, they see the Wolfman with a captured Tubs, who chases them for a while. But Philip trips, and the eighteen pills that were in his shirt pocket fall out into a puddle. Philip kept the remaining eighteen pills from the first box in his shirt pocket.

OK, I'm done, this is the new ending: Philip and Steven run away from the exploding pills, knowing that this may be their only chance of escape. The Wolfmen begin pursuit, slowly gaining on our slow-minded protagonists. All of a sudden, Steven has a epiphany and realizes how stupid his friend is, stopping to trip him before running back home. Philip is attacked by the Wolfmen, who throw him through a magic portal to an alternate dimension where he gets cooked alive by the "scary" witches in Shakespeare's Macbeth. Over in Washington D.C. Newt Gingrich and George W. Bush decide that the only course of action is to nuke whatever city in which this book takes place, so they take control of the nuclear bomb holding facility and launch them all, destroying the town and erasing all possibility of a sequel.

I really like it, I don't know about you guys. But, I guess I have to say what really happens. All the kids escape in the smoky chaos, the monsters rip open the box with the remaining 72 pellets, and nobody believes Philip the next day until Frankenstein's monster attacks some family. Then, Philip's family gets attacked by the mummy, and this time it's Philip's dad that acts like a doltish clod. Their conversation goes a little something like this:
"Dad, come on, let's escape."
"No, son. I'll hold them off, you get out of here."
"No, he's really slow, we could easily escape if you just stop fighti-"
"Don't try to be the hero, son, just go!"
"What? No, I'm not-"
"Quickly, before he overwhelms me, carry on the Henderson family line, make sure there are more deplorable idiots in the world, just like you and me, son... just like you and me."

Philip runs to Steven's house, where he meets up with Steven, Tubs, Louie, and Ronny. All of a sudden, Philip has an idea: maybe fire would destroy the monsters, since it melted the original Watch 'Em Grow pellets. Maybe it wouldn't, maybe this book would maintain at least a little bit of credibility and fire wouldn't be the living monsters' weakness, but... it works.

This is when the decent writing turns awful. From this point on, a lot of stuff happens with no detail and little description. Philip and Steven leave the others who basically say, "Um, you guys go out and fight, we'll hold the fort and stuff." They get picked up by their parents, who drive them to the main battle between humans and crappy monsters, and they burn them all. Turns out a "crazy scientist" mixed a bunch of nonexistent and unnamed chemicals into the pellets because whynot? and accidentally released them to the public. Philip was crowned a hero, blah blah blah this book sucks ass.

Insight into the Complex Minds of Characters:
"'I'll wallop him so hard with this sledgehammer that I'll knock him into next week!'"

Beautiful Imagery:
"So I chuckled and chortled. I giggled and guffawed."

Beautiful Imagery, Part 2:
"Here in my neighborhood were the villains of ten thousand nightmares." Really, all five villains of ten thousand nightmares?

Hip References:
"'I vant to dreenk yer blood!' the foul creature said." Really? One line, one line, and it's screwed up.

Conclusion: While not as awful and lazy as Camp Fear, nothing is as awful and lazy as Camp Fear so that doesn't say much. Despite being a poorly thought out Gremlins ripoff, this book did have some potential, as a survival story, at least, that it did not fulfill. So, in conclusion, bad.

Bioshock

Hey guys, guess what, I'm reviewing a video game this time! I finished this sometime this week and loved it so much that I just had to do a review, and it has nothing to do with the fact that I'm out in the desert right now and don't have any books. Anyway, let's dive in!

So you start out on a plane, reading a note whose contents are not shown. If you can't tell, it's pretty important later. Well, that plane crashes, and you're the only survivor. Oh, and the main character's name is Jack, by the way. Well, you swim yourself to safety at a nearby floating lighthouse. Thank God the government decided to put all those floating lighthouses in the middle of the ocean, during Bush's term I believe.

If you haven't figured it out, this is a first-person shooter. The graphics are stunning, the atmosphere is effectively terrifying, and the storyline is rich and unbelievably gnarly. I have to admit, though, that it is a really difficult game. For example, despite the fact that I played on "normal" mode, I constantly ran out of ammo. I will, however, put the blame on myself for that one, cause I totally didn't use enough Plasmids early on...

Oh right, the plot. So, inside the lighthouse there's a bathysphere (a spherical submarine). You walk inside, sit down, get comfortable, and then it's like you were strapped into "Lex Luthor's Drop of Doom." You sink down into the undersea city of Rapture, the game's setting.

Rapture is beautiful,

Even when it's making you cry in fear.

The first thing you see, of course, is a psychopath with hook-like daggers who threatens to kill you with very colorful language. And they say Americans are rude. Well, things look grim until a guy named Atlas starts talking to you through a radio in your bathysphere. He helps you out by flashing a spotlight on the enemy, scaring him away. Now that's what I call shining some light on the situation. So, Atlas agrees to help you survive in exchange for your help in rescuing his family, who is on the run. Andrew Ryan, the founder of Rapture, is the only thing standing in your way. He's a crazy, ambitious, and crazy ambitious son-of-a-bitch, and he is determined to stop you at all costs. Just to give you some insight as to his character, here's a quote: "It was never impossible to build Rapture underwater. It was impossible to build it anywhere else."

One line, one line like that from M.D. Spenser and I would take away my whole "Insight into the Complex Minds of Characters" bit. Also, when I said that Andrew Ryan and his army of higher-ups are the only things standing in your way... I lied. See, the main enemies are called Splicers. That weirdo with the hook daggers was just one type.

Always terrifying, the Splicer

Basically, Splicers are what's left of humanity in Rapture after the civil war. Their minds and bodies were deformed as a result of a drug called ADAM, a substance that makes you stronger, faster, better, gives you amazing power, but apparently doesn't know the value of beauty sleep, cause that is one ugly bastard. ADAM eventually sustains the user's mental and physical health, so the more they take, the saner they are. Obviously, it's very rare.

From ADAM comes EVE, a chemical used to power superpowers called Plasmids, stuff like telekinesis, fire, lightning, the ability to spawn a can of whoop-ass, etc. Basically, although it will seem attractive to just shoot the Splicers, you're gonna wanna use Plasmids as much as possible to conserve ammo, which is scarce later on. Luckily, you always have your trusty wrench, so if you're in a pinch and need some ammo, you can give your foe a slight headache before being ripped to shreds. Anyway, Atlas eventually leads you to a room where you see, through a window, a gruesome murder. 

So, there's something I have to explain first. ADAM is farmed by infecting little girls with a special kind of sea slug, whose stem cells are a key ingredient of ADAM. These little girls, called Little Sisters, go around with their creepy yellow eyes and giant syringes that are freaking bigger than they are, and they stab people in order to extract blood, which they then eat and make into ADAM.

The. Stuff. Of. Nightmares.

They're hunted by everybody for their ADAM, so they are assigned these giant robots called Big Daddies (the guy on the cover). 

Well, the murder happens when some guy grabs one of the Little Sisters right before a Big Daddy comes in, sticks his drill hand in the guy's chest, and goes crazy. Now that's what I call takin' him out for a spin. Oh, and as a side-note, I would like to apologize for the puns. It's 2:30 a.m.

Later you meet Tenenbaum, the creator of the Little Sisters. She gives you a Plasmid that lets you turn Little Sisters back into sane, non-murderous little girls. Sounds great, right? Unfortunately, you can't change them until their Big Daddies are killed. So you have to kill them. The Big Daddies. The giant drill robots. Fighting them sucks, and it requires a lot of strategy so you don't run out of ammo. One time I tricked two into fighting each other. It was cool.

You also have the option to harvest the Little Sisters. You get more ADAM, but the Little Sisters die in the process. I have never tried it. It just couldn't bring myself to do it. I mean, just look at that girl's cute little face... like that of an angel. I mean, you get presents for not killing them, and I just didn't see the point. In the end, I learned I made the right decision, so it all worked out.

Well, the game is basically running around Rapture, finding more secrets, learning the backstory, discovering how characters fit together. There's Dr. Suchong, who helped create the Little Sisters and single-handedly created the Big Daddy. He sucks. Luckily, he's dead when you arrive, so it's OK. And there's J.S. Steinman, the insane, asymmetry-obsessed plastic surgeon. That medical pavilion was the scariest place of my life. Human experiments and freaks of nature everywhere. There's the botanical gardens where you meet... the botanist, Julie Langford. There's Pablo Navarro, expert hacker and rebel during the civil war. There's Frank Fontaine, drug smuggler and Andrew Ryan's rival, and Sander Cohen, crazy, bipolar artist that I couldn't wait to fight. And, of course, there's Tenenbaum, Atlas, and Andrew Ryan himself. And there's you.

The politics are deeply intriguing, the pasts of all the characters are checkered at best, and everything about it is totally edge-of-your-seat. Like, you'll walk down some stairs and hear some guy singing a creepy religious song behind you, you'll see shadows on the wall of a woman leaning over a stroller and hear a crying baby, but when you turn the corner there's just a plain stroller and laughter from behind you. And, of course, there's the cry of the Big Daddy, like a majestic whale siren: Waaaaaaaahooooooggaaaaaa. That should be under "Beautiful Imagery."

There are a few problems with the game, of course. For one, it is way too easy to run out of ammo if you're not careful. Even on normal mode, I ran out a few times, and the melee weapon sucks, so you're basically running at your enemy and hitting them until they die, no matter how many times you die. Oh, and the whole "low health, easy resurrection" thing... I don't know if I like that. You do have very low health, but when you die you come back in these things called Vita-chambers, and your enemies don't regain health, so the system, depending on what they were going for, might be a little flawed, though it certainly did help with the lack of ammo.

Oh, but the end... When you reach Andrew Ryan, all hell breaks loose, shit hits the fan, the wind rises, it runs right off the rails and into the gnarliest twist this side of Shutter Island. I can't ruin it, because ruining the ending to a Bioshock video game is unforgivable. It's in the constitution as "cruel and unusual punishment," the Geneva Convention as "crimes against humanity," and it's just a dick move. Seriously, if you lit every puppy in the world on fire, and every puppy-owning child on fire, it would still not be as bad as ruining a Bioshock twist. So please, I beg of you, don't look it up, just play the game. Trust me, it's all worth the experience. I know you won't regret it, but be warned: there are multiple endings, and if you save the Little Sisters instead of killing them, you will be much happier.

Conclusion: My favorite video game series to date.

Shivers 27: Camp Fear

One of the main characters levitates after falling off a cliff and the book never explains how. 10/10.

So, I've been playing the Bioshock games on Xbox 360, and I've got to say, they are totally awesome. Like, it's probably one of my favorite series now. The depth of these cities, the creepy, unnerving and dystopian atmospheres, it's incredibly gnarly. Plus, they have demonic little girls walking around with giant robots and stabbing people with syringes, so... pretty much perfect. I've decided that as soon as I'm finished with the first game, which will be very soon, I will do a review on it. Then I will play the second one, and do a review on that and Bioshock Infinite, which I've already beaten. So... look out for that, I guess.

I could start by telling you what I hate about this book, but I think I'd rather let the book itself do the talking. It starts out with Jane, our protagonist, leaving her house to go on a camping trip with the rest of her grade. She's super excited to bunk with her best friend, Lindsay. They're such BFF's that they're practically sisters. They finish each other's sentences and each seems to know what the other is thinking, which is awfully convenient considering that the two of them are exactly the same. I really mean it, exactly the same. Jane also expected to be bunked with her other friends: Carolyn, Jaimie, Alyssa, and Katie. Yes, she has five friends. Remember these names, because they are not in the least bit important at any point in the novel.

Well, Jane was shocked to discover that she was instead grouped with Molly, a huge nerd, and Chelsea, the popular diva-type. I'm gonna tell you right now that these are the only characters with personalities. The gang goes to their cabin and Molly loses her glasses, so everybody but Chelsea helps her look. While Jane is looking under the porch, she hears a creepy slithering noise, but it turns out to be Chelsea sticking a coat-hanger through the floorboards to scare Jane. First of all, she is pulling such an Adam right now. Second, why did she bring a coat-hanger on a camping trip?

Next, the group goes over to the flagpole to hear the rules from their teacher, Miss Farlie. She gives everyone a compass and a map, declares that every group has to check in at every meal, and there's also some kind of geology project the groups have to do. M.D. Spenser never explains it.

At lunch, Jane and Lindsay, or as I like to call them, Jane, hook up with their other four friends from before. There's some backstory, like how they met in preschool (except for Jaimie, who joined them in third grade. Classic Jaimie.) and how they always had sleep-over birthday parties. Gee, if only I had the littlest sense of any of their personalities. Seriously, coming up with a backstory in thirty seconds doesn't make it OK that M.D. Spenser didn't put any effort into these characters, or the main characters, or the teacher.

Well, anyway, Jane and Lindsay meet up with Molly and find the popular group making fun of them. So, in what might be described as the greatest prank ever pulled, the three of them throw pebbles into nearby bushes in order to scare them in broad daylight. This Machiavellian practical joke just needed one last touch to push it to perfection: Jane stepping on a twig. The popular kids scream and run away because M.D. Spenser doesn't know how children act.

Later, the team goes down one of the trails and happens across an abandoned mine, which is marked as off limits. You know there's plot point bells because there's nothing in this book that doesn't have some connection to the main conflict. Eventually, Jane goes off on her own and happens upon a writhing mass of snakes. Correct me if I'm wrong, but unless this is some kind of orgy, this doesn't occur in nature. You can tell the snakes were real because "these were no coat hangers. This was no trick." Anyway, Lindsay saves Jane again because she's too stupid to just go back the way she came. Courtney ran back to camp when she heard screaming, so it's back to square one.

Back at the camp, Courtney spills nail polish on their map, so there's nothing left to see except the path to the mine. Jane, taking the only logical option available to her, decides to go to said abandoned mine. She convinces the others, and I'm sorry but can I please point out how stupid this is? They go to some random Summer camp with their school and decide to go to one of the only places where they're specifically not allowed. Oh, and it's a freaking abandoned mine. This is not Scooby Doo, people die if they do that. It's just... this book. It's not thought out, none of this is thought out.

At dinner, Jane decides to introduce Molly to the rest of her friends. At first she was worried, but when Molly is immediately accepted she realized she had nothing to fear the whole time. Of course, because her friends are so... accepting? Kindhearted? Bitchy? They could be 40-year-old men and I wouldn't be surprised. Here, I'll make backstories and personalities for them: Carolyn is a very amiable young lady. She likes to spend her time searching her town for people and animals in danger. She has saved over two hundred cats from trees, and once pushed Jaimie in front of a truck just to save a puppy from being run over. It's just how nice she is. She doesn't tolerate bullies, and reluctantly hits them with bricks ever since she saw The Adventures of Sharkboy and Lavagirl when she was ten. If she worked in an office-building, she would probably win Employee of the Month.

Forced to spend the rest of her life in a wheelchair ever since The Accident, Jaimie was always considered a simple child. She most likely inherited this trait from her father, who always remarked that Jaimie was "not the sharpest tool in the chandelier." She suspected that she was really a genius, and once invented her very own secret language that she later discovered was already named "Pig-Latin." Jaimie's mind often wandered, and she once rode the bus so far past her original destination that she ended up in a place in which the inhabitants spoke Arabic. She learned the language within two hours of wondering around a marketplace, but then traded the remainder of her money for a t-shirt that said "انا مع غبي" or "I'm with stupid." Stranded and wearing a t-shirt four sizes too large, she returned home after four months of assisting the civilians in overthrowing their government.

Alyssa came to the U.S. from Canada, fleeing her country because she was caught stealing candy from babies. Alyssa was a notorious kleptomaniac, but also had a healthy dose of dark humor. Unfortunately, stealing candy from a baby proved to be very difficult, and seeing as how Alyssa did not have a healthy dose of ironic humor, she panicked and stole a bus, whose only resident was a strange little girl about her age. Not realizing that she would get more for car theft and kidnapping than she would for petty theft, she crossed the border after saying that no, she did not have any endangered animals with her. She was forced to sell her bus, forgetting to mention the girl inside, to a middle-aged man halfway across Montana. She then pulled off a series of bank robberies, moving toward wherever the hell the protagonist lives while blowing up national monuments to pull attention away from her burglar escapades.

Katie is really a forty-year-old man in disguise, forced to live undercover in fear of being found by a certain Libyan drug mob. After buying an ungodly amount of heroin, Katie, formerly known as "Deadbeat," drove from one end of Montana to the other in a mini, battery-powered car. His car was taken, however, after he refused to stop ramming into the side of an orphanage "for bonus points." Low on cash, self-esteem, and smack, Deadbeat bought a bus off some little girl, loaded the bus onto a boat, and essentially drove to Libya after hearing that his former drug dealer was awaiting a new shipment. Deadbeat, after realizing that he didn't speak the language and had no way to communicate with the sketchy criminals, stole as much heroin as he could carry after lighting the hair of one of said thugs. After injecting enough drugs to kill an adolescent elephant, he swam across the Atlantic Ocean, changed his name, and re-attended preschool.

That took, like, fifteen minutes, and it really wasn't that hard. Later that night, Jane and Lindsay are going to the bathroom when they hear scratching on the door. The discover that somebody etched "stay away from my m-" on the outhouse door. Jane realizes that the unfinished word was "mine," but is too stupid to care. Too bad she didn't have Alyssa with her, she would have stopped them. Regardless of the direct but unfinished warning received earlier, the group heads to the mine. When inside, the group follows a tunnel to a box of jewels, as well as a newspaper telling of a multimillion dollar robbery. Apparently, some dude murdered the people who previously owned the land before taking their jewel collection. So many holes in this story, but first: jewel collection?

Well, the group gets blocked in by a rockslide, and are forced to ride a mine-cart and hope that it leads to a way out. There are some ropes by the side of the tracks, and the girls grab on to them to stop the car before it goes off a cliff. But just when they are about to leave, a voice demands that they leave the treasure. So they do. Oh, but Courtney kept some, so Lindsay goes back to return it when she falls into a hole and is levitated to safety. 10/10. The end.

Insight into the Complex Minds of Characters:
This segment is not available because none of the characters think.

Beautiful Imagery:
"The noise sounded like a dog scratching on a door. It sounded like something sharp scraping against the outhouse door."

Hip References:
"From her oversized duffel bag she removed a portable CD player, a blow dryer, a hand-held video game..."

Did... Uh... Did You Even Go to School?:
A herd of snakes?

Conclusion: I've always sort of respected M.D. Spenser. I mean, he's a published writer and I haven't even finished a book yet. But this book changes everything. I could write this book easily, and I know that because when I was in second grade I wrote a story and it sounded a lot like this. Anybody could write this book as a child, a person born without fingers could have written this book as a child. M.D. Spenser probably took about an hour to write this, as there are only seven characters with dialogue, if you include the mom (in chapter 1) and the ghost (only in two chapters). The storyline is extremely uncreative, no effort was put into anything, it was terrible. The main character and her best friend perform actions that suggest no personality whatsoever, and say things like, "We can do it!" or "I know we can stop this!" They do things in such a way that it's practically impossible to be absorbed in the book. Without a doubt the worst book so far.

Shivers 26: One Foot in the Grave

I'm not sure where they found the cover for this book. It has absolutely nothing to do with the book itself. There is no demon with sunglasses. There's not even a demon. Or sunglasses. It's a ghost. But the worst part, by far, is the cliffhanger chapter endings. They are in the end of every chapter, and are by far the best reflection of M.D. Spenser's inability to use literary devices. So, I will bolden them.

So Bubbie and her brother Patrick are moving with their parents to France for their father's job. Bubbie is extremely obnoxious, and Patrick doesn't talk even though he's two years old. Right as Bubbie enters her new room, a hard, grimy hand clamps down over her mouth. Oh, but it's just a boy her age... in her room. Well, seeing as how she's living in France now, she should probably get used to it. He says that his family used to live there and that he had to grab something, then runs off.

That night, Bubbie is unable to sleep. She decides to explore... her room. First, she finds a half-eaten peach in the corner, then she finds what the boy was looking for hidden under a box. It was "the face of pure evil." Oh, wait, it was just a crystal ball with an image of someone hanging from a tree. I'm tired of this book already. So Bubbie decides to go to sleep, hoping against all odds that she'll wake up in a different book, but she's just not that lucky. The next morning, the boy from before comes back to "walk her to school." Oh, and his name's Jean-Luc, by the way. On the way there, he tells Bubbie that his grandfather said that the crystal ball could make them very rich, because it belonged to a gypsy or something.

So, the two skip school to establish a home base for their spelunking adventures. Jean-Luc leads Bubbie up a mountain, and then badmouths Americans when Bubbie said that she was planning to eat at the school cafeteria. In a village school. It's actually pretty amusing, just because of Bubbie's reactions.
"'You all just live in Disney World, you know, compared to the rest of the world.'
'No, I don't know,' Bubbie said with irritation. 'I didn't live anywhere near Disney World, I'll have you know.'"

Well, what can one expect from a book whose back cover description ends with "PARLEZ-VOUS HORROR???" which literally translates to "DO YOU SPEAK HORROR???" Anyway, the pair makes it up the mountain and get attacked by a wild boar. Bubbie almost gets gored, but I'm not that lucky. Nobody's that lucky. Jean-Luc, however, does get hit, and it makes a big gash in his leg. He manages to make it to Bubbie, who makes unhelpful remarks, such as when Jean-Luc said he was going to throw a rock at the boar, Bubbie says, "that's cruelty to animals. I wouldn't let you do it." I just thank the good lord every day that I'm not a supporting character in a Shivers book. I mean, I'm totally against animal cruelty and all, but if I get rammed by a boar in the wild, I'm gonna smite the bastard.

Well, the two decide to call it a day and head back to the village. At home, Bubbie gets a call from Jean-Luc, who tells her that they're continuing their adventure on the morrow, after school. On the morrow, after school, they walk back up to the World War 2 bunker in which Jean-Luc wants to set up camp. The two push open the door, but then Bubbie "fell endlessly into a bottomless black pit." Oh, but it's just a small pit that she ends up climbing out of. Also, she fainted when she fell in. It's not like she hit her head or anything, she just fainted. You know what has more likable characters than this? State prisons. Insane asylums. Meetings for mass puppy murderers. It's just... I don't know, I can't stand Bubbie.

So the pair find a treasure trove of old WW2 relics. They grab some, and Bubbie gets a grenade and some earrings. But on the way out, they see a ravenous dog. "And right then, Bubbie knew that this dog was going to rip them both into tiny blood-soaked pieces." It didn't. They escaped unharmed. But on the way out, Bubbie was told that she was going to die by a gypsy, so at least something good happened.

Afterwards, the pair shows their haul to Jean-Luc's grandpa, but Bubbie keeps the grenade secret. Upon seeing the earrings, Grandpa became all sad because he gave them to a beautiful gypsy when he was younger. On her way home, Bubbie is attacked by a terrifying ghost gypsy who throws the crystal ball from earlier at her and then disappears. Coincidence? In the crystal ball is an image of Patrick, her little brother, lying dead on the railroad tracks. So, what does Bubbie do? She runs right to the railroad tracks and saves him, right?

Nope. She runs over to Jean-Luc's house and basically says, "Hey, Patrick's in trouble, so can you run ahead and save him, because I'm almost late for being a blatant ass somewhere else." Jean-Luc does save Patrick, nearly getting run over in the process. When Bubbie gets back home with her brother, her parents ground her for a month because she was out late with her little brother and had absolutely no explanation. Things go from good to better when a giant rat leaps at her face and tries to murder her in her room. But then, Bubbie's dad comes in, and it... breaks the spell? I don't know, it just vanishes into thin air, just like my Shivers expectations after this book.

Joking aside, I am being a bit too hard on this book. It's really not that bad, but I'll talk more about it in the conclusion. Just don't take my insults too seriously.

Returning to the story, Bubbie returns from school to receive a call from Jean-Luc saying that his grandpa died. It literally says, "'It's Grandfather,' Jean-Luc said. He started to cry. 'He's been killed!'" And then: "Bubbie couldn't believe her ears! Jean-Luc's grandfather killed! It couldn't be true!
It wasn't.
'Well, almost killed,' Jean-Luc said."
Now I remember why I was so angry at the book. This was why I threw it against the wall, had pleasant dreams of burning it last night. It's because that part, right there, is undeniably, indubitably, quite obviously god-awful. I don't know how M.D. Spenser allowed that, because no matter the book, I know I can always expect two good things from him: perfect grammar, and drawing the line between suspense/hyperbole and blatant lies that are disproved on the next page. This book destroyed that for me more than once. I may never love again.

So, Bubbie goes over to the hospital to check on his grandpa with him. It turns out he accidentally shot himself in the leg with an unloaded gun. Ghostly. In the hospital, he tells the kids the story of the gypsy: Once, there was a beautiful woman whom many men, including himself, loved. But she loved a German dude who was occupying at the time, so... not smart. Seeing as how no Nazi terms translate to good English puns, I'll continue. Basically, her boyfriend left, and the villagers sealed her up in the bunker and she died. It was Hitlorrible (I had to try).

Anyway, her name was Elena, and Bubbie was thinking about her when she decided to see that gypsy from before, the one who told her she was gonna die. Well, she says it again. The only way Elena was gonna leave her alone was if everybody in Namelessville died. Or if she manages to suffocate Elena like when she died the first time. The gypsy probably could have mentioned that first. On her way home, Bubbie meets up with Jean-Luc, who tells her that he has to move so he can live with his parents. So, Bubbie's all alone.

Bubbie goes home and faces more gypsy tricks. First, there's a small fire on her lawn that doesn't go out. Then, there's a skull on her dresser. Then, another rat. Finally, she left her room and sees her brother speak for the first time, telling her to go to the bunker for a final battle. His first words were to get his sister killed. Respect. Well, she does go to face the gypsy, and she says that she's just starting with Bubbie, she's aiming to murder the whole village. After a fierce battle, Bubbie blows up both ghost-Elena and the entrance to the bunker, sealing in the ghost.

But the "Twist" is:
The family is moving to Germany, where they will live next to a real haunted castle. I think the saddest thing about this ending is that it's one of the best in the series.

Insight into the Complex Minds of Characters:
When Bubbie touches a half-eaten peach: "It was soft, mushy, and ice-cold. She snatched her hand away and felt her skin crawl. She imagined babies' severed heads and decomposed organs." Well.

Beautiful Imagery:
"She became aware of the most poisonous odor she had ever smelled."

Hip References:
"What is this, Bubbie wondered. The Spanish Inquisition?"

New one coming soon!

Conclusion:
The storyline is good. There is lots of conflict. It's an actual horror book. It should be great, but there are so many flaws. It's just... the cliffhangers are awful, the characters are awful, but it's so significant that it ruins the book for me. I don't quite know how to elaborate it, but this definitely ended M.D. Spenser's good streak.

Shivers 25: A Ghostly Playmate

 This is gonna be a really tough update, just because M.D Spenser does a really good job with this book. I mean, the narration is a little annoying, but it's for a reason. So I was sad about that, but then I remembered the back cover plot summary. It's beautiful.

"I DARE YOU TO COME OUT AND PLAY.
Do not take that dare, Virginia. It will be a double dare if she does. One, she moved with her family from the quiet countryside to noisy New York City. Two, because her new best friend was a ghost. Ghosts always win at hopscotch. Get out of here! No really, Virginia and her mom and dad should leave –– right away. Those ghostly games become weirder and weirder. Virginia doesn't want to play anymore. But her ghoul-friend won't stop. Tag, you're it! What does that ghost want? That's easy –– she wants a playmate forever and ever.
TIME OUT FOR TERROR!!!"

It will be a double dare if she does? Ghosts always win at hopscotch? Time out for terror? Who writes these? Does Paradise Press also function as a preschool? Or insane asylum? Or both?

So, first I will provide some background on the main character. She was extremely wealthy, and had a mother who tried very hard to fit into high society, so she tried to fit in as well. The whole first half of the book is littered with phrases like "enchanted to meet you" and "oh heavens, I'm getting ahead of myself." These are lines from the book, and tis quite obvious that M.D Spenser simply employed the most stereotypical portrayal of high society imaginable. I mean, not that I'd do that much better, it's just... so uncreative. For example, "I dabbed at my forehead with a handkerchief, but still I couldn't calm down." Oh, no, even after that?

So Virginia, the protagonist, lived in a huge mansion in Alabama with her neglectful parents and servants. When she was three, her parents had another child, but it ended up dying a few days later. Luckily, this book takes place years later, so it's not "too soon" to be making any jokes. Ever since the death, her parents have been cold and unfeeling toward not just Virginia but each other. It hit Virginia pretty hard too, since she was just dying for a little sister. Oh, and it also turned out that her parents were running on inheritance money, and it had nearly run out, so they moved to an apartment in New York City. If they wanted to live cheaper, I'm sure there were less expensive options than an apartment in New York, but OK.

So this is where our story begins. Virginia has to sleep in a dirty apartment in a lumpy bed. Oh, and by the way, her father is a failed inventor and her mother plays piano a lot, so... yeah. That's crucial later on. The next day, Virginia went to school and, as you can imagine, the other children did not take to her well. She should have just paid them to be her friends; oh wait, she's middle class now. At one point, she said that the people used "youse guys" instead of "you guys." When does this book take place? Nobody says that.

Back at home, the movers are lifting Virginia's mom's piano through their window. Is that a thing people do? Are windows that big? It also seems kind of dangerous... I mean, there could certainly be treble. Aaaaaaaaand there goes my viewers. But actually, the piano does almost fall, as the cable starts snapping and Virginia tackles her mother out of harm's way. It turns out that the piano had a safety cord just in case something like that happens, though, so it turned out OK.

Oh, and her dad calls her Caroline, after her dead sister. This reminds me way too much of Bill's family in It, by Steven King. I like Steven King. I'm not a huge fan of most of the movies made after his books, though, because so much of it is in the characters' heads. Just like Ender's Game, by Orson Scott Card: the book was phenomenal, but the movie was totally unsatisfying because the book was so focused on Ender's mental anguish that it would have been nearly impossible to make a good movie. Honestly, I don't care what people say about Orson Scott Card and his religious views, he is an amazing author. Ender's Game is probably one of my favorite books out there with The World According to Garp, by John Irving and The Passage, by Justin Cronin. Oh my god, The Passage was awesome. And I totally just lost track of what I was saying. So I'll skip forward a little bit.

At home, Virginia is looking in her mirror, thinking about how she has no friends, when she sees a little girl behind her. She's about to scream, but then the little girl tells her to be quiet and this wouldn't be a Shivers book if the characters actually did something productive. So Virginia, being lonely, tells the strange little girl everything. But then her mother's piano playing, which went on all day, stopped, so as Virginia went to make sure that her mom wasn't coming to check on her, the little girl vanished.

That night, the little girl appeared again. They had a little back-and-forth, and this is my rough interpretation:

Little Girl: So why do you use so many big words?
Virginia: That, my dear, is how we show we are people of quality.
LG: Doesn't that make you a douche?
V: No, a person of quality.
LG: Oh.
V: So where do you live?
LG: Oh, I inhabit the building. The whole building. By myself.
V: Well, you're lucky you don't live in this dump.
LG: But... but I... OK, whatever.

Then Virginia's mother comes yelling for her to pack her backpack, and L.G. has to hide in the closet. When Virginia checks, the little girl is nowhere to be found. Talk about a fair-weather friend. During Virginia's search of the closet, however, she finds the skeleton of a baby. First she thinks about just putting it back, or maybe throwing it away, but eventually settles on telling her parents, because she doesn't want to touch the city's filthy dumpsters. Her mom understandably freaks out and calls the police.

After the police haul off the skeleton, L.G. comes back and tells Virginia her origin story. Basically, she was born in an apartment bathroom to a very poor family. Eventually, times got too hard and her family left with her sister who was three years older than she was, and L.G. was left to fend for herself. *Ahem* Those are some really big plot point bells, M.D. Spenser. Anyway, Virginia isn't bright enough to put two and two together, so she doesn't understand anything for a while.

So a policeman, Sgt. Preston, comes by to tell them that nobody had any connection to, or cared for, the dead baby. And on that happy note, the little girl comes back. I just remembered that she had a name. It's Carly. I don't know how I've neglected to mention that, but there you go. Well, Carly visits, and then leaves with the promise of bringing playing cards for a little game. When she comes back, they start to play Go Fish, but the card passes through her hand and she reveals that Virginia would have to be dead to get the full experience. Well that's a hard bargain.

So, there were more subtle ways to handle that, but I approve of the straightforward approach. Virginia, of course, refuses, so Carly gives her some time to reconsider. Unfortunately, Virginia then stops sleeping and starts going crazy. After a month or two, she decides to get her life back together. She hires a life coach, starts jogging and making protein smoothies, even decides to take up model airplane building. And then, Carly strikes again.

This time, Carly looks like an anorexic mummy, with gaunt skin and stuff. It turns out that she can only touch stuff in that form, while she is incorporeal, but not skeleton-looking, in the other form. Carly asks Virginia if she's ever been kissed before, and she says no. Carly, being a ghost, could sympathize, and tries to kiss Virginia with soothing phrases like, "don't be frightened," and "just once." Well, I see where this is going. Fortunately, Virginia realizes that the kiss will most likely mean death, so she pushes Carly away. Carly realizes that she's not wanted, which was long overdue, and leaves.

...And then she comes back. After more of Virginia's giving up on life, Carly comes back and chases her around the house. Is Virginia's house full of Helen Kellers, because she screams the whole time and nobody cares. Granted, Virginia sucks, but come on. Virginia ends up running down stairs and straight into Sgt. Preston, who informs her that they will be having a funeral for the baby skeleton the next day. Virginia agrees to be there, even though it sounds like kind of a drag and none of her friends are gonna be there. She goes to the funeral, comes back, and meets Carly one last time. Turns out Carly was the baby. Who would have guessed?*

Well, a person turns into a ghost when there's nobody at their funeral, and goes around trying to get someone to care about them in the afterlife. Virginia sets Carly free. Then, Virginia's dad makes a device that saves babies who stop breathing, makes millions, and moves them back to Alabama. The dad and mom decide to have another baby, and the family starts showing affection again.

*everybody
Insight into the Complex Minds of Characters:
During Virginia's fit of depression: "She asked me a question once and I answered, 'False.'
The class laughed, because she had asked me to subtract two numbers, but I didn't care. False was still the right answer, in my mind. Nothing was true. Everything was false." Wow. That's deeper than the bottom of an undersea abyss.

Beautiful Imagery:
"'And who the . . . are you?' the lady screeched. Only she added an extra word in there, and it was the opposite of 'heaven.' Either that, or she was saying 'hello,' but I don't think so. My ears burned."

Hip References:
"They'll put you in an insane asylum, with people who yell at nothing and see things that aren't there and wash their hands when there is no water." Oh, I get it, it's a Shakespeare reference.

Did... Uh... Did You Even Go to School?:
"But I read somewhere that alligators live in the sewers." I think I read somewhere that they didn't.
So, truth is, I need a new after-thingy to replace the "Did... Uh... Did You Even Go to School?" section. It's just really hard to find. Or maybe I can switch between this and an easier, more general one. Either way, suggestions welcome.

Conclusion:
This one was awesome. The narration, while a little over the top, was very clever in that the "high society-ness" in her speech decreases as the book progresses and her friendship with Carly strengthens. The scenes in which Virginia runs from Carly are not scary, exactly, but have a good amount of tension. M.D. Spenser does a really good job portraying the family dynamic without blatantly giving it away. Overall, I'd say this is my favorite book so far.