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audreyintheheadphones's review
2.0
Despite this being a book ostensibly about three undead girls in a lake, the girls themselves get about half a page of screentime in 256 pages. The rest is given over to their niece, the incredibly annoying protagonist, Cassie.
Cassie is a lot like Shelley Duvall in The Shining: easily startled, not very bright, slightly suspect on the parenting methods. Her son actually falls through the ice when he wanders away to be spared the sight of Cassie boning the roofer working on her house:
WOULD THAT WE ALL COULD WALK INTO THE WOODS AT THIS POINT.
("'Make Cassie happy,' she purred, and the young man obliged her." Make me stop vomiting.)
The roofer winds up saving Jess from nearly drowning, so Cassie grows irrationally angry at him and terminates their relationship, snottily and without thanking him for saving her son. When Jess does survive his near-drowning, Cassie gets religion for 39 full seconds, then inexplicably decides she must bring her abusive father home from hospice to live with them -- and she means now, Buster -- thus inconveniencing everyone around her. This is kind of Cassie's m.o. -- if it's not about Cassie, it's not worth it.
Later, shedoes a weird striptease for her dad, then goes off and inconveniences some more characters, conveniently ignoring her son's PTSD / demonic possession.
If you're wondering where the three undead girls from the lake are, YOU'RE NOT ALONE.
They basically do a few walk-ons halfway through, then get whisked back into the lake at the end when Cassie makes her doctor-paramour figure out what they want. There's some hand-wringing about Satanic rituals, everyone somehow ignores the fact that a dude slaughtered his parents and Cassie splits her time between jumping every time the phone rings and ignoring her father's store, having the old woman who used to work there part time go full-time so she can ponder such new-fangled ideas as an answering machine. She's. Awful.
I can see Zebra horror books l working as a transition from John Bellairs' middle grade tales to adult horror novels, but for the love of little green apples there are better Zebras than this one.
Cassie is a lot like Shelley Duvall in The Shining: easily startled, not very bright, slightly suspect on the parenting methods. Her son actually falls through the ice when he wanders away to be spared the sight of Cassie boning the roofer working on her house:
She lay down on the blanket and Corey threw himself down on top of her. She tried to catch Jess' eye, to let him know that it would be all right, but he turned away and walked into the woods.
WOULD THAT WE ALL COULD WALK INTO THE WOODS AT THIS POINT.
("'Make Cassie happy,' she purred, and the young man obliged her." Make me stop vomiting.)
The roofer winds up saving Jess from nearly drowning, so Cassie grows irrationally angry at him and terminates their relationship, snottily and without thanking him for saving her son. When Jess does survive his near-drowning, Cassie gets religion for 39 full seconds, then inexplicably decides she must bring her abusive father home from hospice to live with them -- and she means now, Buster -- thus inconveniencing everyone around her. This is kind of Cassie's m.o. -- if it's not about Cassie, it's not worth it.
Later, she
If you're wondering where the three undead girls from the lake are, YOU'RE NOT ALONE.
They basically do a few walk-ons halfway through, then get whisked back into the lake at the end when Cassie makes her doctor-paramour figure out what they want. There's some hand-wringing about Satanic rituals, everyone somehow ignores the fact that a dude slaughtered his parents and Cassie splits her time between jumping every time the phone rings and ignoring her father's store, having the old woman who used to work there part time go full-time so she can ponder such new-fangled ideas as an answering machine. She's. Awful.
I can see Zebra horror books l working as a transition from John Bellairs' middle grade tales to adult horror novels, but for the love of little green apples there are better Zebras than this one.
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