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A review by modernzorker
Trick or Treat by Richie Tankersley Cusick
4.0
Been a while since I tackled a YA Horror book, and I've heard good things about Ms. Cusick, so when I saw Trick or Treat on the shelf of my local secondhand bookstore, I didn't think twice about picking it up. I don't regret doing so in the slightest, and she's absolutely going on my list of "YA Horror Writers to Watch For". Trick or Treat is delightful. You know...for a book where bad things happen to nice teenagers, I mean.
Martha Stevenson's world has flipped completely upside down. Her newly-remarried father has pulled her out of school right at the start of her junior year, uprooting her from their home in Chicago to live in a dilapidated old house on the outskirts of a small Midwestern town. She has a brand new step-mother in Sally, who seems normal enough, and a brand new older step-brother in Conor, who seems remarkably laid back about the whole thing. Moving into a spooky, run-down mansion in the middle of nowhere isn't easy at the best of times, but doing so right before Halloween isn't making things easier.
What's worse, things are happening in and around the house. Things Martha can't explain. Things the rest of the family write off as bad case of nerves, nightmares, and typical October shenanigans. The prank phone calls and altered decorations might be nothing out of the ordinary, but Martha's seeing shadows, convinced someone's visiting her room in the middle of the night, and having trouble sleeping. It doesn't take long for the local high school kids to sour the mood even more: only a year ago, one of the house's previous occupants was found murdered by her friends. Elizabeth was young, pretty, and blonde, just like Martha. The prime suspect in her killing is missing, presumed dead, but his body was never found. Conor doesn't seem concerned, but then again, he's not the one getting the strange phone calls threatening his life. As Halloween inches closer, the anniversary of Elizabeth's murder draws near too. Someone seems intent on making this year just as memorable to Martha...for all the wrong reasons. Does a killer who escaped justice prowl the grounds of Martha's new house, is there a ghost on the loose making trouble for an already-troubled teen, or is it just an end of October prank being taken too seriously? Martha would really like to know before she, like Elizabeth, winds up on the wrong side of somebody's knife.
This is my first encounter with Richie Cusick, and I'm thrilled with what I saw. Trick or Treat is 209 pages of slowly-building tension that blows up into a finale I expected but still did not see coming (if that makes any sense). Cusick's writing is different from other YA Horror scribes like R.L. Stine in that she's clearly not stabbing words out at a breakneck pace from behind her typewriter, or if she is, it's not immediately obvious. Stine's approach to teen horror is spartan and direct: things happen, people react, and more things happen. It's fast reading for people with short attention spans, and he's got it down to an art form. Cusick, on the other hand, isn't afraid to build tensions to a boil more slowly. Her characters in Trick or Treat have plenty of down-time where things aren't happening to ruminate on the mystery at hand, talk to friends, and get more parts of the story as more people open up. The action on the page is almost secondary to the time she takes to make you feel like a third-party observer, and while this is an approach that can backfire when dealing with teens, as an adult reader I found this refreshing.
One of the things I loved about this story is that, just like real life, none of the characters knows exactly what happened surrounding Elizabeth's death, but each one of them paints a slightly different picture of what might have been. Elizabeth's best friend Wynn was the one who stumbled upon Elizabeth's body, but she's suffered a complete mental block when it comes to the memory of it all. She's positive Dennis, Elizabeth's ex-boyfriend, murdered her out of jealousy--Elizabeth, after all, dated someone else for a short time after she broke up with him. Wynn's cousin Blake agrees: he played on the same team with Dennis, and saw what a temper and competitive drive the other boy had. What's more, after Elizabeth's death, Dennis drove his car off a bridge and into the river. Police found his clothing washed up on the shore, and though there was no body, it was impossible to see how anyone could have survived such a thing. Conor, on the other hand, isn't so sure, but he knows if Dennis is still alive, he'd potentially be unhinged enough to come after the people inhabiting Elizabeth's old house. If Dennis isn't alive though, that means someone else wants to kill the new girl at school...maybe the ghost of Elizabeth herself.
Cusick paints a convincing picture of a female protagonist driven to the brink. While some leads in these type of stories seem to waltz from one terrifying scenario to another without being affected, Martha's life rapidly spirals out of her control. Her father and step-mom zip off to Hawaii for their honeymoon, leaving her alone with Conor in the strange new house. Once the pranks start, Martha has trouble falling asleep at night, and even swapping rooms with Conor doesn't put a stop to the agony. Her grades suffer, her guidance counselor takes notice, and most of the other students at the school pull back from the new weirdo, leaving her more isolated than before. It's a nice touch that is mentioned but not harped on, and it lends a nice layer of veritas to the goings-on.
Of course, a story can only maintain questions for so long before the action happens, and Cusick handles this well too. Early goings-on are simple, short affairs: phantom phone calls and pranks at the house. Later ones get more involved: a house fire gets Conor and Martha out of bed in the middle of the night, and my personal favorite revolves Martha's return to school after-hours to retrieve a book from her locker which turns into a chase from hell through the darkened building when a power failure shuts off the lights. This is tense, fun stuff, and Cusick understands very well just how creepy places like a high school can be after everyone goes home and the halls are deserted.
The real pay-off is the end reveal of what everything's all about. Cusick plays her cards very close to her chest, and up until the final couple of chapters, I still wasn't sure if this story would go the supernatural route or if there was a more mundane and rational explanation for everything. I'm not spoiling it either; you deserve to find out the same way I did. I had most of the puzzle sussed out before the final reveal, but suffice it to say Cusick doesn't cheat and all the necessary clues are there.
Bottom line? I'm totally down to read the rest of Cusick's teen horror output. Four carving-knife-stabbed scarecrows out of five.
Martha Stevenson's world has flipped completely upside down. Her newly-remarried father has pulled her out of school right at the start of her junior year, uprooting her from their home in Chicago to live in a dilapidated old house on the outskirts of a small Midwestern town. She has a brand new step-mother in Sally, who seems normal enough, and a brand new older step-brother in Conor, who seems remarkably laid back about the whole thing. Moving into a spooky, run-down mansion in the middle of nowhere isn't easy at the best of times, but doing so right before Halloween isn't making things easier.
What's worse, things are happening in and around the house. Things Martha can't explain. Things the rest of the family write off as bad case of nerves, nightmares, and typical October shenanigans. The prank phone calls and altered decorations might be nothing out of the ordinary, but Martha's seeing shadows, convinced someone's visiting her room in the middle of the night, and having trouble sleeping. It doesn't take long for the local high school kids to sour the mood even more: only a year ago, one of the house's previous occupants was found murdered by her friends. Elizabeth was young, pretty, and blonde, just like Martha. The prime suspect in her killing is missing, presumed dead, but his body was never found. Conor doesn't seem concerned, but then again, he's not the one getting the strange phone calls threatening his life. As Halloween inches closer, the anniversary of Elizabeth's murder draws near too. Someone seems intent on making this year just as memorable to Martha...for all the wrong reasons. Does a killer who escaped justice prowl the grounds of Martha's new house, is there a ghost on the loose making trouble for an already-troubled teen, or is it just an end of October prank being taken too seriously? Martha would really like to know before she, like Elizabeth, winds up on the wrong side of somebody's knife.
This is my first encounter with Richie Cusick, and I'm thrilled with what I saw. Trick or Treat is 209 pages of slowly-building tension that blows up into a finale I expected but still did not see coming (if that makes any sense). Cusick's writing is different from other YA Horror scribes like R.L. Stine in that she's clearly not stabbing words out at a breakneck pace from behind her typewriter, or if she is, it's not immediately obvious. Stine's approach to teen horror is spartan and direct: things happen, people react, and more things happen. It's fast reading for people with short attention spans, and he's got it down to an art form. Cusick, on the other hand, isn't afraid to build tensions to a boil more slowly. Her characters in Trick or Treat have plenty of down-time where things aren't happening to ruminate on the mystery at hand, talk to friends, and get more parts of the story as more people open up. The action on the page is almost secondary to the time she takes to make you feel like a third-party observer, and while this is an approach that can backfire when dealing with teens, as an adult reader I found this refreshing.
One of the things I loved about this story is that, just like real life, none of the characters knows exactly what happened surrounding Elizabeth's death, but each one of them paints a slightly different picture of what might have been. Elizabeth's best friend Wynn was the one who stumbled upon Elizabeth's body, but she's suffered a complete mental block when it comes to the memory of it all. She's positive Dennis, Elizabeth's ex-boyfriend, murdered her out of jealousy--Elizabeth, after all, dated someone else for a short time after she broke up with him. Wynn's cousin Blake agrees: he played on the same team with Dennis, and saw what a temper and competitive drive the other boy had. What's more, after Elizabeth's death, Dennis drove his car off a bridge and into the river. Police found his clothing washed up on the shore, and though there was no body, it was impossible to see how anyone could have survived such a thing. Conor, on the other hand, isn't so sure, but he knows if Dennis is still alive, he'd potentially be unhinged enough to come after the people inhabiting Elizabeth's old house. If Dennis isn't alive though, that means someone else wants to kill the new girl at school...maybe the ghost of Elizabeth herself.
Cusick paints a convincing picture of a female protagonist driven to the brink. While some leads in these type of stories seem to waltz from one terrifying scenario to another without being affected, Martha's life rapidly spirals out of her control. Her father and step-mom zip off to Hawaii for their honeymoon, leaving her alone with Conor in the strange new house. Once the pranks start, Martha has trouble falling asleep at night, and even swapping rooms with Conor doesn't put a stop to the agony. Her grades suffer, her guidance counselor takes notice, and most of the other students at the school pull back from the new weirdo, leaving her more isolated than before. It's a nice touch that is mentioned but not harped on, and it lends a nice layer of veritas to the goings-on.
Of course, a story can only maintain questions for so long before the action happens, and Cusick handles this well too. Early goings-on are simple, short affairs: phantom phone calls and pranks at the house. Later ones get more involved: a house fire gets Conor and Martha out of bed in the middle of the night, and my personal favorite revolves Martha's return to school after-hours to retrieve a book from her locker which turns into a chase from hell through the darkened building when a power failure shuts off the lights. This is tense, fun stuff, and Cusick understands very well just how creepy places like a high school can be after everyone goes home and the halls are deserted.
The real pay-off is the end reveal of what everything's all about. Cusick plays her cards very close to her chest, and up until the final couple of chapters, I still wasn't sure if this story would go the supernatural route or if there was a more mundane and rational explanation for everything. I'm not spoiling it either; you deserve to find out the same way I did. I had most of the puzzle sussed out before the final reveal, but suffice it to say Cusick doesn't cheat and all the necessary clues are there.
Bottom line? I'm totally down to read the rest of Cusick's teen horror output. Four carving-knife-stabbed scarecrows out of five.