Scan barcode
A review by declaired
Being Dead by Vivian Vande Velde
4.0
I am not a horror reader (or movie-watcher). I don't tend to seek out scary things. The opening scene to the fourth Harry Potter book made me shake when it came out, and I had to put the book down and walk it off (even though it was, you know, interrupting the timing competition that snotty middle schoolers got into with each other. "I read Goblet of Fire in 2 days!" "Yeah? I read it in 6 hours." etc etc.)
And yet, I read every single Vivian Vande Velde story I could get my hands on in middle school. I think-- and don't get me wrong these stories are definitely a Low to Moderate on the spook scale and definitely for a younger reader-- it's because even though the horror markers are pretty standard, the writing is so engaging. I forgot how much I like a well-done first person, and the way it can make an unreliable narrator twist that much more intimate. I also think there's some neat writerly sleights-of-hand. It was a fun jaunt into something light but still vaguely outside my usual genre and tropes.
& I will say that the first story in this collection is one that I still remember intimately from like-- 10 years ago, and it still gave me chills reading it again.
And yet, I read every single Vivian Vande Velde story I could get my hands on in middle school. I think-- and don't get me wrong these stories are definitely a Low to Moderate on the spook scale and definitely for a younger reader-- it's because even though the horror markers are pretty standard, the writing is so engaging. I forgot how much I like a well-done first person, and the way it can make an unreliable narrator twist that much more intimate. I also think there's some neat writerly sleights-of-hand. It was a fun jaunt into something light but still vaguely outside my usual genre and tropes.
& I will say that the first story in this collection is one that I still remember intimately from like-- 10 years ago, and it still gave me chills reading it again.