I am on Vacation…So it’s Beach Week here on the blog.
Granted I live less than a mile from the ocean in Southern Florida, so really every week is beach week for me, but there is just something special about being on vacation at a beach. Even if you’re a year round beach bum a week’s worth of no work and all play is still pretty awesome. So in honor of my time at the shore every post this week is vacation or beach related. For those of you grumbling about my beach fortune don’t worry…This week starts with a group of vacation stories you might rather avoid…
“You know that prickly feeling you get on the back of your neck? The one hat makes you scared to turn around? Pay attention to that, Holmes. That is a Me-NO-Likee signal creeping up from the lizard part of your brain – some primal DEFCON center of your gray matter left over from the very first ancestors that hasn’t been destroyed by gated communities, all-night convenience stores…,and a half dozen fake Ghost Chaser shows on late-night cable. I’m just saying that lizard part exists for a reason. I know that now.
“So if you’re walking down that unfamiliar path and the mist rises up out of nowhere and slips its hands over your body, turning you around until you don’t know where you are anymore, and the trees seem to be whispering to you? Or you think you see something in the dark that shouldn’t exist, that you tell yourself can’t possibly exist except in creepy campfire stories? Listen to the lizard, Holmes, and do yourself a favor.
“Run. Run like Hell’s after you.
“Because it just might be.” (pg. 116-117 ePub edition)
Review
This is a collection of short stories about what happens when your vacation goes wrong. Because really, who wants to hear about a trip where someone sat on a beautiful beach? I only want to hear about that trip if I was on the trip, or I’m about to go on that trip. However, if I am sitting on my couch…amongst my laundry and a carpet that needs vacuumed…I want a vacation where something goes wrong. Like, vampires-on-your-cruise wrong, a curse-in-the-French-countryside wrong, spell-gone-wrong, wrong. Types of wrong that will make that summer sunburn look like…well…a day at the beach.
These stories were fluffy and fun. The perfect combination of teeny-bopper hair flipping and sleep with the light on scary. Not all the tales were scary scary stories, but all do contain a twist you may not have seen coming. I was personally taken by surprise in the first story Cruisin’ by Sarah Mlynowski. It’s the perfect tale to start this collection off, seemingly fluffy with a game-changing plot move 3 pages from the end. The story gave me a smile and a chilly surprise. The rest of the collection didn’t disappoint. Law of Suspects by Maureen Johnson in the middle upped the horror factor with a cursed story and a lonely French manor. Then Libba Bray drives it home with the most classically paranormal/scary story Nowhere is Safe. A gothically creepy, superstition-ridden romp in an Eastern European hill town. Very few survive that blood bath…be prepared.
In the end this was a great beach read…or couch read depending on your summer plans. For those choosing a ‘staycation’ over the traditional summer travel, know that you’ll experience very little envy from these travelogues. In fact you may feel a little smug, safe in your house…alive. Now, if only someone could come fold the laundry…
Rating: 7/10
Sara O
thelibrarianreads 