"The corpse...fed," said Abigail quietly.

[oddmonster]

The Nightmarys by Dan Poblocki:

"Your father's journal was in the safe?" said Abigail.

"I slipped it into my coat pocket when that librarian wasn't looking," said Jack. "No one ever suspects the old man." He winked. "We get away with so much."

Synopsis: In the fine John Bellairs tradition of Old Men Are Fucking Dangerous, Y'All, an old man

Comments

[catyah]

the hallucinightmares. (What else can you call it when your nightmares invade your waking space?)

Right? RIGHT?

I am so there. The Michael McDowell comparison shook me a bit, but bringing Shirley Jackson into it shook me in a whole other way.

Just requested it from my library, and... what? It's all this AND Children's Fiction, too? Stand back, I'm running to the library right... oh. Yeah, *after* I'm done with work today. Dang.

Have you heard of/read "Ready Player One" by Ernest Cline? I'm currently in the middle of it, and it's burning a hole in the bottom of my desk drawer here at work. I have to keep it there to try to decrease the temptation to read when I'm supposed to be working (and that is very hard right now). It's all too easy to turn "just a quick paragraph" into several pages, only to discover my boss standing just behind my shoulder and asking what I'm doing. Yikes.

This just might be another OddLittleCat book.

[oddmonster]

I agree, it's very very tempting to have The Nightmarys as an oddlittlecat book. I think it might work for all of us. It really is astonishingly good.

Middle grades and YA fiction has come so far since dead moms and dogs littered the 80s.

I'd heard of "Ready Player One" from someone at work who was raving about it. I'm not a huge dystopia fan but I tried it anyway....turns out I'm still not a huge dystopia fan. Made it about three pages. But I'm glad to hear you're enjoy ing it!

[catyah]

Middle grades and YA fiction has come so far since dead moms and dogs littered the 80s.

Not to mention all the books that involved teenaged girls dying beautifully (and over and over again). Lurlene McDaniel, I'm looking at you.

[oddmonster]

I vividly remember reading in 7th grade this one book about a girl whose sister was off dying beautifully in a back bedroom from leukemia and it was supposed to be about acceptance, or maybe not dating when your sister's dying of leukemia, but really all it did was launch me into my three-year long epic horror reading binge.

[storyfan]

I have to read this.

I love Shirley Jackson; she scares the hell out of me, and I don't even believe in hell. She also frightened my jaded teenagers which I think is a great accomplishment.

[oddmonster]

As came up over in oddlittlecat I kind of struggle with Ms. Jackson. I really, really enjoyed The Haunting of Hill House but couldn't get behind We Have Always Lived in the Castle (possibly because of identifying too strongly with Merricat, whoops). And the few short stories I've read of hers haven't really resonated, and "The Lottery" I read in grade school and just disliked very intensely.

But oh, Hill House. As someone who loves the tar out of haunted houses, that story is just CATNIP.

I'd love to hear what you think of Nightmarys. Definitely in the top 5 so far for 2012 book of the year for me.