Book Review: Night Beach by Kirsty Eagar

For Abbie, her life revolves around three things: art, the ocean, and Kane, her broody surfer step-cousin.  Always out of reach, Abbie watches him and obsesses over him.  But when Kane comes back from a mysterious surf trip to an even more mysterious island, Abbie senses that something is wrong.  Kane carries a darkness that threatens to envelop them both.

It’s hard to summarize Eagar’s brilliant, darkly gothic novel without giving too much of it away.  The book is about a girl with a heightened emotional state, and maybe because of this heightened state (or in spite of?), supernatural events begin to occur.  Readers looking for an intensely atmospheric and engrossing tale should look no further than this one.  Eagar somehow manages to spin a paranormal tale that feels firmly rooted in the real world.  I’ve said it before and it might as well be my mantra: Eagar is an author to watch.

The atmosphere isn’t the only aspect of Eagar’s novel that entraps the reader.  Vivid, authentic characters propel the narrative forward.  Abbie is raw and flawed, and her obsession with Kane is only one thing that clouds her judgment.  Her love of painting distorts reality for her, as she struggles to see beyond the surface of things.  Her creative impulses mirror her other impulses, and readers will find her exasperating as well as worth rooting for.

Kane is harder to like, but because of Abbie’s fixation on him, it’s hard not to see the appeal.  He’s the quintessential surfer with a darker side, and while he’s definitely a selfish, hardened character, there’s no questioning his attraction.  Eagar is especially adept at creating characters who feel undeniably real: they may not be what you expect, and the story is the better for it.

Tension abounds in this taut novel.  Not every reader is going to “get” this one, and it’s certainly not the Eagar novel I’d recommend a person start with, but it has no shortage of merits.  Eagar’s prose is pitch-perfect, lush, and evocative.  There’s never a moment where she’s not in total control of her words, and the story moves along at a great clip as a result.  This is a stunning novel, and one that will stick with you long after you’ve reached the novel’s satisfyingly murky conclusion.

Recommended.

Night Beach by Kirsty Eagar. Penguin Books Australia: 2012.  Purchased copy.

(#94) Book Review: Texas Gothic

When Amy Goodnight told her aunt that she and her sister would watch over her ranch for the summer, she didn’t know that it would entail discovering bodies and dealing with a ghost who wants revenge.  To complicate things, her hot cowboy neighbor keeps showing up and driving her crazy.  As she and her sister Phin try to solve the mysterious ghost sightings, Amy realizes that struggling to be normal in a family of witches might not be worth it.

Rosemary Clement-Moore’s atmospheric, fun paranormal novel about sisters battling ghosts is the epitome of fun summer reading.  Clement-Moore’s prose is light and Amy’s narration is conversational.  The characters in the novel are exceptionally well-developed and the story is compelling.  Apart from some slight pacing problems and a feel that the book could have been a bit briefer, this is an incredibly enjoyable read.

To her credit, Clement-Moore has created a world where the magic feels natural and the characters use it and comprehend it in an authentic way.  Nothing about the way the magic is inserted into their world feels clunky or unlikely.  Amy and Phin have grown up using magic and science together, and they respect it (though Amy does fight against her own power in her quest to be seen as normal).  The supernatural mingles with the natural in this story, as Clement-Moore inserts quite a bit of physical anthropology into her story (this book is the equivalent of a love child between Supernatural and Bones).  All of this is done exceedingly well, and it’s clear that Clement-Moore did her research.

There’s something inherently charming about the novel as well.  It might be the conversational tone that Amy uses to narrate, or it might be the palpable chemistry between the characters (all of whom are given care and detail–even the minor ones).  Whatever it is, this is a very fun read.  Although it starts to feel overly-long in the last third, Clement-Moore’s rising action is enough to temper even the most impatient of readers.

Recommended to fans of paranormal ghost stories.  Although it’s definitely good for summer reading, it would also work right around Halloween.

Texas Gothic by Rosemary Clement-Moore.  Random House Children’s: 2011.  Library copy.

Book Review: The Ghosts of Ashbury High by Jaclyn Moriarty

Amelia and Riley have transferred to ritzy prep school Ashbury High for their final year of high school.  Amelia and Riley have been in love since they were fourteen, are shrouded in mystery, and seem to be full of secrets.  Everyone at Ashbury becomes obsessed with them and work hard to unravel the mysteries surrounding them.

Best friends Cass, Emily, and Lydia get embroiled in the mysteries surrounding the duo.  Told through essays, blog posts, notes from meetings, emails, and poetry, Moriarty’s book (the fourth novel set at Ashbury High) mimics the traditional gothic novel.  The book tackles ghosts, secrets, madness, and the terrible uncertainty about what comes after high school.

“There’s two new people,” I said – and a storm rattled the windows of the room. I said they’d been together for years. I said they were swimmers. I said they trained every day, and that swimming was her passion but he went along just to swim beside her. I said she had a secret that was breaking his heart.

This excerpt on the back of the book is what drew me in.  It’s haunting.  It sets the tone for much of the novel–the students’ essays must reflect the tone and themes present in gothic novels, and so does this novel.  Is there a ghost at Ashbury High?  Are Amelia and Riley ghosts themselves?  What is haunting the people that populate Moriarty’s novel?

There’s a lot to like in this book.  Moriarty is able to establish very different voices for all of her characters.  All of them have distinct ways of writing and speaking, and readers shouldn’t struggle with keeping their stories straight.  Moriarty establishes a haunting tone extremely well and will have readers guessing about the presence of ghosts at the high school through the entire book.

What is so brilliant about Moriarty’s book is that whether or not there is a ghost almost becomes irrelevant because all of the characters are so haunted by their own demons and secrets.  Each character has their own burden that they are carrying around, and each of these burdens becomes so overwhelming that it is like there is a ghost following them around, growing stronger and more corporeal every day.

The last two hundred pages are the strongest of the novel; the problem is that it takes and additional three hundred pages to get there. The last third of the novel moves much more quickly, the pace quickening and the suspense building to a fascinating crescendo wherein the reader finally discovers the mysteries surrounding Riley and Amelia.  It’s a satisfying finish to the story, but some readers will have grown frustrated with the way that the story meanders for the first three hundred pages.  The overlapping nature of the student essays and the repeating versions of the same events also grows wearying.

I can’t help but feel like this book could have been shorter and still made the same points.  The ending is really good, and it made up for much of the frustration and irritation that I had with the characters and the story in the middle, but I wonder if some tighter writing and larger edits wouldn’t have increased the effectiveness of the story.  When I picked this up at the library, I didn’t realize that the book is part of a series of books having to do with the same high school and some of the same characters.  While not strictly a sequel, I wonder if it would have helped to have read the three previous novels that take place at Ashbury.

It is likely that I will eventually go back and read the other novels, but for the time being, I just want to think about the rich characters that Moriarty crafted and the haunting impact they have had on me.