Read Something! AFFINITY by Sarah Waters

AFFINITY 
Sarah Waters

Historical fiction / literary fiction / horror

Surfacing from a deep depression brought on by her father's death, Margaret Prior takes a family friend's advice and volunteers as a "lady visitor" at Millbank, a women's prison, where she hopes to become a positive influence on some of the inmates. In those dreary surroundings she meets the spiritualist medium Selina Dawes, sentenced to Millbank after a seance gone wrong resulted in a woman's death. Margaret and Selina are drawn to each other, but does Selina really talk to spirits? And what really happened in her past? Alternating passages from Margaret and Selina's diaries bring us closer and closer to the truth of the night that drastically changed Selina's life - and to a night that will forever change Margaret's. This is a dark, psychological novel about loss and grief, and about living in a world into which one will never quite fit neatly.

Slight warnings for mentions of attempted suicide, some nonexplicit but non-"vanilla" eroticism.

Readalikes:

• The Little Stranger by Sarah Waters - similar slightly spooky atmosphere, unreliable narrators; both stories are deliberately vague as to the reality of the ghosts/spirits (at least for most of the narrative); both set in Britain in times past; both very focused on characters' psychology
• "The Yellow Wallpaper" by Charlotte Perkins Gilman - potentially unbalanced female narrators, similar time setting, themes of entrapment/imprisonment and haunting, atmospherically similar
  

Read Something! DEAR CREATURE (Jonathan Case)

Dear Creature
JONATHAN CASE
Graphic novel, pulp, horror, romance

Summary 

This quirky, absurd mashup of romantic comedy, "B" horror flicks, and Shakespeare has to be read to be believed. Grue, a mutant horror from the deep, has discovered Shakespeare through a series of cola bottles cast adrift with the Bard's plays inside. Inspired, he renounces his flesh-eating ways and sets off in search of a lady love. Hilarious and sweet, this book will keep you hanging as you wait to see how Grue's quest for love will turn out. Don't miss the appendix, "An Invertebrate's Guide to Iambic Pentameter", in which Grue's Greek chorus of sarcastic crabs explain the poetic meter using the immortal phrase, "Ba-donk a-donk a-donk a-donk a-donk."

Appeal Characteristics

• Visuals: dramatic use of black and white
• Visuals: generally realistic art (although Grue is depicted less realistically)
• Visuals: fairly clean art, but panels are sometimes hard to decipher due to being very busy and not having shading
• Frame: silly/absurd tone
• Frame: main character is the character who is usually the "bad guy"
• Frame/plot/characterization: characters and situations are mostly stereotypes drawn from "B" movies/pulp horror
• Plot: romance/lovers who the world wants to keep apart
• Plot: happy ending
• Plot: loose ends are all tied up at the end
• Plot: plot is not very fleshed out and often relies on pointers/gestures to conventions and stereotypes of a typical pulp horror story
• Pacing: moves fairly fast; each chapter presents a new challenge to Grue's quest

Readalikes

• ???

Read Something! _The Forest of Hands and Teeth_ (Carrie Ryan)

The Forest of Hands and Teeth

CARRIE RYAN
2009
310 pp.
YA / Horror

Summary
Mary chafes against the demands of her life. Despite the dangerous Unconsecrated who lurk beyond the village fences, she longs to escape her isolated home in search of freedom. When, impossibly, an Outsider comes to the village, Mary's hopes of being able to embark on a new life rise. But the outsider's presence soon becomes a threat, and Mary's escape from the village comes at a high price. Now Mary and her companions are alone in a hostile world. Will they survive, or fall to the Unconsecrated? And will Mary ever find the freedom she seeks?

Appeal characteristics

• Characterization: Independent-minded, teenage, female main character
• Characterization: A few chapters mostly about the characters and their relationships alternate with a few chapters of heightened action or suspense
• Frame (?): First-person narration
• Frame (?): Romantic elements/subplot
• Frame (?): Mysterious elements (but the mysteries are mostly never resolved
• Frame: Extensive worldbuilding
• Pacing: Short chapters -- 5-10 pages each -- often ending on a revelation or cliffhanger
• ??: Not very much detailed description of things outside of the main character's feelings and thoughts (visuals, etc. often just get a few words to a couple of sentences)

Other notes

• Contains death and violence, though not described in extensive detail
• My Noting: Books entry on The Forest of Hands and Teeth: http://notingbooks.com/users/hbackman/readings/5709-The-Forest-of-Hands-and

Readalikes

• I Am Legend? (I've never read this book, so I really have no idea)
• The later Harry Potter books? Both take place in a fantasy world connected to, but unlike, our own (though HP is present-day and Forest is set in the future); similar emphasis placed on characters and their relationships vs. events; similarly dark; similar protagonists (teens, to some extent with the world of the book revolving around them, faced with life or death choices); semi-similar endings that are happy but not quite fully fleshed out or satisfying (yes, that's a subjective judgment, but I couldn't help myself -- these books frustrated me in remarkably similar ways)