Val Muller

This book has been on my to-be-read list for a while now, but I wanted to wait until Halloween season and review it as part of my nine weeks of spookiness (though my spooky-book pile is much longer than nine weeks!).

A young adult horror novel, The Legend of the Pumpkin Thief follows a student named Nick as he navigates his way past the school’s most violent bullies, using his developing detective skills to determine why the neighborhood’s pumpkins and jack-o-lanterns are being stolen. At first he suspects an older woman who lives with her dog, but as Nick digs deeper into the mystery, he learns that the answer is not as simple as it seemed—especially as time ticks closer to Halloween.

This is a great read for young teens. It contains elements a middle- or high-schooler would enjoy: battling bullies, vying for the attention of a crush, and defending an annoying sibling from strangers. Best of all, the pace is compelling for a young reader, with short chapters and a plot that builds in intensity as the story progresses. It gets quite scary toward the end. As an adult reader, I would have preferred a bit more decadence with the imagery, but for a younger reader the descriptions were just right—enough to create a picture of the scene without bogging down the plot with details.  I will note, however, a few instances of profanity. Definitely used sparingly and only in appropriate situations, but something for a cautious parent to consider depending on age.

What I enjoyed most was the nostalgic quality of the Halloween portrayed in the novel. The kids in the book are not obsessed with their cell phones or their video games. Rather, they’re knee-deep in trick-or-treat pranks. The lack of adult supervision in this particular neighborhood brought me back to my own trick-or-treating experience (one year a white van tried to kidnap us!), where streets are dark and the spookiness of Halloween is allowed to run rampant. Indeed, Nick’s parents spend the evening plopped in front of the couch watching old-fashioned horror movies, leaving Nick and his younger sister to encounter the legend of the pumpkin thief on their own.

The ending came quickly—I wanted just a bit more resolution, but the way was left open for future Halloween adventures, which I’d very much enjoy reading, especially if they delve even more deeply into the details of the pumpkin thief himself, his history, and the appearance of his spooky companions.

Overall, this was a fun read worth the time of any fan of Halloween.

The premise of this novel intrigued me, which is why I agreed to review it in exchange for a review e-copy.

In this novel, Nathan, an employee of a mental institution, spends most of his time pining for the love of Leyna, a coworker. Through the first half of the novel, he spends a lot of time thinking about her and discussing her with his best friend and his mother, who is a non-responsive patient (on life support) at a local hospital. I found myself skimming or speed-reading through sections in this first half, as much of it is filled with Nathan’s thoughts. There was much more “telling” than I prefer and lengthy sentences that over-explain Nathan’s motivations—without the explanations, the reader would still have come to the same conclusions: Nathan is obsessed with this girl but will not do a thing about it. At times, I felt that things were being drilled into my head when one or two subtle clues would have sufficed. As a reader, I felt frustrated during the first half of the book, which I think was the point. (Here’s where my English teacher hat goes on.) I think the reader was supposed to feel like Nathan—sitting on top of bottled-up feelings for a girl he can’t muster the courage to talk to. I think we’ve all been in a similar situation at some point in our lives and thus can relate to Nathan. Still, he came off as somewhat whiney.

I would have preferred more “showing” rather than “telling.”

(Some spoiler follows. If you’re okay with this, then continue scrolling down!)

I should also mention that while Nathan is moping around and wishing he could “get the girl,” there are allusions to an infection that has been taking over the world, making people act like mental patients. A man who soils himself on an elevator. A doctor who slams his head into the pavement as a way of committing suicide. It’s foreshadowed that these things will become an epidemic soon, but Nathan has been too busy being “emo” to put together the clues. Understandable, I suppose, but frustrating. I would much rather read about creepy stuff people are doing than hear more about how Nathan’s life is miserable.

When Nathan finally does “make the move,” we’re thrown into a somewhat graphic sex scene, which is fine except that it came out of nowhere in relation to all the thinking and pining that had been happening (or not happening) previously. From a literary analysis perspective, I suppose the vividness of the scene represents Nathan’s feelings—his grim feelings had been moping around for half the novel, and then suddenly, like fireworks, his life feels complete.

But his happiness is short lived, as Leyna soon becomes infected. While the first half of the novel spent ample time describing all the nuances of Nathan’s feelings, the second half of the book left me craving detail. Before Leyna’s infection gets too bad, the two move into the same room together in the mental institution (where they decide to stay, as it has ample supplies to help them survive the breakdown of civilization caused by the increasing number of infections). While Nathan spends time staring at her or holding her while she falls asleep, there isn’t much description. I want to be shown how strong their relationship is. I want to see the tremble in her lips or the way her eye twitches when she’s scared. I wished more of the word count used in the first half could have been applied to the second.

In the end, Nathan decides to try to save her, though there is no known cure for the infection. He finds supplies and gasoline to run the asylum’s generator, locking her in her room so she can’t hurt herself while he goes for help. Though I was 95% of the way through the book, I couldn’t help but feel just a bit detached from the characters, and only because I had been “told” the way they feel for the whole novel, rather than being “shown” how they feel and letting me come to the conclusion on my own that they are deeply in love, despite the infection. I felt sorry for Nathan’s situation, but not for Nathan himself. And not really caring about a protagonist is a problem for me.

It was not a bad novel, but it wasn’t the most compelling I’ve read. The author certainly has talent, though, and I would read other books by him. Perhaps just a bit more polish, less repetition, and more “showing.”

As much as I like horror, I’ve never read King’s The Dark Tower series, so I thought it was time to start. The series begins with The Gunslinger, a book that takes place in a nightmarish-post-apocalypticish-wild-Westish setting in which a gunslinger named Roland is following a mysterious figure known only as the man in black—with passing references to a dark tower. At first I was irked by being thrown into the tale without a full understanding of what was happening. It slowed my interest initially, as I had to piece together bits from the present as well as Roland’s recollections of his past. But as the tale progressed, I came to enjoy discovering the elements of Roland’s world, and when the book ended, I ran to my keyboard to order Book Two.

What I enjoyed most was the balance between mystery and fatalism. It seems that characters know—if only subconsciously—what is to come and what has come before. Along his journey, Roland encounters (among other things) a boy named Jake. He and Jake travel together, though they both sense that Jake will end up being sacrificed in the end. There is also the suggestion that the man in black, while somewhat elusive, is making sure Roland catches him. Jake makes references to things he doesn’t quite understand, things like movies and subways from a time before the world moved on (and this, despite the fact that he also makes references to having already died in such a world).

The last chapter makes up for any confusing scenes in the beginning, insight coming like fireworks even as more mystery develops. I won’t give away much—only to say that the dark tower sought by the gunslinger is the crux of it all, and it’s something he doesn’t find in Book One. The ending definitely leaves the reading longing for the next book in the series (so watch this space for an upcoming review!).

Finally, as an English teacher and writer, I enjoyed King’s Afterward, in which he reveals some of the history behind his writing of the novel, including the fact that he was inspired by Robert Browning’s poem “Childe Roland,” which you can read here.