R.I.P. II Challenge Finished

Another successful year of creepy, skin-crawling stories. My thanks go to Carl from Stainless Steel Droppings for again hosting this seasonal challenge. I have enjoyed it immensely.

The books I've read for this challenge are

Bones by Jan Burke

Lily Dale: Awakening by Wendy Corsi Staub

Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde by Robert Louis Stevenson

The Devil in the White City by Erik Larson

Lily Dale: Awakening

by Wendy Corsi Staub

When Calla returned home from school one day she found her mother lying dead at the bottom of a flight of stairs. After the funeral, neither Calla nor her father can stand the thoughts of staying in their home in Florida. Calla decides to stay with her strange grandmother in Lily Dale, New York while her father looks for an apartment in California.

Calla's down-to-earth mother didn't have much of a relationship with her own mother after she had left home and Calla's family never vacationed in Lily Dale, so Calla is surprised and shocked when she learns that the small town of Lily Dale is considered the World's Largest Center for the Religion of Spirituality and her grandmother is a medium.

I enjoyed this YA adult book for the most part and I can see its appeal for young teens and young adults. The reader can empathize with Calla and her pain over the loss of her mother, her confusion about her own abilities to see ghosts, her yearning to learn more about her mother by living in the home where she grew up, her developing relationship with her grandmother, her feelings for her ex-boyfriend and the attraction she experiences to 2 new boys in Lily Dale. I think young people will relate well to Calla's struggles and in subtle ways are reassured that they are not alone in the battles and triumphs of life.

Awakening is a fast, yet engaging read. I lent the book to one of my study skills students and she read it in 2 days. She was very excited about the book and wants to read the next in the series. As do I.

Bones

by Jan Burke

I've discovered another author that I am going to want to read more of her work. This book runs along the same lines as a Dean Koontz book. Lots of intrigue and a heart-thumping pace. Sometimes the line between a cozy mystery and a regular mystery is vague and hard to define. No question about this book - It is NOT a cozy.

This is book 5 or 6 in the Irene Kelly mystery series. I've already got the first in the series mooched and it's on its way. Irene is a journalist included as part of an expedition to find the bones of a woman murder 4 years earlier. Also in the group is the murderer. Right at the first the reader knows who the murderer is and so does everyone in the group. He has made a plea bargain for a life sentence, instead of a death sentence, if he will show them the grave.

The only thing I didn't like about the book was the number of characters. I wasn't the only one having trouble keeping everybody straight, another person who had checked out this book before me had written the names of all the people on the investigative team on the back blank page. Oh, he/she had also blackened out the 8-10 bad swear words in the book!

I liked the suspense and a couple of unexpected twists and even though I figured out the accomplice long before the end, I still enjoyed reading to see if I was correct. I think Jan Burke is a good writer and look forward to reading more in this series.

The Devil in the White City

by Erik Larson

I thought this to be a very impressive book. I'm in awe that Chicago was able to pull this tremendous project off in as short a time as they had and with so many disasters along the way. Just over 20 years since the great fire started by Miss O'Leary's cow leveled most the city, Chicago was rebuilt and ready to take on the task of building a world's fair. Remarkable. The descriptions of the conditions in Chicago during the 1890's made me shudder and thank the powers that be that I'm living in a more refined era.

I especially liked reading about the famous architects at the time who were involved with building the great Columbian Exposition of 1893. I developed a bit of hero worship for Danial Burnham and added a bit more to Fredrick Olmstead. I found myself wishing while in Chicago and back home that there would have been more buildings saved from a later fire. I wish we had taken more time to go in some of the buildings that survived. I wish I would have known that the rookery was still standing and that we had gone inside it.

Of course, I gluttoned myself with notes on the new inventions and first time appearances of certian items, such as Shredded Wheat, Cracker Jacks, , Aunt Jemima's pancake mix in a box, Juicy Fruit gum, the first motion pictures, a dishwasher, electric lights, the Kodak camera that took what became known as snapshots and Pabst Blue Ribbon Beer. The Pledge of Alligiance came about as a nation-wide way of honoring the fair. Let's don't forget the first ferris wheel.

Intertwined with this interesting, compelling story of the Exposition was the story of a man who used the situation of a bustling town that was focused on a big, important goal that required so much of the cities resources with a time in history when young woman were feeling freer about moving around unchaperoned. Enter the devil! Dr. Holmes was an enigmatic, plotting and sick socio-pathe who could charm women out of their lifes. His is a story of easy opportunity to feed his sickness and to go undetected for a long period of time.

I started reading this book in June the week before our vacation with hopes of finishing before we left. That's not how it happened. That last week was hectic and there was little time for reading. So I renewed the book for the library with every intention of calling in and renewing it every 2 weeks from wherever we were. I found our days filled to the brim so that I was reading 4-5 pages a day. The book was too heavy to carry around in my tote, so I traded for a smaller paperback 'Shadow on the Rocks' to carry around with me and put Devil in the White City on temp duty in the back of the car. When we arrived home, the basement was being torn apart, we had to find places for the furniture being stored in our living room and dining room. We had to dig up the sewer and repair it. In case you hadn't heard, our basement sewer backed up while we were on vacation. Family moved all the furniture and boxes of stuff to the carport and upstairs rooms. We were ready to start fixing up (Candleman wants to do it himself, I want to hire it done so it is over sooner). My knight in shining armor, Candleman, has been sick with a flu bug for 5 days and nothing is happening. I did paint the back door and door frame and rehang the door. With all that and school starting and trying to keep the kitchen workable, I'd about decided not to finish Devil in the White City.

Enter the RIP Challenge and the Non-Fiction Five Challenge. I switched on of my choices for the NFF and added Devil AND I added Devil to the RIP. Double impetus to finish the last 300 pages. It worked. I finished it tonight! (6 renewals at the library and the book is still several days over due - but it goes back tomorrow.)

Anyone living in or near Chicago should definitely read this book. Those planning to visit should read and take notes so you can be sure to visit buildings that were in Chicago in 1893. All the rest of the country, at least, should read it. I am already planning a trip back to see a bit more of what I missed the first time. It will probably take many to satisfy that tickle I feel to know Chicago better. I was so surprised at the love I feel for Chicago in such a short visit. I attribute much of that to the trends set by Burnham and other builders - the magnificent mile and the public beachfront. Chicago has become one of my favorite big cities. The other is Quebec City.

R.I.P. II Challenge

This is the second year Carl is hosting the R.I.P. II Challenge. Hip, hip, hooray! We sure appreciate you, Carl. R.I.P. stands for Readers' Imbibing Peril. And that is just what reader's who accept this challenge will be doing - Imbibing Peril. There is a choice of 4 perils so you can choose your own cup of poison. Click on the above link to read all the ins and outs of the challenge.

I am going with Peril the First - Read Four books of any length, from any subgenre of scary stories that you choose. My 'pool' of choices include

1. Singer of All Songs by Kate Constable (My daughter's recommendation)
2. Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell by Susanna Clarke
3. Eye of the Needle by Ken Follett
4. Bones by Jan Burke
5. Strange Happenings by Avi
6. Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde by Robert Louis Stevenson
7. Crystal Rain by Tobias S. Buckell
8. Devil in the White City by Erik Larson
9. Seeing Red (The Looking Glass Wars) by Frank Beddor