Literary Sins: Cujo Is Not About a Killer Dog

I still feel bitterly guilty that I haven’t read every single book that Stephen King has written, so yes, I’m calling it a sin that I just barely got around to reading Cujo.

I was rather hesitant to pick up Cujo, which is completely out of the norm for me when it comes to devouring Stephen King books. I read Stephen King more easily than I breathe sometimes.

But Cujo is about a dog, and I love dogs.

I was more than a little reluctant to plunk myself down and read hundreds of pages about a killer dog that terrifies a small town, which is what I thought the book was going to be about. I mean, who else thought that? “Cujo” is a name synonymous with “giant killer dog” the same way “Pennywise” is synonymous with “giant killer clown.”

Imagine my utter surprise upon finishing Cujo and realizing that the book is less about a monstrous canine creature and more about the terrifying nature of pure happenstance.

That’s right, folks. Cujo is less about the dog and more about how downright terrifying the notion is that a series of events happening in a precise manner can lead to the worst day of your life.

I haven’t felt this lied to since I finished Moby-Dick.

The big difference this time is that I’m not upset over how many whale facts that I had to suffer through.

I’m delighted.

Low-key horrified after reading the last page, but delighted with the experience overall.

If you have any intention of reading Cujo, DO NOT CONTINUE READING AFTER THIS POINT. I’m about to just deep-dive into spoiler territory. It’s the only way I can gush. But just know that I was impressed with the novel, and I would recommend it not as some kind of monster book, but more as a slice-of-life horror novel.

Cujo starts with two families: the Trentons and the Cambers.

Donna and Vic Trenton have a very young son named Tad. He’s an imaginative little tyke who is terrified of a potential monster in his closet, but a good kid nonetheless. Donna and Vic are going through a rough patch. Donna cheated on Vic with this guy named Steve Kemp. She called things off with Steve, but in a fit or revenge, Steve sent a letter to Vic (a very not-pleasant letter) making him aware of his trysts with Donna. Vic is made miserable by this information, but has to depart to New York for a meeting that could potentially save his business. Donna is left alone at home with Tad and a car that needs to be taken to a mechanic’s.

Joe Camber is a great mechanic, but a bit of a rough husband to his wife, Charity. They and their son, Brett, live in the boonies, out at the end of a country road. Charity does not want her son to end up a deadbeat mechanic at the end of a country road, so after winning the lottery (literally), she negotiates a trip to her sister’s with Joe as a way to introduce Brett to a better side of life. She buys Joe a fancy piece of equipment in exchange for allowing this, leaving Joe behind to take care of the family dog, Cujo.

What then follows is a sequence of events that leads to tragedy.

1. Cujo chases a rabbit into a cave that has some bats and gets nipped on the nose after startling them with his bark. This gives him rabies.
2. Donna’s car breaks down on a grocery shopping trip, so she decides to take it in to a mechanic that Vic recommended the next day, i.e. Joe Camber.
3. Charity and Brett leave to visit her sister, with Brett noticing that Cujo is behaving oddly the morning that they depart.
4. Joe decides to take advantage of Charity and Brett’s absence and plans to go to Atlantic City with his neighbor.
5. His neighbor, in a drunken state, is attacked by a fully rabid Cujo. He is killed.
6. When Joe goes to pick up his neighbor, he too is also killed at the neighbor’s house.
7. Tad does not want to be left alone at the house with a sitter while Donna takes the car to Joe Camber’s. He begs to go with her and she relents.
8. Just as they arrive at Camber’s garage out in the middle of nowhere, the car finally breaks down for good.
9. Cujo attacks them, but they are able to safely retreat into the vehicle. However, they are stuck there, with no one living close by for miles. (The closest neighbor is dead.)
10. Steve Kemp, Donna’s former lover, is so incredibly steamed she broke things off, he decides to confront her at her house. Seeing no one is home, he goes around breaking things and ejaculating on the bed in the strangest fit of rage I’ve ever read.
11. Donna and Tad are stuck in the car for an entire day at this point because no one knows they went there and Vic, her husband, does not think it too odd that they have not called yet. He is also consumed with thoughts about saving his business.
12. Donna hopes to wait for the mailman to come along and then honk for help, but it turns out that Joe called ahead of time to hold his mail for his pending trip to Atlantic City. She and Tad spend another day in the car. (Cujo is being preternaturally watchful of their vehicle and has attacked several times.) It is summer. It is hot. They have no food or water to last them.
13. Vic, finally nervous that his wife hasn’t called him or answered his calls, calls the police to check on their place. The cops think he is just being overly worried, but they change their tune when they get to his place and find it trashed. Vic heads home.
14. After examining the wreckage and the ejaculate, Vic knows for a fact that it was Steve Kemp who did this, and everyone assumes that Steve abducted Donna and Tad. The one thing that is odd is that her car is missing, but given the abundance of evidence that Steve was in the house, he is the prime suspect.
15. Donna tries to make a run for the house to get to the Cambers’ phone, but she is tired, dehydrated, and hungry. Cujo attacks her and is able to wound her leg and stomach before she is able to escape back into the car. Tad starts having seizures. He is having severe heatstroke.
16. The police find Kemp, and he admits to breaking in but swears he had nothing to do with kidnapping Donna or Tad. The police learn from Vic when he arrives that Camber’s garage is a place she might have gone to get the car fixed. A cop is sent there.
17. The cop arrives and sees Donna’s car. Instead of calling this in immediately, he gets out of his car first. He sees them inside, but is attacked and killed by Cujo before he can relay this information to others.
18. The next day, Vic has an epiphany after seeing that his son’s “monster words” (a paper used to protect him from the monster in the closet) are missing from his room. He connects this with the fact that Joe Camber has a really big dog at his place, and hey, maybe that’s where they are after all.
19. Donna makes one last-ditch effort to escape to the house after Tad has another seizure. She actually succeeds in killing Cujo just as Vic pulls up.
20. Vic runs over to help, but by the time he has gotten there, Tad has passed away from heatstroke. Everyone was just too late.

And…well…there you have it. That’s the basic plot to Cujo.

This is Stephen King at his finest, if you ask me. He does excel with B-movie horror and Cthulhu mythos type stuff, but I really feel like he has total mastery over the many wiles of human evil and random chance.

More than Cujo’s brutality, you fear Steve Kemp’s outbursts or Joe Camber’s grim abuse. And you also fear the just insane amount of randomness that led to Tad Trenton’s death.

As I turned every page, my jaw dropped not from shocking scenes but from the sheer suckiness of how one person’s decisions could lead to someone being stuck in a car in the middle of the country in the middle of summer with a rabid St. Bernard patrolling outside.

So many little choices led to Donna and Tad not being found in time.

And that was goddamn terrifying.

More than the poor pooch who got rabies.

I rate Cujo a chilling-book-that-is-less-about-canine-terror-and-more-about-how-random-events-can-just-fuck-you-up.

It’s a Wonderful Book: Wonder Review

I don’t mean to brag, but I’m a huge reader.

Like…a huge huge reader.

Anyone who knows me knows that I lug around a giant book bag filled with a multitude of books that I read simultaneously. It is an encumbrance that I am notorious for. Whenever I travel places, it is a whole other bag I have to take with me.

I read so much, there is usually a never-ending supply of books that I can recommend to my sister, who is also a big reader. I basically introduced her to all of Stephen King.

I think it’s apt to say I’m a more voracious reader than her, but my god, sometimes she just floors me with how awesome her reading selection is.

To give a perfect example, she is the one who introduced me to Game of Thrones.

Alya also introduced me to Wonder, a delightful book that is easy to read and absolutely touching to finish.

Wonder is about a young boy named Auggie with a disfigured face. He has lived most of his life being supported by his family with little interaction out in society, but the story covers his first trying year attending a public school. With a sense of humor and realism about his situation, Auggie navigates both the cruelty and kindness of other human beings.

I thoroughly enjoyed Wonder. It is without a doubt a feel-good story, even though it deals with sore themes of humiliation and public disdain. The book is parceled out into different sections, each section narrated by different characters, whether it’s Auggie, his sister, or one of his classmates.

This shift in perspective allows you to draw sympathy for varying characters that you might not have otherwise sympathized with. However, it did make me wish to linger a while longer with POVs I enjoyed. It sometimes felt that certain perspectives could have been expanded upon. The steady shift in narrators often left things unsaid.

That said, that is probably my only complaint with Wonder. It is seriously an uplifting book, even though its subject matter might come across as depressing. I know it made my sister cry on more than once occasion. As for me, I think I only cried at the ending, when there was a really sweet moment. A moment of unexpected kindness caught me completely off guard and I choked up. (It was the blatantly uplifting ending the narrative needed.)

Wonder’s chapters are very short, and the book as a whole makes for a fast read. This is the kind of book you could take with you on a holiday and finish in one go. I don’t read these kinds of books often enough, so I really treasure them when I do.

There is a movie based on Wonder, but I haven’t seen it. I would be very interested in watching it. As a matter of fact, I think I should get together with my sister and we could watch it together. Not only would it make for a great follow-up movie review post (yikes, I sound so mercenary), but it would be a nifty feel-good movie to watch with my bestest friend.

I would recommend Wonder to anyone who enjoys a heartfelt story that is straightforward and not overly sentimental. I’d only note the fact that it can be binge-read in a single evening and that the narrator changes from time to time.

I rate Wonder a wonder-to-read-and-a-joy-to-finish.

Revisiting the Major Suckage of Twilight with Good Humor: Midnight Sun Review

Okay, feel free to make fun of me for going out of my way to buy Midnight Sun as soon as it came out. But let me just remind you that I have proven to have fairly discerning literary tastes over the course of this blog (I hope), so if I want to go through the book equivalent of discount sugary cereal, I am totally within my rights.

Besides, Midnight Sun was one of the most hilarious things I’ve read in a while. I think I cackled more than a hundred times over the course of reading the whole thing.

For those of you who don’t know, Midnight Sun is just the latest installment in the infamous Twilight franchise. However, instead of covering new territory, it retreads the same ground as the original book. This time, instead of reading through the story from the human girl’s perspective, Midnight Sun gives us a tour of the same story through the eyes of the vampire boy.

Or should I say man, since the dude is over a hundred years old at this point?

When I found out the plot of Stephanie Meyer’s latest book, I knew I had to get my hands on it. I mean, it sounded like comedy gold. And I was not wrong.

Just in case you’ve never read Twilight, here is a brief summary.

1. Human Bella moves to a new place to live with her father very grudgingly and falls in love with an elderly vampire who lives there too, named Edward.
2. The two of them spend a lot of time talking and trying to overcome the biggest obstacles in their relationship, one of which is the fact that Edward wants to eat her (and not in a fun way or anything like that he seriously wants to fucking kill her and drink her blood).
3. Bella’s life gets put in danger because obviously she’s chilling with vampires on a regular basis and that’s not good.
4. After a harrowing experience where she nearly dies but Edward saves her, the two of them go to prom.

Yeah, that’s seriously the story.

And Midnight Sun is the exact same plot as told by Edward.

I’m going to be completely honest, there were some good parts to the novel. For example, Edward is a special vampire that possesses telepathy. In Twilight, when you’re reading from Bella’s perspective, Edward either tells her what he senses from other people’s minds, or Bella has to make educated and convenient guesses as to what he’s “hearing” based on his expressions.

In Midnight Sun, we get it from the horse’s mouth. And I’m a total sucker for telepathy in books. Stephanie Meyer does a good job detailing what it’s like to hear people’s thoughts, so any time that happens, it’s an ameliorating experience.

One of Edward’s vampire siblings, Alice, has the ability to see into the future, and that too is also fun to read about.

However, one of the best things about reading Midnight Sun is for those cringey moments you remember from the first book. They are made even more cringey (and thus more hilarious) in this one.

I remember when I first read Twilight, I always thought Bella came across as an insanely selfish person who was constantly directly characterized as being selfless. For instance, she makes the move to live with her dad as a bit of a sacrifice play to help her mom out. However, her treatment of her father is nothing short of abysmal. She looks at him as an annoyance and often does not seem to stop and consider how he might feel about things.

She also treats purported friends as hindrances. Other people are stepping stones to get to what she wants. Aside from Edward, she never goes out of her way to think about what another person might be feeling.

But in Midnight Sun, we now have Edward coming along, showcasing left and right how he believes Bella is a phenomenally generous and giving person.

I don’t buy it.

Another thing that sucks but is funny is how the book maintains that incredibly unhealthy notion that you can find your one true love in a matter of months and then think it is okay to die for them. Or to be absolutely devastated if they leave you. I mean, don’t you think you shouldn’t necessarily base your life around another person? Shouldn’t your happiness stem from yourself?

The book also does a poor job of trying to explain plot holes that are apparent in the first. When Bella’s life is in danger, the vampires have to take a car to get to her, but one of the things we are frequently shown in every novel in the series is that vampires can move faster than a human can see. Even if it is daytime and they might sparkle if they stepped outside, you would think Edward and his family could have super-speeded to go rescue Bella without anyone noticing.

In my opinion though, the most hilarious thing about Midnight Sun is how it seeks to pull back from some of the troublesome content it included in Twilight.

As a pseudo-erotic young adult novel, there are moments in Twilight that play into these dominant-submissive stereotypes. However, if these moments were to occur in real life, they would come across as some severely messed-up behavior. Edward stalks Bella and watches her sleep at night without her knowing. Edward tries to control Bella’s actions, even going so far as to physically man-handle her to prevent her from doing things he doesn’t want her to do. He also has a tendency to order Bella to do things he does want her to do, no pleases or thank yous.

None of these things sit well with me given the context of the novel.

And how does Midnight Sun seek to rectify these mistakes?

By giving Edward intense anxiety in his inner monologues.

Every time he says something that could be seen as problematic, he instantly second-guesses and berates himself in his mind for doing so.

This is absolutely side-splitting to read.

One second Edward is displaying a terrible temper to Bella, the next he’s mentally horrorstruck at his own audacity.

I got whiplash reading Midnight Sun trying to keep up with Edward’s mood swings.

Now, as my totally Above Average readers, you’re probably wondering whether or not you should buy this book. I’ve simultaneously bashed and praised it in equal measure. Therefore, I have constructed a guide to help you determine whether or not you should pick up Midnight Sun the next time you’re in a bookstore.

	Loved It	Hated It
If You Have Never Read Twilight	If you have never read Twilight, but you think you might like the type of hilarity I’ve described, I’d recommend reading Midnight Sun only if you read Twilight first.	If you have never read Twilight and loathe the notion of the story, don’t pick up Midnight Sun. You will hate it.
If You Have Read Twilight	There should be enough in Midnight Sun for you to love if you are a hardcore Twilight fan. Go right ahead.	Pick up Midnight Sun only if you plan to read it with good humor and wish to really poke fun at how hilariously bad the first book truly is.

I don’t mean to bash on you if you do enjoy Twilight by the way. Everyone can like whatever they want. You’ll get no judgment from me if you like to immerse yourself in the series. My personal opinion is that the story is pretty flawed, but clearly I still draw enjoyment from it.

So in all seriousness, Midnight Sun builds on the strengths of Stephanie Meyer’s writing style, but that also means it falters when it rests on the foundational weaknesses of her first book in the series.

I rate Midnight Sun an absolute-riot.

Literary Sins: The Children of Men and Froley’s Namesake

Many of you Above Average readers know of my pet bird, Froley. I can’t seem to shut up about him. I’ve devoted a bunch of posts to anecdotes about his inane yet gorgeous behavior.

However, I’m not sure if I’ve ever mentioned how I came up with his name. (Honestly, I might have. I have a tendency to repeat myself, especially when it comes to talking about my bird.)

Years and years ago, I saw a movie called Children of Men, and the name “Froley” was just dropped. There isn’t even a character called “Froley.” It’s just offered as a possible baby name. But as soon as I heard it, I did this mental reminder thing. “You’ve got to use this name someday.”

And I did.

I got Froley at the pet store and immediately named him “Froley.”

What I didn’t know at the time was that Children of Men was based on a book called The Children of Men. And I unforgivably did not find this out until the book was staring me right in the face at a used bookstore in Tucson.

And as soon as I saw it, I knew I had unknowingly committed a literary sin. What sin is that, you ask? It’s the sin of enjoying a movie, loving it, in fact, and not reading the book it was based on.

So I bought the book immediately and I’m happy to report I just finished it and I loved it too.

Just in case you haven’t watched the movie or read the book, I’ll clue you in as to what it’s about. It’s set in a world where women and men suddenly become both infertile and sterile. The whole globe is suddenly faced with the realization that no future generations will come after them.

The movie takes a more action-oriented style to the story, focusing on one man as he rushes to protect the world’s first pregnant woman in years. The two of them have to escape from a literal war in the process. As a movie, I get why they took the story in this direction. It made the plot more visceral, and gave the audience a more visual experience when it comes to the desperation everyone was feeling.

The book takes a ponderous approach to the situation. The lack of children in the world is described with a quiet horror. As everyone slowly ages, despair permeates the reflections of the main character. Set in the UK, an authoritarian government has been constructed to make life more comfortable for the aging population. If you’re in a good spot, the oversight and executive privileges the government wields might not bother you. But if you’re part of a less than desirable social rung, your decline into old age is not as easy.

The main character is well off, but his comfortable world is thrown into disarray when a group of rebels confront him with the disquieting truth about society as it currently stands. These rebels’ position is heightened in our protagonist’s awareness when it is revealed that one of them is pregnant.

Despite the drama of these broad strokes I’m painting of the plot, the pace of the novel is measured and sedate. The Children of Men is really about reflecting about how humanity’s progress and innovation largely stems from the knowledge that people will come after you. Without that hope for the future, humanity stagnates.

These musings are portrayed to readers perfectly in small moments. My favorite is when a deer makes its way into a church. This church is like the rural ones we always see described in Victorian novels, small stone edifices nestled in green hills or gentle woodland. The protagonist sees a deer has made its way into the church and is standing by the altar. For him, it’s a small moment of beauty in a world that is turning decrepit.

That’s when the pastor runs in screaming.

It was not a moment of beauty for him. This elderly man rushes at the deer with his arms waving, angry at it for making its way inside. He cries after it as it bounds away, saying that the world will soon be its for the taking, so can’t it just wait a few more years before claiming it.

The Children of Men was by no means a lighthearted read, but its fairly short length makes it a quick one. You can dive into it and escape in the span of two evenings if you’re pacing your reading time. However, I’d recommend this only to people who enjoy thoughtful prose. Because while it is a digestible size, it does not hold back when it comes to ponderous paragraphs.

I rate The Children of Men a deep-yet-quick-read-that-will-have-you-appreciating-the-continuity-of-the-human-species.

Literary Sins: The Firestarter to Stephen King’s Flame

It’s been a long time since I’ve written a Literary Sins post. I think the last time I wrote about my experiences reading classic books that I probably should have read ages ago, I was railing against On the Road.

Well, this time, I’ve rectified a Literary Sin that many will probably shake their heads and scoff at. “Firestarter by Stephen King is not a literary classic,” they’ll say, “and therefore it’s not a sin that you had not read it.”

I beg to differ.

As a self-proclaimed Stephen King fan, it is an egregious oversight on my part to have not read one of his earlier works. As a matter of fact, I’m making it a personal mission to read through his entire bibliography, so expect to see a few more Stephen King titles in future Literary Sins posts.

Stephen King’s early pieces are some of my favorites. They capture a grisly kind of horror that has become more nuanced in his more recent novels. Carrie, Salem’s Lot, and Rage cover not only horrific themes and monstrous people, but they do so in a very raw fashion. So while I do appreciate the mastery of King’s later works like Under the Dome and 11/22/63, my inner horror fanatic much prefers the slasher qualities of young King.

However, Firestarter is not a terrifying tale such as you would expect from Stephen King. It tells the story of a young girl named Charlie who possesses the ability to start fires with her mind. Her parents were both subjects of MK Ultra-esque experiments, and their child’s latent gifts are a result of those experiences.

Most of the fear in Firestarter comes from two main sources: the unpredictability of a child having access to such destructive power and the widespread reach an immoral branch of government can have on a person’s life.

Charlie and her father spend most of the novel on the run, and you really feel for the dad as he tries to instruct his daughter about when it is okay and not okay for her to use her powers. And those government agents dog them relentlessly.

As you can probably see, those monstrous horror elements that King usually includes in his stories are missing here, and Firestarter suffered a drop in my esteem as a result.

That’s not to say I disliked it. I adore Stephen King’s writing style more than any other author’s, and that was still apparent in Firestarter. But I was expecting something different from what I got.

Before I dive into the negatives, let me focus on the positives.

As always, King excels at describing a person’s inner thoughts. He could cover a whole page with one person’s ruminations, and I would not be bored. Plus, since Charlie’s father possesses some low-key telepathy powers, that makes King’s style of writing from a person’s mind ten times more exciting.

This is doubly obvious when he writes about men who are just plain evil. There is a character named Rainbird who could accurately be called the villain of the novel, and reading from his perspective always induces a shudder. King takes the time to set up Rainbird’s character and motivations, and that is a large driving force behind the plot.

Now, on to the negatives.

The plot meanders.

That’s perhaps the biggest flaw. (Be wary of spoilers ahead, by the way.)

If you want to know the broad strokes of the plot, it is as follows:

a) Charlie and her dad are on the run.

b) Charlie and her dad hide out on a farm.

c) Charlie and her dad get caught and taken to a government facility.

d) Charlie and her dad try to escape.

While handy flashbacks provide context for how Charlie got her powers and fill space between these plot points, they can’t hide how bare bones the story feels. Though Charlie and her father are the protagonists of the narrative, the people we root for, they are often not given much agency when it comes to charting their own course. Granted, when you’re on the run from a shady government organization, you don’t always have a lot of options. However, there never seems to be a big plan or future that they are heading toward.

When compared to some of King’s other stories, Firestarter falls short of a gripping narrative.

In addition to that, none of the characters are as magnetic as some of King’s other infamous characters. Any Stephen King fan worth their salt can name the most memorable characters from The Stand, but a lot of the characters in Firestarter are forgettable.

In conclusion, I would not say that Firestarter is a must-read, even for Stephen King fans, not like Carrie. However, it’s not an altogether bad book. It’s enjoyable. I’d even rate it above the majority of Dean Koontz’s stuff, i.e. all of it.

I rate Firestarter a flaming-good-read-that-won’t-set-fire-to-your-world-but-can-serve-as-a-warm-outing-into-the-world-of-Stephen-King.

Dracula: A Mire of Misogyny

I decided to reread a horror classic for the blog (and myself), giving it a more thorough analysis than I ever did in college (and I was an English major).

Most of you are probably aware of the existence of Dracula. How could you not be? Written in 1897, Bram Stoker’s Gothic tale of horror about a vampire made shockwaves through the genre, creating a solid foundation of tropes we use to this day.

However, what I thought I’d focus on is how Dracula tied horror elements to a woman’s sexual agency.

‘Cause holy shit, if you didn’t know, you’re about to.

When you think about it, a lot of horror movies do this even now. In movies where a group of young teenagers are slowly killed off one by one, the females who are more sexually active are typically the first to go, while the “virgin” character is either left for last or is the only one to survive. Movies like The Cabin in the Woods do a delightful job of pointing out this trope to us.

In Dracula, there are two prominent female characters: Lucy Westenra and Mina Harker.

Let’s start with Lucy.

Lucy is Mina’s best friend, and she seems like an all-around kind person. It’s clear she adores Mina, she’s very generous, and she is very beautiful, enough to attract three suitors. Unfortunately for her, she’s also what I like to call the “starter victim.”

In horror movies, you often see a person undergo a horrible fate for the sole purpose of knowing what lies in store for your protagonists. Lucy Westenra is this person for Mina. Lucy is Dracula’s first victim in the novel, and everything we see happen to her spells out how Dracula’s later attack on Mina will play out.

However, there is a stark difference between Lucy and Mina that makes it more “acceptable” for the evil fate to fall on Lucy while Mina ultimately gets saved.

And that would be the fact that three guys like Lucy.

Three men propose to Lucy, and she likes all of them well enough, though she ends up agreeing to marry one. However, she does make the statement, “Why can’t they let a girl marry three men, or as many as want her, and save all this trouble?”

And because Dracula was written during the Victorian Era, this daring idea is what seals Lucy’s fate to be the doomed starter victim.

But the misogyny doesn’t stop there, oh no. My mouth fell open in resentment and shock more than once.

Once Lucy comes under the sway of Dracula, well on her way to becoming a vampire herself, she is described as being more sensuous. Her looks and demeanor changes. Her voice becomes soft and inviting, and the men who loved her for her “purity” draw back in fear from her “voluptuous wantonness.”

So basically, Stoker ties sexual confidence to the evil growing inside of Lucy.

Now let’s look at Mina, the leading lady who is sure to survive.

Mina is absolutely loyal to her husband, doing work for him, learning new skills to ease his career, and caring for him when he’s ill. When Dracula attacks her, she’s a more unwilling victim than Lucy. Where Lucy sleepwalked out of her house to a cemetery at Dracula’s call, he has to break in to the house where Mina is staying at with the help of an asylum patient to get to her.

And even aside from the fact that Stoker paints Mina as an “angel in the house” (another popular Victorian-era trope), the other characters are also incredible dicks to her, albeit in a roundabout, kindly-meant way.

Get a load of this.

Any time Mina does something smart, whether it be to learn shorthand, combine all their records so they can create a timeline of Dracula’s activities, or use river maps to figure out how Dracula intends to return home, the men compliment her by telling her she has the mind of a man.

“She has man’s brain – a brain that a man should have were he much gifted – and a woman’s heart.”

“…her great brain which is trained like man’s brain, but is of sweet woman…”

Like seriously, what the fuck, you guys.

Van Helsing is the worst of them. He constantly praises Mina for being so smart for a woman. His doddering compliments only served to make me angrier and angrier as I read through the novel, especially because when things looked to get too dangerous, he would be the one to say, “We men must go on, while dear Madam Mina must stay behind.” Dracula turns into the most annoying save-a-damsel story I’ve ever read.

Dracula gave the horror genre a lot of its tropes, for better or worse. Clearly, there were already issues with how people perceived women and their role in society back then.

That said, I’ve always thought that the horror genre serves as an excellent vehicle for social commentary. You can find out a lot about societal pressures and fears by taking a look at their horror stories. (The Victorian Era was clearly ripe with sexual anxiety.)

Combining sex and terror makes for truly uncomfortable tales, but putting readers/viewers in a place of discomfort and fear is all part of what makes the genre tick. We should look at old classics with (very) problematic sections as windows onto perspectives instead of an accurate representation of real life.

I mean, that’s fiction in a nutshell.

Mystery Nostalgia: Catch Those Meddling Kids

I’m not quick to trust new authors, so when I do find myself wandering past the shelves of a bookstore, it’s a big deal. I look at covers. I look at titles. I read synopses. I’m typically a “completionist” type of reader, so once I start a book, I’m saddled with finishing it.

A few months ago (pre-pandemic), I was walking along the aisles of a Barnes & Noble looking for potential purchases. I’d already picked up a few favorites, so I was ready to find something new. What should catch my eye but Edgar Cantero’s Meddling Kids.

Right off the bat, the title, cover, and synopsis grabbed my attention.

I didn’t watch that much television in my childhood, but you can bet one of the few shows I did make a point of watching was Scooby-Doo, Where Are You? My sister and I would sit together and watch old reruns of the Hanna-Barbera original for hours when we were being baby-sat by our aunts.

And as anyone who has watched an ounce of Scooby-Doo knows, “meddling kids” is a very familiar phrase.

Already inclined to try out the novel, I picked up Meddling Kids, bought it, and gave it a read.

It was even better than expected.

Former teen sleuths have to revisit an old case of theirs after years of being apart, with all the stereotypical tropes a mystery like that might entail. However, the plot twists are especially delicious, with certain Cthulhu-esque horror elements being liberally borrowed from. And while the characters might fit into set roles, they also diverge from what you would expect, with all the self-aware humor you could want.

I seriously don’t want to spoil the plot for anybody because it’s that good. It’s satisfying and fun without being too heavy-handed.

However, more than the plot, Cantero’s writing style really captivated me. He has this bead on pop culture that leaks into his writing and makes it feel like readers have a window into characters’ inner thoughts. It’s almost akin to the manner in which Stephen King details how his characters think. For example, one of the characters has an intense crush on a girl with curly orange hair. Every time Cantero describes that hair, even though the metaphors start to blend together after a while, you can feel the depth of emotion behind those feelings.

And the references he makes are insanely cool.

Maybe I’m the only dork who think so, but holy hell, he drew more than a few chuckles from me thanks to them.

Occasionally, his writing will devolve into a script-like structure, where he writes a character’s name and then just types what they say.

For example…

Amanda: (Slowly) I’m not sure how I would feel writing like this, but it worked for Cantero.

At first, this sudden change in style and structure startled me and pulled me out of the story. But he does it often enough and in moments where it just fits seamlessly with what’s going on, that it starts to feel natural. I grew to appreciate the risk he took in doing that, especially as it lines up with (I assume) his love of pulpy cinema.

Meddling Kids is an incredible read, and I can’t believe how lucky I was to have just stumbled across it. It was like finding a diamond in the rough.

Actually, scratch that, it was like finding a diamond in a pile of diamonds.

Because if finding Meddling Kids has taught me anything, it’s that there are so many talented writers out there who don’t get enough love from readers. There are so many stories out there waiting to be read, it’s giving me chills.

Top 5 Books To Reread

I’m a rereader in a major way. About half the books I read in a year are books I’m not reading for the first time.

I know that’s not necessarily a good thing, that I should probably expand my horizons and pick up books by new authors, but I can’t help myself.

For one thing, I’m a creature of comfort. I like revisiting characters, stories, and writing styles that I know I enjoy.

For another, I feel I have to justify the amount of books I have in my possession. I mean, what’s the point of buying them for myself if I’m not going to read them again and again and again.

Now, I can reread any book. You name it, I’ll reread it. But I have to admit, some books are easier to reread than others. What follows is a list of my all-time favorite books to read over and over again.

I will vouch for these books’ rereadability with my life.

Side note: Figuratively speaking.

So let’s browse these page-turners and get on with it!

Abandon in Place – Jerry Oltion

This is by far the best book I ever picked up in my middle school library. When I was in school, there was a program for students called Accelerated Reading. It forced kids to pick up books and take comprehension tests on them afterwards in order to collect points. I don’t mean to brag, but I always got number one for AR points at school. But the real benefit from AR wasn’t the points. It was the fact that I got my hands on this fantastic book.

The premise alone is fantastic. Rick Spencer, an astronaut, is feeling low after Neil Amstrong’s death. However, after the funeral, a ghostly Saturn V rocket launches from a NASA pad and no one knows where it came from. The government and the space agency, along with Rick, have to figure out where these things are coming from and what to do with them.

Abandon in Place is able to pass off as a cerebral read, but it’s actually like popcorn. It delves into space-race nostalgia and paranormal questions alike with a sense of humor and honesty. It’s not often that you see a sci-fi book paired with obvious romanticism, but that’s what Abandon in Place does. At the end of the day, the book is about hope and optimism, and I love it for that.

Pride & Prejudice – Jane Austen

Is it cliche to like Pride & Prejudice? I feel like it is. Regardless, there’s a reason this book is so popular.

The story is all about Elizabeth Bennet dealing with her family’s quirks and how they make her relate to societal classes. Oh, and also it’s about her romance with Mr. Darcy. That’s why most people read it, and I can’t say I blame them. Darcy’s demeanor is the absolute draw of the novel. I mean, who doesn’t like stoic gentlemen?

It’s a fairly short read, and no chapter is wasted. If Austen includes a paragraph in her work, it is for the express purpose of furthering along her story. That sense of direction and purpose will carry you through every page and make Pride & Prejudice a total speed-run of a book.

The Elegance of the Hedgehog – Muriel Barbery

There is absolutely no reason why I should have bought The Elegance of the Hedgehog that day at the bookstore. I normally don’t extensively peruse bookshelves the way I did. Plus, I don’t like it when book covers feature photos of people. Call me crazy, but I prefer artwork or abstract symbolism on my book covers. But I bought the book, and it’s one of my favorites.

The story has two deuteragonists. One is an aging concierge at this swanky French hotel, where she has to deal with snobbish residents. She pretends to be dumber than she is so that she doesn’t have to share the fact that she is a thoughtful and intelligent person. The other is a young girl, the daughter of one of the families at the hotel. She is incredibly smart, and has decided to kill herself before she grows up to be exactly like her parents.

This book is wonderfully deep, and it makes you feel emotions regardless of whether you’ve heard of the literature or philosophers the characters constantly reference. It’s the most moving quick read I’ve ever read. I remember the first time I finished it, I was in a Dillards, in the shoe department. I cried next to the Gianni Bini heels.

The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy – Douglas Adams

Absolute best book ever. If I had to pick a book to take with me on a desert island, it would be this one. Funny story, I once hit a guy in the nutsack with a collection of Douglas Adams’ work. I’m not proud of that moment (for reasons I may or may not mention another time), but I feel like it adds to the legacy of my copy of The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy.

Anyways, the book’s plot is exceedingly straightforward. Earthman Arthur Dent has to confront the wider reaches of the galaxy after the Earth is destroyed in order to make room for a hyperspace bypass. He goes on adventures, and hilarity ensues.

It is that hilarity that makes The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy such a great reread. The humor never gets old. It’s comparable to Monty Python and the Holy Grail. The trappings might get aged, but the essence of the thing can draw more than a few chuckles from you.

Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire

This book makes it onto this list based purely on the fact that I have reread it more than twelve times. I honestly think it’s my most reread book. Any of the Harry Potter books are great rereads since they move so quickly (yet enjoyably) through their plot points.

This was the Harry Potter book I had to content myself with before The Order of the Phoenix came out. So what else was there for me to do if I wanted to immerse myself in the Wizarding World some more than reread The Goblet of Fire for the umpteenth time.

Hope you liked the list, and I also hope I was able to pique your interest in the direction of any of these books!

Readers of the Lost Art: Why More People Should Pick Up a Book

I can’t remember learning to read. It’s something I feel like I’ve always known how to do.

Of course, I was not born with the ability to read. That would be crazy.

I think I first got an interest in reading because of my parents. They both made the decision to instill a “sense” of reading in my sister and I at a very early age. They did this by constantly reading in front of us. My mom would read the newspaper every day in front of us. She bought us these tactile toddler books, made of cardboard and layered with different fabrics, so that we could “read” as best we could. On his side, my dad would read us bedtime stories. Sometimes The Hobbit. Sometimes The Velveteen Rabbit.

Eventually, I just sort of…picked up books. I started looking for ones I would like, even if they weren’t made of cardboard. My family made trips to the nearest Barnes & Noble on weekends, and by “nearest,” I mean 2 hours away. Regardless, we would spend hours there, and I would come home with a stack of new books that I could only hold by placing my hands underneath the pile and using my chin to secure it.

It’s only now that I’m grown that I realize that reading as a hobby is not as prevalent as movies and TV shows would have you believe. Pop culture has us thinking that gorgeous nerds who enjoy Tolstoy and Vonnegut are around every corner.

Not so.

I used to think adults were being patronizing every time they ooh-ed and ahh-ed when they saw me sitting by myself, reading a book. Now I know they were gasping over a rather rare specimen.

People read, people have to read, on a daily basis. You read menus, instructions, labels, and signs. But a woefully small amount of people actually read books for pleasure. Like books books.

And that’s terrible.

There’s a quiet joy that can come from reading a book for pleasure. You find one you like, because of course you cater to your preferences, and then in your spare time, you immerse yourself in another person’s world, another person’s story, another person’s thoughts.

Reading a book is like dipping yourself into another person’s perspective, and when you learn to think about another person’s point of view, you gain empathy. You gain the ability to put yourself in another person’s shoes.

Granted, reading is not the only way to learn empathy, and it’s also no guarantee that you will be empathetic.

But it’s a great place to start.

I think that reading as a kid is incredibly important not because it’s a future life skill but because as a child, you’re at your most selfish. When you’re in your single-digits, you have this mindset that you’re at the center of the universe. (And to make matters worse, you never knew you thought that until after you’ve grown up.) Books help to alleviate that habit.

Well, the title of this post, upon a second reading, sounds a tad accusatory. Like I’m about to start getting on people’s cases for not reading enough.

And hell…

…I think I am.

A person’s hobbies should be their own thing. I’m not going to prescribe reading as a hobby for people.

I am going to prescribe reading as a part of everyday life though. I think reading a book should be as commonplace as eating lunch or driving a car. A person should do it everyday. If you are a human being alive on this planet and you have the capacity to read a book, you should goddamn do it.

“Wow,” you might be thinking. “This particular Below Average post is a bit vitriolic. Who spit in her coffee this morning?”

You don’t even have to read an entire book a day. Just a chapter. Heck, just three paragraphs. But by incorporating reading a book into your everyday life, your speaking skills will improve, your writing skills will improve, and your people skills will improve.

Well, forgive me for being irate, but I’ve had it up to here with people who have no regard for reading. And that includes people who insist reading is just a hobby. People who think reading is just a pastime are idiots. They’re the Mr. Wormwoods of our generation. (Props to any and all Matilda fans out there.)

If you believe that language is a basis for civilization and society as we know it, then reading that goddamn language should be part of that foundation.

It’s not a hobby if it built empires, established societal connections, and formed the baseline for communication, you know what I mean?

Reading is essential for humans.

So…you want to know the reason for this whole post?

Well, where I live, there is not a single bookstore anymore. Not a one. The last one we had closed two years ago this January, and half of it was a teaching supply store because they had to make ends meet since not enough people were buying books.

So how about before we build our town’s seventh Starbucks (and you Below Average Blog readers know how much I love my coffee), WE OPEN ANOTHER BOOKSTORE BEFORE I LOSE MY MIND?

Literary Sins: On the Road Can Suck My Below Average Blog

On my neverending quest to become an enlightened reader, I bought a copy of Jack Kerouac’s On the Road a few months ago. I finished it yesterday, and all I can think is what a letdown reading it was.

I don’t know about you, but I had heard fantastic things about On the Road. Kerouac’s writing style was extolled as revolutionary, and his encapsulation of the wild and untrammeled Beat movement was considered a highlight of the times.

And as far as Kerouac’s writing style goes, On the Road was enjoyable. He writes in a semi-stream of consciousness style, almost as if he’s next to you, mumbling his tale. Often, his description of commonplace things are damn near poetic, and his vivid imaginings of what it feels like to feel are enticing and magnetic.

But fuck almost everything else about it.

The story is narrated by an indecisive and wandering young man named Sal Paradise, but it actually follows Sal’s friend, Dean Moriarty. It’s clear that Sal greatly admires and pities Dean at the same time. The two of them decide to travel “on the road” together. They’re looking for some kind of Beat Eden, a place that holds no restrictions against what they want and what they are, but they never really find it. Their own contrary natures and the regulated way American society functions stops them from ever finding that place where they belong.

This all sounds tremendously romantic, but I just couldn’t get into it for two very big reasons.

For one thing, the book is incredibly sexist. Women don’t seem to have the same voice as men do. Sal is his own person, Dean is his own person, every dude is his own person. They all have a presence in Kerouac’s writing that assures you they are sentient beings with hopes and dreams.

The women, on the other hand, are so objectified, they have zero personality. They’re in the story to be nuisances, background items, or sexual objects.

Normally, I don’t get hung up on novels not being MEGA inclusive. A good story will grab me every time no matter who it’s about. But On the Road grated on my nerves with every woman Sal and Dean ogled at, slept with, abandoned, harassed, or ignored. Plus, there is some really shady shit that goes down when Sal and Dean are staying at this house with a woman named Frankie. They both start developing a crush on her thirteen-year-old daughter.

No, you read that right. A THIRTEEN-YEAR-OLD girl.

And she’s not the only young girl the two men lust after.

It was disgusting reading about these older men crushing on these little girls.

Plus, Sal and Dean can’t seem to stop thinking about ladies period. Every time they’re out on the town, Sal fantasizes about meeting a “gone” girl for a good time. And they don’t care about these girls as people, with thoughts and dreams of their own. They only care about how good the girls can make them feel.

That actually leads to the other big reason why I hate On the Road.

The main characters are incredibly selfish. Now, I don’t care if a book tells me a story about a selfish person and their exploits. Human beings are fairly selfish creatures, so nearly every story with a human being in it has some degree of self-centeredness to it. What I do hate is if a book tells me a story about a selfish person and glorifies and romanticizes it.

Dean and Sal only care about themselves and their goals. They talk this big talk about aspirations and meaning-of-life shit, but they don’t ever take other people into consideration. They expound upon the immensity of life and love, but they act as if they’re the only people on the planet with these thoughts. It’s frustrating as hell, enraging even.

It’s like they willingly trapped themselves into this egocentric state of mind, and then they spend the rest of their time talking about how self-obsessed everyone else is.

They sound so holier-than-thou, but I bet if you walked up to them and told them so, they would just shake their heads and say that you “don’t get it.”

This attitude of theirs is epitomized in the second-to-last chapter, when Sal suffers a fever during their trip to Mexico. Dean decides to head back to the States to be with one of his exes, leaving Sal, in the throes of his sickness and half-hallucinating, behind. Dean simply says he’s “got to get back to his life.”

Maybe what infuriates me so much is the fact that I actually know guys that act like Sal and Dean. I’m not going to name names (though there is a part of me that really wants to out these guys), but they are modern-day Dean Moriartys. They think the world of themselves and their viewpoints, but they never stop to consider what another person is feeling like.

For me, there is nothing romantic about On the Road.

I rate On the Road a read-it-if-you-feel-you-must-but-if-you-like-it-then-we-seriously-need-to-have-a-deep-literary-discussion-about-why-you-do-so-that-I-can-understand-where-you’re-coming-from-because-I-honestly-loathe-the-thing.