Ms. Hen reviews Twilight

 

Ms. Hen reads Twilight and enjoys a Shipyard Pumpkin Ale

Ms. Hen decided to read this because she is studying vampire fiction, and it's Halloween season. She knows this is not considered high quality fiction, but she read it because it's a popular book about vampires. It's a young adult novel, and it's written simply for younger readers, but Ms. Hen doesn't think that means that the writing is subpar. The writing is excellent in this novel, and Ms. Hen found the story captivating.

This novel is about a teenage girl, Bella Swan, who moves from Phoenix, Arizona to Forks, Washington to live with her father. At first, she is depressed because she misses the sun, and her father, who is the chief of police in the town, isn't good at communicating. She makes new friends, and she isn't sure why she's friends with these people. She meets Edward, who sits next to her in Biology, and at first he seems like he hates her, because he sits as far away from her as he can at the desk. She thinks he the most beautiful man she's ever seen. His entire adopted family is attractive, and they all sit together at lunch and do not eat anything.

Bella and Edward fall in love and she discovers his secret: that he and his family are vampires. He tells her that he acted like he didn't like her at first because he found her scent so attractive, and he was afraid she would tempt him to kill her. He and his family do not kill humans, they hunt in the woods and kill animals and eat them. They do not want to be discovered, and spend their time hiding their secret from everyone. They move to different areas from time to time, when the younger people in their group have to hide the fact they are not aging.

This novel is primarily a love story, and it is not as scary as some other vampire novels Ms. Hen has read. It's an innocent romantic story because Edward thinks that he and Bella cannot truly be together. She wants to become like him, but he does not want her to succumb to the darkness. He does not want her to suffer like he has, even though he loves her, he wants to be with her, but does not know what will happen.

Some excitement happens at the end of the novel, when Ms. Hen thinks is where the plot begins. The love story is charming, but it gets tiresome. Ms. Hen wants to read all the books eventually, but not right away. Ms. Hen is interested in vampire novels; years ago, she read Anne Rice's novels, but she does not want to read them again, because she has grown past that. However, she has no problem reading DRACULA every few years.

Ms. Hen thinks that TWILIGHT is important because it speaks to young people of its time. The era in which the novel took place was a type of twilight. Technology does not play a big part in this novel as it would if if had been written later. The young people barely have cell phones, and the Internet is turtle-paced.

Ms. Hen says Happy Halloween! The weather outside is frightful, and inside is scary as well. Halloween is Ms. Hen's favorite holiday, and the world is scary enough right now, why not scare yourself in a different way with vampires, ghosts, witches, jack-o-lanterns, and scary books.

Ms. Hen's Halloween manicure

Ms. Hen reviews The Haunting of Hill House

 

The Haunting of Hill House

Shirley Jackson

The Viking Press

1959

Ms. Hen decided to read this because she knew it was a ghost story, and she thought it would be a good book for Halloween. She watched the Netflix show a couple of years ago by the same name, and thought the story would be identical, but instead of a family going to the haunted house like in the show, a group of strangers go to the house. Another Netflix show appeared this year called THE HAUNTING OF BLY MANOR, which Ms. Hen learned was loosely based on THE TURN OF THE SCREW. Ms. Hen watched this show concurrently as she was reading THE HAUNTING OF HILL HOUSE. All these stories are related ghost stories about haunted houses, but are all different.

THE HAUNTING OF HILL HOUSE is not as scary as Ms. Hen thought it would be. She thinks it's more sad than scary. It's about a woman named Eleanor who goes to stay at Hill House at the invitation of Dr. Montague, who is researching the phenomenon of the house. A young woman named Theodora, and the young man, Luke, who is going to inherit Hill House, are staying there as well. 

Eleanor took care of her mother when she was sick, and consequently, she never had a life of her own. She is thirty-four years old. She latches on to Theodora because she wants and needs a friend. Strange things happen in the house, writing appears on the wall with Eleanor's name, and blood appears on Theo's clothes. Eleanor becomes interested in Luke, only to discover he is dull.

The house is a character in the novel as well. Hill House does not make any sense architecturally. The rooms do not connect in the right way, and the people staying there tend to get lost on their way to the dining room or any room in the house. Ms. Hen was scared, but she wasn't too scared.

This novel was published in 1959, when the world was a different place for women. People had to grow up fast, and if a woman was thirty-four and she was not married, she was an anomaly. These days, this book could be a different story, so it seems old-fashioned to Ms. Hen. 

This novel reminds Ms. Hen slightly of THE BELL JAR by Sylvia Plath in the way that it is about a woman who is lonely, and how she suffers in the world. Life can be cruel if a person doesn't fit in with everyone else. This book is like THE BELL JAR and any ghost story combined together.

Even though Ms. Hen thinks this book is more sad than scary, she liked it. She thinks that being lonely can also be scary at times, and the haunted house element with the people who do not understand Eleanor makes the book unsettling and tragic. Ms. Hen says Happy Halloween season to you, and don't be too scared of the monsters lurking around. They are not stronger than you, because you have the power to get rid of them using your spells and your charms.

Ms. Hen reviews two Halloween books

The Ruby Tear

Suzy McKee Charnas writing as Rebecca Brand

Tor Books 

1997

Dandelion Wine 

Ray Bradbury

Corgi Books

1957

Ms. Hen has been on hiatus, and she hopes you haven't been worried. She's been having problems with her blogger, but she's trying to work with what she has. She always writes her post in a document, then pastes it into the blog, but she hasn't been able to do that. But she's still been reading her books. Don't fret, she's healthy and on pumpkin overload for the month!

THE RUBY TEAR is a vampire novel that was written by the same author that wrote Ms. Hen's favorite vampire novel this year, THE VAMPIRE TAPESTRIES. Ms. Hen had to hunt down to see if this author wrote any other vampire novels, and she has, but she published it under a nom de plum.

This novel is about an actress named Jessamyn, who got into a car accident with her boyfriend, and she was badly hurt, which occurred before the beginning of the novel. Her boyfriend, Nic, is a writer and a playwright and at the start of the novel, she auditions for the lead in his new play. Nic has not spoken to her, and has brushed her off since the accident. Nic thinks the play is cursed and he does not want Jessamyn to play the lead, but he does not tell her because his secret is his family is under a spell.

This novel is about the theater, and the eccentric people in this world. Vampires do appear, and Ms. Hen is intrigued by them. She does not think this is as good as THE VAMPIRE TAPESTRIES, because it's written like a pulp novel. So many adjectives and adverbs appear on these pages, that Ms. Hen wonders how the same person could write both novels. She thinks Ms. Charnas was trying to write a popular novel, which Ms. Hen thinks is a bad idea. One should always write the best one can.

Even though it is badly written, Ms. Hen thinks this novel is fun and diverting, good for a weekend in October while drinking pumpkin iced coffee.

DANDELION WINE isn't quite the Halloween book that Ms. Hen expected, even though there are some scary parts. She wanted to read SOMETHING WICKED COMES THIS WAY, but she found DANDELION WINE at a Little Free Library near where she lives, and decided to read that instead.

This novel is about the summertime in one boy's town. In the beginning of the novel Douglas looks out the window and pretends to wake up the town when he watches the lights turn on. He picks the dandelions to make dandelion wine with his grandfather, which they think is summer in a bottle, which can be opened in the winter and they are able to taste summer. This novel is told as stories within the novel about the town where Douglas lives, Green Town. There is a man who makes a happiness machine that does not quite work, a newspaper reporter who becomes friends with a ninety-year old woman who tells him about her travels, a witch that lives in a glass case, who Douglas frees in able to tell him his fortunes, and other tales that center around the people of the town.

Ms. Hen thinks this novel is nostalgic. It's so nostalgic, that she thinks that she has read it before, but she's sure she hasn't. It's the type of book that someone might read when that person is twelve, and it would stay with her. Ms. Hen learned that this novel is not typical of Ray Bradbury's work, and his normal books are more fantastic.

Ms. Hen hopes you have a happy Halloween season, and she will be reading more books, and enjoying the changing leaves.