Grief Cottage

Grief Cottage by Gail Godwin

Marcus is eleven when his mother died.  He lived in foster care a short time before going to live with his great-aunt in South Carolina. Aunt Charlotte is an accomplished painter, and a reclusive woman.  She is the one who tells Marcus about Grief Cottage....on the far end of the island.

A boy and his parents disappeared in the cottage during a hurricane, fifty years ago.  Their bodies were never found and the cottage has been empty ever since.

There has been no talk of it being haunted, but being left pretty much on his own by his aunt, Marcus is the first person the ghost of the cottage has revealed himself to.

After Aunt Charlotte injures herself and may never be able to paint again, Marcus finds himself in sort of a courtship with the ghost boy.  He is both intrigued by and terrifyed by him, and wants to find out what happened to him, and his parents, who nobody seems to even remember the names of.
What I thought of Grief Cottage

Grief Cottage is Book 5/60 in my attempt to read 60 books this year.

It is not a typical haunting story.  No things going bump in the night. While Marcus has no doubt the ghost boy is real, as a reader I'm not sure I'm convinced.

Marcus is himself a haunted child.  Haunted by his past, more afraid of his present than he wants to admit, thinking a little of the future yet to come.  As he unpacks his belongings from his previous life, and relives the memories they stir in him the ghost becomes more solid.  I think it might be a solidification of his own uncertainties, since he really has no physical person that he feels he can reach out to.

Meanwhile, its a rough coming of age story, a finding of a surrogate mother, a desperate need of a father figure, and a fear of disappearing entirely manifested in acts of trying to find the identities of the nameless family.

This was a rough and emotional book, which can be taken at face value as a ghost story, or something deeper.

If you read Grief Cottage I would love to know what you think.  Is the ghost real, or not?

If you enjoyed this review you might also like:
Long Black Veil

Lullaby Road

When Ben Jones pulled into the desert with two children and a dog in his truck, I fell in love.

Lullaby Road is the sequel to another novel, The Never Open Desert Diner.  And while you do not have to have read the first novel (which I have not) to read this one I does allude to the first novel quite a bit.

Meanwhile, not having read the previous novel, I got to meet the residents of 117, and the quirky town at the end of the line, and I hope to see more of these people in future novels.

Meanwhile there is our protagonist, Ben Jones, a bad boy often in trouble with the law, but clearly with a heart of gold, taking both the baby of a friend and the child of a stranger on the road with him, just to keep them safe.

But how safe are they really?

This stretch of highway is dangerous. Death happens many times as Ben travels up and down, back and up again throughout the book. A true mystery throughout without the "sugary sweet" happy ending.

I'm looking foward to hunting down a copy of the first novel now as well.

(I received a copy of this book from Blogging for Books.  All opinions ar emy own.)

Camp So-and-So

The letters went out in Mid-February.  There were twenty-five letters, to twenty-five girls.  Each letter invited its recipient to spend a week at Camp So-and-So on a merit scholarship.  All twenty-five girls sent their completed applications to an obscure Appalachian town.

Except the town doesn't exist, and nobody has ever heard of Camp So-and-So.

Now Cabin 1 wants to beat the rival camp across the lake, home of the perfect beach.
Cabin 2 is being stalked by a murderer.
Cabin 3 is sent off on a magical quest t break a curse.
Cabin 4 has met their soul mates.
And what exactly happened to Cabin 5 anyway?

What Did I Think about Camp So-and-So

Camp So-and-So is book 3/60 of the 60 books I'm attempting to read this year.
It took me a little time to get into it.

The novel is set up weird.  It is set into "Acts" and each "Act" introduces its own cast of characters on a character page.  Its almost like a playbill.

As we "meet" each cabin we get to know its inhabitants to different degrees.  (The poor girls of Cabin 5 don't even get names!)

Now its one of those books where you are hopping from POV to POV.  This cabin, that cabin, the other cabin and back and forth.  Those can sometimes he hard to follow and keep track, but it was a little easier with this book since each cabin is doing something different.

Now, clearly, this is not your typical Summer Camp book.  There is something wrong, and apparently magical about Camp So-and-So.  Once I got past the weirdness of the set up, and each Cabin began its own trials and tribulations I was absorbed into the novel.

My favorite cabin was Cabin 3 and their quest.  I could have read an entire novel about them alone.
If you like YA fantasy fiction and don't mind a little violence I would recommend this novel to you.