HAPPY HALLOWEEN!!
 What are your plans for tonight? Seeing as it's a weekday (ugh), my plans consist of staying indoors with the lights dimmed, candles on and watching scary films with the volume turned up way too high and ruining my teeth with toffee apples. I don't know about you but i'm sad that October is over. I loved walking into shops, pubs, work etc. and seeing spooky decor all around me, it's my kind of vibe. Though I can't complain too much because my bedroom is spooky all year round with the amount of skulls that I have in here! 

Anyway, tonight i'm bringing you the last of my Halloween book posts. Enjoy!


                                    THE TELL-TALE HEART


Title: The Tell-Tale Heart 
Author: Edgar Allan Poe 
Publication: 1843
Genre: Gothic, Horror
My Rating: ★★★★☆

Favourite Quote: "Death, in approaching him had stalked with his black shadow before him, and enveloped the victim."

The Tell-Tale Heart is widely considered a classic of Gothic Fiction and one of Poe's most famous short stories. Poe is the master of suspense- chilling suspense. With madness and delusion as it's central theme, The Tell-Tale Heart is an unsettling short story, fabricated to demonstrate the psychology of a person's mind who is slowly eaten up by guilt.

"It's impossible to say how the idea entered my brain; but once conceived, it haunted me day and night."

The tale follows an unnamed narrator who attempts to convince the reader of his sanity whilst describing a murder he just committed.  The narrator feels disturbed by an old man with a "vulture eye" as he calls it. Cold, calculated and well-executed, the narrator dismembers the old man and hides his body beneath the floorboards. What the narrator didn't prepare for though, is the supposed heavy thumping of the old man's heart after his death. It's the narrator's guilt which has manifested itself in the hallucination that the man's heart is still beating beneath the floorboards.

“I heard all things in the heaven and in the earth. I heard many things in hell. How, then, am I mad? Hearken! and observe how healthily—how calmly I can tell you the whole story.”

The strength of this story lies in its unreliable narrator. The murderer tries so hard to convince the reader that their perfectly sane and that the heart and the eye are to blame, you almost want to believe them. The funny thing is though, the more they try to convince you of their sanity, the more insane they turn out to be.

“He had the eye of a vulture- a pale blue eye, with film over it. Whenever it fell upon me, my blood ran cold; and so by degrees very gradually I made up my mind to take the life of the old man and thus rid myself of the eye forever.” 

The ambiguity and lack of details about the narrator and the old man stand in stark contrast to the specific plot details leading up to the murder. It's unclear what relationship, if any, the old man and his murderer share. Does the narrator have any reason to fear the old man or his eye? Perhaps the old man is a father figure, or maybe his eye represents some sort of veiled secret. I read somewhere that an eye is a window to one's soul. Perhaps the narrator saw through the old man's true self or there was something in those eyes that reflected in the narrator's own. Who knows? It's eternally unresolved.  The story is cleverly constructed so that logic permits many interpretations. Subjective preference allows one strand of logic to dominate, but the existence of the other possibilities is what makes this tale a thrilling and mind-infecting work of literature. 

"Presently I heard a slight groan, and I knew it was a grown of mortal terror...the low stifled sound that arises from the bottom of the soul."

Poe managed to sustain suspense and atmosphere until the very end of this tale.  I found the ending the creepiest part of the story. You know what's going to happen and yet it still sends a chill down your spine when you read the final paragraph. From the very start, Poe carefully and strategically builds up the intensity from seeing the eye, to waiting patiently in the total darkness, to finally taking action. 


The reason why I rated this book 4 stars is down to its lack of explanation and reasoning. I'm not about "keeping the ending open/open mind". I love resolutions after the end of a story. I love answers and knowing why something happened. And so, it's just a little too mysterious for me.

This didn't stop me from loving it, though. The Tell-Tale Heart is a quick, chilling and suspenseful classic to read on Halloween. Perhaps you'll hear your own heart thumping as you turn every page because mine certainly did.

             Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde


Title: Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde 
Author: Robert Louis Stevenson
Publication: 1886
Genre: Gothic, Horror
My Rating: ★★★★☆
Favourite Quote:  “Good and evil are so close as to be chained together in the soul.” 

I'd be surprised to hear that anyone over the age of 15 doesn't know the story of Jekyll and Hyde. Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde is an immensely influential work. Since the publication of this novel, the plot and theme have been repeated innumerable times in both proses and on the screen. It's recognised as a ground-breaking, chilling, and artistically vigorous exploration into the dark and light corners within the human mind.

Through its hidden labyrinths, silent street, gruesome bodily descriptions and a continuously gloomy atmosphere, this book just reeks of Gothicness.  


"That child of Hell had nothing human; nothing lived in him but fear and hatred."

Set in Victorian London, we read the "strange case" through the eyes of a lawyer, Mr. Utterson. He tells us of a brutal murder committed by Mr Hyde who then disappears without a trace. Fearing for the life and reputation of his friend, Dr Jekyll, Utterson takes it upon himself to investigate his disappearance, particuarly when reports ofHyde's gruesome social conduct around London starts to spread. With the help of a friend, Dr Lanyon, Utterson ends up finding out what has really been going on with his friend.

Told in alternating first-person points of view by both Dr Jekyll and Utterson, we find out that Jekyll has been conducting experiments with his mind and body, alternating drugs that friend the fiendish alter ego known as the notorious Mr Hyde. As time passes, Jekyll finds that he is becoming addicted to the transformations that also begin to occur spontaneously.


"He put the glass to his lips and drank at one gulp. A cry followed; he reeled, staggered, clutched at the table and held on, staring with injected eyes, gasping with open mouth; and as I looked there came, I thought, a change—he seemed to swell—his face became suddenly black and the features seemed to melt and alter."

Although this story is so well-known, what people might not realise if they haven't studied the book is that it's much more than a story about a wacky science experiment that's gone wrong and the aftermath of the consequences.  It's not about a man innocently, at first, and uncontrollably being split into a good and evil person and then keeping his double life hidden.  Rather, it's about a man who struggles with the spiritual duality within himself. He thinks he can create two people out of one person, separating the bad from the good, but when he tries it, he discovers he was terribly wrong. Jekyll still remains as he was before: good mixed with bad, but Hyde is deformed, stunted and purely evil. Because of the favour of the evil, the weakness of Jekyll's human nature, the abandonment of Hyde and the decreasing effectiveness of the drug all working together, what started as an experiment soon turns into a horrible addiction.

“I was slowly losing hold of my original and better self, and becoming slowly incorporated with my second and worse.” 

I think any decent person must be able to imagine and sympathise with the horror someone feels as they watch this person become a monster, knowing their real identity will soon vanish. Jekyll's situation, if anything, is even crueller: at the start, he has the ability to be himself again at his own will. Though, through his weakness, errors and addiction, he lives through the agony of losing himself, bit by tiny bit. I'm sure many of us can relate to Jekyll in someway because sometimes we feel discouraged as we fight our own inner demons. 

Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde is a marvellously crafted exploration of various forms of maliciousness, corruption and evil. The messages placed within this novella has helped it become as relevant today as it was when first published in the 19th century. 

                          THE TURN OF THE SCREW

Title: The Turn of the Screw
Author: Henry James
Publication: 1898
Genre: Gothic, Horror, Ghost Story 
My Rating: ★★★★☆
Favourite Quote:  "If he were innocent, what then on earth was I?"

The Turn of the Screw is unanimously regarded as a masterpiece of Gothic literature. The famous, turn-of-the-century ghost story has a fearsome reputation and it's one of the most chillingly ambiguous gothic stories out there. It's an exploration of the very fertile Victorian topic: the Haunted House.

Honestly, The Turn of the Screw has one of the most ambiguous plots I've ever read, but in a good way. I had to research this book for my uni essay and I was utterly shocked at the number of theories, theses, and books that have been written trying to give us answers and explain what James meant when he wrote this book. This story can either be read as a terrifying ghost story, or a gripping psychological tale that explores the peculiar way in which the subconscious mind works. 

"The story had held us around the fire, sufficiently breathless, but except the obvious remark that it was gruesome."

The narration of The Turn of the Screw starts in a conventional manner: a group of friends share ghost stories around the fire on a Christmas evening. One of them tells the story of a twenty-year-old woman who is appointed governess to two young children by their absent uncle and she's sent to live with them in a large remote country house. The previous governess died of a dark and unspoken-of reason- thought to do with a mysterious man of the household, also dead. Upon arriving, the governess is overcome with a feeling of uneasiness and the disquieting feeling that an evil presence lurks over the children in order to corrupt them. The governess starts to see their ghosts and becomes obsessed with protecting the children. Sure enough, tragedy ensues.

At first glance, the novella seems like a straightforward ghost story with strange faces peering through windows, shadowy figures standing at the bottom of stairs and a hysterical governess clutching her little angels to protect them from the apparitions that exist within the sinister house. However, there's a great deal more to The Turn of the Screw which makes it quite unusual. 

"Miles and Flora saw more—things terrible and unguessable."

The children, Miles and Flora, are very strange, as is the governess' obsession with them. She makes it sound like they couldn't put a step wrong, almost too perfect, they don't seem like real children. This becomes part of the tension later in the book as she tries to discover what's happening in the house but can't seem to get a straight answer from the extremely peculiar and secretive Miles. 

"Another person – this time; but a figure of quite as unmistakable horror and evil: a woman in black, pale and dreadful – with such an air also, and such a face! – on the other side of the lake."
The governess' first-person view lacks true objectivity and the lack of affirmation and evidence merely adds to the tension whilst leaving the doubt to whether there are indeed malevolent ghosts, or whether her mind is merely playing tricks on her.  That's the clever thing about this story.  

Perhaps the most fascinating aspect of the story is that, it's not only very gothic and disturbing but works on many levels of interpretation. Many people read this as a book about different forms of repressed sexuality, written during a time when sexuality was explored constantly in literature.  There's a great deal of effort to "solving" the central mystery of the story but it all seems such a waste of effort. It seems to me that the whole point is that you cannot resolve the question of "are the ghosts real" and you're not supposed to. The ambiguity is at the heart of what makes the story work.

 One of the distractions that give The Turn of the Screw short of five stars is simply James' writing style. I know many others seem to have an issue with this as well. James' way with a convoluted sentence makes me want to scream in frustration because the plot is good but you're trying to carefully navigate through the dense prose. It definitely takes a while to get used to, but once you're in, you're in.

"He knew me as well as I knew him; and so, in the cold, faint twilight, with a glimmer in the high glass and another on the polish of the oak stair below, we faced each other in our common intensity. He was absolutely, on this occasion, a living, detestable, dangerous presence. "


It's a terrifically atmospheric story, tight, claustrophobic and gripping. Also, it's a great example of "spooky children" and I can easily think of many books and films that must have been heavily influenced by it (the twins from The Shining are the first that come to mind and I now have goosebumps.)

I think there's a definite power in this story and it builds nicely in dread and atmosphere to a chilling conclusion. The Turn of the Screw is James' most notorious piece of work for a reason- it's sinister, suspenseful and disturbing.

Give it a read if you like that sort of stuff and challenge your mind and interpretation by reading it!

One of my favourite times of the year is nearly here: Halloween. Skulls, candles, scary films, spooky decor and knocking on strangers doors begging for sweets. What's not to like, right? 

I thought for the next few days that lead up to Halloween, i'll tell you about some of my favourite gothic books and why they're my favourite. They're  must-reads if you love creepy fiction! 

                          The Castle of Otranto


Title: The Castle of Otranto
Author: Horace Walpole 
Publication: 1764
Genre: Gothic, Horror
My Rating: ★★★★☆

Favourite Quote: "Satan himself I believe, is in the chamber next to the gallery."

I read this book a year ago at university for my 'gothic and romantic fiction' module. It was the first time i'd heard of both the author and the book, and i'm so glad it was on the reading list because it initiated my love for Gothic fiction. 

Written during the eighteenth century, it's regarded as the first ever gothic novel. Writers of this period wanted to revive medievalism which was associated with both exhilaration and terror. The author, Walpole, intended for The Castle of Otranto to ignite real fear in his readers. Despite this being a short book (roughly 125 pages), it's packed with action and gothic symbols and motifs.  

The Castle of Otranto follows the story of a family: Lord Manfred, a tyrant patriarchal ruler of Otranto castle; Hippolita, his dutiful wife; and Conrad and Matilda, their teenage children. The drama and action begin at the very start of the story, during Conrad's wedding to the beautiful and virginal Princess Isabella. Before the couple can make their vows, Conrad is crushed to death by a gigantic black-feathered helmet that appears to have fallen mysteriously from the sky. This is only the beginning of the supernatural events the unfurl within the castle. As the story progresses, servants begin to frantically shout of vanishing giants and pictures moving within their frames.

With his only son dead, Manfred dreads that the family curse is arising and so to assure his legacy, he schemes to divorce his wife and marry Princess Isabella himself. A horrified Isabella then flees the castle to a hidden underground passage. 

"The next transition of his soul was to exquisite villainy."

Manfred is the mercurial antagonist of the story with tendencies to completely ignore his family's caring and tender disposition. He's a domineering husband and obsessive father and plots for everything to go his way. He sacrifices everything for the sake of a male heir, only to realise that his daughter is not quite as hopeless as she first seems. Walpole shows the issues of power, inheritance and morality as Manfred's struggle to hold onto the castle grows weaker. 

The Castle of Otranto is a story of love, deceit, murder with a remarkable amount of action as the castle slowly comes alive around the characters. For example, whilst all this family drama is happening, at one point a giant hand appears and frightens everyone (because, of course, this kind of stuff is totally acceptable and not random at all.) There are constant mysteries underpinning the characters actions as well. I mean, why is Manfred so certain that the castle will fall out of his control? Who is the mysterious and charming boy who is capturing everyone's attention and, most importantly, what is the thing that's lurking in the castle? 

"... the figure, turning slowly around, discovered to Frederic the fleshless jaws and empty sockets of a skeleton wrapt in a hermit's cowl."

 I love this book in particular because Walpole manifested a good portion of fantasy, tragedy and tension with his diverse bunch of characters, very typical to the Gothic genre. The novel successfully incorporates all things gothic such as moving paintings, dark secret passages, eerie figures, squeaking doors and chilling noises, all of which served as an influence to Walpole's successors.

The relatively long preface in the first and second edition states that when this book was first written, it was looked upon as uncommon and unpopular among the educated people of Europe. Stories with dragons, damsels in distress and the literal knight in shining armour were perceived as naive and old-fashioned. Admirably, however, Walpole took on a great challenge of creating a new genre- combining old and modern romance with horror.

"...as he spoke those words, three drops of blood fell from the nose of Alfonso’s statue."

When discussing the book in class, many of my classmates noted how shockingly bad the writing is. I disagree though. Yes, the writing style may be simplistic, but I wouldn't call this "bad". I think it actually denotes how Walpole attempted to make his literature more accessible to everyone by opening it up to less educated people. Shouldn't everyone be entitled to read and enjoy a book? Furthermore, many people forget that this was the first gothic novel. Whilst the content of the story may seem predictable and the dingy dungeons, trapdoors and eerie objects coming to life might seem unoriginal, repetitive and comical, readers during the 18th century, aka the Romantic period, would never have imagined such scenes. How could they when the genre hadn't been created yet and they didn't have films to show or manipulate horror?

"she approached the door that had been opened, but a sudden gust of wind that met her at the door extinguished her lamp, and left her in total darkness."

 You've heard of Frankenstein, Dracula,  Stephen King and the Brontë's, books and authors who have been inspired by the Gothic genre. It's fair to say, The Castle of Otranto has a lasting impact on audiences and writers. 

I strongly recommend reading this book if you haven't already. It's weird, strange, dramatic and creepy, in other words exactly what a Gothic novel should be. 

Light a candle, dim the lights and give this history-shaping, creepy tale a read.

"THE CURIOUS INCIDENT OF THE DOG IN THE NIGHTTIME" - BOOK REVIEW

Title: The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time
Author: Mark Haddon
Publication: 2003
Genre: Mystery
My Rating: ★★★☆☆

Favourite Quote: "In life, you have to take lots of decisions and if you don't take decisions you would never do anything because you would spend all your time choosing between things you could do." - Christopher Boone

 "The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time is a murder mystery novel like no other. The detective and narrator is Christopher Boone. Christopher is fifteen and has Aspergers Syndrome. He knows a very great deal about maths and very little about human beings. He loves lists, patterns and the truth. He hates the colours yellow and brown and being touched. He has never gone further than the end of the road on his own, but when he finds a neighbour's dog murdered he sets on a terrifying journey which will turn his whole world upside down."

This book had been staring at me in the face for a few years now, yet, despite its amazing reviews, i'd always dismiss it on the bookshelves, turning to other novels instead. I'm not sure if it is Haddon's intention to purposely mislead his readers into thinking his novel is about a dead dog because it's really not. At the very beginning of the novel, Christopher stumbles upon the murdered dog, and like a detective, he attempts to solve the case. The dog is merely a starting point to what the book is about. What does unfold, however, is something far more shocking.

The plot itself is very simple: a boy's discovery of the outside world. This is a moving story about a boy's inability to connect with people, his need to understand the world and the effect autism has on the people around him. For him, it's not about the satisfaction of finding out the murderer of his next door neighbour's dog or even a personal discovery, it's a quest for the truth- an opportunity for Christopher to break the chains that bind him and dispel some of the lies that have been told to him in order to protect him. 


"I don't like proper novels because they are lies about things which didn't happen and they make me feel shaky and scared. And this is why everything I have written here is true."

Told from the child-like point-of-view of Christopher, Haddon provides a very personal and immersive reading experience. Christopher's autism affects every aspect of his life and small details are slipped effortlessly into the story, providing the reader with a true understanding of the way Christopher's mind works.

Here are a few things about Christopher Boone:

1. He knows all the prime numbers up to 7, 057.

2. He can solve logic puzzles quicker than the average person.

3. He hates the colours yellow and brown, refusing to eat yellow and brown things.

4. He hates food touching on his plate. 

5. He does not like metaphors as they are essentially lies (which confuse and trouble him)

6. He lives a very routine-driven life and has very little experience outside of his home, school and the street that he lives on.

"Siobhan says that if you raise your eyebrow it can mean lots of different things. It can mean 'I want to do sex with you' and it can also mean 'I think that what you just said was very stupid.'"

In this novel, there are no detailed, flowery descriptions, but instead fine details as Christopher records everything around him in an attempt to understand it all. 

 Haddon does an excellent job of demonstrating Christopher's comfort in his surroundings by having him write about them in great detail and his discomfort in unfamiliar surroundings. Christopher refuses to engage with most things that are new to him if he finds them overwhelming or upsetting. This jump from comfort to discomfort is something i'm sure many of us have dealt with and we feel all sorts of ways about it, so it's easy to identify with Christopher. As the plot thickens and his life turns upside down, things get difficult for him.

"I rolled back onto the lawn and pressed my forehead to the ground again and made the noise that Father calls groaning. I make this noise when there is too much information coming into my head from the outside world."

Christopher's blunt way of approaching the world around him is completely disarming and he takes you along with his narrative, despite little happening in the plot for significant periods. Throughout the novel, it feels as if you are listening to a talkative child but with a highly logical and rational frame of mind, chattering away and going on about the negligible details, overlooked by most people.

This novel is different from most books we read due to the absence of emotion. Christopher's straight-forward, emotionless style of narration can be incredibly affecting, particularly when he tells the reader information which should be laced with emotion: 

"Father was standing in the corridor. He held up his right hand and spread his fingers out in a fan. I held up my left hand and spread my fingers out in a fan and we made our fingers and thumbs touch each other. We do this because sometimes Father wants to give me a hug, but I do not like hugging people, so we do this instead, and it means he loves me."

The lack of emotion somehow makes his statements more poignant for the reader. I think Haddon lets us see beyond Christopher's limited perspective, and we recognise a sense of feeling in the smallest of acts like the one above. What Haddon does so well is maintain the consistency of Christopher's voice and I admire how he didn't sacrifice the integrity of his character in order to make him more likeable. I mean, there were times when I wished I could snap Christopher out of his insensibility, but I suppose those moments made the book more realistic because perfection isn't always present. 

"Sticks and stones can break my bones and I have my Swiss Army Knife if they hit me and if I kill them it will be self defence and I won't go to prison."

 Autism comes in so many forms it's hard to say that any particular representation of a fictitious character is an accurate account. However, Haddon has created a believable character who offers an insight into the mind of a person with autism, in particular, Aspergers. This book truly breaks down any preconceptions people may have about Aspergers, and it taught me so much about this form of autism.

There are reasons as to why I gave this book three stars though. What I found less successful was the whole "curious incident" itself. I went into this book believing this was a murder mystery about a dog and wanted to read about this murder mystery, but this enigma was resolved within the first few chapters and it goes on to be some sort of family drama and so this annoyed me quite a bit.

The prose isn't that graceful, and I get that it's not supposed to be. Haddon intends to strike the reader with its stiltedness and makes you think about how Christopher's thought processes differ from your own. Yes, this is an effective technique but I don't think this is the best narrative choice for an entire novel. For example, Christopher tells the reader how to solve a math problem and his workings run over three pages and then he states how he came to get these results. I hate maths. If I wanted to know about formulas and algebra and all of the other mathematical references Haddon includes, I would've read a maths textbook instead. I often found myself skipping these pages due to this lack of interest. It's not only maths though, sometimes he'll talk about something and then he'd quickly digress into something else and linger on it for a few pages and I found it quite annoying, like, let's get back to what's happening in front of you Christopher, come on now. Like I said, it's quite a personal insight into what goes on in his mind.

One of the biggest issues I have with this book is the actual story. Though I was disappointed in the sudden change in genre, I think the storyline had the potential to be great. I felt like I didn't get to appreciate it enough, though, because Haddon rushed through it. The story actually comes to a rather abrupt finish in the last twenty pages or so. The hast of it seems like Haddon got tired of generating the story and wanted to put his pen down. I know this probably isn't the case but that's how it looks. The stuff Christopher discovers (which I will not spoil) would be pretty intense for him and anyone else for that matter, so it would have been nice to see how he deals with this rather than read about what makes Sherlock Holmes so great, maths problems and graphs.

This isn't to say that I didn't like it, though. I think The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time is raw and honest. I think Haddon deserves all his awards for writing a book that delves deeply into the mindset of someone who doesn't quite fit into society. It's a novel about facing reality, in whatever form it takes, and breaking out of your comfort zone in order to discover the truth. 

Despite being positioned as a young adult book, I think this novel can be read by just about anyone. If you enjoy reading about complex relationships within families and you enjoy unusual narratives, this novel is worth your time!

"Dead Ends" - BOOK REVIEW

Title: Dead Ends
Author: Erin Jade Lange 
Publication Date:  2013
Genre:  Contemporary, Coming-of-age
My Rating: ★★★★★

Favourite Quote: “But I guess it didn't matter how long you walk alone; once you get used to someone travelling next to you, you sort of come to count on it. And once it's gone, no matter how hard you try, you can't remember what it felt like to have no one there.” - Dane. 

Synopsis 

"A bully and a boy with Down Syndrome. It's the unlikeliest of partnerships, but Billy needs Dane's help. He is sure the riddles left in an atlas are really close to finding his dad again, and he convinces Dane to join the search. Together they work through the clues, leading to unmarked towns and secrets of the past. But they're all dead ends. Until the final clue...and a secret Billy shouldn't have been keeping."

First of all, I just want to say: WHY HAS THIS BOOK NOT GOT THE ATTENTION IT DESERVES? It truly is an excellent book. Two weeks after I finished it, I was still thinking about it whilst eating dinner, and on the train to work, and on the toilet. Basically ALL. THE .TIME. I have like a whole film of the book in my head. This is one of those books where you start reading it and before you know it, you've reached the end- it's that good.

I came across this hidden gem in a charity shop, the front cover initially arousing my interest. There was barely a synopsis, just a few good reviews which included words that drew me in like "touching", "life-affirming" and "rewarding" and so I thought, it's only £2, why not? I'm so thankful I picked it up because it's definitely become one of my favourite novels.


So, Dane's a fairly notorious high school student with good grades and anger issues. His main hobby is beating up anyone who provokes him, (the only exception being people with special needs and girls) and so he's one more fight away from being expelled. Dane meets new neighbour Billy D, a boy his age with Down Syndrome. Much to Dane's annoyance, Billy D latches onto Dane in hopes that walking to school with him will keep other bullies away. Despite this unlikely pairing, they both have one thing in common: absent fathers. Unlike Dane, Billy D wants nothing more than to find his dad and he is convinced he can achieve this by solving the written clues that his dad left him in his atlas. Of course, the last thing Dane wants to do is get involved, but with expulsion looming over his head he makes a deal with Billy D: if Billy D can prove to the school that Dane is a good kid, he will help him search for his dad. As they solve riddles together they learn things about each other, discover things about themselves, partly flaws they'd rather not see, but also qualities they didn't even know they possessed. And what becomes of it? Something neither of them has ever had before- a true friend.


"You said you wouldn't beat me up- because of how I look, right?"

Billy D. endeared himself to me almost straight away. I've noticed that many times authors who present characters who are intellectually and/or physically different from what is considered "the norm" frustrate me because I feel like the portrayal is overtly stereotypical and at worst, mocking. With Dead Ends, however, Billy D's Down Syndrome isn't a defiant trait in his character. Whilst he may not be on par with other 16-year-olds, he's not an idiot. He's his own person, capable of taking care of himself and doesn't need other people's pity. He's not a character simply there to represent a minority either- he has his own motivations, so I really admired how Lange portrayed him. Furthermore, he's a high- functioning, intelligent, smart-arse, which is one of the reasons why I fell in love with Billy D.

What's so great about this book is that two vastly different boys come together and make the world a more bearable place for each other. 

“I’d always said that I didn’t hit girls or challenged kids, and when it came to a fight between the two, I didn’t know which side I’d pick – I’d probably just stay out of it. But when it came to anybody versus Billy, there was no question whose side I was on.”

Dean and Billy D's relationship is heartwarming. I loved watching their friendship grow. I must admit, I rolled my eyes at Dane's attempts to deny that they were friends. Yes, at first it was just about Dane getting into his school's good books but when Dane helps Billy D in his quest it becomes so much more than that.

One of the strengths in this novel is the character development, particularly Dane's. Dane goes from calling Billy D a "retard", embarrassed to be seen walking with him (practically making him walk on the other side of the road) to threatening anyone who so much as looks at Billy strangely or treats him like an idiot.

The two boys infuriate each other, but they also bring out the best in each other and themselves. What works well about this duo is that they are both flawed, but both have a good heart buried behind their exterior. Lange doesn't try to portray either of them in a better light. They are both misunderstood by the world, and they both just need a friend. Just as Billy D and Dane learned to appreciate each other, it didn't take me long to appreciate the pair of them as well.


"Mark calls you a dick but I know what a dick is, and it's not a name. In my life skills class, they call it a penis."
"Dude! I don't wanna talk about dicks with you."

Yes, this book at times was emotional but, it's also funny and I was surprised at the amount of humour in the story. What Lange establishes so well is the humour between the two of them, their banter is natural. Dane is incredibly witty and sarcastic, and I absolutely love sarcasm. Alternately, Billy D is humorous in his habit of questioning the meanings of metaphors, sayings and colloquialisms. And I call Billy D a smart-arse because he purposely asks Dane philosophical questions to shut Dane up because he knows Dane can't answer any of them, yet Billy has an answer for everything. Combined, these two different approaches to humour seem to form a perfect blend of innocence and dryness which makes you laugh out loud.

I loved the multiple The Karate Kid references along with the riddles and ridiculous town names (I mean who knew that Dickshooter and Hellhole Palms are REAL American towns?) Also, it was interesting to see the dynamics between the different relationships presented in the novel, whether that be friendship, parental, romantic*, or the teacher/student interactions.

(*There's a little romance in the story between Dane and a cool, kind skater chick named Seeley. I don't want to go too much into that though because it's not overly important/the focus of the book.)


The only small complaint I have about this novel is that sometimes Dane and Billy D's relationship is a little irregular. Like one minute they're the best of friends, bantering together, and the next minute they're arguing and shouting at each other. Then again, is friendship ever perfect? We all argue with our friends from time-to-time, and it just goes to show how real this book is, displaying the ups and downs of friendship.

I glared sideways at Seeley. "If you mean people like Billy D can't ride a skateboard, you're wrong. He can stand on a piece of wood as good as anybody."

This is an awesome story about not judging people. It's about friendship and building bonds you never believed possible. It's about absent parents and their child's longing to know them or reunite with them. This book reminds us that friendships are not always smooth and that we never stay in one place forever because we're always searching for something or running away from something. 

There isn't much else I can say about the plot without spoiling it, but I will say this: Dead Ends is a poignant book, with intelligent writing and fleshed out characters. I can't recommend this novel enough. It touched my heart, and if you decide to read it, I really hope it touches yours too.