Say Her Name by James Dawson
Oct. 26th, 2015 12:04 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
quippeThe Blurb On The Back:
The truth is more terrifying than the legend.
When Bobbie and her best friend Naya are dared by their schoolmates to summon the legendary ghost of Bloody Mary, neither really believes that anything will happen. So they complete the ritual, and chant Mary’s name five times in front of a candlelit mirror ...
Bloody Mary, Bloody Mary, Bloody Mary …
And something is called forth that night. Something dark, terrifying, and out of control. She will be there, just out of sight, in the corner of your eye. She will lurk in your nightmares. She will hide in the shadows of your bedroom. She will be waiting in every mirror that you see. She is everywhere. And she wants revenge.
No one knows who Bloody Mary is or how she met her fate, but everyone agrees that anyone who summons her disappears shortly afterwards. Unfortunately, Bobbie and her best friend Naya don’t believe in ghosts so when the queen of their school’s mean girls, Grace, dares them to repeat Bloody Mary’s name five times in a mirror, they’re not afraid. Bobbie takes the dare because Grace’s crush, Caine, wants to do it and she’s attracted to him, while Naya wants to wind Grace up.
Nobody expects the legend to actually be real.
But it’s not long before spooky and inexplicable things begin to happen – faces in mirrors and the never-ending drip drip drip of water nearby. When other girls who claim to have summoned Bloody Mary start to disappear, Bobbie and Naya realise that Bloody Mary is very real and they have five days before she claims them too. Somehow they have to find a way to stop her, but that isn’t easy because Bloody Mary is determined to take them …
James Dawson’s standalone horror novel is a well-paced story that handles its twists and shocks well but can’t quite escape its derivative roots – particularly the resemblance to Ringu. Bobbie is relatively well drawn, emotionally and physically distanced from her self-involved actress mother, her friendship with Naya (who, as a character, is a little too self-consciously cool) is believable and I enjoyed how the girls support each other without being sentimental, but the romance with Caine was predictable and a little dull. Dawson smacks out some zinger lines, his dialogue snaps and he really captures the bitchiness that can go on between teenage schoolgirls while the action is well paced and he knows how to draw out tension and make the most of his shocks. He also does well to turn Bloody Mary herself into a sympathetic character by showing the monster’s all-too-human beginnings. The big problem, however, is that Bloody Mary’s story is so derivative and although that is partly the point (every school has its own ghost legend), I kept thinking of Ringu as I was reading this and the overlap was such that it really affected my enjoyment. This is a shame because Dawson is a talented writer and horror is an oddly under-represented genre on the YA shelves. However while this book didn’t quite work for me, I will definitely check out Dawson’s other work.
The Verdict:
James Dawson’s standalone horror novel is a well-paced story that handles its twists and shocks well but can’t quite escape its derivative roots – particularly the resemblance to Ringu. Bobbie is relatively well drawn, emotionally and physically distanced from her self-involved actress mother, her friendship with Naya (who, as a character, is a little too self-consciously cool) is believable and I enjoyed how the girls support each other without being sentimental, but the romance with Caine was predictable and a little dull. Dawson smacks out some zinger lines, his dialogue snaps and he really captures the bitchiness that can go on between teenage schoolgirls while the action is well paced and he knows how to draw out tension and make the most of his shocks. He also does well to turn Bloody Mary herself into a sympathetic character by showing the monster’s all-too-human beginnings. The big problem, however, is that Bloody Mary’s story is so derivative and although that is partly the point (every school has its own ghost legend), I kept thinking of Ringu as I was reading this and the overlap was such that it really affected my enjoyment. This is a shame because Dawson is a talented writer and horror is an oddly under-represented genre on the YA shelves. However while this book didn’t quite work for me, I will definitely check out Dawson’s other work.
When Bobbie and her best friend Naya are dared by their schoolmates to summon the legendary ghost of Bloody Mary, neither really believes that anything will happen. So they complete the ritual, and chant Mary’s name five times in front of a candlelit mirror ...
And something is called forth that night. Something dark, terrifying, and out of control. She will be there, just out of sight, in the corner of your eye. She will lurk in your nightmares. She will hide in the shadows of your bedroom. She will be waiting in every mirror that you see. She is everywhere. And she wants revenge.
No one knows who Bloody Mary is or how she met her fate, but everyone agrees that anyone who summons her disappears shortly afterwards. Unfortunately, Bobbie and her best friend Naya don’t believe in ghosts so when the queen of their school’s mean girls, Grace, dares them to repeat Bloody Mary’s name five times in a mirror, they’re not afraid. Bobbie takes the dare because Grace’s crush, Caine, wants to do it and she’s attracted to him, while Naya wants to wind Grace up.
Nobody expects the legend to actually be real.
But it’s not long before spooky and inexplicable things begin to happen – faces in mirrors and the never-ending drip drip drip of water nearby. When other girls who claim to have summoned Bloody Mary start to disappear, Bobbie and Naya realise that Bloody Mary is very real and they have five days before she claims them too. Somehow they have to find a way to stop her, but that isn’t easy because Bloody Mary is determined to take them …
James Dawson’s standalone horror novel is a well-paced story that handles its twists and shocks well but can’t quite escape its derivative roots – particularly the resemblance to Ringu. Bobbie is relatively well drawn, emotionally and physically distanced from her self-involved actress mother, her friendship with Naya (who, as a character, is a little too self-consciously cool) is believable and I enjoyed how the girls support each other without being sentimental, but the romance with Caine was predictable and a little dull. Dawson smacks out some zinger lines, his dialogue snaps and he really captures the bitchiness that can go on between teenage schoolgirls while the action is well paced and he knows how to draw out tension and make the most of his shocks. He also does well to turn Bloody Mary herself into a sympathetic character by showing the monster’s all-too-human beginnings. The big problem, however, is that Bloody Mary’s story is so derivative and although that is partly the point (every school has its own ghost legend), I kept thinking of Ringu as I was reading this and the overlap was such that it really affected my enjoyment. This is a shame because Dawson is a talented writer and horror is an oddly under-represented genre on the YA shelves. However while this book didn’t quite work for me, I will definitely check out Dawson’s other work.
The Verdict:
James Dawson’s standalone horror novel is a well-paced story that handles its twists and shocks well but can’t quite escape its derivative roots – particularly the resemblance to Ringu. Bobbie is relatively well drawn, emotionally and physically distanced from her self-involved actress mother, her friendship with Naya (who, as a character, is a little too self-consciously cool) is believable and I enjoyed how the girls support each other without being sentimental, but the romance with Caine was predictable and a little dull. Dawson smacks out some zinger lines, his dialogue snaps and he really captures the bitchiness that can go on between teenage schoolgirls while the action is well paced and he knows how to draw out tension and make the most of his shocks. He also does well to turn Bloody Mary herself into a sympathetic character by showing the monster’s all-too-human beginnings. The big problem, however, is that Bloody Mary’s story is so derivative and although that is partly the point (every school has its own ghost legend), I kept thinking of Ringu as I was reading this and the overlap was such that it really affected my enjoyment. This is a shame because Dawson is a talented writer and horror is an oddly under-represented genre on the YA shelves. However while this book didn’t quite work for me, I will definitely check out Dawson’s other work.
