Monster by C. J. Skuse
Dec. 31st, 2015 12:17 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
quippeThe Blurb On The Back:
There are things out there, real things that we need to worry about.
There are your beasts.
There are your monsters.
At sixteen Nash thought the biggest fight she’d face would be the battle to become Head Girl of prestigious boarding school Bathory.
Until her brother’s disappearance leads to Nash being trapped at the school over Christmas with Bathory’s assorted misfits.
As a blizzard rages outside, strange things are afoot in the school’s dark, dangerous hallways. And the girls will have to stick together if they hope to survive.
All 16 year-old Nash (short for Natasha) has ever wanted is to be the head girl of Bathory school. She’s earned golden tickets, been perfect in her studies and become Mrs Saul-Hudson’s right-hand person when it comes to school administration. Then her older brother Seb goes missing on a whale-watching expedition in Colombia and all her hard work falls apart as she buckles with the stress of worrying about him. When her parents decide to go to Colombia to look for him, it means that Nash has to spend the holidays at Bathory under Matron’s care along with bad girl Maggie, school weirdo Regan, mean girl Clarice, goody-two-shoes Dianna and younger girl, Tabby. The only good news is that she’ll get to spend more time with Charlie, the handsome son of the local grocery store owner but even that is hindered when a snow storm takes hold of the country, ensuring that she and the others are trapped within the school. Even worse, strange and dangerous things start to happen in the school that no one can explain – is there a killer amongst them, or is the mythical Beast of Bathory prowling for new victims?
C. J. Skuse’s stand-alone YA novel is a rope-taut thriller with supernatural elements that keeps you turning the pages. Although Skuse uses the typical school stereotypes (the mean girl, the bad girl, the weird girl) she elevates them with pitch-perfect dialogue and deft characterisation. This is particularly true of Maggie – the bad girl who pulls pranks because she’s desperate to be expelled but who can never seem to be wicked enough – but also Regan, the weird girl who believes in the legend of the Beast of Bathory (a mythical animal that hunts in the fields and villages around the school). Nash herself has a lot of depth – not truly good or truly bad, she is troubled and stressed as she goes through serious disappointment, first love and ultimately terror. Added to this the plot itself twists and turns so that you’re never really sure who the killer is until the final unmasking, which keeps the tension at a high level – especially as it’s coupled with Nash’s internal worries about her brother. I was a little disappointed with the killer’s motivation and wanted more from the supernatural element but these are small complaints as I enjoyed this book and will read Skuse’s other work.
The Verdict:
C. J. Skuse’s stand-alone YA novel is a rope-taut thriller with supernatural elements that keeps you turning the pages. Although Skuse uses the typical school stereotypes (the mean girl, the bad girl, the weird girl) she elevates them with pitch-perfect dialogue and deft characterisation. This is particularly true of Maggie – the bad girl who pulls pranks because she’s desperate to be expelled but who can never seem to be wicked enough – but also Regan, the weird girl who believes in the legend of the Beast of Bathory (a mythical animal that hunts in the fields and villages around the school). Nash herself has a lot of depth – not truly good or truly bad, she is troubled and stressed as she goes through serious disappointment, first love and ultimately terror. Added to this the plot itself twists and turns so that you’re never really sure who the killer is until the final unmasking, which keeps the tension at a high level – especially as it’s coupled with Nash’s internal worries about her brother. I was a little disappointed with the killer’s motivation and wanted more from the supernatural element but these are small complaints as I enjoyed this book and will read Skuse’s other work.
There are your beasts.
There are your monsters.
At sixteen Nash thought the biggest fight she’d face would be the battle to become Head Girl of prestigious boarding school Bathory.
Until her brother’s disappearance leads to Nash being trapped at the school over Christmas with Bathory’s assorted misfits.
As a blizzard rages outside, strange things are afoot in the school’s dark, dangerous hallways. And the girls will have to stick together if they hope to survive.
All 16 year-old Nash (short for Natasha) has ever wanted is to be the head girl of Bathory school. She’s earned golden tickets, been perfect in her studies and become Mrs Saul-Hudson’s right-hand person when it comes to school administration. Then her older brother Seb goes missing on a whale-watching expedition in Colombia and all her hard work falls apart as she buckles with the stress of worrying about him. When her parents decide to go to Colombia to look for him, it means that Nash has to spend the holidays at Bathory under Matron’s care along with bad girl Maggie, school weirdo Regan, mean girl Clarice, goody-two-shoes Dianna and younger girl, Tabby. The only good news is that she’ll get to spend more time with Charlie, the handsome son of the local grocery store owner but even that is hindered when a snow storm takes hold of the country, ensuring that she and the others are trapped within the school. Even worse, strange and dangerous things start to happen in the school that no one can explain – is there a killer amongst them, or is the mythical Beast of Bathory prowling for new victims?
C. J. Skuse’s stand-alone YA novel is a rope-taut thriller with supernatural elements that keeps you turning the pages. Although Skuse uses the typical school stereotypes (the mean girl, the bad girl, the weird girl) she elevates them with pitch-perfect dialogue and deft characterisation. This is particularly true of Maggie – the bad girl who pulls pranks because she’s desperate to be expelled but who can never seem to be wicked enough – but also Regan, the weird girl who believes in the legend of the Beast of Bathory (a mythical animal that hunts in the fields and villages around the school). Nash herself has a lot of depth – not truly good or truly bad, she is troubled and stressed as she goes through serious disappointment, first love and ultimately terror. Added to this the plot itself twists and turns so that you’re never really sure who the killer is until the final unmasking, which keeps the tension at a high level – especially as it’s coupled with Nash’s internal worries about her brother. I was a little disappointed with the killer’s motivation and wanted more from the supernatural element but these are small complaints as I enjoyed this book and will read Skuse’s other work.
The Verdict:
C. J. Skuse’s stand-alone YA novel is a rope-taut thriller with supernatural elements that keeps you turning the pages. Although Skuse uses the typical school stereotypes (the mean girl, the bad girl, the weird girl) she elevates them with pitch-perfect dialogue and deft characterisation. This is particularly true of Maggie – the bad girl who pulls pranks because she’s desperate to be expelled but who can never seem to be wicked enough – but also Regan, the weird girl who believes in the legend of the Beast of Bathory (a mythical animal that hunts in the fields and villages around the school). Nash herself has a lot of depth – not truly good or truly bad, she is troubled and stressed as she goes through serious disappointment, first love and ultimately terror. Added to this the plot itself twists and turns so that you’re never really sure who the killer is until the final unmasking, which keeps the tension at a high level – especially as it’s coupled with Nash’s internal worries about her brother. I was a little disappointed with the killer’s motivation and wanted more from the supernatural element but these are small complaints as I enjoyed this book and will read Skuse’s other work.
