"The Secret History" by Donna Tartt

Book Details:
Title- The Secret History
Author- Donna Tartt
Published- 2004: Random House, Inc. (Orig. 1994: Alfred A. Knopf)
ISBN- 1-4000-3170-2
Genre- Thriller
Pages- 559 pages
Rating 3 of 5

My Review:
Richard Papen gets more than he expected when he first arrives at tranquil (not to mention, elite) Hampden College and becomes one of only six Classics & Greek students, taught by the charismatic Julian Morrow. The accidental death of a local farmer forces the students to keep a constant eye on each other, afraid someone may buckle under the weight of this secret and go to the police to avoid their own jail time.

When Bunny (formally, Edmund), the most carefree of the group begins to crack under the pressure, Henry, the most meticulous and studious of the group suggests the only way to keep their secret is to keep Bunny quiet- permanently.

Now responsible for two deaths, the friends' relationships, along with each individual, begin to change as paranoia and distrust set in alongside the guilt of Bunny's death.

I found this novel to have a sizable amount of unnecessary "fluff," as well as being rather slow-moving between the monumental events, which take place quickly themselves, with much less detail and elaborations one would expect from the major scenes of the entire story line.

The excessive use of alliteration often seemed too much, unnecessary, to me. The references come mainly from ancient Greek philosophers, fitting for the students' area of expertise, but little-known to the common reader. The class discussions the author includes are long and in-depth, requiring a reread or two to understand their significance to the plot, and sometimes having no connection to the current situation the group faces, but to one so much farther ahead that I had forgotten completely about these references until I went back through to collect review material.

Tartt does present one of the most unique sets of characters I have seen. 'A strange group of outcasts at a prestigious New England college,' who have dedicated their college careers, and subsequently their lives, to pouring over long-forgotten texts written in Greek by long-forgotten authors, with a sprinkling of Latin and French. These become aids to transmit messages to each other in the presence of others. Written in second person, we can only learn of Richard's experiences, keeping the sense of intrigue and paranoia among the rest of the group.

My real frustration came at the very end of the novel. It is my belief that the resolution introduces more questions that it answers, denying the reader closure and making the book feel somehow unfinished.

Richard's words perfectly describes the novel while summing up  his roller coaster first year at Hampden College- this is a novel "...of sin unpunished, of innocence destroyed..." Full of surprises and rife with brain-bending twists, The Secret History is a worthwhile read for thriller fans.

"The Neverending Story" by Michael Ende

Book Details:
Title- The Neverending Story
Author- Michael Ende
Published- 1983: Doubleday & Company, Inc. (Orig. 1979: K. Thienemanns Verlag, Stuttgart)
ISBN- 0-385-17622-8
Genre- Young Adult - Fantasy
Pages- 396 pages
Rating- 5 of 5

My Review:
Ask any American child of the 80's who Atreyu is and they'll most likely be able to recall the hero in the movie adaptation of this highly imaginative fantasy novel that originated in Germany, caught fire and became a best-seller in 27 countries. The movie delighted children and adults alike across the U.S. as the tale of a lonely, bullied young boy named Bastian who discovers a mysterious book and delves into the tome, discovering its unusual qualities as he becomes entangled in the adventures of the character Atreyu, on his mission to save the Empress of Fantasia (Fantastica, in the novel). For those who have seen the movie, you've only experienced the first half of the novel (and a very condensed version of it, I might add). No cinematics could ever do justice to the extensive imagination Ende has put into this book, the many layers of plot, the fantastic, original creatures that inhabit Fantastica, and the full story that leads Bastian Balthazar Bux to take refuge in this world within a book. This piece of literature can only truly be appreciated when viewed through one's own imagination.

Ende blows all other fantasy writers out of the water with his creativity in both the characters he's created and the adventures he sends them on. The Neverending Story is nearly three stories in one. It begins in our world, following the fat, friendless Bastian, who feels unloved even by his own emotionally distant father. After stealing The Neverending Story from a book shop, he stows away in his school's attic and buries himself in the pages of this strangely magnetic book. Then we switch between the story of Bastian reading in the attic and Atreyu, a young boy in the book on a quest to find the cure for Fantastica's dying Empress. Little does Bastian know that once he began reading, he became part of this other realm, immortalized in the true "Neverending Story." Lastly, we follow Bastian into Fantastica, where he has become exalted as the Savior of Fantastica through his renaming of their Empress. Wielding AURYN, a medallion gifted to him by the Empress herself, which grants all of its bearer's deepest wishes, Bastian becomes drunk with power, wishing himself strong, handsome, and courageous, all the qualities he lacks in his real life, risking his relationships with Atreyu and the luckdragon Falkor, the only two real friends he has ever had. Far from the only risk he takes, Bastian must figure out what he truly wants more than anything, before he ruins the world he only recently saved and becomes unable to return home.

One of this novel's amazing features in the extensive amount of imagination and creativity with which the author fills every single page. Ende creates dozens on his own creatures, such as a "man-sized rooster in jackboots" and the Acharis, known as the saddest creatures in all of Fantastica, they resemble fat worms and cry a river of silver. Favorites from the movie are also given their due in the novel, like Pyornkrachzark, the rock chewer, and the night-hob Vooshvazool and his bat mount.

The format in which Ende presents his novel allows two of the separate story lines to coexist and flow seamlessly into each other. The author even goes as far as to print in two colors- red text for events taking place in the real world, and green text for the happenings of Fantastica, further separating the imagination from reality.

This multi-layer adventure carries the primary theme that friendship, and loving & being loved in return, are more important than the vain characteristics we humans are so often blinded by- power, looks, popularity. Indescribably imaginative, in my opinion, The Neverending Story was clearly well-planned and could only have come from the mind of a Grand Master of the fantasy genre.

"Houses of Horror" by Hans Holzer

Book Details:
Title- Houses of Horror
Author- Hans Holzer
Published- 2007: Barnes & Noble, Inc. (Orig. 1970: Aspera Ad Astra, Inc.)
ISBN- 978-0-7607-8384-9
Genre- Non-fiction - Occult
Pages- 359 pages
Rating- 3 of 5

My Review:
It saddens me to be disappointed by a book I was so eager to read. Houses of Horror is a compilation of some of the house hauntings studied by author and parapsychologist Hans Holzer. Each chapter spotlights a particular case, or multiple cases occurring in the same area, in Mr. Holzer's career of studying and releasing spirits trapped between worlds and unable to rest peacefully. This type of work appeals to me, as I've had a long-time interest in the occult.

After several chapters, my disappointment began to settle in as each chapter vaguely resembles every other. The author does not live up to the "horror" promised in the title and simply explains the same, repetitive spiritual behavior in each house, which rarely strays from phantom footsteps, "uneasy" feelings of an unseen presence, random figures in the dark that disappear when the lights go on, and other various noises. Nothing about Holzer's accounts inspired any feelings one expects when reading ghost stories. Rather, the stories should be more accurately marketed as various cases of a professional parapsychologist, and nothing more. An aggravating reoccurence is the lack of closure in many of the cases, while others are hardly more than snippets of cases that seem just thrown in at will, giving very little detail, background, or substance at at all. A paragraph or two of "fluff" from an unrelated case appear in many of the earlier chapters, becoming rarer as the book progresses.

The unnecessary "fluff" and lack of assumed horror can be easily overlooked as the author offers interesting insight into a lesser-known, sometimes taboo, profession and a greatly mysterious subject matter, however the excessive occurence of typographical errors shows a complete lack of proper editing. As the third edition (the first published in 1970),one would expect such obvious mistakes be corrected at some point. Nevertheless, my personal experience reading this book was marred by lack of proper spacing between words and numerous punctuation errors.

Finally, the repetitive nature in which the chapters are written dispelled some of the original curiosity I had for what each individual story would contain. Holzer gives the background of the case, summarizes his visit to the house (usually involving a trance medium), and after a short communication with the spirit, convincing them their work on earth is done so they can cross over. Many simply end with the author's hope that his visit ceased the disturbances, not offering any proper conclusion or follow-up. I found myself wondering if my copy was missing pages that satisfactorily closed a few of the chapters, but alas, mine is fully intact.

I really enjoyed the ride along in such a fascinating field, learning many new factoids and methods concerning the procedure for dispelling ghosts from a home, as well as insight into the various manifestations of ESP, and do so recommend to anyone particularly interested in such topics. But if a good scare is what you're looking for, Houses of Horror will not satisfy.