BOOK REVIEW: ​THE DEVIL AND WINNIE FLYNN BY MICOL OSTOW AND DAVID OSTOW

A reality TV shows investigates the Jersey DeviL

This YA novel follows the story of Winnie, who recently lost her mother, as she goes to live and help the aunt she barely knows on her reality TV show called Fantastic Fearsome which she both produces and presents. The latest filming takes her to one place her mother would never go: New Jersey, an area her mother has a history with. Winnie doesn’t believe in the supernatural but as the filming progresses she hears and feels things that make her question whether there is some truth in the legend of the Jersey Devil.

I found the TV reality show setting quite entertaining because of the mix of fake, staged and real elements of paranormal activity as well as the teenage goings on behind the scenes, which kept it fairly light hearted. As horror novels go it was not scary, so if you like to jump you’ll have too look elsewhere for a dose of real chills. Because it mixes horror with the television setting it might attract a wider readership, but real horror-hounds are going to feel short-changed as there is even less blood than scares.

I liked the numerous pictures which were integrated into the story which were pretty good pieces of art, but they didn’t really add much to the book apart from breaking up the flow of the text. The interview parts were interesting, with a lot of detail, but again it didn’t really add anything to the characters or the plot and seemed like padding in a book which was already quite long and slow moving.

I enjoyed picking up the many movie references along the way including: The Shining, The Blair Witch Project, Buffy, The Evil Dead and many more I probably missed. But if you aren’t a horror movie buff like me you’re probably quite confused when Winne mentions ‘I love you and I know’, a famous Star Wars reference. Winnie would frequently talk about a horror movie clique or trot out a reference. I’m also not sure if it was a good idea Winnie shading classic movies like The Blair Witch Project, one of the best horror films of the last twenty years. The author may have thought they we being original but quite a lot of the novel was too top heavy in references to other books and films. I’m not sure if this would be a good book for the new horror reader as many of these in-jokes are going to go straight over their heads.  

I also failed to understand why Winnie called herself the ‘Final Girl’ when barely anyone died? Also, would a non-horror fan know what a Final Girl was anyway? The pacing in this book was extremely slow and when it started to build up, the end result was very disappointing. The big ‘reveal’ was seriously lame. The majority of the book was presented with Winnie writing to her best friend and this slowed things down further and was a serious tension killer. The Jersey Devil made one appearance with no imagination put into its arrival and it was decidedly underwhelming.

Overall, I would not recommend this book if you’re looking for a good scare or a solid introduction to horror, it’s too slow and not enough happens. Many readers may well find it very boring. I have listed some of my favourites below. If you like your horror to bring on sleepless nights The Devil and Winnie Flynn is not the book to do that. I live in Britain and did some internet searching on the Jersey Devil as I was not familiar with the myth, so perhaps an American teenager might identify more with it as the novel provides lots of extra information about the real myth.

2/5

Here’s some horror novels I’ve really enjoyed in the last couple of years, aimed at kids from around 10-14.
Iain Banks - The Wasp Factory (13+) – Horrible Scottish novel about a teenager who murders three kids by the time he is sixteen.
Richard Farren-Barber – Closer Still (13+) – A lonely teenage girl’s best friend is the ghost of her best friend.
Holly Black - Doll Bones (10+) – Creepy story about a haunted doll made out of the bones of executed murderers.
Alex Bell - Frozen Charlotte (10+) – Amazingly scary tale of tiny Victorian dolls which haunt a huge house on the Isle of Skye in Scotland.
Alex Bell – Charlotte Says (prequel) (10+) – The backstory of how the Charlotte dolls ended up in Skye, heading back to the early 20th century.
Kevin Brooks - The Bunker Diary (13+) – One of the darkest modern and most realistic horrors ever. It even shocked my Dad!
Scott Cawthon - Five Night at Freddy’s: Silver Eyes (11+) – It might be based around a computer game but the first book still had loads of jump scares.
Jeremy De Quidt -The Wrong Train (10+) – Terrific collection of modern horror stories built around a little boy who gets off his train at the wrong stop.
Neil Gaiman – Coraline (10+) – A little girl finds a dark world lurking behind her wardrobe.
E Lockhart – We Were Liars (13+) – Horror or not? Don’t decide until you get to one of the finest twist endings around!
Lou Morgan – Sleepless (12+) – Kids take new drugs to help them succeed in exams and quickly end up regretting it.
Peadar Ó Guilín - The Call (11+) – One of my favourite books. Irish kids get pulled out of time and sent back to an ancient faerie world where most are stalked and killed.
Peadar Ó Guilín – The Call 2: Invasion (11+) – This is one of the rare occasions where a sequel is as good as the original.
Stephen King - The Long Walk (13+) – My introduction to Stephen King and a favourite of my Dad! 100 boys have a walking race to the death in intense dystopian thriller.
Cliff McNish – Breathe (10+) – Wonderful ghost story about a little boy who moves into a house full of kid ghosts and nobody to play with.
Patrick Ness - A Monster Calls (10+) – This one made me cry. A tree monster asks a sad little boy a question every night at 12.07am. Why? What an amazing book.
Sara Pinborough – The Death House (13+) - This made my cry too. Kids with undiagnosed illnesses are sent to Death Houses to die.

 ​THE DEVIL AND WINNIE FLYNN BY MICOL OSTOW AND DAVID OSTOW

17-year-old Winnie Flynn, a closet horror fan with a starkly realistic worldview, has never known her mum's sister, Maggie: a high-profile reality TV producer. But in the wake of her mother's suicide, Winnie is recruited by Maggie to spend a summer in New Jersey, working as a production assistant on her current hit. At first Winnie figures that she has nothing to lose; her father has checked out, and Maggie is the only family she has left. But things get increasingly weird on set as Winnie is drawn into a world of paranormal believers and non-believers alike.

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