 Last summer Ginger Nuts of Horror ran a series of articles on our favourite YA horror novels of the last decade. All four novels of Amy Lukavics featured in the top fifty and we rightfully crowned her the Ginger Nuts Queen of YA Horror. As it is Halloween and in honour of Amy having more entries than any other author, we asked our fifteen-year-old reviewer (and huge fan) AJ to review and rank her fiction. 4TH PLACE: The Woman in the Walls (SCORE 8.0/10)  In a Victorian mansion in the middle of a forest, Lucy lives with her distant dad, her cousin Margaret and her surrogate mother, Aunt Penelope. They live together as a tight knit family until Penelope mysteriously vanishes causing her daughter Margaret to withdraw into the attic, claiming Penelope is dead, but can hear her voice whispering from inside the walls. Lucy’s father shuts her out as she watches her cousin descend into madness and has nobody to turn to for help or advise. The levels of isolation, paranoia and madness came off The Woman in the Wall in waves and like in all of Amy’s books it revolved around an incredibly convincing teenage girl character. I enjoyed this book because it had a creepy, dark mood that loomed over most scene. As the plot developed, I felt like the walls were their own character watching and looming everything, which created unease whilst reading. If there is any better YA author at creating this style of unsettling atmosphere I have yet to discover them. I also connected with the tension which arises between the two girls after Penelope has vanished and Margaret claims to hear her voice. The character of Lucy was particularly disturbing because of what is revealed later in proceedings. Overall, I really liked this story and although the ending was totally wild and which you will not see coming, I still think this is the weakest of Amy’s four novels. But it is still very, very cool. 3RD PLACE: Nightingale (SCORE 8.5/10)  June is a young woman living in small-town America of the 1950s, where she is about to be married off to someone who is very controlling and is certain she does not love. She has passion for writing, particularly science fiction and horror, and dreams of going to college but her family will not allow it. The story is told in two past and present strands, explaining how June ended up in an insane asylum after some sort of ‘episode’ which is revealed very slowly. The asylum sequences were amazing and eventually realizes, it is much more sinister than it first appears and she and the other girls there are trapped in a real-life nightmare as things get stranger and stranger, possibly supernatural. Or is it all in June’s head? That is part of the charm of this very sneaky and highly unsettling book. This book was probably one of the strangest and most bizarre I have ever read and of Amy’s four novels this is probably the least traditional ‘horror’ novel she has written. It also creeped me out because of the detailed descriptions, particularly of the asylum and the possibility of madness. I liked the way the book is split up into the two sequences as we get to see June’s life before being committed showing us how she lacked control of her life. Women in the fifties were expected to behave in a certain way and she would love to buck the trend and be free. Throughout Nightingale June is trying to find herself again because of an incident that happened when she was writing her first story. The present part of the book was probably favourite due to the wide arrange of characters in the asylum and the sense of dread we feel for June. Towards the end, it gets even better with quite a bit of gore and the shocking ending left me stunned where the author really pushes the boat out. It would have been easy to write a ‘safe’ ending, Lukavics does the opposite. The ending is totally bonkers. I loved it. 2ND PLACE: Daughters Unto Devils (SCORE 9/10)  Amanda and her family are moving to a different house, hoping to forget the last winter when her mother gave birth to their sickly sibling Hannah. But most of all she wants to forget the boy she was secretly liaising with, who also got her pregnant. When the family relocate to a remote cabin there is something wrong, it entirely covered in blood from the previous owners. Amanda realizes something is not right with the cabin or with her odd neighbours and then the crying starts. Her sins are weighing down on her as Amanda begins to think the devil is inside of her. This terrifying novel was set in the frontier period of American history, which is quite unique for a horror novel, and once again we have the theme which threads throughout Amy’s fiction: a troubled teenage girl. The blend of horror, historical detail and a convincing teen ‘voice’ was a complete knockout in this frightening and edgy book. Daughters Unto Devils left me uneasy at night whilst trying to fall asleep as I expect to suddenly hear a baby crying or my curtains to start rustling when there was no wind. It is slowly revealed what happened to the family in the winter and one particular moment freaked me out so much I had to put the book down and look at the window just to check that “it was only a book”. What I also like about this novel is that it was very psychological due Amanda’s guilt and how isolated the characters feel, another theme which often comes up in Amy’s fiction. The last few pages of the book were very disturbing, and the last sentence sent a shiver down my spine. I cannot recommend Daughter Unto Devil’s highly enough. 1ST PLACE: The Ravenous (SCORE 9.5/10)  Mona Cane and her four sisters live a perfect lie as they hide the fact that they hate each other, their mother battles addiction and their father is never there due to working in the military. One night a fight gets out of hand and the youngest sister Rose is killed when she falls down the stairs in a particularly shocking scene as her neck breaks. After their mother disappears with her body, she is brought back from the dead but her surviving siblings soon discover not everything is the same and the little girl has changed. For Rose to stay alive she must now eat human flesh. With their mother having abandoned them for the bottle, the four Cane sisters must find a way to feed Rose before things get even worse. But who is to go into the cooking pot and who decides? Decisions. Decisions. After reading Ravenous I was incredibly grateful I am a Vegetarian, because this book portrayed meat in a disgusting and unsavoury way. Some of the homemade stews genuinely made my stomach spin! I loved that all the sisters did not get along but would work together to help Rose and that their morals were tested. The sibling dynamic were pitch perfect and I am sure lots of readers will see elements of their own family within the pages, hopefully without the murders though! There are a lot of graphic descriptions of cannibalism so be warned, this book is for those with a strong stomach. Towards the end, Ravenous escalates to even more unpleasant heights which had me on the edge of my seat. I think that all the characters were deeply traumatised from their upbringing and it showed by the way the interacted with each other as they found themselves in a mess which was impossible to get out of. A common theme in all the books is the main female characters are deeply troubled and Amy Lukavics does an amazing job getting into the head of the damaged teenage girl who is very easy to root for. I loved all her books, but this was my personal favourites. I am going to save the 10/10 for Amy’s next book. Whenever that might be! Soon, I hope. A.J.   |
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