“Ghost stories might not all use the same words, but they all sound like the same words because it’s the ghost we think about, not the words,” (Malerman 65). Eight-year-old Bela loves Mommy, Daddo, and Grandma Ruth, and she used to like Other Mommy until she changed. Other Mommy used to make her smile, but now …
“Pain is a God the body worships,” (Ajram 69). Vicken has planned his suicide; he will drown himself in the Saint Lawrence River after suffering from clinical depression for years. But when he gets off the subway he finds himself in a strange, endless labyrinthine station that he can’t escape. And he’s beginning to suspect he …
I received this book from River Street Writing in exchange for an honest review. “Despair was like that, eating away at you from the inside, so that you hardly recognized it when you went dark. There was no point arguing with it at times like that. It would always win,” (Fahner 176). Lizzie Donoghue wants more out of …
“A child’s worry was not like an adult’s. It gnawed deep, and was so unnecessary. Why did people not realize children could withstand the truth? Why did adults insist on filling children with the deceptions their own parents had laid on them, when surely they remembered how it had felt to lie in bed and …
“When I’m in the theatre I feel held. I feel simultaneously safe and like something very dangerous is about to happen, and that dangerous thing is the wall of my chest peeling back — slowly, so slowly, in time with the curtain rising. And if the play is my play then everybody present can gather …
“All scary stories have two sides…Like the bright and dark of the moon. If you’re brave enough to listen and wise enough to stay to the end, the stories can shine a light on the good in the world. They can guide your muzzles. They can help you survive,” (Heidicker 5). On a dark autumn night, …
“The town cares for devil’s work no more than it cares for God’s or man’s. It knew darkness. And darkness was enough,” (King 327). After some time on the run a terrified man and boy resolve that they must return to the small town of ‘Salem’s Lot they escaped from and face the evil that has …
“Little Natalie, never rest until you have uncovered your essential self. Remember that. Somewhere, deep inside you, hidden by all sorts of fears and worries and petty little thoughts is a clean pure being made of radiant colours,” (Jackson 42). Seventeen-year-old Natalie Waite is eager to start at Bennington College. There she’ll be away from her …
“However much Connie’s absence permeated my every though, I had never once said so out loud. Never recounted to anyone the lost, dark-edged hours, knowing that the words themselves, the weight of them in my mouth, would be like drowning, and all at once her disappearance would cease to be a series of frantic flashes, …
“I will never forgive you, unless you find the murderer before the statute of limitations is up. If you can’t do that, then atone for what you’ve done, in a way I’ll accept. If you don’t do either one, I’m telling you here and now — I will have revenge on each and every one …
Sarah O'Connor 