A Review of Three Quarters Dead by Richard Peck

I first heard about this book a couple of years ago at an SCBWI Conference where Richard Peck spoke, mentioning his upcoming projects, and I've been looking forward to it ever since. How would one of the greatest craftsmen in the field of children's books handle YA paranormal?

Of course, you could argue that he's already done that with his Blossom Culp books, which I always thought were middle grade, but which are now being called YA, at least in the front matter of this new book. But the Blossom books are also historical fiction, and Three Quarters Dead is about a contemporary teen.

Kerry is a sophomore attached to a popular, powerful trio of senior girls: beautiful Tanya, graceful Natalie, and lively Makenzie. Kerry earnestly assures us that the three of them aren't mean girls. Her reasoning? They talk to her. (Never mind the little zingers they throw in.) They sort of include her. And even though events—along with outside observers—conspire to convince Kerry that she is being used, the heady wine of hanging out with this particular group has her too drunk to admit things aren't so great.

Readers will be quick to see that Tanya, the leader of the pack, is a little obsessed with a particular boy and with destroying the girl she thinks stole him from her. She enlists Kerry's help without giving her any real information, then leaves Kerry hanging when her plans go south. Which is just one example of the small and large clues we get about Tanya's true nature. Another key point in the early chapters is Kerry noticing Tanya's seeming ability to stop time, or rather, to draw it out to suit her purposes.

[SPOILER, THOUGH IT'S IN THE PUBLISHER'S BOOK BLURB AND NONE OF THIS WILL MAKE SENSE IF I DON'T TELL YOU!] Then the unthinkable happens: Tanya, Natalie, and Makenzie are killed when they wrap their car around an apple tree. Here's where Peck's premise gets extra good. Kerry goes into a fugue state, until one day she gets a text message from Tanya telling her to meet the three dead girls in the city at Tanya's Aunt Lily's apartment. Kerry's reaction is relief: "I'd known all along this entire...situation had been too bad to be true."

The haunting of Kerry, which she participates in fervently for pages, is horrifically satisfying. Here's a brief sample, when the four girls dress up in old-fashioned clothes from Aunt Lily's closet to go out on the town. Note the author having fun with macabre puns, the eerie scent of apple blossoms (referring to the tree the car hit), and narrator Kerry's oblivious acceptance of the fact that the dead girls need "major makeup":

There wasn't a mirror on any wall, and that was better. There'd been thousands of us in the mirrored dressing room. Now it was just us four. Taller in our heels, swirlier in our skirts, bigger and bustier in our bras. I was the only one who didn't need major makeup. Just a little something to make my eyes pop. Too much makeup too young is always a dead giveaway, Tanya always said. Too much makeup is always about being the most desperate girl in ninth grade.
Though as Tanya also said, "A little lip gloss wouldn't kill you, Kerry."
There we were in a room that had never changed, the four of us in a dangle of earrings, a wobble of heels, in a cloud of Arpège perfume out of a swag bag. The Arpège fought a little with the lily of the valley, and just under that, apple blossom.

Peck uses the archaeological dig that is Aunt Lily's closet to suggest timelessness, then embroiders these scenes with elderly women hiding from the ghosts in a neighbor's apartment. Of course, the old women represent the way Kerry should be reacting.

The driving force in this book is Kerry's unwillingness to let go—and her problem with being such a follower. You could read the entire haunting as taking place in Kerry's mind if you really wanted to, but I don't think that's what Peck is doing here. Kerry's eagerness to be haunted is just as creepy as the ghosts themselves, and as painful. When Kerry finally snaps out of it, readers will be cheering for her emancipation.

By the way, there's a touch of romance here, but nothing that overwhelms a story that's essentially about girls and their friendships.

Now, as far as suspension of disbelief goes, Tanya's powers work best when they're not examined too closely. There was one point late in the book where I felt like we got a little too much explaining and I found myself doubting Tanya's abilities, but for most of the story, I was completely sold on these events.

Other than that, the only false note qualifies as a quibble: Dear Mr. Peck, Teenage boys today are not called Bob or Sandy. You might get a Rob, an Alex, or a Xander, but that's about it. The youngest Bob I know of is my brother, and he's 49. While Sandy is a 63-year-old plumber. (Fortunately, the key boy in this story is named Spence!)

Quibbles aside, I think the most gorgeous thing about Three Quarters Dead is the tone, Kerry's voice and the way it interacts with pacing to build suspense. Peck has Kerry recount her experiences by looking back on the whole thing. In another book, this might create a sense of drag, but here it suits the genre, evoking a hushed midnight rendering of a ghost story lit only by a sleep-over flashlight. Considering the framing, there's an amazing feeling of suspense as we watch Kerry make a series of mindless mistakes, putting complete trust in someone who doesn't deserve it whether she's alive or dead. Reading Three Quarters Dead feels like watching one of those movies where the girl walks down the long hall of the haunted house, and you tell her on the screen, "Don't open that door!" You know, the door with the monster behind it? But of course she does.

And isn't that what high school is like sometimes, when you can be enthralled by a "friend" who is nothing but trouble, nothing but selfish? Even so, Three Quarters Dead isn't preachy; it's just scary. And—no surprise here!—beautifully well written. It's a slim book, but then, there's never a wasted word in the work of the fantastic Mr. Peck.

If you like this ghost story, try Margaret Mahy's The Tricksters (for older teens).

Note for Worried Parents: Three Quarters Dead is a book for teens, though it's pretty wholesome other than some teen drinking, a scene in a nightclub (mostly dancing), and a little talk about dressing to enhance one's breasts.

A Review of Trance by Linda Gerber

What intrigued me about reading this book was that it left me feeling so sad. And I mean that in a good way! Linda Gerber's Trance has a poignant tone that wraps around you and makes you feel like you've just been haunted. Kind of appropriate for a gray autumn day right before Halloween...

Ashlyn and her mother were in a car accident, and now her mother is dead. Her friend Michelle tries to help her deal with her grief, but Ashlyn secretly feels the accident was her fault, and she's not ready to be comforted. Besides which, her father is barely there, and her older sister has left home, apparently to avoid Ashlyn as well as memories of their mother.

Ashlyn's situation is all the more tough because she and her sister Kyra have powers, and Ashlyn feels like she should have been able to prevent the accident. Every so often, she goes into a trance state and writes strings of numbers (a phenomenon called "trance writing"). Kyra has trances and writes numbers at the same time, even if she's far away. It's only by combining the images they see in the trances that the two sisters can make any sense out of them, and they don't know what the numbers mean at all, despite having done some research.

Ashlyn takes a job working at a mall in a little photo booth, where she gets to know her prickly coworker and the cute guy who works for the music store across the way. But she avoids Jake's efforts to get to know her better, frightened by her trances and her failure to save her mother. When Ashlyn begins to confide in her pregnant coworker, Gina, she learns about a different system of numerology. She's newly hopeful about getting answers, except that without Kyra, how will she be able to prevent a looming tragedy, the accident predicted by her latest trances?

Like Richard Peck's book, Three Quarters Dead, reviewed above, Trance is character driven despite its high concept. The book focuses on Ashlyn's struggle to deal with her grief and to redefine herself. She tries to hide her trances—her fellow students think she's epileptic. Running seems to make her feel better, but then her track coach takes her off the team (supposedly temporarily) after she has one of her "seizures" at school.

In many recent YA paranormals, the main character's trouble accepting her magic/psychic powers and her role as a kind of savior figure rings false, but Ashlyn's worries feel all too real. Trance is nicely paced, alternating between Ashlyn's growing friendship with Gina, her efforts to be patient with her emotionally absent father and to track down her missing sister, and her cautious encounters with Jake, as well as her trances and their impact. Here's a sample of Ashlyn's voice:

My dad and I had a thing when we ran together—we didn't say a word to each other for at least the first couple blocks because that's usually how long it takes to work the kinks out and fall into your stride. When Michelle started running with me in his place, this was a hard habit for her to get used to. Michelle's a talker. For her, keeping quiet for two feet was a challenge, let alone for two blocks. The way she kept glancing over at me that morning, I could tell she wasn't going to make it that far. Sure enough, we barely reached the end of the block before she cleared her throat.

Ashlyn makes an appealing heroine. I really like Gina, too. She has troubles of her own, yet a spicy, sensible approach to life. The scenes involving the photo booth are a lot of fun, with Gina riffing on the absurdities of parents bringing in out-of-control little kids to get their pictures taken.

And then there's Jake, who's a real sweetie, can play the piano, and looks awfully good on a motorcycle!

These days, YA paranormals seem like they're a dime a dozen, but Ashlyn's story is compelling, while the use of trance writing and numerology is a fresh approach to the "teen powers" novel. Trance stands out from the pack, and I look forward to reading the sequel implied by the last few lines of the book.

If you like this one, I also recommend Meg Cabot's Haunted and 1-800-Where-R-You? series.

Disclaimer: Linda Gerber is a writing friend of mine. She just happens to be a very talented writing friend!

Note for Worried Parents: Some of you might object to the psychic powers, numerology, and use of Tarot cards in Trance.

Scary Trend Grows Like Something Yucky in a Mad Scientist's Petri Dish

In case you don't think children's books have clout, read this article about upcoming projects from Disney, which includes the note, "Guillermo del Toro appeared on video from New Zealand to talk about his partnership with Disney on its new brand, Disney Double Dare You, which will release scary animated fare." Coraline, The Graveyard Book, and Twilight, anyone?

We've all noticed the surge in YA paranormal, evolving through a list that started with vampires, then moved on to werewolves and now zombies. Over on the urban fantasy side, psychics, witches, and fairies of all kinds have hit the YA stage, with pocket appearances by fairy godmothers and even godsisters. Middle grade fiction is finally getting in on the action with a slow upswing of scary, e.g., Greg Taylor's Killer Pizza, which I just read this morning (YA on Amazon, ages 10-14 at Macmillan). We're even seeing new horror picture books, like Ross Collins' Dear Vampa (see illustration above) and Michael Rex's Runaway Mummy.

A few years after the post-Harry Potter wave of fantasy began, readers started wondering if it was ever going to end. The answer? Not until something else comes along to kick it offstage. In the same way, the post-Twilight paranormal trend appears to be more robust than ever.