Picking On: The House Next Door by Anne Rivers Siddons

 Hello and welcome back! Just finished up The House Next Door book and I was lucky enough to find the movie online as well so it will be a two-fer review today.
  I know I said in my first post that I would try to avoid spoilers when giving an overview of the story but it turns out I suck at doing synopsis. Which I guess is why in school I always got D's on book reports.
  Well, I will try to keep them out but if some sneak in all I can do is apologize. So, without further ado, let the picking on commence!

                                            The House Next Door by Anne Rivers Siddons
                                                                     (Novel)

                                                                2 out of 5 Stars

 The Story:
 The House Next Door is the story of a newly constructed house in a well-to-do suburb of Atlanta, Georgia. The story is told through the eyes of Colquitt as she observes and eventually becomes entangled in the lives of those who live in it.
  Colquitt and Walter, her husband, start off by telling us that people like them don't appear in People magazine. They are not rich enough, eccentric enough or famous enough. The rest of the book details just how they end up appearing in People. Not only that but ostracized by their friends and neighbors and hated by real estate agents.
  The House Next Door is the reason of course. It is built on the lot next door by a young architect named Kim who eventually becomes their friend. He is building it for a young couple named Pie and Buddy with Pie's daddy footing the bill.
  Things don't go well for them from the first. Small animals are found mutilated on the property. Then Pie loses her baby falling down the stairs into the foundation (which doesn't seem to upset her overmuch). It all culminates finally in her housewarming party. Buddy and his older mentor, Lucas, are caught in a steamy embrace stark naked. On catching them Pie's daddy dies of a stroke.
  The Harralsons move out.
  The next family to move in are Buck and Anita Sheehan. Anita Sheehan has recently been released from a mental institution where she was being treated for catatonia after the death of her son in Vietnam and learning of her husband's affair. Buck drowned himself in drink and an affair after their son's death and knowing that Anita blamed him for it by not discouraging him from joining the Army. But when they first move into The House they are recovering quite well. Anita is finding her way back into the world and Buck is a model husband and attending AA.
  The House immediately starts sending Anita television shows of a boy dying in a fiery chopper crash (exactly how their son died). She also gets phone calls that seem to come from long distance and one gut-wrenching one where she can hear the voice and is certain that it's their son, still alive and wanting to come home. It all comes crashing in on them when Colquitt witnesses what she at first thinks is an intimate moment between husband and wife. Until she sees Anita sitting on the stairs, her expression vacant. Looking again she realizes it is Buck and the married neighbor next door. A woman whom Anita has come to trust very much.
  As all of this is going on Colquitt, who has been a passive and sometimes active observer in the goings on next door, has started to suspect that something is wrong with The House Next Door. A suspicion shared by Kim. One evening at The House, while they are there to water the plants for the Sheehans, Kim and Colquitt share a passionate kiss. Walter catches them and almost kills them before Kim hustles them out of The House. Shortly after he leaves for Europe.
  After the Sheehans move out the house stands empty for a bit.
  Until the Greenes move in.
  Colquitt and her best friend have an argument because Claire realizes that something is bothering her and that there is more to the Sheehans' abrupt departure and Virginia and Charles' sudden Cruise plans than is being told. Claire gets mad that Colquitt won't tell and they have a polite fight, They will be civil to each other in public.
  Colquitt keeps her distance from the new arrivals Norman and Susan Greene and their child Melissa. The House starts in right away. Melissa gets sick, Susan can't seem to get organized provoking the ire of Norman who has her stack meat by cut and weight and will not sleep in their bedroom until it is in order.
  Claire and Susan are fast becoming friends but Colquitt, in fear for Claire, warns her not to spend too much time with her in the house. Claire angrily accuses Colquitt of being jealous and stomps off.
  As Melissa's illness gets worse Colquitt fears for the Greenes. She sends Walter over to tell them that they think that there is something wrong with the house and that they are in danger. Norman thinks they are out to get him because he's Jewish and Susan is terrified for her and her daughter.
  Claire is furious with Colquitt and cuts her completely telling her that she's going to tell everyone they know that Colquitt is a crazy, vindictive woman. Which she does.
  After a month or two of stasis Claire comes bursting into their house in hysterics. It seems The House has struck again. One night while babysitting Melissa it seems that her son Duck and his girlfriend Libby had sex for the first time the end result being that Libby is pregnant and Duck (yeah, that's his name) has dropped out of Harvard to get a job and support his family. Claire and her husband have failed to talk Libby out of having an abortion or giving the baby up for adoption (the kids are 18 and 20ish) they are heartbroken. Claire tells Colquitt that she was right all along and wants to be friends again.
  Claire cuts off all contact with Susan in fear for her remaining children but has to attend one more of Susan's parties because Susan begs her to.
  Colquitt and Walter go to New York for a week and when they come back The House is dark and looks uninhabited. Colquitt rushes to Claire's house and it is dark and uninhabited also.
  Turns out that at that fateful party nobody showed up. As it turns out Susan forgot to send the invitations. When Norman hit the roof and puts the blame on Susan caring more about her child, the bastard he gave his name to (his words), than him.
  Claire and Roger flee but as they're going home they hear gunshots and run back. There they find that Susan shot Norman, then Melisa then herself.
  After this Colquitt and Walter decide that they must tell the world about The House Next Door. All the bad publicity brings gawkers (but Colquitt and Walter reason that the tacky gawkers are too poor to actually be able to afford The House).
  One night there's a knock on the door and in comes Kim, recently returned from Europe with his new fiancée. They talk a bit and Kim mentions that he is designing more and better than ever and that he plans to move into The House Next Door. Colquitt and Walter panic and beg him not to. He is very angry that they have trashed his house and turned it into a boogeyman. He seems to have forgotten any ideas of his own that he once had. Colquitt and Walter realize that this is what The House has wanted all along, to lure Kim back and that is how it will break them. Their knowledge that they brought him back to it.
  They make plans to burn it down that night. Later, Kim comes back to apologize and wants to understand. He respects what they've gone through and why they felt that they had to do it. As they talk Walter starts to question Kim about his previous failed projects. Turns out none of his earlier projects have come through for various reasons. A heart attack and a photographer who goes blind in a freak accident. They come to the conclusion that whatever is in the house comes from Kim. So, they do what any rational couple would do. They kill him and put him in the basement of The House. The book ends with them waiting for the street to go to sleep so they can burn The House to the ground and Colquitt musing to herself that she doesn't think they'll live long enough to be punished by the law.
  The book ends on an epilogue with a young couple looking at some plans by a hotshot architect that died young.

 The Picking:
  Wow, sorry for such a long summing up of the story. I told you I was horrible at doing short wrap-ups.
  Ok, where do I start? I'll start with Colquitt. I can't stand her. She is snobby, vain and self-centered. To be fair she's the first one to say she's self-centered. She's also the first to say how hot she is. She tells us that Walter is everything she needs and she does not need the adulation of young men (let's see, the neighborhood boys, guys around her office and even the maître d' at Rinaldi's by her count). She is also very class-conscious. The only 'tacky' person on the street is Eloise who was formerly a secretary to her husband. They cut short her gossip consistently even though that is basically all Colquitt and Claire do. The first things they usually mention about the new arrivals are their financial situation and social standing. But they have odd standards as well. After Pie's miscarriage Claire mentions that it was a boy, that after she came back from the hospital she came back and "Threw a load of sand over the mess". WTF?! Really? She just threw a load of sand over a six month old fetus? Then what? They just poured the cement for the basement like no big deal? I don't know about anyone else but it creeped me out big time. Also, they dismiss potential incest between Pie and her father as 'that weird thing with her dad" and call her little Lolita. Um, ok? They also have a weird double standard. When Duck knocks up the girlfriend he's been going out with since eighth grade Claire says that Duck told her it was their first time and she believes him. She says she's not fool enough to think that he's slept with girls but never Libby. What? So apparently Libby's so virginal he doesn't want to corrupt her but will screw other girls? And Claire apparently is all for it. That's just weird to me.
  Telling it strictly from Colquitt's first person point of view really limits the narrative. We don't get to be on the inside of The House to see what is happening to the victims. And really, most of what we get from her head is a running commentary on her life and how special she and Walter are. I know I keep harping on that but this is an example: "Walter and I ran errands all day. I loved these days as one of the many small adventures we have built our life around". These people can't even get groceries without it being an epic adventure.
  The rest of the people on the street are just as bad. Claire is willing to break off a years long friendship because Colquitt won't spill the gossip about the neighbors. She also has no trouble savaging her reputation on a whim and then barely acknowledging it. The men: Walter, Roger, and Charles are bare cardboard cut-outs with practically no depth. Walter especially because we hear the most about him from Colquitt. But he really just seems like a springboard for and echo of Colquitt.
  The book could be edited down to probably around 200 pages because there is just so much detail from Colquitt. How she feels like a mermaid in her bathroom, how she needs the ocean in an elemental way (because God forbid they just go to the beach like ordinary people) how much she loves New York, etc. Half of the Sheehan chapter is just her watching Anita come and go in the car to doctor's appointments. Thrilling.
 Another problem with the book is the dialogue. It is so melodramatic and over-the-top that it gets ridiculous. Some examples: "Colquitt, you dishonor me. Your lack of trust dishonors me." or "Welcome to the neighborhood once again, Anita Sheehan," I said. "Because you're a whole new lady and one I like immensely, and I hope you're going to be very, very happy here."
Who the hell talks like that?  I also love how when they decide to tell about The House they have no problem telling about the Harralsons, the Greenes and the animals killed there (not using names of course) but they absolutely cannot tell about themselves even though it would make it a tad more credible and a kiss between the architect and neighbor lady is one of the least of The House's tamperings. The people are just not likeable so it makes me just not care what happens to them. And in the case of the people in The House itself you just don't get to know them enough to care.
  And let's look at the evil happenings in The House. They are just so bland. Maybe because the book was written in 1978 the evilness just doesn't seem that evil. And like I said, a lot of the impact is reduced because we barely know these people. Colquitt acts like the kiss between her and Kim is the be all and end all of horrible things. It just doesn't wear well. Also, the evil of The House seems very inconsistent. IT goes after those living in it, which makes sense. It goes after a few people that have a one-time contact with it (Colquitt and Kim and Walter, Duck and Libby). Virginia who has been spending a lot of time in The House. It just seems inconsistent. Especially the two more isolated incidents. It almost seems that stepping through the door will do it but there are plenty of people who attend parties there that aren't affected. Later Colquitt comments that after having killed the Greenes it won't settle for anything less. Well, by my count it has killed twice before this. Pie's father had a stroke as a result of the house's shenanigans and Pie had a miscarriage on the property (and from what Claire says is still there under the basement). So, that's two by my count.
  And the worst problem is that it is left unexplained. Colquitt gives a theory about it being in Kim which we're supposed to assume is correct but that is all. Oh, and by the way I just loved that conversation. When Colquitt tells Walter what she thinks about Kim he responds with, "We know all about his family; they're good people, substantial people, wealthy-celebrities even, in a minor way. If there was anything like that in his family don't you think somebody would know about it?"
 To which Colquitt replies, in all seriousness I might add: "They're not his family remember? He's adopted." The italics are mine. They might as well say "He's not really one of us." That is literally the whole explanation. Kim is adopted so everything he creates is evil. Wow. I honestly don't even know what to say to that.
  And on a final note: The NAMES! Colquitt, Pie, Buddy, Buck, Kim, Duck. Now, I'm from Michigan but are these real names in the South? It is actually mentioned that Buck's real name is Buford (so Buck is an improvement so I can let that slide) but the only other name Pie is given is Punkin Pie for pete's sake. Could it be cutesier?
  Where she does do well though is the writing itself. The descriptions are great and the prose is quite lovely in parts. I also liked that The House pushed them so far that they killed a good friend in cold blood without giving it a second thought. It comes so gradually that it is actually a slap in the face to the reader. In a good way. But again, she told us and didn't show us how Walter and Colquitt killed him. Not that I need gory details but something would have been nice. It also would have been nice to know how they died. Did they die? Did they succeed? This could have been wrapped up in the Epilogue rather than the ridiculous kicker she threw in there. Disappointing to say the least.
 
So, that's my take on it. If you want a slice of 1978 wealthy suburban life with a dash of spookiness then by all means enjoy. However, if you are looking for something to scare you out of your panties and keep you up at night I would look elsewhere.
I will do the review for the movie tomorrow as this has run on a bit longer than I intended it to. Sorry about that! I wanted to make sure I got everything.
Any opinions, suggestions or rebuttals are always welcome!

                 PICKING ON: THE ORPHANAGE
                             !!!!Spoilers!!!!

 The story:
 The movie opens with some children playing a game and a phone conversation about one of them, Laura, getting adopted.
 Flash-forward quite a lot later and Laura is 37 with an adopted child of her own. She and her husband plan to turn the orphanage into a small school for disabled children but on the opening day her son goes missing.
 Flash-forward 6 months and she and her husband are still looking. They are growing increasingly worried since their son has H.I.V. and needs to take medication regularly. It is also revealed that the social worker who visited them previously was not a real social worker and was also connected with the orphanage at one point. Coming back from a grief counseling session she sees the lady and chases her, only for the woman to get hit by a bus.
 It is further revealed that during Laura's time at the orphanage a young, disfigured boy named Tomas was kept there. Tomas was kept separate from the other children and wore a bag on his head whenever he went out. Which coincides with an apparition that attacked Laura and which is also the name of her son's invisible friend. It is also revealed that he died in a childish prank by the other kids at the orphanage.
 Laura becomes increasingly convinced that the ghosts at the orphanage are behind her son's disappearance. She contacts a paranormal research group. The psychic reveals that all of the other children were poisoned by the fake social worker lady as punishment for Tomas dying.
 The husband decides it's time to move on. Laura asks for two more days. She spends most of that time making things like they were in an effort to get the children to contact her. They finally do, eventually leading her to her son. Unfortunately it's too late to help him and in a heartbreaking turn it ends up that she herself locked him in accidentally. She kills herself and, as a ghost herself now, remains to be a mother to the ghost children of the orphanage.

 The Pickings:
 I actually find it really hard to pick on it because it was a great movie. It was shot beautifully. The atmosphere was oppressive, mysterious and in parts hopeful. And, my particular favorite, the actions of the people made sense. They did what normal people would do. There were absolutely no extraneous scenes that took you away from the plot. Every scene told the story.
 I don't really know why, after having seen Pan's Labyrinth, I expected a happy ending. I really don't. Guillermo del Toro seems to do bittersweet rather than happy and this movie is no exception. But I love it. It really seems the only possible outcome by the end. And I love the shot of Tomas standing in the group around Laura, finally included with no bag over his head to disguise his deformity. I Love It. It's not dwelt upon nauseatingly but naturally.
 About that bag on the head though. Really?! Way to make the poor kid feel even more like a freak by keeping him segregated from the other kids and making him wear a damn bag over his head when he goes out.
 They do pull a kind of cheat for a moment in making you believe that Simon is really alive when she finds him. I was like no way. He'd been gone for 9 months. No way he survived. But I honestly think now that it was her mind not being able to grasp the truth and that she was (no matter how accidentally) at fault.
 I also love the shot of her pulling off the St. Christopher medallion and dropping it. When her husband first gave it to her he said, "I'm not giving it to you, I'm lending it to you. You can give it back when we've found Simon." And then there's the closing scene showing her husband picking up the medallion, a door softly opens with no visible cause and he looks up and smiles. Because he knows that she had found Simon and that they are together. God, it's so beautiful. The scene is so peaceful and brightly lit but soft and clean.
 I really like the husband as well. He's not a huge character as most of it is centered on Laura but he's still a great character. He doesn't irrationally lash out, start an affair or be randomly mean to his wife. I honestly thought that it was coming and in an American remake it probably would have been the case. But they give him intelligent dialogue and he's actually *gasp* supportive of her.
 I also thought the actress who played Laura was great. I loved that she looked her age. Don't get me wrong. She was a beautiful woman but beautiful in a real way, not plastic and fake as hell. We need more of that.
 I can't recommend it highly enough. It balanced the creepiness and mystery perfectly.

 So, anyone have any comments? Disagree at all? Comment and let me know.  I love taking about movies and books with people. Please, please, be respectful of other people. People don't have to agree on the same things but they can disagree respectfully. I get so tired of seeing so much negativity everywhere that I'd like to keep the comments here Bitch-free.

 I'm currently reading The House Next Door by Anne Rivers Siddons so I'll have that up in a few days.
 And I'll also be doing a review for the movie Vampire in Brooklyn.

 Till next time!

                                    Picking On Books!

 Today I'll be picking on a self-published book: Calling 666: Tales of Dark Horror and the Supernatural by Akasha Savage

 Ok, I just wanted to make one thing clear before I get started on any reviews or anything like that. I do not have any stake whatsoever in any of the self-published books I review. I hate artificially boosted reviews. Hate them. So, that's why I thought that I would do self-published e-books as well as professionally published books. One, this way some good writers can get a little more exposure (I know, I'm flattering myself) and others that are sucking people in by their bullshit false advertising can get the hammering some of them so richly deserve. So yeah,  I just wanted to get that out of the way. I can promise that if I ever do review anything by anyone I know, I'll put a disclaimer on it. I promise.
 Keep in mind that there may be some spoilers in the Picking On section. I'll try to stay away from them in the main description but it's a little hard to dissect something properly without giving away some things. I promise I'll warn you if there are going to be heavy or light spoiling involved.
  Now that's out of the way.
 Let's start picking shall we?


 Calling 666: Tales of Dark Horror and the Supernatural  by Akasha Savage

 1. MacKenzie's Cottage 
 Three friends take shelter in an abandoned, haunted cottage during a thunderstorm.

 2. Calling 666 
 A mother rushing to her son's side in the hospital gets a phone call from Satan with a very tempting offer.
  
 3. Bovver Boots
 A man buys a pair of boots that are a little...protective. 

 4. The Root of All Evil
 A girl finds a satchel of money but soon realizes why it was abandoned.

 5. Wish Upon a Star
 A bittersweet story about an older woman trying to find the last star in the sky to grant her wish.

 6. O'Sullivan's Ghost (poem)
 I really liked this poem. It was written in a style like an old English ballad.

 7. Bethnal Green
 A story set in the future about breeders and one woman's retirement from it. The retirement is not all it seems to be.

 8. Jessica
 A story about a girl and her sister.

 9. PC Wayne Winterbottom
 A man about to end it all gets some help from a policeman but things don't end well.

 10. 'Two Barrel' Carter
 Policemen pick up a prowler along a road but it turns out to be a case of the past repeating itself.

 11. Aim. Shoot. Kill.
 An ex-Nazi takes aim at some teenage vandals

 12. The Kimberley
 A boy and his grandfather survive a nuclear apocalypse together but doesn't let it ground their dreams.

 13. A Kiss in the Dark (poem)
 The last poem, which is pretty decent.

 A fairly short anthology of eleven stories and two poems. The first six stories and one poem are pretty decent. The last are a little on the blah side. I think it would be better if the author dropped the price a little. In the kindle store it's priced at $2.99 but for being so short, and the stories themselves are pretty short as well, a price of $1.99 seems more appropriate.

The Pickings:
 MacKenzie's Cottage is pretty decent. Good story, good build-up but a cliffhanger ending. I'm not too crazy about those because they seem a little lazy to me and you have to be very talented or well-established to pull it off.
 Calling 666 isn't really a new idea but it was well-written and solid. Bovver Boots reminded me a bit of Stephen King's 'Chattery Teeth' but with boots. I did have to look up the term bovver though. Most of the English terms I knew but that one threw me (it means aggression or violence according to the online dictionary I consulted). The Root of all Evil was solid as well but the girl in the story seems to jump to the conclusion that the money is evil awfully quickly out of two incidents that are very tenuously related. Also, her attempt to get rid of the money seems really weird to me. If I had a wad of paper money to get rid of I would burn it. She cuts it into little pieces and throws it away. And without that the 'surprise' ending would be lost but it would have been better as just a straight up longer story with a conclusion. In other words, it seems as though she's trying too hard for a twist to each story but a good story does not necessarily need a twist to make it interesting. Just a solid plot and conclusion. Wish Upon a Star can't really be classified as horror or scary, just a melancholy little tale but very moving. Bethnal Green was interesting and would actually be really good as a longer story or novella. I wanted to know more about the world, it seemed like a darker version of 'The Handmaid's Tale' by Margaret Atwood. I did notice a continuity error which really stood out because it was two sentences that were right in a row. In one sentence she mentions that the Enforcers can take 'privileges' with the women who are 'Breeders'. However, in the very next sentence she says that they are castrated as soon as they become Enforcers. I'm kind of thinking that maybe she meant vasectomy and got the wrong word. Because I'm thinking it would be a little hard to have sex with the women if they're castrated.
 The rest of the stories are ok but not worth much comment.
 So, I guess my wrap-up would be that at a little lower price it might sell a little better. The grammar was good, as was the spelling. There were no formatting issues at all and words were used correctly, for the most part. Which is more than I can say for a lot of self-published efforts.

 My scoring key goes a little something like this: Zero stars would be absolute dreck and not worth the money, time, or effort put into it. One star is still bad but maybe has a solid idea that in the hands of a better writer could develop into something pretty good. Two stars is readable and mildly entertaining. Three stars would be readable, entertaining but not engrossing. Four stars would be very, very good and hard to put down. Five stars is "Gotta finish that chapter! " good.

 I'd have to give it a 2/5 Stars. There's room for improvement and none of them were all that scary or terrifying but they were all competent.

 Well! That was certainly a long one! But it always seems like stories in anthologies and collections get the shaft and the book is always rated as a whole so that sometimes the stories themselves get overlooked and get reviewed in one big lump. Anytime I review an anthology I try to do each individual story if it's possible.

 I hope you enjoyed this session of Picking on Stuff! I'll be posting fairly early tomorrow with my thoughts on another book and hopefully in the evening I'll be able to post my musings (or rantings) on The Orphanage.

                                  See you tomorrow!

Let's Start the Picking!

 Hello and welcome to the first post of my first blog!
     Yay! Fireworks! Applause!

 Anyway, since it's my first post I'll just let you in on what I've got planned for it. What I plan to be ranting, reviewing and just generally picking on.

 Mainly books, movies, and games. Mainly in the horror genre but probably some random others thrown in here and there. I'm hoping to mix in some self-published books here and there. Some good ones that deserve some more exposure and some bad ones that rightfully deserve to get tasked over the coals.

 Coming up in October I'll be doing 31 days of horror movies and more.

 So, there it is. Hopefully I'll keep you entertained or at least he'll you kill some time. Please don't judge by this first one, I'm still learning so hang in there with me and I promise I'll get better.

 Tomorrow I'll be picking on a self-published book called Calling 666: Tales of Dark Horror and the Supernatural by Akasha Savage. Also, I'll be reviewing The Forgotten Manuscript/ The Unknown Crime by Sarah Rayne. 

 I'll also be watching The Orphanage as well so be on the lookout for that!

 Thanks for reading and hopefully we'll have a grand time Picking on Stuff together!