Direwood

By: Catherine Yu

Narrated by: Cindy Kay

Aja and Fiona live in Glen Hills, a small town plagued by a mysterious fog. At night it rains black stones and a pair of vampires roams the town. With so many perils lurking in the night, everyone in town observes a curfew. But when her older sister disappears, Aja follows a vampire through the fog and into the forest to find her.

There, Aja discovers the vampires' lair in a ruined church, filled with her former classmates, most of them turned into enthralled servants. Now Aja, along with her friend Nico and ex-BFF Mary, must face their own differences and work together to escape. But while Aja tries to find and save her friends, her sister, and herself, she must also come to terms with her own secret truth: she's fascinated by the very monster who lured her in.

©2022 Catherine Yu (P)2022 Tantor

Ehhh...

I reeeeeeeally wanted to like this book, but I just couldn't get there. I tried to give the MC, Aja, a break because she's young (16 or 17) so I understand she's prone to melodrama and stupidity by nature as all teenagers are. But wow, she really takes the cake. There are several times in the story I groaned out loud in frustration. She makes a deal with a charming vampire, Padraic, and in 7 days she will become bound to him permanently - unless she can find a way to escape him. What does she do in those 7 days? Yell and verbally abuse her best friend Mary, who came to save her (also they have a fallout of some sort that is never explained, which seems important). Flirt with Padraic. Play checkers. Flirt with Padraic some more. That's about it. Like... B--- really?? Also, it was almost hilarious the way the characters are so blasé about anything supernatural happening. It literally rains red and no one in the entire town questions it. The MC is almost nearly unphased by a vampire just popping up at her window (she gets a little scared but otherwise has a full conversation with him). Padraic spends hours upon hours telling Aja how many people he's killed- he has LITERALLY decimated an entire village. Yet somehow the MC is super surprised when she learns some horrifying truths about Padraic (no spoilers but in general the vampires are pretty cruel and sadistic).

So no the story didn't do it for me. The characters didn't do it for me either generally. BUT I loved the diversity of characters and how they struggled with their identity and being whitewashed of their culture. I also really liked the smattering of 90s references here and there and found myself smiling. Oh and the descriptions were extremely vivid and EXTREMELY well written.

I can't really recommend this book, but I'm willing to bet Catherine Yu is going places. 

Oh and the narration was beautifully done, perfect!!

Caterpillars

I don't remember what made me want to read this book. It amazes me how I tolerated an entire book written on the disgust of caterpillars and vapid vampires.

Dreamlike, beautiful and terrifying

This was just so up my alley. 90s setting, gothic horror, blood red rain, whew. Without giving too much away, I was obsessed with Aja’s dreamlike descriptions of things both beautiful and terrifying. More gothic than 'paranormal'. The narration was wonderful as well. Can't wait to see what Catherine Yu does next.