Less is definitely more going in but basically, Pamela Westbook is newly widowed and lost her child in the same car accident that killed her husband. Less is definitely more going in but basically, Pamela Westbook is newly widowed and lost her child in the same car accident that killed her husband. While driving to St. Louis from California, she gets lost in the Ozarks and then she has a car accident of her own. When she wakes up, her memory is super patchy and she's at the house of this super weird family, the Whittakers.
There's Seth, the gruff patriarch who knows more than what he's willing to reveal. There's Rachel, the godly and silently suffering wife with dark secrets. There's Franny, Rachel's much younger sister who's practically going crazy with the need to sow her wild oats (we won't talk about her relationship to scarecrows). There's Micah, Seth and Rachel's oldest son who comes and goes and is missing a hand. And then there's Girlie, the youngest child, who allegedly has some kind of "Gift."
Their house is super rustic. They house an outhouse with magazine toilet paper and grow and sow everything they eat and drink. It's claustrophobic and quaint... except for the scarecrows. Every year, they set up five scarecrows, and at the end of the season, they burn them. But this year, Franny's decided to hold hers back. And when the scarecrows don't burn, things go WRONG.
(I should totally write blurbs.)
I really liked this book a lot. It was weird and got kind of depressing, but as with BLOOD ROOTS, it had really solid atmosphere and kind of played out like one of those old 70s occult horror movies. I also really liked Pamela as a character. She was damaged and obviously super creeped out, and I think the author did a really good job showing how so much of the horror was in her own paranoia and fears of the unknown as she's literally trapped in the middle of the woods with the creepy family.
THE POE CLAN is a must-read for anyone who is into V.C. Andrews and the pulpy gothic aesthetic. The story is told in nonlinear format, starting, I thiTHE POE CLAN is a must-read for anyone who is into V.C. Andrews and the pulpy gothic aesthetic. The story is told in nonlinear format, starting, I think, in the 18th century and at one point dipping back to 17th or 16th century, before continuing all the way up to the mid-19th century. It is about a boy and a girl named Edgar and Marybelle who call themselves "the Poe clan" but they are also something others refer to as "vampirnella," basically energy vampires that absorb human essence through their fingers or their lips.
This manga originally came out in the 1970s and the vintage-style shoujo has such a beautiful look to it. It's also incredibly dark and dramatic, with a complex storyline that was actually hard to follow at times! But I loved the idea of a fog-wreathed vampire village lost to time, and I thought Hagio's take on the vampire mythos was really interesting and fun. I already placed a hold for book two at the library and I can't wait to read further into this series.
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