*SPOILER ALERT* This is my friendly warning that I might ruin the story for you if you haven’t read it. Arachne Reads is a discussion, not a teaser 😉
This month on Arachne Reads, I’m posting about YA horror novels by women writers, and first up is The Rules by Nancy Holder and Debbie Viguié.
This book was reminiscent of the teen slasher movies I loved so much growing up in the 80’s and 90’s. Trends in YA horror in recent years have tended toward the supernatural, so it was refreshing (if that’s not too strange of a word for a horror story) to see a scary book that had nothing to do with monsters. Instead of creatures, this book relied heavily on good old fashioned suspense, a large cast where almost everyone might have a motive, and breakneck pacing.
The suspense factor was truly great, and I liked how Holder and Viguié used a rotating point of view to achieve it. Each chapter was presented from a different character’s point of view, starting with one that was natural to assume was the bad guy. He was sociopathic, rich, and pissed—a pretty dangerous combination. And for the first third to half of the novel, as the authors rolled out the rest of the cast, he really did seem like the most likely killer. But as we slowly get to know more characters, there’s a slight problem that emerges: almost none of the characters are very likeable. At first I figured this was to build some sympathy for the despicable person I assumed was the killer—maybe if I saw what a rotten bunch they were, I’d root for him to get rid of them, too—but around the third/half way turning points of the novel, something else began to shift. Doubt was cast in the reader regarding the previously assumed killer just as the large cast was zeroing in on him. At that point, I realized it could be almost anyone’s game. A bunch of the characters were acting suspicious, and frankly, the supposed bad guy was acting like a wimp. I just didn’t know who it was anymore. And the story moved so fast, it wasn’t like I could just read closer to figure it out.
This brings me to pacing. The three things I liked best about this book were all intertwined and related, and the suspense and choice of view point characters really worked together to move this plot along. Usually too many viewpoints in a novel is a huge red flag, but this is a case of the authors knowing the rules so that they could break them. And here, a zillion viewpoints was exactly the right choice. Each chapter gave just enough action to move the plot forward, just enough motivation to make you suspect someone else, and then ended with discord or a cliffhanger of some sort. Just when you thought you were starting to understand someone, the scene was flipped to a different character. This, too, reminded me of the teenage horror movies, where the camera cuts just when it starts getting good or just before victim of the minute sees the murderer’s face. It keeps the audience right on the edge of their seat.
All in all, I loved this look at pacing done really well. As a writer, I do tend to be very character oriented, and I really love my deep point of view. That probably won’t change, and The Rules definitely wasn’t an example of my go-to style, but that’s okay because deep POV doesn’t fit the type of story this was. This book was a reminder and a lesson for me to try things out of the box. Two (or more) POV’s are called for in some books, and you will never know the exact right number if you don’t test the waters. It was also a reminder to keep pushing my action scenes forward by trimming out excessive internal dialogue with weighs things down and reveals too much if you are trying to keep secrets under wraps for a big reveal. These are all problems I’ve had at times, and this was a great example of how to handle those narratives.
Did you read The Rules?  What did you think of the pacing? Any other thoughts on what you liked about it?
What YA horror novels by women writers would you recommend and why did you like it?
