Review: Suburban Hell by Maureen Kilmer

Dig that groovy cover, y'all!
(But please ignore my thumb.)

Suburban Hell by Maureen Kilmer 

My rating: 4 of 5 stars*
*3.5 stars rounded up to 4.

About the book:

A Chicago cul-de-sac is about to get a new neighbor...of the demonic kind.

Amy Foster considers herself lucky. After she left the city and moved to the suburbs, she found her place quickly with neighbors Liz, Jess, and Melissa, snarking together from the outskirts of the PTA crowd. One night during their monthly wine get-together, the crew concoct a plan for a clubhouse She Shed in Liz’s backyard—a space for just them, no spouses or kids allowed.

But the night after they christen the She Shed, things start to feel . . . off. They didn’t expect Liz’s little home-improvement project to release a demonic force that turns their quiet enclave into something out of a nightmare. And that’s before the homeowners’ association gets wind of it.

Even the calmest moms can’t justify the strange burn marks, self-moving dolls, and horrible smells surrounding their possessed friend, Liz. Together, Amy, Jess, and Melissa must fight the evil spirit to save Liz and the neighborhood . . . before the suburbs go completely to hell.

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Blog, the First

Some...

...girls are bigger than others?

...day, someway, maybe I'll understand you?

...people dance cheek to cheek?

...like it hot, and some sweat when the heat is on?

...times the truth is harder than the pain inside?

Dark...

I first became aware of mortality, generally, and of my own in particular, when I was about five. I was in kindergarten at a Catholic school and, as my classmates speculated about that spring's Easter Bunny haul, I was haunted by the "Davey and Goliath" Easter special, in which Davey's grandmother dies, which I seem to recall thinking was pretty messed up. (GAH, just watching this clip tied my stomach in knots.)

Anyway, my mind's traveled a gloomy trajectory ever since, though I prefer my doom with a liberal dose of L.O.L. (I adore "Shaun of the Dead"). Also, I prefer supernatural monsters to psycho-killers (though the Talking Heads tune is groovalicious), 'cause they're, like, totally not real. Probably. Anyway, as time goes by and the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune perforate my poor, tortured psyche, I find I gravitate even more closely toward that which is...well, dark.

Romantic...

I gravitated toward books at an early age too - possibly, my first literary obsession was the Nancy Drew series. Sure, I enjoyed a good, neatly resolved mystery, and how could I fail to love that it was the chicks who figured everything out??? But, being completely honest, the thing that absolutely drove me to read more, more, MORE was the hope that something...special would happen between Nancy and her boyfriend Ned. I wanted their love to blossom. At the tender age of 9 or 10, my sweet, school-uniformed, unquestioning-obedience-to-authority, butter-wouldn't-melt-in-my-mouth self wanted Nancy and Ned to...put on some Marvin Gaye. (I had no idea what this meant back then, and yet somehow, I kinda did.) And beneath what I sensed was a physical event I believed should lie a grand, passionate, everlasting love...and since Nancy had it all, I wanted it for myself, with one whose heart could match the nobility of my own.

So, as dark and somewhat twisted as I am, the romantic in me allows hope to dance her dangerous way through my heart...which brings me here to pollute the world with my nonsense, 'cause, you know, all the other kids are doing it.