If you’re a regular reader here, you may have noticed that Wednesday is the only day of the week where we don’t write about the book(s) we’re reading. (Yeah, it’s plural! Get ready for some surprises, everybody!) So Ariel and I kind of imagined Wednesday as a “bonus post” day, where we’d have a bunch of fun additional features we’d cycle through to change up the pace, like Ariel’s Fifty Shades of Grey drinking game. We have a ton of great ideas we’ve wanted to do for a while now, but, unfortunately, we’re pretty busy people, so instead of the one we wanted to do this week (Yet another surprise you get to look forward to! We’re such surprising people!), here’s a new, less time-consuming feature I’ve wanted to do for maybe two or three days!
So here’s the first installment of “On My Sister’s Young Adult Reading List”, which basically consists of me going into my younger sister’s room and picking up whatever library book on her floor looks the stupidest, opening it to a random page, and seeing how long it takes me to figure out what’s going on – or give up. Of course, there’s no guarantee that these books are actually bad. On the contrary, they could be quite good. But, at the same time, I’m just going off the young adult genre sticker on the spine and, again, judging it by how stupid the name is.
The book this time? Desires of the Dead by Kimberly Derting.
I decided to try to start at a chapter roughly in the middle of the book, so we’re on Chapter Fourteen, and here’s my introduction:
Violet dug through the refrigerator looking for something to eat as she tried to forget about what had happened at the FBI offices that afternoon.
Well, clearly I’ve already missed some important events! Such as:
- something so exciting, possibly dangerous, possibly mysterious, happening that the FBI got involved
- someone named Violet becoming hungry
Violet’s mom shows up, deciding to make Violet’s meal for her. Violet acts very surprised about this. Maybe this is part of the mysterious event the FBI got involved in? Also, Violet and her mom are kind of mean to each other, but mostly Violet, because she’s making fun of her mom’s cooking, which seems… not very nice?
Violet wasn’t creative, at least not in the way her mother was.
She had a different skill.
One that, apparently, the FBI had use for … or at least a consultant for the FBI.
Okay, so mom’s cooking abilities are not the FBI worthy event, but one of Violet’s abilities is? It’s explained that Violet hasn’t opened up to anybody in a long time, but thankfully for me, that’s exactly what’s about to happen!
“Why has it always been such a secret?” And when she wasn’t sure that her question made any sense, she explained, “You know … the thing … that I do with the bodies? Why have you and Dad always made it so secret?”
I feel like the book, which in theory we’re already 152 pages into, is being vague about something we should already know about just to spite me. Apparently Violet can do something weird with bodies. She is also apparently confused why this weird thing she can do with people’s corpses would be kept a secret from other people. I don’t even know what it is yet and this seems like a really silly question.
“Hmm.” Her mom nodded as if she understood completely. “I wondered when you would ask that.”
I don’t know what’s going on, but this seems like a strange response? Her mom goes on to explain, still vaguely, that her mysterious ability wasn’t meant to be a secret, but they were trying to protect her, that it would be her choice who and how she would tell, and, guys, basically I’m just pretending this is Superman until I figure out more.
Violet asks about her grandmother, who already had this ability, and learns that her grandmother told everybody about it.
“Of course, your grandmother never found a human body.”
Yep, I can see how the FBI got involved now. Maybe. I still have no idea where this is going. Maybe she talks to dead people? Reanimates them? Reading on to the end of the section, the FBI wants her helping “purposefully tracking down killers”, which seems more in line with the former, since I can’t really see how being able to create zombies would help track down murderers.
A bit into the next chapter, Violet goes to visit someone named Jay in the middle of the night, who is a boy in a young adult novel, so maybe I’ve stumbled upon young adult fiction romance? We can only hope so!
“Let me get some pants on. I’ll be right there.”
Woo!
But they talk about Violet’s dead stuff powers first, and now I know that:
- Violet found lots of dead animals, which was apparently fun for them as kids? They were some weird kids.
- Violet found lots of dead girls once? No more explanation is offered here, because then we immediately go into
- There was a shooting last year.
And on that note, they quickly mention his mother and BAM! The mood is set and they start making out!
But apparently they’ve kissed before so this isn’t super exciting. And they stop making out pretty quickly because Violet has a lot to think about, which, based on what I’ve gathered, pretty much mostly concerns corpses, so I can understand why she isn’t really feeling the sexy times.
And then the next chapter opens with a conversation between Violet and her friend Chelsea about poop and their periods, so I think I’m done trying to figure out what’s happening.