Monday 23 January 2012

Graveminder by Melissa Marr

Pages (Hardcover): 336 pages
Publisher: William Morrow
Released: May 17, 2011

Description: Rebekkah Barrow never forgot the tender attention her grandmother, Maylene, bestowed upon the dead of Claysville, the town where Bek spent her adolescence. There wasn't a funeral that Maylene didn't attend, and at each Rebekkah watched as Maylene performed the same unusual ritual: three sips from a small silver flask followed by the words "Sleep well, and stay where I put you."

Now Maylene is dead and Bek must go back to the place--and the man--she left a decade ago. But what she soon discovers is that Maylene was murdered and that there was good reason for her odd traditions. It turns out that in placid Claysville, the worlds of the living and the dead are dangerously connected. Beneath the town lies a shadowy, lawless land ruled by the enigmatic Charles, aka Mr. D--a place from which the dead will return if their graves are not properly minded. Only the Graveminder, a Barrow woman, and the current Undertaker, Byron, can set things to right once the dead begin to walk.

Review: Angst, when it comes to teens, is normal. When it comes to adult novels, it's annoying. And when both of the main characters are filled with it for the majority of the book, I'm not a happy reader. Sadly, the other characters, minus Liz and Daisha, were flat and one dimensional. The plot had great ideas and I was excited to read this, but execution wasn't there.

Grade: 1 lines out of 10

1 comment:

  1. Dear 5 Line Reviews:

    Will you please consider reviewing my new novel DON’T FORGET ME, BRO, to be published later this year by Stephen F. Austin State University Press?

    DON’T FORGET ME, BRO deals with themes of childhood abuse, mental illness, and alienated families. (See synopsis below.)

    My award-winning debut novel THE NIGHT I FREED JOHN BROWN (Philomel Books, Penguin Group, 2009) won The Paterson Prize for Books for Young Readers (Grades 7-12) and was one of ten books recommended by USA TODAY. For more info: https://www.kirkusreviews.com/book-reviews/john-michael-cummings/the-night-i-freed-john-brown/

    In addition I've published a collection of short stories, UGLY TO START WITH (West Virginia University Press) Here’s a link to some information about my collection: http://www.amazon.com/Ugly-Start-With-Michael-Cummings/dp/193597808X

    My short stories have appeared in more than seventy-five literary journals, including The Iowa Review, North American Review, The Kenyon Review, Alaska Quarterly Review, and The Chattahoochee Review. Twice I have been nominated for The Pushcart Prize. My short story "The Scratchboard Project" received an honorable mention in The Best American Short Stories 2007.

    I look forward to hearing back from you.

    My email is johnmcummings@aol.com

    Thank you very much.

    Kindly,

    John Michael Cummings

    P.S. Could you kindly give me a reply back to let me know you received this email?

    Synopsis of DON’T FORGET ME, BRO

    DON’T FORGET ME, BRO deals with themes of childhood abuse, mental illness, and alienated families. The book opens with the main character, forty-two-year-old Mark Barr, who has returned home from New York to West Virginia after eleven years for his older brother Steve’s funeral. Steve, having died of a heart attack at forty-five, was mentally ill most of his adult life, though Mark has always questioned what was "mentally ill" and what was the result of their father’s verbal and physical abuse during their childhood.

    The book unfolds into an odyssey for Mark to discover love for his brother posthumously in a loveless family.

    DON’T FORGET ME, BRO is a portrait of an oldest brother’s supposed mental illness and unfulfilled life, as well as a redeeming tale of a youngest brother’s alienation from his family and his guilt for abandoning them.

    - end -

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