DEVIL IN OHIO by Daria Polatin... because summer reading is spent getting ready for Halloween/October titles!
Fifteen-year-old
middle child Jules is having a tough time. She feels invisible at home
and at school. Now, to make matters worse, her psychiatrist mom has
brought home a patient, also a fifteen-year-old girl. Mae is quiet,
mysterious, and pretty. Mom puts Mae in Jules’ room, buys Mae new
clothes, even makes Jules show Mae around school. At the same time, Mom
forgets everything relating to Jules: to pick her up from school, to
leave mushrooms off the pizza, etc. So Jules’ already low self-esteem
plummets even further. On top of that, there’s something about Mae that
doesn’t seem right, especially that pentagram carved in her back! Yup,
that’s what I said. Girlfriend. Has. A. Pentagram. Carved. In. Her.
Back!
Turns out, Mae is from Tisdale, a small backwoods town rumored to be filled with Satan worshippers. It doesn’t help matters when Mae sometimes enters trancelike states and chants creepy stuff like “For you are become as a building such as is not, save in the mind of the All-Powerful manifestation of Satan!” Yeah, like I said, creepy. Are these repressed memories, or is she calling down dark forces from daddy dearest?!
With sections alternating between first and third person narration, Polatin skillfully kept me wondering if Mae was victim or villain. Sometimes it seemed Mae was intentionally trying to supplant Jules (I mean, she DID take the boy Jules had a crush on); other times, Mae seemed to deserve all the pities (I mean, she WAS dumped on the side of the road from a moving car).
On top of all that, Mommy Dearest has some secrets in her past that may or may not coincide with Mae’s. I raced through the book trying to determine if Jules’ perception that Mae was trying to squeeze her out of her own family was valid or wildly imagined. And now, with THAT ENDING, there will be hell to pay (see what I did there?) if there’s no sequel!
Turns out, Mae is from Tisdale, a small backwoods town rumored to be filled with Satan worshippers. It doesn’t help matters when Mae sometimes enters trancelike states and chants creepy stuff like “For you are become as a building such as is not, save in the mind of the All-Powerful manifestation of Satan!” Yeah, like I said, creepy. Are these repressed memories, or is she calling down dark forces from daddy dearest?!
With sections alternating between first and third person narration, Polatin skillfully kept me wondering if Mae was victim or villain. Sometimes it seemed Mae was intentionally trying to supplant Jules (I mean, she DID take the boy Jules had a crush on); other times, Mae seemed to deserve all the pities (I mean, she WAS dumped on the side of the road from a moving car).
On top of all that, Mommy Dearest has some secrets in her past that may or may not coincide with Mae’s. I raced through the book trying to determine if Jules’ perception that Mae was trying to squeeze her out of her own family was valid or wildly imagined. And now, with THAT ENDING, there will be hell to pay (see what I did there?) if there’s no sequel!
DEVIL IN OHIO is highly recommended for horror/thriller fans ages 14 and up and publishes November 7th from Feiwel & Friends, a Macmillian imprint.
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