All the Lovely Bad Ones

Hahn, Mary Downing. All the Lovely Bad Ones. New York: Clarion Books. 2008.

Annotation: Young pranksters Travis and his little sister Corey provoke long dead spirits who torment them and begin performing mischievous pranks in an attempt to have the two children assist in returning their souls to the place where they belong.

Justification for Rejection: Though this book was entertaining, I don't believe that Hahn has created anything that is outstanding in the way of young adult horror. She does not seem to embed her story with any of the core developmental themes that pervade a good work of horror or superstition for a young adult. At times eerie and atmospheric, there were occasions when I felt that the setting wasn't really conducive to a really scary story. Eventually, by the end of the story, however, the tension is racheted up a notch and things get a little creepier. Much like other young adult horror novels, the young protagonist and is sister are solely responsible for restoring the souls of the “lovely bad ones” and the other “shadow children” who died at a very young age to the place they rightfully belong, no longer haunting the inn that their grandmother owns.

Though the pacing of the story became somewhat fast, it seemed to take a while before any truly frightening action took place. The plot, surrounding a group of young children who had been placed on a “poor farm” and mistreated cruelly and ultimately killed by the mistress who runs the place, is true to the formula of some horror novels in that it stems from some past horrific incident. The inn is now haunted by the young children and the mistress who later went on to hang herself. The two young protagonists didn't seem to be alienated or rejected in any way, other than the fact that their grandmother didn't believe their story of ghostly spirits doing mischief on the property. They simply seemed to be pranksters, playing practical jokes that were unprovoked.

The thing that was most disturbing to me about the book was the fact that it was told in first person, from young Travis' point of view. Hahn's decision to use the first person left me feeling a sense of inauthenticity about the story. It seemed as if the way that the story was told would have come from someone much older and with a much more expanded vocabulary. The voice just didn't seem realistic from Travis' point of view. I believe that having placed the story in third person, Hahn would have created a more believable story.

I did not witness any transformation among the two protagonists towards the end of the book, indicating that they had been on a journey and that they had been curious to answer the question “what will happen to me when I die?” So, although an entertaining read for younger adults, I would not recommend this book as a finalist for the award.

Genres: Horror, Supernatural, Ghost Story