Something Strange and Deadly

HarperTeen

Something Strange and Deadly
Susan Dennard
2012

The Summary
"After her father dies and her brother mysteriously goes missing, Eleanor Fitt is left to deal with her family's declining financial state.  And with her controlling mother trying to marry her off, sixteen-year-old Eleanor doesn't think life could get more complicated.

"But then the Dead start walking.

"Desperate to solve the mystery of her brother's disappearance, Eleanor ventures into the private lab of the elusive Spirit-Hunters, who protect the city from supernatural forces.  Always a social misfit, Eleanor finally feels at home among the intelligent Joseph, feisty Jie, and extremely stubborn yet gorgeous Daniel.  But the more time she spends with them, the more dangerous her life becomes."

The Good
Admittedly, I really liked reading Something Strange and Deadly.  It's something of a guilty pleasure:  magic, zombies, romance--it's something dark and sinister and, oddly enough, fun.  While I can't say it's perfect, I enjoyed Susan Dennard's novel.  It has a strangely intriguing concept, a decent set of characters, and a narrator who isn't half bad.

It's not a complex novel by any means; rather, it sometimes sets out to deflect the readers attention by throwing road blocks in the way.  But it has a simplicity that makes it easy to read and, more to the point, makes it a quick novel.  I finished it in a couple of days and found myself oddly satisfied, even if the story ended with a bit of a cliff-hanger--and a number of unanswered questions.

Overall, I liked it.

The Bad
"Shut pan"?

Let me be honest, I hated that phrase.  It was used far too often, and it was just such a ridiculous phrase, so silly that I found it hard to believe it was an accurate phrase plucked from history.  I tried researching it, trying to find out what exactly it meant and where it originated, but I only found references of it in Old West slang, caught between words like "shave tail" or "gringo" or "horse feathers."

I mean, really?  I could maybe understand Jie, who seems to have some experience with the American west, but Eleanor?  As a proper young lady of the American semi-aristocracy, where would she have even learned it?

And, following the same vein of incredulity, I can't help but wonder why Eleanor seems like such a strange combination of prim, proper society miss and raging feminist.  I feel like she needs to be one or the other:  either she needs to embrace her feminist tendencies and completely balk against social expectations, including her mother's designs for an advantageous marriage, or she should better reflect the conventions of the day.

She shouldn't pretend to be a wilting violet one moment, fanning herself for a young man breaching social etiquette by taking her aside or taking her hand, and then turn around and sneak out of her house with another boy.  I need a little more balance, please.

Not that Eleanor does a very good job of reflecting the social conventions of 19th century Philadelphia.  But that's probably my biggest complaint with Dennard's novel:  inaccurate history.  Granted, I realize it reflects an entirely different age in which necromancy and zombies exist; however, I just couldn't stand that so many historical details were just plain wrong.  It annoyed me more than it probably should have.

In my opinion, if an author is going to write a fantasy novel set in the late 1800s in Philadelphia, either stick to said alternative timeline--where everything is different, including society and its expectations--or stay true to history.  Don't pick and choose.

And Eleanor Fitt's fascination with Shakespeare annoyed me.  Don't ask me why, but it did.

The Ugly
Zombies.

Ugly, horrible, flesh-eating zombies.