Scratches - Unearth Decay and Evil
Joshua Marsella so awesomely shipped me personalized and signed copies of both Scratches and Severed. Naturally, I started with Scratches. I fell in love with the cover, and by the end of it I was inspecting every detail and shadow carefully with newfound knowledge of what every part meant.
This dark and quick novella reads easily with a youthful feel. It is clear that Joshua Marsella remembers childhood and possesses the ability to look through those eyes at the world and then transcribe that sense on paper. The chapter lengths and wonderful spacing between lines made me nostalgic for Goosebumps books again. However, those gentle, rated Young Adult comforts do not permeate the actual content of this story. It is wicked, evil, and disturbing in many real ways.
This book contains very adult situations and issues mixed with the supernatural. I was repelled and absorbed with Connor and his mother's life and the family matters that were better left buried.
Personal story time! There was one part that really got to me and set my nerves on edge. Marsella wrote, "There were footprints in the soft ground appearing to walk away from the gravesite in the direction of the house." When I was a kid, my Grandma and I went to visit my Grandpa's gravesite in the middle of farmland. His grave sat at the back with only a large group of trees behind it. It was winter. When we arrived, we noticed there were footprints leading from the front of his gravestone into the woods with none returning. There were no footprints from the gateway of the cemetery to his grave -- just at them, and leading away. That was really scary for me and this book brought that memory back with a vengeance, although my Grandpa was actually a good man.
While dealing with some sordid topics, Marsella forces the characters and the reader to unearth dreadful realities that are hard to look at, but should not be ignored. He provides an entertaining and frightening read that will leave you feeling like you just slept in a filthy basement while something insidious watched.
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