Welcome to Day Two of J.L. Bryan’s Haunted E-Book tour stop at Darkeva’s! Jeff is currently crashing on the couch with some beer and pretzels, so while he’s distracted, I’m going to post my review of “The Haunted E-Book.” Once again, for those of you just joining us today, tune in tomorrow to read my interview with Jeff. Note: to enter the giveaway on this blog, which consists of a paperback and two e-books, please refer to my Day One post from yesterday.

The Haunted E-Book
By J.L. Bryan
Publisher: J.L. Bryan Books
Pages: 120 (Kindle Edition)
Price: $2.99 (Kindle Edition)
Format: E-book
Release Date: December 31, 2010
Genre: Horror
Review copy received from author.

Plot Synopsis: Dee escapes her dreary librarian job and unfaithful boyfriend by reading romance and fantasy on her Kindle. She tries The Haunted E-book, the story of a 19th century tramp printer whose ghost awakens whenever someone reads a book he created. The ghost stalks his readers and threatens them with death if they stop reading the book. Though she doesn’t usually like ghost stories, Dee can’t stop herself from reading it. Then Dee learns the stories in the books are true, the malevolent ghost is real, and Dee might be the next character to die.

Favourite line: “I’m sick of romance. It’s all bullcrap.” — Dee

Best Line: “Upon her flesh, I write my verse. My prayer, my poem, and my curse.”

Funniest Line: “Nobody reads self-published authors anyway.”

The Review:

Never before have the words “Read any good books lately?” chilled me. Once you’ve reached the end of this text, you’ll be even more creeped out than you were before. You’ll always have a sense of foreboding after you start reading e-books on your e-readers, as well. Even if you use a device other than the Kindle, which I do.

Our story starts with two librarians, Cloris and Dee, who are dishing about their jobs, and sure enough, Dee is reading a seventeenth century story called “The Pirates of Paris” on her Kindle, much to the bewilderment of Cloris. The plot unfolds simply enough and we learn more about Dee, where she came from, her boyfriend Justin, and more intimate things, like her fears. But we get to engage with her on a meta level, as she’s reading another book and we’re aware she’s reading something else at the same time that we’re reading her story.

We then meet several other characters who will become instrumental as the book goes on, including Parker who, in Chapter Four, realizes that what’s in the e-book on a screen is describing her entire day. She then meets a mysterious demonic entity who corners in a closed bookshop and tries to kill her with, among other things, books.

Although I do have to say that it struck me as unfortunate when as soon as things got violent, Dee threw the kindle on the floor and, exasperated, said “This is why I don’t read those kinds of books.” Personally, I live for “those kinds of books,” Missy, and you’re in one so get used to it!

Unwilling to read any further, Dee goes back to the “Pirates of Paris” only to find that the demonic man who got to Parker has bled into the other novel. Soon, Dee is forced to travel further into the world of The Haunted E-Book, which actually gets on the radio. We meet another character, Madison, who is also in the same danger as Parker.

At first, I thought that the e-book revised or rewrote itself each time someone new picked it up, but after I found out the real, sinister purpose of the text, and what it does to readers, and what the demonic entity actually is, well, I couldn’t stop reading

Turns out the demonic entity/ghost used to be a tramp printer named Jonah, who, even when he was human had his share of issues. Let’s just say he really could have benefitted from People Skills 101. Oh, and Dating 101. And although he’s completely off his rocker, his fears and vulnerabilities start to shine through after a while. And they’re…twisted, but understandable. What writer doesn’t fear that his or her words will be forgotten in 100 years? Or, not even 100. How about just 10? In a way, I think Jonah is criticizing the current society of readers who start books and abandon them halfway — or even before that.

But the sympathy ends when you get to the roots of why he is the way that he is. Jonah’s taunts are vicious. He gets extremely personal, but that ends up working in his favour, because it makes him stand out more. Make no mistake — he’s definitely not your run of the mill, egomaniacal supervillain who just wants to rule the world, or control all readers. He’s also not the standard “I’m a bad guy just because I feel like being evil and I’m greedy for power” type that still exists in so much of fantasy and horror.

The book itself manifests as this murderous ghost, Jonah, and kills people when they lose interest in the text.
From Jonah’s perspective, all he’s trying to do is preserve a book that people have forgotten. And once the intricate framing story overlaps with the other narrative threads in the book, we’re lead to the final showdown. Dee and the other characters that Jonah has targeted are all aware of one another, although they’re not initially onto the fact that the other character knows about them, too. In a way, this had Foucault-like elements, reminiscent of his take on Jeremy Bentham’s Panopticon, a building with a tower at the centre from which you can see each cell where prisoner is. Basically, you know you’re being watched but not when, and this impacts your behaviour.

Things take a turn for the much creepier and worse when Jonah starts to affect people who haven’t even touched the book, much less read it, like Dee’s boyfriend, Justin. Our ghostly killer can control what happens in real life, because he’s telling the story. And he “writes” it as he goes along.

The second last section of the book deals with Jonah’s past, and reveals that in addition to being an American tramp printer in the 1870s, he was also a writer and he made the woman he supposedly loved into a book, by putting her through the printing press, and using her skin as parchment and her blood as ink. Like I said, Dating 101. Would have helped. Yeah.

Jonah controls all the scenes and everything that happens, even what occurs to the main character, Dee.
Most astonishing of all, trying to ask archangels to banish Jonah to Hell won’t work, which makes sense, because that would have been too easy, and although he seems like a demonic entity, he’s more of a ghost with powers of physical manifestation, but a ghost nevertheless. So the rules of Hell and spirits don’t apply to him.

And to add to the framing narrative structure, we discover another book within a book within a book, The Book of Annabelle (remember the woman he made into a book using her flesh and blood? That’s the one), which Jonah wrote. The text features some poetic language, but mostly by this point you’ll be more riveted by how Jonah actually came to life, which, although it has similarities to a certain Buffy episode, is much more clever and insidious. Trust me

The pacing does lag a bit when we go into Jonah’s story, but it really picks up in a strong way near the final scenes where Dee really shines in the most compelling way. When the story first begins, it feels as though she’s in the trap of things that are just happening to her, to which she does react (and in strong ways), but by the end, you’ll be cheering for her harder than you have at any point in the book.

By the time you reach the end, you will definitely feel the disquietude amped up, and although I did feel a bit cheated because I had certain expectations, the ending works because it makes sense. And that’s all I’ll say on that, because I don’t want to spoil the experience for you.

Overall, I give this book a five out of five, because it’s entertaining, it forces you to think outside of the immediate universe of the book, and it’s written very well.

Giveaway: As I mentioned earlier in the post, I’m going to reiterate that you please don’t enter the giveaway here, but rather on this post, from Day One.

Join me tomorrow for an intriguing chat with Jeff! Find out what kind of research he did in preparation for the book, why he wrote it, and what he hopes readers will take away from it!

Darkeva