The Burning Air / Erin Kelly / 321pgs / Thriller / Horror

  I was drawn to this book by a review I had found on a blog. The author was talking about books that stayed with him long after it had been finished. This guy was right. Burning Air creeped me out so much that I can't remember it without a shudder.

  The MacBride family is a well-positioned part of Saxby University. They are respected within the community and people look to them for leadership. Then there is Darcy, a small awkward boy who has been tutored by his mother in the hopes of making it into the University on scholarship. Their future depends upon him. Then the unthinkable happens: Darcy isn't given the scholarship and his life is changed forever.
  The book is divided into several narrators. We have Lydia, Sophie, Darcy, Rowan who bring a different view point to the events. What happens to one character is viewed differently by others and interpreted yet again by someone else. This brings the horror of what Darcy does and plans to do to a new level of uncomfortableness. Darcy dedicates his life to bringing the MacBride family to his brand of justice and he goes about it with compelling malevolence.
  There were several times I wanted to stop reading. I was completely unnerved by what Darcy did with his life. He was totally unemotional and amoral about everything. All his energy was directed toward the completion of his goal. A totally unsympathetic character. Anyone who wants a read that needs all the lights on for several days this is it.

6 Degrees of Reading: The House at Midnight by Lucie Whitehouse, The Good Girl by Mary Kubica, The Silent Wife by A.S. Harrison.

Golden Day, The / Ursula Dubosarsky / 149 pages

  Eleven young girls are students at a private school in Australia. They come from all walks of life but always move as a group during the school days. Their teacher Miss Renshaw walks to the beat of a different drum. She exposes the children to art, music and poetry all the while keeping the reality of the Vietnam War at bay. Miss Renshaw takes the children to the local park to commune with nature and begin writing poetry. On one of their outings they meet the garden's caretaker, Morgan who catches the teacher's eye. One day a field trip is proposed to see some cave paintings down by the sea. The girls are unnerved by the walk and the cave itself.
   Miss Renshaw keeps acting strangely and Morgan keeps urging everyone on. When the girls are inside the paintings are invisible and the darkness is impenetrable. The girls panic and leave, waiting outside the cave entrance for Miss Renshaw to appear. But she doesn't. When the students return to school she still isn't there. They remember what Miss Renshaw had written on the board Not Now Not Ever. So they don't say anything and soon a new teacher is assigned to their classroom. What follows is how the girls cope with the disappearance and its implications.
   The book feels like it is written from a distance. The characters and events feel far away and impersonal. The girls don't individualize clearly in this reader's mind. Though in the starred review this was considered a "stunning feat of perspective." The ending is a stumper for me. I am unsure what to make of it and would love a conversation with someone to bounce ideas around. I did enjoy the author's style of writing and the way she evokes surroundings without a ton of words. Haunting book.

Six Degrees of Reading: Picture Me Gone by Meg Rosoff, Far, Far Away by Tom McNeal, The Thing About Luck by Cynthia Kadohata.