The Cellar

April 1, 2011

A zombie teenage romance loosely associated with Romeo and Juliet, written under a pseudonym by a romance-writer and her teenage daughter. (Their previous attempt, 2009's The Well, had Hamlet connections.) The tall, gorgeous stranger who moves in next door manages to bring 16-year-old Heather out of a depression following her father's death in a car accident she caused. Though all the girls are swooning over mysterious Adrien St. Germaine, he zeroes in on Heather, volunteering to play Romeo opposite her in the school's production. Only Heather's 17-year-old sister Meredith is suspicious of him and his decrepit "mother" Marie. Are her visions of worms and beetles behind Adrien's ever-present sunglasses and glimpses of coffins and corpses in the St. Germaine cellar real, or are they just symptoms of her deteriorating eyesight and grief over her father? Is she also imagining that Sam, Heather's old boyfriend, likes her the way she likes him? The horror tale is told in alternating voices: Meredith's teenage commentary and ruminations and a third-person narration filtering the thoughts of Heather (as she falls under Adrien's spell) and Adrien (as his determination to possess Heather forever triggers a zombie war, starting in his creepy cellar and culminating on the set of Romeo and Juliet). The disgusting living dead meet suburban high-school students in this B-movie of a book. (Paranormal romance. 12 & up)

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July 1, 2011

Gr 7 Up-Heather and Meredith are traumatized when their father dies in a car accident, and Heather feels responsible as the accident was her fault. While they are struggling to heal and carry on in the aftermath, their emotionally absent mother, a real-estate agent, rents the house next door to a mother and son who happen to be zombies. Meredith senses something off about their new neighbors immediately and starts having disturbing dreams. The son, Adrien, takes a liking to Heather (or, rather, senses that he can exploit her pain). When they are cast as Romeo and Juliet in the school play, Adrien and Heather start to become very close. Meredith is nonplussed by this, and rightfully so. Things go south from there. The characters are one-dimensional, the dialogue is forced, and the situations are cliched.-Kristina Weber, Bernotas Middle School, Crystal Lake, IL

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