Thursday, May 19, 2011

Holiday at Hell House by Christle Gray

I won this novella from the author on her site. I picked this particular book because it's her first YA book and it sounded interesting.
Hell House is a group home for otherworldly teenagers in a time when society knows that these beings exist. (Hell House is a nickname for the house but I can't remember the actual name of the house.) The main character is the head of house and has decided to give the kids a real Christmas. It's a disaster. There are new kids showing up. The power goes out. The stove's not working so the turkey doesn't get cooked. The tree goes up in flames.
What happens is touching and funny all at the same time.
My only complaint with this particular book is that the story took up less than half the book - the remainder was filled with a very long excerpt of one of the author's adult books. I didn't read the excerpt because I don't like excerpts (I never get my hands on the whole book or I forget that all I read was an excerpt and don't read the book because something is familiar about it.)
There is a sequel to this story and I think I would rather have had the two stories together and not had the excerpt. As I said I didn't pay for the story so I'm not disappointed but I would be concerned about purchasing the second "book" of the series.

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