Gravebooks (J. A. White)

Gravebooks
The Nightbooks series, Book 2
J. A. White
Clarion Books
Fiction, MG Fantasy/Horror
****+ (Good/Great)

DESCRIPTION: It has been some time since Alex, Yasmine, and the magical cat Lenore escaped from the clutches of Natacha, the wicked witch in apartment 4E. Back then, Alex loved writing scary stories in his "nightbooks" - a habit that ledto his capture, as Natacha demanded new stories from him every night. But these days Alex can barely jot down a sentence, let alone a story. It's not just the trauma, though of course there's plenty of that. It's also not just that Yasmin no longer is around; he understands that he is a reminder of that terrible time in Natacha's clutches, which she endured far longer than he did, so of course they don't hang out anymore. It's that nobody seems to care about what he writes - not his teachers, not his peers, not even his own family. His stories just don't seem to matter to anyone but him... and now, they don't even seem to matter much to him. Besides, whenever he reads his favorite authors like Ray Bradbury or Stephen King, he realizes that there's no way a boy like him can ever hope to master words like they can, so why try? Maybe he'd be better off leaving his nightbooks and his dreams of writing behind.
But the dreams, it turns out, won't leave him behind that easily...
One night, he dreams that he stands in a graveyard - a vast landscape under a night sky, each marker a story idea he never pursued, never finished, left to languish and die in his nightbooks. And here, too, he finds Natacha - the witch he and Yasmin thought dead. This is no mere phantom of his sleeping brain, either. It's really her, or a ghost of her, and she can do him real harm. Once more, Natacha demands he write new stories, better than he's ever written before, one for each gravestone under the unreal moon. If he fails, she won't let him wake up. But he can't write, not anymore, not like he used to.
Soon, he realizes the threat he's facing in this nightmare is worse than anything he confronted in 4E, worse even than the witch Natacha alone... and, if his words fail him, it's not just Alex who will suffer. It's Yasmin, Lenore, and everyone he loves.

REVIEW: I read and greatly enjoyed the original Nightbooks, but never thought it needed a sequel. That said, the little of J. A. White I have read led me to trust him: if he had written a sequel, there must be sequel material worth writing. (And, yes, the audiobook also slotted into empty space in a work day again. I'm nothing if not predictable in my desire not to be bored at work.) Was my faith in White misplaced? No, it was not. Gravebooks is a worthy successor to Nightbooks, expanding on the themes of writing and storytelling while escalating the threat and the obstacles Alex and Yasmin face.
In the previous book, Alex was torn between his passion for dark stories and his worries that they revealed some darker rot inside him, that by writing bad things it meant he was in some way a bad person; maybe that was why a witch like Natacha wanted him. But one thing his time trapped with her proved was that his stories had power, and they were worth telling... or so he thought then. His enthusiasm and eagerness to show his stories to the world (after so long being ashamed of them) unfortunately ran head-first into two problems that have nothing of the supernatural about them: the rest of the world, and maturity. Outside of Yasmin and the witch herself, it seems that nobody is that interested in reading his tales or engaging with him about writing at all. Mom and Dad can't even be bothered to read anything, even though Alex notes that they make all the time in the world for his brother's sports events. He also is not the child he used to be; he's growing up, and as he's growing up, he's learning to see his writing with a more critical eye. In addition to making the classic rookie mistake (if an unavoidable one) of comparing his nightbooks to the published works of seasoned genre masters, he's realizing that coming up with an idea and even finishing a draft are far, far removed from crafting a story worth telling, one that speaks to friends and strangers alike, one that will put images and emotions and ideas in other people's heads that match the ones in his head when he wrote the tale. Like an artist who realizes that, in order to progress, they'll have to learn more about fundamentals like proportion and perspective and shading to properly pin down the images in their mind, Alex is just now realizing how daunting the task of developing writing skills truly is, and comes to doubt whether his ideas, which now seem weak and childish by comparison to the great works he reads, are worth all that effort, even if he were capable of it (which he's certain he isn't). Never mind that, logically, all but a very few rare prodigal creators have had to tackle those same learning curves to produce the finished, polished products one finds in a bookstore; emotionally, especially to a young and inexperienced writer previously fueled by the thrill inspiration alone, it all looks like too much, taking far too long, and their own stories suddenly seem too worthless to invest that much in. The patience, the willingness to persevere even when it seems one isn't going anywhere, the ability to stay focused on such a long-term and ephemeral goal when it can feel more like a chore or slog than fun, that takes time to develop, and for a kid especially that sort of patience is not always easy to come by, particularly when one lacks external support and guidance from family or peers or other sources. Alex is right at that age where many choose to give up on creating because it just seems like too much work to get where one wants to go anymore, feeling more frustration than excitement. He's about to call it quits altogether when the nightmares come and Natacha returns. Here, among the metaphor-made-literal of the graveyard of his abandoned stories, he undergoes a crash course under the worst possible circumstances, forcing him to learn how to buckle down, dial in, and find the story inside those unfinished ideas - ideas themselves being little but a spark, a starting point, plentiful and ultimately worthless as a grain of sand without an actual story to tell, the pearl around the sand... and, like the oyster discovers while forming the pearl, irritation is often an unavoidable part of the process. Under literal threat of life or death, Alex must figure out how to avoid hackneyed and obvious plots, how to find his own twist on familiar themes, how to keep readers interested without confusing them, and what makes for a satisfying reading experience. Most of all, he learns the invaluable lesson that, without perseverance and the self-discipline to push through the frustrating parts, writing is never finished, and a writer never learns.
There is, of course, much more to Gravebooks than a writing lesson packaged in a horror tale; there's the horror tale itself. Alex's situation has echoes of his time trapped in Natacha's enchanted apartment, but he is not the same kid he was then, and this is far from the same threat. Natacha herself is just one aspect of something far more insidious, something that fascinates even as it terrifies. It goes without saying that Yasmin finds herself pulled into danger as well, for all that she has tried to distance herself from Alex (and from the cat Lenore) for her own sanity; after her escape, she was plagued with PTSD, and tries to avoid any potential triggers now that she's slowly rebuilding her life outside apartment 4E's walls. Still, she and Alex share a bond that's not easily broken, and when he's in trouble, she wrestles with herself over whether she can survive reaching out to help. It's not much of a spoiler that the matter is taken out of her hands at some point, but there are several times where she must make a choice about how far she's willing to go, how much she's willing to risk. Alex, meanwhile, struggles over whether to accept her help; part of him is still hurt to have been set aside so cleanly, for all that logically he sympathizes and understands why she walked away, and that same part of him wonders whether she'll be willing or able to get past her own pain and fear to help save him from the nightmares and the dangers they represent, if she can be counted on. As Alex endures his nightly torments, she has her own quest, her own demons to face down, her own part to play.
Triumphs give way to setbacks, steps forward become steps back, numerous stories flow from Alex's reluctant pen, and it all builds up to a nicely satisfying conclusion, one that - again - has threads that could be taken up in future stories, but are just fine left how they are here. If J. A. White decides Alex and Yasmin (and Lenore) have another story to tell, I, for one, will eagerly listen... though I do admit to feeling a bit called on the carpet over letting my own creative urges gather too much dust in the graveyard of my mind (even a few decades of lived experience apparently isn't enough to shake all of those insecurities and self-doubts to let oneself pursue acts of creation, unfortunately, though adulthood has its own ways of squashing ambitions and enthusiasm...).

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