Mary: The Summoning by Hillary Monahan
Rating: 3 out of 5 Magical Coffee Cups
From Goodreads.com
There is a right way and a wrong way to summon her.
Jess had done the research. Success requires precision: a dark room, a mirror, a candle, salt, and four teenage girls. Each of them–Jess, Shauna, Kitty, and Anna–must link hands, follow the rules . . . and never let go.
A thrilling fear spins around the room the first time Jess calls her name: “Bloody Mary. Bloody Mary. BLOODY MARY.” A ripple of terror follows when a shadowy silhouette emerges through the fog, a specter trapped behind the mirror.
Once is not enough, though–at least not for Jess. Mary is called again. And again. But when their summoning circle is broken, Bloody Mary slips through the glass with a taste for revenge on her lips. As the girls struggle to escape Mary’s wrath, loyalties are questioned, friendships are torn apart, and lives are forever altered.
A haunting trail of clues leads Shauna on a desperate search to uncover the legacy of Mary Worth. What she finds will change everything, but will it be enough to stop Mary–and Jess–before it’s too late?
Ok, so Mary was more gross then just plain scary, well, she was pretty scary but really gross. Mild Spoiler ahead, I think.
This was very interesting. Often horror stories with ghosts have the main characters as the only ones who can see/ hear the ghosts. This always makes them seem like they are going crazy or they themselves feel like they are going crazy because no one believes them. You know the old “you’re just seeing/hearing things” or “it’s just the wind/a shadow/ your eyes playing tricks” because not one other person has heard or seen what they just saw/heard. In this story Mary is messing with all sorts of people.
Mild spoiler :
When at the high school, Mary was causing the locks on the lockers to slam and cause loud noises that were heard by others in the school and she also appeared in the reflection of a window and was seen by more than just the girls who had summoned her.
It was odd that Mary seemed to make herself known by many. It also made me wonder why more people wouldn’t know about her then, you know like ghost hunters TV show should have been all over this.
Regardless, I was still intrigued by Mary and her antics. She was all about getting what she wants. I was creeped out by much of what I read and I feel like the only thing that was unbelievable in all of this was that the girls seemed too calm for what was going on around them. I mean they were freaked out, but it just didn’t seem like they were freaked out as much as others would have been. Maybe I’m just a wimp and expected the same from them.
Is it wrong for me to have been impressed and also a fan of the research that Jess did in trying to find out about Mary’s history? It made me want to go and research some random urban legend. Would you find yourself in this situation? Would you have a desire to research the letter you found?
Literary Coffee 