Hello Dolly! Now go away | Review of JC Martin's The Doll

There are more kindle singles about demonic dolls than I appreciate or have the ability to resist.

I’m not afraid of dolls the way I am of worms or the deep end of the pool. But I’m not too comfortable in their presence either. A minute alone in a room with a doll, and the walls start to shrink and their dead, unblinking eyes get bigger.

Why then, did I have to download a single about not one, but an entire island of dolls? Because you don’t stop sitting under trees or jumping into pools just because something scares you… even if you are the kind of person who doesn’t look into mirrors in the dark for fear of catching their reflection off guard.

The Doll by JC Martin has rave reviews on Amazon and at Rs 56 it is most definitely worth downloading even if it ends faster than you can say ‘Peek-a-Boo’. Single mom Joyce takes her daughter Taylor on vacation to Mexico where they visit The Island of Dolls which houses dolls in all shapes and sizes, whole and dismembered. Taylor takes to the place immediately, as would any child who hasn’t yet been traumatised by a certain Good Guy who shall not be named. Joyce on the other hand finds herself ill at ease conjuring images of said Good Guy.

As it turns out, the island is actually a shrine to a little girl who drowned in the lake. Evil lurks there and the dolls have everything to do with it. This evil follows Joyce and her daughter home where things start to get seriously creepy. And then Joyce makes a discovery that takes her back to The Island of Dolls... at dusk.

It isn’t a very long story. Nor is it very erudite, or grammatically sound for that matter. But it’s creepy as hell, especially when the writer links up to the sinister side of Palo Monte, a religion that developed in the Spanish colonies of South America. The bit about the Nganga, a cauldron of bones and ashes in which spirits are said to reside, is my favourite.

The language is like a runny yoke that could have been less casual, but as it’s narrated in first person, not to mention self-published, you may be able to let that slide.

Dolls have been done to death but this story has the X factor. I kept expecting demon doll to spring up at me from under the bed or in the bathroom the night I read this. However, the next morning, after giving it another read, I realized that it isn’t as scary I you initially thought. Somehow, as much as I appreciate short fiction, this is the sort of book that would have made more of an impact in a full-length novel.

JC Martin has a fine flair for storytelling even if her talent is a bit raw. If she puts this much thought and lore into all her scary stories, she's definitely going on my default reading list.

Download The Doll by JC Martin Amazon; Kindle Single 

RecommendedReads | Judging a book by its cover and bottling the taste of love

You know you aren't meant to judge a book by its cover. But you also know that the story contained within can get so much more interesting with the right kind of cover art. Here's a column that compares the UK and US versions of books nominated for the Morning News Tournament of Books... just for fun... and comes up with some interesting, albeit self-admittedly "inexpert" observations.

"Book cover design never seems to garner much discussion in the literary world, but, as readers, we are undoubtedly swayed by the little billboard that is the cover of every book we read. Even in the age of the Kindle, we are clicking through the images as we impulsively download this book or that one."

Read full story here

There's a lot going on with our reading lists at the moment, one of which is the excess of books to get through and the sparsity of time in which to do it. This of course doesn't stop us from adding more books to the pile. One of our more recent additions is Aimee Bender's The Particular Sadness of Lemon Cake which details the life of a girl who can taste moods through food. Love in a bottle anyone? Here's a take/column/review on how love might actually taste.
"The fact is, we know relatively little when it comes to those invisible, intangible energies that pass between humans. Beyond the chemical reactions triggered by pheromones that make us want to lunge into the (preferably naked) laps of virtual strangers, we can also “sense” other things, like when someone’s in a bad mood or even lying."
Read full story here

Hello Kindle Paperwhite

It's been three months since that bi*ch Jane Austen took over the screen of my Kindle Keyboard. She's still refusing to budge, thank you for asking!

I have since resigned myself to an e-book existence that isn't half as fun as e-carbon ink with no back light that can be held in one hand, stores over 3,000 books and doesn't die for a month if it can help it. Even the arrival of an iPad 2 hasn't cheered me up because while it's really fun reading glossy magazines and flipping through equally delicious reading apps, the pleasure of reading a book still lies in the yellowed paper of a real book or the paper-stimulated screen of a Kindle.

I have since (out of desperation) realised that a book is a book no matter what. The technology you use for reading, be it print, online, mobile or tablet, is just a medium to get to the wonderful world within a book. Sure it's hard. It can even strain the eyes, but once you're immersed, the world around you disappears. I thus resigned myself to a Kindle-free existence -- one can only accommodate so many devices, not to mention wires, manuals, passwords and cardboard boxes.

Why then am I so stoked about the news this morning of the launch of the Kindle Paperwhite £109 (wi-fi only)? Sure, the paper white screen with a in-built light goes against what I loved in its simple, straightforward and functional Keyboard version, as does the lure of the hand tuned fonts and the 62% more pixels -- honestly, is the alternative that bad? Although, you have to give it to them for extending the battery life to approximately 8-weeks and with the impending Kindle Owners' Lending Library on the horizon, it seems like book lovers are finally getting their wish. (I for one, will be quite happy to lend my books out to people having the technology to finally tell who is refusing to give them back *big grin*)

As with our lives, networks, reading habits and technology, the Amazon Kindle too has the right to evolve. I'm still holding on to the Kindle Keyboard. But The Paperwhite's going to the top of my wishlist, just above a vacation in the Caribbean, a Shadow of the Wind walk in Barcelona and a puppy.

Enjoy our posts? 'Like' us on Facebook

Slide and Prejudice | An ode to my Kindle

Two train rides in and I consider it a miracle to have finished 25 percent of If You Can’t Stand The Heat (Poppy Markham: Culinary Cop) by Robin Allen. Between phone calls, Whatsapp messages and the rush hour crowd knocking the phone out of my hands, one can't dismiss the discomfort of physically reading a book on my 3.7” display screen. 

I like the Kindle app for different devices, though I don’t like reading books on my phone. It’s a bit of a betrayal to my Amazon Kindle ebook reader. But then again, my friends told me it was the ultimate betrayal to the smell of books when I bought my device two years ago. Of course, I dismissed their blind devotion to physical books, choosing instead to harp on about the device’s absence of backlight, pencil thin body, the thesaurus that came installed, and the fact that the battery lasted for 30 days on a single charge.

Since I’ve owned my beauty- never named her unfortunately, she’s managed to accumulate and store over 30 books. Many of the reviews on this blog were written after experiencing different worlds – magical, mythical, real, surreal – in e-carbon ink. That was until a few weeks ago when I let the battery get so low that it refused to come back on. When I googled it, I learned that if you slide the power button and held it for over a minute, the system would reboot. And voila! Reboot she did. Or at least only a small crack in her corner did. The rest of her is still hijacked by the Jane Austen screensaver.

The time was ripe to find a Kindle service centre, an impossible task it would seem, since Amazon never officially launched in Mumbai.

“Are you travelling to the US anytime soon?” I tried my luck with some well-heeled friends.

“Nope.” “Nada.” “Erm…” “December 2013.”

My matchbox-sized room can’t handle any more books and I’m really not in the mood to replace a device to which I’ve grown so attached. But I can’t keep away from books forever, can I? Because if this experience has taught me anything, it's that we’ve read books in different shapes, forms and sizes -- pocket classics, coffee table books, anthologies, trilogies and novellas. But if you allow that to change their functionality in your mind's eye, you will never read again.

For now, the Kindle app on my mobile will just have to do. In a forthcoming post I shall also write about my experiences of reading and reviewing If You Can’t Stand The Heat (Poppy Markham: Culinary Cop) by Robin Allen on mobile.

After all, some of the same friends who scorned me for selling out to the tablet revolution two years ago just asked me, “Why don’t you just buy an iPad?” Maybe this is something I'll get used to? Or maybe I'll go blind.  

On the bright side, I think I finally have a name for my Kindle: Hello Jane, please don’t die on me.

'Like' The Caterpillar Cafe on Facebook.