Review: The Autumn Springs Retirement Home Massacre

The Autumn Springs Retirement Home Massacre by Philip Fracassi
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

... getting older was nothing but a series of slow deaths of the people we once were, and how, with each death of our past selves, those held memories of past lives also died.
-- Philip Fracassi: The Autumn Springs Retirement Home Massacre

I was fortunate enough to be able to read a pre-publication version of The Autumn Springs Retirement Home Massacre. While a senior citizen enclave doesn't seem like a great setting for slasher story, Philip Fracassi delivers an amazing tale. Funny, sad, horrifying and not to be missed.

Rose DuBois, Beauregard Mason Miller and their friends are living comfortable lives in the Autumn Springs Retirement Home. Although many are forgotten by their families, they still enjoy movie nights, cocktail parties and playing games, knowing that the facility can continue to provide care and a home for them if their bodies and/or minds decline as they age. Even though a series of unexpected deaths are dismissed by the authorities as unfortunate, but not unusual in an old folks home, Rose and her friends feel something isn't right and begin to investigate on their own. It's only after the deaths continue to grow and become more gruesome that they are finally taken seriously. Too late, perhaps, to do any good.

Fracassi does a wonderful job revealing the story and the characters. He builds suspense by carefully laying his groundwork in the first half of the book and then takes us on a wild ride as the story speeds to its conclusion.

Anyone who has, or has had, relatives or friends in a nursing/rest home or retirement community will recognize at least a few of the staff and the residents. What won't be as familiar are the creative, horrifying and in at least one case heart-breaking ways in which the killer ends the lives of some of their victims. I'd hate to think what the police would say if they ever had reason to look at Fracassi's browser search history.

I was kept guessing and remained suspicious of various characters right until the very end. I hope we get more stories featuring some of the residents of Autumn Springs in the future.



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Review: I Was a Teenage Slasher

I Was a Teenage Slasher by Stephen Graham Jones
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

A quick, mostly satisfying, slasher read with some surprising twists along the way.

Content warning: In case the title didn't provide enough of a clue, this story includes multiple scenes involving graphic violence.

I Was A Teenage Slasher by Stephen Graham Jones embraces the slasher movie genre and asks (and answers) the question: What would happen if typical teen Tolly Driver, in the wrong place at the wrong time, was infected by a "just back from the dead to exact vengeance" zombie high school student? Carnage ensues in West Texas as Tolly and his best friend, Amber Dennison, first try to understand what is happening and then try to prevent it.

I struggled a bit to get into the story - it took a little while to embrace the way Jones narrated the events of 1989 from the perspective of Tolly some 17 years later while also providing current day "commentary". Once I did though the story took hold and swept me along.

If you are, or were, a fan of slasher films from the 1970's or '80s (think "Halloween" or "Friday the 13th") you will likely enjoy this.

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