Katzenjammer
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- 8,99 €
Beschreibung des Verlags
“An eerie, savage novel.” —Bulletin of the Center for Children’s Books
American Horror Story meets the dark comedy of Kafka’s The Metamorphosis as Cat searches for a way to escape her high school. A tale of family, love, tragedy, and masks—the ones others make for us, and the ones we make for ourselves. Katzenjammer will haunt fans of Chelsea Pitcher’s This Lie Will Kill You and E. Lockhart’s We Were Liars.
Cat lives in her high school. She never leaves, and for a long time her school has provided her with everything she needs. But now things are changing. The hallways contract and expand along with the school’s breathing, and the showers in the bathroom run a bloody red. Cat’s best friend is slowly turning into cardboard, and instead of a face, Cat has a cat mask made of her own hardened flesh.
Cat doesn’t remember why she is trapped in her school or why half of them—Cat included—are slowly transforming. Escaping has always been the one impossibility in her school’s upside-down world. But to save herself from the eventual self-destruction all the students face, Cat must find the way out. And to do that, she’ll have to remember what put her there in the first place.
Using chapters alternating between the past and the present, acclaimed author Francesca Zappia weaves a spine-tingling, suspenseful, and haunting story about tragedy and the power of memories. Fans of Marieke Nijkamp’s This Is Where It Ends and Karen McManus’s One of Us Is Lying will lose themselves in the pages of this novel—or maybe in the treacherous hallways of the school.
Includes interior illustrations from the author.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Zappia (Now Entering Addamsville) paints a sinister picture of modern teenage life in this disturbing high school horror novel. Seventeen-year-old Cat cannot recall when or how she and her fellow students got trapped inside School, a living organism with halls that expand and contract, showers that spray blood, and no clear escape. She also doesn't know why her teachers became inanimate objects, or why she and half her peers started mutating into caricatures of themselves, while the cruel popular kids remain unchanged. But when class president Julie, who turned into a walking, talking porcelain doll, is found smashed, Cat, whose face has become a feline mask of hardened flesh, teams up to find the killer with best friend Jeffrey, whose head is now a crayon-decorated cardboard box. As Cat investigates, memories of her past return—some sweet, but most marred by sadistic bullies. The author's stylized b&w illustrations amplify the tale's nightmarish feel. Brutal physical and psychological violence and complex, mostly white-cued, characters pervade this relentlessly bleak interpretation of high school society. As the mystery's pieces click into place, the devastating reality of the teens' situation becomes clear. Zappia's denouement, though earned, offers not catharsis but despair. Final art not seen by PW. Ages 14–up.
