Review: whacky, funny paranormal fun!
Rating: 4 out of 5
Date: 03 14, 2012
There's a reason why Scott Nicholson is one of my favorite authors (although I'm, as usual, late to the party): his ability to write in an abundance of genres.  October Girls is another example of that.Crystal is just your average 18 year old living in a trailer park.  Except that she's a witch.  And she's been talking to her dead BFF for the past two years.Crystal stems from a long line of Aldridge's, witches one and all.  They've been tasked with keeping portals to 'the other side' closed for hundreds of years.  Usually the portals are pretty quiet.  Until Halloween.  When halloween comes around the portals are their weakest and it's then that they have to be the most vigilant.  This has been drilled into her head by her mother Minerva for years.  Problem is she just wants a normal life. She just wants to study for her GED, having dropped out of highschool due to her BFF's death. But it's hard to be normal when the orifices to the other side threaten to open spilling out all types of vile evil dead, your dead BFF pops up at the most inopportune times and a trashy horror movie director pushes you to spread his tripe on the unsuspecting teens of your town in order to bring forth the apocalypse.  Well, he DID sell his soul to the other side after all.  Can you blame a guy for trying?Scott Nicholson's head must be a strange place to be, but I couldn't be any happier for it.  His imagination and lightning wit come through on every page.  Possum familiars, rulers of the other side addicted to candy, potions gone awry, a ghostly BFF that seems to have her own agenda, a boyfriend forced on Crystal by her mother's love potion hoping to keep their line of witchy orifice guardians alive and ever vigilant.October Girls isn't your typical 'YA' urban fantasy/paranormal romance.  It's a wild rollercoaster ride of strange happenings, vivid visuals and hysterical dialogue.  I would be remiss if I didn't say at one point the dialogue was so funny I had to put the book down from having a fit of laughter.  I honestly don't know where this guy comes up with his stories but if he could bottle it he'd make a hefty profit.  He's never at a loss for ideas and characters.I will say that frustratingly, one plot thread didn't seem to get explained or resolved but it seems that there's to be another one in the series.  It was supposed to come out in 2011 and I hope he's still working on it because these are characters I'd like to revisit again soon! And, author willing, often.Great fun!