#CBR11 Book 74: "Locke & Key, vol 6: Alpha & Omega" by Joe Hill and Gabriel Rodriguez

Page count: 192 pages
Rating: 4 stars

#CBR11 Bingo: Not My Wheelhouse (horror)

Spoiler warning! This is the sixth and final volume in the Locke and Key series. It is absolutely NOT the place to start. This review will probably contain spoilers both for earlier and this collection, so don't read it unless you're completely caught up. The first volume is Welcome to Lovecraft. 

In this final volume, the Locke kids have to confront the evil that has been haunting their family for over a generation. If there was any doubt that it was going to have a heavy cost, even the first few pages dispels that notion. So much death, so much horror, some truly noble sacrifices, and so many emotional scenes, really f*cking me up. I ugly cried through parts of this, because while I only read one volume a year (I don't think I can handle the intensity otherwise), Joe Hill and Gabriel Rodriguez have really made me care about these characters.

For anyone wondering, is this a good ending to the series, the answer is a resounding yes. All the various story strands established in previous volumes are given attention and are given a conclusion, some adressing situations and characters I had almost forgotten. I started reading Locke and Key back in 2014, and I really haven't been able to read much more than a volume each year, because the horror that Joe Hill conjures up and Gabriel Rodriguez so cleverly illustrates really does freak me out so much, I can't read too much of it in one go. So this series has been part of my life for a long time. Obviously, when I started the series, I had no children of my own. I genuinely don't know if my extra strong emotional response to this final volume is because now that I have a little boy of my own, reading about children in peril (even teenage children) affects me so much more. As someone suffering from anxiety, I have to constantly force myself not to run through all the horrible things that could potentially happen, and Locke and Key presents some pretty terrifying what ifs?

I don't regret waiting this long to get to the end. This final volume has literally been waiting on my shelf for more than two years, but I really wasn't ready to read it until now. I'm glad the wait was worth it, and the ending was a worthy one, even if it made me feel all sorts of painful feels while reading it.

Judging a book by its cover: This cover is one of the simpler in the series, and pretty much black on black, with the details sort of embossed. The dark and gloomy colour scheme fits for the concluding volume of the series, when all the things come to a head and evil must be confronted.

Crossposted on Cannonball Read.

#CBR9 Books 129-130: "Locke & Key, vol 4: Keys to the Kingdom and vol 5: Clockworks" by Joe Hill and Gabriel Rodriguez

Total page count: 320 pages
Rating: 4 stars

SPOILER WARNING! This review may contain some spoilers for the plots of the two volumes in question. 

In volume 4, Keys to the Kingdom, the three Locke siblings are still fighting against the Dark Lady, whose inhabiting the body of the person they think is their friend Zach. He's posing as Kinsey's affectionate boyfriend and Tyler's loyal friend, trying to get one of the siblings to reveal where the crucial and powerful Omega key is hidden. Over the course of this volume, the Locke children seem to be attacked more and more frequently and only towards the end of the volume do they realise where the true threat lies, but by that point, it may be too late.

In volume 5, Clockworks, we go back in time, first to 1775, when the first keys were created and get some insight into the dangers that lurk inside the portal that the Dark Lady wants opened. Kinsey and Tyler also find a way to go back and see exactly what happened to their father and his friends in 1988. Both of them are far too preoccupied to discover that Bode isn't acting entirely like his normal self.

I would have read a lot more strategically earlier in December if I'd remembered just how dense and compact the writing in each of the volumes of Locke & Key are. I certainly wouldn't have saved my final graphic novels to the same day I have review deadlines, as the books took WAY longer than I anticipated to read. I also keep forgetting just how utterly creepy these books are and how much they affect me. My plan was to read the final three, but after getting through these two, I needed to take a break before I dive into the final and concluding volume, which I'm sure is going to out-gruesome the previous five.

Over the years I have been reading this comic, I've really come to get attached to the characters in it. I really rarely read horror because I get so emotionally attached and the suspense and the gore just gets too much for me. As the stakes get higher and things get more serious, these stories within these books just get creepier and creepier. It doesn't help that Gabriel Rodriguez' art leaves so little to the imagination. I am very much enjoying them, but two volumes was all I had the stomach for this time.

Crossposted on Cannonball Read.

#CBR8 Book 80: "Locke & Key, vol 3: Crown of Shadows" by Joe Hill and Gabriel Rodriguez

Page count: 140 pages
Rating: 4 stars

This is volume 3 in an ongoing story arc and really won't make much sense to anyone beginning the series here. Start at the beginning with Vol 1: Welcome to Lovecraft.

The three half-orphaned Locke children, Tyler, Kinsey and Bode, have already gone through so much horror and heartbreak, and it doesn't seem to be letting up any time soon. Their mother is becoming less dependable, as she's gradually descending further into alcoholism and madness, aggravated by the evil spirit haunting their lives.

Kinsey is closer to shaking off the malicious influence of Dodge when she meets some new friends, including Scott Cavanaugh, who clearly has a crush on her. After some truly reckless behaviour in the water-filled caverns under Lovecraft House, she and her new gang bond after escaping possibly hypothermia and drowning and she doesn't really seem to interested in her older brother's moody, mysterious friend.

Dodge still wants the Omega key, though, and after gaining possession of the Shadow key takes full control over all the shadows around the mansion, but is dealt a setback once Tyler Locke fights back in a truly spectacular fashion. At the end of the issue, he makes a startling discovery, which I'm sure will have repercussions further on in the story.

The poor members of the Locke family have already been through so much horror, and with each volume, it just gets worse. I am by now so very attached to the three siblings, and even their poor, beleaguered mother, even as I wish she'd try to snap out of her self-pity and misery, stop drinking and help her already struggling children. The Locke kids have been given a bad hand, and while they occasionally seem to be managing to fight back against the malicious spirit who wants the strange and magical keys littering their house, I can't help but think any small victory is only temporary. There are three more books to come, after all (and I bought them all in the US, so I will be reading them soon).

While I didn't much care for the Joe Hill novel I read, I am still completely engrossed in the story of these graphic novels. The reason I rarely read horror is that I immerse myself so much in the things I read, and my poor emotions just can't deal with too much torture and death and anguish in one go. These books are just so addictive, though, and the storytelling and art keeps being top-notch. I'm hooked and have to stay with it until the end now, even as I worry about how many of my beloved characters are going to make it out safely, or even alive.

Judging a book by its cover: Dark, atmospheric and suitably spooky, the cover of volume three is all blacks and greys and blues, with the Shadow key (the most prominent key in question in the book is always featured on the cover) front and centre, eerily surrounded by a blue light. The same key is featured in the title heading too, for those who pay attention and the background of a windswept sea and a light-house hint at some of the action of the book taking place by the water.

Crossposted on Cannonball Read. 

#CBR6 Book 119: "Locke & Key, vol 2: Head Games" by Joe Hill and Gabriel Rodriguez

Page count: 160 pages
Rating: 4 stars

This review may contain spoilers for the first volume in the series, so if you want to remain unspoiled, you may want to proceed carefully.

Following a shocking death that dredges up memories of their father's murder, Kinsey and Taylor are thrown into choppy emotional waters, and turn to their new friend, Zach Wells, little suspecting Zach's dark secret. Meanwhile, six-year-old Bode Locke tries to puzzle out the secret of the head key, and uncle Duncan is jarred into the past by a disturbingly familiar face. Open your mind - the head games are just getting started. 

Having finally settled at their new school, the eldest Locke kids are shaken when Mr. Ridgeway, the elderly drama teacher is found dead in his home. Mr. Ridgeway used to teach their father and uncle as well, and the kids have no idea that he was murdered by their new friend Zach, who needed to make sure Mr. Ridgeway didn't reveal that he was once a close friend of the Locke brothers when they were young. Also known as Dodge, the malevolent creature who was trapped down a well on the Keyhouse estate for decades, Zack now has the Anywhere key, that lets him travel in space, and open any door. He spends as much time as possible with the Locke kids, trying to find the elusive Omega key.

After the harrowing events when they first arrived in Lovecraft, Bode Locke is playing around with the new mysterious key he found. He discovers that with it you can open up the top of your head and access all your memories. You can easily remove your fears, literally, or memorise whole books by just inserting them into your head. Zack Wells is especially interested in the key. After all, if you can unlock people's heads and remove or rearrange their thoughts, there's no need to resort to murder to hide your tracks.

The plot continues to build in volume 2 of Joe Hill's effectively chilling horror comic. There are some amazing concepts explored with the various keys, and occasionally it would be very convenient to have a Head key to access your every thought and emotion. I love Gabriel Rodriguez' very expressive art, and as I have heard that the comic just keeps getting better, I suspect I will read it till the end, even if I find it creepy and unpleasant at times.

Crossposted on Cannonball Read. 

#CBR6 Book 46: "Locke and Key, vol 1: Welcome to Lovecraft" by Joe Hill and Gabriel Rodriguez

Page count: 168 pages
Rating: 4 stars

Tyler, Kinsey and Bode Locke move with their mother to Keyhouse, their uncle's mansion in Lovecraft, Massachusetts, after their father, a school guidance councillor, is brutally murdered by a couple of Tyler's classmates. The entire Locke family are naturally extremely affected by the event, especially the eldest brother Tyler, who feels responsible for the event, and for not managing to rescue both his parents. Kinsey, his sister,  was hiding and keeping their youngest brother Bode safe, but she's suffering with survivor's guilt and dealing with a sense of helplessness because she was unable to do anything but hide as the terrible events took place. She completely changes her looks and tries to stay as unnoticed as possible, refusing to make friends or connect with anyone.

Keyhouse is not your normal large New England mansion. No one really believes Bode, the youngest brother, when he says there's a door you can go through that turns you into a ghost, or that there is a woman down the well in the well house, who speaks to him and wants to be his friend. They all think he's just making things up. Of course, none of them know that the creature down the well also talked to and still communicates with Sam Lesser, the mentally disturbed young man who attacked the Locke family in the first place. They think they're safe, because he's in prison. But Sam needs to get to the Keyhouse, and he needs to find the Anywhere key.

I don't read a lot of horror, but had Locke and Key recommended to me by several friends when I was in the US last summer. I bought the first volume, but didn't get round to reading it, and it stayed on my shelf until the April Read-a-thon came around. Comic books and graphic novels are always very thankful reads, because they give you a very rewarding story, but don't take as long to read as a full novel. Even though I was thoroughly unnerved and shaken by the story, I was also completely engrossed by the story of Welcome to Lovecraft and kept turning the pages while desperately hoping that things wouldn't turn out even worse for the Locke family than they already had. The entire cast of characters is great, and there are clearly lots of mysteries surrounding the Keyhouse left to explore. I'm always more likely to stick with a series if I like the art, and Gabriel Rodriguez is a very skilled artist, so that's not going to be a problem. I've already ordered the second and third volume, pretty safely assuming that this is a story I'm going to want to follow till the end, even if it scares me silly.

Crossposted on Cannonball Read.