This cover is awesome. Namely on account of the colors. I love the yellow sky with the dark clouds that give off this alien vibe to the situation. Which definitely helps given our titular Bog Girl is very freaky with her wild red hair and red claws. She may be a bog girl but her nail game is on point. And the very zombie-like face with the red eyes and muddy dead-looking skin that almost looks like it's made of wood. Just a very creepy image that does work a little on selling a scary scenario. Shivers rarely disappoints cover wise, and this is no exception. One of the best. Please don't let that mean bad omens for the book itself.
They arrive at the house they're staying at for the summer. A giant brown house that looks different from the other houses on the island that, oddly, nobody wanted to live in. The house is dusty and filled with cobwebs, save for a child's bedroom that is filled with dolls and dresses. It's spotless and seemingly used sometime recently. Julie puts on one of the dresses and enjoys things until she hears an eerie, almost human noise that freaks her out. She tells her dad, and even notes footprints outside the porch, but Dr. Daniels doesn't pay it much mind thinking it must just be some local checking on the new people in the house. People spying on your family is TOTALLY not a thing to be worried about Mr. Science Man.
That night, Julie tries to sleep in the room and hears a voice, angry at her for trying on the dress and just taking the bedroom that, much like Judas Priest, she's got another thing coming. The next day, Julie and her dad go to town and Julie checks out the bakery where she runs into an African American girl named Lucy whose grandmother owns the bakery. Lucy and her family are Gullah, which gives Lucy a chance to teach Julie about Gullahs, their history as slaves who lived on the islands off of South Carolina and Florida who created their own language and still have their African religion and traditions. Not gonna lie, I love that the book added this, but I still worry, knowing Shivers and race have been interesting things when put together.
Julie invites Lucy over to her house, but Lucy gets worried once she realizes it's the old Habersham house which is haunted, namely the room Julie sleeps in. She then shows Julie a picture of the Habersham family. Mr. Habersham was a rice plantation owner and had slaves. He had a son who had a daughter named Eugenie, whose room Julie is currently inhabiting. Eugenie was a spoiled brat who always got what she wanted, at least until things changed. She eventually didn't get what she wanted from her grandfather and ran off into the bog, never to be seen again... at least alive. She returned, covered in mud, grass and other things from the bog, and seemed to haunt the place. Eugenie was dubbed the Bog Girl and the town is afraid she'll come back to haunt them. But Julie says they should go into the bog to find the bog girl, to understand her... and then kill her.
The girls find the spot where Eugenie supposedly got sucked in and died. Julie investigates further, but gets her shoe caught in the bog. She goes to reach for it, but gets pulled down by a hole that kind of seems like a mouth. They hear the noises of the Bog Girl and before Julie is sucked in, Lucy saves her in time and the two manage to escape. So now the girls are sure they just pissed off the Bog Girl and have no idea what they're going to do about it. But Lucy's Aunt Victoria is a medicine woman with some knowledge of the bog, so that'll come in handy. Victoria tells them that her mother was a servant to Eugenie who took a lot of Eugenie's abuse, so Victoria, much like everyone else, isn't exactly heartbroken that something bad befell her. Lucy asks for a cure or something to deal with the Bog Girl problem, but Aunt Victoria says she needs to know what they're dealing with first, so she sends the two children to research the bog girl first.
Julie then comes up with an idea to invite Lucy over for a mock tea party which will anger Eugenie given it's them touching her stuff. That night, Julie spots the Bog Girl outside, melting into the nearby water. The next night, Lucy sleeps over. Sure enough, the tea party plan works with the bog girl showing up and attacking the kids. She's described as dirty and freaky, almost like a slimy humanoid monster and has worms between her toes which, yeah, that's pretty bog creature alright. They use the liquid in the teapot to melt one of the arms of the bog girl, but she keeps attacking Julie. Lucy threatens to break the tea set, which is enough to send the bog girl away. Dr. Daniels sees the mess and gets mad at Julie, still not believing there could be any creature, let alone a bog girl, since he's a man of science and all. Lucy's had enough and says she's through, which I mean, she was dragged into this mess so fair game.
The next day, Julie helps research crabs with her dad where she learns that the crabs will die if they're out of water for too long, which is enough to give Julie an idea as to what she can do about this bog girl. She lures out the bog girl by gloating about what a good like she has and gets her to the beach. The bog girl attacks her, but ends up drying up and seemingly dies. Julie celebrates, only for convenient rain to fall and the bog girl comes back to life where she attacks Julie. Lucy shows up and hits the bog girl with a stick and the girls make an escape. They head back to Aunt Victoria's, but she's not there. What is there is an old notebook that says that the ghosts of Mossland Island can only be killed by a mixture of chili powder, rotten eggs and the feathers of a chicken killed on a Sunday, as well as pain, which means some sort of physical pain by the girls, to which Julie suggests screaming. Which, granted, a safer way to do this instead of bleeding.
They set up the trap, but the bog girl just eats the stuff and leaves. So Lucy's next plan is to take a canoe to the bog and grab the bog girl with a net. It works momentarily, as the bog girl just splits apart and falls into the canoe before reforming herself. She grips the canoe, trying to knock it over, but she soon slows down and starts to dry. Now the girls need to figure out what to do before it rains again to which Julie suggests they chop up the bog girl into tiny pieces and spread her around. If there's smaller pieces of her everywhere, she couldn't POSSIBLY reform.
Okay, I was worried about this one, but even with the slavery talk, this ultimately wound up being another safe chamber book. Huh, don't know if that leaves me disappointed or not. But I did like this book overall. One of the better Shivers books when it comes to atmosphere. In this case the muddy bog of a mossy island. I also like how the book handles things like Gullah. Where you could see any other case being too over the top or questionably racist, I think this one just tows the line just right. But then again, I'm not the one who should be an expert on that. The book flows well and gives us a rather memorable monster in the Bog Girl. A living ghost that is like a slimy creature that I guess can also form herself in the bog water itself like with the whole mouth thing. It leaves her with an ultimate Achilles heel, but one that can also be rectified just as easily.
Julie is a decent protagonist, though very basic. Just very enthusiastic about things and a risk taker, being so willing to deal with the bog girl like she does. Lucy is a great secondary character. Both in an educational sense to teach the readers about Gullah as well as aiding Julie in getting rid of the bog girl. She's more superstitious than Julie, given the history surrounding the Habersham family, Eugenie, and the bog girl myth. But is also someone who will jump into action when she can. It feels rare to get well written POC characters in this era of books and Lucy fits well into that category. At least she's not "strutting like a rapper on MTV". Nope, not forgetting that one. And Dr. Daniels works as the "man of science" character who doesn't believe in superstition. It's an annoying trope for sure, but works fine here.
So, I'm left with another decent Shivers book. Flows well, has a lot of action, a memorable monster and a decent little twist, which I can chalk up to a case of "dumb kid syndrome" that many books like this are prone to do. I guess my premonition of all of these later books being the big shocker wasn't entirely true, but I'm still waiting for the day I get really caught off guard with this series. I still have quite a few left for it to happen at least. But for now, this is another solid recommend. Beware the Bog Girl gets an A-.
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