Girrrl

This Lovecraftian fish tale bloats a short story–sized idea to novella length, its laborious exposition slowing the pace and blunting the effect of its moments of terror. Ten-year-old Kelly Carter’s mother brings her and her beloved little brother, Cody, who is dying from a mysterious lung disease, to an old family cabin in the woods of Maine that she had never previously mentioned to the kids. On an exploratory walk, Kelly discovers a lake containing a slithering green creature who begs for candy, and her mother’s fear of water begins to make sense, though it’s harder to understand the surrounding families’ nonchalance toward the number of child drownings in the town’s history. Govaere’s (Lucky 13) protagonist is psychologically inconsistent, sometimes thinking and acting like a young child and sometimes nearly like an adult; this makes it hard for the reader to get into her head and acquire the intimate connection to events that this kind of horror requires. What could have been a quick, scary tale about smalltown secrets and growing up instead becomes a slow, sad story about surrendering to the inevitable. (July)