I don't remember how I discovered Lois Duncan, but I remember reading her books. A large part of my jr. high years revolve around her books. I read them all. Every single book I could get my hands on. And some of them completely blew my mind. Let me share.
One of my most favorite Duncan books is Daughters of Eve. It starts out with young girls growing into feminism to rise again the town full of complete chauvenistic pigs in which they live, and quickly degenerates into a dangerous, out of control, vendetta pushed and encouraged by the slightly deranged and very bitter advisor who planted the seeds of feminism in the first place. Let me tell you, reading this took me from, "Yes!! Feminists rock!" to "Wow! That is some crazy-a** s**t". Freaky. Seriously gives me chills, even now.
Gallows Hill is also creepy but a huge favorite. A small town in Missouri is the reincarnation of Salem Village during the witch trials and new-girl Sarah doesn't know what she's getting herself into.
Ransom is about 5 high school students who are kidnapped by their substitute bus driver and taken to a remote cabin in the mountains. This book convinced me that I needed to be prepared and knowledgable about how to react in the event of an abduction, because, you know, they are going to steal my bus. And, it made me want to learn to read in French. Again, definitely a favorite.
Another favorite of mine was The Third Eye which is about a young girl who begins to have psychic flashes, helping her find missing children.
Killing Mr. Griffin, which was one of my first experiences reading about a sociopath and They Never Came Home explores that concept a little bit also (although not quite as well).
I decided that I needed to learn to play tennis because a strong backhand comes in seriously handy for our main character in Don't Look Behind You as their family is on the run from a contracted hit man, Down a Dark Hall is one of the (I assume) original magical/supernatural boarding school books, and Locked in Time makes me happy that I will always be growing older, even if sometimes we think it sucks.
There were some of her books that weren't my favorites, and some of those that I have only read once. But, most of them were books that I read over and over again. They were deliciously creepy without being gross or full of the cheap thrillish horror, like R.L. Stine was (although, seriously — I loved him in grade school. He will be the subject of an upcoming post!) I don't know how good these books would be if I were reading them for the first time now that I'm older. I have a feeling that I'd be more likely to notice inconsistencies and some of the stories might have a harder time convincing me to suspend my disbelief, but they were absolutely perfect for me in jr. high, and I love them still. I want to own most, if not all of Duncan's books eventually, because I have so many fond memories of reading these books, and think they'd still be fun to revisit sometime down the road.
Do any of you remember reading Lois Duncan?
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