The Horrible Bag of Terrible Things, a middle-grade horror novel by Rob Renzetti (Gravity Falls series), is exhilarating, spooky, and reminiscent of Through the Looking Glass--if everyone and everything in Wonderland was trying to kill Alice.
Zenith Maelstrom is certain of a few things: he's "eleven going on twelve"; his older sister, Apogee, is no longer fun; and he's going to be in big trouble if he can't catch the "coughed-up hairball come to life" that popped out of the bag he found on the porch. After an unsuccessful chase, Zenith is horrified to see the creature grab Apogee and drag her into the bag. Zenith climbs in after her and enters the land of GrahBhag, where giant birds record the history of the land, gargoyles have a taste for earwax, and eight-foot-tall patchwork dolls may be friends or foes. As the boy attempts to find his sister, he learns that the dangers of GrahBhag are not hypothetical--they're very real and very deadly.
Renzetti paces his horror in waves, keeping the story lively and dynamic while also heightening the sense of fear. Zenith is a wonderfully complex preteen protagonist who, even though he struggles with his changing relationship with his sister, doesn't want to see any harm come to her. This first in a series is a read-alike for fans of Neil Gaiman's Coraline or Adam Gidwitz's A Tale Dark and Grimm series, and is likely to be enjoyed by both tweens and younger teens. --Kyla Paterno, freelance reviewer