#lockwood and co the screaming staircase

[j4yslayz]

lowkey live blogging my reading of the screaming staircase because I can- I JUST READ THE END OF CHAPTER 6 AND OMG THE SHOW DID THAT BIT AMAZINGLY. it was basically word for word and I was kicking my feet and giggling happily while reading it. chapter 7 here I come!!

[howdoioperateher]

One of the books that made it through the flooding of my place. Mostly because I had it on me when I evacuated. I kept starting over for the read along (for different reasons, including focus), and now I’m reading it. I don’t own the others, so I’ll have to borrow the rest from the library. Eventually, I’ll get the others and have a full collection.

That said, I am not doing great for the group read lol Pretty sure the timetable has it as “whelp we’re done with book one,” but, sometimes, I do my own thing. And I’m also not usually a fast reader. But I’ll get there!

[jenzpanderart]

"I disobeyed the first, most crucial rule.

I hung back at the doorway, hesitant and afraid."

[paranormaljones]

Yet another thing I find absolutely wonderful about how Jonathan Stroud wrote Lucy Carlyle is how he betrays her with the narrative.

In The Screaming Staircase, at the start of her story, Lucy gives us an idea of how she wants to be perceived; unaffected, unbothered, unburdened by fear or particularly revelatory emotions. She drops horrifically painful realities about her childhood on us as if she were describing a dull gray rock she found on the ground. She tries very, very hard to school her emotions around Lockwood and George. And if she had been written by anyone else, she might have fallen prey to the "strong independent female character" tar pit of a stereotype.

But then along comes Annabel Ward's ghost.

And the narrative looks at Lucy and says "I know how you wish to present yourself, but that's not who you are."

And Lucy is repeatedly shown to be incredibly Sensitive in so many ways. She is under the influence of the ghost of Annie Ward, but the emotions are still partly Lucy's. And most of the time she has the emotional intelligence to differentiate which feelings are hers and which ones are Annie's, and where they overlap. She chokes up with empathy on multiple occasions in the process of uncovering what happened to Annie Ward. She becomes enflamed with the desire for justice for someone who was murdered decades before she was born. She's shown that by her very nature, her emotions are her strength and not her weakness. Because she has a narrative that loves her and isn't lazy about her. She is the narrator and she tells us who she is, but the narrative shows her and us who she really is.

[vryfmi]

[id: a pencil drawing of an opening scene to Lockwood and Co: The Screaming Staircase. Lockwood, turned away from the viewer, and Lucy, facing him, stand at the steps of a house and look out into a front yard. the sun is setting./end id]

Part I. The Ghost

joining @blue-boxes-magic-and-tea's TSS read-along and sharing a rather old drawing from my own old reread

[aarohisingh25]

Do you randomly cry over the fact that Quill Kipps went from wanting to stab Lockwood to taking a stab for Lockwood and how that is the best character development you have and will ever see, but still people forget about him and his amazing jokes? .....Or are you normal?

[wearenotstraightkids]

So I’ve just finished the first book of Lockwood & Co and the most prominent thing I noticed, even from the first chapter, was the warmth in how Lucy saw Lockwood. At the start of the show, Lucy was shown to be somewhat indifferent (?) to him. But in the book, during their first meeting, her first thought when he smiled at her was how much it warmed and lit up that small interview room. Lockwood always presented himself as a cool, calm, collected, mysterious person. But for Lucy he was like the sun and trusted him to a point that his presence would be enough to keep the ghosts away in the dark. AND THEY’VE ONLY JUST MET

Here are some lines basically just describing Lockwood’s supposedly “radiant” self from Lucy’s POV

I read on my Kindle and enjoyed the first book so much i might get the physical copies🧡

[virgilean]

Books Read in 2024: The Screaming Staircase by Jonathan Stroud

“Really?" "No. I'm being ironic. Or is it sarcastic? I can never remember." "Irony's cleverer, so you're probably being sarcastic.”

[captain-hooks]

“Not very red, is it?”

The Screaming Staircase, Jonathan Stroud

[biscuitrule]

No because I’m sorry but Lockwood and Co should be Percy Jackson level popular

[schokoleibniz]

rare, never before seen photo of Lucy at 62 Sheen Road!

[sunshinelivesforever]

No because it's the way Lockwood and Lucy both parallel each other's pasts.

Like, Lucy being used by her mother to make money. Lockwood (although he later apologizes) calling her an "asset". Lucy watching most of her friends die and her best friend getting ghost-locked simply because they had underestimated the Visitor and weren't prepared. Lockwood forgetting to bring the chains and then underestimating Annabel, saying that they don't need chains to deal with her.

And then Lockwood seeing Jessica in Lucy. Lockwood seeing Lucy caring for him, helping him and making him see reason and being reminded of Jessica. Lockwood thinking that Lucy was Jessica for a split second after he woke up from being unconscious. Lockwood seeing Lucy lying on the floor in a room filled with sources and remembering what happened to Jessica.

They find the most traumatizing parts of their pasts in each other but it's different now. It's different because it's part of the healing process. They're helping each other and they're healing and it's going to be okay because they can get through it with their love for each other.

[howdoioperateher]

Just started on this one. I’d meant to start another book (and I will), but I picked it up from the library on the way home. I hadn’t expected it to be ready for pick up so quickly since I put in for it Thursday night. But I’m not mad. I can usually read more than one book at a time. I just haven’t in a minute or two.

I really enjoyed The Whispering Skull as well as The Screaming Staircase. I’m pretty sure I’ll want to own the rest of these books when I’m done, but I’ll hold off for now. Until I get my condo fixed and ready to be lived in again. And some new bookcases. I really need those. Even though I lost a lot of my books, I still have a lot that need to be placed in proper places. And I’m sure I’ll still get more as time goes on.

Part of me wants to be like let me write a serial analysis and all this stuff but most of me is just here to say I’m enjoying the ride. I’m enjoying the books.

[jenzpanderart]

"About bleeding time," the ghost said. "I've been calling you for ever."

[paranormaljones]

One thing I really love about George in the books is how much of a guard dog he is about Lockwood when it matters. When Lucy's on the landing considering the "forbidden room" her first day in the house and George finds her, he immediately tells her that it's forbidden, and that no, he himself doesn't know what's in there, but it's Lockwood's and shouldn't be messed with because Lockwood doesn't want it to be.

And then later on when they have that run-in with Kipps and his gang at the library, and Kipps makes that shallow (and like . . . horribly hurtful) jibe at Lockwood about how everyone who's close to him comes to a bad end and has since Lockwood was little, George immediately steps in and ends Kipps' whole career being like "Hey remember the names and faces of every kid who's died under your watch since you have the highest mortality rate of any team leader at Fittes?"

Like . . . George does not mess about at all when it comes to Lockwood.

[treacleart]

Lockwood and co drawings dump for the new account