Wax is a young adult mystery novel by Gina Damico (author of Croak). It was published in 2016.
It takes place in the fictional town of Paraffin, Vermont. Our hero is Poppy Palladino, a teenage girl who wants to be an actor, but is haunted by memories of being humiliated multiple times in the past, especially by a bully named Blake Bursaw. Paraffin is home to the Grosholtz Candle Factory, a popular tourist site. While taking a tour in the factory, Poppy wanders off into a secret workroom where she meets Madame Grosholtz, an eccentric maker of wax sculptures. Soon after, the factory mysteriously burns down, but not before Poppy is given a living wax sculpture, who she names Dud, and a candle engraved with a strange message.
Things just get stranger from there, and Poppy must save the entire town from a sinister conspiracy that stems from hundreds of years ago. She becomes unsure of who she can trust, but with the help of Dud, her best friend Jill, and her school theater club, she must make a plan.
Tropes found in Wax include:
- Alliterative Name:
- Poppy Palladino
- Blake Bursaw.
- Beethoven Was an Alien Spy: Marie Tussaud is revealed to have effectively discovered the secret to immortality, by placing her soul inside a wax sculpture. She later uses this skill to place just a fraction of her spirit into Dud's body, to give him the knowledge needed to help Poppy save Paraffin.
- Big Bad Duumvirate: Anita and Preston Chandler are technically both equally responsible for the sinister plot that Poppy unravels, although Anita seems to be the one more in control.
- Big Good: Madam Grosholtz/Marie Tussaud. Once she realizes that the Chandlers intend to use her skills for evil, she lays out a complex plan to help someone - and that someone turns out to be Poppy - end their reign of terror.
- Bittersweet Ending: Poppy saves Paraffin, although there are quite a few people who did not survive - including Dud. Also, it's implied that the Chandlers may have a way to return, but the chances of that are slim.
- Crouching Moron, Hidden Badass: Played with. Dud, who is for the most part a silly goofball, has just a tiny fraction of Marie Tussaud's soul within him, and in the climax, this piece comes to life, and Tussaud briefly takes over Dud's body, frightening the Chandlers.
- Deadpan Snarker: Poppy's friend Jill is much more stoic and snarky than Poppy. When Poppy rescues her from the Chandlers' factory, Jill is initially disappointed that it took Poppy so long to realize that she was in danger.
- The Ditz: Dud doesn't understand how the world works, and acts like a curious but bumbling child. Justified because he really was just brought to life.
- Grumpy Old Man: Mr. Kosnitzky, a local curmudgeonly shopkeeper, hates teenagers, to the point that he acts as a truant officer for the school despite not actually being employed by them. At one point, the narrator describes him seeing a teenager in a Faux Horrific way just to emphasize how much he can't stand them.
- Hive Mind: Nearly all of the wax sculptures, known as Hollows, are inhabited by the same two people.
- Immortality Seeker: Marie Tussaud is revealed to have been this in the past, although her intentions were benign - she simply wanted more time to continue her craft. The Chandlers turn out to be more sinister versions, however, being willing to Kill and Replace the population of an entire town, and maybe more later on, despite it not being necessary for them to continue living.
- Infernal Background: In one scene, Anita Chandler, one of the two main antagonists, is described as appearing to glow because of a fire behind her. This happens as she grins, having come up with a plan to cover up her attempt to attack one of the heroes - she wouldn't want to hurt her PR, after all.
- Kill and Replace: The villains' plan is to kill the residents of Paraffin and make them into candles, while replacing them with lifelike wax mannequins that they control using their Hive Mind powers.
- Murderous Mannequin: Most of the living wax mannequins are controlled by the Hive Mind of the two main antagonists, made for the purpose of killing and replacing everyone in town. Dud is an exception - despite being a living mannequin too, he is completely unconnected to the evil plot. Jill is suspicious of him at one point, and tries to convince Poppy that Dud is evil, but this is just a front to hide that she herself has been replaced with a mannequin.
- One-Word Title: As a reference to the town of Paraffin, where its set, and wax sculptures and candles, which are relevant to the plot.
- Ragtag Bunch of Misfits: The theater club. It includes Poppy, a girl who is infamous In-Universe for being humiliated multiple times in the past, a school janitor, and a kid who smokes pot and makes flamethrowers out of squirt guns.
- Who Wants to Live Forever?: Frightened by the idea of living forever and being taken advantage of by the Chandlers, Marie Tussaud decides to end her life.
