Tag: books

Two Sentence Reviews

Cover of A Psalm for the Wild-Built; monk having tea in tea cart in bottom right corner, robot in top left. Road surrounded with flowers winding between them.

A Psalm for the Wild-Built by Becky Chambers: 4.5. Dex, a tea monk, seeks meaning and purpose from a life that always seems slightly off; they leave their known world, meet up with a robot, and make you ask more existential questions than such a quaint feeling novella should. I didn’t think I would like this book when I first started reading it, but I absolutely loved it in the end.

Cover of Hellbent, Wet and possibly dead white rabbit with red eyes in fetal position against gray background.

Hellbent by Leigh Bardugo: 3.5. Galaxy Stern can see and speak to the dead, and managed to send her would-be boyfriend to hell; now, she has a gentleman demon, a plot against her beloved Yale secret society, and an open portal to hell somewhere, OMG. I enjoyed The Ninth House, despite some concerns about a few of the plot points, and this hits the same spot of being entertaining while not dragging itself down in complicated side quest prose.

Cover of Fairy Tale. Boy holding lantern beside dog, looking down a well.

Fairy Tale by Stephen King: 1. Boy meets old man and dog, old man has lots of gold from a secret kingdom under his shed, boy enters kingdom, and boy saves it. Man, I couldn’t even dedicate a long entry to this since I hated it so much; it’s tropey BS with a white, male saviour, and I hoped it was satire when he only became whiter and more saviour-y, but I’m just not sure about anything anymore in this upside down world.

Dark Matter by Michelle Paver

Cover of Dark Matter. Black and white depiction of whale bones against ocean.

There’s nothing quite like the bitter cold and pitch-black nights to really set the horror at a 10, is there? For me, the first introduction was “The Thing” followed by the X-files episode “Ice.” The frozen parts of our world hide a multitude of mysteries and more than a few sins, and desolation is nearly as terrifying as the things that make use of such isolated places and people. Dark Matter plays on all of that: the desires we hide, the darkness that threatens us with oblivion, and the things that lurch and crawl when the night never ends and secrets are easily hidden beneath the ice.

It’s almost 1940, and Jack Miller is seeking a change. He’s been through it in the past couple of years, and all he wants is a place where he feels he’ll be useful and appreciated. Fortunately, he’s not terrible at being a wireless operator. Unfortunately, his pick for an arctic expedition to study weather patterns might be his reach exceeding his grasp, because holy shit, does that expedition break him in every possible way.

His first issue is the class divide between him and his comrades. Adventuring then (and now) is a rich man’s hobby, and Jack is far from the moneyed aristocracy who can typically afford all the things a team needs to luxuriate in an environment otherwise whole-ass in on the scarcity. He lets these differences pass when it comes to his friend Gus, but finds them pompous when handled in almost the exact same way by another adventurer. Part of that pass he gives Gus is he’s got it pretty bad for the golden boy of the expedition and the lack of such things for Albie (not his favourite) is how the richer man hinders said affections from developing naturally.

His second issue is that the Arctic is not a fucking playground. It’s the kind of cold that kills an unprepared man before they even know they’re dead. The ice in the bay keeps people from going in and out, and an accident when it’s frozen over means death. The days are short, then non-existent, submerging Jack in an intense darkness where time and space lose all meaning to him. The old money he travels with might find all of this some sort of bonanza of scientific exploration, but even they are brought back to reality when Gus suffers an infection that forces him and Albie back to the known world, leaving Jack by himself to develop unchecked mental health issues.

Jack’s  third issue is the haints. Maybe Jack would have paid attention to the red flag from the captain of the ship that escorts them to Gruhuken— it’s a cursed place with a dark history— if he weren’t so mad about the sled dogs or Albie. Miners used to inhabit the location, and something dark lingered long after they left. Jack first starts encountering this “memory” while there is still daylight to be had, but it starts pursuing him more wholeheartedly when Jack is left alone due to the medical emergency. Then the daylight gives out to 24 hours of dark and darker.

I loved this book. Despite Jack telling us the story through his journal entries, atmosphere becomes another narrator, and the Arctic is fucking terrifying. These men framed it as an adventure, but really it’s worse than any of the ghosts that might remain. It tells its own blood-soaked stories in the extremes it forces humans to endure and enact. For every bit I thought Wakenhyrst was a bit droll with its exposition, the slow burn of this was like freezing to death under the eyes of past horrors, and that is such a beautiful kind of dawning horror to feel as a reader. 

Would I Read it Again?: Gods yes. I’ve recommended it to several people, but trying to get my family to read my recommendations is like pulling teeth, especially since my tastes are super weird. This feels like a book where you pick up more context each and every time, where the reveal doesn’t spoil anything because it’s not the horror part of the story.

Rating: 4.5. It is a slow burn, and I think a lot of people might get turned off based on that, especially if they are looking for high drama all of the time. However, that burn is built into the narrative, and it’s appropriate here. If it were faster paced, it would lose some of the “chipping away at your sanity” that’s the point of the whole thing.

Two Sentence Book Reviews

The TL;DR for the past two weeks:

Respiratory Infection: 1
Me: 0

Cover of Road of Bones. Above view of winding highway entering frozen woods.

Road of Bones by Christopher Golden: 3.5. While making a documentary about ghosts on the Kolyma Highway— a Siberian highway built by people whose same bones form its foundation the process of creating it— Teig and his filmographer buddy travel to the northernmost point and spend the rest of the book running away from what they find there and its manifestations within their immediate circle. The middle part, the part that’s supposed to be the exciting chase, drags on a bit since there’s only so much of “bad shit is coming for us right now” a person can take before you want an actual climax; however, it’s an interesting take with a basis in folklore rather than a haunting.

Cover of No One Gets Out Alive. Front view of decyaing woman from throat to nose.

No One Gets Out Alive by Adam Nevill: 3.5. Our heroine is down on her luck, especially when it comes to boarding houses with more than one murder, a crazy god in the basement, and her male neighbours just being utter creepers. I had watched the movie, which does hit differently due to its focus on the diaspora of immigrants, the themes of old gods doing brutal shit holds true; the ending on this was on par with The Reddening for me and the building tension of random weird shit happening fit Nevill’s slapdashing-creepy-shit-everywhere style more than a lot of his stories do. 

Cover of The Book Eaters. Images cout out of book pages of woman and child approaching cut out of house.

The Book Eaters by Sunyi Dean: 4. Devon is a rarity in her world, a female book eater— a species that absorbs knowledge through eating books— and she’s passed around accordingly as a broodmare, at least until she gives birth to a son who doesn’t consume pages, but brains, memories, and personalities; past trauma leads her on a quest to save her tiny serial killer child from the rest of her “family.” This wasn’t a super complicated story in terms of language, but it’s a novel approach on vampirism and the obtainment of knowledge, whether humane or brutal; man, though, it gets an extra point just for world building as that’s where it really shined.

Duma Key by Stephen King

Duma Key is one of my favorite books from Stephen King. I’m not sure why, since much of the wooj is in the background and back loaded in the last chapters of the book, which typically means he relies heavily on the characterization and description. Which, one he does well even if it’s not exactly terse and the latter… I don’t need that kind of in-depth information about anyone’s nipples, IT. 

Duma Key is about Edgar Freemantle, a man left broken physically, mentally, and spiritually by an accident at his construction business. To begin his second life, he travels to stay in Florida, at the old beachfront property known as “Big Pink.” There, he returns the hobby of painting, and that renewed passion for art brings him in contact with Sarasota’s elite; a illness-stricken old woman and her damaged carekeeper, both also in their second life; and a terribly, old consciousness hungry for death. Edgar also receives some supernatural side effects that leave him curious for what the island’s capabilities.

I, obviously, love this book. Though a slow build to the end, it’s one of those times when Stephen King’s love of description really works: he creates a claustrophobic, almost jungle-like atmosphere filled with strange ghosts and stranger history for the new artist seeing all of it for the first time. In a book about art, it doesn’t seem like a sometimes inappropriate drag. On the other hand, if you’re reading a book like this for frequent scares that keep your heart pounding, it’s not going to work. This one takes its time wrapping you strangle fig.

Would I Read it Again?: I’ve read this book numerous times. I’m even working on some art for it, if I ever manage to do more than sleep for days on end. 
Rating: 4. Maybe a 4.5. I’ve got to be real here, despite my love of this book. Sometimes it dwells too long on the atmosphere, even for someone used to Stephen King. Despite how much I love something, I try to insert some objectiveness into things.

Two Sentence Book Reviews

I’m at least 50% back on my shit. Which means after a long period of sleeping a lot and trying to manage my chronic health issues, I’m reading and writing again. Unfortunately, while I was off both of those, I was still adding books to my to-read list. I’m Sisyphus on Everest at this point.

Cover of All the Murmuring Bones, dark blue with mermaid tail.

All the Murmuring Bones by A.G. Slatter: 3.5. Bound to the sea, the heroine’s family has seen their once-promised wealth dwindle, and she’s not willing to be the bargaining chip they exchange to regain their status. It’s a predictable but okay variation on the gothic horror trope; the world-building, however, was exceedingly good.

The cover of The Haunting of Maddy Clare. Farm house in corn field.

The Haunting of Maddy Clair by Simone St. James***: 3. A ghost with a very poor history with men throws shit around and possesses people until they promise to find out what really happened to her. This was one of the first things I read from St. James, and it’s really just okay— there are some problematic elements— in comparison to the later stuff.

Cover of Yerba Buena. Illustrated cocktail and flower arrangement on green background.

Yerba Buena by Nina Lacour**: 3.5. Named after the “good herb” one character uses in her bartending, this is a story of two women struggling with the fall out of addiction, including the mysterious childhood death of the bartender’s best friend, while also falling in love with each other. Despite the emphasis on trauma, this really is a sweet love story that feels a little dreamy.

Cover of Sirens and Muses. Classical-style painting of woman in bedsheets.

Sirens and Muses by Antonia Angress**: 3.5  Four artists, each of them struggling with what the meaning of art is in a world of commercialism, fall in and out of each other’s orbits. The ending was just a bit… I felt like I wanted more or less, so it was very Goldilocks with no perfect solution.

Cover of House of Hunger. Woman with red dress and black choker.

House of Hunger by Alexis Henderson: 3. In a society where the rich use the literal blood of their peasants to feed and bathe themselves, mystery and a sapphic love affair blooms between the drinkee— a bloodmaid— and her rich mistress. It’s a queer take on Bathory mythology, and I gave bonus points for that despite now it seems the plot never gels.

**There was a meme going around that listed a series of Lesbian/Queer novels for every mood. I read every one of them, except for Salt Fish Girl as I had to order a hard copy. I replaced it with a novel, The Tiger Flu, from the same author which was also focused on queer relationships.

***From what I’ve read of Simone St. James, she blends the beats of crime mystery with a supernatural force in every book. Best of both worlds if you’re a true crime lover who just wants a ghost to pop up and testify now and then. 



Trevor Noah’s “Born a Crime”

Cover of Born a Crime, woman in South African dress looking at graffiti style image of Noah from waist up

I have a confession to make. When my friends post books they like, I check out a description of the book to see if I would like it too. That makes my compulsion to look up the menu for the restaurants my friends are eating at because of my obsession with food seem mild by comparison. Right? Please tell me I’m right…

“Born a Crime” was one of these books. I had seen Trevor Noah before hearing of the book, but not really connected his name to more than his talk show comedy bits.

Here’s the deal. I can’t review or evaluate the way someone speaks of their lived experiences. I can say if you don’t like being made to think about what systemic racism has done to marginalised ethnicities, you won’t like this book. There’s a lot of moments where some might see themselves in a role later to be determined that of the oppressor. What I can say is that he does it with a great deal of vulnerability and humour. There’s a common thread in how our generation interacts with a generation of parents everywhere, and he captures that exquisitely, right down to how there’s an entire group who would beat us senseless as children and pretend to be pacifists the entire time as they age.

If you like funny stories that might make you question a few of your beliefs and values, this is the right book for it. If not, I don’t think you’ll ever like it, even if it could change your mind.

 Would I Read it Again?: Yeah. While I am not rushing out to buy it right now, if I ever saw it at the bookstore I might pick it up. The stories have reread value.
Rating: A 5. I can’t really think of anything negative to say about this book, and it made me laugh out loud more than once.

Two Sentence-ish Sometimes-Horror Reviews

Cover of Paradise Rot: black with various plants and flowers.

Paradise Rot** by Jenny Hval: 3. I’ll be quite honest: I’m still not sure what happened in this book, beyond a young woman moving into an apartment (with another woman); both her environment and her roommate slowly become enveloped by vegetation, a lush and rotting Eden of bodily functions, desire, and connection. I think I would like it better untranslated, because it’s very much not a linear story so much as an evolution.

Cover of "The Orphan of Cemetery Hill." Woman in red, historical dress from behind, overlooking graveyard and church.

The Orphan at Cemetery Hill by Hester Fox*: 3. An honest-to-God medium, Tabby ran away from a life of exploitation to live in a cemetery where she has all the friends she could want, only for a rich boy and a bunch of graverobbers throw a wrench in her plan. It’s not bad, but not really a mystery so much as trying to capture the actual bad guy in escalating Scooby Doo situations.

Cover of "How to be a Tudor." Back cover with red writing, thorny vines, and Tudor rose on it.

How to Be a Tudor by Ruth Goodman: 4.5. This book goes over the day-to-next day life of a person living in England during the Tudor time period, including things like routines, how life changes based on income levels, and what people would have eaten and enjoyed as entertainment. I think this, along with How to be a Victorian, are required reading for historical fiction set in the named period, because it provides some lived-in experiences as well as references from history.

Cover of "Ghost 19." Black and white inverted photo of window with curtain draped to side and vase of flowers.

Ghost 19 by Simone St. James***: 3. An actress escapes the city to recoup after some mental exhaustion, losing herself in the neighbours’ lives; meanwhile, something lurks in the basement, and she slowly finds her life limited not only to the house, but to fewer and fewer rooms within the house. It’s an okay short mystery, focusing on the influence of how deteriorating mental health is burdened even more by a haunting.

Cover of "The Little Stranger." desaturated image of palatial estate in front of bright yellow sky.

The Little Stranger by Sarah Waters: 3. A nostalgic physician returns to a house he loved as a child, to a once-rich family that has disintegrated in the years since he left. He loses himself in those memories— the house, his ideals and both of their ghosts— over the people who need him. I know Sarah Waters more for her queer-focused books, and I just enjoyed “Tipping the Velvet” and “The Fingersmith” (which was the better mystery by far) much more.

*All of Hester Fox’s work that I’ve read focuses on a heroine during a specific time period (which varies but is always “Gothic” in tone). The protagonist is usually an outcast for some reason, and public opinion of her is not very high. There’s also a romance, and so far it’s all been with males who have a reason to be an insider. The ending is always at least sorta happy. Add some dark secrets and mix liberally with elements of the supernatural.

**There was a meme going around that listed a series of Lesbian/Queer novels for every mood. I read every one of them, except for Salt Fish Girl as I had to order a hard copy. I replaced it with a novel, The Tiger Flu, from the same author which was also focused on queer relationships.

***From what I’ve read of Simone St. James, she blends the beats of crime mystery with a supernatural force in every book. Best of both worlds if you’re a true crime lover who just wants a ghost to pop up and testify now and then.

Slaying the Dragon by Ben Riggs

Cover of "Slaying the Dragon."Front facing red dragon head.

I write role playing games. I’ve taken a break over the past year because of improving my mental health after a bad run with my previous company, as well as improving my physical health so my disabilities leave something of me. However, I still have a project or three I need to complete, if only to say that I could do it on my own and with the people I’ve chosen to work with. TL;DR: I’ve been in the trenches.

So have the people discussed in the Slaying the Dragon, which is a history of the Dungeons and Dragons franchise from the moment Gary Gygax started to it, from its growth from his basement into what it became under Wizards of the Coast. It collects news stories, personal interviews, and observations regarding how the game became what it is today.

It’s fitting that I read this book during the WoTC monetization OGL nightmare. That need to keep creating projects so you can make money is what the makers of Advanced D&D have struggled with all along: from the early days of just putting out too much work and diluting their product lines and creating trading card games, to trying to find the spotlight in Hollywood. The same story plays out again and again: gamers are not business men, but we seem to have a need to control every aspect without seeking appropriate counsel from those in the know. 

This book is required reading for anyone who is in or wants to be in the business of making games. I see many parallels to mistakes I have personally made or have been a party or witness to. Had I read this book? I would have known better. It reiterates, without saying it, that no matter the game or format, we all end with the same issues because it’s the people that severely underestimate what it means to interact with others and run the business side of creating those games.

Would I Read it Again?: Yep. I bought a copy specifically for highlighting and discussing if/when anyone else in my house bothered to read it. 

Rating: 3.5. While the author’s voice makes an otherwise dry topic more interesting to read, it also has moments where the bias toward or against certain people is really obvious. At times, it could use a little more objectivity in the subject . Yes, only a fan could write this way, but they also need to separate themselves from the artists they love.

Two Sentence-ish Sometimes-Horror Reviews

Cover of "Miseducation of Cameron Post." Zoomed out shot of girl wearing cowboy boots sprawled over rolled hay.

Miseducation of Cameron Post by Emily M. Danforth**: 4. A coming-of-age story through a queer lens, as Cameron— expert swimmer, not so expert at hiding her desires— falls in-love with her best friend and betrayed by her, ending up in a conversion camp. This feels like a good story for teenagers to see queer people in their many different forms keep the cores of their beings intact.

The cover of "The Widow at Pale Harbor." Zoomed-out shot of woman in read cloak walking through fog in front of a mansion.

The Widow of Pale Harbor by Hester Fox*: 3.5. She’s a possible witch who was married to and widowed by the town patriarch; he’s a wanna-be preacher with a dead wife and baby. Together, they fight crime. It was a lot of fun, and I think anyone looking for romance and mystery will enjoy it.

Cover of "Cantoras." Coastal rocks with waves breaking over them.

Cantoras by Carolina De Robertis**: 4. Several lesbians find a retreat by the sea in a regime-led Uruguay, and this story follows their lives as they choose wisely, poorly, and even tragically in cases of love, oppression, and freedom; Cantoras means singers in Spanish. I enjoyed realistic and flawed characters who wanted to be the best version of themselves, but struggle with what that means.

The cover of "A Lullaby of Witches." Golden clock tower of top of mansion home against teal flowered background.

A Lullaby of Witches by Hester Fox*: 3. Two witches are drawn together from across the centuries, connected by a common bloodline; but what does the ghost really want from the descendent of flesh and bone: just to be remembered or something more? It’s slightly less gothic than its predecessors due to a modern protagonist, and it’s an okay story and romance with a predictable ending.

Cover of "Strange Creatures." Upside down picture of gold-tinted grass and trees. The shadows of two children holding hands over this image.

Strange Creatures by Phoebe North**: 3.  A young woman recreates and loses herself the fantasy world she once shared with her missing brother; reality and fantasy become one as she explores her feelings, including those about the girl her brother used to date. A lot of people like this book, and the themes of damage as this exponential force and the desire for a fantasy often resonate with me as well. This just didn’t catch me like that, even if textually sound.

*All of Hester Fox’s work that I’ve read focuses on a heroine during a specific time period (which varies but is always “Gothic” in tone). The protagonist is usually an outcast for some reason, and public opinion of her is not very high. There’s also a romance, and so far it’s all been with males who have a reason to be an insider. The ending is always at least sorta happy. Add some dark secrets and mix liberally with elements of the supernatural.

**There was a meme going around that listed a series of Lesbian/Queer novels for every mood. I read every one of them, except for Salt Fish Girl as I had to order a hard copy. I replaced it with a novel, The Tiger Flu, from the same author which was also focused on queer relationships.

Iain Banks’ “The Wasp Factory”

The cover of "The Wasp Factory." Pictures of four wasps on front in yellow.

I swear to god, every time I remove one book from my list, someone makes a vaguely-related-to-my-interests post on r/horrorlit that adds 5 more books on my list. In this case, the question asked, “What are some of the scariest quotes from horror books.” Someone mentioned a line from the “The Wasp Factory.” While I don’t remember the quote, I sure as hell remember “The Wasp Factory.”

Frank is a psychopath, in only that his mind has compartmentalized his behavior, removing him completely from human nature. Abandoned by his mother and left with a father who hates anything that seems to remind him of women, he grows up on a small island in Scotland with only a dwarf as a friend. Frank isolates himself from the most basic of relationships, as he was savaged by a dog as a very young child and sees his lack of genitalia as another thing that makes him other.

Frank’s life is full of ritual and signs. He kills animals with abandon, using their skulls, viscera, and other parts to create totems, tools, and ritual components to protect himself and help him decipher the future. His favorite creation is the wasp factory, a clock he tinkered with, creating 12 modes of death for the wasps he captures and seals in the clock. The death the wasp chooses from the twelve— including fire, poison, crushing, drowning, etc— influences what Frank sees as signs. And he’s been looking for them more often because his brother Eric has escaped from the mental institution and keeps making cryptic calls to the house about coming home.

This book is brutal. Frank describes their life, their actions, and their routines in a way that feels almost mundane, leaving the reader to suss out just how deranged his behavior is. There’s a tragedy at the center of this book, numerous ones actually, and they are made all the more horrifying by how Frank sees them as an everyday part of his alien mindscape. There’s no supernatural influence at work here, just people, and it loses none of its scariness despite that. I wouldn’t recommend it for anyone who is squeamish, as cruelty to animals and body horror abounds. 

Would I Read it Again?: Like Requiem for a Dream (a great film), this is a one and done book. It’s just too much, not from a critical standpoint, but from a mental one. I felt like I gained something from this book, but it’s not something I want to revisit.

Rating: 4. Man, it’s really hard to write something and someone so very repulsive at their cores. This book does that, while making it something you compulsively keep reading to find out what happens. I had to put it down a time or two just to digest the material, but I still kept picking it back up to see what was next.