what it says on the tin. books I've read and what I feel about them. I give hearts instead of star rankings because how much I like a book doesn't always correlate with how good I think the book is
I'm begining to feel like joe hill has a penchant for making extremely unlikeable characters. I've read a couple of his novels and they all seem to write the protagonist as like. wow! this guy sucks! but the person they are up against sucks more!! horns felt like that premise but with a generous dollop of shock.. humor? horror? thrown in that got stale about 50 pages in. I think it had an interesting premise but man I could not get myself to care about anyone in this book.
read for a horror book club! this was a solid four stars for about 2/3 of the book, then abruptly towards the end a new plot element is introduced that kind of dampens the satire of the Alpha Male TM that the book unsubtly deals with. there's an interesting seed here, as a guy who loves haunted house horror where the horror Is The House Itself, but in turning the short story that was the inspiration into a full length novel a lot of extra themes were added that muddied the waters. could have been better had the plotlines been tightened up a bit. still, I tore through it in an afternoon because the descriptions and visuals were gripping.
I realized halfway through this book that I've read it already, back in college when I was checking out every single book about ghosts or occult shit I could find out of the library. it's just okay. published in 2010, so nothing really recent; and there's a good chunk of stories in here that have no relations to ghosts. still interesting to refresh myself on (relatively) local ghost stories.
october 2024's bookbug pick. I don't think I "got" this book until the last 10 or so pages, and even then it took me reading some other reviews to fully understand. but once I did, I realized how clever it was. hauntingly beautiful prose with many layers to the story. read my full review on my bookbug page here
september 2024's bookbug pick. peak fiction. the entire breadth of human emotion is in these ~400 pages, blended masterfully with the supernatural that has become natural. honestly I wrote a lot on my bookbug page so read my review here
a book that's been on my radar for a while since horror brushes shoulders with the true crime genre every now and then. finally got around to reading it, was floored by some of the details of the case I wasn't familiar with (namely, how long ted bundy was able to postpone his execution). certainly a unique perspective on bundy, and the additions I had in my copy of the book from rule updating every handful of years were appreciated.
jemc's writing is concise and crisp; chapters pass in the span of a breath. things get more and more progressively unhinged. in some respects it felt like a trimmed down house of leaves and I say that positively. the ending was unsatisfying and not in a "I'm gonna be pondering this for the next few days" way.
as with most anthologies, there were some good stories and some bad to mediocre ones. there were a handful that weren't even horror adjacent. "deadwood" stuck with me for some reason, despite only being a page long. something about it was fantastically evocative.
august's bookbug pick. a short and charming little novel. the titular pnin often finds himself in unfortunate situations, but his quirks make him someone I have to root for. read my initial review here
I'm so torn on this book. like there were really high highs and also really low lows. I think the length (1168 pages) is to its detriment. there were parts that could have been trimmed. beverly deserved so, So much better. I think the concept of It as this cosmic evil is really cool but the book didn't focus as much on it as I would have liked. also I feel like the scene in the sewers that happens 90% of the way in the book with the kids was incredibly offputting and if I wasn't almost finished with the book at that point I probably would have dropped it. take that how you will.
picked this up as a "blind date with a book" package I saw at a local fair. thought the supernatural elements were interesting and I liked the interweaving of the two stories being told but I thought the ending was a letdown.
read for july's bookbug pick. not my favorite of the books so far for that group, although as time goes on and I'm meditating on it more I like it more. read my initial review here
read for june's bookbug pick. overall I enjoyed this book as a fun, quick thriller. read my review here
read for geega's community book club. I thought it was Just Ok. finding out that it was a serialized web novel make sense because uh. there sure didn't seem to be any overarching plot. still the rpg setting was easy and entertaining to read about.
read for may's bookbug pick. a little confusing, but super interesting in the latter half. read my review here
a horror anthology where the stories stop just short of giving the full picture. very evocative imagery. I liked "the dust" for being the most fleshed out, and "any corpse" for being unexpectedly funny.
a nonfiction book about the fraud study that led to mass paranoia about vaccines, and the doctor who pushed it through. interesting stuff, but somewhat dense at times
a horror novel about a vacation in mexico gone horribly wrong after the tourists venture nto the jungle. I thought it was miserable but in a fun way LOL. more sad than scary imo. and sometimes I am in the mood for media that will suck the soul out of me
a horror novel that is a fictionalized retelling of the donner party's unfortunate end. I think I expected this book to be more gruesome and it ends up being more sad and contemplative than gory. I'm also not a huge fan of historical fiction so I think even being interested in the topic it just didn't hit.