I really wanted to love this book because magical realism and speculative fiction are my favorite genres and because the plot sounded somewhat akin toI really wanted to love this book because magical realism and speculative fiction are my favorite genres and because the plot sounded somewhat akin to one of my favorite reads of 2022, Self-Portrait with Nothing. I was so grateful when Mulholland Books reached out to me and asked if I’d like a copy.
Sadly, there was more of the book I didn’t like than I did. The issue wasn’t with Lauren Beukes’ writing, because I enjoy her writing style–especially her talent for realistic and snarky dialogue. The issue also wasn’t with the plot, because that was why I was so interested in the book in the first place. My problem was with the multiple-POVs, the different storytelling styles (sometimes there are journal entries, sometimes there are letters, sometimes there are medical records, etc), and with the fact that we also have to deal with our characters jumping into different realities and becoming different people. It’s just so…crowded. Add in sections told from Bridge’s mom’s first-person POV in the past, and I just got so tired of all the voices when in truth I was only enjoying the entries from either Bridge or Dom’s (Bridge’s bestie) POV. Everyone else was just noise. I wanted the signal.
It’s a shame. Maybe I’ll come back to it another time when I feel like I have more patience to put up with it, but right now I just felt like this book was too many cooks in the dreamworm kitchen.
I was provided a physical copy of the uncorrected proof of this title by the author and Mulholland Book’s influencer program. All thoughts, opinions, views, and ideas expressed herein are mine and mine alone. Thank you. ...more
I’m so, so glad it’s finally time for this prequel novella to come out of its chrysalis and join the world in preparation for the full-length Bitter &I’m so, so glad it’s finally time for this prequel novella to come out of its chrysalis and join the world in preparation for the full-length Bitter & Sick Novel (also basically known as Twelve of Roses V2). You don’t even want to know what the trigger warning list for that book is like… or maybe you’re an absolute greedy gumdrop for the dark, depraved, and bloody and would love to get a look at that minefield. I know I danced a jig.
This short prequel novella is split between two time frames, but the vast majority of time is spent in Rose’s present, which seems to take place after the events of ToV V2. The other timeline takes place when Rose is simply a teenager with a crush, living with her grandfather across the street from Constantine Cromwell and his mysterious family. For all she believes he has a dark side and has been watching Constantine from her bedroom window for years, she has no idea just how many decisions have been made in regards to her life and how many gears of fate are turning to strip her freedom from her in the very near future. She’s just obsessed with Constantine, but he’s been obsessed with her longer and knows things she isn’t privy to yet.
In the present, Rose is just trying to keep a low profile and stay alive. She is broke in body, mind, heart, and bank account. All she’s trying to do is take everything one day at a time. But she knows she’s essentially living on borrowed time, in one way or another.
The few spice scenes Natalie could fit into this novella were short but so good, giving us a peek at what’s coming in the next book. The torture scene in the middle? A tiny taster of the widespread depravity that will come in the next book, I’m sure.
Bennett is correct to label this novella an anti-love story. This is obsession and possession. This is about having toys, playing with your toys, sleeping with your toys, and dictating who can touch your toys. But toys can be broken.
I was provided with a copy of this book by the author. All views and opinions expressed in this review are my own. Thank you.
File Under: Erotic Horror/Psychological Fiction/Suspense Thriller/Romance Series/Psychological Romance/Psychological Thriller/Read at Your Own Risk Romance/Romance Novella/Spice Level 3/Suspense Romance/Suspense Thriller/Bad People Doing Hot Things ...more
This book was so much dang fun to read! I knew from the very beginning I was going to love it, and I was totally sucked in from page one. I just sat hThis book was so much dang fun to read! I knew from the very beginning I was going to love it, and I was totally sucked in from page one. I just sat here all day, avidly reading page after page, only getting up to grab some lunch (which I ate one-handed while I continued to read) and to refill my iced coffee (because caffeine).
I knew I would love a book about a total boss woman who decides to defend the legacy her and her husband built in Washington after he went and tarnished it like an idiot. What I didn’t expect was to love this greedy, ambitious, shallow, vain, unscrupulous, whip-smart, and borderline sociopathic boss woman so much. She’s everything I’ve always imagined the ideal politician’s wife to be, save that most politician’s wives don’t see people as toys that can be taken out and played with at will and then discarded carelessly when she feels they have no use anymore. Her lack of impulse control and her childlike understanding of politics only made me love her more, because it caused the book to edge on satire at times, showing the true colors behind all politicians: they are all just petty children looking to not be picked last for kickball on the playground. They are all adolescents in a high school cafeteria looking for the ideal place to sit for maximum popularity. They are all part of a clique facing the peer pressure to take this or try that. But Jody Asher? Jody Asher is a singular woman who wants to be Captain of the kickball team, the most popular girl in school whom everyone wants to sit next to at lunch, and never have to fit into a clique because she is every clique and everyone both loves her and fears her.
In short? She’s the Regina George of Washington D. C. and I am here for it.
This book would be a good book if it was just about Jody and her efforts to restore the glory of the Asher legacy her idiotic husband left her with, but Rouda adds a layer to the cake with a glorious game of bad blood between Jody and her college friend/Think Tank founder, Mimi. That whole layer of the cake should and will remain a huge spoiler should it be revealed in a review, so this reviewer will keep her trap shut and let you find out when you go to read the book, because it’s catty, juicy, and metaphorically bloody. In short, it’s a delight.
I’m here for all of Jody Asher’s blind ambitions and political fumblings, coasting on her husband’s years of service and a lot of hidden dirt to get what she wants. I’m here for her efforts to try and at least give somewhat of a crud about her fellow humans. Most of all, I’m here for what was just a really clever and sharp book.
Thanks to NetGalley and Thomas & Mercer for granting me access to this title.
File Under: Thriller/Political Thriller/5 Star Books/Crime Fiction/Mystery/Suspense ...more
This book sounds a lot better as a concept than it works as a book, and that saddens me. I love books starring con women, in whatever form that takes,This book sounds a lot better as a concept than it works as a book, and that saddens me. I love books starring con women, in whatever form that takes, but when your con woman–the catalyst for your plot and the crux of the whole book– is horribly see-thru and terribly unconvincing to your reader, it makes it hard to take your book seriously.
I’ve had a Cammie in my life. I’ve had more than one Cammie. But my meter for detecting when someone’s conning me must me a lot stronger than the ones our protagonists possess, because it takes both of them so long to realize they’ve been suckered I honestly questioned their intelligence.
This book really doesn’t feel like it has an original plot or original thought to it. It’s not the least entertaining book I’ve read this month, but I honestly didn’t understand what the author was getting at, other than there are Cammies all over the world and everyone probably has their own Cammie story. I just wish it could have been more.
I was provided a copy of this book by NetGalley and the author. All views, thoughts, ideas, and opinions expressed herein are mine and mine alone. Thank you.
In the first few pages of this book one of our two main characters, Alexei, is setting off on what I would call a “catharticReal Rating: 3.5 / 5 Stars
In the first few pages of this book one of our two main characters, Alexei, is setting off on what I would call a “cathartic hike” (which I am fond of myself”, or maybe you could call it a long, dark journey of the soul on the infamous Pacific Coast Trail (do yourself a favor and look it up, because this trail covers some of the most beautiful land and views on the west coast and stretches from Mexico to Canada). Anyway, he’s hiking to grieve and hopefully close off some chapters in his life so he can start over as a revision of his former self, hopefully without all that baggage on board.
It’s going well until he’s only been on the trail a nebulously short amount of time on the trail, when he suddenly has a funny, if terrifying meet-cute with fellow PCT hiker Ben. I had to admire both hikers for handling the situation at hand in this scene, considering I’d lose my marbles in the worst way. Alexei joins up with the other hikers Ben’s been blazing the trail with for a while until all the people and chaos gets to him and he decides he wants to get back to hiking solo. To his surprise, Ben asks if it’d be okay if he hikes along with Alexei until they get to Kennedy Meadows (a well-known refueling and rest stop on the trail). Alexei’s crush on Ben, along with how Ben seems to need a little saving here and there leads Alexei to agree to the proposition. And so our two intrepid explorers set off, with mutual chemistry, fascination, and awkwardness settled over them like a transparent cloak.
I didn’t hate this book, but I was disappointed by it. I live within a couple of hours of several PCT trailheads and have hiked small sections of it before. I wanted to backpack most of it before I was 50, but chronic back injuries and epilepsy took that away. And I love gay romance. The blurb for this book had me so excited I knew this was one of the titles I was most excited for this year. But I feel let down.
Kelly’s debut effort, “Love & Other Disasters”, was one of my favorite novels last year. It was effervescent. It was like champagne bubbles in a book. It was impeccably written. This book? It doesn’t shine like L&OD did. It’s just as well-written (save I thought the book lagged a little in pacing during the early part of Act II), and the epistolary section of the book in Act III made me sob like a baby (I seriously tear-stained my silk pillowcase something fierce), but the book as a whole doesn’t feel as polished. I never felt like it was much of a comedy, but closer to a dramedy, and I never felt like it fit into the grumpy/sunshine trope. I feel like marketing Alexei as grumpy is insulting and it does the character a grave injustice, especially given events later in the book.
I know I seem to be in the minority in not singing this book’s praises, but I call it like I see it. I’m still a huge fan of Anita Kelly’s writing style and their efforts to bring us contemporary romances for the OwnVoices crowd. I can’t wait to see what they bring us next.
I was provided a copy of this title by the author. All views, opinions, and thoughts expressed herein are mine and mine alone. Thank you.
File Under: Gay Romance/LGBTQ Romance/MM Romance/Romantic Comedy/Rom Com/Contemporary Romance/OwnVoices/Books with a Psych Aspect/LGBTQ Fiction/LGBTQ Friendly Read/Spice Level 2 ...more
I wasn’t going to pass up a chance to read a book based on real-life teenage twin spirit mediums from the early 20th century set in Sacramento, the ciI wasn’t going to pass up a chance to read a book based on real-life teenage twin spirit mediums from the early 20th century set in Sacramento, the city I’ve lived in most of my adult life (don’t look for me there right now though, lol). Not only do I love a good tale about spiritualists and spiritual movements, but I love historical fiction set in Sacramento. I think it’s the part of me that wants to test the mettle of the author and gleefully see if they’ve done their due diligence when it comes to researching California’s weird capital city.
I absolutely loved the accuracy Glaze got with all of the real-life historical elements of Sacramento, right down to the historically accurate street layouts of the time (which are somewhat different now) and the modes of transportation available at the time and which streets they were available on (for instance, the omnibus only ran on K Street). It’s that kind of research and detail that absolutely thrills a reader like me who is intimately familiar with the history of Sacramento (part of my Geography degree is in Urban Planning, so I did some field studies in our downtown area and became familiar with the historical layout of that area). And I love seeing mentions of real historical figures (Miss Crocker, whose family name and mansion would go on to become the Crocker Art Museum, which is one of the most popular tourist attractions in the city) and real historical landmarks like the Union Hotel, which is located inside of the Old Sacramento waterfront (a state historical park and a historical landmark) and currently houses an Irish pub.
Like I said, it’s stuff like this–the devil in the details–that separates great historical fiction from mediocre historical fiction.
So, I think it’s safe to say I loved the plot of the book. Where the book lost some points for me was the pacing. It started off slow and took me a while to get into. I honestly didn’t know if I was going to really get into it for about the first 25% of the book. Then it started to pick up a little, but I still wasn’t fully invested until close to 35%. After that? It was smooth sailing and I enjoyed it all the way through to the end.
I do have one warning: While I personally don’t have literary triggers, I know some others do. Eugenics is a huge trigger for me as a talking point, but not in fiction. There is some talk of eugenics and asylums due to the time period in which this book is set. If you feel this may trigger you, proceed with caution and take care of yourself.
Thanks to NetGalley and Union Square & Co. for granting me access to this title in exchange for a fair and honest review. ...more
While I was blown away by the excellent “Her Name is Knight”, this book (the second half of the duology) outshined its predecessor for sure. I had so While I was blown away by the excellent “Her Name is Knight”, this book (the second half of the duology) outshined its predecessor for sure. I had so many positive things to say about the first book: “...a slick novel, moving quick and smart…”, “...a fascinating and compelling page-turner…”, “I couldn’t put it down”. These opinions continue to be applicable when it comes to “They Come at Knight”, but they get turned up a little bit louder due to the increased stakes, the heightened danger, the more tightly wound suspense, family drama, the dangerous game of cat and mouse (or spy versus spy, if you’d like), and Nena’s constant anxiety as she searches for the traitor in the Tribe’s midst that she had only started to allude to in “Her Name is Knight”.
While “Her Name is Knight” is told non-linearly and in two different POVs, “They Came at Knight” is told entirely in 3rd person and in a linear narrative, which Angoe deftly handles by reminding us that her life before becoming a Knight was “Before”, her life after becoming a Knight but before the end of the events in “Her Name is Knight” being called “After”, and all the time accounted for in “They Came at Knight” as being “Now”. These three time periods are emphasized in the text, which I choose to interpret as the way Angoe means us to see the three most important phases in Nena’s life.
A lot of time in this book is spent in Ghana, Nena’s homeland, and it’s written with a great deal of love and affection by Angoe. I’ve never been to Ghana (not for not wanting to after taking a course in the Geography of Africa during my undergrad years), but the chapters we spend there as readers are very well-written and touching.
I wish I could say that the turns in this book took me by surprise, but most of them didn’t. One did, but only because I was very confused (it was a me problem). But, like with “Her Name is Knight”, I simply didn’t care. The book’s just too dang good to spend time caring about something so small when the book is this good.
Thanks to NetGalley and Thomas & Mercer for granting me access to this title....more
This book is a jewel! Author Jilly Gagnon takes three concurrent storylines and interweaves them almost seamlessly to create one entertaining tale of This book is a jewel! Author Jilly Gagnon takes three concurrent storylines and interweaves them almost seamlessly to create one entertaining tale of love, betrayal, mystery, and murder most foul.
Becca and Blake are having a tough time patching up their marriage, despite the constant therapy they’ve been going through ever since Blake cheated on Becca with a coworker. Blake surprises Becca with a 1920s themed weekend getaway that is also murder-mystery themed. But Becca is still seething with resentment and Blake is still fumbling with how to make things right. In total, six other people (including a married couple Blake and Becca are friends with) are cobbled together as a group to solve the murder mystery. But Becca overhears one thing and sees another thing and then starts to wonder if a real crime is happening right under everyone’s noses and she’s the only one who knows.
I’ve got to tell you: This book was a page-turner like no other. I can’t even point to one aspect of the book that kept me turning the pages, either. The suspense is nice and tight, wound up just like you’d want in a novel like this, with appropriate jumps and startles in different places just to open the pressure valve a little for the reader. Let you catch your breath before it all gets wound up tight again. Everyone has some emotional or anger issues and some moments where things go just a bit askew for them, ensuring you suspect the vast majority of the cast (and this is a locked-door mystery, if that wasn’t clear–not a closed-loop) for most of the book. Very few of the cast members escape at least some scrutiny when it comes to solving both mysteries. The emotional and psychological issues between Becca and Blake concerning his cheating and their marriage are just as big of a part of this book as the murder-mystery weekend or the mystery Becca’s trying to solve on her own, and that part is vulnerable, painful, and like a raw wound that is exposed for the whole book.
Gagnon really has a talent for knowing when to throw her scenes into gear and when to back off so everyone, including the reader, has time to gather themselves and regroup. Even while she does that, it’s like the engine of the whole book is still running, maybe just at a lower speed, but never completely letting off the accelerator until it’s time to put the pedal to the floor again. The story never stays still… it just slows down a little until all of us can catch up. But it’s so worth it when we do.
The only weak spot I found is that I didn’t like the way Gagnon handled the possible way Blake and Becca might take to repair their marriage as of the end of the book. I don’t want to spoil the ending, so I won’t say anything more, but I didn’t think it fit the characters.
Thanks to NetGalley, Ballantine Books, and Bantam for granting me early access to this title. ...more
Just recently, I saw this book on a list of psychological thrillers you’ll never guess the ending of, and I’d have to agree with about 60% of that staJust recently, I saw this book on a list of psychological thrillers you’ll never guess the ending of, and I’d have to agree with about 60% of that statement. I was surprised by about 60% of the ending of this book, and I think that’s pretty impressive, considering I’m hard to surprise.
Overall, this book wasn’t the easiest book in the world for me to read, because I found it to be too long. For me, it just took too long to get into gear and the whole first act was so slow I wondered if I was going to like it at all. I kept with it, though, because I had a feeling it might just pay off in the end. In some respects, it did, if only because I like my predictions to be proven correct (yay for validation) and because I do so love when a book manages to sneak something in totally under the radar that I had overlooked entirely that gets a chance to sucker punch me at the last turn.
I don’t want to spoil this book, and so much of what I could say about this book would spoil it entirely for you. I can tell you that Joanna Cannon has a way with words and turns of phrase that can be dizzyingly fascinating. She can turn out a double entendre with such grace you pass it by without realizing it was even a double entendre until after you’ve passed it and moved on. Phrases laden with double meaning will feel light as air until they are repeated and the dime drops and you realize just how much that same phrase meant in the previous context. It’s like a spell or a ritual at times. This book is filled with rituals, because rituals are the route to an organized life for a disorganized mind.
If you want to take a walk on the weird, trippy, and tidy side of psychological fiction, I’d recommend this book. You’ll likely spend up until the last few pages guessing.
Thanks to NetGalley and Scribner for granting me access to this title. ...more
The very first thing I need to tell you guys is that this book is a whole lotta fun. The second thing I need to tell you? I have a very screwed up scaThe very first thing I need to tell you guys is that this book is a whole lotta fun. The second thing I need to tell you? I have a very screwed up scary-o-meter, so I can’t tell you if you’re going to be freaked out or scared when you read it, because I don’t get freaked or scared while reading books. I’m not one of those people who get the chills or goosebumps while reading scary books or can;t read them at night. I actually stayed up until after midnight to finish this book and then slept like a baby. The only time I get chills or goosebumps when reading a book is when reading a book with prose so beautiful it feels like I’m reading something bigger and beyond my understanding. This is my way of telling you, before you might even open this book, that you might get freaked out or need to sleep with the lights on afterwards, but I won’t be able to tell you that. I just know I had one heck of a fun time reading this occult horror cum dark fantasy cum philosophical treatise on monsters, despite the issues I ended up having with the book.
I’m not going to synopsize the book for you. The approved marketing blurb actually does a pretty decent job of it, for once. It hits the major plot points without spoiling anything major. This is one book you’ll be extremely grateful to approach with only the major and mostly non-occult plot points in your mind, because it’s so delightful to let the plot unfold page by page as page as you read. But…the book does start just a little slow. I know you need a little build-up in books like this, but about 10% of the first act of the book reads as simply morose, petty, and a bit pathetic on the part of our protagonist, and I tend to dislike that look on anyone.
Truthfully, I never really grew to truly like any of the characters in this book, except for the house. And make no mistake: Malice House is as much a main character in this book as Haven or Kylie or anyone else. Now, don’t get me wrong: I love myself a morally grey character, but I like them to have goals, motivations, and intentions. I’d write you a whole huge paragraph about Haven and her characterization, but there be spoilers, and I’m not one to violate that eternal law of pop culture.
Another issue I have with the book is a plot twist that happens late in the book that I felt was wholly unnecessary and I truly don’t know why the author threw in. For added drama? For sentimentality? For some kind of sense of redemption or purpose for Haven? To have some motivation for Haven? I have no clue. Whatever Shepherd’s intentions, I was really disappointed because that twist was totally out of tune with the entire rest of the book and it almost felt like an afterthought compared with the elegant darkness and gothic solitude the rest of the book had been composed of.
Megan Shepherd does have a lovely gift for prose, especially when the prose leans toward the fantastical, philosophical, metaphysical, and dark. Her descriptions of Malice House, the town of Lundie Bay, and the perpetual soggy atmosphere of the Pacific Northwest, are vivid enough they stick with you. I can’t stop thinking of one passage where she describes Malice House as being clear and distinct enough above the fog that everything and everyone else around it looks like “walking dreams”. That’s a vision I can understand from living in a valley with tule fog: when the fog gets thick like pea soup, everyone and everything more than ten feet from your face looks like they’re shrouded in some sort of soft focus mist or shroud; like they’re something from a dreamscape.
Like I said, the book is a lot of fun, even if it is uneven in some places. For the outstanding prose you have some dialogue issues. For the outstanding themes you have some characterization issues. You can see where I’m going with this. Overall, I still count it as a fun and worthy read for the fall or for whenever you’re craving a story about who are the monsters and who creates them.
Thanks to NetGalley and Hyperion Avenue for granting me access to this title in exchange for a fair and honest review.
I love a good time loop novel, but it’s so hard to get them right. I can’t even imagine what it must be like to keep the notes on a novel like this whI love a good time loop novel, but it’s so hard to get them right. I can’t even imagine what it must be like to keep the notes on a novel like this while you’re writing it, always endeavoring to make sure you keep your loop notes in a row like so many duckies. How many revisions must it take? How many times must an author want to pull their hair out because they forgot a tiny detail and now must write a whole section over again? Never mind the editing process! The give and take relationship between editor and writer, the many discussions there must be about what needs to go and what needs to stay and just why they need to go or why they absolutely need to stay.
The cleverness of writing a time novel in reverse is that the author doesn’t have to worry about getting the details of every single day correct every time it loops. Every day is different, because our protagonist is moving backwards in time. She has a mission, and every day she lands in is somehow important to getting to the bottom of stopping her son from committing murder some day in the future. But as we move through the book (and through time) with Jen, we begin to figure out it’s not only the mystery of stopping the murder she needs to solve, but she also needs to figure out what set this whole chain of events in motion in the first place. That’s when the book goes from merely interesting to downright intriguing.
As a mother, I had so many feelings about this book in the first half. I found myself tearing up more than once reading about how Jen struggled with wondering if what happened was all her fault; if somehow she had failed somewhere along the line as a mom and that’s why her son had ended up killing a man. As she moved backward in time and saw her son grow younger, saw all the tiny things she missed or took for granted at the time like we all do, and wondered where all the time had gone and why. Her conviction to keep looking and keep digging is something I sympathized with, because I know if I were in a situation like that I would do everything possible to try and figure out why my kid killed someone so suddenly and without warning.
In the second half of the book, I sympathized with the complex and myriad emotions Jen was feeling while at the same time enjoying the upshift in both pacing and suspense. Jen goes from fumbling and trying her best to piece together this puzzle, and then an important piece clicks into place and it changes the whole game. From there on out it becomes amateur covert ops combined with a mettle only a mom can gather when her child’s life is on the line.
The bottom line is Gillian McAllister somehow manages to weave intense family drama with intriguing suspense thriller without making the book clunky or slow. It’s a wonderful and moving read.
Thanks to NetGalley and William Morrow for granting me access to this title....more
It’s a lot of Jack the Ripper, fantasy-style, with some amateur sleuthing and a rather intriguing moon-based magic system (I’m serious! I’ve read magiIt’s a lot of Jack the Ripper, fantasy-style, with some amateur sleuthing and a rather intriguing moon-based magic system (I’m serious! I’ve read magic systems that are similar based on darkness or shadows, but not on the moon itself unless it involved vampirism or lupine transformation, so I was geeking out a little. If you read this book and can think of another book with a magic system that comes very close to this one, can you reach me directly and let me know? I’d be totes interested!).
Okay, okay, I’m going to admit that I’m totally guilty of “Ooh, shiny cover” syndrome with this one. I saw the cover and was immediately fixated on it. I had to read it. The blurb helped some, but I’ll go ahead and give big props to the cover designer. But the book didn’t disappoint me either. It’s not the best standalone fantasy novel I’ve read this year, but it’s pretty darn good, and that’s better than 80% of the standalone fantasy novels I’ve read this year so far. As a matter of fact, the only true complaint I have with the book is that I think it’s too long. I think the content editing could’ve been tighter and the story could’ve been resolved in under 400 pages if that had happened. But that’s just this reviewer’s opinion. And we all know I think a lot of books are too long and need better content editing.
The world building is above average, but not outstanding. The magic system is fantastic, even though I wish there was more time to explore it. The plot is entirely a Jack the Ripper plot (or it begins as such, before the serial killer changes his aims and goals), but the way it’s handled by Beaty is masterful: She uses the central conflict of having our female protagonist, Cat, try her hardest to help flush out the killer to highlight how young men feel they are entitled to women’s bodies and hearts as payment for all they do for them and how poor behavior on the part of men is dismissed as playful or flirtatious when it more often than not only frightens women and causes them to eventually become accustomed to violence being a sign of love and affection. This is most evident in the character Juliane, who is mentally ill and has not only witnessed and been a victim of violence in her family all her life, but she also suffers from extreme neglect due to her own violent urges she cannot help.
This was a satisfying, fun read I recommend for fans of fantasy novels involving sleuthing, suspense, or crime-solving. Catch a serial killer in a fantasy world.
Thanks to NetGalley and FSG for granting me early access to this title in exchange for a fair and honest review. ...more
I enjoyed Claire Douglas’ last release, “Just Like the Other Girls” so much I knew I was going to read this latest book fromReal Rating: 3.5 / 5 Stars
I enjoyed Claire Douglas’ last release, “Just Like the Other Girls” so much I knew I was going to read this latest book from the prolific writer. Sadly, it didn’t meet my expectations, but it’s still a pretty solid read, owing to how well Douglas writes female-to-female dynamics, especially when it comes to families and generations.
Part of the problem with this book, I think (when you compare it to “Just Like the Other Girls” is that there were just too many characters involved to keep the editing as tight and the characterizations as developed in this book. Plus, there were so many male characters in this book, and Douglas seems to not have the same flair for developing and writing males as she does females. The male characters in this book are less complex, if not close to stereotype cut-outs compared to the complex and rich female characters. This leaves the book feeling unbalanced, because the males are necessary for the book’s plot but their thoughts, feelings, and reactions are easy to predict.
Douglas writes a great suspense thriller, don’t get me wrong. Her prose is strong and her storylines are very entertaining. It just seems that with this book she made a misstep by not giving her male characters the development they needed.
Thanks to NetGalley and Harper Paperbacks for granting me access to this title. ...more
There were two lines that kept popping up in my head while reading this book. One from Shakespheare and one from Taylor Swift, of all people.
“There aThere were two lines that kept popping up in my head while reading this book. One from Shakespheare and one from Taylor Swift, of all people.
“There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, Than are dreamt of in your philosophy.”
And…
“I knew you'd haunt all of my what-ifs…”
I know. Weird, right? The Bard schooling one of his characters about how there are things beyond the understanding of an educated mind, and T Swift talking about a past love she can’t get out of her head.
“Self-Portrait With Nothing” is a brilliant, quirky, and mind-bending book. You might see it advertised as sci-fi/fantasy, but I wouldn’t take it that far. I firmly believe this book remains rooted in the literary traditions of magical realism and speculative fiction among the likes of Marquez, Kafka, and Borges. When it’s not busy being magical realism, it’s busy being a stupendous, fever-dream mystery chase through continental Europe that’s filled with suspense, drama, violence, and a whole lot of mind-bending emotional breakdowns. Oh, and add in a legitimate art collecting group who gets really mad and is not above the unaliving if you don’t give them what they want on the down low. Don’t forget those guys.
This book crams a whole lot of plot, events, and characters into one book and yet at no time does this book feel crowded or rushed in any way. I have a feeling this is due to the naturally fast pacing that comes with the story: while at the start of the book there doesn’t seem to be a major timeline attached to the book’s events, once our main character (Pepper) decides to leave for Europe time is a matter of the essence for a great many reasons, and though Pepper’s priorities shift multiple times during the book, that notion of hurry hurry hurry never abates. Since Pepper goes through so much and meets so many people in the process, the abundance of events and characters doesn’t feel out of place because it all just comes part and parcel with her mad dash through Great Britain, Germany, and Poland.
Anyone who’s ever spent a great deal of their life wondering about all the what-ifs in their life, or wondering what their life might be in a parallel universe or dimension is going to relate to Pepper and her life. A physical anthropologist married to a historian, Pepper has pondered her dichotomous life since she was a teenager: the life she lives now (where she was adopted by her moms) and a life where her biological mom (an infamous painter) hadn’t given her up for adoption. This study in dichotomy influences every aspect of Pepper’s adult life: she wonders constantly about what she’s doing and what choices she’s making in other universes. It has caused her to become too good at keeping secrets, avoiding situations, and bottling emotions. Pepper’s emotional development throughout this book was one of my favorite aspects of it: to see her carry so much weight, keep so many secrets, avoid so many situations, and bottle so much… but everyone has a breaking point. And that reminds me of a quote from “The Martian”:
“At some point, everything's gonna go south on you... everything's going to go south and you're going to say, this is it. This is how I end. Now you can either accept that, or you can get to work.”
I love magical realism, and this book tells a vibrant but pensive tale of art, narcissism, possessiveness, hypotheticals, pain, and selfishness at a roller coaster pace but with evocative imagery and impeccable prose. Definitely something to add to your TBR.
Thanks to NetGalley and Tordotcom for granting me access to this title in exchange for a fair and honest review.
I’ve always had a really good relationship with the older people in my life. When I was a child, I got along better with my grandma and great aunts beI’ve always had a really good relationship with the older people in my life. When I was a child, I got along better with my grandma and great aunts better than I got along with my cousins. I used to go to the local convalescent hospital and visit with elderly patients who had no one to visit them. When I was a teenager I’d rather spend the day with my grandma than my mom, because I was way more like my grandma than I was my mom. So you would think I wouldn’t mind the idea of aging. After all, I’d been around it all my life. You’d be wrong. I don’t fear death one bit. But aging? Aging is something that scares the beejesus out of me. The slow, inexorable loss of everything you were and everything you had until there is nothing left but the days waiting for the end. No thanks. Do not want.
Yet aging isn’t what’s so scary and insidious when it comes to “We Spread”. It’s memory and time; or, rather, the lack of both and the way it can be messed with and we would never know it once our minds start to close certain pathways down in order to conserve power so we can live just that much longer. I may not even be 50 yet, but some of this is deeply familiar to me, since I have a form of epilepsy where I lose chunks of time. At its worst, I lost months at a time. My greatest fear was (and still is) that someone in my life will gaslight me and start telling me I did things and just start telling me, “Oh, you just don’t remember.” Can you imagine? Not having enough control over your memories that someone could tell you something and because of your memory you believe them because you trust them? (Yes, I have major trust issues.)
This book is, in a way, deeply touching in the way it practically begs us to look at the elderly not as a group, but as individual people who still have something to give to the world. Not people who should just be put into a home and forgotten, but people who still have stories to tell, wisdom to spread, beauty to show, affection to give, and memories to share (even when they’re fragmented). The elderly aren’t to be dismissed or underestimated. They are still people with hearts and minds. It’s a lesson most of the western world has forgotten.
The way in which Reid chooses to put a big, red pin on this issue is by setting this book inside a private long-term residence care home, where there are only four elderly residents: two females, two males, and all four have very distinctive areas of specialty. A musician. A mathematician. A linguist. An artist. A holistic education for any young mind. But these minds aren’t young. Their caregiver is obsessed with keeping them productive, making sure they eat, making sure they’re clean, making sure they sleep. Normally, these would all be the hallmarks of the very best kind of caregiver, if it didn’t come with hefty doses of gaslighting (but is it?), undercurrents of malice (or are we imagining it?), casual dismissals of patient concerns, the mistreatment of other patients (or have we just forgotten what happened to them?).
The prose is beautiful even when sad or reflective. It’s downright striking when the scenes are awkward, malevolent, or downright frightening.
What was the most surprising thing about this book for me is how fast it moves. I was reading a 250 page book yesterday and it took me all day. I read this book in less than five hours. That’s how engrossing, compelling, and simply fantastic this book is. It’s absolutely a psychological thriller at its finest.
Thanks to NetGalley, Gallery Books, and Scout Press for granting me access to this title in exchange for a fair and honest review. ...more
This book isn’t as disturbing as I thought it would be but is definitely sadder than I thought it would be. I knew going in I would feel a great deal This book isn’t as disturbing as I thought it would be but is definitely sadder than I thought it would be. I knew going in I would feel a great deal of anger reading this book, with its themes of sexualizing females too young in advertising and movies and how show moms and momagers live their showbiz dreams vicariously through their daughters in some self-serving narcissist power trip. These themes always make me mad yet somehow I will keep reading about them because narcissistic moms are a thing I can relate to and somehow I can never turn away books that seriously tackle the issues surrounding the exploitation of children.
T. Greenwood doesn’t have the same gift of prose as some other writers in this genre or who have written books about this or similar topics, but she does have a great way with words when it comes to world building, setting the scene, and building her characters. Luckily, since this novel is partially set in 1970s New York, which is one of the most popular and well-documented eras for the city, Greenwood likely had a wealth of information at her fingertips with which to comb through while doing her research. But we all know that you can give someone eggs and that doesn’t mean they can make an omelet. Greenwood took all that information and she pulled out exactly what she needed and wanted in order to bring New York in the late 1970s to life. She also has a way with description and imagery, giving us enough of the picture so we can see what’s necessary to see and then letting us fill in the rest for ourselves. We can fill in the smells and colors of both New York in 2019 and the late ‘70s.
Greenwood’s characters don’t necessarily leap off the page; they’re not as vibrant as all that. Instead, they lure you in. This whole book brings you into it instead of springing up around you. I think that’s the sheer nostalgia and melancholia that saturates the book. This book is steeped in fear, anxiety, and flight. This book doesn’t want to be friends with you, it isn’t welcoming. Like the main character, who has spent 30 years hiding from her acting career and her past, this book sees you as a voyeur, looking into a private life that isn’t yours to consume.
I personally don’t give trigger warnings for books, but if you worry about being triggered while reading this book, then you should really look into seeing if you can find them somewhere, because while I wasn’t triggered while reading it, I can totally see where some people might be.
It’s a dark, dramatic, sad read, but I still highly recommend it for those who enjoy these types of books and don’t mind the content.
Thanks to NetGalley and Kensington Books for granting me access to this title in exchange for a fair and honest review.
File Under: Women’s Fiction/Psychological Fiction/General Fiction/Historical Fiction/Coming of Age Fiction ...more
I was not prepared for this book. I wasn’t prepared for how I couldn’t put it down, I wasn’t prepared for how intense of a read it would be, I wasn’t I was not prepared for this book. I wasn’t prepared for how I couldn’t put it down, I wasn’t prepared for how intense of a read it would be, I wasn’t prepared for how emotional it would make me, and I definitely wasn’t prepared for how good it would be.
Quite simply, I was blown away.
Fellowes doesn’t bother to use a traditional storytelling method when writing this book. She made a decision to do away with such things as traditional dialogue, POV, narrative structure, chapter structure, and sequences of events. While time stays linear, this book does sometimes skip months, years, or even decades at a time between chapters. I have a great deal of respect for authors who make executive decisions about how they absolutely need their story to be told, even if they might face pressure from both their imprint and their editors and advice from agents saying that the book might sell better if they changed this or that and yet the author sticks by their convictions and says, “Yeah, this book may be a bit different or off the beaten path, but it’s my story and this is the way it needs to be told. This is my line in the sand.”
This story is so toxic and so tragic. It was a different time in America, when unwed mothers left town to have their babies somewhere they couldn’t bring shame on their families and females certainly never had anything but platonic feelings for their friends. When women didn’t think sexual assault was assault–they just laid there and took it and blamed themselves because of course men couldn’t help their urges. That’s why girls had to be so good and boys would be boys, after all.
Bella and Kate, two girls who grew up in two totally different situations, desperate to hold on to one another no matter what in their years of adolescence, ripped apart suddenly in the last years of high school, only to reunite by chance years later. Neither of them are the same, but some things never change. And some things, it seems, have only gotten worse.
I have always liked dialogue that does away with the traditional dialogue structure. It allows the reader to imagine the tone and volume with which the characters are speaking. It allows the reader to imagine the voices, imagine the scene. It’s a great way to allow the reader to interpret conversations. Likewise, I enjoy a non-standard chapter format. It’s a refreshing break from the traditional chapter and story structure.
This whole book was so refreshing, from the non-traditional writing style to the tragic yet moving plot of two best friends who are far too toxic to be in each other’s lives but can’t seem to keep away from one another either. They’re caught in each other’s gravitational pull and are unable to stay away long, like mutual abuse victims who can’t help but gravitate back to their abuser, but their abuser is each other. They breathe in one another’s poisonous air like they can’t live without it, but they always know they’re on borrowed time.
It’s a stunning and intense read that kept me riveted from start to finish.
Thanks to NetGalley, St. Martin’s Press, and Minotaur Books for granting me early access to this title....more
First of all, this book is one of the creepiest books I’ve ever read. But, this comes with a huge caveat: I don’t know if you can truly understand howFirst of all, this book is one of the creepiest books I’ve ever read. But, this comes with a huge caveat: I don’t know if you can truly understand how profoundly creepy this book is unless you have Borderline Personality Disorder (which I do) or if you have a loved one who has Borderline Personality Disorder and you are in their life. Having an intimate connection with the main character of a horror story where their mental illness plays a huge part of the plot except with the symptoms almost turned up to 11 is a huge mind screw, because you know exactly what the character is trying to say. You know what is causing their behavior. You know how they likely turned out the way they did and you know how profoundly toxic it can all be. It’s surreal and more horrifying than just about any other horror novel you could put in front of me.
This book is filled to the brim with morbid humor, which delighted me to no end since morbid humor is practically a love language in my family. It’s also vulgar and gory, filled with vivid imagery that is both hilarious and gross to see in the mind’s eye as you read. It’s also filled with prose that’s purposefully meant to make the reader feel uncomfortable, awkward, squirmy, on the edge of nauseous, and deliberately grossed out. In some of these passages I’m reminded of Chuck Pahalnuik and Zoje Stage and books like “Invisible Monsters” and “Baby Teeth” (yes, I know I have used those examples in my reviews before, but you’ll have to forgive me because they immediately came to mind). The prose surrounding the human body, gore, and viscera also reminded me a bit of this year’s “Manhunt” in style, but since they both came out this year I’m going to chalk it up to common inspiration for the authors of both books.
Inter-generational mental illness is something I have a great interest in, since it runs deep in my family. I seem to have gotten the lion’s share of mental health issues, but every AAB female in my family has some sort of mental health issue, going back at least two generations. My kids (one boy, one gender fluid) both have mental health issues and are neurotypical. Their other parent is neurotypical and has mental health issues in her family. As I was reading “Motherthing” and watched the plot and the characters unravel one chapter at a time, delusion giving way to delusion until desperation was all that was left, I felt more and more terrified about how unaware the main character was about her own mental health issues and more and more horrified about her obsession to protect, save, keep, and love forever and ever.
It seems as though not as many people like this book as much as I did, and that’s okay. I do have to point out that I think it is a little longer than it needs to be, but the space isn’t exactly wasted because the prose is so entertaining. The inner narrative is done in a style of stream of consciousness that is just the right amount of unhinged that I enjoy instead of being so disjointed and without any sense of syntax or grammar that it becomes utter trash.
If you have a strong enough stomach, like your horror with a huge dose of weird, and morbid humor is something you enjoy, I suggest picking this up and giving it a read. It truly is one scary tale.
Thanks to NetGalley, Knopf Doubleday, and Vintage for granting me early access to this title in exchange for fair and honest review....more
I was absolutely giddy to read this book, because I not only love spy thrillers with a female protagonist, but I absolutely adore when it turns out toI was absolutely giddy to read this book, because I not only love spy thrillers with a female protagonist, but I absolutely adore when it turns out to be a Russian spy thriller. I know, I know. I probably shouldn’t be fangirling so hard over Russian spy thrillers in this day and age, but for some reason I can’t resist them and never have been able to. Did I watch too many 007 movies growing up? Maybe. Do I love Natasha Romanoff from the bottom of my black heart? Most certainly. Do I have quite a few biographies and nonfiction books about the Cold War? How about we don’t talk about my nonfiction collection or my love of Russian history.
This book flies by like a great spy movie does. Think Bourne. Think Bond. Think La Femme Nikita. Heck, you can even think of Mrs. Emma Peel if you want. From the time Emma Makepeace is sent out on the mission that makes up the plot of this propulsive and thrilling read up until almost the very end, this book lays its foot on the accelerator and simply does not let off until the exact right time; and when it does, it’s like crossing the finish line only hundreths of a second before the car behind you. It’s fast-paced, adrenaline-fueled, unpredictable, addictive, and impeccably edited to keep that thrilling pacing taut like a piano wire.
I can’t tell if this is the first book in a series or not. Some places (like Goodreads) say it’s the first in the series, but I can’t find that information anywhere else. I’ll tell you what: If Ava Glass decided to make this into a series, I’ll sign up to read it right here and now. I would definitely read more about Emma Makepeace getting her revenge on the Russians one day at a time.
Thanks to NetGalley, Ballatine, and Bantam for granting me access to this title. ...more
Okay, so, I’ve always said Australia is the one place in the world I’ve never desired to travel to because it seems like just about everything that liOkay, so, I’ve always said Australia is the one place in the world I’ve never desired to travel to because it seems like just about everything that lives there is designed to make you die a terrible death, but this book also reminds me of Australia’s bloody and violent past, it’s present-day issues with racism and misogyny, and highlights (ever so briefly) the dangers of gaslighting and how it can erode away at your instincts and inherent will.
At its heart, “The Island” is most simply described as a crime thriller, but I actually think it verges kind of close to being a horror novel, too. If anything, it might almost straddle that fine line between thriller and horror that some novels do, which is fine by me. I like my thrillers taute, hard, fast-paced, violent, and no-holds-barred. This book starts out tense with some exhausting and questionable family bickering, leads up to a questionable decision made in haste, and from there it’s quite like one of the best kinds of thrill rides: up and down, slow where it needs to be and fast when it needs to be. The pacing is exactly correct and what very, very little filler there is fits in with the story and either calls back to the main story or will be relevant shortly in front of you as you read.
There is a small cast of main characters, a large cast of supporting characters, and a very large cast of what one might call corps de esprits. The cast of main characters is exactly the right size and each one is fleshed out distinctly and gets the appropriate amount of page time. The large cast of main characters is indeed very large, but we don’t need to know as much about them as we do our main characters. Even so, they are distinct enough from one another I had no issues telling who was who as I read, which can be an issue when a supporting cast is all-white and as large as it is. Even the scattered corps de esprit characters are easy to determine one from another, which is a grace not one usually gets when there are this many people who have names and have speaking lines in a novel.
This was a sharp, smart, and cunning novel that pulls no punches with its characters or with the reader. It was a great read I devoured. I highly recommend it.
Thanks to NetGalley and Little, Brown Company for granting me early access to this title in exchange for a fair and honest review. Thank you to Little, Brown Company for also sending me a complimentary physical copy of this novel. ...more
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