I listened to this on audio and quite enjoyed it in that format. The pacing and narration were spot on and made for a fun travel companion on my ride I listened to this on audio and quite enjoyed it in that format. The pacing and narration were spot on and made for a fun travel companion on my ride back and forth to work.
A strange haunted house novel in which AI is the ghost? Oh yes, please.
A robot who believes something dark has infiltrated his system and causes him to terrorize Henry, his pregnant wife Lily, and their two guests? Hello darkness my old friend!
Bloody and violent deaths in a state of the art house that has locked you in with no means to escape? Uhm, bring on the body count!
A twist you don't see coming that turns everything onto its back? Jaw. Say hello to the ground!
I listened to this on audio for about an hour and a half and I'm thinking this is not the way to read thoh no, I'm on a weird DNF journey apparently.
I listened to this on audio for about an hour and a half and I'm thinking this is not the way to read this book. I understand nothing. And I want to... soooo badly....more
I listened to this on audio and I think it's important to point out that if I was rating it solely on the narration, which I thought was really well dI listened to this on audio and I think it's important to point out that if I was rating it solely on the narration, which I thought was really well done, it would have gotten 5 stars. I'm only giving the overall story 3 stars though, because I felt it started out really strong but began to deteriorate the deeper into the book we got. So... splitting the difference lands us at 4 stars.
I've seen sooo many reviews throwing 5 stars at it, claiming it was a really scary book, one of the most terrifying they've ever read. I've seen others downrate it because of all the questions it left unanswered.
So I know I'm going to be the odd man out when I say:
(1) I didn't find it terribly scary or terrifying at all. Intriguing, yes. Eerie and atmospheric, of course. Scary though? Naaah, it must be all the Stephen King I read and all the R rated horror movies I watched when I was a pre-teen. It definitely wasn't made of the kind of stuff that freaked me out or gave me nightmares.
(2)I really didn't mind the loose ends hanging all over the place. I was 100% prepared to be pissed off when it ended based on those reviews, but honestly, a little WTF WAS THAT?!? is actually a great way to leave things sometimes. Maybe Kliewer is (a) trusting the audience to make decisions for itself or (b) wants an opportunity to turn this into a sequel and take the haunted house/evil entity/madness thing even further.
Regardless ... it was a super fun traveling companion. I actually looked forward to my rides to and from work each day so I could continue to listen in and get to the bottom of the strange things that were afoot at 3709 whatever the name of the street was. (ugh, one of the downfalls of listening on audio rather than reading is not being able to flip through the pages when you can't remember something!)
Speaking of audio downfalls, this one hid a cool secret - one I would not have known if I didn't see @spooky_booknerd_4ever posting about it! Apparently, the morse code beeps we hear between chapters when the found footage comes up is meant to be deciphered and contains an interesting hidden message! This is why I love #bookstagram!...more
Beaky from Whalefall is the new Winston from Cast Away!
Soooo... I really loved the audio narration but didn't really love the story itself. Is that weBeaky from Whalefall is the new Winston from Cast Away!
Soooo... I really loved the audio narration but didn't really love the story itself. Is that weird? Like, I think if I was reading it, I would have wall-chucked the book a hundred times because of how ridiculous it was. But listening to it... I was actually enjoying the suspense of it all. So yeah, weird.
I won't tear it apart too badly, since part of the whole idea behind reading fiction is the understanding that we're going to have to suspend our belief and allow ourselves to get sucked into the un-reality of it all of but c'mon man... being in the stomach of a whale, ok Geppetto, I got you, no worries, but like...how the heck did he KNOW some of the things that were happening OUTSIDE of the whale? And the items that the whale swallowed, how wonderfully convenient for Jay. And all the life lessons his father and sisters and mother taught him that might help him get out of this pickle...I mean whale... lol...
It was a love/hate relationship the entire time. Because c'mon Jay... where are you? where ARE you? WHERE ARE YOU? WHEREAREYOOOOOU?!...more
In a society where the president passed a radical new law in which criminals no longer serve jail time, people are nowMore grief fiction for the win!
In a society where the president passed a radical new law in which criminals no longer serve jail time, people are now issued a second (or third or fourth) shadow for their crimes, and receive limited access to food and healthcare in addition to having to pay higher taxes. The thought is that those who are publically branded for their violations will be more likely to behave and rehabilitate. But what of the newborn child whose mother dies during delivery? Why should she suffer those indignities when she had no control over it?
This is where Marisa Crane pulls us in. We meet Kris, who is reeling in the aftermath of losing her wife and gaining a newborn baby all in one breath. To really kick her in the crotch, the Department of Balance wastes no time in marking her daughter and leaving her on her own to figure out this mothering thing.
Kris, who has a second shadow of her own, is entirely too comfortable in her grief but learns, almost against her will, how to play house with a kid, and keep her head above water with the help of her oh-my-god-what-a-bitch mother in law, her estranged father, and a fellow shadester beachbum named Siegfried.
I love the writing, the vignette-like way Crane tells the story, the way it's written in first person and addresses Kris's late wife in second person, as though she is recording all of this for her. It's sweet and sad and fierce and a helluva debut! ...more
Listened on audio and enjoyed the company of it while driving to and from work. Didn't love with it as much as I did Book of X... but...
Sad-girl fictiListened on audio and enjoyed the company of it while driving to and from work. Didn't love with it as much as I did Book of X... but...
Sad-girl fiction is having a moment and Ripe definitely claims its seat at that table.
Much more mainstream than its predecessor, we meet Cassie, a young up and coming marketing drone, working long hours, putting up with shitty bosses, who also spends some quality time with her anxiety and depression and an actual, physical black hole that hovers above and around her.
As if that's not enough to stress us out, she gets involved with a super sweet guy, but just as she finds herself falling head over heels for him and realizes her period is running late, she learns that he's in an open relationship, and he's really just exploring things because his wife wants to explore other women too...
Just when you think things for our poor girl Cassie can't possibly get any worse, they do. They really, really do.
Set right at the very beginning of the virus outbreak that would soon bring the world to its knees, Ripe is jam packed with toxic work environments, mental health crises, unhealthy family dynamics... all the things that make us keep turning the pages even though we know full well where the book's going to lead us......more
This was amazing on audio! Perfect pacing and narration, the writing and the short chapters lent itself so well to this format.. so glad I experiencedThis was amazing on audio! Perfect pacing and narration, the writing and the short chapters lent itself so well to this format.. so glad I experienced it this way.
Aidan Thomas is a serial killer who also happens to be a beloved neighbor and father. After his wife's death, Aidan and his teenaged daughter Cecilia are forced to move, and he has a decision to make. Does he kill the woman he's secretly held hostage in his shed for the past five years, or bring her with them?
The woman in the shed, who he has forced to call herself Rachel, will need to behave. She'll need to lie to his daughter, pretend she's renting a room. She cannot scream, she cannot disobey, she cannot try to run. She will be locked in her room, handcuffed to the radiator and will only be let out when he allows her - for showers, for food, for nothing else. There are cameras everywhere. If she tries anything... he will know, and he won't be happy.
Rachel and Cecilia start to build a tentative bond over meals, and they eventually convince Aidan to let them watch movies together on the couch. Rachel's rewarded for how well she's been behaving, and gets more and more time out of her room...
Meanwhile, Aidan begins to get close to Emily, a bartender at a restaurant he frequents, who quickly falls head over heels for him. Heck, let's be real here. She's borderline obsessed. Everyone in town knows he moved into the Judge's rental, and one day she decides to drive by it, just to get a peek. Only she can't stop at a peek, so she gets out and knocks on the door...
The book is told entirely from the perspective of these three women - Rachel, Emily, and Cecilia (with little vignettes from the women he's murdered too, sprinkled here and there throughout the novel) - and the book really gets going as these three storylines come crashing together.
I was sucked in from the very start, actually enjoying the whole getting up and going to work thing because I was listening to this during my commute and couldn't wait to see how it ended!
I just have one little bone to pick with it... you have a woman in your shed for five. whole. years. and your wife and kid never stumble upon her? They never wonder where you are going, what you are doing out there at night, never pop over there to see what's up? You never once get caught sneaking out there, or sneaking back in? Meh. I don't buy it. Do you?
That little gripe aside, The Quiet Tenant was an intense psychological thriller that showcases what it takes to survive and the importance of picking your moment, because I mean, if you're ever kidnapped and held hostage, you don't try to make a break for it unless you know with absolute certainty that you'll make it, right? ...more
I tried listening to this on audio and it just wasn't working for me at all. The chapters are told out of sequence, which made it really difficult to I tried listening to this on audio and it just wasn't working for me at all. The chapters are told out of sequence, which made it really difficult to keep track of what was happening when. Maybe it works better in print, but I'm just not interested enough to give a different format a try.
I'm not entirely sure what I just listened to. I'm almost ashamed to admit that I restarted the audio about halfway through because I wasn't sure I waI'm not entirely sure what I just listened to. I'm almost ashamed to admit that I restarted the audio about halfway through because I wasn't sure I was following along correctly, but a second listen didn't seem to clear things up too much more for me. A cleric named Chih is sent out, or just decided to set out, to record history and encounters a woman named Rabbit, who was hand-maiden to an Empress. From there, most of the book is Rabbit tellling Chih all about her time with the Empress and the ways in which the Empress broke the mold and bucked the expectations of her role, I think.
Fucking hell if I know, though. And I guess I'm in it for the long haul, regardless, because I bought the first three audiobooks in this series as a bundle on Chirp because they sounded pretty rad.
A solid follow up to My Heart is a Chainsaw. Jones changes things up a bit, adding multiple POVs this time around rather than telling it all through tA solid follow up to My Heart is a Chainsaw. Jones changes things up a bit, adding multiple POVs this time around rather than telling it all through the original single close-third-person perspective. The audiobook helpfully featured a slew of different narrators, which helps you to quickly identify which character is the focus of each chapter.
What you need to know: Jade is back in Proofrock after years of battling the courts over the events that took place on Indian Lake just in time for the small town to suffer its second slasher attack. Jade is older, wiser, and thought she had put her love of the kitchy horror genre behind her but the world, it seems, has other plans for her. High schoolers are being killed left and right in the middle of the worst snowstorm the town has seen in ages, and there are rumors than the Indigenous serial killer Dark Mill South escaped his transport when it was overtaken by an avalanche while it was relocating him. Jade joins back up with Cinnamon, Ginger, Leah and the town's Sheriff to make a final stand against whatever's coming for them... again!
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