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| B0BTZW48Q6
| 3.56
| 27,918
| Sep 12, 2023
| Sep 12, 2023
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it was ok
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Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review. My Selling Pitch: The Scooby Doo movie’s spooky isla Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review. My Selling Pitch: The Scooby Doo movie’s spooky island souls but make it vaguely vampiric and splattered with fairytale and skincare brand references. Do you like a fever dream of a novel and mommy issues? Do you want to be confused and vaguely unsettled, but ultimately disappointed? Not to put you off this, but a book sold as beauty guru horror did not need a cop romance. Pre-reading: Hi bunny. Unpopular opinion-I do not like the cover. Thick of it: This would make a good movie with like severe jump cuts in the sound. Haha, wildkat fan? Haha the ordinary peel It’s giving Black Mirror LOL Charlotte Tilbury, supergoop Please don’t fuck your mother’s boytoy. This book needs to pickup. Is this some weird Disney adult cult? Sirens? Jellyfish are immortal, right? Is it something to do with that? Scimitar Mixing the fake beauty in with the real beauty products is wild. Religieuse Melasma mille-feuille I will say that as somebody who is very insecure about their skin and uses lots of lotions and potions, every time I pick this book up, it does make me put product on my face. Why are you imagining your mom fucking? That’s weird. Does it have something to do with pruning? I’m not a gardener. (This is never answered.) That was excellent humor. Grand maman is a horse girl confirmed. Does this count as a piney minty boy? (survey says yes) parlance Hud Hudson is basically Moon Moon. So they give their memories to the jellyfish aliens, and then in exchange, they get to look pretty. Is this you have to be dumb to be pretty commentary because I’m not into that. (Lowkey I think it is.) It reminds me of that Scooby Doo movie’s soul pool. I don’t know why she picked Tom Cruise because I think he’s so ugly. Also, I think Tad is the Tom Cruise demon. (Wrong.) Did she kill Stacy? (Wrong.) It reminds me of hunting Peter Pan’s shadow. Tisane I want to like this book because it’s kooky, femme horror, but I don’t think I do. Is this some man-I like you better without makeup. You don’t need makeup commentary? Because I’m not into that. (Lowkey I think yes, again.) It just feels icky to me to take these lesbian undertones and pedophilic abuse and make it both that and something fantastical instead. Gillian Anderson fan cast for the mom though or Jolie because I mean Jolie. I just want to remind everyone that Tom Cruise is 5’7. Or should the fan cast be Nicole Kidman because it’s Tom Cruise? Wow, I really nailed it with the Scooby Doo. Now it’s giving finding Nemo because they’re trying to get to the ocean. I feel like this story is going to have so many open-ended plot points and I’m not into that. Money, not existing in this book is very annoying. Do you know what this book didn’t need? A romance. Especially not one where the man “saves” her. Post-reading: I wanted to like this so much, but I did not. It’s a mess. It’s all vibes and no substance, and not particularly good vibes either. It seems like a lot of stuff was just thrown in hodgepodge. The Egyptian gods are never addressed. Her bracelet’s powers are never addressed. I’ll suspend disbelief. I’ll give you magical realism, but there’s so much that doesn’t add up. What were the creatures? Why Tom Cruise? What did other people see? Why did her mom not actually want her to look in the mirror if he wasn’t some sort of demon trapped in it? Maybe they’re supposed to be open-ended questions and something for book clubs to debate, but I prefer my books to be a bit more open and shut. For a book that claims to be commentary on the beauty industry and one that many readers expect to eviscerate the industry, it has some pretty shitty, shitty takes. There were so many routes this book could’ve taken to make Seth creepy and threatening. It didn’t need to allude to pedophilia and child abuse if it wasn’t going to then make commentary about the beauty industry’s insidious and predatory obsession with youth. Full stop. It felt gratuitous. It felt icky. If you’re gonna put even a whiff of child sexual abuse in a book, it better damn well have a purpose beyond shocking the reader. Which, because her claims are then false, it adds to the idiots’ argument that women cry rape as an easy out if they don’t like someone. Do fucking better. Further shit-the main character’s only beautiful after she gives up her mind. That’s another shitty addition to the stereotype that women can only be beautiful if they’re stupid and that women will willingly give up their intelligence if only to be beautiful. Which if that’s the conversation you want to have, (and hopefully criticize) can you actually have it? Instead, the book just offers up the situation and leaves it up to the reader to muddle through the morality of it. There are multiple points in the book where the main character is told she doesn’t actually need products. She’s pretty without them. She even comes to realize that another character isn’t lesser than her for not caring about products. But the idea that makeup is the problem and that women who like makeup are insecure and lesser is so tired and full of internalized misogyny. Wear your goddamn makeup or don’t. You’re not better or worse for choosing one over the other. Can we please put this conversation to bed already? The book’s full of mommy issues, but it doesn’t offer anything new to the conversation. The idea that women learn their self-esteem from their mothers is nothing new. If you want to argue that the mother in this book doesn’t want her daughter to look in the mirror because she doesn’t want her daughter to feel the same way that she does when she looks in the mirror, I need you to stop sipping your delulu latte and see a therapist about your avoidant attachment style. It just doesn’t make sense that the mother would assume that. How can they have the same insecurities when they don’t look alike? Also, the Mom clearly knows her daughter has self-esteem issues, and she’s shit at fixing them. We also can’t give this book points for pointing out that the beauty industry conflates whiteness with beauty because beauty ideals evolve and change over time, and it sticks strictly to skin color and does nothing to address appropriation. There’s just so much missing from the conversation. Maybe mommy-issue books just never work for me because, for all my mom’s flaws, I’ve never once questioned her love for me. But I’ve also never expected my parents to be perfect. They’re people. They’re inherently flawed. So the grand realization that these characters come to in all these books that their parents did love them, just in their own way, is never anything special or groundbreaking to me. It’s just kind of like duh to me. Like, did you forget to read any books aimed at middle schoolers? This is an old plotline. I think the most successful part of this book is the smattering of fairytales all blended together. It was a nice twist to essentially see Snow White poison the Queen because she was jealous of her beauty. But the rest of this book isn’t that Snow White. I think you could even argue that it’s more like The Little Mermaid because it’s another story about a girl trading some intrinsic part of herself to get a shitty man. Which like oh my god, can we please address the shitty men in this book? The absolute last thing this book needed was a straight romance. Maybe it’s supposed to add to the fairytale retelling vibes, but it was so unbelievably forced and pointless. Beauty guru horror did not need a cop romance. It just didn’t. Also, once I landed on the Scooby Doo similarities, I couldn’t unsee it, and without a doubt, I prefer that story to this one. I cared more about the characters getting their souls back in that movie. It had better pacing. It had better humor. Fuck, it had better questions of morality. And to quote our lord and savior, Freddie Prinze Junior, that movie was only about a talking dog. This book had so much more to play with, and it did nothing with it. I didn’t care about any of the characters. I wasn’t creeped out. I didn’t get anything out of its social commentary. It was a huge miss for me. I wouldn’t go so far as to say don’t read it, but I’m certainly not going to recommend it. Who should read this: Psychological horror fans Fever dream book fans Kooky femme horror fans Mommy issues fans Do I want to reread this: No Similar books: * Bunny by Mona Awad-duh * Motherthing by Ainslie Hogarth-kooky, femme horror * Our Wives Under the Sea by Julia Armfield-magical realism, dementia horror, queer * Shark Heart by Emily Habeck-magical realism, dementia horror, queer * We Spread by Iain Reid-dementia horror Merged review: Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review. My Selling Pitch: The Scooby Doo movie’s spooky island souls but make it vaguely vampiric and splattered with fairytale and skincare brand references. Do you like a fever dream of a novel and mommy issues? Do you want to be confused and vaguely unsettled, but ultimately disappointed? Not to put you off this, but a book sold as beauty guru horror did not need a cop romance. Pre-reading: Hi bunny. Unpopular opinion-I do not like the cover. Thick of it: This would make a good movie with like severe jump cuts in the sound. Haha, wildkat fan? Haha the ordinary peel It’s giving Black Mirror LOL Charlotte Tilbury, supergoop Please don’t fuck your mother’s boytoy. This book needs to pickup. Is this some weird Disney adult cult? Sirens? Jellyfish are immortal, right? Is it something to do with that? Scimitar Mixing the fake beauty in with the real beauty products is wild. Religieuse Melasma mille-feuille I will say that as somebody who is very insecure about their skin and uses lots of lotions and potions, every time I pick this book up, it does make me put product on my face. Why are you imagining your mom fucking? That’s weird. Does it have something to do with pruning? I’m not a gardener. (This is never answered.) That was excellent humor. Grand maman is a horse girl confirmed. Does this count as a piney minty boy? (survey says yes) parlance Hud Hudson is basically Moon Moon. So they give their memories to the jellyfish aliens, and then in exchange, they get to look pretty. Is this you have to be dumb to be pretty commentary because I’m not into that. (Lowkey I think it is.) It reminds me of that Scooby Doo movie’s soul pool. I don’t know why she picked Tom Cruise because I think he’s so ugly. Also, I think Tad is the Tom Cruise demon. (Wrong.) Did she kill Stacy? (Wrong.) It reminds me of hunting Peter Pan’s shadow. Tisane I want to like this book because it’s kooky, femme horror, but I don’t think I do. Is this some man-I like you better without makeup. You don’t need makeup commentary? Because I’m not into that. (Lowkey I think yes, again.) It just feels icky to me to take these lesbian undertones and pedophilic abuse and make it both that and something fantastical instead. Gillian Anderson fan cast for the mom though or Jolie because I mean Jolie. I just want to remind everyone that Tom Cruise is 5’7. Or should the fan cast be Nicole Kidman because it’s Tom Cruise? Wow, I really nailed it with the Scooby Doo. Now it’s giving finding Nemo because they’re trying to get to the ocean. I feel like this story is going to have so many open-ended plot points and I’m not into that. Money, not existing in this book is very annoying. Do you know what this book didn’t need? A romance. Especially not one where the man “saves” her. Post-reading: I wanted to like this so much, but I did not. It’s a mess. It’s all vibes and no substance, and not particularly good vibes either. It seems like a lot of stuff was just thrown in hodgepodge. The Egyptian gods are never addressed. Her bracelet’s powers are never addressed. I’ll suspend disbelief. I’ll give you magical realism, but there’s so much that doesn’t add up. What were the creatures? Why Tom Cruise? What did other people see? Why did her mom not actually want her to look in the mirror if he wasn’t some sort of demon trapped in it? Maybe they’re supposed to be open-ended questions and something for book clubs to debate, but I prefer my books to be a bit more open and shut. For a book that claims to be commentary on the beauty industry and one that many readers expect to eviscerate the industry, it has some pretty shitty, shitty takes. There were so many routes this book could’ve taken to make Seth creepy and threatening. It didn’t need to allude to pedophilia and child abuse if it wasn’t going to then make commentary about the beauty industry’s insidious and predatory obsession with youth. Full stop. It felt gratuitous. It felt icky. If you’re gonna put even a whiff of child sexual abuse in a book, it better damn well have a purpose beyond shocking the reader. Which, because her claims are then false, it adds to the idiots’ argument that women cry rape as an easy out if they don’t like someone. Do fucking better. Further shit-the main character’s only beautiful after she gives up her mind. That’s another shitty addition to the stereotype that women can only be beautiful if they’re stupid and that women will willingly give up their intelligence if only to be beautiful. Which if that’s the conversation you want to have, (and hopefully criticize) can you actually have it? Instead, the book just offers up the situation and leaves it up to the reader to muddle through the morality of it. There are multiple points in the book where the main character is told she doesn’t actually need products. She’s pretty without them. She even comes to realize that another character isn’t lesser than her for not caring about products. But the idea that makeup is the problem and that women who like makeup are insecure and lesser is so tired and full of internalized misogyny. Wear your goddamn makeup or don’t. You’re not better or worse for choosing one over the other. Can we please put this conversation to bed already? The book’s full of mommy issues, but it doesn’t offer anything new to the conversation. The idea that women learn their self-esteem from their mothers is nothing new. If you want to argue that the mother in this book doesn’t want her daughter to look in the mirror because she doesn’t want her daughter to feel the same way that she does when she looks in the mirror, I need you to stop sipping your delulu latte and see a therapist about your avoidant attachment style. It just doesn’t make sense that the mother would assume that. How can they have the same insecurities when they don’t look alike? Also, the Mom clearly knows her daughter has self-esteem issues, and she’s shit at fixing them. We also can’t give this book points for pointing out that the beauty industry conflates whiteness with beauty because beauty ideals evolve and change over time, and it sticks strictly to skin color and does nothing to address appropriation. There’s just so much missing from the conversation. Maybe mommy-issue books just never work for me because, for all my mom’s flaws, I’ve never once questioned her love for me. But I’ve also never expected my parents to be perfect. They’re people. They’re inherently flawed. So the grand realization that these characters come to in all these books that their parents did love them, just in their own way, is never anything special or groundbreaking to me. It’s just kind of like duh to me. Like, did you forget to read any books aimed at middle schoolers? This is an old plotline. I think the most successful part of this book is the smattering of fairytales all blended together. It was a nice twist to essentially see Snow White poison the Queen because she was jealous of her beauty. But the rest of this book isn’t that Snow White. I think you could even argue that it’s more like The Little Mermaid because it’s another story about a girl trading some intrinsic part of herself to get a shitty man. Which like oh my god, can we please address the shitty men in this book? The absolute last thing this book needed was a straight romance. Maybe it’s supposed to add to the fairytale retelling vibes, but it was so unbelievably forced and pointless. Beauty guru horror did not need a cop romance. It just didn’t. Also, once I landed on the Scooby Doo similarities, I couldn’t unsee it, and without a doubt, I prefer that story to this one. I cared more about the characters getting their souls back in that movie. It had better pacing. It had better humor. Fuck, it had better questions of morality. And to quote our lord and savior, Freddie Prinze Junior, that movie was only about a talking dog. This book had so much more to play with, and it did nothing with it. I didn’t care about any of the characters. I wasn’t creeped out. I didn’t get anything out of its social commentary. It was a huge miss for me. I wouldn’t go so far as to say don’t read it, but I’m certainly not going to recommend it. Who should read this: Psychological horror fans Fever dream book fans Kooky femme horror fans Mommy issues fans Do I want to reread this: No Similar books: * Bunny by Mona Awad-duh * Motherthing by Ainslie Hogarth-kooky, femme horror * Our Wives Under the Sea by Julia Armfield-magical realism, dementia horror, queer * Shark Heart by Emily Habeck-magical realism, dementia horror, queer * We Spread by Iain Reid-dementia horror Merged review: Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review. My Selling Pitch: The Scooby Doo movie’s spooky island souls but make it vaguely vampiric and splattered with fairytale and skincare brand references. Do you like a fever dream of a novel and mommy issues? Do you want to be confused and vaguely unsettled, but ultimately disappointed? Not to put you off this, but a book sold as beauty guru horror did not need a cop romance. Pre-reading: Hi bunny. Unpopular opinion-I do not like the cover. Thick of it: This would make a good movie with like severe jump cuts in the sound. Haha, wildkat fan? Haha the ordinary peel It’s giving Black Mirror LOL Charlotte Tilbury, supergoop Please don’t fuck your mother’s boytoy. This book needs to pickup. Is this some weird Disney adult cult? Sirens? Jellyfish are immortal, right? Is it something to do with that? Scimitar Mixing the fake beauty in with the real beauty products is wild. Religieuse Melasma mille-feuille I will say that as somebody who is very insecure about their skin and uses lots of lotions and potions, every time I pick this book up, it does make me put product on my face. Why are you imagining your mom fucking? That’s weird. Does it have something to do with pruning? I’m not a gardener. (This is never answered.) That was excellent humor. Grand maman is a horse girl confirmed. Does this count as a piney minty boy? (survey says yes) parlance Hud Hudson is basically Moon Moon. So they give their memories to the jellyfish aliens, and then in exchange, they get to look pretty. Is this you have to be dumb to be pretty commentary because I’m not into that. (Lowkey I think it is.) It reminds me of that Scooby Doo movie’s soul pool. I don’t know why she picked Tom Cruise because I think he’s so ugly. Also, I think Tad is the Tom Cruise demon. (Wrong.) Did she kill Stacy? (Wrong.) It reminds me of hunting Peter Pan’s shadow. Tisane I want to like this book because it’s kooky, femme horror, but I don’t think I do. Is this some man-I like you better without makeup. You don’t need makeup commentary? Because I’m not into that. (Lowkey I think yes, again.) It just feels icky to me to take these lesbian undertones and pedophilic abuse and make it both that and something fantastical instead. G ...more |
Notes are private!
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1
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Sep 05, 2023
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Sep 08, 2023
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Mar 07, 2024
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Kindle Edition
| ||||||||||||||||
| 077100608X
| 9780771006081
| B0CF167RR3
| 2.69
| 230
| May 07, 2024
| May 07, 2024
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did not like it
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Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review. My Selling Pitch: Do you want to read a work of tran Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review. My Selling Pitch: Do you want to read a work of translated horror that feels more like experimental descriptive writing than a story? Are you cool with slogging through a book without a clear narrative? Pre-reading: I love unhinged books. I love this cover. Please be good. Thick of it: That's interesting. Desire as a psychotic break survival strategy I put this book down, and I have been dreading picking it back up. It’s not that it’s particularly bad, it just takes a lot of brain power to read because of the translated language. And then I’m also not motivated to read it because I can’t see myself giving it any higher than a two. I think this is artsy she’s getting raped, but I don’t know, and I’m afraid I’m reading into it, but I’m also like pretty sure that’s what’s happening. I don’t wanna kill people, but the parasites wanna kill people Simultaneously Miley Cyrus’s Can’t Be Tamed and also a horse girl. But hair and fingernails don’t grow after death? The skin just contracts so it looks longer. I have no clue what’s going on. I don’t know if any of this is a metaphor or if we’re supposed to buy that it’s actually happening. Are all these people she’s encountering dead? I’m so confused. Is she there to give birth? I’m so confused. Is she there for an abortion? I’m so confused. Detritus sin So who’s gonna explain this book to me? I don’t get it at all. Post-reading: I have no idea what I just read. Listen, when they described this book as a fever dream, they were not exaggerating. It is incoherent. It’s all purple prose that would be juicy if it actually led anywhere. There’s no clear string of plot for the audience to grasp onto to pull them through the story. When the book opens, it reads like some torture porn psychological break. It’s set up with the flavor of a revenge thriller. And that’s the book I wanted to read. But instead, you’re left floating through scene after scene that are bogged down with nothing but lengthy descriptions. It might be a flaw of the translation, but there’s nowhere for the reader to pause and catch a mental breath. It’s just clause after clause after clause. And what’s frustrating is that there are some pretty little gems of quirky writing in here. I just had no clue what was going on, and I kept reading in the hopes that the ending would be some grand illuminating twist that would make you want to reread the novel in a new context. But it’s not that. You’re just left with more of the same. There’s vague impressions of rape and abortion, but the story’s so unclear that I can’t tell if I’m reading into something that’s not there or if that’s the whole point. It’s dense. It’s hard to get through. It has horrific imagery, but I struggle to actually classify it as horror without a concrete narrative. It feels more like a descriptive writing experiment than a story. Who should read this: Translated horror fans Do I want to reread this: No? If someone can explain this book to me in a way that makes it coherent, I would try it again. Similar books: * Walking Practice by Dolki Min-translated horror, experimental writing style * We Spread by Iain Reid-psychological horror about Alzheimer’s, unreliable narrator * I’m Thinking of Ending Things by Iain Reid-psychological horror, unreliable narrator * Mothtown by Caroline Hardaker-psychological horror, unreliable narrator, purposely confusing to read * Vita Nostra by Marina and Sergey Dyachenko-dark academia, purposely confusing to read ...more |
Notes are private!
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1
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May 10, 2024
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May 30, 2024
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Jan 10, 2024
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Kindle Edition
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| 1778522610
| 9781778522611
| B0CP6B75K5
| 3.96
| 1,041
| Apr 09, 2024
| Apr 09, 2024
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it was ok
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Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review. My Selling Pitch: The Scarlet Letter x Dracula but m Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review. My Selling Pitch: The Scarlet Letter x Dracula but make it lesbian horror. And then don't make it scary and direct all your feminine rage at other women instead of the patriarchy. Pre-reading: Like cat dog but worse! I love this cover. Thick of it: Does this count as epistolary? (Google says yes.) It’s reminding me of Dracula and Emily Wilde. I better not be needing to know who these children are because their names have immediately left my brain. (You do not.) Moue This is slow. And Scarlet Lettery Are she and Agatha gonna be lesbians? 26% I have two predictions for this book. She’s gonna have a mild lesbian affair with the pastor’s wife. The pastor is going to be pissed and kill the wife, so girlypop is gonna snap and team up with the widow witch and start cursing the town to get revenge for her sister and her lover. OR girlypop is going to hang out with the widow and have an affair with her because she can’t have the pastor’s wife. And the calling to her psychological horror bit is going to be her gay panic. (Like basically, but also tell me how either of those would’ve been better books than the one we got.) What is it with calling lady parts mossy clefts? Yuck. I feel like every time this book uses the word queer it’s trying to do a cheeky double entendre to the modern meaning. I'm assuming girlypop was raped or had an affair with her last host? Maybe had a baby and gave it up? (Nailed it.) Is Muriel her dad’s new wife because would not be surprised, and also ew. (Nailed it again.) Emily Wilde but make it horror lol And title drop This book is slow and boring. Like I get it. Life sucks for women. The end. (That’s it. That’s the book.) That moment when a book lists obscure vocab, and you’re insane and track the new vocab you find in books. Abstemious Aeromancy Ambuscade Drawncansir Dysphagia Hebdomadal Minikin See, I would never survive in these horror books because I’m like oh, the demon wants to come in? Yeah, let him in. We’re gonna fall in love. Ha ha see, I recognized it as a violent love story. The demon says I can fix her. Here’s the thing, I’m all for female rage, but blowing your life up over your daddy issues to prove him right is pretty goddamn stupid. “I am no garden, father.” Baller line. Following it up with I’m tree roots and an owl, not cool. Just cringe. Girlypop don’t fuck bugs. The end of the book is the most interesting part of it, and I’m still so checked out. Lame. It’s bad taste that this whole book is women are subjected to men’s endless desire for them and suffer because of it, and then it ends with girlypop also just assaulting and killing a woman because she can’t fuck her. Ew, brother ew. It’s like the book’s message is like oh she doesn’t have to be a proper young lady, but she’s still just an asshole? You’re not entitled to someone just because you want them? I just don’t fuck with the idea of feminine rage being incel behavior. Yes, ladies are equally entitled to be assholes, but frame it that way? Don’t pretend this bitch is a hero. Oh, she stuck it to society! She killed someone, Susan. Get a grip. Post-reading: This was lame. Don’t tell me you’re a horror novel if you’re not gonna scare me. And if you’re like but Samantha, the book had lots of gore! I saw more blood on my period this week. Don’t amateur hour me with this shit. Make me wince. I want another Ninth House, goddamnit. And that book’s not even sold as horror. I don’t know what it is with these historical horrors lately that are just like life sucks for women, and then they die, and no one fucks the demon. The end. I think objectively the voice in this book is well written. It definitely feels like a play on Dracula and the Scarlet Letter. But I don’t really fuck with those books either. I think they’re way too slow. This book is no different. You’ve gotta get halfway through before anything happens, and even then, it all feels very expected. I felt nothing for these characters. It felt like we were ticking off boxes for women’s trauma without any nuance to it. And I don’t know if there was wiggle room to add nuance to it. Because it is just kind of a miserable relay of facts that like yeah, it was olden times so women’s lives sucked. It’s 2024 and we’ve still got fuckers trying to get us to be homemakers. So clearly, I’m down for some feminine rage. Doesn’t even have to be the musical. I don’t know if this book qualifies as that, or if it does, it doesn’t scratch the itch. It reads less like feminine rage and more like a self-harm temper tantrum. Which like cool. I am all for feminism granting us the equal opportunity to be shitty human beings, but don’t sell her to me as a hero then? The book reads like you’re supposed to root for our main character, but she straight-up sucks. She’s got some serious femcel behavior. It just doesn’t leave a good taste in my mouth when you make your character think she’s so cool because she’s not like other girls, and then have her kill a bitch just because she won’t fuck her. What is that? This book had so many opportunities to be sexy, and it’s never sexy. That feels like a failing. I want my demons sexy, or at least threatening. He’s never scary. The demon’s a pussycat leaving presents on the back step. It’s lame! It’s slow burn and vibey. There’s just no substance to it, and I don’t like the messaging. I think you can pick up better, but fuck, what a cover. Who should read this: Historical slow-burn girlies I blindly support women’s wrongs because #feminism Do I want to reread this: Nope Similar books: * The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne-woman punished by society for not conforming to the patriarchy * Night Bitch by Rebecca Yoder-mommy horror, magical realism * Rouge by Mona Awad-femme horror, fairytale retelling * Thirst by Marina Yuszczuk-lesbian vampires, historical * Our Wives Under the Sea by Julia Armfield-femme psychological horror, lesbians * Bunny by Mona Awad-femme psychological horror, lesbians * Tell Me I’m Worthless by Alison Rumfitt-queer psychological horror, body horror, sexual violence * The Familiar by Leigh Bardugo-historical, my boyfriend’s a demon * Emily Wilde’s Encyclopaedia of Faeries by Heather Fawcett- epistolary, academic writing, mild horror elements, romantic subplot * Lone Women by Victor LaValle-historical, magical realism, the real horror is how small towns treat nonconforming women * The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue by V. E. Schwab-historical, magical realism romance, make a deal with a demon, but don’t fuck him ...more |
Notes are private!
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1
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May 22, 2024
|
May 27, 2024
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Jan 10, 2024
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Kindle Edition
| ||||||||||||||
| B0BVTMYQ4V
| 3.33
| 445
| Nov 14, 2023
| Nov 14, 2023
|
did not like it
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Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review. My Selling Pitch: Do you want to read a psychologica Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review. My Selling Pitch: Do you want to read a psychological horror book with an unreliable narrator that is commentary on the impacts of familial grief and undiagnosed mental illness? Are you willing to be confused until the very end of the book? Pre-reading: This cover haunts me. An instant pickup. Did I read the blurb? No. Do I have any idea what this book is about? Not a clue. The cover inexplicably gives vampire to me, but it’s probably not about vampires. Thick of it: Oh, this book said you’re gonna be confused the whole time. I smell an unreliable narrator and some mental health commentary coming down the pipeline. God, I hope this book is not aliens. (We are safe.) Aw, I have a border collie. Is he like autistic or somethin? (Fo sho) I’m assuming Emily is gonna go missing which is why he goes to Mothtown? (Wrong.) It’s weirdly giving he’s in love with his sister and it’s giving me the ick. How many times has this book used the word alien? I would DNF. It’s too confusing and punishing. Kurta Cassock I don’t like this book. It’s so punishing to the reader. A Sam! I like this chapter. Why isn’t this the whole book? It reminds me of a video game cut scene, but I don’t know what video game. Cyberpunk? Detroit Become Human? (Chapter 10.) Oh god, he’s a bat boy lol. SJM, sit down. Ocarina It’s giving unreliable narrator in an insane asylum with orderlies. (Yupppp) This book is incoherent She’s not your manic pixie dream girl, you fucking incel. I don’t know how this book fits in with trans commentary. It’s coming across a little icky. It’s almost making transness an online phenomenon. Homeboy made a fur suit. Detritus sin Post-reading: Y’all this book is a mess. I get that it’s going for an unreliable narrator and mental health commentary, but it is incoherent and punishing to the reader. If you read this, you are asked to sit through almost 300 pages to figure out what’s going on, but it’s such an unoriginal plot that you’ll have a suspicion of what’s going on from the get-go, so the resolution isn’t even rewarding when you finally come to it. If you like Black Mirror or if you regularly consume this kind of psychological horror short story, chances are you’ve read this book, and you’ve already read a way better version. Some of the commentary and conclusions that this book came to feel a bit ablest and transphobic. I doubt that that was the intention. The relationship with his sister comes off weirdly incestuous. A lot of the horror details seem like they’re added just for shock value. Things are described as eerie and othered for no real reason other than building atmosphere. It’s not effective. The book can’t decide if it wants to scare you, or if it wants you to figure out what the narrator is actually seeing. It exaggerates the current mental health crisis into a dystopia, but then doesn’t really have anything to say about it. It felt like the big conclusion of the book was that talk therapy will set you free. That’s not true for everyone, and it’s irresponsible to push that message. The book’s prose feels repetitive and monotonous. That might be the point so that it can emphasize the main character’s mindset, but it’s miserable to read. There is one chapter in this book that I really enjoyed, and it felt like a video game cut scene. The book’s stylistic imagery was used effectively. It was very obvious what was happening and what was delusion. I think it benefited because there was actually dialogue for once, instead of endless internal monologuing. Which again, may have been a very pointed narrative element because the main character struggles with communication, but it’s a punishment to read. This book has a time jump that makes no sense. We needed the details of the years in between, or we could’ve cut plenty of the scenes from his childhood. The book just fundamentally didn’t work for me. It was too preoccupied with trying to be mysterious and edgy. If it wanted to be dystopian, I needed more clear-cut world-building. If it wanted to focus more on the family drama, I needed more dialogue. If it wanted to be horror, I needed something to actually scare me and give the book stakes. I’ve read this kind of story before, and this iteration had nothing meaningful to contribute to the conversation. Who should read this: Psychological horror fans who are okay with punishing books Do I want to reread this: No Similar books: * I’m Thinking of Ending Things by Iain Reid-psychological horror, New England gothic, unreliable narrator. What this book wishes it was. * We Spread by Iain Reid-psychological horror, dementia and Alzheimer’s commentary, unreliable narrator * Foe by Iain Reid-sci-fi psychological horror, clones, unreliable narrator * Shark Heart by Rebecca Habeck-magical realism, dementia and degenerative disease horror * Our Wives Under the Sea-deep sea horror, grief and degenerative disease commentary * Motherthing by Ainslie Hogarth-unreliable narrator, campy, kooky, femme horror * American Psycho by Brett Easton Ellis-OG psychological horror and societal misogyny commentary ...more |
Notes are private!
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1
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Dec 10, 2023
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Dec 12, 2023
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Nov 17, 2023
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Kindle Edition
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| B00P42WZBG
| 3.93
| 49,285
| Sep 29, 2015
| Sep 29, 2015
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liked it
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My Selling Pitch: Do you want to read some torture porn? It is compulsively readable. If you’re new to the genre, the twist will probably gag you. If My Selling Pitch: Do you want to read some torture porn? It is compulsively readable. If you’re new to the genre, the twist will probably gag you. If you’ve been here a while, you’ll see it coming from a mile away but still enjoy the ride. Pre-reading: I’ve heard good things about this from Katie Colson, who sells me on every book she reads. We have pretty similar tastes, so I trust her recommendations. One of my Fable friends recommended this as well, so I have high expectations. Thick of it: Hell yeah, brother. I love a hook. Bundy sin I’m assuming they’re eating people. (Nailed it.) And I’m assuming the mom killed the older sister. (Two for two.) Oh shit, I bet the woman they’re watching is Alice’s mom. (Ladies and gentlemen, can she go four for four?) Every book I read is secretly about bears. (Starting in July, I’m adding this tracker for my stupid stats.) I wonder if this is Michael’s mom and she’s been depressed after he was kidnapped and Alice is actually his sister because that would be gross. (It’s like I wrote it.) Oh god, they are eating the people. Oh, but they raped the women so like they’re definitely eating the family spunk off of these meats too. Oh no. Sam, normally you’re all up in arms about gratuitous violence. Sometimes I get so detached that my brain goes to bad places and it’s like logistically, what would you have to consider here? (And somehow it’s always jizz.) I feel like you’d have to murder more than 30 people to get routine at it, but hey, what do I know? Oh, he 100% just kissed his sister. Oh no. Especially with that whole foreshadowing line. Like you’re supposed to think this is a cute little romance, but I’m like no man, that’s 100% his sister. I feel like he’s gonna kidnap her and then he’s gonna realize her hair is dyed and it’s actually his hair color too. (Finally a wrong guess.) Dude, you’re eating your mother. Oh, this is so deeply fucked. Bears, Beets, Battlestar Galactica Oh my god, and he fed her Michael’s backstory. Ew! I wonder how many people read this book and don’t see the twist coming so then they’re like extra horrified when it happens versus I’m just like skeeved out the whole time. Wow, that motherfucker. (Samantha, get out.) Listen, the book asks you to suspend a lot of disbelief because like cops don’t exist, or like schooling, or like doctors, or like religion, or literally so many things Michael shouldn’t know about but he does anyway. But I don’t really care cause I’m having a-I hesitate to say good time because of the content, but like I’m entertained. We pity the hurt children. That pity ends when they become adults who hurt other people. I think this book would be stronger if we were also in the dark as to why Rebel hated Michael so much. Like I feel like it would be a stronger reveal if we got flashbacks from Michael’s perspective, and it was just oh my god, I’m so desperate to put food on the table. I gotta kill the bunny and then at the end have one big reveal behind all those actions. Just my two cents. I love hyenas. OK, but Rebel probably has a gun. (Nope. We forgot about those.) Oh, him tripping is lame! Oh man, that’s a lame line too. This ending is ruining it. Wow, how fucking bleak! Post-reading: I feel like books like this are a little hard to rate. Is it gratuitous torture porn? Absolutely. Is it also compulsively readable? Hell yeah, brother. (What? You thought you were going to escape that joke in this review? You must be new here.) Like a lot of thrillers, you’re gonna have to suspend your disbelief to have a good time. Cops have to not exist, DNA evidence has to not exist, a school board, doctors, all that shit. If the family is so isolated Michael definitely shouldn’t know half of what he does. But if you put all that aside, you can have a nice-I feel like nice isn’t the word- you’re gonna turn some pages, okay? I question the structure of this novel a little bit. On the one hand, I love playing detective and figuring out twists. On the other hand, I hate when I figure out the twist so early that I’m just waiting for the book to reach that twist. Do you know how much more satisfying this novel would be had it been told completely from Michael’s perspective? You can still have the flashback chapters, but they would be so much stronger if we didn’t have Rebel’s twisted monologue lending actions context. It would be a much more satisfying twist at the end if maybe the last 10% of this book was then Rebel’s perspective for the first time all novel, and you’d get this great big villain whodunitoneit monologue. That would get you to go back and read the novel with a completely new context. It’s a bit spoilery getting everything from his perspective from the jump because you can figure it out so easily. Trigger warnings out the wazoo for this book, but I think that’s probably pretty obvious if you’re picking it up. It’s definitely gratuitous. There’s not much nuance to it. It’s just kind of what can we throw in here for shock value? But there’s so much shock value that I was sweating reading it. So like it’s cheap tricks, but they’re effective. It’s a bleak book and the ending is just as dark. I can’t decide if I like that or not. It’s way more satisfying that everything sucks than if Alice had gotten away, and I don’t really know how else I would’ve wanted this to end because there’s no living after doing all that. TLDR: Highly entertaining, no great literary masterpiece, approach with caution if you’re not down for rape and murder. Who should read this: Thriller girlies who can handle some gore The girls who thought Verity was jaw dropping I read to be entertained not to use my brain Do I want to reread this: Nah, but I would recommend it to other people and try this author again Similar books: * The Butterfly Garden by Dot Hutchison-torture porn, crime drama * Verity by Colleen Hoover-twisty thriller, no brain, just vibe * Red Dragon (and Hannibal series in general) by Thomas Harris-OG cannibal crime thriller, but like def also torture porn * The Reappearance of Rachel Price by Holly Jackson-YA thriller, family drama * You Can Run by Rebecca Zanetti-cliche crime thriller, family drama * The Naturals by Jennifer Lynn Barnes-YA Criminal Minds fanfiction, family drama * Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn-OG revenge thriller * Dark Places by Gillian Flynn-revenge thriller, family drama * The Housemaid by Frieda McFadden-cliche revenge thriller, no brain, just vibe * The Maid’s Diary by Loreth Anne White-cliche revenge thriller ...more |
Notes are private!
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1
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Jun 10, 2024
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Jun 11, 2024
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Nov 08, 2023
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Kindle Edition
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| B0C773SH3T
| 3.58
| 3,693
| Oct 01, 2020
| Mar 05, 2024
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did not like it
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Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review. My Selling Pitch: Sapphic vampires, but it’s insta l Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review. My Selling Pitch: Sapphic vampires, but it’s insta love and it reads like a historical summary, not a book. For a book pitched as lesbian bloodsuckers, there’s an awful lot of dicks. On my do not read list. Pre-reading: I heard lesbian vampires, and I was in. I love this cover. Thick of it: This is all lost on me because I don’t have a sense of smell. Ew, a child. Ha ha, why do I feel like some knockers are gonna get grabbed alright. Samantha, jail. (I expected this book to be so horny, and it was not.) didactic Samantha, you’re barely into this book. You can’t claim it’s boring already. Watch me. T Swift luggage behavior I’m gonna call that a title drop. She’s not like other girls. She’s not afraid of violence against women. I’m at DNF territory. Like I don’t care, and it’s instalove. What is with all these jaguar books? Pick a new animal. I'M BORED Not a man! Who cares. Literally who cares. Fuck these historicals. I don’t think it’s just a bad translation. I think the book itself is bad. This is Immortal Pleasures all over again. And the Familiar. This book has no stakes. I am so bored. I’m so confused by Leonora’s backstory. Are they saying that like the politician husband was raping her? Why was she having blackouts? soporifics Girlypop, you’re literally immortal. If you wanna fuck a statue, just do it. Oh thank fucking god, part two. Please let something happen! Sticking your fingers where- I know it’s like the juxtaposition of life and death, but like I do not wanna hear about how you fingered yourself and then touched grandma‘s forehead! This book is literally pointless. There’s nothing being done with the story. It has nothing to say. Just let your mom die. That’s so mean. Is there literally any point to this little boy’s toothache and dentist experience other than the author perhaps working through some dental trauma of her own? (No!) I’m so bored. This book sucks. (And that’s not a vampire joke.) I just don’t get the point of this book at all. It’s not a meditation on grief. It’s not a sapphic relationship. It’s not an interesting historical. It’s literally just a whole bunch of nothing. Girlypop, why are you trying to open coffins in a graveyard without gloves on at the very least? I know this is meant to be sapphic, but it reads so for the male gaze. Why is she like oh, I’m horny again? It’s probably from visiting the ceremony and not my hormones from being on my period. What do you mean? (Also, how are you gonna write me a lesbian vampire novel and no one gets their cooter licked while they’re making like the cherry gusher? Emerald Fennel is disappointed in you.) I appreciate that it’s trying to mimic the classic by doing the journal entries, but this book is so boring. My roommate, the vampire Everyone saying that they liked this book… like you’re lying. You’re lying. You did not. If there’s one thing about me, it’s that I hate a mom who fucks off and leaves her kids. I hop up on this soapbox all the time, but children are literally optional. You better stick them somewhere safe before you fuck off. Post-reading: I am convinced that everyone who said that they liked this book was lying. Nothing and I do mean nothing happens in this book. It’s not even moody and atmospheric. There’s no lyrical writing. The first half of this book reads like a historical summary. It is all telling and no showing. The characters are interchangeable cardboard cutouts with no personalities and no emotional depth. There is nothing for the audience to connect to. The second half is about a mom who abandons her kid to get some immortal puss. And the author doesn’t even dignify that by making it a horny book. When the book does try to get smutty, it has a terrible male gaze lens to it where women exist to be naked prey. It’s pitched as a sapphic book, but that seems like bi-erasure when both your main characters have relationships with men too. There are so many pointless filler scenes. The book features an assisted suicide framed like a mercy killing, and you’d think we’d at least get a sentence or two with some social commentary, but we don’t. Everyone in this book is too busy sipping on dumb bitch juice to get anything done. The immortal vampire’s greatest fear is the police because they have a picture of her. I’m gonna let that sink in. There’s not a single character with any motivation in this entire novel. Everyone helps out our bloodsucking girlypop on nothing because she’s just so goddamn hot. And sure vampire thralls, but there’s no discussion of that. Everything is instalove. She is infatuated with everyone she meets, and they catch the feels right back. There’s no logical rule for how long girlypop can go without feeding, and she kills most of her victims with an overgrown thumbnail. It’s hard to feel threatened by someone who could literally be taken out by a nail file. The book has absolutely no stakes to it, other than the ones that the villagers pulled out of their asses to kill her sisters with. How did those villagers discover that vampires exist and where did that knowledge go in the society? Who knows. This book won’t tell you. This book is a complete waste of your time, and I don’t think anyone should pick it up. Who should read this: Historical fiction girlies Do I want to reread this: Nope. Similar books: * Immortal Pleasures by V. Castro-historical retelling with vampires, instalove * The Familiar by Leigh Bardugo-historical retelling, magical realism, vaguely vampires * Bride by Ali Hazelwood-paranormal romance, urban fantasy * The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue by V. E. Schwab-magical realism, historical, romance * Sun of Blood and Ruin by Mariely Lares-magical realism, historical, romance * Starling House by Alix E. Harrow-gothic romance, fairytale retelling, less plot just vibes * The Last Tale of the Flower Bride by Roshani Chokshi-gothic romance, fairytale retelling, less plot just vibes * The Witch and the Vampire by Francesca Flores-insta love, YA fantasy romance ...more |
Notes are private!
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1
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May 06, 2024
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May 07, 2024
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Sep 21, 2023
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Kindle Edition
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| 0593545877
| 9780593545874
| B0BPWW3DLP
| 3.60
| 20,044
| Sep 19, 2023
| Sep 19, 2023
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did not like it
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Thank you to Goodreads and the publisher for a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review. My Selling Pitch: The daughter of Satan but she's ac Thank you to Goodreads and the publisher for a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review. My Selling Pitch: The daughter of Satan but she's actually insufferable and he's an impotent, deadbeat with zero charisma. Also, some backburner criticism of high control religion. So firmly on my do not read list. Pre-reading: I've been spoiled with arcs from the it girlies of horror this year. Although, I am a bad girl who hasn't read her other books. Thick of it: Lmao Shortys in Nashua is one of my favorite restaurants. Oh no. She's giving a little Wattpad. Show don’t tell my girl. (Mission impossible for this book.) Oh, well, as long as we know miss special main character is pretty. Dogs hating you is a red flag. I'm extremely anti-religion. You know that's a good twist. That's a very good twist. I was like these goddamn Catholics, and actually, they're satanic worshipers. Is her dad Satan because that's lame. (sigh) I think I need to start tracking the Taylor Swift sins. This book is vibey, but slow af. Vesper is such a miserable cunt. Rosie deserves better. I’m 40% in and nothing has happened, and I’m bored. What do these people do for money? Her dad is Satan. How boring. I don't like this book. We're in 1-star territory. Not an empath. The book is like look, Gore! And Sam’s like I don’t care. This main character is insufferable. This book is stupid. Burn shit down or don’t. I don’t careeeee I just don’t get why everyone’s like omg, magic powers. Satan is real! and not a chain restaurant is obviously a death trap. Is this gonna be a her mommy emotionally abused her to save her from her father because that’s fucking stupid. (Yup.) Will she finally cry when her mother sacrifices herself in place of her? (Nope.) This author really has never heard of showing not telling. She really called herself the big cheese unironically. Oh, there you go. It’s the climax of the story, and Girlypop can in fact cry. So basically, her mom is just a bitch for no reason. Is that really what we’re going with? (Yes.) No, actually you’re very hateful. This is literally just a revenge fantasy against a Christian upbringing, and it’s so fucking dumb. Oh no, her mom is saving her. This book is in fact as stupid as I thought it was. Oh, you grow up and break away from your faith and you realize that your abusive daddy is actually just a cruel old man? Wow, groundbreaking. How brave. Never been done before. Definitely contributes to this nuanced trauma and doesn’t just repeat obvious facts in an echo chamber. (Genuinely who told this woman she did something with this book because can we talk?) Is it bad that all my brain can think about is that if she’s missing ribs, she’s gonna be hella skinny? Like she’ll literally just be even hotter. (Mental illness right there, isn’t it?) Oh my god, this reads like the author’s therapy breakthrough. Oh, and she has a raspy, sex voice. Let’s not forget that. Donner Road like the Donner party. What do you mean the daughter is just a rumor? I assume she has a birth certificate and a Social Security number. Like that’s pretty fucking easy to fact-check. Her school records, dental, medical, car registration? How did she explain the missing rib at the hospital? Wouldn’t you have to go to the hospital for an injury like that? Don’t you have to permanently bind your waist if you get your ribs removed? God, this really is just her therapy transcript. Dude, this book sucks. It’s going on my do not read list. It’s going on my I wish I could unread this list. It’s so bad I genuinely don’t want to pick up another book by this author. Post-reading: Um, have you gathered that I hated this yet? The writing is bad it reads a little adolescent Wattpady because the main character has such Mary Sue energy. We get told how pretty she is way too often. The author has never heard of showing not telling. She will spell out the characters’ feelings in black and white for you. There’s no ambiguity. Do you know what doesn’t work in horror if you’re trying to make it a little psychological traumay? No ambiguity. Logically, I know why this is classified as horror because it’s gory, but personally, nothing in this book is scary. What’s scary is that it got published and people enjoy it. It’s literally just a revenge fantasy against a religious upbringing that adds nothing to the conversation about the trauma that such an upbringing inflicts on children. The characters are incredibly one-note, flat, and have zero development. The main character is fundamentally unlikable, and not in an intentional way. The audience is genuinely supposed to root for her. She is an actual piece of human garbage. She goes out of her way to make other people miserable and to hurt them. The big conclusions of this book read like a therapy transcript. Wow, you realized that your abusive daddy is in fact just a person so you don’t have to be disproportionately afraid of him anymore now that you’re an adult? Tired. Garbage. Let me direct you to some true crime podcasts that will show you why you should still be afraid of religious nuts and abusive men in general. Also, where is the rage? Where is the anger for all the people they’ve hurt? You’re not the only victim, sweetheart. Where’s the anger on their behalf because they got warped into the abusive pieces of shit that they are. They weren’t made in a vacuum. The main character’s other epiphany-people can do nice and bad things to you! And then her solution is literally just to murder all of them. Like what sort of message is that sending your audience? Which I’m struggling to figure out the audience for this book because I would almost put this in the YA category with how immature it is. Religious people are not gonna pick this book up. They would not like it. So that leaves your audience of anti-religious people who have already heard these arguments and come to these conclusions, so you’re really just acting as an echo chamber for them. But then your character’s big revelation is that she can have faith in a different way! And also the religious people in this book were actually not full of bullshit and everything they believed was true! So again, I ask you what sort of message are you trying to fucking send because it sucks. And one more little awful nugget-there’s no way this actually takes into account Satanism as a religion. I’m anti-religion all day, every day, baby, okay? So I'm not even going to try to summarize the religion’s actual beliefs. But can you imagine how much backlash this would get if this book had called its cult Christians, given them Jewish beliefs, and then made them the villains? if you’re going to speak on the trauma caused by a certain faith, you better get the label right. I am THE audience for religious horror. I am so down for it. That is my favorite kind of trauma. This is not that book. Which like fine Sam, you hate the subject matter, but maybe other people would fuck with it. Too bad? it’s so poorly written that even if you were down for this bullshit revenge concept, I don’t think you would get anything valuable out of it. Read better books. Life is short. Who should read this: No one Good for her book fans Religious trauma revenge fantasy fans Do I want to reread this: I want to unread this. Similar books: * Camp Damascus by Chuck Tingle. This is the same book. It’s a revenge fantasy about religious trauma, but this one’s gay. * Rouge by Mona Awad-mommy issues and demons * Silver Nitrate by Sylvia Moreno Garcia-historical horror, movie films and curses ...more |
Notes are private!
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1
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Oct 28, 2023
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Oct 29, 2023
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Sep 08, 2023
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Kindle Edition
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| 1250794676
| 9781250794673
| B0B9KWLVNX
| 3.66
| 1,760
| Jun 11, 2024
| Jun 11, 2024
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it was ok
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Thank you to Goodreads and the publisher for a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review. My Selling Pitch: Gretchen: hey, can I copy your hom Thank you to Goodreads and the publisher for a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review. My Selling Pitch: Gretchen: hey, can I copy your homework Stephen King: sure, just change a few things so it’s not obvious Camp Damascus if it was actually horror. King’s It but now everyone’s ~explicitly~ not straight. Pre-reading: I loved Manhunt last year. For all its flaws, it lives rent-free in my brain. This is one of my most anticipated releases for the year, but I am weirdly intimidated by it. I’ve had the arc for a little bit but kept putting it off. I really hope it’s good. It’s got another killer cover. Thick of it: One of these things is not like the other ...more |
Notes are private!
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1
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Jun 25, 2024
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Jun 30, 2024
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Aug 27, 2023
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Kindle Edition
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| B08N5D9KTN
| 3.77
| 46,198
| Oct 31, 2019
| Dec 08, 2020
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it was ok
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My Selling Pitch: My Year of Rest and Relaxation written with the insufferable, performative edginess of How to Kill Your Family and American Psycho’s My Selling Pitch: My Year of Rest and Relaxation written with the insufferable, performative edginess of How to Kill Your Family and American Psycho’s info dumps, and even that still sounds better than what this book is. Pre-reading: On my continuing quest for a five-star, I asked that little blue bastard on Fable to pick me out another Maeve Fly, and he found this. The cover, stunning. The little blurb on the cover likens it to American Psycho which I am intolerably obsessed with. I have outrageously high expectations despite not knowing what this book is about. To give you my favorite Ninth House quote one more time, “you are hungry, and I respect hunger.” Thick of it: Chapter titles immediately giving Fuller’s Hannibal. Oh, I am digging this. It’s pretentious af, but I kinda like it because I’m a Capricorn snob. Bricolage Did not have 51-year-old protagonist on the bingo board, but I also didn’t read the blurb. Privation Insouciant Lambent You know I was on board until we started talking about children having perfect tits. Pudendum Jejune Carceral This prose *crackles* Oleaginous This book has made me outrageously hungry. My grandma’s name was Dorothy. Fun. Facts. A local! Virago Lucubration Take a shot every time this book says fecundity. I’m getting bored. When the pretentiousness works it WORKS. The rest of the time it gives written by a middle schooler. I know Dorothy’s an asshole, but we’re not body-shaming/vagina-shaming other women like this. Niggardly Metonym Sapid A 50-year-old knowing about Sims characters strikes me as odd. Abstemious This book is so complicated because some turns of phrase are so descriptive and evocative and brilliant and then others feel like they’re trying too hard to be edgy and shocking and perverse. Koan I will also take the truffle. I hate a cake pop. Oh, when this prose works, it WORKS. The Eye of the Tiger shit was brilliant. But don’t you not feel guilt if you’re a psychopath? Every book I read is about bears. Naif It’s reading like she eats the men who reject her and that’s not feminine rage. That’s incel behavior. One of my bosses is named Andrew and is a huge cycling fan and has British parents, but is firmly American. The universe is eerie like that. (Even more weirdly, his name was just in another book I read.) Prolix This is a book about appetite. I wonder if Army Hammer read this? Susurrations Paean Halt and Catch Fire has had such an impact on my life. The only reason I know about the IBM Selectric is because of that show. Emma sounds like she's got TALENT. Honestly bored with the murders in this book. Much more interested in her food writing and Emma. the author: it’s so gory me bored out of my mind, eating goldfish: Dorothy sucks. Emma is so cool. The vocabulary was impressive at first, but now that it’s being reused so much, it doesn’t read like her natural vernacular. It reads like find and replace all. Eiderdown That's that me espresso ...more |
Notes are private!
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1
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Jun 11, 2024
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Jun 17, 2024
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Aug 13, 2023
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Kindle Edition
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| B09HPKLJPB
| 3.78
| 81,066
| Mar 03, 2022
| Jul 12, 2022
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really liked it
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My Selling Pitch: Do you want to read a book that is all underwater horror vibes with some body horror? Are you up for a challenging read that won’t gi My Selling Pitch: Do you want to read a book that is all underwater horror vibes with some body horror? Are you up for a challenging read that won’t give you answers but makes allusions? Pre-reading: Once again, a preponderance of my book girlies have read this book, so now I am here. The UK cover is stunning and America has this ugly salmon one. That is rude. The girl on the UK cover weirdly reminds me of Amy Adams. I think it’s the mouth. Thick of it: Teeth falling out is such a common nightmare, but I forget what it’s supposed to symbolize. I’ve never had that dream. Do you know what’s scary? I literally had a bloody nose just before this, and I had to put off reading this book because I was too busy bleeding. Oh god, gross. I hate eye horror. Oh god, math, but I know how submarines work. Oooo eerie. This book is fucking eerie Whose bathroom is lavender? She came back a mermaid? After some deep sea accident? Spooky. Mermaid horror. What a genre. —- (So this is my third time restarting this book because I have tried to multitask with it twice, and I just wasn’t getting it. I feel like it’s a very hard book to listen to because of the audiobook narrators’ accents and because it’s very atmospheric, so you have to sit there and focus on it to get the vibes. And I could tell I was liking it, but that I was missing so much trying to listen to it, so I’m sitting down and just reading it without an audiobook now. ———— Strop This book has such a wonderful sense of general foreboding and malaise and just like a little bit of malignance. I’d say it’s Southern Gothic, but it’s like coastal Gothic. I’m digging it. Shoal I’m a Capricorn. A Sam! Googled Jean Seberg, she’s stunning. Chancel Transepts Cusk Highly recommend you Google these creatures. They’re gnarly. anodyne An all girls science crew under the water in a space-style habitat would make an amazing horror movie. louring portentousness augur Eyeball horror omgggg Pilau Jalebi Dolomite Ad meliora Concertinaed A very interesting analogy to moving someone into hospice or a nursing home and losing them to dementia which is what she went through with her mom. Post-reading: Besties, I cannot tell you not to use the audiobook for this particular title enough. Once I picked it up and read it, I loved it. The audiobook just goes too fast (I listened on double speed. That might be on me) and it’s a little too monotone and sleepy that you just zone out and you miss all the good horror vibes. If you don’t like atmospheric, no plot, only vibes books, you will hate this. And that’s not to say that this book doesn’t have any plot, but it’s less about figuring out what happened than seeing how characters deal with the aftermath. This book doesn’t have much (if any) outright horror, but it does have this sense of dread and creeping unease that really, really works. The ocean is spooky. Mermaid horror was not something I knew I wanted before this. It’s excellent commentary on the death of a relationship and even better commentary on the grief of losing someone to dementia or a degenerative illness. Also, it’s just written in a really pretty, prosaic way. And the writing is so interesting because it describes everything so visually, but not in a way that makes you think of pretty things, but in a way that’s just a little bit creepy. Everything’s just a little bit threatening. I really liked it, but now I’m desperate for a horror novel or horror movie based on Tektite. Grady Hendrix? Iain Reid? Ainslie Hogarth? Please? Who should read this: People who have lost a family member to dementia Unconventional gothic horror fans Mermaid horror fans Do I want to reread this: Maybe? I think I’ll remember it, but I wanna shove it at other people Similar books: * We Spread by Iain Reid-dementia, nursing home psychological horror * Motherthing by Ainslie Hogarth-campy, femme horror with an unhinged, unreliable narrator * I’m Thinking of Ending Things by Iain Reid-New England gothic, unreliable narrator ...more |
Notes are private!
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1
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May 24, 2023
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Jun 04, 2023
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May 22, 2023
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Kindle Edition
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| 0593467043
| 9780593467046
| 0593467043
| 3.01
| 1,544
| Oct 10, 2023
| Oct 10, 2023
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really liked it
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Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review. My Selling Pitch: For the first 90% of this book-the Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review. My Selling Pitch: For the first 90% of this book-the Barbie movie, but make it mommy horror. An absolute banger. Unmissable for my femme horror girlies. The ending-throw the book away bad Pre-reading: I LOVED Motherthing last year, and I about shat myself when they said you can have her next book early too. I’m so excited. Both covers are gorgeous. Thick of it: A banger of an opening line. Literally, pregnancy is horror, and I don’t know why we don’t treat it as such. God, life is shit for women. Gross and graphic, but also not exploitive. (Looking at you, Family Lore) For someone who hates children with every fiber of her being, I’ve read a lot of mommy horror, and I usually enjoy it. I love Kristin Bell. pyloric stenosis I don’t know what an Epstein pearl is, and I’m terrified to Google it. (Oh my god, that is disgusting. Also, I knew babies didn’t have teeth for a hot minute, but I don’t think I ever knew what that looked like, which, again, just ew.) cyanotic Good god, I love this author. Girlypops just fundamentally understands femme horror. Alexa play too much labour. (Look, I know that the song is technically just labour, but-If everyone can keep calling it THE Fourth Wing-) Borborygmi. What book introduced me to this word? Was it her last book? Because I hate that I know this word. Unhinged women is my favorite genre It’s funny because up here in Mass I’ve encountered a lot more obnoxiously religious young men than women. (Although probably a biased sample because I’m not seeking out women, but I am forced to endure the horror that is straight men’s dating app bios). I think women try to convert other people to their ideas more often and convince other people of their opinions, but men you have to believe what they believe or you are not worth their time, you are fundamentally wrong. He’s just Ken. The fashion in this book is spot on. This is what Rouge by Mona Awad wishes it was. I can’t not see the name Bunny as an homage to Mona with how fucking popular that book is. I don’t see comparing birth and rape going down well with most people. It goes down well with me because I am horrified by pregnancy and I do see relevant similarities, but also I do not think the moms are gonna like that. Thankful to this book because I can pitch it to people as extreme girl math. A woman’s husband’s coworker gets rectal cancer, so obviously she has to become a prostitute and the men are like how do you make that leap? And the girlies are already doing the mental gymnastics and are like we agree, that makes perfect sense. I gagged at that sound. I have such a weird aversion to licking sounds. I hate them more than anything. corpuscle That really nailed the liberal woman’s struggle making friends nowadays. Oh, this is insidious. I love it. Also, it’s lowkey the Barbie movie. I think Hogarth is a genius. Oh, I like that little aside that’s sort of getting ahead of the critics. She’s like sexual healing is an old idea. Men are trash is an old idea. This isn’t some new wave feminist liberal bullshit tirade. It’s always been present in people. These restaurants sound so fun. Like American Psycho’s, but bougie, hipstery, Instagram lensed. I read that study too. That’s funny. And I was a Dani. Good god, this book is making me crave food fascia The language is so good at being purposely uncomfortable and coupling things together. Like she’s such a good writer. Oh my god, literally they expect to be praised for not raping people. It’s so annoying. Alexa play Take Me to Church. syncopated Keegler Elves is so funny. cervine Oh my god, yeah, that’s a very real dating anxiety. Everyone’s doing it. No, you heard one girl lie to you. That doesn’t mean other girls are doing it. You’re not required to do what other girls are doing. Ugh, I hate that pressure to conform. I feel like this book is going to make a lot of men angry, and to that I say die mad, buddy. henge Jesus christ, poor Bunny. It’s so cult. They're using you. Girlypop, you’re in trouble. (sigh.) Detritus sin I don’t think that’s misogyny. I think that’s extremely sus. When somebody goes missing, regardless of their gender, I jump immediately to murder. I have so many red flag alarm bells going off. I don’t know what kind of horror this is, but it’s horror. Girl, that coffee maker is gross. Get a new one. Again, you would have a hard time convincing me that this isn’t an homage to Mona. I don’t think Clark killed her. I hope to god Clark didn’t kill her. (Why is this awful ending still preferable to the one we do get though.) Man, what the fuck is going on? This had better not be how this book ends. glabrous Oh my god, it is how it ends. I fucking HATE this ending! Post-reading: Honestly, ruined my day. Until the 90% mark, this is a five-star banger of a mommy horror book. I want to rave about it to all my femme horror girlies. But the ending? The ending. It’s horrible. Like throw the book away horrible. So now I’m like what the fuck do I rate it? A three-star? That seems unfair because it’s written way better than some of the four stars I’ve read this year, but the ending might put it on my worst books of the year list. This is the Barbie movie, but make it mommy horror. And it should’ve just been that. Here’s what bothers me so much about the ending. You include all these snarky little asides, all this deliciously toxic passive aggressiveness about how men think they’re helping when they’re really not, and how they’re emotionally stunted, and how they can be manipulated, but with these brilliant little glimmers of they’re trying their best in a rigged system AND you couple that with commentary about how being a woman is an endless contradiction, but no matter what you choose to do you're doing it wrong in society’s eyes. But then the ending is it’s women’s job to clean up men’s mess? No. No. So unbelievably no. That undoes all the phenomenal work and heavy lifting that the entire rest of this novel did. Why? Why is the ending not that it’s an evil, brainwashing cult? That’s what it should be. Using sex to manipulate men is not the answer. That’s completely toxic. And if it’s supposed to be a horrific ending in that she’s lost to the cult and brainwashed, it’s not exaggerated enough to make that obvious. Instead, the ending makes it wrap up like a silly little domestic drama. I don’t think enough people are going to recognize the ending as a bad thing. I think they’re going to see it as a happily ever after. And yet I hold out hope for the book that Hogarth sees the ending as the real psychological horror story because of her hellish prophecy foreshadowing. But if that is what she intended, then it doesn’t push it far enough. What I would have rather seen from this book, is another 200 or so pages where the story is free to devolve into fully unhinged woman territory. I wanted bodies on the floor. I wanted it to circle the drain and get steadily darker, and darker, and darker, and more paranoid, and more mentally ill, but instead, it felt like it got wrapped up oh so tidily. It felt like it got a happily ever after, and that was not the right choice. I think it’s trying so hard to be like sex work is real work and a choice and it’s actually helpful, but I don’t think it has the right basis for that claim. Because it ends up reading like women do sex work to save men, and that is no bueno. That is garbage. You have so many avenues to go down with insidiously sexual suburban horror. Like where are the psychedelic lubes, and the sex toy Tupperware parties, and the carpool spreadsheet mixed up with the swingers’ black book? If you’re going down the mommy influencer route, where are the online pedophiles and the child exploitation? And it’s frustrating because there’s so much that this book does right. I will literally read anything Ainsley Hogarth ever writes. Her style is phenomenal. She’s great at doing the femme anxiety spiral. It has a phenomenal girl math moment where the delulu girlies are going to get it right away: your husband‘s coworker has cancer, so you have to become a prostitute. If that tracks, if that makes sense to you, then this is a book for you, but that energy doesn’t carry over to the ending. But that energy is what is going to make people love this book, so if you ruin their love for the book with the ending, you ruin the book for them. It’s so quotable. It has so much good social commentary. I think the plot line with her parents isn’t developed nearly enough. It’s almost like too much is going on in the book and she needed more pages to accomplish everything that she wanted to, but she got lost trying to prioritize everything, so now nothing feels like a complete thought. It’s just so frustrating because this could be so good. This could be so unbelievably good. And it’s not that it feels like a rough draft, but it feels disjointed, and it feels unfinished. It feels like it needed an editor to rein it in and give it a more concrete plot and recognize that this book is so firmly meant to be horror. And for fuck’s sake market it that way. There are only a few other reviews for this book right now, most of which complain about the pacing. I didn’t have an issue with the pacing at any point. I devoured this book. I love satirical social commentary though. The commentary is the book. You’re not getting much plot. You don’t need it. I just feel so let down by it. I think it’s gonna be four stars because I can’t deny the brilliance of the vast majority of this book, and it is something I want to reread and analyze more. It has such interesting, overlapping themes. It just doesn’t feel done. And I don’t understand how anyone read this book and then read that ending and wasn’t like throw it out and redo it. Who should read this: Mommy horror fans Barbie movie fans Feminists Social commentary fans Do I want to reread this: Yes Similar books: Nightbitch by Rachel Yoder-mommy horror, magical realism Motherthing by Ainslie Hogarth-campy, femme horror Bunny by Mona Awad-femme, psychological horror Rouge by Mona Awad-magical realism, fairytale retelling, femme horror, mommy issues American Psycho by Brett Easton Ellis-psychological horror, social commentary The Secret History by Donna Tart-dark academia, magical realism, culty, social commentary Shark Heart by Emily Habeck-dementia horror, magical realism, mommy issues My Year of Rest and Relaxation by Otessa Moshfegh-OG angry, sad girl book ...more |
Notes are private!
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1
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Oct 07, 2023
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Oct 08, 2023
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May 22, 2023
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Paperback
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| B0BQGGKJFF
| 3.66
| 2,817
| Oct 05, 2023
| Oct 10, 2023
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liked it
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Thank you to Goodreads and the publisher for a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review. My Selling Pitch: Extreme horror featuring social an Thank you to Goodreads and the publisher for a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review. My Selling Pitch: Extreme horror featuring social and gender commentary, but it is gratuitous and gross and whatever you think you’re signing up for, make it so much worse. Also, some artsy experimental prose. I can’t in good conscience recommend it to anyone based on the content, however, if you like thinky thoughts about gender issues and can stomach it… Pre-reading: This cover is disgusting I love it. I liked Tell Me I’m Worthless. That book was angry. Thick of it: Don't really get this intro, but I’ll reread when I’m not at work and when I finish and see if it makes more sense to me. (The 2030 bit is what hung me up but to the best of my understanding it’s satirical hyperbole.) ((Very I’m not a reactionary writer, I’m just writing what I know and feel and if my books come off angry, it’s because they are angry because how do you not be angry with the world as it is, and if you’re not angry, why? And like, slay.)) Sam deeply afraid of pregnancy and children, truly her worst nightmare, also, unfortunately, painfully straight: I'm not saying I get it, but I get it. Virility is inexplicably hot. (Evolutionarily, one could argue.) Googling Ann Summers because I’m poor and American and only know Agent Provocateur-(shit was ugly) Not the Trump face lol. Uh yeah, it’s definitely wrong to say I like rape. Alison, wtf. if you can’t be bothered to take care of your partner, that’s not a kink. That’s a problem. That’s a predator. I have a terrible feeling this age play rape fantasy nonsense is born out of child abuse and this is a bad place to be in. I don’t wanna be here. I know there’s this weird idea in the kink community that this is a totally normal thing to do- to like relive your trauma in a safe environment, but this is not a safe environment. You should not want to be around people who want to do this to you. I think that idea is so beyond toxic. I’ll kink shame that shit all day, baby. I think it’s self-harm. Cancel me. It’s fine. I do think you need to disclose that before you fuck someone, but I also think people should be discussing their STD results and their birth control before they have sex. I am all for sex positivity and having casual sex, but I think you owe yourself and the other person safety first. I’m not sorry if that’s lame. But that’s not inconveniencing others. They didn’t consent to be involved in your sexual activity. I hope Frankie isn’t being positioned as our hero. Like she’s just not a hero. She’s not even deeply flawed. She’s an outright predator. I-this book is not meant for meeeeee. If you put a bomb in a public place, you are a terrorist. Full stop. I’m sure this is intentional and pointed by the author, but it feels very weird to me when a chief complaint of the TERFs is that trans people will use bathrooms to be rapists to then have your trans character use a women’s restroom with nonconsenting individuals to act on a rape fantasy. I don’t like that. (This is very pointed. The bathrooms come up again.) Absolutely nailed the Twitter satire. (Probably my favorite part of the book.) I know that’s a real job, but like I just can’t picture anyone doing it. Put AI to work on that. Have it scrub the internet. Leave the art to the humans. Oh, both these girls are so mentally ill. It’s reminding me of that LaRocca story. Are you quoting Shakespeare to my pussy? No, I’m quoting Poe to your peen. (I think I am very funny.) You know, kink-shaming is OK. We need it. This is no thank you. The online satire bits are so good! A Sam! Wow, not even being subtle with the Harry Potter, but like her hatred can rot. You hate the children you wrote for, you miserable bitch. I just don’t understand why it always devolves to sex horror. (I think my strongest argument against all effective horror is sexual is No Exit. That door hinge scene made me flinch. And it’s so effective because when you’re introduced to the idea of it, you’re supposed to scoff at it. It’s supposed to be ridiculous. It’s supposed to be funny. And then it gets warped, and you’re like I understand. Changing an audience’s mind and attitude about something, that’s horror. Corrupt something innocuous. ((And if you’re like the idea of corrupting something is inherently sexual, please seek help. That is not you. That is the patriarchy talking.))) Is there some beef with Morbid? I’m not super up-to-date on the podcast. (I googled. I guess the hosts misgendered someone in an episode. From my limited Google, it came across more as a careless mistake and not intentionally transphobic, but also do your research and gender people correctly to the best of your ability, k thx bye.) I see no misogyny in how she described the girl’s vag. I see someone else’s internalized body shame projected onto that. But it was you. You hurt them. Oh, the lack of commas is making this really hard to read. As an absolute square myself it always baffles me when all these book characters take whatever drug they can get their grubby little hands on without knowing what it is or what interactions it has. Like that’s wild to me. I know, I know it’s like a form of self-harm so like they don’t really care what interactions it has, but I’m just like what if you end up living worse than how you’re currently living? Like what if you’re stuck paralyzed and can’t communicate, but now you’re just living off of a ventilator with no hope of recovery and can’t tell someone that you wanna die? That’s my nightmare. I'm gonna throw up. Oh. My. God. This got published. I mean extreme horror, but like wtf. How do people even come up with this shit? Oh, poor word choice, Samantha. Jesus Christe Absolutely disgusting. But ‘through elastic time, they inverted one another’ is a baller line. Can you imagine that in an Emily Henry book? (It’s the way I think there’s any overlap between Emily Henry and Alison Rumfitt readers.) Niiiiiice call back to Worthless’s theming. Epistemological Not the Moaning Myrtle thing hahah. (Samantha has never read, nor watched Harry Potter. She has, however, seen the same 10-minute clips over and over because of ABC family’s holiday marathons.) Don't love how it’s implied that both characters developed this way as a result of being sexually abused as children. Proles Not a cinnamon boy! Post-reading: Man, I don’t know how to feel about this. Right off the bat, let’s acknowledge that this book contains disgusting and abhorrent content. I don’t check trigger warnings. I think they’re spoilers. I was prepared for worms. I was not prepared for rape, and incest, and shit. So much shit. Like literal shit. That is not for me. That will never be for me. But here’s what saves this book. It’s not meant to be sexy. It somehow threads that needle between maintaining a character’s perspective as they sexualize something and the author writing something for the audience to find sexy. I think if you’re at any point turned on during this book, you need to seek therapy immediately. You should be revolted the entire time. Are there other kinks that are written to be sexy that I find very unsexy? Probably, definitely yes. But while we may be detailing horrific child abuse, we are not making it sexy. It is revolting. It is sad. It is inescapable and permanent and detrimental and altering. And it’s treated with that seriousness. It’s not blasé. And I think equally importantly, the book’s protagonists are not positioned as heroes. They are bad people who hurt each other. They are predators. They are not something to emulate. They do not get happy endings. They exist more as exaggerations than concrete narratives. And I think that’s reflected in the prose style. Shit’s artsy. (Not literal, god, not literal this time.) Some of the sections can be punishing to read. They’re not punctuated. They are stream of consciousness. It somehow works? You’re gonna read this book with a furrow in your brow the whole time. I think the online satire was brilliantly done. It was my favorite part of this book. I would take a book that was just Alison eviscerating Twitter. But the book has some definite weak points too. Its sexual violence is gratuitous. The characters are pretty one-note and don’t really exist outside of their sexualities. I think that’s a mistake for a more compelling narrative, but it does work in this case to underline the book’s gender commentary. I think the J. K. Rowling bit is beyond heavy-handed. We needed her for a funny reference, not to be the book’s main villain. It makes the book read like ragey fanfic which is a shame because it has cogent things to say. It becomes more of a hate-fueled fever dream than a nuanced examination of the issues it puts forth. I’m not saying the book is too angry. I don’t think you’ll ever hear me complain that a book has too much emotion in it, and I’m certainly not gonna be the one to tell Alison she shouldn’t be angry. It just feels like we’re answering hate with more hate and that’s not really a way forward. I am not the target audience for this book. I may be interpreting the book’s messaging incorrectly, but I think it presented three distinct ideas surrounding gender identity. It did read like it was implying that Frankie and Vanya’s sexualities and identities resulted from their abuse. Correlation is not causation, but it almost reads like it’s saying that identity is a trauma response, especially when you preface it with that Freud quote. Don’t love that. Don’t think that’s an argument we need to be making. That almost implies that if you could heal someone’s trauma, you could change their identity. Trans people don’t need to be healed from being trans. People don’t need to be healed from their sexualities. Again, I could be totally off base with how I’ve read the book because it doesn’t seem like something someone with this identity or sexuality would argue. But it comes off that way. The characters don’t exist outside their sexualities. This seems more pointed, like it’s an attempt to underscore that paragraph that complains that at its root, all behavior is sexual. It’s a common complaint that discussing gender is just overly sexualizing everything. I struggle with this because my background is in genetics and biology, and at some point, you can flowchart everything back to be for evolution, for the purpose of survival and reproduction. If you make enough leaps you can get back to sex. I don’t think we need to be making all those leaps all the time. We have higher thought. We have art. Ways of life don’t have to be reduced to sex. So while I agree that on some level, you can circle everything back around to sex, that doesn’t mean we’ve always, only been talking about sex when discussing humanity. But similarly, I don’t think we’re suddenly ONLY talking about sex when discussing current social issues. (This is a book review, Samantha. Chill.) And lastly, we have that classic TERF argument that we have to get rid of public restroom access because transpeople will rape women. I think the book does such an interesting job with this. It doesn’t matter what a rapist identifies as. They are a rapist first. They are humanity’s enemy. You only win the fight against them if you protect every person from them. You don’t stop rapists by catching them. You have to eliminate the source. It’s not fucking hard. Society has to stop allowing it in any and every form. There are no exceptions. You get freely given consent or you don’t do it. Knock it off. I will climb off my soapbox now. I think those above paragraphs help illustrate that while this might be a silly little horror novel about worms and shit, there’s some meat to sink your teeth into if you want to do that. And yet I wish it was meatier. I would’ve taken more social commentary. I would like stronger character work. I needed less masturbatory, experimental prose and more plot. But like goddamn, Alison, I’ll be back for the next fucked up ride you wanna take me on. Who should read this: Queer horror fans Gender commentary fans Do I want to reread this: Maybe? It would be such an interesting book to discuss Similar books: * Things Have Gotten Worse Since We Last Spoke by Eric LaRocca-extreme horror, gay, abusive relationships, tapeworm pregnancy, ew but like I can’t look away * Tell Me I’m Worthless by Alison Rumfitt-extreme horror, gay, abusive relationships, gender and social commentary * Manhunt by Gretchen Felker-Martin-extreme dystopian horror, gay, abusive relationships, gender and social commentary * Tender is the Flesh by Agustina Bazterrica-dystopian horror, social commentary ...more |
Notes are private!
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1
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Jun 19, 2024
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Jun 21, 2024
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May 11, 2023
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Kindle Edition
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| 1668006499
| 9781668006498
| 1668006499
| 3.99
| 44,213
| Aug 08, 2023
| Aug 08, 2023
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it was amazing
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My Selling Pitch: Do you want a book that is simultaneously dementia and degenerative disease horror and commentary, while also being a character stud My Selling Pitch: Do you want a book that is simultaneously dementia and degenerative disease horror and commentary, while also being a character study that will emotionally eviscerate you? That's incredible. This is a debut. Why aren’t you reading this already? Pre-reading: I don’t have a Kindle edition of this on Libby and that is a travesty. I've heard that this is very good, but I don’t know what it's about. I dislike the cover. A Book of the Month pick! Thick of it: I love a spreadsheet. He told you that you were unaffected by dreams? Immediately turn down the proposal. Also, who says bird wrists as a compliment? SHE’S NOT LIKE OTHER GIRLS. I feel like I’m frothing at the mouth over this line lately. No, I’m already pissed with this book. Yes, because all women have secrets, and play games, and are deceptive towards men. Wren just sounds traumatized, Bestie. No, because Lewis is the worst. He likes her because she doesn’t have a qualified opinion. Girl, run. Not a barbecue for a wedding. (Samantha, you’re a bougie, cunt.) Guys, he’s a theater kid. High school musical. Wildcats. Get your head in the game. If I feel the need to apologize on my wedding night, just shoot me now. Doja Cat has ruined noses for me, and if you know, you know. I like how people just turn into sharks in this universe and literally no one questions it. An avoidant man, quelle surprise! Your lack of talent is not the equivalent of her mommy issues. What the actual fuck? Coreopsis Can’t relate. Love New England. There’s no maybe about it. He’s definitely wildly insecure. It’s giving burnt-out gifted child and that’s very familiar. Oh yikes, is that familiar. Palapas I like that. I would read that. But he’s not comfortable being vulnerable if he’s afraid to defend his opinion. That dessert sounds incredible. Lewis is gonna be a great…white shark. Ba dum tss. If his play is this book, I’m gonna be pissed. I don’t think they have true love. Compatibility is not necessarily love. So 60 years ago people just started turning into animals and people are still eating animals? I’ve got questions. I’ve got so many questions. Is this the mother of birds because she ain’t showed up yet? Yes, she is. Did you think I forgot? I don’t forget. It’s kind of like pregnancy book reading. Do you not have object permanence? Like do you not love her when you can’t see her right in front of you? My dude. I get that it’s probably supposed to be a romantic line, but it’s not. Dentical Peduncle Heterocercal Ceratotrichia Chondrocranium Alexa, play labour by Paris Paloma. I feel bad for Wren. She has to break eventually, right? And what’s this for because she doesn’t really love him? Is this gonna be sapphic????? Can’t sharks not stop moving either because that’s an interesting parallel. Eyases I feel like I’m right, and this is going to be sapphic. Supine Is aborting the birds not an option? Like I’m just confused. Carrying to term seems like a bad idea. Wow, it’s like the book read my mind. Fuck the church. I like them. I dislike Lewis. Do you know I’ve never had Whataburger, and the way people are so devotional about it makes me want it all the more. Agglutinate It’s very Alzheimer’s and Dementia commentary, and I’ve been reading a lot of that lately. She's trendy I guess. Irascible God, how do you afford that much fish? Triptych Falling in love with what a person can do for you is not falling in love with a person. I’m really enjoying this book. I disagree so wholeheartedly with that idea. Soulmates are not built. They just are. But I thought she was unaffected by dreams, sir. He’s so annoying. That’s a really pretty piece of writing. If you had just told me that about the relationship, I would’ve supported it, but you told me all these other yucky bits, and I can’t be on board with it. I’m sad that she’s sad, but also they couldn’t be together if he’s a shark. I want better for her. I hope she gets her everything. But that’s just fundamentally untrue. He decided to work on the play and then didn’t see it through. (Samantha, he lost all motor function. Also Samantha, ugh, men can't keep their word.) This book is such excellent commentary on dementia and the dissolution of a relationship and unresolved trauma. Oh look, another man disparaging women for wearing makeup. Literally fuck off so hard. This book is aggressively written by a woman, and I like it so much for that. I will be buying this book. I like Wren so much. She’s 15, you fucking predator. Oh Angela. Can there be one good man in this book? That’s all I’m asking for? Oh, don’t make me cry, book. Don’t do this to me. The joy of particular things bad people steal from us is one of the saddest things in the world. I don’t like knowing that she grew up on the houseboat so Angela probably goes right back to him, so that fucking sucks. Recondite If George dies in a tornado trying to get to them, I will cry. I’m warning you, book. Don’t do this to me. (I was so convinced that he was dead.) Her mother better not turn into some kind of boa constrictor. This is so sad. This has escalated into Tender is the Flesh territory. Holy shit. Granted, I am half a bottle of wine deep in this book, but it’s done. It broke me. I’m crying. I really made the decision to drink wine with this book. Samantha-I could be in the mood for a sad little night. And now it’s just like wow, I’m gonna steadily cry for literally the rest of this book. Oh, that’s what she likes the kites. What a cute callback. No, but like that’s an opening line. That’s so good. Angela really got dealt the shittiest of hands. This is fucking shit. Can’t women just be fucking happy? Is that so much to ask for? Like oh my god, I’m gonna have to read some bullshit rom-com after this cause I need a happy girlie as a palette cleanser. No, I don’t wanna read about Lewis. Don’t do this to me. This book has emotionally eviscerated me, so I can’t imagine not giving it five stars. And to come from a debut author? Like holy fucking shit, auto buy. Not his R-word being the chapter title. That’s so clever and good, but also don’t do this to me. I’m done being sad, now. You can stop. Well, fuck me what kind of quote is that? Don’t make me feel bad for plants. I don’t love that I’m getting Finding Nemo vibes, but I’m also like crying, but I think that’s the alcohol. I recognize the brilliance of the character choice of Lewis now. Turning someone who makes art, which is generally what people argue separates man from animal, into an animal? Oh my god, fuck me up. Part two emotionally eviscerated me but part three is giving me Finding Nemo, and I’m not into it. OK well, let’s not slander Miss Lavigne. It could be worse. It could be Baby Shark. I’ll go. I’ll see myself out. Oh fuck, am I Margaret? They never got to go on a honeymoon? Fuck, I didn’t realize that. That’s so sad. See, all these dream quotes would be lovely and break my heart if you hadn’t incorrectly told me that Wren was unaffected by dreams at the beginning of this book, sir. She said enemies to lovers, but make them sharks. Me trying to do drunk math like so she was 12 when she turned into a shark? So she didn’t even get to fucking live? Don’t make me cry again! Oh my god, she was. Stop that. Stop with the sad. We’re done with the sad. Oh my god. (You can just watch the mental decline in this review.) Oh Bestie, do you know what? I didn’t sign up for a relationship between a 13-year-old and a 35-year-old. Lewis, I’m gonna hate you all over again. Except what if it’s not actually love and it’s like his teacher role again? But I still don’t want that. That would be extra Finding Nemo, and I really don’t want that in this book. No, no the call back to the pear? Don’t make me cry over fruit. Oh my god, I hate this book. (You love feeling things, shut up.) Wow Margaret, that’s relatable. We love how ignorance shame lasts forever. Is Emily OK? Like can we do a wellness check? How dare you write this? There’s so much in this book, you could dissect it for years. How old is Miss Emily because I swear if this bitch is like 20 I’m gonna lose it. Lewis is codependent and like aren't we all, but does it have to be a 13-year-old because I feel like no? She’s not humanly 24. She’s permanently humanly 13. Let’s remember this. I don’t like it. I’m not on board. No, that’s mean. Don’t tell me I’m not getting more Wren. Perfect moment for humor. Absolutely perfect. I don’t know how you even come up with a book like this let alone pitch it. It’s gonna sound absurd and then you just cry the whole time. Peripatetic Men having a hot sauce collection is so fucking on-brand. If there’s a twist that he actually just had a regular disease and then this whole book is his play, no thank you. A murmuration of blackbirds is the most romantic, animal kingdom bullshit I’ve ever heard. Goddammit, I didn’t want her to die. Fuck the church. Fuck the church so much. She didn't have to die. God, does any lady in this book get to be happy? Oh my goddddd. Wow, the degenerative disease commentary, fucking eugenics shit, right here. How smart. Seraphic Not Covid commentary in this book. Lowkey, I don’t like that this book is pro-birth propaganda. LOL, I haven’t cried this steadily since Beartown. Post-reading: I loved this book. I think it’s perfect for what it is. I’ve got some qualms about the book’s messaging, but I don’t think they take anything away from the experience of reading this book. First things first, go in blind. Don’t read the blurb. Just pick this book up and read it- preferably with some wine and then you can recreationally cry like me. I can’t feel my own emotions, but I’m happy to do it on behalf of fictional characters. Anyways- The story is beautiful and lyrical. The writing captures such specific little nuances of life that are so true and honest and exciting to see in writing. I think it’s definitely a book about mothers’ love. I think it’s a romance. I don’t think it’s true love. I do think that one specific sentence at the beginning about Wren not being able to dream permanently ruined my opinion of a character and ruined the emotional weight of a lot of quotes that come in the rest of the book. I think this book has a pro-birth agenda, and I’m not on board with that. If you don’t want to have kids, you don’t have to. Your life‘s purpose as a woman is not to have children. Children will not complete you or make you whole. You should purposely decide to have children and not have them be a happy accident. OK, I’ll get off my soapbox now. The pacing of this book is immaculate. It’s so well crafted. It's really a roller coaster of emotions with exceptional comedic timing and moments of levity thrown in at precisely the right moment, so that this book can be overwhelmingly sad, but never miserable. That's a hard line to walk. I can’t get over the fact that this is a debut. So unquestionably, unhesitatingly five stars and going on my best books of the year list. It’s an absolute must-read. Who should read this: Everyone? Angry, sad girls Magical realism fans Dementia horror fans People with degenerative diseases Generational trauma fans Do I want to reread this: Hell yeah Similar books: * Our Wives Under the Sea by Julia Armfield-Alzheimers/ dementia horror * We Spread by Iain Reid-Alzheimers/ dementia horror * In the Dream House by Carmen Maria Machado-experimental, unconventional style, lyrical love story * Divine Rivals by Rebecca Ross in the lyrical romanticism sense and nothing else * Tender is the Flesh by Agustina Bazterrica-dystopian horror and societal commentary * Anxious People by Fredrik Backman-people are more than your gut reaction * A Man Called Ove by Fredrik Backman-life sucks, then you die, but also it's happy ...more |
Notes are private!
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1
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Aug 26, 2023
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Aug 27, 2023
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Mar 20, 2023
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Hardcover
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| B0B9KVYNHC
| 3.94
| 14,692
| Jul 18, 2023
| Jul 18, 2023
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did not like it
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My Selling Pitch: Do you want an easy-read YA thriller about gay teens escaping their church’s memory-wiping conversion therapy camp? Pre-reading: This My Selling Pitch: Do you want an easy-read YA thriller about gay teens escaping their church’s memory-wiping conversion therapy camp? Pre-reading: This is literally my most anticipated release of the year, and if it sucks, I’m gonna be pissed. Thick of it: I’m going in basically blind. All I know is that it’s supposed to be gay religious horror and the author used to write bonkers gay porn. I am so goddamn excited. Catecholamines Fuck religion lmao gaslight gatekeep girlboss Dude, how would she get dressed without a door? I don’t know why, but ex-gay is very funny to me. This book’s got jokes. Like it’s not trying to be funny, but it’s so deadpan that it is. I think she’s already at the pray the gay away camp? Because she already shenaniganed the brunette? (yup.) Gelid This book is slow. I’m a little bored. I’m a lot bored. Is this YA? Because it reads like YA, and if it is, I may have grossly miscalculated my potential enjoyment of this book. Paranormal as explanation is not for me. IM BORED. Nothing is a twist here. The pacing plods. You literally can. Christian screamo That was not super metal. Post-reading: I thought this book was going to be something so different from what it was, and I'm trying so hard not to hate it on that alone because that's not fair and that's on me. But then I’m like evaluating this as a YA thriller/horror, and it still has all the same flaws. The pacing is bad. The book drags. There is no horror. Bugs come out of mouths. People die in this book. Creatures get burned alive. Nothing is scary. There’s no tension. There are no twists. The plot is incredibly obvious. The characters don’t have any depth. They’re all pretty one note. The religious commentary is nothing new. It basically amounts to being gay is not a sin and gay people can do mental gymnastics to coexist with the church. I wanted religious satire horror, and I did not get that. I got an afterschool special. I guess if you want that, it’s fine, but I’ve read way better. And I never want that. I’m gonna go read his porn because that seems way more entertaining. Who should read this: Gay religious teens Do I want to reread this: No Similar books: * This Delicious Death by Kayla Cottingham-virtue signaling ya horror * Manhunt by Gretchen Felker-Martin-gender commentary horror * Tell Me I’m Worthless by Alison Rumfitt-gender commentary horror * Motherthing by Ainslie Hogarth-campy femme horror Unhinged Summary: Girlypop is cliff diving at her Christian summer camp when she sees the demon version of Jackie from State Farm across the way. She’s like does anyone else see that? And her friends are like the only thing we see is our love for Jesus Christ. She’s like huh, weird, but whatevs. Better get home before curfew! And her nice guy™ bestie Isaiah is like I’ll drive you! I have no ulterior motive to being your friend. So he drives her home, and he’s like should we…kiss a little? And she’s like whoa there, bucko. Jesus would never. And he’s like what the fuck? So I just drove you home and offered you friendship and emotional comfort when you were suffering for nothing? Fuck, men ARE the victims! Time to punch a wall. And the audience is like he needs therapy. And the author is like lol, not in this book. So her fam is like omg, how was your date with Isaiah? Are you gonna give him your rose? And she’s like def not. And her family is like we’re not mad. We’re just disappointed. You’re twenty. That’s like peak fertility. You owe Jesus babies. Isaiah’s an excellent specimen. Also, he was nice to you, so now you owe him. And Girlypop tries to picture woohooing with this choir boy, and she’s like wow, I didn’t know vaginas could dry up that fast. And then she remembers swimming with her mermaid hottie bikini-clad friend. And she’s like wap-I mean burp. And her parents are like is that a fly? And she’s like I’m not even an old woman! But like milfs-I mean barf. And she just vomits up a shit ton of bugs. And her mom is like not again. I’ll grab the raid. And the audience is like did she say again? And girlypop is like should I go to a CVS minute clinic? And her dad is like nah, you probably just swallowed something at the lake. Shoulda been swallowing something else. And she’s like Isaiah’s kids? And her dad just shrugs and is like god works in mysterious ways. So she goes to get ready for bed, and she’s like what the fuck, where’s my door? And her dad is like gaslight, gatekeep, girlboss. Sweetie, you never had a door! And for some reason, she’s not like where the fuck did I get dressed then? You know modesty and shit. But her dad’s like you can go to Home Depot and look lost tomorrow and I’m sure some man will help you install a new door. And the audience is like maybe she should try some therapy? And the author was like heard! So Girlypop shows up to church-sponsored therapy, and her therapist is like what’s up bestie? And she’s like I’ve been seeing some randos in red polos. And he’s like are you sure you weren’t just having a nightmare about Target? It’s like weirdly common. And she’s like nah me and Target are tight. And he’s like speaking of tight, stop thinking about tight young things. You’re like probably having anxiety-induced hallucinations from your impure thoughts. And she’s like copy that. Hide the smut from Jesus. Girlypop goes to Isaiah’s birthday party, and her mom is like make sure your nails are done! You never know when you might have to take a picture of a new piece of jewelry. At the party, the kids play truth or dare. They’re like hey girlypop, are you a virgin? And she’s like huh, I don’t know. Does lesbian sex count? And they’re like what do you know about scissoring? And she’s like nothing. Probably. I’m like totes straight. Anyways who turned off Veggie Tales? Y’all have some Hannibal Lector shit playing. And they’re like omg not in our good Christian suburbs! But whatevs. Let’s continue the game. Hey gay Ariel, truth or dare? And she’s like dare! And they’re like seven minutes in heaven your crush. And girlypop is like oh shit, that’s a lot of minutes to kiss And State Farm Jackie shows up and is like those thoughts don’t sound very straight. Don’t make me take you to horny jail! You know what, I’ll give you a second chance. I’m feeling generous. Let me just remove the temptation. So she phases through the wall and snaps Ariel’s neck. And Girlypop is like alrighty, I’ll be sending you my therapy bills. So her therapist is like your friendo died? That’s such a bummer. Here try these sugar pills to fix your menty b. The placebo effect is like all the rage for treatments right now. Then she goes to the park to destress, and she’s like wow, that girl looks really familiar. I wonder where I know her from? Oh shit, she’s my lesbian fantasy personal pornstar! I should go talk to her, and see if we know each other beyond our nipple shades. And the random girly is like that’s my purse. I don’t know you! This time demon Jake from State Farm shows up and is like no homo! And girlypop is like hey homophobe, eat my bumper. And she runs him over with her car. Except oopsies, she forgot that demons can phase through matter, so she goes right through the dude and crashes her car into a tree. Lightning McQueen catches on fire, and she tricks the demon into the car. And she’s like well, the child safety locks are on, so he’s tapped! And the audience is like girl. And the author is like no no, it makes sense. Demons are afraid of fire! It kills them. And the audience is like the whole car. The whole car is on fire. Like the windows and the floor and like there’s no way for him to phase out of the car? And the author is like yup, right, absolutely! Girlypop gets hospitalized for her crash injuries. She sees some gay porn on the hospital tv, and Jackie shows up, and girlypop is like this can’t be a coincidence anymore. Am I…gay? And the audience is like fucking duh. She decides to break into her therapist’s office because that motherfucker isn’t real. And she will not be staying on this plane… of existence. She steals his medical files and finally catches up to the audience and figures out this book’s plot. Every gay person in the town has had their memory wiped and has been assigned a not-hot demon stalker to haunt them anytime they get horny. Girlypop finds out that her parents sent her to conversion camp, and now that she’s regaining her memories they’re trying to send her back, so she runs away from home. She meets another lgbtq+ fugitive named Saul, and he has a book he stole from the church called Monetizing Demonic Possession for Dummies. Hell has in fact frozen over. That’s why the demons don’t like fire. So our gaybie babies decide that they’re gonna free all the brainwashed campers. But first church. Saul’s like the church literally tortured me, but Jesus is still a hottie so imma go to church and just hope no one notices. And the audience is like are you delulu? And the author is like shut up, I’m trying to show that queer people and the church can coexist. And Sam’s like agree to disagree, bestie. Girlypop and Saul make a flamethrower to kill the demons and roast Jackie like a marshmallow. Then she emails her lesbian pornstar like hey hot stuff, I killed all the demons so it’s safe to scissor. Let’s meet at the library and you can join our Scooby gang. And girly pop is like OK time for happily ever after, and her girlfriend’s like we definitely have to save all the other kids first. And both girlypop and the audience are like you literally do not. And the author is like no no, they do. So they want to break into the camp to disable the demon possession technology machine. (Just go with it.) But oh no, they don’t know what room the machine is in. Obviously, the only solution is to take drugs to access their subconscious memories. This works. They show up and oh my god, the church is growing demon worms in the basement. And the audience is like finally some horror! And the author is like by the way, the church is using the worms to wipe everyone’s memory because when the worms impregnate people with eggs, it wipes their memories. And the audience is like there’s the porn writer. The Christian therapist shows up, and he’s like a lol I’m the villain. Quelle surprise. And the audience is like fucking duh. So the Scooby gang releases the worms, and they basically impregnate the therapist to death. And the audience is like there’s a lot to unpack there. And the author is like moving on! So the kids have solved the memory-wiping problem, but all the campers still have their state farm demons bonded to them. And the audience is like back, you smut writers, back. Luckily the big book of the dead had a spell for demon exorcisms, and Girlypop just memorized it, so she does the spell and the demons go after the real sinners, the camp counselors, because this book is a full-on afterschool special, and being gay isn’t a sin. So they burn the camp down. The demons are just loose in the world, but the lesbians get to make out, so happily ever after? The end. ...more |
Notes are private!
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1
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Aug 14, 2023
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Aug 17, 2023
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Mar 14, 2023
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Kindle Edition
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| B0B9KVLPQF
| 3.78
| 12,790
| Jun 06, 2023
| Jun 06, 2023
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it was amazing
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My Selling Pitch: Go in knowing that this is a love letter to American Psycho by a girlie for the girlies and nothing else. If gore is not your thing, My Selling Pitch: Go in knowing that this is a love letter to American Psycho by a girlie for the girlies and nothing else. If gore is not your thing, please exit the ride now. Pre-reading: Let me be crystal clear. This book was pitched to me as American Psycho for the girlies. That is literally my favorite movie. If this book does not make it onto my best books of the year list, I am losing all faith in booktube. Thick of it: The opening quotes make me so hopeful … I smell five stars. I’m on page 1. 5 stars. 5 stars. 5 stars. Manhunt. American Psycho. Normal Women. Oh, this is fabulous. Somebody’s gonna get poisoned with a cactus. (Never change, Sam. Never change.) This might be my best book of the year. Docent And adding Story of the Eye to the TBR What if I ship it? Is this a hockey romance too?!?!? I’m gonna shit myself. I’m not saying that this is going to be a Butcher and Blackbird situation. I’m just saying what if it’s a Butcher and Blackbird situation, and then she kills him? Because I’m so down. (I swear I don’t even read the summaries. I’m just like this.) That is a Barbie dream car, and I want it. (Samantha, you literally don’t drive.) The Disney lore in this omg Rouge wishes it was this book. The amount of men I know who have sent pictures of their shit to other people is truly mind-boggling to me. These are the same men, mind you, who pretend they’ve never tasted their own cum and are shocked and appalled at the mere suggestion. I adore her. I- If this book has no fans, I am dead God, I want them to fuck. Huey Lewis and the News! I feel like this is another girl who watched American Psycho, fell in love with the movie, and then read the book and was disappointed, so she wrote this. God, spoilers for the eye book, much. But also dear, sweet jesus, I would read that. AHHHHH. This IS American Psycho for the girlies. I love it so much. You should have sex with him. Get you a man who reads your smut and is like I can make this happen. (Truly rivaled only by Icebreaker’s anything you read, I’ll do to you when we get home.) I love this book. I love it. This was written for me, like fuck. triptych Did Gideon kill her boy? Does he kill anyone Kate fucks? (Ambiguously maybe.) This book is so good. This author is brilliant. Also, she knows how to make me want to read a book. Did jack-o’-lanterns really come from rapists? That’s very upsetting if that’s true. (But also what in history doesn’t circle back to that? I hate it here.) That’s how many people he’s killed. (I’m so good at books, guys.) This book was written for me. Butcher and Blackbird, but make it lit fic. Stop, I really like them. I’m gonna be so upset if they can’t be together. Can’t they just be murderers together? Oh, this book is not gonna end well. I don’t trust it. I. Love. This. Book. She poisoned them with a cactus. (Wrong!) The mimicry of American Psycho is so fucking good. This is not a feminine spin on American Psycho, but it is most definitely a love letter to American Psycho for the girls. I know I should not root for her. I am usually never this girl, but I support women’s rights and their wrongs today! I would kill for this movie. Greta Gerwig and Emerald Fennell I am begging you. Oh girlypop, I am so down for the murder, but I’m never down for sexual assault. Please don’t do this to me. I love this book. … like it’s very fitting. It is basically a shot-for-shot remake of American Psycho, so it needs to be there. I still wish she hadn’t done that with the mouse. Feminist horror analysis is my favorite But why is the wine gone? I love the Psycho Killer song. Dear book, you are the best book I have read all year. Just stick the landing, I swear to god. Oh, now THAT’S a good for her kill. Literally so on board with so much of this book, which is incredible because I’m NEVER a good for her girly. God, I hope Hungry like the Wolf is in this book. (Such a missed opportunity or I’m musically illiterate and missed it.) Feed me a stray cat. Look, I knew it was gonna happen and it’s gonna be a good ending but like fuck this. I wanted them to be together, god. I love being right, but I hate being right, but I love being right, but I love this book. THIS IS NOT AN EXIT. Best book of the year. Post-reading: This is my best book of the year. (And if you’re like Samantha, there’s still 18 days until the end of the year. Aren’t you being a little premature? No. No. Find me something that beats this. I’ll wait.) I’m so biased. American Psycho is my favorite movie. It is my Christmas movie. This book is such a love letter to it. It’s perfect. It’s funny. It’s vicious. It has biting, feminist commentary. It’s smutty. It’s a hockey romance. It’s so much better if you go in not knowing that this is a hockey romance so you can be pleasantly surprised. I was pitched this as American Psycho for the girlies. It is not the feminine version of American Psycho, but it is a love letter to American Psycho for the girls. A perfect book. No notes. To the reviews complaining that Maeve is a manic pixie dream girl, have you read American Psycho? They’re insufferable main characters. That’s literally the point. What’s wild to me is that the parts of the book that critics are pointing out that they don’t like are literally the parts mimicking American Psycho beat for beat. That’s the point! Using Disney character actors and bookish misanthropes in place of the generic businessman that Bateman assumes the identities of is fucking brilliant. It’s a perfect jab at the people who idolize and try to emulate Bateman, and the like because the entire book went over their heads. I am dying to tab a tandem read for these two books. She is not a book for everyone, but if she’s for you, she’s a sell your soul to read it for the first time again book. Who should read this: ME. Girls who love American Psycho Unhinged women fans Unreliable narrator fans People who support women’s rights and their wrongs … hockey romance girlies who can handle gore. (But also your ideal man gets into fistfights on the regular, has a permanently broken nose, missing teeth, and skates around on knives on ice for a living. Don’t pussy out now.) Do I want to reread this: Fucking duh. Similar books: * American Psycho by Brett Easton Ellis-uh, duh * Normal Women by Ainslie Hogarth-mommy horror, femme, social commentary * Manhunt by Gretchen Felker-Martin-queer dystopian horror, social commentary * Motherthing by Ainslie Hogarth-campy, femme horror * Butcher and Blackbird by Ryn Weaver-the smutty rom-com version of this book ...more |
Notes are private!
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1
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Dec 13, 2023
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Dec 14, 2023
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Jan 30, 2023
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Kindle Edition
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| B0B9KXFB6L
| 3.91
| 2,708
| Jun 20, 2023
| Jun 20, 2023
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really liked it
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My Selling Pitch: Do you want some sapphic, femme horror that’s COVID but make it vampires? Do you like love stories are horror stories? Do you like r My Selling Pitch: Do you want some sapphic, femme horror that’s COVID but make it vampires? Do you like love stories are horror stories? Do you like reading about mommy issues? Pre-reading: This book was pitched to me solely on the opener. Also, I’ve just realized I’ve been seeing the cover wrong this whole time. I thought it was a faceless wraith on the cover, and the red was like a slit throat, but it’s actually just this girl looking down into her lap. I’ve been seeing her nose as a chin this whole time. Thick of it: Good luck reading anything other than ceratops as in triceratops syndrome this entire book. Ha Animal Crossing during the vid. Oh my god, her mom is a Disney adult. I’m not sure what the trend is with horror and Disney adults, but I love it. Knowing the story, I like the name too. Ooo the movie mashup with the thematic elements. Chef’s kiss. This movie Disney bit is so well done. The world-building of vampires are allergic to coffee so they’re hunting Mormons is 10 out of 10. How would a Facebook group be secure against the government? The government must be vampires. I would read that book. This book has so much subtext, and it’s brilliant. Oh, the Covid analogy of like why did it spread and it’s because they were too selfish to be alone-excellent, excellent. Wow, this is excellent emotional abuse writing. Wow, her mom sucks. This is so well written. I love Barbie. This book is so good. Will be shocked if I don’t give it 5 stars. I hate men, and I hate this particular brand of women that enables them to the detriment of other women. And then I feel bad because they’re clearly victims too, but like scum. Scum. Even just the name choice of Mia and Isobel because like Bella from Twilight and Mina from Dracula. Like it’s so good. Hang on tight, spider monkey. I love Heart of Glass. As if you could outrun me! I love Mia. I hate Devon. Oh my god, the Trumper analogies. Go off, bestie. This book is so good. Did her mom kill Magda? That’s so dark. That’s so sad. Rime Can you put the blood in like a mug warmer then? Do you think she’s like a massive Jenna Marbles fan? Oh man, that ending was so rushed and lame. Post-reading: This was great. I love femme horror. I think femme horror gets overlooked a lot because the space is so male-dominated. Which is a shame because I think male horror is usually gore and or some fight against a monster or an outside, seemingly unstoppable force which has its time and place and own merits, but then femme horror is like lol you know what’s really scary? Love stories. And I eat that shit up. The horrors of everyday life will always be way more terrifying to me than some invented boogieman. This book almost reads like a short story where it’s not fully developed, but it’s built-up enough to get the job done. It’s an excellent thought experiment of like what if Covid was vampires and your loved one was a Trumper or part of some cult, and it has the biting social commentary for it. It depicts emotional abuse and narcissism so well. I thought the Beauty and the Beast mashup was beyond brilliant. I kept waiting for more of those moments in this book, but they never really happened for me, and I think that’s what’s preventing me from giving this a 5-star. The ending felt rushed. It felt a little lame. It sort of lends itself to that short story arc of like OK, we’re done. We end now. I don’t know, it seems like I have a hard time with a lot of horror books’ endings. It might be a me thing. It’s just like if something is good, I want more. I’m greedy. But I’ve been in such a book slump, and this really felt like finally some good fucking food. If you’re a horror girlie, definitely pick this up. You will not regret it. Who should read this: Femme horror fans COVID commentary fans Mommy issues fans Emotional abuse survivors Do I want to reread this: No? I want to continue the series and recommend it to people, but I also think it’s simple and memorable enough to get everything from a single pass. Similar books: * Maeve Fly by C. J. Leede-femme horror, Disney adults, sapphic * Motherthing by Ainslie Hogarth-femme horror, family drama * Normal Women by Ainslie Hogarth-mommy horror, social commentary * Manhunt by Gretchen Felker-Martin-queer horror, social commentary * Black Sheep by Rachel Harrison-femme horror, religious commentary * Our Wives Under the Sea by Julia Armfield-femme horror, sapphic, degenerative illness commentary * Shark Heart by Emily Habeck-femme horror, family drama, degenerative illness commentary * Rouge by Mona Awad-femme horror, vampiric, mommy issues, social commentary * Tender is the Flesh by Agustina Bazterrica-dystopian horror, social commentary * This Delicious Death by Kayla Cottingham-YA dystopian horror, queer, social commentary * Nightbreaker by Coco Ma-YA dystopian, urban fantasy, social commentary * How High We Go in the Dark by Sequoia Nagamatsu-dystopian, sci-fi short stories, social commentary ...more |
Notes are private!
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1
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Feb 24, 2024
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Feb 25, 2024
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Jan 18, 2023
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Kindle Edition
| ||||||||||||||||
| 0063258633
| 9780063258631
| B0B1DTXHQ9
| 3.59
| 2,714
| Mar 14, 2022
| Mar 14, 2023
|
did not like it
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Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review. My Selling Pitch: Do you want to read a translated wo Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review. My Selling Pitch: Do you want to read a translated work about an alien trying to pass as human so he can eat his Tinder dates? Can you tolerate a story whose formatting makes it a headache to read at times? Pre-reading: I feel like it’s worth noting that I still have not watched Squid Games. I’m not a huge sci-fi reader. Bring it on. Thick of it: One day books’ first pages are gonna stop surprising me when they immediately jump into sex because I am me, and I do know what I like to read, but like I’m just never prepared for it. Also is this a gay-lien? (Leaving. I’m leaving.) I’m reading a lot of books on gender discourse lately, and I don’t know how that happens, but it keeps happening. I’m not mad about it. It’s just interesting. Very topical and timely. Lady alien. The translation to English is a bit stilted. Praying mantis alien. The translation skews into so bad it’s funny/quirky. Like it’s not unreadable. It’s just bonkers. (It tips over into unreadable territory by the end.) I think the file is damaged or corrupted somehow because the spacing is really off and it was very hard to read for a few pages. Stairs are my nemesis as well. apoplectic She breasted boobily down the stairs. That’s my purse. I don’t know you. Oh, the text spacing is not an error. It is on purpose. That’s just obnoxious. Post-reading: It's a fun idea, but it feels very unfinished. I think it suffers a lot from being translated. Spacing the text like that makes it a headache to read. I like the first chapter. I only like the first chapter. It’s got a funny, quirky voice, but the story unravels quickly. There should be more societal and gender commentary. There should be more of a message to it. It gets repetitive, and it borders on unreadable at times. It feels more like the idea for a book rather than an actual book. Who should read this: Translated work fans Alien fans Gender debate fans Do I want to reread this: No Similar books: * Manhunt by Gretchen Felker-Martin-trans characters, apocalypse body horror, gender discourse * Tell Me I’m Worthless by Alison Rumfitt-queer horror, gender discourse * Things Have Gotten Worse Since We Last Spoke by Eric LaRocca-queer horror ...more |
Notes are private!
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1
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Apr 13, 2023
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Apr 17, 2023
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Jan 16, 2023
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Kindle Edition
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| B0BHTNBHWN
| 3.14
| 11,797
| Aug 01, 2020
| Jun 20, 2023
|
did not like it
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My Selling Pitch: Do you want dark and edgy short stories that really aren’t all that dark or edgy? Do you like child sexual abuse trauma porn, main c My Selling Pitch: Do you want dark and edgy short stories that really aren’t all that dark or edgy? Do you like child sexual abuse trauma porn, main characters obsessed with the idea that they’re not like other girls, and revenge fantasies? Pre-reading: I liked but didn't love Tender is the Flesh. I usually dig short story collections. Let's see. Thick of it: 1/5 I don’t need a dead neighbor to tell me that I don’t like neighbors. —————————————— Mona Awad has entered the chat. Ew grooming. But also, why is that teach me to be on my best behavior line working on me? Where is that coming from? (It’s because I already linked it to Mona Awad and my brain supplied hottie sorority bunnies saying that line. A categorically different scenario. A different, better genre.) Uh, 2/5. Very teach your children not to call their genitals cutsie names and vagina dentata. But also, this story icked me out because she was clearly trying to make it sexy, and there’s nothing sexy about raping children. —————————————— cumbia treatises quotidian She has a male manicure fetish? Weird. Ascetic I don’t think the taxi driver is a serial killer. She really said girly pop delulu. Why are we making the rape and serial killing of women sexy? No, thank you. Lana Del Rey has now entered the chat. 1/5 no thank you. No rape and murder fantasies for me. —————————————— I am not this kind of delulu girlie. This is not working for me. I don’t care about men. Oh, she’s an ‘us’ couple, gross. alfajor Why are we even sad about this man? He sounds so shit. 1/5 I have no time for delulu girlies who value men more than themselves. —————————————— The real horror here is Pablo. Girly pop, leave. 1/5 literally stupid. —————————————— That's not love. This bitch is so annoying. She's not like other girls except she's exactly like other girls. How idiotic. She wishes she could be My Year of Rest and Relaxation 1/5 —————————————— Oh good, more child rape. 1/5 —————————————— hermetic Ok, Hannibal wannabe. 1/5 —————————————— 1/5 literally annoying —————————————— Die mad, men. 2/5 —————————————— Why are there more sexually traumatized children? Can’t we be done with this? 2/5 —————————————— aseptic This one is so annoyingly repetitive. 3/5 good twist, but she’s been done before and better. —————————————— Stupid 1/5 —————————————— But like enemies to lovers? 2/5 —————————————— 1/5 stupid. —————————————— 1/5 idiotic. —————————————— Rapacious 1/5 —————————————— Ecclesiastical 1/5 didn’t get it. —————————————— Lintel Okay, Patrick Bateman. They’re all dead and he’s getting his comeuppance for being a rapist. 2/5 she’s tired. —————————————— The Lobster? Turbid 2/5 Post-reading: Cut to me searching through the Goodreads reviews for this book to see if I misunderstood or missed something in this collection. I didn’t. They’re just godawful. I’m starting to think that this author isn’t for me. You’ve got a smattering of child sexual abuse trauma porn, not like other girlies, and revenge fantasies. These are never my vibe. The best story in this collection is the most annoying to read, and even then, it’s such a generic twist that you can find it elsewhere and done better in like any other dark short story collection. Who should read this: Dark short story fans Do I want to reread this: No Similar books: * Bunny by Mona Awad-quirky and dark and femme, psychological horror * White Cat Black Dog by Kelly Link-dark short stories * The Merry Spinster by Mallory Ortberg- dark fairytale retellings short story collection * Stranger Things by Kelly Link-dark short stories * Her Body and Other Parties by Carmen Maria Machado-dark short stories ...more |
Notes are private!
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1
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Aug 03, 2023
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Aug 04, 2023
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Jan 15, 2023
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Kindle Edition
| ||||||||||||||||
| 1638930376
| B0B69W792G
| 4.15
| 16,028
| Mar 07, 2023
| Mar 07, 2023
|
liked it
|
My Selling Pitch: Frankenstein’s monster but make it a meditation on boy mom grief and gay as hell. Pre-reading: Absolutely begging for a book to make My Selling Pitch: Frankenstein’s monster but make it a meditation on boy mom grief and gay as hell. Pre-reading: Absolutely begging for a book to make me feel something. I saw this cover last year and said immediately yes, but never got to it. It got some buzz in the choice awards, so I'm expecting big things. Thick of it: We’re off to a good start. What a hook! Sam‘s running joke is that we’re gonna put the fun in funerals, so who’s getting fucked, baby girl? Fun in funerals, baby! Never fails. Artsy grief. I feel like girlypop and her oral fixation would get along well with Saltburn boy. Fuck your religion. Are she and Lena going to be lesbians? I’m digging this. It’s doing exactly what it needs to do. It’s a little Shark Heart-y. How does it go to the bathroom? My book gaydar is so good. It’s well done. I’m just kind of bored. Mommy issues lead to lesbianism cliché. Girl, you’re a doctor and in possession of your own pink vaginé. How do you not know if a woman is coming? Is this circumcision commentary? For the record, I’m very against it lol. Trump voice: excuse me, I need your help. You need to kill me. Dude is such a bottom. I don’t like him at all. Is this translated? Sometimes the repetitiveness is a little grating. (It is not.) I also hate that it’s always vagina and penis even during the sex scenes. Hey, don’t get engaged to someone who does things to you without your sexual consent just a PSA. Also, wanting to mimic your son during sex-super weird, my dude. Again, this is well done. I just don’t care. Slightly Frankensteiny. He just needs to find a Scorpio so they can bite together lol. Or a Sam hahahaha It’s like that consensual cannibal case. Was this before or after it? (I can’t be bothered to Google, but maybe you can tell me in the comments.) A minty boy haha I don’t know, man. It’s a fitting ending. It’s just so lackluster. I’m like I didn’t care the entire book. Post-reading: It’s fine. It’s good for a debut. It didn’t change my life. I’m still glad I read it. The beginning chapter of this was the most successful for me because it was a little unhinged and angry, but then we just sort of dropped off into depressed ennui. But I feel the same way about Frankenstein and everyone else loves that shit. I didn’t connect to the characters. It always felt like we were viewing them at a distance. It’s also hard to like them when they treat each other so terribly. They’re so mean to Lena, and the whole book you just want her to want more for herself, yet she winds up with Magos who doesn’t give a shit about her. And that’s frustrating. I think the book has interesting musings about how people grieve differently. I think it does some fun stuff comparing hunger and sexuality, but then it’s not a sexy novel so there's nothing for me to really sink my teeth into there. (Yes, I think I’m very funny.) I think it’s slow. I don’t think it has snappy dialogue. I don’t think it’s necessarily the book for that, but when you tell me horror, I expect to be wincing, or plowing through pages, or just something that gives me that adrenaline shot to get my heart pumping. This doesn’t have that, and multiple people get eaten. How do you do that? How do you make me not care about cannibalism? I think the ending bed scene parallel is fabulous. I think the ending itself is too ambiguous for me to like it. I think the book asks you to suspend a lot of disbelief to buy that a monster can be made out of a lung and no one‘s gonna question it, and he can somehow go to school and work without papers, and the police are never involved, and thank god, everyone has enough money or air miles for flights across the world every other week. For working theoretically non-starving artists, these people don’t seem all that talented. Maybe there’s more here for you if you struggle with hiding your gender identity or sexual orientation from your family. I don’t have that to latch onto. I think my fundamental problem with this book is that you have parents covering for a shitty child’s actions again. And the message is sort of just oh, he’s a monster. It’s in his nature. He can’t help murdering people. He can’t help having sexual encounters without people’s consent. Boys’ll be boys. Monsters’ll be monsters. And it’s framed like his parents should help him cover up his crimes because they love him. You’re supposed to root for the family. You’re supposed to root for the monster. And that feels like some boy mom bullshit. Tell your kid to knock that shit off, and give him some goddamn consequences. And let’s be clear, eating for survival- not a choice. I understand that allusion then to sexual orientation is not a choice. I just don’t fuck with we know Timmy wants to eat people, but let’s set him loose on dating apps without giving him the birds and bees talk. I think Shark Heart and Our Wives Under the Sea are much stronger meditations on grief from a horror lens. This isn’t bad. You won’t waste your time reading it. I’d just recommend other books first. Who should read this: Queer horror fans Meditation on grief fans Frankenstein fans Family drama fans Do I want to reread this: Nah. Would try another book by this author though. Similar books: * Shark Heart by Emily Habeck-magical realism, family drama, horror, meditation on grief, examination of degenerative diseases * Our Wives Under the Sea by Julia Armfield-magical realism, horror, meditation on grief, examination of degenerative diseases, queer * Night’s Edge by Liz Kerin-dystopian horror, family drama, queer * Walking Practice by Dolki Min-experimental translated horror, alien munches on humans it meets on dating apps * Silver Nitrate by Silvia Moreno-Garcia-historical horror, queer, unlikable characters, toxic relationships * Motherthing by Ainslie Hogarth-family drama horror, campy * Tender is the Flesh by Agustina Bazterrica-dystopian cannibalism horror, family drama, dead kid * Wrong Place Wrong Time by Gillian McAllister-time travel thriller, boy mom guilt ...more |
Notes are private!
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1
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Jun 03, 2024
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Jun 04, 2024
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Jan 14, 2023
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Kindle Edition
| |||||||||||||||
| 0593355377
| B0BJPF8FVX
| 3.61
| 22,816
| Jul 18, 2023
| Jul 18, 2023
|
it was ok
|
My Selling Pitch: Do you want to read about two childhood friends trying to undo a curse that they activated by playing an old horror movie? Do you li My Selling Pitch: Do you want to read about two childhood friends trying to undo a curse that they activated by playing an old horror movie? Do you like fundamentally unlikable characters? Do you like unhealthy romances that pretend like they're cute and healthy and normal? Do you love old film history? Pre-reading: I love this cover. I know nothing about it other than that it’s supposed to be a horror book. Thick of it: This is gonna be acting in a movie as an opener and not part of the actual story. (Yup.) A Sam-it’s me! The writing voice feels too modern for the time period. (It’s early 90s, which isn’t that long ago, but it still feels off.) tlapalería mordant Get over him, bestie. You deserve better. (repeat ad infinitum) Mendicant Adelitas The book going back and forth between their first and their last names is driving me absolutely insane. Pick one and stick to it. If I DNFed books, I would probably DNF this. I don’t think it’s necessarily bad, but I don’t think I’m the target audience for this. I want a mystery romp, not a history lesson. (I think I’m not the target audience, and I think it’s bad.) rancor vegvísir So how do we know Jose was even telling the truth? (Oh, duh because he’s the least white one. Sorry, my bad. ((That’s book-targeted snark, not my actual feelings just in case you're new here lol.))) Take a shot every time this book says mordant. I don’t think I'd ever heard that word before this book. I mean, at least the book is self-aware enough to be like the man who believes in magic movies should go to therapy? He really said he likes her because she’s not like other girls because she’s not beautiful. This man is the worst, and I do not want them to wind up together, but I have a funny feeling that they're going to. radiesthesia That's codependency. nopal I have to return some video tapes. Oh good, another book where men want women to be madonnas and whores. garrulous hierophants He's so rude to her wtf? rakweh Beneath the cover of the book? (Yup.) chirologists miscegenation 2:29 am? (Yup.) I'm bored. She’s really complaining that her sister who just survived chemo feels excited for Christmas? Girl, read the room. This book is not scary. It's not even uneasy. I'm just bored. Echelons Like my assumption is that they’re just gonna have to show the entire film for an audience, and that’s boring to me. (Basically.) I don’t believe in magic. I don’t believe in ghosts. I don’t know history. I know nothing about Mexico. I know nothing about film history. I don’t even really watch movies. I am not this book’s target audience. Also, I don’t care if this is a villain origin story. I don’t like her. I haven’t liked her. Are they sure it’s her niece and not just her because I think it’s just her and she’s like magically immortal or some shit. (YUP.) A quick, terrible little insight into my hellscape of a brain-every time the audiobook narrator says Montserrat, my brain autocorrects it to muskrat. Like this is a main character’s name, Samantha, please. Wow, how thoughtful for her family. The heck? No religion and magic are the same. So this book started on Halloween and now it’s Christmas and somehow these losers haven’t worked, but have been complaining about having no money and no work. Y’all had two months. hitobashira Hey, wild idea, don’t trust the lady telling you to bring a Nazi back to life? One bed, one bed-except they should not be together. But like it’s a sexy demon so…I’dda been like OK baby, I’ll follow you. hermetic But like what would’ve happened if she’d fucked the magical Nazi ghost because I think that would be a better book. (You’re a pervert.) Inky good boys. ferrule Oh, how boring I was right. purloined posadas That's so rude! Girl, condition your hair. That's just depression. bolillo Lmao to stop the movie magic they have to roll the credits. That's so bad that it's good. Can you just grow up Tristan? What do you mean? He’s literally abandoned you multiple times. The author might not think that not returning your phone calls for months at a time isn’t abandoning you, but any sane person does. I think this author is so desperate to say something deep and add some emotional weight to this story, and it’s just not fucking there. You’re not saying anything, girl. Just stop talking. No musing. Move the plot forward. Do you know what else really bothers me about this book? Tristan‘s dead girlfriend exists only for him. She has no voice in this book. mortadella Why wouldn’t you want to be able to do magic, my dude? He was also in your bed trying to seduce you, baby. Why not drag out an action scene by telling the reader the same action scene from two points of view that exist at the same time so they literally add nothing? They're just gonna leave Clari alive? She's a rich bitch with magic. That’s a bad enemy to have. What do you mean? HOW IS IT EVEN A CHOICE ABOUT WHETHER OR NOT TO GO SAVE YOUR FRIEND, YOU ASS? THE BAR FOR MEN IS IN HELL. HOW IS THE LITERAL NAZI NICER TO HER? She still has to find him? He can't find her? What the fuck, this man is the worst. You're just trauma bonded, not in love. This dialogue sucks. This is not a romance. Post-reading: 2 stars because I can be objective and see that this has a plot, and it’s readable, but it would be 1 star if I rated on personal enjoyment. I will readily admit I’m not the target audience for this. I don’t like magic. I hate paranormal as an explanation. I’m not a film buff. I’m not a history nerd. But I fundamentally believe that good books are good regardless of their genre. They may not hit the same way for different audiences, but someone should still be capable of recognizing like oh this is good, it’s just not for me. This is not for me, AND I think it’s bad. The pacing is terrible. The plot is so bogged down with out-of-place history references that aren’t even important to the story. Maybe they’re nice little Easter eggs if you’re a film buff. I can’t comment on that. The mystery is extremely predictable. This book has no twists. It’s supposed to be a horror book. There is not a single scary scene. Maybe I read too much monster smut, but there’s literally a scene where a demon is in her bed, and I was waiting for them to fuck. And the author was like oh my god, wasn’t that so scary? And I was like where was the split tongue rim job? Both your characters are bisexual, and no one fucks? That’s basically a crime. They could’ve had chemistry with anyone. And like let’s talk about these characters. They are fundamentally unlikable. And not in the fun way. Montserrat is miserable. You’re not not like other girls for refusing to condition your hair. That’s just depression. That’s like the most basic girly trait there is. She pines after this man who is truly insufferable and downright emotionally abusive. He calls her ugly and puts her down the entire book. He continuously weaponizes her insecurities against her. And what does he have to bring to the table? He’s an emotionally constipated drug addict, who just happens to be a hottie. He toys with people’s emotions and strings people along in relationships because he’s bored and scared of being alone. Go to therapy you dime a dozen emotional terrorist of a man. Like the literal Nazi in this book is nicer to Montserrat than him, and he’s the villain and a Nazi. Somehow the author decided she was gonna shoehorn a romance into this book. That’s abuse. That’s codependency. That’s trauma bonding. It is not cute. It is not healthy. It is not aspirational. Do fucking better. Karina exists only in regards to Tristan and never gets a voice in this book. There's a bunch of plot holes surrounding the justice system in this book. All magic is undone by breaking the curse. What does that mean for her sister’s cancer? And then I think most insultingly to me, this book’s plot kicked off because neither of these two losers had jobs, and they were desperate for money. Two months pass during this book. Not once do they struggle for money or find a different job. The book ends without them having gained money or gotten a job. Like the characters were literally better off at the start of this book than they were at the end. I was very tempted to put this on my do not read shelf, and I cannot and will not recommend it to anyone, but if you are in love with the concept, it is readable. Beyond skippable though. Who should read this: Film buffs Bad horror movie lovers Do I want to reread this: No Similar books: * Horrorstor by Grady Hendrix-campy ensemble horror about a workplace * Motherthing by Ainslie Hogarth-campy, femme horror * Lone Women by Victor LaValle-historical horror that's not scary and panderingly woke ...more |
Notes are private!
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1
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Aug 06, 2023
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Aug 09, 2023
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Dec 19, 2022
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Kindle Edition
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my rating |
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|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
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| 3.56
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it was ok
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Sep 08, 2023
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Mar 07, 2024
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| 2.69
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did not like it
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May 30, 2024
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Jan 10, 2024
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| 3.96
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it was ok
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May 27, 2024
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Jan 10, 2024
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| 3.33
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did not like it
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Dec 12, 2023
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Nov 17, 2023
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| 3.93
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liked it
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Jun 11, 2024
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Nov 08, 2023
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| 3.58
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did not like it
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May 07, 2024
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Sep 21, 2023
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| 3.60
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did not like it
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Oct 29, 2023
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Sep 08, 2023
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| 3.66
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it was ok
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Jun 30, 2024
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Aug 27, 2023
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| 3.77
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it was ok
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Jun 17, 2024
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Aug 13, 2023
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| 3.78
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really liked it
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Jun 04, 2023
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May 22, 2023
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| 3.01
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really liked it
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Oct 08, 2023
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May 22, 2023
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| 3.66
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liked it
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Jun 21, 2024
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May 11, 2023
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| 3.99
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it was amazing
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Aug 27, 2023
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Mar 20, 2023
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| 3.94
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did not like it
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Aug 17, 2023
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Mar 14, 2023
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|||||
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| 3.78
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it was amazing
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Dec 14, 2023
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Jan 30, 2023
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|||||
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| 3.91
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really liked it
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Feb 25, 2024
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Jan 18, 2023
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|||||
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| 3.59
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did not like it
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Apr 17, 2023
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Jan 16, 2023
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| 3.14
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did not like it
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Aug 04, 2023
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Jan 15, 2023
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| 4.15
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liked it
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Jun 04, 2024
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Jan 14, 2023
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| 3.61
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it was ok
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Aug 09, 2023
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Dec 19, 2022
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