Devin's foster parents have just had her abducted for fifty days of nature therapy where, along with several other troubled teens, a nature guide, andDevin's foster parents have just had her abducted for fifty days of nature therapy where, along with several other troubled teens, a nature guide, and a counselor, she'll learn to survive in the wilderness and, hopefully, overcome her personal demons. When the campers wake one morning to find both counselors missing, they realize they'll have to work together to have any hope of getting back to civilization. But something is watching from the woods, and it doesn't want them to leave… I received a free e-ARC through NetGalley from the publishers at St. Martin's Press/Wednesday Books. Trigger warnings: character death, family/twin death, dead body, cancer, rape/pedophilia, abusive households, severe injury, burns, blood, violence, drugs/dealing, addiction.
I've read other books with a similar premise that didn't go well, so it was only on faith that Gould could do better with this story and my love for The Dead and the Dark that had me picking this up. I'm so glad I did. It's easily one of my favorite novels of the year so far, and Gould remains the uncontested queen of lesbians in YA horror. It's full of wonderfully drawn characters and scenery, and some of the creepiest paranormal elements in recent memory.
I think the first fascinating twist on the nature therapy plot is that half these kids barely qualify as "troubled." Though their issues vary from drug abuse or dealing to fighting, one can't help feeling their parents are the ones who would benefit most from fifty days in the woods to talk about their feelings. I felt for all of them by the end of the book, and I like the way Gould is able to make them sympathetic and three-dimensional. (Which is obviously the end goal, because nobody deserves to suffer this sort of program, teenager or otherwise.) I like how far both Devin and Sheridan in particular come by the end of the book despite their initial hatred for each other. It is, after all, very hard to hate someone when we understand them.
It's the horror elements that really knocked this book out of the park for me though. Gould has a knack for the creative and the uncanny, and there are many spooky, wtf-type scenes while we try to figure out what exactly is stalking the group. I won't go into details to avoid spoilers (and, really, it's better to go into it blank), but they're some of the spookiest, most original "monsters" I've seen. If they have a counterpart, I've never seen it, and the lore seems to be entirely of Gould's own creation. I loved it. I'll be looking for a copy for my bookshelf.
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I put this off for a bit because I wasn’t ready for the trilogy to be over, and I’m pretty emotional about this horrific, blood-drenched, heartfelt seI put this off for a bit because I wasn’t ready for the trilogy to be over, and I’m pretty emotional about this horrific, blood-drenched, heartfelt series as a whole–which honestly tells you a lot about me and it. Fans of the first two books will find plenty to love about it, and the character development for Jade throughout the series is really good. I adore her as a main character and a final girl. She’s the beating, bloody heart of these books, and I’m excited that she’ll live on in slasher history for girls to look up to and see themselves in and celebrate alongside Laurie Strode and Sidney Prescott as peak examples for the genre. There’s a lot of her trying to manage her own trauma in this book, which typically isn’t something we get to see a lot of in horror. While I felt the narrative was tighter in Don’t Fear the Reaper, this one falls back into some of the habits of My Heart Is a Chainsaw, where it sometimes feels like we get a bit lost in her internal monologue at the expense of what’s happening. It feels intentional–the very real consequences of a trauma spiral–but as a spectator it’s occasionally frustrating.
It’s up there with the first two books as far as gore and body count, and I enjoy the fact that no matter how much I know I’m in a slasher, I’m still surprised when the violence explodes out of nowhere from the least expected directions. Jones has a talent for dreaming up horrific mass death scenes, usually not once but several times in a book. The killers are a little all over the place in this one, no looming specter of Dark Mill South to ground the book, but I think it works. It dips into some seriously dark territory at one point, but I like the way it’s all pulled together by the end, the lore of previous books coming back to shape this one. While Don’t Fear the Reaper is still my favorite (weird, right? way to go all Catching Fire with it), I enjoyed the series a lot overall and will be glad to return to Jade and Proofrock in future rereads. I received a free e-ARC through NetGalley from the publishers at Saga Press.
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Verity is the youngest of the Thaumas sisters. After tragedy took so much of their family, her oldest sisFlash Book Review: Atmosphere & Insta-Love
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Verity is the youngest of the Thaumas sisters. After tragedy took so much of their family, her oldest sister, Camille, has kept her close at the Highmoor estate, but Verity longs for her own life to start. When she receives an invitation from the Duchess of Bloem to paint a portrait of her son, Alexander, Verity flees Highmoor without permission, afraid to see her life pass her by. She’s instantly charmed by the beauty of Bloem and its kind future duke, but there are dark secrets beneath the surface of Chauntilalie estate. I received a free e-ARC through NetGalley from the publishers at Random House/Delacorte Press. Trigger warnings: character death (on page), child/parent death, poisoning, fire, violence, severe injury, ableism (countered).
This has a lot in common with House of Salt and Sorrows, as in, it’s still recognizably Craig, an atmospheric mix of horror, fantasy, and mystery, with a strong dose of flawless romantic love interests. I think the difference for me came down in the kind of atmosphere. Whereas the first book had spooky ghosts and an ocean aesthetic, this one has lush gardens, plants, and mad science. I’m a ghost girl, not a flower girl, so it’s fairly easy to see why I didn’t really vibe with this, but that’s going to vary from reader to reader. After the initial chilling twist (which, having now read the description, I realize is not actually a twist), most of the ghosts turn out to be helpful rather than spooky.
The plot is a little slow-moving, and there are points where it seems like we’re floundering around in the same clues, all of which lead to a pretty obvious conclusion. I do enjoy Craig’s flowery (in this case literally) descriptions and the rich cultural fantasy worlds she creates without ever bogging us down in world-building details. I don’t find the People of the Petals as interesting as the People of the Salt, but again, that’s just a personal preference. Verity is a more naive heroine than Annaleigh, but they’re both ruled by their kindness. (In fact, I’m finding it a little difficult to tell Craig’s leading ladies apart, if we’re also including Small Favors.)
What really threatened the book for me is the romance. While I sometimes enjoy romance as a genre, I tend to not like it as well in my fantasy, and there’s just so much of it here. The two leads have an instant connection that’s very deep as well as sappy (I’m sorry, don’t mind my aro heart), and Verity’s instant devotion makes me want to shake her. Girl, you just met him five minutes ago, and you’ve barely even spoken to another man before this. While I appreciate a disabled love interest (Alex uses a wheelchair after a childhood accident left him paralyzed from the waist down), we’re practically beaten over the head with his goodness. Let the man have a flaw. The ending seems to be going for shock value more than logic, and while I didn’t love it, I’m interested to see how the consequences play out in the third book.
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Three years ago, Harper’s best friend, Peggy, went missing. Peggy had been acting strangely before that, more distant and secretive, culminating in thThree years ago, Harper’s best friend, Peggy, went missing. Peggy had been acting strangely before that, more distant and secretive, culminating in the worst fight they’d ever had. Now, Harper can’t seem to move on, having quit school to work in a diner and watch re-runs of Infinite Odyssey. Then, on the anniversary of her disappearance, Peggy suddenly returns and demands that Harper take her to the Argonaut, the time and space traveling star of their favorite show. When the Argonaut himself shows up and strands Harper in 1971, she realizes that Infinite Odyssey may be more reality than fiction, and she’s going to need all her knowledge of it to defeat The Incarnate, an insidious alien parasite that has Peggy in its thrall and intends to spread throughout the universe. I received a free e-ARC through NetGalley from the publishers at Blackstone Publishing. Trigger warnings: death, sexism (countered), severe injury, violence, brainwashing, self-loathing.
My freaking heart. I requested this despite not being much of a sci-fi person (or much of a Doctor Who fan) because I couldn’t resist the words “queer space fantasy,” and I’m so glad I did. It was everything I was hoping for and more, and I found myself sinking right away into this slightly alternate Earth where we have Miles Moonraker instead of David Bowie and Infinite Odyssey instead of Doctor Who. There’s a little bit of several beloved science fiction fandoms included here, from Doctor Who and Back to the Future (1985) to Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1956), and The Infinite Miles feels like a love letter to all of them.
The mechanics of time/space travel and paradoxes aren’t so complicated as to put off the casual sci-fi reader (re: me), and I never felt bogged down in the details of Fergesen’s world-building. She gives us just enough to make us feel at home in her slightly alternate Earth and to make the story plausible when it’s needed. On the whole, I’d say it’s more of a character novel, and I loved the relationships between Harper, Peggy, Miles, and of course Argo, the starship with a soul and a mind of her own (who, incidentally, is my favorite character). Harper and Peggy’s childhood friendship and their shared love for Infinite Odyssey is the heart of the novel, the need to save her the thing that drives all of Harper’s actions. It emphasizes how fandoms help to create bonds and even, to some extent, shape reality.
The Incarnate is a formidable villain, more sentient and relatable than the Blob or Pod People but with a similar drive to feed and a lack of empathy. I like the direction Fergesen takes for a solution to what, at times, looks like an insurmountable problem. There are also healthy doses of queer representation, critiques of 1970s sexism, and lessons in self-love. The ending made me cry but in a cathartic way, and while there are some bittersweet overtones, it ultimately felt right. I’ll be looking for a copy for my shelf for future rereads (and look at that cover! ...more
When they were kids, five friends started a mysterious game called Meido. Only four of them survived. Now in high school, the remaining four are summoWhen they were kids, five friends started a mysterious game called Meido. Only four of them survived. Now in high school, the remaining four are summoned by the ghost of their dead friend to complete the game by dawn or be trapped inside its uncanny Japanese underworlds forever. I received a free e-ARC through NetGalley from the publishers at Tor Teen. Trigger warnings: character death, body horror, gore, captivity, violence, fires, drowning, spiders, neglect.
This is such a great title, isn’t it? I would have picked it up based on that alone, but the premise of a horror game really grabbed me. I forget sometimes how hit and miss that trope can be, and it’s not my favorite here. The readers don’t know the rules because the characters don’t know the rules, so there’s never any sense about what’s working or not working in the “game” or when/why they’re going to be punished for breaking the rules. Everything is sort of hastily (and sometimes wrongly) explained after the fact. The game structure ultimately ends up being a bit flimsy, and I feel a little bait and switched into reading what’s more like a standard other-world dark fantasy novel.
And we know I struggle with fantasy. It was extra hard for me here because each time the characters “level up,” I had to reinvest myself in an entirely new setting with new monsters and NPCs. The chapters are plenty long enough to do this, and Simmons excels at world-building and descriptions, but it didn’t stop me from feeling bogged down in all the changes and details. I suspect this has far more to do with me not really being a fantasy person (not even horror fantasy, unfortunately) than anything the novel does wrong. The Japanese folklore elements are really interesting and creatively done, and that was probably my favorite aspect of the book.
The characters are enjoyable and distinct enough, if not terribly memorable. The book relies a lot on their past friendships to ground the group, but given that we’re not present for that and they all hate each other now, it’s not as effective as it could be. Then there’s also the fact that the game makes them randomly start forgetting things, so they suddenly start acting like friends again. There’s not a lot of consistent development among the five of them, aside from a couple shaky romantic subplots. I did like the build-up to one character reveal far more than I liked another. It works well the first time, and the second time I was just bothered that everything kept changing. Pick a plot point/setting/backstory and stick with it, please. I suspect most of this would come clear on a second read, but I’m not invested enough for that, nor to continue with the series.
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Two summers in a row, Wilder Harlow and his friends enjoy the freedom of boating, games, and beaches at Looking Glass Sound, but when the second ends Two summers in a row, Wilder Harlow and his friends enjoy the freedom of boating, games, and beaches at Looking Glass Sound, but when the second ends in a town tragedy, the three of them are changed forever. Now a middle-aged man, Wilder returns to Looking Glass Sound to write his final memoir before his suicide– the story that was stolen from him in college and sold as a best-selling novel. But the longer Wilder stays in the town, the more his grip on memory and reality begin to weaken, until he begins to suspect he may be haunted by the characters in the story. I received a free e-ARC through NetGalley from the publishers at Tor Nightfire. Trigger warnings: character death, suicidal ideation, body horror (graphic), torture/captivity mentions, poisoning, drowning, abortion, anxiety/panic attacks, internalized homophobia.
This started off so strong and then descended into absurdity. I really enjoyed the beginning story of the three friends and the chilling town murders and, to be perfectly honest, I think this by itself would have made a better novel. Had Ward spent more time developing these beginning relationships, dropping clues, and building up to the reveal, it would have been a more than adequate murder mystery story with a twist that, if not shocking, at least would have been heartfelt (and terrifying). The characters aren’t particularly likeable, but at that age they are, at least, compelling in a way that drifts off when they get older and continue to be horrible.
Instead, Ward seems more focused on repeating the same kind of twisty mindfuck from The Last House on Needless Street instead of just… telling a good story. The thing is that not every story needs to be told that way. She seems to be playing around with metafiction here with the shifting perspectives and multiple retellings from different angles. There’s an entire section that repeats the first part as a “novelization” with different characters that’s downright tedious to read. Like a lot of metafiction where form doesn’t follow function, it ends up feeling gimmicky and pointless. I like the end concept okay as a concept, but it comes so late in the book that it doesn’t even feel real, let alone like it has any basis for being there. It ultimately ends up feeling like two very different books smashed together, and it does neither of them justice. Looking Glass Sound sacrifices good storytelling for the sake of cleverness without ever actually being that clever.
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Liv is the only scholarship student aboard the cruise ship, Eos, for an educational program called SeaMester that could be her ticket into a good collLiv is the only scholarship student aboard the cruise ship, Eos, for an educational program called SeaMester that could be her ticket into a good college. The first night, her best friend, Will, becomes sick enough to be quarantined. The more days pass without hearing from him, the more convinced Liv becomes that something terrible is happening on the ship– and that Will may no longer be aboard at all. As her paranoia increases, she fears that even the staff and her cohort may be part of a conspiracy of human sacrifices and old gods. I received a free e-ARC through NetGalley from the publishers at Delacorte Press. Trigger warnings: human sacrifice, abduction, injury, illness, gaslighting, classism, threats, bullying, underage drinking.
Everything about this, from the title and the description to the tentacles on the cover, said this book should have been for me. Watching The Beast (1996) as a kid with my dad instilled an early love in me for water monsters. Unfortunately, Those We Drown promises way more than it delivers. What little ocean horror we have is sadly underutilized, and the plot is much more focused on spiraling into paranoia and conspiracy than it is on diving into its world-building in any depth. By the time anything remotely full of teeth and tentacles appeared, not only did I no longer care, I had no idea what basis it even had for being there. Something something old gods and sacrifices. If you have a giant squid on the page and it doesn’t attack anyone, what was even the point?
Instead, most of the page-time is devoted to Liv hating her rich cohort, obsessing about her ill-fated romance with Will, obsessing about yet another love/hate potential romance in Con, and chasing around increasingly ridiculous conspiracy theories. Does she have good reason for that? Yeah, absolutely. There is something nefarious aboard the Eos. But the reader came into the novel with that knowledge, and the whole is she being gaslit or is she genuinely unhinged cycle gets tired quick. I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again: paranoia is a difficult mood to sustain for any length of time, and it didn’t endear me to Liv. Pull it together and have a little dignity, girl.
On a writing level, it reads like a first novel. That’s not necessarily a bad thing, and the target YA audience probably won’t be put off by it. Adult readers like myself might struggle a bit more. The descriptions are frequent and a bit forced, and there are some grammar and continuity errors. The first I can never help noticing (sentence fragments for days, and not as a style choice), but the second have to be glaringly obvious for me to pick up on them, since my general attitude is that time is more like a soup than a line. It makes Liv’s character seem wildly inconsistent at times, though, when she walks into a glittering party going yes, this opulence suits me, to scorning it the next morning.
As I said, there’s little coherent explanation of the supernatural elements, and the finale is left hugely open-ended, as if Goldsmith got so deep into her plot conspiracies that she couldn’t write her way out of them. Given the complete lack of closure or explanation, I would say it reads more like the first book in a series than a standalone, but it’s not billed or listed as such. Regardless, if books don’t have plot closure, they should at least have thematic closure, or some general sense of why the readers and characters went through all of this. Those We Drown has none of those.
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After the death of her mother in a horrific train wreck, Marin receives an employment opportunity at Lovelace House to nanny two girls. Alice LovelaceAfter the death of her mother in a horrific train wreck, Marin receives an employment opportunity at Lovelace House to nanny two girls. Alice Lovelace is a renowned horror writer and her mother’s childhood best friend, and Marin is eager to learn more about her past. However, it’s immediately clear that her two charges, Wren and Thea, don’t want her there and are willing to resort to dangerous pranks to get her to leave. When their oldest sister, Evie, returns early from school, Marin finds herself attracted in spite of all of Evie’s secrets. But the longer she stays at Lovelace, the more secrets she uncovers and the clearer it becomes that something sinister is happening. I received a free e-ARC through NetGalley from the publishers at HarperCollins/Katherine Tegen Books. Trigger warnings: parent death, animal death (a lot of minor animal deaths on-page, particularly birds, and a subplot involving an already-dead dog), emotional abuse, poison, body horror, severe injury, blood/gore, mental illness, grief, guilt.
All the Dead Lie Down is a haunting, atmospheric treat with a central wlw romance. I’m not the biggest fan of The Turn of the Screw, but there are definite Bly Manor vibes in Lovelace and its two slightly sinister children. It also reminded me a lot of The Bone Houses in its waking dead and quiet sense of horror paired with moments of contrasting loveliness. You wouldn’t think books about dead things could be lovely, but here we are. There’s more character and atmosphere than plot, which is rather slow-moving, but it all comes together well for a quiet, spooky little novel that’s as much about grief as it is about dead things, although there’s plenty of both.
Marin is a strong main character, and as an anxious, careful person myself, I found it easy to relate to her. She’s not a risk-taker, but she’s got a loyal, motherly protective streak for Wren and Thea (despite their tricks) that I really enjoyed. The relationships between all four of the girls are given plenty of attention, and I like the dynamics among all of them and the way they develop. There’s a bit of a found family element in it as well, as Marin comes to find her place at Lovelace despite its horrors. I always love a wlw relationship, and Marin and Evie are a fun complement. (The kissing is a bit much at times, but I tend to let queer romances have that one. We deserve the happy rep.) I loved the central plot twists and the secrets once they started coming out, and there are plenty of creeps especially in the second half. I’ll be looking for a copy for my shelf when it comes out.
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It took me all damn year to read this book, through no fault of its own. I received an invitation from the publishers to read it through NetGalley, goIt took me all damn year to read this book, through no fault of its own. I received an invitation from the publishers to read it through NetGalley, got about a third of the way through, and decided I couldn't take the kind of notes I wanted on my Kindle. By the time my ordered copy arrived, enough time had passed that it seemed best just to start over. Then cue the Great Summer Reading Slump of 2023! I refused to start over again, and it still took me until December to finish. May I reflect on this before I decide to accept nonfiction again, even if it is about horror. But then, as my favorite professor always liked to say, "Struggling is productive."
This is all no reflection on the book itself, which is an in-depth look at the history of Black horror cinema. I'm an avid horror fan, and I still learned a hell of a lot, including where to fill in the gaps in my viewing (although… I'm still probably going to skip Spider Baby (1967), sorry. Even my boyfriend, Lon Chaney Jr., can't make that sound appealing). Seriously, adding films to my watch list was some of the most fun of this book, and I've already started chipping away at those by continuing with The Purge series. I gave up after having lukewarm feelings about the first, but in a weird twist, the series actually gets so much better. I'm planning to watch Event Horizon (1997) and Spiral (2021) at some point too, among others.
The writers are incredibly knowledgeable about the topics, one a scholar in the field and the other having had a hand in a number of popular culture projects centered on horror film. I think this combination is what really sets this book apart from others of its kind and gives it a more unique voice. The two of them balance the in-depth theoretical and social commentary with witty, sardonic asides. Horror has a long history of going hand in hand with comedy (horror hosts like Svengoolie are case in point), and they go well together here. Despite the fears in the acknowledgements section that the book comes over "too complainy," I didn't get that impression in any sense. A critique by definition should be critical, and it is. It spares no feelings in calling out the hugely racist film industry which, despite major strides forward, still has a long way to go. However, it's also clear throughout that the writers really love the genre, and there are points of borderline gushing over films like Get Out (2017), which had a revolutionizing effect on social-political horror in general and Black horror specifically.
The chapters are neatly broken up by Top Lists on various topics, from Frequent Dier Awards and Terrible Hip-Hop Theme Songs From Horror Movies to 10 Horror Movies About Black-White Race Relations Not Named Get Out. These work better than the sometimes long lists of films inserted into paragraphs, and are often quite funny. The first half of the book is very strong on the history of Black horror film, even to the point of feeling a bit repetitive at times, which I think is a byproduct of the essay-ish/doctoral thesis quality of some of the chapters. (We can credit academia with a lot of things, but being concise is rarely one of them.) It expertly links Black horror trends with long-held racial stereotypes and charts the often dismal numbers of Black actors, actresses, writers, and directors in horror film, and the (again, often dismal) quality of that representation.
The second half dips into the intersection of Black women and Black LGBTQ+ representation, and it's not quite as comprehensive there. In part, this is because there just isn't as much rep out there to write about, but my sense is that this is more like an overview of these topics. A dedicated scholar could spend an entire book delving into each one of those and still have more to write. The final chapter pulls together a moving rumination on how Black horror, like most media, is ultimately a reflection of the world we live in. Any minor quibbles aside, this is extremely well-done and a must-read for anyone with an interest in the history of horror film.
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After a fateful Tweet that went viral in the worst way, Willow’s life is falling apart. She’s been fired from her sitcom, her fiancé’s left, and the iAfter a fateful Tweet that went viral in the worst way, Willow’s life is falling apart. She’s been fired from her sitcom, her fiancé’s left, and the internet as a whole is calling for her head. A retreat to Camp Castaway, where adults who want to put their mistakes behind them and disconnect from their phones, comes at the perfect moment. But Camp Castaway hides a dark history, and when campers start to go missing, it’s clear someone wants to cancel all of them… for good. I received a free e-ARC through NetGalley from the publishers at Penguin/Putnam. Trigger warnings: character death (on page, graphic), decapitation, child abuse, gore, cancer, severe injury, addiction, homophobia (countered), strong religious themes, bullying.
This is a perfectly fine adult slasher novel and a nice addition to the genre. Winning doesn’t skimp on the gore or the body count, and, not surprisingly, the horror scenes were my favorite parts. They’re nicely cinematic and well-paced, as well as a loving (bloody) homage to slasher films of days gone by. There are a couple of powerhouse Final Girls as well, and I especially loved Juniper as the aged, tough Final Girl who takes no shit and offers wisdom to the younger generation. It’s harder to get a read on Willow since she’s having a bit of an identity crisis, but she’s a worthy heroine who always tries to help her fellow campers, even before the heads are rolling. There’s also a sweet but complicated wlw romance, representation that still isn’t as prevalent in horror as I’d hope.
One of my favorite things about horror and what basically cemented my love for George Romero movies in high school is horror’s natural ability to be a vehicle for social commentary. Winning targets cancel culture with Head Will Roll, and one has the sense many influencers would rather be chased through the woods by an ax murderer than be “canceled” on Instagram. Not being much of a social media person myself, it’s not an issue that particularly resonates with me, but it’s nicely developed throughout the novel. Occasionally, I did feel like the issue was overshadowing the story and the horror a bit, but had I connected more to it, I might not have felt that way. All in all, it’s fun, gruesome, and meaningful, as horror should be.
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Alejandra feels trapped in her marriage and as the mother of three demanding children. When she starts to see visions of a weeping woman in a white drAlejandra feels trapped in her marriage and as the mother of three demanding children. When she starts to see visions of a weeping woman in a white dress, she fears for her sanity. As she begins to attend regular sessions with a therapist who is also a curandera, she realizes that what she’s seeing may be very real, and that she may have inherited an evil that has preyed on the women of her bloodline for centuries. In order to save her family, Alejandra will have to heal herself and draw on the strength of generations. I received a free e-ARC through NetGalley from the publishers at Random House/Del Rey. Trigger warnings: parent/child/spouse death, suicide attempt (on-page), suicidal ideation, drowning, miscarriage, gore, guns, violence, period horror, abandonment, mental illness/depression, neglect, racism, sexism.
I liked the overall story and message in this book, but I didn’t vibe with the writing style or the main character. Part of the problem with starting the story when Alejandra first starts seeing La Llorona is that she’s already so deep in depression. It’s our immediate impression of her, with no sense of how she got there or who she is beyond that. It’s her dominating characteristic, and she can’t see past her own misery and self-pity enough to help herself. The writing style is also very dramatic and flowery, and it’s hammered in so many times that Alejandra’s life is a hopeless abyss (or something). It’s difficult to find a bright spot in a character like this. I cared, but I never felt what she was feeling, and I think I would have empathized more if the Absolute Crushing Darkness had been reined in a little.
It’s also not really a La Llorona story, if we’re being honest, at least not in the traditional folktale way. Castro trades in the myth for something more sinister and ancient, but I didn’t feel all the backstory on the creature was necessary. It gets less frightening the more we see of it, and the descriptions grow repetitive. Slobbery monster clothed in something else’s skin, got it. It’s never as frightening as the very real circumstances Alejandra and her ancestors face in widespread cultural racism and sexism, and I’d say the true monster of the novel is the generational horror of women being expected to be mothers and nothing else, even at the expense of their own well-being. While the past looks into her ancestors’ lives slow down the pace some, I think it’s necessary for the kind of story that’s being told. Alejandra draws strength from the women of her past, and her arc in healing herself is ultimately very well-developed. If it sounds like your kind of story, it probably is.
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Shortly after the death of her mother, Beck gets a letter in the mail in her mom’s handwriting, post-marked from the Arizona town she was obsessed witShortly after the death of her mother, Beck gets a letter in the mail in her mom’s handwriting, post-marked from the Arizona town she was obsessed with and reading simply: Come and find me. Determined to solve the mystery that held her mom’s attention for the past decade, Beck and her younger sister, Riley, take a road trip to Backravel. What they find is a town where no one seems to remember how they got there or when and a gleaming treatment center on a plateau that everyone is reluctant to talk about in detail. I received an invitation to read a free e-ARC through NetGalley from the publishers at St. Martin’s Press/Wednesday Books. Trigger warnings: parent/child death, cancer, abandonment, injury, illness, asthma attacks, grieving.
After adoring Gould’s debut novel, The Dead and the Dark, and screaming about it every chance I get, I don’t know how to explain where this one went so wrong for me. To begin with, nothing much happens for nearly half the book. I’m usually fine with novels that aren’t terribly plot-heavy if they have other things going for them, but this one doesn’t need that many pages to establish a rather weird but somehow boring setting and characters that aren’t that deep. It’s mostly a lot of Beck being dramatic about events that don’t seem at all noteworthy, which didn’t endear her to me. (There’s also a TON of repetitions of Ellery Birsching’s full name in the narrative. Just… why? I got it the first ten times.)
Beck’s personality is basically her trauma and nothing else. She’s not only grieving her mother’s death, but she’s been stuck in survival mode for so long that there’s not much else to her. She keeps most of the other characters at a distance, including her younger sister, so that there’s no chance for character development or getting to know them, and her relationship with Avery is so awkward and out of place that I didn’t manage to have any particular feelings about it.
Mysteries have a shelf-life within a novel, and this one suffers a bit from being left too long. So many pages pass with Beck uncovering no new pieces that half the book could be summed up with “weird vibes.” Unfortunately, a vibe doesn’t carry a story, and the actual explanations for what’s going on in Backravel feel rushed and under-explained. It all makes sense well enough for what happens, but I guess I wanted to see more of it in action once we understood what was actually happening. I enjoyed the concept overall, but the novel feels like just that: a half-baked concept that never quite manages to manifest.
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There are spoilers ahead for My Heart Is a Chainsaw. Four years after the Independence Day Massacre, Jade returns to Proofrock with the charges againsThere are spoilers ahead for My Heart Is a Chainsaw. Four years after the Independence Day Massacre, Jade returns to Proofrock with the charges against her dropped– the same day that escaped serial killer, Dark Mill South, wanders into town. A blizzard keeps the town trapped and cut off from outside help, and it’s up to Jade and Letha to figure out who the final girl is and how Dark Mill South can be stopped. After all, they’ve aged out of the genre… right? I received a free e-ARC through NetGalley from the publishers at Gallery Books/Saga Press. Trigger warnings: character death (graphic, on-page), child/parent/sibling death, animal death (graphic, on-page), suicide, implied pedophilia/statutory rape, graphic gore/body horror, skinning, poisoning, suffocation, drowning, fire, eye horror, guns, violence, severe injury, guilt, grief.
This book is a whole ride. Despite its size, I found myself happy to be back in this world with these characters, and I rarely found my interest flagging. Jones keeps the pages turning with a series of teen slasher style murders based on various popular horror films. In between, we catch up on Jade, Letha, and Hardy and what’s changed for them over the past four years. I love the relationships among the three of them, the way they’ve bonded over past trauma but also just because they care about each other, and it gives the story more heart than My Heart Is a Chainsaw. If that book was about buried trauma coming to the surface, this one is more about living with it afterward.
Don’t Fear the Reaper resolves some other problems I had with MHIaC as well. I struggled with Jade’s rambling internal monologue about horror films in that book, but she’s older and steadier here, and the narrative is likewise more coherent. It shifts characters often to keep things moving, and the only place it really slows down is in the essays on horror theory and town events from Galatea to the new history teacher, Armitage. I didn’t love those, but it’s a nice homage to Jade’s essays to Holmes, and there’s a plot thread buried in there that had me ...more
When Holly receives a text from her brother, Dane, about a weird game his fiancée, Maura, wants to play, she doesn’t pay it a lot of mind. She doesn’tWhen Holly receives a text from her brother, Dane, about a weird game his fiancée, Maura, wants to play, she doesn’t pay it a lot of mind. She doesn’t see his next text until morning: Get it out of me. By then, Dane is already dead, cleaved open in what’s ruled a suicide, but Holly isn’t convinced. Dane had been struggling with mental illness, but he’d never been suicidal. Holly decides to get closer to Maura in her search for answers. She’s a lovely, enigmatic florist with high society connections and money to burn, and soon Holly finds herself irresistibly attracted to the one person she shouldn’t trust. Can Holly find out what happened to Dane before the same thing happens to her? I received a free e-ARC through NetGalley from the publishers at Random House/Bantam. Trigger warnings: character death, child/sibling death, animal death, suicide, abusive relationships, body horror, gore, captivity, poisoning, fire, violence, severe illness, paralysis, seizures, mental illness/depression, vomiting, manipulation/gaslighting, guilt, grief.
This is a short, atmospheric little book, and I blew through it in about a day because I was dying to know what had happened to Dane. Cerra sets up such a gruesome mystery right in the first chapters, and I enjoyed riding along with Holly while she uncovered each piece of the mystery. While there’s plenty there to keep readers guessing, it isn’t terribly plot-heavy. The novel is more about character and atmosphere, and it does both fairly well. In the center of her grief over her brother, Holly is a little messy and self-pitying, and the novel wouldn’t work if she wasn’t constantly making bad choices. Maura is suitably alluring and mysterious, always with an edge of danger, and I enjoyed their weird, dysfunctional relationship. The book is full of lush descriptions of plants, food, and décor, and I often felt like I was lounging on a settee in Maura’s townhouse while I was reading.
Unfortunately, the ending is a little weaker than the beginning, with most of the horror edging out of the potentially supernatural and into Misery territory. It’s fine and it does it well enough, but I was hoping for more out of the reveal. If you give your villain a monologue speech to explain everything, the explanation should be really good, and I don’t think Cerra went as hard as she could have on it. The problem with mysteries is that they’re usually more interesting than answers, and I just didn’t find the answers all that compelling. The end also handwaves a rather important issue in the interest of wrapping things up neatly. Still, it’s fun and unusual, and it will appeal to readers looking for something a bit different in their horror.
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Red and her friends are on a spring break road trip. When their borrowed RV breaks down in the middle of nowhere, they soon realize that it was no accRed and her friends are on a spring break road trip. When their borrowed RV breaks down in the middle of nowhere, they soon realize that it was no accident. There’s a sniper in the trees holding them hostage, and one of them has a secret they’re willing to kill for. I received a free e-ARC through NetGalley from the publishers at Random House/Delacorte Press. Trigger warnings: character death (on-page, graphic), parent/sibling death, organized crime, gore, guns, severe injury, violence, alcoholism, underage drinking, gaslighting, cheating, threats, poverty.
Usually, I’m able to suspend my disbelief a little better for YA thrillers, but this went into such ridiculous territory that I can’t manage it. I can buy a sniper with a gun and six teenagers trapped in an RV in this age of horror films and mass shootings. In a different story, I could probably buy the organized crime aspect, since it’s just as real, if not as well publicized. Put them together, though, and the story quickly spirals into absurdity.
The first half of the novel is a lot of boring setup and silly, failed escape attempts. The second is better, as the characters finally begin to hone in on what they’ve been told from the beginning: one of them has a secret worth dying for. Most of the secrets, both relevant and not, bring some much-needed dimension to the characters, but the attempts to keep it entertaining are just so far-fetched. I probably could have forgiven a ridiculous plot, since plot isn’t even high on my list of priorities when I’m reading, but the characters are bland, cardboard cutouts. Red is such a vapid narrator, and I can’t tell if I think that because everyone says she is or because Jackson actually wrote her that way.
The writing leaves a lot to be desired, even as an advance copy, and it’s filled with enough comma splices, sentence fragments, and misplaced modifiers to be truly distracting. There are also a lot of pointless repetitions in Red’s train of thought. (We never do find out which character the shape in the curtains reminds her of, despite being told about it a dozen times.) I was looking forward to A Good Girl’s Guide to Murder when I’ve caught up on more of my series books, but now I’m not so sure.
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Eve has been raised on the island of Altnaharra, her Uncle the Adder in a cultish religion that predicts the end of the world by giant serpent. For EvEve has been raised on the island of Altnaharra, her Uncle the Adder in a cultish religion that predicts the end of the world by giant serpent. For Eve and her family, it’s very real, and Eve would do anything to inherit the Adder’s power. When Chief Inspector Black arrives to investigate a murder in the nearby town, he puts doubt in Eve’s heart for the first time. When their sacred ceremony goes badly wrong, her sister Dinah is the only one left standing to tell the story. I received a free e-ARC through NetGalley from the publishers at Macmillan-Tor/Forge. Trigger warnings: character/family death, drowning, rape, pedophilia, child abuse/abusive households (graphic, on-page), cults, eye horror, body horror, starvation, severe injury, violence, drugging, manipulation, snakes, sexism, guilt, strong religious themes.
I realized a while back that I was hardly ever making use of two stars in my reviews, instead lumping most books into three stars for various reasons, so I decided to change my strategy a little. When I finish a book, I ask myself the simple question, “Did you enjoy it?” If the answer is “No,” then it’s not a three-star book, no matter how well-written it might be. I didn’t enjoy this book. It is well-written. My rating is a reflection of my enjoyment, not necessarily its goodness, so take that with a grain of salt.
Ward is excellent at layering mysteries so that we think we know what’s going on, only for her to pull the rug out from under us at the end and show us what we should have been looking at all along. The answers were there, but with a little sleight of hand, she managed to misdirect us into looking somewhere else. I enjoyed that aspect of the novel and, indeed, the mystery of what happened and how it happened was one of few things that kept me going throughout the novel. The discrepancies in the past and present accounts were an itch in my brain. I had to know who was lying.
But goddamn, is it hard to read. I don’t enjoy historical novels, and I don’t enjoy novels about cults, and Little Eve is both. The thing about cults is that they only make sense from the inside, so any outsider (like the reader) is going to look at it and go: that is batshit crazy, why are you staying? And since I’m on the outside, I could never shake that question as I was reading. It’s not that Ward doesn’t do a good job of putting us in Eve’s mindset, because she does. It’s completely understandable why she thinks and acts the way she does, having such limited experience with the outside world.
But wow, that’s a lot of abuse for a lot of pages, and it’s an absolute drag to get through her chapters with her family. Her conversations with Chief Inspector Black were the only reprieve, and I couldn’t summon a lot of feelings for any of the other characters besides horror or pity, depending. Black is a breath of fresh air, and I enjoyed his Sherlock Holmes-style appeals to reason, and all the little cracks he puts in Eve’s belief in her family’s magic. The novel does an expert job in walking the line between real or not-real, and for once, the answers are as satisfying as the questions. I’ll never be tempted to pick it up again though.
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Laura was the child star of a horror film called The Guesthouse, her last film before its popularity sent her and her family into hiding. A series of Laura was the child star of a horror film called The Guesthouse, her last film before its popularity sent her and her family into hiding. A series of deaths on set and throughout the following years plagued the cast and crew, and the film grew into Hollywood horror legend. Now a professional journalist who’s cut all ties to her past, Laura is shocked and dismayed to discover that the film she’s been sent to cover is a remake of The Guesthouse– and someone wants to bring the Needle Man back to life off-screen as well. I received a free e-ARC through NetGalley from the publishers at Penguin Group Putnam. Trigger warnings: character death (on-page), parent death, suicide (on-page), child abuse, some gore/blood, severe injury, fire, kidnapping, stalking, gaslighting, violence, trauma, guilt, grief.
I’m fond of Winning’s writing style and found it easy to slip into this universe. His adult fiction is always a fun mashup of pop culture and new twists on familiar concepts. While this differs quite a bit from The Shadow Glass, which is more fantasy than horror, it’s also a love letter to horror and slasher films much the way TSG was for children’s fantasy films. I found it fascinating to be immersed in Hollywood film culture and the urban legends that sprung up around The Guesthouse in the wake of so many real deaths. There’s also a strong critique of the treatment of child stars in particular.
Laura is a bit of a wreck for most of the book, and while I wouldn’t say she’s one of my favorite leading ladies, I was mostly able to see her perspective. Since she’s isolated for a lot of the events, I don’t think there’s much opportunity to get attached to the rest of the characters, except perhaps for Beverly, the maybe/maybe not psychic. I liked her gruff standoffishness and the uncertainty over whether she was trying to help or hurt Laura’s investigation. Laura’s complex relationships with her mother and sister provide some depth to her character as well, even if the former is rarely on the page. So much of her character arc is wrangling her feelings about an abusive mother and dealing with the trauma of being a child star. The Needle Man is appropriately frightening and a fun, spooky addition to the canon of horror villains.
I enjoyed the ambiguity over whether or not something supernatural was happening or Laura was just having a slow mental breakdown. This is a difficult balance, and I’ve seen a lot of novels completely fail at it, either where it’s just so obvious that it’s one or the other or the plot is so nonsensical that neither option is more likely than the other. In this case, I think it’s perfectly executed. I just wasn’t sure for so much of the book, and I like the direction Winning ultimately takes with it, holding on to the mystery just long enough for maximum impact but not so long that the ending is unsupported. Without venturing into spoiler territory, I think the link between mental illness and horror in this novel is well-developed. The end didn’t go where I expected, but in a good way. It’s definitely one I’d like to read again in the future to see if I can pick up more clues throughout.
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After her mother’s death, Cecelia moves in with her grandmother, a famous mystery author who lives in an old Victorian house in the small, coastal towAfter her mother’s death, Cecelia moves in with her grandmother, a famous mystery author who lives in an old Victorian house in the small, coastal town of Seaview. Cecelia is just in time for the annual book convention celebrating her grandmother’s work, and she decides to reacquaint herself with her first novel, a book about the death of the town’s homecoming queen that was inspired by real events. When another homecoming court hopeful turns up dead in a similar way, she’s determined to find what looks more and more like a copycat killer. I received a free e-ARC through NetGalley from the publishers at Random House. Trigger warnings: character death, drowning, car accidents, drug/alcohol use, injury, needles.
This is easily one of my favorite YA thrillers in recent memory. It’s an excellent blend of contemporary characters and settings with vintage murder mystery vibes, and the combination manages to feel both fresh and classic at once. There’s so much atmosphere in Cecelia’s grandmother’s big old house and her notoriety as a mystery writer, alongside the more modern high school, social media, and book convention aspects, and the homecoming queen murders feel nicely nostalgic (as well as gruesome, of course).
Like most YA thrillers, we have to suspend disbelief a little that Cecelia is able to investigate murders past and present better than the local police, but it’s enjoyable watching her uncover pieces of both mysteries. It’s nicely paced between that and the more realistic problems of fitting in to her new high school in a town where everyone has known each other forever, as well as her grief over her mother’s recent passing.
The romance is a little quick, the love interest a little overbearing and with a hint of a love triangle, but it’s nothing that put me off as I was reading. Overall, the characters are enjoyable and feel realistically like teenagers. The ending is tense, the murder reveal satisfying and plausible, and I’d gladly read more of Donne’s thrillers. I’ll probably go ahead and add The Ivies to my list, since it’s giving off heavy dark academia vibes.
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Princess Yzabel, poised to be the next Queen of Portugal, is hiding a curse from her fiancé and her people. With a famine plaguing the land, her touchPrincess Yzabel, poised to be the next Queen of Portugal, is hiding a curse from her fiancé and her people. With a famine plaguing the land, her touch turns food into flowers. She’s been starving for years, unable to finish a meal before food turns to petals and thorns in her mouth. Desperate for a solution, she seeks out an Enchanted Moura to help her control her curse and possibly reverse it, but Fatyan has been trapped in stone for decades. A kiss will free her, but the more time Yzabel spends with her, the more certain she is that one kiss could never be enough. I received a free e-ARC through NetGalley from the publishers at Entangled Publishing. Trigger warnings: character death, strong religious themes, religious self-harm, magically-induced starvation, much discussion of food/eating, homophobia (internalized and external), fire, self-loathing, guilt, sexism, womanizing, infidelity.
I don’t know what ever possessed me to request a historical fantasy novel with strong religious themes, but every one of those things makes this emphatically not the book for me. As interesting as I found Yzabel’s curse in turning food to flowers and vice versa, and as much as I’m here for the wlw representation, it was constantly overshadowed by the very Christian mythos running through it. To some extent, it’s clear Pinguicha is trying to work through some of the damaging effects of that worldview, but it doesn’t successfully manage to overturn some of them–at least from the perspective of someone who wasn’t raised in it and has a natural suspicion of organized religion. There are a couple of lines about how menstrual blood is impure and menstrual pain is god’s will that made me just about feral, and some icky justification about how it’s okay for men to sleep around but not women.
As much as the novel tries to make Yzabel a character, she’s less a person than the concept of abnegation personified, and there’s some glorification of suffering/self-harm that doesn’t sit well with me. She’s generous to the point of starving herself, both literally and figuratively, and self-sacrifice is a concept I struggle with in female characters. There are attempts by other characters to get her to take care of herself, but since they’re praising her selflessness as the thing that makes her Such A Good Person in the same breath, it comes over rather disingenuous. I enjoyed her complicated romance with Fatyan probably more than any other aspect of the book, although it’s rather dramatic in the way of teen love.
Given how much I struggled with everything else, I found the plot to be slow-moving, but that might be a reflection of my lack of enjoyment more than the story itself. I never found the villain that compelling or frightening; the real villain of the novel is the religious institution intent on crushing out anything that doesn’t fit its narrow worldview. Regardless, I hovered around three stars until the ending. The plot resolution hinges on women forgiving their abusers, which is frankly pretty gross. All that being said, there are some important things A Curse of Roses is wrestling with. While I’m not the audience for it, I hope it finds its way into the hands of the readers who need a story like this.
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The small town of Bishop has a history of disappearing women, so when three more go missing one night, few people raise a fuss. The only ones concerneThe small town of Bishop has a history of disappearing women, so when three more go missing one night, few people raise a fuss. The only ones concerned are their four daughters: Delilah, Bo, Whitney, and Jude. Delilah is trying to hold things together for her family, Bo is battling a dark secret, Jude is secretly in love with Delilah’s boyfriend, and Whitney can’t get past the unexplained death of her girlfriend. When the secrets buried in Bishop start to surface, they realize something terrible may have happened to their mothers, and they might be its next target. I received an invitation to read a free e-ARC through NetGalley from the publishers at St. Martin’s Press/Wednesday Books. Trigger warnings: death (on-page), rape, abduction, captivity, severe injury, blood, stitches, sexism.
This was one of my most anticipated releases this year, but it fell short of expectation. It’s possible I was hoping for too much out of it, but the whole thing just left me lukewarm. I think the biggest letdown was the lack of horror, and there’s very little development on whatever is cursing the town. That’s not to say all books need extensive world-building, or that there’s something wrong with leaving the supernatural parts vague–sometimes answers are much less interesting than questions–but it didn’t really work for me here. On their own, wind and sunflowers just aren’t that frightening.
The real horror of the book, of course, is the rampant sexism and the way the men of the town are completely fine with sacrificing women for personal gain. It’s a message I can get behind, and the human villains are definitely worse than the supernatural ones. It handles a number of important issues, including rape, with sensitivity. Unfortunately, a lot of the plot is sidelined in favor of petty high school dramas and uncomfortable romances, which are probably better suited to its target audience than adults venturing into YA. Sometimes it’s really clear to me that I’ve aged out of YA, however much I still enjoy it.
I didn’t have a problem with any of the main characters, but they all ended up sounding very similar. It could be hard to distinguish whose chapter we were in, and the differences between the four main girls are already starting to run together on me, with the exception of Bo–love a smol, angry queen. I wouldn’t discourage anyone from reading it, but it’s probably not something that will stay with me.
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Carrie (brightbeautifulthings)
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