Kristie

More like 3 and a quarter stars. Not bad for a debut novel!
On the cover, Paul Tremblay blurbs, “Antioch is full of twists, dread, and the unsettling fog of ambiguity.”
Whoo! He right about two of those descriptors.
The dread settles on the reader from the first page in Antioch and does not let up. I appreciated that and I was all in. There are some things about Antioch I really, really liked (or I would have stopped reading it). One, the tone. Fabulous. Two, Leonard's voice. Three, the setting. A bookstore with a bar that sells craft beer (I guess mostly Fat Tire?)- I'm in. Where do I sign up?
Balanced with the things that drove me a bit batty, I get the 3 and a quarter stars rating.
To be fair, I have never written a book. I have read thousands of them. So, I plan to tread very lightly here.
First, I really liked this bit: “There was something beautiful about someone asking you to stay with them....because caring was no longer a given in the world. Despite the great universal interconnection of all things, people had still, by and large, chosen not to care.”

Things happen to Bess (coming home to lights on, doors open, bottles smashed, front lawn dug up, etc) and she barely reacts to any of them. In fact, she has no reactions to most of the action in this novel. Even losing two whole days does not have her calling a doctor for help.
For living in this town for a while, she doesn't seem to know anyone except her coworkers and she seems to greatly dislike two of them. WTF is the story with Brandon?
For no reason, there is a chapter or two written in the second person.
When a historical society manages to magically appear in town, complete with a curator who may have answers, Bess can't work hard enough to get out of there-despite claiming to be hunting for answers. In fact, most of her conversations are tempered with “hurry ups” and “I don't have all day” when in fact Bess seems to have nothing but time.
But the main problem here is the ambiguity. I don't mind an unreliable narrator, but man, no one was reliable in this story. Facts were being obscured from the reader and the ending was super unclear. I don't know. I think Leonard was going for an ending similar to The Witch here and, uh, I'm just going to leave it at that. It's a foggy reading and I found it frustrating, especially toward the ending when things should have been falling into place. I kept thinking, why are you telling us the story if you won't tell us the story?

Some things that did not have any effect on my rating, but I feel are worth mentioning. Bess Jackson is black. Jessica Leonard does not appear to be. I really try to champion OwnVoices stories. At the same time, I don't mind when female authors pen male characters and vice versa. So, that's a me problem, and I need to think on that some more.
Two, I just loved holding the copy of this book in my hand. I loved the shape and size. It's slightly taller than a normal trade paperback? I don't know who printed it for Perpetual Motion Machine Publishing, but well done!

I really, really loved this. At first, I was kind of sucked in with the lyrical voice of Hugo, and then I became really enthralled with some of the characters. This is fast-paced, has moments of great insight into the human condition, and some laugh out loud bits, not at all what one would expect in a novel about a virus. I would go so far as to call this wacky, but in a way that is utterly charming (like walking around Stars Hollow in autumn). There is a kooky cast of characters and the world is built so completely: we understand everyone's backstory and, actually, what everyone's apartment looks like.
There are times when Hugo blows your mind, for example, that thing with the Bicycle playing cards in WWII is true and other times when I think we should study her to see if she is the next Nostradamus. Seriously, she nailed some of the Covid 19 behavior, restrictions, etc.
I saved this article to read after I finished: https://lithub.com/ilze-hugo-on-writing-a-pandemic-novel-and-seeing-it-come-true/
Just in case there are spoilers.
I hope this does really well in the TOB 2021 tournament!

This one has been on my TBR forever, and I just needed something short and funny. A break, if you will.
I got it. This is an old-fashioned caper! I laughed, I cried, and, as a parent, I kept having heart attacks. What if G Mom has a heart attack while driving that RV? I know kids would think this is hilarious but it had me worried. I loved the little state facts, and I especially loved the historical lessons here. Stone has a way of reminding the reader that these specific stories are in the past but the racism is STILL happening. I think that is a wonderful reminder for readers of all ages.
I really wish I had been listening to this on a road trip, it would have been perfect.

This was epic. It took me forever to read (it was the font in the book, I just refuse to go get one of those magnifying bookmark thingy's, at least for another couple of years), I spent a couple of hours each morning reading a few chapters.
Despite being from 2003, this reads like an old school horror novel from the 70's- many characters, really well described settings and an epic finale. I loved it. The Good House was my first Due. It won't be my last.
There are some truly, truly horrifying moments in this book and so few writers do a haunted house right. Due not only nails that, but the horror is mobile so it's reach goes beyond the house and “The Spot” in the woods behind it. Shudder!
Angela is one THE best protagonists I have read in a horror novel in a loooong time. Seriously, this is more literary than it is being given credit for. There are layers upon layers of characterization here. I feel like I know Angela, Tariq, and Corey after reading this book. I feel like I walked up the steps at The Good House to that bathroom with the claw-footed tub too.

It really hurts me to write a negative review, I recognize that a lot of effort went into writing, publishing, and promoting it. I read this for Stacks of Strange, and had it not been for that I would have DNF'd it early on.
I want to say that my main problem was the writing style, but truthfully I read pretty widely, so I have encountered many types of writing styles. What was going on here, and it drove me nuts, was the withholding of information from the reader.
At first I thought I maybe stumbled across a novel in the vein of The Munsters.
< img src=”https://media0.giphy.com/media/l2SpQlO0t53NoV2Wk/giphy.gif” / >
Was Eleanor the Marilyn? Sadly, there is no humor to be found here at all.
And as much as I caught on that Eleanor was trying very hard to be a character in a Shirley Jackson world that was never going to happen because she couldn't make up her mind who she was. She alternated between “no one loves me” to “I'm special and no one sees it” so often I just started rolling my eyes.
What really ruined this story for me was the character of Arthur. I just want to puke thinking about how useless this whole character is, despite the fact that EVERYONE is physically attracted to him. I couldn't help but think of Gary Oldman in Dracula. Only Dracula actually has a personality.
Le sigh.
I muddled through it, so do the characters.
When we finally get a worthy BIG BAD, I didn't care anymore. But wait, we must go back in time while a ghost fills us in on the backstory we should have had 100 pages ago!
The morale of the story here is that characters need to talk to each other. If everyone had just spoken to Eleanor and explained things, things would not have gone off the rails.
This is one of the most unloving families I've read since the Dollangers.
I still don't understand the mom in the tub. Did she have a name?
And Margaret, who was HAND's DOWN the most interesting character, does not get explored at all. Oh, had the book been from her point of view....

I did it! I finally finished it.
So, this came in for me months ago and I started it and then I ran out of time. Then I reordered it, waited forever, and read some more when it came back, ran out of time....
I'm sure you know my pain.
That said, I always love a good romp with Murderbot. Do I like it more in smaller chunks? Yes. While marathon-ing this in order to “really” finish it this time the battles all kind of ran together and I was mixing up human characters.
These books still make me LOL and can NEVER be described as boring.
I'm still a big fan.

Ah, yes! I had the worst time finding the exact edition I read. My copy, via Hoopla contained:Amour DureDioneaOke of Okehurst A Wicked VoiceSo in my absolute obsession with the book [b:Monster, She Wrote: The Women Who Pioneered Horror and Speculative Fiction 44326161 Monster, She Wrote The Women Who Pioneered Horror and Speculative Fiction Lisa Kröger https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1552268790l/44326161.SY75.jpg 68879371] I've been actively searching out the authors mentioned within and I stumbled across this collection from Vernon Lee (Violet Paget). I am being totally honest when I say I did not dislike these stories, but I now know that Paget's writing is not for me. All of these stories are about art, basically, and being obsessed with either said art or the artist who created the art. As a result, I rather felt like Paget was an art critic trying to tell a funny anecdote who cannot get to the point because she is too busy namedropping artists. She's a bit windy, is all I'm saying. These stories take a long time to get where they are going, and the ride isn't what I would describe as thrilling. Of all of them, I enjoyed Dionea the most as I loved the narrator's voice and the idea of this little scamp of a girl pissing off nuns had me laughing. Oke of Okehurst is the strongest story, but I would still feel that way even if the ghost were removed from the equation as it is a character study of an unhealthy marriage. I gave up with A Wicked Voice and found an audio recording of it. Read (and sung!) by Gary Turner, I enjoyed it more and maybe that's the point- these stories were supposed to be shared around a fireplace, after a few sherries on a cold winter's night. I'm sure, for her time, Paget was the bee's knees, but I feel like I read her best four and can close the chapter on her. One classic work down for 2021!

This is a hard one to review because I really loved some things about this book, but I felt it was bogged down with Wilson's life experiences. I didn't want a memoir, I wanted a how-to about how to change things in this crazy world. I needed fewer descriptions of hikes and more actual reporting from protests and activism campaigns.
That said, this book is chock-full of references to other works. It's like when you read a fluff piece that actually sends you down a rabbit hole of info that leads to the info you were looking for. A gateway drug of a book, if you will.
Wilson has some strong opinions that I agree with (single-use anything is evil) and some that made me say “WTF?” (ie. Who even shops at thrift stores?) Uhm, me, and almost everyone I know. I DO love her idea that we should follow and bankroll the “prophets” who are already doing the work. And I do love walking/hikes (getting out and walking has kept me sane in 2020). Mostly I found a bunch of people and other articles to read and that makes me happy. And she gives shoutouts to longform journalism (insert heart emoji here), Brain Pickings, and On Being (love that podcast).
Sadly, this probably means she's preaching to the choir, reader-wise (with me, at least).
Maybe her pseudo-celebrity will draw a reader who really doesn't know all of these things in and their lives will be changed? One can hope.
She's famous, right? Not for anything I care about, but okay.

I'm sorry to say this one did nothing for me. I saw it when it came out and had no interest in it then, but it made the 2021 Tournament of Books list so I read it. It was in no way awful, but, to me, the most unique aspect of the book was the world it was set in and I just don't feel it was explored enough to keep me interested. I would have given an arm to have a chapter that described life on one of the floating houseboats, for example. For awhile I was on board with the whole “baseball as deviance” thing but then baseball gets co-opted by the government, so it's no longer deviant and I was struggling to care anymore. I think, too, that having dad as the narrator when Gwen and Eleanor are the real main characters created this separation from the action that really prevented the reader from getting to know the characters well enough to bond with them. At one point all of the action comes from a bug that the father is listening to, creating yet another level of separation. Maybe this will mean more to other readers, I just feel I have read so much dystopian, alternative future speculative fiction that, unless you are really going to bring something new to the game it will take a lot to impress me. It reminded me of [b:A Beginning at the End 45152976 A Beginning at the End Mike Chen https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1563448171l/45152976.SY75.jpg 69225005] another book in which I didn't dislike while I was reading it, but it didn't rock my world. Maybe it's just that knitting is featured in both.I hate to “meh” a TOB book, but it's bad when your favorite character is the house. Oh, and Mimi. I liked her, I wish she would have been developed more.

More like 4 and a half.
True story: I bought this book back in October to use as Halloween decor because LOOK AT THAT COVER! It's adorable. I kept it on my nightstand and read a story here and there and I finished it today.
I'm sad I'm out of tales.
Each of these stories are so very different from others in the collection that it's hard to review the entire collection as a unit, but one thing most of the stories had in common was that they were detailed and fully-fleshed out. They could be expanded into novels. Porcupine Boy, for example, is set in a world that is so interesting that I can see that being a novel and What Dwells Within had me convinced I was reading an excerpt from an existing urban fantasy series (I stopped reading to look it up), it kind of just dropped you into the action.
My two favorite stories were Visions of the Dream Witch and In The Family. They were worth the price of admission alone.
A Preference for Silence cracked me up.

Welp, I just read my favorite nonfiction book of 2021.
There is this magical thing that happens: sometimes the right book falls into your life at exactly the right time. I didn't know it but I needed to read Wintering this winter, and I believe, I need to own a copy so that I may reread it every winter from now on. I have this incredible feeling that this book will mean different things to me in different years. I do recognize there is a place for it in my life and on my personal library shelf.
It's something in May's voice that just kind of connects with my reader soul. While our lives may be different, she nailed the feels I've been feeling, named them, called them out, and inspected them. She did this in the way my brain loves nonfiction titles to explore: introduce a topic and then investigate it by researching something that fits the bill. Example: May loses her voice due to her own health “wintering” and takes singing lessons. She explores how important singing is to humans and my brain fired up with connections- I cannot sing (I sound something like a cat in heat) but I used to sing all of the time leading storytimes at the library and the absence of that singing, that outlet, the group sing of every toddler and every parent singing their heart's out (and drowning me out, thankfully) and dancing to One Little Finger- the absence of this had me slowly dying but I didn't KNOW it. As a remedy, I led a one-woman concert in my car on the drive home from work last night.
My heart was about ten pounds lighter when I pulled into the driveway.
Normally I avoid getting personal in a book review, but I don't think I can express the impact this book had on me without going there a bit. YMMV. I can't imagine anyone disliking this book, but I do feel a deep connection to this book. I'd love to read her other works.
It is my great hope that some celebrity moron does not slap her stupid book club sticker on this.

The second I read about this one on ladiesofhorrorfiction, I pre-ordered it. The premise is bat-shit crazy, and I spent this morning reading the hell out of it (it's a whopping 53 pages, so just perfect for a single-sitting read).
The positive- Maruyama manages to maintain a heckin level of suspense across the entire story. I could not turn (well, scroll) the pages fast enough. I had to know what was going on in that basement. And Shea is pretty level-headed. She remembers little details from growing up that keep your interest peaked and manage to provide enough backstory.
The (not bad, but frustrating)- character development really suffers here, I feel due to length. Also, clearer explanations. I reread the ending twice and I know what I decided the ending was but I also know that is not how some readers roll. I needed to know more about the mother, the father, and the family history. Also, I'm still unsure of what the payoff is: the American dream? Is living in Connecticut and eating grilled corn the American dream? Are there winter solstice battles in basements all over America?
As I cannot stop myself from comparing what I read to other things I have read (perhaps the librarian in me subconsciously writing “if you liked_____” lists), I would compare this to Shirley Jackson's darker works. The theme here is definitely family and preserving traditions.
I look forward to reading more, longer works from Maruyama and consider this a great start to Women in Horror Month.

I had to do this one on audio because I'm still 4 weeks out on my library request for a print/e copy. Note-also, I had to work a little to get into this one because we meet a whole bunch of characters right away and it took me a minute to get everyone and the setting straight. Then I settled into it. My only gripe was that it was a bit too long. I was fatigued in the middle. This is one of the first times I read something where the subplots were driving the story more than the main plot which is pretty much summed up on the back cover. Rest assured everything snapped into place in the end. There were some laugh-out-loud moments in this book that made my day. Around the mid-point it finally occurred to me the book this reminds me of the most: [b:Cannery Row 4799 Cannery Row (Cannery Row #1) John Steinbeck https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1388188936l/4799.SX50.jpg 824028]. Here we have a story told with a nostalgic charm that is filled with unique characters in a story that is deeply, deeply American.

“Your time is a finite and dwindling resource” pg 10
“Plot is the artificial reduction of life's complexity and randomness” pg 62
“The truth is savages should always eat the anthropologist” pg 67
“I realized that my fear of exposure didn't stem from shame, or even the importance I attached to my little secets, but from their inconsequence.” pg 81

I went into Red Pill knowing nothing about it. This is why I love the Tournament of Books, I would never have picked this one up without some urging. Just the Matrix-infused title alone put me off, but I picked it up.
Quite honestly, it is the most Gen X thing I have read in a long while, and it was really refreshing. Our narrator walks around with an impending sense of doom. He tries to make sense of life through art and literature. It doesn't work out so well for him.
Monika's story was amazing, and I almost wish she had her own book and that I'd been reading that.
At one point, I said aloud (to no one), “If Anton turns out to be Tyler Durden, I am throwing this f-ing thing across the room.”
YMMV but, to me, Red Pill stabbed at the idea of there must be more to this existence despite an ingrained belief that existence is meaningless. It's easier to believe it is all a construct. We are doomed either way. How do THEY know what chicken tastes like, anyway?

“What if the reasonable reaction is endless horrified screaming? pg 192. Exactly!

Here's some chipper advice from the therapist, “Accept that might have conventional horizons, that conventional things could make you happy. Stop asking for life to be a poem.”pg 207

Sure! Toe the line. Don't' make waves. Eat your quinoa bowl and be happy about it.
Honestly, Red Pill reminded me that we are all heroes for not going insane (outwardly) every day.
Also, to relive the 2016 election night in the final chapter- when finally something happens to wake others up to the panic of existence the narrator is battling, was blood pressure destroying. Too soon, maybe?

I'm going to resist the urge to compare this to [b:Never Let Me Go 6334 Never Let Me Go Kazuo Ishiguro https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1353048590l/6334.SY75.jpg 1499998] because it has been 15 years since I read that and I honestly don't remember liking it as much as I liked Lakewood. I really enjoyed this book, some thoughts:I really loved Lena. I loved her dedication to her family and her willingness to try, despite clear danger, to improve her family's situation. I had no problem imagining a world in which the government is using citizens as test subjects for whatever. I was all in, packed and ready to enter Lakewood. Here Giddings kind of blew my mind. The tests never got boring or repetitive. The amount of imagination needed to create this world and to juggle these characters in it....wow! Even the “observers”, many of whom have only the nickname Lena assigns them start to have layers. The cabin scene, the teeth scene, the protest scene-all fantastic. In fact, I need to go back and reread the cabin bit again before book club. And then something happens about a 3/4 way through the book: Lena returns home to Lakewood and the book becomes letters to her best friend, Tanya, and suddenly the story gets 60% better. We are now getting Lena's full thoughts on Lakewood and the characters and she is not holding anything back. It becomes even more real (not the best grammar, but you get me). I'm going to stay spoiler-free but there is so much to discuss here. So very much.

I didn't really want to read this, I went in with a negative attitude, so take this review how ever you want.
Now that I have finished it, my thoughts can be summed up with: meh.
I found the entire cast of characters to be morally devoid creatures. Eric, for example, is just an asshole. While Edie might judge men by how kind they are to waitstaff, I set a higher bar and he treated her poorly the entire story.
I thought for a hot minute that this would be an examination of two different generations. But I didn't feel Edie really summed up Millennials. All of the Millennials I know are killing themselves working 3 jobs (with no health insurance) to stay above water and not drown in student loan debt. Really, wouldn't she be Gen Z anyway? And Eric and Rebecca did not symbolize Gen X as I know it either. These characters are just voids, there is nothing there morally, they have no purpose.
So that theory didn't work. Edie was self-destructive but not self-destructive enough to make any kind of difference. She is like one of those little fish that follow whales gobbling up scraps but never really steers her own life.
The whole problem (and why I DNF'd this book back in July when I first tried to read it) is how unbelievable it is. I didn't buy it-not the situation, not the plot, not the motives, none of it. I had a few moments where I actually thought we were on to something:
1. Akila describing her past placements and how she'd rather just stay with Eric and Rebecca despite all the bullshit.
2. The description of Comic Con (which, by the way was something the characters were so excited to attend but Eric manages to ruin the first hour they are there- I told you, he is an asshole).
3. The mosh pit.
4. Rebecca's job- man, I wish that had been explored more.

Ultimately even the most ardent willing suspension of disbelief could not save this novel for me. How did Rebecca KNOW what painting supplies to buy for that one scene? Why was she leaving her money? Why was Rebecca and Akila's body dysmorphia never explored? Who in the hell uses Plan B as contraception OVER other types of contraception? It's Plan B for a reason and it's frigging expensive!

One last thing, at one point Edie considers living in her storage unit, which reminded me of Scorch by A.D. Nauman (somehow does not have a Goodreads listing?). That one really nailed debt and living in a storage container. I may have to find and reread that.

I didn't love this one, but I didn't hate it either!
Here are my notes:
This image, “...the insects and the weather had gotten to him by the time a ranger stumbled across his fleshless finger, pointing through the sun-baked mud at the blazing sky” (pg 16)
She was a big brunette, on the gray side of forty. (pg 67)

Christopher Pike meets H.P. Lovecraft
The ridiculous amount of planning that went into the creation and running of this scavenger hunt and no one thought to pack shovels?

I'm confused as to how the land lizards relate to the Lizard Ancients. Is that what's in the pool? What's up with the acid?
Is there a sequel?

I think every series has its “waiting room” books or episodes where the author kind of plays around in the world without really moving the main plot forward. Here we get a stand alone story of Regan and her horsey world. Cue My Little Pony. Is it good? Sure, everything McGuire writes is good. Does it give us cameos of our favorite characters from the series (Christopher FOREVER!), no.
As I listened to this on audio, and it was a mere 4 hours long, I was just grateful to go through a portal and learn about a world unlike my own.

I could not put this down. Maybe I just wanted something to shake me out of the depressed stupor Shuggie Bain left me in, I don't know. I do know that I am awake now.
Holy crap, the amount of imagination Bazterrica must have to create this world with all of these systems is just....I have no words. This is not my first cannibalistic rodeo and I was more emotionally destroyed by the animal abuse in this than by anything else. I am going to recommend this to readers who love Lydia Millet, Kelly Link, Muriel Spark and Ottessa Moshfegh.

I flagged so many great quotes.
And now, a spoiler-y declaration:

I knew it, I knew it, I knew it! It was all population control! There was no virus. Also, I very much want to know what an umbrella with a propeller on it looks like.

Edit- Later

It was driving me nuts where I knew the picture of the cover of this book from: The Leftovers! It's in the opening from Season 2+



I spent most of 2020 avoiding this book. It was everywhere and I could tell by looking at it that it was going to be sad and depressing and it just wasn't what I needed. Then, it made the TOB shortlist and I was forced to tromp my way through it.
Completely living up to expectations, Shuggie Bain is sad and depressing AF. Scene after devastating scene we witness sadness, addiction and (let's call it what it is) child abuse. Add in a few rapes. Add in the lack of being accepted by the only community available. Add in abandonment and malnutrition. I'm not even going to touch the difficult emotions that Shuggie is dealing with....

Here's the thing, this should have been called Agnes Bain, because we barely meet Shuggie. We see him for a hot minute in the beginning of the book and at the very end. Agnes's story ends when he's what, 12? It was never his story.
I kept thinking, I can do this (and this book is LONG), if Stuart would just let off the gas a little bit. If one hopeful or funny thing would happen. Just throw me a bone...but no. It would just get worse. I was sad, mad, depressed and exhausted reading this. Is the writing beautiful? Sure. Is this new territory for me as a reader? No. In fact, it hit a little too close to home and I found I identified with Leek waaaaaay more than I did Shuggie. And I read a bunch of reviews that promised(!) that the abuse would be balanced out by the amount of love in this novel. There is no love in this novel.
This is not love. This is codependency. Agnes did not even love Agnes.
In the end, I got exactly what I expected to get out of this.

Enter Natsuko's world: it is broken into two books and has a lot to say about being a woman, breasts, eggs, being a writer, families and relationships. I enjoyed this way more than I thought I would. The highpoints: some quotable lines I just loved and highlighted the hell out of and a scene at the end of the first book that just cries out to be a big screen moment- it's raw (literally) with eggs and emotion. I loved getting a glimpse of daily life in Tokyo.
“You only know what it means to be poor, or have the right to talk about it, if you've been there yourself” Yas, Queen. or “Another single mother, working herself to death”

The meh:
Being in Natsuko's head got tiring. It's almost stream of consciousness, broken only by dinner/drink dates with other characters where the conversation is almost all exposition. Honestly, enough male writers do the same things, so roar, woman, roar but it's still tiring on the brain. I forced myself to take it down in smaller bites. I was both horrified and thrilled with the children in the bed theory. That gave me a lot to think about. I wanted so much for her to make a damn decision and then I wont say what happens ....because spoilers but it's a type of Hail Mary and it pissed me off.

And here's the thing. I don't feel that this book explores what it means to be female at all. What I read was a human struggling with meaning. Once one's immediate needs are taken care of, when one is no longer in survival mode, when they are comfortable only then do they have the privilege to sit around and ponder the meaning of existence. It was clear that her writing was supposed to be that for her but it is not filling the need (perhaps because she peaked too early in her career?) and it's family and friends-to a point. Somewhere in book two she decides it is parenthood that will give her life meaning. And then she dithers over it for almost the rest of the book.

I wish she'd gone deeper and explored other ideas of finding meaning. For some parenthood is enough, for others it is not. I almost see the potential Natsuko had to be a fictional example of those who choose to not to have children, but not only is she not that, the one character (who I loved) who WAS that-her story ends badly.
There is much to discuss here.

A fabulous end to one of my favorite series of all time. I really need to wait a few years and just read the whole thing in one go instead of reading one, waiting forever, referring to my notes and then reading the latest installment. I really feel Tahir has amazing writing chops and can't wait to see what they do next!

I just finished this one and it was pretty wow. The main character eats books (literally, page by page) and has some major rage issues. I highly recommend this for fans of [b:Burn Our Bodies Down 52748041 Burn Our Bodies Down Rory Power https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1573588170l/52748041.SX50_SY75.jpg 72451374] and [b:Daughters Unto Devils 18748653 Daughters Unto Devils Amy Lukavics https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1427733043l/18748653.SY75.jpg 26633790]. I loved the relationship between Ruth and Jane, until Ruth got weird. I was a little frustrated Jane seemed to have no urge to explore the house, the grounds or the town. I get that she was depressed, but who wouldn't want to check out the second floor of the house you are now living in? This book does not hold back-it gets evil. It would have been a five star read except I got mildly frustrated that Jane could not connect the obvious dots and we, as the reader, were drug along for a couple of chapters in the wrong direction of the secret behind the evil of the house. That said we have:a haunted house a small town with a secret that everyone knows (except the main character)decent examples of teen girls not being mean to each othera cool coffee shopbook references!Halloween!!!!and spooky rose bushesOverall, a good read!

My first book of 2021 and it was a 5 star read. I could NOT put this down. There was so much I loved about it. My library copy is filled with post-it notes: I found so many incredible lines that I marked for sheer genius (they get logged in my journal).
It hit all the right buttons with me:
isolation, crazy town folklore (bordered on folk horror), a snarky main character (Optimal!), layers upon layers of secrets to dive into:
-Mr. Jitters
-History of Harrow Lake/Nightjar
-What happened to Lorelei?
-What the hell is the deal with Grandmother? And Grant?
-Cora is amazing
-Creepy museum
-Super creepy puppet doll
-Another creepy puppet doll! and an imaginary best friends
-a Bone Tree
-just teeth, in general
-fairgrounds with creepy rides
-secrets written on scraps of paper and hidden
-jitterbugs
I loved this and highly recommend. It slightly reminded me of Night Film, more in tone than in execution.
Can't wait to read more by Kat Ellis

While better than the second one in the series, 3 falls short of the first one. Don't get me wrong, none of these are great, but at least the first one had some real horror elements to it. I don't have a problem with a dislikeable main character, but Reva has literally nothing going for her and her little jokes are just her being mean to people and then saying she was kidding. I did appreciate that the murderer (for the first time) is NOT motivated to murder because they are poor. So that added a star!
I'm going to hide the rest of this review because of spoilers that just need to be discussed here.
Figured out the Grace/Rory thing right away because a whole page is given over to Reva demanding to answer the phone when she is home, the phone never rings, no one checks the caller id for Rory's number and Grace basically says the same thing over and over again into the phone. I really thought she was murdering models in order to get a spot in the fashion show. Also, let's talk about this "fashion show". Cue: George Michael's "Too Funky".How big of a deal could it be with only one product going down the runway on three different models? Was it going to be 75 seconds long? It's the same scarf in different colors with different designs painted on it. Honestly a little tired that Reva never actually gets killed. Sigh. Also, all of the males in this town are damned dopes. Except for little Michael, who was smart enough to escape to the islands last Christmas. Also, someone call Super Nanny because that kid is headed down a scary path.
And so, in short, the covers of these books are more fun than the actual content in them. I think I would have rather have had this in Christopher Pike's hands. At least we would have had an unstable Vietnam vet, a trip to McDonald's, and probably and a visit from Krampus.