Michelle

I love watching interviews with the author, and loved her essay on feminism. This is my first novel by her, and I enjoyed it without being over the moon. I know a lot of people felt the comments on race in America were too heavy handed, but I enjoyed those portions. I don't think white Americans, even liberals, do well with criticism. :)

My issue, I suppose, was that I never invested in Ifemelu reunion with Obinze. I wanted Ifemelu to be happy, or happier, but was almost neutral on how Obinze fit into that happiness.

I struggled with many of the names. but that's not the author's fault, other than perhaps in the sense there were a lot of characters, few that were on the stage for long. Because the names were unfamiliar, the x-ray feature on Kindle helped a lot.

Good, but of course mostly just past tweets from a very stable genius. Tweets were shared, and commented on, by theme. Felt repetitive and old news at times, inevitably, but I genuinely chuckled at the juxtapositions and commentary. Reminded me once again how no one person can remember all the lunacy. (“Oh, yeah, how did I forget that one?”)

Did you know that 45 has tweeted about the store Tiffany the same amount of times as his daughter Tiffany? (6) But has tweeted about Ivanka – well, a lot. In fact, more tweets about Ivanka than Melania. Huh.

Ellie has a perfect Christmas eve day/night with a woman who smells like bread, and then something goes awry which we have to wait to discover. A year later, she's lost her job as an animator and works at a coffee shop, and memories of this woman – Jack – linger. A rich guy asks her to marry him so he can inherit some money, and there's 200,000 in it for her. Cool, cool. When she meets his family, she finds out his sister Jacqueline is her ... well, you get it. She is trapped there for the next 8 days, including Christmas. 

Ellie has horrible parents, and so she really falls for the whole family, other than the mostly absentee father, and so this all factors into what's at stake. Oh, and Andrew – her fiance – is planning on giving Jack half the money. No pressure. 

Ellie and Jack had really nice chemistry and banter. The banter, across the board, was great. Alison Cochrun gives good banter. The grandmothers were the wacky old ladies you love to see. Ellie's friend Ari was everything! Could have used more Paul Hollywood – a dog, not the vaguely creepy handshake guy who really humiliated himself during Mexican Week. 

The book is interspersed with out of sequence snippets of Ellie and Jack's magical Christmas, and those were very sweet. They also spend a night in a cabin together, and I loved that. 

What didn't work for me is ... Okay, let me start by specifying Ellie made mistakes, but so did at least 3 other people ... what didn't work for me is how poorly Ellie was treated when the monetary aspect of the engagement came to light. Everyone was throwing stones in that glass house. Jack decides to be mad not just at not knowing this, but that hitting on/being attracted to her brother's fiance had made her feel bad. Okay? Why were you at peace with this minutes earlier? When Ellie told you she couldn't marry Andrew? But everyone is treating her as mercenary when she was in the process of walking away from the cash and when it was Andrew's idea. Jack kept a huge secret from Ellie the year before, which she never really apologized for, but has no patience for hearing Ellie out. 

I get that we needed things to become a little dire just from a pacing standpoint, so it couldn't be easily sorted out, but the pile on didn't feel organic or make sense. Also, Ellie seems to be set up to be humbled, but since she wasn't exactly a font of ego to begin with, that was harsh. And then at the end there's a moment where she is humiliated, and the person who humiliates her – while the reaction that created the humiliation was valid – seems to find it a bit funny. 

What the last portion of the book made clear is this was a story about fear holding Ellie back. I can't say this wasn't present, but when it's presented as THE thing, that didn't feel earned. I liked how she learned to take more chances, but I don't see a person who makes several of the choices she does as being as stuck as I'd have to believe her to be to really embrace this message. 

Overall, this was a nice holiday read, with great banter, and a couple I rooted for. And I hope Ari gets a book! 

This is a book I return to again and again, and not just for writing advice. Stephen King is an excellent story teller, whether he is talking about the tools of writing, his childhood, or the accident that almost took his life.

I applaud the author for writing this. I think the most pertinent parks were released before the book was released. Not a whole lot of modern day anecdotes since she is not in his inner circle, she barely ever mattered to him, and she is the daughter of the brother he couldn't be bothered to mourn.

What this does well is explain what exactly caused all the damage to Donald Trump's psyche, what turned what started out as presumably a perfectly good human, and turned him into an utterly morally bankrupt, intellectually bereft, destroyer of ... things.

You can definitely see the through-line between being taught that love, kindness, and admitting failure are forbidden and what we have now. We also learn that according to the Trumps, airline pilot is equivalent to bus driver. Considering that time Trump climbed up into the truck cab, and seemed giddy and playful, we all would be much better off with bus driver being seen as a worthy endeavor.

If Mary Trump is a quarter as stable as she seems to be, coming from that family, there's hope for us all.

I am so in awe and in love with this book. I almost bailed a couple times because animal death is very tough for me, and this book has A LOT of it, but I'm glad I persevered. I think on some level, it's a better book if you do have that soft spot in your heart.

This is one of those books where you root for everyone, even as you know everyone is flawed, and that not everyone can persevere. You even root for the “antagonist.”

I wondered for a long time who was meant, on the non elk side, to be the protagonist, and then it became clear, inevitable, preordained. A test of skills and wills.

Sometimes anger covers pain, grief, and longing, I realized at the end, as I cried. This is some good next level horror!

The narrator was terrific.

Please take the time time to read and prioritize reviews by OwnVoice reviewers, of which I am not one. :)

Read this multiple times several years ago. One of my faves of all time.

???Hey, Elliot? Your girlfriend was right. I had a sister, and now she???s dead, so now I have a dead sister.???

3 stars not because I'm meh, but because there's a lot of really good stuff, but some other things that did not work for me. I'm glad I read Hold because of the really good stuff.

Let me do my issues first. The synopsis seems like the story could go a couple different ways, or a combination of both. This made me interested in reading about Luke's loss of his sister, and how his ability to stop time might be related.

But there's very little about his sister. (What's there is is so good.) And there's very little, honestly, about his stopping time. He can do it, it comes up occasionally, but the book would not be that changed without it. Anything garnered from it could have been done another way. I don't need a lot of external action in my books – weird labeling stopping time as action – and love a lot of more literary stuff, but the middle of this book often felt like not much was happening on any level.

There are very few adults, to the point that I have to imagine it's somewhat deliberate, but this felt unnatural and like a bunch of lost opportunities. Luke's mother is a depressed woman we only glimpse, mostly on the periphery in flashback. Eddie's mother is a fearful woman, who we only glimpse. Luke had one conversation with his dad, I think. Other parents and teachers are mentioned, briefly. I don't truly know what Luke thinks about his parents, because he rarely thinks of them at all. Which make me laugh out out at the line: “Luke had almost forgotten Eddie had parents.”

While I liked the participants in the central romance, I cannot say I felt the chemistry. Sorry, sorry! Both of them are terrific characters.

Multiple sentences had missing words, which might not be a big deal to a lot of people, but this stood out.

The good stuff is I really liked the characters, with my fave being Marcos, who made me laugh the most. The friendships were strong, and well-written. Lots and lots of diversity and acceptance of one another in the core group. Appreciated the portrayal of how the school prided itself on being culturally sensitive when it was a hotbed of microaggressions, and how this led to ... events ... and how that became a bit of an exploration of how PoC are perceived and imperiled based on that perception.

I would definitely read more by Rachel Davidson Leigh. Some of my issues were based on feeling the synopsis set me up for something else, and so I think I would have done a little better with it if this hadn't been the case. I want more characters like these! More Marcus!

 Hi, I received an Arc of Death of a Dancing Queen from Netgalley. These are my honest thoughts and opinions. 

Billie Levine is juggling the care of a mother, Shari, with early-onset Alzheimer and being a PI under the supervision of her grandfather. Her brother struggles with mental-health issues, but is in a good place at the moment. While the family is buckling under the strain of caring for Shari, they're also struggling financially. 

Billie is hired to find a client's missing girlfriend, Jasmine Flores, and this becomes – shocker – a murder investigation. We're also introduced to a second mystery involving a case Jasmine, a true crime fan and podcaster, was obsessed with. 

While investigating, Billie interacts with wealth, privilege, organized and unorganized crime, racism, bigotry, and an ex included in the organized crime category. Some trusted people turn out to be unworthy of the trust. 

While I loved certain aspects of this story, and definitely want to check in with Billie Levine going forward, this didn't rise to the level of great or classic for me. If you're looking for a mystery with a strong sense of family and community that very well could to be a gateway to a series that promises to be amazing, I recommend this book. 

I'm 16 books into another series where I had very similar feelings about the first book, and now I'm obsessed and it's my favorite series of all time, and I feel we're in similar territory here – where the series needs time to expand of the world, characters, and themes. 

Billie is a terrific character, and so relatable. Her mother's decline constantly preys on her in not just the slow losing of a beloved parent, but what it might mean for her own future. She's a clever, independent woman who feels those qualities might come with a not-t00-distant expiration date. There's a constant low hum of her making decisions based on what she thinks might help her avoid this fate. Billie and Meredith Grey would have a lot to say to each other. 

I know there are other Jewish heroines in modern fiction, but I love this portion of her character, how it grounds her, and the dimension it adds to how she navigates the world. And how these characters respond to her. Needless to say, expect moments of overt antisemitism and microaggressions. 

Dancing Queen also contains multiple examples of LGBTQIA+ representation, as well as POC rep. I support all of this, but want to mention that in the former category, there was a variation of a line repeated twice that wasn't ideal for me. HOWEVER, this was an advanced reader/reviewer copy, which means nothing was set in stone and it was still in the editing process. The line that bugged me, which wasn't intentionally harmful to begin with, very well might no longer exist. If it does, and if it's not me being nitpicky, is for future readers/reviewers to mention. 

With all that I loved, I have to ask myself why I didn't love the entirety more. I think it was the actual mystery/mysteries, where I struggled to keep the characters straight. Billie would recall something that had happened earlier in the book, and I'd have to go back and verify the event had happened. A character would be mentioned by name once early on, and then again late in the story, and I'd have to do a Kindle search to tweak my memory. In a print version, I might have been lost. There was also a thing, that very well might be corrected in the final, where a character had only been known my initials, but then their name was used and everyone acted like they already knew it. 

Both mysteries – Jasmine, and Starla, whose case interested Jasmine – improved for me toward the end. I particularly liked the revelations in the Starla case. There's a part of me that wishes the story had been more about Starla.

Billie goes through a lot in this book, both at home and one the case. She witnesses an act of self-harm involving a gun that's very tough to contemplate. While it's not graphic, the author definitely paints a picture for your mind to fill in some blanks. Please be careful if this is a tough area for you. 

My goal in doing reviews is to (hopefully thoughtfully) discuss books. Reviewing is subjective, and my like of this book, might be love for the book when you read it, and if my review helps you find that beloved book, I'm thrilled. I'm definitely planning to follow this series, which I hope has a good, long run! 

Just ... brilliant. Fiction that reads as all-to-real.

  I accepted an ARC of Our Share of the Night from Netgalley. This is my honest review. 
It's still December, and I'm calling it now: It's highly unlikely I'll read a better horror novel in 2023. Our Share of the Night is an epic novel filled with body horror, trauma, friendship, familial love and hate. 
We meet Juan, a recent widower, traveling with his young son, Gaspar. Juan is filled with love for his son, but also anger, and the ability to hurt his son and anyone who gets in his way. Juan is a “medium” for an international cult that worships a dark, cruel god – perhaps Darkness itself. He has been given no choice in this, having been purchased from his parents as a child. 
Juan has a heart defect that he knows will kill him sooner than later, and he knows this cult wants his son – either as the new medium, or a new vessel for Juan. He's determined that neither will happen. 
The book encompasses a significant period of time, and a number of POV characters. Eventually we meet up with a slightly older Gaspar, who lives in an empty mansion with his father. He remembers little of the past. His father is often distant, and angry, and cruel. And sometimes perhaps insane. 

The reader is privy to much more than Gaspar is at this stage, seeing connections he can't, and the workings of the occult. He is unaware he's setting up a friend to be sacrificed.
This portion of the book was extremely moving to me as Gaspar is abused by his father for reasons he can't understand. Juan commits a vicious act of cruelty and betrayal. I can only say that anyone who survived an abusive household will understand there are different types of horrors. One of those horrors is feeling unloved by a parent, and the shock when you realize you're not safe with them.

Gaspar had a friend group that helps him through this time, and we follow their journeys almost as much as Gaspar's, as they learn to live with loss, and the pieces of the aforementioned other world that clings to them. 
The reader knows that Gaspar will eventually have to face the cult. Did I mention the cult is also family? 

Things you should know: 
This is a long book. Because I accepted a digital copy, I don't have page numbers, but depending on the source, it's between 600 and 730ish pages. It feels like the latter. You'll be spending lots of time here. If you just want the horror, and don't want to become involved, there are quicker books. 
The book has a lot of body horror, and general supernatural stuff, including doors leading to another very vicious world, but there are long stretches between these moments where it's more about a feeling of dread and various characters working through trauma. A number of times I would be jolted anew at how dark, and gross, the story could be.
 Our Share of the Night is a translated work from an Argentine author and is set in Argentina, and you will feel very immersed in this setting. The translation seemed smooth enough that I was rarely confused, but there were moments where I wondered if something was lost in translation.
Poets and poetry are mentioned A LOT! 
The almost constant backdrop is political unrest. I think a lot of what you need to know can be picked up from context, but politics do play a heavy role. The cult is run by rich people who exploit poor, often Indigenous, people. 
We spend time in London in the sixties, and Argentina the rest of the time, particularly in the 80s and 90s, and this portion has a focus on the AIDS crisis. The London portion might very well scratch a little bit of any serial killer itch you might have.  

There's LGBTQ+ rep, but slurs and outdated terms abound. There are a two people who are called a couple, but also twins, who want to swap sexes, but there seems to be more of a supernatural/spiritual incentive than really being trans. At least 3 of the protagonists are gay or bi. 
An outdated term for people with Down Syndrome is used between friends. 
Not every question of plot point is wrapped up, and there's clearly room for another book. Which I would read! 

 Our Share of the Night took me a couple weeks to read – I read other books as well – because I was so involved that I needed breaks from a very dark story. While most of the characters are varying degrees of evil, I did care about a few, and I imagine you will too. Others I wanted to suffer – and suffer they did! 

I feel that I could read the book several times over and find additional layers and nuances I missed. 

 I received an ARC from Netgalley in return for an honest review. On that note, I was honestly engrossed, unnerved, and moved. 

“She'd liked listening to podcasts like this because, though the stories were awful, they felt like preparation. The more she listened, the more she learned. The more she learned, the better she could protect herself. Now she knew that was ridiculous. There was nothing that could protect you from the world. Nothing that could protect you for the ways the world, and your own body, would betray you.”

Olivia just had a baby with her wife, Kris. She'd been raised by her grandparents after her mother attempted to murder her as an infant.er grandmother wasn't particularly maternal. Olivia soon has reason to fear that whatever, or whoever, plagued her mother is coming for her. We're told this story from Olivia's POV, but also through journal entries from her mother, Shannon. For various reasons, neither is a reliable narrator. 

I chose not to have children, but you can't be perceived as being a woman without fully understanding what's expected of mothers. In fact, the choice to not have children instantly gives you a failing grade. But if you do have them, then the real pressure begins. 

Stephen King writes in Danse Macabre that the real horror in Amityville Horror is economic unease. The house is a money pit, destroying the family financially. “Here is a movie for every woman who ever wept over a plugged-up toilet or a spreading water stain on the ceiling from the upstairs shower; for every man who ever ever did a slow burn when the weight of the snow cause this gutters to give way; for every child who every jammed his fingers and felt that the door or window that did the jamming was out to get him.” ... “Think of the bills,” a woman sitting behind me in the theater moaned at one point ... but I suspect it was her bills she was thinking about.”

The real horror in Graveyard is maternal/parental unease more than the supernatural angle. Giving birth starts the ultimate gamble – of mind, body, and spirit, and the fun is just beginning. Will the child be healthy? Happy? Not set fire to the neighborhood pets? What is the instinct to love the child that we're supposed to all have just doesn't show up? What does it mean if you can't nurse? Nothing and perhaps everything. And almost always one parent is the primary caregiver for a variety of factors, societal and practical.

Olivia has questions and fears, nursing is agony, and everyone is wondering if she might be prone to do what HER mother did. As she struggles, she wonders that too, and feels safe telling no one. A black-haired woman is stalking her that no one else sees? Who would you tell if you suspect your baby is an imposter? And who would you tell if you were her if your mother were institutionalized for the same beliefs? 

The book is about fear, pressure, pain, doubt, postpartum depression and psychosis. Child or not, if you suffer from depression, anxiety, and/or intrusive thoughts, the black-haired woman comes with her own soundtrack, and that soundtrack is “Hello, darkness, my old friend.” 

This is a heavy read, and I had to balance it with a romance novel. I didn't think anything could top They Drown Our Daughters in terms of angst, but Katrina Monroe actually succeeded in this book upping the ante. Please be advised in case the topics Graveyard concerns are detrimental to your well-being.

Like They Drown Our Daughters, for all the fear and pain, it's also a story about mothers and daughters, and the choices we make in the name of those bonds.   

4.5 stars. The resolution, if I'm going to nitpick, seemed a bit rushed. 

I started this last year, and then put it aside for a bit. I do that. It's rarely a slight against the book, more just I like to skip around and have a variety. I loved the story, the characters, and that the heroine wouldn't be considered by many to be “perfect,” while being perfect for that moment, that situation. I adored Harper's friendships with the people she met, and her brave, empathetic heart. What took the rating down to the 3 – 3 1/2 – zone was that too much was left unfinished. I am fine with a few loose ends in order to set up the next book in a series. A thriller I just read [b:Stillhouse Lake 33128934 Stillhouse Lake (Stillhouse Lake, #1) Rachel Caine https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1495714483l/33128934.SY75.jpg 53802245] did that. I get it, I even admire it when done well, and that book did it well. This time, though, I felt that too much was unsettled, and so I felt I didn't get enough satisfaction or bang for my buck. “Fall in love, break the curse” didn't get honored ... or maybe it did? We are set up to not know that in order to, presumably, pick up the next one. The next one that already promised a lot of good stuff without this left dangling. I predict the author was going for a triangle, and I'm not here – there? – for it, to be honest. I'd prefer incredible friendships to be more the norm instead of the exhausting will they/won't they of it all. Eh, maybe I'm wrong about the trajectory.

I had such a wonderful time with this story! I alternated between the ebook and audiobook, both borrowed from the library. Other than some swearing, the story is suitable for all ages. 

The two POV characters are Nina and Oli. Nina lives in our world. Oli lives in a connected world of animal people. Nina is a girl. Oli is a cottonmouth snake person. Nina is on a quest to translate a story her great-great grandmother told her on her deathbed. Oli, when we meet him, is looking for a place to call home. 

Oli finds a near perfect place, and lots of good friends, as well. His best friend is a toad named Ami. When a species goes extinct in our world, they second and die in this other world. One day Ami becomes sick, and Oli decides to travel to our world in order to discover why and save his friend. 

The book contains a villain, and there's some violence, and a lot of discussions of natural disasters. But at the center of the book is friendship, and kindness, and sacrificing for someone you love, and that's what I enjoyed the most. What opened the most doors for Oli, what brought him the most help, was simply saying he wanted to help his friend. 

There are lots of great characters, with possibly the stars being coyote sisters, Reign and Risk. Or is it the hawk, Brightest? 

I think the author intends there to be more books in the series, and I'll for sure read them! 

Tananarive Due is such a good writer. I still think of the places she took me with My Soul to Keep, and all her strengths there are on display here. I'm more of a pure horror girl than a scifi girl, and that's reflected in my personal favorites in this anthology, but I think readers who are the opposite of me will be just as pleased. 

I think the story I'll remember the most is Haint in the Window. I don't want to say too much, but the sense of inevitability and foreshadowing in the story lead to an ending that fulfilled it's promise while offering social commentary and food for thought. 

Incident at Bear Creek Lodge was instantly amazing to me, and the more I think about it the more amazing it gets, especially with an understanding of “Classic Hollywood,” and what was asked of Black performers in order to make a living. And also some generational trauma. 

We have at least one Monkey's Paw story. For me, this is a story that takes place amidst deep loss, and asks the reader to question what they would do, risk, to reverse the loss. The reader knows, at a distance, the right thing but knows grief doesn't operate at a distance. 

Highly recommended, and I will be recommending it a lot, to anyone who will listen to me. 

This was a pretty funny and enjoyable read. I laughed out loud a handful of times. But everyone sort of had the same language quirks – they just happened to be funny quirks. I wouldn't mind visiting this town and people. Key word: visiting.

I found Mr. Klune's wacky characters to be similar to Christopher Moore – enjoyable, but also noticeably artificial.

I liked the inclusion of an asexual person in the romance, but I think it would have been more interesting to see this character and his love interest, the main character, work through it. Instead, Gus seemed to have a low sex drive, which sweeps away an adjustment and a natural source of tension.

I'm not sure if I'll read more from this author, because, um, I judge books by their covers, and find his book covers really unappealing. Which is my loss, I understand. The right premise might draw me in though.

Enjoyed this. Highlighted a lot. Enjoy books by smart, strong women – geekiness is a bonus and a half. Stuff on Gamergate, efforts to write inclusive books, backlash when one writes inclusive books, the perils of being female on the internet. Cannibalistic llamas. The “uj.”

A book where you root for and are mad at everyone. The characters are realistically flawed and understandable. I wanted impossible things for them. I'm aware that in real life, black men are targeted and abused by the system, and know all to well about impossible things, like regaining time lost and relationships devastated by separation and distance.

I also knew that darned tree would be imperiled at some point.

A mixed bag for me. I think the dialogue and some of the observations were great, they rang true. But the parents, in particular, were all over the map in terms of thoughts and motivations. Scenes that were great in isolation made no sense in context – the story had moved beyond the characters' reactions. They seemed to forget things they knew. There's are reasons that Jack, the father character, behaves different than you'd expect, but even beyond that he seemed to be just doing things to service the plot.

But the author seems to have an innate ability to identify what's scary. And that strong, realistic dialogue goes a long way.

Nearly every character had a name that appears in Stephen King stories, and I wonder if that was deliberate, or King is just so prolific and has had so many characters, that it would be hard not to “match” him.

As a horror fan, and an animal fan, I am sick of the animals always dying. Look, I know it's horror, and all bets are off, but the only suspense created by a dog or cat appearing in horror is when exactly it will die, and how brutal the death will be. This takes away some of the enjoyment and surprise, because I can never relax when the animal is in a scene, always completely on guard, so there is no shock, just a sense of inevitability. Pets rarely serve any other purpose in these movies or novels, unlike real life. So, here is the book for me: Wonder how long the dog will live. Oh, look, flashbacks with a cat. Wonder how long the cat will last. Goodbye, kitty. Goodbye, dog. I get that this shows the horrific force aint screwing around, but it's now cliche. Not mad at the author, mad at the cliche.

Early on, we see Lydia's room through her mother's eyes, and it's easy to think there are clues to Lydia's identity in what her mother observes. But, in a sense, everything in Lydia's room is an illusion filtered through the eyes of someone who fundamentally doesn't know her child. Only when the mother – Marilyn – looks closer does she really begin to see that the room is more Potemkin Village than anything else, signified by a row of empty diaries.

No one expresses their deepest fears and disappointments:

“If I'm not perfect, my parents might go away.”

“I've always felt different from everyone else, and so I can only love the things about my children that differ from me.”

“My life got sidetracked when I ended up following my mother's blueprint for my life, and so I must press my daughter to achieve her dreams, which are strangely the same as the ones I had for myself.”

“Why is the spotlight always on Lydia?”

The youngest child spends the whole novel observing and being able to do so because no one really interacts with her. She longs to reach out, to touch, to hug, but her family keeps moving out of her reach, either oblivious to her needs or irritated by them. She is hopefully destined to put her observational skills and empathy to good use.

It's under these conditions of lack of emotional honesty that tragedy happens.

The ending has a surprising amount of hope in it, which I'm not sure I buy, but because I've spent time with these people would hope is possible.

This was a pretty good listen, but fell down a little at the end. Most of the book was the years leading up to rehab/detox, a little time in rehab/detox, and then the follow-up was a blur. I think I was expecting a little more of her making amends to friends and family, and this seemed to be something she wasn't willing to share. This is someone's real life, and so I don't think the author is obligated to share everything. At the same time, this doesn't stop those choices from detracting from the quality of the reading/listening experience. (The narrator did a nice job.)

Graphic novel. Sapphic. Witch. Werewolf. Non-binary. Disability rep. Asian rep. While I love these elements, and the gorgeous color palette, the chemistry was somehow off for me. 3 stars. (Glad I read it, not planning to revisit, happy to recommend.) 

According to my records, I started this on January 17th and it's now February 3rd. This is wild to me because it feels I've been struggling with this book for at least a month. 

I was excited to read this for various reasons. I DO judge a book by it's cover, and this is a gorgeous cover. (Even now, I have to say the cover matches the book well.) I love haunted houses and a gothic vibe. I like interesting family dynamics. I was stoked to see those elements in a story set in Vietnam. 

And I loved a short story from this author in the “Night of the Living Queers” anthology! I still think it's a great story, but I wonder if the short nature made me okay with mysterious elements and unanswered questions. 

“Haunting” delivered on a lot of parasitic creepiness, and I loved reading about Jade's relationship with her sister, Lily. Jade had a complicated relationship with her father, and carries anger toward him but also guilt at something she told him, and I liked the idea of that. Jade is also exploring her same sex attraction, and that's an appreciated element. The book had terrific ongoing reminders of the costs and oppressiveness of colonization. These are things I want to read.

But the writing just didn't get me to where I expected to be. I just didn't love the execution. I wanted more scenes with the sister and father. More clarity on what was going on. Jade seemed to make leaps in understanding that didn't make sense to me based on what she would/should know. I pushed through on this one a little bit because I want to prioritize diverse horror this year and I felt I needed to read this one in particular. 

I recommend this to fans of gothic stories/haunted houses, that are creeped out by bugs and parasites, that want a setting that is a little less common in combination with these tropes and who want what that element lends, and certainly to people who like these things and read diversely. 

I'm glad I read it. It brought enough that I know will stick with me. I think it might be influential for what it does. Because the pages didn't turn themselves/my interest wasn't fully engaged, I think I'll play it by ear on future titles by Trang Thanh Tran. I really did like the story (Nine Stops) in Night of the Living Queers. 

This is a super fast overview of the Tulsa Massacre, suitable for kids. It's not in depth, or graphic, and if you're already familiar, you are unlikely to learn anything new. But it's good! 

I love Rachel Bloom, and I loved Crazy Ex-Girlfriend. When you're a woman and you find a creator who is funny, feminist, and as weird as you are, it's amazing. If you haven't watched Crazy Ex, do it! If you're wondering whether to read or listen to this book, do that too!

Library borrow.