Perry

What starts out as a charming enough idea–the author using vintage photographs to create a fantastical YA story–sadly very quickly becomes trite. I wanted to like this book, I did. But I couldn't get into the main character. I wanted more of his grandfather, who was cool. But, in the end, the story is a hash of Bleach, X-Men, and too many other things to name. The characters were fairly flat, except for a couple, and they weren't the most original characters. It was all a bit too forced.

Color me sadly underwhelmed. After reading all the excitement regarding this book, I was disappointed. It didn't remind me of NH very much, and I'm from there. The entire time I read, I was thinking of any accent but the obnoxious one of my childhood. There are some farms there, sure, but it isn't actually necessarily the easiest state in which to farm, unless you're mostly a cattle farmer. The classic ‘Ayuh,' only happens once. It was small-town ambiguous.

I don't mind the strangeness, but there should have been more. This read more as a domestic thriller with absurdist overtones or something. Not horror. And all the men are terrible. The only one I liked was the drunk, Mickey.

It wasn't bad. But it was not what I was hoping. Nor was it at all scary or chilling. After everything, the ending was strangely abrupt and dramatic. But I'm glad I read it, since it's important.

Due to lack of half-stars, I must note that there are three-star books and Three-Star Books. This is a TSB. I enjoyed it enough to get the next one. My friend has, perhaps, created a monster. And what ‘The White Devil' lacked in English life details, this has in spades. Because, y'know, written by someone who is from the UK. Oh, yes, highly enjoyable stuff here.

Introductory volume is monster of the week, but it's still weird and gruesome and enjoyable. I have been wanting to check this series out for a while, and one of my libraries has it, so I am now happily going to read it.

Also, I think I still like Asian comic art better than Western.

I read this in mere hours. Someone who reads faster could do it in two, most likely. Oh, how I loved this book when I was 17 in honors lit at a little Southern Baptist college in Hannibal, MO. It was shocking for some people in class, and certainly was to Beckford's own contemporaries. But it's such a fun little tale of a sleazy, debauched vizier gone horribly awry because of temptations from a demon. It's such good fun, and it's actually quite funny. And Vathek, our titular character, has a fantastic mother who is quite possibly the best character in the book, even though she's awful. Yes, yes, many years later, this book is still wonderful, and I love it so.

There were times I wish I could give a half star more. But such is life. Regrettably, I went into this book with a bias. And you might think that I, as an introvert–not fully textbook, but 3/4 textbook–would have gone in favourably. Not so. Actually, I went in fully dubious, although I wanted to like this book more than I did. A better review is on here already, one with which I mostly agree regarding issues of the book. But this book also does what mainstream gender science books do all too often. The woman brain/man brain dichotomy (that doesn't really exist). This is the extro/intro dichotomy. She makes a couple throw away statements about how most people are a mix, but that's not really covered. All in all, I came away feeling like extroverts were the ‘man' brain–the action-oriented dopes who don't think about things enough and look before they leap. And introverts, why! we are brilliants artists and angels and scientists and geniuses.

Also, any adherence to the general physicality of an introvert is b.s. Dr Blahdyblah Kagan hypothesized that male introverts are skinny, blue-eyed, moony dreamers. Well, that describes exactly none of the men I know who are primarily introverts. Yawn. Oh, right, and those introverts could only be white men. Double yawn.

Don't get me started on the race chapter. Which only covered one other ethnic groups besides white. Oh, and rich. Since she's a Harvard Law grad and does important work, she has absolutely no conception that people could be NOT rich. At least, that's what it seems like. A poor introvert won't take much away from her advice regarding self and children.

Seriously, this book reads mostly like it's for the rich, primarily white set. It doesn't discuss introverts in other socio-economic walks of life, other races, anything really. There's no subtlety. So whilst I deep down wanted to like this book, it was only meh.

Honestly, I'm not really that into CLAMP. I keep trying, I really do, but I only truly like Chobits very much. I'll keep trying, just because I feel like I should, since they're super important to the history of manga.

But we've read this before, folks. Ex-military-type bishonen in the future or alternate universe or something, is hired to pick up and deliver a mysterious girl with mysterious powers. Dangers ensues.

The art is so sparse as to be almost non-existent. Like, I feel like this is CLAMP at their laziest. There are whole pages with one or two tiny panels and so much blank space that I weep for the trees used for this. The dialogue is minimal, ergo confusing, and it all seems a bit pretentious. So, no, I'm not into this one at all.

I really wanted to delve more deeply into the world of this graphic novel. I feel like more could have been done with everything. That being said, the art was decent, although sometimes Western comic art is a little too unclear and sketchy. And the story I quite enjoyed. The basic plot is thus: Trevor lives in the middle of nowhere farm country (supposedly in the Midwest?), and his little brother Will is some sort of mutant, giant and strong and misshapen. There are other children like this, they learn, and the adults want to kill them. So Trevor frees Will, and makes a run for it. Along the way, the rescue a few other children.

Unexpectedly, this tale was sweet. I really liked it. I just wanted to like it more.

3.5

Enjoyable and weird. The end was a little bit on the anti-climactic side, but still pretty distressing.
Definitely gothic horror vibes, which is grand. I was disappointed at first by the ending, but the more I think about it, the more I think my issue was the slightly choppy translation. OMG, the Shito family. It is wack and perfectly, gothically fun.

Well, combine Poe history and lore with any Polar region, and you have a book I MUST READ. Add racial tension, and it makes it fascinating, with a perspective that I, as a white person, don't have. Some of the characters seem archetypical, but the main relationships are interesting, and the craziness that happens because of two men's obsessions is wonderfully fun. There is an insane Thomas Kinkade-y character, giant white creatures, literary references, tragedy, comedy, and a hint of romance that doesn't totally detract from the rest of it, thank Heavens. Oh, it's certainly worth the read.

And and and...I LOVE GARTH. He was totally my favourite character.

I enjoyed this more than I usually enjoy Remender. I didn't realize it was him when I picked it up. Piracy, vampires, awful movie people. It's not the best thing I've ever read, but it was enjoyable, and I'd continue the series. HPB had it in their comics section so I got it cheap. Otherwise I mightn't have tried it, but I'm glad I did. The art was also quite good, all sepia-toned, some good vamp faces. Yes, I will see if they have the next one.

The art isn't bad. There is a pinch of humor. There is some interesting plot going on, and the authors know some stuff about the occult. But this story is unfocused, unclear, and not nearly as tight as it could be. I feel like some of the scenes are unnecessary; but things that I would deem necessary are passed over and only explained in dialogue. Fun concept, lackluster execution.

All manner of baby animals so cute!

Debunking books like ‘The Female Brain,' an interesting analysis of neuroscience-based gender identification and issues, societal propagation of gender stereotypes, and how it affects us all, from childhood to workplace. This was a quick read, and utterly fascinating. And it does have a few things to say about ‘The Female Brain.' This book rocked.

The art is simple. We'll see how the story is handled. Essentially, it's about a male-bodied fifth grader who is realizing they want to be a girl, and they're friend, a female-bodied child who wants to be a boy. The latter child takes their brother junior high uniform and travels to another area to see how they feel about being a boy. The story has potential, but it flows badly. If one isn't familiar with the manga format, it might be difficult to follow.

Very delightful historical mystery about the always-fascinating Mr Vlad Tepes, who may or may not be hot, but he likes books, which is a point in his favor, even if he's evil and vampirey. But I digress. This is a delightful romp across Turkey and Europe in search of the erstwhile vampire as he maims people and makes them disappear–to what end? That's just what our heroes want to know.
My only complaint was the very end, which is a complaint in most things; can't be helped. Other than the patness and lameness, a lovely read. The mysteries of Dan Brown, but Ms. Kostova can write eighty circles around that hack. And now, I find I must read more about Mr Tepes...

I'll keep it short. Having grown up in a conservative, religious household, I must enforce open-mindedness deliberately. And I genuinely tried to with this book, especially since Mr Savage mentioned it in a column ages ago, and I rather like him, even if we don't always agree.

So I read it, intending to be open, expecting to like it.

It was...dump.

Granted, I was seldom bored, which is nice; and it had some interesting ideas. But, in the end, it seemed to contradict itself. Men apparently can never change their sexual preference, and they will cheat because they need variety. This is never discussed as a societal issue beyond the authors saying monogamy = monotony. But they spend plenty of time discussing female sexual freedom, and the fact that our closest primate relations have randy females having multiple male partners (at least in part to enable sperm competition). But women never want to cheat, just men. Women don't need variety? Essentially, that's what the last chapter seems to say. And they consider none of these things forced upon humans by society.

I mean, maybe I missed something in there. But that was just one bit of seemingly contradictory information.

AH, and this book was easily as much about the ills of agriculture as it was about human sexuality.

I really did not care for the lighthearted, sometimes snarky tone the writers used either. There are more things to say, but it's 4 AM, this goes back to the library in the morning, and I just can't.

OH OH OH, and they rolled out the “Semen Makes Women Happy” study too.

So are lesbians depressed, then?

Erm. The jacket made this sound a bit more like a gothic horror romance than it was. Totally false advertising. Instead, I got a tedious period piece about spoiled college students in love with their wretched abuser of a professor and his sculptress wife. I found it tedious. And more a vehicle for Ms. Oates to show her own academic prowess than a suitable vehicle for storytelling. The crux of the book only takes about 30 of the book's 138 pages; everything else merely builds up to the plot. The characters are dull and drawn poorly, seen only vaguely through the main character's eyes; although, perhaps that is only because she's so obsessed with her professor. He's actually not terribly impressive. All the girls merely suffer from guru syndrome. The climactic ending is silly and overblown and a bit improbable, frankly, speaking as one who used to be a smoker. And I tired of the constant ‘beautiful Dominique' descriptions: Because she's secretly a woman of colour, she is bold and dramatic and exotic. And the main character, I swear, is in love with her. But that only serves to set Dominique apart, make her less rounded as a character. So, no. I wasn't into this one. For my first foray into a full-length JCO work, I was terribly disappointed.

Hm. Now, I like me some vampires. I prefer the gothic/scary kind, not the paranormal romance kind. I like my vampires sinister, mostly evil, maybe a little emo or exhausted. So of course, I'm going to look into something called ‘American Vampire.' I really wanted to like it, but part of me suspected I might not be totally into it.

I wasn't totally into it. The art was all right, but not my personal favorite. It wasn't so bad that I couldn't handle the story. It just wasn't my preference. The story though...Now, we all know I love me some Stephen King. But the story was just bloody boring. Even his part of the story was boring.

Hollywood, 1925. Young starlet gets to meet big film maker. He and his posse are vampires and eat her. But she gets inexplicably gets saved by our titular vampire Skinner Sweet, because, presumably, she's cute and spunky. Yawn. She gets revenge on the bad Euro-vamps. But she and Skinner are NEW, SHINY, differently evolved AMERICAN VAMPIRES, so they can walk around in the daylight, they can drip blood on people and vamp them.

The book also gets into Skinner's backstory, back in the Wild West, tra la la. And that part is dull too, with a goofy romance added, I assume, because the characters come back into it later. I don't find Skinner all that disturbing or engaging.

I really didn't care for the mythology. The writers acted as though walking around in daylight has never before been part of the vampire mythology. And I find it hard to believe a vampire wouldn't have been turned in America long before 1880, but I suppose that is irrelevant.

I'll look into volume 2 to see if it improves, but so far I am not into Skinner.

My partner read it to prep for the movie, and then she had me read it to prep for the movie. I got the Ginger tie-in paperback, of course.

And this is lovely gothic horror, but with far better characters. Dr Faraday is fairly standard and actually quite a kind doctor. But, given the time period, he's pretty damnably sexist, just like everyone else. One day, he's called up to Hundreds Hall to see to the Ayres family's only servant, a young maid who seems to be ailing.

And he ends up sticking around. And–though he's dense, and it takes him a while to get it–sort of falling for the daughter of the house, Caroline–intelligent, strong, “plain,” as they say, and to whom he would not normally be attracted. (Whatever, she's awesome.) He begins almost a friendship of sorts with the family, and then all hell breaks loose.

Strange things begin to happen; beginning with the weakest members of the house, each event is specifically tailored to each person, it seems. Faraday, the skeptic, tries to reason everything away, but he's not always successful.

Nor, despite the fact that nothing started until he came to the house, is he always there for the strange occurrences.

Faraday is close to the family, he's obsessed with the house, woos Caroline, and then everything falls apart.

Once could assume that Betty is the center of poltergeist activities. One could assume that the house is evil. One could assume that Faraday is the center of the strange events, whether by design or by accident. The finale seems to convince some readers of his guilt, of his psychotic capabilities. But there are hints, like in any good horror/gothic novel, that indicate supernatural elements are indeed afoot here. The book deals with sexism and classicism very blatantly, and everything is told from Faraday's unreliable perspective, certainly. But I don't necessarily think he's complicit in everything that happens in the house, and I certainly don't think he's had a psychotic episode. The house itself is so important, and his obsession so great, that it seems the house itself plays a vital role in each thing that happens from the moment he first steps through the doors as an adult.

This is a slow burn. It reminded me in style of Forster a bit, sort of a Merchant/Ivory thing. Which is good, because I was always a sucker for their period dramas. It's beautifully written, well told, ambiguous, and subtly chilling. I'm not quite certain how they've made it into a movie, but I am excited to see it.

A very enjoyable book. There are some word choices that could be cleaned up, but the most glaring one was the misuse of “nonplussed.” I note this only because it is a common mistake.

That being said. This was fun and, sometimes, not fun. In short, we follow Erik and Lara, who are on a trip to get away from life. They recently lost their new-born daughter, who never even got to leave the hospital. They are both traumatized and handling it a bit differently.

In the village where they're taking a holiday, they one day discover a strange egg sac on the beach. When they examine it, they discover a young girl in it. And their life changes.

Not for the better. Erik isn't a great guy, but his grief is palpable. The way he handles his grief helps him for a while resist the new child's charm. Lara, however, desperately wants a child and is particularly vulnerable to the child, Scylla. Scylla ingratiates herself into their lives and begins to play them off each other, in an attempt to isolate Lara. As the relationship between Erik and Lara worsens, Scylla's hold on Lara strengthens. When Lara is very far gone in Scylla's power, Erik meets some villagers who are actively fighting against Scylla and her sinister sisters of the sea.

There are some brutal scenes of abuse. Since Scylla can easily control the couple, in particular Lara, who is her mark, she causes the two to literally beat each other. And then they don't remember what happens later. This is hard to read because they are both innocent of the abuse. They are puppets whose strings are being pulled by Scylla. There's also some nice gore in places. Scylla herself is a sinister little brat, and that's great. There are many discussions of grief, and there are some scenes that might be hard for some readers. The ashes of Erik and Lara's daughter are an important element, both to the plot and to the characterization of especially Erik.

My main issue, besides nonplussed, was that Erik and Lara seemed pretty gendered to me in how they react to Scylla, and how Scylla can target them. Erik also isn't a very likable character, in all honesty. But I didn't mind that. It made it far more interesting to not totally like the guy, but to empathize with his situation. And some of that was certainly Scylla's influence, but not all of it.

In all, a stellar piece of folk horror. The grief is palpable throughout the novel, and the characters sufficiently flawed to feel pretty darn realistic. I don't doubt their grief for a second, even when they can't understand each other. There's some amount of gore, and the prose is pretty solid. The setting really adds to the atmosphere, and the important side characters are fun. I also fully believe how the small town acts. IYKYK.

Thank you to the author and publishers for providing an ARC in exchange for an honest review. Also thank you to author Drew Starling for hooking a girl up with the ARC.

Second or third time around? I don't remember. Fabiola is awesome.

OH, bloody hell. First, the more I thought about the previous book, the more irked I became. But it wasn't completely without merit. This one, though...It was the single most pretentious soap opera I've ever read. My hopes weren't too high. But still. The blurb on the back of this little tosser makes it seem really quite high-minded. It's not. It's just how much can Ms. Thomas tell you about all the ingenius stuff she knows–and she knits too! Whoopee.

No plot, lame characters, stupidly long bits with babbling philosophizing, and a very random Beast of Dartmoor–which, frankly, amounts to practically nothing, although it is virtually the only plot point in the book. So...goodness. I can't even form a cohesive thought right now, I'm so irked at this book. The gimmick of the storyless story is perhaps not meant to be in book form. If it is, it should be handled by a more capable writer. Not a glorified chicklit writer.

Getting so good. Mom almost brought a tear to my eye.


GODS, IT IS SO GOOD. I had forgotten how heartbreaking Nina is in the epilogue.

I realize once again, I deviate from my fellow readers. I read a highly favourable review of this little book and thought it sounded utterly fascinating; and so, I grabbed it from the library when I saw it.

I'm glad I didn't buy it: It would have been a waste for me.

Essentially, you DO have a ‘Twilight Zone' plot. Man weeds all day every day. Weeds are bad killer creatures. Everyone things man is insane. Bad things happen to man. Luck is against man. Man is accused of hurting son who went weeding with him. Is man crazy? Is he the world's saviour?

Man weeds. And weeds. And weeds. Most of this book is either dysfunctional family happenings, which feel dull and dated to me–or WEEDING. There is so much weeding, I felt like I'd been weeding myself. The pacing is slow, despite the book's brevity, because of all the bloody weeding. And the crux of the matter, the most interesting part, doesn't happen until the very end. There are so many pages wasted on weeding, I couldn't handle it. At all. I do not recommend. At all.