Nick

Why? Why? Why Why? Why Why Why? Why Why Why Why Why? Why Why Why Why Why Why Why Why?

This single word echoed in my head with every single new plot point like the world’s most annoying Fibonacci Sequence.

From the get-go the reader is promised a fun little romp where a bunch of strangers vie for a dead millionaire’s fortune and things immediately go south. It’s a dumb but entertaining flip from Escape Room to the Saw movies as one could probably guess. Quickly, the author shoves the hook away and apparently starts slamming his fist on the keyboard. By the second escape room, the silliness snowballs into an incomprehensible mess.

I figured, by the way the book started, that the plot would slowly unfold into some huge interconnected web where everything came together. Well, that’s not so much what happened. The one-dimensional characters remained in 1D World. They made silly decisions. The world’s greatest puzzle maker made shitty puzzles. Stuff just sort of happened with no rhyme or reason. Attempts at humor fell flat. Plot twists happen that will make you scratch your head. Honestly, I’m not certain Dan Brown didn’t ghost write this. That’s how bad it was.

Even though it wasn’t his first published, this was apparently the first book Stephen King wrote, and I gotta say: I’m pretty damn impressed by that!

The premise here is somewhere between the Hunger Games saga and King’s (or Bachman’s) own The Running Man. Although the reader isn’t given much story behind the dystopian society, it’s apparently some sort of military dictatorship where young men sacrificing themselves is the main source of entertainment each year.

I really liked the premise and I really liked the cast of characters, but the story fell flat in a few ways for me. For one, the book was very uneven. About 75% of the book tells of the first 1/3 or so of the Walk. The last quarter rushes things. My other gripe is that, even though my suspension of disbelief allowed me to buy the premise, I didn’t feel that the walkers’ stamina was very realistic. Even with extensive vetting, I can’t believe that more people weren’t out within the first 25 miles nor can I believe how long the Walk went on. The stories for why people decided to join were mostly silly too.

A few tweaks and the book could be perfect imo. I see that they’re making a movie. Maybe they can smooth over some of those things.

I wanted to give this book 5 stars but I really feel like he trolled the reader with that ending.

In all seriousness, if you haven’t had a chance to check out Victor LaValle’s writings, I highly recommend him. He really knows how to tell a story.

Here we have the classic American romance story that brings a baby into this world. All is well until the father mysteriously vanishes one day without a trace. The boy grows up wondering what happened to him and there’s this eerie feeling that the dad is still trying to communicate with him from beyond. Dreams, appearances, a box full of things dropped off at the door. The boy grows up in a similar situation. He meets the girl of his dreams. They fall in love, get married, and have a baby of their own.

This is where the story starts to really pick up. Without spoiling anything, the man is drawn into a world he didn’t know existed online, real, and fantastical.

The final 10-15% of the book didn’t do it for me, but it was overall great. I loved the themes of family, what parents will do (or won’t) for their children, and tradition. I highly recommend.

Some of the stories I breezed through, and some of them seemed to take forever, so I’m giving his three stars. Nothing was exceptionally amazing or terrible. One thing I will say is that Gingerbread Girl and A Very Tight Place were essentially the same story except GG was an excuse to call a woman “bitch” a million times and Tight Place was an excuse to use a bunch of homophobic slurs.

There really isn't a ton to say about this one. The reader essentially gets thrown directly into a dystopian religious convent. Everyone is ordered by class like a goth Handmaid's Tale. Bazterrica treats us with beautiful and sometimes scary imagery instead of a heavy plot.

To be honest, this book did get confusing at times but it was very enjoyable.

Was this book terribly original? No. Was it entertaining? Hell yeah.

At face value, we have your standard possession story. A woman starts feeling different, find a book about possessions, starts questioning things...

But then everything goes to shit. This story is exactly as it needs to be. There is no long-winded, convoluted plot labyrinth here. The main character's life starts falling apart as she fights back and/or doesn't. Highly recommended.

I'll be honest: my review is partially about Moreno-Garcia and partially about the genre as a whole. Vampires are scary. Who wants to be fed upon by undead humanoids, right? Eww. And then the 70s came...

Oh, Anne Rice. No longer are vampires scary. They're *gasp* just like us! And then about 15 years later comes the Vampire: The Masquerade RPG. Now we have factions that a there constantly at war with one another as well as humans.

This leads directly to Certain Dark Things. I did like this a tad more than Mexican Gothic, but I guess I just don't get Moreno-Garcia's writing. There were some cool mythological parts and some really intense action scenes, but I found myself rolling my eyes a few times. The hot goth chick vampire stereotype seemed a little <i>too</i>, I dunno, corny? And the vampire after her? Yikes.

Anyway, file as YA schlock.

Something I absolutely loved about this book is the way that there's a tense uneasiness in the air that never goes away. In fact, it gets worse as the stakes get raised higher and higher.

The eponymous auctioneer is a cult of personality. He's nice. He's charming. Everybody loves him. So, what's the catch? Well...the catch is everything one could expect about this sort of character.

The first half of this book flies by, but the second half kind of drags in spots. The ending is also a bit unsatisfying, but it was a hell of a ride nonetheless.

This book reminded me a lot of The Loop by Jeremy Robert Johnson. On one hand, it comes off as YA, but it is also a gore fest. I'm not sure where the target audience is. I'm guessing it's somewhere around the same high school kids that flocked to I Know What You Did Last Summer and Scream.

My suspension of disbelief just did not hold on for the ride. I found myself constantly questioning the motives of the main characters and townspeople and wasn't really sure their actions echoed their desires.

Not very well written, but hey, it was fun I guess. I wouldn't recommend this for serious horror readers over high school age unless you're in the mood for some literary fast food.

This book had a lot of hype behind it, and for good reason. It was very well written and very charming. However, that's about it for me. I did enjoy the beginning and the ending, but the entire meat of the book was very bland. Like The Goonies meets Mrs. Caliban by Rachel Ingalls, we have a bunch of old folks who don't want to move and then a shapeshifting mer-person comes to save the day (and have sex with the old lady).

I get that one of the biggest themes of the book is holding onto the past, but the romance stuff was just weird.

The book ends in a very satisfying way. If you're in the same boat as me, please do yourself a favor and finish the dang book!