Nick

I really loved this book despite it not really having much of a plot. It was more like a bottle episode of prestige TV. (ironically, they got several episodes of TV out of it)

I started writing a pretty lengthy review and then the app shut down on me :/

So here's my condensed version out of frustration:
The Ring story apart from The Loop was fine up by itself. This book should have been completely standalone. Had it been, I'd have given it a 4. I didn't like how the ring virus was shoehorned into this one or how it ended. The first 2/3 was great though.

Hard to imagine a world in which the religious right have taken away female autonomy, right? < /sarcasm>

Maybe I'm a little biased because of when I read it (few months into The Pandemic), but I loved this book. I wish there was more detail to Offred's story because I feel like it was incomplete. I guess that's part of what makes it work though.

Intro: Good. Originality: Fair. Form: Excellent. Routine: Excellent. Dismount: Shaky. Landing: Botched. Ouch.So, on the cover, Stephen King says this is fans for Gone Girl. I'll be honest, this is way more [b:Dark Places 5886881 Dark Places Gillian Flynn https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1354988288l/5886881.SY75.jpg 6873353]. One thing I loved about both books is the call-out of nosy true crime fanatics who don't treat victims with humanity. Sager brings the reader through some twists and turns and does a pretty good job with that. The journey was more important than the destination on this one, though. But the final line is one of the corniest things I've ever read.Still a solid book. I definitely recommend it. Just not life-changing or anything.

An uneven, slow-moving plot with a good premise and nothing else. Wanted to hurry up and read this before the movie version came out but regretting I did. Oh well.

I was really into the first 1/3-1/2 of this book. It was all laid out super nicely. Guy gets accused of murder. All of the evidence points directly at him with absolutely no room for an alibi. However, the guy actually has an airtight alibi, so what's going on? This all leads to the oft-repeated line in the book: a man can't be in two places at once.

Let's backtrack a bit. The Mr Mercedes trilogy came and went. As the reader may or may not know, the first two books in the series are more straight up crime novels while the third dabbles in the supernatural. It's also no secret that Holly Gibney takes over the helm as King's go-to investigator. This was well advertised when The Outsider came out.

Holly is thrown into this novel around the halfway mark. I wouldn't exactly say it's necessary. In fact, it does feel a bit shoehorned in. As others have noted, her appearance is about the time book took a turn for the worse.

At this point, the reader still has about 250 pages left. Whereas the story of Terry Maitland is super interesting, the rest of the novel just sort of exists for no other reason than for Stephen King to drop every Kingsian trope he knows. The reveal of the killer and everything leading up to the ending has been done by King ad nauseum.

I'm giving this a 2.5, so I'm rounding up to 3. I'd honestly recommend skipping this one if you've never ready the Mr Mercedes trilogy or if you hated the third book. However, feel free to read it if you just want some mindless fun, I guess.

Obviously, if you've read the synopsis you know some suspension of belief is needed. This novella has drawn comparisons to The Shape of Water. Also, human/beast love seems to pretty popular in Amazon pulp. Well, this was written in the early 80s so don't expect all of the same tropes.

At first glance, this novella is a gimmicky romance novel. However, it's deeper than that. As the story evolves, themes such as grief, friendship, adult relationships, gender roles, and more are explored. I was very impressed overall.

In this collection of short stories, Carmen Maria Machado takes things that many people are familiar with—love, anxiety, sex, death, marriage, Law & Order: SVU—and adds a backdrop of horror. Like an adult version of Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark, this book is made up of several stories that aren't explicitly terrifying but still have the ability to creep you out. For the most part, each story begins with a pretty mild premise and devolves into surreal body horror.

A lot of reviews on here mention Especially Heinous as being the worst story, but I think it'll be one of those love/hate type things in the long run. I honestly loved it. For me, the first couple entries had me wondering what I was getting myself into. I even thought about skipping the story about halfway through season 1 until the girls with bells for eyes showed up. From then on, the story became one of the most surreal things I've ever read. I don't want to give too much away, but I really loved the way everything played out.

Overall, I really enjoyed Machado's writing style and I'm looking forward to reading more. My only complaints are that she relied on cliches quite a bit and the stories were a little formulaic in that they almost all ended with questioning if anything actually happened. However, this had some of the most unique writing and voice I've experienced in years. Can't wait to read some full-length novels.

What a premise. Group of musicians goes into the African desert to search for a mysterious sound that the US military thinks is disarming weapons. Cool, right? Pulled me right in.

Other than that, the book didn't have much going for it. I felt like Dan Brown wrote this and someone on the sidelines was cheering him on, yelling “More vomit! More vomit!” Maybe that person was Josh Malerman, maybe not.

The story itself didn't make a lot of sense. If you read some of the other reviews here, you'll get a sense of what I mean. Having said that, and I won't spoil anything, the premise itself wrote Malerman into a corner. Which do you think would be the worse payoff: revealing the source, or NOT revealing the source? I believe that either scenario would be equally disappointing.

The story was ok (3 stars) but minus 3 for the author being a stinky Zio

I rather enjoyed this book. Gaiman has a way of writing characters like no one else. My biggest gripe is the portrayal of the New Gods. I think they were a good idea, but things like making Technology a spoiled brat kid just makes Neil seem like a grumpy old man yelling “Get off my lawn!” There were a couple other things I could nitpick, but overall I thought it was a fun ride from start to finish.

This book caused a lot of talk online, so I decided to check it out. Was it worth the hype? I believe so. Two guys go fishing. They hear a story which contains another story. Sounds kinda dumb, but this was very well executed. There are scary parts. There are tense parts. There are WTF? parts. By the end, there are very emotional parts. Check it out if you can get your hands on a copy.

This was the first Joe Hill story I read, so I wasn't sure what I was getting myself into. I jumped in on a recommendation with no knowledge of the content ahead. “Is this going to be Stephen King writes [b:Fahrenheit 451 13079982 Fahrenheit 451 Ray Bradbury https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1383718290l/13079982.SY75.jpg 1272463]? Man, this thing sure is long! Hope I can read it before someone adapts it into a crappy mini-series!”So, in I go a few months into The Pandemic, just looking for something other than alcohol to occupy my time. Oh great, this book's about a pandemic. How fitting. And I'd just read [b:The Handmaid's Tale 38447 The Handmaid's Tale (The Handmaid's Tale, #1) Margaret Atwood https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1578028274l/38447.SY75.jpg 1119185], so my reading choices are a little too on-the-nose lately. The book actually took me away from the current pandemic and brought me into another world where I was wondering what I would do in that situation. I did feel like the book was a little bloated at times. The ex's antagonistic group was a little too much as well. Overall, though, it was a very fun read and easy to keep going.

I won't lie, I was pretty meh about most of this book until I got near the end and then it finally clicked. How does one even describe this book to someone? Part mystery, drama, sexual revolution, comedy satire? Like a hipper version of Vonnegut, Pynchon really lets wit and absurdity fly. There were times I laughed out loud. There were times I was confused. There were times I wanted the story to wrap up. There were times I wanted the story to never end. At a time where I'm wondering to myself, “How the heck do people get so wrapped up in conspiracy theories and why do they constantly change their own narrative to push further down the rabbit hole?” all I can say is, hey, wouldn't we all love a 60s garage rock band to follow us around?

Forewarning to those thinking about reading this: Asa is VERY candid in her descriptions of her life. Considering that she's a long time porn star, I shouldn't have to explain myself too much. Let's just say that the reader shouldn't expect many euphemisms here. I will not comment much on the choice of words but the writing itself.

This book calls itself a memoir. The description says it's a book of essays. Why? I'm not really sure as neither is true. Call it a collection of random writings.

Having said that, this book is all over the place. There are random musings, a bunch of diary entries, some haikus, a seemingly autobiographical screenplay, etc. One thing that really stuck out to me in her writings was the humor involved. It's easy to tell that, while Asa takes her professionalism very seriously, she's not afraid of laughing at herself or the situations she's been in. She's also really good at letting her heart out regarding heavy moments. I think there was a very good mix of those things.

On the negative side, and I'll admit it's probably super hard to stray from this in this type of book, is that there were times that seemed very self-serving and maybe a tad narcissistic. Now, going back to what I said before: she's very candid. Sometimes that can be a strength and a weakness. For example, the chapter on marital advice seemed ill-advised. In hindsight, her marriage ended the year after the book was released. Another downer was that it didn't seemed like she learned much from her comments on teachers/students. The screenplay chapter also seemed very tacked on in addition to being self-indulgent.

One final thing: Having said what I did about the candid language used, I just want to add that the woman who read the audiobook deserves all the praise in the world. Kudos to you.

This was a really short, quick read but it was fun. It started off really strong and then ending was pretty good. The middle really didn't make much sense to me. I dunno, the Lovecraftian stuff was just...eh. Cool concept though.

While Mr Nancy (Anansi) was extremely charismatic in American Gods, the characters in this book aren't quite that. I had a lot of fun reading this, but it lacked the charm I was expecting. To any potential readers: This book is sometimes referred to as a sequel, but it's more of a spin-off.

Picked this up mostly blindly from a Goodwill for 50 cents. Glad I did. I really enjoyed Moretti's writing style. The story itself didn't really do much for me. I didn't feel like Zoe was very sympathetic and I think the reason for that is that her backstory could have been explored a little more. In fact, in a novel about people hiding from the truth, every character could've used a little more backstory.

In regards to the main plot, I feel like Moretti could've maybe narrowed things down a bit. Some of the red herrings and misdirections were a bit superfluous. Also, something said around the 1/3 mark immediately clued me in on a major plot twist which was essentially advertised for the next 2/3 until the end.

In short, glad I picked this up. Saying I picked it up for 50 cents wasn't a knock on the author. It's definitely worth a quick read if you're into this sort of thing. The writing was well done. The plot was just ok. Suited for a quick weekend read in a cabin.

Loved the first half. Didn't love the second half. Only a short novella, but quite the page-turner.

This was less of a band biography and more like four separate autobiographies. Very manic-depressive, this book fluctuates between soaring ups and rock bottom downs. In the audiobook version, each band member narrates their own chapters with Tommy Chong and Jello Biafra taking over for Dave Casillas and Steve Kidwiler respectively.

In true NOFX fashion, we're treated to bookended chapters about drinking pee. Also true to form is a brutal honesty that NOFX fans have come to expect. Truthfully, these stories are tame compared to some of the content herein. Each of the four main band members (Mike, Smelly, Melvin, and Hefe) are given a chance to explain their upbringing and what brought them to the band. Dave and Mike give brief descriptions of their journey to and from NOFX with not much about their time afterwards. Released in 2016, though, the reader won't get a glimpse into the 2018 Vegas controversy nor the 2023-2024 final tour.

I'm not a huge NOFX fan. I own a few of their albums. I've seen them live a couple times. I don't really follow them. I'm only vaguely aware of their personalities and stories outside of Mike's constant craving of the spotlight. Having said that, I was absolutely blown away at the storytelling. I won't give anything away, but I want to say how awestruck I was reading Erik Sandin's chapters. This guy has gone through it. His highs and lows really show what it means to be human. While the other band members have lived 100 lifetimes each and claim to appreciate life the older they get, Erik has them outdone and has absolutely grown and learned from his mistakes. What a beautiful story to tell. He could've had his own autobiography and it would have been a 5/5 on its own.

I can't really talk about this book without spoiling the hell out of it. So spoiler tags it is.

I really liked the first two books in the series. I thought that Mr Mercedes was a great detective story and that Finders Keepers was a thriller ride as well.

For this one, I was truly disappointed. I know that a lot of readers didn't like Finders Keepers but liked this one a lot, so I will tell you why I didn't:
- After making Brady go bye-bye and introducing a new baddie, King does what King does best and goes for comfort. Brady is back. Why? Laziness. There's no reason to bring Brady back.
- While the first two were straight up detective stories that take place in the real world, SK does the most lazy SK thing ever and introduces supernatural powers. This is always one of the biggest criticisms of King. He's a vegetable but starts controlling people on an app? Come the fuck on. That was beyond any sort of suspension of disbelief anyone should be expected to maintain.
- The title. End of Watch is a little on the spoilery side if you know the meaning.

The story was well-written however. And Holly comes into her own quite a bit, which is nice. I can see why she's amassed a following. The ending was a downer for reasons pertaining to the above but the epilogue was nice and appropriate.

I started this book a skeptic and finished a believer. I'm hoping for a part 2 with more Scylla.

Not quite as good as the first book of the trilogy, but I do think King had some good ideas with this one. The tone of Finders Keeper is a lot more tame, and it's slow to get going. In this one a kid finds a bunch of belongings of a now-deceased author and trouble comes looking for him.

In the first book, the reader is driven head-first into a murder spree and it's up to Bill Hodges to stop the killer from doing it again. In this one, it's more of an unknown what's going on and what's going to happen. Think of this one as more of a No Country for Old Men type story whereas the first was more Silence of the Lambs.

I do applaud King for trying something different here. It wasn't expertly executed, but he does sometimes fail to stray too far from the course. A lot of longtime readers may have been turned off from that, but I was not.

I feel like maybe this is a love it or hate it type book. While some point out that the protagonist is unlikable, I felt like that may be true but also she's understandable in a pitiable way. Yeah, she's fucked up, but there's a reason and there's a reason people continue to treat her a certain way. The plot is pulpy often, but has a decent set-up and stinger. I'd be lying if I said I didn't see the ending coming from a mile away, but I did enjoy the ride.

Sincerely have no idea why this is considered a classic. Even if one overlooks the unacceptable-by-today's-standards language, the plot and dialogue are atrocious. I had hoped to get some fun, mindless crime fiction out of this but found myself constantly hoping that the story would wrap up. Won't be recommending to friends.