Destiny (howling libraries)

I generally enjoy all of Junji Ito's works, but this was one of my favorites of his collections! I loved the fact that these were all adaptations of a person's actual, true life stories, so they didn't typically wrap up neatly or end with any sort of explanation. I found each story to be at least slightly unsettling, with a few legitimately creeping me out. I'd be interested in reading the source material at some point in the future, perhaps, though Junji Ito did admit that he took some liberties, so they might not be as captivating! 🤣

I'm leaving a review without a rating because I think I would've enjoyed this as a young teen, maybe even loved it. Unfortunately, it didn't work for me, but I'm not the target audience here, either. Without spoiling anything, I'll say that I struggled with the levels of angst and how romance-heavy the story was (despite not personally feeling like the characters would be a compatible pairing in the first place). I also found the villains to be very over-the-top and I predicted the twists very early in, which left me feeling irritated with the main character's total lack of awareness.

I read a final copy borrowed from the library, but for the sake of disclosure, I was also gifted an early review copy. All thoughts are honest and my own.

✨ Representation: Andrew is asexual and gay; Thomas is bisexual/pansexual; multiple side characters are queer

✨ Content warnings: violence, gore, death, body horror, grief, bigotry, homophobia, transphobia, verbal abuse from authority figures, physically abusive parents, mental illness, anxiety/panic attacks, disordered eating, self-harm

This odd little book has been a real source of discussion lately, and after reading it, I can see why. Told through the perspective of a child, there's a devastating sadness and unsettling nature to her upbringing that claws its way under your skin and remains there. I wanted to take Margot right out of these twisted pages and hold her, but she's far from an innocent little girl - and, somehow, her own terrible behaviors and thoughts about the world made me love her that much more. The ending of this book is going to stay with me for a long time to come, and despite how much heartache the entire story brought me, I'm already itching to read it once more.

I always love Kealan's work, so I figured I'd celebrate St. Patrick's Day by picking up a new-to-me read from my favorite Irish author! It was a damn good choice. I loved this collection. I'm fascinated by the idea of haunted pieces of art anyway, but also, I enjoyed that it wasn't only about paintings - the final story was even about music, which I wasn't expecting but really loved.

My favorite story of the collection was the first one, which was so sad and lovely, but all of them were fantastic! I highly recommend this collection to anyone who enjoys short horror stories, especially if you're looking to get into Kealan's work.

... I should have read the spoiler reviews.

I went into this book totally oblivious, knowing nothing about it except that it was very controversial. I'll admit that it piqued my interest and I bought the ebook from the author's site on a whim, wondering, "How bad could it be?" Well, friends, how bad it could be was that this entire book is a romance story between a 16/17-year-old girl and her dad.

Honestly, I think the worst part was killing off the mom a chapter in just to fridge her character and make room for these two to hook up, but really, there's a lot of stuff to choose from here that's frankly even more offensive than the incest. The entire book was a shitshow stacked on top of a trainwreck and I'll probably never reach for a K. Webster book again.