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5 Mini Reviews: A Court of Thorns and Roses by Sarah J. Maas

05 Monday Feb 2024

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I didn’t have a smooth introduction to A Court of Thorns and Roses by Sarah J. Maas. I took the recommendation of a friend to read the first book in the series, after having recently finished and LOVED another book they’d suggested — a fantasy-adventure with a romantic subplot and a moody, opulent aesthetic. I expected A Court of Thorns and Roses to be similar to that.

Instead what I got was Beauty and the Beast: Hunger Games Edition (now with 8000% more fairies!) featuring a main character who seemed incapable of interacting with a man without wanting to simultaneously murder and bang him. I was not into it.

So I decided I wasn’t going to continue the series.

Except, I kept seeing friends talk about it. I kept getting ads for T-shirts with references to it. I kept seeing it virtually everywhere that had any books for sale, and I started to wonder why A Court of Thorns and Roses seemed to slap for everyone but me.

I waded into the second book, and it turns out everyone I talked to about this series was right: it DOES get better after the first book. The action gets a lot more interesting, as does the romance plotline, and the first novel starts to feel a lot more like a setup for the really juicy stuff. The subsequent books also reinforce the good qualities I initially overlooked about the first, like how gifted Maas is at worldbuilding, and how refreshing it is to have a romance story that celebrates female sexuality rather than fetishizing virginity.

And it’s even enjoyable to see Maas’s writing become stronger over the course of the saga.

Below are my spoiler-free short reviews of each book. Disclaimer: My main genre is horror, and while I don’t dislike romances, I don’t pick them up very often — so consider this a perspective from a genre outsider.

Book 1: A Court of Thorns and Roses
Rating: ⭐⭐💫/5

Feyre Archeron is the youngest daughter of an impoverished merchant, living in a small village near the border to the Fae realm. The faeries who dwell there are lethal, devious and not to be trusted. After she kills a wolf in the woods near her home, Feyre learns that not only was the wolf a Fae male in diguise, but that she will need to pay the debt by becoming a prisoner of the wolf’s lord, a mysterious masked male named Tamlin. As her fear and hate gradually transform into curiosity and passion, Feyre will learn that many of her assumptions about the Fae were wrong. But just as she’s starting to get used to this new life, she learns of the true threat to the human and Fae realms — and that some truths about the Fae are just as terrifying as the stories she grew up on.

Though my initial impressions may have caused me to judge this book too harshly, it does suffer from some serious issues. The writing style really grated on me, and I hated how often Feyre was dumb or reckless just for the sake of the plot. And the main villain was so cartoonishly, one-dimensionally evil that it was hard to take her seriously. However, the imagery throughout is strong, and Feyre does turn out to be a well-executed main character. She doesn’t just float through the story on charm, beauty and ace skills — she makes mistakes, gets in over her head, and sometimes gets seriously injured in the process, which makes her journey more believable. While I still think it’s the weakest book in the series, it does set up plenty of interesting plot points that pay off in future books.

Book 2: A Court of Mist and Fury
Rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐/5

Safe in her new life, Feyre knows she should be ready to live her happily ever after…but she can’t seem to get past the horrors she endured under The Mountain — nor can she seem to make Tamlin understand the depth of her depression. Forced to uphold her bargain to spend time in the Night Court with Rhysand, Feyre finds herself torn between two worlds: The strong, bright Spring and the brooding, relentless Night. Now, as she faces a looming evil that threatens the balance of the Human and Fae realms alike, she’ll need to face her demons head-on in order to unlock her inner power — which could be the only key to stopping what’s coming.

A Court of Mist and Fury really cranks up the heat on this series. The stakes are higher, the twists are more breathtaking, and the sex scenes are steamier. I listened to this on audiobook, and definitely caught myself stopped dead in the middle of things I was doing, just listening with my mouth open because HOLY SHIT is there a lot of amazing action in this book. Maas’s writing style is noticeably improved in this sequel, but there are still quite a few cringe-worthy phrasings, characterizations and plot holes that I felt prevented me from completely enjoying it. Still, though, that ending had me immediately ready to jump feet-first into the next book.

Book 3: A Court of Wings and Ruin
Rating: ⭐⭐⭐/5

Feyre is back in the Spring Court, and with the King of Hybern threatening to invade Prythian with all his forces, one big question lingers in Feyre’s mind: is Tamlin her friend or her enemy? Games of deception and intrigue are afoot as she fights to get back to her sisters. But before she can return home, she needs to collect all the intel she can to make sure her new-found family doesn’t get swept away by the impending war.

A Court of Wings and Ruin is…fine, she said with a sigh. The story is engaging, it’s sexy in all the right places, and plotlines that have been brewing for a while do get some payoff. But I felt like Maas put all this momentum into getting all the moving pieces placed for this ultimate confrontation, then just kind of…prematurely ejaculated? Not my favorite metaphor, but that’s honestly what it felt like. She had all of these juicy plot elements ready to put into play, the payoff was gonna be so good…and then she blew the whole load in an unsatisfying manner over the course of just a few chapters. Moments that should have been tense and thrilling resolved fairly quickly in disappointing or predictable ways. And I had a big “Didn’t we just do this??” moment that really spoiled any positive feelings I may have developed in the first 3/4 of the book. But since I didn’t hate it all the way through, and since there were some enjoyable scenes and nice character developments, three stars it is.

Book 4: A Court of Frost and Starlight
Rating: ⭐⭐⭐💫/5

In this holiday-themed novella, Feyre faces Winter Solstice — and her birthday — in a city traumatized by the recent war. As she juggles the challenges of leadership with the struggle of finding the right gifts for her loved ones, she’ll learn that there is a glimmer of hope in every darkness.

I really love that SJM gave her characters a little holiday special. This book certainly isn’t the most exciting, but it is the shortest, so it’s already the best one in the series. Joking aside, ACOFAS is a nice little break that gives closure on some plot points from book 3, offers some enjoyable character moments, and introduces some info to get readers excited about what’s to come. Feyre continues her tradition of making idiotic decisions, but this is the character we’ve chosen to follow through an epic saga, so. However, we won’t have to deal with too much more of her, because…

Book 5: A Court of Silver Flames
Rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐/5

After surviving the miseries of the war with Hybern, Nesta struggles to cope with her new life in Velaris. When her excesses go too far, she’s forced to move into the House of Wind where the only exit is a 10,000-step staircase. Even worse, she’ll have to undergo daily training with Cassian, the commander of Rhysand’s armies, who she’s been avoiding since the end of the war. At this point, she’s ready to give up on herself. But with a new threat looming, Nesta’s mysterious new powers may be the key to defending Prythian — once and for all.

I love it any time an author is able to get me to root for an unlikeable character, and Maas definitely got me there for Nesta in ACOSF. Before I got to this point in the series, I didn’t think I wanted to read a whole book about Nesta. However, by the end of this book, I was like, “Feyre who?” The romance plotline was fun and sexy, but I also loved the female friendships that Nesta built over the course of the story and how crucial they were to her development as a character. This would almost be a five-star book for me, except for some plot holes big enough to drive a freight train through. For the most part, though, I genuinely enjoyed returning to the world of Prythian for this story.

***

It would have been easy for me to dismiss ACOTAR as over-hyped junk, but I’m really glad I pushed past my initial impressions and kept reading — because as soapy and melodramatic as it can be, as audaciously large as some of the plot holes are, and as unabashedly horny as it is, ACOTAR does so many things right.

Unlike much of the romance genre, the characters in this series model consent, female sexual autonomy, and positive masculinity— not in every situation, but enough to be notable and refreshing.

And even though it’s a romance, it still manages to highlight and celebrate friendships between women. Those relationships aren’t just background action or devices to get the love interests together — they really matter to the plot and the development of the characters. I adore that.

Honestly, if you’ve never read the series before and are thinking about picking it up, this is what I recommend: start with A Court of Mist and Fury. This is the book that most fans seem to love best, and it’s where the “real” action of the series starts. If you like it, then treat A Court of Thorns and Roses as a prequel, and go back to get the deets on what went down between Feyre and Tamlin then. But if Book 2 doesn’t trip your trigger, then I think you can safely say that ACOTAR isn’t the series for you.

Every now and then I find myself needing to take a break from reading horror. A Court of Thorns and Roses by Sarah J. Maas has turned out to be a perfect series for that. They weren’t my favorite books I’ve read in the past couple of years, but they were a lot of fun, and it’s safe to say that I’m hooked. I will definitely be back for book 6.

Review: The Only One Left by Riley Sager

22 Friday Dec 2023

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Rating: ⭐⭐⭐💫

Riley Sager is the author of seven novels dating back to 2017, but The Only One Left, which was released this summer to lots of fanfare on the book socials, is the first of his books I’ve had the opportunity to read.

This seaside murder mystery has plenty of twists, turns and haunting secrets begging to be exposed. But does it live up to the hype?

Following suspension from her job as an in-home caregiver due to the death of a patient under her care, Kit McDeere gets a chance to redeem herself when she’s offered a posting that no one else will touch: caring for Lenora Hope, the only surviving member of the fabulously wealthy Hope family. The rest of them were murdered one bloody night in 1929. Most of the town thinks Lenora herself is the killer, but she was never convicted. Nor has she ever spoken of what really happened that night. But she’s ready to open up to Kit now. After taking up residence in the crumbling seaside Hope mansion with its skeleton crew of essential servants, Kit becomes absorbed in her quest to uncover the truth about who really murdered the Hope family, and why. Along the way, she’ll discover that Lenora isn’t the only resident of the mansion who’s keeping secrets.

I really wanted to like The Only One Left more than I did. It had a lot to like. A grossly extravagant mansion threatening to crumble into the ocean is a great setting for a murder mystery (I mean, the climax is already built right in). The main character is a disgraced nurse with a haunting secret — BAM, I already want to know more about her. Her patient is a paralyzed heiress who may or may not have murdered her family and gotten away with it — oh my GOD, I want to know everything!! And the estate’s few remaining employees each seem to have their own secrets to conceal, and motives for staying on at the mansion. How is this not going to be the best book I’ve read this year??

What’s not to love here? This concept is absolute money.

For me, though, the execution just wasn’t quite all the way there. Kit as a main character bored the crap out of me — like, her only character traits were father issues and being a nurse — and most of her actions felt plot-driven at the expense of giving her a personality.

And then there were the dramatic reveals. So. Many. Dramatic reveals.

Here’s the thing about dramatic reveals: they’re like shaved truffles. If you use just a little bit in just the right places, they can make your meal/novel into something complex and delicious that you’ll be thinking about long after you’ve finished. But something so powerful can easily overwhelm all the other flavors if you put in too much.

It feels like Riley Sager took a cheese grater to his Dramatic Reveal truffle and shredded the entire thing into his story. They happen practically every single chapter. The frequency of the reveals made this novel feel incredibly soapy, so that by the end I became unable to make myself care about them anymore.

In the end, though, I enjoyed The Only One Left more than I disliked it. The whole aesthetic is great, the mystery is gorgeously compelling, and it’s paced in a way that makes it almost impossible to put down. I think if Sager had put more energy into building great characters and letting them carry the story, rather than constructing a whiplash-inducing plot rollercoaster, this could have been an amazing murder mystery novel. As it is, though, I found it to be just decent.

What did you think of The Only One Left by Riley Sager? Are any of his other books better than this one? Chat with me about it down in the comments, or over on my Instagram!

Review: My Heart is a Chainsaw by Stephen Graham Jones

15 Friday Dec 2023

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Rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐/5

Since making the decision to ramp up my book reviewing earlier this year, I have had one goal in the back of my mind: Read more Stephen Graham Jones. I got a hold of his novel The Only Good Indians over Covid lockdown, and it was some of the best horror I’d read in years. I enthusiastically rated it 5 stars on Goodreads.

So I was incredibly excited to get an ebook copy of his 2021 novel My Heart is a Chainsaw on loan from the Libby app. While it’s certainly not the most polished novel, it does manage to be a bloody, fun and triumphant interpretation of the slasher genre with a main character that I’m ready to follow to hell and back.

A slasher is coming to terrorize the small lakeside town of Proofrock, Idaho. Jade knows it. She’s and expert on slasher films, and she’s familiar with all the signs. The mysterious tourist deaths at Indian Lake are the blood sacrifice that will kick off the cycle. And more bodies will start piling up as the main event nears: the town’s annual 4th of July celebration on the lake. Jade has even met the Final Girl. Letha, the new student at her school, is so beautiful and pure that it’s clear she’s destined to survive the coming massacre. Will she be ready? As Jade uses all her hard-won slasher expertise to try to prepare Letha to ride out the slaughter, she tries not to be disappointed that she’ll only be watching from the sidelines. Sure, Jade’s the one who’s been dreaming of this kind of scenario for years. But she’s just not Final Girl material.

I’m not sure if it’s better to know nothing or everything about slasher films before going to this book, but one thing is for sure: My Heart is a Chainsaw will school you on the genre. References to slasher films are embedded all throughout the plot and in Jade’s dialogue. Between the chapters, snippets of Jade’s own writing show her explaining the elements and nuances of slasher films to her favorite teacher, Mr. Holmes. This gives the reader an idea of just how obsessed Jade is with this sub-genre, and sows a bit of doubt in the reader: is Jade right about what’s happening in Proofrock, or is she just a traumatized kid using movie violence to cope with her lot in life?

However, the story did drag a little bit toward the middle. I found myself skimming through some bits—particularly Jade’s extra credit slasher essays. They weren’t bad, and they gave good insight into the character, but I felt at times like they were something I had to slog through to get to the good, meaty plot parts. Until about 2/3 of the way through the book, it feels like you’re just waiting for the good stuff to start happening. And though the climactic scenes of the book are action-packed, with a resolution that’s technically satisfying, I was a little confused about what was going on. I’m still not entirely sure I understand the who and why of the slasher themselves.

Normally I would give a lower rating to a slow-burn novel with a muddy conclusion, but there’s something about My Heart is a Chainsaw that makes me want to forgive its shortcomings and love it anyway. Like its main character, this book is rough around the edges, but at the same time so unapologetically itself that I can’t help rooting for it. Jade is a survivor, not just of the slasher cycle, but also of the fate that befalls a disproportionate number of mixed-race indigenous kids who fall through the cracks (in the acknowledgments, Jones notes that he was inspired to create Jade after reading of a Native American teenage girl who took her own life after being sexually assaulted). Jade is a messy, weird, stubborn person, and I’m so happy I got to spend a few hundred pages with her.

This is the first book in Jones’s Indian Lake Trilogy, and since I absolutely must know what happens to Jade next, I will be picking up the sequel, Don’t Fear the Reaper, very soon.

Are you a Stephen Graham Jones fan? What’s your favorite SGJ novel? Let’s chat about it, hit me up in the comments or on Instagram.

Review: Yes Please by Amy Poehler

09 Saturday Dec 2023

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Rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

Heads up: This is less like a review, and more like ten paragraphs of me gushing about how much I love Amy Poehler.

Before you continue reading this Yes Please by Amy Poehler review, please take a moment to watch this video. I’ll wait.

Thanks for watching that, wasn’t it wholesome and hilarious?

The thing you just watched was from the 2011 Emmy Awards. I didn’t watch it when it aired, but when I saw this clip for the first time, I cried actual tears. All these women were up for the best lead actress in a comedy, and all of them coming up to the stage and holding hands like they were in a beauty pageant was a great comedic bit. But it crosses the line into truly wholesome and heartwarming when Melissa McCarthy is announced as the winner and all of the other women are genuinely overjoyed as they embrace and celebrate with her. It stands out among all of the glitz and gossip of the Hollywood awards gala circuit as a moment when a group of hardworking, hilarious performers supported and appreciated each other’s achievements in a true moment of female friendship.

And Amy Poehler came up with it, because of course she did.

This is one of the many incredible moments in Poehler’s career that she recounts in her 2013 memoir Yes Please. It may have taken me ten years to read it, but I’m so glad I made time for this book.

In Yes Please, Amy Poehler recounts her Boston-area upbringing, her earliest experiences with comedic writing, the grind of trying to break out in the Chicago and New York City comedy scenes, and coming to terms with her eventual stardom. It’s a gleeful and heartwarming trip down memory lane, following her through her journey from being a college theater nerd to becoming one of the most recognizable and celebrated women in comedy (my words, not hers).

You can tell that this was written by Amy Poehler. It’s not sleek and organized like a ghostwriter did it. It sparkles with all the chaos, joy, stress and hilarity that seems to encapsulate Poehler as a person. Poehler mentions a lot that writing a book is hard, and even has guests come in and help out with chapters—one chapter is written by Seth Meyers, and recounts how he and Poehler met at improv shows long before they became Weekend Update hosts on SNL. Another section, the one about the creation of Parks & Recreation (the sitcom starring Poehler than ran from 2009-2015), was annotated by show creator Mike Schur

I loved reading about her early comedy days, and all the work she put into building up her performance chops, writing a lot of awful skits, and now and then a few really really good ones. She did so much, including helping found the Upright Citizens Brigade (which still operates as a comedy theater and workshop in LA), before she even auditioned for Saturday Night Live.

Sprinkled throughout this book are tidbits of advice and wisdom from Poehler on such varied subjects as sex, chasing your dreams, becoming a parent, and getting nominated for an award. Amy Poehler can’t be my mom, as much as I would like that, but hearing about how she’s navigated major life events with grace and humor is maybe the next best thing.

Normally this is where I would talk about the things I disliked about a book, but I actually loved pretty much everything about Yes Please. Even, sometimes especially, the imperfect bits.

This book was published in 2013, ten years before I’m reviewing it in 2023. Since then, Amy Poehler has continued to be hilarious and awesome. After Donald Trump was elected president for some reason in 2016, Vox published a letter from Leslie Knope to the nation. I’m not actually sure if it was written by Poehler or another member of the Parks & Rec writing staff, but it was in-character as the Leslie Knope that Poehler made famous. I remember feeling so deflated and demoralized after that election, and that letter was the one thing that made me laugh and feel less alone. That’s the power of Amy Poehler and the characters she creates.

Of course I’m rating Yes Please a beautiful and perfect five stars. I forsee this being a book I reach for any time I’m feeling demoralized or demotivated, because there’s nothing like Amy Poehler’s determination and joyous optimism to help me get out of my own head and get shit done.

Are you a huge Amy Poehler fan? What did you think of Yes Please? What’s your favorite memoir or autobiography? Talk with me about this and more in the comments!

Review: How to Sell a Haunted House by Grady Hendrix

22 Sunday Oct 2023

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Rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐💫/5

I didn’t intend to do two haunted house books set in North Carolina in a row, but here we are taking a look at How to Sell a Haunted House by Grady Hendrix. While they may share a sub-genre and setting, that’s just about where the similarities between this book and last week’s A House With Good Bones end. Where the former is creepy yet cozy, How to Sell a Haunted House is straight up horrifying.

This is my first Grady Hendrix novel (I reviewed his short story “Ankle Snatcher” two weeks ago), and I must say I’m excited now to go and read more of his stuff. How to Sell a Haunted House pulled me in and kept me interested all the way through with its flawed characters, brilliant pacing and rewarding moments of visceral terror. While it’s infused with macabre humor, it manages to be poignant in its portrayal of grief, generational trauma and the struggles of relating to family—all while its characters are being terrorized by a sadistic puppet out for revenge.

When Louise Joiner’s parents perish suddenly in a car accident, she’s forced to fly home to North Carolina to face the past she’s spent so long trying to put behind her. Specifically, she doesn’t want to talk to her under-achieving younger brother Mark, who her parents always doted on, and who seems to still hate her after all this time. And she REALLY doesn’t want to have to deal with her childhood home, crammed with too many cloying memories, and the many art projects and dolls that her mother left behind. And the puppets. Louise can’t stand being around her mother’s puppets—particularly Pupkin, who was her mother’s favorite. As Louise and Mark are forced to work together to resolve their parents’ estate, they’ll need to do the hardest thing either of them has ever done if they want to uncover the truth behind who holds the real power in the Joiner family: they’ll need to talk to each other.

The book is separated into parts that represent the stages of grief, and each part is almost its own self-contained story. This gives How to Sell a Haunted House a rolling pace where tension builds repeatedly and seems about to peak…then things ramp up again with more story, more dark humor, and more tension. Hendrix excels here at spacing out the exposition, giving enough information to keep the reader interested, and always keeping enough back to make you want to keep turning the page.

Pupkin is maddeningly terrifying as a main villain. Once he appears, It becomes evident this book isn’t so much about a haunted house—it’s more about a haunted puppet. I’m not normally a huge fan of horror involving puppets and dolls (even in my R.L. Stine days, the Night of the Living Dummy books were a hard pass for me). But Hendrix manages to make Pupkin genuinely scary.

Louise and Mark’s difficult journey through working out their grief and issues with each other to rekindle their sibling bond reads as authentic to me. As an older child, I found myself identifying with Louise a lot. And I was glad that over the course of the story, she began to see Mark as a fully-formed person with unique strengths and complex emotions, rather than the deadbeat we see though her eyes at the beginning. Both siblings are flawed and perhaps even unlikeable, but their growth throughout their story was satisfying to read.

And the one thing that I’ll always remember immediately when I think of this book: This manchild of manchildren Mark takes his terrified, bleeding, vomiting sister, who is begging to go to the emergency room, to a Waffle House to make her listen to him talk about the time he dropped out of college to join a radical puppet group.

There was a point toward the end when Pupkin started to grate on my nerves and I wished they’d just kill him already. Though he has some great action scenes, after a while it does start to feel like, “Really, are we still doing this?” However, I found the resolution rewarding enough that I didn’t really begrudge Hendrix taking his time to get there.

Relating to family is hard. One’s relationship with their family is invariably a minefield of resentment, guilt, and things said and unsaid. I think Grady Hendrix does a great job in How to Sell a Haunted House portraying the way that those blood ties and all that history can come home to roost when family members suddenly die. If a darkly funny tale of grief, ghosts and puppets that plays well with some classic horror tropes sounds like your idea of a good time, you should read this book. And you should also call your siblings.

What did you think of How to Sell a Haunted House? Which Grady Hendrix novel should I jump into next? Talk to me about in here in the comments, or scoot on over to my Instagram!

Review: A House With Good Bones by T. Kingfisher

15 Sunday Oct 2023

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Rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐/5

Haunted house stories may be my favorite horror sub-genre. Some of my favorite horror books—99 Fear Street, The Haunting of Hill House, The Witching Hour—are either about or set in big, old spooky houses. So it’s no surprise that this title, A House With Good Bones by T Kingfisher, called to me.

Since finishing the book, I’ve learned that T. Kingfisher is the adult fiction pseudonym of children’s author and illustrator Ursula Vernon. Whether she’s doing picture books, webcomics, or Southern Gothic mysteries like A House With Good Bones, it’s clear that she has a gift for storytelling and imagery by any name.

When Sam Montgomery, an archaeo-entymologist, returns to her family home in North Carolina after being furloughed from her dig, she’s startled to find that it seems to have gone backward in time. The rooms her mom had once painted with bright colors are now covered in bland off-whites, and artwork long stored in the back corners of the attic is up on the walls again. In fact the house looks just like it did back when Sam’s grandmother, a rose-obsessed old lady with strong traditional (AKA racist and patriarchal) values, owned it. Well, except for the vultures that now seem to be always watching the house. And Sam’s mom is different too—she’s anxious and jumpy, almost as if the ghost of Gran Mae is looking over her shoulder…As Sam tries to pinpoint a cause for her mother’s change in personality, she befriends the neighborhood handyman Phil, as well as Gayle, the nature-loving neighbor who was Gran Mae’s rival. As they help Sam try to learn the truth about her family, none of them suspects the terrible secrets overgrown by Gran Mae’s beloved rose bushes.

Having seen mixed reviews for A House With Good Bones ahead of reading it, I wasn’t sure what to expect. It turned out to be a very solid read. I really enjoyed Sam as a main character. A nerdy, plus-size protagonist who likes pineapple on pizza is all right with me. The interesting facts about bugs, birds and roses that she drops throughout the narrative added a fascinating flavor to what is altogether a familiarly-structured haunted house/garden mystery.

The story wraps up cleanly, with no obvious dangling plot threads. Kingfisher does a great job sprinkling bits of information throughout the story and bringing them back later in satisfying ways—like Edie’s notes to herself, and the mentions of the underground children as boogeymen wielded by Gran Mae. The final part of the book where Sam and her party finally expose and are forced to deal with the thing that’s really haunting the house is genuinely creepy and unsettling in a way that I didn’t see coming.

A House With Good Bones does have some minor weaknesses. I didn’t love the fourth-wall breaking Sam occasionally engages in as the narrator—where she turns aside to the reader to say things like, “Don’t judge me,” or “I was under a lot of stress, okay?” I think perhaps this was meant to come off as self-consciousness, a humanizing character trait for Sam, but it was annoying enough to take me out of the story. Additionally, the process of Sam trying to learn the cause of her mom’s off-ness felt slightly drawn-out to me, though not to a point where I wanted to put the book down.

But there is so much to love about this book. The relationship between Sam and her mom is great—warm and companionable, with enough mother-daughter banter to keep it from being sickeningly sweet. It’s clear that part of their bond comes from the shared experience of each growing up in their own way under the iron fist of Gran Mae. And I really like the little touch of Sam finding a way to understand and empathize with her grandmother by the end. This is a novel that quietly says a whole lot about dealing with generational trauma, a theme that will resonate with basically anyone who’s ever had a family.

This novel of vultures, roses and ladybugs pulls the reader in with its Southern charm and good humor, and then gets under the skin with its creeping sense of dread as the situation at the Montgomery house slowly deteriorates. An easy four stars. This is my first T. Kingfisher novel, but I do forsee myself becoming a repeat customer.

Are you a T. Kingfisher/Ursula Vernon fan? What did you think of A House With Good Bones by T Kingfisher? What’s your FAVORITE haunted house book? Step into my comments and we’ll talk about it!

Review: 6 Amazon Original Creature Feature Novellas

08 Sunday Oct 2023

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At the end of September, Amazon released the Creature Feature Collection on its Kindle and Audible platforms. This assemblage of horror novellas features spine-chilling stories from six acclaimed best-selling authors, and they’re all free for Kindle Unlimited and Amazon Prime members. With their eye-catching covers and appealing price tag, of course I got my hands on them pretty much immediately. In this article, these six mini-books get six mini-reviews.

“It Waits in the Woods” by Josh Malerman

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️/5

I’m a sucker for a story about a girl alone in a forest, so this was the first of the Creature Feature Collection that I went for.

When Brenda hears a local legend about a faceless man inhabiting the national forest where her sister went missing, she thinks there may be more truth to the tale than the police believe. Could these rumors of a mournful hermit who won’t stop killing until he finds a new face really be based in reality? And more importantly, could they lead Brenda to her sister? With no one to trust but herself, Brenda ventures out into the forest alone to find out.

This story was my vibe through and through. Creepy shit in the woods is my jam, and I loved the urban legend and filmmaker aspects to this story as well. If you liked The Blair Witch Project, or Stephen King’s The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon, then chances are you’d be into this. I highly recommended the audiobook, Lauren Ezzo does an incredible job narrating. I would listen to this around a campfire.

“Ankle Snatcher” by Grady Hendrix

⭐️⭐️⭐️/5

Pretty much his whole life, Marcus has never gotten out of bed at night without turning on the lights. He knows it’s silly. Completely silly. But ever since his father claimed that Marcus’s mother was killed by a monster he called “the ankle snatcher,” Marcus can’t get the idea out of his head that something could reach out from the darkness beneath his bed and pull him under. Deep down he knows how ridiculous that superstition is. There’s no way the Ankle Snatcher can be real. Right?

Though “what if men who were convicted of murdering women were actually framed by the boogeyman” isn’t my favorite concept for a horror story, I can’t argue with the execution. This was well-paced and genuinely creepy. I enjoyed reading it even though it wasn’t my favorite of this collection.

“Best of Luck” by Jason Mott

⭐⭐⭐⭐/5

When Barry’s best friend Will shows up brandishing a shotgun, Barry isn’t quite sure what to do. He knows Will has had a rough few years, and perhaps it’s natural for Will to want to lash out at his friend whose life has been so good in comparison. But when Will starts talking about the voice in his head whispering that all his misfortune is Barry’s fault, Barry knows he’ll need to be very lucky indeed to get out of this situation.

For a story that’s basically just 30 pages of two dudes talking, “Best of Luck” was riveting. Mott does an incredible job keeping that string of tension pulled taut throughout the scene, so it’s impossible to look away. And I didn’t see the ending coming at all. To be honest, though, I didn’t find it very scary—it mostly just made me sad.

“Big Bad” by Chandler Baker

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️/5

As Rachel and Sam Strauss do their best to raise their two daughters in rural Oregon, tensions build between them. Rachel, a career academic, has been the main breadwinner for years and is always traveling to conferences, while Sam has put his career on the back burner to prioritize caring for their kids. Neither spouse is the person the other one fell in love with. When a stranger shows up at their front door one evening looking for a place to stay, Sam does his best to turn him away. He’s so sick of always having to be the bad guy.

I really, really liked “Big Bad.” The story is fairly short, but it packs in a lot of plot. Shifting viewpoints keep the reader guessing as to what secrets the characters could be hiding, and the twists and turns subvert any expectations that may develop in the first few pages. Each member of the family has their own unique perspective and voice, yet the story keeps a consistent tone and level of suspense throughout. This is the first thing I’ve read by Chandler Baker, and I’m really excited now to check out more of her work.

“In Bloom” by Paul Tremblay

⭐️⭐️/5

When Heidi travels to Cape Cod to do research for a story about the noxious algae blooms taking over local waterways in the face of record-high summer temps, she’s not prepared for the story that her interview subject, Jimmy Lang, tells her. He was just a kid the last time something like this happened, but he was there, and he remembers. Heidi knows that these blooms can cause serious side effects like skin rashes and hallucinations, so that must have effected what Jimmy thinks he saw. After all, at the end of the day it’s just algae.

There were many good things about “In Bloom.” I liked the big Jaws vibes of a New England tourist town on the brink of a summertime disaster. I liked the flashback sequence of Jimmy’s story and his account of the years-ago disaster, of which no one else seems to have the same memory. I liked the idea of a climate change horror. However, the story ends just when it seems that all this setup is about to go somewhere. “In Bloom” is like a trip to an amusement park where you just drive around the block looking at the rides, think about parking and going in, then drive home instead and try to convince yourself you had a fun time.

“The Pram” by Joe Hill

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️💫/5

Following the miscarriage that derailed their happy-family plans, Willy and Marianne leave their Brooklyn apartment for a charming old home in rural Maine. They hope the change of scenery and lifestyle will help them heal. The surrounding land is so lovely, and the nearby general store so quaint. When Willy borrows an old pram to wheel his groceries home, he imagines what it would feel like to be a father out for a walk with his child. In fact he can almost hear the baby cooing. But there’s no way he can just wish a baby into existence. That’s impossible…isn’t it?

“The Pram” has this slow creep of unease that is deliciously haunting. The aesthetic of the house in the forest and the quaint town with its weird technophobic blood cult is perfect, and made me wish that this was a full-length novel. The grief that Marianne and Willy deal with over the loss of their baby felt very genuine, and it’s easy to root for them to succeed in their new home (even though this is a horror story and you know they’re doomed).

The one thing that took me out of this story, though, was near the end. The main character is having his inner monologue of terror, and blatantly spells out the supernatural thing that is implied by the text and the plot like it’s a completely normal conclusion to jump to. Subtlety isn’t required for me to enjoy a story, but in my opinion the lack of it here takes away from what is otherwise a good resolution to this stunning novella. That’s a pretty minor gripe, though. At the end of the day, I did enjoy “The Pram” very much and see myself revisiting this story when I need a quick, devastatingly spooky read.

What are your thoughts on these Creature Feature Collection novellas? Did you experience them in e-book or audiobook format? Get to the comments and tell me about your experience.

Review: The Butcher and the Wren by Alaina Urquhart

01 Sunday Oct 2023

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Rating: ⭐⭐⭐

I have not listened to the podcast Morbid, although I am no stranger to the true crime podcast genre. When I heard that this novel, The Butcher and the Wren, had been written by Alaina Urquhart, and that she was the co-host of Morbid by night and an autopsy technician by day, that sounded like exactly the type of book I’d be into.

I wanted to like The Butcher and the Wren. It has many of my main pop culture food groups: crime scene investigation, a serial killer, and a strong connection to a true crime podcast. However, there are two major blows that, for me, have rendered this novel incapacitated and ineffective.

In the humid haze of a New Orleans summer Dr. Wren Muller, medical examiner for the NOPD, hunts a brutal serial murderer who tortures his victims before dumping them in public locations. The only clues are those the killer wants them to find: taunting scraps of cryptic information, and a grimy coating of Louisiana swamp muck. Meanwhile, sadistic psychopath Jeremy stalks his classmate Emily, learning her habits so that he can kidnap her and hunt her for sport. As Wren pursues justice for Jeremy’s victims, it begins to feel like the murderer is speaking to her directly. What connection could Wren possibly share with this vicious butcher?

The Butcher and the Wren is beautifully paced. Short chapters, alternating in viewpoint between Jeremy and Wren, keep the action moving right along. I listened to the audiobook version of this (shoutout to narrators Sophie Amoss and Joe Knezevich for a great read) and finished it in less than a day.

The scenes where Wren and the police are investigating the crime scenes are the reason to keep reading. Urquhart does a great job showing off her knowledge of the autopsy table, while still keeping things accessible to readers who may not be familiar with true crime or crime fiction. There is enough forensic detail to be fascinating, but not so much that it threatens to steal the spotlight from the plot.

Unfortunately, from an understandable desire to create a serial killer who doesn’t come off as an antihero, Urquhart makes Jeremy so unlikeable that I couldn’t wait for the book to be over. There is this (rightfully held) mantra in the true crime podcast world that Serial Killers Are Not To Be Admired. There is a line between fascination and exaltation that needs to be held. But in attempting to hold her fictional character to this standard and making him purposely unlikeable, I feel like Urquhart kneecapped her own novel. Jeremy is too whiny to be remotely charming, too arrogant to be pitiful, and too incompetent to be a genius. There’s no way to even kind of root for him, which makes this novel far less interesting as a cat-and-mouse game between fugitive and investigator.

Then, The Butcher and the Wren ends so abruptly. Immediately upon finishing, I intended to give it a two-star rating. I got to the acknowledgments and shouted out loud, “That’s IT?!?!” I felt very let down and like I had wasted my time. But after giving myself time to think about the story, I realized that it had at least hooked me enough to get me upset that there wasn’t more of it. That deserves a little consideration.

Because, at the end of the day, this book does do some things well. This book made me double-check that all my doors and windows were locked before I went to bed at night. And the detailed chapters from the point of view of our morgue-dwelling protagonist were good enough that they made spending every other chapter with Jeremy almost bearable. I think his unlikability may not have bothered me as much if there had been less Jeremy and more Wren.

The Butcher and the Wren gets three stars from me. It’s not terrible for a debut novel. However, too much time spent with an unlikable POV character, and an ending that doesn’t really resolve much of anything meant that it just didn’t hit for me. It seems like this is supposed to be the first book in a series, which is bold for a first-time author. I think Urquhart can become a good writer if she sticks with it. I don’t think, though, that I liked Wren and Jeremy enough to pick up another book about them.

Are you a fan of Morbid? What did you think of The Butcher and the Wren? Leave a comment so we can chat about it!

Review: Clytemnestra by Costanza Casati

24 Sunday Sep 2023

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Rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

Having recently been on a Greco-Roman mythology kick, I didn’t procrastinate long before getting myself on the library waitlist for Clytemnestra. I’ve read several modern interpretations of Greek myths in the past year, so I could hardly wait to dive into another retelling. This book, a new novel from Texas-born classical scholar Costanza Casati, did not disappoint.

Clytemnestra by Costanza Casati is a retelling of the legend of the titular Mycenean queen, the wife and murderer of King Agamemnon following the Trojan war. The story follows Clytemnestra from her youth as a clever and formidable princess of Sparta, through her transition to family life, and into a world of betrayal and revenge which she must navigate. If you think you know how her story ends, think again.

Clytemnestra is set up from the get-go as a strong and imposing character. As the eldest daughter of a Spartan king, she is raised to be tough and cunning. But it’s her own natural fierceness that makes her stand out as a captial-Q Queen. Her very first scene has her tracking and conquering a lynx, seemingly because she enjoys it, or at the very least wants to impress her parents.

I would pledge myself in a heartbeat to die in battle for Clytemnestra. I applaud Casati’s ability to build a lead character who felt at once legendary and also extremely human. Clytemnestra is all but unmatched in her ability to fight and politically maneuver. She never comes across as too perfect, though—she sometimes fails, treats allies poorly, or is tricked. This fallibility makes her more relatable. She feels like a real queen who lived, not just a distant figure from myth.

But as stunning as Clytemnestra is as a main character, what really shines in this work is how Casati highlights the relationships between the many female characters. They are rich and complex, evolving as the plot progresses—the sisterly connections in particular. Love, trust, resentment, jealousy, loyalty, animosity—the full spectrum of feelings women can have for one another other throughout their lives is on display here. This is mostly because of Casati’s deftness at differentiating this cast of characters. There are so many of them, yet each (the men, too) stands out as their own individual.

My only slight gripe with Clytemnestra is that I felt the point of the book was a little too spelled-out at the very end. It didn’t ruin the book for me, but it did stick out as unnecessary—like maybe Casati wasn’t quite sure how to punctuate the narrative.

Overall, though, this is a beautifully crafted book, and I love this modernized interpretation of Clytemnestra. Casati has blessed her with a sense of justice as well as a dark side. Although I knew the ending, I was on the edge of my seat waiting to see what the Queen would do next. This is the sort of main character I’m here for.

I can’t conceive of giving Clytemnestra anything less than a five-star rating. I was absolutely riveted by it—by her—to the point of making excuses to ditch out on social activities so I could finish this book. She has been a larger-than-life figure for centuries, and while I have seen her character in other literature, I know that this is the version that will live on in my mind as the “real” Clytemnestra.

Shoutout to Olivia Vinall who narrated the audiobook version of Clytemnestra. What a superb reading.

If you agree that Clytemnestra by Costanza Casati was a stunner and want more of this sort of thing, consider these fine books:

–Lore Olympus by Rachel Smythe
This gorgeous web comic is a modern retelling of the story of Persephone and Hades. As of now (September 2023) it is ongoing. Read it for free on Web Toon, or get your hands on the graphic novel adaptation.

–A Thousand Ships by Natalie Haynes
From award-winning author, comedian and journalist Natalie Haynes, this is the story of Troy told by the women who were there (except for HELEN because REASONS). Put your library card to good use for this one—check it out or place a hold on the Libby app.

–Mythos by Stephen Fry
Legendary comedian and storyteller Stephen Fry lovingly penned this engaging and humorous crash course on the Greco-Roman pantheon. It’s also available through Libby.

How would you rate Clytemnestra? What are your recommendations for modern adaptations of ancient myths? Holler at me in the comments or on Bookstagram!

Review: Nightbitch by Rachel Yoder

17 Sunday Sep 2023

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Rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐

I first heard about Nightbitch on a podcast, though I don’t remember which one. All I know is that it was a short read about a woman who turns into a dog. Something about that concept really got its fangs into me that day. So I stuck it on my TBR and checked it out from the library app Libby when it came up in my queue recently.

I thought that Nightbitch would be a werewolf story, or maybe something about a raw-meat-eating superhero. It is not either of those things. Nightbitch is part feminist metaphor, part cryptid. I love all of her.

In Rachel Yoder’s 2021 debut novel Nightbitch, a mother is at her wits’ end. With her husband always traveling for work, and no friends to speak of except for the picture-perfect mommies she usually avoids at the park and library, she finds herself overwhelmed by the seemingly endless demands of motherhood. She feels taunted by futile dreams of a good night’s sleep and memories of her art world career that she gave up for…well, this. But one day, something changes. Suddenly she’s not just a mother. She’s something more. Maybe it has something to do with the new patches of hair growing on her feet and the back of her neck, the fanglike sharpness to her teeth, this inexplicable craving for bloody meat. And from amongst all these canine trappings comes an inner voice telling her to break free. Where does this new version of herself, this Nightbitch, fit into an increasingly demanding world of contemporary mommyhood?

Some of the tropes in this book:
Workaholic Husband
Unnamed Protagonist
Modern Fairytale
Burnt Out Mom
Transformation
My Instincts are Showing

I loved the honesty and vulnerability in this story. I loved how parts of it are so beautiful, while other parts are quite graphic. I loved the way it rips on MLMs while being compassionate to the women in them, and how relatable it is overall. And then on top of all that, the thing has this fairytale cadence that ends up being charming once you get used to it—I initially didn’t care for an unnamed main character and the omission of quotation marks, but it stopped bothering me pretty quickly once I was hooked by the story.

The mother/Nightbitch as a character was a treat to read. She is sympathetic and flawed, and it’s impossible to resist rooting for her even during parts when her shapeshifting causes her to make poor decisions. She feels like a fully-realized person and it’s easy to become immersed in her tale.

There are many plot threads that I wish received a little more attention—little interesting tidbits that always seem like they could be something and then never really get there. I’m talking about things like the true identity of Wanda White, or what the deal is with those three dogs that keep showing up, or what happens to the mom who disappears into the cornfield during the MLM party. Even the whole arc with her husband being away and distant all the time gets resolved rather ambiguously. These are all tantalizing trails I hoped the plot would follow through with, but Yoder abandons them in favor of long, florid lists of things Nightbitch has to do or wishes she could be doing. In this, I think this book must be trying to evoke authentic feelings of being a mother—you can’t just live your life and follow the interesting plot threads, there is annoying shit here that needs your attention.

By the way, if you are bothered by violence toward animals, skip this book. It’s not a huge part of the story, but Nightbitch definitely does rip apart some small cute animals like a dog would do. There is one particular scene in which the killing is described in graphic, visceral detail.

I also wondered: Where are Nightbitch’s neighbors during all the events of this book? They never seem to be around while she’s being undressed by a pack of free-roaming dogs, running around the neighborhood naked on all fours, or hunting down and killing small urban mammals with her bare hands. That right there is the most fairytale thing about this story: surely someone would have called the cops.

Complaints aside, though, I see Nightbitch sticking with me. I’m sure I’ll be re-reading it in the future. There is something comforting in the humanity and triumph of Nightbitch herself. By becoming doglike, she throws off the shackling expectations of society and the patriarchy. She gains a confidence in her feminine instincts and discovers mom nirvana through embracing her canine side. The whole metaphor is pretty unsubtle, which seems to be a sticking point with some critics of this book. However, subtlety isn’t always necessary to an effective metaphor, and this one did the job for me.

Rachel Yoder’s Nightbitch gets a 4 star rating from me. While I think the plot could have been meatier, I really really liked it as a work of great humor and emotional vulnerability. Any woman, and especially any mother, will be hard-pressed to not see herself somewhere in this modern fairytale.