Lori

From the start, the writing pulled me into the story. It is a typical story of opening your perspective and acceptance. You know what will happen in this story but the writing is good at being light-hearted and easy to understand. I had to look up the age range for this book as it does talk down. I really thought this book was for elementary school kids but it's listed as a young adult novel.

The story itself was ok and reminded me of The Very Secret Society of Irregular Witches - Sangu Mandanna. Although I did like that book better as it had better characters and did a little more with the story. The story brings up serious subjects like child abuse and children being taken from their homes. It is understood that this is not to be accepted but it only focuses on a small group of kids when it mentions multiple cases.

The idea of the book was particularly good, but the execution was a letdown. It started well with a good sense of mystery and creepy vibes. From there the constant altering of writing style was irritating. The screenplay setup is slow to get through and makes it hard to get into the story. Even without this, there is no character depth, and the story has been stretched out too far.

The plot description sounded like this could be a bit of a psychological thriller. I can see that that was what the author was going for, but that is far from what we got. The “movie” part is a pretentious art-house horror project done by kids. This often makes the characters unlikeable. Because of this, the drive of mystery is lost the farther you go into the story as you simply seem to care less about what happens.

The ending was anti-climatic after such a long setup. It mentions that each of the kids who worked on the horror movie all died. I thought it would be related to making the film, but they died quite ordinarily years after the filming. For such a promising idea I was disappointed after finishing this.

So cute! The drawing style is so cute, and I love the colour choices they made for the book. The book on the other hand was just as good. This is a young adult read and I would have loved this when I was a teen.

It’s a light easy read that radiates comfort. The witchcraft in the book is charming and friendly. I just wish this were longer. I feel like there could have been more to explore about the characters. It's worth the read and one I would look at again.

After finishing The Haunting of Hill House I wanted to read more by this author and this was a good book to follow up with. This one was less about horror and more character-driven. It's still good in its way. It's more of a weird story than anything else. Think a little about the film Corpse Bride. Not scary but eclectic.

The writing is just as good as the other book I read. You could say there’s not much of a point to this story but it's still interesting learning more about the family. Not what I was expecting but I liked it anyway.

I could not believe how good this book is. The characters are beautifully written out and the interactions between them feel real. The start of the book was interesting in that it was about a scientist trying to study the paranormal. From there we learn more about the other characters brought to the house to learn about the house itself.

The character-building is what makes this book so great. Each are real with their own motivations. Dialog didn’t feel forced, and characters were driven seemingly by themselves. The slow change from scientific to paranormal was breathtakingly well done. This slow change felt natural and horrifying.

This was such a great read that I only wish I read it sooner.

The writing in this book is very good but the overall story is a little disappointing. I picked this book up since I loved the author's other book Lula Dean's Little Library of Banned Books. But this is quite different.

This book focused too much on hating men but at the same time, I liked how the author showed examples of how men are either placed over or take advantage of women. It's nice to have a female revenge fantasy but it's not great to have a hate on every man's story. This book walked a line and constantly fell to one side taking away from the main story that I came to read. If it pulled back from man blaming and hating the story could have been better.

As for the main story I wished they would focus on helping more ghosts get their revenge. That’s the book I came for. What we got was much slower-paced and not too much of a mystery. Although I loved Harriet. You go you badass! She is by far the best character, and I could have

read an entire novel about her alone. She had the best transformation into female power and the best lines. Honestly, by the end of the book I wanted to be her.

I enjoyed the writing and most of the story but wish it was better on some of its more serous subjects.

I was so thoroughly disappointed with this book. All the stories fell flat, and the writing was just horrible. Each story felt like a first draft making it confusing and quite annoying to get through. Often at points in the stories, I forgot why I was even reading about this or that. The characters are all flat to the point it feels like there are no emotions in this book. We were told how the characters felt but that’s not enough.

The story which is the main title of the book was probably the best of the stories. Even then the jump from somewhat eloquent letters to short DMs was jarring. The wording used was often cringy. The relationship has no build-up and is a straight-to-bastardized version of a BDSM connection. It was less BDSM and more punishment for no reason. I did like the line what have you done today to deserve your eyes. However, the impact of this is lost due to the lack of build-up or real human emotions.

This book was not worth reading though with each story getting worse.

This book doesn’t contain gore, there’s no animalistic monster, and for the most part, there isn’t much violence, but man does it scare me. The horror of this is creeping and is a notable example of show don’t tell. It's all the little things that build up that makes this so good. How could you force an entire town to give up their possessions? I now know and believe it could happen the way it did in the book.

As I read through this, I kept thinking come on fight back. This goes on for most of the book amplifying the feeling of helplessness the characters feel. It got to the point I wanted to put the book down, but the story was so good that I couldn’t. Which was a good thing, as after finishing the book I couldn’t stop thinking about it.

I wish there could have been more books by this author. It’s such a good book I went out and bought it afterward.

I had heard the name Harlan Ellison but knew nothing about him. I don’t even have a clue where I heard it from. In any case, I am happy that a faint remembrance of this name made me pick up the book. I love the somewhat out their stories that are tinged with a sort of manic humour.

Some of these stories are instant classics to me now. I will say that the stories are defiantly dated but not so much as to make them unreadable. The way the author writes makes me think of an uncle who’s had a little too much to drink and is telling you a story. He’s a little loud and slightly politically incorrect, but they’re fun to hear anyway.

A few standouts to me were I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream, Jeffty Is Five, Mefisto in Onyx, Paladin of the Last Hour, and Shatterday.

I really enjoyed this book. I thought this would be a mannequin slasher but that’s not really what it is. I was a little disappointed about that, but the rest of the book made up for it.

The narration is great as you get to understand the main character and even with some of the wrong things he does you can’t help but want to see this through with him. It had all the right vibes and was a great read after some of the other disappointing books I have read this season.

This book was not what I was expecting but was a great surprise. I already have another of this author’s books on hold.

This was not a good book. It had a great idea for a horror story and that’s why I read the book in the first place but after finishing I wished I could take it back. The characters are simply the worst. There are none that you would root for in this book.

Their dialogue makes you hate them, and the book is mostly filled with it. You have to constantly deal with over-worded descriptions that sometimes leave you with no clue as to what the thing being described looks like. Even then there were so many stupid jokes in the book like all the characters are pretentious recent graduates who have to outwit each other.

Lastly, the horror element of this book falls flat as you are too confused to be scared, and I found myself hoping all the characters die.

This book does much better in delivering the description of the plot than the last book (Horror Movie) that I read from this author. At that same time, I thought this would be a horror novel with scares in it, but this is not a scary book.

I loved the idea of seeing behind one of those ghost hunters' shows and learning more about the impact on the families they film. That is exactly what this book was. But if a supposedly good horror novel is more focused on the family dynamic, then it should also be a good character-driven novel but that’s not what we get.

The characters are part of a typical religious family trying to make a buck on a reality show that exploits people. There is nothing new with this and I wish it were written with a little more tact. The recurring issue of guessing if the sister has an actual mental problem or not is worked on enough. This could have been a great element to the story but is more of a background issue only used at times to make us question the TV show.

Having read Horror Movie and this one I will say that both have a similar idea of seeing behind the scenes, but both fall short of their intentions. Horror Movie shows the author's growth with the quality of writing (dialogue and over all writing) and the ability to make the reader creeped out. On the other hand, both books show a lack of character development or interest that is crucial to character-driven plots.

From the start, the writing pulled me into the story. It is a typical story of opening your perspective and acceptance. You know what will happen in this story but the writing is good at being light-hearted and easy to understand. I had to look up the age range for this book as it does talk down. I really thought this book was for elementary school kids but it's listed as a young adult novel.

The story itself was ok and reminded me of The Very Secret Society of Irregular Witches - Sangu Mandanna. Although I did like that book better as it had better characters and did a little more with the story. The story brings up serious subjects like child abuse and children being taken from their homes. It is understood that this is not to be accepted but it only focuses on a small group of kids when it mentions multiple cases.

This sounded like a fun book so I thought why not. For the first quarter of the book, I genuinely forgot this book was supposed to contain terror as the name suggests. I was reading through this as a nice little cozy coffee shop book. The horror never really builds up, but it does have mostly non-graphic deaths in the book.

The first half of the book was a good build-up of the shop and characters. I didn’t like that the main character stays with the Finance Bro for so long but I did like that the MC learned more about the male lead before their romance starts. This was less romance and horror than I was expecting based on the description. There is also not much discussion about how the “killer(s)” chose victims and why it went on for so long.

I can’t help but like this book. It’s a nice cozy chosen family kind of book and just what I needed.

I enjoyed this book. It was a little different from what I thought it would be but that is not a bad thing in this case. The friend group is no longer together and what haunts them is a little different. But all this is what makes this book good. I think I am really getting into this author’s style of writing. The more I read, the more I like them.

The author does well at writing the inner rambling monologues people have. When this is added to the story, it does well at showing the unease the characters feel. Overall, the characters feel like real people full of confusion, stupid thoughts, and pop culture.

I will say that this book talks a lot about basketball. Parts are good for me, but it is a lot. The first half of the book is very good, but the second half is a little weird and a touch silly. The basketball game was just unnecessary. I do wish the book kept up the quality of the beginning. It would have made this a great book.

After reading The Haunting of Hill House I couldn’t stop thinking of the style of writing. It's slightly joking and darkly human. I loved the book so when I saw this one, I had to try it. Almost all of the stories in this collection are good but there are few standouts to me.

• Funeral Birds by M. Rickert
• For Sale by Owner by Elizabeth Hand
• In the Deep Woods; The Light is Different There by Seanan McGuire
• Money of the Dead by Karen Heuler
• Hag by Benjamin Percy
• Skinder's Veil by Kelly Link

The four bolded stories are my favourites of the standouts. Even if you aren’t interested in Jackson’s style these are worth the read. I am a little overloaded with book holds but when I am free again, I will definitely make the effort to find books by authors in this book.

I greatly enjoyed “I am Legend and other stories” and have been wanting to read more of Matheson’s works. This book was a good way to satisfy. There are some repeat stories in this one, but they are ones that I enjoyed reading again. Repeats I liked: Dress of White Silk, Dance of the Dead, and Prey.

Matheson is incredible at building short stories and many in this book prove that like Nightmare at 20,000 Feet, Blood Son, Long Distance Call, The Distributor, and Crickets. The build-up of something normal to something terrifying is something I love about all these stories. The two bolded stories are my favourites of the new stories I read. These two were to me the most intense that I could not put the book down until I finished them.

These are older stories and are dated in their views at times but not so much as to make you dislike the book. There are two exceptions to that The Likeness of Julie and The Children of Noah. For the children's story if they didn’t say the People are “bad” because of an indigenous mother it would have been a good story. Julie on the other hand was just awful. Rape and the victim bringing it upon herself should not be a plot point.