Esme

There is no plot. There are just a bunch of rich people behaving badly. They have no self-respect, no boundaries. They self-medicate by drinking 24-7. They dehumanize anyone they perceive as beneath them. The characters are well drawn but there are no character arcs and no reason to care about any of them. The prose is spare, and in a lot of places reads just like a bad diary entry listing all the things they did that day, but without giving any reason for listing them. I would have DNF'd except I read it with a book club.

Plenty scary!

Fascinating look at what happens to the property, owner, neighbors, and even city where an infamous crime occurs.

This 1919 adventure combines the adventure of H Rider Haggard and the horror of Lovecraft to create a fascinating story of an underground world where a plot is afoot to take over the outside world.

Wow. I love mountaineering books, especially about Mt. Everest, and this is a great one. Add a high altitude thriller plot line in the last quarter of the book, and this is a banger. Don't be confused. Dan Simmons is known for horror, but this book is not horror. It was not at all what I expected - it was so much more. If you love high altitude adventures, you'll enjoy this book.

These stories are delightfully creepy on their own, but read by Gaiman, who imbues them with warmth and subtle humor, well, they are outstanding. This is an anthology I will listen to over and over again. Amazing audiobook. Highly recommend.

This is not what I expected for my first book by Rushdie. It's funny and imaginative and delightful. It made me smile. It made me laugh. It made me chant along at parts. I think the best word for it is charming. It is charming.

There are no fairies and no prisoners in the conventional sense. This is a story about finding, losing, and then finding again beauty in the world. I adored this book.

What is a mother? This novelette explores the intersection between biology, care, and truth in a way that both disturbs and informs the reader.

There's nothing new here about Jonestown, but it's told from the POV of a Vietnam vet. It's interesting why/how he got involved and how he got out on that fatal day.

This book was published in 1990, but the audiobook version I listened to was recorded by Kingsolver herself in 2018. My initial reaction was that she should have gotten a professional narrator, but within the first hour, I changed my mind. Her voice in this story is so personal and she allows the emotion to come out in the narration. I felt it added an additional layer of meaning to the text, which is already a treasure. While I know that people are very focused on reading contemporary texts or older classic texts, don't sleep on this one. It is wonderful, gentle, and both sad and inspiring.

Four current authors talk about how one of the sisters has influenced their life and writing. Fascinating listening for fans of Little Women.

This is mission #3 in the Black Ocean series of Galaxy Outlaws. Short and fun, like all of them.

The is the origin story of Morgan le Fay, King Arthur's half-sister and a powerful magician. It's told in the first person by Morgan, which makes it an enthralling read. New book in the series coming in less than a month.

Vintage novelette from pulp publication Weird Tales. Mad scientist conducts occult experiments to create a comic book world. This is a parody of HG Wells' The Island of Dr. Moreau. It is, as expected quite deliciously over the top.

Will make your nerdy heart happy!

Excellent story

TW: murder of pregnant woman

Six generations of Romany women - the danger, the power, the relationships, the love, and the betrayal. Fascinating and entrancing.

It's hard to believe that this is a debut novel. I was captivated by worldbuilding and characters. I especially loved how what seemed like several separate stories all came together at the end in surprising ways.

I'm tired of haunted house books that focus on the house and the characters are just afraid. The thing that I love about this book is that it is a complex psychological portrait of a character, which includes more than just her reaction to the house. From the first that we meet her, Eleanor is a compelling character. What makes her fascinating is that you just can't quite figure out what is going on with her. And that makes the ending, although heavily foreshadowed, shocking.

The author called it a failed experiment. I agree. Beware of authors getting paid per word for serialization and pantsing it.

CW: use of the n word, use of blackface. Culturally acceptable when book was written, but it has aged badly.

Surprisingly wonderful! I usually don't like urban fantasy, but this mesmerized me.

Brilliant, inspiring, and bittersweet.

My audiobook isn't here and since I can't add it anymore, I just chose one at random.

Not a huge fan of this. It's standard old fashioned comedy of errors.