Christine

This seemed a fun, charming idea, but I was left to wonder more and more, “Who is this book for?” As a pretty die-hard Janeite, I found it became kind of dull, since it merely recycles plots from her various novels. Meanwhile, I think a newcomer might be puzzled and put off by the mismatch of Lizzie to the other plots.

After an early death that I found stupid, I did enjoy some of the alternate endings. Some are incredibly outlandish, but that's the intent. I particularly enjoyed seeing Fordyce's Sermons put to its best possible use!

Eventually I got a little impatient with the diversions into other novels, since it's obvious the “correct” answers follow the plot of Pride & Prejudice. Thank goodness I didn't bother trying to keep track of my various scores - it would have been tiresome and pointless. (Am I going to refrain from reading the alternative that doesn't match my score? Of course not.)

That said, if you like Austen and don't mind some silliness, this is worth checking out!

Sort of just a truckload of weird stories dumped in a pile, but done with such style that I thoroughly enjoyed it. This didn't have much of a throughline plot, but what there was intrigued me - I would like to know more since it wasn't remotely wrapped up in this volume.This is very reminiscent of David Wong/Jason Pargin's [b:John Dies at the End 1857440 John Dies at the End (John Dies at the End, #1) David Wong https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1189289716s/1857440.jpg 1858059] novels, and evidently it has a similar origin story - online tales connected and published as a book. I found Jack's stories less compelling than Dave & John's weird, gross, hilarious, and oddly philosophical romps, but they scratch the same itch. I'll definitely be tuning in to the YouTube stories to see what additional fun is in store!

This was a charming little amuse-bouche of a book. More like an expanded blog post than a substantial book, but still fun for any book aficionado. The audio version read by Bogel herself is lovely.

This is of course only a fragment, and would have been considerably more polished if Jane had been able to finish the novel. But even this proto-story has its charms. I was struck that Austen manages to address three issues of real import in our time: alt-med nonsense, gentrification, and the availability of health care! Oh, and one of the key players coming to town is a super-rich lady of mixed race, from the West Indies - it's so enticing to think what Austen would have made of her character.

This is all of course in the context of some lovable (and some not-so-lovable) characters behaving ridiculously. Mr. Parker is a gem, totally devoted to making Sanditon a hot resort town. I would have loved to see what Austen could do with that idea!

Shea does something truly extraordinary here - he faithfully recreates the outlines and the emotional impact of Lovecraft's mythos, but sheds the blue-blood New England setting and the upper class, educated white dude protagonists. You wouldn't think that homeless people, prostitutes, drug dealers, and alcoholics would be suitable as Lovecraftian heroes, but Shea makes it seem perfectly natural.

“Copping Squid” is the clear winner of all the stories. Creepy and otherwordly, while grounded and gritty. Loved it.

“Fat Face” is pretty effective too, although the reveal is unsurprising to any savvy mythos reader.

“Nemo Me Impune Lacessit” and “Dagoniad” are campy fun. I feel like Sam Raimi should adapt “Dagoniad” for film - the super gross-out horror melded with silly slapstick is just his thing.

The other stories range from OK to awful. “Under the Shelf” in particular squanders its strong opening in a laughably stupid climax and resolution.

Worth checking out if you're a Lovecraft fan! Though I did notice that my Kindle version had lots of misprints, unfortunately.

The only way I got through this was to have Vincent Price read it to me. I feel like this is for angsty teens. I'm 45 and by now I'm like, “Yep, we're all gonna die and it's meaningless. Anyone want waffles?”

This was reasonably entertaining. I guess it's from a series of short fiction, so maybe Demmer was working with an extreme word limit or something, but this seemed underdeveloped and a little abrupt. Still, the ideas had potential and the setting was suitably creepy.

The story is as captivating as ever, and the Audible version read by Rosamund Pike does it great justice. I'll probably listen to this again within a year!

Reading this book is like being cornered at a cocktail party by someone who's self-absorbed and not-overly-bright, while they explain psychology by massively oversharing their own experiences.

This gets two stars from me because it does have a few lessons about cognitive behavioral therapy that could help a reader who is totally unfamiliar with that approach. However, there are manymanymany better resources on the subject (I'm putting a couple links at the end of this review).

Maybe Brown's style will work for some people, but she came off rather unprofessional and self-centered to me. For every useful sentence about human psychology, there are paragraphs of personal anecdotes from Brown's own life. There are also quite a few name-drops and sales pitches related to her coaching business.

I also found it off-putting that she starts off by explicitly rejecting the scientific method, calling her approach “qualitative research” or something. Basically that means she cobbled together preexisting ideas from philosophy and actual science, did a bunch of interviews, and pulled common threads to write about. And of course instead of citations, she has famous quotations - everything from Walt Whitman to the movie Gremlins (?).

Overall, this comes off feeling really padded and contrived to me. My advice is skip the tome and look up a summary if you're interested.

https://psychcentral.com/lib/15-common-cognitive-distortions/
https://positivepsychologyprogram.com/cbt-cognitive-behavioral-therapy-techniques-worksheets/

What would happen if Cli-fi and Solarpunk had a baby, which was then raised by Police Procedural?

That's the best way I can describe Bannerless. I was looking for something about a climate apocalypse that wasn't too depressing, and miraculously this presented itself. It's soon enough after The Fall to have compelling pathos, but long enough after to be optimistic. And the driving force of the story is a murder mystery pursued by the protagonist, a woman who fulfills the role of a federal agent in the new world.

That world is a weird blend of pre-industrial society and carefully curated digital-age know-how. Bards can make a living hoofing it from town to town, but Investigators can use a solar car to get to a crime scene. Villages are filled with the sounds of working looms and clucking chickens, while scientists carefully preserve the ability to make rudimentary antibiotics and antiseptics.

Oh, and birth control implants. Central to this story is the cultural practice of obligatory birth control, with households (extended families, not just couples anymore) able to earn a “banner” signifying their right to bear a child. Everyone is highly conscious of human interdependence and wary of imposing too much resource strain.

(I'm not sure I entirely buy that this would be a useful survival strategy, but hey, all bets are off when technology mostly lines up with Jane Austen while mores and knowledge are post 2010s, right?)

I found Enid a compelling character - I got invested in her relationships, her devotion to her job, and even her coming-of-age backstory (not usually my thing). The mystery pulled me along nicely while allowing glimpses of the world to add up to a coherent picture of the post-Fall world.

For people who enjoy memoirs, I think this would be more of a 4-star book. Memoirs are not really my thing, but I wanted to check this out because I love Nick and Megan as performers so much, and I adored their live show, “Summer of 69 (No Apostrophe).”

This was cute and enjoyable and definitely made me laugh out loud more than once. Sometimes it did just feel like a couple sitting together remembering anecdotes, but what more entertaining couple could you pick? Not everything was hilarious and riveting, but it was sweet and fun.

There's an extra “secret chapter” at the end about their likes and dislikes which didn't seem really promising - it drags a bit and isn't particularly original. But stick around for the part where they discuss (how do I phrase this with no spoilers) a memorable movie scene that stars a prominent member of the Lord of the Rings cast.

I was going to give this 4 stars for compulsiveness of reading, but had to deduct for a couple significant problems:

1.) the constant irritation of poor writing/editing (uncounted dangling participles, and dumb stuff like “Sutcliffe and Pettigrew laughing uproariously with a drink in their hand.” Really? They have a single drink in their somehow common hand? Or “He frowns, smiling a little,” or the occasional slips from present tense narration. Come on, guys.)

2.) Turton wants you to know that fat people are so totally gross, y'all. GROSS! Don't get him started on old people - yech! (And yes arguably these are prejudices of the narrator, that Turton presents as a growth experience for him when he appreciates the hosts' good points. But it's over the top.)

3.) no spoilers, but the utter failure of the framing story when subjected to the slightest analysis. It's very, very clear that Turton thought “wouldn't it be cool to write an Agatha Christie/Quantum Leap/Memento mashup?” and then struggled to come up with a justification for why Aiden is in that position. I can't even call it Fridge Logic because it bothered me even as I was reading - the minute you think about the supposed explanation of this setup, you hit a bunch of unanswered, “But why would he . . . ?” “HOW did they . . .?” “Wait, how does X indicate Y?” type questions.

THAT SAID, go ahead and read this with the expectation that it's a fun ride, it doesn't have a real satisfying meta-explanation, but Turton did a lot of amazing work weaving and keeping track of threads, crafting characters, and making you desperate to know what happens next.

I often have insomnia around 3am, and will read my Kindle in bed while I wait for sleepiness to return. Last night I took the opportunity to read The Visible Filth.I do not recommend reading the novella in this manner.Or maybe I do, because it certainly primed my brain for this creepy, disturbing tale. I often appreciate weird fiction at an intellectual, rather than emotional, level, but this reached right into my lizard brain and pushed all the “dread” buttons. There was one refuge within the story that kept me from hiding it until sunrise - I really disliked the protagonist, and didn't relate to him much. I think this is a feature, not a bug - fully intended by Ballingrud to allow readers enough space to break the tension . . . then allow it to build again. Will is shallow and selfish, and his life is a million miles from my happy suburban existence. At one point, he practically breaks the fourth wall: “He imagined himself observed and understood by an invisible witness. Would there be room for sympathy? Or would he be damned by it?” For me, the answer was “a little of each.” Will isn't sympathetic overall, but his foibles are so very empathetically human, we can relate to his individual temptations and failures, even if we judge their ultimate accumulation.Enough about Will - you want to know why this scared me, right? The core is that perennial human weakness - the temptation to Look. From Lot's wife and Orpheus right on through Bird Box, this unsettling compulsion to examine forbidden, horrible things resonates throughout human storytelling. (A pause here to recognize the homage to [b:The King in Yellow 32277642 The King in Yellow Robert W. Chambers https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1475221812s/32277642.jpg 52901661], where characters are tempted to read a notorious banned play, despite their knowledge that it drives readers mad. I'm sure the cell phone is yellow for a reason; and what's a better Millennial analog to such a play than the Deep Web?)Ballingrud presents the common experience of this temptation with the perfect blend of implication and disclosure. The characters wonder and investigate, and we get some revelation, but nothing that comfortably reduces the horror to a manageable set of rules. If you hate ambiguity in your horror, this probably isn't for you. But if you agree with Stephen King that Nothing is so frightening as what's behind the closed door. . . . , come right in and make yourself comfortable - I have some insomnia to share with you.

I'm so glad I found this gem! I was looking for a novel based on a true story for my 2019 reading challenge, and I wanted something that dovetails with my tastes. A few Google searches later, and I discovered a strange and darkly humorous take on the origins of the Winchester Mystery House. It's full of weird and eerie characters from the fringes of society, a peek at the underbelly of a wealthy household, plentiful ghosts, curses (accidental and deliberate), sentient buildings, mediums, theater folk, and a determined patent medicine showman.

Templeton really goes for it, using unconventional characters, unexpected plot turns, distinctive language, and gallows humor to tell a fantastical story that may be more true to Sarah Winchester than the common accounts of her. She's also not afraid to engage some real pathos, violence, and disturbing ideas. The haunting of Sarah isn't scary in the traditional ghost story sense, but horrifying in a very sad and affecting way.

But the real driver of the story is the unforgettable Hester Garlan. She's beautiful, clever, resourceful, and an absolute psychopath. I would hate to meet her, but I adored reading about her. (In my headcanon she's portrayed by Helena Bonham Carter with the perfect mix of beauty and dangerous insanity.)

We know all along that the main characters will come together somehow, but there are twists and turns along the way. Sometimes people sit out much of the action, only to pop in for the climax, and people who seem to be done for may actually have plenty of life left in them, while some who die of course stick around and participate anyway. It was fun seeing all the threads develop and come together.

This was a fine, fluffy read. (Well, fluffy by my standards - so plenty of murder and horror, just not very deep or artistic writing.)There were some good spooky set pieces, but ultimately I found Coates undermined any true horror or creepiness by making everything thoroughly explained and understood - more like Buffy or Supernatural (though lacking the snarky humor) than [b:The Woman in Black 37034 The Woman in Black Susan Hill https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1327869942s/37034.jpg 2127172], [b:Dark Matter 8350864 Dark Matter Michelle Paver https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1504563569s/8350864.jpg 13203928], or [b:Ghost Stories of an Antiquary 1556093 Ghost Stories of an Antiquary M.R. James https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1344670655s/1556093.jpg 823071]. Early on, we have ghost experts infodumping the different types of ghosts, their abilities, and what to do about them. I prefer my hauntings more mysterious and unnerving.The ending is improbable (and retroactively lowers the stakes bigtime), and the romance is pretty half-baked, but still this was a serviceable diversion. Some of the characters are memorable and fun, and there were enough twists & turns to keep it intriguing. Good airplane read!

This was surprisingly fresh and modern, considering it was published in 1912! It was delightful seeing the world through Judy's eyes, and she often made me laugh out loud. Her musings are also chock full of quotable lines.

I didn't love the ending - there's definitely a problematic element from a modern point of view - but I can take it in the context of the time & place. Still, I prefer my headcanon, where Daddy Long Legs is actually a fictional person made up by a time-traveling future Judy, who has to do some Back to the Future-style manipulation to wind up as an educated, working author who's married to the love of her life.

On re-read, this is less a mystery and more a fun, weird story. Knowing more (but certainly not all!) about what's going on adds a layer to the reading, which was gratifying.

Even though I wind up skimming the ins-and-outs of the code breaking, I really enjoyed watching A., Niamh, and Help navigate the spooky house, make parts of it their own, and pursue Ambrose's mysteries.

The conclusion offers enough closure, while also leaving enough questions and potential territory that I crave further stories (short stories would fit well) in this universe.

DNF. We just got the Bertha reveal, and there's still SEVEN HOURS of book left? I'm done.

This doesn't even have a plot - it's a stultifying series of events that occasionally runs across a brief plot, then moves on to resume a mere catalog of experiences by the protagonist, most of them ridiculously dolorous, and told in the most verbose and moralizing way possible. How did I manage to read this in junior high?

Thandie Newton does a lovely job, but cannot save this.

(For the record, I understand the important influence of this book in western literature - hence the second star. It can be revolutionary and influential without actually being, you know, good.)

Still delightful, as the rest of the series is. But I miss ART!

Murderbot is the lovable, cynical, introverted killing machine you didn't know you needed in your life! This is a snappy adventure story with a surprising amount of heart.

WARNING: the series is addictive, delivering a short, discrete story arc in each volume, with Murderbot's personal story serving as the connecting thread across books. I can't stop buying and obsessively reading them!

This was all right. Some issues were very entertaining, others not so much. And I may be dense, but I didn't really get what was going on. There wan't a resolution to all the threads that made sense to me. But it was a fun ride, and the art is great. The humor sprinkled throughout is entertaining as well.

This is a snappy, intriguing plot idea that gets bogged down by its excessive length. If you're going to write a supernatural thriller that borrows heavily from everything from Jekyll & Hyde to Rose Madder, keep it moving. And above all else, don't frustrate your readers with e-x-t-e-n-s-i-v-e inner monologues where the characters mull over their own cluelessness. About five minutes after Jinx was introduced, we all saw where this was going - skip to the further developments!I actually liked the development of Beth's character in many ways (the idea that umpteen iterations of being murdered would make you wiser and craftier, but also violent and psychopathic, the interesting take on Capgras syndrome), but she became increasingly stupid in a way that undermined suspension of disbelief. I guess some of it can be played off by her literal and figurative intoxication with having a body again, but I found it real hard to swallow her blunders like extensively keying a car *after observing there are security cameras,* keeping souvenirs of a killing and then *using the victim's cell phone from her own house,* and the cockamamie plot of the climax, which hangs together as well as the Underpants Gnomes' strategic vision statement.On top of that, Liz is such a dumb useless doormat I found myself rooting for the bad guys a couple times!To sum up: there's a very fine line between characters with Fatal Flaws and an Idiot Plot.Also, the incessant Britishisms are sloppy and distracting. “Washing up” instead of “doing the dishes,” “lounge” for “living room,” slight variations on prepositional phrases that jump out as stilted in ostensibly Pittsburghian mouths - it goes to show that “write what you know” is a cliche for a reason.Despite these irritants, I did find the story and some of the characters enticing. I wanted to know what happened next. And to be honest, I'm probably being extra harsh because this is [a:Mike Carey 9018 Mike Carey https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1334894864p2/9018.jpg], who can do SO much better than this!

Just disturbing enough to be intriguing without being too relentlessly dark. The characters are richly drawn and weirdly sympathetic, and the setting is really interesting - the titular sisters are from a once-wealthy family in Lagos, now running lower on funds, but still living in their fancy (if rundown) compound and still experiencing echoes of their former life when their father was alive.

I actually listened to the Audible version, and I wasn't thrilled with the reader. Despite her facility with accents and dialects, she winds up choosing weird, jarring emphasis and pacing often enough that it was distracting.

I could not put this down. I literally spent all day on 12/30 just reading this. 400+ pages in one day, because I couldn't bear to part with it (thank you, Xmas/NYE vacation for giving me the slack to do it!).

This is hard to describe, and I want to avoid spoilers. I can say that it starts in a Dickensian setting, has a Gothic, crumbling mansion, a Victorian madhouse, a love story, and plenty of twists & turns. Even when I kind of knew where it was going, it was thrilling to see things play out! Sometimes it dealt with some disturbing content (child abuse, conditions in the asylum, etc.), but it was worth toughing it out!

Overall, it was an extremely satisfying read, Sarah Waters is a genius, and I can't wait to read her other stuff.

(Also, I had the lovely surprise of thinking, “Man, they need to make a movie of this,” only to find it has been adapted TWICE - a BBC miniseries and a Korean film by Park Chan-wook!)

Madeline Miller has such a way with language. She makes epic legends both true to their roots, and completely accessible for a modern audience. Part of that is due to the intensely personal connections she draws within these stories. Coming to care about a character, then watching him grow up and fall deeply in love, then seeing the horrible challenges the world sends against that love - it connects much more viscerally than Homer does.

Ultimately this didn't reach 5 stars from me because I wasn't always keen to see what happens next. I guess that's due to a prophecy that comes out about halfway through, and on a meta level because I know the story of the fall of Troy. When I read Circe, I knew the beats from the Odyssey, but there was still a lot of mystery about where the story would go from there. Here, we all know pretty much what's going to happen.

I will say though, that Miller uses a pitch-perfect technique to tie the story together at the end, and I can't deny getting a little weepy (in a good way) at the very end.