Sam

This was the first Dean Koonst novel I have ever picked up. And it wasn't necessarily by choice. I forgot my nook at home and had to go to school right after work, and this was the only novel out of the dozen granny candy novels on the shelf that looked mildly interesting. So I bought it. And I will never do that again.

It seemed to me that for all the commercial hype of this author, this book is slow and doesn't make it interesting enough to be suspenseful. Just starts out with a tired old apartment complex in a cool building, and all of a sudden, people start getting picked off. Ooohh... Spooky. And then, soon enough we learn that every cycle of years this happens just because the original proprietor of the building is some kind of psycho.

My opinion, leave this on the dollar store shelves. Maybe I'll read another of his books and hope it isn't so tired sounding.

I like dark tales and this book came recommended all the time on Kindle Unlimited, so I gave it a try. It's very similar to the book I read earlier in December, An Age Of Winters by Gemma Liviero.

If you don't like books about religious zealotry and wildly misinterpreting the Bible to suit your means, this book has a lot of it. It also has a rampant ton of misogyny directed at the FMC, and Brom does a good job of having the woman stand up against it. She is a very strong and determined woman and highly motivated to prove the abusive men in her community wrong. However, it's not just them she's up against. She has to prove she's strong enough to withstand superbly strong supernatural forces who are actively hunting her. Every challenge she is up against, she fights hard and is resilient, even if that makes her an outcast.


The chapters switch viewpoint to viewpoint, which in here is a bit disjointing.

I feel like the ending could have been stronger, I don't feel as if justice was appropriately served in the writing, so the closure doesn't feel as satisfying as it could be.

Another fantastic take by T Kingfisher. I really like her reimaginings of folk tales and lore to create astonishingly creepy and addictive tales. She's becoming my go-to for misty and dark rainy stories with a haunting buildup.

Like with any supernatural tale, you know it's not going to hit you quickly but you can start to spot clues from the beginning. Things are out of place, someone dies mysteriously, something is not quite right. The story takes a moment to pick up but it's such a short story that it picks up relatively quickly.

I really enjoyed the main characters, Angus and Alex. I hope Kingfisher writes another book in the series with them encountering something else creepy, Alex Eastons wit would be wasted if she didn't.

There is a reason this book is so highly related in many lists. I was recommended this book multiple times and I listened to it on Audiobook, which made it better for me.

When you pass The Statue Of Liberty and see the words inscribed on the base, (give me your poor, your tired and hungry..) it feels like this book is written from those words. In Pottstown Pennsylvania, the segregation is real but with all the unfairness of the world, the unwanted minorities band together in a heartfelt way. The Jewish community and the black community of Pottstown look out for each other, finding more similarities than differences to each other. They know how they're perceived, and the white Protestant population doesn't hesitate to remind them of their place in the world.

Their neighborhood is called Chicken Hill, and the titular Heaven and Earth Grocery Store serves the black and European immigrant community, and they band together around a young orphan black boy in danger. The book is full of small town examples of how we need to look out for one another, and how your found family can be created in your community.

I think this book is a strong contender for how the melting pot of America is supposed to be, where people of different cultures come together.

There are strong overlying threads of racism throughout the book. Multiple racial slurs are used, but make sense when taken in context (just so we're clear, they're never okay, but they're used within the confines of this book with appropriate historical use.) There are also more than one or two SA events. I just want to make you aware.

I got this one as an audiobook and I spent the whole weekend listening to it. Hands down, a favorite. It's made me want to read classics a whole lot more and I want to read the other famous book Dostoyevsky has, [b:The Brothers Karamazov 118732 The Brothers Karamazov Fyodor Dostoyevsky https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1347630229s/118732.jpg 3393910].Surprisingly, this book was a relatively more easy read than I thought. I went in with an open mind and thought that the subtle philosophy about justice and law and order was great interwoven through the pages. It wasn't boorish, long, or lecturing.