Amity
Kate Collins thought she had finally found the one when she met Scott Palmer. The day before she is set to move in with him, he seems to have vanished. Determined not to overreact, Kate arrives at the apartment the next day only to find no trace that Scott was ever there at all; all of his furniture is gone, except for his cell phone. Intent on finding answers, Kate begins to search through his phone while dealing with the troublesome aspects of her new place: creepy phone calls, scratches on the front door, and menacing blue figures that seem determined to get her away from Scott's phone...
Ghoster is a fast-paced horror novel with short chapters that build the suspense. Although readers may not always like Kate, her voice is authentic and funny enough to keep you invested. A perfect summer read for those already thinking about Halloween.
Meh. The twist is obvious from the get-go. I would have preferred that it leaned into the mystery of Madeline more, while Nick actually dealt with the death of her sister. It could have been an interesting story, having Nick learn more about Dara's secret life at Beamers while slowing piecing together that Madeline's "abduction" is related, all while Nick deals with grief. Her relationship with Parker could have added that extra layer of guilt, too. But instead we get split personality because of course.
Overall, a 1.5/5, rounded up because Lauren Oliver generally keeps things at the very least somewhat compelling.
I didn't love this as much as I wanted to based on the fantastic title, but the writing style was breezy and the art was very cute. I learned a few new things, and it was easy to read a few chapters here and there when I had a minute. I was never dying to pick it up, but at least I know a few more things about what will happen to me if and when I do happen to someday die from reading anticipation. 3 adorable skeleton drawings out of 5.
re-read review:
sure, authors like Jane Austen and Billy Shakes and whoever wrote some good romantic lines, but did they ever write this:
I have tried to dismantle you, Gideon Nav! The Ninth House poisoned you, we trod you underfoot—I took you to this killing field as my slave—you refuse to die, and you pity me! Strike me down. You've won. I've lived my whole wretched life at your mercy, yours alone, and God knows I deserve to die at your hand. You are my only friend. I am undone without you.
Nothing much I can say about this that hasn't been said before, but I'm glad I finally read it (or listened to it, as it were). It is profoundly sad that McNamara did not get to live a long, full life for a multitude of reasons, one of which is that the world is deprived of her insight and talent. Even for non-fans of true crime like myself (I prefer my horror fictionalized, as that's much less scary and easier to deal with), the parts of the book that she wrote were engaging.
While it's telling that my favorite parts were more concerned with McNamara's life - especially her relationship with her mother, and the events that inspired her lifelong obsession with true crime - it still speaks to her way with words. She knew when to be direct and when to wax poetic, and had a certain tact and humanity that is sorely missing from many true crime narratives.
It also broke my heart to listen to Patton Oswalt's afterword. How bittersweet that McNamara's legacy lives on through not only the attention she brought to the GSK, but also in the deductive young mind of her daughter.
Overall, the book suffers in the last third, due to McNamara's untimely death, but the other sections were strong enough that I feel comfortable bumping what would be a 3-star read into a 4/5.
You are Henry “Monty” Montague, disastrous bisexual and son of an Earl.
Uh oh! You've said and/or done something stupid that's gotten you in quite a lot of trouble. Not even your perfect dimples seem to be able to save the day! Quick, do you:
A) wish you had something to drink
B) say and/or do something even more stupid and get into worse trouble
C) think about how much you want to make out with Percy
D) all of the above
Answer: it was a trick question, Felicity has already saved the day anyway.
4.5/5 rounded up because it was the gay historical romance road trip novel I never knew I needed.
At age 16, Clare is finally exorcised of the demon that has possessed her for around a decade. The problem? She loved that demon, and now she has to find a way to get that demon back.
This seemed like a promising novel, a unique take on the possession story. And there are a lot of cool ideas in here, but nothing really came to fruition. Plot points that seemed major like the cult that apparently most of the town was involved in just kind of trailed off, and the pacing was inconsistent. I don't care when the story moves rapidly in a YA novel, but some parts dragged on, and others that could have been more developed happened so fast that I was sure I had skipped a page or two. The ending also felt a little too tidy, all things considered.
Still, a great concept and a decent Halloween read. Plus, there's a dog named Eyeball. 3 demons out of 5.
I went into this book with some trepidation - I love Rhett and Link and watch their show every day, but I wasn't sure how their humor + writing style was going to translate into a YA mystery/horror novel. But find a crayola crayon named “impressed” and color me with it, because I thought this was legit great!
Their humor is evident throughout (one of my favorite running gags was the “scooter leg” bit) and I was pleased that there were other POVs besides “Rex and Leif” in the narrative (Alicia is a queen, and the Janine and Donna dynamic was really very sweet). I will admit, it was difficult for me to stop picturing Rex and Leif as their 40something present-day counterparts, but it was such a fun ride that that's really a minor complaint.
I think even those who aren't familiar with Rhett and Link could get something out of this book. It's especially appealing in an era dedicated to childhood nostalgia à la Stranger Things, though this book focuses on the (far superior, imo) decade of the 90's.
But anyway, I thought this was fun fun fun. Sure, sometimes the 90's references were a little overboard, but to go back to the Stranger Things comparison: I don't find anything in this book as particularly annoying as that stupid Never-Ending Story song moment in this latest season . But I appear to be in the minority on that, so what do I know?
Anyway, a solid 3.5/5 that I bumped up to a 4 because it was a perfect fun way to start off spooky book season. If you read this review, thank you for being your mythical best!
Every October, I watch only spooky-scary movies and read only spooky-scary books, because I love October and Halloween, and horror is my favorite genre. I throw the occasional suspense/thriller/slasher in the mix as well, just to keep things lively. This year, I was getting too antsy to wait until October, so I amended it to “as soon as Fall officially begins, I will start my spooky-scary binge.” Of course, it's still around 80° out, but it's still the best time of the year! I WILL NOT BE DETERRED FROM MY AUTUMNAL ENJOYMENT.
The good news: this is a great Fall book. It takes place in small-town Nebraska in October, so there are plenty of mentions of browning leaves, chilly weather, corn mazes, Halloween, hoodies, etc. It has a nice atmosphere that made me really want to go to a pumpkin patch.
The bad news: if the rest of my Fall reads are as uneven as this book, it's going to be less “spooky-scary” and more “meh-whaaa?”
There's a lot of good to this book, like a pretty cool cast of characters, the sex positive attitude, the (mostly) authentic feel of a small town, and some genuinely cool and creepy moments from the killer. The idea of someone methodically moving everything slightly around your house, making you second-guess whether or not you are actually home alone? Shivers! And being the weirdo that I am, I am pleased that this book was fairly gory, especially considering the YA audience. But the not-so-good parts, like the too-early reveal of the killer, the tonally inconsistent romance aspect, and the constant references to Makani's “incident” back in Hawaii, which didn't really live up to the mystery although the awful "hazing" incident made me glad I never joined anything other than marching band in high school... outweighed the good, in my opinion.
Honestly, I think I would have liked this more as two separate stories, because I liked Makani and Ollie and their friends, and felt that outsider aspect could have been fleshed out, but didn't think it gelled well with the murder mystery. Once the murderer is revealed, it just sort of lost steam as well.
Considering how disparate I found the two different stories being told, I'm also just not sure what audience to recommend this book to. With all that considered, I'm giving this a very medium 3/5 stars.
“And look, if we repay brutality with more brutality, how does it end? We do something just a little bit worse every day, and soon enough we're just like him.”“We'll never be like him.”“Maybe not, but we need to cooperate, to rebuild. Someone's got to start.”This is basically the crux of the problem in the sequel to [b:Ashfall 9644151 Ashfall (Ashfall, #1) Mike Mullin https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1301592315l/9644151.SY75.jpg 14531613]: Alex has Chronic Hero Syndrome, and while it is incredibly sweet and endearing, it gets him (and his loved ones) into a lot of trouble. And I mean a lot of trouble, because this is quite the long book, and could easily be re-titled Alex's Series of Unfortunate Decisions that Lead to a Series of Unfortunate Events but probably that isn't as catchy. The story starts not too long after the end of the first book: Alex and Darla are on his uncle's farm, life is not good by any stretch but they are surviving, and Alex decides it's time to find his parents after an encounter with some bandits leads him to believe something has happened to them. Darla, being the queen and wonderful girlfriend she is, is of course coming with him. This begins their journey which includes: corrupt government agencies, cannibals, hypothermia, infected gunshot wounds, starvation, an endless winter, scurvy, prostitution, and more. You know, for kids! I didn't like this one quite as well as the first, and that's down to one main reason: I missed my darling Darla for the portion of the story when she was missing. Not that I don't like Alex - I do, he's a good dude - but Darla makes the story sparkle for me. Still, this was captivating, and I'll be reading the next one as soon as I can get my grubby little hands on it. 3.5/5 rounded up because of Rita Mae, one of my favorite fictional librarians of all time.
“...not eating when there's a full refrigerator downstairs is a totally different experience than not eating because you have no food and no idea where your next meal will come from. Hunger of choice is a painful luxury; hunger of necessity is terrifying torture.”
Following the eruption of the supervolcano under Yellowstone National Park, teenage Alex finds himself in a world changed. Alex sets out from his hometown in Iowa to find his parents and little sister, who were on their way to visit some extended family in Illinois. Along the way, he meets a variety of dangers: a terrain comprised of ash, and people driven by a primal need to survive.
It took me a little while to get into this book, I'll admit. The above quote is from about the quarter-way mark, which was when I started to become invested in what happened to Alex. And once Darla was introduced shortly after, I was totally hooked.
The main hurdle that I had to get over was the writing style. Mullin writes in a way that is both sort of detached/clinical, and sort of conversational. A lot of times, it felt like a recitation of facts: this is happening, and now this, and then I did this. In other words, a lot of tell, not show:
“By late afternoon, the ash had pretty much dried out. Pushing the skis through it got tougher – they ground against the ash instead of sliding. I unclipped my boots and tried walking. In some places, the ash had dried onto a fairly compact surface that wasn't too bad to hike on. In others, ash was blowing and collecting in drifts. There, my feet sank quickly in the fine, dusty ash, and pulling them free was difficult. I put the skis back on.”
This was just a random example I chose to illustrate the writing style and is not indicative of the book as a whole: there is plenty of action, some of it graphic, and I found that the technique actually helped me deal with some of the more gruesome scenes. I appreciated the brutal look at survival in a natural disaster wasteland, especially in a novel aimed at a younger audience. It's never too early to learn about how terrible people are, kids!
Another thing to note, especially about my darling Darla: I was happy that both of the kids were pretty badass in their own right, but not overly so. It made sense that country gal Darla was strong and resourceful, and Alex brags about his taekwondo achievements early in the book. Maybe they are a little too capable considering everything they go through, but it seemed realistic to me.
Overall, I felt this was a strong debut from the author and a great start to a series. Thank goodness I am reading this a million years after it was released so that I can start the next one ASAP. 4/5
The less you know about this book, the better, but I had definitely built it up a little too much over the years. I adore Patrick Ness and think everything he writes is brilliant, this one just didn't grip me as much as I'd hoped based on the reviews. Still, a solid 3.5/5 rounded up to a 4 because it's Patrick Ness.
“Lydia is dead. But they don't know this yet. 1977, May 3, six thirty in the morning, no one knows anything but this innocuous fact: Lydia is late for breakfast.”
Following the lives of the Lee family before and after the death of middle-child Lydia, Everything I Never Told You is a story of family expectations, of the judgmental gaze of society, of a family doomed by circumstance. It is the story of Lydia, favored by both her mother and father, who saw in her the lives they wanted for themselves. It's the story of Nath, her older brother who helped her shoulder the burden of favoritism, while he resented this neglect. It's the story of Hannah, forgotten youngest child who saw and understood more than anyone could know. It's the story of the stories that made up the lives of Marilyn and James before and after they got married, and became parents to these children who bear the brunt of their love and their decisions.
This is not normally the type of book I go for, but several glowing reviews convinced me I should read it, and I'm glad I did. At times I felt the characters and their wants were a little contrived, a little one-note, but the writing was evocative and beautiful enough that I can overlook that, especially since it works so well in the context of the plot. And I grew to love the characters regardless, so maybe they weren't so one-note after all. I especially adored Hannah, and wanted to give her so many hugs throughout the entire story:
“Hannah, as if she understood her place in the cosmos, grew from quiet infant to watchful child: a child fond of nooks and corners, who curled up in closets, behind sofas, under dangling tablecloths, staying out of sight as well as out of mind, to ensure the terrain of the family did not change.”
She was truly great. I also grew to love Jack, and wanted to give him all the hugs as well.
This book is short and keeps you turning the pages, despite no real overarching mystery element: you know Lydia is dead, and you are fairly certain as to the how, and even the why is fairly obvious from early on, but unspooling the thread of everything the family thought they knew about one another kept me gripped. 4/5
It's the 80's! Do a lot of coke and vote for Ronald Reagan! Or, if you're the five kids in this book, sacrifice some meaningful objects to a weird eldritch horror box you find in the woods one day, because friendship.
This wasn't quite the creepfest that I wanted it to be, but I have to admire any book that fully commits to the premise of zombie teddy bears. 3/5
Stevie's first year of high school isn't going as planned; as if being 14 wasn't already difficult enough, her mom has started dating again, and she is slowly losing her best friend to a clique of popular kids who seem determined to humiliate and ostracize her. As her loved ones start to drift away from her, Stevie finds herself drawn in by enigmatic new girl Dee, who shares her love of teen revenge films. Together, the two start serving justice as they see fit, but it quickly starts to spiral out of control.
Petrou tackles a lot in this book, including YA staples such as difficult parental relationships and friendships falling apart, to more complicated topics like parents publicly transitioning and bullying, of both the online and in real life varieties. And it is deftly handled, for the most part: some of the social justice discourse seems plucked straight from tumblr, but that feels authentic for the age and hey, sometimes these things need to be as subtle as a brick to the head in order to be properly heard.
It's been a bit since I was 14, but I thought this book's strongest asset was how well it captured that feeling of “sort-of-still-a-kid, sort-of-kind-of-a-young-adult, completely at sea and miserable but also elated and ready to take on the world” dichotomy of being a teen. This passage, though a bit more tell-than-show, summed it up well:
“Every joke is hilarious; every shitty thing that happens to any one of us is a tragedy. I suffer terrible bouts of FOMO when I can't meet up with them. We are all up in each other's social media; we compliment one another's pics with a range of fire and heart emojis because we are the most gorgeous, hilarious, brilliant, and strong creatures any of us has ever encountered.”
That, to me, is the essence of teenage friendships and relationships: all-powerful and consuming. So it makes sense when Stevie falls so far off the track with Dee so quickly, because that's how it is when you're 14. This is why the book lost me at the 85% mark. The split personality twist, in my opinion, undermines a lot of power the book otherwise holds, especially since I'm just so sick of mental illness being treated as a plot twist. But that's just me, it may work very well for other readers, especially the targeted age range.
Overall, a solid novel that suffered from a few pacing issues and, to me, a frustrating ending, but definitely worth a look. 3.5/5
Thank you to NetGalley for providing me with a free copy of this book in exchange for an honest review!
Not a lot to say about this one, unfortunately. On paper, it seemed like the perfect fit for me: when watching horror movies, I often wonder about the aftermath of the survivors, and how life will progress for them after the chaos of outwitting killers or defying monsters settles down. And that is essentially the premise of this book, a group therapy session for these Final Guys and Final Girls, those who have trudged through the stuff of nightmares and more or less survived.
The writing is compelling and kept me interested, but largely I was left wanting more, and I think that's a fault more on me-the-reader rather than this book. Novellas are often hit-or-miss with me, since I tend to favor immersing myself in a story, especially one so deliciously dark and twisty as the world Gregory has built. And really, it's impressive how well he manages to build this world and these characters in so few pages.
I read a few other books over the course of reading this one, and I think it was partially to prolong the experience, so make of that what you will. I will probably re-read this again someday when I'm in a better mindset for a good horror novella, and I'll certainly recommend it to others. For now, for this first read, I give it 3.5/5
This was a very sweet and honest book that was just occasionally bogged down with too many pop culture references - and this is coming from someone who is a giant nerd - as well as a bit too much angsty teen angst for this curmudgeonly old gal. However, I do remember, in the cobwebbed corners of my mind, what it's like to be 16 and in love, so the manufactured ~drama~ rings true for that age. Plus, Ben and Arthur are very cute, and so are Dylan and Samantha, and I really liked the ending, so it's definitely worth checking out. 3 Dear Evan Hansen references out of 5.