Nick
What the book promises: the memoir of a punk/hardcore legend, chronicling his early days all the way through today. The synopsis leads the reader to believe this will be a comprehensive story of Cappo’s life including the trials and tribulations of being in a touring band and the story of what led him to Hinduism and becoming a Hare Krishna.
What the book delivers: well, yes, there are spats of personal stories and glimpses of life on a touring band, but they are put on the back burner to a full description of the Hare Krishna lifestyle. This is more of a new age-y holistic medicine and fable book than it is any sort of memoir. There are a few anecdotes thrown in that are supposed to be a bit of a frame, but they don’t really go anywhere.
This was a rough one. I did like the beginning wherein Cappo describes a culture shock moment as well as his intro to the punk scene and religion with some familiar faces.
However, very suddenly it becomes obvious that this is closer to a religious tract than it is any sort of insight into the “punk to monk” journey promised. For those wanting to learn more about Cappo’s music, let me put it this way: he describes bowel movements more than he does Youth of Today and semen more than BT1K. I could go on, but I’m sure you get the gist.
One thing that really bothered me is his constant infantalizing and fetishizing of Indian people. Every person in India he encounters is either too cute or extremely beautiful to a point of it being weird. And, for those interested in the audiobook, he does an Apu accent for every Indian person. Now, if they actually sound like that, whatever. But he’ll talk about how he barely understands their Hindi but then relay the message in a terrible Indian/English charicature voice. Not sure who signed off on that.
Highly recommend to stay away from this one.
On the surface, this is classic Steven King speculative fiction. Much deeper, this is an old man yelling at the clouds for 600 pages.
Everywhere I go, I see praise for this book: the reviews on here, Tik Tok, friends, Twitter, etc. Through the first 30-40% I could totally see that. I got the hype. I could not think about anything other than this book and its premise.
Let's go right to that. If you could change the past, would you? An acquaintance of protagonist Jake asks just that after trying so himself. Owner of the local diner, Al, after seeing Jake recently, realizes he doesn't have long to live and shows his little secret to his pal. A portal? In a diner? Yes, a portal that takes the traveler to an exact date and time in 1958. No matter how long they spend there, they come back with only 2 minutes having passed. Jake first wonders about changing the life of one of his adult GED students with a sad story. He does just so. When he comes back, he realizes that he has changed a lot of things for good and bad. However, Al "urges" Jake to go back and save Kennedy from Oswald and forever change the course of history.
At first, Jake (now going by George Amberson) focuses on changing the trajectory of his student's family's life. He then heads to Dallas to start trailing Oswald and this is where things went totally sideways for me.
The entire tone of the novel shifts. King takes Jake on a journey further away from changing the past and more on a nostalgic run that a guy in his late 30s should not have felt so at home in. There he meets the love of his life yadda yadda yadda. I'm apt to wonder if this wasn't the result of a single story idea but maybe multiple stories stitched together. Sure, Jake still wants to save Kennedy from assassination, but I feel like King's main directive was to wax nostalgic and to kind of rue his own life. In the afterword, he mentions his wife being his harshest critic, and I really would like to be a fly on the wall when she read all about this writer who's changing the past by talking shit about his ex-wife and explicitly fucking the lady he wish he had met in the late 50s. Was there any reason for that?
Somewhere around this point is when I realized I felt like I should have been about 95% done but was only at about 50%. The next like 450 pages or so were completely filled with all of this weird utopian bullshit that made me want to puke. I probably would have DNF'ed if it wasn't for the Oswald stuff still being mentioned. After all, that was the driving force behind the book, right? The climax was well done.
And then it went on and on and on some more...
I'm going to skip a bunch of stuff so I don't spoil, but in the most Kingian fashion ever, a super flimsy explanation is given for how time travel is possible. And then the book goes on and on and on some more... The ending? Oof. If this was the ending his son recommended, I'd hate to read what he'd originally envisioned.
Unfortunately, I am now meandering as much as King did. So, let me finish with this: If the first 1/3 of this book was a nice, fresh glass of ginger ale, the last 2/3 of the book would be the 3 remaining bubbles of a flat soda.
This very short story packs a punch. In just a short amount of time, Laurel Hightower gives the reader a crash course in grief and the lengths a parent would go through to bring back a lost child. There are some real spooky happenings, but it's essentially a mix between the monkey's paw and any ghost story. Ending didn't do much for me, but overall, I'd recommend.
First and foremost: Dan Ozzi is an incredible writer. I recommend reading anything the guy touches.
For some, this book chronicles a small blip in music history. For others like myself, this book is life. Ozzi starts this book where they all start off: Green Day. From there, he hits up all the classics from the poppy and moody Jawbreaker and Jimmy Eat World to harder rocking The Distillers and Rise Against and concluding with Against Me and many more in between. There are 11 chapters in total and 11 bands.
So, what is the book about? For those in the know, the word "sellout" comes with a negative connotation that might be hard to explain to an outsider. Ozzi does it well here by chronicling each band's early years and growth from large independent stars and their stories of jumping to major labels. With many from the punk scene shunning the idea of moving from a small, independent music label to a corporate-run label, the bands all struggle with the crossroads they've encountered. Do they stick to their ideals and do everything themselves but limit exposure, or do they compromise a little (or a lot sometimes) and ask for help?
What's amazing with these stories is that every band's story is so different but so similar. Some bands cared more about their punk credentials than others. Some bands wanted to take over the world and others just maybe wanted to pay rent. Some bands exploded into mega stars while others imploded. The overall arc is clear though. Each one of these bands had to build their own following and major labels wanted to make money off of that. As opposed to manufactured vocalists and pop groups, these bands all had to work their asses off to get where they got. They had to make a choice: do they stay stagnant or do they see how far they can go?
Obviously, Ozzi couldn't fit every single band here but he does mention quite a few bands who fit the bill such as Bad Religion, The Offspring, Anti-Flag, The Muffs, and others. I would personally love to see a part 2.
So, I'm going to rant a little bit. This book is like 146 pages or something like that. The price tag new for the paperback version is $9.99. If that seems like a stretch for as mass market edition of a 146 page story, please consider that this is edited like an 8th grader's 3 page essay. There's a loooooot of blank paper, let's say. The margins are ridiculously big, the font is a tad larger than King's short story collections, there are illustrations, the whole gamut. If this went by word count there would be 5 extra pages of whited out words. It's glaringly obvious that this book was only released as a cash grab. I can't imagine King needs the money, so I'm assuming this was done by the publisher.
Having said all of that, this "novella" (short story is what it really is) should have been released in a collection. It isn't strong by any means. In fact, it's pretty weak. As others have said, it's just such a Boomer story. Ugh. If anyone wants to read an exceptional story with a similar vibe, please do yourself a favor and check out King's son Joe Hill's story "Pop Art."
Why? Why? Why Why? Why Why Why? Why Why Why Why Why? Why Why Why Why Why Why Why Why?
This single word echoed in my head with every single new plot point like the world’s most annoying Fibonacci Sequence.
From the get-go the reader is promised a fun little romp where a bunch of strangers vie for a dead millionaire’s fortune and things immediately go south. It’s a dumb but entertaining flip from Escape Room to the Saw movies as one could probably guess. Quickly, the author shoves the hook away and apparently starts slamming his fist on the keyboard. By the second escape room, the silliness snowballs into an incomprehensible mess.
I figured, by the way the book started, that the plot would slowly unfold into some huge interconnected web where everything came together. Well, that’s not so much what happened. The one-dimensional characters remained in 1D World. They made silly decisions. The world’s greatest puzzle maker made shitty puzzles. Stuff just sort of happened with no rhyme or reason. Attempts at humor fell flat. Plot twists happen that will make you scratch your head. Honestly, I’m not certain Dan Brown didn’t ghost write this. That’s how bad it was.
Even though it wasn’t his first published, this was apparently the first book Stephen King wrote, and I gotta say: I’m pretty damn impressed by that!
The premise here is somewhere between the Hunger Games saga and King’s (or Bachman’s) own The Running Man. Although the reader isn’t given much story behind the dystopian society, it’s apparently some sort of military dictatorship where young men sacrificing themselves is the main source of entertainment each year.
I really liked the premise and I really liked the cast of characters, but the story fell flat in a few ways for me. For one, the book was very uneven. About 75% of the book tells of the first 1/3 or so of the Walk. The last quarter rushes things. My other gripe is that, even though my suspension of disbelief allowed me to buy the premise, I didn’t feel that the walkers’ stamina was very realistic. Even with extensive vetting, I can’t believe that more people weren’t out within the first 25 miles nor can I believe how long the Walk went on. The stories for why people decided to join were mostly silly too.
A few tweaks and the book could be perfect imo. I see that they’re making a movie. Maybe they can smooth over some of those things.
I wanted to give this book 5 stars but I really feel like he trolled the reader with that ending.
In all seriousness, if you haven’t had a chance to check out Victor LaValle’s writings, I highly recommend him. He really knows how to tell a story.
Here we have the classic American romance story that brings a baby into this world. All is well until the father mysteriously vanishes one day without a trace. The boy grows up wondering what happened to him and there’s this eerie feeling that the dad is still trying to communicate with him from beyond. Dreams, appearances, a box full of things dropped off at the door. The boy grows up in a similar situation. He meets the girl of his dreams. They fall in love, get married, and have a baby of their own.
This is where the story starts to really pick up. Without spoiling anything, the man is drawn into a world he didn’t know existed online, real, and fantastical.
The final 10-15% of the book didn’t do it for me, but it was overall great. I loved the themes of family, what parents will do (or won’t) for their children, and tradition. I highly recommend.
There really isn't a ton to say about this one. The reader essentially gets thrown directly into a dystopian religious convent. Everyone is ordered by class like a goth Handmaid's Tale. Bazterrica treats us with beautiful and sometimes scary imagery instead of a heavy plot.
To be honest, this book did get confusing at times but it was very enjoyable.
Was this book terribly original? No. Was it entertaining? Hell yeah.
At face value, we have your standard possession story. A woman starts feeling different, find a book about possessions, starts questioning things...
But then everything goes to shit. This story is exactly as it needs to be. There is no long-winded, convoluted plot labyrinth here. The main character's life starts falling apart as she fights back and/or doesn't. Highly recommended.
I'll be honest: my review is partially about Moreno-Garcia and partially about the genre as a whole. Vampires are scary. Who wants to be fed upon by undead humanoids, right? Eww. And then the 70s came...
Oh, Anne Rice. No longer are vampires scary. They're *gasp* just like us! And then about 15 years later comes the Vampire: The Masquerade RPG. Now we have factions that a there constantly at war with one another as well as humans.
This leads directly to Certain Dark Things. I did like this a tad more than Mexican Gothic, but I guess I just don't get Moreno-Garcia's writing. There were some cool mythological parts and some really intense action scenes, but I found myself rolling my eyes a few times. The hot goth chick vampire stereotype seemed a little <i>too</i>, I dunno, corny? And the vampire after her? Yikes.
Anyway, file as YA schlock.
This book reminded me a lot of The Loop by Jeremy Robert Johnson. On one hand, it comes off as YA, but it is also a gore fest. I'm not sure where the target audience is. I'm guessing it's somewhere around the same high school kids that flocked to I Know What You Did Last Summer and Scream.
My suspension of disbelief just did not hold on for the ride. I found myself constantly questioning the motives of the main characters and townspeople and wasn't really sure their actions echoed their desires.
Not very well written, but hey, it was fun I guess. I wouldn't recommend this for serious horror readers over high school age unless you're in the mood for some literary fast food.
Something I absolutely loved about this book is the way that there's a tense uneasiness in the air that never goes away. In fact, it gets worse as the stakes get raised higher and higher.
The eponymous auctioneer is a cult of personality. He's nice. He's charming. Everybody loves him. So, what's the catch? Well...the catch is everything one could expect about this sort of character.
The first half of this book flies by, but the second half kind of drags in spots. The ending is also a bit unsatisfying, but it was a hell of a ride nonetheless.
This book had a lot of hype behind it, and for good reason. It was very well written and very charming. However, that's about it for me. I did enjoy the beginning and the ending, but the entire meat of the book was very bland. Like The Goonies meets Mrs. Caliban by Rachel Ingalls, we have a bunch of old folks who don't want to move and then a shapeshifting mer-person comes to save the day (and have sex with the old lady).
I get that one of the biggest themes of the book is holding onto the past, but the romance stuff was just weird.
The book ends in a very satisfying way. If you're in the same boat as me, please do yourself a favor and finish the dang book!
Some of the stories I breezed through, and some of them seemed to take forever, so I’m giving his three stars. Nothing was exceptionally amazing or terrible. One thing I will say is that Gingerbread Girl and A Very Tight Place were essentially the same story except GG was an excuse to call a woman “bitch” a million times and Tight Place was an excuse to use a bunch of homophobic slurs.
Believe it or not, I really did want to like this. The story really had me up until about 2/3 of the way through. Then it just falls into a convoluted mess where its biggest downfall is that it tries too hard to explain every single little thing in a sort of Chekov’s universe. Sheesh!
While the end certainly ruined everything for me, I have to give credit where credit is due. I did quite enjoy most of the characters and felt like they were pretty realistic. And the main character’s reactions to how things unfolded cracked me up. It was very self-aware. Much like with Sager’s other work, Final Girls, the author toyed with the reader quite a bit and even poked fun at the genre and its fans’ expectations.
But was the ending really that bad? Absolutely. At first it was like “oh” and then “oh!” and further with “I can see that” and even a little “wtf?!” Sager just didn’t know when to quit though. Just when I thought I’d read it all, the twists and the callbacks and all that jazz just kept coming and coming with no sight in end. As if all of that wasn’t enough, there’s one more shocker thrown in and, to be quite honest, it was beyond dumb. At that point, the book went from dumb fun pulp territory to just straight up insultingly bad. Avoid at all costs.
In the first story, a character says of the genre, “In horror, it’s often what you leave out that gives a story its power.” This phrase does a lot of heavy lifting for some of the stories contained in this collection. That’s not necessarily a bad thing. Most of the horror in the book is super unsettling and leaves the reader wanting more.
Just one more thing I’d like to add before I jump into the individual stories: I don’t know what it is with Joe Hill or his dad but my goodness, each story of the first half of the collection has a jab at a disgusting fat person. What is the obsession?
Best New Horror - A story about a story. Both scary and unsettling. Good opening.
20th Century Ghost - A story about the love of cinema and nostalgia as much as it is a ghost story. Excellent.
Pop Art - Super unique tale of an inflatable best friend. Great from start to finish.
You Will Hear the Locust Sing - Like a Rated R Goosebumps story
Abraham’s Boys - The next Van Helsing generation. Not a great story, but good take and twist at the end.
Better Than Home - Fatherly love and baseball. No horror or suspense.
The Black Phone - It blows my mind that a 20 page story can get expanded into two films. Mediocre compared to some of the others, but probably the most adaptable, I guess.
In the Rundown - Feels incomplete but the ending was pretty crazy.
The Cape - Probably my least favorite of the bunch. Kid has a homemade cape that helps him fly, doesn’t understand.
Last Breath - One of the shortest stories but one of the best. It didn’t need to carry on for 100 pages. Self-aware with a crazy ending.
Dead-Wood - short poem about tree ghosts
The Widow’s Breakfast - Not really sure what to think about this one. Kinda rambled on.
Bobby Conroy Comes Back From the Dead - A man and woman are nostalgic for one another on the set of Dawn of the Dead
My Father’s Mask - One of the craziest things I’ve ever read. This story creeped me the hell out. Would love to get a short sequel or full story expansion.
Voluntary Committal - Very good concept and well done. Didn’t love the beginning or ending but the middle was very good.
Scheherazade’s Typewriter - very short story jammed into the acknowledgements. Very similar to something his dad would have written.