Nick
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.
This book was bad. Like really bad. Like, The Room bad. Giving it a 2 instead of a 1 because it was so bad that it was entertaining.
Before I dive into the actual book, let's start with the author. David Bell, according to the bio blurb, has an MA in creative writing, a PhD in American literature and creative writing, and is currently an English professor. OK, good credentials... We'll revisit them shortly.
The premise here is that six students are vying for an academic scholarship. This is no ordinary scholarship, mind you. It is the most prestigious scholarship for the school with the caveat being total secrecy and seclusion during the selection process. The reason? Rich people can do whatever they want. Because of this, the author is able to get six students, the vice president, and the wealthy Hyde family's sole heir and donor into a locked room mystery.
If these seems convoluted, bear with me, because it get a whole lot worse. See: part of this selection process involves every single person in the house having to give up their phones and other personal affects until the end of the process. This is enforced by the head of campus police as stated by the Hyde family's bylaws. Maybe now is a good time to mention that these bylaws can be changed once a year, so essentially the rules get changed as is convenient. Waiting staff is allowed into the house before the games begin, and no one is allowed in or out until the end, lest the entire scholarship is dissolved. Ah, so the stakes are high...I guess. And for some reason they're so high that there are no contingency measures for emergencies. Makes sense for a measly scholarship. Oh, and there are protests happening because dad gum liberals or whatever.
So, who is dumb enough to partake in this, you ask? We'll I'd love to tell you!
1) Milo - The Front Runner - This guy has it all! He's smart, everyone likes him, he's got a great personality, but everyone in this room has a jealousy problem with him. Whoa, hope nothing bad happens to him!
2) Natalia - The Brain - She's as smart as Milo, but she's undocumented. Ooooooooh.
3) James - The Rule Follower - He's not just a "rule follower." He's an old military guy. Not a single emotion in this guy, just logic. Real Data from Star Trek type stuff.
4) Sydney - The Athlete - Maybe not as smart as the others, but she really can play volleyball. Has some skeletons in her closet...but who doesn't, amirite?
5) Duffy - The Cowboy - Starts off with a cowboy hat, ends up just being a guy.
6) Emily - The Social Justice Warrior - All of these are directly from the back of the book. Someone actually wrote that down, not me. Yeah, she's a rude dude with a 'tude, but her intentions are good, I hope.
7) Vice President Troy Gaines - The university's go-between for the students and the Hyde family. He wants to keep both sides happy because he's just that good of a guy.
8) Nicholas Hyde - The sole heir to the Hyde Family fortune, this guy is a dickhead...or is he?
Every single one of these characters fucking sucked. They're all terrible, terrible caricatures written by a guy who's never ran into a single smart person, undocumented student and/or Latina, soldier and/or black person, athlete, cowboy, social justice warrior, or rich person in his life. Every single one of these doofuses is the direct reflection of how someone like the Vice Principal would see them. Going back to the author's role in academia: wow, who could've seen that coming? The vice principal's actions are hilariously dumb. He has no street smarts, barely any book smarts, and can't do simple things like opening a window or door.
From the moment the door locks, the plot points and mysteries just pile up like a huge stack of triceratops poo filled with sick. So, the college is simultaneously dirt poor but also extremely expensive and prestigious? The Hyde Family is soooooo rich that they can just pay for bazillions of dollars for students and their businesses but can't afford simple fixes on the one thing that keeps them in the public eye? Puh-lease. This book is just teeming with shit like this. It never gets better, only worse. Nobody makes any decisions that make sense whether or not you see the people as real characters or dumb stereotypes. They just kind of float through the book without direction, even Mr Logic. And then the book ends.
It's really hard to point out how ridiculous all of this is without giving spoilers, so yeah, I can't give this 1 star because I do think people should read it. Unlike most mysteries that will make you wonder what's going to happen next or who is responsible, you'll most likely be laughing and scratching your head.
And then the cherry on top? I don't know if it was the author or the publisher's doing, but there is a fucking Book Club Discussion at the end of this? Like, what the fuuuuuuuuuuck? Who needs to discuss this god damn book that was written by and adult for adults that reads like YA drivel? I literally laughed the hardest when I was reading the discussion points. Here are a couple:
- "While everyone waits outisde Hyde House, we are introduced to the students who will participate in the exam. Does the group seem like a typical cross section of today's college students?" All due respect, Mr Bell, but this is something you should've asked yourself BEFORE writing this nonsense.
- "Two characters behave heroically at the end. Did the behavior of either of those characters surprise you?" Well, one was you writing yourself into the book, so is this a question for your ex-girlfriends?
- "What do you think of Troy's character arc in the novel? Why and how has he changed?" Without spoilers, this is a hilarious question, but also, OK Mrs Jones-Keller, my 7th grade English teacher.
So yeah, nobody ever talks about how laughably bad writing can be. This one really opened my eyes.
I quite enjoyed reading this. It was a little slow to start and a bit confusing until a few chapters in and then really took off. One thing I love about this type of story is that the message is in the forefront moreso than the actual writing itself. It has no need to be overly wordy or descriptive and still manages to nail all the key points. Taichi Yamada hits the reader directly over the head with a man whose parents have died and the joy and anguish of having to deal with grieving all over again.
I didn’t love the last couple chapters, but I do think that the ending sort of leaves to interpretation whether or not he could have still gone to see his parents had he not (insert spoiler here).
I remember reading this one as a preteen but couldn't remember a lot about it. This one seems to be somewhere in the "RL Stine is out of ideas" and "Scholastic is really pushing Stine to churn these out" phase of Goosebumps. Most of the story didnt make sense, but I can see why I ate these books up when I was younger. It's been pretty fun revisiting these. Probably won't re-read this one ever again though.
Lmao like half of this book is 5 stars but half of this book is 1 star. You “I was paid to write an honest review” folks need to start writing honest reviews.
There are some interesting ideas, sure. But let’s be honest here. What makes this a 5 star book? Is it original? No. Is it written exceptionally well? No. Are plot points followed completely? No. Are metaphors clear and explicit? No.
First and foremost: is the overall point of this book original in any way? Not in the slightest.
I’m just gonna skip the nitpicking and go straight into the meat. People are bad? Let’s corrupt a child because that’s how humans are. Oh wait, let’s go deeper…and then just…not? The whole book is a misogynistic exploration into wives and Malerman doesn’t even have the cojones to bring up the “b*tch wife’s” cheating when she’s “being honest”? Come on, bro…
A good 80% of the characters were antitheses of Chekov’s guns and most everything ended up going nowhere. Without spoiling, the ending was completely botched. Just like Tik Tok political discourse, I’m getting super jaded on reading reviews on here.
TL;dr turns out Josh Malerman just isn’t a very good writer
Note to self: if a book has a ton of hype, please look up how many GR top reviews are 5-star and paid.
This book sincerely sucked. Bad. My 2-star review is super generous.
- was it original? No. It was a retelling of Poe that did absolutely nothing to add to the original. However, it did take away immensely.
- world building? There was a weird attempt to invent a fictional country and language... Unnecessarily boring and ended up going nowhere.
- humor? Fell flat in all attempts
- suspense? None at all
- atmosphere? Absolutely none
- characters? Couldn't care less about a single one
- horror? Still a no
There were glimpses of the author being an ok writer as far as dialogue and lexicon, but overall this book frickin sucks and y'all that gave it rave reviews should be ashamed of yourselves.
William Pauley III is one of the most unique writers I have ever come across. His stories aren't to be read; they are to be experienced.
The Brothers Crunk is no exception. Written like a really weird episode of Ren & Stimpy (eg Space Madness) meets the Heavy Metal movie, this novella is chock full of surreal landscapes, gallows humor, blood & guts, and everything else that's fun.
On a side note, please check out the audiobook versions of WPIII's stories to get the full experience. Pauley is a great writer, and Connor Brannigan is an all-time great reader. I can't stress enough how much magic happens when these two collaborate.
It was decent. I enjoyed the writing and I'll definitely be reading more Cutter, but I was pretty underwhelmed by the overall plot. I did quite enjoy the first third or so, in particular, but after that was so-so for me. My biggest gripe is the use of flashforward to the interviews. They just brought everything to a screeching halt and completely ruined the suspense by revealing too much. The plot itself wasn't terribly original either, and I didn't much care for the ending.
On a side note, the last two books I read completely overused “the __-thing.” Can all horror authors get together and find a new word for humans who have been transformed into something else? I swear I read that phrase at least 100 times in the past 2 weeks. Oh no, Bob is an undead shell of a man now. He's now “the Bob-thing” lurching towards us! Watch out!
This was a pretty long book, but I feel like it kept up the pace pretty well. However, the first and second halves kind of felt like an exquisite corpse exercise, let's say pre/post Duane's death as a good dividing point. The first half is more a town mystery with kids banding together to face it head on. The second half becomes more of a supernatural/demonic battle and that's why so many have compared it to King's IT.
I did thoroughly enjoy this book. Simmons is a great writer. However, I did have some issues with it that keep me from giving it 5 stars. If I could do halves, I'd give this a 3.5. The first issue I had was one character's gratuitous use of the n word. Now, I know that this type of language was probably pretty common in the time and place, but it does nothing for the plot or exposition. The story the character tells essentially goes nowhere and isn't brought up again until one of the kids 200 pages later mistakes another character for being black. That leads into my next issue with the book which is that the conspiracy plot essentially goes nowhere. It builds up and then immediately goes in another direction. We're led to believe that there's this deep-seated secret society and then find out there's like a mold that can bring people back from the dead and...worms? And the worms go from like small and ingestible to 20' long for some reason?
My other huge issue came in the second half and it involved a sexual encounter with one of the main characters. Keep in mind, these kids are like 10-11 years old. Now, a lot of the theme of this novel is growing up, but this particular scene just felt unnecessary and creepy. Kids are at a birthday party, they get a bit touchy-feely. Way too much description of the kids' body parts. The female involved is barely mentioned before or after this. The entire birthday party could've been erased from the story and wouldn't have had the slightest impact.
So yeah, having said all of that, I get why people compare it to SK's writings in that he loves gratuitous racial slurs and sex scenes involving children. Both of those things are my biggest criticisms of King's works. But I will say this: Simmons was a lot better at delivering dialogue and sticking the ending.
This was a very fun romp overall. I definitely enjoyed the first half more. I wish Simmons would've went more one way or the other when fleshing out the story of the “Bell.” Its mystery just kind of went away but it wasn't even really that necessary to begin with. The kids were all great and had their own distinct personalities. The adults were all dumb and useless. Sandlot meets Night of the Comet meets IT yadda yadda yadda. Thanks for reading all of that (or skipping to the end).
This collection is really good but maaaaaan is it dry. I was reminded of being in college the way this felt like homework. After every story, I had to consult Wikipedia to analyze what I had just read.
Now, having said that. I am glad I read it all. I was under the impression that the whole book would be thought experiments and linguistic exercises but he really did have a variety of different types of stories. We had existentialism, murder mystery, war, fate, etc. all laid out. Very cool stuff, but just go into it knowing that you'll probably be doing outside research to fully appreciate this book.
I went into this book completely blind. I'd seen tons of reviews, mostly high praise, and thought I'd give it a whirl. I'm actually super glad I did that because the synopsis is quite the red herring.
I really enjoyed how this novel unraveled. It started out with a man mourning his dead wife and how everyone around him acted, from his mother in law to the media to the fringe family and acquaintances. From there, the reader is treated to their story in kind of a backwards retelling up into the present. The entire time, there's just this weird, foreboding aura that one can't shake. This goes all the way up until the ending, and it still left me with an uneasy feeling. Highly recommended for fans of slow burn horror/creepiness.
Man, what a letdown. The premise was decent, the writing was great, the characters were good, the story was captivating...and then the last third happened...
Everyone who hyped “the twist” did this book a disservice. Not only was the twist not that good but the whole thing was choreographed miles away. It was like going into an M Night Shymalan movie.
I'm willing to give Frieda another chance because she's really good at setting up a story but the plot to this one was...well, it was bad. The actions the characters made were questionable the whole time. The further the story went along, the less it made sense. The motives for the, ahem, “plot twist,”...I feel insulted.
TL;dr version: Frieda seems like a good writer but this generic, formulaic pulp feels like the hype might have been paid for
It took me a while to think of how to express my thoughts on this. What I've come to decide is that this novella feels like it was rushed to publication. The premise was good. I really enjoyed the writing. I really enjoyed what little I knew of the characters. The plot was pretty engaging. But it just felt so incomplete. We needed more of Fernanda's day to day stuff to get to know her. We needed Father Moreno developed more. We needed more mythology. What about the adults? What about Ruben? Some of the plot points kind of petered out or came in and out of existence. Much of the dialogue could have been given a second look. So yeah, I think a little more care could have brought this way higher up.
It wasn't terrible, but it wasn't very good either. Tbh it was pretty generic. I'm struggling to think of anything exceptional that would catapult it to award-winning status. I'm at a loss.
So, right off the bat, one of the main characters has a random sexual encounter. This small diversion pretty much sums up my feelings for the rest of the book. Not only was it kind of weird to introduce the character with, but it had no impact on anything after nor did it explain the particular character's personality or motives.
From that point on, the plot and characters just sort of spider-web out until eventually converging at the end. However, some of those seem highly unnecessary by the ending. Entire characters and subplots could have been completely erased and had no bearing on the ending.
Around the halfway point, I kind of felt like some strange exquisite corpse writing was going on or something. I can't quite pinpoint it, but something changed. I didn't feel like I was reading the same book I started. I dunno if anyone else felt that way.
As for the ending, I felt like the red herrings and twists were a bit much. It seemed to me that the author was hoping for that to be talked about moreso than the writing. However, I felt like everything was a bit telegraphed and pretty much confirmed for me at one of the twists.
Was this book any good? Yeah, it was ok, I guess. Was it worth any hype? Nah. Should it have been a teleplay for a forgettable Law & Order clone's mid-season episode? Absolutely.
This might possibly be the worst thing I've ever read. Hopefully the author doesn't see that as an endorsement. It's not. The goal here was to shock and offend, but to be perfectly honest, the only thing offensive was the awful writing.
I've always enjoyed the macabre. I like being grossed out, teased, and given the willies. In Dead Inside, the author takes every gross thing he can think of and throws it at a wall. None of it sticks.
Beyond that, the writing is atrocious. Characters are one-dimensional. Morrison repeats himself often. The book is riddled with grammatical errors. Suspension of disbelief can't be maintained as nothing seems even remotely real. There's not much for a plot. There are tons of inconsistencies packed into such a short story. The author throws in random references to things to show that he, like the main character, isn't a normie. For example, blah blah listening to Ministry. Cool, bro. No one cares.
Do yourself a favor and skip this one. It lacks any kind of story or metaphor or really any other reason to read. It has no charm. It's not B-movie “so bad it's good.” It's just bad. You'll get more story out of a Cannibal Corpse song.
I wanted to like this more than I did. There was a lot of hype behind this considering it's only like 28 pages. It felt like this was a teaser for a new book more than a complete short story.
The premise is that a guy knows that monsters live under his (and sometimes others') beds but apparently does nothing about it? Like, he fully believes it but doesn't think to maybe sleep with a mattress on the ground or keep lights on? C'mon, man...
Let me preface this review by saying something: This book was not very good. But, in a way, it was VERY good.
When I review, I try to put a little context into my score. For example, an awesome kids' book is obviously not as in-depth as the most generic mystery thriller, but I may give the kids' book a 5 whereas the crapfest gets a 1. An OK autobiography that was clearly written by a non-writer might get a 5 where a classic that seems lame in hindsight or didn't age well may get rated 2. So, let's delve into that as it pertains to this book and why I chose to explain all of this ahead of time.
One thing I absolutely loved about this book was that it was a great throwback to the PG-13 horror movie trend of the late 90s/early 00s. I'm not sure if that's what the author was going for, but that's what I picked up. The cheesy dialogue, minimalistic plot, and token characters made this a perfect quick read for someone in their late teens. It wasn't too scary or too gory, some profanity thrown in but not over-the-top, and some rebellion against parents that had me nostalgic for the days of Jennifer Love Hewitt yelling “What are you waiting for?!”
Now, the writing was decent but not super strong. I feel like the plot meandered here and there at times and there were some head-scratching moments. I also felt like a couple plot points really didn't have any bearing on anything else in the book. Because of this, the ending felt a bit rushed and just didn't land for me. Once again, though, I would argue the same out of 2000s teen screams.
I highly recommend for anyone into cheesy teen horror.
OK, so I had to laugh. This is totally an aside, but I read several reviews and a lot of people complained that this book didn't have enough action and that it wasn't about the FBI. Yeah, it's a fuckin' non-fiction book. Do you think the author should've thrown in a car chase shootout or something? And it says “birth of the FBI,” which was touched upon. It isn't a Blue Lives Matter history of the FBI shooting bad guys. Sheesh.
Anyhow, I really loved this book. I wasn't too into the idea of watching a dramatized version, but the movie's existence did put this story on my radar. I'm glad I read it. In the US, we tend to stray away from stories that make us look unfavorable. It's hard to convince the world that everyone who isn't a WASP is a savage when those are the ones doing the most heinous shit imaginable. Rather than some shitty allegory about race, the author gives an actual account of capitalism at its worst. Native Americans are told to leave their land, their new land contains oil, the ones that get rich start disappearing. So fucked up. This is the sort of thing that needs to be taught in school.
If I had to make a few complaints, I'd start by saying that because of the subject matter, the writing did feel a little clinical at times. Obviously, it'd be fiction to spruce up the story, but the writing could've been punched up a bit. Another thing that sort of got me was that the story of the creation of the FBI made Hoover sound a little too sympathetic. I feel like there were more politics at play than J Edgar actually caring much about Native Americans. Maybe that's a story for another time and another place.
I feel a bit misled by the premise of this one. I've heard of an unreliable narrator, but never an unreliable synopsis. While it's heavily implied that there's some huge locked-room history afoot, it's more of a town-with-a-dirty-secret story. And that's fine. It just wasn't what I expected.
There were things about the story I enjoyed. The characters were mostly pretty well thought out. The twist involving Nell was great. I can't get into details without spoiler tagging this, so I won't. The other twists I didn't love. And while it made me laugh, it was pretty weird that every death was set up like “Oh no, we found a body!” “My goodness, I do say” almost to parody status. Rachel was one of the weakest characters in my opinion, too.
My verdict is a solid 2.5 out of 5 rounded up. Which brings me to the next mystery...
How is this book carrying such a mediocre rating but all of the top comments are 4 and 5 stars? A little delving into the situtation and I, not quite Rachel Savernake, have found something interesting. All of the top comments are by people who received advanced copies. My goodness, I do say! I've heard of this, but this is one of the first time I've actually seen this happen on GR. Guess I'll try to stay away from the viral BookTok-y stuff for my own sanity's sake.