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| 1982199458
| 9781982199456
| 1982199458
| 3.41
| 74,710
| Feb 21, 2023
| Feb 21, 2023
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it was amazing
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Notes are private!
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1
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Jul 15, 2023
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Jul 17, 2023
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Oct 05, 2022
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Hardcover
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| 1250274214
| 9781250274212
| 1250274214
| 3.35
| 5,567
| Jan 18, 2022
| Jan 18, 2022
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really liked it
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The thing inside her was fully awake now, and she wondered if this was what it was like to be possessed. It wasn't so bad. Like she could feel and say
The thing inside her was fully awake now, and she wondered if this was what it was like to be possessed. It wasn't so bad. Like she could feel and say the things she'd always wanted to but had never been allowed. Like finally taking a breath after spending a lifetime buried under what other people wanted. pg. 264 This book was a horror novel, it's been so long since I've read one. It was nice stepping into horror again. SYNOPSIS Lila Sawyer is a 13-year-old lesbian with a crush on her best friend Macie, who is a boy-crazy asshole. Really cannot understand why Lila is so into this girl, she's a horrible person. Lila is also dealing with some dark thoughts and desires, perhaps coming into existence because of a serial killer reappearing after 15 years. His name is The Cur and he mutilates and kills pre-pubescent tween girls (say age 11-14). Lila's mom, Caroline, is an artist of dark, scary 'weird' sculptures involving things she finds on her nature walks. She's also a paranoid schizophrenic and Lila is terrified she is going to end up like her mother. Lila's dad is an absent asshole who honestly should never have become a father, he's a shitty father. HIGHLIGHTS Sounds interesting, right? Fascinating premise. There's a lot to analyze here. WEREWOLVES: The book is (view spoiler)[not actually about werewolves, but I was convinced it was for about 80% of the book. (hide spoiler)] If you like that sort of thing, you might like this. I was really hoping (view spoiler)[Caroline and her daughter were werewolves who were going to bring justice down on evil men and other assorted assholes (hide spoiler)] but alas, that was not the case. As a side note, if you are sensitive to dead dogs, violence against dogs (it's not exactly what you're thinking, pretty much 100% of dogs in here are portrayed as evil), and dogs being portrayed as evil and scary... you may not want to read this. ATMOSPHERE AND VIBES: This is a horror entry, DeMeester doesn't hold back. Atmosphere-heavy, horror-vibe-heavy. Expect chills. Perfect October read. Deeply dark and dripping with all the creepy vibes. The smell hit her first. Underneath the sharp bite of the whiskey was the foul stink of urine and shit, and she brought her hand to her mouth. A pair of eyes reflected back at her. "Lila?" she said, and the girl looked at her and opened her mouth wide and wide and wide. pg. 146 Not only is the book dark and full of creepiness, but there's honest-to-God, King-style horror in here. You will be sickened. You will be creeped out. You WILL be wondering what the fuck is going on. Lots of good horror scenes in here: some highlights are when Lila spies on Macie, when Lila confronts Macie in the theater bathroom, and classic horror when Caroline is in the Kellum house with (possibly insane) Beth. Expect classic horror, chilling horror, like "I have a secret I want to show you." "I see something in the basement that only appears when the lights are off." and "I can't remember what I was doing for the past three hours - I must have blacked out. Now why is there blood all over the floor?" If you like this sort of stuff (I love it) you will be thrilled. Stephen King vibes, although she doesn't execute as cleanly as King. But she's talented and it shows. ...and reached for the light, but when it turned off, she saw it. A dark form hunched in the corner, shoulders curved forward as if it could hide itself, as if she would not see it if it kept very, very still. Her breath caught in her throat, and she squinted into the gloom. It was nothing. A shadow. She flipped the light back on, and the form vanished, the corner only a corner. Her heart hammering, she switched the light off once more, and the shadow reappeared, but it was closer, and in the darkness, she thought she saw a mouth open, long teeth reflecting back the light pouring from the top of the stairs. pg. 220 BRUSHES UP AGAINST SOMETHING POWERFUL: DeMeester doesn't actually end up going through with this, so the ending was a let-down, but there are some powerful scenes in here, mostly involving Lila mouthing-off to people and fantasizing about hurting or killing them. The absolute best scene (IMO) in the whole book is when (view spoiler)[13-year-old Lila kills a rapist with a screwdriver (hide spoiler)] but alas, that kind of glorious hellbent justice only happens once in the entire novel, even though it seems like the whole book is foreplay and buildup to a beautiful, violent event at the end where women and justice prevail. SPOILER: (view spoiler)[They don't and it doesn't. (hide spoiler)] Andrew was sitting at her table when she walked into science. He'd pulled the chair to the very edge, his backpack thrust into the aisle, his body arching away from her. His fingers white-knuckled and straining as he gripped the table so there was no chance he'd touch her. Even by accident. Like she'd stain him just by breathing the same air. "Hey," she said even though she really didn't want to, and he grunted and lifted his chin. She could smell the fear rolling off of him. Great, stinking waves of it, and SHE had been the one to make him afraid. The invisible girl. She wanted to open her mouth and breathe in his apprehension. Let it roll over her tongue like some forbidden luxury. Men were not frightened by women. Women were not meant to be fearsome. These were the rules Lila had grown up understanding, and there was delight in breaking them. Lila knew she shouldn't think things like this; knew these were not things NICE girls thought about. She should apologize; the rules she'd upended put back in place. Girls who disturbed the natural order were supposed to say sorry. But she liked feeling this way. All squirmy and excited and as if she couldn't catch her breath. It was the same way she'd felt when she'd finally unloaded all her anger on Macie, and it felt strong and powerful. She wasn't sure she wanted it to go away again even if it did mess everything up. pg. 154 LOWLIGHTS Sigh. REALLY DOES NOT DELIVER ON THE ENDING: I was hoping for some kind of righteous fury. I was hoping for some kind of (view spoiler)[secret werewolf bloodline. (hide spoiler)] I was hoping for the women, shown as weak (if not naturally, than forced to be weak by the patriarchy) to rise up and violently serve up bloody retribution to all the creepers in this book. Alas, this is not what DeMeester was getting at. I was disappointed, but if your hopes didn't align with mine, perhaps you'd be fine with it. SPELLS OUT THE ENDING, PREACHY: I really appreciate feminist horror, and this is definitely a feminist text or trying hard to make some hard-hitting points about the patriarchy and feminism. Unfortunately, not only does DeMeester shy away from some sort of glorious bloodbath ending in which (view spoiler)[Caroline, Lila, or both would rain down bloody murder on those who deserve it (hide spoiler)], instead it ends with a whimper and (view spoiler)[the death of a strong female whom I was hoping would reclaim her power. (hide spoiler)] I am also not a fan, especially after getting done reading Babel, or the Necessity of Violence: an Arcane History of the Oxford Translators' Revolution, of authors spoon feeding you exactly what to think and feel. The ending on this one was so spelled-out and so explainy in a way that felt fake. NEITHER HERE NOR THERE: LESBIANISM: I couldn't figure out exactly what DeMeester's point was about lesbianism. Lila being a lesbian was no accident. I spent the whole book thinking perhaps she could (view spoiler)[finally stop the killer and defy evil because she was a lesbian and therefore not beholden to men in the same way straight women are - and straight women suffer a lot in this book because of that. (hide spoiler)] Perhaps lesbianism was being presented as a superpower? No, not the case. (view spoiler)[Lila can't stop the ending. The very, very ending hints that she might be planning to rise up against the Evil, but at this point it's kind of a moot point for the reader. I would have rather she got it together during the actual novel. (hide spoiler)] Maybe that was DeMeester's point though, and I'm just not appreciating it because it was a case of Too Little Too Late. Was she trying to make some sort of point about masculinity as presented by the patriarchy? Hmmmm, that Lila's violent fantasies about Macie were because, as a lesbian, she wants to dominate and subjugate women the same way men do and the patriarchy encourages? Is she trying to say that lycanthropy is inherently toxic masculinity? Or that wanting to fuck a woman means, on some level, wanting to rape and kill her? That putting Lila in the position of a predator, not only someone who is violent and willing to hurt others but also a sexual predator who - because she's sexually attracted to women - also wants to dominate and hurt and abuse in some way? I don't know, it's unclear. Is she trying to say that lesbianism really pisses men off and angers them and they want to kill lesbians as punishment for not wanting to fuck men? Again, unclear. You could write a whole thesis on this, IDK, there are about a thousand interpretations and even though I was unhappy with DeMeester's let-me-sit-you-down-and-explain-everything-to-you ending, this part was unexplained and that also made me unhappy. Can't win with me, I guess. TL;DR Dark, atmospheric, creepy book. Genuine horror novel, not trying to be anything else. The misstep is DeMeester being too preachy about feminism, and, in a lesser way, racism. You can write brilliant feminist and anti-racist horror texts, the ground is fertile for these sorts of things. But she is too heavy-handed, especially at the finale. She spells everything out and it's annoying. And she goes for a more typical horror ending instead of making (view spoiler)[Caroline and Lila be the horror. E.g. Lila shouldn't be afraid to hitchhike, the creepy man who picks her up should be terrified. Caroline rising up and killing, Lila rising up and killing (which does happen, but only once) I was expecting some sort of terrifying, feminist-horror, see-what-you've-done, woman-unleashed kind of blowout but instead DeMeester went for a patriarchy-wins, women-die, women-are-victims thing that was super-disappointing to me, despite her slight hint that Lila was going to go up against the Evil 15 years later as an adult woman. (hide spoiler)] I would have liked to have actually SEEN that on page. I'm grading DeMeester on my expectations and my wishes, so take it with a grain of salt. It's still a good book. Just not what I was hoping for deep in my heart. Great writing - atmospheric and creepy. DeMeester is no slouch, I'd even compare her to Stephen King - high praise - but unfortunately I'd also compare her to R.F. Kuang - which is an insult. She botches the ending, IMO. Even if I accept the story as she presented it, still disappointed (view spoiler)[it's not about lycanthropy (hide spoiler)], she could have delivered on a kickass ending that took my breathe away. Instead, we got this. *shrug* Having a teenage dirtbag character who is female is fascinating. There's a lot of fascinating things in this book, it's a great premise and pretty close to being an A+ book, but it misses the mark by an inch or two. I WOULD ABSOLUTELY READ ANOTHER BOOK BY HER I think she has great potential. Bring it on. I'd read it. WOULD I RECOMMEND IT? Absolutely. If you are a horror fan, absolutely. I'm obviously highly critical and nit-picking by complaining that the book could have been better, doesn't mean it wasn't good and didn't deserve props. Not my favorite, but so, so, so close to being a five-star. If not for the let-down of an ending it would have been five-stars for me, and maybe it is five stars for you. RELATED READING/WATCHING: Rose Madder by Stephen King Ginger Snaps https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0210070/ Blood Moon https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0265752/ The Witches of Worm by Zilpha Keatley Snyder NAMES IN THIS BOOK (view spoiler)[ Lila f 13 Macie f 13 Caroline f Susan f Daniel m Rebecca f Brina f Andrew m 13 Cassidy f Brenda f Cameron m Kelly f Vivian f Beth f Trent m Gemma f Cee f Anna f Dan m Rebecca f Nicole f Amanda f Ashleigh f Heather f Lydia f Mary f Brady m Camille f Deborah f Wendy f (hide spoiler)] ...more |
Notes are private!
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1
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Oct 09, 2022
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Oct 15, 2022
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Oct 04, 2022
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Hardcover
| ||||||||||||||
| 0578947099
| 9780578947099
| 0578947099
| 3.55
| 6,880
| Feb 08, 2022
| Feb 08, 2022
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it was amazing
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I held back a smile as I met him. I felt... normal. Not cursed, not overly stressed, no thousand-pound weight on my shoulders. I even felt a little ha
I held back a smile as I met him. I felt... normal. Not cursed, not overly stressed, no thousand-pound weight on my shoulders. I even felt a little happy. The book already had me by the throat. If only I'd been smart enough to see it. pg. 123 This is an amazing book. BASIC PREMISE: Lily is a bookseller, she buys and sells rare books. She hears about a man willing to pay seven figures for a very rare book about dark occult sex magic. It's called THE BOOK OF THE MOST PRECIOUS SUBSTANCE. It's about using sex and sexual fluids (view spoiler)[and eventually death blood (hide spoiler)] to make a deal with the devil or get demons to grant your wish (along that vein). Lily has her own personal problems and may be seeking out the book not for money alone. REVIEW: WRITING: I had never read Sara Gran before, but I had heard only good things and her reputation is well-deserved. Her writing is concise, muscular and gritty. She's especially talented at writing from a woman's perspective - in a true and real way, with no sheen or gloss on it. I find this rare. Extra rare because this book revolves around sex and sexual acts, but even if it didn't, her normal, true, realistic feminine portrayal is refreshing and doesn't pull any punches. It's an immersive, concise, muscular novel that draws you in but spares you any floweriness or unnecessary rambling. Also, Lily is savage and I was enjoying it immensely. She (and Gran) are funny, smart, and cutting. If you like funny, smart, and cutting heroines, this is a good choice for you. PLOT: I mean, it's a horror, I don't think this is for everyone. Especially since it is a horror that revolves around making a deal with Satan and using dark sex magic to achieve your dreams. But if you like horror, this is excellent. It's not at all similar to Stephen King nor Kristi DeMeester. They are both excellent, but they excel at kind of... oozing atmosphere in their books, this is much different. The horror builds. You can read the first few chapters easily, even forgetting this is a horror novel. Everything builds up to the ending, and it's not especially a creepy atmosphere or horror on the forefront. It's more about how a normal woman gets sucked into a very bad, demonic situation. It's about how normal evil seems by the end of the book. That kind of thing. Not like something like It or The Shining. Stephen King is obviously a skilled author, one of the best living IMO, this isn't an attack on his work. But Gran is writing a different kind of horror novel. A tighter, brisker, more down-to-earth one. You might prefer one or the other, the horror genre is wide and vast. The book is genuinely hair-raising, I got a bit of goosebumps at the end, that's a good feeling when you are reading a horror as far as I'm concerned. Lily seems like a real person, and even though some of her decision-making is not what I'd personally do, you can see why she makes those decisions, especially since the evil book always has a bit of a hold on her. I thought SPOILER was a creep from the beginning, the book didn't really SURPRISE me, I hope that wasn't Gran's goal. I didn't call EVERYTHING, but I called enough for the end of the novel not to be a true shock to me (the climax is mainly what I'm talking about here, the aftermath WAS still a surprise). But it was chilling and hair-raising nonetheless. I don't think suspecting what I suspected ruined the book for me at all, it was still very effective and I'm not entirely sure Gran was even intending to surprise me with a twist. PLOT THEMES: Even though this book is a horror and allegedly the focus of the book is on an evil sex occult book which promises power, money, and wishes granted in exchange for doing wicked and degraded acts (pg. 142), and that IS a main plot point, this book is about many other things. 1.) Books and bookselling. Gran isn't twee or precious at all in describing this. She's also savage in some of her literary takedowns. She perfectly balances the reverence and importance of books with a gritty portrayal of how dirty and grim the profession is at times. If you like books about books but are put off by all the twee, cutesy, book-worship books being published now, give this a glance. It's right up there with Malice House and The Silkworm. I couldn't remember the last time I'd been excited about a book. Ever since I'd stopped writing and started selling our library, books had gone from being the great delight of my life to a fucking drag. Selling books isn't like selling stocks and bonds, where you sit at a computer all day, or selling houses, where no one expects you to hand-deliver a cabin or a condo. Books are heavy and dirty and messy and have strong smells and leave your skin dry and dusty. With a little sadness, I now saw I'd come to dread and resent books, every last one. It was a loss. Opening a book had always been like opening a window into a new and mysterious world. When I was a child my books were my best friends. I pored over my picture books, memorizing every line of every drawing. When I moved on to chapter books, I saw that words could illustrate even more than a drawing. In my mind's eye, I could see the exact picture a book painted for me: Times Square with a cricket, a pig's pen with a spider's web, a peach so large that it was its own sweet, sticky world. I wanted to be a writer before I understood what a job was. Books had been the most lasting, profound relationship in my life. I'd long bought and sold a few books for extra money. But once I'd started selling them out of desperation, not luck or love, I'd come to wordlessly feel like even my love of books - like everything else I'd loved - had turned on me and become ugly. pg. 127 2.) Demonic influence, the temptations of evil, Satan, making a deal with the devil, worshiping Satan and how that affects your life, greed, sexual depravity etc. etc. Self-explanatory. I was usually a very honest person. But the book had already reached a long tentacle into my head, twisting my thoughts. In a few days, I had convinced myself that I not only wanted the book, but needed it. pg. 108 3.) Sex. This is a very sex-heavy book. It's not EROTIC, Gran's not writing to titillate IMO, but there's a lot of discussions about sex and on-page sex and described sex acts in here. I was loving it. Gran's frank, unabashed, female-perspective view on sex and sex acts was golden. It's very rare and important. I thought her points about sex and pleasure were amazing and she did a great job of discussing and portraying sex. Props to her. He could see that I was ready, but we weren't looking for ordinary good sex here. We were looking for magic. pg. 291 4.) Money. This is a huge theme of the book. Greed. What people will do for money. How money doesn't lead to happiness or guarantee it. It's quite heavily explored and discussed. All that money and no happiness. People thought money would make them happy. But money was the consolation prize in life. Money was what you had left to dream for when all the other dreams died. Money was what would keep you going when nothing else could delight you again. pg. 258 There are some excellent portraits of Rich People in this. 5.) Grief. This book is, in reality, a book about grief. How grief affects our lives, how we learn to deal with it or let it consume us. Lily's grief is all-consuming and shapes her life into a sad, bleak wasteland. It takes Satan of all people to kind of snap her out of it and take a look around. I enjoy when horror has an underlying, true horror theme. In this one, the true horror is grief. Even though it's allegedly about dealing with Satan, the book is actually about the horrors of grief. Kind of like The Shining is often said to be actually about alcoholism and the horrors of alcoholism - the true horror is that and not dead people haunting a hotel or rivers of blood or etc. (I argue in my review that it's ACTUALLY about bad tempers and abusive males and not even about alcoholism once you scratch deeper, but I realize I am in the minority here). Every day my heart broke more and more and then one day I realized there was nothing left to break. It was all broken. pg. 44 6.) Food. Let's not forget about food, lovingly and exquisitely described in detail by Gran. In much the way sex is appreciated in this novel, food is as well and Gran never misses and opportunity to describe the luscious foods her characters are eating and how much they enjoy them. In the café I got a plate of eggs cooked with tomatoes and a salad of green herbs with a sweet-tart pomegranate dressing. With it was a basket of hot bread just out of the oven. The woman running the place was about my age and kept refilling my tiny glass of hot black tea with mint and sugar in it. When she brought my food she looked old and hard, but when she wasn't working, she sat at a table by the register and texted with someone who made her laugh and blush. Each text made her younger and softer. pg. 216 TL;DR: If you are looking for a great, hard-hitting horror for Halloween... this is going to be an odd choice. It doesn't exactly go the route of classic horror (King, Lovecraft, Susan Hill). Instead it is more like a book where the horror creeps up on you. I can't think of another example of this right now, I know there are some. Gran's writing is great: sparse, clean, gritty. Her female MC is smart, cutting, a realistic woman with no false feminine filter hiding the way things really are from you. Apparently it had been a bestseller. His book made me feel good about not having published in more than a decade. pg. 118 If the idea of a horror which revolves around demonic bargains, evil sex magic, greed, and crippling grief appeals to you - that's this book in a nutshell. As advertised. It's worth the price of admission just for Gran's writing and her female MC, IMO. Speaking of price, this is pretty cheap on Amazon. And book prices are just WILD, this gem is cheap and then they want like $30 for the bestsellers that are coming out that are SHIT. It baffles me what makes the bestseller list and what sells for $30 vs. hidden gems that no one knows about and sell for, you know, five bucks or whatever. MIND-BOGGLING. Don't even get me started on book-pricing nowadays, it's insane. Use your local library and save money. You could go broke buying books, and I'm sure people spend insane amounts of money for books that end up being SHIT. Anyway. Great book, worth reading, pick it up if it sounds interesting to you. Talented writer and IMO a horror payoff. They had fooled me into thinking life would be an endlessly fascinating adventure. I'd look at other people's lives - at their boredom, their drudgery, their pain - and imagine that my book had given me the key to escape from all of that. I wasn't just wrong. I was wrong in such a vast and specific way that I felt like the punch line of a cruel joke. pg. 246 NAMES IN THIS BOOK: (view spoiler)[ Shyman m Lucas m Lily f Jenny f Jonathan m Sonya f May f Awe m Jeremy m Al m Betty f Elena f Archie m Abel m Sophie f Mark m Lucien m Jeremiah m Leo m Hieronymus m Robert m Hans m Johann m Bella f Oswald m John m Jack m Marjorie f Richard m Isabelle f Toby m Allen m Mason m Maria f Imogen f Nellie f Paul m Hayden m Caitlin f Rose f Alice f Paschal m Mikael m Franz m Keith m Jim m Kim f Frieda f Arjun m Stacy f Rodriguez m Jackie f Johnny m Kat f Carrie-Anne f Maude f Marie f Michelle f Jillian f Jean-Michel m Julien m Yves m Angela f Adrian m Kitty f Helene f Henri m (hide spoiler)] ...more |
Notes are private!
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1
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Oct 20, 2022
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Oct 22, 2022
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Feb 04, 2022
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Paperback
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| 0140620613
| 9780140620610
| 0140620613
| 3.38
| 179,977
| 1898
| Apr 16, 1994
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really liked it
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Girl child, boy child, listen well. Be in bed by midnight's bell. Never let a stranger through your door. Never leave each other all alone. Good siste Girl child, boy child, listen well. Be in bed by midnight's bell. Never let a stranger through your door. Never leave each other all alone. Good sister, good brother be, follow well these cautions three. Long as your blood be ours alone, we'll see you ever from below. - The Lodgers, 2017 What a weird book. I was expecting to love it, but I don't. It's kind of like Wuthering Heights. Dark, twisty, spooky, but you can't really care about what happens to anyone. I was at a loss as to what to make of the ending. I wish I had strong feelings about it one way or the other, but I don't. I know James meant to be spooky and enigmatic, and I'm not asking him for a more solid conclusion, but instead to offer a more solid story. I couldn't fully understand why everyone was acting the way they were acting. That was probably the point, but I have to imagine if these events were to take place people would take different actions than presented in the book. RELATED MATERIAL: The Others, 2001 - https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0230600/ Wait Till Helen Comes by Mary Downing Hahn - Great book The Lodgers, 2017 - https://www.imdb.com/title/tt4399952/ THE TURNING (2020) - As frustrating and unsatisfying as the book. Not recommended. ...more |
Notes are private!
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1
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Feb 05, 2020
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Feb 05, 2020
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Feb 05, 2020
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Paperback
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| 1506703933
| 9781506703930
| 1506703933
| 3.90
| 7,188
| Jun 27, 2018
| Jun 27, 2018
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really liked it
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The place that leechlike mouth had touched me was tattooed forever, frog white, into the skin of my now withered shoulder. I had once been a crack sho
The place that leechlike mouth had touched me was tattooed forever, frog white, into the skin of my now withered shoulder. I had once been a crack shot. Now I had nothing, save a fear of the world-beneath-world akin to panic. pg. 7 A graphic novel adaptation of A Study in Emerald. Basically Gaiman is bringing together Sherlock Holmes and the works of Lovecraft. The story is good: creepy and creative. I like the lurking evil and the undertones of world domination by The Old Ones and the creeping horror. It also has a few twists that are interesting. [image] The art is kind of dark, it's not my favorite style, although it does fit in with the narrative and it is easy to follow. The writing is good, Gaiman has a way with words. His renowned creativity is a bit stifled, seeing as he is cribbing from two very famous worlds here: Sherlock Holmes and Cthulhu. It's enjoyable and fun, and the mashup is creative, but overall the concept is giving Gaiman less room to shine because he is constrained by the worlds already in place. Probably the funniest twists are the little newspaper advertisements Gaiman puts in here while winking at the reader. For example, "V. Tepes, exsanguinator" or Henry Jekyll selling "Jekyll's Powders" for people who suffer "constipation of the soul." Might be better as a prose story, but I haven't picked up the prose-story, only this version. RELATED MATERIALS: A Study in Scarlet [image] by Arthur Conan Doyle At the Mountains of Madness [image] by H.P. Lovecraft The King in Yellow [image] by Robert W. Chambers Captive State - https://www.imdb.com/title/tt5968394/ - Strong similarities here Crooked [image] by Austin Grossman ...more |
Notes are private!
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1
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Sep 12, 2019
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Sep 12, 2019
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Sep 12, 2019
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Hardcover
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| 1250317991
| 9781250317995
| 1250317991
| 4.01
| 195,144
| Jun 13, 2019
| Aug 20, 2019
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liked it
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(view spoiler)[My son moved his hand toward the mail slot in the door. That was when I noticed it was being pushed open from the outside. There were F
(view spoiler)[My son moved his hand toward the mail slot in the door. That was when I noticed it was being pushed open from the outside. There were FINGERS there. My heart leaped at the sight of them. Four thin, pale fingers, poking through among the spidery black bristles, holding the mail slot open. "Let me in." pg. 113 (hide spoiler)] He looked around the room, weighing again the emptiness of his existence. There was nothing to him. He was a man made of air. A life with no heft. There was nothing good in his past that could be saved, and nothing in his future that was worth trying to. pg. 188 This is normally a book I would never touch. Child-focused-serial-killers are NOT my idea of a good time or an idea of entertainment for me. But for a spooky Halloween book, this fits right in. We really have two main characters - Detective Pete Willis, sober-but-still-fighting, deadened by the child-murders he's seen and the now-incarcerated serial killer who keeps toying with him. And Tom Kennedy, an author whose wife dies so he moves them to a new town for a new start, not realizing the evil lurking beneath the towns quiet facade. His seven-year-old, Jake, is eerily prescient and prone to talking to himself. Or is it himself he's talking to? ... Let's break this down. ANALYSIS The book is a mix of horror (supernatural) and horror (human). Tom and his boy move to a town where a serial killer murdered five little boys around Jake's age twenty years ago. He was said to have befriended his victims by standing outside their bedroom windows and whispering to them. The serial killer was caught and is in prison, but the body of his last victim was never found. As the book opens, a second serial killer seems to be starting the Whisper Man thing up again. We know it can't be the first serial killer, because he is in penitentiary. Is this a copycat? Adding to the human horror, we have Detective Pete being a sober alcoholic. We have the fact that Jake came home from school to find his mom's dead body. And we have the existential horror throughout the book of parents feeling burdened, trapped, and angry at their children. I'll come back to this theme later, it's a huge theme. So most of this horror is human. Human weakness, human anger, human murderers. But there is also a (rather unexplained) supernatural bent to the book, with (view spoiler)[Jake being able to speak to the dead. You actually spend most of the book wondering if he can really speak to the dead, or if he just has an active imagination, and it's not quite clear. My theory by the end of the book is that YES, he can talk to the dead. But I have no idea if that was North's intention or not, IMO he never really clarifies stuff. He muddles things. I'm not even confident in my final conclusion. What the fuck do I know? Maybe there's nothing supernatural about the whole book. Either way, Jake is a different and weird little boy, although a lovable and sweet one. Kind of don't know whether to think he has supernatural abilities or not, which leaves me kind of up in the air as to how to take this book. (hide spoiler)] WRITING STYLE North has a simple, straightforward writing style. That's good - in the area of being able to understand him and understand who is saying what and when. However, it's not a very emotional book. I felt like it was creepy, but only mildly creepy. A serial-killer and (view spoiler)[child communicating with the dead (hide spoiler)] novel should be more than just mildly creepy IMO. North is not good at writing or conveying emotions. He cannot really convey true horror (or chooses not to?) in the way someone more complicated like King can. This is good for people who don't really want to read a child-killer novel. That would be me. Even though North could have written things in a more detailed, complex, emotional and creepy way... I would probably have to stop reading the book. I hate thinking about violence against children. But even someone as easily revolted as ME can read and enjoy this book. Take that as a criticism, if you want to. It's mild. It's pulling punches. North does not really focus on the murders or the horrible darkness that must lie inside a person who does something like that, nor does he seem to want to. Everything is glossed over. This makes it easy for someone who is not into 'dark reads' to enjoy this, but it doesn't make it gutting, pulse-pounding suspense either. Don't get me wrong, it was creepy and I was entertained. But I was far from sleeping with the lights on. And the fact that I can use the word 'entertained' to describe my reaction to a book about someone who kills children pretty much says it all. And I appreciate the way North describes alcoholism, it's accurate. And I appreciate the way he talks about relationships, I think he makes some good points. But it is simplistic and not soul-punching. He seems to lack the skill to really turn you inside out about something. FATHERHOOD - FATHER/SON The whole entire book is actually about fatherhood. SPECIFICALLY being a father to a son. Father-son relationships dominate the whole entire book, paired with North's other huge theme - feeling burdened by your children and wanting to get away from them. Don't get me wrong, women are in here. And I don't even think they are particularly ignored, but they are not part of the overarching central core of the book which is about exploring father-son relationships in about ten different ways. The book is OBSESSED with father-son relationships and how that colors a male individual's life FOREVER. Parenting isn't an exact science IMO. But to be sure there are good parents and terrible ones. But North doesn't seem interested in exploring these relationships in depth or dissecting what makes a father act a certain way. He doesn't dive down into the recesses of these topics, merely brings them up and talks lightly about them before moving on. He's not good with in-depth psychological analysis. ENDING I didn't enjoy the ending, either. (view spoiler)[I was mad that North kills Pete and I was angry he gave Frank Carter a happy ending. (hide spoiler)] TWISTS By my count there are three twists, with Twist Three being divided up into Part A and Part B. Only the first twist and 3B surprised me. 1.) (view spoiler)[Pete being Tom's estranged father (hide spoiler)] Did NOT see this coming at all. Best spoiler in the book IMO. 2.) (view spoiler)[Karen being a reporter. I didn't call her being a reporter, but I sure as hell knew something was up. (hide spoiler)] 3.) A. (view spoiler)[The serial killer being Frank Carter's son. (hide spoiler)] I read things too carefully. I feel like this is not going to be a surprise to anyone who pays close attention to detail. B. (view spoiler)[ The serial killer being the TA George in the classroom. (hide spoiler)] I did not see that coming. But it was not as good as the first twist IMO. Then there's the whole "Is there a supernatural aspect to this story?" thing which I don't really consider a twist. Also, it's unclear IMO. Some stuff in here doesn't make sense. (view spoiler)[Why is sometimes Jake willing to help the 'monster,' and other times he seems terrified of it? Why does he say weird shit to his dad about wanting to make him scared? Sometimes I just could not understand what was going on with this kid and North did not really clear things up. It was lazy. It added to the creepiness, but not telling us what was going on by the end was lazy. (hide spoiler)] TL;DR - If I can enjoy a book about a serial-killer who targets children... well. That means that the author is pulling punches (or is unable to deliver punches) in a major way. I'm squeamish about murderers. But this book is creepy but not frightening. Might make you tingle a bit but you will sleep fine. Good, enjoyable book. Just not heavy-hitting or deep or complex. North just skims the surface of things like unwanted children and destructive father-son relationships. He does not do the heavy lifting. He is not inclined to open up the hood and look at the engine. The car runs fine. Why would he go deeper? He gets in a few good twists. The book isn't sloppy. The writing is concise. The plot makes sense. The twists make sense. No one is OVERTLY stupid (maybe slightly stupid sometimes, but that's very difficult to avoid in a thriller). The book chugs along at a good pace. It's not boring. It's not dumb. It's entertaining and slightly spooky. It's NOT what you would expect when you pick up a book about a serial killer who targets children. If you want great horror, read King. If you want a great horror that deals with a male child, try The Boy Who Drew Monsters. You can also check out my horror shelf for more suggestions. I'll end with another sample of North's writing: Glass smashing. My mother screaming. A man shouting. "Daddy." I jerked awake from the nightmare, disoriented, aware only that Jake was calling me and so I needed to do something. "Hang on," I shouted. A shadow at the end of the bed moved, and my heart leaped. I sat up quickly. Jesus Christ. "Jake, is that you?" The small shadow moved around from the foot of the bed to my side. For a moment I wasn't convinced it was him at all, but then he was close enough that I could recognize the shape of his hair. I couldn't see his face, though. It was occluded entirely by the darkness in the room. "What are you doing, mate?" My heart was still racing, both from what was happening now and from the residue of the nightmare it had woken me from. "It's not time to get up yet. Absolutely nowhere near." "Can I sleep in here with you tonight?" "What?" He never had before. In fact, Rebecca and I had always held firm on the few occasions he'd suggested it, assuming that relenting even once would be the beginning of a slippery slope. "We don't do that, Jake. You know that." "Please." I realized that his voice was deliberately quiet, as though there were someone in another room he didn't want to hear. "What's the matter?" I said. "I heard a noise." "A noise?" "There's a monster outside my window." I sat there in silence, remembering the rhyme he'd told me at bedtime. But that had been about the door. And anyway, there was no way anybody could be outside his window. We were one floor up. "You were dreaming, mate." He shook his head in the darkness. "It woke me up. I went to the window and it was louder there. I wanted to open the curtains but I was too scared." You would have seen the dark field across the road, I thought. That's all. But he sounded so serious that I couldn't say that to him. "All right." I slipped out of bed. "Well, let's go and check, then." "Don't, Daddy." "I'm not scared of monsters, Jake." He followed me into the hall, where I switched on the light at the top of the stairs. Stepping into his room, though, I left the light off, and then approached the window. "What if there's something there?" "There isn't," I said. "But what if?" "Then I'll deal with it." "Will you punch it in the face?" "Absolutely. But there's nothing there." And yet I didn't feel as confident as I sounded. The closed curtains seemed ominous. I listened for a moment, but there was nothing to hear. And it was impossible for anybody to be out there. I pulled the curtains open. pg. 60 NAMES IN THIS BOOK (view spoiler)[ Jake m 7 Rebecca f Neil m Pete m 56 Amanda f Frank m Carl m Sharon f Colin m Jane f Tony m Dominic m Miranda f Alan m Claire f Sally f Karen f Adam m Tom m George m Owen m Josh m Hasan m Tabby f Victor m Mary f Louise f Norman m Stephanie f John m Morris dog Derek m Anne f Julian m Chris m Roger m Liam m Francis m David m Brian m (hide spoiler)] ...more |
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Oct 07, 2019
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Oct 07, 2019
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Aug 08, 2019
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Hardcover
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| 1982101636
| 9781982101633
| 1982101636
| 3.61
| 12,488
| Jan 15, 2019
| Jan 15, 2019
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it was amazing
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That combination of responsibility and powerlessness - truly, standing over her, I saw with absolute clarity how I had no one else to blame, how I was
That combination of responsibility and powerlessness - truly, standing over her, I saw with absolute clarity how I had no one else to blame, how I was the one who'd let my life spin completely out of control. Everything I'd ever done had brought me to that point; all my choices had led me right here, to this. But if that HAD been my rock bottom, I'd have changed, right? Seeing the light would've done something to me, helped me somehow. But it didn't. It only made me feel worse. pg. 212 IF YOU ARE NOT GOING TO READ THE REVIEW, let me at least give you a few sentences here. Kristen Roupenian is an amazingly talented author. She is a skilled horror writer. Definitely a book worth reading if you have any interest in horror or the darkness of humanity. ... I picked up this book not expecting much, honestly. I don't usually enjoy short story collections. I read CAT PERSON - of course, didn't everybody? - compounded by the fact that I subscribe to the New Yorker. When CAT PERSON came out, it lit a fire under everyone. People debated endlessly the moral ramifications of it. It was discussed through the lens of feminism. It was discussed through the lens of #MeToo, it was discussed through the lens of toxic masculinity. However, what few (no?) people realized at the time is that Roupenian is actually A HORROR AUTHOR. Akin to Stephen King. I would have to say after reading this book that if you enjoy King and his work, please do yourself a favor and pick this up. It's a stunning, exquisite little collection that will unnerve you. Reading CAT PERSON under the lens of horror instead of trying to untangle its morality and the morality of its characters made me like it more. LET'S ANALYZE, otherwise this review will be straight gushing on my part. STORY #1: BAD BOY About a (I'm assuming) m/f couple who make a male friend of theirs their sexual toy. This culminates in (view spoiler)[murder (hide spoiler)]. Like most Roupenian stories, it is sordid, disgusting and centered around sexual themes. Roupenian's intent here isn't really a statement of feminism, like some of her other works. Instead, she is commenting on the current sexual climate (a favorite topic of hers), focusing on how the sexual crisis of the younger generations is affecting everything. What are sexual ethics and mores? How is using and degrading another person 'right' if the other person agrees to it? How do things like sex cults and sexual slavery begin? Always playing with issues of consent and sexual morals (or the lack thereof), Roupenian hopes to bring to light some of the more questionable aspects of our current society. At first, what happened during these nights was a strange, unspoken thing, a bubble clinging precariously to the edge of real life, but then, about a week after it started, we made the first rule for him to follow during the day, and suddenly the world cracked open and overflowed with possibility. pg. 6 We only got worse after that. He was like some slippery thing we had caught in our fists, and the harder we squeezed the more of it bubbled up through our fingers. We were chasing something inside of him that revolted us, but we were driven mad as dogs by the scent. pg. 8 We thought we'd exposed every part of him, and yet he'd been lying to us, hiding this from us, all this time, and in the end, we were the ones who were exposed. pg. 10 STORY #2: LOOK AT YOUR GAME, GIRL A sordid, creepy, unsettling and disturbing story about a 12-year-old girl who meets a creepy (possibly homeless) man in the park repeatedly in the days leading up to Polly Klaas's kidnapping. If you are a parent or a caregiver this one is going to be uncomfortable to read. It didn't go as dark as I was fearing. (view spoiler)[Jessica is neither raped nor murdered, (hide spoiler)] but the feeling of disgust and danger will follow you even after you close the book and it might prompt you to have that uncomfortable conversation with your child that you were putting off. Compared with what had happened to Polly - compared with the infinite number of bad things that had happened in the universe - her brush with evil was just a tiny pinprick of light, nearly imperceptible against a backdrop of whirling constellations made up of other, brighter stars. pg. 25 STORY #3 SARDINES I don't know what Roupenian is going for in this story. Some kind of Stephen King thing? Trying her hand at the horror genre. It's not bad. It's not 100% successful, but it's not bad. It was gripping and scary up to a point, I didn't really think the ending landed, however. As per usual, the story is full of human insights and is shockingly human, dirty, and realistic – the Roupenian touch. She's got her thumb on human behavior and interactions. Marla catches her husband cheating with a 23-year-old and now she has to host her daughter Tilly's birthday party at his house. Marla's hatred of everyone right now has bled over into Tilly's mind with some horrific and supernatural results. Some of the messier aspects of parenthood are impossible to anticipate until you crash right into them. Discovering that, in certain circumstances, when someone smacks your daughter you respond with crazed laughter has proven to be a new and unwelcome entry on that list. pg. 28 Resilience – the ability to brush off pain – is something Marla herself has only fitfully and imperfectly grown into, over time. The petty miseries of her own early childhood are some of her most vivid memories, even now. pg. 28 Collective investigation on the part of the moms has uncovered the game's name, Sardines, and a rough outline of the rules, which are innocuous as far as any of them can tell. Yet the way Tilly has been acting reminds Marla of nothing so much as the week her daughter discovered what would happen when she typed BOOBS into the browser of the family computer - the overeager way she would hurry into the den after school, calling out in a trilling, syrupy voice, "Oh, nothing!" whenever Marla asked her what she was up to in there. Marla would prefer to blame the other girls - vicious, clique-y little beasts, they are - but in fact Tilly herself seems to be the ringleader. That, too, is strange, because Tilly has always been a little bit excluded, either picked on or left out. Although all the other moms are too polite to say so, the game's apparent ability to rescue Tilly from her position at the bottom of the social hierarchy is a large part of its unsavory aura. It's unnatural, Marla thinks blearily one night, right before she falls asleep. Something UNNATURAL is going on. pg. 31 This is a very King-like passage. After discovering Steve and his little girlfriend in flagrante, Marla had sketched out dozens of schemes for revenge - swapping the lube in the girlfriend's bedroom drawer with superglue, tying her down and tattooing SLUT across her face. And yet somehow, day by day and drip by drip, all her fearless fury has dwindled down to this: she will spend a day smiling tightly and choking down her rage as her nemesis parades around victorious - unhumiliated, unsuperglued, untattooed. How could Marla have let this happen? How could she have resigned herself so meekly to defeat? pg. 32 Tilly's adult nose - Steve's nose - arrived on her face a few months ago, knocking all her other features out of whack. She's got a greasy sprinkle of new acne sprouting along her half-plucked hairline, and a puffy brown mole has popped up on the side of her neck. She sweats through her deodorant by midafternoon, even the Men's Sports Prescription Strength Marla left last week, without comment, on her bed. At random times of day, her breath turns dank and meaty, and Marla finds herself opening the car window, without comment. Her breasts appear to be growing at two slightly different rates, so none of the training bras Marla buys her ever fit. The further Tilly lurches into gruesome adolescence, the more she insists on acting like a baby, trying to recapture a cuteness she never possessed. Maddening, tic-ridden, love-hungry Tilly; beloved Tilly, who, despite Marla's best efforts to protect her, at times seems not only destined but determined to be chewed up by the world's sharp teeth. pg. 39 The ending to SARDINES doesn't 'land,' in my opinion, but this was my first clue, my first inkling that Roupenian was actually a HORROR AUTHOR. And there's PLENTY more horror stories (even pretty straight ones) in this collection, so JUST KEEP GOING. All her other ones land firmly, this is the only one in the collection that was shaky on the landing for me. STORY #4 THE NIGHT RUNNER This is a story about a Peace Corps volunteer who goes to Kenya and is harassed and humiliated firstly by his class of schoolgirls and then by a 'Night Runner' who torments him by knocking on his door all night long and shitting on his doorstep. When he got off the phone, Aaron filled a bucket with warm, sudsy water. He knotted up an old T-shirt, went outside, then got down on his knees and scrubbed his walls until they shone. He felt no disgust or revulsion, just a kind of deadened disdain. It was a choice they'd made, to drive him out. Like beating children was a choice. Like having unprotected sex was a choice. They chose this, he said to himself, and the words were like blood in his mouth. pg. 56 STORY #5 THE MIRROR, THE BUCKET, AND THE OLD THIGH BONE The princess smiled, and when the visitor returned her smile, she felt as though all of her blood had been drained from her body and replaced with a mixture of soap bubbles and light and air. pg. 65 A truly excellent and spine-tingling horror story. Fascinating! Chilling, VERY well done. STORY #6 CAT PERSON The famous and viral Cat Person. I reviewed this, but it got disappeared, either due to overzealous GR librarians or some other GR shenanigans. I remember all the uproar this story initially caused. An insecure young woman named Margot hooks up with a man named Robert who is a rather boring loser IMO. She's in a shitty relationship, I think this hit a nerve with people because shitty relationships are common. She keeps trying to figure him out, to please him, to make things work which is baffling because she isn't attracted to him and doesn't even like him that much. She overthinks everything, like a lot of young women do, and I can't help but think this is Roupenian's treatise on the younger generations Z or Y or whatever the fuck they are calling themselves now, I've lost track. He's a total fuckboy, and he's shit in bed. And she just PUTS UP WITH IT, which I think generated a lot of anger in readers. However, the sad reality is that MILLIONS of women put up with bad sex to avoid confrontations. It's VERY common. I think that is probably what hit a nerve, with both male and female readers. She makes herself seem dumber than she is, she puts up with his absolutely terrible bedplay, and she pays lightning attention to every single detail about him in order to better please him. She feels unable to change her mind about having sex after giving initial consent. This is a huge issue, one much discussed right now, but when Roupenian brought it up in 2017 it seemed more shocking. But the thought of what it would require to stop what she had set in motion was overwhelming; it would require an amount of tact and gentleness that she felt was impossible to summon. It wasn't that she was scared he would try and force her to do something against her will but that insisting they stop now, after everything she'd done to push this forward, would make her seem spoiled and capricious, as if she'd ordered something at a restaurant and then, once the food arrived, had changed her mind and sent it back. pg. 88 This is actually brilliant and a very well-written description of (some) thought processes that might go through the mind of a young woman in this situation. Also, in a way, she's not fucking a real person, instead a person whose personality and 'true feelings and intentions' she has created in her mind in a kind of projected fantasy. It's fully human and quite flawed, which I think only added to the fuel of Internet interest. He made that sound again, that high-pitched feminine whine, and she wished there was a way she could ask him not to do that, but she couldn't think of any. pg. 90 The part where he fingers her (badly) and takes her flinching as a sign that she's a virgin – and then she laughs at him for thinking she's virginal – is SO ACCURATE. It's so aptly encapsulating the true cesspool of modern dating in which expectations of women that men get from porn clash with real-life women and their wants and needs. She didn't mean to laugh; she knew well enough already that, while Robert might enjoy being the subject of gentle, flirtatious teasing, he was not a person who would enjoy being laughed at, not at all. But she couldn't help it. Losing her virginity had been a long, drawn-out affair preceded by several months' worth of intense discussion with her boyfriend of two years, plus a visit to the gynecologist and a horrifically embarrassing but ultimately incredibly meaningful conversation with her mom, who, in the end, had not only reserved her a room at a bed-and-breakfast but, after the event, written her a card. The idea that, instead of that whole involved, emotional process, she might have watched a pretentious Holocaust movie, drunk three beers, and then gone to some random house to lose her virginity to a guy she'd met at a movie theater was so funny that suddenly she couldn't stop laughing, though the laughter had a slightly hysterical edge. pg. 90 A powerful point nailed home by Roupenian. Margot then lies to Robert and says she's nervous about having sex with him to stroke his ego and harden his softening cock. THIS IS EXACTLY what I'm talking about... Roupenian nails this, she kills this. You may not like what she's saying, you certainly may not like Margot, who is an asshole on some level, but it resonates. It's accurate. Also painfully accurate is this 34-year-old sad sack dating this 20-year-old. Wildly insecure, desperate, basing his sexual actions on porn. He's vulnerable, weak, and useless. His fantasies about her, what he's projecting on her, are both sad and dangerous. He's less interested in her as a person and more interested in her as an object, The Girlfriend. I think what annoys people is that Margot is so spineless, she obviously despises this man and yet she has an incredibly hard time saying 'no' to him, hurting his feelings, wounding him. You can hate her or sneer at her for being weak but I feel like a lot of women struggle with this: the need to be seen as 'nice' all the time. Not to be 'mean.' Not to be 'a bitch.' Which all gets proven right because the last line of the book is Robert calling Margot (view spoiler)[a 'whore' because she has broken up with him. She doesn't want him. And she wasn't a virgin, therefore she is a 'whore.' (hide spoiler)] This kind of misogyny is prevalent and it is every day and it is everywhere and it is part of the reason women (especially younger ones and/or less experienced ones) are so afraid of rejecting men. Getting called a name like that is hurtful, but if you get a really fucked-up one you could end up dead. Dead for telling him you don't want to see him anymore. Women are murdered and beaten every single day for this shit. A complicated, layered story with many, many, many interpretations by readers. So much to talk about even given its short length. I can see why it sparked such outrage and response. STORY #7 THE GOOD GUY Honestly, parts of this story made me literally laugh out loud. Hilarious. An analysis and take down of a 'nice guy' by Roupenian. Anyone angered by her portrayal of a female in CAT PERSON might want to try this on for size... A man too cowardly to break up with a woman he's not interested in, like Margot was too cowardly to tell Robert to get lost. It showcases nicely how self-hatred leads to hatred of women and misogyny and abusive behavior. I think it's interesting and telling how Roupenian paints both male and female characters as assholes. Just an amazing, stunning, brilliant funny takedown of misogyny and 'nice guys' who actually hate and resent women. It's hard to put into words how fucking good this layered and nuanced story is, Roupenian is a genius. I can't believe I was laughing out loud reading a story about a disgusting misogynist, this kind of thing is EXACTLY what makes Roupenian special. So skilled. So talented. STORY #8 THE BOY IN THE POOL Another exquisitely-written story by Roupenian, centering around childhood friendship, childhood crushes, burgeoning lesbianism, and washed up stars cashing in on their old projects and selling themselves to fans ala CAMEO. It's a gorgeous story, written with precision by Roupenian. STORY #9 SCARRED I had done MAGIC. Sometimes, when people in stories encounter the paranormal, they react with horror as the fabric of reality shreds and they are faced with the dawning recognition that everything they once believed was a lie. As I stared down at my phone, I had that exact feeling, except the opposite: not horror but giddy, mounting joy. This was what all those books had promised. I knew it, I thought. I knew the world was more interesting than it was pretending to be. pg. 171 Another stellar horror story by Roupenian. The horror. OMGosh, who knew there was a horror talent like this lurking out there that I DID NOT KNOW ABOUT. STORY #10 THE MATCHBOX SIGN Creepy horror story. Well done. Revolting, nuanced, tragic. STORY #11 DEATH WISH Horrifying story. Roupenian is really writing depraved stuff here, she is filling a book with sick fucks and I'm sorry to say I am LIVING FOR IT. Masterful. STORY #12 BITER Perhaps the problem with adulthood was that you weighed the consequences of your actions too carefully, in a way that left you with a life you despised. pg. 218 FUCKING AMAZING. JUST FUCKING AMAZING. SLOW CLAPPING. Shocking, twisty, just amazing IMO. I didn't know where Roupenian was going with this, then it was brilliant. SEE REST OF REVIEW IN THE COMMENTS ...more |
Notes are private!
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Apr 16, 2022
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Apr 17, 2022
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Jan 28, 2019
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Hardcover
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| 052551502X
| 9780525515029
| 052551502X
| 4.01
| 29,793
| Sep 25, 2018
| Sep 25, 2018
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it was amazing
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None
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Notes are private!
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Feb 04, 2023
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Feb 04, 2023
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Nov 07, 2018
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Hardcover
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| 0375759239
| 9780375759239
| 0375759239
| 3.83
| 349,481
| 1898
| Mar 12, 2002
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it was amazing
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No one would have believed in the last years of the nineteenth century that this world was being watched keenly and closely by intelligences greater t
No one would have believed in the last years of the nineteenth century that this world was being watched keenly and closely by intelligences greater than man's and yet as mortal as our own; that as men busied themselves about their various concerns they were scrutinised and studied, perhaps almost as narrowly as a man with a microscope might scrutinise the transient creatures that swarm and multiply in a drop of water. With infinite complacency men went to and fro over this globe about their little affairs, serene in their assurance of their empire over matter. It is possible that the infusoria under the microscope do the same. No one gave a thought to the older worlds of space as sources of human danger, or thought of them only to dismiss the idea of life upon them as impossible or improbable. It is curious to recall some of the mental habits of those departed days. At most, terrestrial men fancied there might be other men upon Mars, perhaps inferior to themselves and ready to welcome a missionary enterprise. Yet across the gulf of space, minds that are to our minds as ours are to those of the beasts that perish, intellects vast and cool and unsympathetic, regarded this earth with envious eyes, and slowly and surely drew their plans against us. And early in the twentieth century came the great disillusionment. Hmmmmm, how fucking amazing is this? Actually, the whole first chapter of this book, titled, "THE EVE OF WAR" is pretty amazing. Very enjoyable. The book loses something when it adopts our MC telling us about his experiences during the invasion, but Wells rescues himself with some breathtaking breakdowns of morality, ethics, war horrors, and survival. Not to mention class differences. Wells is also, like Faber in Under the Skin, using aliens and science fiction to push a vegan agenda. "You can't be serious, Carmen. H.G. Wells was not pushing a vegan agenda." CARMEN: *sips coffee* *looks at you* Oh, yes, he absolutely was, and vegans of today who are interested in reading works of fiction which promote vegan lifestyles can enjoy both this book and Faber's book and perhaps incorporate them into a vegan book club. I mean, surely vegans must get tired of what can sometimes be self-righteous and pompous propaganda which exists in vegan non-fiction. Not to mention it is often fucking depressing, especially the books that talk about the suffering of animals in graphic detail. Even if something like veganism was not popular in Wells time and place, you can easily see how this is a vegan book. The book makes some (what must be at the time: earthshattering) conclusions about humankind. This is a book like The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde which, when you read it now, it seems like old hat, but in its day must have just blown people away with its radical concepts. Imagine humans NOT being the masters of all they survey. Imagine humans encountering beings smarter, stronger, and more ruthless then themselves, which see humans simply as ants, cockroaches, or rabbits - to be exterminated and/or eaten. That's what we are dealing with here, and it cannot be denied that Wells revolutionized and charged the genre of science-fiction much the way Mary Shelley did with her revolutionary, mind-blowing Frankenstein. A lot of people read FRANKENSTEIN today and are disappointed. It's so old-fashioned. It's nothing like the media trained you to think it was. It's slow, it's old. You might read WAR OF THE WORLDS or DRACULA or DR. JEKYLL and feel the same way. But you have to understand that at the time, these authors were completely slaying people's long-held beliefs and way of thinking. Some of the old sci-fi/horror classics hold up, and some don't. DR. JEKYLL is particularly weak IMO, but DRACULA and FRANKENSTEIN hold up very well (IMO). I loved both and think they are still very arresting and relevant today. So how does WAR OF THE WORLDS hold up? Amazing first chapter that blows you out of the water. And we men, the creatures who inhabit this earth, must be to them at least as alien and lowly as are the monkeys and lemurs to us. The intellectual side of man already admits that life is an incessant struggle for existence, and it would seem that this too is the belief of the minds upon Mars. Their world is far gone in its cooling and this world is still crowded with life, but crowded only with what they regard as inferior animals. To carry warfare sunward is, indeed, their only escape from the destruction that, generation after generation, creeps upon them. And before we judge them too harshly we must remember what ruthless and utter destruction our own species has wrought, not only upon animals, such as the vanished bison and the dodo, but upon its inferior races. Think of everything humanity does to animals, and the genocide, war, and slavery it inflicts on other human beings. Wells keeps bringing this up throughout the novel in a rare show of clear-eyed thinking about humanity, especially for an Englishman in 1898. Now, the book loses something when we start following our MC around and experiencing the invasion with him. But the book saves itself in a few ways. One, Wells's writing. Few people realise the immensity of vacancy in which the dust of the material universe swims. ... Those who have never seen a living Martian can scarcely imagine the strange horror of its appearance. He's got a lot of good writing in this book and some great turns of phrase. Secondly, he decides not only to take down humanity's vanity and confidence, but also seeks to offer commentary on religion, class differences, and morality and ethics especially in the context of war. It's staggering how much he chooses to bite off here, but such takedowns engage the reader throughout the book. He also doesn't skimp on the horror - not only the horrors and ravages of war, but the horror of the aliens and what they do to humans. It's honestly terrifying and Wells successfully scared me and made me disgusted. I think he made his MC deliberately a member of the intelligentsia instead of a soldier, because - let me tell you - this book would have been completely different if told from the POV of someone who was a combat veteran. And that's on purpose. As the soldier he meets points out to him, after you've seen some shit then shit isn't as shocking. "I saw what was up. Most of the people were hard at it, squealing and exciting themselves. But I'm not so fond of squealing. I've been in sight of death once or twice; I'm not an ornamental soldier, and at the best and worst, death - it's just death. And it's the man that keeps on thinking comes through." The way Wells wraps up the book, the way he brings everything to a close, is also fucking brilliant. It may seem cliched or old hat NOW, but you have to realize it was mindblowing back then. Much like the concept of Jekyll/Hyde. Now. I'm not saying that just because a book has cultural relevance and significance and is a classic in its genre that it's automatically good. Because I don't believe in that shit. Instead, I found myself actually enjoying and liking this book. That doesn't happen to me with every classic. Not every classic holds up. But classics that I enjoy and hold up for me (P&P, S&S, Frankenstein, Dracula, and Jane Eyre) don't please EVERYONE. I understand that old-fashioned books, language, and plotting can be boring and stupid to modern readers. And there are classics that come off that way to me, as well. So YMMV. I've certainly read classics that I've absolutely hated, and this might be one of those for you as well. While reading this book it seemed achingly familiar to me. I think I've probably read this before. Maybe a decade ago or so, I don't know. It's also possible that this book is SO entrenched in pop culture that I just thought I'd read it, but I don't think so. But I'm going to list it here as my first reading since I can't specifically remember reading it before. I like Wells's points here. - His pushing of a vegan agenda; extraordinary for a man of his time. - His takedown of religion and interpretation of God and what God entails. Not atheist, but a super interesting viewpoint of his time, cackling that 'God is not an insurance agent' and surmising that it's equally likely that humanity's new Martian masters also pray to God and expect God's protection. - His portrayal as a curate (clergy) as a weak, spineless, helpless and selfish individual. - His takedown and analysis of class differences, especially when the MC gets into a discussion with a soldier about humanity's future. - His discussion of the horrors of war - not only what the enemy is inflicting upon you, but what war's victims end up doing to each other. His analysis of the terrible things people find themselves doing to survive, and if that can be forgiven or not when normality is restored. Those who have escaped the dark and terrible aspects of life will find my brutality, my flash of rage in our final tragedy, easy enough to blame; for they know what is wrong as well as any, but not what is possible to tortured men. But those who have been under the shadow, who have gone down at last to elemental things, will have a wider charity. I mean, take your pick, he just slays here with his cultural and social commentary. I find him lacking and tone-deaf on the plight of women, but I can't have everything. At least not from this author. >.< LOL TL;DR - Hmmmmmmmm. Reading the sci-fi and horror classics can be very illuminating and oftentimes rewarding. That was the case here. Even though I don't think this book is a strong structurally as FRANKENSTEIN or DRACULA (the plot meanders a bit), Wells certainly hammers home not only his revolutionary and life-changing ideas, but puts forth some true literary gems. Although it isn't perfect, I am still giving it five stars. With some caveats. Also, I want to restate that this won't be for everyone. Strange night! Strangest in this, that so soon as dawn had come, I, who had talked with God, crept out of the house like a rat leaving its hiding place - a creature scarcely larger, an inferior animal, a thing that for any passing whim of our masters might be hunted and killed. Perhaps they also prayed confidently to God. Surely, if we have learned nothing else, this war has taught us pity - pity for those witless souls that suffer our dominion. Read with Non-Crunchy Cool Classic Pantaloonless Buddy Read group, February 2018 ...more |
Notes are private!
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1
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Feb 2018
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Feb 02, 2018
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Feb 01, 2018
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Paperback
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| 1496703898
| 9781496703897
| B01M33UUMM
| 3.86
| 9,544
| Jul 25, 2017
| Jul 25, 2017
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it was amazing
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"Don't you know what they say about that place?" "What place?" "Dread's Hand." "What do they say?" "That it's cursed," said the woman. "That terrible thin "Don't you know what they say about that place?" "What place?" "Dread's Hand." "What do they say?" "That it's cursed," said the woman. "That terrible things happen to people who go out there. They lose themselves. Spiritually, I mean. Their souls get corrupted... You look into that woods and something looks back at you." This is a great horror novel. I'm unsure how to describe it: part Stephen King; part Silent Hill; part The Thing; part The Village. Maybe this is unfair to Malfi, he has crafted a wonderful book here - which I'd like to think is not just an amalgam of spare parts. Very creepy, very atmospheric - we are in rural Alaska - and full of extremely bloodcurdling situations. I liked it a whole lot. And you don't really know where the story is going to go or what Malfi is driving at. I like that, too. I hate predictable horror books. The book starts out with an old loner wandering out of the woods after not having been seen for years. He promptly admits he has slaughtered eight people and buried their bodies in the woods, and shows the police exactly where. But is that what the book is about? A serial killer? Or is it about Paul's brother went missing up in Dread's hand. Paul wants closure, so he decides to do some poking around. How strong is the bond between identical twins? Will he ever discover what happened to his brother? The book is crammed with horror tropes and cliches. I'm not saying this in a bad way. The book is genuinely creepy and a great one to read on a cool October night. We have: Doppelgangers "They're apt to think you're him, coming through the woods like a ghost." "You've got to be shitting me." "They say that's how old Mr. Splitfoot gets you. He holds up a mirror image of yourself to confuse your spirit. That's when he moves in, replacing your soul with evil. There've been folks who have claimed to have glimpsed themselves out there in those woods. My daddy told me of a man who shot and killed his mirror-double, but when he went to collect the body, it was a dead sheep." Seeing someone behind you in the mirror Then he stared at his reflection in the mirror above the sink. Carved into the glass at the bottom of the mirror was the phrase: YOU SHOULD NOT BE HERE "No shit," he muttered. For the briefest moment, he thought he saw Danny standing over his shoulder in the mirror. He didn't turn around, but instead wiped an arc through the steam. Danny was gone." Seeing things in the woods When Paul glanced up, he saw a pair of pine boughs swing as if disturbed. He listened, holding his breath, and thought he could hear the inimitable sound of footfalls crunching down on a thin layer of snow close by. Evil people/things standing at the foot of your bed and watching you sleep He was lying in this very same bed, staring toward the foot of the bed and at a dark figure who stood there, masked in the shadows, staring back at him. Despite the fact that the figure was human, Paul had the sense that it was actually some animal - maybe a wolf, maybe a horned ungulate - crouching in the darkness across the room, watching him. The figure's eyes glowed green. And "He'd defecate on the floor of his bedroom," Gwen said. Ryerson cocked her head. "What?" "It was to be spiteful. He claimed that he'd started sleepwalking, too, and that he wasn't in control of himself when he'd do these terrible things. But I could tell that he was lying to me. It was one of his... his changes. Sometimes I'd wake up in the middle of the night and he'd be standing at the foot of our bed. Just standing there in the dark, staring at us. Watching us sleep." Humans wearing animal masks - and sometimes animal heads He was just about to pull forward when a figure stepped out in front of the SUV. Paul jumped on the brakes and the vehicle bucked, the seat belt locking against his chest. "Jesus," he gasped, unclenching his fingers from the steering wheel. The person turned and looked at him, and Paul felt his whole body shudder at the sight. The figure was slight enough to be a child, although Paul couldn't be sure, because the person was wearing something over their face. It was a mask of sorts, though one crudely fashioned out of some animal's hide - or so it appeared - with ragged eyeholes cut into the grayish-brown fur. They stared at each other through the windshield for several seconds, neither of them moving a muscle. Paul could see the small, wet eyes behind the eyeholes cut into the furry hide. Then the child - for it was a child, Paul was now certain, his mind having pieced together all the aspects of its physical character to arrive at this deduction - ran to the opposite end of the street where he or she joined two other children, both of whom wore similar masks over their faces. On the smallest child, Paul made out a single rabbit ear protruding from the side of the mask and drooping like the whisker of a catfish. Parents murdering their children "In 1967," Keith went on, "Lunghardt, a trapper who spent weeks on end up in the White Mountains, murdered his entire family with an ax - just chopped them up like kindling while they were still inside their home. His middle son made it out of the house, but old Lans brought the kid down with a swift drop of his ax between the boy's shoulder blades, killing him right there in the backyard." Driving alone at night but feeling like someone (or someTHING) is in the backseat A few times, and despite the utter desolation of those secret byways and twisting, serpentine passages, he'd be convinced that he was not alone. There had been a joining presence, like warm breath on his neck, as if someone was leaning toward him from the backseat. There had even been a few occasions when he had slowed down and peered over his shoulder while driving, terrified that he might find the silhouette of another person propped up back there. But, of course, he never had. Something (someONE?) staring at you through your bedroom window at night The woods looked as black as a coma. Someone was standing outside his window, blending among the dark line of trees. Paul felt his body flush cold. He stood there staring out the window, trying to discern further details of the figure. But it was impossible to do so given the snowy darkness on the other side of the snow-wetted glass. He could make out the dome of a head and the slope of one shoulder. Paul tried to convince himself that it was a trick of the light coupled with his frazzled state of mind - that it wasn't a head at all, but one of the tumor-like burls that bulged from the trunks of the Sitka spruce - but the longer he stared at it, the more that dark silhouette was undeniable. Still, he might have been able to convince himself that his eyes were playing tricks on him and that there was no one there if a cloud of respiration hadn't been expelled from the figure's mouth, creating a blossom of fog against the outside of the windowpane. Shit. THE WRITING Daylight broke like an arterial bleed. The writing in here is spectacular. Blink and you'd miss it: a town, or rather, a memory of a town, secreted away at the end of a nameless, unpaved roadway that, in the deepening half light of an Alaskan dusk, looks like it might arc straight off the surface of the planet and out into the far reaches of the cosmos. A town where the scant few roads twist like veins and the little black-roofed houses, distanced from one another as if fearful of some contagion, look as if they'd been excreted into existence, pushed up through the crust of the earth from someplace deep underground. There is snow the color of concrete in the rutted streets, dirty clumps of it packed against the sides of the houses or snared in the needled boughs of steel-colored spruce. If there are ghosts here - and some say there are - then they are most clearly glimpsed in the faces of the living. No one walks the unpaved streets; no one putters around in those squalid little yards, where the soil looks like ash and the saplings all bed at curious, pained, aggrieved angles. There is a furtiveness to most of these folks, an innate distrust not just of outsiders, but even of each other. Fear has reached across generations until it is in the eyes of every newborn expelled from the womb. There's a lot of good, evocative, atmospheric writing in the book. Malfi also does a decent job of describing disease, injury, and delirium. Another thing I really enjoyed about Malfi's book is his use of humor. Even though this is a horror book, there were some genuinely funny passages in here. Far from detracting from the horror, I find this kind of occasional brief levity actually enhances it. For instance, here's a scene where Paul is waiting in a room full of people who have lost loved ones. A grief-stricken woman is showing an awkward Paul an album of photographs of her missing daughter. Paul felt ill. Was this where it ended? In some police station in the middle of goddamn Alaska waiting to get his cheek swabbed? Was he now a member of some morbid, soul-draining club, in which he'd suffer through the rest of his life showing strangers pictures of his brother and asking if he looked familiar? Genuinely laughing out loud here! And it's even funnier, because later in the book that is EXACTLY what Paul becomes, and it's so funny because you remember his little aside here. :D Malfi slips in other little jokes, and I found myself laughing out loud more than once. Here's Paul, calling a worried friend/colleague/lover from Alaska: "You think I'm foolish, but I am praying for you, Paul." "You're too kind to me. You worry too much." "I have never had to worry about you before. Ever. Until now." "Why now? What's to be worried about?" "You have your Manipura and I have my Ajna." "Are you talking dirty to me now?" LOL LOL I was just dying laughing. :D Making Paul a professor of (literature?) was also a good move. I felt he was just the right amount of skeptical (although he did veer into 'stupid' territory a few times). A professor would be the perfect foil/tool for what's going on in this book. Smart choice on Malfi's part. I also didn't think Ryerson, the female cop, was written poorly, and that's quite a feat. Malfi didn't fuck it up, so credit where credit is due. He also sticks the landing. Making a good horror novel is reliant on being able to write a good, credible, non-stupid ending. It's hard to do. Tl;dr - I have to say I was impressed and surprised by this book. It was hard to put down. Moreover, it was both creepy - I read it at night with the windows open while all alone, I highly suggest you do that if you want to up the creep factor - and also gave me the occasional chuckle. Malfi has an impressive vocabulary, I learned at least two new words. His writing is fantastic. I would definitely check out another book from this author, and I am going to be lending this to a few people. I'm not scared by books. Well, let me correct myself and say I am not afraid of supernatural things. I don't believe in ghosts, demons, vampires, werewolves, or what-have-you. So I was able to highly enjoy this creepy book - reading it at night was certainly exhilarating - and then easily go to sleep. My worries of a demon coming for me in the night are zero. People who are more sensitive to this stuff are cautioned. I highly recommend this book. Horror is one of my favorite genres, and it IS October, after all. :) Read with Dan 2.0, Ginger, Erin Proud Book Hoarder,... yell at me if I forgot anyone. :) ...more |
Notes are private!
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1
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Oct 03, 2017
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Oct 04, 2017
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Sep 27, 2017
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Kindle Edition
| ||||||||||||||
| 0735211205
| 9780735211209
| 0735211205
| 3.59
| 419,415
| May 02, 2017
| May 02, 2017
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did not like it
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DNF. I won't say much, but I have a few thoughts. Paula Hawkins isn't a bad writer. Look at this part: I lay on my bed in silence. I can't even listen t DNF. I won't say much, but I have a few thoughts. Paula Hawkins isn't a bad writer. Look at this part: I lay on my bed in silence. I can't even listen to music because I feel everything has this other meaning that I didn't see before and it hurts too fucking much to face it now. I don't want to cry all the time, it makes my chest hurt and my throat hurt, and the worst thing is that no one comes to help me. There's no one left to help me. She flares towards the wildly dramatic, I mean that her writing style is overwrought and sometimes laughably full of drama. However, for some unknown reason she puts a dozen or so perspectives in here. She tells this story from so many people's points of view. Why? Who knows. More isn't always better, Hawkins. It's hard to remember who is speaking and how they are related to everyone else. Moreover, who cares?! I also have a real problem with (view spoiler)[child rape. Well, rape in general but when a child is raped... o.O It's very hard for me to read about and that was really the point where I abandoned ship. (hide spoiler)] Your tastes may vary. ... UPDATE: I have removed this from my DNF shelf as I have finished the book. Mainly to stop whiners from showing up on my review and whining, *Carmen adopts a high-pitched whine* "Oh, you have no right to rate this! You didn't even finish it!" I finished it and it is pretty disgusting on many levels. ...more |
Notes are private!
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1
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Jul 04, 2017
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Jul 04, 2017
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May 12, 2017
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Hardcover
| ||||||||||||||
| 1594748624
| 9781594748622
| 1594748624
| 3.92
| 151,271
| May 17, 2016
| May 17, 2016
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it was amazing
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>
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Notes are private!
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1
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Jan 18, 2023
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Jan 20, 2023
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May 23, 2016
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Hardcover
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| 1250043352
| 9781250043351
| 1250043352
| 3.04
| 3,242
| Apr 24, 2012
| Apr 21, 2015
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liked it
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The thing about the first months of pregnancy is that they're almost incapacitating. You incapacitated me - like a vampire. I'm not exaggerating. I fe
The thing about the first months of pregnancy is that they're almost incapacitating. You incapacitated me - like a vampire. I'm not exaggerating. I felt as limp as if I'd lost blood. Even the smallest errands exhausted me. I feel no animosity toward you now, my little parasite, but really, truly, it was as if you planned it, this tactic. I remember one night I dreamed you were scratching me, clawing your way out through my abdomen, and eating my innards on your way. I turned over onto my stomach and went back to sleep. Yes, I dreamt that. I'm not going to lie to you. People pretend otherwise, but motherhood is scary shit, girl. This book has an AMAZING premise. A rabies-like virus that only affects blonde females. WOW. What an amazing premise for a book. Sounds awesome! Think about the possibilities you could have with this. This could be a top-notch, A1 horror novel. The whole story is told by the pregnant MC, Hazel, to her unborn girl-child. She got pregnant with her womanizing, loser, married professor. ^^None of this is a spoiler, it's chapter one. ANYWAY. You wouldn't think Schultz could fuck up an absolutely golden opportunity like this. But she does. She fucks it up so badly. Donna (my friend) and I both think that books (and movies, and tv shows) with an amazing premise and a lot of promise are more disappointing and painful than ones that just start out as duds and finish as duds. "SCIENCE" THAT EVEN A SEVEN-YEAR-OLD WOULD HAVE PROBLEMS BELIEVING Want to know the main reason this book fails spectacularly?!?!!? It happens at 24%. SPOILER:(view spoiler)[ I listened without moving as Amanda explained, "The Blonde Fury can affect women of all cultures - with both natural blonde hair and hair that has been stripped blonde or salon-created." (hide spoiler)] THAT'S THE STUPIDEST THING I'VE EVER HEARD. Please! I don't need Michael Crichton-levels of science-explaining, okay, but you HAVE to try harder than this shit. I mean, NO. For fuck's sake, no disease is going to work that way! SLOPPY AS HELL Okay, besides that HUGE, GLARING dum-dum fucking up of the plot for which I cannot forgive Schultz, (oh, also on the 'beyond stupid' level, apparently (view spoiler)[if you shave your head/body hair you will not contract the disease. Even though it's spread by blood/saliva/bodily fluids. (hide spoiler)]) Beyond stupid. Oh. Anyway, as I was saying, BESIDES that, we have some truly horrible writing in here. Sometimes I can't understand what idea Schultz is trying to communicate to me. Take this paragraph, for instance: First, Hazel is talking about what a mistake it was to sleep with Loser. After all, he's married, and cheating on his wife with Hazel. "Once a cheater, always a cheater," Hazel thinks to herself. Moreover, he did something very distasteful which I will not disclose here, but let's just say it makes Hazel see him in a new light: a bad light - she discusses this. Then, we get this: I remember there was one other time my feelings toward Karl had irrevocably changed: we were buying cheese in St. Lawrence Market in preparation for our weekend at this cottage. He purchased the same kind twice, from two different stands, because, he said, the second one was better. When I told him he'd already bought that kind and why not a nice havarti or Edam, he insisted there was no comparison. I remember thinking, Oh, so that's who you are. I wasn't going to stop flirting with him over a block of cheese, of course, but the exchange niggled at me for months. I can't understand what on earth is going on in this paragraph. He's an idiot who doesn't understand he's buying the same cheese twice? He feels he has to buy the same cheese from different people? What does she mean when she says, knowingly, 'so that's who you are.'? What on Earth does that even mean? What's she getting at here? My friends and I discussed it at length, and we came up with different theories. - He wastes his time and money? - He's close-minded and obsessive? - He keeps the best cheese for himself and gives the subpar cheese to 'company?' - He buys the same type of cheese, over and over, in slightly different qualities? The way he fucks women over and over who remind him in some way of his wife?!!?!? OH, booyah, snap! That was a burn! Why on earth am I wasting so much time trying to figure out what this poorly written paragraph is supposed to mean?!!?! She also has terrible sentences, like: It was The Blondes. And that's what we called them after that day, as if their violence had instantly had resulted in a new social class. Is there an extra "had" in there or is it just me? Fucking sloppy as hell. SADLY, SHE'S ACTUALLY A GOOD WRITER And the horrible thing is, SCHULTZ IS A GOOD WRITER. She is capable of writing beautiful and smart passages that really hit home, whether she's just describing the environment It's dark now, the kind of dark where there's nothing, where the world could cease to exist on the other side of that hill and you wouldn't even know it. It was only half an hour ago that the sky was holding the light among the branches, like water cupped between fingers and palms. Now it's so black out there, even the memory of light feels distant. You can hear the silence. It's like the sound of your own blood. or when she's trying to explain to the reader why Hazel decided to sleep with this sadsack loser piece of shit There was something really dirty about crossing all the lines. I'd been alone most of my life; you would think I wouldn't need to have a secret. When you're alone, your whole life is a secret, isn't it?... I wanted to be wanted, even in a cheap way. or when she talks about when her best friend Larissa changes from a wild teenager to an adult who keeps a "life journal" with goals and tabs and lists Later Larissa told me everything that she and Derek had done in detail. She said Derek totally wasn't worth it. She was wild. She would have laughed if I'd told her she would one day keep a Full Life Diary. Larissa didn't need a diary then. She went after the whole experience, the full life, and I kept her secrets for her. or when she talks about sleeping with a married man You know there are things you can never say to the other person in an e-mail because someone else may find it. You know you can talk on the phone, but only during certain hours of certain days. And even then, your number is there, multiple times, in the phone's memory if anyone were to check. The more you and the other person communicate, the more likely you are to be caught. You have memorized the schedule of a person you don't even know (your lover's partner) and certainly don't like. Every time you touch the person you're involved with, you wonder if it will be the last time. There's a finality to everything you do together. Everything is a first and a potential last. You may do it again, but the kernel of doubt means you've already been jettisoned, become disconnected. I knew this the first, second, third, fourth, fifth, and sure, let's count the hand job in his car and say sixth time with Karl. But knowing it also excited me. So... this is even worse. The fact that Schultz is capable of greatness, and her excellent writing and her intelligence peek out at you occasionally from these pages between fuck-ups. It's even worse than if the book was a straight out loser, because you can see glimpses of what this book COULD have been. Not even 'in more capable hands,' but in Schultz's own hands, perhaps 10 years from when it was published and she sharpened herself more. It's sad, it's a wasted opportunity and a tragedy. BABY NICKNAMES One of the funny things in the book that adds a unique flavor is all the nicknames Hazel gives to her unborn baby girl: You, strange small thing My little barnacle My new roommate My little water bug My little kangaroo My little remora My little amoeba My little hamster in a wheel My little fetal syndrome My little parasite My little cub Little One My little grub My little hatchling My little goiter Little pasta pot My little womb-raider I found this way she talked to her unborn daughter interesting and a good unique addition by Schultz. FEMINISM Obviously this book is ripe for feminist messages. The problem is that Schultz is not subtle at all with this. She is clumsy and heavy-handed, with all the grace of a bull in a china shop. She doesn't know when to stop and she doesn't know how to handle things slowly, delicately, so that they can jump out and surprise and sicken you like horror should. Instead, she just dumps all this brutal feminist messaging on you with zero nuance. From anti-abortionists getting eating by a 17yo born-again Christian blonde, to women getting put in concentration camps, to 'menstrual blood and its resulting garbage is toxic waste now - as in, men in hazmat suits come to dispose of tampons and pads', to 'any women who show a negative expression, frowning, temper or panic attacks will be tasered' to forcing women to strip and do 'pubic hair checks' to make sure they aren't 'blonde' (although the whole pseudo-fuck-scientific "explanation" for this disease is BULLSHIT)... I could go on and on. But to sum it up, she hits you over the head with a baseball bat she labels "feminism" on every page. It's soul-crushing and mind-numbing and completely defeating her purpose. If she'd actually shown some nuance and restraint, this could have been a bang-on, exciting, and relevant feminist text AND an amazing horror novel, but alas. :( As it stands, the book is bursting open with every single feminist issue under the sun, stuffed and overflowing. It's not a good look. Instead of choosing 2 or 3 feminist issues and writing the hell out of them, she chooses to try and do 30 and give each only a passing glance. SHE SPOILS OTHER BOOKS FOR YOU There's another terrible thing Schultz does that I feel I must warn you about. She, blatantly and with no warning, completely spoils nine movies/books that have to do with adulterous affairs for you. NINE. Just completely goes around on page 84 blissfully ruining plot after plot for you. It's page 84 in the American hardback. I am warning you, SKIP THIS PAGE. It's doubtful you will have watched/read all nine works, and once you read her spoilers you can never go back. I'm sure she thinks these books/movies are "classics" that everyone has seen, but I'm pretty well read and she spoiled at least two or three for me, so this is a WARNING. For those of you who don't have a hardback American copy, it's in the middle of Chapter 4, FYI. WOMEN-ON-WOMEN HATE Emily Schultz is a big believer in women-on-women hate. It's very popular lately, and it's the theory that women hate each other and want to tear each other down. Hazel sees a m/f couple fighting and immediately and inexplicably takes the man's side. These are absolute strangers. She knows nothing of the argument He looked at me, and I looked back, apologetic for women the world over. The opening paragraph of the book is a bunch of women-hate-women bullshit. Women have stupid dreams. We laud each other only to tear each other down. We are not like men; men shake hands with hate between them all the time and have public arguments that are an obvious jostling for power and position. They compete for dominance - if not over money, then over mating. They know this, each and every one. But women are civilized animals. We have something to prove, too, but we'll swirl our anger with straws in the bottom of our drinks and suck it up, leaving behind a lipstick stain. We'll comment on your hair or your dress only to land a backhanded compliment, make you feel pathetic or poor, or too fat or too thing, too young or too old, unsophisticated, unqualified, unwanted. For women power comes by subtle degrees. UGH. Her best friend gives her a picture of the two of them. Instead of seeing this as a sweet gesture, I've always wondered why people who love you do that to you - give you photographs where they look beautiful, you not so much. WTF? Then Hazel describes a horrific, bloody attack in an airport in which 6 rabid blonde flight attendants murder a lot of people. And in the middle of this, she throws in: You see, I'm not telling this right. It sounds comical, even to me. Part of the difficulty has to do with the fact that they WERE very beautiful women. *Carmen is dumbfounded* Listen, I don't know how many of you have actually been in a life-threatening situation, but let me tell you that you are NOT sitting/standing/lying there going, "wow, these killers/rapists/terrorists are SO GOOD-LOOKING, it's hard for me to believe these GOOD LOOKING MURDERERS are killing people right in front of me." I mean, NO. WTF is wrong with you? NO. Women are running around bloody and killing and on a rampage, and you're like, "Oh, they look like models." I was seriously screaming in disbelief at this part. When Hazel ends up in a (view spoiler)[concentration camp for women (hide spoiler)] after the outbreak, women are kind to her. She says, I don't believe there is a bond between all women. I don't believe that sisterhood is powerful. I believe just the opposite. No, the only reason these women are kind to her - she tells us - is because they are bored. BORED. Women are only kind to one another when they are (view spoiler)[in isolation from men (hide spoiler)] and bored. I mean, ARE YOU FUCKING KIDDING ME WITH THIS SHIT?!!?!? I have to take a deep breath and calm down here, because Hazel DOES actually have one or two female friends in this book, and it's important for me to remember that so I don't have a heart attack. Her best friend whom she met when she was 16 (Larissa) and also a woman she meets when she first finds out that she's pregnant (Moira) are actually good friends of hers and I need to remember that Schultz has a few positive female characters in here as well. Breathe, Carmen. I have no idea why these novels that purport women are backstabbing bitches who hate each other as if it's an absolute truth are so popular now. I just don't get it. We have enough problems without trying to promote this idea of women-hate-women. It's sick and also false. Women aren't all a bed of roses and rainbows, but this kind of hatred towards other females is not true either, and I see it being touted as fact EVERYWHERE now. It's sick. TL;DR Well. This could have been an amazing, blow-you-out-of-the-water horror book with dark feminist undertones that unnerved you and made you see the world in a new way. But nope! Nope. Schultz is heavy-handed, forceful and nonsensical where she should have been subtle, insidious, and smart. It's not as if she can't craft good prose - she writes wonderful paragraphs in here. And it's not as if she can't form good feminist ideas... it's just that instead of weaving those ideas naturally into the storyline she instead chooses to bludgeon you over the head with them. It's unpleasant, and I say that as a reader who is a huge feminist. It's sad to get excited about an amazing book concept like this and be so disappointed. I wish desperately that the book was stronger and I could recommend it to you, but I just can't. At that moment, though, I realized my true label: wholly and undeniably pregnant. How can I say this? And yet I'm saying it - the thought of a fetus inside me clung to my mind like a brown swimming leech, which was probably about the size of you then. I thought about my body breaking open and tearing down, and something screaming and bloody the size of a football emerging, and I fell to my knees - yes, fell - and vomited into the toilet. I had just peed into it, and the smell of urine combined with regurgitated breakfast made me heave again, but this time nothing came up. I tapped the handle and flushed it all down. ...more |
Notes are private!
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1
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Apr 04, 2016
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Apr 08, 2016
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Apr 04, 2016
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Hardcover
| ||||||||||||||
| 0899683878
| 9780899683874
| 0899683878
| 3.90
| 29,306
| 1957
| Jul 01, 1999
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really liked it
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The dawn of the 27th was an affair of slatternly rags soaking in a dishwater sky, with a gray light weakly filtering through. Nevertheless, in Oppley
The dawn of the 27th was an affair of slatternly rags soaking in a dishwater sky, with a gray light weakly filtering through. Nevertheless, in Oppley and in Stouch cocks crowed and other birds welcomed it melodiously. In Midwich, however, no birds sang. In Oppley and Stouch, too, as in other places, hands were soon reaching out to silence alarm clocks, but in Midwich the clocks rattled on till they ran down. In other villages sleepy-eyed men left their cottages and encountered their workmates with sleepy good mornings; in Midwich no one encountered anyone. For Midwich lay entranced. While the rest of the world began to fill the day with clamor, Midwich slept on. Its men and women, its horses, cows and sheep; its pigs, its poultry, its larks, moles and mice all lay still. There was a pocket of silence in Midwich, only broken by the whispering of the leaves, the chiming of the church clock, and the gurgle of the Opple as it slid over the weir beside the mill. The Midwich Cuckoos, or The Village of the Damned was written in 1957 by Wyndham, the same man who wrote The Day of the Triffids. In this book, the small, sleepy English town of Midwich falls asleep by force one night. When the people awaken, nothing seems amiss except for a huge depression in the ground where perhaps an alien craft once stood. The people try to forget what happened until they find that every female of childbearing age in the village is pregnant. At first, consumed by shame and secrecy, this is not common knowledge, but the rates of women falling downstairs, taking very hot baths, and attempting suicide by overdose are increasing. Virgins have to tearfully confess to their loyal fiances that they are pregnant. A man comes home from 18 months overseas serving in the military and is confused to find his bewildered wife pregnant. Another man nearly beats his wife to death upon finding out she's pregnant, convinced she's cheated on him. Young teenagers who have never had sex go to the vicar in confusion and angst about their inexplicable pregnancies. As soon as the doctor and the vicar catch on to what is happening, they team up to from a female-lead committee to calm and support the masses - assure them that they have done nothing wrong, and stop these young women from trying to commit suicides and dangerous illegal abortions. Finally, 58 children are born in the village. Only 5 are human. The rest have yellow eyes and a fearsome psychic power that can compel people to do their bidding. This mass rape of a town's females by aliens is a form of invasion, a weaponized rape, a way to trick another species into welcoming invaders (their own children!) with open arms instead of guns and weapons as the aliens are poised for domination of the planet. As the Children become older and older, more and more dangerous, more and more murderous, and stand to inherit the entire planet, can anything be done to stop them? ... I really enjoyed this retro sci-fi book. It was very interesting. Of course, you have what is now seen as "old-fashioned" discourse on the differences between men and women, such as: "Man's arrogance is boastful," he observed, "woman's is something in the fiber. We do occasionally contemplate the once lordly dinosaurs and wonder when and how our little day will reach its end. But not she. Her eternity is an article of faith. Great wars and disasters can ebb and flow, races rise and fall, empires wither with suffering and death, but these are superficialities: she, woman, is perpetual, essential; she will go on forever. She doesn't believe in the dinosaurs: she doesn't really believe the world ever existed until she was upon it. Men may build and destroy and play with all their toys; they are uncomfortable nuisances, ephemeral conveniences, mere scamperers-about, while women, in mystical umbilical connection with the great tree of life itself, KNOWS that she is indispensable. One wonders whether the female dinosaur in her day was blessed with the same comfortable certainty." If you can ignore this hogwash, or at least smile and be amused, you will get through this book fine. I found it amusing. We also have a change of pace in which the bleeding-heart liberals of the books - the ones who see the Children as having a right to live - are in the wrong; and the conservatives who want to bomb all of the Children out of existence are in the right. It is put forth that England's "decadent, democratic" society is the perfect breeding ground for alien spawn because they are too diplomatic and liberal to sanction the hard choices that need to be made - killing the Children quickly and effectively - in a way that, let's say, Soviet Russia wouldn't hesitate to do. (view spoiler)[In fact, the aliens do rape and impregnate the females in a Soviet village. The Soviet government bombs the village, killing all the Children and the innocent human villagers when the children are about 9 years of age. In fact, "civilization" (and I use the term loosely) is seen as a weakness here. Both the "Eskimo" village and the "African village" (this can mean anything, obviously Wyndham was not familiar with Africa) kill the Children immediately, the "Eskimos" by leaving the demon-spawn outside to die of exposure. In Mongolia, all the women are killed upon being found pregnant, therefore killing both the human host and the Child as well, in the most woman-hating place depicted in the book. The Soviets keep the Children alive til age 9 in a hope to harness their intelligence and power, but the Children are too powerful and unable to be dominated in any way, shape, or form. (hide spoiler)] Are the Children made in the image of God? Debates are held in the book as to whether - if God is all powerful and controlling the whole universe - with all its suns and planets - if God has created these aliens in God's own image and it is simply time for humans (who always thought they were God's Chosen Ones) to step down as head honcho of the universe. Tl;dr - I found this book's religious and philosophical and political debates fascinating. Even thought the whole basis of this book is mass rape, this issue isn't really addressed except for a few off-hand comments from the women about how used they feel and how they feel 'like animals' after having been raped this way, but it's barely a plot-point. Completely glossed over, I feel, because Wyndham was a man who (probably) was never raped and can't understand this aspect of life. He just ignores this issue altogether. The writing is good - Wyndham is surprisingly funny and does a fair job of characterization - Gordon Zellaby is a particularly strongly written character, although he isn't our protagonist. A fine bit of retro-sci-fi fun. Take a look at these creepy covers: [image] [image] [image] and my personal favorite: [image] ...more |
Notes are private!
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1
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Dec 26, 2015
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Dec 26, 2015
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Dec 04, 2015
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Hardcover
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| 0451528522
| 9780451528520
| 0451528522
| 3.63
| 217,024
| Feb 02, 1897
| Sep 03, 2002
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really liked it
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"Oh! - disillusionment again. I thought my troubles were over. Practically I thought I had impunity to do whatever I chose, everything - save to give
"Oh! - disillusionment again. I thought my troubles were over. Practically I thought I had impunity to do whatever I chose, everything - save to give away my secret. So I thought. Whatever I did, whatever the consequences might be, was nothing to me. I had merely to fling aside my garments and vanish. No person could hold me. I could take my money where I found it. I decided to treat myself to a sumptuous feast, and then put up at a good hotel, and accumulate a new outfit of property. I felt amazingly confident, - it's not particularly pleasant to recall that I was an ass." One day stranger shows up in Iping looking to rent a room. Bizarrely wrapped up in bandages, grumpy and demanding, the stranger is believed by the villagers to be the survivor of some horrific accident. But instead he is a mad scientist who has discovered the secret to invisibility. ... This book is pretty entertaining. Wells is often funny; and his anecdotes are exciting. You will enjoy reading about how Griffin dealt with his first test subject (a white cat he stole from the lady upstairs), how he tried and failed to recruit henchmen, and hearing Griffin spout his mwa-ha-ha evil schemes with glee. You are against me. For a whole day you have chased me, you have tried to rob me of a night's rest. But I have had food in spite of you, I have slept in spite of you, and the game is only beginning. There is nothing for it, but to start the Terror. This announces the first day of the Terror. Wow, how scary and exciting! Wells is a good author and I enjoyed reading not only about his evil mad scientist MC, but also about science and the method Griffin used to turn himself invisible. For one thing, it is very vivid and striking. Listen to Griffin discuss "processing" a cat: "And you processed her?" "I processed her. But giving drugs to a cat is no joke, Kemp! And the process failed." "Failed!" In two particulars. These were the claws and the pigment stuff - what is it? - at the back of the eye in a cat. You know?" "Tapetum." "Yes, the tapetum. It didn't go. After I'd given the stuff to bleach the blood and done certain other things to her, I gave the beast opium, and put her and the pillow she was sleeping on, on the apparatus. And after all the rest had faded and vanished, there remained two little ghosts of her eyes." There's also great "mad scientist" imagery in this novel, complete with test tubes and strange goings-on at night. He was so odd, standing there, so aggressive and explosive, bottle in one hand and test-tube in the other, that Mrs. Hall was quite alarmed. But she was a resolute woman. The science in here is not real science, so don't break your brain trying to understand how Griffin's "bleaching system" works. Apparently it's difficult to reverse - so you don't want to be mucking around with his science anyway! ;) Okay, my education in disability studies was ringing here. The reason I think this is a spoiler, so I will hide it. (view spoiler)[Griffin is an albino. This makes him an ideal test subject because he is already lacking pigment with his white skin and "garnet eyes." But Wells uses Griffin's outward appearance as a manifestation of his insanity, homicidal tendencies and terrible temper. Books and films often use a physical "flaw" as a proof that a person is damaged and defective inside, evil inside. I feel like that is the case here. One could also say that Griffin is objectified no matter if he is visible or not. Invisible, obviously he is a curiosity and a weirdo - bundled up in bandages and gloves and a fake nose, rumored to be horribly scarred or disfigured. But Griffin must have been an oddity when he was visible as well, with the book often commenting on his red eyes and white hair. Perhaps he tried to become invisible in order to escape this constant scrutiny, and was disappointed to find he was under more scrutiny than ever? He must be stopped - his abnormal body and abnormal mind must be policed and he ends up dead and battered on the street. (hide spoiler)] Well, looks like my studies on disability in the media didn't go to waste. ... The only bad thing I'll say about the novel is that Wells has a horrible habit of writing out dialect in a way that was almost incomprehensible to this reader. "This stror, sir, if I might make so bold as to remark - " "WTF is a stror?" I asked myself. It took me a good solid three minutes to figure out that the woman was talking about STRAW. This continues throughout the novel, whenever Wells wants to illustrate an "uneducated" character. Man becomes marn. Arrest becomes rest. It's flipping annoying. Thank heavens I had my Spanish version of this novel handy. The great thing about having a Spanish (or French, or whatever) translation of an (English) novel is that you can be pretty sure they are not going to mess around with the dialect, and instead just say things straightforwardly. I flipped to that section, saw my Spanish edition said "la paja," therefore I knew I was dealing with straw. Everything suddenly became clear to me. I love reading books in two languages for many, many reasons - and this is one of them. ... Tl;dr - If you want to read a classic, you could do a lot worse than this. Wells is actually funny, he is a strong writer, and he knows how to turn a phrase. So it was that on the twenty-ninth day of February, at the beginning of the thaw, this singular person fell out of infinity into Iping village. Yes, he fell out of infinity. I'm going to use that, that's quite nice. The story holds your interest and is rather short and not hard to understand. I prefer other classics to this (Anna Karenina, Pride and Prejudice, Sense and Sensibility, Jane Eyre etc.) but I understand that those are longer and more complicated. Available in Spanish as El hombre invisible. P.S. The English version of this novel was FREE on Kindle, it should be free on any e-reader. ...more |
Notes are private!
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1
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Aug 10, 2015
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Aug 11, 2015
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Aug 10, 2015
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Mass Market Paperback
| ||||||||||||||
| 1848878877
| 9781848878877
| 1848878877
| 3.57
| 1,239
| Jun 01, 2011
| 2012
|
it was amazing
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Once again I'm cowering in a dark place, in fear for my life. Wow, this book was actually excellent. Patrons are advised to enter the market at their ow Once again I'm cowering in a dark place, in fear for my life. Wow, this book was actually excellent. Patrons are advised to enter the market at their own risk. Management will not be responsible for injuries resulting from choking on small parts, exsanguinations, unlicensed amputations, theft, transplants, broken pointy bits of glass or death. Now. I want you to take my five-star rating of this book with a grain of salt. You should know beforehand that I have a real weakness for horror. I love horror books. Why, Carmen? Do you like to be scared? Not at all. But horror books don't scare me. Do you know what is scary? Rape, child abuse, sexual slavery, car accidents, living with chronic pain, starving, poverty... stuff like that. You know. REAL LIFE. No matter how "horrifying" books claim to be, if they are about zombies/witches/demons/ghosts/werewolves/living dolls/hauntings etc. I am not scared of them. Because I don't believe in that shit. Give me a book about child abuse, I will be very frightened and feel sick inside. But a book about, say, a demon clown who beheads people with a chainsaw - and I will just be entertained (if it's well-written). ... So. This book. Even though the book is NOT divided up into three parts in actuality, it is clearly divided up into three parts in my mind. PART ONE: Horrorstör Here's the opening of The Mall: My first instinct is the grab his hand, snap back his index finger, and floor the fucker. Instead I keep absolutely immobile, sucking in deep jags of oxygen to try and still my heart. It's jack-hammering like it does when I've taken too much MDMA, but it's vital I get my shit together and calm the fuck down. I shrug my shoulder out of his grasp. "Sir?" he barks, voice nasal and commanding. "Why were you running?" "I'm not a sir," I say, turning my head so that he can get a good look at my face. He flinches as I knew he would, but doesn't bother trying to mask his distaste. Most people at least attempt to hide their shock, but not this guy.... This is Rhoda. A black British woman who is in a Johannesburg mall, looking for a little boy who's gone missing. She's starvation-thin, with a bald head, a nasty scar that takes up half her face and trails down her shoulder to her back, a switchblade, and a real bad attitude. She's supposed to be babysitting her cousin's Zinzi's charge - but instead of staying home she took the 8-year-old kid (fuck! Why can't she remember his name!?!?) to the mall so she could meet her dealer and buy some coke. Unfortunately, the little boy runs off and now Rhoda can't find him... Rhoda tells every alternating chapter. Our other narrator is Dan. Have you ever seen the show Gravity Falls? If you have, I only need to tell you that Dan = Robbie. For those of you who don't, picture this. Skinny white guy (23ish) with tons of acne. Dresses in My Chemical Romance t-shirts. Wears eyeliner. Works a shitty retail job and hates his life. He is obsessed with his pretty co-worker, Josie - but instead of actually talking to her he hides behind the stairwell and spies on her creepily. Lives with his mom. And it wouldn't even occur to him to ask out or be interested in any woman except for the prettiest woman he works with. You know the type. You know what I mean - any woman other than the "hottest" woman would somehow be "settling" even though realistically he would never ever get that type of girlfriend, for reason of his low self-confidence ALONE, if not for looks/attitudes in addition to that. And he idolizes women and "rates" them based solely on their physically appearance - never asking himself stuff like "Is she kind? Is she funny?" etc. ANYWAY. When the kid goes missing, Rhoda frantically tries to convince the (racist, sneering) guards to help her. But they won't. The CCTV footage they show her convinces her that Dan saw the kid and that he's lying to them. So she escapes the guards and lies in wait until the mall is closed to jump Dan with a knife in the parking lot, where she proceeds to beat the shit out of him. I knew the scary bitch was on drugs. Cocaine, heroine, tik, whatever it is. But while I'm bigger than her, she's faster than me, and vicious. I can still taste puke in my mouth, and my stomach fucking hurts. It's the first time I've been beaten up since high school, and never so seriously. I thought she was going to kill me when I tried to run, but I think she realises that she needs me to get her through the mall. Eventually Dan admits to having seen the kid, and Rhoda marches him straight back into the dark, closed mall in order to find him. But the mall is very different after hours. Smelly. Creepy. And what's that phlegmy, coughing sound they keep hearing? Where are all these maggots coming from? ... It's not often that I read a book by South African authors. This was a very interesting location and culture for me to explore. And S.L. Grey is not really one person, but instead a female-male team that writes this "Downside Trilogy" together. I think this is one reason that the split-narration really works here. I wasn't suffering from that "Who's narrating again?" syndrome that usually happens when authors THINK they can speak clearly in two voices, but actually their "different" narrators are nigh indistinguishable. In this novel, angry, damaged, streetwise black woman leads one half, and the other half is followed by a loser with low self-esteem and a dead-end life which he hates. Kudos to the authors for making these two MCs layered and complex. At first I was convinced they would just be stereotypes - (angry black woman! emo loser scrawny white guy!) the kind trotted out in typical horror media. But with each chapter, we get more and more tantalizing clues about each of the characters' back stories, and slowly they morph in front of our eyes into fully-formed 3D people with strengths and weaknesses, good and evil inside them. ... So, the first 33% of the book is following this very traditional horror format. Two unlikely 'heroes' who hate each other's guts get in a really messed-up and creepy situation that becomes more and more hellish with each passing moment. What lies in wait for them in the darkness? Can they put aside their differences and learn to help each other in order to survive? Will they ever find the missing child or is it too late for him? Will they ever escape the hell that is The Mall? "I've seen worse." "You have?" I haven't - not even close. And I've been in some pretty fucking hairy situations in the past. But I'm not going to tell him that. Very traditional horror. I take a gulp of the viscous brown air and something violent and thick lodges in my nose. The air is solid with flies, the floor carpeted with maggots. Now I recognise what's causing the acid itch on my flesh. She jumps up screaming, batting at herself, running away where there might be anything but this. I have to get up. I have to follow. But then the book changes tack. The middle portion of the book (33% - 75%) was really hard for me to get through. The characters act in really dumb ways that I just could not believe. It was as if they'd had sudden lobotomies or something. I was shaking my head, yelling at the book, and I was convinced I was going to give it 2 stars. I know it's common for people to do "dumb things" in horror, in order to make it more scary or something - but this was just them acting TOO STUPID for me to possibly believe. o.O So what changed my mind? The final 25% of the book. This whole section was completely mind-blowing for me. Suddenly the authors were focusing heavily on psychology, relationship-analysis, life issues and life problems, radical life changes, and discussions on the meaning of life. In other words, MY JAM. I love this stuff. I eat this stuff up. Suddenly I couldn't turn the pages fast enough and I was reading and re-reading every perfect, profanity-laden sentence. WOW. This book TOTALLY went in a direction that I could never, ever have guessed from reading the first few chapters. ... There you have it. Again - take this with a grain of salt. I freely admit the middle section is soggy and not on par with the first and final thirds of the novel. But overall this book blew me away - and really surprised me, which is what I love most. Is it scary? I'm probably the wrong person to ask. I don't get scared by Stephen King novels or horror films, so I really have no idea. Again, stuff like "I'm living with chronic pain and I am on food stamps" is horror to me. Not "a demon is possessing my house." That just makes me shrug. So, you'll have to decide for yourself whether this is 'scary' or not. I would say do NOT read this unless you know you like horror books/movies. It is NOT for the squeamish or the easily disgusted / easily creeped-out. There are some descriptions in here that would turn a weak stomach. ... This book makes great observations about life. Retail work: I made myself worthless, all for three peanuts an hour. Racism: Here's Dan talking about his black maid: ...realising as I say it that I've never imagined what Florence's home is like. I know she's got two grown-up kids and a grandchild living with her. But what does she do when she goes home? Who cooks, who cleans, how many rooms does her house have, does she have a TV? Do her kids work? Who gets up for the baby? Is she the same bleak and silent woman at home, or does she sing songs to the baby? Does she tell stories? I can't imagine her sitting around a table with her family and laughing. Florence starts existing at eight in the morning and blinks out of being at five. And as I pass her, she leaves my mind just as quickly. Or when he first meets Rhoda: "I know you're in trouble. I'm trying to help you." The laughter dries up. "Yeah. A prat like you would willingly help someone like me." "Ja? What do I think of you?" I challenge, rubbing the small of my back. "Ugly unladylike darkie freak with a drug and anger problem. Typical of those black bitches who think they're above their station." Well, at least she isn't deluded. Aggressive. Paranoid. Fucked up on drugs. But, to her credit, she is not deluded. What we expect from people and what they actually are in reality. How we can think we "know" a person, only to be surprised and betrayed to find out that they have as many facets to their personality and as many faces in their life as pi has digits. What's happened to her? Or is this who she really is? Do we really want free will? Or do we secretly need and want others to tell us what to do? I want you to tell me what to do. The only time I ever did anything interesting with my life, I was following you. I need you to tell me what to do. The book is also surprisingly funny. I won't tell you the best jokes, but it made me smile quite a bit. She's beaming dreamily like a teenager at a poster of a semi-naked movie vampire. Here's one of my favorite exchanges: Dan yawns. "What's the first thing you're going to do when you get home?" he says. "I don't have a home." "When you get out of here, then." "Have a fucking shower, try not to get arrested, make sure that kid is found." "In that order?" "Sure. You?" He rests his head on the wall behind him. "Double Quarter Pounder with Cheese. Then a trip to a psychologist." "Seriously?" "No. I hate McDonald's." And in the middle of grimy, dirty, slimy, hiding, run-for-your-life horror, there are these small clear moments of observation. For the second time today, I notice just how light she is. She shouldn't be this light. It's like if she relaxed all those tight sinews she'd break into pieces. ... Even though I also gave Horrorstör 5 stars, this book is 10x better than Horrorstör. If you are going to read just one "evil retail location*" book, this one beats out Horrorstör. The thing is that this is the first book in a trilogy. And while this book doesn't end on a cliffhanger - I feel it ends in a great, really satisfying way - the authors ARE continuing this story in this universe and you can either choose to leave this as a stand-alone or you can go further into this world. I have NO idea where they are taking this, so I'm going into Book 2: The Ward eager but with a bit of trepidation. Who knows what kind of monsters are lying in wait just ahead? *I can't believe this is becoming a sub-genre. Or a sub-sub-genre, more likely. Tl;dr - I highly recommend this to any horror fan. ... P.S. Once again with the rats. Rats are NOT scary. Please stop trying to use rats to scare me, S.L. Grey, Grady Hendrix, Neil Gaiman. Rats. Not scary. Find a new schtick. P.P.S. Dear Publishers, If you publish this is Spanish I will buy a copy! ...more |
Notes are private!
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2
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May 17, 2015
not set
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Jul 04, 2015
not set
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May 17, 2015
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Paperback
| ||||||||||||||
| 0743424425
| 9780743424424
| 0743424425
| 4.28
| 1,705,482
| Jan 28, 1977
| Sep 2001
|
it was amazing
|
This inhuman place makes human monsters. When Jack, an alcoholic 14-months sober, gets offered a job as a caretaker for an old hotel in remote Colorado This inhuman place makes human monsters. When Jack, an alcoholic 14-months sober, gets offered a job as a caretaker for an old hotel in remote Colorado, he has no choice but to take it. He doesn't have many options - he's been fired from teaching and his play he's been working on is far from finished. He packs up his wife, Wendy, and his psychic five-year-old son, Danny, and waits for the snows to come. The hotel has a Grudge, unfortunately. And Danny's psychic ability is only feeding the Grudge and making it stronger. As the Grudge tries to work it's way into Jack's mind, the possibilities of any of them escaping alive dips toward zero. ... GRUDGE A Grudge is an evil, murderous presence which is tied to a location. If something terrible happens in a place - someone killing their own family and then committing suicide seems to be the most common trigger - then a Grudge is on the place. This book's Grudge apparently is a conglomerate built up over the near hundred years the hotel has been in existence. It consists of the remains of a Mafia killing, and a caretaker who killed his wife and two daughters and then himself, and a woman who commits suicide after her younger lover leaves her. There's probably a lot more. This Grudge sees Jack, his wife, and most especially his little boy Danny as a kind of all-you-can-eat buffet, personally delivered for its enjoyment. If it can kill Danny, therefore tying him to the hotel, it will become very powerful. TRUE HORROR Well, I don't believe in ghosts. But I sure as heck believe in alcoholic abusive men with tempers. And that is the true horror here. Yes, there is an evil presence in the hotel. Yes, it spurs Jack on to murderous intentions. However, that is not the real problem here. The real problem here is that Jack is a bad person. Yes, he loves his wife. Yes, he loves his child. But he has a terrible temper. I can't even blame the alcohol, although that certainly exacerbates things. But Jack does horrifying things while he's stone-cold sober. And way before he's introduced to the hotel's Grudge. Some examples: - Deliberately screws with the mind of a student he despises. Then denies doing it. - Beats aforementioned student unconscious in a parking lot. - Sympathizes with a man who rapes and murders children. - Has such an uncontrollable urge to beat his wife and child that he has to physically leave the house and drive around the neighborhood so he won't lay hands on them. - He has an extremely external locus of control - nothing is his fault. Everything can be blamed on others. This is very dangerous, especially in a man with temper. He takes absolutely no responsibility for his actions or his position in life. Instead he hates everyone else for "putting him there." All this is sober, and pre-hotel. So don't try to tell me it's the drink! Don't try to tell me that it's the ghosts! Bullshit. This man is already someone you should be crossing the street to avoid. It's very tempting and easy to blame all your problems on your alcoholism. I've seen it a thousand times. Because alcoholism is a serious and damaging disease. It is. And if it weren't for the drink, life would be perfect - you would be perfect. Right? WRONG. And Stephen King does a subtle job of showing that here. Jack Torrance's problem - his real problem - is that he has a bad temper. There is no cure for that. Going sober is not a cure for that (although it will probably help). Being married to and bearing a child with a man like this is the true horror, I think, and not all this bullshit with dead people in the bathtub. I don't think that comes through clearly to a lot of people, who still think this is a novel about ghosts. CHRISTIAN Of course, Stephen King is one of the leading Christian authors of our time. Stephen King's absolute belief in God, Satan, angels and demons shines from every page of his horror novels. And this is no exception. Young Danny has 'the shining,' and so does the kindly, black, 62-year-old cook for the hotel. This is described as "psychic" in the book, but it's obvious (especially near the climax) that they are God-touched and warriors in God's fight with Satan. Hmmmm, a kind of human angel or angel-on-earth if you will. People laugh and also scoff when I baldly state King's rightful place as leading Christian author nowadays, but it's completely true. Actually, one of my atheist friends refuses to read King's books for just this reason. "King's books are extremely boring," he says. "It's always the same. Deep, deep evil from hell crops up and God must send someone (usually a little boy, although sometimes that changes) to act as His representative and stop Satan from gaining a foothold." This neatly sums up 98% of King's horror plots. ABUSIVE PARENTS It's doubly hard for Jack and Wendy to parent because both of them come from abusive homes. Jack's father frequently beat his wife and children, putting them in the hospital. Wendy's mother is verbally and emotionally abusive, ripping Wendy and her accomplishments to shreds at every opportunity. We can see how hard each of these people have to fight against continuing the cycle of abuse and attempt to be good parents to Danny. Wendy largely succeeds... Jack not so much. WENDY I liked this character. Would she stand frozen in terror, or was there enough of the primal mother in her to fight him for her son until one of them was dead? She didn't know. The very thought made her sick - made her feel that her whole life had been a long and easy dream to lull her helplessly into this waking nightmare. She was soft. When trouble came, she slept. Her past was unremarkable. She had never been tried in fire. Now the trial was upon her, not fire but ice, and she would not be allowed to sleep through this. Her son was waiting for her upstairs. Wendy is really put through the wringer, and she performs admirably. I loved her bravery and her struggle to protect Danny. She's terrified, weak, and unskilled - but she doesn't let this stop her from doing what she has to do. Well done. THINGS I DIDN'T LIKE - Giant hedge animals coming to life and trying to kill people is laughable. Even a master-author like King cannot convince me that this is scary. It's just dumb. - I really did not like the final showdown between little Danny and his (view spoiler)[dead, Grudge-possessed (hide spoiler)] father. It rang false. I couldn't believe he was (view spoiler)[having a rational conversation with it and talking it down. Bullshit. Complete bullshit. Then it leaves to run down to the boiler instead of murdering him. Stupid and unrealistic. (hide spoiler)] So, that was very disappointing. Tl;dr - A great book, full of nuance and delicate shading. The writing is excellent, the plot as a whole is fascinating. Besides the disappointing, dumb aspect of the climax which I discussed in the above paragraph, this is an overall success. I'm reading all of King's books in order, and of the three I've read, I would rank them: 1.) Carrie 2.) 'Salem's Lot 3.) The Shining This has been the weakest of the three. But still spectacular. I would highly recommend it. ...more |
Notes are private!
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2
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Mar 27, 2015
not set
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Mar 30, 2015
not set
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Mar 27, 2015
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Mass Market Paperback
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| B00S977MVG
| 4.04
| 49
| Feb 23, 2015
| Feb 23, 2015
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it was ok
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Suddenly I realise that the thing in the grass isn't lying down, but squatting. It bursts up out of the darkness. I stumble backwards onto the concrete Suddenly I realise that the thing in the grass isn't lying down, but squatting. It bursts up out of the darkness. I stumble backwards onto the concrete but the thing claws at my face and my hair's snagged and I'm shouting until my throat aches. Okay, I don't understand this novella. It's very ambiguous. Carus is 15, her sister Mitch is 7. They live in a few rooms of a boarded-up house. They are scared to leave the house because their (now dead) mom told them it wasn't safe out there. Mitch was just a baby when they came to this house, she doesn't know anything about the world outside. Outside has always been just the yard with its drooping flowers and tall fence. Everything beyond that point are just stories, either mine or from books. The photo encyclopedia she loves so much is as fictional as any storybook. They have chickens in one room in the house. Every day, Carus leaves some eggs in her mailbox outside the fence. And they are taken and replaced by tins of food by a man known only as Jom, whom the kids have never seen. Mitch is getting antsy and defiant, she hates being cooped up in the house and doesn't really believe her sister's warnings about how dangerous it is outside. Now for the real question: What the fuck is going on here? It's very unclear. Is this post-apocolyptic? Are the girls indeed right and smart to hide, because there are zombies or aliens or summat out there? Will they really be in danger if they leave the fence? Or was their mom a psycho, and taught her kids to hide and live in isolation, then dying and leaving them all alone terrified of the outside world? Or is Mitch herself psychotic? (view spoiler)[She starts blaming Mitch for everything and hating her even though it's clear Mitch is really sick. Physically ill. Does Mitch have the zombie virus? (If there even is one?) Carus is sick, too. Is she going to turn into a zombie? Or are they sick from malnutrition? A genetic illness? Who knows? Carus keeps making Mitch hot chocolate. Then, later, when she's cleaning the hot chocolate mug there are nasty white pustules in the bottom. Are they from Mitch and a result of her sickness? Or is Carus poisoning her sister deliberately with the hot chocolate, angry with her for being so headstrong and defiant? Unknown. At the end, (view spoiler)[ the ghost of the dead, drowned mom seems to come back and haunt Carus. Mitch is buried on the front lawn. Carus killed her. Was she right to kill her because Mitch was a zombie and attacked her? Or was innocent Mitch brutally murdered by her psychotic older sister? Who knows? (hide spoiler)] (hide spoiler)] Anyway, I couldn't make heads or tails of it. Is it gripping? Yes. Is it creepy? Heck yes. But it doesn't give us any answers and that grates my cheese. Tl;dr - A well-written, creepy story that was very unsatisfying due to its lack of answers. I would only recommend it to people who love ambiguity in their stories. I don't like horror that doesn't explain itself in the end - but if it weren't for this pet peeve of mine, this would have gotten a 3-star (or 4 or 5, depending on the explanation). So I'm not discouraging you from reading it, but be warned! P.S. The author contacted me to read this story, but I paid full price for my copy. Boo-yah! P.P.S. After reading all the reviews for this on GR, I have to say I have no problem with the cover. I like the cover. ...more |
Notes are private!
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1
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Apr 22, 2015
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Apr 22, 2015
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Mar 24, 2015
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Kindle Edition
| ||||||||||||||||
| 0590568906
| 9780590568906
| 0590568906
| 3.35
| 3,499
| Mar 1997
| Mar 1997
|
did not like it
|
This is widely regarded as the worst book in the original Goosebumps series. I appreciate Stine's attempt to bring us to Farmland, America - I really d This is widely regarded as the worst book in the original Goosebumps series. I appreciate Stine's attempt to bring us to Farmland, America - I really do, but this was a mistake. Crystal and her little brother Cole live on a farm with her back-to-the-earth parents, who previously lived in NYC. The kids hate chickens, but chickens are a part of their parents "dream" of living on a farm. I actually know people like this, so far, so good. Cole is a complete brat with no redeeming values - typical of this series. There is a woman in town of unknown age named Vanessa. She wears all black, has black hair, is pale, and wears purple lipstick. It is widely believed that she is a witch. I am sick and tired of this "Goth = witch" crap but okay. Cole, little shit that he is, entered into a dare involving him and two friends filling Vanessa's mailbox with water. She is the victim of many pranks. Crystal makes some minor protests about how what the kids are doing is "really mean," but doesn't actually, you know, DO ANYTHING TO STOP IT. Fail as an older sister. You see your kid brother steppin' out, you stride forward and yank the kid back - stopping him from doing something stupid, saving everyone a lot of heartache, and getting to exercise your God-given right as eldest to give your younger sibling a talking-to. Falling asleep on the job, Crystal. It's your responsibility to make sure this shit doesn't happen, especially WHEN YOU'RE STANDING RIGHT THERE WATCHING HIM DO IT. Moron. Blah, blah, stuff happens, the kids (literally) bump into Vanessa at the market, spilling all her groceries. They flee the scene without apologizing or helping her pick up her smashed groceries, which leads to her pointing at them and saying, "Chicken chicken." Which apparently is a spell (who is WRITING spells nowadays? I seem to remember them being a little more creative) which begins to turn Crystal and Cole into actual chickens. It's dumb and the ending is even worse, believe me. Tl;dr - It's okay to skip this one, trust me. ...more |
Notes are private!
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2
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Mar 05, 2015
not set
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Mar 05, 2015
not set
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Mar 05, 2015
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Paperback
| ||||||||||||||
| 0590568892
| 9780590568890
| B006U1PDRI
| 3.58
| 4,345
| Feb 1997
| 1997
|
it was ok
|
This book is a hot mess. Jack Johnson is a 12-year-old who is in a pissing contest with another 12-year-old named Wilson Schlame. I don't get it. I th
This book is a hot mess. Jack Johnson is a 12-year-old who is in a pissing contest with another 12-year-old named Wilson Schlame. I don't get it. I thought testosterone poisoning set in a little later than this. Maybe I was wrong. The boys compete with each other in EVERYTHING and Wilson always wins. He's a complete asshole who has to one-up Jack on everything Jack attempts to do. What's the root of all this? A cute girl, of course! Her name is Mia. The boys make complete idiots out of themselves vying for her attention. If I were her, I'd be really fed up and tell both of them to scram. However, she seems to find Wilson's assholery 'charming' and just kind of ignores the facts like a.) both boys act like complete cavemen around her and b.) Wilson is a complete asshole who stomps on Jack's accomplishments at every opportunity. So. I suppose you want me to get around to talking about the flying? Okay, Jack flees Mia's birthday party because he can't stand Wilson acting like a total asshole nonstop for four hours. He (for some reason) hides out in an old abandoned house where he finds an (admittedly) very cool-sounding book titled FLYING LESSONS. Instead of being about airplanes, like Jack initially assumed, it is illustrated with tons of pictures of people in old-fashioned clothes flying through the air. Jack takes the book home and follows the instructions to be able to fly. It involves a lot of hopping and making a crazy dough mixture with a secret ingredient. Long story short, it works. And that's when things go bad... ... The narrative stream in this book is very poor. Events are happening, it's a big mish-mash, and it doesn't really make much sense, even for a Goosebumps book. Another problem is Wilson is just such a dick. Jeez Louise, what is with Stine and creating kids who are little terrors? I really don't expect three-dimensional characterization in a Goosebumps book, but Wilson was grating on my nerves. I sympathized with Jack for wanting to beat the kid at something - anything - and wipe that annoying smirk off his face. Until page 80 when Jack starts acting like a jerk, refusing to teach Mia how to fly because he's a selfish person. Ugh. That made me so mad! And then when he decides he IS going to teach her how to fly, it's all because he wants her to swoon all over him and be the "big man." Ugh. So gross. I hate all this macho shit. Tl;dr - Poor plot, poor execution, terrible characters. The ending was pretty good, though. ...more |
Notes are private!
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2
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Mar 05, 2015
not set
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Mar 05, 2015
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Mar 05, 2015
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Paperback
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my rating |
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|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
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| 3.41
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it was amazing
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Jul 17, 2023
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Oct 05, 2022
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| 3.35
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really liked it
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Oct 15, 2022
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Oct 04, 2022
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| 3.55
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it was amazing
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Oct 22, 2022
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Feb 04, 2022
|
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| 3.38
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really liked it
|
Feb 05, 2020
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Feb 05, 2020
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| 3.90
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really liked it
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Sep 12, 2019
|
Sep 12, 2019
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|||||
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| 4.01
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liked it
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Oct 07, 2019
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Aug 08, 2019
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| 3.61
|
it was amazing
|
Apr 17, 2022
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Jan 28, 2019
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| 4.01
|
it was amazing
|
Feb 04, 2023
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Nov 07, 2018
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| 3.83
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it was amazing
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Feb 02, 2018
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Feb 01, 2018
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| 3.86
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it was amazing
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Oct 04, 2017
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Sep 27, 2017
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| 3.59
|
did not like it
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Jul 04, 2017
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May 12, 2017
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|
| 3.92
|
it was amazing
|
Jan 20, 2023
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May 23, 2016
|
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| 3.04
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liked it
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Apr 08, 2016
|
Apr 04, 2016
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|||||
|
| 3.90
|
really liked it
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Dec 26, 2015
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Dec 04, 2015
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|||||
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| 3.63
|
really liked it
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Aug 11, 2015
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Aug 10, 2015
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|||||
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| 3.57
|
it was amazing
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Jul 04, 2015
not set
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May 17, 2015
|
|||||
|
| 4.28
|
it was amazing
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Mar 30, 2015
not set
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Mar 27, 2015
|
|||||
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| 4.04
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it was ok
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Apr 22, 2015
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Mar 24, 2015
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| 3.35
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did not like it
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Mar 05, 2015
not set
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Mar 05, 2015
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|||||
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| 3.58
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it was ok
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Mar 05, 2015
not set
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Mar 05, 2015
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