I can’t control myself with these books. I read them like I’m shoveling potato chips into my mouth, standing in the kitchen in the middle of the night. Except I never regret the pure pleasure of reading them.

“[I]t is a glory and a privilege to love what Death doesn’t touch.” I envy the people who will read this book 100 years from now, if the world persists that long.

True crime meets memoir meets poetry. I adored Nelson’s use of her aunt’s diary entries and the way she communicated the heinousness of Jane’s murder by presenting her as a person, not a faceless victim defined by her death.

A nasty little book made of pure Brittney catnip. It’s got magic and an ambiguously historical setting and queerness and a revenge plot and a monster and people doing shitty things to each other. All the things I love. (But perhaps don’t read this if you want an escape from Coronavirus paranoia, because a plague plays a pretty big role.)

It seems pointless to say that Stephen King writes good books, but I’ve had enough people sneer at me for reading him that it bears repeating. ‘Salem’s Lot is a treat to read, both because it’s a genuinely creepy vampire story that handles traditional vampires well, and because it’s an impeccably crafted novel regardless of genre. All the moving parts work. The characterization is solid. Everything King sets up pays off. It’s like looking at an inlaid wooden box and being able to see how all the pieces fit together and still being amazed by it because it might look easy in a master craftsman’s hands, but it’s not easy at all to do. It is, however, easy and compulsive and damn fun to read.