It has recently come to my attention that not everyone agrees with me that summer is spooky season (perhaps even the spookiest season), but with books like this one, it's going to be difficult to change my mind on this matter. The summer camp setting, grisly murders, and small-town atmosphere make this a great post-4th of July read, when the next thing to look forward to is Halloween and the shadows around the campfire start seeming deeper and darker.

I could not bring myself to read Survivor Song when it came out mid-2020. A year later, I must say that it's weird to read virus fiction now. Some of it, the anti-vax rhetoric and the conspiracy theories and guys flying the Gadsden flag, rang so true, so familiar, that it was oddly comforting. Yeah, I thought, it do be that way sometimes.

(Long-term effects of the pandemic on my sense of humor yet to be determined, but the prognosis isn't encouraging.)

Meanwhile, some moments read as heartbreakingly optimistic. Did that just say that only 10,000 people will die before it's contained? I wish...

The story follows Natalie, an expectant mother infected with a new type of super-rabies, and her friend Ramola, a pediatrician, as they race to secure medical care for Natalie before she succumbs to the disease. Despite Ramola's insistence that the infected people are not zombies, they run through a series of zombie movie checkpoints and heart-pounding moments on their ill-fated journey.

There were moments when their quest did not feel as tense or as scary to me as I expected it would, which might be down to my reading tastes: running around and action sequences are not my favorite things to read. But the moments where Tremblay dwells a bit on the characters and the implications of what's happening to them are genuinely distressing.

And the conclusion is harrowing. I finished this book sympathetically exhausted and wondering, as I do in most horror scenarios, if I would have been able to persevere in the same situation or make the same decisions. Hopefully I never get to find out.

Bittersweet middle-grade graphic novel about grief and memory, set in a struggling, family-owned laundromat that has recently gained a confused ghost. Sometimes kids don't get to be kids, because circumstances require them to step into adult roles before their time, and that's what Marjorie is facing here, the along with the uncertainty and isolation of poverty. That Thummler tackles all of this without her book feeling like a Very Special Episode is impressive, and possibly due to the charm of her sheet-clad characters.

An excruciating slow burn through the familial aftermath of a teen boy's disappearance, culminating in a horrible revelation. This is my least favorite of Tremblay's books that I've read so far, but that's not to say that I disliked it; it just didn't have the same propulsive energy that made me tear madly though the pages of, for example, The Cabin at the End of the World. Even having read Survivor Song first and, therefore, having had some of the plot spoiled for me, I was still eager to find out what happened next. There are certainly long stretches of this book that leave you waiting for something to happen, and this won't be to everyone's taste; but I thought that steeping for so long in the family's sorrow and uncertainty, experiencing their desperation for news, for comfort, for anything, alongside them, was effective and made the payoff even more horrific.

I liked this sequel to Sheets even more than I liked the original, thanks to the addition of Eliza, whose obviously autistic traits and special interests in ghosts and photography endeared her to me immediately.

People say that The Cipher is unlike anything they've ever read, but that's not quite true for me. It hits notes of Johnny Truant's narrative voice in House of Leaves and the squalor of good Chuck Palahniuk. But of course, The Cipher came first.

I'll be turning this book over in my head for awhile. After all, the Funhole is a process.

Yes, I love books in which people are atrocious to one another, reality bends the human psyche into unrecognizable shapes, and monsters of supernatural and mundane varieties wreak havoc. But even I need a gentle read sometimes, a book that lets me imagine that I'm a librarian in an idyllic coastal town, pedaling around on my bike and solving murders.

Better Late Than Never gets high marks from me because...

1. Although the library setting is somewhat idealized--no one's harassing the staff or hiding drugs in the ceiling vents or jamming paper towels down the toilets--McKinlay's experience as a librarian shows. Nothing takes me out of a book with a library setting like the author being out of touch with the ethics of librarianship or how libraries operate. That's not something I have to worry about here.

But perhaps more importantly:

2. The annoying love triangle that made me drop the series for awhile is finally resolved!

3. And the secondary character I decided was a lesbian just because I liked her turned out to actually be a lesbian!

More than enough to convince me to continue the series, at least for as long as I need the mental vacation.

I'm shocked at how much I enjoyed Lindsey and Robbie's dynamic in this book. They're so much better as friends, and I find him less obnoxious if I imagine him as Tom Hiddleston. Now if I can mentally cast someone I like in the role of Sully to make me like him more, too. (There is far too much swooning over Sully for my taste in these books.)

Much to my disappointment, my new favorite secondary character, Paula, was absent for most of the book, hiding out after being accused of murder. She still got a bit of character development, though, and I'm very amused that of course she and her girlfriend are already U-Hauling.

Ms. Cole's evolution from curmudgeon to crafternooner is seemingly complete, which is both surprising and refreshing. (I'd wondered when she would inevitably be the next unlikeable murder victim to meet their end in the Briar Creek library.) I'm glad that McKinlay is allowing her characters to change, essential to keeping a series this long from growing stale.

That moment when your girlfriend asks when you’re going to read more of the series she recommended, and you think, “Jeez, woman, didn’t I just start it?” and then you realize it’s been four months…

Pretty much the only thing that can convince me to read a Christmas-themed book in August is my favorite podcast, Reading Glasses, picking one for their upcoming erotica book club. This novella follows two Dominican women as they compete in a Great British Baking Show-style holiday baking challenge in Scotland. Lots of cookies, plenty of kitchen drama, a dollop of lesbian angst, and a few incredibly steamy scenes make this novella fun to read. However, the antagonists felt one-dimensional, and the dual narrators were so similar that I forgot who was speaking sometimes.