Oh my gosh. I finished this book quicker than any book of this size in a long time. I couldn't stop, which is weird because the plot of this book does not seem like anything that would ever have grabbed my attention. I only had hyped up reviews and the promise of a new mini-series to spark my interest in this. And thank God for them!

I have not cried in a book in quite a while. But this book had my chin quivering while trying to hold back soul-crushing, heartfelt ugly crying on these last 10-20 pages. The whole book culminates in this giant epiphany of purpose and meaning. This book is about acceptance, loss, addiction, limits, love, family, hope, the journey, and rock and roll.

This will go down as one of the best books I have read this year - just wait. 5 stars! <3 Everyone needs this book!!

Deeply unsatisfying. I'm too angry and bored for words right now. But here we go. I waited and waited for this book to start being good and it never happened. The story was repetitive, mundane, and tried too hard to be pretentious (which is worse than actually being pretentious). They have sex. A few months go by. They get drunk and have sex again. Six weeks go by. They get drunk and have sex again. Five months go by. You see where I am going with this? The ENTIRE book is this. You have no sense of connection to the characters, you cannot understand their journey because of constant huge times jumps, and you simply can't care about either of them. If this book ended with one of them being in sexaholics anonymous then the setup of this book would have worked. BUT ALAS it did not end that way.

Even the characters are inconsistent. In one part we have the main character saying, "In a way I like the idea of something so dramatic happening to me. I would like to upset peoples expectations." And then just pages later it is said, "Marianne was so totally uninterested in what people thought of her, so extremely secure in her own self-perception." What hot garbage. Make a choice and decide who your character is supposed to be - and if growth and change are supposed to be themes here, then allow us to explore that better by not changing the setting 4-6 months every 8 pages. There is literally no sense of connection with these one-dimensional, booze and sex obsessed twits who are only hooking up when the other is in a relationship it seems. BLAH BLAH BLAH.

Garbage. Would never in a million years recommend this to my worst enemy. Rant over.

I have not read many werewolf/wolf books. I need and want to add more creature features to my 2019 reading list; that is definitely a goal of mine! And if the rest are anything like The Mongrel then I know I am in for quite a treat! While this book/novella was short in pages, it was packed with some intense scenes. The isolation, entrapment, and claustrophobia elements were all too real for me here. There are some modern day Cujo vibes here and I am loving it!

There are only a few characters in this story and the author did a great job at establishing who they all are and their relationships with one another. (Trigger warnings for domestic abuse IF you need to be warned). My only complaint here is that I wish I could have had even more character development - as in I would like to know what peoples' relationships were more in depth BEFORE the story took place, if that makes any sense at all. However, I do not think wanting more from a novella is any sort of new ask from me or a lot of other readers. A good novella always leaves me thirsty for more!

This book had a couple twists/turns that took me by surprise as well. It's not TOO often that I can get totally thrown around without any idea of the truth, and this story happened to be one of them.

4 stars from me! Thank you to the author for sending this book to the Night Worms in exchange for an honest review! I am looking forward to reading more of this author for sure and recommend everyone take some time to check this novella out and get introduced to O'Connor! He belongs on your bookshelves!

Pasadena is no place for the abominable snowman. And the residents are not at all ready for snow... especially when it makes snowballs that won't melt. I enjoyed the first 3/4 of this when they were going to find the abominable snowman more than the end where they brought him back to Pasadena. Still a fun read - 3 stars

Well, hello! I finally made it into the official world of Throne of Glass with this one. I started the series reading Assassin's Blade even thought that came out a couple books later. Since it was a series of prequel novellas, I was able to get a lot of backstory to Celaena Sardothien. Honestly, I cannot imagine going into this book without knowing who she was prior. Those prequel novellas really put a lot on the line: what made her tick, what broke her, who she was, who she is capable of being, etc. It added so much to her character. In this first installment of the official series, we just see Celaena as sort of... standoffish, catty, entitled, and self-absorbed? Those may be too harsh of descriptions, but I can see a lot of people reading this for the first time and thinking, "THIS is the character I am supposed to fall in love with and has spawned a total new fandom?!" But I am here to say, "YES! It's her!" It was quite a shock seeing her enslaved and being forced to tame down/mute her abilities for the sake of not being recognized. It was difficult balancing reading that while seeing how confident she was in her conversations with the few who know the truth about her. But in the end, everything worked out and I am sure that she and this series will only grow better and stronger with each book in the series. 5 stars!

"I think there's a natural goodness built in to human beings. You know when you've stepped across the line into evil, and it's your life's challenge to try and stay on the right side of that line."

We made it. We did not know if we needed to know about Snow and what made him the most-hated man in dystopian YA fiction, but here we are.

I will say that, for the most part, I enjoyed this book. I tore through 500+ pages in just a day and a half. So if I did not enjoy it enough, I surely would not have been flippin' these pages as fast as I was. But I can't say that I am over the moon about it. Readers and fans who are expecting a novel like the previous Hunger Games books will definitely be disappointed. This book is split into 3 parts and you can loosely see them as: right before the 10th Hunger Games, during the 10th Hunger Games, and right after the 10th Hunger Games. And these Hunger Games are kind of messy: the cameras are not great quality and the contestants are not seen a lot, the "field/arena" is a little messy and blood stained, mentors are new this year for the tributes, spectators can't send in support/gifts really yet, etc. So it definitely goes to show that there is a LOT of improvement from this year's Hunger Games until the one we see where Katniss first emerges as the victor.

I do not think we got a story about Snow that I was expecting. I expected more than just a character study. I wanted to know what made him become evil or what triggered him to make the choices that landed him the evil president that he becomes. But from the first page he is set on being the president and he is just sort of whiny and narcissistic the whole time. He makes selfish decisions and nothing really seems out of character for who we know Snow to be. He just has always been a bad person it seems.

I absolutely LOVED Lucy Gray, though. And I am interested in seeing if Suzanne Collins will add another Hunger Games book that focuses on what happens/happened to her (if anything) once this book is over. Or will we see more of Snow's ascent into power? I could not help but noticed some connections with Lucy Gray and what might make Snow have such animosity towards Katniss so much in the future. A lot of things clicked. But so many things still did not. But that's okay.

Collins definitely did not disappoint the reader in the horror of the Hunger Games. Innocent kids are still butchering innocent kids and we are just as shocked now as we were reading the original trilogy. I am going to land on a 3.5 star review for this. I have been thinking about it a lot and this is just where my mind is at right now for it. I wanted a lot more, but I am also not mad at what I did get. Definitely recommend this to Hunger Games fans, but I just want expectations to be tapered a little bit because it is definitely a different type of story.

I desperately wanted to love this one. But you can't win them all, I suppose. I think this would have been a lot better had it been a longer book as it was quite short and read in about 20 minutes or so. But it had some hilarious scenes and great dialogue. So I'm gonna go with 2.5 on this... it's worth reading for sure, but I just know it's not his best... the preface/author foreword is EXCELLENT as well!

For someone who does not love summer, I was a bit hesitant going into this book. I much prefer fall! But everyone seems to rave about this book and it IS Bradbury, after all, so I figured I could give it a chance. Turns out: great book! And once I realized it was not a novel in the strictest sense (it is more a collection of little vignettes), I was able to fly through this one! This book is a great blend of magic realism, coming of age, innocence, and more. Bradbury takes you on a little ride through one boy's summer and it is one that you want to experience. Each vignette or memory is a great personification of summer - and, again, this is coming from someone who is almost anti-summer to the max! If you like coming of age or you are a Bradbury fan, this book is for you! 4 stars!

Stephen Graham Jones just knows how to tell stories - and each one he tells is uniquely wild and told from a different perspective or point of view than I am used to. You NEVER know what to expect from him... but it is clear that you can expect a great story!

This book is full of little turns and real horror and psychological horror. He makes me want to feel disturbed as a reader (is that even a thing?!) and writes in such a way that you just can't stop and need to know what's going on.

This is a quick read that every horror fan needs!

Playing Possum is a fun creature feature with a unique antagonist (as the title indicates): possums! This was a quick and fast-paced read - and I enjoyed all the squirmy rodent-infested horror. I have always had a slight distaste for seeing them: those eyes, those naked ratty tails, those sinister and sharp teeth-filled mouths, etc.... yikes! You can practically hear the hissing, scurrying, screeching, and crying! Runnnnnnnnnnnnn from them!

In this story, I got a little confused from time to time with the amount of characters that were being introduced but I was able to slow down and sort it all out.

Definitely check this book out if you are into creature features and SyFy-esque horror! A fun ride that I recommend - 3.5 stars rounded up for Goodreads!