The Black Kids is a young adult historical fiction novel that centers around Rodney King and the LA Riots that resulted from the overwhelming injustice. We get to see the 1992 incident and subsequent fallout from the perspective of Ashley, a black girl in a pretty posh environment with an affluent and semi-sheltered upbringing. Her parents always want a life for her and her sister that is different from the ones they had growing up. There are few black kids at her school and all of her friends are white. She is a senior and supposed to be having the time of her life before more responsibilities kick in. With all of that in mind, the stage of this book has been set and now we start to get insights from Ashley knowing all that we know about her, her family, her friends, and the climate of Los Angeles in 1992. This book cover so many topics and a lot of them you expect to find in this essential story: systemic racism & police brutality, classism, privilege, family life, coming-of-age, identity and discovery, etc. The discussions this book can launch are endless and I think this would make a great book club or summer reading type book due to all the thoughts and conversations it will create. I was not in love with Ashley, per se, as I felt her POV was a little judgy and rambly at times... and her friends are pretty shallow to me. But some of the side characters in the book make up for those small grievances and issues with the main character that I had. It's impressive to me that this is the author's debut novel and I can definitely say I will read more from her as this book is one I will be recommending for sure! 4 stars!

What a treat! Who knew a short story from the perspective of a fern could be so touching? Before I even get into the review just know that I am highly recommending this beautifully written, heartwarming, and smart short story! 5 stars!

I have always been somewhat a victim to anthropomorphism - the attribution of human characteristics, emotions, and behaviors to animals or other non-human things. Marie Kondo would despise me. I hold on to things way too long just because of memories associated with them. I imagine everything is like the Brave Little Toaster or toys from Toy Story... what happens when I throw them out or they are just rotting alone at the dump? Things like this keep me up!

The Houseplant is a short story that focuses on the life of one little fern... as he sits in the Garden Palace (NOT) waiting to be purchased by a human and through its ups and downs of tolerating this new lonely life being the only plant in the house with a man-human and two offspring-humans. We see the world through George, which is the name Brenda gives him. There is a struggle as the relationship blossoms between the two... and it's quite interesting and entertaining.

Then author Jeremy Ray grabs our heartstrings and tugs SO hard... and a story that was already unique and quirky becomes something that is full of life, heart, and humanity. I am not an author or a valid critic, so it is not easy for me to put into the best words how this story made me feel. But I hope I am semi-capturing it with this review... because I think this story will surprise you!

And now I will walk around and talk to all of my house plants today (I do that from time to time) and give them a little more water. Many of our plants are symbols of a loved one or a precious moment in our lives. We both still have plants from our fathers' funerals... and one of the plants in our house my husband has had for just around 25 years - it was a housewarming gift to a home years before the one we are in now. And it is still thriving here in our house. We love our house plants and I loved this story so much!

Okay... that's the final straw... this one is just garbage w/ few saving factors. 0 stars! To sum up, this is the main doctor's goal of which she hopes to be remembered: "Dr. Kelly Cauldron worked 22-hour days and went without sex for 6 months to help save the world."

I would've preferred to learn of Dr Kelly's credentials & how she used that knowledge & expertise to help w/ the vaccine but instead I was given pages of what great oral she gives. And more descriptions were given to these penises than her commendations as a research doctor & scientist. Oh, and it turns out she's technically neither of the 2 but an orthodontist. All of this makes sense, right? Maybe it makes more sense if I tell you she has to deliver vaccines b/c the gov't came to her office & said she would be imprisoned if she declined to join the team. There... that should help!

Injecting people w/ the vaccine... the killer of killers... turns her on so much that she has to take her hot dog for lunch... and... well, she DOESN'T eat it. Fun fact: she actually ends up remembering she has a SECOND hot dog in her thermos... one of which gets stuck & she has to continue working in those hostile conditions...

Then we meet Bill Johnso... not Johnson, but Johnso. What? Is that real? What makes it better is that he arrives to get a vaccine, but did not tell anyone he just had another last week. WELL, too much vaccine made him basically explode, grow to 175% his size, turn blue, & his name changed to 'Cure.' And this launches the rest of the story into lots of lusty behavior. And... Cure definitely finds the missing hot dog.

Then a huge GREEN man bursts in the room. His name is 'Covid.' And Covid & Cure start kissing, "making slopping sounds, like how a cat sounds when it eats dinner." Blue Hulk & Green Hulk are absolutely NOT paying attention to Dr. Kelly... at first. And then... and then... I cried. And am still crying! THE END.

I was just looking through Amazon for some Christmas horror books when I stumbled across this cover, spat out my eggnog, and dropped my candy canes. How could I NOT BUY THIS? I am one of the rare people on the planet who actually thought the first Human Centipede movie was good: I thought it was creepy, not OVERLY disgusting (like people assume it is going to be and NOT like the second one), and had some awesome cinematography!

And this cover! It had me rolling! I love it!

I did not expect to enjoy this book as much as I did. I'll be honest. But it had just the right amount of dark humor mixed with horror elements sprinkled with pop culture insults. I found myself laughing, rolling my eyes, and a couple times even grimacing through the details. The book read quickly and I loved the twists it took on the Santa we grew up with, his wife, his elves, his reindeer, and even of his biggest nemesis, Krampus.

I looked at some of Adam Millard's bibliography and have already found 4 more books that I KNOW I want to read and a few more that I need to research a little more and also see if I like his writing in more books. I give this one 3.5 out of 5 (rounded up to 4 as I am in the holiday spirit!) as it was some entertaining holiday fun! I truly think people will enjoy this more than they may give themselves credits for up front just base on initial judgments... but I will let everyone make their own minds up about The Human Santapede! Or should it be Inhuman Santapede? Or would (In)Human Santapede be best? You can be the one to decide!

Just like the jolly rotund man in a red suit every December 24th, you can always count on Carlton Mellick to deliver. The cover is out of control and the plot is even more ridiculous... but with all of Mellick's work, you can always expect EVEN more jaw-dropping moments and characters. But when I realized there was a bizarro Christmas story... I could not say no! Just what happens when Frosty steals Santa's sack? Is Christmas ruined?!

"Santa isn't the jolly old elf as portrayed in children's stories. He's a bit more grotesque than that. His eyes are pimento-stuffed olives, his teeth are walnuts, and his body is made of sausages." And don't worry... the book definitely explains how Santa came to be a lumpy sack of sausages.

Okay, so that we expect based on the synopsis. But who is this bondage and kinked up woman on the cover? Oh, that's just Decapitron... the wife to Fry and mother of his children (one who has chainsaw angel wings and another who has a fist-sized deformity growing out of her face that she wants to connect to a computer) who moonlights a couple times a year as an assassin-esque kickboxer who decapitates her victims and brings in ALL the money. She also has many kinks in her closet including different roleplaying. You will learn to love her, I promise. Even through the end when she turns INTO an actual Transformer and falls for Burt Reynolds Elf. Yep.

But the rest of the book is just as amazing if not more. It is full of killer snowmen and there is an evil Frosty that was created from sucking the hate out of Santa and filling up bathtubs of coffee-like liquid. He has his own minions of pain, the F.N.S.A. aka Frosty's Nazi Satany Army. And then there are all these lightning sea creatures and flaming husks?! A chain reaction of exploding reindeer? The book is also full of little elves... and apparently all elves are ginormous nymphos. Let's not forget the HYPERSEX PANTIES?!?!? And we also should not get started on the "cabbage skin suit" OR the culmination of a makeshift Jack-in-the-Box comprised of body parts all frozen together.

I can't make this stuff up! But Carlton Mellick sure as hell can... and he does it so wonderfully and hilariously in this story! A new holiday classic for the ages!

I have been eating up the holiday horror this year and am happy to add THE VISITOR by Sergio Gomez to the mix! This novella is an alien encounter survival horror that will end up as one of the bloodiest Christmases ever! "I'm... dreaming... of a RED... Christmas...!"

Themes of isolation and "Are we alone?" resonate through this entire story. From the snowstorm at the beginning where there are only a couple of people on the road to the diner with only a few patrons on Christmas day, and all the way to the end where the survivors are miniscule, THE VISITOR will have you on your toes. The deaths are fast and the descriptions are gory and bloody. The action in the second half is almost non-stop. It's a fight for your life and everyone will most definitely NOT make it. And what is the Visitor after? Why is it here? Why is it killing? You have to see what it decides to do with a body or two...

And while this book centers around a group of survivors in a snowy middle-of-nowhere, it's still safe to say this is a horror book with elements of sci-fi, and not the other way around. However, I think fans of both will ultimately enjoy this book the same. Read this with something warm in your mug next to the fireplace or Christmas tree and have a blast! 4 stars!

When the snow blows wild
And the day grows old,
Beware, the snowman, my child.
Beware, the snowman.
He brings the cold

No melting allowed! This installment in the Goosebumps series is the perfect wintry story. It has a snowy remote village with an ice cave, superstitions, sorcerers & sorceresses, AND lots of creepy snowman magic! I ravaged this book and could feel all the imagery. I made me cold and it just felt like a dark, blustery, snowy day here. What a fun book full of twists and turns and everything fun you could think of for Goosebumps. It had some family mystery as well as a problem/puzzle to solve. Throw in a crazy local and you've got yourself one heck of a lineup! It also gave me Edwards Scissorhands vibes in the fact that there is a village next to this ice cave on top of a mountain... but maybe that's just me! Grab some hot cocoa and cozy up with this one... and make sure you check on your snowman each night the next time you build one...

"Once he was a solitary immortal. A creature out of nightmare. The embodiment of punishment. As humanity grew and spread across the globe, he split apart to keep the balance. Now there are twelve.

Connected but individual, they carry out the duties of Krampus by punishing the wicked. The tears and cries of pain from their victims sustain them."

Ok, so... I know I've read some whacky, less-serious smut and erotic stories before, but this one has a more serious edge to it. Well, as serious as it can for a grown woman calling a man "Daddy" repeatedly. I will never understand the Daddy thing... *shiver* And because all we see for about the first 60-70% of the book is spanking (our protagonist says, "My butt will wear out if you keep spanking me all the time." Even she was tired of pages and pages and pages of just... spanking) it made me think about some of the themes of redemption as well as physical vs. emotional pain. And how sometimes pain can inspire pleasure...?

This book also gave off a lot of Beauty and the Beast vibes. There is a big mansion, a huge library, a beast (who actually transformed into human form so he did not have "large, curled horns, the shaggy fur-covered legs, and of course the hooves" although he DID keep his super duper long tongue...), and plenty of Stockholm Syndrome vibes to feed an entire village. And near the end, of course they fall in love and she wants to stay in his domain... but... like how will that work? How will she handle him bringing home other women and making them sit on dildo chairs and punishing them, etc? Could make for an interesting scorned woman story if you ask me...

So, on to the lusty bits. It was not overly done or in a totally unbelievable way... I mean there were elements of Fifty Shades, sure, but I guess all books like this have those features? I have read so few that I am not sure the consistent tropes within the genre. But the word choice was not cringey and some scenes were steamy. Again, the only thing that irked me and grossed me out was the constant "Daddy" this and "Daddy" that.... *barf*

All in all I would give this 3 stars... and I think that readers who explore this genre and type of story might rate it higher. Krampus will get you if you're naughty... you better watch out!

Review to come!

Review to come!