howlinglibraries's Reviews (1.85k)

Humanity is an aberration, an affront upon all that is right and true and holy.

What a ride. It never ceases to amaze me, the way Mira Grant can fit such a thoroughly well-developed, deep story into so few pages. There are countless writers who require hundreds of pages to do what she can do in a few chapters, and it astounds me every time. This one took me a bit to get invested into, but I think that must have been singularly to blame upon my horrible four-month-long reading slump, because by the time that slump passed, I devoured this novella and was devastated when it ended.

It is a graveyard for the small and a playground for the vast, as all graveyards must be, for tragedy is so often a matter of perspective.

First, I want to talk about how casually and effortlessly diverse this is, just like nearly everything else I've had the pleasure of reading from this author: our narrator is an out lesbian (who happens to be tragically in love with her best friend), the narrator's adopted brother suffers from tremendous levels of anxiety, and our side characters are Asian-American. There's also an implication towards a character being aromantic, but it's never stated explicitly on-page.

Spindrift House has been allowed, for most of its long and lonely existence, to stand alone.

Next, there's the beautiful writing. I must have highlighted nearly half the novella in my kindle because there were so many incredible quotes. Mira has this way of painting scenery through metaphors that feels totally and uniquely her own, and it always leaves me with the vague consideration of getting entire paragraphs of her stories tattooed on random places on my body, just for the daily reminder that any one human being could be so capable of leaving such vast impressions on me with the quietest statements.

Spindrift House has had a great deal of time to decide what it wants to be, and what it wants to be is unforgiving.

And finally, there's the story itself. While there's something fantastically nostalgic about the Scooby Doo-esque feel to this little mystery-solving gang all grown up, it never diminishes the looming threat that Spindrift House plays out over the entire cast of characters. There's a touch of bizarro and Lovecraftian inspiration to the events that occur in these pages, with a great deal of dark fantasy twisted in, and it's all deliciously chilling.

Whether you're a long-time horror lover or someone who only dips their toe into the genre from time to time, I cannot recommend highly enough that you take a visit to Spindrift House and see what its seaside decay has in store for you.

All quotes come from an advance copy and may not match the final release. Thank you so much to Subterranean Press for providing me with this ARC in exchange for an honest review!

I'd been meaning to pick up some of Michael Patrick Hicks' work for quite some time after hearing friends rave about it, so I'm really pleased to have finally gotten the chance to do so with The Resurrectionists! I'm a big fan of subversive Lovecraftian horror, so I jumped at the chance to read this little novella featuring a recently freed slave as its hero, and I won't hesitate to tell you that Salem is so damn easy to root for. He's a genuinely likeable character and I definitely found myself on the edge of my seat more than once, worried for his safety.

The stakes are very high in The Resurrectionists, as our biggest threat isn't even the terrifying monsters seeping into our world so much as it is the ways that humans will destroy one another without a moment's remorse, whether their fuel be hate, racism, or simple cruel curiosity. Besides Salem and a few very minor side characters, don't go into this one expecting to find too many characters to love!

Hicks' writing is lovely and quick to the chase, and there's a lot of oddity and depravity here that's really fantastically well-done, though sensitive stomachs might want to steel themselves before heading into the scenes in the surgical rooms as there's a lot of gore (which I enjoyed to no end).

The only real complaint that I had, and the reason I couldn't quite mark this one higher than 4 stars, is that sometimes it felt like I was reading two separate storylines in the same novella, rather than two sides of the same story. That could totally just be me and the weird funk I've been in with my reads lately, but even the ending of this novella had me feeling like the plot had been buried a bit. While it wasn't a perfect read, I still had fun with it and would be interested in checking out more of Hicks' work in the future.

Thank you so much to High Fever Books for providing me with this ARC in exchange for an honest review!

As someone who's been reading horror and dystopian fiction for a long time, I think I'm pretty hard to surprise, but I have to say that Ration takes things to a level that even I didn't always expect. If you're looking for a sci-fi-heavy dystopian tale, pass on this, but if you're looking for some end-of-world bleakness and absolute tragedy, this is the story for you.

While a lot of what happens is left to your interpretation, as Luff's writing tends to be vague and metaphorical, it's still clear enough to paint a rather haunting visual of the future. I think I'm pretty hard to disgust and unsettle, so I can't say I felt like I was in danger of losing my supper or anything like that (though I believe many readers will be), but what was most frightening to me was the absolute lack of humanity in the characters of Ration. Nobody in this book is enjoyable at the end of the day, because this is a world and society so saturated in selfishness and cruelty that nobody can afford to be likable.

Ration has a lot going for it, and most of all, is an incredibly unique tale that offered up a storyline that felt brand new to me. Unfortunately, despite how much I loved the idea of this story, it wasn't a success for me. I found the pacing odd, and due to being so unable to enjoy any of the characters, it was impossible for me to find anyone to root for (which is a personal problem of mine with books, and might not bother other readers in the slightest!). Most of all, Luff's writing style — while unique, intriguing, and clearly talented — never quite meshed with me. This is entirely an "it's not you, it's me" scenario, and because of that, I still highly recommend Ration to anyone who enjoys genuinely dark, morbid dystopian tales. As it does border on the horror side of things, I'd also recommend this to any fans of post-apocalyptic or dystopian horror.

Content warnings for murder, gratuitous violence, physical abuse, verbal abuse, and cannibalism.

Thank you so much to the publisher for providing me with this ARC in exchange for an honest review!

To sing of love
is almost always
to sing of war.

This is easily one of the best poetry collections — maybe the best — I have ever read.

I am older than the poets
and I am older than the pens.
I am older than the stars
and the ocean I crawled out of.

It’s a story of assault, and survival, and having our stories rewritten without our consent. It’s worship and blasphemy, anger and heartache, capped off with tenderness and self-love and learning to cherish yourself no matter how many people in your life have failed to do so.

I belong to no one. They never wrote that part down.

Among all these other things, it’s an incredible view on many infamous women of mythology, and it gives a voice to the sides of their stories that we all too often overlook. It plays a strong parallel to the sides of stories from everyday women today society would have us overlook, too, and it’s powerful. Don’t miss out on this one.

They made a monster
of Medusa as well.
Hated how loud
her trauma was.
Couldn’t believe
she had the audacity
to not take it lying down.
They made a war-ground
of her body
so she made one
of theirs.

TWs: assault, homophobia, transphobia

All quotes come from an advance copy and may not match the final release. Thank you so much to the publisher for providing me with this ARC in exchange for an honest review!

Hmm... this is a tough one to rate. I think I'll go with 3.5 stars, rounded up to 4 for GR.

The pros: first of all, I heard this graphic novel referred to as gentrification horror, and that sums it up incredibly well. It's horror, it's spooky and it's weird, but it also deals with a lot of commentary regarding gentrification, POC lives being pushed aside and erased for white comfort, etc. There's a ton of good commentary going on here, including the black MC's best friend having a meltdown over how "white people's opinions never seem to matter anymore", etc. (but she's not racist, you know! how dare you?!). Parts of the book are very subtle while others are brutally on-the-nose, and it's all done very well.

The cons, however: first, this art is... well, it's a mixed bag. On one hand, it's visually interesting and I think it's neat, how certain "scenes" are color-coded to different colors to separate them from the scene before. It's an easy way to show time-skips, location jumps, etc., without devoting any of the actual storyline to letting you know. That said, the monochrome aspects made it a little tough for the finer details to come across sometimes, and the drawing style itself, while this is totally subjective, is not one that I personally enjoy.

The other issue I had is that the story just doesn't make any sense at times. I know a lot of people enjoy semi-bizarro horror that doesn't have a lot of rhyme or reason to it, and if that's you, DEFINITELY grab a copy of this one, but that's not me. I wanted to know why these things were happening (more than the iota of backstory we got) and how the entity in the story became so powerful, but I didn't get any of that. I think BTTM FDRS would function much better as a novel or novella than a graphic novel, but that's just me.

I received this item for free from the Amazon Vine reviewing program in exchange for my honest opinion. My review has not been influenced or altered in any way.

#1 Fire & Rain ★★★★★
#2 Water & Wind ?

He was too much of the world, and the world was too much of him.

Holy crap, that was such a fun little ride! This was my first time reading anything by John F.D. Taff, but a lot of my friends have raved about his works to me, so I had high hopes — and I definitely wasn't disappointed. The first chapter comes in with a bang, and it's a constant series of twists and turns and suspense from there until the last page.

The story switches perspectives between a few different groups of people, and they're all so varied and enjoyable that there's no one set of perspectives I liked less than any of the others (which is rare for me in multi-POV books!). While I thought Adam's chapters were the most intriguing, the chapters of the group of middle-aged and seniors were the most "true to life"-feeling, and then the teens were just downright fun.

This is the sort of read that you'll fly right through, which is both a blessing and a curse, because now I'm impatiently awaiting my review copy of book 2 in the series and I need to know what happens next! I definitely will be checking out more of John's work, but first and foremost, I have to know what other wickedness he's got up his sleeves for these characters.

Thank you so much to Grey Matter Press for providing me with this ARC in exchange for an honest review!

Sigh. This had so much potential to be adorable. It did a lot of things right: the art is really cute, the little cafe is unique and interesting, and some of the side characters are hilarious and totally lovable. Unfortunately, the entire thing is ruined by how immensely nonredeemable the main character is!

Hime kicks off the volume by immediately informing the reader that her only goal in life is to convince people that she's as "cute" as humanly possible so she can grow up to be a billionaire's trophy wife. She goes on and on about how adorable and lovable she is, how she can't bother being friends with anyone besides this one person at her school because nobody else's companionship will help her reach her "goals", and how perfect she considers herself to be. Of course, we're expected to watch her blossom into a Good Person, but it's so heavy-handed I couldn't stand it, and no amount of poorly-attempted humor or romantic tension between characters could save this story.

Thank you so much to Amazon Vine for providing me with this ARC in exchange for an honest review!

We buried dad in the winter. It wasn’t until Spring that we heard from him again.

Whether you like your horror creepy, otherworldly, gruesome, or tragic, Andrew Cull’s got you covered in this collection. Bones is a bind-up of four short stories (plus a bonus very short story at the end!), each vastly different but all playing on a universal theme of family and the way any terrifying situation is instantly amped up when those we love become involved. I was so incredibly impressed by each story in this collection that, while I do want to take a moment to discuss them all, I’ll go ahead and spoil this review for you: I gave every story in Bones five glowing stars.

→ Did You Forget About Me?
In this tremendously atmospheric and haunting introduction to the collection, after Cam’s estranged father passes, he returns to his childhood home for closure, and finds something that’s been waiting a long time for his return. This story packed such a punch and was an incredible way to kick off Bones, because honestly, it creeped me out horribly and left me positively mortified (in the best way).

→ Hope & Walker
Em’s father runs a funeral parlor, so when Em gets bored, she likes to sit up with the dead and draw them while they speak to her. She never expected her odd little hobby to drag her into the middle of a terrible crime, but now that she’s in it, she’s got to find answers. This story had a nice little element of mystery to it, though mostly, I loved the overall melancholy vibes that came from this poor little girl’s “gift” of hearing the dead speak.

→ The Trade
One summer, a family is trying to stay afloat in the midst of a dismantling marriage, when something begins leaving offerings of dead creatures at their door. This story, like the second one, is told through a child’s perspective, which adds so much to the creep factor. I kept imagining myself in this poor kid’s shoes and thinking about how utterly petrified I would’ve been — and that ending? Tragic, but just right.

→ Knock and You Will See Me
After Ellie’s father passes away, she and one of her sons begin finding disturbing notes from him, begging Ellie to help him from the other side. This fourth story was the longest, but for good reason. It’s very well fleshed-out, and I was sitting in complete and utter suspense throughout the entire thing as I hurried along to learn what on earth had happened to this poor woman’s father after his passing. By the end, I realized that the real terror in the story was a little more subtle, and that notion has found its way under my skin and is nagging at me, still. What really happens when we die…?

→ The Rambling Man
While this last bonus piece doesn’t count as a main “story”, I enjoyed it so much that I had to mention it. A village must send out randomly selected girls as offerings to a beast in the woods twice a year, else their crops will die. It’s so short that there’s nothing else I can say without spoiling the whole thing, but let me just say that I would absolutely adore a full novella on this story and hope that Andrew Cull will pursue the plot more later on!

All in all, Bones was a fantastic collection of stories that I enjoyed so much. I’m so pleased to have had the chance to read and review a copy of these stories, and I can’t wait to see what Andrew Cull writes next!

Thank you so much to the author for providing me with this ARC in exchange for an honest review!

First of all, don't go into this expecting anything anywhere near "wholesome"; not only does it offer some fairly explicit violent imagery, it also includes an unfortunate amount of fan-service via underwear shots, cleavage, etc. (which is why I'm only giving it 4 stars).

That said, once I got past all of that enough to check into the storyline, I was actually hooked. I would say that I wish we got more backstory as to why Shuichi turns into this weird mascot-looking "monster", but the cliffhanger ending tells me that must be coming in the next volume. It's a really strange plot at its core, but something about the weirdness of it coupled with Claire's terri-bad personality is really intriguing and I'll most likely be picking up the next volume soon.

I received this item for free from the Amazon Vine reviewing program in exchange for my honest opinion. My review has not been influenced or altered in any way.

Where is the meaning to my life
Where is the ending to the grief
Where is the sunlight for my eyes
Will I ever smile again

I have mixed feelings about this collection. I really enjoyed the idea of weaving together this dark fantasy vibe with a little light horror, tied into a narrative of mental illness and love gone wrong. That said, while some of the poems worked well for me, others didn’t hit the mark.

You don’t deserve to be in peace
After all you’ve done
So I will help you find your place
Among the dust

One thing I’ll say for sure is that this poetry style was very… nostalgic. It reminded me a lot of the popular poetry we used to read on MySpace/Xanga/LJ back in the day, and that was a nice little trip down memory lane. If you enjoyed that writing style and want more of it, this is definitely the collection for you.

TW: self-harm

All quotes come from an advance copy and may not match the final release. Thank you so much to the publisher for providing me with this ARC in exchange for an honest review!