howlinglibraries's Reviews (1.85k)

 This one was a little all over the place and I didn't care for the artist change in issue 12 (I'm hoping it was a temporary thing!), but otherwise, another great volume. It was neat to learn more about our little skinless boy familiar. ♥
 

 Oh, this was my favorite volume yet. WOW. First, can we talk about that panel of what Emmy's mother saw when she looked at her baby? Damn, that's going to stick in my memory for a while. Second, the lore in this volume was absolutely incredible! I feel like we learned so much about the world-building in this one, plus there were all of these fascinating characters... and then that ending? My heart. ♥ I love Emmy so much.
 

 On one hand, I still can't put my finger on what is inherently "wrong" with this book for me, aside from having predicted every single twist pretty far in advance.

On the other hand, this book singlehandedly put me into a terrible reading slump for over a week and I'm still having the hardest time figuring out why.

I'm not sure if I'll ever give this a full review, tbh. It wasn't a bad book, it just left me feeling incredibly conflicted and with a weirdly bad taste in my mouth. I originally gave it 3 stars, but after dwelling on it a while longer, have decided to lower it to 2.

Thank you to the publisher for the review copy! All thoughts are honest and my own.

✨ Representation: BIPOC side characters 

 This was fantastic and I loved it. I mean, James Tynion IV has become my favorite horror graphic novelist, so I went into this with high hopes anyways, and I love stories about boogeymen and creepy little closet-crawling monsters in the night, but this was somehow even more unsettling than I expected it to be. We spend most of our time focused on one "monster" in little Jamie's life—his dad, Thom, who is a deadbeat piece of shit that I kind of hope gets eaten—so it's always a little bit extra chilling when we're reminded that Jamie's closet has a "monster", too, and its intentions seem to be quite sinister.

✨ Representation: Maggie (Jamie's mother) is plus-sized; two side characters are Black 

 

Kealan is such a master of this gut-wrenching, tragic sort of horror tale that I'd been putting Blanky off for a while despite how badly I wanted to read it. Kealan is one of my favorite authors and I'd heard many rave reviews about this novella, but as a mother of a young child, child loss has been my only trigger in recent years and I worried that picking this one up might be a mistake. As soon as I gratefully realized over the past few months that my mental health treatments have worked enough that I can stomach stories about child loss, I immediately knew it was time to read Blanky, and I'm so glad that I did.

Blanky follows a father who's recently lost his infant daughter Robin, and the sheer grief and desolation that Stephen and his estranged wife are going through is palpable. Neither of them are certain they can go on or if they should even try, and who could blame them? The grief quickly segues into terror as bizarre things start happening upon the reappearance of Robin's lost 'Blanky', and from then on, it was an eerie, twisted little fever dream as the story unraveled. Some of the imagery in this novella was truly unsettling, and I'm certain I'll never look at an antique baby blanket the same way again. 

 I know, I know, that's really early to DNF a book, but this book has an audience who will adore it (deservedly so), and I'm afraid I'm not in that audience anymore. I've realized in the past few years that it's very rare that I enjoy a YA contemporary book anymore, and I've also reached the age (and the point in parenthood) where I'm no longer the fun, rebellious, spunky teen... but I'm now the grouchy, rule-abiding, "I do this because I care!" parent spoiling all of the aforementioned teen's fun.

Even this early in the book, Wendy is constantly griping about her parents not allowing her to go meet up with internet friends they're unfamiliar with, and she keeps tossing little barbs at them about how she's 17 and going off to college soon so they should lighten up... and all I keep thinking is, "But honey, they're right!"

I don't believe in rating books negatively when I know it's this much of an "it's not you, it's me" sort of thing, and I don't foresee my experience getting better based on the synopsis and other reviews (both positive & negative) that I've read, so I'm sadly going to cut my ties here and eagerly await K's next book instead. ♥

Thank you to the publisher for the review copy! All thoughts are honest and my own. 

 This was definitely one of those cases where I wasn't the target audience for this book and recognized that pretty quickly. I enjoy plenty of middle grade-aimed humor, but I don't think this sense of humor would have clicked with me even when I was a kid, and unfortunately, that's just how it goes with me and comedy books: it either works, or it doesn't (it usually doesn't), with no real in-between. 🤷‍♀️
 

 This is breaking my heart because this book was absolutely one of my most anticipated releases of the year and I was SO convinced I would adore it, but... after two months of trying my best and failing to trudge through, I'm finally setting it aside. I might give it another try someday when I'm feeling a bit more patient, but the plot isn't pulling me in at all, the writing is not quite there, and worst of all, these characters are wholly and painfully unlovable.