howlinglibraries's Reviews (1.85k)

 

This was an incredible close to a series that I've enjoyed immensely and recommend so highly to horror graphic novel lovers. There's a lot of loss in this finale and the stakes are immensely high, but I loved that, because this is exactly what things were building up to: anything else would have been a shallow disappointment. I liked the touch of openness to the ending and, if Cullen Bunn were to ever write a spin-off series, I would be first in line to read it, too.

✨ Representation: multiple Black, Black/white biracial, and Latinx characters

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 This was so cute! I love the Strange Planet comics, but I didn't realize that this is one cohesive storyline instead of a collection of comics. I think this is probably intended to be a children's book, but it works well for adults too IMO (if you already enjoy Pyle's sense of humor and art). I'm one of those stereotypical bookworms who is absolutely obsessed with my cats (and cats in general), so this was right up my alley and I giggled a lot. Definitely going to read this to my 6-year-old later and see if I can convince him to start purring when he likes his food. 😂
 

 

I've reached a point in my life where I buy print copies of SGJ titles whenever possible, because I already know ahead of time that I'm going to highlight the hell out of it, just as I did with this one. Half of my copy of this little story is highlighted because there's something about this author's writing that mesmerizes me from the very first page and doesn't let go, and Mapping the Interior was no exception.

Mapping the Interior isn't your average ghost story: in this, we follow a teen boy who's seeing his late father's ghost, but the spirit's motives are unclear at first. Is he visiting to watch his boys grow up? Is he seeking out closure for unfinished business? Or is there something darker at play here?

This novella packs such a powerful punch, and in so few pages! It's an atmospheric, immensely eerie horror tale, but it's also a look at Native experiences, generational trauma, and the endless absences that grief creates. Junior and his younger brother Dino are impossible not to fall in love with, which created such a high-stakes, emotional reading experience for me.

There's something about SGJ's way as a natural storyteller that makes every story feel like sitting at a campfire, listening to the most incredulous tales, hanging on every word — and, as always, I walk away already eager for the next one.

✨ Representation: the narrator and his family are Native American 

 Life is too short to read books that bore you... even when it's a book that you were so certain you would love. 😭

I've heard the audiobook is much better, so maybe I'll give this another try someday, but honestly, the writing isn't doing much for me and the characters are too abstract to connect to. I've heard people say this book feels like poetry without being poetry, and I can see that comparison, but not in a complimentary way, sadly. 

 

Stargazers centers on a small family's attempts to seek safety during a bizarre mass societal breakdown in which people nicknamed "stargazers" suddenly become emotionless, seemingly automated entities with an unstoppable need to destroy. Alternating between narrative chapters and frantic reddit threads, we watch helplessly as Henry, a veteran with PTSD, does everything he can to keep his family out of harm's way.

I went into this novella with no idea of what to expect, having never read anything by this author before, but I am so happy that it was put onto my radar because I could not put this book down. Every single page had me on the edge of my seat and I connected so easily and so tightly to these characters.

It was stunningly gorgeous, disturbing, and above all, full of heart and a father's love. My Dark Library knocked it out of the park choosing this as the first release, and I'm so excited to read more from L.P. Hernandez ASAP. (In fact, I loved this book so much that I immediately went and bought a copy of his short story collection, The Rat King!)

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

✨ Representation: Henry has PTSD 

 A sweet, quick read about the tightly-knit friendships between four Black girls, supporting one another as they each go through their own personal life struggles (whether it's an ailing grandparent, a love triangle, an abusive ex, or depression).

I wouldn't have minded seeing a little more support in certain avenues, specifically when one character is very obviously struggling with severe depression and confides in another character, only to have her experiences totally erased with "you look fine!" and "you don't need medications!" The treatment of that character in general felt clunky to me, but I enjoyed the rest of the book overall. The art was cute and I enjoyed it for the chill, slice-of-life read that it was.

✨ Representation: all four characters are Black, with one of them being Afro-Latinx; one character is bi/pan; brief depiction of an f/f relationship 

 I was so tremendously excited for this book, but unfortunately, after a few weeks of trying to slog through and making very little progress, I'm going to do us both a favor and call it quits. I adore home invasion stories because they're one of the very few horror themes that genuinely chill me to my core, and the idea behind this book was an incredibly unique take on that trope; however, that unfortunately meant that it wasn't what I hoped it would be and I couldn't connect.

Anybody Home? is written in second-person perspective and is essentially a "guide" of a mentor teaching a mentee how to pull off the best possible home invasion ordeal. I thought the idea was really interesting, but it led to a surprising amount of repetition in the text and made it impossible for me to care about any of the characters, which by proxy made it impossible for me to feel scared or truly unsettled by the events therein. Maybe if I had finished the book, I would have felt differently, but I skimmed ahead to several later sections to see if anything piqued my interest, and it was more of the same.

Judging by most of the other ARC reviews I'm seeing for this book, I definitely feel like the odd one out in disliking Anybody Home?, so I think anyone who is interested should absolutely pick up a copy and give it a chance! That said, it didn't work for me and I'm quite disappointed to say so.

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

 I've been meaning to read this for ages, especially after how much I love Ballingrud's collection North American Lake Monsters years ago, and I'm glad that I finally did. It's been a while since I've read anything from this author and I had forgotten how good he is at creating these complex, flawed, and sometimes downright awful characters that I can't quite tear my gaze away from, no matter how many terrible decisions they make. I was captivated from the very start of the story and was never quite sure where things were headed, making it an incredibly suspenseful little novelette. My only complaint, and the reason I gave it 4 stars instead of 5, is that the ending felt a little rushed. After 60 pages of build-up and well-developed dread, I was a little surprised by how quickly the climax came and went, and wish it had been even 5 or 10 pages longer. That said, I enjoyed The Visible Filth a lot and I'm glad I was given this reminder of why Nathan Ballingrud's work in the NALM collection was so influential on my adult horror reading preferences.
 

 I really wanted to love this, especially because there's so little nonbinary and/or autistic representation in books (especially from authors who are nonbinary and autistic, too!), but unfortunately even the amount of love I held for the diversity in these characters couldn't redeem this story from how much the narrative voice and writing dragged it down.

Not only did the dialogue and characters feel stilted and flat much of the time, but the romance struck me as entirely unnecessary. I love a romantic subplot and it's very rare that I wish a book had skipped it altogether, but Sam and Shep didn't have any romantic chemistry and the formation of their relationship felt rushed and one-dimensional. The friendships between Sam and the other side characters were also difficult to connect to, with the only real exception being the surprising level of warmth I felt towards the unlikely closeness between Sam and Aiden.

I feel terrible for complaining so much, but while we're at it, while the mystery did keep me engaged, the killer reveal was predictable and their motive was anti-climactic. A slight spoiler here:

based on the reoccurring theme of hate crimes, I fully anticipated the killer's motive to be rooted in that same plot, yet it wasn't, and for some reason it left me feeling like the entire book had carried out all of this trauma for a half-formed purpose in the end.

All of the negatives aside, there were a few things I loved, and the greatest of these was, without a doubt, Junius Sylvester. Sam's dad is an absolute shining beacon of wonderful parenting in a world of books full of lackluster or terrible fathers, and the fact that he was also ace/aro and a Black man (who occasionally touched on topics important to him specifically, such as the eggshells he walks on in his daily life to avoid being seen as a "problem") was an added bonus on top of his unconditional love for Sam and his delightful dad jokes. Honestly, 5 stars for Junius alone.

Altogether, The Many Half-Lived Lives of Sam Sylvester is a book that I had high hopes for, but it fell short on almost every front. While I'll still recommend it heartily to anyone looking for great nonbinary, autistic, and asexual rep (as Sam themself is also ace!), I wouldn't go into it looking for a fully cohesive story or a thrilling mystery.

✨ Representation: Sam is nonbinary, autistic, ace, and uses they/them pronouns, and Sam stims (including self-harm stims); Shep is Latinx and bi; Junius (Sam's dad) is Black, ace, and aro; multiple side characters are queer and/or BIPOC