lilibetbombshell's Reviews (2.79k)

A hot air balloon crashes in your backyard during a first date. 

Sounds like a free-writing prompt, right? That’s what I love about Marcy Dermansky’s writing: Her stories feel like someone tossed her a one-line writing prompt and she said, “Hold my beer,” and then wrote a whole book around that prompt made of a single line. Like an improvised, but genius novel, and she just keeps doing it. 

As always, the focus of Hot Air is on the characters, and there is brilliant work done here with these messy, mostly-white (which is somewhat acknowledged) people. They vary in gender, employment, housing, stages of life, and economical means. One way in which none of them vary? They’re all completely self-involved, some to the point of cruel and criminal behavior. There’s only one truly redeemable person in the whole book, and she happens to be under the age of ten. 

Why would I enjoy a book about a bunch of unlikeable, messy people? Because I enjoy reading about bad people making bad decisions and having to think about all the bad things they’ve done and feel guilty about it for a little while. Is it going to change who they are or how they do things long term? No, because it doesn’t even do that in real life. People don’t change. They talk big, but they act little. Hence the title of this book: It’s all hot air. 4⭐️

I was provided a copy of this title by the author and publisher via NetGalley. All thoughts, opinions, views, and ideas expressed herein are mine and mine alone. Thank you.

File Under: Dark Comedy/Literary Fiction

Saratoga Schaefer’s debut novel promised to be a thrilling confection of some of my favorite things: feminine rage, serial killers, justice for victims, and dark humor. 

My issue is just that nothing hit as hard as I would’ve liked or hit the right spot, in my opinion. 

Part of my issue stems from there being a little too much masculine in my queer feminist thriller. If I wanted to read chapters from the POV of male serial killers then I’d go and read one of the gazillion books about male serial killers. In this book they felt out of place and like filler material. They only pulled me out of the story and tripped up the pacing. 

I was provided a copy of this title by the author and publisher via NeGalley. All thoughts, opinions, views, and ideas expressed herein are mine and mine alone. All reviews rated three stars or lower will not appear on my social media. Thank you.

Whatever we’re calling the gourmet genre blend of horror Alex Grecian is writing is like catnip to me. It’s very dark, fantastical almost to the point of surrealism, steeped in body horror and gore, saturated with violence, laced thoroughly with wicked humor, but also has this really sincere heart of social responsibility and philosophical thought that I can’t get enough of. 

Of course there’s a warning here: I wouldn’t recommend reading this without reading Red Rabbit first. It’s not a direct sequel, but reading RR first makes Rose of Jericho more interesting and easier to understand.

Did I like this as much as I did Red Rabbit? No, but that’s only because Red Rabbit felt more like a rollicking thrill ride of a horror novel, while this feels like a siege of a horror novel in a way: The horror is happening centered around one place in time, in a limited time period, with two sides moving metaphorical soldiers around a supernatural game board. I liked the constant chaos of RR, whereas Rose of Jericho is more of a steadily increasing pulse of violence and horror as the book proceeds. 

Does this mean Rose of Jericho is a worse book than Red Rabbit? Not really. Alex Grecian has a rare talent, in my mind: He writes female characters who pass all of my personal checkboxes for being absolutely terrific. I don’t trust the vast majority of male authors to write truly great female characters, especially ones who you don’t want to anger or who have power. All of his characters are multifaceted and it brings me such joy. If you add in the creative plotting, the well-crafted storytelling, the intense worldbuilding, and the polished style I can’t stand to think this book isn’t anything but excellent. It just isn’t Red Rabbit. 4⭐️

I was provided a copy of this title by the author and publisher via NetGalley. All thoughts, opinions, views, and ideas expressed herein are mine and mine alone. Thank you.

File Under: Dark Fantasy/Folk Horror/Found Family/Ghost Fiction/Historical Horror/Supernatural Horror/Witch Fiction