This just doesn’t appeal to me. Too much of the story is revolving around children and motherhood for me.

This was enjoyable but something about this story felt lacking for me and I’m not quite sure what it was. Not bad by any means, it was spooky and the characters were incredibly paranoid but it wasn’t my favorite book. 

Where to begin.

I'm conflicted on what to rate this. 3.5 for now rounded up to 4 stars, I think. The concept was great, I enjoyed the story overall, but this had problems. If you read this book without knowing a single thing about who wrote this, you would be able to deduce that it was written by a straight white man.
I will give you some examples:

• “'My husband left me,' she said grimly. 'After fifteen years—a younger woman—I’ll show him!'
'Isn’t it a sin to commit suicide, according to your religion?' he asked. 
She paused, frowning. 'I suppose it is, but—'
'And should you do such a thing to spite him? Why match the wrong he did you with a wrong done to yourself?'
'I am a woman,' she said with a wry smile. 'I owe more to emotion than to logic.'
Zane returned her smile, showing that he appreciated her humor. No woman really thought herself illogical, however strongly she might feel, but it was fashionable to seem otherwise."

• “'It is true. I have much evil to account for. I drove him away. I suppose you know how bitchy a woman can be when she tries.' 
'Not really. I always thought of women as pristine and pure,' Zane admitted. 'Most of the evil resides in men. Women should go to Heaven when they die.'
She laughed bitterly. 'You idiot! There is more sin concealed in women than in men! My husband errs because it is his male nature; I, at least, should have known better. I was fooling myself when I dreamed of Heaven.'”

• "Zane had not before realized how striking a slender woman could be."

• “'I can’t do this,' Lou-Mae complained. 'Singing a hymn to a drum roll?' 
'Listen, black doll, we don’t like it either,' the drummer said. 'But we got to have a beat.'"

Take those how you will. If you can ignore the author's prejudice, the story is quite good. At times it felt a bit juvenile but the concept was strong and it was thought-provoking.
Example:

• "He started to fold it—and the soul disintegrated, falling apart into nothingness. The atheist had his wish. He really had not believed, and so the Afterlife had been unable to hold him. He was beyond the reach of God or Satan. That did seem best. It was best—but was it right? The atheist had not seemed to care about anyone except himself—and in that uncaring, perhaps had rendered his own existence meaningless."

I'm not religious, but it had me thinking and considering ideas of an afterlife and how your beliefs could determine your afterlife. It was interesting to ponder. There is a lot of discussion about religion in this book, some of which may be offensive. 

The plot:
The main character, Zane, finds out that he has a limited time before he will die.

He decides to go out on his own terms and turns a gun on himself only to see Death walk in. Instead Zane turns the gun on Death, ending Death's existence, and thus taking Death's place.

It then follows Zane's "life" as the new Death and learning what exactly that means.

It then becomes a bit of a mystery quest to find out what Satan's grand plan is, how to stop it, and what it means. I would say it's an intriguing read and worth it, but as stated above, there are many issues with how this author chose to write his story.

A bit slow at the start but ended up picking up. I really appreciated how this book handled social issues. I loved the afterword too. It was a seamless mix of horror with historical fiction. I don’t feel that I often get insights into the atrocities that Japanese people living in this time had to go through. And the afterword did an amazing job briefly speaking about how COVID helped surge people’s racism too. COVID became an outlet for a lot of people’s hatred and anger.

I’m excited to read more from this author. 

This book was okay but I think the genre classifications were off. This was more erotica than anything else listed. Again, not a bad thing but given the tagged genres as well as the description, I was hoping for horror. This didn’t deliver at all on that front. 

Most of these characters were insufferable in my opinion. I didn’t really mind Rika but I couldn’t stand Michael as well as basically every other male in this book. I wish Rika had more of a backbone though. She lets all of the male characters (specifically Michael) walk all over her, and treat her like garbage but somehow she just.. forgets about all of that and doesn’t care? Michael has some of the most cruel lines to Rika and she still actively pursues him. 

• “‘This was a mistake,’ I bit out, scowling at her. ‘You’re pretty, and you have a pussy, but other than that, you’re not special. You’re just ass.’”
• “‘You’re a thirteen-year-old piece of baggage my family has to look after who’s going to turn into nothing but an eighteen-year-old copy of your drunk mother!’ Her eyes flood, and she looks about ready to break. ‘Only you probably won’t be able to land a rich husband with that scar,’ I growl.”

The highlight for me was Rika with Alex in that one scene but it didn’t even lead anywhere.. honestly the book would’ve been better if she ditched all of the male drama and took up with Alex instead. 

The common underage theme here bothered me too. <spoilers>Michael was, I believe 20, when he was wanting to have sex with Erika (16 at the time) and then he waits till she’s 19 and he’s 23? And then the videos of his group of friends with underage girls? It was just gross.</spoilers> All of these guys had some weird obsession with young girls and I couldn’t get on board with it.

I also just found this plot to be incredibly far-fetched. I’m not exactly looking for “realistic” when I start reading a book but this was just wacky to me.

I didn’t find the sex scenes all that appealing either. Maybe it’s because I had such a strong dislike for the characters or maybe it’s because of the high school drama aspect that was a turn-off?

Not a strong start to the new year. This book was so slow. I didn’t start getting interested until around 75% (give or take). This just didn’t even feel reminiscent of the first book to me. 

It’s been a while since I’ve read any poetry but this one I thought was beautifully done. It was nice to read horror poetry for a change. I enjoyed how the POV would change between poems and I found them captivating. The way this was written left room for the reader to have some of their own interpretation as well. 

As for the cover, it’s stunning and I think it conveys exactly how these poems feel. 

This book wasn’t what I was expecting. I found the story confusing and the characters unlikeable. I primarily listened to this as an audiobook, occasionally switching to the ebook when I was able to sit down and physically read. I’m not sure if that altered my opinion on this or not. The vibes were definitely creepy and mysterious and I understand what the end goal was here.. but I guess I’m confused on how it actually happened? I felt like this book was pulling me in all different directions and like Eve, I’m confused on where we landed.