The premise of a darker retelling of Rumpelstiltskin drew me to this book. The first chapter is really well done, and I can tell this author likely excels in his short stories (where he's clearly acclaimed).

After that, I could tell right away this is Dad Book Horror. There was an almost confusing nostalgia reading this as it felt like stealing Stephen King or Dean Koontz off my dad's shelf at a Way Too Young Age™. However, I'm an adult now.

The way women are talked about? Breasting Boobily.

People of color? Not great! Indigenous people specifically? Now we're bordering on HP Lovecraft levels of 'primitives worshipping an evil old god'.

All THAT aside (if you can possibly do so for a moment), the story is incredibly meandering? Building tension doesn't mean spending an entire chapter regaling us with the mc's children's lives. You can build tension in a way that's purposeful. The scares are good, I'll give him that, but come on now. This was published in 2012.

these were my fave books as a kid and since I wasn't raised religious, all of those themes went lalalala right over my head so!!

I have a lot of nostalgia about this book

RIP to people on my community timeline seeing me update old books I read with reviews consecutively lol sowwy everyone

basically? this book is almost 4 stars but the filmmaker is so gotdam selfish that it sets it back a bit

So I like the book/movie a lot and I know the whole thing with Buffalo Bill is that he's literally not trans, that's explicitly stated, however the average person isn't going to internalize that so idk as a tRaNs myself this one kinda set the greater view about my Tsisters back a good bit and I feel :/ when I think about that

Mobilizing the polycule for city avatar warfare

I liked this but there was something keeping me from loving it. Possibly because I'm picky about contemporary in general. This was one of my favorite short stories in her collection, which is why I branched out. Anyways, well done but not my thing!

Do note this is a cultural deep dive into the culinary world, not the usual deep dive into other cultures his shows. It contextualized a lot about his life. Some stuff he says is very 2000, so ah, keep that in mind if you will.

Rest in peace, king.