pineconek's Reviews (816)

This book has good bones, similar to a Stephen King novel. The protagonist is haunted, the characters around them are mundane and weird, and the ending is anticlimactic but not so much that it ruins the experience of reading the book. 

Our protagonist grew up in a house built by her father. Her serial killer father, who custom designed a killing room in the basement - fully equipped and even decked with a drain so the blood had somewhere to flow. Now an adult, our protagonist is estranged from her mother, and is disgusted that she has turned the house is turned into a quasi-museum. But her mother is dying, so it's time to come home. 

Recommended if you're into creepy atmospheres, stories of possession (especially if the spirits are benevolent but misguided), and don't need a satisfying ending to enjoy the journey of a horror novel. 3.25 stars on SG rounded down to 3 on GR. 

So none of these were cults, and most of them were not even figurative cults. 

This is a book about being a joiner and desperately looking for structure when you feel yourself spinning out of control. The structure of Suzuki violin lessons, of performing at a comedy club, of going to AA meetings, etc. The "spinning out of control" takes the form of precarious employment, intrusive thoughts, self-sabotage, and other less tasteful facets of mental illness. 

While I respect the vulnerability of writing so unflinchingly about such topics, this book did not land for me.  The audiobook production was jarring (other reviews mention the bizarre sound effects and how certain words would randomly be shouted), the mental health stuff was a combination of upsetting and forgetful, and I generally just struggled to get into it and finish it.  I think this book would be great for anyone who is already a Bradford fan, but that unfortunately wasn't me. 1.25 stars on SG rounded down to 1 star on GR. 

This graphic novel was super cute and just cheesy enough that it melted my heart rather than clogging its arteries. 

Firstly, the art is incredible. The cover does not do it justice. There's beautiful scenes of woodland creatures illuminated in the night, among many other delightful drawings. Secondly, the romance is very cute and feels organic in spite of being introduced in only a few pages. Thirdly, the representation does not feel like tokenism - our protagonist's hearing aids, for example, are well integrated into the magic system. 

All that said, the plot was relatively simple and predictable. That's to be expected in such short works, but I wish the central conflict had a bit more "oomph".

Recommended if you're looking for a cute magical romance to warm your heart and delight your artistic sensibilities. 3.75 on SG, rounded up to 4 on GR. 

I am of two minds about this book. Firstly: RIP Huxley, old chap, you would've loved the 21st century. But also: Aldous, my beloved, I know that you can write a good plot but you actively didn't try with this one. 

Island is a collection of essays stacked in a trench coat and packaged as a novel. Our main character, struggling with grief, alienation, and capitalism, finds himself marooned in a quasi utopian society. Various members of the society give him a tour and tell him about the virtues of the island: their approach to child rearing, healthcare, sex and love, psychedelics, the economy, labour, property, and all other things that contrast starkly with the main character's experiences of capitalist England. These diatribes are written like Socratic essays, with our main character serving as an open minded skeptic, occasionally interrupting the speaker and allowing for additional precisions and corrections. 

And so Huxley describes his utopia. I largely agree with his vision, and really enjoyed the individual "essays". I particularly liked the ideas around community-based approach to child rearing as well as around how responsible recreational drug use can be beneficial. This latter point is discussed with nuance and interesting to consider alongside how he discussed Soma in Brave New World. 

Anyway, what I'm saying is that I would've joined Aldous' hippie commune. Probably. 

Not recommended if you're looking for another Brave New World, or even any novel. This series of essays wearing a trench coat can get repetitive, dry, and tedious. But the ideas are interesting, and worth reading if you're interested in questions of what makes a happy and prosperous society. 2.75 stars on SG, rounded up to 3 for GR.

I'm a simple woman: if you give me a feminist retelling of a classic story and fill it with quick wit... I will eat it up. 

Stone Blind is a retelling of the myth of Perseus, whose Wikipedia page provides a technically-not-innacurate summary of this book:

In Greek mythology, Perseus (US: /ˈpɜːr.si.əs/, UK: /ˈpɜː.sjuːs/; Greek: Περσεύς, translit. Perseús) is the legendary founder of the Perseid dynasty. He was, alongside Cadmus and Bellerophon, the greatest Greek hero and slayer of monsters before the days of Heracles.[1] He beheaded the Gorgon Medusa for Polydectes and saved Andromeda from the sea monster Cetus. He was the son of Zeus and the mortal Danaë, as well as the half-brother and great-grandfather of Heracles.

But in our case, Medusa is the titular character. We follow her life, from growing up with her Gorgon sisters up to and beyond the beheading by "that asshole Perseus", and get details about the lives of other women integral to this story: Athena, Danae, Andromeda, and other women wronged by gods and men.

The stylistic choices are brilliant: some chapters are written, in good Greek form, from the perspective of Medusa's snakes and in the tone of a Greek choir. The narrative wit includes interjections from the women scorned and delightfully flips this myth and all its peripheral stories.

Highly recommended if you're looking for a tonally vengeful and entertaining retelling of Greek mythology. The audiobook, narrated by the author, is stellar. 4.5 stars on SG, rounded up to 5 on GR.

I can't help but love thrillers where normal people do terrible things for mundane (and terrifying) reasons. Confessions tells this story through multiple first person accounts, each adding a layer of cruelty and horror and human banality to, what at first glance, is the tragic but accidental death of a four year old girl. 

The most heartbreaking thing in this whole story is the striking loneliness of all our narrators. They all thrive for connection, and often put all their hopes of being loved into one idealized target of their affections... And they seem to understand this about one another, since their revenge plots get at said targets. I'll remain vague and not say more, since it's a story best experienced blind. 

Recommended widely if you're a fan of psychological thrillers, potentially evil children, and stories that feature unconventional revenge. 4 stars on both SG and GR.

As I make my way through the Ito catalogue, it becomes increasingly more difficult to write reviews that don't just boil down to: it's weird, it's good, you should read it but maybe not if you're feeling squeamish.

That said, this is among my favorite of his longer works. We start with four young adults who've met online and agreed to die together. And three of them are plagued by their dopplegangers, but each with their own twist. What follows is a tale of greed, cosmic horror, insanity, and massive petri dishes. 

Recommended if you enjoy longer horror stories with lots of gross Eldritch horror that is not fully explained. 4.25 stars on SG, rounded down to 4 on GR

Chimamanda lost her father very suddenly in the early summer of 2020, in a time where getting a flight from America to Nigeria was literally impossible. The love she holds for her father and the double grief of losing him so suddenly and being unable to be there permeates every word written here. This account is tender and raw, and the reflections come from all angles: thinking back on words of comfort she offered friends in similar situations (and now regrets), the anger and rage and disbelief that arises in early grief, and the heartbreaking innocence of her four year old daughter's perspective on the situation. 

This book is extremely raw, and both not suited and extremely suited if you're currently in the depths of something similar. I can make that call for you but wanted to extend a compassionate warning.  

Highly recommended to listen to this on audiobook, as it's read by the author. 4.25 stars on SG, rounded down to 4 on GR.

Reasons I thought I wouldn't like this book: the main character is unironically named Galaxy and it has magic in it. 

I'm shallow that way. But the more I read, the wider I'm willing to cast my net. And I'm so happy that I gave this one a try. 

Alex (the aforementioned Galaxy) sees dead people. And while her teenage life fell apart due to a string of bad decisions, she is mysteriously recruited to study at Yale. That is, on the condition that she will provide oversight over the magical workings of the eight key secret societies. What follows is a dark academia- infused story of vengeful ghosts, manipulative college frat guys (idk how best to phrase it but that plot line was great), predicting the future in human entrails, and lots of fodder for done good conspiracy theories. 

In short: good clean fun.

Recommended even if you don't think of yourself as a fantasy reader, and especially if you enjoyed Babel (that's currently the only book Ive read that I can compare this to). The audiobook narration was great and worth your while. 3.75 stars on SG rounded up to 4 on GR.

The real villain was the academia that we ignored along the way.

I'm only slightly ashamed to admit that this book led to a midnight panic attack/my first little breakdown of 2024. One that was centered around emails from a graduate studies supervisor. Because we follow Andrew, and Andrew is starting a masters one semester after his best friend did. He's researching a similar topic, meeting with the same supervisor, and really just continuing his best friend's work. All this right after his best friend's funeral. 

While Andrew is quite literally haunted by southern gothic entities, the portrayal of graduate studies in this book made it incredibly hard for me to read. After I finally realized that my fitness tracker was marking high stress whenever I picked this one up, I nevertheless chipped away at it. The writing was excellent and I was intrigued by the mystery and the characters. This story had layers, side plots, and a pining romance that I didn't see coming. And gorgeous writing. 

This book unfortunately did too good of a job of re-awakening my grad school nightmares and that, combined with how incredibly unfocused it was (the cars??), led to me having a bad time with it. While this wasn't right for me, I do recommend it if you like your dark academia mixed with slowburn southern gothic imagery, slow burn pining, and don't find 22 year old frat guys annoying. 1.75 stars on SG to reflect my personal enjoyment of it, rounded to 2 stars for GR.