roadtripreader's Reviews (357)

Orsk the beautiful store version of purgatory   

Okay but this book had me literally side-eyeing ALL of ikea yesterday and I couldn't postpone my shopping trip because like a genius I decided that watching enough silent-vlogs on "slow living hygge" and Alexander Gater videos prepared me for a quick redesign of my study. So off I went to do a quick shop because if ORSK has taught me anything it's that I will not be had by those tricky retail pyschologist's maze. No siree. I will not be disappearing into an Orsk only to become dinner for the Fae or stuck between dimensions in a never ending loop between Office and Living Room.

Plot/Storyline:   I loved the incorporate of the corporate booklet, Larsen Orsk Memoir and the parroting of Corporate Speech which I swear is really just devil's speech. I loved the Faux-Scandi Furniture and the ominious intro to each piece. What are you selling, a storage bin or a portal to hell hmm?

It's so damn quoteable. I love books I can reference in everyday conversation and wait to see who picks up on it.

Characters:   I kept picturing the crazy crew at Superstore (NBC) for the first chapter but as I settled and got to know Orsk Crew: Sycophant Basil, shifty Amy, Sweet Ruth Ann, Sassy Trinity and Suave Matt - I grew to see them in the funhouse horror light of the Orsk store.

Oh yeah - terrible decision-making skills from everyone.

Significant  scene:  Matt and Amy lost in the labyrinth that is Orsk and resorting to trusting the camera to guide them.

Significant Quote/Concept:

● “I believe a ghost is a subjective experience. It doesn’t have an objective reality. It exists solely in the perceptions of the people who see it.” (Matt on being absolutely wrong about Orsk's entity)

● Orsk is all about scripted disorientation. The store wants you to surrender to a programmed shopping experience. (Matt on retail psychology)

● The "What?" Scene between Basil, Ruth Anne and panicked Amy. I could just see Basil and it was hilarious.

●“There’s nothing waiting inside but retail slavery, endless exploitation, and personal subjugation to the whims of our corporate overlords.” (Matt on punctuality)

StoryGraph Challenge: 1800 Books by 2025
Challenge Prompt: 150 Horror books by 2025

 The Gods have Gods, and mine is afraid of his. - Captain Tephe

How strange it is, to feel sympathy for a god. Gods are benevolent, prideful, immortal, vengeful, vindictive merciful generous magical. And yet, here I am yet again, feeling sympathy for a God (yes looking at you K.J Parker, Pulling The Wings of Angels).

It is a curious evocation - there have been many Godkiller stories and they always manage to pull the reader/viewer's allegiance to them, the killer of the Gods. It's not that hard, people without power finally standing up to those with power and in this case, the ultimate being of power - it's almost a given siding with  Godkillers in literature. 

In The God Engine this is not the case.  I found myself highly pissed off at whoever this "Our Lord" was; the one who enslaved the Gods and gave space humans talents to rule them.

Plot/Storyline:   a tightly woven space horror because honestly Religion (fanatical or otherwise)and the Military working together is a horror show that has played out in our timeline for generations with eager bloodshed to show for it

Characters: The God, The Engine, The "Defiler" - I don't want to pray to you but I do want to mourn you.

Of course the Priest Andso is a colossal asshole high on "righteous indignation". He's giving me Bishop of Tsargoviste (Castlevania) flashbacks and we know how that went.

Significant  scene:  Scalzi came out swinging with the torture of a God. I must admit,  "It was time to whip The God" set such a visceral image in mind that I actually sat up and braced myself for hell. Wait, can it be called hell if a God is experiencing it? Hell is a concept for humans. Well whatever the equivalent for an omnipresent being is.

Significant Quote/Concept:
●Using a God as an engine. The God knows space and time in an intimate  way.
● God-Given Talent something intangible with real world power in space, placed inside a tangible, solid talisman.
●The humiliation parade to the Godhold at Bishops Call. Copper and trash exchanging space. People are malicious.
●"There is no name for this place. Names have power. Names call attention. We choose not to call attention to this place.” The Three Bishops

StoryGraph Challenge: 1800 Books by 2025
Challenge Prompt: 150 Horror books by 2025 

 RE-READ For Pisces Month
I remember wanting more but now I realize what the more is that I wanted. That ending is just so Happy for Now and such a long wait between seeing each other again. I wish there was a part 2 just so Brida and Ahtin can actually find a way to be together.

Then again, maybe seasonal migration is good for the coupling - absence makes the heart fonder and all that.
***********************************************************************************************
“Safe, Brida,” he crooned to her. “You are safe with me.”

Ahtin and Brida's love story is a soothing balm for the exhausted mind. This was my palate cleanser and it was just so heart-swelling swooning sweetness.

More merfolk love stories please!

Romance:🌶 What a sweet slowish burn.

Plot/Storyline: I love mermaids and the entire mermaid lore, the Elder Racea - I will say it again Grace Draven weave beautiful worlds in her books. The worldbuildingis ao subtle and gentle it sneaks up on you. 

Characters: So loveable. I appreciate the fact that Brida (and Niga from Night Tide) were widows who had found and lost love.

Characterization of Ahtin and his sea tribe, his Ap (Ancient Grandma) and Ospodine was just so well done considering it's a short story.

Favorite scene/quote:

■Scene: Brida saving Ahtin and his niece. This was an intense, beautiful scene.
■Quotes: Lies always hung sour on the tongue, even when told with the best of intentions.
■Brida is strength.” She patted one arm for emphasis. “Strength.”

Bleach! Can somebody get me mindbleach please.

Is there a horror subgenre tagged as "Depressive Horror" because this should be right at the top. It's not jump start cheap shocks - its unsettling, depressing AF and disturbing.   Scrub my minds eyes and pour bleach down my hippocampus.

Woom gripped, twisted and suffocated me like a serpent. It just kept getting worse (not blood and gore but something more) and made me revisit the idea of switching to horror movies (meh, boring) instead of horror books. Damn it to hell why'd I have to see every bleedin word in moving picture form in my minds eye.

This was grim and heartbreaking.

Plot/Storyline: I actually wanted a grown up to ban me from reading this and then ground me, put me on a timeout and take away all my snacks.  Then I remembered I'm the grown up in my life, so I tried to ban myself. No such luck - it kept me hooked.

Characters: Angel gave me  "chop you up and melt your face"  vibes from the get go. I kept wishing he was not a psychopath . I also empathized with him so much.

Outrageous  scene: That whole Cram(ps) chapter was a shitshow. I mean this whole book was,  but that was almost as insane as the last chapter.

●Stay in school kids.
●Don't do drugs. 
●Make Good Choices

Significant Quote/Concept:
●Cross my heart and hope to die," Shyla said, making the gesture. (oh Shyla ... you poor thing).
● Red flags?"
"Danger signs. 'Do not pass Go, do not collect two hundred dollars.' Although I charge two-hundred and sixty, and I usually expect a tip," she added with another wink. (Shyla missing ALL of the red flags)
●My mother always used to say, 'Hug your enemies, sugar. Make them into friends.' (Shyla's prediction of the ending without realizing it)

StoryGraph Challenge: 1800 Books by 2025
Challenge Prompt: 150 Horror Books by 2025

 I hate circuses. I saw one when I was in Istanbul pre-pandemic (the last of a dying breed of spectacles) all I saw was animal and differently-abled people abuse not even well disguised beneath the stupid tent lights and gaudy outfits oh yeah and vomit-inducing shiny makeup. Whoooowee, I need a minute. Okay there, unburdened.

Now onto the bloody horror of this sodding circus.

I so loved the theme of the father shielding his son from physical and emotional and fantastical threats even to his own detriment. A beautiful  heartbreaking undertone about parent-toddler relationship.

The play on size in relation to level and force of threat, of violence was executed well. We expect bigger to be bad and the worst whilst smaller would be sweeter therefore easy to overpower. In this case, Biggest tent ever housing smaller than Dave's average average height things/clowns/shadows/ trapeze artists - all the worst hell on earth.

Plot/Storyline:
I'm no mama-bear but I desperately wanted to rip into the pages, flatten myself into this book, dimension jump from my reality to that of the Circus Tent In The Woods and just rage against the forces threatening little Jacob.

Character:
Oh for Fecking Sake  - I hate clowns.

Significant Scene:
Kids are perceptive even when they're 4 year olds and can't reason and have no choice but to heed instinct. Dave Dave Dave, should've listened to little Jacob - but hey no good horror starts with listening.
■Can we watch a movie?” He asked, trying to get us back to the house. (Before entering the Tent)
■Jacob was looking over my shoulder. “Daddy, why is he a clown?”
“Because it’s a circus, buddy.” (When it was already too late)

Favorite Quote /Concept:
■A bloody bleeding tent. No, literally.
■ Jacob understood the need to stay quiet, which honestly was asking a lot of a four-year-old. (Dad/Narrator on his sweet son in the midst of a daring escape attempt)

StoryGraph Challenge: 1800 Books by 2025
Challenge Prompt:  150 Horror Books by 2025 

 This is how you hustle the arcane. Skirt the rules but don’t break them. - Tommy Tester, before "The Happening"

This was my morning quick read with a cup of coffee before heading out for the day and in a few short paragraphs I went from my kitchen on the other side of the world to the atmospheric olde New York - just like that.

This is my intro to LaValle's work. I loved it in a "pit-in-my-stomach" way. Thank you for the haunting.

Plot/Storyline: color me well and sufficiently creeped out. The horror layered within the horror within another layer of horror was this. How easy and normal it was for everyone to accost a person just walking down the street or taking the train. Strangers could come up to you and DEMAND to know where you're going. Teenagers, aged 15 felt it was within their rights to stalk a man walking lone in the night - all for skin color.

And then I google and fall into a rabbit whole and see not much has changed State side and that this particular construct or racial otherness is pervasive all over the globe. Reading it was a horror all on it's own predicated on the fact that such attitudes exist today and are just as deadly. How Lovecraftian.

Characters: I found myself cheering for his survival long before anything deadly took place.

Favorite scene: The threat of something awful to come but not quite there yet. Robert Suydam and Tommy Tetter, in the library just close to midnight:

" “I saw that you understood illusion. And that you, in your way, were casting a powerful spell.
I admired it. I felt a kinship with you, I suppose. Because I, too, understand illusion.”

Favorite Quote/Concept: way too many

I love the mysticism of Conjure music.

◇ Nobody ever thinks of himself as a villain, does he? Even monsters hold high opinions of themselves.
◇A good hustler isn’t curious. A good hustler only wants his pay.
◇Give people what they expect and you can take from them all that you need.

StoryGraph Challenge: 1800 Books by 2025
Challenge Prompt: 150 Horror Books by 2025 

 "sometimes an untrained adversary is the most dangerous one. They don’t follow a memorized rule, don’t employ a familiar tactic or strategy. Every once in awhile they get in a lucky hit that can be very unlucky for you. Even fatal.”. Radimar Velus

Listen, I'm a pacifist but I'd let this swordmaster teach me a thing or two.

According to the masses in this book - this man is not beautiful by Belawat standards but he is striking.  I don't even want to see a man from King Rodan's kingdom of Belawat if they don't look like Radimar. I swooned okay.  All that honor, chivalry and kindness and gentle manner coexisting with deadly skilled swordsmanship, wisdom and je ne se quoi has this man right up there in the Book Husband category - right next to Brishen.

Okay let's pack it up folks, likeable characters and sweet story all the way.

Romance: 🍦🍭I loved the fact that he taught her a valuable skillset in a time when this was a male-dominated skill. Long before the romance even began he wooed her without the wooing.

Plot/Storyline: every time I read a novella or novelette set in the Wraith Kings Universe, the lore and the world building expands and takes my breath away in a very measured and calm way - not swooping and fanciful. So, another mention of the Elder Races, this time, the mysterious Gullperi. I would love a final book that tells the tale of all the Elder Races and how they abandoned the Wraith Kings Universe.

Characters:
♤Oh Jahna - I find you endearing, also it's just a birthmark it's not disfiguring  I've known gorgeous people with full on FACE tattoos or you know enough tattoos to render the face utterly unique. That purple birthmark gives you character girl.
♤Dame Stalt is my kind of Old-Lady badass. She deals in books, in recordkeeping, in memory, maybe magic and in archiving.
♤We already know I'd spill blood for Radimar Velus
♤Sordin is an adorable brother.

Favorite scene/quote:
■Radimar vs Alreed
■Sodrin: “It still seems wrong to fight a woman, even my sister.”
Radimar rested his elbows on the table and pointed his spoon at Sodrin.
“That thinking will get you killed. The greatest swordmaster ever to come out of Ilinfan was a woman.”
■ He was an honorable man and respected the trait in others. It hadn’t taken long for Jahna to realize she desperately wanted to earn his respect in many things, including this. (Jahna on Radimar)
■ My lady, to be blunt, I’ve knocked you on your backside more than a few times during bouts in the past year. I certainly won’t judge you if you stumble or step on my feet. And we’re the only ones here to witness it if you do.” (Radimar on Jahna's reluctance to dance)

StoryGraph Challenge: 1800 Books by 2025 / Wraith Kings Series by Grace Draven
Challenge Prompt: 150 Romance Books by 2025