This was so incredibly mediocre, I only got through it bc I promised oomf I would. The writing seemed juvenile, the pacing was erratic, and the fmc was so incredibly stupid despite it being said time after time after time that she’s a genius. I love a good enemies to lovers but this wasn’t even miscommunication trope enemies to lovers, this was just mmc has unresolved angst from his childhood and blaming the fmc for everything when she was too little to even know what the fuck happened. The mystery seemed to be the only good part but even the evidence of that popping up seemed out of place with where the story was at. Also I’m so tired of hearing about Tristan’s blue eyes, and his musky scent and how broad his shoulders were, and how Morana’s chest heaved and her breasts heaved and how her heart stuttered. It was overdone and annoying. 

It was an entertaining read but I only did this out of spite and probably would’ve dnfed if not for oomf.

Everyone should read this. It was a poignant and heartbreaking collection of poems

I think this was a fantastic conclusion to the I Feed Her to the Beast duology. If the first half spoke about rage and ambition, then I Am The Dark That Answers When You Call is ultimately about grief and its different portrayals. From the very first word to the very last, I was hooked, although the middle did sag a little bit. 

I love that this expanded so much more on the depths and layers of Laure’s relationships, which is one of the faults I had with I Feed Her to the Beast. I Am The Dark is also a seamless transition from the ending of I Feed Her to the Beast. I think, ultimately, the relationships, the anger Laure had towards her mother, towards her best friend and the anger she held towards herself, the reality of it all made me love this book even more. 

To expand on the portrayals of grief, i love how Shea illustrated through Laure the lack of feelings for day to day activities, even hobbies or passions that were formerly utterly consuming. 

I loved the body horror element, and I find that while having an evil eldritch god use your body for its secret chaos plan isn’t something that can really happen, it is extremely relevant to the political climate in the US. 

Thank you Jamison Shea for an advanced copy of I AM THE DARK THAT ANSWERS WHEN YOU CALL. This was a fantastic read and I loved every second of it.

I had no idea what I was going into with this other than knowing it was horror. There was a sense of dread and waiting for the other shoe to drop the whole time. I was expecting some sort of Blackbeard’s wife situation from the second that Ro couldn’t go through one of the doors. I wasn’t expecting

ash to be a serial killer using the body parts of her kills for her cottagecore lifestyle

but it really made the story. The ending was fantastic too and made my heart drop.

This book wasnt what I thought it was going to be. I was expecting some sort of ya horror, but what I got was so much more complex and compelling. The idea that girls and women are written off as hysterical when they’re reacting with any sort of emotion or or the way that communities protect abusers including the institutions that are meant to protect young women touches close to home. I feel like there could’ve been more to the ending, it felt like the ending was abrupt instead a real closure to the book, and the big bad being real instead of a ghost felt a little flat, as if the girls were trying to gaslight themselves into thinking their trauma of the screams and being stolen was better than the trauma that would’ve possibly happened otherwise. Overall this was a fantastic ya thriller and I’m down to read more of Alkaf’s work.

This felt very rushed and superficial. I love the idea of vampires turned in their 30s, not giving a shit or learning not to anymore but this book felt superficial. Sloan and Naomi are extreme opposites who only seem to be friends due to length of time of the friendship. Neither of them seem to really have a character arc. Henry/Drago was also a surface level love interest who was only there to sorta convince Sloan she wasn’t a boring nobody. I’ve seen Harrison hyped up on social media but I wasn’t quite impressed with my first foray into her work.

I had several Twitter mutuals recommend this to me. Of course a white person had no fear of living in a haunted house. It was very funny to me how she was just so nonchalant and making rules for how to live with it. The middle felt kind of repetitive and jumbled and the ending, while it had great bones, needed to be fleshed out more. I more or less expected the ending and it could’ve been great but was rushed. Overall it was an entertaining read but not something I’d read again or recommend.

I enjoyed this but probably not as much as Camp Damascus. The start was great, the ending was batshit but the middle felt slow and I had to trudge my way through it. The message was fantastic both on rainbow capitalism and AI. I found the message particularly well done especially bc I have some knowledge in the AI field. Overall solid plot, villain and story, it just didn’t hit me as hard as I had hoped.

I love I live I love queer horror and religious horror. I’m glad that my expectations were subverted (I thought it would be present tense getting sent to the camp) but also I love lesbians and the fact that they quite literally burnt their demons and dealt with religion in their own ways after being harmed by it. Also I clocked from the jump that she was autistic and that made my heart so happy