The narration by Stephanie Racine is perfectly suited to the story. By far the best performance I have heard in a long time. 

The story itself is an intriguing and entertaining re-envisioning of the tale of Oedipus as told by his daughter/sister, Antigone. 

I love the way that Gébler mimics classical texts with their use of poetic phrasing and proverbs. As well as the habit of restating things in the same manner. It gave the story a truly classical feel. 

My only critique is that I would have liked to learn more about the story's narrator, Antigone, since it is her voice that we are listening to. 

This book was not for me.

The author writes in a snarky, somewhat condescending manner for a lot of the book and their supposed shared experience and views with the reader were almost universally not shared by myself.

The author seemed to state a lot of things as fact or common sense when in reality they were just his own personal convictions.

I also found some of the science and scientific analogies were used in the wrong way or in a very misleading or dubious fashion.

It's a shame because I have a strong interest in non-human intelligence and cognition and many of the author's underlying ideas and arguments I found interesting but the overall tone of the book really hindered any potential enjoyment.

Do. Not. Recommend.

Repeat after me: There's no excuse for domestic abuse.

Not even because you don't want it to ruin your weekend away. Like seriously, what did I even just read?

Firstly, Rich didn't seem to have ANY issue with being friends with an abusive bully. His only issue seemed to be that it bothered Kara that her sister was being abused. It didn't bother Rich at all. His constant need to "break the tension" was really just him not wanting to do anything about his friend abusing his wife.

I only kept reading in the hopes Max would die and was very pleased when he did. But why did Allison have to die, too? First, she's treated like her abuse is an inconvenience, and then she gets killed off. No, thank you.

I love cryptids but the way domestic abuse was handled (or not handled), the pointless side characters, the stilted and expository dialogue, the unrefined writting style, and the constant use of 'bear' as the plural form of bear, made it so whatever cryptid elements I may have otherwise enjoyed fell completely flat.

This book was definitely not for me despite the premise being spot on for my usual tastes.

Do. Not. Recommend. 

I first read "Meg" when I was a teenager, and I remember thinking it was a fun, creature feature of a story. However, I was less impressed with it this time around.

Originally written in the late 1990s, this story is full of sexist caricatures and misogyny. I'm genuinely surprised that the author or publisher didn't think to update the story with its re-release. 

Whilst the story is a fast-paced, action-packed, adventure with a lot of fun, "Oh, cool!" moments, the characterisations of the female characters is dreadful. In this day age, readers want more from their male protagonists than just thinly-veiled toxic masculinity. 

I really enjoyed this book. The slow place, the way the atmosphere builds to be more and more opressive, and the growing sense of isolation really drew me in.

I purchased this book prior to COVID and I'm glad that I didn't get around to reading it until post-lockdown as I don't think I would have truly believed or personally felt the level of isolation that the characters experienced in the story if I hadn't lived through multiple lockdowns myself. 

This story is very much a Japanese horror and thus may not appeal to people who prefer a more Westernised approach to horror. It's much more understated and subtle. If you have watched Japanese horror movies like 'Dark Water' (Honogurai mizu no soko kara) and enjoyed them, then you'll likely enjoy this story, too.

The closest thing to a criticism I can come up with is that there was the occasional awkward word choice that made me pause for a moment but I'm confident that's simply due to the story being translated into English from the original Japanese

A highly academic read, Manousos E Kambouris pulls together numerous sources to recreate the interactions of Persia and Greece from an uncommon perspective.

Whilst I appreciate the effort and research that went into this book, I felt it was somewhat disjointed. The detailed descriptions of the battles were impressive, but the introduction felt hollow. There wasn't a well-formed argument, and a conclusion was all but missing.

It felt like the argument Kambouris was trying to make was an afterthought, and the real focus was on discovering and relating as much minutiae as possible about specific military actions and engagements.

The depth of information included is impressive, and I feel that having such a soft argument layered over it really hindered the overall enjoyment and quality of the book.

"Do the Work!" is an interactive workbook that helps readers to recognise privilege and systemic racism.

The book has a clear focus on the United States of America so several of the activities and situations noted weren't known to me and/or relevant to my country, HOWEVER, I still found this book to be extremely relevant and useful.

In order to get the best outcome from this book, people, in particular white people, will need to put aside their defensiveness and be open to accepting that we don't have to be actively racist in order to promote racist systems and beliefs. 

The format is exciting and engaging and will appeal to a lot of young adult readers. I personally found it too busy and chaotic, but I believe it'll appeal to many.

I really loved all the further reading recommendations shared throughout the book and the "Do the Work" boxes that give suggestions on how to be actively anti-racist.

The issue with stories that rely on the reader being uncertain about what is going on and mind-blowing twists is that they fall completely flat if the reader connects the dots early on. 
Everyone was saying that it's okay not to know what is going on for the first half of "The Last House on Needless Street" because you're not supposed to know. 
The issue for me, however, is that I did know what was going on. 

I actually felt it was really obvious from close to the beginning and everything else that followed went towards reinforcing it. And I have to say, I wasn't impressed. 
Not only is the story arguably founded on one of the oldest and most cliched tropes, but it's also insensitive as all heck to the marginalised community that the author chose to exploit for her novel. I don't care that she lists her research at the back of the book. 

Basically, she wanted to be considerate of such people but just not to the point of not exploiting them and their condition for her book and to make some money. That makes it even worse somehow. The only thing I will say is, I am glad they flipped it slightly so that the person in question wasn't a 'bad guy' since that's how the trope generally plays out.

Some of the smaller twists were nice but not completely unexpected either. This is probably a book I would enjoy more on reread since there's no longer an expectation of being deceived or surprised, and no disappointment when it doesn't eventuate, but the trope is old and in this day and age, authors have no excuse not to do better when it comes to using marginalised groups like this.

This book wasn't for me.

The title of this book is very misleading, and there is little to no science covered whatsoever. The same goes for special effects and stunts.  As for 'true stories', there was only one or two brief mentions of real-life events that inspired movies.

On the surface, this is an interesting read about women in horror that looks at the archetypes and roles of women in horror and how societal views and beliefs have shaped them as well as the different ways horror has allowed for their subversion.

Using horror movies from across the decades, the authors look at the ways sexism, gender roles, and sexuality have affected the role of women in horror both in front and behind the camera.

On a deeper reading, though, the book only really touches on the role of BIPOC women and queer women in a superficial way.

There's a definite air of 'white feminism' to the book that can be seen in the way women are referred to as "women and women of colour" at one point, right after a chapter of how 'male' is seen as the universal standard, as though 'women' and 'women of colour' are two separate things. I would have understood if they were to say "women, especially women of colour" or something along those lines but instead they literally broke up women into '(white) women' and 'women of colour'.
It was also seen in the mention of Ruth Rose where her involvement with the screenplay for King Kong was praised, but no mention of the films problematic racist overtones was made.

Another issue I had was with Chapter 29, which took a superficial look at disability in horror. The authors not only used the term "differently abled" but constantly referred to "people with disabilities" instead of referring to disabled people as, well, disabled people.
They also implied that being deaf is a weakness that becomes a character's "strength" when she uses it to her advantage against an assailant. 

Let's also not forget that bit of Joss Whedon love. I mean, that feels totally appropriate in a book that had just looked at the ways women in the industry had been negatively treated, albeit superficially. The book was written in 2019 so I'm willing to give them some benefit of the doubt, since much of the momentum and revelations regarding Whedon's treatment of female actors occurred after publication. 

One thing that the book did look at, that I really appreciated, was the way older women, and the elderly in general, are treated in horror. It's a topic I rarely see mentioned that we need greater discussion and dialogue around.

This book was decent enough entertainment until the final few chapters when the author decided to take a really bizarre approach to the story that felt ridiculously contrived and unnecessary. 

Basically, a group of bank robbers hide out at a cabin and end up becoming prey to a killer creature.

I didn't like ANY of the characters. The main cop character was probably the least offensive character, which is really saying something.

You're meant to like the main male protagonist because he is a veteran who, get this, doesn't approve of domestic abuse or sexual assault.

That is literally the sum total of his character. Sure, it means I don't dislike him as much as the abusive arsehole character or the characters that turn a blindeye but that, alone, a likeable protagonist doth not make.

There's a lot I didn't like about this book, but the fact that it isn't about a lake monster really annoyed me. Between the title and the cover, how is this not implying a lake monster? 
WHERE'S MY LAKE MONSTER, MR COLE???

Alright, now that's out of my system, I'm about to spoil the heck out of the ending, so look away now if you intend to read this.


Content warning: sexual assault

Now, get this, the female protagonist has white hair, and the creature's dead companion has white lines on its face. Therefore, clearly, the insectoid alien must want to HAVE SEX WITH HER!

Are you kidding me?!?! That's literally all it takes to make the character and author assume that the insectoid alien from out of space clearly wants to get down with some human female mating action.

The male protagonist, not knowing about this white hair connection, enters a cave to see the insectiod alien standing menacingly over the female protagonist and, despite all the people this creature has already killed, immediately assumes it wants to have sex with her, shouting such quality dialogue as "No means no, jerkoff!"


Ugh.

It was actually an okay read until the author decided to add an alien rape subplot at the end for literally NO REASON!