How would anyone not like this book? Hola Papi was a fun audiobook. I found myself experiencing many emotions: tenderness when his mother looked back at his childhood, sadness and anger at some of his toxic partners, pride at his identity and intelligence. I really can't imagine anyone picking up this book (or audiobook) and being disappointed. It's exactly what you'd think: advice columnist sharing personal experiences through their advice column career. 

I enjoyed this! I think it was in a reel for people who like weird/absurd books and the other books that were included were things I'd read and enjoyed. 

The book got me in the first pages as the husband speaks in $$$$ phrases, literally his dialogue is in the language of $ like, "He said, $$$$$, and then he looked away saying, $$$$$$ $$$$$$$$$$$$$$ to which I replied you're being ridiculous, you know how I feel about that." The chapters seemed vaguely related but not an exact timeline of any character arc. We felt the writer's Asian mothering through many of the chapters and her competition with her Asian peers, being pitted against each other by their mothers in many of the chapters. I enjoyed the essay about the drug G. Many of the chapters felt unsettling but I trusted the narrator to ferry me through the choppy waves. I'd def pick up another book by Ling Ma. 

This book was recommended as some of the best horror of 2022. I requested it from Libby and there are a collection of about 10 short stories, pressed into roughly 100 pages. I echo the other reviews who remark on the author's tendency to abandon the story at the climax. Some of the stories were snoozefests, or it could be I read it at night when I had already been lulled to drowsiness by 5-htp. 

The ones that were creepy, did a formidable job creating a feeling of unease, darkness, and mysterious energy that cannot be fully explained. 

Angelita Unearthed: 3/5
Our Lady of the Quarry: 3/5
The Cart: 3.5/5
The Well: 5/5, I liked this one, it felt fully developed, fully rendered and concluded. 
Rambla Triste: 4/5 Cinematic, fully rendered. I would love to see this at a short film fest. 
The Lookout: I skipped this one
Where Are You, Dear Heart: 4/5 It felt a little thin, I would like to see this fleshed out into more of a story but I did enjoy the sketch. 
Meat: 3.5/5 Is this Christianity? We look at this story as horror but how far off is it from 2000 years ago? 
No Birthdays or Baptisms: 3.5/5 Snooze. A couple interesting lines but the whole story wasn't begging to be told. Or I missed something. 
Kids Who Come Back: 0/5 I saw the reviews mentioning transphobic language and as I started the story, I thought maybe it was coming from an unenlightened character's voice, which would be an interesting question if an author can write about hate speech from the place of a character, not as a narrator, one might be able to argue that? But no, this was the narrator or the translator and I got turned off real quick as the word was repeated in succession. Skipped. 
The Dangers of Smoking in Bed: 1/5 Boring, pointless. Yawn. 
Back When We Talked to the Dead: 3.5/5 This was one of the better stories, balancing storytelling with not over-explaining and spoon-feeding the plot to the reader. 

I thought this was too intersectional the first half. It's horror and trans rights. It's horror and feminism. It's horror and colonialism. Horror and suicidal media anonymity. Horror and porn/consent. But by the end,  I felt horrified at all these concepts, indeed, tinged like the House, tinged like the walls. I picked this up because of House of Leaves,  I like slow, creeping, haunted houses that unsettle. Even though this went a different direction,  I "liked" it. Ali(ce) and Ila were two halves of the same coin, their own palindrome. 

Q: What was the word carved into Alice's leg that looks like panic?

Everyone can be happy if one unimportant person is tortured.  The Lottery, the Brothers K. What is a society's happines worth?

I liked the writing but I didn't like the plot at all.  Too long. Repetitive. Scary idea, OK characters.  Could have been half as long to get to the same ending.  

Surprisingly good for SK! I didn't read the other two, just skipped ahead to #3 from a booktuber rec for best books of 2022. I thought it came together really well at the end which I never experience with SK. 

I liked this book! I thought the disease was creepy and the characters were faceted. I thought the plot moved along aggressively and that the story remained interesting but not too predictable. 

A character study of a toxic friendship. This is horror, this is fiction (or is it?), this is a pop-culture commentary. The characters feel so finished, I can really get into their heads and see what is moving them through their arcs. I like how storygraph ask if it's more plot or character based: this book really perfectly blends both, every character advance is a plot advance, they inform each others' paths. If I ever wrote a book, I hope it's as good as Nemerever!