westernskynaida's Reviews (147)

This gets above half way rating because the format was awesome and I wish more books were like this

I saw this recommended on Reddit ages ago and it’s been a real trouble to find a copy of this. I finally found one in a collection that was recently released on Kindle Unlimited

The concept was definitely interesting, though culturally I’m not sure how well it’ll stand with more modern thoughts on the creature. Though it was a good creature feature. If this story continues to stick around, I’d recommend it for sure

Post thinking on it addition:
I do appreciate the following to the folklore in this short story

I feel this book started slow, and considering how quickly I felt A Flicker in the Dark started, I was really worried this one would take a lot longer than it did

But, once it hit “That Point” the pace went fast and even some plot holes I thought for sure would be forgotten were filled

I may have called some of the twists before they happened but I feel like they were well executed

In a way, this reminded me of Good as Dead (GGGTM 3) but I enjoyed this ending much more

It was…okay? Not bad but not one I’d recommend all over.

I feel like a lot of it could have been done without the mental health side of things. Like the mystery of everything would have made a good supernatural thing that happened, but then there was the weirdness

I did enjoy Rosie’s parts though I wish we could have leaned more about Ras

I picked this book up while struggling through another King book. I’ve seen the original movie (with Travolta and Spacek) and I really enjoyed it

Having been a while since I’ve watched the original movie or any of the new versions of the adaptions, I had a pretty clear mind with starting this book

I really liked the format of this book - 1/2 being events happening from the people who experienced them and the other 1/2 being articles, interviews or other related broadcasts that had some varying levels of belief of what had actually in this little Maine town

This book definitely isn’t for everyone, and I’m kind of surprised I enjoyed it as much as I did. There is one section that aged really badly with science but I actually found that they believed what was written when this book was published so that’s kind of funny to think about with modern science

But if you’re wanting to start if King with his original book, I highly recommend Carrie

For a book that is less than 200 pages, I weirdly struggled with this one.

Full honesty, I’ve never watched the movie (but I plan to later). I did however know the twist from the ending prior because…growing up you kind of can’t avoid that information

The story was definitely interesting to see all the events unfold. You see the inner workings of Norman’s mind and some of the psychological side of things with it as well. Norman was definitely a broken human - in more ways than one

Was it the best? I mean, it’s dependent on who is reading it. But I can definitely see why this is a classic horror rec

I found this as a recommendation for books with similar vibes to Return of the Obra Dinn. Being a little less than 150 pages, I was excited for a quick read that fit with the vibe I was hoping for

Instead, I got some differences that weren’t bad but it worked as a quick read rather than Obra Dinn

I did kind of guess the ending and the why with some context earlier in the book. A lot of the slang was a lot - but it worked with the period it took place

So I’m marking this as read because the first 4 stories was really what I was wanting out of this. I stopped before the other 6 stories (so yay, I finished one of the many books I’m reading)

Honestly, for short references to the mysterious play, I really enjoyed it. It honestly didn’t feel like it was published in 1895 - which I’ll be honest and say I haven’t read a book from that timeframe (or earlier since middle school)

Out of the 4 stories, I liked “The Mask” the most

Maybe I’ll pick up the other 6 stories in the future but to see where Lovecraft got his inspiration for his own cosmic horror, it’s definitely a nice quick read

If I had to rate the first 4 stories, this would be my ratings for them

Please be sure to read the content warnings before you start this book.

It had a lot that delved into childhood trauma (mental, physical and sexual) and the effects that has on someone mentally. As well as the dependent mindset and the “helper” mindset and the idea of loss. This was beautifully written for the mental health side - especially with talking about DID-NOS, which isn’t easy to discuss or show in writing

The final twist made me gasp and try to look back and see if I could have seen it before the reveal

It was pretty good, not great but a fairly quick read. I also may have spent the last 100 pages reading rather working because it was Invested

I kind of called the eventual twist but I took me way too long to realize it. Honesty I’m looking forward to the movie coming out in 2024

Also I may read Shine’s other work The Creeper because I’m curious how that one is

That was a fairly short read - gotta love chat log style narration

I still have no idea what that firm did, but it made sense for the narrating of the story. I got worried we wouldn’t know what was going on with Lydia. But they did at least let us know what happened with her. With Tripp I’m not sure what really happened with him but that’s alright because I wasn’t super invested with his whole thing

Though a lot of it just was weird I thought it was pretty good. Plus some cute romance that happened there which was nice

(Also apparently Kasulke wrote one of the recent episodes of WTNV, which I thought was super cool)