connorjdaley's reviews
1154 reviews

Goblin Monday by R.L. Stine

mysterious tense fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character

4.0

You know I had to include a GB in my October TBR of spooky reads, and why not one from the new series?

I found this to be perfectly timed for me. Its middle grade nature was refreshing, palette cleansing almost. It’s such a quick read that it’s compulsively readable, and I enjoyed that there was a longer buildup to this one, allowing for some tension and self doubt, even though I didn’t really have to worry about the stakes. 

Grandpa Tweety is a storyteller, so when Mario gets invited to their house, he has no idea if he’s supposed to believe him or not. Todd and Jewel, his own grandchildren, don’t know if the stories are made up either. But when the siblings’ parents go missing during a snow storm, things start to accelerate. Grampa Tweety and MomMom don’t seem that concerned, urging to kids to play and have fun—this happens more than once, urging the reader to wonder why they’re being so lackadaisical. Mario thinks he catches something on his camera but doesn’t, and his friends just think he’s spooked. He has to wonder if maybe he is just scaring himself. 

Naturally in Stine fashion, Mario is not just spooked, and it’s a very twisty-turny Goblin Monday for everyone. I found the goblins to be pretty creepy, and the fact that they were described as being almost as large as the teens grossed me out for some reason (maybe I was thinking of Gremlins). A pretty standard—although never any less fun and satisfying—Stine ending with a twist right after the twist. I didn’t guess the first. 

The September House by Carissa Orlando

challenging dark emotional mysterious sad tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.5

Grabbed the audio for this on sale, and Kimberly Farr does a fantastic job bringing the cast to life. 

This was unique and I’m so happy it was what I was looking for. It mixed all of the traditional haunted house tropes you’ve ever read—bleeding walls, moaning and screaming voices in the night, past residence remaining, spooky basement to avoid, bible pages tapped to doors, missing items, even kamikaze birds and more—with something that felt entirely new. It’s cozy and silly, even humorous at times, with the perfect mix of an older main character, but it’s also not without its darkness, featuring gory descriptions and haunting pasts. Margaret has finally, at long last, made it into her dream home. No way she’s leaving. So when some things start to get a little strange, it’s not such a big deal as long as she follows the rules. Her steadfast attitude that she will not be bothered was so enjoyable and fresh. Things crumbling around her? What a nice place, at least there’s an enviable wraparound porch!

While I also recently read Model Home, which didn’t exactly work for me, this was really more along the lines of what I expected from a new take on the haunted house. However, the two of them together did explore the darker pasts of their families, and what it means to be ‘haunted’. I was a bit shocked that Margaret only mentions the abuse of her husband quite a chunk into the story, as I figured that would be a huge part of your lives together, but I think overall it may have been to feed back into the character’s strength at remaining unnerved. 

What I particularly enjoyed was that all of these things are woven together with a fantastic voice. The author knew exactly what they wanted and they nailed it. All of the twists are manifested right from the beginning when you are told that the house is haunted. These things are happening, have happened, but get especially bad in September. It allows for those layers of funny and scary in a way I’ve not read before. 

The ending is a whirlwind of stress. I was listening on the edge of my seat. As it seemed the daughter started to unravel the house’s mystery in an entirely human way, I was really wondering if this would stick the landing. Luckily, twist after twist kept me guessing as to whether this would end in an almost psychological Shutter Island reveal or something more supernatural. And while this did take an almost too-neat turn for me, it did land well.

Grim Portraits: Six Stories About the Dark Side of Art by Kealan Patrick Burke

challenging dark emotional mysterious sad tense fast-paced

4.0

This author has become a regular during my October TBR for spooky season, and I’m glad I grabbed a paperback to read. 

Six short stories all featuring art in some way. ‘Sometimes They See Me,’ the opening story and possibly more of a novelette+, explores what parts of each of us are art itself and where we bleed together. Two self destructive lovers meet on the night they planned to take their lives. Instead, they continue on, intertwined in their reckless abandon, taking in art as if it’s its own mix of drugs. 

My favorite short of the collection, ‘The Binding,’ finds a man waking up while bound to a chair. He’s trapped within an art gallery, all the art featuring tortures. This felt almost like the opening of a Saw trap, with the character coming to and having no idea how they got there, but being completely immobile. It starts with disbelief, the man figuring it’s a joke, a prank, or some kind of mistake. But it’s not, and the reveal honestly made me want to write something of my own!

Another of particular enjoyment features a couple thieves intent on robbing a comic book store. While inside, one of the thieves finds a comic seemingly depicting their exact robbery. And while he stands still with the comic, his accomplice is still moving, urging the comic panels on in ‘The Barbed Lady Wants for Nothing.’ 

The final short, ‘The Amp,’ felt like the otherworldly feels of the band from Jennifer’s Body, but instead of demons, the entity is the musicians amplifier! It plays music that doesn’t match what the guitarist plays, it plays even when stringless, and it’s bringing about something unstoppable. 

Another quick, enjoyable, and unique read. 

Grey Noise by Marcus Hawke

challenging dark mysterious tense medium-paced

• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

Another paperback I’ve had for a while that I wanted to ensure got read for my October TBR. The spooky reads are in full swing. 

This novella is an ode to the nostalgic Friday nights of old. Getting out of school and getting your mom to drive you to the local video store, to Blockbuster. Browsing the aisles of those cardboard movie poster-ended racks of VHS tapes until you found the perfect one. 

It also has the feel of playing into the nostalgia of old horror movies. The two page staticky play screen reminding me of the design in Shortwave Media’s Killer VHS series, and the endless references brought the entire story to life for me. If you can recall those nights, that feeling of picking the right watch, then you’ll understand why Evan Grey opened Rewind Video. To chase not only that feeling, but his dream. 

It is also, an incredibly bleak examination of survival in a capitalist world. Ever growing rent, car payments, even medicine. The desire to just survive while the changing world only exacerbates the problem. Evan has sank his funds, his savings, into chasing his dream with this store. But when Evan finds an old tube tv on the sign of the road marked ‘free,’ he feels as if his opening day is off to a really good start. He grabs the tv, figuring he can get an old VHS machine running, playing movies all day long for the browsing shoppers, but things begin to spiral. 

After a disastrous opening day, with next to no customers, an argument with his best friend and employee, and a weirdo stalking the back curtained area, all Evan can hear is the static from the tube tv. And the further he slips into the void, voices. He has always hated his step father, who has never been proud of him, but is that really enough here? 

The ending is a bit of a revenge story mixed with Groundhog Day, and a bit of a Saw-esque new lease on life. It’s brutal in its descent, and awfully bloody. This was an enjoyable one that mixed some unique ideas!

Mother by Ainy Cormac

challenging dark mysterious tense fast-paced

• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

Had to give this horror short story a go for my spooky season TBR. 

This mixed some religious horror tropes with some almost Lovecraftian monster vibes. An abusive mother of three takes out her anger on her boys. She hoards things making their home life cramped, less sanitary, starves them, and physically abuses them too. Their father is aware, but can do little to stop it. Zach, the oldest, tends to get the brunt of things, and as he runs his mouth to her, she says he’s earned it. 

But when the boys come home from a weekend with their father, they find the house cleaned, cleared, dinner made, and a completely changed mother. She is kinder, affectionate even, and at first the boys don’t know how to react. She claims she made a friend who invited her to a new church, and that she would like them to go with her. I absolutely loved the kind of examination of an abusive mother finding something to believe in, changing her behavior in faith, just to lead her family into something possibly worse, darker. 

The community aspect of the church and the way they dressed, made me think of M. Night Shyamalan’s The Village. And honestly, with the way the community kind of takes them in and makes it seem like they can’t leave, that isn’t too far off. Now the person they pray to, as this is not a Christian story, is anything but normal. The gelatinous, bulbous descriptors brought to mind the likes of The Blob That Ate Everyone by R. L. Stine, but with a much more cosmic twist. The monstrous tongue, as well as the jelly Eucharist, made me so uncomfortable. This is a quick and enjoyable little horror short! There’s not really a way to go further without spoiling so I won’t! 

Red: A Horror Novella by Daniel Lorn

challenging dark emotional mysterious sad tense fast-paced

4.0

Another paperback I’ve had for a while that I wanted to ensure got read for my October TBR. The spooky reads are in full swing. 

After losing his job right in the opening pages, one that he was so recently promised a promotion at, there’s no surprise that this is a of revenge story. But not only has he been terminated, he’s recently found out that his wife was sleeping around behind his back, having a full on affair with the very man that just fired him. As if that added layer wouldn’t push him over, he also found texts on his wife’s phone that his in-laws were in full support of their daughter and her plan to leave him right before Christmas. It’s no surprise here that he saw red. Much like my recent read of Neal Cassidy’s Schroeder, the reader is not surprised at all by this misled attempt at  what he feels is retribution. 

This is an incredibly vivid, descriptive, and propulsive read. Red is what’s promised, and it’s certainly delivered. Although I can’t get behind the motive, the revenge is well constructed, it’s well played out, and I absolutely loved just how vampiric this is. While not necessarily a typical vampire story, the details peppered throughout are there, and I drank up every one. The play on the character’s trauma story, which his wife and boss both downplayed as a grab for attention (yet another reason for him seeking revenge), which later mirrors his moves throughout was a really nice touch. And that layer of supernatural, that otherness, was also something I enjoyed. 

I didn’t know when going into this read that it took place over Christmas, but I loved the mentions of songs in the background and parties, and shoppers in the streets. Of course the mention of different wines, as well as blood, were delivering on red, but I pictured the reds of Christmas and Santa placed throughout the setting which may or may have not been intentional! 

Carrie by Stephen King

challenging dark emotional sad tense medium-paced

• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

I really wanted to give this a go for its 50th anniversary year, and after loving Pet Sematary, I knew I had to bump this one up. Believe it or not, I’ve been alive for 32 of those 50 years and managed to avoid pretty much all spoilers. 

While reading this, which I didn’t know was any form of religious, I also happened to be listening to C.J. Leede’s American Rapture—which is an extreme examination on religion. Both of them start with a kind of deep dive into the bounds in which Catholicism is designed to hold down and punish women simply for existing. While Sophie’s family is simply force feeding her guilt on a biblical scale, Carrie’s mother seems to be well off the deep end. While Sophie is showcased to be so far removed that she truly doesn’t even know how the world itself functions, Carrie is so religiously uneducated in womanhood that she is unaware of menstruation, not even knowing herself. While AR showcases how religious families can be hurtful even within the Bible, Carrie’s mother using god like a hammer. Much more on the side of torture than praising. 

I was surprised by how thoroughly this goes into the high school level of bullying. Because she is so sheltered, the other girls view her as weird, because she isn’t allowed to dress normal or use makeup, isn’t super skinny, they consider her ugly. The opening scene of the novel they throw tampons and sanitary napkins at her instead of helping her, solidifying just how other they view her. She is ostracized from her fellow classmates while she can’t even seek solace at home. Kind of similar to Neal Cassidy’s Schroeder that I just finished as well, that level of bullying could be seen as more than enough to push someone over the edge, and yet King’s novel adds an additional layer. 

Right from the beginning, the reader understands that Carrie has telekinetic powers. She is not sure how exactly they work, or why she has them, nor are they very strong, but it’s something within her that she can explore. The novel mixes Carrie’s own discoveries with excerpts from scientific research and journals surrounding the phenomenon in a way that almost felt like King was creating his own superpower or mutant gene, even though that is not at all the direction of the novel. And Carrie is anything but a superhero. 

And while there are definitely some issues where this is dated—primarily the descriptions of young girls, women in general, and some racial terms—I found it interesting that Chris’ boyfriend is displayed as the quintessential bad guy, his mistreatment of women being the main thing on display. It’s almost a commentary while missing his own mistakes? 

And with that being said, Chris is the villain here. As a ringleader from the opening shower scene, she becomes wholeheartedly hellbent of ruining Carrie’s life…mostly because she got in trouble for doing a terrible thing? As the daughter of a lawyer, who is also displayed as an entitled idiot, it’s no surprise that Chris would blame someone else rather than doing some soul searching. This hellbent desire to get back at Carrie is the straw that breaks the camels back. The ending is fast, violent, and gruesome in a way I don’t think I’ve ever read before. 

American Rapture by CJ Leede

adventurous challenging dark emotional mysterious sad tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

Thanks to Tor Nightfire, NetGalley, and Macmillan Audio for the ARC. Holy shit, this was fantastic. 

While listening to this, which I knew would be an extreme examination of religion, I also happened to start reading Stephen King’s Carrie—which I had somehow avoided all spoilers for, and did not know it was involving religion as well. Both of them start with a kind of deep dive into the bounds in which Catholicism is designed to hold down and punish women simply for existing. While Carrie’s mother seems to be well off the deep end, Sophie’s family is simply force feeding her guilt on a biblical scale. While Carrie is so religiously uneducated in womanhood that she is unaware of menstruation, Sophie is showcased to be so far removed that she truly doesn’t even know how the world itself functions. And while she secrets away forbidden books, she still lacks that openness that comes from being allowed to explore. While my own experiences can never truly impart in me the same struggles as a girl or woman in the same religion, I did note much of the same experiences and darkness that sermons secret away as the word of god. 

The truly unimaginable depths the author builds—the abyssal pits of paranoia and despair—create such a vivid atmosphere throughout the entirety of the book. I am endlessly impressed at how the author has managed to create this dual horror narrative. While Sophia struggles with guilt, sin, and existing in a world where men of all ages notice a pretty face, she also has to exist through the genuine terror of a venereal apocalypse. Men and women alike are becoming enraged, animalistic, and predatorily sexualized. The near scares of sexual assault and rape mirror Sophie’s own base desires, and while her curiosity is innocent, they’re conflating her guilt. She cannot let in to her desires, though she may try, for fear of becoming infected—and isn’t that the same thing her parents have been spoon feeding her her entire life?

The novel is also, functionally, a powerhouse of a survivalist story as well. Even if the religious factors were dialed back, there is this reminiscence of Bird Box and Your Shadow Half Remains where although not undead, the population is virtually divided and then slowly eradicated all the same. The continuous desire to group together keeping the looming threat of outbreak ever present. And this novel hits all the notes of zombie breakout perfectly. The separation or loss of loved one, the unsuspecting hero turned important member of any group, a gymnasium turned tomb scene, even the quintessential stop-for-fuel gas station mistake. The fact that these two sides represent the same coin is still blowing my mind even after finishing. 

The crux of the story is that to survive, to cross whatever hurtles exist between Sophie and her twin brother Noah, she must first survive the examination and brutality of accepting herself. If she cannot find and truly accept that inner self, she can never overcome the trials before her—whether they’re Christian guilt or mindless beings. And maybe, within that, they’re all already infected. 

Kindness by Michael R. Goodwin

challenging dark mysterious sad tense fast-paced

• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

This is a short story that I grabbed a paperback copy of, kind of cool that that’s even an option, and I loved that it’s like pocket sized similar to Evening of the Mutated Undead by E. Reyes and The Gatherings by Jeremy Ray. I read it in a single sitting, so no need for pocket storage, but the option’s always there. 

Jay’s father is a man of rules, a harsh corrector when the rules get broken. One of his biggest rules is to never enter the garage, which is most often locked, and the memory of the one time Jay’s brother disobeyed is well engrained in their memory. So when Jay’s father tells him to follow him, and he seems to be headed for the garage, Jay doesn’t know what to think. Where is his family? And why is his father being stranger than usual? 

This was a quick read but it still packed a punch. While not exactly long enough for me to sink my teeth into as a revenge story, it’s certainly short and sweet. A family heirloom, an axe, makes Jay feel strong, makes him feel like he’s up for the task of taking on his dad. All his father wanted was to be obeyed, but he’s done things unforgivable. In a kind of rule of two ending, the student may become the master. And I loved the barrels, they made me think of Breaking Bad. 

Schroeder by Neal Cassidy

challenging dark emotional mysterious sad tense medium-paced

• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

The author very kindly offered me a physical ARC. And after reading a Grind reference 7 pages in, I knew I made a good decision. And then later an Underoath reference. And the G-2 07 Pilot is truly the best pen. I hope these are references where I am like the author, cause otherwise it means I’m like Schroeder…

This novel is a psychological trip of stream of consciousness. With winding, incredibly longwinded sentences, paragraphs, chapters even. It took some getting used to, but I’m absolutely enthralled by how the author was able to go on such runs. I can only assume he spent huge chunks of time just thinking, watching, being. And the way he was able to make it almost compulsive to read, while often the character himself is even losing the strain, is truly something. 

Schroeder is riding his bike through town, making pit stops, and ending lives. He’s described as a kind of normal guy, but all I could think of was how much stamina he had for biking all day long. Not to mention the other exercising he was stopping to do. It’s clear that he’s a pretty traumatized person, as who else would do the things he does, however he has a pretty positive outlook on the world it seems, or perhaps it’s because he knows what he’s doing. A day long bike ride that’s a propulsive revenge tale. 

The one thing I struggled a bit with was the why. At first I thought it was strange that I didn’t really understand why he was doing these things, and then I understood that it was a decided choice from the writer. And as my curiosity continued to peak, I arrived at the end of the novel, which features a great deal of explanation and heartbreak. It works well, but I wonder if it would have made the earlier bits just that much stronger if these tidbits were making themselves present during all his musings on the bike? I for one, never get far before my troubles make themselves present at the forefront of my mind. 

I think the biggest win here for me, is the fact that the author takes you through Shroeder’s musings for pages on end, and then they are broken up with these almost blissful moments for him while he’s doing harm to others. Harm that is bordering on extreme or even the splatterpunk edge, without going too nasty for readers. It’s this fine edge of walking that line between extremes—the extreme of thought, and the extreme of revenge. It works quite well. And while I wouldn’t say I necessarily agree with him, I do understand the lengths he’s been pushed.