imperfectcj's reviews
2149 reviews

She Is a Haunting by Trang Thanh Tran

dark mysterious medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Plot
• Strong character development? No

1.5

This one is kind of like a YA version of Mexican Gothic crossed with My Mother's House and set in Vietnam. I almost bailed a couple of times because it's so difficult to tell what's going on or why characters are reacting the way they were. It feels like the author is making the characters do things that don't line up with their personalities for the purpose of making a point about colonialism. And the haunting itself is very confusing.

The Push by Ashley Audrain

dark sad tense medium-paced

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

5.0

Wow. This novel has so much. Generational trauma, mom guilt, unreliable narrator, gaslighting, tension, uncertainty. This is one that ruined a night of sleep for me because I could not put it down until I'd finished it. The way that everything is assumed to be the mom's fault or at least the mom's responsibility to fix...it just feels so spot on. AND it's a great story. Seriously one of the best books I've read this year.

My Darling Girl by Jennifer McMahon

dark tense fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Plot
• Strong character development? Yes

3.5

Creepy and unsettling in that trapped way when a character has no clear path to success (indeed, no clear sense of what success is, even) and no allies. It feels like a metaphor for motherhood, and as a result, it is both scary and depressing (but rather more the latter for me).

Horns by Joe Hill

dark medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Plot

3.0

My first Joe Hill novel, this one was okay. It has the raunchy, sophomoric language I associate with his father's style, and it's rather more graphically violent than it is scary, but it's a decent story. I will likely read more of Joe Hill's books.

The Peculiar Incident on Shady Street by Lindsay Currie

funny tense fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Plot
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? No

3.5

Although the middle schoolers in this MG novel are much kinder than I remember them being when I moved to a Midwestern town at that age (and can people actually surf along the Gulf Coast of Florida?), the story was sweet enough that I was willing to suspend my disbelief. 

The Safekeep by Yael van der Wouden

emotional sad tense slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? Yes

4.5

This might be my second-favorite novel on the Booker Prize shortlist so far (I still have one more to go). The style and the slow evolution of intense emotions really work for me, and the audiobook narration fits the content very well. 

Ghost Station by S.A. Barnes

dark tense slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Plot
• Strong character development? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes

4.0

I alternated between the audiobook and the hardcover on this one. It's a bit slow to unfold, and I wasn't thrilled with some of the character interactions, but overall I liked this novel quite a bit. It's atmospheric and tense, and more like a space story than a ghost story. The blurb on the cover of the Aardvark edition is amusing once one reads the story.

Incidents Around the House by Josh Malerman

dark fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Plot

3.5

This was super spooky to start out with, but there are a couple of things that detracted from my experience. The main one is that Bela's maturity level shifts too much. One moment she seems like a kindergartener, wanting to cuddle with her parents and unfamiliar with grown-up words, and the next she's grasping philosophically mature concepts her schoolteacher told her class. The ending is lackluster. But I still got chills, so there's that.

4:50 From Paddington by Agatha Christie

dark funny medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Plot
• Strong character development? Yes

4.0

As usual, Emilia Fox's narration is a fantastic way to enjoy a Miss Marple mystery. I love her character voices so much, I listen to her on 1x. The mystery in this one is fun, and I love the strong women characters.

Enlightenment by Sarah Perry

hopeful reflective sad slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character

3.5

I seem to be in the middle of a bunch of titles that I would describe as "meditations." This one is relatively interesting, spanning the course of 20 years and dealing with events that happened well earlier, but it's also rather slow and kind of frustrating in the way that life is often frustrating...a whole lot of tedium punctuated by getting sort of what you want but not quite. So, a qualified pick for me.