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kaleereads's reviews
113 reviews
Negative Space by B.R. Yeager
Did not finish book.
Did not finish book.
as of now i’ve dnf’d this book. i wanted in for the ultra dark depressing vibes but…it became too depressing lol. may revisit sometime if i’m mentally able to lol. really awesome writing though and insane cosmic horror. definitely really enjoyed it prose-wise but holy hell it’s dark
The Female of the Species by Mindy McGinnis
3.0
not sure how i feel about this one. the overall premise was intriguing enough, and i liked alex as a character. but the pacing was weird? and the ending was random? idk. it could have been done better
All's Well: A Novel by Mona Awad
3.0
didn’t love it as much as bunny but still really enjoyed it. this book would make a great movie. i think playing the surrealism out visually could really be incredible. but being inside miranda’s manic mind and reading her stream of consciousness is also really necessary. i really sympathized with miranda and her anger and her pain, both physical and emotional. i definitely had to study the wiki page for alls well that ends well to understand that juxtaposition and it’s really wonderful. mona awad is a special talent and her brand of surreal, horror-adjacent, women-coming-undone is really my cup of tea.
Bones & All by Camille DeAngelis
3.0
i admit i read this after seeing the film, which was 5 stars for me. but i wanna name the differences between the book and film i liked and didn’t. SPOILERS FOR BOTH THE BOOK AND MOVIES BONES AND ALL:
eating: in the movie, eaters eat people like you’d imagine cannibals would, down and dirty, messy, covered in blood. it’s awesome and the practical effects were great. in the book, the eating is never described and i actually like that. for the film obviously there had to be some grounding in reality and we had to see this, but in a book it’s easier to just…not show what you don’t want to show. i like that the book insinuates that eaters “gobble” people up, like a fantasy monster. the whole book everytime someone ate, i pictured what it would look like, especially after lee tells the story of his girlfriend going insane after witnessing him eat. i ultimately loved that it was ambiguous. it made it scarier.
sully: the two sullys were both terrifying but basically entirely different characters. book sully was way more twisted imo, obviously because of the reveal that he is maren’s grandfather. i feel like this is kind of a plot hole because i don’t understand how he not only tracked down his son frank but also maren? but whatever. that twist was kinda wild. movie sully is played expertly by the creepy af mark rylance and his motives for hunting down maren lie more in feeling jilted after she left him. book sully let maren go, playing this cat and mouse game with her, but movie sully did not want maren to leave, especially because they fed together. he meets her purely by chance, there’s no family relations, he just meets a fellow eater, feeds with her, and feels rejected when she doesn’t return that connection he desperately wants. overall, book sully is more menacing bc he’s been stalking maren for like possibly her whole life? and movie sully is scary bc he’s just batshit insane.
the parents: the gender switch of the parents is the obvious difference between book and film but really inconsequential. in the book, maren reuniting with her father was really the climax of the story. it revealed a lot and kicked off the final act. in the movie, it also kicks off the final act i would say but there’s less weight to it. i liked the book better here if only for the classic argument that the book explains things more in depth.
the violence: the film is pretty bloody. like i said, the eating is visceral and messy. the sound design crew deserves an oscar, but also prison time bc no human ears should hear those things. but the frequency of the eating in the book was greater. maren eats EVERYONE in the book! it also helps that we actually walk through her early memories of eating so we actually are there for everyone on her body count. movie maren doesn’t remember being an eater when her dad abandons her (kind of a plot hole bc girl whatchu mean you don’t remember?!) and her father leaves her a tape talking about her kills as a child (again, how don’t you remember?!). in the book maren damn near eats a dozen people. RIP walmart guy. RIP mental hospital orderly who maren didn’t actually eat but sully did but damn that whole scene was so fucking depressing.
but all this brings me to my main point:
maren’s motivation for eating, the romance aspect, and the endings:
in the film, it’s pretty on the nose that eaters represent disenfranchised people: the poor, queer folks, addicts. eating is compulsory and necessary for the eaters, and therefore they are slave to that need and live on the margins of society. they also band together, being able to smell each other. this is why movie sully comes after maren after all, he’s been alone his whole life and finally connected with someone like him and she rejected him. it’s very queer coded and blatantly allegorical for addiction. and it’s beautiful. and it allows for this beautiful love between maren and lee to grow and deepen because movie maren doesn’t have the same kind of compulsion that book maren does. book maren eats anyone who shows her physical affection basically. i kind of took it like that feeling of butterflies you get when you’re about to kiss your crush? yeah that feeling makes her eat people. and so she’s never been able to be close to someone in that way. and it also makes it impossible for her and lee to have a romance. now let me say:
i hated the ending of this book.
i’m definitely biased because of the movie here. the ending of the movie is gorgeous. AGAIN MAJOR SPOILER: in the movie, sully comes after maren a final time after she and lee have been living together for some time. lee comes home to sully attacking maren and the two struggle with sully and kill him. but lee gets mortally injured in the fight and as he bleeds out and dies he begs maren to eat him. and she does. it’s fucking devastating and heartbreaking and so beautiful.
in the book………..
the book ending sucks. silly comes after maren. lee comes home. eats sully like it’s no problem. and then he finally makes a move on maren and she eats him. she says he lets her, and we know this is because lee thinks he’s a bad person and has been basically waiting for this. their final dialogue also kind of insinuates that he wants maren to eat him and end his misery? idk but i hated it. it almost ruined everything for me and it’s the reason this is a 3 star book.
overall, i really loved the atmosphere of the book, the ambiguity around the act of eating, the deeper exploration of maren’s family background. and i think this book was never meant to be seen as a romance. i actually don’t fucking know what the author wants us to think, or what she thinks. does she think maren is bad? does she think maren doesn’t deserve to be a normal member of society? kinda seems that way.
the movie is way better, must watch.
wow this is the most i’ve ever written on goodreads goodbye
eating: in the movie, eaters eat people like you’d imagine cannibals would, down and dirty, messy, covered in blood. it’s awesome and the practical effects were great. in the book, the eating is never described and i actually like that. for the film obviously there had to be some grounding in reality and we had to see this, but in a book it’s easier to just…not show what you don’t want to show. i like that the book insinuates that eaters “gobble” people up, like a fantasy monster. the whole book everytime someone ate, i pictured what it would look like, especially after lee tells the story of his girlfriend going insane after witnessing him eat. i ultimately loved that it was ambiguous. it made it scarier.
sully: the two sullys were both terrifying but basically entirely different characters. book sully was way more twisted imo, obviously because of the reveal that he is maren’s grandfather. i feel like this is kind of a plot hole because i don’t understand how he not only tracked down his son frank but also maren? but whatever. that twist was kinda wild. movie sully is played expertly by the creepy af mark rylance and his motives for hunting down maren lie more in feeling jilted after she left him. book sully let maren go, playing this cat and mouse game with her, but movie sully did not want maren to leave, especially because they fed together. he meets her purely by chance, there’s no family relations, he just meets a fellow eater, feeds with her, and feels rejected when she doesn’t return that connection he desperately wants. overall, book sully is more menacing bc he’s been stalking maren for like possibly her whole life? and movie sully is scary bc he’s just batshit insane.
the parents: the gender switch of the parents is the obvious difference between book and film but really inconsequential. in the book, maren reuniting with her father was really the climax of the story. it revealed a lot and kicked off the final act. in the movie, it also kicks off the final act i would say but there’s less weight to it. i liked the book better here if only for the classic argument that the book explains things more in depth.
the violence: the film is pretty bloody. like i said, the eating is visceral and messy. the sound design crew deserves an oscar, but also prison time bc no human ears should hear those things. but the frequency of the eating in the book was greater. maren eats EVERYONE in the book! it also helps that we actually walk through her early memories of eating so we actually are there for everyone on her body count. movie maren doesn’t remember being an eater when her dad abandons her (kind of a plot hole bc girl whatchu mean you don’t remember?!) and her father leaves her a tape talking about her kills as a child (again, how don’t you remember?!). in the book maren damn near eats a dozen people. RIP walmart guy. RIP mental hospital orderly who maren didn’t actually eat but sully did but damn that whole scene was so fucking depressing.
but all this brings me to my main point:
maren’s motivation for eating, the romance aspect, and the endings:
in the film, it’s pretty on the nose that eaters represent disenfranchised people: the poor, queer folks, addicts. eating is compulsory and necessary for the eaters, and therefore they are slave to that need and live on the margins of society. they also band together, being able to smell each other. this is why movie sully comes after maren after all, he’s been alone his whole life and finally connected with someone like him and she rejected him. it’s very queer coded and blatantly allegorical for addiction. and it’s beautiful. and it allows for this beautiful love between maren and lee to grow and deepen because movie maren doesn’t have the same kind of compulsion that book maren does. book maren eats anyone who shows her physical affection basically. i kind of took it like that feeling of butterflies you get when you’re about to kiss your crush? yeah that feeling makes her eat people. and so she’s never been able to be close to someone in that way. and it also makes it impossible for her and lee to have a romance. now let me say:
i hated the ending of this book.
i’m definitely biased because of the movie here. the ending of the movie is gorgeous. AGAIN MAJOR SPOILER: in the movie, sully comes after maren a final time after she and lee have been living together for some time. lee comes home to sully attacking maren and the two struggle with sully and kill him. but lee gets mortally injured in the fight and as he bleeds out and dies he begs maren to eat him. and she does. it’s fucking devastating and heartbreaking and so beautiful.
in the book………..
the book ending sucks. silly comes after maren. lee comes home. eats sully like it’s no problem. and then he finally makes a move on maren and she eats him. she says he lets her, and we know this is because lee thinks he’s a bad person and has been basically waiting for this. their final dialogue also kind of insinuates that he wants maren to eat him and end his misery? idk but i hated it. it almost ruined everything for me and it’s the reason this is a 3 star book.
overall, i really loved the atmosphere of the book, the ambiguity around the act of eating, the deeper exploration of maren’s family background. and i think this book was never meant to be seen as a romance. i actually don’t fucking know what the author wants us to think, or what she thinks. does she think maren is bad? does she think maren doesn’t deserve to be a normal member of society? kinda seems that way.
the movie is way better, must watch.
wow this is the most i’ve ever written on goodreads goodbye