night_shift's reviews
78 reviews

Lugosi: The Rise and Fall of Hollywood's Dracula by Koren Shadmi

informative sad fast-paced

4.0

The drama during and between movies I've been watching was pretty interesting! Lugosi's life and career put in context with the history of Hollywood was cool too. The line work here was nice, too.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Addiction, Alcoholism, and Drug abuse

Moderate: Infidelity

X's For Eyes by Laird Barron

adventurous challenging fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Plot
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? No
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

2.5

This 80pg book took me over a month to read because I kept telling myself "it's so short, just finish it" after not reading it for days. I don't know, it was fine. Lots of cool and creepy imagery, but was not a fan of Mac and Dred being preteens. I really don't know why they had to be that young and essentially act like adults. If you're trying to have the whole Hardy Boys feel, just make them college aged and with the excessive wealth, they would've had the same life without consequences as children do. But then it wouldn't have me having to read about preteen boys having sex with grown ass women and lusting after grown ass women. It's was creepy and gross.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Cursing and Violence

Moderate: Adult/minor relationship

A Gathering of Crows by Brian Keene

adventurous dark fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? No

3.5

Didn't realize until halfway through that this is part of a series and now I gotta read the others because Levi is a pretty interesting character!

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Gore, Torture, Violence, Blood, Murder, and Injury/Injury detail

Moderate: Animal death, Child death, Car accident, Death of parent, and Fire/Fire injury

Minor: Cancer, Cursing, Alcohol, and War

Exquisite Corpse by Poppy Z. Brite
Did not finish book. Stopped at 18%.

Not vibing with this.  If you've read something from the POV of a serial killer once, you've basically read them all. And this didn't have any additional hook to keep me reading so, sorry?

The Elementals by Michael McDowell

challenging dark mysterious slow-paced

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

4.0

A very slow read that creeps up on you to that wild ending. Definitely not scary, but a really solid southern gothic. I loved all the characters, especially father and daughter Lurker and India.
Gotta say the descriptions of the south, the heat, the people.. very spot on and finding out the author was an Alabama boy, makes perfect sense. Gunna have to pick up his other book, The Amulet.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Alcoholism and Body horror

Moderate: Child death, Cursing, and Racism

Minor: Cancer and Toxic relationship

Comfort Me with Apples by Catherynne M. Valente

dark mysterious fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? N/A

4.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Murder and Gaslighting

Exalted by Anna Dorn

challenging funny fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? No
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.0

The main characters were awful lol but this was a lot of fun. I had a funny thought as to where it was going really early on and was right 😂

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Alcoholism, Suicidal thoughts, and Alcohol

Moderate: Sexual content, Toxic relationship, Stalking, and Toxic friendship

Minor: Incest, Infidelity, and Lesbophobia

Husk by Rachel Autumn Deering

dark emotional fast-paced

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

2.75

Ending felt too rushed, but I liked so much of the imagery.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Mental illness

Moderate: Death and War

Running Wild by J.G. Ballard

mysterious medium-paced

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

2.5

Meh. The idea of a neighborhood like this, while creepy, I just don't buy creating this reaction. The postscript also added an unnecessary bit of conspiracy that I didn't care for. May pick up more Ballard in the future, but we'll see.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Gun violence, Violence, Mass/school shootings, and Schizophrenia/Psychosis

Hell Hound by Jessica Hamilton, Ken Greenhall

dark medium-paced

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

3.0