otherworlds's reviews
122 reviews

The Worm and His Kings by Hailey Piper

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

5.0

Absolutely incredible. Literally could not be normal for hours after reading this. 

Queen of Teeth by Hailey Piper

adventurous emotional tense medium-paced

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

4.5

I love how it has this wacky premise and then it turns into something so raw and tender and brutal, oh my god. It's like a weird 80s body horror movie but add in anti-capitalism, so many dead cops, oh, and love. So much love went into this one.

It's also maybe the one and only vagina-related horror story I've read that wasn't a dysphoria-inducing, "divine feminine" cringefest. I love how Piper focuses on the vagina as more of a locus of personal experience (of sensation, feeling) than a symbol of arbitrary femininity. Its voice is not the divine essence of womanhood, it is the simple insatiable desire to live and a howl of rage against the oppression she's faced.

Our Wives Under The Sea by Julia Armfield

dark emotional mysterious reflective sad medium-paced

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

5.0

how am i supposed to just go on with my day after having read this

Summer Sons by Lee Mandelo

slow-paced

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

3.75

I really liked this book for how it embodies a love letter to the queer Tennesseean experience, the memorable characters, and fun Southern Gothic vibes.

But some things about it wore on me as it went on... The prose grew repetitive as the author seemed attached to very specific descriptors that, while interesting the first few times, got old by the end of the book. The pacing was kind of off, too. And the characters, while interesting conceptually, were all under-developed except for Andrew, and suffered from the author's attempts to make them ~wild~ and ~edgy~ as opposed to truly embracing the reality of their lives. I am referring to all side characters but especially Sam, here. For someone who

is the endgame love interest

, there's just not a lot of detail given to his life! We're told he's a minimum wage worker who moonlights as a drug dealer to support his trans cousin, which is so fucking interesting and yet we barely got to see any of his life outside of partying. This all led to him feeling underutilized as a character. It's all a bit of a "tell not show" kind of thing. (Don't even get me started on Eddie -

they kept calling him "monstrous" and yet we never actually get to see him do anything monstrous! The way they were hyping him up, I thought he'd killed someone with his mind or some shit lmao.

) I wish Mandelo had let these characters really breathe outside of their TRC-esque archetypes.

Also, I didn't like the resolution of the plot threads at the end. It just took the momentum away and left me feeling like, damn, all that build-up just for this? Especially regarding the supernatural elements. The whole last, maybe, third of the book felt extremely messy to me in a way that might suggest it was under-edited.

I don't want to shit on this book because I really did enjoy it, but that's why the let-down bothered me so much! I think there's great concepts here and you can tell Mandelo has skill, but there was just so much that needed to be further edited and refined.

A House at the Bottom of a Lake by Josh Malerman

mysterious tense medium-paced

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

3.0

it was, for the most part, a fun little read! however there were some aspects that made me cringe and not in the good horror-story way: the 17-year-old hetero sex scenes, and the male gaze of it all. sigh

Wayward Lives, Beautiful Experiments: Intimate Histories of Riotous Black Girls, Troublesome Women, and Queer Radicals by Saidiya Hartman

challenging emotional hopeful informative reflective slow-paced

5.0

absolutely amazing. it took me a couple months to get through this one and that's because i kept having to stop and think about it, like really absorb it and integrate it into my worldview. this book changed my worldview, for the better. i definitely cried a few times because it moved me so deeply. hartman is absolute brilliant. i think everyone should read this

In the Dream House by Carmen Maria Machado

dark informative reflective tense medium-paced

5.0

Beautiful, terrible, haunting. Definitely made me tear up in places because the way she described the emotional and sexual abuse was so visceral and reminded me of my own life, and I felt that pain so strongly along with her. This book is painful, but also hopeful and life-affirming. I'm so glad she's safe now and I'm so glad I read this. <3

Found: An Anthology of Found Footage Horror Stories by Gabino Iglesias, Andrew Cull

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Diverse cast of characters? No

3.75

it was fun but not as scary as it hyped itself up to be

Mexican Gothic by Silvia Moreno-Garcia

dark mysterious 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? No

4.25

I really felt Moreno-Garcia's love for the Gothic genre shine through in this book, which made it fun in a special kind of way! I also liked how she handled the sensitive topic of

incest.

White Horse by Erika T. Wurth

dark emotional slow-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

3.75