ribbenkast's reviews
108 reviews

She's Always Hungry by Eliza Clark

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adventurous dark emotional tense medium-paced

5.0

I usually dont like short story bundles, but I will make an exception for my favorite author. And Eliza Clark is just that good. I won't even apologise, everything she writes just hits like crack to me. 

Highlights where She's always hungry, The King and Shake Well.
Coup de Grâce by Sofia Ajram

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Did not finish book. Stopped at 58%.
This book set itself up for failure by comparing itself to books as Piranesi and House of Leaves. In those books, the libarynth is a character upon itself. In this book, the Libarynth is mere underdeveloped set dressing. 

I feel like the central premise of this book only works if you care about the main character. But Vik was so deeply apathetic and pretentious she became unbearable. What's worse, I have an inkling the author has based her on herself. She also adds the most basic literary references to base level of Greek mythology and well known Shakespeare plays on every page to no end other than to come across well read.

But sure, the book is short, let's keep reading and see where is goes. The final straw for me was the mention and extremely poor handeling of the real live case of Eliza Lam. Feeding into the deeply disrespectful make-up true crime creepy pasta internet theories. Unacceptable.
The New Seoul Park Jelly Massacre by 조예은, Cho Yeeun

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fast-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Strong character development? No

2.0

The body horror was cool, I guess. I don't know if it was an issue with the translation, I am missing some cultural context or if this book is just bad. 

I get that the author was trying to weave these different narratives from multiple characters together into the central titular massacre, but it didn't really work. Half of these characters had no baring on the plot and on top of that they weren't interesting or likable. This book is short, but still half of it didn't matter.

Also the prose was very dry and lackluster.

This book tried way to hard to be literary, but would've worked better as a fun pulp horror.
Slangen by Dominique De Groen

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dark

4.5

Ik snap wel dat dit niet voor iedereen is, ik vind het in ieder geval erg goed.
Waar iemand woont by Richard Nobbe

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funny hopeful reflective

5.0

Literaire confetti