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truebookaddict's reviews
784 reviews
Chasing Ghosts by Glenn Rolfe
4.0
First, let me make a confession. I love horror movies with inbred people as the killers. Who can forget the power and tension of the first Wrong Turn film (forget the sequels)? Texas Chainsaw Massacre...I believe there's an inbreeding story line in that one too. TCM is burned into any horror fans memory. Oh, and let's not forget Deliverance (not really horror, but horrific just the same). I'm sure there are more and I know I've pretty much seen them all. But let me get to my point...
What is more scary than a clan of inbreds who are also cannibals? Not much. There is something almost urban legend-esque about it. There's a reason why "Home" is one of my favorite X-Files episodes. It's just so damn disturbing. So, Rolfe comes along with Chasing Ghosts and his inbreds are some of the most disturbing I've ever encountered.
You know it's going to be a no-holds-barred, Game of Thrones style read when kids get killed early on. No punches are pulled and it makes for honest horror. Because what do a bunch of inbred dudes care about who they're killing? Not a damn thing.
Rolfe continues to impress me with each new book. Blood and Rain was a deliciously wild ride on the werewolf train and Things We Fear had me thinking along with the fear. You should not miss anything written by Rolfe. I promise. You will be thanking me later.
What is more scary than a clan of inbreds who are also cannibals? Not much. There is something almost urban legend-esque about it. There's a reason why "Home" is one of my favorite X-Files episodes. It's just so damn disturbing. So, Rolfe comes along with Chasing Ghosts and his inbreds are some of the most disturbing I've ever encountered.
You know it's going to be a no-holds-barred, Game of Thrones style read when kids get killed early on. No punches are pulled and it makes for honest horror. Because what do a bunch of inbred dudes care about who they're killing? Not a damn thing.
Rolfe continues to impress me with each new book. Blood and Rain was a deliciously wild ride on the werewolf train and Things We Fear had me thinking along with the fear. You should not miss anything written by Rolfe. I promise. You will be thanking me later.
Dreamwalker by Russell James
4.0
It would be pretty freaky to dream like Pete does in this book. Especially considering that he can die in either world because he's a Dreamwalker. I kept thinking about all the dreams I've had where I've come close to dying, or being chased by someone/something. In Pete's world, dreams like that would be life or death.
There were two things I found really interesting about this book, and I learned about two real world phenomenons I did not previously know, or knew little about. One was Pete's disorder, Visual Processing Disorder. VPD happens when a person has trouble processing things he/she sees in the world...information gets scrambled. Pete's VPD starts manifesting in a strange way when he starts to receive messages from words in incorrectly processed street signs, like only seeing the word King in a No Parking sign. He soon realizes that these are indeed messages that are pointing him in a certain direction. Very interesting. The second was the practice of Voodoo. We find out in the book through the character of the villain, St. Croix, that the practice of Voodoo was actually against the law in Haiti up until the 1950s, the power of the practice was so believed and feared. As the author so aptly put it in his afterword, "You don't see anyone pushing to make tarot cards illegal." This kind of gave me the creeps. A supernatural practice so feared that's it's outlawed? Yikes!
This book is creepy in all the right ways. I mean, please stop with the snakes already. *shudder* And then you have an evil spirit that can come and manipulate your dreams. No thanks. The story was definitely "edge of the seat" throughout and Pete was such a great, and likable, character. It's so much easier to get really scared when you care about the characters.
This was my first Russell James novel and I will definitely be checking out his other books in the future.
There were two things I found really interesting about this book, and I learned about two real world phenomenons I did not previously know, or knew little about. One was Pete's disorder, Visual Processing Disorder. VPD happens when a person has trouble processing things he/she sees in the world...information gets scrambled. Pete's VPD starts manifesting in a strange way when he starts to receive messages from words in incorrectly processed street signs, like only seeing the word King in a No Parking sign. He soon realizes that these are indeed messages that are pointing him in a certain direction. Very interesting. The second was the practice of Voodoo. We find out in the book through the character of the villain, St. Croix, that the practice of Voodoo was actually against the law in Haiti up until the 1950s, the power of the practice was so believed and feared. As the author so aptly put it in his afterword, "You don't see anyone pushing to make tarot cards illegal." This kind of gave me the creeps. A supernatural practice so feared that's it's outlawed? Yikes!
This book is creepy in all the right ways. I mean, please stop with the snakes already. *shudder* And then you have an evil spirit that can come and manipulate your dreams. No thanks. The story was definitely "edge of the seat" throughout and Pete was such a great, and likable, character. It's so much easier to get really scared when you care about the characters.
This was my first Russell James novel and I will definitely be checking out his other books in the future.
The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood
5.0
This isn't a traditional review. It's my thoughts on the book for the read-along I hosted in February.
Spoilers ahead.
************************************************
I'm wondering if now was a good time to read a book like this...because it scared me, and I had a weird feeling in the pit of my stomach throughout reading it. I now realize that it's an important read because it demonstrates why we must fight to keep the freedoms we have won. We must not let our status as women be demoted to that of the women in this book. We must not let the tenets of our Constitution (United States) be trampled upon. The freedom of speech, of the press, to address grievances. The separation of church and state.
I think the fear really hit me when I read this passage (p. 174, Ch. 28). "It was after the catastrophe, when they shot the president and machine-gunned the Congress and the army declared a state of emergency. They blamed it on the Islamic fanatics, at the time."
Sound familiar?
Then, when Offred (the woman she was in the past) goes to buy cigarettes and is told that her Compubank card is invalid. Then she, along with the other women who work with her, is let go from her job. She finds out later that day from her friend, Moira that "women can't hold property anymore. It's a new law."
Sucker punch. I pride myself on my independence, as I'm sure many women do, whether they're married (or in a relationship) or not. Could this happen? Is this what insidious plan some government officials might have in mind for women?
This is probably my favorite quote from the novel. "Better never means better for everyone...It always means worse for some." The commander is the one who says this to Offred. Its meaning echoes the sentiments of one who says, "Make American great again." The quote is the Commander's justification for Gilead existing when Offred asks why it is such an awful society for women. As in most dictatorships, the elite believe the change they caused were for the public good, no matter how many people suffer as a result. Again, sound familiar?
It is truly alarming when a dystopian novel, a work of fiction, may be foreshadowing what's to come if the state of our country continues to proceed down the path it is currently on. It's a cue to us that we cannot be complacent. As many of us know from history, people never believed that things could get as bad as they did during the Holocaust. They never imagined that people would be imprisoned and killed just because they were Jewish, because they didn't fit the Arian mold that Hitler coined as the supreme human.
Complacency. We cannot smugly sit by and think, "That could never happen" because it very well could.
Spoilers ahead.
************************************************
I'm wondering if now was a good time to read a book like this...because it scared me, and I had a weird feeling in the pit of my stomach throughout reading it. I now realize that it's an important read because it demonstrates why we must fight to keep the freedoms we have won. We must not let our status as women be demoted to that of the women in this book. We must not let the tenets of our Constitution (United States) be trampled upon. The freedom of speech, of the press, to address grievances. The separation of church and state.
I think the fear really hit me when I read this passage (p. 174, Ch. 28). "It was after the catastrophe, when they shot the president and machine-gunned the Congress and the army declared a state of emergency. They blamed it on the Islamic fanatics, at the time."
Sound familiar?
Then, when Offred (the woman she was in the past) goes to buy cigarettes and is told that her Compubank card is invalid. Then she, along with the other women who work with her, is let go from her job. She finds out later that day from her friend, Moira that "women can't hold property anymore. It's a new law."
Sucker punch. I pride myself on my independence, as I'm sure many women do, whether they're married (or in a relationship) or not. Could this happen? Is this what insidious plan some government officials might have in mind for women?
This is probably my favorite quote from the novel. "Better never means better for everyone...It always means worse for some." The commander is the one who says this to Offred. Its meaning echoes the sentiments of one who says, "Make American great again." The quote is the Commander's justification for Gilead existing when Offred asks why it is such an awful society for women. As in most dictatorships, the elite believe the change they caused were for the public good, no matter how many people suffer as a result. Again, sound familiar?
It is truly alarming when a dystopian novel, a work of fiction, may be foreshadowing what's to come if the state of our country continues to proceed down the path it is currently on. It's a cue to us that we cannot be complacent. As many of us know from history, people never believed that things could get as bad as they did during the Holocaust. They never imagined that people would be imprisoned and killed just because they were Jewish, because they didn't fit the Arian mold that Hitler coined as the supreme human.
Complacency. We cannot smugly sit by and think, "That could never happen" because it very well could.