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versmonesprit's reviews
217 reviews
Fever Dream by Samanta Schweblin
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? N/A
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? N/A
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
0.25
I should’ve trusted my initial impression when I started this book and hated it on the first page for saying “the boy is talking, I’m the one asking questions” (paraphrased). Listen, if you can’t write first person without devolving into Wattpad territory, just don’t. Better yet: don’t write a book if you lack any talent.
Anyway, after that I once again got gaslit by the hype, so that I’d convince myself something so amazing would come out of this. I waited and waited and waited… only to be bored out of my mind as early as 60%. The illusion came crashing down when I noticed the characters insisted going on in circles instead of going forward. There’s only a certain amount of stalling you can get away with in a book before it starts looking like you are trying to reach the word count. And Schweblin goes out of her way to drag and stretch this mediocre idea out until it’s become so thin it’s falling apart. To crown this wonderful achievement in lacking substance, the book arrives at nothing! It’s just pesticides apparently! You go through this meandering and repetitive mess, only to arrive at pesticides. TALK about anticlimactic endings. Please for the love of God decide what book you want to write, because you’re not writing a sociocultural criticism if you bury it under postmodern form experimentations in which you say practically nothing, and you’re not writing some cryptic story if it all comes down to pesticides killing people or deforming foetuses.
I also don’t get why this was retitled as Fever Dream instead of Rescue Distance, especially when nothing about this book ever feels feverish. It feels all over the place, but it’s always so painfully sober that it could never feel like a fever dream.
I waited 5 days to write this review and now I’m regretting it, because I can’t channel my initial furious monologue about this crap. Just know that I wished incredible ill on everyone involved in this zero effort fake-deep piece of shit.
Anyway, after that I once again got gaslit by the hype, so that I’d convince myself something so amazing would come out of this. I waited and waited and waited… only to be bored out of my mind as early as 60%. The illusion came crashing down when I noticed the characters insisted going on in circles instead of going forward. There’s only a certain amount of stalling you can get away with in a book before it starts looking like you are trying to reach the word count. And Schweblin goes out of her way to drag and stretch this mediocre idea out until it’s become so thin it’s falling apart. To crown this wonderful achievement in lacking substance, the book arrives at nothing! It’s just pesticides apparently! You go through this meandering and repetitive mess, only to arrive at pesticides. TALK about anticlimactic endings. Please for the love of God decide what book you want to write, because you’re not writing a sociocultural criticism if you bury it under postmodern form experimentations in which you say practically nothing, and you’re not writing some cryptic story if it all comes down to pesticides killing people or deforming foetuses.
I also don’t get why this was retitled as Fever Dream instead of Rescue Distance, especially when nothing about this book ever feels feverish. It feels all over the place, but it’s always so painfully sober that it could never feel like a fever dream.
I waited 5 days to write this review and now I’m regretting it, because I can’t channel my initial furious monologue about this crap. Just know that I wished incredible ill on everyone involved in this zero effort fake-deep piece of shit.
Of Cattle and Men by Ana Paula Maia
emotional
reflective
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? N/A
- Strong character development? N/A
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? N/A
- Flaws of characters a main focus? N/A
5.0
It’s really hard to say much on perfection. Of Cattle and Men is one of the few brilliant pieces to come from contemporary times. If ever Steinbeck were to have an heir, he would have it in Ana Paula Maia.
The immediate reference to Steinbeck with the title is not amiss at all. Both in its subject matter and the ease and simplicity of its writing, Of Cattle and Men could have very well come out of his pen. Except it came from Maia’s, and my God, is it a blessing! I couldn’t thank Maia enough for blessing the world with this beautiful, beautiful book.
I’m so glad I did not read the blurb, because it is incredibly misleading. It unfairly sets Of Cattle and Men up for failure. This is not an eerie book, not a thriller, not anything to do with what the blurb evokes. Almost biblical plagues descend upon Senhor Milo’s slaughterhouse, but Of Cattle and Men is a book of a situation, though briefly inordinary, that is so ordinary it could be called a working class gothic. It’s a look into the lives of unfortunate men who work in a slaughterhouse. They’re poor, their situation desolate. As Maia writes, they’re separated from the cattle they butcher only by a partition: they’re all part of a ruthless system that cares little for them, a system that will keep turning and churning out victims so long as there are those willing to feed upon it.
And though what they do is morally abominable (to kill), Maia makes the excellent point that those of us who eat are just as guilty. And it’s true, we all know it’s true. Maia uses the power of this truth to confront the readers with the heartbreaking reality of the meat industry. The book opens with a slightly mistranslated quote from Adorno that makes “it’s just an animal… just an animal” into plural, and all throughout states the unfathomable nature of the cattle’s eyes, saying in fact how they are far more than animals for slaughter, how they are not so different than us.
And the book’s sympathy doesn’t end there. Through the incredible sobriety of such a clear, simple prose Maia (like Steinbeck) humanises these unfortunate men to the point you care for them the way you would for real people. The only other writer with such precision in writing that I can think of is Claire Keegan, another favourite of mine. Sometimes you don’t have to bend the language to do something stunningly special with it: sometimes, at the hands of a master, it suffices that the language is used at its most basic to invoke the most complex of situations and sentiments. Without ever getting emotional itself, the writing manages to be deeply moving and harrowing. It’s impossible not to adore such talent.
Of Cattle and Men is one of those masterpieces of literature that timelessly capture the zeitgeist of our global society: it’s such a cruel world, even the cruelest undoings of our every day lives is absorbed into the monotony of its cruelty. We’re all cattle on the slaughter line, and the cogs turn ever incessantly. Not much but our manmade walls separate us from those we prey upon.
Hallelujah, hallelujah.
The immediate reference to Steinbeck with the title is not amiss at all. Both in its subject matter and the ease and simplicity of its writing, Of Cattle and Men could have very well come out of his pen. Except it came from Maia’s, and my God, is it a blessing! I couldn’t thank Maia enough for blessing the world with this beautiful, beautiful book.
I’m so glad I did not read the blurb, because it is incredibly misleading. It unfairly sets Of Cattle and Men up for failure. This is not an eerie book, not a thriller, not anything to do with what the blurb evokes. Almost biblical plagues descend upon Senhor Milo’s slaughterhouse, but Of Cattle and Men is a book of a situation, though briefly inordinary, that is so ordinary it could be called a working class gothic. It’s a look into the lives of unfortunate men who work in a slaughterhouse. They’re poor, their situation desolate. As Maia writes, they’re separated from the cattle they butcher only by a partition: they’re all part of a ruthless system that cares little for them, a system that will keep turning and churning out victims so long as there are those willing to feed upon it.
And though what they do is morally abominable (to kill), Maia makes the excellent point that those of us who eat are just as guilty. And it’s true, we all know it’s true. Maia uses the power of this truth to confront the readers with the heartbreaking reality of the meat industry. The book opens with a slightly mistranslated quote from Adorno that makes “it’s just an animal… just an animal” into plural, and all throughout states the unfathomable nature of the cattle’s eyes, saying in fact how they are far more than animals for slaughter, how they are not so different than us.
And the book’s sympathy doesn’t end there. Through the incredible sobriety of such a clear, simple prose Maia (like Steinbeck) humanises these unfortunate men to the point you care for them the way you would for real people. The only other writer with such precision in writing that I can think of is Claire Keegan, another favourite of mine. Sometimes you don’t have to bend the language to do something stunningly special with it: sometimes, at the hands of a master, it suffices that the language is used at its most basic to invoke the most complex of situations and sentiments. Without ever getting emotional itself, the writing manages to be deeply moving and harrowing. It’s impossible not to adore such talent.
Of Cattle and Men is one of those masterpieces of literature that timelessly capture the zeitgeist of our global society: it’s such a cruel world, even the cruelest undoings of our every day lives is absorbed into the monotony of its cruelty. We’re all cattle on the slaughter line, and the cogs turn ever incessantly. Not much but our manmade walls separate us from those we prey upon.
Hallelujah, hallelujah.
My Year of Rest and Relaxation by Ottessa Moshfegh
lighthearted
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? N/A
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
2.0
Women in pain. Women existing in sadness. It’s easy to relate to both the unnamed narrator and to her friend Reva. Both personal sadnesses and ones imposed by society plague them. They each deal in their own way: the narrator aims to drug herself into slumber, whereas Reva desires to participate in the very cultures that put her in pain.
Sounds extremely relatable, right? Well, not quite. That would require MYoRaR to go the full length of sociocultural criticism beyond a few commentaries on the art market and fuckboys. I don’t read according to shallow concepts like relatability, and I no longer expect anything of actual value from Moshfegh. So this failure to be anything but commercial fiction wasn’t the reason why I didn’t really like this book.
MYoRaR started off entertaining enough, but things took a turn for me when 1) I realised this is practically Eileen, and 2) this is a premise that can never be fruitful enough to sustain almost 300 pages. I mean, sure, seeing Eileen’s completely undeserved commercial success, I understand why Moshfegh would use it as a template for another moneymaker; but I couldn’t possibly like a book when it’s pretty much a rewriting of one I hated. And also, you know, it got extremely repetitive and boring when it ran out of pretty much everything. I had to drag myself to the finish line. And then still push myself through it, because you know, you see the ending pretty early on in the book and Moshfegh doesn’t bother to do anything very special with it.
One thing I will say, I think this was at least an accurate portrayal of the very ugly sides of mental health issues, and was faceted in its approach to the multiple layers of a person. I just wish it were less lazy, and possessed of more substance. I wouldn’t necessarily recommend this book even as mass market entertainment, due to how boring it gets around the 200th page mark.
A lukewarm take from a writer whose edginess is still too mainstream to set her books apart. McGlue remains the one-off brilliance for me.
Sounds extremely relatable, right? Well, not quite. That would require MYoRaR to go the full length of sociocultural criticism beyond a few commentaries on the art market and fuckboys. I don’t read according to shallow concepts like relatability, and I no longer expect anything of actual value from Moshfegh. So this failure to be anything but commercial fiction wasn’t the reason why I didn’t really like this book.
MYoRaR started off entertaining enough, but things took a turn for me when 1) I realised this is practically Eileen, and 2) this is a premise that can never be fruitful enough to sustain almost 300 pages. I mean, sure, seeing Eileen’s completely undeserved commercial success, I understand why Moshfegh would use it as a template for another moneymaker; but I couldn’t possibly like a book when it’s pretty much a rewriting of one I hated. And also, you know, it got extremely repetitive and boring when it ran out of pretty much everything. I had to drag myself to the finish line. And then still push myself through it, because you know, you see the ending pretty early on in the book and Moshfegh doesn’t bother to do anything very special with it.
One thing I will say, I think this was at least an accurate portrayal of the very ugly sides of mental health issues, and was faceted in its approach to the multiple layers of a person. I just wish it were less lazy, and possessed of more substance. I wouldn’t necessarily recommend this book even as mass market entertainment, due to how boring it gets around the 200th page mark.
A lukewarm take from a writer whose edginess is still too mainstream to set her books apart. McGlue remains the one-off brilliance for me.
This Thing Between Us by Gus Moreno
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? N/A
- Flaws of characters a main focus? N/A
0.25
Writers really have to start figuring out what book they want to write, before publishing it. Because This Shitty Book Between Us has no clue which route to take: a city technohorror, a snowy surreal horror, or a failed creepypasta?
On that note, publishers really have to stop putting money on stories that wouldn’t even have made it as creepypastas, from which Moreno seems to have pulled the Slenderman-like image of the… demon? entity? who the fuck knows. Probably not even Moreno himself.
I was so excited to read this book, the hype, the blurb, the cover all came together to form a blazing anticipation. It started off at least readable, and soon became boring with far too much family history that kept hindering the horror aspects of the book, which were centred around a fictional Alexa. And despite this, and the very silly fictional name Moreno found for it (Sahara Itza, really?), it somehow didn’t feel like Black Mirror, which was definitely a plus. But then it got all the more slobbery with Thiago whining about his dead wife, and it made me feel like a stinky sweaty man was being a crybaby right next to me. Needless to say, the book never made me care the least bit about Thiago or his dead wife or their families, not even as fictional human beings. I felt zero pity for them. All Thiago had for a personality was movie references (again, yuck, men who reference movies do not deserve rights) and sheer, disgusting, repulsive, thick-skulled stupidity. Oh and the most idiotic victim complex over being a fully grown ass man who thought he was being victimised for not having learnt Spanish despite being Mexican. Stop crying and whining you sleazy manbaby, you can learn Spanish as an adult if your parents weren’t there to teach you! “Waaah, everything makes me a victim, waaah,” would pretty much be a good summary for this book tbh.
The allusions and descriptions were incredibly irritating for how amateur they were too. Like I’m sorry, but the moment you repeat “Virgin Mary blue” it becomes pure bad writing, not that the narrative voice fitted it the first time either. And a Saint Bernard being described through other animals incessantly, namely cows and orcas, like “his orca tongue”… stop. Walk away from the keyboard. Look straight into your eyes in a mirror and ask, “Man what the fuck?” Be fucking serious and ask, “Why am I clowning on my own book?” Do it. Apparently sometimes it’s warranted.
But before we even get to the Saint Bernard, there’s the road from Chicago to the Colorado mountains. And you know what? It was good. The liminality and the eeriness of it, the momentary glimpse at a creature that was described so well it freaked me out… So good. But we can’t have that, no. We can only eat shit in This Horrendous Piece of Writing Between Us. So after a whole part of the book dedicated to the most boring wake and whatnot, we need to have YET ANOTHER flashback to it. Because fuck us that’s why. Because just when things were getting good, we have to listen to more about Vera, probably the most fucking boring fictional person without an inkling of a personality. The dog is a much more developed character than Vera. The dog is infinitely more lovable than Vera, which isn’t a statement of a great magnitude in itself since Vera is at like, a negative thousand right now.
Speaking of the dog… sorry not sorry if this constitutes a spoiler (which it kind of does but also what were you expecting would happen to the dog on the cover of a badly written horror novel) but I do not want to read any sort of violence, let alone an incredibly graphic one, against an animal EVEN IF it’s just a demon or whatever wearing the corpse and not even a reanimated possessed animal. You might think “Oh come on, if this is the reaction he managed to evoke, clearly Moreno did something right.” You would be an idiot though. Because that’s theeee lowest hanging fruit for horror. Hurt the animal for cheap reactions. It‘s what everyone incapable of writing actually scary shit does. Go for the animal. Here’s an advice to all writers: don’t. A very sad death is the limit. The poor dog died because Thiago is a moron. That’s where you draw the line. Now go and write actually good horror.
But you know what? Still. STILL the surreal horror with the wall and the nighttime snowy mountain and forest scape… STILL that was good.
But remember what I said? We can’t have that. We only get the shittiest crappiest book possible. NOT a good one, not an alright one.
So anyway, after that climax, we have to do something very fucking dull again. We have to do a million flashbacks that make us say “God, I wish Diane had dropped Vera on her head as a baby so we wouldn’t have to read this shit.” We have to get FUNNY at this point, because fuck us that’s why. I already explained that, we get fucked here. Keep up. Moreno MUST ruin his own book, now shush and read a bit of Ghost Busters because that tonally makes sense! Totally! Eat shit.
And then Moreno gives us just a tiny bit of promising stuff, just so the dying ember lights up again in us, just so we say, “OK fine, one last chance Gus. Make this good and you’re completely forgiven.” Except no, Moreno doesn’t want your forgiveness. He wants you to eat shit. So after yet another high intensity climax, we must read Thiago going back to Chicago, attending a boring ass funeral (because that totally makes sense for a character that just witnessed interdimensional horror, just sit at a church and talk to your stepfather-in-law), having a boring ass drink, having a boring ass demon or whatever encounter.
And oh yeah, don’t forget, we have to read a demon (or WHATEVER) trying to convince Thiago to put his hand through a wall (not even Moreno knows why probably) by showing him a feast table on an island, wearing flowy romantic shirts or whatever. Yeah, because that is tonally so in place and perfect! Because fuck you that’s why, keep up with this already! Moreno has to ruin This Terrible Crap Between Us, so what better than a romantic tropic island sequence every now and then?? But noo, it’s not paradise though the demon (OR WHATEVER I REALLY DO NOT CARE OMG) insists Thiago will learn to call it that. Except there is no real hint whatsoever that it is actually hellish. “Welcome to hell, where we sit in agony at a feast table on a tropic island, with me, your personal demon, wearing luscious waves and romantic shirts, talking to you sort of sensuously. This is so cruel, right??” I mean yeah, to me, because I hate hot weather, but I’m pretty sure this is a fine ass deal for most everyone. And remember, Moreno never once gives us any real and horrifying reason to the contrary. Just Thiago’s dumb ass sensing stuff, as if any one of us would trust fucking Thiago’s judgement at this point!
So needless to say by now the demon (OR WHATEVER, I DO NOT KNOW BECAUSE CLEARLY NEITHER DOES MORENO) has lost any and all potential scariness, and has instead become purely comical. But please also remember that the demon (OR WHATEVER!) made Thiago a chocolate milkshake on his way to Colorado. The evil entity made CHOCOLATE MILKSHAKE for Thiago omfg Just a silly 😜 evil entity 🤭 yum yum eat up my cutie pie slurp slurp
And finally we need to make sure we have a very stupid ending to crown This Comedy Masterpiece Between Us the silly king 🤭😜 so something terrible is done to the old woman who opened the gateway for the evil entity, but it’s a secret you and I don’t get to read about, because Moreno could not be bothered to think that up. Just eat shit, you’re never finding out what happened there. Moreno can only write graphic gory violence against animals, not against humans. We ONLY get cheap shots here. Nothing good.
Actually, fuck you, the whole ending is a third secret thing now 🤭 There’s no real point to Thiago’s possession. He gets an afterlife because the evil entity feels like it. We’re told it’s hellish but never really shown anything other than a feast table on an island. The best part?? The evil entity has actually bent space time to create time loops! Thiago’s in the walls. Thiago’s cancelling the alarm so Vera dies. Thiago’s on the platform with a face split in two to reveal razor teeth so the kid can turn around and freak out and push Vera down the stairs. Thiago’s been the unseen force the Itza’s been talking to. Because for some reason Vera and Thiago are important enough for the evil entity to torment this way. But anyway, this evil entity powerful enough to create time loops.. can’t do shit unless Thiago puts his hand through the wall. Because fuck you that’s why, I’ve already said it several times, keep up. If Thiago hadn’t put his hand through the wall, it wouldn’t have been a time loop? Question mark, because that’s what happens when authors decide to write time loop stories without understanding the implications. It’s one sure way to flush the rotting corpse of your book down a stinky shitstained toilet. If you make a really huge mess out of your book that no one will be able to make sense of, maybe then they won’t notice just how badly written this whole story is. It’s ingenious. If only.
To make matters worse as if that’s possible, the book ends with an “Itza quick start guide” that just says “Pull me out of the wall” after a point, probably to confuse the reader more (“Wait now, are all the Itzas possessed? Did we not need the gateway for summoning the evil entity? Is this back to a technohorror?”) so we REALLY can’t make sense of anything and so we might not recognise just how shitty this is.
To emulate the book: Put my fucking head through the wall. Put my fucking head through the wall. Put my fucking head through the wall. Put my fucking head through the wall. Put my fucking head through the wall.
On that note, publishers really have to stop putting money on stories that wouldn’t even have made it as creepypastas, from which Moreno seems to have pulled the Slenderman-like image of the… demon? entity? who the fuck knows. Probably not even Moreno himself.
I was so excited to read this book, the hype, the blurb, the cover all came together to form a blazing anticipation. It started off at least readable, and soon became boring with far too much family history that kept hindering the horror aspects of the book, which were centred around a fictional Alexa. And despite this, and the very silly fictional name Moreno found for it (Sahara Itza, really?), it somehow didn’t feel like Black Mirror, which was definitely a plus. But then it got all the more slobbery with Thiago whining about his dead wife, and it made me feel like a stinky sweaty man was being a crybaby right next to me. Needless to say, the book never made me care the least bit about Thiago or his dead wife or their families, not even as fictional human beings. I felt zero pity for them. All Thiago had for a personality was movie references (again, yuck, men who reference movies do not deserve rights) and sheer, disgusting, repulsive, thick-skulled stupidity. Oh and the most idiotic victim complex over being a fully grown ass man who thought he was being victimised for not having learnt Spanish despite being Mexican. Stop crying and whining you sleazy manbaby, you can learn Spanish as an adult if your parents weren’t there to teach you! “Waaah, everything makes me a victim, waaah,” would pretty much be a good summary for this book tbh.
The allusions and descriptions were incredibly irritating for how amateur they were too. Like I’m sorry, but the moment you repeat “Virgin Mary blue” it becomes pure bad writing, not that the narrative voice fitted it the first time either. And a Saint Bernard being described through other animals incessantly, namely cows and orcas, like “his orca tongue”… stop. Walk away from the keyboard. Look straight into your eyes in a mirror and ask, “Man what the fuck?” Be fucking serious and ask, “Why am I clowning on my own book?” Do it. Apparently sometimes it’s warranted.
But before we even get to the Saint Bernard, there’s the road from Chicago to the Colorado mountains. And you know what? It was good. The liminality and the eeriness of it, the momentary glimpse at a creature that was described so well it freaked me out… So good. But we can’t have that, no. We can only eat shit in This Horrendous Piece of Writing Between Us. So after a whole part of the book dedicated to the most boring wake and whatnot, we need to have YET ANOTHER flashback to it. Because fuck us that’s why. Because just when things were getting good, we have to listen to more about Vera, probably the most fucking boring fictional person without an inkling of a personality. The dog is a much more developed character than Vera. The dog is infinitely more lovable than Vera, which isn’t a statement of a great magnitude in itself since Vera is at like, a negative thousand right now.
Speaking of the dog… sorry not sorry if this constitutes a spoiler (which it kind of does but also what were you expecting would happen to the dog on the cover of a badly written horror novel) but I do not want to read any sort of violence, let alone an incredibly graphic one, against an animal EVEN IF it’s just a demon or whatever wearing the corpse and not even a reanimated possessed animal. You might think “Oh come on, if this is the reaction he managed to evoke, clearly Moreno did something right.” You would be an idiot though. Because that’s theeee lowest hanging fruit for horror. Hurt the animal for cheap reactions. It‘s what everyone incapable of writing actually scary shit does. Go for the animal. Here’s an advice to all writers: don’t. A very sad death is the limit. The poor dog died because Thiago is a moron. That’s where you draw the line. Now go and write actually good horror.
But you know what? Still. STILL the surreal horror with the wall and the nighttime snowy mountain and forest scape… STILL that was good.
But remember what I said? We can’t have that. We only get the shittiest crappiest book possible. NOT a good one, not an alright one.
So anyway, after that climax, we have to do something very fucking dull again. We have to do a million flashbacks that make us say “God, I wish Diane had dropped Vera on her head as a baby so we wouldn’t have to read this shit.” We have to get FUNNY at this point, because fuck us that’s why. I already explained that, we get fucked here. Keep up. Moreno MUST ruin his own book, now shush and read a bit of Ghost Busters because that tonally makes sense! Totally! Eat shit.
And then Moreno gives us just a tiny bit of promising stuff, just so the dying ember lights up again in us, just so we say, “OK fine, one last chance Gus. Make this good and you’re completely forgiven.” Except no, Moreno doesn’t want your forgiveness. He wants you to eat shit. So after yet another high intensity climax, we must read Thiago going back to Chicago, attending a boring ass funeral (because that totally makes sense for a character that just witnessed interdimensional horror, just sit at a church and talk to your stepfather-in-law), having a boring ass drink, having a boring ass demon or whatever encounter.
And oh yeah, don’t forget, we have to read a demon (or WHATEVER) trying to convince Thiago to put his hand through a wall (not even Moreno knows why probably) by showing him a feast table on an island, wearing flowy romantic shirts or whatever. Yeah, because that is tonally so in place and perfect! Because fuck you that’s why, keep up with this already! Moreno has to ruin This Terrible Crap Between Us, so what better than a romantic tropic island sequence every now and then?? But noo, it’s not paradise though the demon (OR WHATEVER I REALLY DO NOT CARE OMG) insists Thiago will learn to call it that. Except there is no real hint whatsoever that it is actually hellish. “Welcome to hell, where we sit in agony at a feast table on a tropic island, with me, your personal demon, wearing luscious waves and romantic shirts, talking to you sort of sensuously. This is so cruel, right??” I mean yeah, to me, because I hate hot weather, but I’m pretty sure this is a fine ass deal for most everyone. And remember, Moreno never once gives us any real and horrifying reason to the contrary. Just Thiago’s dumb ass sensing stuff, as if any one of us would trust fucking Thiago’s judgement at this point!
So needless to say by now the demon (OR WHATEVER, I DO NOT KNOW BECAUSE CLEARLY NEITHER DOES MORENO) has lost any and all potential scariness, and has instead become purely comical. But please also remember that the demon (OR WHATEVER!) made Thiago a chocolate milkshake on his way to Colorado. The evil entity made CHOCOLATE MILKSHAKE for Thiago omfg Just a silly 😜 evil entity 🤭 yum yum eat up my cutie pie slurp slurp
And finally we need to make sure we have a very stupid ending to crown This Comedy Masterpiece Between Us the silly king 🤭😜 so something terrible is done to the old woman who opened the gateway for the evil entity, but it’s a secret you and I don’t get to read about, because Moreno could not be bothered to think that up. Just eat shit, you’re never finding out what happened there. Moreno can only write graphic gory violence against animals, not against humans. We ONLY get cheap shots here. Nothing good.
Actually, fuck you, the whole ending is a third secret thing now 🤭 There’s no real point to Thiago’s possession. He gets an afterlife because the evil entity feels like it. We’re told it’s hellish but never really shown anything other than a feast table on an island. The best part?? The evil entity has actually bent space time to create time loops! Thiago’s in the walls. Thiago’s cancelling the alarm so Vera dies. Thiago’s on the platform with a face split in two to reveal razor teeth so the kid can turn around and freak out and push Vera down the stairs. Thiago’s been the unseen force the Itza’s been talking to. Because for some reason Vera and Thiago are important enough for the evil entity to torment this way. But anyway, this evil entity powerful enough to create time loops.. can’t do shit unless Thiago puts his hand through the wall. Because fuck you that’s why, I’ve already said it several times, keep up. If Thiago hadn’t put his hand through the wall, it wouldn’t have been a time loop? Question mark, because that’s what happens when authors decide to write time loop stories without understanding the implications. It’s one sure way to flush the rotting corpse of your book down a stinky shitstained toilet. If you make a really huge mess out of your book that no one will be able to make sense of, maybe then they won’t notice just how badly written this whole story is. It’s ingenious. If only.
To make matters worse as if that’s possible, the book ends with an “Itza quick start guide” that just says “Pull me out of the wall” after a point, probably to confuse the reader more (“Wait now, are all the Itzas possessed? Did we not need the gateway for summoning the evil entity? Is this back to a technohorror?”) so we REALLY can’t make sense of anything and so we might not recognise just how shitty this is.
To emulate the book: Put my fucking head through the wall. Put my fucking head through the wall. Put my fucking head through the wall. Put my fucking head through the wall. Put my fucking head through the wall.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Animal cruelty and Animal death
The Peace of Wild Things: And Other Poems by Wendell Berry
emotional
hopeful
inspiring
reflective
fast-paced
4.0
Hard to comment on poetry this beautiful, both in lyricism and in message, in imagery and in philosophy. I’ve waited to write this review for nearly a week, and I’m still at a loss for words. Wendell Berry writes from the heart about nature, camaraderie, and overall, connection. His passion for the earth, and against the systems that have destroyed it, is wonderful.
Sweetlust by Asja Bakić
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? N/A
- Flaws of characters a main focus? N/A
0.25
I wanted to read Mars instead but Scribd made it unavailable. I have no clue if that would have made me like Bakić more, but I know this one made me deeply dislike her as an author.
These are the sort of short stories that make you believe something must be about to happen, but they’re so lacklustre that things never get interesting. All the first person narrators had the same voice, all the stories ultimately felt like increasingly cheaper copies of the previous ones. Some were so stupid and cringy that they gave me secondhand embarrassment.
I listened to the audiobook, and because I started when I still had time for over an hour long morning walks, I hadn’t realised just how much I hated the narrator’s literal slow motion reading and the comically long pause before overpronouncing Bosnian names. I had to speed up to 1.8x for it to become normal reading speed.
This is yet another “feminist” book described so to bank on lukewarm shit that is somehow popularly lauded, and not a genuinely feminist book with actually feminist things to say.
These are the sort of short stories that make you believe something must be about to happen, but they’re so lacklustre that things never get interesting. All the first person narrators had the same voice, all the stories ultimately felt like increasingly cheaper copies of the previous ones. Some were so stupid and cringy that they gave me secondhand embarrassment.
I listened to the audiobook, and because I started when I still had time for over an hour long morning walks, I hadn’t realised just how much I hated the narrator’s literal slow motion reading and the comically long pause before overpronouncing Bosnian names. I had to speed up to 1.8x for it to become normal reading speed.
This is yet another “feminist” book described so to bank on lukewarm shit that is somehow popularly lauded, and not a genuinely feminist book with actually feminist things to say.
The Book of Lost Things by John Connolly
adventurous
dark
emotional
sad
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? N/A
- Loveable characters? N/A
- Diverse cast of characters? N/A
- Flaws of characters a main focus? N/A
3.0
The Book of Lost Things is a dark fairytale in and of itself, with darkly interpreted fairytales interwoven in its fabric.
The book’s initial magic lies in its gothic quality, which for me was not drawn out enough. Unlike what the blurb claims, David is not tormented by visions of the Crooked Man enough. And to my disappointment, that gothic quality fizzled out as soon as David found himself within the fairytale realm.
Instead, the story turns into an adventure, which might be great for those who like that, but for me it eventually became a bit boring. The horror classification is not misplaced: there is a lot of explicit violence here. But neither is the ‘young adult’ tag: the horror is never extended to achieve its full height and terror. I know I would have deeply enjoyed this in middle school when I first discovered Poe. I’m sure all young readers will relish in it too. And I’m equally sure most adults will have a vastly enjoyable time reading this truly, fully autumnal book, especially in October! It is a bit formulaic and as such easy to figure out before David even makes it to the fairytale land, but I don’t think that will prove to be a drawback for the right reader, as all fairytales are ultimately formulaic, dark retelling or moralising original alike.
I don’t like describing one book through others, but this felt like such a blend of Narnia, Inkheart, and Neil Gaiman’s works that failing to provide the comparison could potentially miss the perfect target audience.
I have the 10th anniversary illustrated copy, which provides additional content beyond just the illustrations (which for me weren’t that great tbh) such as two short stories (a retelling of Cinderella I did not much care for, and a retelling of the pied piper within the ”context” of the Crooked Man), a short interview with the author, and explanations and historical details of the fairytales that went into the book… including the fairytales themselves. I see how this might appeal to many readers, especially the target audience, but for me this part became a bit gruelling. Turns out I don’t actually enjoy fairytales at all as an adult. Oops.
With a new book set in the same universe coming out on September 19, I have to add that I’m absolutely not at all opposed to reading that! The Book of Lost Things might not have been as perfect and full of emotion as it was at first, but it was enjoyable enough for me to pick up a copy for myself when I was reading it for work.
(Couldn’t help ranting: the adults in this book, save for David’s mother, suck ass. Imagine hooking up with a woman that short after your wife’s death; imagine hooking up with a man whose wife was hospitalised in your workplace that short after her death. Now imagine getting violent with that dead woman’s child; and imagine getting violent with your own child because the woman you hooked up with got violent with your own child. David’s anger was never misplaced, and I hated that the book treated him as if he was in fault for his anger and dislike of the woman who was all too happy to giggle around and have sex with a widower in his house with his grieving child there. I also hated the eventual outcome of “he became a writer and wrote this very book you’re reading” which I think cheapened the book a bit.)
The book’s initial magic lies in its gothic quality, which for me was not drawn out enough. Unlike what the blurb claims, David is not tormented by visions of the Crooked Man enough. And to my disappointment, that gothic quality fizzled out as soon as David found himself within the fairytale realm.
Instead, the story turns into an adventure, which might be great for those who like that, but for me it eventually became a bit boring. The horror classification is not misplaced: there is a lot of explicit violence here. But neither is the ‘young adult’ tag: the horror is never extended to achieve its full height and terror. I know I would have deeply enjoyed this in middle school when I first discovered Poe. I’m sure all young readers will relish in it too. And I’m equally sure most adults will have a vastly enjoyable time reading this truly, fully autumnal book, especially in October! It is a bit formulaic and as such easy to figure out before David even makes it to the fairytale land, but I don’t think that will prove to be a drawback for the right reader, as all fairytales are ultimately formulaic, dark retelling or moralising original alike.
I don’t like describing one book through others, but this felt like such a blend of Narnia, Inkheart, and Neil Gaiman’s works that failing to provide the comparison could potentially miss the perfect target audience.
I have the 10th anniversary illustrated copy, which provides additional content beyond just the illustrations (which for me weren’t that great tbh) such as two short stories (a retelling of Cinderella I did not much care for, and a retelling of the pied piper within the ”context” of the Crooked Man), a short interview with the author, and explanations and historical details of the fairytales that went into the book… including the fairytales themselves. I see how this might appeal to many readers, especially the target audience, but for me this part became a bit gruelling. Turns out I don’t actually enjoy fairytales at all as an adult. Oops.
With a new book set in the same universe coming out on September 19, I have to add that I’m absolutely not at all opposed to reading that! The Book of Lost Things might not have been as perfect and full of emotion as it was at first, but it was enjoyable enough for me to pick up a copy for myself when I was reading it for work.
(Couldn’t help ranting: the adults in this book, save for David’s mother, suck ass. Imagine hooking up with a woman that short after your wife’s death; imagine hooking up with a man whose wife was hospitalised in your workplace that short after her death. Now imagine getting violent with that dead woman’s child; and imagine getting violent with your own child because the woman you hooked up with got violent with your own child. David’s anger was never misplaced, and I hated that the book treated him as if he was in fault for his anger and dislike of the woman who was all too happy to giggle around and have sex with a widower in his house with his grieving child there. I also hated the eventual outcome of “he became a writer and wrote this very book you’re reading” which I think cheapened the book a bit.)
Girls Against God by Jenny Hval
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? N/A
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? N/A
- Flaws of characters a main focus? N/A
0.25
I’m once again speechless at the face of a book, but this time for all the wrong reasons. I loved Paradise Rot, I worship at its altar, so it was a given that I would love the other of Hval’s works, right? RIGHT?
Fucking hell no apparently, no fuck me. This is one of the lamest, most laughable drivelling shit ever. It’s repetitive in a “trying to get to the word count” way, and it’s fucking unending. I kept checking what page I was on, when this shit would end so the book could begin, and it never did. So imagine my utter shock and confusion when I was 30%, 50%, motherfucking 70% into the book and still nothing had happened beyond the worst fucking essays you could ever think possible!
See, this is not fiction, and certainly has nothing to do with witches or horror. It’s practically a series of the crappiest essays known to humanity. I’ll circle back to the laughable part here: for a book of unoriginal edgelord essays that target a Western-liberal society, it is comically American-liberal in everything it says. The book is so unaware of itself, it’s impossible not to laugh at Hval at this stage. I really disliked her music too, so now Paradise Rot seems like the fluke. Don’t know what happened there, but it was a magnificent book, though I no longer care to buy a physical copy of it because then I’d have supported someone who also writes this garbage.
At this point, I’m begging privileged Westerners to shut the fucking hell up if they have nothing revolutionary to say. I am so fucking tired of you complaining about growing up privileged and living in utter privilege, pretending to be oh so oppressed in a society that literally does not oppress you in the slightest way, except maybe in the grand scheme of liberalism aka just capitalism, which you don’t even speak up against.
Yes I’m worked up, I despised this pile of crap that much. Don’t read this if you were thinking about picking this up for a horror fiction. It’s essay upon essay containing snoozefest thoughts on black metal, Norwegian, and movies. Not in any interesting way though, so no, don’t pick this up either if you were going for it because you’d like feminist essays. This is not that either. I highly doubt Hval herself knows what this is. I’m embarrassed on her behalf.
Fucking hell no apparently, no fuck me. This is one of the lamest, most laughable drivelling shit ever. It’s repetitive in a “trying to get to the word count” way, and it’s fucking unending. I kept checking what page I was on, when this shit would end so the book could begin, and it never did. So imagine my utter shock and confusion when I was 30%, 50%, motherfucking 70% into the book and still nothing had happened beyond the worst fucking essays you could ever think possible!
See, this is not fiction, and certainly has nothing to do with witches or horror. It’s practically a series of the crappiest essays known to humanity. I’ll circle back to the laughable part here: for a book of unoriginal edgelord essays that target a Western-liberal society, it is comically American-liberal in everything it says. The book is so unaware of itself, it’s impossible not to laugh at Hval at this stage. I really disliked her music too, so now Paradise Rot seems like the fluke. Don’t know what happened there, but it was a magnificent book, though I no longer care to buy a physical copy of it because then I’d have supported someone who also writes this garbage.
At this point, I’m begging privileged Westerners to shut the fucking hell up if they have nothing revolutionary to say. I am so fucking tired of you complaining about growing up privileged and living in utter privilege, pretending to be oh so oppressed in a society that literally does not oppress you in the slightest way, except maybe in the grand scheme of liberalism aka just capitalism, which you don’t even speak up against.
Yes I’m worked up, I despised this pile of crap that much. Don’t read this if you were thinking about picking this up for a horror fiction. It’s essay upon essay containing snoozefest thoughts on black metal, Norwegian, and movies. Not in any interesting way though, so no, don’t pick this up either if you were going for it because you’d like feminist essays. This is not that either. I highly doubt Hval herself knows what this is. I’m embarrassed on her behalf.
King Kong Theory by Virginie Despentes
emotional
funny
inspiring
reflective
fast-paced
5.0
It’s not often that a book leaves me unable to comment on it, yet here we are, and all I can muster is “this is mandatory reading material.”
I read this after suffering through far too many piss poor (and to be fair, completely utterly stupid and ass-licking) takes on ‘feminism’ in YA books (had to read them for work, not on my own will, I need to clarify that). King Kong Theory was a breath of fresh air! All my pent up frustration and distress eased away, soothed by Despentes’s voice. She does not pander to male sensitivity, she does not pander to the liberal drivel of “common grounds” or whatever is the new rebranding of making sure the oppressed keep themselves oppressed. No, Despentes does not let herself be softened into yet another malleable performative “feminist”. She is not a “feminist”, she is a feminist. And she does not care to compress herself into whatever dainty box society wants to fit her (among other women) into. She is more King Kong than Kate Moss, as per her own words, and she’s here to make sure everyone knows that that’s not a hurtful insult, but womanhood that breaks the boundaries set upon it to keep women within certain confines that make us digestible to men who want us “nice” and “feminine”. Oh no, you will not see performative femininity here. Despentes is herself, and her own self only. And she isn’t the kind of person who shies away from telling people to fuck off when they try to come at her with their bullshit.
King Kong Theory is thus liberating on more levels than one. Despentes’s voice is natural and convivial, equally hilarious and powerful. I laughed, I almost cried on public transport, and above all, I felt nourished . . . maybe because I felt seen, maybe because I was delighted to finally find someone who can see through ideological discourse. Despentes says fuck you to state-promoted motherhood, and explains how the glorification of it is literally fascist ideology; Despentes says fuck you to the hypocrisy of a society that uses prostitutes, but makes sure they are always unsafe; Despentes says fuck you to everyone who has ever taught women not to fight back. And to be sure, she makes it clear how patriarchy also oppresses men. She is not once wrong in anything she wrote. A-fucking-MEN.
After finishing off Drive Your Plow over the Bones of the Dead, I had no clue what I could read in fear of never again finding a book as enjoyable. They’re entirely different books, but King Kong Theory too was wonderfully enjoyable. Hats off to the translator too!
I have started collecting Despentes’s works. So far I have the Vernon Subutex trilogy, translated by the same translator (so I have no reservations about not reading the originals); I will be getting Baise-Moi and Jolies Choses; I have on my list (not sure if I’ll get to them this month or the next) Bye Bye Blondie and Teen Spirit, and of course, a print copy of King Kong Theory (which I’m quite honestly sad I couldn’t find in French anywhere). It suffices that I love Virginie Despentes for King Kong Theory even if her fictional works turn out not to be my cup of tea. She has placed herself among my favourite writers, and certainly one I feel extremely happy to be able to show support for by getting her books.
READ THIS!!! ALL OF YOU!!!
I read this after suffering through far too many piss poor (and to be fair, completely utterly stupid and ass-licking) takes on ‘feminism’ in YA books (had to read them for work, not on my own will, I need to clarify that). King Kong Theory was a breath of fresh air! All my pent up frustration and distress eased away, soothed by Despentes’s voice. She does not pander to male sensitivity, she does not pander to the liberal drivel of “common grounds” or whatever is the new rebranding of making sure the oppressed keep themselves oppressed. No, Despentes does not let herself be softened into yet another malleable performative “feminist”. She is not a “feminist”, she is a feminist. And she does not care to compress herself into whatever dainty box society wants to fit her (among other women) into. She is more King Kong than Kate Moss, as per her own words, and she’s here to make sure everyone knows that that’s not a hurtful insult, but womanhood that breaks the boundaries set upon it to keep women within certain confines that make us digestible to men who want us “nice” and “feminine”. Oh no, you will not see performative femininity here. Despentes is herself, and her own self only. And she isn’t the kind of person who shies away from telling people to fuck off when they try to come at her with their bullshit.
King Kong Theory is thus liberating on more levels than one. Despentes’s voice is natural and convivial, equally hilarious and powerful. I laughed, I almost cried on public transport, and above all, I felt nourished . . . maybe because I felt seen, maybe because I was delighted to finally find someone who can see through ideological discourse. Despentes says fuck you to state-promoted motherhood, and explains how the glorification of it is literally fascist ideology; Despentes says fuck you to the hypocrisy of a society that uses prostitutes, but makes sure they are always unsafe; Despentes says fuck you to everyone who has ever taught women not to fight back. And to be sure, she makes it clear how patriarchy also oppresses men. She is not once wrong in anything she wrote. A-fucking-MEN.
After finishing off Drive Your Plow over the Bones of the Dead, I had no clue what I could read in fear of never again finding a book as enjoyable. They’re entirely different books, but King Kong Theory too was wonderfully enjoyable. Hats off to the translator too!
I have started collecting Despentes’s works. So far I have the Vernon Subutex trilogy, translated by the same translator (so I have no reservations about not reading the originals); I will be getting Baise-Moi and Jolies Choses; I have on my list (not sure if I’ll get to them this month or the next) Bye Bye Blondie and Teen Spirit, and of course, a print copy of King Kong Theory (which I’m quite honestly sad I couldn’t find in French anywhere). It suffices that I love Virginie Despentes for King Kong Theory even if her fictional works turn out not to be my cup of tea. She has placed herself among my favourite writers, and certainly one I feel extremely happy to be able to show support for by getting her books.
READ THIS!!! ALL OF YOU!!!
Byobu by Ida Vitale
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? N/A
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? N/A
- Flaws of characters a main focus? N/A
2.0
I want to begin my review by saying I believe the majority of the fault to be on the translation, because the majority of the book sounded very unnatural in English. I rarely, if ever, say this of a book as I acknowledge and respect that a good writer be possessed of a good vocabulary, but it sounded like someone replaced every word they could using a thesaurus. To the point it felt like that scene in Friends when Joey was writing a recommendation letter for Chandler and Monica, and using a thesaurus to sound smart, he changed his own name to “baby kangaroo”.
I don’t believe Vitale did that at all. I believe she must have sounded lyrical. Which leaves the sole conclusion: this must be due to the translator.
And unfortunately when the language fails, all else does so as well. There were shining moments of hilarity and beauty and compassion, but they were quickly buried among more writing that tried to sound smart but said not a whole lot. I expected a philosophical book — needless to say that’s not what I got.
I don’t believe Vitale did that at all. I believe she must have sounded lyrical. Which leaves the sole conclusion: this must be due to the translator.
And unfortunately when the language fails, all else does so as well. There were shining moments of hilarity and beauty and compassion, but they were quickly buried among more writing that tried to sound smart but said not a whole lot. I expected a philosophical book — needless to say that’s not what I got.