weathersreadsgarbage's reviews
240 reviews

The Terror by Dan Simmons

dark slow-paced

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

3.0

If I hadn’t gotten paralyzed during my trek reading this I’d have DNFed. The thing is that the idea? Golden. Horrifying. Some of the details? Super good. There’s bits that made me stressed. But also it’s agonizingly long, boring, and full of repetitive details. 

I also have beef with explaining the big bad. If you need horror spoonfed to you alongside the details of over 100 men in painstaking detail then great. 

I’m whelmed.

The River by Gary Paulsen

adventurous tense fast-paced

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

3.5

The writing is such a drastic improvement in this sequel even if the depth of characters is a little lacking. But the tension is high and I love how Brian has to do things to earn his ending. Still not crazy about the epilogue but I can appreciate the amount of research the author put in. 

Honestly bless this series for fixing my slump!

Hatchet by Gary Paulsen

adventurous fast-paced

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

3.0

I don’t know why I had such a bee in my bonnet about rereading this after like 20 years but I’m glad I did? The writing style isn’t great (back in the day we really didn’t expect much emotional depth or like… skill from that age group apparently) and was often repetitive in a way that felt like it was trying to pad the word count. Brian lacks a lot of depth and there’s not much to him - another thing that was common at the time I think. And the ending feels both very rushed and undeserved. Especially with the epilogue which is absolutely terrible. Also not canon once you read the rest of the series so like ??? 

Hidden Pictures by Jason Rekulak

dark mysterious fast-paced

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

1.0

It was fine I guess. Everyone in this story was so painfully stupid (stop going to ghosts as the first explanation for things and then act shocked when nobody believes you? The fuck?) and the narrative voice didn’t really sound like a 21 year old. Particularly not a 21 year old who’s an addict. You’re really telling me that a young adult says cannabis and not weed? Grow up. It gave me the same energy that those Go Ask Alice style books had where it claims to be a teenager in some counter culture movement but it’s written by an old Mormon lady? 

Oh and there’s some dog whistles here that are very transphobic. Not to mention how the author kept mentioning miss Joanne Rowling constantly. You get off licking her asshole, buddy? I don’t know, I feel like this author would call me a slur IRL. Maybe they’re just dumb instead but man, not a good time to be dumb. 

If you have a conservative mom to shop for this would be a thriller for her. 

Send help I’m incapable of reading anything good this year. 😭

Island by Richard Laymon

dark mysterious medium-paced

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

0.25

I can generally put up with how unforgivably horny Laymon’s work is but this one is very… it feels like a harem romance written by an incel and don’t think I’m going to be forgetting how sexualized the rape of a literal child is. I think it’s scary more because of how horrifying straight men’s portrayal of women is and less anything else. 

Alive: The Story of the Andes Survivors by Piers Paul Read

challenging dark emotional informative sad slow-paced

4.5

Yes I got sucked into reading this after binging Yellowjackets. How’d you guess?

This is by far one of the most grueling, disgusting, nightmare scenarios I’ve ever read about and there’s some details here. It does a very good job at really setting the scene for the absolute horror of the situation and explaining how the thought process of everyone involved. I think I’ve had more nightmares about human meat in the past few nights than I ever have in my entire life.

Behind the Mask: The Story of Jane Seymour by Angela Warwick

dark medium-paced

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

0.5

There’s something to be said about ethics in historical fiction and the thing is this author? Has no ethics. 

I was intrigued by the idea of Jane getting more of a personality - she is often the throwaway of the six wives and I thought there could be something to this whole having her be cunning thing. My issue is she’s cast as an evil woman who tortured and murdered animals as a child and seems to not feel love or even fond emotions for anyone or anything. There’s no depth to it and it feels like what it is: disrespectful fanfic. If you told me a child wrote this on fanfic.net I would believe you. Especially with the simple errors I caught and the godawful formatting. 

The Heretic Wind: The Life of Mary Tudor, Queen of England by Judith Arnopp

reflective medium-paced

3.0

I think that there was definitely effort to paint Mary in a fairer light than most books so credit for that. My issue is how rushed much of it felt? The second half of Mary’s life is handled in the last fifty or so pages which feels a little silly. 

The Children of Red Peak by Craig DiLouie

mysterious slow-paced

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

1.5

This is such a bad sign for the rest of my reading year. 

Anyway, here’s the thing: The concept? Interesting. The flashbacks to the cult? Great. Rushed, but good bones. I think there could have been more there. Same with the second cult - what the fuck was the point there? 

The actual writing though lacked something for me. I’m fine with low action introspective navel gazing if the prose is pretty but this just wasn’t that. Very tell, no show. The characterization was also godawful - and for some reason one of the core characters didn’t have POV chapters because why exactly? Was writing two women too difficult? It’s such a stupid choice when I had to sit through so many boring pages about fucking Deacon and his stupid fucking band.

The most frustrating thing for me was that it feels like it could have been a novella and missed virtually nothing. I could tear pages out of this thing and probably make it a stronger narrative. 

I’m so frustrated by this, I don’t enjoy feeling like I hate reading but this was positively grueling to get through. 

The Haunted by Bentley Little

dark medium-paced

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

1.5

This was so painfully mediocre. I’m sorry, but what the fuck was everyone else reading and can I get in on that?

This had a bad case of “written by a manitis” when it comes to the sex scenes and woo boy did the group chat have a BLAST with that two day old pair of panties scene. I’m so tired of sex in horror that’s so… bland. If you’re going to incorporate ancient evil using sex as a weapon then make it something new and don’t write with your hand down your fucking pants. 

My biggest beef is that this was just like every other haunted house story in one. There’s tropes, there’s nods to other works, and then there’s this mashup that would be a January release if it was ever made into a film. 

I’m so disappointed because it was hyped but I’m not really sure this is an author for me.