wordswritinstarlight's reviews
177 reviews

Dead Silence by S.A. Barnes
Did not finish book. Stopped at 63%.

I actually love the book and I’m getting it in non-audio format to finish it, because 100% of my complaints are the reader.  I’ve never used the word “overacting” for an audiobook before but this is fucking unbearable; the reader is serving soap opera distress in every chapter and it’s driving me insane.  I was able to kind of ignore it until things started to get really high tension around the halfway mark, and then I broke almost immediately.  I guess if you’re someone who isn’t bothered by hours and hours of someone sounding like they’re on the brink of hysterics doesn’t bother you, it’s probably a perfectly good reading, but I would love to actually enjoy this book rather than listening to it in fifteen minute segments before I get so annoyed I have to turn it off.  It might make me sound like an unsympathetic bitch, but I truly do not care how much of a horror novel you are in, if you’re crying every single chapter, I’m gonna need you to get it the fuck together.  I’m out on this audiobook and getting the text version.

Brunhild the Dragonslayer, Vol. 1 (manga) by Yuiko Agarizaki

dark emotional reflective sad slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Plot
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal death, Blood

Down by Ally Blue

dark mysterious tense fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Plot
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes

4.75

The Thing by way of The Abyss, with overtones of The Shape of Water, and thoroughly well-executed. I love a good story about The Horrors Of The Deep(TM) and this is a great ride, with a balanced diet of pitched tension and outright gore. The sci-fi elements were thought all the way through and really creative, and felt natural to the setting rather than existing purely as plot devices. Also, I’m delighted by how Mo and Armin’s romance goes down. Coworkers-with-benefits-to-lovers isn’t a dynamic I see done well often, since it’s usually fraught with manufactured drama and assorted bullshit, but seeing the boys lean on each other increasingly more over the course of the book was so sweet and their connection felt very believable. Plus I love the ending, although I’d warn anyone that

whether or not it’s “happy” depends a lot on personal interpretation.

I think that in terms of narrative and structure, the last chapter ends in with a perfect cinematic close (speaking of which, 10/10 would watch this movie), but as a reader

I DID want a little more about Armin and Mo getting to go off and be Horrors together.

Recommended for other people who like ocean horrors, especially if you enjoyed books like Into The Drowning Deep or The Archive Undying, or if the above movie combination appeals.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Body horror, Gore, Sexual content, Suicide, Violence, Medical trauma, Murder, Schizophrenia/Psychosis , Injury/Injury detail, Pandemic/Epidemic

Specifically infection horror and eyeball horror are center stage here.

Scp Foundational Artbook Red Journal by Para Books

dark informative mysterious

5.0

I just love in-universe documents and lore and media, this made me ridiculously happy. A great assembly of particularly good SCPs, beautifully illustrated across the board. Getting this was kind of an indulgent luxury—these ARE free online—but no regrets. If you’ve got the cash to spare and you like some weird cosmic horror, absolutely get in on these art books, I loved it.

Spectr: Volume 1 by Jordan L. Hawk

adventurous emotional mysterious tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes

5.0

I first read this book probably about six years ago, and to be totally honest I classed it as “fun trash”. My wife would like everyone to know that I have no idea what I’m talking about, and upon rereading it, I concede the point. This is a great series, well-written and robustly built out, and possibly I just couldn’t admit to liking things six years ago. My apologies to the visionary Mr. Hawk, this is polyamorous urban fantasy Venom and it fucking rules. If I had the money I would personally fund a TV series.

Recommended for anyone who likes the Venom movies, a MIB-style urban fantasy, monster-of-the-week adventures, a romance featuring a monster down absolutely horrendous for a human, or any combination thereof. Actually, recommended, full stop.

Your Shadow Half Remains by Sunny Moraine

challenging dark reflective slow-paced

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

3.5

This book is beautifully written, with a really clever apocalypse scenario and a well-executed take on an unreliable narrator, and for someone who enjoys intensely reflective, nihilistic horror, this would probably be an instant hit. I get bored with intensely reflective writing, and I get enough nihilism in my own brain to be going on with, so it wasn't for me. Not a comment on the book so much as that I simply did not vibe with it.

Recommended for people who enjoy horror but also took elective philosophy courses in college.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal death, Gore, Suicidal thoughts, Suicide, Torture, Violence, Blood, Death of parent, Murder, Schizophrenia/Psychosis , Injury/Injury detail, Pandemic/Epidemic

If you don't do well with eye trauma, this book ain't for you.

(un)Divine, Volume 1 by Ayme Sotuyo

dark funny mysterious tense fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Plot

4.5

A really fun urban fantasy romp, with some genuinely interesting takes on religious indoctrination and the dangers thereof. I’m excited to read more of it.

Recommended for people who like a demons-and-angels plot line and are into femdom. It’s not explicit but come on.

Devils Kill Devils by Johnny Compton

adventurous dark mysterious tense fast-paced

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

4.0

If this book has a sequel, I’m coming back here to change this rating to 5 stars, because literally my only complaint is that I really, really wish there had been more exploration of the lore and the world and the characters in this book. I love everything about this book, I just wanted there to be more of it.

The way Compton weaves together classic vampire horror with straight up Lovecraftian cosmic horror worked SO well for me. This book gets deep into the concept that there’s always a bigger fish and those bigger fish are as dangerous to the other fish as to humans, and manages to do it without getting into ludicrous power scaling issues. I adored Sarita as a protagonist—she experiences realistic levels of fear and shock, and works with a reasonable normal-person level of skill. On the other hand, her lifetime of having a guardian angel literally looking over her shoulder adds a reckless courage that makes her decisions feel very in-character even when they are objectively incredibly dangerous. Sarita is a huge part of the reason that I want more in this universe, because I immensely want to know what happens when

the Mother Mary of a giant immortal cult kills God in public forum.

I’m also fascinated by Cela as a monster and a villain who is so devoted to lying to herself about who she is and what she’s done, and I desperately want to know more about how the sleepers

and now sleeper!Cela

work. As an additional note, Compton built a fairly realistic cult

(if you remove the vampires and devils and elder gods),

and I know enough about cults to speculate WILDLY about how Cela’s people are going to handle the end of this book. I want to see it…so much. 

@Johnny Compton please I need a sequel to this book so badly. I will come back and change this to a 5 if there’s a sequel, I want to see more of this world SO badly.

Recommended for anyone who likes a classic monster movie feel to their horror, or to people who SPECIFICALLY watched the first few seasons of Supernatural and wished they had done more with the demon-powers plot line.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Alcoholism, Gore, Racism, Suicide, Violence, Cannibalism, Stalking, Murder

If you have a history of religious abuse, handle with care.

Beacon 23 by Hugh Howey

dark emotional reflective tense medium-paced

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

4.0

This is…a really weird book. It’s very good and very well written, and the nameless narrator is a very compassionate figure even when he’s making some. Extremely strong choices, shall we say. There’s a disjointedness in his storytelling that makes his unstable mental state very clear, without rendering it difficult to grasp what exactly is going on.

On the other hand, the same disjointedness meant that a lot of the plot points felt…incomplete? There’s an enormous amount going on and the vast majority is both offscreen and totally unexplained, to a degree that I found frustrating. I would have read a much longer version of this book, and I think I would have liked it a lot more unequivocally. The last installment,

featuring the Ryph Lord and the destruction of the two navies,

felt underwritten in a way that bothered me—I would have liked to see that whole climactic scenario developed more and given more space to breathe.

That being said, I really like this kind of take on what you might call Boring Space Operas, centered around the fact that, even in space, a lot of humanity will still be doing very familiar tasks, like babysitting a lighthouse or rewiring a garage airlock door, and I think this book did a solid job with it. Recommended for people who are also interested in stories about how humanity will still be very human in space, or for people who really like Ender’s Game.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Gun violence, Mental illness, Panic attacks/disorders, Suicidal thoughts, Violence, Xenophobia, War

Beauty: A Retelling of the Story of Beauty and the Beast by Robin McKinley

emotional mysterious reflective relaxing slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes

4.5

This is a very traditional retelling of Beauty and the Beast, and that is a compliment. I think a lot of writers get very excited to come up with cool twists and variations on classic stories, but it means that there are a lot of classic stories that just. Don’t have actual good retellings of the original story. This book’s Beauty is stubborn and honest and sweet and honorable, the Beast is sad and gentle and kind, and it’s just a straight up and down good retelling of the story. It has McKinley’s usual light hand on the romantic elements, but the sense of trust and comfort between Beauty and her Beast is so palpable that it doesn’t feel abrupt when she says she loves him. I also love how much Beauty’s family loves her—the main place where this diverges from the original story is that Beauty’s family is earnestly trying their absolute best in a fairly bad situation, and their devotion to each other makes it feel very believable that she would go to the Beast’s castle in order to protect them.

Ideal for a younger reader, or for an adult looking for a retelling with the vibe of the Disney movie. As an additional note, this book predates the movie by over a decade, so the next time I see someone talk about it being a Disney knockoff, I will simply have to kill them with my brain.