yeats_motel's reviews
65 reviews

Between Two Fires by Christopher Buehlman

adventurous dark emotional funny hopeful sad tense fast-paced

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

5.0

Between Two Fires is one of the best books I have read in a very long time; if you like both extreme (and I do mean extreme, fair warning!) horror and beautiful stories of faith and redemption you owe it to yourself to read this book. I was instantly hooked by the quick-paced writing style and compelling characters; in fact, the main character, a disgraced knight turned brigand, has joined the ranks of my all-time favorite fictional characters.

Can’t recommend this book enough. If you can handle realistically gruesome fights, grotesque monsters that wouldn’t be out of place in a Dark Souls game, and frankly stomach-turning descriptions of the Black Plague, your reward will be a tremendously humane and ultimately life-affirming story.

I recommend Between Two Fires especially highly for fans of the late Kentaro Miura’s Berserk. If you love Berserk, you will love this.

Dark Harvest by Norman Partridge

adventurous dark tense fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? N/A
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.5

My first book of the year, Dark Harvest by Norman Partridge, was a fun, quick read with a surprising amount of bite and thematic depth from a book with such a pulpy (though awesome!) premise. It’s set in a go-nowhere town in the Midwest in the 60s that has a strange tradition: every year, the young men of the town go into the streets to catch and kill the October Boy—the pumpkin headed guy on the cover—and the winner gets to leave town and has his family’s needs taken care of by the town’s mysterious Harvester’s Guild. The story is told in a very conversational tone, even dipping into second person here and there which I normally don’t like but I thought worked wonderfully in setting the mood for this book. The story is fast-paced and exciting with plenty of action.

Recommended for readers who like Stephen King but find his nostalgia for the 50s and 60s a little corny and like a little more cynicism and class analysis in their books.

The Hellbound Heart by Clive Barker

dark tense fast-paced

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

4.5

Despite him being a big name in horror, I’d never read Barker until now and honestly? Kinda miffed it took me so long to get to him. This was great! Quick-paced, superbly-written and just the right level of grimy for a horror story. Must-read for horror fans imo.

Revenge by Yōko Ogawa

dark emotional mysterious sad fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.75

I picked this up on a total whim at my last visit to Barnes & Noble. Never heard of the author before, I just thought the blurbs and back synopsis sounded neat and I’m a sucker for a single author short story collection. Very glad to have impulse bought this! Ogawa’s prose is spare and elegant and the atmosphere of the stories is superb—very creepy and unsettling! Each story stands well on its own, but they also bleed into each other fascinatingly, more and more the further into the collection you get. My favorite stories were “Sewing for the Heart,” “The Last Hour of the Bengal Tiger,” and “Poison Plants.”

Recommend for anyone who likes eerie short stories, j-horror, or Borges-ish textual playfulness.

Come Closer by Sara Gran

dark fast-paced

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

4.0

Got this on a whim after seeing someone talk about it on Twitter. It’s a possession horror told from the point of view of the woman being possessed (or losing her mind—the book never 100% confirms whether what the narrator is experiencing is supernatural in nature or if she’s suffering some kind of psychotic break or if it’s just her own frustrations and unhealthy desires bubbling to the surface after being suppressed for so long). It’s a very fast read and satisfyingly nasty, though it doesn’t really do anything too far outside the realm of what you would probably expect for a novel with this premise. Recommend for horror fans and people who like stories with unreliable narrators.

Hangsaman by Shirley Jackson

challenging dark emotional sad slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? N/A
• Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

3.75

I’ll be honest I didn’t really follow a lot of what was going on in this book; from what I can tell, it’s about a college freshman’s descent into madness (and a descent into madness is what it feels like reading this). There is one character I am still not sure is real. I still enjoyed reading the book because Shirley Jackson is an incredible prose stylist and would recommend it to someone who is cool with a book that lives on style and vibes alone, but I don’t know that I would recommend it to anyone who needs for their books to have an easy to follow plot.

Berserk Deluxe Volume 2 by Kentaro Miura

adventurous dark emotional sad fast-paced

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

5.0

Berserk is a masterpiece—not only one of the finest manga of the past half-century, but one of the finest works of fantasy fiction in general. The artwork is breathtaking, the characters are incredible, and there's enough thematic depth to have you discussing the story for a long time.

Berserk Deluxe Volume 3 by Kentaro Miura

adventurous dark emotional sad fast-paced

5.0

Berserk is a masterpiece—not only one of the finest manga of the past half-century, but one of the finest works of fantasy fiction in general. The artwork is breathtaking, the characters are incredible, and there's enough thematic depth to have you discussing the story for a long time.

Berserk Deluxe Volume 1 by Kentaro Miura

adventurous dark emotional sad fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? N/A
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

Berserk is a masterpiece—not only one of the finest manga of the past half-century, but one of the finest works of fantasy fiction in general. The artwork is breathtaking, the characters are incredible, and there's enough thematic depth to have you discussing the story for a long time.

Rings by Kōji Suzuki

dark mysterious sad tense fast-paced

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

4.0

So pretty much everyone who knows me knows I love horror in general, but may or may not know that I have a special place in my heart for Asian horror. I finally got around to reading this book, upon which both the Japanese movie Ringu and its American remake The Ring are based. I like both movies a lot and I was curious about the book. It’s pretty different from the movies; while the films both feel very complete, the book is a lot more sequel hook-y (which makes sense since the book actually does have sequels). I enjoyed this a lot and will read the sequels at some point, so in that respect it did it’s job. The book is also in my opinion less outright scary than either of the films, but it’s very fun and atmospheric. I find I tend to prefer the way modern tech (in this case, a very cursed VHS tape) gets incorporated into Asian horror like Rings over how a lot of Western horror does it, though I can’t put my finger quite on why.

I recommend this book whether you liked the movies or not; I think it’s sufficiently different that it really feels like its own experience.