Welcome to Litsy!

Pass. Fell flat for me. Might have been better as a short story. I got tired of the narration - folksy and universal while not really saying much or feeling solid. Plot was confusing in an unfocused way. Idk just not my thing!

#bookspin #doublespin

Trying to come up with something clever to say, but my brain is broken.

Thank you so much @CloakNQuill for my #CreepyChristmas goodies! It‘s the perfect mix of creepy and cozy for winter. The candle smells so good and I‘m looking forward to trying out the markers. I‘m looking forward to the tagged, which sounds creepy and weird and takes place in a small Iowa town only 1.5 hours from where I live. The Hacienda looks perfectly spooky and gothic. And always ❤️ chocolate 😋

Thanks @teebe for hosting this fun swap!

#2022Book124
Full disclosure: It took awhile for me to figure out what exactly was going on in this book. I‘m not sure if it‘s because I listened to it instead of reading it, but I was mildly confused for much of the beginning. Once I caught up with the plot, though, I really got into it. I‘m not sure, however, that the “bad guy” had a believable enough motivator for their actions.

This truly unsettling book takes place in a small Iowa town in the 1990s, where a young video store clerk named Jeremy gets reports of something strange on a couple of rentals and becomes almost unwillingly involved in the search for answers. Creeping dread and profound loss are threaded through this strangely haunting story; anyone looking for a linear plot and simple answers will be disappointed, but the ambiguity makes it even harder to forget.

This was my second time reading this book and I love it even more now. Don‘t expect to understand everything, just expect to be creeped out. Darnielle takes a less is more approach here and I love it!

This was good - really well written, like his first novel. It was strange though, and I never reached a point where I fully understood it. Not for a lack of trying!

Book 20🎧 (10% of my goal!)
This was quite a strange listen. And I won‘t lie, I definitely got confused as to whats going on and when. Time jumps, character jumps, story jumps😵‍💫I don‘t think I ever got a clear story😂

I was really drawn in by part 1 - and I still want to know what the hell is going on with those tapes!😤

* I started watching Archive81 on Netflix and love it! Giving me “lock every door(Sager)” vibes!! Anyone else watching it!

A slow burn of a book about something creepy going on in Iowa .Jeremy works at the Video Hut & things begin to get weird as customers return videos complaining of odd scenes being added on the tapes.Are these crimes or something else ? Also made my goodreads goal! 1st book finished in
#20in4 #NewYearSpecial readathon

This is, sadly, not the copy that I read. I vividly recall when ARCs of this were being released & jealous of the copies in the clamshells! I read, & loved, Darnielle's debut novel Wolf in White Van 4 years ago, but when UH was released I heard many mixed things from all over the place. Jeremy works at Video Hut in Nevada IA in the early 2000s when customers start to complain about unusual scenes split into movies. Darnielle's novel is about👇

Guys, someone just knocked on my door *right* as I read the last sentence on this page & I may have yelped. I'm deceased. 💀

This is definitely more an atmospherically creepy book rather than horror.

It‘s the 1990s, and Jeremy works in a local video store in Iowa. He and other employees find home video snippets inserted into movies. At first, they are just of landscapes, but then they begin to see hooded figures… They search for answers on a local farm, but it isn‘t what meets the eye. The book takes place in 90s, 70s, and today to answer who made the videos and why.

I forgot how f**king creepy this book is…maybe not the best choice for after midnight!! 😬 It‘s a #reread but first time with the #audiobook.

This book is not horror (which is a bummer because I‘m doing my own 50-states-50-scares challenge and I had this for Iowa), and it‘s creepy weird and ambiguous, but the writing is really, really good. I loved the unreliable narrator and the sneaky way Darnielle kept me listening. Very impressed with the way he captured the atmosphere and tempo of rural Iowa, and the ending was pretty amazing.

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Also my #HereHear book for #Booked2021.

Up next. Trying to get after it this year.

This is not a book I would reccomend to others because it is creepy, weird, confusing and vague. However the writing was so atmospheric that I couldn't help but be compelled to keep reading despite the fact that I mostly didn't know what exactly was happening or where the hell it was going. Continued below

Today I went to the library for the first time in a couple of years looking to find some books for the little readers and something random and unplanned for myself. The cover to this one caught my eye, it matches my NIN tee shirt and nail polish. 🤣

It's been awhile since this has happened, but......I don't get it. I am confusion. 🤔

Had no idea what was going on but couldn't put it down. Fully reading until 4 am by the tiny cabin nightlight. Felt like Darnielle put on a trucker hat and some Boggs and started chewing a piece of hay all "Folk from round here, we don't much take kindly to city folk" but was trying hard? The writing was pretty awesome though. Was hoping it'd be a little creepier. Heartwarming in places, how it's a gift to have a functional family.

Creepy images are showing up on VHS tapes from a local rental place, women are disappearing and no one knows why, but even with such intriguing story ideas this book just never came together for me. It was disjointed and once I finished I was confused.

On another note though, the writing was well done and I would love to read something else by this author. I just think this book wasn't really for me. It's listed as Horror, but it shouldn't be.

🦁 I'm all Leo!
🧝‍♀️ I am a few steps away from finishing a huge crochet project!
📤 Tagged & Maid
🥁 Going to see Face to Face in Brooklyn! 🎸
❤💙💛
#FriYayIntro @howjessreads

Weird but i loved it. Amazing writing. Familiar setting (right where i grew up in rural midwest). Familiar feelings of complete boredom and stuckness. Not a horror book, but a book about healing from loss (or not) in your own weird way. It can be confusing and you have to really reach to connect it all. I'll be the outlier and say i loved it.

Last one for #24in48. Hoping I can finish this one tonight AND I figure out what the heck the story is really about.

@24in48

I enjoyed the writing and will have a few images that will stick with me, however the storyline does not. I found it to be distracting and hard to tie together.

So far this break I‘ve finished You and #fashionvictim. Both were wild rides. Next up! Universal Harvester. Starts in a video store. Just a few weeks ago I was explaining to some kids I babysit that Netflix didn‘t always exist and we would go to this place called Blockbuster if we wanted a movie (though my favorite was a mom and pop shop until it closed).

I liked the writing style but the story arc was puzzling to say the least.

#libraryhaul Settling in for an evening of #hallmarkmovies and cozy reads 📚 📖

I'm bailing on this... I just don't care about any of these characters. They're so empty and they really should be more fleshed out. I guess you'd have to understand small town mid-Western life to really like this? I don't know... absolutely nothing has happened and with 1.28 left, I can't give them anymore of my time. 👎👎👎

The race is on!!! 11 days for both of them so it should be a piece of cake...

Universal Harvester is read by the author so we'll see how I feel about it. I'm unimpressed so far by I did just begin.

Listen, this is one of those books that is not for everybody (and its marketing as a horror/thriller has done it no favors) but it was very much for me.

A beautifully-written examination of lives lived in small Iowa towns. There are some creepy goings-on with VHS tapes and cults that unite these stories spanning decades, but in the end the tapes don‘t matter all that much. The anticlimax fits well with the quiet nature of the book.

I loved it.

Our narrator is wondering what we, the readers, envision when she describes something. I love love love a good breaking of the 4th wall like this.

This book is like Deadpool if Deadpool were a lyrically written meditation on grief and small-town melancholy.

Not too sure about this one. Think I was expecting something (horror, thriller) and it turned out nothing like how the blurb sells it. Basically weird cut shots being found on VHS tapes rented from small town video store in the 90s, and the slow-burn investigation by some folks into what the hell is going on. It doesn't go where you may think. Def one for thought afterwards. Fantastic writing though

This book started out great. The writing was incredibly well done, it had an almost Twilight Zone vibe to it. I loved the creepy undertone, the mystery of it. It was going so well. And then suddenly.... It veered so far off track it became nearly a whole other story. This had so much potential to be an excellent horror/suspense novel. I don't even know what happened to it. I was so disappointed, I almost couldn't finish it. But it wasn't bad.

My review: 🤷‍♀️
I don‘t even know what to say.
It seemed like a framework of a novel. Like a first draft or an outline that needed to be fleshed out.
I really liked Wolf in White Van, but this just left me perplexed and wanting more.

Even though I haven't officially started Slave to Sensation and don't know if I will tbh.... @howjessreads #31bookpics #currentlyreading

This was a huge disappointment. It was promoted as a horror novel but it‘s actually about... grief. And the writing was all over the place. Nope.

I‘ve read this once before and didn‘t really enjoy it. But, I‘m doing a reread of it and finding I like it a lot now. Not sure what made the difference other than time.

While working at the Video Hut in his tiny Iowa town, Jeremy connects reports of damaged VHS cassettes. Video Hut owner Sarah Jane and customer Stephanie push him to investigate the strange "second movie" that's popping up on the tapes: a disturbing film that appears to have been shot somewhere close by.

Kept reading for the writing ... tolerated the plot. Which is unfortunate, because I recall feeling similarly about Wolf in White Van.

"At sixty-five miles an hour, the cornfields flicker against the window like stock footage; shadows in between the rows pulse steadily in shades of yellow and green and early brown."

It has been a ‘beer on a work night‘ kind of day ...

"Another nagging little question lodged like a bit of grapeshot in his chest. It was nothing major, but the place where he stored them all was running out of room."

Holy crap this book. I am only on page 40 & just read a line that made my stomach drop. The writing is awesome.