The art in this thing is FANTASTIC. Fans of horror rejoice! The story is a little tough to follow as it jumps between Karen‘s monster fantasy, realty, memories, flashbacks and what not. But this is only volume 1 so I‘m hoping it comes together in volume 2.

Very informative and not what you think. It was great to hear a neutral perspective on this. Bruder neither hypes nor condemns nomadic living though she clearly supports the people and is very empathetic to their experiences.

Great read. It‘s a little second wave feminist but a lot of what Erica Jong begins to unpack about female sexuality rings true even today. The quest for the zipless f*** continues...

Nominated for Superior Achievement in Long Fiction for the 2017 #bramstokerawards. I love Caitlin Kiernan. This haunting story of a doomsday cult investigation goes by way too quickly and leaves me wishing it were longer. Great cosmic horror.

Making my way through the 2017 #bramstokerawards This one is nominated for Superior Achievement in a First Novel. For a 1st novel, it‘s good. I would like to see what else the author comes up with. It‘s one of those stories where there‘s no definitive ending really, it just sort of ends. A lot of great ideas but I felt it wasn‘t as satisfying as it could‘ve been.

Let me preface this review with the fact that I love Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds. What else is there to say? It‘s Nick Cave at his best. If I were still in school half the book would have been lovingly quoted on my notebooks and paper textbook covers.

Okay, I wanted to love this and I didn‘t hate it. Just like I wanted to love a Court of Thorns and Roses. I thought maybe the sequel would help me love the first one more and just...eh. Well, we gave it a go.

Read this for my YA #bookclub. Feyre lives in a village on the edge of a forest that leads to a Faerie Realm and hunts to support her family. Until one day she makes the wrong kill and is taken by a mysterious Fae Lord as payment. Looks long but reads fast. It‘s part of a series but the ending is still satisfying. Fulfills “books inspired by fairy tale” for #readingwomenchallenge

Read for a book club. Listen, I love romance novels. Smut doesn‘t bother me. Usually, I stick to historical romance. This is modern. 17 year old Ella, has to strip to pay her mother‘s cancer bills. After her mother‘s death, she‘s taken away by a stranger to live with the obscenely wealthy who ostracize her. And she has an affair with her sort of stepbrother. 😑 I‘ll say this: the main character is honestly likable. And I finished it so...eh?

Caitlin Doughty has such a gift for talking about death. Weird to say but it‘s true. This book takes you on a journey to see how some societies find “the good death”. A pyre in Colorado. Death cults in Bolivia. A tower in Parsi. The macabre journey humanizes us all and really makes you think not only about death but our society‘s failure to deal with grief. Through it all Doughty, remains fascinating and funny

I loved the first 2 books in this series and was worried that it may have run out of magic. But it hasn‘t! This installment brings back some old favorite characters we haven‘t seen since the first book while introducing us to new ones to fall in love with. The books are short but McGuire still manages to build fantastical worlds that will leave you opening every closet and turning over every rock to find your door.

Adults can still tumble down rabbit holes and into enchanted wardrobes, but it happens less and less with every year they live...Childhood melts, and flights of fancy are replaced by rules. Tornados kill people: they don‘t carry them off to magical worlds. Talking foxes are a sign of fever, not guides sent to start some grand adventure. But children follow the foxes and open the wardrobes and peek beneath the bridge

One of my #readinggoals for this year is to explore the wonderful world of pulpy paperbacks as seen in Paperbacks From Hell by Grady Hendrix. If you‘re like me and you love southern gothics with a touch of magical realism then this book fills the bill. Over written in places but also has haunting descriptions. This plot was mostly set up with a cliffhanger ending so I am eager to track the rest of the series down for some full on pulp weirdness.

Even after every ruined thing had been carted away and burned and the broken branches and rotting carcasses of dead animals had been washed out of the yards ... Perdido would start up the stairs at night and pause with it‘s hand on the banister, and beneath the jasmine and the roses on the front porch, beneath the leftover pungency of supper from the kitchen, and beneath the starch in it‘s own cellar - Perdido would smell the flood.

Eileen reminded me of the Bell Jar where our heroine and titular character is in a deep depression and spends a lot of time brooding. Like Plath, Ottessa Moshfegh is able to make you laugh at rather disturbing scenes. You find yourself relating to Eileen one moment and horrified by her the next. The book has a great build up and a great pay off at the end.