Ghost

What the fk did I just read? I feel like I stumbled in a corner of the internet I have no business being in and confirmed that Ggle is an evil corporation on account of it suggesting me this book all at once. I wonder if this book is one of those intentionally extremely bad self-aware ones but I somehow missed it?
Ian is a whiny, boring, immature and mentally unstable guy who expected things to just go his way because he had a job apparently and now he is disappointed that his kids didn't turn out how he would have liked them to in spite of the fact that by all appearances he didn't actually do much raising at all or even put in the energy to find a woman who shared his values to build a family with. The word trivial seems to be the best descriptor for Ian.
There's a lot of buzz words in this but there isn't much substance besides Ian is a terrible person but he lacks the self-awareness to realize that he is no better than the people around him.
In my notes the words that kept coming back were the vomiting emoji, incel BS and WTF. Long story short I feel like I fried a few brain cells reading this trite booklet for the sad man refusing to take responsibility for his own misery.

I know that these days almost every other piece of zombie content wants to be compared to it but in this particular case I think the comparison to The Walking Dead is apt, for better or worse. Much like some season of the walking dead it's all over the place introducing characters and dropping them there's a lot going and sometimes so much so that it seems drawn out even though it isn't. A lot of the character archetypes you found in TWD are there too. There's also the same kind of death fake offs that take off some of the stakes if they are not paired with some real casualties that do pack some punches, whether or not it will be the case with this series remains to be seen. For some reasons I also got pretty strong The Stand vibes from this book (possibly because of the preacher on one side and the televangelist on the other).
The story is good enough but the writing style and constant switching from one character to the other didn't work for me, I wish we could have stuck with each character for longer.
Will I come back to this series: I got the second installment first so I guess I might as well.

Truly a mixed bag, some stories are so over the top they were goofy. Sometimes it was good goofy (organs fighting anyone?) sometimes it was just eh okay type goofy for me (very descriptive story about necrophilia). Some stories were also excellent and some were just flat out not my vibe so I wouldn't know how to rate them, there's also one story I had to read with a hand over my mouth to keep my stomach or at least its overly caffeinated content in place (good job Jon Athan!). I picked up this collection because it was recommended to me based on the prompt “the body doing/becoming the horror and not horror being visited on the body by someone” so my rating really is about the stories that fit that request.

It's a multi-author anthology so it's a nice option for someone looking to venture into the extreme horror genre without making too much of a commitment to a single author.

For the ace/sex-repulsed in the room: several of the stories center sex (stories that hinge on the idea of extreme paraphilias as well as stories that just have sex as an important component), approach with care.

I hesitated a while before even giving a rating to this book, at first, I thought I was going to go for a no rating finish but, in the end, I decided that while it is a unique experience this audiobook was also a deeply unpleasant experience for me.
I will admit that I am particularly squeamish about bodily fluids other than blood and this book contains a very generous serving of that on top of descriptions of eating small animals alive, CSA, sex with an animal (?) and the northern lights. I honestly felt like this book was a shock porn horror novel masquerading as something deep, that part might be my own hang ups. However, considering that Split Tooth initially came up in my recommendations in relation to The Troop by Nick Cutter I assume I'm not the only one who sees the link between this book and that particular type of horror.
The throat singing was great (probably the only reason I actually finished this book), but the narration felt painfully slow even if the book was short.
Maybe I just don't get it, maybe it's just not for me, either way if you're like me approach at your own risk.

2.5 rounded up.
I feel bad for not liking this book more but honestly if I hadn't received it as an ARC I wouldn't have finished it. The premise of the book was super promising, and the cover art is gorgeous, and I had very high hopes.
However, the characters' interactions seemed so wildly off and I often found them hard to follow or completely illogical. I often wondered if Dex behaved so weirdly because the process to erase his memory left him brain damaged but everyone seemed to also behave in equally weird ways. Some scenes came across as bloated with unnecessary exposition while a lot of the book came across as choppy and relationships were left implied to be important instead of developed.
The story does have good bones so to speak and the characters have potential but, ultimately, I feel like this book wasn't finished.
For the sex-repulsed in the room: there's one not overly graphic sex scene and quite a bit of sex talk but you could skim over the passages without losing much.

3.5 rounded up.

Some stories seemed unfinished not in the sense that they were incomplete but in the sense that they did not feel like a final draft. There is something anxious, tense and sad floating about every story. I would say it was split almost evenly between stories that I liked and stories that had me scratching my head wondering what the heck did I just read.

Once again, I find myself being the first Goodreads reviewer of a book I feel somewhat ill equipped to review.
This book is not a 101 type book if you aren't familiar with concepts of anti-colonialism and race as well as with the names of people both in the political and activism spheres you might find yourself doing quite a bite of googling, this isn't a bad thing just something to be aware of.
Mirzoeff puts in words concepts such as the shift to “white-to-blue” in the American racial perception that took its current form somewhere between the BLM revival and the events of January 6th which finally crystalized the shift that I had previously seen intuited but not named.
I received an ARC of this book from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. The copy I received was clearly not formatted properly for any of my devices which resulted in images being either entirely missing or appearing as divorced from their context/the text that should accompany them which often made for a confusing reading experience, I would like to believe that this formatting issue did not affect my review but I would be remiss if failed to acknowledge it.

I picked this book up with absolutely no idea what to expect after seeing a comment from the author in a Facebook group didn't even read the blurb so I went in pretty much blind, I'm glad I did because Parker, John and Ethan were worth spending a few hours with and I love me a not quite clear cut ending.

It's a roller coaster of a story which starts on a very tense and heavy scene and which features an interesting monster, ghosts, a guy who can handle rejection nicely and a splash of psychological horror, I don't know what else to tell you if that doesn't sell it for you!

For the ace/sex-repulsed in the room: there is a bit of not very descriptive sex which you could probably skim without losing much of the story and TW for somewhat descriptive SA.

Starts out really strong, gets a little bit meh for a bit then picks up again and stays pretty funny till the end. The humor is riduculous and childish at times but Stanley is a charming character and the Bonus Padding at the end had me chuckling and thinking that Strand himself is also a pretty dang charming person.

There some fatphobic comments by the main character (they're not a core thing nor a repeated thing though the book but they're there so if that's going to ruin it for you now you know). For the aces/sex-repulsed in the room: there's a near sex scene but it ends up not happening it's safe on that front

I wasn't a fan of the structure of this book and I'm not sure if it's just that it didn't translate well to audio but the back and forth in the timeline was confusing. In the end the back and forth made it so that any time I started to get into any part of the story it would jump to another point in the timeline so I never really got into it.

This little collection really starts with a bang, the first story is powerful and exquisitely short, and I would say it's worth cracking open this book just for that story.
There is something sweet and an almost innocent awkwardness about a lot of the characters presented through the various stories. When the author gives us a douche canoe of a character is seems a bit unnatural which left me with the impression that the author is probably a pretty sweet person (and his afterword did cement that impression) which was surprisingly cute for a collection that has all the bleak and hopeless you could wish for.
In some parts the writing was a bit iffy and some stories seemed like they were a chapter in a novel more than a short story but overall I felt like it was a decent collection with pretty varied stories.
For the ace/sex-repulsed in the room; there is one pretty descriptive sex scene (descriptive enough that the repulsion showed in my facial expression apparently) in one story that can probably be skimmed if you don't mind missing some details, however most of the stories don't feature much if any sex.

Do you like a messy main character who doesn't look messy at first glance and a dreamlike vibe in a story that can also give you whiplash? If so this is the novella for you. Regrets, shades of grey and how they're never seen quite the same way by everyone, grief, main character syndrome, shifting settings and amazing imagery, it's all in there in a tidy little package.

I really enjoyed the structure of this book with the short and often funny intros to each story which made the whole reading experience akin to sitting with a friend.
There's a few folk horror stories/retelling of folk tales, a touch of cosmic horror, creatures that aren't explained and just are and all sorts of interesting stuff. It's fun and tragic, beautiful and abject at times. A few of the stories are cautionary tales of sorts, there's even a cautionary tale about thrifting!

You don't need to have read volume one to understand and enjoy volume 2 all the stories stand pretty well on their own.

For the ace/sex-repulsed in the room: there is a little bit of talk about sex in a movie in one story but otherwise pretty safe on that front.

I think the best way I can describe my reading experience with this book was charming, from the anecdotes regarding his name to the stories about his father's war time friend there is an air of eagerness and charm about Mr. Ndibe's writing. The structure of the book just seemed to randomly change at one point where I'd almost say it went from memoir to essays didn't bother me too much but if you're looking for a story with a clear arc this might not be it for you.

It was a cute story, sometimes cloyingly so (drunk in love kind of cute). There were a few moments where things felt contrived but the humor and charm made up for it.

For the ace/sex repulsed in the room: There are several spicy moments in there, including a long very descriptive sex scene that I ended up having to skim to get through.

It started really strong with a generally placid story telling that I really could get behind but then it just sort of fizzled out into something that felt chaotic and near the end I didn't really know what I was reading.

For the ace/sex-repulsed in the room: there's quite a bit of sex, including 1 very descriptive scene and a couple marginally less descriptive scenes that have the merit of being mercifully short, you could probably skim them without missing much but then again I might have missed a lot while reading every word.

Knock Knock offers a fun twist on ghost stories and the nature of ghosts part dysfunctional family story, part horror, part paranormal investigation and all a “you won't see time go by” kind of quick read.
The interesting structure really allows Miller's ability to give multiple characters a unique voice to really shine. The main characters are all heartbreaking and endearing in a way that makes them feel real and the dysfunctional family dynamic seemed all too plausible.

This is really a who's who of the current Ukrainian writing scene with samples of their work. It's brilliant if you're good at remembering names and you're looking for a place to start in getting acquainted with the Ukrainian literary world. Since I'm not particularly good with names I wish we had gotten to spend a little more time with each writer so I could have had more time to really absorb their voices, as it is it will provide me a place to start with people to look up, but I can see the appeal of the bitesize format.
I received an eARC of this book from 8th & Atlas Publishing through NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

This review is specifically for the audiobook version narrated by Shivantha Wijesinha.
This is not just a book, it's an experience where dark humor meets magical realism, militant ghosts and a main character that is both endearing and ambiguous in 1990s Sri Lanka. Both narration and story were 5 stars experiences for me. Wijesinha's expressive rhythm and intonations made for an immersive experience, and I would probably listen to just about anything if he's the one reading it. Really, I cannot overstate how much I enjoyed my time with this book. Grim and beautiful, sorrowful but not without hope, queer in a way that is neither sorry nor unapologetic but rather in a “it is what it is” sort of way, it's nuanced and really lives up to its cover art.
The imagery in this book is sometimes brutal and Wijesinha really brings it to life.
This book reminded me of another favorite of mine, Ghost Town by Kevin Chen, for the way the events slowly reveal themselves through what I would call accidents of a character study. The story is peppered with pop culture references which was something I did not expect but enjoyed in the same way as Ghost Town is peppered with talks of food. Don't get me wrong they are very different stories, they just share a similar story telling form and if you loved one you'll probably love the other too.
Disclosure: I received a copy of this audiobook from HighBridge Audio on NetGalley in exchange for an honest review