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[ill-try-to-do-book-reviews]

Our Wives Under The Sea

Julia Armfield

Rating: 🕯🕯🕯🕯🔥 (4.5/5)

Our Wives Under The Sea is a slow but sure dive into thallasophobia, body horror, and, surprisingly, grief. Though it is a horror novel, it deals with the grief of losing a loved one, and more strongly, with the grief of mourning someone who is not dead. This book is, in my opinion, the quintisential "came back wrong" trope, executed marvelously well.

Summary: "Miri thinks she has got her wife back, when Leah finally returns after a deep sea mission that ended in catastrophe. But It soon becomes clear that Leah may have come back wrong. Whatever happened in that vessel, whatever it was they were supposed to be studying before they were stranded on the ocean floor, Leah has carried part of it with her, onto dry land and into their home.

Memories of what they had before – the jokes they shared, the films they watched, all the small things that made Leah hers – only remind Miri of what she stands to lose. Living in the same space but suddenly separate, Miri comes to realize that the life that they had might be gone."

MY DETAILED REVIEW (SPOILER WARNING):

This story was difficult to get into. It was a slow start and I admit I had to dredge through the first few chapters.

However.

The slow start ends up giving the book a "frog in the pot" effect. By the time you're aware of what's really happening, you're already completely invested. By the time that Jelka starts losing her mind, the horror of Leah's and crew's situation really settles into your bones, you've already become enthralled, already curled up under the blankets at 3am soaking up every single word, and truthfully, you couldn't even pinpoint when you got so invested or what got you so hooked to begin with.

Leah and Miri's relationship is seen in two parts: flashbacks of the past and horrors of the present. Miri frequently recalls the beginning of their long-standing relationship through the duration of their current deterioration. Pamela, the time she saw Leah off and a fellow wife was surprised she didn't know Flat Stanley, the time she saw her off for the last time, meeting Jelka briefly and feelibg that nothing was wrong.

Interspersed among these flashbacks are glimpses into Leah and Miri's present, as Miri desperately tries to get in contact with the evasive corporation that had sent her wife to her doom, as Leah shifted and changed into something Miri no longer recognised, bleeding from her pores and gums, losing weight and spending increasingly more time in the bathroom.

At some point in your read-through, long after you're already neck deep in the story, you - and the characters - begin to question if their descent was actually an accident. By this point, though, Jelka is already long gone.

Jelka's death is very sudden and isn't made into a big deal during or after its reveal. The shock of someone having committed suicide via deep sea pressure never really hits our characters - which, while a little frustrating, serves the story well, in my opinion. They've been down here for months, isolated, alone, with literally no signs of any other life, despite how densely populated the ocean is known to be. Jelka had begin losing herself long before and one can only imagine how desensitised you would become in that situation. It also goes to show just how soon Leah and Matteo's transformation begins; they haven't even seen the eye yet before their humanity begins to slip.

Another thing that is never fully addressed, and honestly is kind of just dropped, is whether or not The Centre actually did intentionally drop them, leave them for 6 months, and then bring them back, or if it actually was a freak accident. It is heavily implied that this was intentional, and truthfully the fact that it is only ever implied wouldn't bother me so much were it not for The Centre just completely erasing itself from the face of the earth seemingly overnight.

To my understanding, The Centre is a megacorp of sea exploration; brand new and the first of its kind. Enigmatic, but really, all corporations are. Miri is able to contact them throughout the duration of the story, up until Leah's changes become undeniably apparent, at which point they somehow know to pack up shop and snap themselves away.

It could be argued that the therapist was involved in reporting, but unless they had kept Matteo, how would they have known something was going to go wrong to the point of asking the therapist to report back to begin with?

Also, what happened to Matteo? They resurfaced together and then were never brought up again, ever. I don't know, the Matteo thing just didn't sit right with me I guess.

My final issue is what the hell does Leah become? Obviously some sort of deep-sea creature, but what? Or does she just become a fish? Also what prompts this physical transformation? Presumably the giant Eldritch octopus they made eye contact with has something to do with it, but what exactly was never really clear to me.

I will say, though, Leah's last thought before resurfacing being Miri, and wanting to get back to her wife, was a special kind of devastating.

I hope Leah is happy out there in the ocean and I hope Miri makes a home out of her dead mother's house. I hope they visit each other often.

All in all, despite the questions I was left with, Our Wives Under The Sea turned out to be a fascinating and captivating read. I think it is 100% worth an initial read-through, but I doubt I will be reading it again.

[ill-try-to-do-book-reviews]

The Cabin at the End of the World

Paul Tremblay

RATING: 🕯🕯🕯🕯🕯 (5/5)

The Cabin at the End of the World is a horrifying tale of homophobia, cultism, and perhaps even Catholic guilt. It has a slow start, but when it picks up speed, it absolutely does not stop. No matter where you are in this book, you will not figure out the ending. You will find yourself questioning if maybe this little pseudo-cult is right, and you will wonder up until the very end about who, if anyone, is going to make it out of this story alive.

SUMMARY: "Seven-year-old Wen and her parents, Eric and Andrew, are vacationing at a remote cabin on a quiet New Hampshire lake. Their closest neighbors are more than two miles in either direction along a rutted dirt road.

One afternoon, as Wen catches grasshoppers in the front yard, a stranger unexpectedly appears in the driveway. Leonard is the largest man Wen has ever seen, but he is young, friendly, and he wins her over almost instantly. Leonard and Wen talk and play until Leonard abruptly apologizes and tells Wen, “None of what’s going to happen is your fault.” Three more strangers then arrive at the cabin carrying unidentifiable, menacing objects. As Wen sprints inside to warn her parents, Leonard calls out: “Your dads won’t want to let us in, Wen. But they have to. We need your help to save the world.”

Thus begins an unbearably tense, gripping tale of paranoia, sacrifice, apocalypse, and survival that escalates to a shattering conclusion, one in which the fate of a loving family and quite possibly all of humanity are entwined. The Cabin at the End of the World is a masterpiece of terror and suspense from the fantastically fertile imagination of Paul Tremblay."

MY DETAILED REVIEW (SPOILER WARNING):

This story is fucking gut-wrenching. There were times that I had to take a break from reading for my own sanity, despite how much I wanted to keep going until all of my questions were answered.

And all of your questions will not be answered. Is the apocalypse actually happening? Who fucking knows. But really, isn't that the point? It doesn't matter if the apocalypse is happening or not - because we will go on.

Normally, I'm not a reader pushed on by romance. I could normally not care less if the protagonists have somebody waiting for them back home - it just doesn't motivate me to read any faster than if I were already hooked. But Eric and Andrew's love for each other, and their love for Wen, it was a pretty big factor in my finishing of this book in 7 hours, 48 minutes. I wanted, needed, to know if their small little family would make it out alive. I couldn't bear the thought of little Wen being without one of her dads, or one of her dads being without his husband, or, gods forbid, her dads being without their daughter.

Wen's death was a gut punch. Not a wholly unexpected one, I admit, but still a heart shattering moment to know that the little girl they had fought so long and hard for had died. And, though I do regret to admit it, the fact that she died so unceremoniously.

A gruesome death befell everyone in our story, and narratively, it is rather fitting that Wen was shot, on accident, by a man who loved her and a man who lied to her and took advantage of her trust and naievity.

As much as I feel whether the apocalypse was real or not does not matter to the story, I also can't help but find myself making my own interpretations of whether or not it was. As a born Christian, now pagan, I found myself on Andrew's side for a majority of the book.

But what is all the more frightening is how I was also finding myself beginning to believe Leonard and his gang, just like Eric.

I made notes to myself throughout my reading that I was predicting Eric was going to give in and believe, at least partially out of Catholic guilt, once that second earthquake and tsunami hit. Finding myself to be partially right was vindicating, but finding that I am also susceptible to cult-like mentalities, especially on the basis of end-of-the-world, the-Rapture-is-here talk that is so engrained into my mine, was also a reminder. A reminder that no matter how sure you are of yourself, you are not immune to propaganda.

Anyways, as for whether I believe the apocalypse or not, no. I think that it was a religious nutjob who rallied other religious nutjobs. Granted, I cannot explain whether Redmond or O'Bannon was stalking Andrew or if it was n unfortunate coincidence that they were the ones at the cabin, or anything like that. There are questions I have leaving this book that I do not have enough evidence to base an idea or theory or solid answer off of.

All in all, The Cabin at the End of the World is a gut-wrenching story that had me biting my fingers in suspense from start to finish. I have a feeling it is going to be one of those books that you read once and the story sticks with you for the rest of your life. Regardless, a physical copy is in my future, because I loved this book from front to back.

[ill-try-to-do-book-reviews]

Ghost Eaters

Clay Mcleod Chapman

RATING: 🕯🕯🕯🔥 (3.5/5)

Ghost Eaters by Clay Mcleod Chapman is a metaphor masquerading as a paranormal horror. It has a wonderful premise and is executed quite well - though a bit lackluster at times. Some parts of the book will have you awake until 3am reading, reading, reading, while others may feel like they drag out just a bit too long. All in all I think this book is certainly worth a read, if only for the perspective on addiction that it offers, just maybe not a second. Not for me, at least.

SUMMARY: "Erin hasn’t been able to set a single boundary with her charismatic but reckless college ex-boyfriend, Silas. When he asks her to bail him out of rehab—again—she knows she needs to cut him off. But days after he gets out, Silas turns up dead of an overdose in their hometown of Richmond, Virginia, and Erin’s world falls apart.

Then a friend tells her about Ghost, a new drug that allows users to see the dead. Wanna get haunted? he asks. Grieving and desperate for closure with Silas, Erin agrees to a pill-popping “séance.” But the drug has unfathomable side effects—and once you take it, you can never go back."

MY DETAILED REVIEW (SPOILER WARNING)

It took me less than a day to read Ghost Eaters. According to the Libby app, it took me 6 hours and 48 minutes to be exact. The story it tells is a great one - grief, addiction, the dependancy of a toxic relationship, love and loss. The way that Silas and his mushrooms take over the Tobias' body and the entire house like a parasite, the parallels between them are amazing.

As a metaphor, the book is solid. It gives a perspective on addiction that while I cannot comment on as someone who has never had substance abuse issues, I can appreciate. This book I think will be hit or miss with readers, with some loving it and some being a bit ambivalent towards it, like myself.

All in all, it's not my personal vibe but it was an entertaining read. Very visual, sometimes viscerally so. I may get myself a physical copy some day, if only for the love I have of owning physical books.

[ill-try-to-do-book-reviews]

Dead Silence

S.A. Barnes

RATING: 🕯️🕯️🕯️🕯️🕯️ (5/5)

Dead Silence by S.A. Barnes is a gripping, terrifying sci-fi horror that will have you on the edge of your seat from start to finish. The plights of our unreliable narrator, set in the vast, empty expanse of space, causing you to be wary even of what you, yourself are reading, is an incredibly fun read. Every detail matters, and it is so fun to pick things up as you go and then piece the solution/explanations together alongside the characters.

SUMMARY: "A GHOST SHIP.

Claire Kovalik is days away from being unemployed—made obsolete—when her beacon repair crew picks up a strange distress signal. With nothing to lose and no desire to return to Earth, Claire and her team decide to investigate."

MY DETAILED REVIEW (SPOILER WARNING)

Dead Silence is an absolutely fantastic book that had me absolutely gripped by the throat from the moment the action picked up.

I must admit, there were times at the beginning where I was a little disinterested in pushing through and reading, but that only lasted the first 56 or so pages - honestly probably a little less. Once the action picked up ever so slightly, I was absolutely hooked.

At the first sight of the Aurora to the final pages of Kane and Claire agreeing to partner up in a new business venture, I was absolutely invested. The characters feel like real people and their danger feels like real and tangible danger.

As the ending approached, I could feel myself hoping, wondering, trying to piece together what the end was going to be. Would it be actual ghosts? Would it be mutiny? An alien bacteria that had infected the ship and set up a home in the brains of the passengers?

The end was a positively gut-wrenching mix of corporate greed, espionage, and, in fact, ghosts.

It's a book that is so well-written, I was left with lasting and vivid mental images from the words on the page. I was - and am - positively obsessed. This is definitely a book that I plan on getting a physical copy of.

[ill-try-to-do-book-reviews]

Such A Pretty Smile

Kristi DeMeester

RATING: 🕯🕯🕯🕯🔥 (4.5/5)

Such A Pretty Smile is a gripping novel with an incredibly powerful story. The entire book serves as one big metaphor, but it is not a metaphor that is difficult to unravel for those of us already familiar. It has its moments of alluding to more graphic things, but nothing so explicit that I feel it warrants a trigger warning.

This book took me a cumulative 7 hours to read, all spread over the course of about 8 days. Each time I picked it up, I found myself positively enraptured with the writing, the story unfolding before me. I allowed myself frequent breaks to prevent personal burnout but even when I wasn't directly consuming Kristi DeMeester's words, I was thinking about her characters.

SUMMARY: There’s something out there that’s killing. Known only as The Cur, he leaves no traces, save for the torn bodies of girls, on the verge of becoming women, who are known as trouble-makers; those who refuse to conform, to know their place. Girls who don’t know when to shut up.

2019: Thirteen-year-old Lila Sawyer has secrets she can’t share with anyone. Not the school psychologist she’s seeing. Not her father, who has a new wife, and a new baby. And not her mother—the infamous Caroline Sawyer, a unique artist whose eerie sculptures, made from bent twigs and crimped leaves, have made her a local celebrity. But soon Lila feels haunted from within, terrorized by a delicious evil that shows her how to find her voice—until she is punished for using it.

2004: Caroline Sawyer hears dogs everywhere. Snarling, barking, teeth snapping that no one else seems to notice. At first, she blames the phantom sounds on her insomnia and her acute stress in caring for her ailing father. But then the delusions begin to take shape—both in her waking hours, and in the violent, visceral sculptures she creates while in a trance-like state. Her fiancé is convinced she needs help. Her new psychiatrist waves her “problem” away with pills. But Caroline’s past is a dark cellar, filled with repressed memories and a lurking horror that the men around her can’t understand.

As past demons become a present threat, both Caroline and Lila must chase the source of this unrelenting, oppressive power to its malignant core. Brilliantly paced, unsettling to the bone, and unapologetically fierce, Such a Pretty Smile is a powerful allegory for what it can mean to be a woman, and an untamed rallying cry for anyone ever told to sit down, shut up, and smile pretty.

MY DETAILED REVIEW (SPOILER WARNING)

Despite being chronologically all over the place, Such A Pretty Smile has amazing pacing that lends itself well to the story it is telling.

Having gone in blind to the metaphor, I found myself suspicious of every man at play - Caroline's counselor, Lila's counselor, Daniel. This wariness played perfectly into the metaphor at hand - these men were the men I needed to be suspicious of. Just not as individual men.

Like I said, this metaphor is a familiar one to those who have lived it. Men taking strong, independant women and beating them, biting them into submission or ripping them to shreds for disobedience. Men who feel entitled to your body as a young woman, a young girl. And the way those around you deem you as crazy, or out of line, if you fight back. The way our mothers filled those roles of obedient wives out of fear. The way that we will try to fight for the independance they could never have.

All in all, Such A Pretty Smile is extremely worth your time. I will most certainly be trying to ascertain myself a physical copy, and I encourage you too, as well. Amazing feminist literature that should be on everyone's TBR.

[ill-try-to-do-book-reviews]

Tell Me I'm Worthless

Alison Rumfitt

RATING: 🕯🕯🕯🕯🕯 (5/5)

There are certainly nuances to this book that I, as a white, not-Jewish American, cannot pick up on. I will not comment definitively on things I do not understand. However, as a trans guy with a complex relationship to gender and sexuality, and a deep, deep love of horror, I love this book for all that it's worth - which is more than I can grasp.

Summary: Three years ago, Alice spent one night in an abandoned house with her friends, Ila and Hannah. Since then, Alice’s life has spiraled. She lives a haunted existence, selling videos of herself for money, going to parties she hates, drinking herself to sleep.

Memories of that night torment Alice, but when Ila asks her to return to the House, to go past the KEEP OUT sign and over the sick earth where teenagers dare each other to venture, Alice knows she must go.

Together, Alice and Ila must face the horrors that happened there, must pull themselves apart from the inside out, put their differences aside, and try to rescue Hannah, whom the House has chosen to make its own.

MY DETAILED REVIEW (SPOILER WARNING):

Tell Me I'm Worthless is an incredible book with incredible prose and layers upon layers of meaning. It speaks to capitalism, antisemitism, racism, transphobia, sexual assault, mental health, and so much more.

It is a book that I can see myself coming back to again and again, each time allowing me to peel back another layer of the story, another layer of the symbolism. It speaks to so many things and, in my opinion, its voice is full, and bold, and unwavering.

It does not let up. Tell Me I'm Worthless is full to the brim of gritty, gory detailing, extremely vivid descriptions that serve it rather than detract from it.

This book seemingly exposes the very foundations of Great Britain through the symbolism of the House, through the graffiti in its walls, through the way it utilises Hannah - the blonde, blue-eyed, cisgender, straight white woman, to form a Swastika. The quotes occasionally placed rather meticulously at the ends of chapters to really drive the points home.

The flowery, poetic language throughout the book, with crass, bold, and somewhat repulsive language sprinkled throughout, is, in my opinion, a positively amazing method of conveying the story.

All in all, Tell Me I'm Worthless is an amazing, hard hitting read. It is not for the faint of heart by any means, and deals with extremely heavy topics in a brash, concise manner coated among flowery language. If you feel you can stomach the themes handled within, I heavily recommend this book.

I will certainly be trying to get my hands on a physical copy sometime soon.

ENDING THOUGHTS (that I couldn't work into the above review):

The fact that this book begins with a trigger warning is something I have never seen before but that I deeply hope to see again. It was amazing.

Also, to see myself represented, in a way, in Harry, was an absolutely tear jerking experience. I don't see much trans guy representation myself and it was frankly amazing.