#malcolm devlin

[a-livingcorpse]

Excerpt from the book I'm reading that related to the world (or atleast U.S.A) now

"Funny, isn't it? You tell yourself that when the world ends, all of that nonsense will dry up. It will be like a purge of the benal, and all the trivia of the world will be the first down the plughole. But no, the same old shit flotes to the top without needing us to be there to witness it. Yesterday, the highlight of my day was seeing a group of junior chefs competing to see who could make the best cheeseburger; this morning there was a silent music video from a singer-songwriter with a furrowed brow.

It's all very safe and reassuring. Nobody's going to go crazy and shoot up a roomful of people because of a knitting demonstration.

At least, I don't think they will."

Book - And Then I Woke Up by Malcolm Devlin

[bekah-reading]

77/120

4/5

A library book.

This was interesting. The writing style was unique, it was told from first person but like the narrator is speaking in a group therapy session. It was nice.

I really enjoyed the propaganda and the conversations around it. It has a blurb from Mira Grant and now I really want to read her series Feed. The characters were very well done and each had their own personality, very easy to tell one from another.

This is one I definitely recommend going in knowing the bare minimum. Especially, since it is a short novella.

[blogthefiresidechats]

Latest haul today...

I got a chance to visit the bookstore today. I’ve been saving up my money since the beginning of the year and I got to make a run through the bookstore. I could have spent longer in there but the hubby was on a schedule so I kind of had to hurry. I did get some stuff that I’ve been looking for but I also found some other stuff that wasn’t exactly on my list either. When I’m normally browsing the…

[shvtter-bug]

June Reads

Summarizing the books I read this past June, my enjoyment of them, and the books I’m planning on reading this July!

I’m rather new to reviewing books outside of my own head so bear with these almost awful descriptions.

I read 6 books this past month that contained 1,399 pages total! Nearly every single one of these books contained dark, mysterious, or reflective themes.

Life Ceremony- Sayaka Murata

Life Ceremony was a very quick read for me, if I hadn’t only been reading when I had time between classes I’m certain I would’ve finished this book much faster. I rated this book a 4.5/5 stars and would highly recommend. I will say that the mood of this book can be all over the place, though it isn’t something that bothers me. Stories would range from eerie to somewhat disgusting and then to shocking. The stories that really stuck with me upon finishing were Life Ceremony, Eating the City, and Hatchling.

Eating the city was, by far, my favorite out of the collection. I found that the way Murata wrote about the characters past experiences were beautiful and almost made me miss a place I had never experiences. If you could only read one story out of the collection I would highly suggest this one.

You’ve Lost a Lot of Blood- Eric LaRocca

Due to the fact that I have already left my thoughts about this book on my blog I’m going to keep this short. This was my first 5 star read of 2024 and one that I would read again in a second.

I am obsessed with the formatting that LaRocca uses and I finished this book within 12 hours from starting it(this only being due to the fact that I was asleep for 10 of those hours). If you would like to go back and read my partial review please go ahead though note there are spoilers within!

This story follows a serial killer and his works including a short story, a series of poems, his personal journal, as well as transcriptions of audio recordings. We come to understand the inner workings of this man’s mind, how he views his relationships, his motive to kill, as well as his drive to write.

Come Closer- Sara Gran

Come Closer follows a woman as she navigates her own possession and tries to cope in a series of countless ways. We see her relationships shift, even the one she has with herself, as she explores a part of herself she’s had buried for a very long time.

There isn’t much good I can say about this book. I finished it in full and am glad that the authors writing style is good or I couldn’t have been able to sit through this. I was extremely into this from the beginning and only lost interest close to the end when I saw the direction that the author was taking this.

It almost felt like a pointless read. I didn’t feel good or bad after reading it more so just felt like I wasted two hours I could’ve spent on something else. The rating I ended up giving it was a 1.5/5 stars.

If you’re extremely into literature focused around possession and demons you’ll find this very interesting it just wasn’t a book that stuck for me.

Spider-Gwen, Volume 0: Most Wanted- Robbi Rodriquez

3.75/5 stars. It was a comic book related to the spiderverse. I enjoyed it. Not much else to say.

And Then I Woke Up- Malcolm Devlin

The exploration of the impact that the media has on our minds is impactful, but I wish the twist wasn’t given away within the first chapter of the book. I feel like the impact would’ve been larger.

This book would be a very good intro to the effects that media can have on the mind. If certain language wasn’t as vulgar the ideal audience for this would be middle schoolers/young high schoolers.

Without giving much away we follow our main character deal with the fallout of an apocalypse. He builds relationships with other survivors through a first person perspective as he relays his story to the audience. An interesting take on the unreliable narrator. 3.5/5 was my rating.

My Year of Rest and Relaxation- Ottessa Moshfegh

The first thing that comes to mind is the unbelievable, seemingly forced resolution that was at the end of this book. I never had this book on my To Be Read List, but when I was it for 25¢ at the thrift store I figured I would pick it up and give it a read.

It was fine. Moshfegh is skilled at writing unlikable characters while still giving you a sense of sympathy for them even when they can’t feel it for themselves. I can’t say much about how I felt without giving the entire story away, but I understand how this book has gained so much popularity. Another read that left me feeling disappointed that I would ever listen to the suggestions of booktok.

July To Be Read List(some of these I’ve already finished but I’m throwing it in anyways)

The Goldfinch-Donna Tartt

Mysterious Skin- Scott Heim

The October Country- Ray Bradbury

Dreamseller- Brandon Novak

A Certain Hunger- Chelsea G. Summers

Factotum- Charles Bukowski

Below is my StoryGraph! Feel free to follow along with my journey!

[quotian]

“No, Spence, the're monsters. Literally. They're eating the customers.” I looked at her. “They're not eating the customers,” I said. “They are! Jesus, Spence, what do you think that noise is? People are screaming.” And she was right, they were. Or at least they were in that moment. As soon as she told me what I was supposed to be hearing, I heard it. The clatter and conversation of the restaurant lunch rush was immediately replaced with the worst kind of animal noises; the smell of baked pizza crust and melted cheese was substituted completely with the unmistakeable smell of rotten meat. Macey spoke and the world clarified as though her description it served as a corrective lens. and then i woke up - malcolm devlin

[agaypanic]

think i might start posting my character playlists (the songs, not actual playlist links bc all my playlists are private lol) on my masterlists, would yall be interested in that? (will probably do it whether people want it or not teehee)

[nerds-yearbook]

A 75-year-old successful business man made a deal with the Devil to travel back into his past to the year 1910. He was upset to learn that despite looking 30 in the past physically he was still 75 and probably wouldn't live long enough to see his financial plans through. All his plans ended up as failures and he was barely able to return to the future with nothing to his name. Worse, due to alterations in his past, he was now a janitor and his former janitor was now the owner of his company. ("Of Late I Think of Cliffordville", The Twilight Zone, TV)

[emile-hides]

Read a short story today that's world was so fascinating that I wish it was longer but if it had been any longer I wouldn't have read it cause it was in first person and I can't read first person for more than like 3 hours but also my GOD the world is fascinating I want to know more so badly let me back in the spaaaaaace

[heartfullofleeches]

Reaper Darling meeting my immortal boys- (Reapers don't really exist in their universe, but I thought it'd be funny especially with Silas. For those unaware, Silas' death was a case of accidental asphyxiation while... pleasuring himself with a belt)

-

Reaper Darling: So let me get this straight - you all faced horrible demises and yet you still roam the earth?

Silas: Not me- my death was the best experience of my life!

Reaper Darling: We'll get to you. I have to have you in my records somewhere... Mal... I presume it's sort for Malcolm. Says here you were infected with some type of parasite? I guess that explains the feathers...

Mal: You are correct on all accounts. Pleasure to meet you.

Reaper Darling: Devlin - Poisoned by a spiteful relative and buried before your body even turned cold.

Devlin: Right here with the trauma to prove it, babes. How much information you got on me in that little book of yours? If you need my number I can pen it down real quick.

Reaper Darling: Maybe some other time.... Silas... It says here that you ...... [looks closer at the page] ....

Silas: Heheh.... What's it say? [Reaches out to grab Darling's notebook]

Reaper Darling, taking ten steps back: Please don't touch me.

[tyresdeg]

what books indycar drivers are reading!

or were on media day in january 2025

Nolan Siegel

On Tyranny: Twenty Lessons from the Twentieth Century by Timothy D. Snyder

Callum Ilott

The 48 Laws of Power by Robert Greene

Santino Ferrucci

A.J. Foyt - Biography Volume 1

Josef Newgarden

The Art of War by Sun Tzu

The Subtle Art of Not Giving A Fuck by Mark Manson

The Ride of a Lifetime by Robert Iger

Devlin DeFrancesco

Greenlights by Matthew McConaughey

Scott McLaughlin

James Patterson’s Alex Cross Series

Scott Dixon

Elon Musk by Walter Isaacson

David Malukas

Greenlights by Matthew McConaughey

Marcus Armstrong

The Science of Meditation: How to Change Your Brain, Mind and Body by Daniel Goleman and Richard Davidson

Outliers by Malcolm Gladwell

N/A but asked: Lundgaard, Shwartzman, Rasmussen, Abel

[bigcats-birds-and-books]

Books of 2024: December Wrap-Up.

So I had High Ambitions for December, forgetting that it was, in fact, December™, and forgetting that I was behind on gift knitting, and that typing a manuscript takes Longer Than I Think It Will, Every Time. Also, I played through Alan Wake (OG) with my brother, and then I watched him play chunks of II as a Sibling Bonding Activity, which was fun! But it definitely also Took Time haha.

I did make it through my "24 in 2024" list by the 31st, though! Feeling very accomplished on that front--everything I read this month came off that list. The list worked well for me (I'm a mood reader, but a Targeted Mood Reader; if I have Too Many Options, I get whelmed, so carving my entire TBR down into smaller bite sized pieces helps a lot!), and I'm excited to make another one for next year.

Photos and/or reviews liked below:

DAWN - ★★★ Got this one in a translation subscription box (perhaps now defunct)--it's not the sort of thing I'd usually pick up, but I did have a Turkish Writer Phase back in college, so I was interested when it was delivered to me specially. Very psychological and set in a historical context I am SUPER not familiar with (1970s Turkey), very brutal, very fluid POV transitions, very timely (and I didn't realize how much pieces of it burrowed into my brain until sitting down to write this wrap-up a month later). If you're into lit fic and can stomach the content warnings, definitely check this out!

HOW TO BE EATEN - ★★★½ I had more fun with this one than anticipated! Made me laugh, but also didn't flinch from ugly shit. Very readable, neat takes on modernized fairy tales and media, and I liked guessing at the short scenes between the "Week" sections--neatly structured book!

THE SPIDER AND HER DEMONS - ★★★½ Another good time!! Breakneck pacing at the beginning (almost to the point of absurdity, but maybe that's just how YA is these days?? unclear) and then it weirdly slowed WAY down once we got to something resembling Loadbearing Plot (the "witnessed eating a man" thing referenced on the jacket), but I enjoyed it a lot overall! Vaguely reminiscent of The Locked Tomb in unexpected ways (more on this in the linked review!).

SELF-PORTRAIT WITH NOTHING - ★★★★½ REALLY liked this one--just my speed of Weird and Fucked Up and Funnier Than Expected (ah yes: my trifecta lol). Interesting take on alternate realities and very much heart crimes: The Family Edition. Good shit, check it out (brace for on-page vet office visits though. and like. abandonment of human child).

UNEXPECTED PLACES TO FALL FROM, UNEXPECTED PLACES TO LAND - ★★★ A handful of good stories in here, and I liked the bridge novella, but I wish they were more Interconnected than Anthology.

Under the Cut: A Note About ~*★Stars★*~

Historically, I have been Very Bad™ about assigning things Star Ratings, because it's so Vibes Heavy for me and therefore Contingent Upon my Whims. (Example: I don't like that stars are Odd, because that makes three the midpoint and things are rarely so truly mid for me)(I have hacked my way around this with a ½). Here is, generally, how I conceptualize stars:

★ - This was Bad. I would actively recommend that you do NOT read this one, no redeeming qualities whatsoever, not worth the slog. Save Yourself, It's Too Late For Me. Book goes in the garbage (donate bin).

★★ - This was Not Good. I would not recommend it, but it wasn't a total waste or wash--something in here held my interest/kept my attention/sparked some joy. I will not be rereading this ever. Save Yourself (Or Join Me In Suffering, That Seems Like A Cool Bonding Activity).

★★★ - This was Good/Fine/Okay/Meh. I don't care about this enough to recommend it one way or another. Perfectly serviceable book, held my interest, I probably enjoyed myself (or at least didn't actively loathe the reading). I don't have especially strong feelings. You probably don't need to save yourself from this one--if it sounds like your jam, give it a shot! Just didn't resonate with me particularly powerfully. I probably won't reread this unless I'm after something in particular.

★★★½ - I liked this! I'll probably recommend it if I know it matches someone's vibes or specific requests, but I didn't commit to a star rating on Goodreads. More likely to reread, but not guaranteed.

★★★★ - I really enjoyed this!! I would recommend it (sometimes with caveats about content warnings or such--I tend to like weird fucked up funny shit, and I don't have many hard readerly NO's). Not a perfect book for me by any means, but Very Good. This is something I would reread! Join me!!

★★★★★ - I LOVED THE SHIT OUT OF THIS, IT REWIRED MY BRAIN, WILL RECOMMEND TO ANYONE AND EVERYONE AT THE SLIGHTEST PROVOCATION (content warning caveats still apply--see 4-star disclaimer). Excellent book, I'll reread it regularly, I'll buy copies for all my friends, I'll try to convince all of Booklr to read it, PLEASE join me!!

[batmanisagatewaydrug]

reading update: October 2024

hello, ahoy, and welcome to my October reading recap.

I made a real effort to focus on spooOOOoooky books this month, in the name of the season; you may even recall that I started early and read some spooky stories at the tail end of September. (read Carmen Maria Machado's comic The Low, Low Woods, btw.)

I've never been great at sticking to a theme but I think it helped that what gets classified as "horror" can vary greatly, so I never really got bored of the genre. I did get disappointed more than once by how Not Spooky some of these books turned out to be, but that's a totally different question.

right at the end of the month you'll notice a couple of outliers with Caped Crusade and Luster, which happened entirely because I was out of library books and on the road for a conference, so I was reading what I could get my hands on! I've been working on rereading Caped Crusade on and off for a couple months and I bought Luster at a cool indie bookstore in the town I was visiting and then inhaled most of it on the way home.

ANYWAY. to the books!

And Then I Woke Up (Malcolm Devlin, 2022) - this is a novella with an interesting spin on the zombie story, where the "zombies" are actually people who have started suffering hallucinations that fill them with paranoia and force them see other people as monsters. so, like, there were never any REAL monsters, but a woman looked at her young son and saw him as a cannibalistic monster, so she killed him. so who's the real monster? it's very deep. this story's explanation for this is "the narrative," an idea so strong that it simply seems to take hold of anyone who's around a sufficiently charismatic ringleader who drives them to join in their delusions and kill innocents who don't share their worldview. it's not a super subtle zombie metaphor, but I guess very few zombie metaphors are. it's fine.

Through the Woods (Emily Carroll, 2014) - I truly wholeheartedly wish I had more to say about this but it's just a very charming creepy collection of comics. my favorite was the one that was the scariest, involving humans getting taken over by body-snatching worm monsters, but on the whole it was a very minor creepy factor. the art's great the whole way through.

Happy Medium (Sarah Adler, 2024) - Happy Medium is October's romance novel as picked by my patreonites, and I will admit: my hopes were not high going in. a conwoman posing as a psychic clashing with a skeptical hottie goat farmer didn't ping me as a great mix, but honestly? HONESTLY? it kind of served. there was a much more well-rounded emotional core to this book than I often encounter in my romance novels; at risk of sounding like a cornball it genuinely had a lot of heart. the conwoman is actually extremely charming, I was rooting for her in a big way, and her emotional journey goes so far beyond just falling in love with the goat farmer. I'll happily claim Happy Medium as my #1 romance of the year unless a challenger arises in the next two months, but it's not looking likely.

The Ones That Got Away (Stephen Graham Jones, 2010) - this is a collection of Graham's short stories that was published long before he became a huge name in horror with books like The Only Good Indians and My Heart Is a Chainsaw. and as much as I hate to say it, I think I personally prefer his longer form fiction. none of these short stories were bad, per se, and they're incredibly stylized and polished, but I think I like Jones' work a lot more when it has time to simmer out. I may have also been biased by the fact that I was desperately seeking something scary to read, because while Jones plays with some pretty narsty concepts, the horror tends not to hit until a last page reveal that recontextualizes everything that's come before. which is cool! but not scaring me as much as I wish it was.

The Salt Grows Heavy (Cassandra Khaw, 2023) - a lot of people told me I should read this because it stars a killer mermaid and a plague doctor, which are two aesthetic archetypes I love, and I will give this to Cassandra Khaw: I liked this a lot more than their other book, Nothing But Blackened Teeth. which is clearing a very low bar, since I didn't really like that book at all, but I do think Salt is genuinely a pretty marked improvement. the prose is still kind of torturously overwrought in many places and I desperately wish that Khaw would put the thesaurus away, but there's like. a Concept here. the core is fun.

Tell Me I'm Worthless (Alison Rumfitt, 2021) - this book is by far the scariest I read, because the horror is hatred and bigotry and a fucked up, evil house that brings out the very worst of everyone who steps inside of it. this book gets so fucked up and bloody and downright nasty in its exploration of the characters and the underlying bigotries that turn them against each other and drive them apart. I don't want to spoil anything, but the book follows a white trans woman named Alice and her mixed race, cis ex-girlfriend Ila. in the past Alice and Ila entered the evil house with their friend Hannah; that ended with Hannah dead and missing and Alice and Ila both scarred and traumatized, each certain that they were raped by the other. so that's what this book is like! not a lighthearted undertaking, but one that I could. not. put. down.

A Sunny Place for Shady People (Mariana Enríquez, trans. Megan McDowell 2024) - what is there to say? Enríquez is my short story queens, and her new release absolutely lived up to the precedent set for me by The Dangers of Smoking in Bed, which was originally published in 2009 but not translated into English until 2021. this collection is sooo aptly named, because many of the stories are obsessed with the terror of places: hotels haunted by memories, neighborhoods filled with ghosts, junkyards where bodies are hidden, towns abandoned and taken over by something sinister. also, completely detached from the quality of the writing, this book has one of the most striking covers I've encountered this year. the screaming yellow cover and bold purple text looked SO COOL under the purple string lights in my bedroom, which was a little +1 to my mood every time I saw it :)

Thirst (Marina Yuszczuk, trans. Heather Cleary 2024) - I think if I had to pick a favorite book from my spooktober reading, Thirst would edge Tell Me I'm Worthless out by just a hair, because I'm just SUCH a sucker for a modern gothic. this novel is split into two chunks. the first is narrated by a vampire (hinted to be one of Dracula's infamous brides) who flees the Old World and crosses the sea to find safety in a young Buenos Aires, where she struggles to figure out how to slake her thirst and escape from loneliness while avoiding detection in a modernizing world. ultimately she seals herself away in a crypt to escape the relentless pace of change around her, and that's when our perspective shifts. here we join a modern woman with a young son, an ex husband, and a dying mother, who's struggling under the pressure of grief as she watches her mother waste away. she ends up accidentally reawakening the vampire from the first half of the book, and you can imagine things get weirder from there. honestly, for me, the part of this book that's most brilliant is the latter half and it's deep meditation on grief, but the historical portion of the book also plays the vampire gothic to the hilt. delicious!

The Caped Crusade: Batman and the Rise of Nerd Culture (Glen Weldon, 2016) - this is a really fun piece of pop culture history, tracking how Batman came to be DC's little #1 it boy alongside the developing prominence of nerds and fandom as a cultural force to be reckoned with. as I said above, this was a reread for me, because I wanted to circle back now that I've actually read most of the major comic events discussed in the book. Weldon weaves between Batman in comics, TV, and movies to examine on how one portrayal influences another - for instance: the goofy '66 TV series saw a huge backlash in comics, which went way dark to reinforce a grim and serious Batman for 'real' fans who objected to the show making Batman a joke to much of the normie population - and I think that's a really neat lineage to trace. while I think Weldon is sometimes a bit too transparent with his own disdain for certain adaptations, he overall has an extremely levelheaded approach to Batfandom and a conversationally informative approach that I really enjoy. of particular note is the fact that Weldon is himself a gay man, making him one of the only writers I trust to talk about why he personally dislikes Joel Schmacher's movies without getting homophobic about it.

Luster (Raven Leilani, 2020) - this book!!! this was one of three novels recommended to me by Bonnie at Snowbound Books, and Bonnie if you are on this website I owe you my LIFE because you were 100% correct. I was obsessed from the very first line and it only gets better from there; Leilani's prose is painting a searing, witty Sistine Chapel to render her protagonist's miserable life in vivid color and detail. the short version is that our 23 year old hot mess finds herself jobless and homeless and ends up moving in with her married boyfriend who's 23 years her senior, where she forms a powerfully weird connection with his rage-filled wife and develops a bond with the couple's nerdy adopted daughter, as the two of them are the only Black women in the excessively white neighborhood. (spoiler alert: she also realizes that her married boyfriend is a fucking loser.) it's a simple enough premise but the execution is bananas in its flair. I couldn't believe this is Leilani's first and so far only novel; if she ever drops another I'll drag myself through barbed wire to get my hands on it.

Juniper & Thorn (Ava Reid, 2022) - I first became aware of this novel via twitter thread of Reid's that made its way to tumblr, in which Reid bemoaned being harangued by readers who were shocked that her dark fairy tale retelling had, you know, dark shit in it. having now read the book, I have to say: these people are fucking pussies. going into this book I was under the impression that there was full on-page father/daughter rape happening, which is actually NOT the case, so you can breathe easy if incest is a hard no for you. what's actually here is a wizard dad who's emotionally abusive, non-incestuous sexual abuse in the backstories of the main character and her love interest, some moderately explicit consensual sex, some bulimia, and [spoiler alert!] admittedly a lot more cannibalism than expected. it's not a lighthearted romp but it's also like, come on. come on. grow up. in terms of the actual book, rather than its controversy, I didn't LOVE it but I'm still compelled enough by the world building (particularly Jewish author Reid's Hueli people, who are a fairly obvious stand-in for Jews down to people claiming that they have horns and using phrenology to prove the have an unfair advantage at making money) that I'm going to check out Reid's earlier novel, The Wolf and the Woodsman, a novel set in the same world. it felt a little repetitive in places and the characters were largely pretty predictable, both of which may be a byproduct of trying to encapsulate the vibe of a classic fairy tale, but I had a good time reading it.

[cover-art-showdown]

Round Three, Match XXXV

And Then I Woke Up (Malcolm Devlin), Tor Books 2022. Cover by Samuel Araya.

When Among Crows (Veronica Roth), Tor Books 2024. Cover by Eleonor Piteira.

[tortoisesshells]

for the character meme — (Edmund) Burke Devlin?

How I feel about this character:

He's awful. I adore him. I think he must spend the equivalent of California's GDP on hair product. He's a liar who proudly advertises it, a monster who thinks making the people around him flinch and squirm is fun. Most of Collinsport deserves to kidney-punch him, except Roger, who got off surprisingly easy for sending Burke to prison for five years, marrying his fiance, and bribing one of his oldest and only friends into betraying him. He's Ahab, he's Heathcliff, he's so shameless as to read The Count of Monte Cristo onscreen because, on Dark Shadows, plagiarism is a way of life. Early DS doesn't work without him - he's part of the original sin that created the conditions of the first 210 episodes: a man who was punished for Roger Collins's crime, and whose determination to get even drives much of the plot before the vampire shows up. He's brazenly bad, and says it's because of the way he was treated; everyone who knew him before, though, says he hasn't really changed except in his economic status - he's rotten by circumstance, by his own choices, and doesn't really care too much who or what he destroys to get even with Roger for railroading him, and Collinsport for letting it happen.

All the people I ship romantically with this character:

Roger and Vicki, chiefly, either together or separately: He and Roger are negative images of each other, and have what the other wants - Roger is a Collins, has generational wealth, Collinwood, good breeding and taste, and the kind of familial respect Burke can't buy even with his ill-gotten fortune; Burke does a note-perfect performance of midcentury American masculinity, and has no trouble going after who and what he wants while Roger finds himself trapped and mired, perpetually the inadequate heir playing second fiddle to his sister, and whose son isn't even his. They're obsessed with screwing each other over and have been even before Burke tried to marry Laura in 1956, and the worst decision the showrunners made about their characters was putting them in a plot-mandated get-along tee shirt after Barn's arrival. Put Malcolm Mamorstein back in charge and give them shotguns again! this is my solemn campaign promise to you all. He's the bad-future version of Vicki, in a way: Vicki's a poor kid employed by the Collins family, like he was a decade ago; the Collinses are very willing to suspect her, berate her, and throw her under the bus to get what they want - not quite as dramatically as Burke was at the manslaughter trial, but the signs are there. They have similar moral systems - Vicki, while she does have a functioning moral compass (unlike Burke, who's certainly lost his along the way), ultimately judges people based on how they treat her - the Collinses have done real evil and she knows it, but she'll continue to be loyal to them because they've been good to her. ("good".) Burke's immensely self-centered - either you're with him or against him - it's the same system, more dramatically stated? He's reflected behind her in the dark train window in the opening! He's a threat, he's what she was, he's what she could be, if she's not careful. Also, I think Vicki temporarily gobstopping him by saying she'll go up to his hotel room with him if he gives her his investigator's report on her past is really funny. Man absolutely thought he'd succeeded in scaring little miss governess off, but alas. I think his relationship with Laura is interesting but it's not good for either of them? He wants her back because he evidently hasn't read The Great Gatsby, and because he wants to make Roger suffer -marrying Laura (and taking his son back) is a great way to do it. Both of them have metaphorically (and literally, in Laura's case) died, and they're incapable of being the people they were ten years ago when they were engaged, and they're okay with using and threatening each other to get what they want now. Also, Burke's crush on Liz is (1) real and (2) hilarious. He's fucked her brother, he's dated her daughter just to get one over the family, but if she told him to bark, I firmly believe he would. As Roger says, Devlin has a tremendous range.

My non-romantic OTP for this character:

I don't know that this counts because they're not even friends, but I'm fascinated by his and Bill's relationship: Bill's the only man in Collinsport Burke respects in the slightest - both in Burke's gratitude over Bill giving him his first real job (granted. possibly in contravention of child labor laws.) and treating him fairly while he was working for the Collinses in the 50s, and Burke's sense of Bill's essential fair-handedness endure despite Bill evidently not lodging too strong a protest against Roger railroading Burke in 1956. For Bill's part, he's clear that he thinks Burke is fundamentally untrustworthy (and he's not wrong!) but someone he's obligated to help, both out of a sense that it's the only way to keep Liz and Carolyn clear of Burke's revenge quest, and, dimly, it might be the right thing to do. Also, if I'm allowed to play armchair psychiatrist, Bill was a well-respected man and successful fishing captain who took on a kid with a massive chip on his shoulder about his poor, sickly dad who still managed to beat the hell out of him. There's no way that Bill, Collinsport's patron saint of underparented children and the questionably functional adults they turned into, wasn't some kind of a replacement father figure.

My unpopular opinion about this character:

Was it anti-feminist of him to pick a barfight with Willie, a man who repeatedly threatened to sexually assault Vicki, and who faced no legal or social consequences for nakedly telegraphing he'd rape Vicki and Carolyn because of Liz's coerced interference? According to some absolute braintrust takes I've seen, yes.

One thing I wish would happen / had happened with this character in canon:

He would have been a great werewolf. I mean. Not for anyone in Collinsport, but it would have entertained me immensely: (1) before Barnabas shows up, he's the one with the dog motif; (2) he ended up identical to Jeremiah Collins somehow, and Quentin Collins couldn't keep his pants on to save his life, so why not assume direct descent?; (3) rage issues spilling out of his ears. Perhaps he'd enjoy ripping throats out too much, but alas. There I'd be with my bucket of popcorn, unconvincingly saying stop. no. that's morally reprehensible.

Give me a Character!

[quotian]

For a moment, I wanted to ask her how she knew. What if we weren't in the particular horror movie she clearly thought we were in? What if the rules were different now this was actually happening? I didn't know it then, but it was the final moment of clarity that might have saved me from the narrative. I didn't say anything, I let it pass until it was forgotten. I stood there while the restaurant fireballed at the far end of the tarmac. All that grease and oil, all that flour and salt. You should have seen it. It burned so bright and beautiful like a chain that had been tethering us being cut loose and free. and then i woke up - malcolm devlin

[thereadingchallengechallenge]

Read in November 2024

I do not know how I managed to read 25 books in November? I feel like i was too busy for that? yet here we are

my favourites were the Monk & Robot duology by Becky Chambers, Compound Fracture by Andrew Joseph White, Cuckoo by Gretchen Felker-Martin and We Can Be Heroes by Kyrie McCauley :3

Series read: Archie & Gretchen series by Chelsea Cain

Heart Sick - 3/5 (audio)

Sweetheart - 4/5 (audio)

Evil at Heart - 3/5 (audio)

Monk & Robot by Becky Chambers

A Psalm for the Wild-Built - 5/5 (audio)

A Prayer for the Crown-Shy - 4/5 (audio)

Belladonna trilogy by Adalyn Grace

Belladonna - DNF

Graves Glen trilogy by Erin Sterling

The Wedding Witch - 5/5 (audio)

Backlog books:

Breaker by Kat Ellis - DNF

Briar Girls by Rebecca Kim Wells - DNF

Familiar authors:

Don’t Let the Forest In by CG Drews - 4/5

Cuckoo by Gretchen Felker-Martin - 5/5 (audio)

My Best Friend’s Exorcism by Grady Hendrix - 4/5 (audio)

Swordheart by T Kingfisher - 3/5 (audio)

A House With Good Bones by T Kingfisher - 5/5 (audio)

We Can Be Heroes by Kyrie McCauley - 5/5

All the Dead Lie Down by Kyrie McCauley - 4/5

Bad Graces by Kyrie McCauley - 2/5

The Pairing by Casey McQuiston - 5/5 (audio)

Compound Fracture by Andrew Joseph White - 5/5 (audio)

Other reads:

Our Wives Under the Sea by Julia Armfield - 4/5 (audio)

The Patient by Jasper DeWitt - 2/5

And Then I Woke Up by Malcolm Devlin - 3/5

Bitterthorn by Kat Dunn - 3/5

The Wilderness of Girls by Madeline Claire Franklin - 5/5 (audio)

We Used to Live Here by Marcus Kliewer - 3/5 (audio)

That’s Not My Name by Megan Lally - 4/5 (audio)

The Dispossessed by Ursula K Le Guin - unrated (audio)

README.txt by Chelsea Manning - 4/5 (audio)