#thriller book club

[desdasiwrites]

– Amanda DeWitt, Aces Wild: A Heist

[nerdby]

Just want to share these interviews with Chuck Palahniuk, the author of the horror novel Fight Club, about his thoughts on toxic masculinity and his book being used as an incel Bible. Long-story short, the dude comes off as a pretentious asshole who is completely devoid of artist integrity -- he doesn't give a shit about toxic masculinity or the impact his work has on society, negative or otherwise. He is the living embodiment of the phrase rich, white, cisgender gays will be the end of the queer community.

[oosahwtf]

For our second book for Book Club @zxromance chose Final Girl Support Group by Grady Hendrix. I wasn’t very into this book so my report likely won’t be very in depth on this one as I don’t feel I have much to add. There also will not be any major spoilers in this report.

Final Girl Support Group by Grady Hendrix is sort of a thriller novel based on the final girl trope from slasher movies. A final girl is the last girl left alive in a horror movie/book. There are some trigger warnings for murder, suicide, and general gore. It wasn’t very triggering or sad although the main characters are entirely consumed and driven by PTSD. It was a very easy read vocabulary wise but I found the characters so insufferable that I had to put the book down multiple times. The first half of the book was super annoying to me and didn’t really make a lot of sense, but the second half was pretty good.

I’ll start with my positives about the book although there isn’t a lot to say. I did enjoy the pacing as it was very fast moving and there was constantly something important happening. Although most of the plot was extremely predictable there was a nice little twist at the end that I did enjoy. I think this story would be a lot more enjoyable if told through a movie or tv show.

I have quite a bit of criticisms about this novel but I’ll try not to give too much detail as I don’t want to include spoilers. I found the characters so unlikeable and unrelatable that the book was almost unreadable for me. The only reason I didn’t put it down immediately was because of book club. I typically enjoy having an unlikeable main character if there is a purpose to it but I just felt there was no reason for how horribly annoying the characters were. I also felt a few events happened in the plot that didn’t really make sense and were completely unnecessary. Overall, I really liked the concept of this novel but I felt that it wasn’t well executed and would do better as visual media.

[haveyoureadthispoll]

Chuck Palahniuk showed himself to be his generation’s most visionary satirist in this, his first book. Fight Club’s estranged narrator leaves his lackluster job when he comes under the thrall of Tyler Durden, an enigmatic young man who holds secret after-hours boxing matches in the basement of bars. There, two men fight "as long as they have to." This is a gloriously original work that exposes the darkness at the core of our modern world.

[oli-reads]

𝐑𝐞𝐯𝐢𝐞𝐰𝐢𝐧𝐠 "𝐀 𝐆𝐨𝐨𝐝 𝐆𝐢𝐫𝐥'𝐬 𝐆𝐮𝐢𝐝𝐞 𝐓𝐨 𝐌𝐮𝐫𝐝𝐞𝐫" 𝐛𝐲 𝐇𝐨𝐥𝐥𝐲 𝐉𝐚𝐜𝐤𝐬𝐨𝐧

“I’ve already learned my lesson here: when you catch someone lying about a murdered girl, you go ask them why.”

Title A Good Girl's Guide To Murder

Author Holly Jackson

Genre Mystery; Thriller; YA

Pages 433

THIS REVIEW HAS A COUPLE OF SPOILERS, NOTHING TOO SIGNIFICANT.

Hello fellow readers! What I have in my paws today is a review of "A Good Girl's Guide To Murder" by Holly Jackson! This is a YA mystery-thriller with a lot of twists and turns, investigation entry logs, maps, etc, which allow you to get into the whole investigative vibe!

Reading Flow ★★★★★

Writing ★★★★★

Plot ★★★★

Characters ★★★★

Spicy none

“But sometimes remembering isn’t for yourself, sometimes you do it just to make someone else smile. Those lies were allowed.”

Goodreads rating 4.33★ My rating 4.5★

This one had me hooked asf. I went from not wanting to put it down, to reaching the final chapters and not wanting to continue it because I was enjoying myself too much to finish it. 😂

*SPOILER ALERT* I really enjoyed the whole plot and was excited for most of it but I was a little sad and confused with Barney's death. I don't think it was necessary and it actually bummed me out quite a lot.

Aside from that I really was at the edge of my seat at the end of each chapter as the investigation got more and more captivating, I just HAD TO KNOW what happened and so I found it a very easy-to-read book because it flows naturally. It mentions various subjects like mental health, substance use, sexual assault and at some point even racism. It has romance happening in the background but it's never the focus and aside from the characters interactions you don't see much mention of it.

“He kissed her, and she glowed with that feeling. The one with wings. “You bring the rain down on them, Pip.” “I will.”

This book will have a tv show adaptation some time soon! Shooting has already wrapped up yet we don't have a date yet. I'm both excited and scared for this because, well, we know how hard it is to capture a book's magic and expectation, but at least it's not a movie. I think it has more potential if we have several episodes to explore the story.

“women can be just as dangerous as men.”

Anyway, if you made it this far thank you for reading this review! I'll leave you with the synopsis if you'd like to take a look, as well as it's Goodreads link. See you soon! 𓃠

If you'd like, follow Oli's instagram page!

SYNOPSIS

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/40916679-a-good-girl-s-guide-to-murder

Everyone in Fairview knows the story.

Pretty and popular high school senior Andie Bell was murdered by her boyfriend, Sal Singh, who then killed himself. It was all anyone could talk about. And five years later, Pip sees how the tragedy still haunts her town.

But she can't shake the feeling that there was more to what happened that day. She knew Sal when she was a child, and he was always so kind to her. How could he possibly have been a killer?

Now a senior herself, Pip decides to reexamine the closed case for her final project, at first just to cast doubt on the original investigation. But soon she discovers a trail of dark secrets that might actually prove Sal innocent . . . and the line between past and present begins to blur. Someone in Fairview doesn't want Pip digging around for answers, and now her own life might be in danger.

[onemorechapterandcupofcoffee]

An Unwanted Guest

Sheri Lapena

Follow the story of a group of guests and hotel staff as they navigate being snowed in at a remote inn with a murderer among them. This book was a very enjoyable read. There are many twists that will keep you on your toes, and the ending will not be what you expect. 4.5/5 would read again.

[unl1f3-x-c0ll3cts]

A new Monster High YA book is in the works by Tiffany Schmidt!

it is said to be cannon the the G1 world!

…tho is seems like so much is happening and many characters are in intense danger!?!

edit: the book is available for preorder on amazon!!

What do yall think?

The synopsis:

When a horrific loss throws Monster High into a state of grave upheaval, Draculaura and the other ghouls find themselves coping in different ways. Cleo and her family sense opportunity in the mayhem, grasping at control and leaving the rest of the ghouls' loyalties divided.

For her part, the chaos at school is making Draculaura sick. She feels more exhausted by the day, and she finds escape only by slipping away to the cemetery to pore over her mom's old journals. It's there that she meets Poe, a handsome human harboring some darkness of his own. Soon Draculaura finds herself caught in an impossible web of lies. If her ghoulfriends find out she's fallen for a normie, they'll freak. And if Poe discovers she's a vampire, his monster-hunting dad may have a stake in the matter.

Meanwhile, dangerous events have begun plaguing the halls of Monster High. The gargoyles stage a mutiny, and the water in the swimming pool boils while Lagoona is swimming laps. When the magical protections around the school borders falter and a group of normies stumble onto campus, Draculaura and the other ghouls know something needs to be done before Monster High becomes Monster Die.

But there's a secret about Draculaura that no one-not Poe, the other ghouls, or even she-was aware of until now: a secret tied to the school's very marrow. When Draculaura and Ghoulia uncover ancient texts that reveal the full implications of her identity, Draculaura is forced to make an impossible choice that will alter her identity forever.

Will her loyalties to Monster High determine all their fates? Or will Draculaura succumb to a dangerous passion that makes her feel more ... alive than she ever has?

credit to cleosnile for sourcing photos and the books blurb/summary/synopsis!

[buggz4brainzzz]

Me too girlie

[mila-bee]

Live footage of Liam getting mad:

[lovebooksforeversblog]

Delicious 😋 yum yum yum...

[just-a-bookish-reader]

Where Darkness Blooms by Andrea Hannah

Andrea Hannah's Where Darkness Blooms is a supernatural thriller about an eerie town where the sunflowers whisper secrets and the land hungers for blood.

The town of Bishop is known for exactly two things: recurring windstorms and an endless field of sunflowers that stretches farther than the eye can see. And women—missing women. So when three more women disappear one stormy night, no one in Bishop is surprised. The case is closed and their daughters are left in their dusty shared house with the shattered pieces of their lives. Until the wind kicks up a terrible secret at their mothers’ much-delayed memorial.

With secrets come the lies each of the girls is forced to confront. After caring for the other girls, Delilah would like to move on with her boyfriend, Bennett, but she can’t bear his touch. Whitney has already lost both her mother and her girlfriend, Eleanor, and now her only solace is an old weathervane that seems to whisper to her. Jude, Whitney's twin sister, would rather ignore it all, but the wind kicks up her secret too: the summer fling she had with Delilah's boyfriend. And more than anything, Bo wants answers and she wants them now. Something happened to their mothers and the townsfolk know what it was. She’s sure of it.

Bishop has always been a strange town. But what the girls don’t know is that Bishop was founded on blood—and now it craves theirs.

[queenofheartsdeservedbetter]

Wtf is going on in The reappearence of Reachel Price !?!?!

[oosahwtf]

For the third book of my Book Club with @zxromance I chose Confessions by Kanae Minato. I discovered this book from the @Pearlmania500 podcast Too Many Tabs. It is “Mrs. P’s Book Club 8” if anybody is interested in listening she does a really great job at breaking down the book chapter by chapter. 

Confessions by Kanae Minato is a thriller written from the perspective of multiple characters involved. I personally love this style of writing and feel that the author pulls it off really well. The novel is translated from Japanese so it was a little hard the first few pages but I caught on pretty fast and managed to finish it in one night. It’s a great representation f how grief affects people differently. The twists in this book were amazing and well written and I didn’t see any of them coming. I find it better to go into with no context to the plot but I definitely recommend it to anyone that likes thrillers. 

[ahagisborn]

This author has also written approximately one million angel and vampire romantasy novels and frankly it shows

[midnights-wish]

''I had invited him to mine - there was more than enough goose to go around - but he said he doesn't really buy into Christmas. It's too sentimental. It's worth noting, though, that when he came over to take Alan for a walk, he was wearing a Santa hat.''

Richard Osman, 'The Last Devil To Die' (2023).