fantasy

Final June Wrap Up: Some summer spookiness

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Now to finish off my June reads (I know, I know, I’m so late AND I have actually read a couple books in July already, I’m SLACKING), I present: some summer spooks. I’m going to add my one spooky one from July simply because…it fits the theme, ok? Gosh. *insert epic silly face here*

First up: Japanese Gothic by Kylie Lee Baker (author of Bat Eater and Other Names for Cora Zeng)

Rating: 5 out of 5 Samurai

“She had killed someone too. She understood, at least in part, the torrents that he carried inside him. She looked him in the eye and didn’t run away. Perhaps someone like his father would have thought the situation romantic, but Lee wasn’t interested in Sen’s body. He wanted to hopelessly entangle her soul with his until they were one and the same, to follow her to the bottom of the sea, to rot beside her when death devoured them both.” (Japanese Gothic, pg. 234)

Oh my goodness. I really like Baker as an author. She creates such imaginative stories and really shows parts of Asian folklore or mythology that I would have never searched out on my own. The way she weaves these in with the horror of humanity is just incredible.

This book incited so many feelings in me. There was spookiness, there was horror, mystery, mythology, intrigue, and there was even sadness and frustration. Lee, he seemed so uncertain about everything but could tell that there was some kind of trauma he was suppressing. He talks about always being in a fog, drug induced, so he simply didn’t have to feel or to be a “good son” for his dad. Sen, in her own way, was so alone and so afraid to disappoint a father who was a coward and had gone back on his own beliefs. To have them find each other, this wall that would connect them in the same home, hundreds of years apart, was certainly fate. I think for me, most off all, this story was just sad, a sad tale of two lost, young souls, who found each other, and it was not a romantic love story but it was a love story in its own way, I think.

I would absolutely read this again, find the hints that maybe I missed as I read it the first time. Fantastic storytelling as usual, by Baker.

“She didn’t want Lee Turner to kiss her, or marry her, or fall in love with her. She wanted him to sit beside her on this porch and watch the stars with her for as long as she was still alive. She wanted to exist beside him, to be real and whole in someone else’s eyes, to bare her soul to someone and have them stay beside her anyway.” (Japanese Gothic, pg. 271)

Up next: Morsel by Carter Keane

Rating: 5 out of 5 Appalachian Monsters

The description was so spot on, The Ritual meets Blair Witch Project, that I was completely stunned. Lou is a desperate young woman trying to help her mother pay bills, becoming more and more stressed. Close to being fired, her boss Ellis, gives her a job: go out to the rural hills of Ohio, survey and take pics of some land, and report back. Already, I knew that this was going to go south. When her truck is completely sabotaged, Lou, with her dog Ripley, have to rely on the generosity of a stranger. Does she pick the nice house or the beat up house? That choice sets off a series of events that spiral into darker and darker territory. When she realizes that she is truly stuck, the terror truly begins.

I have to say, I was completely in awe of the writing. For this being a debut, the story flowed so nicely, the twists weren’t super obvious, and the imagery was par none. I can’t tell you how many times I had to just put the book down and think and shudder from some of the gruesome scenes. If you don’t like dead wildlife, this book might not be for you. I would definitely recommend this to those who like gruesome horror, body horror, and books about crazy cults. Perfect horror for the summer!

And finally: Bodies of Work by Clay McLeod Chapman (July read)

Rating: 5 out of 5 Butterfly Girls

“Don’t apologize. Never apologize. We need to hold on to our stories. Don’t forget.
We are though, aren’t we? Forgetting? Fading? What’s going to happen to us?
Only time will tell.” (Bodies of Work)

Wow. Wow. Wow. This was wild and so heartbreaking. I know it says horror but I’m only thinking it’s that because of the gore more than anything. Winston is a gross old man but his life was one of those “is it nurture or nature?” things. His home life as a child was full of trauma and abuse, and he was growing up in a time when things like autism and depression and such weren’t really talked about. So it’s not like he would have been able to receive and mental health support. However, he still becomes this awful human being. His butterflies, however, their stories are just as devastating. But the story in the story? What fantastical imagery and prose. I honestly think that this was a gorgeous story about disturbing and vile behavior and it doesn’t glorify it. But it does give peace and some semblance of justice or balance for the girls. 10/10 would read again.

“This happens everywhere. Women vanish. People forget their names, and their disappearances barely demand our attention.” (Bodies of Work)

Ok, that is all for now. I’m currently working my way through the Read Harder Challenge and the various Goodreads challenges, I’ll make a post to update where I am there! Off to reader land for me!

The Man Who Died Seven Times by Yasuhiko Nishizawa

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Rating: 3 out of 5 time loops

That was certainly a wild ride. An interesting Who Dun It, translated from it’s original language to English, Nishizawa certainly brought a murder mystery with a CRAZY side of family drama.

We have the story of Hisataro, a 16 year old in a family fighting over an inheritance that hasn’t even come to fruition yet. His grandfather has been inviting the whole family to his home for the last few years so that he can “choose” an heir to his fortune, should his childless daughter ALSO pass, who is his initial heir. His other two daughters left the family as soon as they could, as he was not a great dad, gambling a lot and basically making them grow up in poverty. Hisataro, however, has a special ability: he can relive a specific day, over and over again, a la Groundhog Day. He’s not able to PICK what day he relives, though, and this time, he ends up reliving the day his grandfather dies mysteriously. So he spends the next few “time loops” trying to find out who could have killed Grandfather. Hilarity and family drama ensue.

There is definitely lots of cultural differences between Japan and the US, especially in terms of marriage. Generally, we try NOT to marry our first cousins, and we try to marry when we are of age…not 16/17 years old, if we can help it. Since a lot of that seemed to be cultural (especially given that I believe the book was originally published in the late 90’s, I gave that bit of the book a pass. The rest of the drama though?? Oh man there was so much tea the pot was OVERFLOWING. I can’t count how many times I covered my own mouth in disbelief of what was happening!

Unfortunately, what brought the whole thing down from 5 stars to 3, was the last two chapters. The epilogue was COMPLETELY unneeded and honestly, the explanation for why everything happened seemed…too tidy? I don’t know. I just didn’t really vibe with how those two chapters went with the rest of the book. So because of that, I cannot give this a full 5 star rating. I did enjoy myself immensely and had a fund time for the rest, and I can’t say I saw the “twist” coming, but yea. I think if nothing else, the epilogue could have remained out, for sure.

“I once read somewhere that when we make a mistake, the blood rushes to our heads, causing us to make even more of them.” – Hisataro

See what is on my TBR, what I’m currently reading, and more, on my Goodreads profile here.

Mongrels by Stephen Graham Jones

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Rating: 5 out of 5 wine coolers

“Everything makes sense if you look at it long enough.”

Wow. I’m really glad I did not read any of the reviews on this book. Like The Buffalo Hunter Hunter, it took me a bit to get into it because of SGJ’s writing style. But once I was hooked, it was over. I simply devoured this book (no pun intended). The story of the unnamed narrator as he navigated growing up as, essentially, a nomad with his aunt and uncle, was made more exciting by the twist of them being werewolves. There then became this underlying tension of will he or won’t he also come into his wolfness. Darren and Libby, his uncle and aunt, are not married, they are twins, and our narrator’s mother died in childbirth, and was their sister. Grandpa was their father, and most of what we know about werewolves come from stories told by him and Darren. Like most stories, these were embellished but held some truth to them. And thus, this is how our narrator saw the world. The family moves frequently because once you cause havoc, you can’t stay in one place. Too many animals dying can make people suspicious, as can human body counts. When you are the outcasts, the first fingers pointed are pointed at you. Libby and Darren take on jobs when they can, and they are pretty good about trying to be good citizens too, paying taxes (even if it’s with falsified identification) and sending the narrator to school. I think what I loved best was the chapters calling him a name based on what he was in that moment (mechanic, reporter, biologist, etc.). The narration of the book is very disjointed, but at the same time, makes so much sense, because you can tell it is coming from the voice of someone who is trying to remember events as they happened but also will remember when something happened at a different time of life. So the age jumps around, sometimes we are reading when he was 8 and sometimes 12, then sometimes 16, then 8 again. It is not a linear story, but we get all the necessary parts to capture the whole of his life with his family and his feelings about becoming a werewolf. There is high school romance, cut short, but there nonetheless, and even some growing pains of boyhood.

All in all, this wouldn’t be one of my favorites of his, I’m not a HUGE coming of age book reader, but it was still very good and I did enjoy it a lot. I am really enjoying going through SGJ’s body of work, as this is my 3rd by him, and I have more to go.

See my reviews of The Buffalo Hunter Hunter and I Was a Teenage Slasher on Goodreads.

“That’s how it is with werewolves. You have something, then you just have the story of it.”

Legends and Lattes by Travis Baldree

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Rating: 4.5 cups of Gnomish Coffee out of 5

I am SO LATE to the reading of this! I have to say that I did enjoy it, though it took me longer than I would have liked to read it. I just couldn’t really get into it at the start. But I hate having unfinished books, unless I am TRULY DNF’ing, so I sat back down one day and completed it. I have to say, I was wrong about this book. Honestly, the half cup off is really just because it took me longer than I liked to get into it, as I said.

This is definitely a cozy fantasy, with a dash of romance, but it’s like, blink and you miss it. Viv the Orc is FINALLY retiring as what one would call a mercenary, and finds herself in Thune, where she decides to open a coffee shop. Only, no one has ever hear of this “coffee” in Thune. So she has a bit of an uphill battle here. She is also new, so she has no friends here. However, this was definitely a story that became a lot about found family and what that looks like. Cal and Thimble were probably my favorites, Amity is also up there. Tandri, Viv’s assistant, is super smart, but there just wasn’t a whole lot of character development there that made me believe in their romance. Viv definitely changed, and I guess that’s most of the story. It’s a very low stakes book so there isn’t a whole lot of action. A couple annoying characters, who get straightened out almost immediately. All in all, a good book but not one that I think I would pick up again, even as a cozy book. I have the second book, and I’ll try that, see if I like it more. It’s entirely possible that I like it more! That isn’t to say that I didn’t like this. I did! Truly. I just think it wasn’t my whole cup of tea (pardon the pun).

October Catch UP

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Look, I’m aware it says “October” and we are CLEARLY in November, but here we are. So. I read a CRAP TON of both books and novellas at the end of October, but I want to focus mainly on the three books I read.

First up: Immortal Pleasures by V. Castro

Stars: 1 out of 5

I hated this book. I was so disappointed too. The book summary and the book contents are not at all the same. I wanted lore about La Malinche, I wanted deep, lush lore about the Aztecs and the Spanish Conquistadores. It was so promising in the beginning: I did love the history parts of the book, when Malinalli (her current name) is talking about her past. It seemed like we were going to get the vengeance alluded to in the summary of the book. Instead, we had cringe worth sex scenes, a mopey vampire and a rushed ending. The current events part of it all was just torturous to get through. The sex scenes especially were so cringe worthy, it’s actually painful to think about. Butter. BUTTER. I can’t even. I am so mad about this book because the premise sounded so cool, very different, and then I got…nonsense. Just…ugh. I kinda wish I DNF’d it but I didn’t want to miss something good happening. I just kept thinking surely it must get better!!! But nope. It didn’t. I even relayed it to my teen son and he was like “wtf??” When even he says that, you know it’s a problem haha. I also have to say, this was such a let down because I was truly expecting lush lore, gritty vengeance and dark fantasy and instead all I got was a mopey vampire and incomplete lore. Like be so for real. There were so many times I just wanted to stop and I definitely should have. Ugh.

Second up: Bochica by Carolina Flórez-Cerchiaro

Stars: 3 out of 5

According to Wikipedia, Bochica is the mythical figure in the religion of the Muisca, who inhabited the Altiplano Cundiboyacense before the Spanish invaded what is now Columbia. There is little known about Bochica, save for some written documentation whereas “Bochica was variously described by witnesses as a building which [Melchor] Pérez de Arteaga had destroyed — as the father of a ‘tiger’ — perhaps a puma or jaguar that had recently been attacking travellers of local roads, and as an ‘idol’. When asked who Bochica was, Ubaque replied that ‘he is a wind’ — (un viento) — and that he was in the site of the building that the Spanish had destroyed.” (wikipedia).

Bochica monument

This book…not that AT ALL. This was a bit of a slow burn and mostly atmospheric. Lots of repetitive sentences and thoughts. I loved the idea of the journal entries, I kind of wish they had been utilized better. I also wish the folklore of the svetyba had been better used as well. The whole thing with the Madre at the school though? That whole sub-storyline was not needed, imo. I think for me, the biggest issue was that I figured out what was happening WAY too early and so the rest of the book was just me trying to see when the MC’s were going to figure it out. That was such a let down to me. I was so hopeful for this, especially since it was heavily compared to Mexican Gothic, which I loved. This ended up just being “meh” to me. Three stars though because the hallucinations and descriptions of the locations definitely helped the story, made it very visually appealing and interesting. Again, the only saving grace of this book was the vivid descriptions of the hallucinations and the atmosphere of the house. I think the haunted gothic house theme was underutilized and could have made this a much spookier and overall better book. I love myself a good Gothic Haunted House theme and this was just…not it. Like Immortal Pleasures, this one fell flat with lore usage and cultural richness.

Last up: Black Flame by Gretchen Felker-Martin

Stars: 4 out of 5…and mostly confusion…

I’m not convinced I know what I just read. Was it horror? Absolutely? Was it a narrative on heteronormativity??? Absolutely. A thought masterpiece on religion and Anti-Semitism? Yup. Was it the weirdest and most bizarre thing I’ve ever read? Also yes, though to be fair, I read Tender is the Flesh, so the jury is out on that. This was wild from start to finish. I’m gonna need 3-5 business days to process this for sure. Hopefully I don’t see The Baroness anywhere in my dreams. I think I’d cry.

This was a GREAT presentation on how imagery can produce horrific results. I was convinced for a few days that I was going to sleep and see some of this crazy, fucked up shit in my dreams. I would have had to find a therapist STAT if that had happened. Also safe to say that the idea of being a film restorer is completely off my “jobs I’d like to try” list. *shudder* I’m SO ok with never doing that.

Needless to say, I ended my espooky season with a few bangs, some bigger than others. Then I went on to read a bunch of smutty novellas and started to get into the Christmas season, so here’s to jingling all the way soon! As usual, you can find all my other reviews (I did review those novellas) here, on my Goodreads profile. You can also check out all the books I have on my shelves, and maybe even recommend me one off my own TBR to read!