en-US Sun, 06 Apr 2025 08:48:12 -0700 60 144 41 /images/layout/goodreads_logo_144.jpg 16071701 Carl Hiaasen is back doing what he does best: spinning a wickedly funny, fiercely pointed tale in which the greedy, the corrupt, and the degraders of pristine land in Florida--now, in the Bahamas too--get their comeuppance in mordantly ingenious, diabolically entertaining fashion.

Andrew Yancy--late of the Miami Police, soon-to-be-late of the Key West Police--has a human arm in his freezer. There's a logical (Hiaasenian) explanation for that, but not for how and why it parted from its owner. Yancy thinks the boating-accident/shark-luncheon explanation is full of holes, and if he can prove murder, his commander might relieve him of Health Inspector duties, aka Roach Patrol. But first Yancy will negotiate an ever-surprising course of events--from the Keys to Miami to a Bahamian out island--with a crew of equally ever-surprising characters, including: the twitchy widow of the frozen arm; an avariciously idiotic real estate developer; a voodoo witch whose lovers are blinded-unto-death by her particularly peculiar charms; Yancy's new love, a kinky medical examiner; and the eponymous Bad Monkey, who earns his place among Hiaasen's greatest characters with hilariously wicked aplomb.Ěý±Ő±Ő> 337 Carl Hiaasen 0307272591 Bronwyn 0 to-read 3.68 2013
author: Carl Hiaasen
name: Bronwyn
average rating: 3.68
book published: 2013
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/04/06
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 22295362
A haunted house story unlike any other, Michael McDowell’s The Elementals (1981) was one of the finest novels to come out of the horror publishing explosion of the 1970s and �80s. Though best known for his screenplays for Tim Burton’s Beetlejuice and The Nightmare Before Christmas, McDowell is now being rediscovered as one of the best modern horror writers and a master of Southern Gothic literature. This edition of McDowell’s masterpiece of terror features a new introduction by award-winning horror author Michael Rowe. McDowell’s first novel, the grisly and darkly comic The Amulet (1979), is also available from Valancourt Books.]]> 218 Michael McDowell 1941147178 Bronwyn 4 horror, 2025
The Elementals is a family drama with otherworldly creepiness that gets more intense toward the final chapters of the book. It’s similar to Blackwater: The Complete Caskey Family Saga, also by McDowell, which also mixes supernatural monsters with a saga about a family and dangerous natural elements like storms and rising water.

While Blackwater was a longer saga, requiring patience, the Elementals was a short book with likeable, if odd characters and had a slow build to some exciting climactic scenes. I’m not an expert on Southern literature so my frame of reference is limited. I will say the family reminded me of characters from Tennessee Williams plays.

There’s a theme of evil, dominating mothers, starting with the very name of the haunted property. A Beldam is an“old woman, witch or hag� and a belle dame is a supernatural female creature such as a fairy or banshee, who traps men and lures them to their death. Also, a vengeful “mother nature.� This is more suggested than emphasized; the story begins with the funeral of matriarch Marian Savage and other family members talked about how cruel Marian was but I didn’t see or feel much of it.

One of my favorite characters was India, youngest member of the McCrays, who are the other family owners of Beldam. She was raised in New York City and gets fascinated with the peace, quiet, and weird happenings on the beach property. McDowell was a screenwriter for Beetlejuice, and India is very much an earlier model of Lydia—a precocious, urban kid who is into photography and out of her element.

It takes a while for this to get scary but when it did, it was quite satisfying. For me, because the fear of [spoilers removed]]]> 4.02 1981
author: Michael McDowell
name: Bronwyn
average rating: 4.02
book published: 1981
rating: 4
read at: 2025/04/05
date added: 2025/04/06
shelves: horror, 2025
review:
Prosperous Southern family whose Victorian beach properties, known as Beldam, are haunted by supernatural entities.

The Elementals is a family drama with otherworldly creepiness that gets more intense toward the final chapters of the book. It’s similar to Blackwater: The Complete Caskey Family Saga, also by McDowell, which also mixes supernatural monsters with a saga about a family and dangerous natural elements like storms and rising water.

While Blackwater was a longer saga, requiring patience, the Elementals was a short book with likeable, if odd characters and had a slow build to some exciting climactic scenes. I’m not an expert on Southern literature so my frame of reference is limited. I will say the family reminded me of characters from Tennessee Williams plays.

There’s a theme of evil, dominating mothers, starting with the very name of the haunted property. A Beldam is an“old woman, witch or hag� and a belle dame is a supernatural female creature such as a fairy or banshee, who traps men and lures them to their death. Also, a vengeful “mother nature.� This is more suggested than emphasized; the story begins with the funeral of matriarch Marian Savage and other family members talked about how cruel Marian was but I didn’t see or feel much of it.

One of my favorite characters was India, youngest member of the McCrays, who are the other family owners of Beldam. She was raised in New York City and gets fascinated with the peace, quiet, and weird happenings on the beach property. McDowell was a screenwriter for Beetlejuice, and India is very much an earlier model of Lydia—a precocious, urban kid who is into photography and out of her element.

It takes a while for this to get scary but when it did, it was quite satisfying. For me, because the fear of [spoilers removed]
]]> 54408033 436 Christopher Buehlman Bronwyn 4
The three of them travel through plague-infested, medieval France, pushed on by some vague Holy purpose that guides Delphine. They run across horrors including monsters, devils, and some really awful people. Some good people two.

I liked the tension created with the two men who had a dubious connection to their religious faith and questioned their own worth in contrast to Delphine who was always sure of her purpose and steady in her belief in the goodness of her two companions.

I was having more fun reading the earlier chapters of the book. The characters, especially the priest and the knight, were so complex and well done. Lots of humor and good dialogue. Some of the backstory seemed unnecessary as we understood what happened and how it affected the characters without seeing details.

As the story went on, and Delphine’s larger quest was revealed, the novel lost some traction. It got more than a little surreal. I agree with the other reviewer who mentioned that this is a literary equivalent of a Bosch painting. The shift to dream-like fantasy is not a bad thing unto itself but the entire tone of the book changed when it was going so well before. ]]> 4.24 2012
author: Christopher Buehlman
name: Bronwyn
average rating: 4.24
book published: 2012
rating: 4
read at: 2025/04/05
date added: 2025/04/06
shelves: dark-fantasy, historical-fiction, 2025
review:
Thomas, an excommunicated-knight-turned- thief, gets mixed up with Mathieu, an alcoholic priest, and an orphaned pre-teen called Delphine. (I know they didn’t use pre-teen in medieval times but it’s the best way to get the picture.)

The three of them travel through plague-infested, medieval France, pushed on by some vague Holy purpose that guides Delphine. They run across horrors including monsters, devils, and some really awful people. Some good people two.

I liked the tension created with the two men who had a dubious connection to their religious faith and questioned their own worth in contrast to Delphine who was always sure of her purpose and steady in her belief in the goodness of her two companions.

I was having more fun reading the earlier chapters of the book. The characters, especially the priest and the knight, were so complex and well done. Lots of humor and good dialogue. Some of the backstory seemed unnecessary as we understood what happened and how it affected the characters without seeing details.

As the story went on, and Delphine’s larger quest was revealed, the novel lost some traction. It got more than a little surreal. I agree with the other reviewer who mentioned that this is a literary equivalent of a Bosch painting. The shift to dream-like fantasy is not a bad thing unto itself but the entire tone of the book changed when it was going so well before.
]]> 228275919
I speak of monsters and magic, battle and bloodletting, and the crimes of desperate men. I speak also of secret things, of that which lies beneath us and that which impends above. By the time you come to the end of this account you will know the truth of your own life and death, the path laid out for your immortal soul, your origin and your inevitable end.

You will not thank me.]]> 304 M.R. Carey 0356519449 Bronwyn 0 to-read 3.57 2025
author: M.R. Carey
name: Bronwyn
average rating: 3.57
book published: 2025
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/04/05
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 214537790 FromĚýPulitzer finalist, MacArthur Fellowship recipient, and bestsellingĚýauthor of Swamplandia! and Vampires in the Lemon Grove. A gripping Dust Bowl epic about five characters whose fates become entangled after a storm ravages their small Nebraskan town

The Antidote opens on Black Sunday, as a historic dust storm ravages the fictional town of Uz, Nebraska. But Uz is already collapsing—not just under the weight of the Great Depression and the Dust Bowl drought, but beneath its own violent histories. The Antidote follows a "Prairie Witch," whose body serves as a bank vault for peoples� memories and secrets; a Polish wheat farmer who learns how quickly a hoarded blessing can become a curse; his orphan niece, a basketball star and witch’s apprentice in furious flight from her grief; a voluble scarecrow; and a New Deal photographer whose time-traveling camera threatens to reveal both the town’s secrets and its fate.

Russell's novel is above all a reckoning with a nation’s forgetting—enacting the settler amnesia and willful omissions passed down from generation to generation, and unearthing not only horrors but shimmering possibilities. The Antidote echoes with urgent warnings for our own climate emergency, challenging readers with a vision of what might have been—and what still could be.]]> 432 Karen Russell 059380225X Bronwyn 0 to-read 4.03 2025
author: Karen Russell
name: Bronwyn
average rating: 4.03
book published: 2025
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/04/05
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 60310303 For hundreds of thousands of fans who read The Stand in its original version and wanted more, this new edition is Stephen King's gift. And those who are listening to The Stand for the first time will discover a triumphant and eerily plausible work of the imagination that takes on the issues that will determine our survival.]]> 1153 Stephen King 0307947300 Bronwyn 3 4.37 1978
author: Stephen King
name: Bronwyn
average rating: 4.37
book published: 1978
rating: 3
read at: 1995/07/13
date added: 2025/04/04
shelves: king, pre-goodreads, currently-reading
review:

]]> 539019 here

Written deliberately to increase the circulation of Dickens's weekly magazine Household Words, Hard Times was a huge and instantaneous success upon publication in 1854. Yet this novel is not the cheerful celebration of Victorian life one might have expected from the beloved author of Pickwick Papers and The Old Curiosity Shop. Compressed, stark, allegorical, it is a bitter exposé of capitalist exploitation during the Industrial Revolution - and a fierce denunciation of the philosophy of materialism, which threatens the human imagination in all times and places. With a typically unforgettable cast of characters - including the heartless fact-worshipper Professor Gradgrind, the warmly endearing Sissy Jupe and the eternally noble Stephen Blackpool - Hard Times carries a uniquely powerful message and remains one of the most widely read of Dickens's major novels.]]> 320 Charles Dickens 0553210165 Bronwyn 3 classics
Hard Times focuses on a particular schoolmaster, Gradgrind, and his two kids who suffer greatly due to his teaching. They are only allowed facts and figures as children, no talk of passion or imagination.

You can imagine they grow to be pretty screwed up.

Louise, Gradgrind’s daughter, marries someone she doesn’t love and comes to deeply regret it in a society where divorce is not allowed. Her brother, Tom, took his school lessons to mean that it’s far better to take advantage of others than to earn your own money.

There is a lot of melodrama. [spoilers removed]

Passion and imagination may not make us happy either but add meaning to life. ]]> 3.42 1854
author: Charles Dickens
name: Bronwyn
average rating: 3.42
book published: 1854
rating: 3
read at: 2024/10/09
date added: 2025/04/04
shelves: classics
review:
Dickens� criticism of Utilitarianism and a school system designed to make little capitalists and obedient workers incapable of original thought.

Hard Times focuses on a particular schoolmaster, Gradgrind, and his two kids who suffer greatly due to his teaching. They are only allowed facts and figures as children, no talk of passion or imagination.

You can imagine they grow to be pretty screwed up.

Louise, Gradgrind’s daughter, marries someone she doesn’t love and comes to deeply regret it in a society where divorce is not allowed. Her brother, Tom, took his school lessons to mean that it’s far better to take advantage of others than to earn your own money.

There is a lot of melodrama. [spoilers removed]

Passion and imagination may not make us happy either but add meaning to life.
]]> 58662507
The zombies are coming back.

And all Nona wants is a birthday party.

In many ways, Nona is like other people. She lives with her family, has a job at her local school, and loves walks on the beach and meeting new dogs. But Nona's not like other people. Six months ago she woke up in a stranger's body, and she's afraid she might have to give it back.

The whole city is falling to pieces. A monstrous blue sphere hangs on the horizon, ready to tear the planet apart. Blood of Eden forces have surrounded the last Cohort facility and wait for the Emperor Undying to come calling. Their leaders want Nona to be the weapon that will save them from the Nine Houses. Nona would prefer to live an ordinary life with the people she loves, with Pyrrha and Camilla and Palamedes, but she also knows that nothing lasts forever.

And each night, Nona dreams of a woman with a skull-painted face...]]> 480 Tamsyn Muir 1250854113 Bronwyn 4 2025, dark-fantasy 4.36 2022
author: Tamsyn Muir
name: Bronwyn
average rating: 4.36
book published: 2022
rating: 4
read at: 2025/04/02
date added: 2025/04/02
shelves: 2025, dark-fantasy
review:

]]> 32617610
It's been thirty years since the apocalypse and fifteen years since the murder of the last human being at the hands of robots. Humankind is extinct. Every man, woman, and child has been liquidated by a global uprising devised by the very machines humans designed and built to serve them. Most of the world is controlled by an OWI--One World Intelligence--the shared consciousness of millions of robots, uploaded into one huge mainframe brain. But not all robots are willing to cede their individuality--their personality--for the sake of a greater, stronger, higher power. These intrepid resisters are outcasts; solo machines wandering among various underground outposts who have formed into an unruly civilization of rogue AIs in the wasteland that was once our world.

One of these resisters is Brittle, a scavenger robot trying to keep a deteriorating mind and body functional in a world that has lost all meaning. Although unable to experience emotions like a human, Brittle is haunted by the terrible crimes the robot population perpetrated on humanity. As Brittle roams the Sea of Rust, a large swath of territory that was once the Midwest, the loner robot slowly comes to terms with horrifyingly raw and vivid memories--and nearly unbearable guilt.

Sea of Rust is both a harsh story of survival and an optimistic adventure. A vividly imagined portrayal of ultimate destruction and desperate tenacity, it boldly imagines a future in which no hope remains, yet where a humanlike AI strives to find purpose among the ruins.]]> 365 C. Robert Cargill 1473212782 Bronwyn 0 currently-reading 3.97 2017
author: C. Robert Cargill
name: Bronwyn
average rating: 3.97
book published: 2017
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/03/30
shelves: currently-reading
review:

]]> 17571466 358 Nick Cutter 1476717710 Bronwyn 0 to-read 3.83 2014
author: Nick Cutter
name: Bronwyn
average rating: 3.83
book published: 2014
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/03/30
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 179734
And before too many hours pass, five civilized, sophisticated people and one tired old country sheriff will learn just how primitive we all are beneath the surface...and that there are no limits at all to the will to survive.]]> 320 Jack Ketchum 0843956968 Bronwyn 0 to-read 3.75 1980
author: Jack Ketchum
name: Bronwyn
average rating: 3.75
book published: 1980
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/03/30
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 202969855
Meet Augustus Berrycloth-Young - fop, flaneur, and Englishman abroad - as he chronicles the Jazz Age from his perch atop the city that never sleeps.

That is, until his old friend Thomas Nightingale arrives, pursuing a rather mysterious affair concerning an old saxophone - which will take Gussie from his warm bed, to the cold shores of Long Island, and down to the jazz clubs where music, magic, and madness haunt the shadows...]]> 165 Ben Aaronovitch 147322442X Bronwyn 5 urban-fantasy-series, 2025
He's a former classmate of Thomas Nightingale, badass mentor from the main series. “Gussie� is pulled into an “off the books� investigation when Nightingale comes to town researching some supernatural musical instruments.

This is such a fun novella with history, music, and humor. I loved the PG Wodehouse-inspired narration. There is lot of glamor, good dialogue, and action sequences.

Aaronovitch gets in all his points about social inequities without dragging things down for making it seem message-heavy.]]> 4.16 2024
author: Ben Aaronovitch
name: Bronwyn
average rating: 4.16
book published: 2024
rating: 5
read at: 2025/03/29
date added: 2025/03/29
shelves: urban-fantasy-series, 2025
review:
Englishman in New York, Augustus Berrycloth-Young, narrates an exciting and quick-moving story set in the Jazz Age.

He's a former classmate of Thomas Nightingale, badass mentor from the main series. “Gussie� is pulled into an “off the books� investigation when Nightingale comes to town researching some supernatural musical instruments.

This is such a fun novella with history, music, and humor. I loved the PG Wodehouse-inspired narration. There is lot of glamor, good dialogue, and action sequences.

Aaronovitch gets in all his points about social inequities without dragging things down for making it seem message-heavy.
]]> 10108463 The Devil All the Time follows a cast of characters from the end of World War II to the 1960s. There’s Willard Russell, tormented veteran of the carnage in the South Pacific, who can’t save his beautiful wife, Charlotte, from an agonizing death by cancer no matter how much sacrifi­cial blood he pours on his “prayer log.� There’s Carl and Sandy Henderson, a husband-and-wife team of serial kill­ers, who troll America’s highways searching for suitable models to photograph and exterminate. There’s the spider-handling preacher Roy and his crippled virtuoso-guitar-playing sidekick, Theodore, running from the law. And caught in the middle of all this is Arvin Eugene Russell, Willard and Charlotte’s orphaned son, who grows up to be a good but also violent man in his own right.]]> 261 Donald Ray Pollock 038553504X Bronwyn 5 thrill-me-kill-me, 2025 The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter with more murder.

Alvin: learned how to put down bullies users most decisively from his father

Sandy and Carl: unhappily married and depressed serial killers.

Roy and Theo: traveling carnival preachers who put on a show with music and spiders.

Each character goes through their own storyline, almost like different novelas that eventually converge into one big novel.

It was sad and disturbing but I enjoyed it. They are all compelling characters, maybe not exactly likeable, but inspiring empathy and curiosity. Certainly Pollack is not expecting the reader to judge.

There was even one character I kind of hoped would be okay by the end.]]> 4.13 2011
author: Donald Ray Pollock
name: Bronwyn
average rating: 4.13
book published: 2011
rating: 5
read at: 2025/03/24
date added: 2025/03/29
shelves: thrill-me-kill-me, 2025
review:
Set of characters in a small, rural town, all of them lonely, despairing and committing violence. I’d put it in the transgressive category. I’m thinking of The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter with more murder.

Alvin: learned how to put down bullies users most decisively from his father

Sandy and Carl: unhappily married and depressed serial killers.

Roy and Theo: traveling carnival preachers who put on a show with music and spiders.

Each character goes through their own storyline, almost like different novelas that eventually converge into one big novel.

It was sad and disturbing but I enjoyed it. They are all compelling characters, maybe not exactly likeable, but inspiring empathy and curiosity. Certainly Pollack is not expecting the reader to judge.

There was even one character I kind of hoped would be okay by the end.
]]> 27000 399 Jasper Fforde 0142004030 Bronwyn 4
Further develops the idea of characters entering and leaving books, including introducing an organization responsible for the training of characters and humans who have this knack. (I am in love with Miss Havisham.)

The humor is going strong and there’s a little bit of goofy, self-awareness.

“Anything is possible right now. We’re in the middle of an isolated high-coincidental localized entropic field decreasement�
“We’re in a what?�
“We’re in a pseudo-scientific technobabble.�

There are a lot of plot lines, all converging on Thursday at once. It makes for an exciting pace, although at times I wondered if it wasn’t a bit much.]]> 4.13 2002
author: Jasper Fforde
name: Bronwyn
average rating: 4.13
book published: 2002
rating: 4
read at: 2025/03/24
date added: 2025/03/29
shelves: urban-fantasy-series, comic-fantasy-sci-fi, 2025
review:
Even more entertaining than the first book, probably because I already have some background of the world and how it works.

Further develops the idea of characters entering and leaving books, including introducing an organization responsible for the training of characters and humans who have this knack. (I am in love with Miss Havisham.)

The humor is going strong and there’s a little bit of goofy, self-awareness.

“Anything is possible right now. We’re in the middle of an isolated high-coincidental localized entropic field decreasement�
“We’re in a what?�
“We’re in a pseudo-scientific technobabble.�

There are a lot of plot lines, all converging on Thursday at once. It makes for an exciting pace, although at times I wondered if it wasn’t a bit much.
]]> 125974694
"A perfect horror novel."—Paul Tremblay, author of 'The Cabin at the End of the World'

A recurrent, unidentifiable noise in her apartment. A memo to her boss that's replaced by obscene insults. Amanda—a successful architect in a happy marriage—finds her life going off kilter by degrees. She starts smoking again, and one night for no reason, without even the knowledge that she's doing it, she burns her husband with a cigarette. At night she dreams of a beautiful woman with pointed teeth on the shore of a blood-red sea.

The new voice in Amanda's head, the one that tells her to steal things and talk to strange men in bars, is strange and frightening, and Amanda struggles to wrest back control of her life. A book on demon possession suggests that the figure on the shore could be the demon Naamah, known to scholars of the Kabbalah as the second wife of Adam, who stole into his dreams and tricked him into fathering her child. Whatever the case, as the violence of her erratic behavior increases, Amanda knows that she must act to put her life right, or see it destroyed.

This new edition of the cult classic features a brand new post-script by the author and a "Are You Haunted?" questionnaire.]]> 168 Sara Gran 1641295244 Bronwyn 5 horror, 2025
She’s a New Yorker with an apparently upwardly mobile lifestyle, good career as an architect, new home, marriage and so on. In other words someone with a lot to lose.

Suddenly, she’s missing huge chunks of time, finding herself in situations that she doesn’t recall getting into, and has weird impulses even when “in her head.�

Amanda goes through several different paths to figure out what’s wrong and settles on demon possession as likely. If so, the demon’s special focus is on hurting her relationship to her husband.

Is this all a metaphor for trying to escape adult life? It’s clear that Amanda feels controlled by her husband’s fastidious nature even as she is attracted to his steadiness.

With all the weird things that happen to Amanda, and all the bizarre, frightening things she does, the creepiest part is the lack of help or support from anyone. She doesn’t have family and apparently no close friends. Her husband, doctors, therapists, even demons specialists are unable to help.

This was a short book that gets to the story immediately. I enjoyed Sara Gran’s conversational style and humorous tone. Well, almost humorous in the circumstances. I liked the wrap-around structure with the fake book about “how to tell when you’re possessed.�

Come Closer reminds me a bit of books by Mona Awad.

Sara Gran is the author of the Claire DeWitt series (Claire DeWitt and the City of the Dead) which is also a fun read.]]> 3.81 2003
author: Sara Gran
name: Bronwyn
average rating: 3.81
book published: 2003
rating: 5
read at: 2025/03/29
date added: 2025/03/29
shelves: horror, 2025
review:
Amanda, a woman who seems to have it all, realizing she’s losing control of herself.

She’s a New Yorker with an apparently upwardly mobile lifestyle, good career as an architect, new home, marriage and so on. In other words someone with a lot to lose.

Suddenly, she’s missing huge chunks of time, finding herself in situations that she doesn’t recall getting into, and has weird impulses even when “in her head.�

Amanda goes through several different paths to figure out what’s wrong and settles on demon possession as likely. If so, the demon’s special focus is on hurting her relationship to her husband.

Is this all a metaphor for trying to escape adult life? It’s clear that Amanda feels controlled by her husband’s fastidious nature even as she is attracted to his steadiness.

With all the weird things that happen to Amanda, and all the bizarre, frightening things she does, the creepiest part is the lack of help or support from anyone. She doesn’t have family and apparently no close friends. Her husband, doctors, therapists, even demons specialists are unable to help.

This was a short book that gets to the story immediately. I enjoyed Sara Gran’s conversational style and humorous tone. Well, almost humorous in the circumstances. I liked the wrap-around structure with the fake book about “how to tell when you’re possessed.�

Come Closer reminds me a bit of books by Mona Awad.

Sara Gran is the author of the Claire DeWitt series (Claire DeWitt and the City of the Dead) which is also a fun read.
]]> 72355 Poor Things is a postmodern revision of Frankenstein that replaces the traditional monster with Bella Baxter - a beautiful young erotomaniac brought back to life with the brain of an infant. Godwin Baxter's scientific ambition to create the perfect companion is realized when he finds the drowned body of Bella, but his dream is thwarted by Dr. Archibald McCandless's jealous love for Baxter's creation.

The hilarious tale of love and scandal that ensues would be "the whole story" in the hands of a lesser author (which in fact it is, for this account is actually written by Dr. McCandless). For Gray, though, this is only half the story, after which Bella (a.k.a. Victoria McCandless) has her own say in the matter. Satirizing the classic Victorian novel, Poor Things is a hilarious political allegory and a thought-provoking duel between the desires of men and the independence of women, from one of Scotland's most accomplished authors.]]> 318 Alasdair Gray 0747562288 Bronwyn 4 literary-spec-fic, 2025
It starts off as a bizarre love triangle between Baxter, Bella, and Baxter’s friend and fellow doctor McCandless and evolves as Bella develops her own will and independence. Before the triangle is resolved, she takes off on adventures with a third man, Duncan, who is out for a good time. Eventually, the past life of Bella’s original body owner catches up to her.

The premise is weird, creepy, and subversive. Potentially offensive. I dig a book that takes risks. It was entertaining most of the time. There is a sense of humor, and, despite the fact that everyone has questionable intentions toward Bella, all the characters are multi-faceted.

I acknowledge that the most disturbing facet of the story is that a child’s brain is put into the body of a beautiful grown woman and everyone wants to have sex with her.

Set in Victorian times, with all the implied sexual propriety and expectations of virtue for women, Bella never learned the inhibitions or internalized the repression and oppression. She doesn’t have adult experience but she also hasn’t learned adult fear and inhibition. Throughout the story her brain grows and develops as does her intellectual and emotional complexity. She’s freer than other women of her time to question everything and as an adult-sized person has mature sexual desires.

All of these might appear to be about feminism, freeing female libido and encouraging independent thought. Instead, the point of view says more about the men.

Baxter: When Baxter shares his secret creation with McCandless, he comes right out and says he needs to be with a woman who will look up to him and adore him for his medical brilliance. Since he is rather odd looking—abnormally large, with a weird voice, broken digestive system, and misshapen hands—he can’t find a woman like that. So he makes one.

McCandless: Archibald and McCandless become friends at medical school because they are both outsiders. McCandless is poor and feels inferior to his fellow students and pretty much everyone he meets. Because Bella is learning to be a person, he starts out at least as her superior in experience, and at first, intellect. This makes him comfortable enough to fall in love with her, as opposed to a woman his own mental age who would make demands.

It’s notable that both Baxter and McCandless consider themselves liberal. Baxter holds many humanist and feminist beliefs and believes everyone should have a good life. Their reasons for wanting Bella contradict all this but in their favor, they never try to restrain or control her.They give her enough freedom to get into trouble with�

Duncan: He’s written as the worst of the bunch. He takes Bella on an international journey that includes a lot of uncomplicated sex. Apparently, as a lawyer and heir, he can only get off with women he’s socially superior too and therefore usually sleeps with working poor women.

The bits of the book I didn’t like so much were the explicitly political speeches about imperialism and promoting socialism. Ideas are usually better expressed in character action and behavior.

At some point in her travels with Duncan, Bella meets a couple of intellectual, political types. They end up teaching her about realities of social hierarchy and poverty, ending her innocence more than Duncan ever did.

One of these travelers (it doesn’t matter who he is; he’s just a vehicle) makes a long and one-sided speech about every evil thing the British nation and Empire have ever done, going all the way back to Henry VIII. Small wonder: Gray’s nonfiction works include writing supporting socialism and Scottish independence.

All writers include their beliefs in their work, even if it’s unintentional; but I prefer subtly over speeches. The speeches also wrecked the nicely established pace.

The socialist tangent isn’t separated from sexual politics in Poor Things. Later, in Bella’s letters at the end she also describes her socialist activism and suggests that Victorian repression created some kinky and perverted people. Not to mention the need the men seem to have in the story to be “above� women in some social and financial hierarchy in order to have sex with them.

Finally, I would never have heard of this book were it not for the 2023 film. While I appreciate that the film led me to this book, I can’t say I really thought it was a masterpiece. The filmmakers took an already strange premise and overdid it with the style and sex, making a smutty, Tim-Burton inspired, over-frosted cake. The script and camera setups also victimized and then canonized Bella, making it more a sentimental than intellectual experience.]]> 3.92 1992
author: Alasdair Gray
name: Bronwyn
average rating: 3.92
book published: 1992
rating: 4
read at: 2025/03/15
date added: 2025/03/22
shelves: literary-spec-fic, 2025
review:
In 1880s Glasgow, Godwin Baxter, a wealthy surgeon who likes to do vivisectionist experiments, makes Bella out of the corpse of a dead upper-class house wife and the brain of her unborn nine-month old daughter. The story is set up as material that author Alisdar Gray “discovered� in the 1970s, composed of journal entries and drawings from Archibald McCandless and letters from Bella herself.

It starts off as a bizarre love triangle between Baxter, Bella, and Baxter’s friend and fellow doctor McCandless and evolves as Bella develops her own will and independence. Before the triangle is resolved, she takes off on adventures with a third man, Duncan, who is out for a good time. Eventually, the past life of Bella’s original body owner catches up to her.

The premise is weird, creepy, and subversive. Potentially offensive. I dig a book that takes risks. It was entertaining most of the time. There is a sense of humor, and, despite the fact that everyone has questionable intentions toward Bella, all the characters are multi-faceted.

I acknowledge that the most disturbing facet of the story is that a child’s brain is put into the body of a beautiful grown woman and everyone wants to have sex with her.

Set in Victorian times, with all the implied sexual propriety and expectations of virtue for women, Bella never learned the inhibitions or internalized the repression and oppression. She doesn’t have adult experience but she also hasn’t learned adult fear and inhibition. Throughout the story her brain grows and develops as does her intellectual and emotional complexity. She’s freer than other women of her time to question everything and as an adult-sized person has mature sexual desires.

All of these might appear to be about feminism, freeing female libido and encouraging independent thought. Instead, the point of view says more about the men.

Baxter: When Baxter shares his secret creation with McCandless, he comes right out and says he needs to be with a woman who will look up to him and adore him for his medical brilliance. Since he is rather odd looking—abnormally large, with a weird voice, broken digestive system, and misshapen hands—he can’t find a woman like that. So he makes one.

McCandless: Archibald and McCandless become friends at medical school because they are both outsiders. McCandless is poor and feels inferior to his fellow students and pretty much everyone he meets. Because Bella is learning to be a person, he starts out at least as her superior in experience, and at first, intellect. This makes him comfortable enough to fall in love with her, as opposed to a woman his own mental age who would make demands.

It’s notable that both Baxter and McCandless consider themselves liberal. Baxter holds many humanist and feminist beliefs and believes everyone should have a good life. Their reasons for wanting Bella contradict all this but in their favor, they never try to restrain or control her.They give her enough freedom to get into trouble with�

Duncan: He’s written as the worst of the bunch. He takes Bella on an international journey that includes a lot of uncomplicated sex. Apparently, as a lawyer and heir, he can only get off with women he’s socially superior too and therefore usually sleeps with working poor women.

The bits of the book I didn’t like so much were the explicitly political speeches about imperialism and promoting socialism. Ideas are usually better expressed in character action and behavior.

At some point in her travels with Duncan, Bella meets a couple of intellectual, political types. They end up teaching her about realities of social hierarchy and poverty, ending her innocence more than Duncan ever did.

One of these travelers (it doesn’t matter who he is; he’s just a vehicle) makes a long and one-sided speech about every evil thing the British nation and Empire have ever done, going all the way back to Henry VIII. Small wonder: Gray’s nonfiction works include writing supporting socialism and Scottish independence.

All writers include their beliefs in their work, even if it’s unintentional; but I prefer subtly over speeches. The speeches also wrecked the nicely established pace.

The socialist tangent isn’t separated from sexual politics in Poor Things. Later, in Bella’s letters at the end she also describes her socialist activism and suggests that Victorian repression created some kinky and perverted people. Not to mention the need the men seem to have in the story to be “above� women in some social and financial hierarchy in order to have sex with them.

Finally, I would never have heard of this book were it not for the 2023 film. While I appreciate that the film led me to this book, I can’t say I really thought it was a masterpiece. The filmmakers took an already strange premise and overdid it with the style and sex, making a smutty, Tim-Burton inspired, over-frosted cake. The script and camera setups also victimized and then canonized Bella, making it more a sentimental than intellectual experience.
]]> 11550
Originally published: New York: Holt, Rinehart, and Winston, 1984.]]> 407 Robert McCammon 0671769928 Bronwyn 4 2025, horror
In McCammon's version, the Usher family survived into the 20th century and got rich making weapons, though the line is plagued by misfortune and illness. The story focuses on Rix, second oldest son of the current (1984) Usher patriarch, who has left the family business to make it as a horror author.

Rix's father is dying from a rare disease that affects only their family; the same overstimulated senses and wasting away symptoms that Roderick suffered in the original story.

McCammon is never dull and this is a fun, scary story. There is a lot of drama, action, thrills and excitement.

If there is a commentary or critique, it is that of the rich as corrupt and stealing even more from the poor and the evils of making money off of war, violence, and weaponry.

My complaint is way too many storylines. They do ultimately relate but with Usher family history, drama, weird genetics and various tragedies, various mythic monsters, a kid with supernatural abilities, and rampant insanity across multiple characters, there is never a strong focus.

Though it may be Poe-inspired, I sometimes felt I was reading a mashup of V.C. Andrews and Stephen King. Not a bad thing entirely, they were/are two of the most entertaining writers especially of that 1980s era.]]> 3.90 1984
author: Robert McCammon
name: Bronwyn
average rating: 3.90
book published: 1984
rating: 4
read at: 2025/02/21
date added: 2025/03/22
shelves: 2025, horror
review:
Unofficial sequel or homage to Poe's "The Fall of the House of Usher."

In McCammon's version, the Usher family survived into the 20th century and got rich making weapons, though the line is plagued by misfortune and illness. The story focuses on Rix, second oldest son of the current (1984) Usher patriarch, who has left the family business to make it as a horror author.

Rix's father is dying from a rare disease that affects only their family; the same overstimulated senses and wasting away symptoms that Roderick suffered in the original story.

McCammon is never dull and this is a fun, scary story. There is a lot of drama, action, thrills and excitement.

If there is a commentary or critique, it is that of the rich as corrupt and stealing even more from the poor and the evils of making money off of war, violence, and weaponry.

My complaint is way too many storylines. They do ultimately relate but with Usher family history, drama, weird genetics and various tragedies, various mythic monsters, a kid with supernatural abilities, and rampant insanity across multiple characters, there is never a strong focus.

Though it may be Poe-inspired, I sometimes felt I was reading a mashup of V.C. Andrews and Stephen King. Not a bad thing entirely, they were/are two of the most entertaining writers especially of that 1980s era.
]]> 37975580
Liz Kendall wouldn't hurt a fly. She's a gentle woman devoted to bringing up her kids in the right way, no matter how hard times get.

But there's another side to Liz - one which is dark and malicious. A version of her who will do anything to get her way, no matter how extreme or violent.

And when this other side of her takes control, the consequences are devastating.

The only way Liz can save herself and her family is if she can find out where this new alter-ego has come from, and how she can stop it.]]> 512 M.R. Carey 035650946X Bronwyn 3 horror, 2025
Both women have experienced violent trauma and everything that happens in the story is the long-range consequence of that.

The story is decently interesting right from the start. I was invested in what would happen to Liz and the kids, Fran’s growing mental health issues and so on. It picks up and becomes quite a page turner in the last handful of chapters.

Carey has an easygoing writing style and really gets into the mind of the characters. I liked it that the major antagonist was not obvious and the finale had some satisfying and unpredictable moments.

I would have expected all this to be a lot more disturbing. A little more intensity for me perhaps. Especially considering the issues that the characters are facing.

It is a supernatural story but it didn’t have to be. The description sets up Liz fearing her “dark side,� and this could have been just as effective if entirely psychological. In fact, it might have made it scarier, though the responsibility would have fallen more squarely on the protagonist. It would be a riskier move that way.

Also, frankly, sometimes Liz’s dark side was no scarier than an irresponsible and unstable teenager. She pulled pranks, ran up credit card debt, and slept around.. Didn’t quite make it for me as something labeled horror. ]]> 3.61 2018
author: M.R. Carey
name: Bronwyn
average rating: 3.61
book published: 2018
rating: 3
read at: 2025/03/22
date added: 2025/03/22
shelves: horror, 2025
review:
Supernatural thriller with two protagonists, one is Liz a middle aged mother of two and the other is Fran, a teenage friend of Liz’s son.

Both women have experienced violent trauma and everything that happens in the story is the long-range consequence of that.

The story is decently interesting right from the start. I was invested in what would happen to Liz and the kids, Fran’s growing mental health issues and so on. It picks up and becomes quite a page turner in the last handful of chapters.

Carey has an easygoing writing style and really gets into the mind of the characters. I liked it that the major antagonist was not obvious and the finale had some satisfying and unpredictable moments.

I would have expected all this to be a lot more disturbing. A little more intensity for me perhaps. Especially considering the issues that the characters are facing.

It is a supernatural story but it didn’t have to be. The description sets up Liz fearing her “dark side,� and this could have been just as effective if entirely psychological. In fact, it might have made it scarier, though the responsibility would have fallen more squarely on the protagonist. It would be a riskier move that way.

Also, frankly, sometimes Liz’s dark side was no scarier than an irresponsible and unstable teenager. She pulled pranks, ran up credit card debt, and slept around.. Didn’t quite make it for me as something labeled horror.
]]> 18214414 Private investigator Cormoran Strike returns in a new mystery from Robert Galbraith, author of the #1 international bestseller The Cuckoo's Calling.

When novelist Owen Quine goes missing, his wife calls in private detective Cormoran Strike. At first, Mrs. Quine just thinks her husband has gone off by himself for a few days—as he has done before—and she wants Strike to find him and bring him home.

But as Strike investigates, it becomes clear that there is more to Quine's disappearance than his wife realizes. The novelist has just completed a manuscript featuring poisonous pen-portraits of almost everyone he knows. If the novel were to be published, it would ruin lives—meaning that there are a lot of people who might want him silenced.

When Quine is found brutally murdered under bizarre circumstances, it becomes a race against time to understand the motivation of a ruthless killer, a killer unlike any Strike has encountered before...]]> 464 Robert Galbraith 0316206873 Bronwyn 3 detective-series, 2025
There was something oddly quaint and old fashioned about this story. It would have been cutting edge in the late 1970s maybe but a little backward for 2014 when it was published.

It's just a vague feeling based on the sexist attitudes projected at Robin and writer characters' weird fears that their sex lives would be so shocking to the public.

In Cuckoo's Calling, I was more interested in Cormoran and Robin than the actual mystery. In this second book, they don't develop any further really, either in their working relationship or as people. ]]> 4.02 2014
author: Robert Galbraith
name: Bronwyn
average rating: 4.02
book published: 2014
rating: 3
read at: 2025/03/22
date added: 2025/03/22
shelves: detective-series, 2025
review:
Robin and Cormoran (not Cameron!) solve the mystery of a murdered writer. It all revolves around the publishing industry, writers and publishers with massive egos and details about their sex lives.

There was something oddly quaint and old fashioned about this story. It would have been cutting edge in the late 1970s maybe but a little backward for 2014 when it was published.

It's just a vague feeling based on the sexist attitudes projected at Robin and writer characters' weird fears that their sex lives would be so shocking to the public.

In Cuckoo's Calling, I was more interested in Cormoran and Robin than the actual mystery. In this second book, they don't develop any further really, either in their working relationship or as people.
]]> 223524394
When We Love You, Bunny opens, Sam has just published her first novel to critical acclaim. But at a New England stop on her book tour, her one-time frenemies, furious at the way they’ve been portrayed, kidnap her. Now a captive audience, it’s her (and our) turn to hear the Bunnies� side of the story. One by one, they take turns holding the axe, and recount the birth throes of their unholy alliance, their discovery of their unusual creative powers—and the phantasmagoric adventure of conjuring their first creation. With a bound and gagged Sam, we embark on a wickedly intoxicating journey into the heart of dark academia: a fairy tale slasher that explores the wonder and horror of creation itself. Not to mention the transformative powers of love and friendship, Bunny.

Frankenstein by way of Heathers, We Love You, Bunny is both a prequel and a sequel, and an unabashedly wild and totally complete stand-alone novel. Open your hearts, Bunny, to another dazzlingly original and darkly hilarious romp in the Bunny-verse from the queen of the fever-dream, Mona Awad.]]> 496 Mona Awad 1668098482 Bronwyn 0 to-be-published 4.12 2025
author: Mona Awad
name: Bronwyn
average rating: 4.12
book published: 2025
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/03/17
shelves: to-be-published
review:

]]> 173754979 A brilliant reimagining of Adventures of Huckleberry Finn—both harrowing and satirical—told from the enslaved Jim's point of view

When Jim overhears that he is about to be sold to a man in New Orleans, separated from his wife and daughter forever, he runs away until he can formulate a plan. Meanwhile, Huck has faked his own death to escape his violent father. As all readers of American literature know, thus begins the dangerous and transcendent journey by raft down the Mississippi River toward the elusive and unreliable promise of the Free States and beyond.

Brimming with nuanced humor and lacerating observations that have made Everett a literary icon, this brilliant and tender novel radically illuminates Jim's agency, intelligence, and compassion as never before. James is destined to be a major publishing event and a cornerstone of twenty-first-century American literature.

Alternate cover edition of ISBN 9780385550369.]]> 303 Percival Everett Bronwyn 4 Adventures of Huckleberry Finn from the point of view of Jim. I’m glad I read the original recently because it enhanced my experience. Yet, according to other members of the book club I read with, it is not necessary.

James followed along with the original story until about the halfway point when it diverged as Huck and Jim went their own ways, reunited dramatically, then separated again while James continued his quest to save himself and his family.

From Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, “Jim� was seen as a stereotype, ridiculous, ignorant, and superstitious, and used as a plot device for Huck’s character growth. Yet he was certainly kinder, has more morals and empathy compared to anyone else Huck met in the original story. James puts the title character center stage and Everett writes him as educated, highly literate, and well spoken. He’s also angrier, cynical, and violent compared to the original.

Written in a clean and simple language, with lots of dialogue, James had an exciting, at times thrilling, plot and a sense of humor despite the dark topics. A lot of reviewers mentioned not finding it particularly funny. The overall events weren’t but a lot of the dialogue and specific absurd moments occasionally were.

One amusing scene involved two con artists that James and Huck meet on their journey, the King and the Duke, who were also in Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. Ignorant of actual Shakespeare, the King and Duke perform a “Shakespeare� play for an audience who is also ignorant of Shakespeare, though they do quickly suspect they’re being “had.�

Another memorable sequence were the scenes when James was forced into a minstrel show. The idea that James, a runaway slave, is forced to perform in a minstrel show turned my head inside out for a moment.

“Never had a situation felt so absurd, surreal and ridiculous. And I had spent my life as a slave. There we were, twelve of us, marching down the main street that separated the free side of town from the slave side, ten white men in blackface, one black man passing for white and painted black, and me, a light-brown black man painted black in such a way as to appear like a white man trying to pass for black.�

Besides being a pretty good story, it was naturally very thought-provoking, especially around history and literature. A couple ideas came up that I found of particular interest.

I. Performing James/Jim
How “Jim� was perceived in the original as well as how James is perceived here is an important concept.

James begins with the title character teaching his kid how to talk in front of the white people, using the “dialect� manner of speech that Twain wrote for “Jim.� Everett set up the slaves manner of speaking as code switching, for fear displaying their true intelligence got them beaten or worse.

A previous novel by Everett, Erasure, covered similar territory, when Black author Monk pretends to be a ghetto thug to create the illusion to accompany the popular novel he wrote. Performing an idea of a Black Man for the expectations of white society.

Breaking out of their assigned roles could have had deadly consequences to the characters in James. In Erasure the consequences are mainly economic, though that is not to be taken lightly.

II. Do admired historic thinkers and writers have to be morally perfect in the standards of the 2020s?
In James' daydreams he held his own with such thinkers as Locke and Voltaire, who were considered liberal and democratic, ahead of their time and so on, yet wrote or said other things that justified slavery and/or contradicted the idea that all men are equal.

Besides giving James a chance to show what a great debater he was�
““You have a notion, like Raynal, of natural liberties, and we all have them by virtue of our being human. But when those liberties are put under societal and cultural pressure, they become civil liberties, and those are contingent on hierarchy and situation.�

—I believe these were included to show that one can appreciate and learn from great thinkers while still questioning and criticizing where they went wrong.

This applies perhaps to Twain himself who was considered an opponent of slavery and yet wrote “Jim� in a manner that was considered by some to be racist and offensive.

Everett mentions Twain in the acknowledgements “his humor and humanity affected me long before I became a writer.�

This tells me he is both an admirer and critic of Twain and two contradictory views can coexist.]]> 4.47 2024
author: Percival Everett
name: Bronwyn
average rating: 4.47
book published: 2024
rating: 4
read at: 2025/02/22
date added: 2025/03/15
shelves: 2025, book-clubs, historical-fiction
review:
This is a retelling of the Adventures of Huckleberry Finn from the point of view of Jim. I’m glad I read the original recently because it enhanced my experience. Yet, according to other members of the book club I read with, it is not necessary.

James followed along with the original story until about the halfway point when it diverged as Huck and Jim went their own ways, reunited dramatically, then separated again while James continued his quest to save himself and his family.

From Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, “Jim� was seen as a stereotype, ridiculous, ignorant, and superstitious, and used as a plot device for Huck’s character growth. Yet he was certainly kinder, has more morals and empathy compared to anyone else Huck met in the original story. James puts the title character center stage and Everett writes him as educated, highly literate, and well spoken. He’s also angrier, cynical, and violent compared to the original.

Written in a clean and simple language, with lots of dialogue, James had an exciting, at times thrilling, plot and a sense of humor despite the dark topics. A lot of reviewers mentioned not finding it particularly funny. The overall events weren’t but a lot of the dialogue and specific absurd moments occasionally were.

One amusing scene involved two con artists that James and Huck meet on their journey, the King and the Duke, who were also in Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. Ignorant of actual Shakespeare, the King and Duke perform a “Shakespeare� play for an audience who is also ignorant of Shakespeare, though they do quickly suspect they’re being “had.�

Another memorable sequence were the scenes when James was forced into a minstrel show. The idea that James, a runaway slave, is forced to perform in a minstrel show turned my head inside out for a moment.

“Never had a situation felt so absurd, surreal and ridiculous. And I had spent my life as a slave. There we were, twelve of us, marching down the main street that separated the free side of town from the slave side, ten white men in blackface, one black man passing for white and painted black, and me, a light-brown black man painted black in such a way as to appear like a white man trying to pass for black.�

Besides being a pretty good story, it was naturally very thought-provoking, especially around history and literature. A couple ideas came up that I found of particular interest.

I. Performing James/Jim
How “Jim� was perceived in the original as well as how James is perceived here is an important concept.

James begins with the title character teaching his kid how to talk in front of the white people, using the “dialect� manner of speech that Twain wrote for “Jim.� Everett set up the slaves manner of speaking as code switching, for fear displaying their true intelligence got them beaten or worse.

A previous novel by Everett, Erasure, covered similar territory, when Black author Monk pretends to be a ghetto thug to create the illusion to accompany the popular novel he wrote. Performing an idea of a Black Man for the expectations of white society.

Breaking out of their assigned roles could have had deadly consequences to the characters in James. In Erasure the consequences are mainly economic, though that is not to be taken lightly.

II. Do admired historic thinkers and writers have to be morally perfect in the standards of the 2020s?
In James' daydreams he held his own with such thinkers as Locke and Voltaire, who were considered liberal and democratic, ahead of their time and so on, yet wrote or said other things that justified slavery and/or contradicted the idea that all men are equal.

Besides giving James a chance to show what a great debater he was�
““You have a notion, like Raynal, of natural liberties, and we all have them by virtue of our being human. But when those liberties are put under societal and cultural pressure, they become civil liberties, and those are contingent on hierarchy and situation.�

—I believe these were included to show that one can appreciate and learn from great thinkers while still questioning and criticizing where they went wrong.

This applies perhaps to Twain himself who was considered an opponent of slavery and yet wrote “Jim� in a manner that was considered by some to be racist and offensive.

Everett mentions Twain in the acknowledgements “his humor and humanity affected me long before I became a writer.�

This tells me he is both an admirer and critic of Twain and two contradictory views can coexist.
]]> 155415 --back cover

Contents:

· Introduction · John D. MacDonald · in
· Foreword · fw
· Jerusalem’s Lot · nv Night Shift, Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1978
· Graveyard Shift · ss Cavalier Oct �70
· Night Surf · ss Cavalier Aug �74
· I Am the Doorway · ss Cavalier Mar �71
· The Mangler · nv Cavalier Dec �72
· The Boogeyman · ss Cavalier Mar �73
· Gray Matter · ss Cavalier Oct �73
· Battleground · ss Cavalier Sep �72
· Trucks · ss Cavalier Jun �73
· Sometimes They Come Back · nv Cavalier Mar �74
· Strawberry Spring · ss Ubris Fll �68; Cavalier Nov �75
· The Ledge · ss Penthouse Jul �76
· The Lawnmower Man · ss Cavalier May �75
· Quitters, Inc. · ss Night Shift, Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1978
· I Know What You Need · nv Cosmopolitan Sep �76
· Children of the Corn · nv Penthouse Mar �77
· The Last Rung on the Ladder · ss Night Shift, Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1978
· The Man Who Loved Flowers · ss Gallery Aug �77
· One for the Road · ss Maine Mar �77
· The Woman in the Room · ss Night Shift, Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1978]]> 326 Stephen King 0451160452 Bronwyn 5
A few of these were made into films, like "Trucks" (Maximum Overdrive) and "Children of the Corn." "Quitters Inc." was part of the Cat's Eye anthology movie, and the film Lawnmower Man takes its title (but not really the story) from a story in this collection.]]> 3.92 1978
author: Stephen King
name: Bronwyn
average rating: 3.92
book published: 1978
rating: 5
read at: 2025/03/13
date added: 2025/03/15
shelves: short-story-collections, king, pre-goodreads, favorites, 2025
review:
I love this collection of short stories and have read it many times since first discovering it at the age of fifteen. A few favorites are "Gray Matter," "I Know What You Need," and "Quitters Inc." These tales are all fast, fun, and creepy.

A few of these were made into films, like "Trucks" (Maximum Overdrive) and "Children of the Corn." "Quitters Inc." was part of the Cat's Eye anthology movie, and the film Lawnmower Man takes its title (but not really the story) from a story in this collection.
]]> 32109569 Alternate Cover Edition can be found here.

Bob Johansson has just sold his software company and is looking forward to a life of leisure. There are places to go, books to read, and movies to watch. So it's a little unfair when he gets himself killed crossing the street.

Bob wakes up a century later to find that corpsicles have been declared to be without rights, and he is now the property of the state. He has been uploaded into computer hardware and is slated to be the controlling AI in an interstellar probe looking for habitable planets. The stakes are high: no less than the first claim to entire worlds. If he declines the honor, he'll be switched off, and they'll try again with someone else. If he accepts, he becomes a prime target. There are at least three other countries trying to get their own probes launched first, and they play dirty.

The safest place for Bob is in space, heading away from Earth at top speed. Or so he thinks. Because the universe is full of nasties, and trespassers make them mad - very mad.]]> 383 Dennis E. Taylor Bronwyn 3
Bob’s new task is to help the human race find habitable planets, a task which involves the willingness to make copies or clones of himself to take on different exploration and management aspects.

The more profound aspects of We Are Bob are the identity and humanity questions of what makes a person a person, is it emotion and memory, the people you care about and, once Bob starts making copies of himself, what are they to him? Are they also independent, sentient people

We Are Bob is mostly light technology and science descriptions and some light humor. The story built around science ideas and concepts rather than using those things to make a compelling narrative.

Considering the stakes are huge, the future of humanity, and there are many opposing forces, it could have been far more intense. There are also too many things science fiction readers would have seen before--first contact, searching for habitable planets, sentient AI. It is really challenging to tell a unique story of this sort.

The identity and humanity questions aren’t explored that deeply in other words. That’s okay. For light comedy it could have been funnier.

It’s close to a John Scalzi or Andy Weir book. There are a lot of pop culture and popular science fiction jokes and allusions. I appreciated the Bloom County nods in particular.]]> 4.29 2016
author: Dennis E. Taylor
name: Bronwyn
average rating: 4.29
book published: 2016
rating: 3
read at: 2025/03/15
date added: 2025/03/15
shelves: cyberpunk-techno-thriller, 2025
review:
Tech entrepreneur Bob Johansson sets himself up to be cryogenically frozen in the event of his demise. When he wakes up 100 years later, his body is gone and his mind is now an AI owned by a new political nation that has arisen while he “slept.�

Bob’s new task is to help the human race find habitable planets, a task which involves the willingness to make copies or clones of himself to take on different exploration and management aspects.

The more profound aspects of We Are Bob are the identity and humanity questions of what makes a person a person, is it emotion and memory, the people you care about and, once Bob starts making copies of himself, what are they to him? Are they also independent, sentient people

We Are Bob is mostly light technology and science descriptions and some light humor. The story built around science ideas and concepts rather than using those things to make a compelling narrative.

Considering the stakes are huge, the future of humanity, and there are many opposing forces, it could have been far more intense. There are also too many things science fiction readers would have seen before--first contact, searching for habitable planets, sentient AI. It is really challenging to tell a unique story of this sort.

The identity and humanity questions aren’t explored that deeply in other words. That’s okay. For light comedy it could have been funnier.

It’s close to a John Scalzi or Andy Weir book. There are a lot of pop culture and popular science fiction jokes and allusions. I appreciated the Bloom County nods in particular.
]]> 150247395
Called in to investigate this mystery is Ana Dolabra, an investigator whose reputation for brilliance is matched only by her eccentricities.

At her side is her new assistant, Dinios Kol. Din is an engraver, magically altered to possess a perfect memory. His job is to observe and report, and act as his superior’s eyes and ears--quite literally, in this case, as among Ana’s quirks are her insistence on wearing a blindfold at all times, and her refusal to step outside the walls of her home.

Din is most perplexed by Ana’s ravenous appetite for information and her mind’s frenzied leaps—not to mention her cheerful disregard for propriety and the apparent joy she takes in scandalizing her young counterpart. Yet as the case unfolds and Ana makes one startling deduction after the next, he finds it hard to deny that she is, indeed, the Empire’s greatest detective.

As the two close in on a mastermind and uncover a scheme that threatens the safety of the Empire itself, Din realizes he’s barely begun to assemble the puzzle that is Ana Dolabra—and wonders how long he’ll be able to keep his own secrets safe from her piercing intellect.

Featuring an unforgettable Holmes-and-Watson style pairing, a gloriously labyrinthine plot, and a haunting and wholly original fantasy world, The Tainted Cup brilliantly reinvents the classic mystery tale.]]> 410 Robert Jackson Bennett 1984820702 Bronwyn 4 2025, science-fiction-fantasy
Decent story which kept expanding into greater levels of complexity. Ana and Din were characters I enjoyed, Din as the more insecure relatable one from whom we get the story as well as his view on his brilliant and unusual boss.

I truly appreciated and enjoyed the world building. The summary describes “magic� but I prefer to think of it as maximizing the natural resources this world has available. Din and other characters are augmented with parasites rather than how I traditionally think of “technology.� Though certainly making full biological use of everything is a kind of tech.

This has interesting possibilities as a series as the story couldn’t begin to make use of all the possibilities, philosophical implications, and so on of the insane wildlife, not to mention the impending threat of the Leviathans. I hope, if I continue to read the series, there will be more about the Leviathans. I love that the plants are both incredibly useful and dangerous, due to the threat of contagions and suchlike.

Thought-provoking themes included social hierarchy, economic inequality, and corruption. One of the deeper aspects was seeing Din, who has reasons to keep to himself, develop friendships and trust in others. I think there is a lot more to learn about both major characters.

Though I enjoyed the two lead characters, the rest of them felt a bit utilitarian, generally there to fulfill the plot.

My interest in fantasy has waned somewhat but I enjoyed City of Stairs so much and everyone seemed to have read The Tainted Cup. I didn’t want to be left out. I did enjoy City of Stairs a bit more as it had more complex ideas. There is no one in The Tainted Cup with the same extreme energy as Sigrid. Not that I’m expecting the same types again and again, but I enjoy that kind of dangerous character.]]> 4.28 2024
author: Robert Jackson Bennett
name: Bronwyn
average rating: 4.28
book published: 2024
rating: 4
read at: 2025/03/08
date added: 2025/03/08
shelves: 2025, science-fiction-fantasy
review:
Murder mystery set in a scifi-fantasy world in which plants, botanicals, flora and fauna etc, do extraordinary things for humanity and all economy and progress is based on their use. The story features an eccentric detective, Ana, and her imposter-syndrome ridden assistant, Din.

Decent story which kept expanding into greater levels of complexity. Ana and Din were characters I enjoyed, Din as the more insecure relatable one from whom we get the story as well as his view on his brilliant and unusual boss.

I truly appreciated and enjoyed the world building. The summary describes “magic� but I prefer to think of it as maximizing the natural resources this world has available. Din and other characters are augmented with parasites rather than how I traditionally think of “technology.� Though certainly making full biological use of everything is a kind of tech.

This has interesting possibilities as a series as the story couldn’t begin to make use of all the possibilities, philosophical implications, and so on of the insane wildlife, not to mention the impending threat of the Leviathans. I hope, if I continue to read the series, there will be more about the Leviathans. I love that the plants are both incredibly useful and dangerous, due to the threat of contagions and suchlike.

Thought-provoking themes included social hierarchy, economic inequality, and corruption. One of the deeper aspects was seeing Din, who has reasons to keep to himself, develop friendships and trust in others. I think there is a lot more to learn about both major characters.

Though I enjoyed the two lead characters, the rest of them felt a bit utilitarian, generally there to fulfill the plot.

My interest in fantasy has waned somewhat but I enjoyed City of Stairs so much and everyone seemed to have read The Tainted Cup. I didn’t want to be left out. I did enjoy City of Stairs a bit more as it had more complex ideas. There is no one in The Tainted Cup with the same extreme energy as Sigrid. Not that I’m expecting the same types again and again, but I enjoy that kind of dangerous character.
]]> 15790842
On a cold and snowy night in 1910, Ursula Todd is born to an English banker and his wife. She dies before she can draw her first breath. On that same cold and snowy night, Ursula Todd is born, lets out a lusty wail, and embarks upon a life that will be, to say the least, unusual. For as she grows, she also dies, repeatedly, in a variety of ways, while the young century marches on towards its second cataclysmic world war.

Does Ursula's apparently infinite number of lives give her the power to save the world from its inevitable destiny? And if she can - will she?]]> 544 Kate Atkinson 0316176486 Bronwyn 3 Groundhog Day, but more than just a day, she is born, lives, and once she dies gets born again to the same life. I felt as though I was reading short stories exploring the possibilities for the same set of characters.

It sounded like an intriguing premise or maybe just a cool gimmick. Bordering on a science fiction or magical realism story but not quite. It’s literary fiction.

I enjoyed the writing style most of the time; Atkinson has a sense of humor which is always a plus.

Ursula and, early on, her mother Sylvie were sympathetic characters. Most of the other major female characters were well done, defined personalities and unique viewpoints. Characterizations of the male characters were a bit thinner, especially Ursula’s various bed partners who never made an impression.

Atkins explored various themes and meanings. Life and Love. Family. Women’s expanded choices in society as embodied by how different she and Sylvie and other female family members lived their lives.

The format made the 500-pages go by quicker than I would have thought. Only the London Blitz chapters tried my patience. Ultimately, I was hoping for some greater purpose that would tie it all together. ]]> 3.76 2013
author: Kate Atkinson
name: Bronwyn
average rating: 3.76
book published: 2013
rating: 3
read at: 2025/02/28
date added: 2025/03/08
shelves: historical-fiction, literary-spec-fic, 2025
review:
Novel follows various lives and deaths of a woman born in 1910 in England. Sort of like Groundhog Day, but more than just a day, she is born, lives, and once she dies gets born again to the same life. I felt as though I was reading short stories exploring the possibilities for the same set of characters.

It sounded like an intriguing premise or maybe just a cool gimmick. Bordering on a science fiction or magical realism story but not quite. It’s literary fiction.

I enjoyed the writing style most of the time; Atkinson has a sense of humor which is always a plus.

Ursula and, early on, her mother Sylvie were sympathetic characters. Most of the other major female characters were well done, defined personalities and unique viewpoints. Characterizations of the male characters were a bit thinner, especially Ursula’s various bed partners who never made an impression.

Atkins explored various themes and meanings. Life and Love. Family. Women’s expanded choices in society as embodied by how different she and Sylvie and other female family members lived their lives.

The format made the 500-pages go by quicker than I would have thought. Only the London Blitz chapters tried my patience. Ultimately, I was hoping for some greater purpose that would tie it all together.
]]> 9875107
The Leonides are one big happy family living in a sprawling, ramshackle mansion. That is until the head of the household, Aristide, is murdered with a fatal barbiturate injection.

Suspicion naturally falls on the old man’s young widow, fifty years his junior. But the murderer has reckoned without the tenacity of Charles Hayward, fiancé of the late millionaire’s granddaughter.]]> 236 Agatha Christie 0062073532 Bronwyn 4
The detective is not Christie favorites Poirot or Marple, but an amateur detective, a young man with ties to the police.

This is as entertaining as any of Agatha Christie’s mysteries. I particularly liked the characterizations of the family members and the narration of young Charles, an uncommonly warm and empathetic detective.

I found I nearly didn’t want to know who did it in a way because, with the exception of the emotionally remote middle brother, I had sympathy for most of the characters.

I did guess the solution early on, but Christie threw in so many possibilities that I doubted myself and “un-guessed� it before the big reveal.

Definitely a worthwhile choice if you’re looking to try out a sample of Christie’s work. ]]> 4.07 1949
author: Agatha Christie
name: Bronwyn
average rating: 4.07
book published: 1949
rating: 4
read at: 2025/02/25
date added: 2025/03/02
shelves: thrill-me-kill-me, classics, 2025
review:
Rich, eccentric patriarch of a large family is poisoned in his own home. His family has a lot of tension and resentment but a lot of affection for the victim and one another.

The detective is not Christie favorites Poirot or Marple, but an amateur detective, a young man with ties to the police.

This is as entertaining as any of Agatha Christie’s mysteries. I particularly liked the characterizations of the family members and the narration of young Charles, an uncommonly warm and empathetic detective.

I found I nearly didn’t want to know who did it in a way because, with the exception of the emotionally remote middle brother, I had sympathy for most of the characters.

I did guess the solution early on, but Christie threw in so many possibilities that I doubted myself and “un-guessed� it before the big reveal.

Definitely a worthwhile choice if you’re looking to try out a sample of Christie’s work.
]]> 27003
Hades' real target is the beloved Jane Eyre, and it's not long before he plucks her from the pages of Bronte's novel. Enter Thursday Next. She's the Special Operative's renowned literary detective, and she drives a Porsche. With the help of her uncle Mycroft's Prose Portal, Thursday enters the novel to rescue Jane Eyre from this heinous act of literary homicide. It's tricky business, all these interlopers running about Thornfield, and deceptions run rampant as their paths cross with Jane, Rochester, and Miss Fairfax. Can Thursday save Jane Eyre and Bronte's masterpiece? And what of the Crimean War? Will it ever end? And what about those annoying black holes that pop up now and again, sucking things into time-space voids . . .

Suspenseful and outlandish, absorbing and fun, The Eyre Affair is a caper unlike any other and an introduction to the imagination of a most distinctive writer and his singular fictional universe.]]> 374 Jasper Fforde 0142001805 Bronwyn 5
My working theory of why this is so is because he writes with a first-person protagonist who takes the situation deadly seriously, and so I do too. (Mostly first-person narrative, this one flip-flopped around a bit because I suppose the reader needed certain info that Thursday couldn’t have.)

Having said that, this is a far from deadly serious book. There’s lots of wit and deadpan humor. Probably a fun one for readers who like both science fiction fantasy and classic literature.

My favorite thing, which will be in my head for years to come, is the Rocky-Horrorization of Richard III that happens in this book. Don’t know if real performances like this exist or if it's Fforde’s wild imagination but it sure was fun to picture.

2025 reread: I liked this even better the second time. There is so much going on, different plots that it helped to be familiar with Fforde's world already.]]> 3.89 2001
author: Jasper Fforde
name: Bronwyn
average rating: 3.89
book published: 2001
rating: 5
read at: 2025/03/02
date added: 2025/03/02
shelves: urban-fantasy-series, comic-fantasy-sci-fi, 2025
review:
There’s something about Jasper Fforde. The premises described in the summaries of his novels always sound weird and silly, but once you sit down with the book they’re perfectly engaging and believable.

My working theory of why this is so is because he writes with a first-person protagonist who takes the situation deadly seriously, and so I do too. (Mostly first-person narrative, this one flip-flopped around a bit because I suppose the reader needed certain info that Thursday couldn’t have.)

Having said that, this is a far from deadly serious book. There’s lots of wit and deadpan humor. Probably a fun one for readers who like both science fiction fantasy and classic literature.

My favorite thing, which will be in my head for years to come, is the Rocky-Horrorization of Richard III that happens in this book. Don’t know if real performances like this exist or if it's Fforde’s wild imagination but it sure was fun to picture.

2025 reread: I liked this even better the second time. There is so much going on, different plots that it helped to be familiar with Fforde's world already.
]]> 42036538
The Ninth Necromancer needs a swordswoman.

Gideon has a sword, some dirty magazines, and no more time for undead bullshit.

Brought up by unfriendly, ossifying nuns, ancient retainers, and countless skeletons, Gideon is ready to abandon a life of servitude and an afterlife as a reanimated corpse. She packs up her sword, her shoes, and her dirty magazines, and prepares to launch her daring escape. But her childhood nemesis won't set her free without a service.

Harrowhark Nonagesimus, Reverend Daughter of the Ninth House and bone witch extraordinaire, has been summoned into action. The Emperor has invited the heirs to each of his loyal Houses to a deadly trial of wits and skill. If Harrowhark succeeds she will become an immortal, all-powerful servant of the Resurrection, but no necromancer can ascend without their cavalier. Without Gideon's sword, Harrow will fail, and the Ninth House will die.

Of course, some things are better left dead.]]> 448 Tamsyn Muir 1250313198 Bronwyn 3
I was amused by Gideon and her irreverence to all the rituals and events that the other characters were taking very seriously.

I would have loved to have been let in the backstory of Gideon/Harrow’s world so that I could also take things seriously. Gideon could have been a tension breaker rather than a distraction from the fact that I never got emotionally involved with the story.

Muir created a detailed world but didn’t develop the history for the reader.]]> 4.19 2019
author: Tamsyn Muir
name: Bronwyn
average rating: 4.19
book published: 2019
rating: 3
read at: 2024/10/02
date added: 2025/02/25
shelves: dark-fantasy, science-fiction-fantasy, teen-protagonist
review:
Reading this was mildly entertaining but also frustrating.

I was amused by Gideon and her irreverence to all the rituals and events that the other characters were taking very seriously.

I would have loved to have been let in the backstory of Gideon/Harrow’s world so that I could also take things seriously. Gideon could have been a tension breaker rather than a distraction from the fact that I never got emotionally involved with the story.

Muir created a detailed world but didn’t develop the history for the reader.
]]> 16981 Invisible Man is one of those rare novels that have changed the shape of American literature. For not only does Ralph Ellison's nightmare journey across the racial divide tell unparalleled truths about the nature of bigotry and its effects on the minds of both victims and perpetrators, it gives us an entirely new model of what a novel can be.

As he journeys from the Deep South to the streets and basements of Harlem, from a horrifying "battle royal" where black men are reduced to fighting animals, to a Communist rally where they are elevated to the status of trophies, Ralph Ellison's nameless protagonist ushers readers into a parallel universe that throws our own into harsh and even hilarious relief. Suspenseful and sardonic, narrated in a voice that takes in the symphonic range of the American language, black and white, Invisible Man is one of the most audacious and dazzling novels of our century.]]> 581 Ralph Ellison Bronwyn 5 classics, 2025
My fears were unfounded. So much happened—tons of action, dramatic turns of events, even a little humor.

My biggest takeaway was seeing someone used, over and over, for what they represented in American society, rather than who they were as an individual.]]> 3.91 1952
author: Ralph Ellison
name: Bronwyn
average rating: 3.91
book published: 1952
rating: 5
read at: 2025/02/23
date added: 2025/02/23
shelves: classics, 2025
review:
I was curious about this but put it off for a long time, fearing it might be too academic and therefore a slog to get through.

My fears were unfounded. So much happened—tons of action, dramatic turns of events, even a little humor.

My biggest takeaway was seeing someone used, over and over, for what they represented in American society, rather than who they were as an individual.
]]> 7286507 The Third Policeman is Flann O'Brien's brilliantly dark comic novel about the nature of time, death, and existence. Told by a narrator who has committed a botched robbery and brutal murder, the novel follows him and his adventures in a two-dimensional police station where, through the theories of the scientist/philosopher de Selby, he is introduced to "Atomic Theory" and its relation to bicycles, the existence of eternity (which turns out to be just down the road), and de Selby's view that the earth is not round but "sausage-shaped." With the help of his newly found soul named "Joe, " he grapples with the riddles and contradictions that three eccentric policeman present to him.]]> 209 Flann O'Brien Bronwyn 0 to-read 3.98 1967
author: Flann O'Brien
name: Bronwyn
average rating: 3.98
book published: 1967
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/02/16
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 84548 When an income tax officer makes him an offer he can't refuse, Easy Rawlins is forced out of retirement and into the infiltration of his local church, the First African Baptist, and the surveillance of local radicals. Murderers strike and he becomes the prime suspect of the Los Angeles Police Department, who lose no sleep over the fate of 'freelance' private eyes.]]> 284 Walter Mosley 1852427698 Bronwyn 3 detective-series, 2025 3.96 1991
author: Walter Mosley
name: Bronwyn
average rating: 3.96
book published: 1991
rating: 3
read at: 2025/02/09
date added: 2025/02/15
shelves: detective-series, 2025
review:

]]> 51947057 In an "epic, game-changing, moving and brilliant" story of love and hate, two immortals chase each other across continents and centuries, binding their fates together -- and changing the destiny of the human race (Viola Davis). Doro knows no higher authority than himself. An ancient spirit with boundless powers, he possesses humans, killing without remorse as he jumps from body to body to sustain his own life. With a lonely eternity ahead of him, Doro breeds supernaturally gifted humans into empires that obey his every desire. He fears no one -- until he meets Anyanwu. Anyanwu is an entity like Doro and yet different. She can heal with a bite and transform her own body, mending injuries and reversing aging. She uses her powers to cure her neighbors and birth entire tribes, surrounding herself with kindred who both fear and respect her. No one poses a true threat to Anyanwu -- until she meets Doro. The moment Doro meets Anyanwu, he covets her; and from the villages of 17th-century Nigeria to 19th-century United States, their courtship becomes a power struggle that echoes through generations, irrevocably changing what it means to be human.]]> 307 Octavia E. Butler 1538751488 Bronwyn 3 science-fiction-fantasy, 2025
The god-like characters and their gifts were unique and inventive. The historical setting had interesting potential but was never used to create additional tension.

It got off to a slow start and was a bit repetitive with Doro, the male immortal, and his obsession with breeding supernatural-powered progeny. He meets Anyanwu, the “wild seed� of the title, whose powers and agelessness makes her a good broodmare for him but difficult for him to control.

Control is Doro’s thing you see, whereas Anyanwu is more about caring, healing, nature, and family. There might be a bit of stereotyping there, along the "battle of the sexes" line but I didn't worry too much about it.

Besides the limited story, it was frustrating that Doro had no apparent goal or master plan for his little breeding project. He’s the patriarchy and the eugenicist and she is the victim but there’s little story beyond that.

Eventually, I became invested in their power struggle, wondering how Anyanwu would settle things with him or he with her, as he appeared to develop a grudging respect.

Comparing this to Butler’s other novels, I’d say this is not as intense or engaging as Kindred or Parable of the Sower. The plot is not as well defined.

This is the first story chronologically in the Patternist series but the first book published was Patternmaster. I wonder if I made a mistake by reading Wild Seed first?

Perhaps it was only meant as an origin story or mythology and that’s why it didn’t interest me since I’m not “in the know� about the rest of the series.
]]> 4.16 1980
author: Octavia E. Butler
name: Bronwyn
average rating: 4.16
book published: 1980
rating: 3
read at: 2025/02/15
date added: 2025/02/15
shelves: science-fiction-fantasy, 2025
review:
In 17th-century Africa, an immortal body thief meets an ageless healer and they travel to the Western hemisphere to begin a long and tumultuous relationship.

The god-like characters and their gifts were unique and inventive. The historical setting had interesting potential but was never used to create additional tension.

It got off to a slow start and was a bit repetitive with Doro, the male immortal, and his obsession with breeding supernatural-powered progeny. He meets Anyanwu, the “wild seed� of the title, whose powers and agelessness makes her a good broodmare for him but difficult for him to control.

Control is Doro’s thing you see, whereas Anyanwu is more about caring, healing, nature, and family. There might be a bit of stereotyping there, along the "battle of the sexes" line but I didn't worry too much about it.

Besides the limited story, it was frustrating that Doro had no apparent goal or master plan for his little breeding project. He’s the patriarchy and the eugenicist and she is the victim but there’s little story beyond that.

Eventually, I became invested in their power struggle, wondering how Anyanwu would settle things with him or he with her, as he appeared to develop a grudging respect.

Comparing this to Butler’s other novels, I’d say this is not as intense or engaging as Kindred or Parable of the Sower. The plot is not as well defined.

This is the first story chronologically in the Patternist series but the first book published was Patternmaster. I wonder if I made a mistake by reading Wild Seed first?

Perhaps it was only meant as an origin story or mythology and that’s why it didn’t interest me since I’m not “in the know� about the rest of the series.

]]> 159497 Alternate Cover Edition for ISBN: 0-345-33453-1.

In the days before the Civil War there lived a Louisiana people unique in Southern history. For though they were descended from African slaves, they were also descended from the French and Spanish who had enslaved them. They were the gens de couleur libre—the Free People of Color� and in this dazzling historical novel, Anne Rice chronicles the lives of four of their number, men and women caught perilously between the worlds of master and slave, privilege and oppression, passion and pain.]]> 640 Anne Rice Bronwyn 5 3.71 1979
author: Anne Rice
name: Bronwyn
average rating: 3.71
book published: 1979
rating: 5
read at:
date added: 2025/02/15
shelves: pre-goodreads, historical-fiction, sentimental-favorites
review:

]]> 77727 128 Bill Watterson 0836220889 Bronwyn 5 4.61 1987
author: Bill Watterson
name: Bronwyn
average rating: 4.61
book published: 1987
rating: 5
read at:
date added: 2025/02/15
shelves: graphic-novels-comics, pre-goodreads, sentimental-favorites
review:

]]> 111651 224 Berkeley Breathed 0316103098 Bronwyn 5 4.38 1986
author: Berkeley Breathed
name: Bronwyn
average rating: 4.38
book published: 1986
rating: 5
read at:
date added: 2025/02/15
shelves: graphic-novels-comics, pre-goodreads, sentimental-favorites
review:

]]> 133031 251 Berkeley Breathed 0316107549 Bronwyn 5 4.47 1990
author: Berkeley Breathed
name: Bronwyn
average rating: 4.47
book published: 1990
rating: 5
read at:
date added: 2025/02/15
shelves: graphic-novels-comics, pre-goodreads, sentimental-favorites
review:

]]> 805023 Audrina Adare wanted so to be as good as her sister. She knew her father could not love her as he loved her sister. Her sister was so special, so perfect -- and dead.
Now she will come face to face with the dangerous, terrifying secret that everyone knows. Everyone except...
My Sweet Audrina
--back cover]]> 403 V.C. Andrews Bronwyn 5 Flowers in the Attic at the time. I 've re-read My Sweet Audrina many times, still enjoying it even once I knew the “big secret.�

Audrina is the narrator and protagonist of the story, living under the shadow of her brighter and better older sister, now diseased. Andrews created a dark atmosphere, perfect for the Gothic genre. Audrina lives in a mansion, known as Whitefern. Far from luxurious, Whitefern is neglected, full of inadequate lighting and mysterious shadows, a dangerous staircase, and—in the case of her dead sister's bedroom—creepy dolls and spider webs. If that weren't enough, there’s always stormy weather happening in key moments throughout the book.

The major conflict for Audrina is memory and identity. She lacks knowledge of her past and wishes to be like her older sister, Audrina, who family members speak of as being so “special.� Unaware she is the victim of, among other things, [spoilers removed]

“There were shadows in the corners and whispers on the stairs and time was as irrelevant as honesty.�

In retrospect, the big reveal of the book seems obvious. [spoilers removed] The first time I read this, I admit I accepted it entirely. The main mystery of the book is psychologically fascinating, if you can suspend your disbelief.

Adding to Audrina’s problems is the dynamic of constant tension between her parents, between her mom and her aunt, and between everyone and Audrina’s wild and willful cousin, Vera. High, overwrought emotions, secrets, and revenge add to the gothic atmosphere. Romantic and sexual jealousy, as well as a general obsession/repulsion about sex, give My Sweet Audrina its spice. A lot of this is man/woman battle of the sexes stuff: Mom gave up her career to be a wife, Aunt Elspeth has secret feelings for Dad, and just who is Vera’s father anyway? Kinda soapy but compulsively readable.

“There was a war going on in our house, a silent war that sounded no guns, and the bodies that fell were only wishes that died and the bullets were only words and the blood that was spilled was always called pride.�

The secondary revenge plot is pretty good too, and Andrews plays a long game with it, including a bit of misdirection. Audrina’s father is apparently the heavy; pitting all the women against each other for his love and keeping Audrina tightly under his control through fear, guilt, and affection.
Yet, it all comes down to the women making decisions and taking action—and since this is a bit of a melodrama, a bit of a dark fantasy—they mostly make the wrong ones. It's notable that nothing big happens in this book that wasn’t the result of action or machinations of one of the female characters.

The writing style and insane plot twists make this compulsively readable. ]]> 3.89 1982
author: V.C. Andrews
name: Bronwyn
average rating: 3.89
book published: 1982
rating: 5
read at: 2023/03/06
date added: 2025/02/15
shelves: gothic, pre-goodreads, sentimental-favorites
review:
I used to love this book when I was a teenager. The combination of Gothic elements, mystery, revenge, and suspense made it irresistible. I think I enjoyed it more than Flowers in the Attic at the time. I 've re-read My Sweet Audrina many times, still enjoying it even once I knew the “big secret.�

Audrina is the narrator and protagonist of the story, living under the shadow of her brighter and better older sister, now diseased. Andrews created a dark atmosphere, perfect for the Gothic genre. Audrina lives in a mansion, known as Whitefern. Far from luxurious, Whitefern is neglected, full of inadequate lighting and mysterious shadows, a dangerous staircase, and—in the case of her dead sister's bedroom—creepy dolls and spider webs. If that weren't enough, there’s always stormy weather happening in key moments throughout the book.

The major conflict for Audrina is memory and identity. She lacks knowledge of her past and wishes to be like her older sister, Audrina, who family members speak of as being so “special.� Unaware she is the victim of, among other things, [spoilers removed]

“There were shadows in the corners and whispers on the stairs and time was as irrelevant as honesty.�

In retrospect, the big reveal of the book seems obvious. [spoilers removed] The first time I read this, I admit I accepted it entirely. The main mystery of the book is psychologically fascinating, if you can suspend your disbelief.

Adding to Audrina’s problems is the dynamic of constant tension between her parents, between her mom and her aunt, and between everyone and Audrina’s wild and willful cousin, Vera. High, overwrought emotions, secrets, and revenge add to the gothic atmosphere. Romantic and sexual jealousy, as well as a general obsession/repulsion about sex, give My Sweet Audrina its spice. A lot of this is man/woman battle of the sexes stuff: Mom gave up her career to be a wife, Aunt Elspeth has secret feelings for Dad, and just who is Vera’s father anyway? Kinda soapy but compulsively readable.

“There was a war going on in our house, a silent war that sounded no guns, and the bodies that fell were only wishes that died and the bullets were only words and the blood that was spilled was always called pride.�

The secondary revenge plot is pretty good too, and Andrews plays a long game with it, including a bit of misdirection. Audrina’s father is apparently the heavy; pitting all the women against each other for his love and keeping Audrina tightly under his control through fear, guilt, and affection.
Yet, it all comes down to the women making decisions and taking action—and since this is a bit of a melodrama, a bit of a dark fantasy—they mostly make the wrong ones. It's notable that nothing big happens in this book that wasn’t the result of action or machinations of one of the female characters.

The writing style and insane plot twists make this compulsively readable.
]]> 6989932 550 Anne Rice Bronwyn 5 4.09 1985
author: Anne Rice
name: Bronwyn
average rating: 4.09
book published: 1985
rating: 5
read at:
date added: 2025/02/15
shelves: pre-goodreads, vampire, sentimental-favorites
review:

]]> 11768 520 John Irving 0552992097 Bronwyn 5 3.93 1981
author: John Irving
name: Bronwyn
average rating: 3.93
book published: 1981
rating: 5
read at:
date added: 2025/02/15
shelves: pre-goodreads, fiction-nongenre, sentimental-favorites
review:

]]> 1335010 283 William Goldman 0606034285 Bronwyn 5 4.32 1973
author: William Goldman
name: Bronwyn
average rating: 4.32
book published: 1973
rating: 5
read at:
date added: 2025/02/15
shelves: pre-goodreads, comic-fantasy-sci-fi, sentimental-favorites
review:

]]> 7069 610 John Irving 0345915593 Bronwyn 5 4.11 1978
author: John Irving
name: Bronwyn
average rating: 4.11
book published: 1978
rating: 5
read at:
date added: 2025/02/15
shelves: fiction-nongenre, pre-goodreads, sentimental-favorites
review:

]]> 890 “I got you to look after me, and you got me to look after you, and that's why.�

They are an unlikely pair: George is "small and quick and dark of face"; Lennie, a man of tremendous size, has the mind of a young child. Yet they have formed a "family," clinging together in the face of loneliness and alienation. Laborers in California's dusty vegetable fields, they hustle work when they can, living a hand-to-mouth existence. But George and Lennie have a plan: to own an acre of land and a shack they can call their own.

While the powerlessness of the laboring class is a recurring theme in Steinbeck's work of the late 1930s, he narrowed his focus when composing Of Mice and Men, creating an intimate portrait of two men facing a world marked by petty tyranny, misunderstanding, jealousy, and callousness. But though the scope is narrow, the theme is universal: a friendship and a shared dream that makes an individual's existence meaningful.

A unique perspective on life's hardships, this story has achieved the status of timeless classic due to its remarkable success as a novel, a Broadway play, and three acclaimed films.]]> 107 John Steinbeck 0142000671 Bronwyn 5 3.88 1937
author: John Steinbeck
name: Bronwyn
average rating: 3.88
book published: 1937
rating: 5
read at: 1987/11/01
date added: 2025/02/15
shelves: pre-goodreads, classics, sentimental-favorites
review:

]]> 6439131 156 S.E. Hinton Bronwyn 5 4.13 1967
author: S.E. Hinton
name: Bronwyn
average rating: 4.13
book published: 1967
rating: 5
read at:
date added: 2025/02/15
shelves: teen-protagonist, sentimental-favorites
review:

]]> 1450969 240 Frances Hodgson Burnett 0440447674 Bronwyn 5 4.40 1905
author: Frances Hodgson Burnett
name: Bronwyn
average rating: 4.40
book published: 1905
rating: 5
read at:
date added: 2025/02/15
shelves: youngsters, pre-goodreads, classics, sentimental-favorites
review:

]]> 24213
When Alice sees a white rabbit take a watch out of its waistcoat pocket she decides to follow it, and a sequence of most unusual events is set in motion. This mini book contains the entire topsy-turvy stories of Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking-Glass, accompanied by practical notes and Martina Pelouso's memorable full-colour illustrations.]]> 239 Lewis Carroll Bronwyn 5 4.07 1871
author: Lewis Carroll
name: Bronwyn
average rating: 4.07
book published: 1871
rating: 5
read at:
date added: 2025/02/15
shelves: youngsters, pre-goodreads, classics, sentimental-favorites
review:

]]> 43448 Such wonderful children. Such a beautiful mother. Such a lovely house. Such endless terror! It wasn't that she didn't love her children. She did. But there was a fortune at stake—a fortune that would assure their later happiness if she could keep the children a secret from her dying father. So she and her mother hid her darlings away in an unused attic. Just for a little while. But the brutal days swelled into agonizing years. Now Cathy, Chris, and the twins wait in their cramped and helpless world, stirred by adult dreams, adult desires, served a meager sustenance by an angry, superstitious grandmother who knows that the Devil works in dark and devious ways. Sometimes he sends children to do his work—children who—one by one—must be destroyed.... 'Way upstairs there are four secrets hidden. Blond, beautiful, innocent struggling to stay alive....']]> 389 V.C. Andrews 0743496310 Bronwyn 5 3.84 1979
author: V.C. Andrews
name: Bronwyn
average rating: 3.84
book published: 1979
rating: 5
read at:
date added: 2025/02/15
shelves: pre-goodreads, gothic, sentimental-favorites
review:

]]> 11564
As night falls, Trisha has only her ingenuity as a defense against the elements, and only her courage and faith to withstand her mounting fears. For solace, she tunes her Walkman to broadcasts of Boston Red Sox baseball games and follows the gritty performances of her hero, relief pitcher Tom Gordon. And when her radio's reception begins to fade, Trisha imagines that Tom Gordon is with her - protecting her from an all-too-real enemy who has left a trail of slaughtered animals and mangled trees in the dense, dark woods...]]> 264 Stephen King 1416524290 Bronwyn 5 3.65 1999
author: Stephen King
name: Bronwyn
average rating: 3.65
book published: 1999
rating: 5
read at: 2001/12/01
date added: 2025/02/15
shelves: king, pre-goodreads, favorites
review:

]]> 902 182 Ellen Raskin 014240120X Bronwyn 4 4.00 1978
author: Ellen Raskin
name: Bronwyn
average rating: 4.00
book published: 1978
rating: 4
read at: 2019/10/01
date added: 2025/02/15
shelves: pre-goodreads, youngsters, sentimental-favorites
review:

]]> 34065268
When best-selling horror author Sam McGarver is invited to spend Halloween night in one of the country’s most infamous haunted houses, he reluctantly agrees. At least he won’t be alone; joining him are three other masters of the macabre, writers who have helped shape modern horror. But what begins as a simple publicity stunt will become a fight for survival. The entity they have awakened will follow them, torment them, threatening to make them a part of the bloody legacy of Kill Creek.]]> 416 Scott Thomas Bronwyn 3 horror, 2025
The story was pretty good, though reminiscent of other, older novels; Hell House by Richard Matheson in particular came to mind.

There were some decent twists and build up of tension.

It’s a bit gimmicky, a bit meta, especially having horror writers as the focus. A genre story about the genre.

And was one of those novels that could be easily transferred to a film because each short chapter is a “scene� more or less.

The four writers felt like amalgams of notable horror writers, rather than real people. All were identifiable types:
The older traditionalist
The relatable average man with writer’s block
The outrageous woman who says all the social political commentary dialogue
The amiable Christian YA writer.

As the story went on and I got more involved, I thought Thomas made an effort to create sympathy for each writer with their traumatic backstories. I enjoyed seeing their initial distrust of each other grow into something friendly or at least respectful.

If there was a theme I could define, it is that stories themselves have power. [spoilers removed]

No deep thoughts for me on Kill Creek but I did have fun reading it. That’s good enough.]]> 3.73 2017
author: Scott Thomas
name: Bronwyn
average rating: 3.73
book published: 2017
rating: 3
read at: 2025/02/10
date added: 2025/02/12
shelves: horror, 2025
review:
Four horror writers agree to do an interview at a reputedly haunted house.

The story was pretty good, though reminiscent of other, older novels; Hell House by Richard Matheson in particular came to mind.

There were some decent twists and build up of tension.

It’s a bit gimmicky, a bit meta, especially having horror writers as the focus. A genre story about the genre.

And was one of those novels that could be easily transferred to a film because each short chapter is a “scene� more or less.

The four writers felt like amalgams of notable horror writers, rather than real people. All were identifiable types:
The older traditionalist
The relatable average man with writer’s block
The outrageous woman who says all the social political commentary dialogue
The amiable Christian YA writer.

As the story went on and I got more involved, I thought Thomas made an effort to create sympathy for each writer with their traumatic backstories. I enjoyed seeing their initial distrust of each other grow into something friendly or at least respectful.

If there was a theme I could define, it is that stories themselves have power. [spoilers removed]

No deep thoughts for me on Kill Creek but I did have fun reading it. That’s good enough.
]]> 16213785
That key lies with his maker, and now Lawson hopes to find LaRouge at the heart of a Louisiana swamp with the aid of a haunted priest and an unexpected ally. In the tornado-wracked ghost town of Nocturne, Lawson must face down monstrous enemies, the rising sun, and his own nature. Readers will not want to miss this thrilling new dark novella from a master storyteller.]]> 152 Robert McCammon 1596065370 Bronwyn 3
McCammon gives you a lot in under 150 pages, setting up conflict and back story for Lawson, his vampire protagonist.

It might have made a cool television series.]]> 3.83 2013
author: Robert McCammon
name: Bronwyn
average rating: 3.83
book published: 2013
rating: 3
read at: 2025/02/05
date added: 2025/02/08
shelves: 2025, vampire, steampunk-and-historical-fantasy
review:
Exciting and fast paced, this is a pulpy, vampire adventure set in 19th-Century New Orleans.

McCammon gives you a lot in under 150 pages, setting up conflict and back story for Lawson, his vampire protagonist.

It might have made a cool television series.
]]> 10579
Nothing is quite as it seems. Expect the unexpected in this veritable treasure trove of enthralling, witty, dark tales that could only come from the imagination of the greatest storyteller of our time.]]> 605 Stephen King 1416524355 Bronwyn 5
For example “In the Deathroom� which is an international and political intrigue tale and “The Death of Jack Hamilton,� a crime story.

One of my favorite literary stories is “All That You Love Will be Carried Away,� a sad and funny one that I remembered from my first reading many years ago, about a traveling salesman with a unique hobby.

“Lunch at the Gotham Cafe� was a memorable tale about a rich guy who wants to contest his wife’s divorce plans. His lunch with her and her lawyer takes a bizarre, darkly humorous twist.

King must have been in a marriage story kind of mood. Another notable one is “L.T.’s Theory of Pets,� about a couple who make the mistake of buying one another pets as gifts. I liked his “theory�; as a pet owner I could relate. I wasn’t too sure about the ending, which had a weird tone shift.

There are plenty of supernatural horror stories to accompany these other genres.

These include: “The Road Virus Goes North�; �1408�; “The Man in the Black Suit�; “The Feeling, You Can Only Say What It Is in French�; and the title story.

Of these, �1408� and “The Man in the Black Suit� are certainly the scariest. “The Road Virus Goes North� is exciting but a bit like [spoilers removed]

My favorite of the bunch is “Everything’s Eventual.� King created a well-defined character voice with narration by Dinky Earnshaw. I felt I knew and understood this guy. I enjoyed his poetic and unusual use of the word “eventual� to express something impressive or awesome. I was intrigued by the morality themes explored, one of how far you should go to fight bullies and the other of not caring what your job is as long as all material comforts are met. ]]> 3.99 2002
author: Stephen King
name: Bronwyn
average rating: 3.99
book published: 2002
rating: 5
read at: 2025/02/02
date added: 2025/02/08
shelves: king, short-story-collections, pre-goodreads, 2025
review:
Excellent short story collection; every one of these is a gem and many deviate from the horror genre.

For example “In the Deathroom� which is an international and political intrigue tale and “The Death of Jack Hamilton,� a crime story.

One of my favorite literary stories is “All That You Love Will be Carried Away,� a sad and funny one that I remembered from my first reading many years ago, about a traveling salesman with a unique hobby.

“Lunch at the Gotham Cafe� was a memorable tale about a rich guy who wants to contest his wife’s divorce plans. His lunch with her and her lawyer takes a bizarre, darkly humorous twist.

King must have been in a marriage story kind of mood. Another notable one is “L.T.’s Theory of Pets,� about a couple who make the mistake of buying one another pets as gifts. I liked his “theory�; as a pet owner I could relate. I wasn’t too sure about the ending, which had a weird tone shift.

There are plenty of supernatural horror stories to accompany these other genres.

These include: “The Road Virus Goes North�; �1408�; “The Man in the Black Suit�; “The Feeling, You Can Only Say What It Is in French�; and the title story.

Of these, �1408� and “The Man in the Black Suit� are certainly the scariest. “The Road Virus Goes North� is exciting but a bit like [spoilers removed]

My favorite of the bunch is “Everything’s Eventual.� King created a well-defined character voice with narration by Dinky Earnshaw. I felt I knew and understood this guy. I enjoyed his poetic and unusual use of the word “eventual� to express something impressive or awesome. I was intrigued by the morality themes explored, one of how far you should go to fight bullies and the other of not caring what your job is as long as all material comforts are met.
]]> 5094
Here he links forces with the defiant young Eddie Dean and the beautiful, brilliant, and brave Odetta Holmes, in a savage struggle against underworld evil and otherworldly enemies.

Once again, Stephen King has masterfully interwoven dark, evocative fantasy and icy realism.]]> 463 Stephen King 0451210859 Bronwyn 5 king, pre-goodreads 4.23 1987
author: Stephen King
name: Bronwyn
average rating: 4.23
book published: 1987
rating: 5
read at: 1998/01/01
date added: 2025/02/05
shelves: king, pre-goodreads
review:

]]> 20205244 242 Kingsley Amis Bronwyn 0 to-read, classics 3.80 1969
author: Kingsley Amis
name: Bronwyn
average rating: 3.80
book published: 1969
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/02/05
shelves: to-read, classics
review:

]]> 21938494
From a kill-or-be-killed gunfight with a vampire to an encounter in a steampunk bordello, the weird western is a dark, gritty tale where the protagonist might be playing poker with a sorcerous deck of cards, or facing an alien on the streets of a dusty frontier town. Here are twenty-three original tales—stories of the Old West infused with elements of the fantastic—produced specifically for this volume by many of today’s finest writers.

Included are Orson Scott Card’s first “Alvin Maker� story in a decade, and an original adventure by Fred Van Lente, writer of Cowboys & Aliens. Other contributors include Tobias S. Buckell, David Farland, Alan Dean Foster, Jeffrey Ford, Laura Anne Gilman, Rajan Khanna, Mike Resnick, Beth Revis, Fred Van Lente, Walter Jon Williams, Ben H. Winters, Christie Yant, and Charles Yu, with an introduction by editor John Joseph Adams.


CONTENTS:

01 - Joe R. Lansdale, The Red-Headed Dead
02 - Ben H. Winters, The Old Slow Man and his Gold Gun from Space
03 - David Farland, Hellfire on the High Frontier
04 - Mike Resnick, The Hell-Bound Stagecoach
05 - Seanan McGuire, Stingers and Strangers
06 - Charles Yu, Bookkeeper, Narrator, Gunslinger
07 - Alan Dean Foster, Holy Jingle
08 - Beth Revis, The Man With No Heart
09 - Alastair Reynolds, Wrecking Party
10 - Hugh Howey, Hell from the East
11 - Rajan Khanna, Second Hand
12 - Orson Scott Card, Alvin and the Apple Tree
13 - Elizabeth Bear, Madam Damnable's Sewing Circle
14 - Tad Williams, Strong Medicine
15 - Jonathan Maberry, Red Dreams
16 - Kelley Armstrong, Bamboozled
17 - Tobias S. Buckell, Sundown
18 - Jeffrey Ford, La Madre del Oro
19 - Ken Liu, What I Assume You Shall Assume
20 - Laura Anne Gilman, The Devil's Jack
21 - Walter Jon Williams, The Golden Age
22 - Fred Van Lente, Neversleeps
23 - Christie Yant, Dead Man's Hand]]> 464 John Joseph Adams Bronwyn 3
They were generally fun to read, mostly action-oriented narratives featuring outlaws or lawmen (and some women). For my taste, they could have been far “weirder� and gone a bit deeper.

Two that stood out to me were:

"Bookkeeper, Narrator, Gunslinger" by Charles Yu, a story that played meta games with the conventions of the “gunslinger� type of charter, and "Alvin and the Apple Tree" by Orson Scott Card, which read like a religious parable. ]]> 3.70 2014
author: John Joseph Adams
name: Bronwyn
average rating: 3.70
book published: 2014
rating: 3
read at: 2024/03/19
date added: 2025/02/02
shelves: short-story-collections, westerns, steampunk-and-historical-fantasy
review:
Collection of Western-themed short stories, blended with science fiction/fantasy. Many would fall into the subgenre of Steampunk, which compliments the Western very well.

They were generally fun to read, mostly action-oriented narratives featuring outlaws or lawmen (and some women). For my taste, they could have been far “weirder� and gone a bit deeper.

Two that stood out to me were:

"Bookkeeper, Narrator, Gunslinger" by Charles Yu, a story that played meta games with the conventions of the “gunslinger� type of charter, and "Alvin and the Apple Tree" by Orson Scott Card, which read like a religious parable.
]]> 21 544 Bill Bryson 076790818X Bronwyn 5 nonfiction, history

My final takeaway from the book (besides the many, many ways life as we know it can come to an end) is that there is still so much we still haven’t discovered.. Nearly every chapter states something similar. We don’t know much about the Universe yet. We don’t know much about the atom. We don’t know much about the depths of the ocean. We don’t know why there were periods of mass extinction or exactly how homo sapiens evolved from other homo species. This is actually encouraging in a way. There is still much to be discovered. If you’re young and considering becoming a scientist, by all means, do it!
]]> 4.21 2003
author: Bill Bryson
name: Bronwyn
average rating: 4.21
book published: 2003
rating: 5
read at: 2020/03/30
date added: 2025/02/02
shelves: nonfiction, history
review:
This book is a fantastic review of all things scientific, basically covering what scientists know about our world and Universe for the non-scientist reader. Bryson goes into histories of what we know about geology, chemistry, physics, and biology just to name a few. As someone who hasn’t really had the chance to take a science class in my adult life, I really appreciated this book and recommend it to everyone.


My final takeaway from the book (besides the many, many ways life as we know it can come to an end) is that there is still so much we still haven’t discovered.. Nearly every chapter states something similar. We don’t know much about the Universe yet. We don’t know much about the atom. We don’t know much about the depths of the ocean. We don’t know why there were periods of mass extinction or exactly how homo sapiens evolved from other homo species. This is actually encouraging in a way. There is still much to be discovered. If you’re young and considering becoming a scientist, by all means, do it!

]]> 39058 Lord of the Rings, reign as one of the undisputed fantasy classics of all time. At the center of it all is the seventy-seventh Earl, Titus Groan, who stands to inherit the miles of rambling stone and mortar that form Gormenghast Castle and its kingdom, unless the conniving Steerpike, who is determined to rise above his menial position and control the House of Groan, has his way.

In these extraordinary novels, Peake has created a world where all is like a dream - lush, fantastical, and vivid. Accompanying the text are Peake's own drawings, illustrating the whole assembly of strange and marvelous creatures that inhabit Gormenghast.

Also featuring:
Introductory essays by Anthony Burgess and Quentin Crisp
Twelve critical essays, curated by Peake scholar Peter G. Winnington
Fragment of the unpublished novel, Titus Awakes

]]> 1173 Mervyn Peake 0879516283 Bronwyn 5 youngsters, classics 4.02 1959
author: Mervyn Peake
name: Bronwyn
average rating: 4.02
book published: 1959
rating: 5
read at: 2020/11/27
date added: 2025/02/02
shelves: youngsters, classics
review:

]]> 23129410 Welcome to Night Vale podcast comes an imaginative mystery of appearances and disappearances that is also a poignant look at the ways in which we all struggle to find ourselves...no matter where we live.

Located in a nameless desert somewhere in the great American Southwest, Night Vale is a small town where ghosts, angels, aliens, and government conspiracies are all commonplace parts of everyday life. It is here that the lives of two women, with two mysteries, will converge.

Nineteen-year-old Night Vale pawn shop owner Jackie Fierro is given a paper marked "King City" by a mysterious man in a tan jacket holding a deer skin suitcase. Everything about him and his paper unsettles her, especially the fact that she can't seem to get the paper to leave her hand, and that no one who meets this man can remember anything about him. Jackie is determined to uncover the mystery of King City and the man in the tan jacket before she herself unravels.

Night Vale PTA treasurer Diane Crayton's son, Josh, is moody and also a shape shifter. And lately Diane's started to see her son's father everywhere she goes, looking the same as the day he left years earlier, when they were both teenagers. Josh, looking different every time Diane sees him, shows a stronger and stronger interest in his estranged father, leading to a disaster Diane can see coming, even as she is helpless to prevent it.

Diane's search to reconnect with her son and Jackie's search for her former routine life collide as they find themselves coming back to two words: "King City". It is King City that holds the key to both of their mysteries, and their futures...if they can ever find it.]]> 401 Joseph Fink 0062351427 Bronwyn 4 science-fiction-fantasy It Devours, the next book in the series.

The writing style, combining poetry, philosophy, and humor in the narrative is the standout element. The characters are also very engaging and relatable. I cared about Diane in particular, as I am currently a mother of a teenager and thought the authors really nailed all the emotions and the struggles.

The plot itself meandered quite a bit in the middle. Lots of time spent for the protagonists getting nowhere and having fruitless conversations. That was frustrating. Then, towards the end, it got good. So good that I was chilled to the bone at one point and to shake myself back to reality!

The thing I wonder about is how interesting this book is to those that didn’t listen to the podcast. For me, the podcast was an acquired taste. The satire wore thin, in the sense that I got the point of it, however clever it was, and I needed the plot to pick up and attachment to characters to develop in order to remain interested.

The storyline in the novel is entirely discrete from the podcast. You don’t “need� it to follow along. The characters featured here are background citizens of the town relative to the podcast. The novel does a pretty good job of conveying the weird, X-files-y town, with the expected absurd humor and surreal imagery. However, some of the things referred to might be more fun for those who are already familiar with Night Vale.

If you haven’t listened to the podcast, but you are up for something offbeat and different, this is certainly worth a try and maybe a good introduction if you’re curious about the overall series. ]]> 3.84 2015
author: Joseph Fink
name: Bronwyn
average rating: 3.84
book published: 2015
rating: 4
read at: 2023/10/06
date added: 2025/02/02
shelves: science-fiction-fantasy
review:
Very enjoyable to read, though not as tightly structured as It Devours, the next book in the series.

The writing style, combining poetry, philosophy, and humor in the narrative is the standout element. The characters are also very engaging and relatable. I cared about Diane in particular, as I am currently a mother of a teenager and thought the authors really nailed all the emotions and the struggles.

The plot itself meandered quite a bit in the middle. Lots of time spent for the protagonists getting nowhere and having fruitless conversations. That was frustrating. Then, towards the end, it got good. So good that I was chilled to the bone at one point and to shake myself back to reality!

The thing I wonder about is how interesting this book is to those that didn’t listen to the podcast. For me, the podcast was an acquired taste. The satire wore thin, in the sense that I got the point of it, however clever it was, and I needed the plot to pick up and attachment to characters to develop in order to remain interested.

The storyline in the novel is entirely discrete from the podcast. You don’t “need� it to follow along. The characters featured here are background citizens of the town relative to the podcast. The novel does a pretty good job of conveying the weird, X-files-y town, with the expected absurd humor and surreal imagery. However, some of the things referred to might be more fun for those who are already familiar with Night Vale.

If you haven’t listened to the podcast, but you are up for something offbeat and different, this is certainly worth a try and maybe a good introduction if you’re curious about the overall series.
]]> 333716
Demonstrating, once again, her gift for spellbinding storytelling and the creation of legend, Anne Rice makes real for us a great dynasty of witches—a family given to poetry and to incest, to murder and to philosophy; a family that, over the ages, is itself haunted by a powerful, dangerous, and seductive being.

On the veranda of a great New Orleans house, now faded, a mute and fragile woman sits rocking... and The Witching Hour begins.

It begins in our time with a rescue at sea.ĚýĚýRowan Mayfair, a beautiful woman, a brilliant practitioner of neurosurgery—aware that she has special powers but unaware that she comes from an ancient line of witches—finds the drowned body of a man off the coast of California and brings him to life.ĚýĚýHe is Michael Curry, who was born in New Orleans and orphaned in childhood by fire on Christmas Eve, who pulled himself up from poverty, and who now, in his brief interval of death, has acquired a sensory power that mystifies and frightens him.

As these two, fiercely drawn to each other, fall in love and—in passionate alliance—set out to solve the mystery of her past and his unwelcome gift, the novel moves backward and forward in time from today's New Orleans and San Francisco to long-ago Amsterdam and a château in the France of Louis XIV.ĚýĚýAn intricate tale of evil unfolds—an evil unleashed in seventeenth-century Scotland, where the first "witch," Suzanne of the Mayfair, conjures up the spirit she names Lasher... a creation that spells her own destruction and torments each of her descendants in turn.

From the coffee plantations of Port au Prince, where the great Mayfair fortune is made and the legacy of their dark power is almost destroyed, to Civil War New Orleans, as Julien—the clan's only male to be endowed with occult powers—provides for the dynasty its foothold in America, the dark, luminous story encompasses dramas of seduction and death, episodes of tenderness and healing.ĚýĚýAnd always—through peril and escape, tension and release—there swirl around us the echoes of eternal war: innocence versus the corruption of the spirit, sanity against madness, life against death.ĚýĚýWith a dreamlike power, the novel draws us, through circuitous, twilight paths, to the present and Rowan's increasingly inspired and risky moves in the merciless game that binds her to her heritage. And in New Orleans, on Christmas Eve, this strangest of family sagas is brought to its startling climax.]]> 965 Anne Rice 0394587863 Bronwyn 1 pre-goodreads, horror 4.03 1990
author: Anne Rice
name: Bronwyn
average rating: 4.03
book published: 1990
rating: 1
read at:
date added: 2025/02/02
shelves: pre-goodreads, horror
review:

]]> 63249718 New York Times bestselling author of The Daughter of Doctor Moreau and Mexican Gothic comes a fabulous meld of Mexican horror movies and Nazi occultism: a dark thriller about the curse that haunts a legendary lost film--and awakens one woman's hidden powers.

Montserrat has always been overlooked. She’s a talented sound editor, but she’s left out of the boys� club running the film industry in �90s Mexico City. And she’s all but invisible to her best friend, Tristán, a charming if faded soap opera star, though she’s been in love with him since childhood.

Then Tristán discovers his new neighbor is the cult horror director Abel Urueta, and the legendary auteur claims he can change their lives—even if his tale of a Nazi occultist imbuing magic into highly volatile silver nitrate stock sounds like sheer fantasy. The magic film was never finished, which is why, Urueta swears, his career vanished overnight. He is cursed.

Now the director wants Montserrat and Tristán to help him shoot the missing scene and lift the curse . . . but Montserrat soon notices a dark presence following her, and Tristán begins seeing the ghost of his ex-girlfriend.

As they work together to unravel the mystery of the film and the obscure occultist who once roamed their city, Montserrat and Tristán may find that sorcerers and magic are not only the stuff of movies.]]> 323 Silvia Moreno-Garcia 0593355369 Bronwyn 2 horror Mexican Gothic. She seems to have researched the films and filmmaking elements very well. I also liked that it was set in Mexico City, an urban area with different cultural and pop culture references than my own.

The story itself had some potential, could make a fun movie perhaps. It is similar to a Friday the 13th (television series about the antique shop, not the films) episode.

Despite the potential, it didn’t hold my interest. It’s a short book but there is so much telling rather than showing and repeating information. The author gave us the main character’s specific thoughts and feelings all the time instead of letting the reader figure out what the characters are experiencing based on behavior. This tends to flatten out rather than add depth to characters.

Without the repeated information, the reader could piece things together from what they read. She either doesn’t trust the reader to figure things out or is in need of an editor. I got impatient and skimmed a lot while reading.

The chapters where the conflict starts to heat up were more entertaining. Ye1, it is difficult to have a menacing villain when [spoilers removed] His two grande dame co-conspirators were slightly scarier. I did like the [spoilers removed].

Thus begins my horror novel marathon for 2023. I hope they get better.]]> 3.56 2023
author: Silvia Moreno-Garcia
name: Bronwyn
average rating: 3.56
book published: 2023
rating: 2
read at: 2023/10/12
date added: 2025/02/02
shelves: horror
review:
Cool premise: filmmaking and horror/occult from the writer of Mexican Gothic. She seems to have researched the films and filmmaking elements very well. I also liked that it was set in Mexico City, an urban area with different cultural and pop culture references than my own.

The story itself had some potential, could make a fun movie perhaps. It is similar to a Friday the 13th (television series about the antique shop, not the films) episode.

Despite the potential, it didn’t hold my interest. It’s a short book but there is so much telling rather than showing and repeating information. The author gave us the main character’s specific thoughts and feelings all the time instead of letting the reader figure out what the characters are experiencing based on behavior. This tends to flatten out rather than add depth to characters.

Without the repeated information, the reader could piece things together from what they read. She either doesn’t trust the reader to figure things out or is in need of an editor. I got impatient and skimmed a lot while reading.

The chapters where the conflict starts to heat up were more entertaining. Ye1, it is difficult to have a menacing villain when [spoilers removed] His two grande dame co-conspirators were slightly scarier. I did like the [spoilers removed].

Thus begins my horror novel marathon for 2023. I hope they get better.
]]> 1183696
“The reader is held captive and, ultimately, seduced.”� San Francisco Chronicle

Ramses the Great lives!

But having drunk the elixer of live, he is now Ramses the Damned, doomed forever to wander the earth, desperate to quell hungers that can never be satisfied—for food, for wine, for women.

Reawakened in opulent Edwardian London, he becomes Dr. Ramsey, expert in Egyptology. He also becomes the close companion of voluptuous, adventurous Julie Stratford, heiress to a vast shipping fortune and the center of a group of jaded aristocrats with appetites of their own to appease.

But the pleasures Ramses enjoys with Julie cannot soothe him. Searing memories of his last reawakening, at the behest of Cleopatra, his beloved Queen of Egypt, burn in his immortal soul. And though he is immortal, he is still all too human. His intense longings for his great love, undiminished over the centuries, will force him to commit an act that will place everyone around him in the gravest danger. . . .]]> 436 Anne Rice 0345360001 Bronwyn 1 pre-goodreads, horror 3.82 1989
author: Anne Rice
name: Bronwyn
average rating: 3.82
book published: 1989
rating: 1
read at:
date added: 2025/02/02
shelves: pre-goodreads, horror
review:

]]> 58438554 Frankenstein, which brilliantly explores the eerie mysteries of childhood and the evils perpetrated by the monsters among us.

1978: at her renowned treatment center in picturesque Vermont, the brilliant psychiatrist, Dr. Helen Hildreth, is acclaimed for her compassionate work with the mentally ill. But when she's home with her cherished grandchildren, Vi and Eric, she’s just Gran—teaching them how to take care of their pets, preparing them home-cooked meals, providing them with care and attention and love.

Then one day Gran brings home a child to stay with the family. Iris—silent, hollow-eyed, skittish, and feral—does not behave like a normal girl.

Still, Violet is thrilled to have a new playmate. She and Eric invite Iris to join their Monster Club, where they catalogue all kinds of monsters and dream up ways to defeat them. Before long, Iris begins to come out of her shell. She and Vi and Eric do everything together: ride their bicycles, go to the drive-in, meet at their clubhouse in secret to hunt monsters. Because, as Vi explains, monsters are everywhere.

2019: Lizzy Shelley, the host of the popular podcast Monsters Among Us, is traveling to Vermont, where a young girl has been abducted, and a monster sighting has the town in an uproar. She’s determined to hunt it down, because Lizzy knows better than anyone that monsters are real—and one of them is her very own sister.

The Children on the Hill takes us on a breathless journey to face the primal fears that lurk within us all.]]> 338 Jennifer McMahon 1982153954 Bronwyn 2 horror Frankenstein combined with a story about kids trying to solve a mystery at a mental institution where their beloved grandmother works as a doctor. It was unfortunately combined with a less compelling story about two of the kids as adults, one as a podcaster/monster hunter and the other as a “monster.�

I did like the bit with the kids at first; I love stories where young people have to be self-reliant and get themselves into and out of trouble. That part did feel like a YA novel though, and that’s not how this is marketed.

A big problem is that most of the story is built on twists—entirely predictable twists—and melodrama. Dear lord, the melodrama. Showing people sobbing and having temper tantrums leaves the reader out of the emotional moment; it doesn’t pull them into it.

There are way too many things packed into the book and none of them are done well. There’s a missing persons mystery, evils of eugenics, feminist empowerment, romantic attraction (out of nowhere I might add), memory and identity issues, the entire who’s-your-Monster theme, and so on. All of this in a loosely strung, gimmicky plot.

I would have liked a little more storytelling, a little less concept.]]> 3.84 2022
author: Jennifer McMahon
name: Bronwyn
average rating: 3.84
book published: 2022
rating: 2
read at: 2022/10/19
date added: 2025/02/02
shelves: horror
review:
This was an interesting idea, a tribute to Frankenstein combined with a story about kids trying to solve a mystery at a mental institution where their beloved grandmother works as a doctor. It was unfortunately combined with a less compelling story about two of the kids as adults, one as a podcaster/monster hunter and the other as a “monster.�

I did like the bit with the kids at first; I love stories where young people have to be self-reliant and get themselves into and out of trouble. That part did feel like a YA novel though, and that’s not how this is marketed.

A big problem is that most of the story is built on twists—entirely predictable twists—and melodrama. Dear lord, the melodrama. Showing people sobbing and having temper tantrums leaves the reader out of the emotional moment; it doesn’t pull them into it.

There are way too many things packed into the book and none of them are done well. There’s a missing persons mystery, evils of eugenics, feminist empowerment, romantic attraction (out of nowhere I might add), memory and identity issues, the entire who’s-your-Monster theme, and so on. All of this in a loosely strung, gimmicky plot.

I would have liked a little more storytelling, a little less concept.
]]> 6288
A father and his son walk alone through burned America. Nothing moves in the ravaged landscape save the ash on the wind. It is cold enough to crack stones, and when the snow falls it is gray. The sky is dark. Their destination is the coast, although they don’t know what, if anything, awaits them there. They have nothing; just a pistol to defend themselves against the lawless bands that stalk the road, the clothes they are wearing, a cart of scavenged food—and each other.

The Road is the profoundly moving story of a journey. It boldly imagines a future in which no hope remains, but in which the father and his son, “each the other’s world entire,� are sustained by love. Awesome in the totality of its vision, it is an unflinching meditation on the worst and the best that we are capable of: ultimate destructiveness, desperate tenacity, and the tenderness that keeps two people alive in the face of total devastation.]]> 241 Cormac McCarthy 0307265439 Bronwyn 2 dystopia-apocalypse 3.99 2006
author: Cormac McCarthy
name: Bronwyn
average rating: 3.99
book published: 2006
rating: 2
read at: 2020/06/05
date added: 2025/02/02
shelves: dystopia-apocalypse
review:

]]> 28921 Librarian's note: See alternate cover edition of ISBN 0571225381 here.

In the summer of 1956, Stevens, a long-serving butler at Darlington Hall, decides to take a motoring trip through the West Country. The six-day excursion becomes a journey into the past of Stevens and England, a past that takes in fascism, two world wars, and an unrealised love between the butler and his housekeeper.]]> 258 Kazuo Ishiguro Bronwyn 2 4.14 1989
author: Kazuo Ishiguro
name: Bronwyn
average rating: 4.14
book published: 1989
rating: 2
read at: 2017/11/01
date added: 2025/02/02
shelves: book-clubs, historical-fiction
review:

]]> 31434883 No one’s ever told Eleanor that life should be better than fine

Meet Eleanor Oliphant: she struggles with appropriate social skills and tends to say exactly what she’s thinking. Nothing is missing in her carefully timetabled life of avoiding unnecessary human contact, where weekends are punctuated by frozen pizza, vodka, and phone chats with Mummy.

But everything changes when Eleanor meets Raymond, the bumbling and deeply unhygienic IT guy from her office. When she and Raymond together save Sammy, an elderly gentleman who has fallen, the three rescue one another from the lives of isolation that they had been living. Ultimately, it is Raymond’s big heart that will help Eleanor find the way to repair her own profoundly damaged one. If she does, she'll learn that she, too, is capable of finding friendship—and even love—after all.

Smart, warm, uplifting, Eleanor Oliphant Is Completely Fine is the story of an out-of-the-ordinary heroine whose deadpan weirdness and unconscious wit make for an irresistible journey as she realizes. . .

the only way to survive is to open your heart.]]> 336 Gail Honeyman 0735220689 Bronwyn 2 book-clubs, fiction-nongenre Eleanor Oliphant started off well enough. It was funny, witty, and Eleanor is an interesting character. There was a little dark edge there in the form of the flashbacks/ "telephone calls" with Eleanor’s mom. The humor was mostly coming from Eleanor’s lack of social skills and misunderstanding of other people. Most of us take for granted the ability to navigate a social situation, even though they may be awkward we manage. Also, Eleanor's capacity for self-delusion as she pretends that it’s the other people she interacts with, not her, that are foolish, rude, crazy, whatever.

The second half of the book is where Honeyman lost me. Once the major catastrophe of the book occurs, Eleanor goes into therapy. This makes sense is completely believable, however these chapters of the book are dull and flat. Nothing new that the reader didn’t already guess about her past is revealed. There is a huge tone shift, which I have no problem with as a rule. But if the second half shifts, it needs to be equal to the first half and it wasn’t. Sure, I want Eleanor to be truly fine in the end but I still need to be engaged as a reader.

Another aspect of the book that I was not too thrilled with is Eleanor’s victimization. There were a lot of comparisons of this book to A Man Called Ove . The comparisons aren’t Honeyman’s fault but this draws attention to the fact that Eleanor’s loneliness and off-putting behavior seems to be explained by an abusive mother AND a "boyfriend" she had that raped and abused her.

Ove had tragedy in his life but there was no feeling that he was a victim that you should feel sorry for or need to protect. I hate to do this, but I admit I’m bringing this up because she’s a woman. Making a female character a victim doesn’t make her more interesting or likeable. We need to get past that notion. Eleanor’s fear and loathing of dealing with people, her insecurity, could have had a more subtle cause.
]]> 4.21 2017
author: Gail Honeyman
name: Bronwyn
average rating: 4.21
book published: 2017
rating: 2
read at: 2019/12/01
date added: 2025/02/02
shelves: book-clubs, fiction-nongenre
review:
Eleanor Oliphant started off well enough. It was funny, witty, and Eleanor is an interesting character. There was a little dark edge there in the form of the flashbacks/ "telephone calls" with Eleanor’s mom. The humor was mostly coming from Eleanor’s lack of social skills and misunderstanding of other people. Most of us take for granted the ability to navigate a social situation, even though they may be awkward we manage. Also, Eleanor's capacity for self-delusion as she pretends that it’s the other people she interacts with, not her, that are foolish, rude, crazy, whatever.

The second half of the book is where Honeyman lost me. Once the major catastrophe of the book occurs, Eleanor goes into therapy. This makes sense is completely believable, however these chapters of the book are dull and flat. Nothing new that the reader didn’t already guess about her past is revealed. There is a huge tone shift, which I have no problem with as a rule. But if the second half shifts, it needs to be equal to the first half and it wasn’t. Sure, I want Eleanor to be truly fine in the end but I still need to be engaged as a reader.

Another aspect of the book that I was not too thrilled with is Eleanor’s victimization. There were a lot of comparisons of this book to A Man Called Ove . The comparisons aren’t Honeyman’s fault but this draws attention to the fact that Eleanor’s loneliness and off-putting behavior seems to be explained by an abusive mother AND a "boyfriend" she had that raped and abused her.

Ove had tragedy in his life but there was no feeling that he was a victim that you should feel sorry for or need to protect. I hate to do this, but I admit I’m bringing this up because she’s a woman. Making a female character a victim doesn’t make her more interesting or likeable. We need to get past that notion. Eleanor’s fear and loathing of dealing with people, her insecurity, could have had a more subtle cause.

]]> 64396 The Stainless Steel Rat (1961): DiGriz is caught during one of his crimes & recruited into the Special Corps. Boring, routine desk work during his probationary period results in his discovering that someone is building a battleship, thinly disguised as an industrial vessel. In the peaceful League no one has battleships any more, so the builder of this one would be unstoppable. DiGriz' hunt for the guilty becomes a personal battle between himself & the beautiful but deadly Angelina, who is planning a coup on one of the feudal worlds. DiGriz' dilemma is whether he will turn Angelina over to the Special Corps, or join with her, since he's fallen in love with her.
The Stainless Steel Rat's Revenge (1970): DiGriz & Angelina are happily married, expecting the birth of sons. The planet Cliaand is waging interstellar war. Against the odds, its Grey Men are invading & taking over planet after planet. The Rat is sent to Cliaand to start a one-man guerrilla campaign to put a stop to the plans of the planet's leader, Kraj. He is aided by the Amazons, a force of liberated freedom fighters, & eventually by his wife who arrives to help him win the war & keep him out of the arms of the Amazons.
The Stainless Steel Rat Saves the World (1972): The villainous He has travelled back in time to humankind's distant past on the legendary planet Earth ('Dirt') of '84, where he's altering events so that people who opposed him in the Rat's present cease to exist, Angelina amongst them. Using the Helix, a time-travel device invented by the Special Corps' Prof. Coypu, diGriz travels to '84 America, then to Napoleonic France where tanks & aircraft are helping bring about Napoleon's victory.]]> 402 Harry Harrison 0441004229 Bronwyn 2 4.12 1977
author: Harry Harrison
name: Bronwyn
average rating: 4.12
book published: 1977
rating: 2
read at: 2021/02/08
date added: 2025/02/02
shelves: classic-sci-fi-fantasy-authors
review:

]]> 2526 No food, no water, no government, no obligation, no order.

Discover a chillingly powerful and prescient dystopian vision from one of Europe's greatest writers.

A driver waiting at the traffic lights goes blind. An ophthalmologist tries to diagnose his distinctive white blindness, but is affected before he can read the textbooks.
It becomes a contagion, spreading throughout the city. Trying to stem the epidemic, the authorities herd the afflicted into a mental asylum where the wards are terrorised by blind thugs. And when fire destroys the asylum, the inmates burst forth and the last links with a supposedly civilised society are snapped.

This is not anarchy, this is blindness.

�Saramago repeatedly undertakes to unite the pressing demands of the present with an unfolding vision of the future. This is his most apocalyptic, and most optimistic, version of that project yet� Independent]]> 326 José Saramago Bronwyn 0
I understand that the writing style (run-on sentences, no separation of dialogue, no punctuation) may have been meant to give the writer the same feeling of stumbling around blindly but since it didn’t truly achieve this, by the time I reached the last hundred pages I was weary of it.

I will avoid rating this for now, as I may try to read this again in a few months or a year or so. When we’re not in a real-life quarantine maybe it won’t feel so odious.
]]> 4.04 1995
author: José Saramago
name: Bronwyn
average rating: 4.04
book published: 1995
rating: 0
read at: 2020/08/25
date added: 2025/02/02
shelves: dystopia-apocalypse, literary-spec-fic
review:
There was no payoff for the time spent on this book intellectually, spiritually, or viscerally. I almost never say this, but I appreciated the film more because it managed to convey the same ideas without the tedium.

I understand that the writing style (run-on sentences, no separation of dialogue, no punctuation) may have been meant to give the writer the same feeling of stumbling around blindly but since it didn’t truly achieve this, by the time I reached the last hundred pages I was weary of it.

I will avoid rating this for now, as I may try to read this again in a few months or a year or so. When we’re not in a real-life quarantine maybe it won’t feel so odious.

]]> 25109947
Chicago, 1954. When his father Montrose goes missing, twenty-two year old Army veteran Atticus Turner embarks on a road trip to New England to find him, accompanied by his Uncle George—publisher of The Safe Negro Travel Guide—and his childhood friend Letitia. On their journey to the manor of Mr. Braithwhite—heir to the estate that owned Atticus’s great grandmother—they encounter both mundane terrors of white America and malevolent spirits that seem straight out of the weird tales George devours.

At the manor, Atticus discovers his father in chains, held prisoner by a secret cabal named the Order of the Ancient Dawn—led by Samuel Braithwhite and his son Caleb—which has gathered to orchestrate a ritual that shockingly centers on Atticus. And his one hope of salvation may be the seed of his—and the whole Turner clan’s—destruction.

A chimerical blend of magic, power, hope, and freedom that stretches across time, touching diverse members of one black family, Lovecraft Country is a devastating kaleidoscopic portrait of racism—the terrifying specter that continues to haunt us today.]]> 400 Matt Ruff Bronwyn 2 cosmic-horror
It’s set up as episodic, like a serialized story or ready-for-television treatment. Each little mini-section features Atticus, a young army vet of the Korean war and/or members of his extended family and friends. Various characters connected to Atticus are protagonists of an episode, each of which has its own mini-arc. I wouldn’t call them short stories because they are interdependent and part of the full novel.

Ruff offers the value of having protagonists who are minorities, characters who historically were frequently marginalized, demonized, stereotyped, ignored or worse in some of the horror/science fiction tales he’s referencing. Unfortunately, Atticus and company aren’t well-developed characters. My cynical assumption being that he can’t write them with human failings or he’d get slammed for showing Black characters in what could be perceived as a negative light. Instead, we end up with bland, empty characters, filling their role in the plot. The one that comes off best is Atticus’s love interest, Letitia. She is a brave and quick-witted woman, but lacks any flaws that make a memorable character. Trying not to offend is a weak choice.

The antagonists are even less interesting. The scenes of white racists harassing Atticus and his family happen so often, they lose impact. With the exception of Caleb Braithewhite, who is the big bad guy but oddly not an overt racist, most of the white characters are empty shells, demonstrating racism rather than portraying flawed and ignorant racist individuals. They’re also easily defeated by the protagonists, or more often by some vengeful supernatural intervention.

A story where Atticus or Letitia or any of the others had deliberately called up supernatural beings to punish truly complex, evil racist characters could have been an interesting revenge fantasy. Or maybe could have led to something where the protagonists had to cooperate with white characters to fight a mutual enemy, and consequences and character growth could have stemmed from that.

There isn’t much character growth at all because problems vanish with little difficulty. In the chapter called “Dreams of the Which House,� Letitia buys the Winthrop house, a building haunted by the former owner. Winthrop is hostile at first but quickly becomes her friend when she holds her ground. I like the idea, but the alliance happens so easily that it isn’t satisfying.

The end of the first episode, where Samuel Braithewhite and the Order of the Ancient Dawn call up the “light of creation,� is reminiscent of the “well of souls� scene from Raiders of the Lost Ark, with members of the Order in the role of the Nazi cultists. That was a decently-executed allusion to a famous bit of pop culture that made a comment without calling it out in so many words. I would have liked a few more scenes like this.

The mention of Atticus as a science fiction reader of Lovecraft, Bradbury, Heinlein, etc. feels a little self-conscious to me. A book like this that’s using horror as social commentary should be better than the source material it’s commenting on; but it isn’t. There are no genuine chilling moments and no fresh ideas. A better read for commentary on Lovecraft is The Ballad of Black Tom by Victor LaValle, which had a focused, tight story with complex morality.]]> 3.99 2016
author: Matt Ruff
name: Bronwyn
average rating: 3.99
book published: 2016
rating: 2
read at: 2021/09/04
date added: 2025/02/02
shelves: cosmic-horror
review:
I’d call this a diverting read that’s easily consumable but lightweight. The drama and tension don’t ratchet up that much, and the characters escape dangers without consequence. Throughout the novel there is an oversimplified good vs. evil morality.

It’s set up as episodic, like a serialized story or ready-for-television treatment. Each little mini-section features Atticus, a young army vet of the Korean war and/or members of his extended family and friends. Various characters connected to Atticus are protagonists of an episode, each of which has its own mini-arc. I wouldn’t call them short stories because they are interdependent and part of the full novel.

Ruff offers the value of having protagonists who are minorities, characters who historically were frequently marginalized, demonized, stereotyped, ignored or worse in some of the horror/science fiction tales he’s referencing. Unfortunately, Atticus and company aren’t well-developed characters. My cynical assumption being that he can’t write them with human failings or he’d get slammed for showing Black characters in what could be perceived as a negative light. Instead, we end up with bland, empty characters, filling their role in the plot. The one that comes off best is Atticus’s love interest, Letitia. She is a brave and quick-witted woman, but lacks any flaws that make a memorable character. Trying not to offend is a weak choice.

The antagonists are even less interesting. The scenes of white racists harassing Atticus and his family happen so often, they lose impact. With the exception of Caleb Braithewhite, who is the big bad guy but oddly not an overt racist, most of the white characters are empty shells, demonstrating racism rather than portraying flawed and ignorant racist individuals. They’re also easily defeated by the protagonists, or more often by some vengeful supernatural intervention.

A story where Atticus or Letitia or any of the others had deliberately called up supernatural beings to punish truly complex, evil racist characters could have been an interesting revenge fantasy. Or maybe could have led to something where the protagonists had to cooperate with white characters to fight a mutual enemy, and consequences and character growth could have stemmed from that.

There isn’t much character growth at all because problems vanish with little difficulty. In the chapter called “Dreams of the Which House,� Letitia buys the Winthrop house, a building haunted by the former owner. Winthrop is hostile at first but quickly becomes her friend when she holds her ground. I like the idea, but the alliance happens so easily that it isn’t satisfying.

The end of the first episode, where Samuel Braithewhite and the Order of the Ancient Dawn call up the “light of creation,� is reminiscent of the “well of souls� scene from Raiders of the Lost Ark, with members of the Order in the role of the Nazi cultists. That was a decently-executed allusion to a famous bit of pop culture that made a comment without calling it out in so many words. I would have liked a few more scenes like this.

The mention of Atticus as a science fiction reader of Lovecraft, Bradbury, Heinlein, etc. feels a little self-conscious to me. A book like this that’s using horror as social commentary should be better than the source material it’s commenting on; but it isn’t. There are no genuine chilling moments and no fresh ideas. A better read for commentary on Lovecraft is The Ballad of Black Tom by Victor LaValle, which had a focused, tight story with complex morality.
]]> 42074525
Every city has a soul. Some are as ancient as myths, and others are as new and destructive as children. New York City? She's got five.

But every city also has a dark side. A roiling, ancient evil stirs beneath the earth, threatening to destroy the city and her five protectors unless they can come together and stop it once and for all.]]> 437 N.K. Jemisin Bronwyn 2 3.83 2020
author: N.K. Jemisin
name: Bronwyn
average rating: 3.83
book published: 2020
rating: 2
read at: 2021/05/03
date added: 2025/02/02
shelves: book-clubs, cosmic-horror, urban-fantasy-series
review:

]]> 66659
These eleven extraordinary stories are quirky, spooky, and smart. They all have happy endings. Every story contains a secret prize. Each story was written especially for you.

Stories from Stranger Things Happen have won the Nebula, Tiptree, and World Fantasy Award. Stranger Things Happen was a Salon Book of the Year, one of the Village Voice's 25 Favorite Books of 2001, and was nominated for the Firecracker Alternative Book Award.

Contents:
- Carnation, Lily, Lily, Rose (1998)
- Water Off a Black Dog's Back (1995)
- The Specialist's Hat (1998)
- Flying Lessons (1995)
- Travels with the Snow Queen (1996/1997)
- Vanishing Act (1996)
- Survivor's Ball, or, The Donner Party (1998)
- Shoe and Marriage (2000)
- Most of My Friends Are Two-Thirds Water (2001)
- Louise's Ghost (2001)
- The Girl Detective (1999)

Cover painting by Shelley Jackson

]]> 266 Kelly Link 1931520003 Bronwyn 2
Link has a lot of cleverness and imagination but her stories never grabbed me on an emotional or intellectual level. Quirky and whimsical are not enough to make great or even good stories. Take “Shoe and Marriage� for instance. This is a short story made of four short stories, each on the subject of shoes and marriage. The part about the honeymoon couple watching the increasingly weirder beauty contestants made me laugh a bit but where was she going with this? There needs to be some point, either saying something about the characters and marriage or humanity in general or a plot of some kind. It’s just some weird stuff thrown together.

Other reviewers mentioned the lack of endings to most of these. I don’t mind an open ending, one that leaves things open to interpretation. However with these stories, I could see the “twist� a mile away and yet she would never get down to it. For example, the best story in the collection for me was “Survivor’s Ball or The Donner Party.� You can guess from the title what might be about to happen but Link never goes in for the kill. (So to speak.) Maybe I just don't appreciate subtlety when I see it, but the stories just never get that interesting.

There is also a lack of variety in the collection. Everything is written with the same kind of voice, regardless of what the story is about or who is telling it. It doesn’t show much versatility.]]> 3.86 2001
author: Kelly Link
name: Bronwyn
average rating: 3.86
book published: 2001
rating: 2
read at: 2022/09/19
date added: 2025/02/02
shelves: short-story-collections, literary-spec-fic
review:
It’s a book full of quirky, magical realism short stories. Link is working with a similar palette as Neil Gaiman or Angela Carter, with shades of fairy tales, mythology, and the supernatural.

Link has a lot of cleverness and imagination but her stories never grabbed me on an emotional or intellectual level. Quirky and whimsical are not enough to make great or even good stories. Take “Shoe and Marriage� for instance. This is a short story made of four short stories, each on the subject of shoes and marriage. The part about the honeymoon couple watching the increasingly weirder beauty contestants made me laugh a bit but where was she going with this? There needs to be some point, either saying something about the characters and marriage or humanity in general or a plot of some kind. It’s just some weird stuff thrown together.

Other reviewers mentioned the lack of endings to most of these. I don’t mind an open ending, one that leaves things open to interpretation. However with these stories, I could see the “twist� a mile away and yet she would never get down to it. For example, the best story in the collection for me was “Survivor’s Ball or The Donner Party.� You can guess from the title what might be about to happen but Link never goes in for the kill. (So to speak.) Maybe I just don't appreciate subtlety when I see it, but the stories just never get that interesting.

There is also a lack of variety in the collection. Everything is written with the same kind of voice, regardless of what the story is about or who is telling it. It doesn’t show much versatility.
]]> 7334201 The Russian Debutante’s Handbook and Absurdistan, Gary Shteyngart has risen to the top of the fiction world. Now, in his hilarious and heartfelt new novel, he envisions a deliciously dark tale of America’s dysfunctional coming years—and the timeless and tender feelings that just might bring us back from the brink.

In a very near future—oh, let’s say next Tuesday—a functionally illiterate America is about to collapse. But don’t that tell that to poor Lenny Abramov, the thirty-nine-year-old son of an angry Russian immigrant janitor, proud author of what may well be the world’s last diary, and less-proud owner of a bald spot shaped like the great state of Ohio. Despite his job at an outfit called Post-Human Services, which attempts to provide immortality for its super-rich clientele, death is clearly stalking this cholesterol-rich morsel of a man. And why shouldn’t it? Lenny’s from a different century—he totally loves books (or “printed, bound media artifacts,� as they’re now known), even though most of his peers find them smelly and annoying. But even more than books, Lenny loves Eunice Park, an impossibly cute and impossibly cruel twenty-four-year-old Korean American woman who just graduated from Elderbird College with a major in Images and a minor in Assertiveness.

After meeting Lenny on an extended Roman holiday, blistering Eunice puts that Assertiveness minor to work, teaching our “ancient dork� effective new ways to brush his teeth and making him buy a cottony nonflammable wardrobe. But America proves less flame-resistant than Lenny’s new threads. The country is crushed by a credit crisis, riots break out in New York’s Central Park, the city’s streets are lined with National Guard tanks on every corner, the dollar is so over, and our patient Chinese creditors may just be ready to foreclose on the whole mess. Undeterred, Lenny vows to love both Eunice and his homeland. He’s going to convince his fickle new love that in a time without standards or stability, in a world where single people can determine a dating prospect’s “hotness� and “sustainability� with the click of a button, in a society where the privileged may live forever but the unfortunate will die all too soon, there is still value in being a real human being.

Wildly funny, rich, and humane, Super Sad True Love Story is a knockout novel by a young master, a book in which falling in love just may redeem a planet falling apart.
Ěý±Ő±Ő> 331 Gary Shteyngart 1400066409 Bronwyn 1 3.45 2010
author: Gary Shteyngart
name: Bronwyn
average rating: 3.45
book published: 2010
rating: 1
read at:
date added: 2025/02/02
shelves: pre-goodreads, fiction-nongenre
review:

]]> 137791 383 Rebecca Wells 006075995X Bronwyn 2 3.86 1996
author: Rebecca Wells
name: Bronwyn
average rating: 3.86
book published: 1996
rating: 2
read at:
date added: 2025/02/02
shelves: pre-goodreads, historical-fiction
review:

]]> 42283325
Unbeknownst to the well-heeled city-dwellers and visitors who come to enjoy its attractions, Riverview Park is also host to a brutal serial killer, a perfumed pedophile who uses the secrecy of a dark amusement park ride to conduct his crimes. When Pin sees a man enter the Hell Gate ride with a young girl, and leave without her, she knows that something deadly is afoot.

The crime will lead her to the iconic outsider artist Henry Darger, a brilliant but seemingly mad man obsessed with his illustrated novel about a group of young girls who triumph over adult oppressors. Together, the two navigate the seedy underbelly of a changing city to uncover a murderer few even know to look for.]]> 375 Elizabeth Hand 0316485888 Bronwyn 3 The Alienist and The Devil in the White City influences.

The story hinges on Pin, a fourteen-year-old girl who disguises herself as a boy for greater safety and freedom as she runs around Chicago's Riverview amusement park in 1915.

Hand creates a gritty, big city vibe for her historical Chicago. Pin is in a world of sexual predators, including a fictional version of Charlie Chaplin (who liked to marry �em young in real life.) The stage is set for a serial killer who preys on girls around Pin’s age.

Pin becomes involved in the hunt for this killer in multiple ways. First, she has an unresolved backstory of a missing sister. Next, she is the first to find a body of one of the victims and inadvertently points the finger at the wrong person.

In her investigations to find the killer, she runs across a disturbed young man named Henry (based on real-life artist Henry Darger) who claims to be a protector of young women, also trying to find the killer. Hand does a good job of creating distrust and tension between these two eventual allies. Unfortunately, when they begin to work together, the reader never gets a sense of why their initial wariness blossoms into supposed friendship.

The viewpoint changes often during the book, including the killer’s thought process as he goes around the city and back to his rooms where he performs an unusual ritual with the items he takes from the victims. Including this view actually makes him less menacing and it didn't add any insight.

The mystery aspect revolves around a very compact cast of characters, which seems unlikely to me in a city the size of Chicago. There’s a lot of coincidence to move the plot and up the stakes which is not my favorite tactic and tends to break the immersion for me.

This was a pretty decent read, but not as spectacular as I was expecting. The premise had more promise that it delivered.]]> 3.56 2019
author: Elizabeth Hand
name: Bronwyn
average rating: 3.56
book published: 2019
rating: 3
read at: 2022/10/01
date added: 2025/02/02
shelves: thrill-me-kill-me, historical-fiction
review:
Historical Thriller with The Alienist and The Devil in the White City influences.

The story hinges on Pin, a fourteen-year-old girl who disguises herself as a boy for greater safety and freedom as she runs around Chicago's Riverview amusement park in 1915.

Hand creates a gritty, big city vibe for her historical Chicago. Pin is in a world of sexual predators, including a fictional version of Charlie Chaplin (who liked to marry �em young in real life.) The stage is set for a serial killer who preys on girls around Pin’s age.

Pin becomes involved in the hunt for this killer in multiple ways. First, she has an unresolved backstory of a missing sister. Next, she is the first to find a body of one of the victims and inadvertently points the finger at the wrong person.

In her investigations to find the killer, she runs across a disturbed young man named Henry (based on real-life artist Henry Darger) who claims to be a protector of young women, also trying to find the killer. Hand does a good job of creating distrust and tension between these two eventual allies. Unfortunately, when they begin to work together, the reader never gets a sense of why their initial wariness blossoms into supposed friendship.

The viewpoint changes often during the book, including the killer’s thought process as he goes around the city and back to his rooms where he performs an unusual ritual with the items he takes from the victims. Including this view actually makes him less menacing and it didn't add any insight.

The mystery aspect revolves around a very compact cast of characters, which seems unlikely to me in a city the size of Chicago. There’s a lot of coincidence to move the plot and up the stakes which is not my favorite tactic and tends to break the immersion for me.

This was a pretty decent read, but not as spectacular as I was expecting. The premise had more promise that it delivered.
]]> 6149 Staring unflinchingly into the abyss of slavery, this spellbinding novel transforms history into a story as powerful as Exodus and as intimate as a lullaby.

Sethe, its protagonist, was born a slave and escaped to Ohio, but eighteen years later she is still not free. She has too many memories of Sweet Home, the beautiful farm where so many hideous things happened. And Sethe's new home is haunted by the ghost of her baby, who died nameless and whose tombstone is engraved with a single word: Beloved. Filled with bitter poetry and suspense as taut as a rope, Beloved is a towering achievement by Nobel Prize laureate Toni Morrison.]]> 325 Toni Morrison Bronwyn 2 3.96 1987
author: Toni Morrison
name: Bronwyn
average rating: 3.96
book published: 1987
rating: 2
read at: 2019/11/01
date added: 2025/02/02
shelves: historical-fiction, literary-spec-fic
review:

]]> 42527596 When a young woman clears out her deceased grandmother’s home in rural North Carolina, she finds long-hidden secrets about a strange colony of beings in the woods.

When Mouse’s dad asks her to clean out her dead grandmother's house, she says yes. After all, how bad could it be?

Answer: pretty bad. Grandma was a hoarder, and her house is stuffed with useless rubbish. That would be horrific enough, but there’s more—Mouse stumbles across her step-grandfather’s journal, which at first seems to be filled with nonsensical rants…until Mouse encounters some of the terrifying things he described for herself.

Alone in the woods with her dog, Mouse finds herself face to face with a series of impossible terrors—because sometimes the things that go bump in the night are real, and they’re looking for you. And if she doesn’t face them head on, she might not survive to tell the tale.

From Hugo Award–winning author Ursula Vernon, writing as T. Kingfisher.]]> 385 T. Kingfisher 1534429573 Bronwyn 3 gothic, horror The Twisted Ones is a spooky story that’s very carefully bland.

Part of the horror of these types of stories should be carried within the main character. Their own mistakes, their own internal conflicts, and angst should be just as much a part of the darkness explored as is the “monster.� Other than learning about the existence of other-worldly stuff, the narrator is no different at the beginning of the story than she is at the end.

Maybe as a short story the animated effigies and creepy dolls would have felt like enough to make it chilling. As a full length novel, it was dragged out and all the characters just a little too nice or poorly-defined (except for Grandma of course, who we’re told second hand was quite nasty.) No risks taken here.]]> 3.60 2019
author: T. Kingfisher
name: Bronwyn
average rating: 3.60
book published: 2019
rating: 3
read at: 2021/03/30
date added: 2025/02/02
shelves: gothic, horror
review:
Pleasant and fun to read with a likeable narrator (and her charismatic dog Bongo) and a touch of humor, but it seemed a little lightweight. The Twisted Ones is a spooky story that’s very carefully bland.

Part of the horror of these types of stories should be carried within the main character. Their own mistakes, their own internal conflicts, and angst should be just as much a part of the darkness explored as is the “monster.� Other than learning about the existence of other-worldly stuff, the narrator is no different at the beginning of the story than she is at the end.

Maybe as a short story the animated effigies and creepy dolls would have felt like enough to make it chilling. As a full length novel, it was dragged out and all the characters just a little too nice or poorly-defined (except for Grandma of course, who we’re told second hand was quite nasty.) No risks taken here.
]]> 7331435
We first meet Sasha in her mid-thirties, on her therapist’s couch in New York City, confronting her long-standing compulsion to steal. Later, we learn the genesis of her turmoil when we see her as the child of a violent marriage, then as a runaway living in Naples, then as a college student trying to avert the suicidal impulses of her best friend. We plunge into the hidden yearnings and disappointments of her uncle, an art historian stuck in a dead marriage, who travels to Naples to extract Sasha from the city’s demimonde and experiences an epiphany of his own while staring at a sculpture of Orpheus and Eurydice in the Museo Nazionale. We meet Bennie Salazar at the melancholy nadir of his adult life—divorced, struggling to connect with his nine-year-old son, listening to a washed-up band in the basement of a suburban house—and then revisit him in 1979, at the height of his youth, shy and tender, reveling in San Francisco’s punk scene as he discovers his ardor for rock and roll and his gift for spotting talent. We learn what became of his high school gang—who thrived and who faltered—and we encounter Lou Kline, Bennie’s catastrophically careless mentor, along with the lovers and children left behind in the wake of Lou’s far-flung sexual conquests and meteoric rise and fall.

A Visit from the Goon Squad is a book about the interplay of time and music, about survival, about the stirrings and transformations set inexorably in motion by even the most passing conjunction of our fates. In a breathtaking array of styles and tones ranging from tragedy to satire to PowerPoint, Egan captures the undertow of self-destruction that we all must either master or succumb to; the basic human hunger for redemption; and the universal tendency to reach for both—and escape the merciless progress of time—in the transporting realms of art and music. Sly, startling, exhilarating work from one of our boldest writers.]]> 274 Jennifer Egan 0307592839 Bronwyn 3 fiction-nongenre 3.70 2010
author: Jennifer Egan
name: Bronwyn
average rating: 3.70
book published: 2010
rating: 3
read at: 2024/05/31
date added: 2025/02/02
shelves: fiction-nongenre
review:

]]> 7354
A vigorous, darkly comic, and at times magical portrait of the contemporary American family, The Shipping News shows why E. Annie Proulx is recognized as one of the most gifted and original writers in America today.
(back cover)]]> 337 Annie Proulx 0743225422 Bronwyn 2 3.88 1993
author: Annie Proulx
name: Bronwyn
average rating: 3.88
book published: 1993
rating: 2
read at:
date added: 2025/02/02
shelves: fiction-nongenre, pre-goodreads
review:

]]> 44890081
2000. Bright, ambitious, and yearning for adulthood, fifteen-year-old Vanessa Wye becomes entangled in an affair with Jacob Strane, her magnetic and guileful forty-two-year-old English teacher.

2017. Amid the rising wave of allegations against powerful men, a reckoning is coming due. Strane has been accused of sexual abuse by a former student, who reaches out to Vanessa, and now Vanessa suddenly finds herself facing an impossible choice: remain silent, firm in the belief that her teenage self willingly engaged in this relationship, or redefine herself and the events of her past. But how can Vanessa reject her first love, the man who fundamentally transformed her and has been a persistent presence in her life? Is it possible that the man she loved as a teenager—and who professed to worship only her—may be far different from what she has always believed?

Alternating between Vanessa’s present and her past, My Dark Vanessa juxtaposes memory and trauma with the breathless excitement of a teenage girl discovering the power her own body can wield. Thought-provoking and impossible to put down, this is a masterful portrayal of troubled adolescence and its repercussions that raises vital questions about agency, consent, complicity, and victimhood. Written with the haunting intimacy of The Girls and the creeping intensity of Room, My Dark Vanessa is an era-defining novel that brilliantly captures and reflects the shifting cultural mores transforming our relationships and society itself.]]> 373 Kate Elizabeth Russell 006294150X Bronwyn 2 fiction-nongenre
Vanessa, a supposedly bright high school student and Strane, her teacher, simply fill the victim/abuser roles. They have no life of their own, and their relationship is lifeless, predictable, and flat. In order for me to buy into Vanessa’s ambivalence, I’d have to feel the connection and tension between her and Strane. The predatory nature of Strane is transparent, obvious rather than left for the reader to discover. (Having him seduce her with a copy of Lolita is a little too on the nose.)

As individual characters, neither of them are well-developed enough for me to feel any anger, loss etc. Vanessa has little in the way of other interests or relationships. I can’t empathize with how her life has been defined by the abuse because the author never shows the potential in her for anything else. We never see any of Strane’s supposed charm or charisma. If he was popular and witty, someone who kids like and other teachers respect, there could have been some interesting conflict. Instead, everyone is suspicious of him and it's obvious that they should be.

I was expecting something deeper. The promised exploration of “psychological dynamics� didn’t really occur as far as I could tell. ]]> 4.09 2020
author: Kate Elizabeth Russell
name: Bronwyn
average rating: 4.09
book published: 2020
rating: 2
read at: 2020/12/22
date added: 2025/02/02
shelves: fiction-nongenre
review:
This novel examines the effects of sexual and emotional abuse on a teenage girl by her English teacher, including her long-term attachment to her abuser, and feelings of guilt that her own decisions and desires were to blame. I understood the intended point, but unfortunately, it felt like a sort of fictional case-study of abuse and the effects on the victim/abuser, rather than a complex and engaging novel. Everything fits a by-the-numbers scheme.

Vanessa, a supposedly bright high school student and Strane, her teacher, simply fill the victim/abuser roles. They have no life of their own, and their relationship is lifeless, predictable, and flat. In order for me to buy into Vanessa’s ambivalence, I’d have to feel the connection and tension between her and Strane. The predatory nature of Strane is transparent, obvious rather than left for the reader to discover. (Having him seduce her with a copy of Lolita is a little too on the nose.)

As individual characters, neither of them are well-developed enough for me to feel any anger, loss etc. Vanessa has little in the way of other interests or relationships. I can’t empathize with how her life has been defined by the abuse because the author never shows the potential in her for anything else. We never see any of Strane’s supposed charm or charisma. If he was popular and witty, someone who kids like and other teachers respect, there could have been some interesting conflict. Instead, everyone is suspicious of him and it's obvious that they should be.

I was expecting something deeper. The promised exploration of “psychological dynamics� didn’t really occur as far as I could tell.
]]> 40164365
When a woman unexpectedly loses her lifelong best friend and mentor, she finds herself burdened with the unwanted dog he has left behind. Her own battle against grief is intensified by the mute suffering of the dog, a huge Great Dane traumatized by the inexplicable disappearance of its master, and by the threat of eviction: dogs are prohibited in her apartment building.

While others worry that grief has made her a victim of magical thinking, the woman refuses to be separated from the dog except for brief periods of time. Isolated from the rest of the world, increasingly obsessed with the dog's care, determined to read its mind and fathom its heart, she comes dangerously close to unraveling. But while troubles abound, rich and surprising rewards lie in store for both of them.

Elegiac and searching, The Friend is both a meditation on loss and a celebration of human-canine devotion.]]> 212 Sigrid Nunez 0735219451 Bronwyn 3 book-clubs, fiction-nongenre 3.73 2018
author: Sigrid Nunez
name: Bronwyn
average rating: 3.73
book published: 2018
rating: 3
read at: 2019/01/01
date added: 2025/02/02
shelves: book-clubs, fiction-nongenre
review:

]]> 13335037
During the highly competitive initiation that follows, Beatrice renames herself Tris and struggles alongside her fellow initiates to live out the choice they have made. Together they must undergo extreme physical tests of endurance and intense psychological simulations, some with devastating consequences. As initiation transforms them all, Tris must determine who her friends really are—and where, exactly, a romance with a sometimes fascinating, sometimes exasperating boy fits into the life she's chosen. But Tris also has a secret, one she's kept hidden from everyone because she's been warned it can mean death. And as she discovers unrest and growing conflict that threaten to unravel her seemingly perfect society, she also learns that her secret might help her save those she loves . . . or it might destroy her.]]> 487 Veronica Roth 0062024035 Bronwyn 2 4.13 2011
author: Veronica Roth
name: Bronwyn
average rating: 4.13
book published: 2011
rating: 2
read at:
date added: 2025/02/02
shelves: pre-goodreads, dystopia-apocalypse, teen-protagonist
review:

]]> 6603936
From master storyteller Clive Barker comes an epic tale of myth, magic, and forbidden passion

Imajica is an epic beyond vast in conception, obsessively detailed in execution, and apocalyptic in its resolution. At its heart lies the sensualist and master art forger, Gentle, whose life unravels when he encounters Judith Odell, whose power to influence the destinies of men is vaster than she knows, and Pie 'oh' pah, an alien assassin who comes from a hidden dimension.

That dimension is one of five in the great system called Imajica. They are worlds that are utterly unlike our own, but are ruled, peopled, and haunted by species whose lives are intricately connected with ours. As Gentle, Judith, and Pie 'oh' pah travel the Imajica, they uncover a trail of crimes and intimate betrayals, leading them to a revelation so startling that it changes reality forever.]]> 896 Clive Barker Bronwyn 2 dark-fantasy
The story is Barker’s stab at his own creation/death mythology, in which Earth is part of five parallel dominions called the Imajica. Earth has been cut off from the other four (Earth, always gotta be different). A society exists (in England, natch) whose job is to keep it disconnected, generation after generation.

The main plot centers around a Maestro or messiah-type who can bring about a Reconciliation, uniting Earth with the rest of the Imajica.

The first third or so was mildly entertaining. Then, it devolved into a disorganized, repetitious mess. The characterizations were shallow, and I had no investment in their goals or relationships. Barker could have used an editor or someone to rein him in and keep things focused.

There were also all these footnotes to explain who was who and what was what but you could get that same information from the context. Sort of a waste of time. (You could always go to the glossary in the back if you forgot something, which was likely since there are so many characters and references.)

The relationship between Gentle and Pie Oh Pah, possibly forward-thinking in 1991, was a recreation and expansion of the relationship between Genly AI and Estraven in Le Guin’s Left Hand of Darkness.

For much better fantasy by this author, I’d suggest Weaveworld or Everville.]]> 4.24 1991
author: Clive Barker
name: Bronwyn
average rating: 4.24
book published: 1991
rating: 2
read at: 2023/07/25
date added: 2025/02/02
shelves: dark-fantasy
review:
I’m not sure why I was so bored and annoyed with this but it made me question whether or not I still liked reading in general. I may have been in a mood. Generally, a good book will get me out of a funk, not exacerbate it.

The story is Barker’s stab at his own creation/death mythology, in which Earth is part of five parallel dominions called the Imajica. Earth has been cut off from the other four (Earth, always gotta be different). A society exists (in England, natch) whose job is to keep it disconnected, generation after generation.

The main plot centers around a Maestro or messiah-type who can bring about a Reconciliation, uniting Earth with the rest of the Imajica.

The first third or so was mildly entertaining. Then, it devolved into a disorganized, repetitious mess. The characterizations were shallow, and I had no investment in their goals or relationships. Barker could have used an editor or someone to rein him in and keep things focused.

There were also all these footnotes to explain who was who and what was what but you could get that same information from the context. Sort of a waste of time. (You could always go to the glossary in the back if you forgot something, which was likely since there are so many characters and references.)

The relationship between Gentle and Pie Oh Pah, possibly forward-thinking in 1991, was a recreation and expansion of the relationship between Genly AI and Estraven in Le Guin’s Left Hand of Darkness.

For much better fantasy by this author, I’d suggest Weaveworld or Everville.
]]> 23398606 A mind-bending new novel inspired by the twisted and wondrous works of Lewis Carroll...

In a warren of crumbling buildings and desperate people called the Old City, there stands a hospital with cinderblock walls which echo the screams of the poor souls inside.

In the hospital, there is a woman. Her hair, once blond, hangs in tangles down her back. She doesn’t remember why she’s in such a terrible place. Just a tea party long ago, and long ears, and blood�

Then, one night, a fire at the hospital gives the woman a chance to escape, tumbling out of the hole that imprisoned her, leaving her free to uncover the truth about what happened to her all those years ago.

Only something else has escaped with her. Something dark. Something powerful.

And to find the truth, she will have to track this beast to the very heart of the Old City, where the rabbit waits for his Alice.]]> 291 Christina Henry 0425266796 Bronwyn 1 dark-fantasy
Other than the character names, this bears no resemblance to the source material. Characters have no personality, nothing even close to the original which is packed with weird, colorful characters. There is very little humor to be found, which is certainly one of things I loved best about the original.

But, let's say I forget about comparing it to the source material and think of it as a book on its own merits. Alice seems like an outline with dialogue, nothing is developed. The two main characters, Alice and Hatcher (who I assume is the Mad Hatter) have conveniently lost their memories, therefore the author doesn’t have to develop character motivation. When convenient, suddenly they will remember part of their backstory to serve the plot. Hatcher and Alice know what to do based on dreams and visions instead of earning or learning anything. Dreams and visions are a weak device at the best of times and certainly shouldn’t be used to replace character development. Not to mention that these people have no personality to speak of.

Mostly, Alice and Hatcher roam around the Old City (the crime-ridden part of a fantasy version of New York) and meet different evil and powerful denizens of this world. Except they’re basically all the same. They look different and have different lairs, but can’t tell you how they otherwise standout from each other. The Big Bad doesn’t even get enough interaction to develop a personality.

The “dark fantasy� part revolves around the rape, torture, selling etc. of women and girls. No other crimes. All the baddies are men who want to consume women in some way or another. No other motivations from the villains, other than generic desire for “power.� Since this abuse of women isn’t given any emotional resonance, it feels like a cheap trick.

I’m glad the book was short and fast moving. The ending itself though, was another problem. In the final conflict, Alice [spoilers removed]A bit anticlimactic, even though I wasn’t that into the story, I expected a bit more to the final conflict after all the time spent on the setup. ]]> 3.84 2015
author: Christina Henry
name: Bronwyn
average rating: 3.84
book published: 2015
rating: 1
read at: 2021/05/07
date added: 2025/02/02
shelves: dark-fantasy
review:
Dark urban fantasy version of Alice in Wonderland. Sounds great to me, right in my wheelhouse. Nice touch opening it in an insane asylum. If only it lived up to my expectations.

Other than the character names, this bears no resemblance to the source material. Characters have no personality, nothing even close to the original which is packed with weird, colorful characters. There is very little humor to be found, which is certainly one of things I loved best about the original.

But, let's say I forget about comparing it to the source material and think of it as a book on its own merits. Alice seems like an outline with dialogue, nothing is developed. The two main characters, Alice and Hatcher (who I assume is the Mad Hatter) have conveniently lost their memories, therefore the author doesn’t have to develop character motivation. When convenient, suddenly they will remember part of their backstory to serve the plot. Hatcher and Alice know what to do based on dreams and visions instead of earning or learning anything. Dreams and visions are a weak device at the best of times and certainly shouldn’t be used to replace character development. Not to mention that these people have no personality to speak of.

Mostly, Alice and Hatcher roam around the Old City (the crime-ridden part of a fantasy version of New York) and meet different evil and powerful denizens of this world. Except they’re basically all the same. They look different and have different lairs, but can’t tell you how they otherwise standout from each other. The Big Bad doesn’t even get enough interaction to develop a personality.

The “dark fantasy� part revolves around the rape, torture, selling etc. of women and girls. No other crimes. All the baddies are men who want to consume women in some way or another. No other motivations from the villains, other than generic desire for “power.� Since this abuse of women isn’t given any emotional resonance, it feels like a cheap trick.

I’m glad the book was short and fast moving. The ending itself though, was another problem. In the final conflict, Alice [spoilers removed]A bit anticlimactic, even though I wasn’t that into the story, I expected a bit more to the final conflict after all the time spent on the setup.
]]> 35519101
And Murderbot would rather those questions went away. For good.

]]> 158 Martha Wells 1250191785 Bronwyn 2 cyberpunk-techno-thriller 4.21 2018
author: Martha Wells
name: Bronwyn
average rating: 4.21
book published: 2018
rating: 2
read at: 2023/03/13
date added: 2025/02/02
shelves: cyberpunk-techno-thriller
review:

]]> 218571 In an age of advanced technology, information is the world's most precious commodity. Information is power. Data is locked in computers and carefully rationed through a global communications network. Full access is a privilege held by few.
Now, Laura Webster is about to be plunged into a netherworld of black-market data pirates, new-age mercenaries, high-tech voodoo... and murder.]]> 396 Bruce Sterling 0441374239 Bronwyn 2 cyberpunk-techno-thriller 3.67 1988
author: Bruce Sterling
name: Bronwyn
average rating: 3.67
book published: 1988
rating: 2
read at: 2020/09/24
date added: 2025/02/02
shelves: cyberpunk-techno-thriller
review:

]]> 50877 511 Robert A. Heinlein 0449900401 Bronwyn 2 3.63 1980
author: Robert A. Heinlein
name: Bronwyn
average rating: 3.63
book published: 1980
rating: 2
read at:
date added: 2025/02/02
shelves: classic-sci-fi-fantasy-authors
review:

]]> 34189556 You will assume you are reading about a jealous ex-wife.
You will assume she is obsessed with her replacement � a beautiful, younger woman who is about to marry the man they both love.
You will assume you know the anatomy of this tangled love triangle.
Assume nothing.

Twisted and deliciously chilling, Greer Hendricks and Sarah Pekkanen's The Wife Between Us exposes the secret complexities of an enviable marriage - and the dangerous truths we ignore in the name of love.

Read between the lies. ]]> 432 Greer Hendricks 1250130921 Bronwyn 2 book-clubs, thrill-me-kill-me 3.82 2018
author: Greer Hendricks
name: Bronwyn
average rating: 3.82
book published: 2018
rating: 2
read at: 2018/03/01
date added: 2025/02/02
shelves: book-clubs, thrill-me-kill-me
review:

]]> 36809135
But Kya is not what they say. A born naturalist with just one day of school, she takes life's lessons from the land, learning the real ways of the world from the dishonest signals of fireflies. But while she has the skills to live in solitude forever, the time comes when she yearns to be touched and loved. Drawn to two young men from town, who are each intrigued by her wild beauty, Kya opens herself to a new and startling world—until the unthinkable happens.

In Where the Crawdads Sing, Owens juxtaposes an exquisite ode to the natural world against a profound coming of age story and haunting mystery. Thought-provoking, wise, and deeply moving, Owens’s debut novel reminds us that we are forever shaped by the child within us, while also subject to the beautiful and violent secrets that nature keeps.

The story asks how isolation influences the behavior of a young woman, who like all of us, has the genetic propensity to belong to a group. The clues to the mystery are brushed into the lush habitat and natural histories of its wild creatures.]]> 384 Delia Owens 0735219117 Bronwyn 2
There were some details that didn't sit right with me, as well as bad dialogue and underdeveloped characters. There seemed to be no reason to set the story in the 1960s other than to not have to deal with cell phones or a more robust social work system. Certainly the time period wasn't used in the story.

However, if I was really into the story, I think I would have overlooked all of that.

At the beginning of the book, when Kya's mother walks out on the family, I was really invested in what was going to happen to her.

As the book went on, I felt that most things were getting resolved pretty quickly. She solves all of her problems with relative ease and there is never any intense moment when her life is really in danger due to the swamp/environment. She is a "social outcast" but gets boyfriends and her social skills seem fine when she needs to pull them out.

The problem for me is that the writer wants us to sympathize and even worship Kya. Owens bends the events of the story around her, rather than let the story happen to Kya and see how she might deal with it.

As a reader, I wasn't feeling any deep connection with this character and was really only reading to the end to see the resolution of the murder mystery. Owens expects the readers to think even [spoilers removed] Kya can do no wrong and there is no moral conflict and no risks taken that we won't like her.]]> 4.35 2018
author: Delia Owens
name: Bronwyn
average rating: 4.35
book published: 2018
rating: 2
read at: 2020/03/01
date added: 2025/02/02
shelves: book-clubs, historical-fiction
review:
I've been trying to figure out what it is that I don't like about this book. Since it has been so wildly popular with other readers, I feel like I must be from another planet.

There were some details that didn't sit right with me, as well as bad dialogue and underdeveloped characters. There seemed to be no reason to set the story in the 1960s other than to not have to deal with cell phones or a more robust social work system. Certainly the time period wasn't used in the story.

However, if I was really into the story, I think I would have overlooked all of that.

At the beginning of the book, when Kya's mother walks out on the family, I was really invested in what was going to happen to her.

As the book went on, I felt that most things were getting resolved pretty quickly. She solves all of her problems with relative ease and there is never any intense moment when her life is really in danger due to the swamp/environment. She is a "social outcast" but gets boyfriends and her social skills seem fine when she needs to pull them out.

The problem for me is that the writer wants us to sympathize and even worship Kya. Owens bends the events of the story around her, rather than let the story happen to Kya and see how she might deal with it.

As a reader, I wasn't feeling any deep connection with this character and was really only reading to the end to see the resolution of the murder mystery. Owens expects the readers to think even [spoilers removed] Kya can do no wrong and there is no moral conflict and no risks taken that we won't like her.
]]> 57408095 Eight friends, one country house, four romances, and six months in isolation -- a powerful, emotionally rich novel about love, friendship, and betrayal, a book that reads like a great Russian novel, or Chekhov on the Hudson, by a novelist The New York Times calls "one of his generation's most original and exhilarating writers".

It's March 2020 and a calamity is unfolding. A group of friends and friends-of-friends gathers in a country house to wait out the pandemic. Over the next six months new friendships and romances will take hold, while old betrayals will emerge, forcing each character to reevaulate whom they love and what matters most. The unlikely cast of characters include: a Russian-born novelist; his Russian-born psychiatrist wife; their precocious child obsessed with K-pop; a struggling Indian American writer; a wildly successful Korean American app developer; a global dandy with three passports; a young flame-thrower of an essayist, originally from the Carolinas; and a movie star, The Actor, whose arrival upsets the equilibrium of this chosen family.

In a remarkable literary feat, Gary Shteyngart has documented through fiction the emotional toll of our recent times: a story of love and friendship that reads like a great Russian novel set in upstate New York. Both elegiac and very, very funny, Our Country Friends is the most ambitious book yet by the author of the beloved bestseller, Super Sad True Love Story.]]> 317 Gary Shteyngart 1984855123 Bronwyn 2 book-clubs, fiction-nongenre 3.15 2021
author: Gary Shteyngart
name: Bronwyn
average rating: 3.15
book published: 2021
rating: 2
read at: 2022/09/01
date added: 2025/02/02
shelves: book-clubs, fiction-nongenre
review:

]]> 28363972
The case affords Paul entry to the heady world of high society--the glittering parties in Gramercy Park mansions, and the more insidious dealings done behind closed doors. The task facing him is beyond daunting. Edison is a wily, dangerous opponent with vast resources at his disposal--private spies, newspapers in his pocket, and the backing of J. P. Morgan himself. Yet this unknown lawyer shares with his famous adversary a compulsion to win at all costs. How will he do it?

In obsessive pursuit of victory, Paul crosses paths with Nikola Tesla, an eccentric, brilliant inventor who may hold the key to defeating Edison, and with Agnes Huntington, a beautiful opera singer who proves to be a flawless performer on stage and off. As Paul takes greater and greater risks, he'll find that everyone in his path is playing their own game, and no one is quite who they seem.]]> 371 Graham Moore 0812988906 Bronwyn 2 4.11 2016
author: Graham Moore
name: Bronwyn
average rating: 4.11
book published: 2016
rating: 2
read at: 2017/09/01
date added: 2025/02/02
shelves: book-clubs, historical-fiction
review:

]]> 38315900 When his dream of the perfect marriage, the perfect son, and the perfect life implodes, a Wall Street millionaire takes a cross-country bus trip in search of his college sweetheart and ideals of youthĚýin the long-awaited novel, his first in seven years, from the acclaimed, bestselling author ofĚýSuper Sad True Love Story.
Ěý
Myopic, narcissistic, hilariously self-deluded and divorced from the real world as most of us know it, hedge fund manager Barry Cohen oversees $2.4 billion in assets. Deeply stressed by an SEC investigation and by his 3 year-old-son’s diagnosis of autism, he flees New York on a Greyhound bus in search of a simpler, more romantic life with his old college sweetheart, whom he hasn't seen or spoken to in years.

Meanwhile, reeling from the fight that caused Barry's departure, his super-smart wife Seema—a driven first-generation American who craved a picture-perfect life, with all the accoutrements of a huge bank account—has her own demons to face.

How these two imperfect characters navigate the Shteyngartian chaos of their own making is the heart of this biting, brilliant, emotionally resonant novel very much of our times.]]> 338 Gary Shteyngart 0812997425 Bronwyn 1 3.81 2018
author: Gary Shteyngart
name: Bronwyn
average rating: 3.81
book published: 2018
rating: 1
read at: 2019/02/01
date added: 2025/02/02
shelves: book-clubs, pre-goodreads, fiction-nongenre
review:

]]> 58438505
Polly Wister has led a different kind of life than Agnes: that of a well-off married woman with children, defined by her devotion to her husband, a philosophy professor with an inflated sense of stature. She strives to create beauty and harmony in her home, in her friendships, and in her family. Polly soon finds her loyalties torn between the wishes of her best friend and the wishes of her three sons—but what is it that Polly wants herself?

Agnes’s designs are further muddied when an enterprising young book editor named Maud Silver sets out to convince Agnes to write her memoirs. Agnes’s resistance cannot prevent long-buried memories and secrets from coming to light with far-reaching repercussions for all.
]]> 592 Alice Elliott Dark 1982131810 Bronwyn 2 Fellowship Point had a few different story threads going and my final impression is one of a disjointed, vague, and overly-long novel.

Some of the plots don’t have much of a conclusion. The one thread that is fully developed, the tragic tale of how Agnes developed her When Nan series, resolved with an unbelievable coincidence that was more annoying than satisfying.

There are also some chapters that are pointless, such as the one showing the characters reacting to 9/11. It really had nothing to do with plot or character, just a vague nod to the time in which it’s set.

It could have used some sharpening up and a better editor.]]> 3.98 2022
author: Alice Elliott Dark
name: Bronwyn
average rating: 3.98
book published: 2022
rating: 2
read at: 2023/08/27
date added: 2025/02/02
shelves: book-clubs, historical-fiction
review:
While certainly not unreadable, Fellowship Point had a few different story threads going and my final impression is one of a disjointed, vague, and overly-long novel.

Some of the plots don’t have much of a conclusion. The one thread that is fully developed, the tragic tale of how Agnes developed her When Nan series, resolved with an unbelievable coincidence that was more annoying than satisfying.

There are also some chapters that are pointless, such as the one showing the characters reacting to 9/11. It really had nothing to do with plot or character, just a vague nod to the time in which it’s set.

It could have used some sharpening up and a better editor.
]]> 18158562
Rachel might as well have a target on her back. Initiated into a world of dynastic splendor beyond imagination, Rachel meets Astrid, the It Girl of Singapore society; Eddie, whose family practically lives in the pages of the Hong Kong socialite magazines; and Eleanor, Nick's formidable mother, a woman who has very strong feelings about who her son should--and should not--marry.

Uproarious, addictive, and filled with jaw-dropping opulence, Crazy Rich Asians is an insider's look at the Asian JetSet; a perfect depiction of the clash between old money and new money; between Overseas Chinese and Mainland Chinese; and a fabulous novel about what it means to be young, in love, and gloriously,ĚýcrazilyĚýrich.]]> 546 Kevin Kwan 0385536984 Bronwyn 2 book-clubs, fiction-nongenre 3.98 2013
author: Kevin Kwan
name: Bronwyn
average rating: 3.98
book published: 2013
rating: 2
read at: 2018/09/01
date added: 2025/02/02
shelves: book-clubs, fiction-nongenre
review:

]]> 19486412
A murder . . . a tragic accident . . . or just parents behaving badly?
What’s indisputable is that someone is dead.
But who did what?

Big Little Lies follows three women, each at a crossroads:

Madeline is a force to be reckoned with. She’s funny and biting, passionate, she remembers everything and forgives no one. Her ex-husband and his yogi new wife have moved into her beloved beachside community, and their daughter is in the same kindergarten class as Madeline’s youngest (how is this possible?). And to top it all off, Madeline’s teenage daughter seems to be choosing Madeline’s ex-husband over her. (How. Is. This. Possible?).

Celeste is the kind of beautiful woman who makes the world stop and stare. While she may seem a bit flustered at times, who wouldn’t be, with those rambunctious twin boys? Now that the boys are starting school, Celeste and her husband look set to become the king and queen of the school parent body. But royalty often comes at a price, and Celeste is grappling with how much more she is willing to pay.

New to town, single mom Jane is so young that another mother mistakes her for the nanny. Jane is sad beyond her years and harbors secret doubts about her son. But why? While Madeline and Celeste soon take Jane under their wing, none of them realizes how the arrival of Jane and her inscrutable little boy will affect them all.

Big Little Lies is a brilliant take on ex-husbands and second wives, mothers and daughters, schoolyard scandal, and the dangerous little lies we tell ourselves just to survive.]]> 458 Liane Moriarty 0399167064 Bronwyn 2 book-clubs, pre-goodreads 4.24 2014
author: Liane Moriarty
name: Bronwyn
average rating: 4.24
book published: 2014
rating: 2
read at: 2017/05/01
date added: 2025/02/02
shelves: book-clubs, pre-goodreads
review:

]]> 33590210
This stirring love story is a profoundly insightful look into the hearts and minds of three people who are at once bound and separated by forces beyond their control. An American Marriage is a masterpiece of storytelling, an intimate look deep into the souls of people who must reckon with the past while moving forward—with hope and pain—into the future.]]> 308 Tayari Jones 1616201347 Bronwyn 2 book-clubs, pre-goodreads 3.91 2018
author: Tayari Jones
name: Bronwyn
average rating: 3.91
book published: 2018
rating: 2
read at: 2018/06/01
date added: 2025/02/02
shelves: book-clubs, pre-goodreads
review:

]]> 41057294
A year later, they’re both studying at Trinity College in Dublin. Marianne has found her feet in a new social world while Connell hangs at the sidelines, shy and uncertain. Throughout their years in college, Marianne and Connell circle one another, straying toward other people and possibilities but always magnetically, irresistibly drawn back together. Then, as she veers into self-destruction and he begins to search for meaning elsewhere, each must confront how far they are willing to go to save the other.

Sally Rooney brings her brilliant psychological acuity and perfectly spare prose to a story that explores the subtleties of class, the electricity of first love, and the complex entanglements of family and friendship.]]> 273 Sally Rooney 1984822179 Bronwyn 2 book-clubs 3.81 2018
author: Sally Rooney
name: Bronwyn
average rating: 3.81
book published: 2018
rating: 2
read at: 2022/07/18
date added: 2025/02/02
shelves: book-clubs
review:

]]> 9460487 9781594744761

A mysterious island. An abandoned orphanage. A strange collection of very curious photographs. It all waits to be discovered in Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children, an unforgettable novel that mixes fiction and photography in a thrilling reading experience. As our story opens, a horrific family tragedy sets sixteen-year-old Jacob journeying to a remote island off the coast of Wales, where he discovers the crumbling ruins of Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children. As Jacob explores its abandoned bedrooms and hallways, it becomes clear that the children were more than just peculiar. They may have been dangerous. They may have been quarantined on a deserted island for good reason. And somehow-impossible though it seems-they may still be alive. A spine-tingling fantasy illustrated with haunting vintage photography, Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children will delight adults, teens, and anyone who relishes an adventure in the shadows.]]> 352 Ransom Riggs 1594744769 Bronwyn 2
It's a mildly entertaining time travel adventure and that's about all.

I was expecting something edgier, creepier, a bit more chilling. The pictures were a cool idea but the book never lived up to the weirdness they promised.

I know it's for young adults but there are young adult books out there that offer more depth.]]> 3.92 2011
author: Ransom Riggs
name: Bronwyn
average rating: 3.92
book published: 2011
rating: 2
read at: 2016/08/01
date added: 2025/02/02
shelves: book-clubs, pre-goodreads, youngsters
review:
I was fooled by the appearance of this book. Given the cover and the description, I was expecting a little more.

It's a mildly entertaining time travel adventure and that's about all.

I was expecting something edgier, creepier, a bit more chilling. The pictures were a cool idea but the book never lived up to the weirdness they promised.

I know it's for young adults but there are young adult books out there that offer more depth.
]]> 3398625 The Lost City of Z is a blockbuster adventure narrative about what lies beneath the impenetrable jungle canopy of the Amazon.

After stumbling upon a hidden trove of diaries, New Yorker writer David Grann set out to solve "the greatest exploration mystery of the 20th century": What happened to the British explorer Percy Fawcett & his quest for the Lost City of Z?

In 1925, Fawcett ventured into the Amazon to find an ancient civilization, hoping to make one of the most important discoveries in history. For centuries Europeans believed the world's largest jungle concealed the glittering kingdom of El Dorado. Thousands had died looking for it, leaving many scientists convinced that the Amazon was truly inimical to humans. But Fawcett, whose daring expeditions inspired Conan Doyle's The Lost World, had spent years building his scientific case. Captivating the imagination of millions round the globe, Fawcett embarked with his 21-year-old son, determined to prove that this ancient civilisation--which he dubbed Z--existed. Then his expedition vanished. Fawcett's fate, & the tantalizing clues he left behind about Z, became an obsession for hundreds who followed him into the uncharted wilderness.

For decades scientists & adventurers have searched for evidence of Fawcett's party & the lost City of Z. Countless have perished, been captured by tribes or gone mad. As Grann delved ever deeper into the mystery surrounding Fawcett's quest, & the greater mystery of what lies within the Amazon, he found himself, like the generations who preceded him, being irresistibly drawn into the jungle's green hell. His quest for the truth & discoveries about Fawcett's fate & Z form the heart of this complexly enthralling narrative.]]> 339 David Grann 0385513534 Bronwyn 4 3.87 2009
author: David Grann
name: Bronwyn
average rating: 3.87
book published: 2009
rating: 4
read at: 2016/06/01
date added: 2025/02/02
shelves: book-clubs, pre-goodreads, history, nonfiction
review:

]]> 43521657
Then she finds a strange book. A book that carries the scent of other worlds, and tells a tale of secret doors, of love, adventure and danger. Each page turn reveals impossible truths about the world and January discovers a story increasingly entwined with her own.]]> 374 Alix E. Harrow 0316421995 Bronwyn 2 3.99 2019
author: Alix E. Harrow
name: Bronwyn
average rating: 3.99
book published: 2019
rating: 2
read at: 2021/06/18
date added: 2025/02/02
shelves: teen-protagonist, steampunk-and-historical-fantasy
review:

]]> 54829360 A lavish historical drama reimagining of The Island of Doctor Moreau set against the backdrop of nineteenth-century Mexico.

Carlota Moreau: a young woman, growing up in a distant and luxuriant estate, safe from the conflict and strife of the Yucatán peninsula. The only daughter of either a genius, or a madman.

Montgomery Laughton: a melancholic overseer with a tragic past and a propensity for alcohol. An outcast who assists Dr. Moreau with his scientific experiments, which are financed by the Lizaldes, owners of magnificent haciendas and plentiful coffers.

The hybrids: the fruits of the Doctor’s labor, destined to blindly obey their creator and remain in the shadows. A motley group of part human, part animal monstrosities.

All of them living in a perfectly balanced and static world, which is jolted by the abrupt arrival of Eduardo Lizalde, the charming and careless son of Doctor Moreau’s patron, who will unwittingly begin a dangerous chain reaction.

For Moreau keeps secrets, Carlota has questions, and in the sweltering heat of the jungle, passions may ignite.

The Daughter of Doctor Moreau is both a dazzling historical novel and a daring science fiction journey.]]> 306 Silvia Moreno-Garcia 0593355334 Bronwyn 2
The original Island of Doctor Moreau (Wells, 1896) book that Moreno-Garcia is borrowing characters and concept from had a title character that was playing God, torturing sentient creatures, and traumatizing the entire cast of characters in the book.

Here, Doctor Moreau is doing the same thing but rather than testing the bounds of science and technology, he just needs money. The central plan is to sell Moreau’s creations to the evil capitalist pig Lizaldes so they can use them for slave labor.

When that isn’t efficient enough, Moreau decides to sell his hot daughter’s hand in marriage to the Lizaldes, just to ensure his financial future.

This cheapens the existential horror potential of the novel. The creatures are reduced to a commodity instead of allowing us to be frightened for, or of them. The author wants them to represent the downtrodden but she doesn’t go very deep. Moreno-Garcia did a better job of bringing out the terror of genetic weirdness and the patriarchal oppression angle in Mexican Gothic.

There's no need to take this seriously, however. This is just a shallow and fast-moving book that is mostly a love triangle with some feminist messaging.

Carlota, the title character, goes from [spoilers removed] in one absurd and melodramatic moment. None of the characters or relationships are developed enough for me to invest in most of the storyline.

My favorite part of the book was the last few chapters, in which the conflict and action heat up and it becomes a bit more of a page-turner.

There is not a lot of science fiction in this one.]]> 3.56 2022
author: Silvia Moreno-Garcia
name: Bronwyn
average rating: 3.56
book published: 2022
rating: 2
read at: 2023/10/01
date added: 2025/02/02
shelves: steampunk-and-historical-fantasy, teen-protagonist
review:
All you need is cash.

The original Island of Doctor Moreau (Wells, 1896) book that Moreno-Garcia is borrowing characters and concept from had a title character that was playing God, torturing sentient creatures, and traumatizing the entire cast of characters in the book.

Here, Doctor Moreau is doing the same thing but rather than testing the bounds of science and technology, he just needs money. The central plan is to sell Moreau’s creations to the evil capitalist pig Lizaldes so they can use them for slave labor.

When that isn’t efficient enough, Moreau decides to sell his hot daughter’s hand in marriage to the Lizaldes, just to ensure his financial future.

This cheapens the existential horror potential of the novel. The creatures are reduced to a commodity instead of allowing us to be frightened for, or of them. The author wants them to represent the downtrodden but she doesn’t go very deep. Moreno-Garcia did a better job of bringing out the terror of genetic weirdness and the patriarchal oppression angle in Mexican Gothic.

There's no need to take this seriously, however. This is just a shallow and fast-moving book that is mostly a love triangle with some feminist messaging.

Carlota, the title character, goes from [spoilers removed] in one absurd and melodramatic moment. None of the characters or relationships are developed enough for me to invest in most of the storyline.

My favorite part of the book was the last few chapters, in which the conflict and action heat up and it becomes a bit more of a page-turner.

There is not a lot of science fiction in this one.
]]> 55004093 What is the purpose of a map?

Nell Young’s whole life and greatest passion is cartography. Her father, Dr. Daniel Young, is a legend in the field and Nell’s personal hero. But she hasn’t seen or spoken to him ever since he cruelly fired her and destroyed her reputation after an argument over an old, cheap gas station highway map.

But when Dr. Young is found dead in his office at the New York Public Library, with the very same seemingly worthless map hidden in his desk, Nell can’t resist investigating. To her surprise, she soon discovers that the map is incredibly valuable and exceedingly rare. In fact, she may now have the only copy left in existence... because a mysterious collector has been hunting down and destroying every last one—along with anyone who gets in the way.

But why?

To answer that question, Nell embarks on a dangerous journey to reveal a dark family secret and discovers the true power that lies in maps...

From the critically acclaimed author of The Book of M, a highly imaginative thriller about a young woman who discovers that a strange map in her deceased father’s belongings holds an incredible, deadly secret—one that will lead her on an extraordinary adventure and to the truth about her family’s dark history.]]> 392 Peng Shepherd 0062910698 Bronwyn 2 book-clubs, literary-spec-fic The Cartographers.

Shepherd decided to take the focus another way and make the story about interpersonal conflicts, romantic, family, friendships etc. That might have been entertaining if the characters had been better defined. As it was, each character had the same voice when telling their part of the narration and none of them stood out as especially interesting or likable. Or even fun enough to hate. Characteristics were told rather than shown. (For instance, the college-age version of Daniel Young is described as fun and energetic; when did we ever see those traits?)

Additionally, I would have liked more focus on the Haberson map and how the antagonist planned to use it for his plot. It wasn’t clear and was simply brushed aside once some of the family drama was resolved.

A book with potential that feels underdeveloped. ]]> 3.62 2022
author: Peng Shepherd
name: Bronwyn
average rating: 3.62
book published: 2022
rating: 2
read at: 2022/11/29
date added: 2025/02/02
shelves: book-clubs, literary-spec-fic
review:
The premise of this story, that mapmakers could create these “phantom settlements,� had fascinating implications for humanity and our relationship to the nature of reality. This becomes more of a plot device than a story in The Cartographers.

Shepherd decided to take the focus another way and make the story about interpersonal conflicts, romantic, family, friendships etc. That might have been entertaining if the characters had been better defined. As it was, each character had the same voice when telling their part of the narration and none of them stood out as especially interesting or likable. Or even fun enough to hate. Characteristics were told rather than shown. (For instance, the college-age version of Daniel Young is described as fun and energetic; when did we ever see those traits?)

Additionally, I would have liked more focus on the Haberson map and how the antagonist planned to use it for his plot. It wasn’t clear and was simply brushed aside once some of the family drama was resolved.

A book with potential that feels underdeveloped.
]]> 207035 (back cover)]]> 546 Audrey Niffenegger Bronwyn 1 literary-spec-fic
This is mostly just a romance and doesn't really work for me on that level either. Other than the above mentioned device, there isn't much of anything interesting between these two. Claire has no personality whatsoever that I can grasp. Henry has slightly more of an inner life but no tension ever ratchets up in the story between them. She knows she’s going to be his wife because of the various visits of his future self and she pretty much just accepts this. No rebellion, no exploration of other relationships, no real conflict....

The writing style didn't make it any better. Sure, it was an easy read, and I had some curiosity about where it was all going. But the passages were dull journal entries alternating between Claire and Henry and the language was stiff. There is no difference in the "voice" between the two characters and the dialogue was stilted.]]> 3.98 2003
author: Audrey Niffenegger
name: Bronwyn
average rating: 3.98
book published: 2003
rating: 1
read at: 2020/07/30
date added: 2025/02/02
shelves: literary-spec-fic
review:
I can't think of much to recommend this one. The idea of the Time Traveler, Henry, who is suffering from a genetic disorder called "chrono-impairment" sounded interesting, but unfortunately the author never did anything with it. She fails to explore any of the philosophical, emotional, or scientific ideas of the effect this would have on Henry or Claire. It's a device; an impediment or complication to his romance with Claire, the title character.

This is mostly just a romance and doesn't really work for me on that level either. Other than the above mentioned device, there isn't much of anything interesting between these two. Claire has no personality whatsoever that I can grasp. Henry has slightly more of an inner life but no tension ever ratchets up in the story between them. She knows she’s going to be his wife because of the various visits of his future self and she pretty much just accepts this. No rebellion, no exploration of other relationships, no real conflict....

The writing style didn't make it any better. Sure, it was an easy read, and I had some curiosity about where it was all going. But the passages were dull journal entries alternating between Claire and Henry and the language was stiff. There is no difference in the "voice" between the two characters and the dialogue was stilted.
]]>