b e a c h g o t h's bookshelf: vices-and-virtues en-US Fri, 18 Apr 2025 11:54:43 -0700 60 b e a c h g o t h's bookshelf: vices-and-virtues 144 41 /images/layout/goodreads_logo_144.jpg The Butcher 18775334
Settling back into his childhood home and doing some renovations in the backyard to make the house feel like his own, Matt, a young up-and-coming chef and restaurateur, stumbles upon a locked crate he’s never seen before. Curious, he picks the padlock and makes a discovery so gruesome it will forever haunt him� Faced with this deep dark family secret, Matt must decide whether to keep what he knows buried in the past, go to the police, or take matters into his own hands.

Meanwhile Matt’s girlfriend, Sam, has always suspected that her mother was murdered by the Beacon Hill Butcher—two years after the supposed Butcher was gunned down. As she pursues leads that will prove her right, Sam heads right into the path of Matt’s terrible secret.]]> 352 Jennifer Hillier 1476734216 b e a c h g o t h 5 4.03 2014 The Butcher
author: Jennifer Hillier
name: b e a c h g o t h
average rating: 4.03
book published: 2014
rating: 5
read at: 2025/04/18
date added: 2025/04/18
shelves: alexas-a-list, creme-de-la-crime, literary-crack, psychos, read-during-renos, recommended-to-me, vices-and-virtues
review:

]]> The Last One at the Wedding 203579177 From the bestselling author of Hidden Pictures comes a breathtaking work of suspense about a father trying to save his daughter from a life-altering decision that will put everything he loves on the line.

Frank Szatowski is shocked when his daughter, Maggie, calls him for the first time in three years. He was convinced that their estrangement would become permanent. He’s even more surprised when she invites him to her upcoming wedding in New Hampshire. Frank is ecstatic, and determined to finally make things right.

He arrives to find that the wedding is at a private estate—very secluded, very luxurious, very much out of his league. It seems that Maggie failed to mention that she’s marrying Aidan Gardner, the son of a famous tech billionaire. Feeling desperately out of place, Frank focuses on reconnecting with Maggie and getting to know her new family. But it’s difficult: Aidan is withdrawn and evasive; Maggie doesn’t seem to have time for him; and he finds that the locals are disturbingly hostile to the Gardners. Frank needs to know more about this family his daughter is marrying into, but if he pushes too hard, he could lose Maggie forever.

An edge-of-your-seat thriller that delves deep into the heart of one family, The Last One at the Wedding is a work of brilliant suspense from a true modern master.]]> 338 Jason Rekulak 1250895782 b e a c h g o t h 4
Only 4, not 5 stars, because I called the ending about 150 pages in, but I still loved every second of this book. ]]> 3.61 2024 The Last One at the Wedding
author: Jason Rekulak
name: b e a c h g o t h
average rating: 3.61
book published: 2024
rating: 4
read at: 2025/03/01
date added: 2025/02/28
shelves: creme-de-la-crime, far-fetched-asf, literary-crack, predicable-asf, psychos, read-during-renos, this-book-is-a-mood, vices-and-virtues
review:
This book was perfectly atmospheric & twisted, I love how Jason crafts his characters - it’s almost like you can reach out and touch them, they’re so real.

Only 4, not 5 stars, because I called the ending about 150 pages in, but I still loved every second of this book.
]]> The Perfect Son 52616342
Erika Cass has a perfect family and a perfect life. Until the evening when two detectives show up at her front door.

A high school girl has vanished from Erika's quiet suburban neighborhood. The police suspect the worst--murder. And Erika's teenage son, Liam, was the last person to see the girl alive.

Erika has always sensed something dark and disturbed in her seemingly perfect older child. She wants to believe he's innocent, but as the evidence mounts, she can't deny the truth--Liam may have done the unthinkable.

Now she must ask herself:

How far will she go to protect her son?]]> 373 Freida McFadden b e a c h g o t h 4
I mean, of course it wasn’t Liam. 3/4 of the book builds to it being Liam and I couldn’t help the entire time but think.. “if the book ends and it was him the whole time then� this book could’ve been a short story�

And Frieda is known for her plot twists. I just hate that lately, I can already see the twists.

Still additive as anything, her work is literary drugs. ]]> 4.03 2019 The Perfect Son
author: Freida McFadden
name: b e a c h g o t h
average rating: 4.03
book published: 2019
rating: 4
read at: 2025/02/18
date added: 2025/02/18
shelves: creme-de-la-crime, far-fetched-asf, hate-that-i-enjoyed-this, literary-crack, predicable-asf, psychos, read-during-renos, vices-and-virtues
review:
**spoilers**

I mean, of course it wasn’t Liam. 3/4 of the book builds to it being Liam and I couldn’t help the entire time but think.. “if the book ends and it was him the whole time then� this book could’ve been a short story�

And Frieda is known for her plot twists. I just hate that lately, I can already see the twists.

Still additive as anything, her work is literary drugs.
]]> The Boyfriend 208503280 She's looking for the perfect man. He's looking for the perfect victim.

Sydney Shaw, like every single woman in New York, has terrible luck with dating. She’s seen it men who lie in their dating profile, men who stick her with the dinner bill, and worst of all, men who can't shut up about their mothers. But finally, she hits the jackpot.

Her new boyfriend is utterly perfect. He's charming, handsome, and works as a doctor at a local hospital. Sydney is swept off her feet.

Then the brutal murder of a young woman―the latest in a string of deaths across the coast―confounds police. The primary suspect? A mystery man who dates his victims before he kills them.

Sydney should feel safe. After all, she is dating the guy of her dreams. But she can’t shake her own suspicions that the perfect man may not be as perfect as he seems. Because someone is watching her every move, and if she doesn’t get to the truth, she’ll be the killer’s next victim...

A dark story about obsession and the things we’ll do for love, #1 New York Times bestselling author Freida McFadden proves that crimes of passion are often the bloodiest…]]> 368 Freida McFadden 1728296226 b e a c h g o t h 4
The ending was cringe to me, but I did really enjoy the last page. I wanted�

**spoilers**

� Slug to have killed Tom in high school and take over his identity. I wanted that Slug-Tom to dye his hair black to match the descriptions between past and present chapters and be a full psycho. Like, Slug-Tom could’ve paid Kevin to creep on Sydney so she needed him to rescue her.

I just wanted to be like WHAT. THE. F. at the plot twist instead of like�. Okayyyy that’s far fetched asf. ]]> 3.95 2024 The Boyfriend
author: Freida McFadden
name: b e a c h g o t h
average rating: 3.95
book published: 2024
rating: 4
read at: 2025/02/13
date added: 2025/02/13
shelves: creme-de-la-crime, cupids-library, far-fetched-asf, literary-crack, predicable-asf, psychos, read-during-renos, vices-and-virtues
review:
As always with Frieda the second I start reading I’m so hooked, it’s like she puts superglue on her book covers.

The ending was cringe to me, but I did really enjoy the last page. I wanted�

**spoilers**

� Slug to have killed Tom in high school and take over his identity. I wanted that Slug-Tom to dye his hair black to match the descriptions between past and present chapters and be a full psycho. Like, Slug-Tom could’ve paid Kevin to creep on Sydney so she needed him to rescue her.

I just wanted to be like WHAT. THE. F. at the plot twist instead of like�. Okayyyy that’s far fetched asf.
]]> <![CDATA[Butcher & Blackbird (The Ruinous Love Trilogy, #1)]]> 196864520

The viral TikTok friends-to-lovers dark romantic comedy full of murder, chaos, and spice—unlike anything you’ve read before—now available in all bookstores.


When a chance encounter sparks an unlikely bond between rival murderers Sloane and Rowan, the two find something elusive—the friendship of like-minded, pitch-black souls. From small town West Virginia to upscale California, from downtown Boston to rural Texas, the two hunters collide in an annual game of blood and suffering, one that pits them against the most dangerous monsters in the country.


But as their friendship develops into something more, the restless ghosts left in their wake are only a few steps behind, ready to claim more than just their newfound love. Can Rowan and Sloane dig themselves out of a game of graves? Or have they finally met their match?

]]> 360 Brynne Weaver b e a c h g o t h 2

Imagine if they were average looking people with ACTUAL psychopathic tendencies like masking emotions, devoid of attachment, a hate for humanity, etc etc


But instead these are two extremely good looking people that kill for sport and� what in the far fetched is going on.
And the sex scenes weren’t even like� surprising. “I didn’t orgasm, I detonated”�.ok babe.

This book is the “American psycho� for the girl that rewatches hallmark romance for comfort but she can fuck with black coffee. Edgy, but no cliff face. ]]> 3.99 2023 Butcher & Blackbird (The Ruinous Love Trilogy, #1)
author: Brynne Weaver
name: b e a c h g o t h
average rating: 3.99
book published: 2023
rating: 2
read at: 2025/01/15
date added: 2025/01/16
shelves: could-not-finish, creme-de-la-crime, cupids-library, eye-roll-into-next-week, far-fetched-asf, psychos, read-during-renos, vices-and-virtues
review:
DNF at halfway. This is insanely unbelievable. I mean, obviously it is - two serial killers falling for each other - but it was the Insta romance for me. The good looking descriptions of both of them. The sex scenes that made me feel awkward reading this when my kids were awake.


Imagine if they were average looking people with ACTUAL psychopathic tendencies like masking emotions, devoid of attachment, a hate for humanity, etc etc


But instead these are two extremely good looking people that kill for sport and� what in the far fetched is going on.
And the sex scenes weren’t even like� surprising. “I didn’t orgasm, I detonated”�.ok babe.

This book is the “American psycho� for the girl that rewatches hallmark romance for comfort but she can fuck with black coffee. Edgy, but no cliff face.
]]> Carnivore 35132980 Shortlisted for the Polari First Book Award 2018



‘So you liked Irvine Welsh? Read Carnivore� Cosmopolitan


Meet Leander: lover, fighter, liar.



He learnt a long time ago that nothing is as intoxicating as blood. But whether it’s his or someone else’s doesn’t matter any more. There’s a mysterious pain in every muscle of his body � and it’s got so bad that he’ll do anything to escape it.


Up to now, it’s been his secret. But it’s hard to remain invisible when you leave a trail of destruction everywhere you go. So, when he comes to the attention of one of London’s most infamous criminals, Leander decides to put his appetite for violence to the ultimate test.


Let the villain win.]]> 306 Jonathan Lyon 0008232571 b e a c h g o t h 3 3.06 2017 Carnivore
author: Jonathan Lyon
name: b e a c h g o t h
average rating: 3.06
book published: 2017
rating: 3
read at: 2025/01/10
date added: 2025/01/09
shelves: could-not-finish, creme-de-la-crime, psychos, read-during-renos, struck-a-cord, vices-and-virtues
review:
I thought this would be similar to Bret Easton Ellis but it’s giving Irvine Welsh and I loathe Irvine Welsh
]]> The Fabric of Our Souls 202322798
So when I wake up at the hospital with my brother weeping over me, I know my life is about to change. What I didn’t expect was to get a nurse with cruel eyes and a morbid sense of humor that surpasses my own.

I’m even more surprised when I arrive at Harlow Sanctum and realize that my brother selected an unorthodox rehabilitation center that rooms people based on their treatment plan. And my roommate is none other than the man with cruel eyes I met the day prior.

I crave death—he craves life.

Can two people like us cure each other?Please check the CW on my website before]]> 362 K.M. Moronova b e a c h g o t h 5
I always thought Liam wasn’t a hot name but� this book changed that real quick. ]]> 4.02 2023 The Fabric of Our Souls
author: K.M. Moronova
name: b e a c h g o t h
average rating: 4.02
book published: 2023
rating: 5
read at: 2024/12/09
date added: 2024/12/09
shelves: alexas-a-list, creme-de-la-crime, cupids-library, hate-that-i-enjoyed-this, literary-crack, psychos, read-during-renos, recommended-to-me, sad-girl-lit, vices-and-virtues
review:
Imagine fault in our stars that we all read when we young and fell in love with but WAY more dark, spicy as hell and throw in some murder.

I always thought Liam wasn’t a hot name but� this book changed that real quick.
]]> <![CDATA[A Talent for Murder (Henry Kimball/Lily Kintner, #3)]]> 199116301
Martha Ratliff conceded long ago that she’d likely spend her life alone. She was fine with it, happy with her solo existence, stimulated by her job as an archival librarian, constantly surrounded by thought-provoking ideas and the books she loved. But then she met Alan, a charming and sweet-natured divorcee with a job that took him on the road for half the year. When he asked her to marry him, she said yes, even though he still felt a little bit like a stranger.

A year in and the marriage was good, except for that strange blood streak on the back of one of his shirts he’d worn to a conference in Denver. Her curiosity turning to suspicion, Martha investigates the cities Alan visited over the past year and uncovers a disturbing pattern—five unsolved cases of murdered women.

Is she married to a serial killer? Or could it merely be a coincidence? Unsure what to think, Martha contacts an old friend from graduate school for advice. Lily Kintner once helped Martha out of a jam with an abusive boyfriend and may have some insight. Intrigued, Lily offers to meet Alan to find out what kind of man he really is . . . but what Lily uncovers is more perplexing and wicked than they ever could have expected.]]> 255 Peter Swanson 0063205033 b e a c h g o t h 5
Except the dark romance girlie in me was like LILY AND ETHAN.

Again, Peter Swanson knocks me back into remembering why I love to read. If I can tell any reader anything - if you like crime and you’re in a slump. Read Peter Swanson. ]]> 3.58 2024 A Talent for Murder (Henry Kimball/Lily Kintner, #3)
author: Peter Swanson
name: b e a c h g o t h
average rating: 3.58
book published: 2024
rating: 5
read at: 2024/09/30
date added: 2024/09/30
shelves: alexas-a-list, creme-de-la-crime, literary-crack, netflix-pls-make-this-a-series, psychos, read-during-renos, vices-and-virtues
review:
Henry + Lily forever

Except the dark romance girlie in me was like LILY AND ETHAN.

Again, Peter Swanson knocks me back into remembering why I love to read. If I can tell any reader anything - if you like crime and you’re in a slump. Read Peter Swanson.
]]> Good Rich People 57823811
Demi has always felt like the odds were stacked against her. At the end of her rope, she seizes a risky opportunity to take over another person’s life and unwittingly becomes the subject of the upstairs couple’s wicked entertainment. But Demi has been struggling all her life, and she’s not about to go down without a fight.

In a twist that neither woman sees coming, the game quickly devolves into chaos and rockets toward an explosive conclusion.

Because every good rich person knows: in money and in life, it’s winner take all. Even if you have to leave a few bodies behind.]]> 321 Eliza Jane Brazier 0593198255 b e a c h g o t h 4
Murder. Psychopaths. Revenge. Money. I mean. If the author condensed the first half of this book to a third of the size, this easily would’ve been 5 stars. ]]> 3.21 2022 Good Rich People
author: Eliza Jane Brazier
name: b e a c h g o t h
average rating: 3.21
book published: 2022
rating: 4
read at: 2024/05/25
date added: 2024/05/25
shelves: creme-de-la-crime, far-fetched-asf, hate-that-i-enjoyed-this, netflix-pls-make-this-a-series, psychos, read-during-renos, vices-and-virtues
review:
For the first 60% of this book I was longing for more grit, more horror, more psychotic behaviour and well�. I guess it was a case of be careful what you wish for because that remaining 40% gave me all that and more.

Murder. Psychopaths. Revenge. Money. I mean. If the author condensed the first half of this book to a third of the size, this easily would’ve been 5 stars.
]]> A Madness of Sunshine 43419669
Detective Will Gallagher knows all about ghosts; his own chased him out of a promising career in Christchurch, landing him as the sole cop in a quaint town where his most pressing concerns are petty theft and the occasional drunk. When Golden Cove resident Miri Hinewai goes out for a run and fails to return, Will finds himself heading up a missing person's search that rapidly escalates into an official investigation after this case is connected with similar ones from the past. As an outsider, Will begins to rely on Anahera's knowledge of the area and its residents to help him delve into Golden Cove's secrets, and to determine whether it shelters something far more dangerous than just an unforgiving landscape.]]> 344 Nalini Singh 0593099087 b e a c h g o t h 3
I lovedddd the atmospheric tone of this book - moody, dark, emotional, traumatic, cabins, serial killers (even if the killer is incredibly obvious) this book was like reading the feeling of drinking of hot cocoa infront of a fire while it snows outside. ]]> 3.79 2019 A Madness of Sunshine
author: Nalini Singh
name: b e a c h g o t h
average rating: 3.79
book published: 2019
rating: 3
read at: 2024/05/17
date added: 2024/05/17
shelves: creme-de-la-crime, netflix-pls-make-this-a-series, predicable-asf, psychos, read-during-renos, this-book-is-a-mood, vices-and-virtues
review:
This was the slowest of burns� not exactly the best read to try pull myself out of my reading slump BUT

I lovedddd the atmospheric tone of this book - moody, dark, emotional, traumatic, cabins, serial killers (even if the killer is incredibly obvious) this book was like reading the feeling of drinking of hot cocoa infront of a fire while it snows outside.
]]> Jar of Hearts 36315374
When she was sixteen years old, Angela Wong—one of the most popular girls in school—disappeared without a trace. Nobody ever suspected that her best friend, Georgina Shaw, now an executive and rising star at her Seattle pharmaceutical company, was involved in any way. Certainly not Kaiser Brody, who was close with both girls back in high school.

But fourteen years later, Angela Wong's remains are discovered in the woods near Geo's childhood home. And Kaiser—now a detective with Seattle PD—finally learns the truth: Angela was a victim of Calvin James. The same Calvin James who murdered at least three other women.

To the authorities, Calvin is a serial killer. But to Geo, he's something else entirely. Back in high school, Calvin was Geo's first love. Turbulent and often volatile, their relationship bordered on obsession from the moment they met right up until the night Angela was killed.

For fourteen years, Geo knew what happened to Angela and told no one. For fourteen years, she carried the secret of Angela's death until Geo was arrested and sent to prison.

While everyone thinks they finally know the truth, there are dark secrets buried deep. And what happened that fateful night is more complex and more chilling than anyone really knows. Now the obsessive past catches up with the deadly present when new bodies begin to turn up, killed in the exact same manner as Angela Wong.

How far will someone go to bury her secrets and hide her grief? How long can you get away with a lie? How long can you live with it?]]> 311 Jennifer Hillier 1250154197 b e a c h g o t h 5 4.09 2018 Jar of Hearts
author: Jennifer Hillier
name: b e a c h g o t h
average rating: 4.09
book published: 2018
rating: 5
read at: 2024/04/01
date added: 2024/04/01
shelves: alexas-a-list, creme-de-la-crime, literary-crack, netflix-pls-make-this-a-series, psychos, read-during-renos, struck-a-cord, vices-and-virtues
review:
Ok WOW this was one of the best crime novels I’ve ever read - Jennifer Hiller holds back nothing, this is so brutal and not for the faint of heart. Trigger warning doesn’t even begin to describe the graphic scenes. I loved every second of this, which makes me think I’m a little bit sick? Because it’s so gnarly. But it’s just *chefs kiss* perfectly disturbing and so well written, I didn’t want this to end.
]]> Our Kind of Cruelty 36347888
Mike Hayes fought his way out of a brutal childhood and into a quiet, if lonely life, before he met Verity Metcalf. V taught him about love, and in return, Mike has dedicated his life to making her happy. He’s found the perfect home, the perfect job, he’s sculpted himself into the physical ideal V has always wanted. He knows they’ll be blissfully happy together.

It doesn’t matter that she hasn’t been returning his emails or phone calls.
It doesn’t matter that she says she’s marrying Angus.

It’s all just part of the secret game they used to play. If Mike watches V closely, he’ll see the signs. If he keeps track of her every move he’ll know just when to come to her rescue�

A spellbinding, darkly twisted novel about desire and obsession, and the complicated lines between truth and perception, Our Kind of Cruelty introduces Araminta Hall, a chilling new voice in psychological suspense.]]> 275 Araminta Hall 0374228191 b e a c h g o t h 4
This is giving “You� by Caroline Kepnes but� better.

He’s the hottest psycho out and she’s a super villain. But is she? Is it all in his head? Is he a stalker or the submissive? The suspense kept me almost falling off my couch. I loved it.]]> 3.37 2018 Our Kind of Cruelty
author: Araminta Hall
name: b e a c h g o t h
average rating: 3.37
book published: 2018
rating: 4
read at: 2024/03/23
date added: 2024/03/23
shelves: creme-de-la-crime, cupids-library, hate-that-i-enjoyed-this, literary-crack, netflix-pls-make-this-a-series, psychos, read-during-renos, vices-and-virtues
review:
Trust me, you’ve never read a “love story� like this one.

This is giving “You� by Caroline Kepnes but� better.

He’s the hottest psycho out and she’s a super villain. But is she? Is it all in his head? Is he a stalker or the submissive? The suspense kept me almost falling off my couch. I loved it.
]]> This Is How We End Things 63910917 Riley Sager meets If We Were Villains in a compelling new psychological thriller by RJ Jacobs, following a tight-knit group of graduate students studying the psychology of lying. When one of them is discovered dead after an experiment, everything the group thought they knew about deception crumbles...

Campus is empty, a winter storm is blowing in, and someone is lurking in the shadows, waiting for their chance to kill again.

Forest, North Carolina. Under the instruction of enigmatic Professor Joe Lyons, five graduate students are studying the tedious science behind the acts of lying. But discovering the secrets of deception isn't making any of the student's more honest though. Instead, it's making it easier for them to guard their own secrets � and they all have something to hide.

When a test goes awry and one of them is found dead, the students find themselves trapped by a snowstorm on an abandoned campus with a local detective on the case. As harbored secrets begin to break the surface, the graduates must find out who's lying, who isn't, and who may have been capable of committing murder. It turns out deception is even more dangerous than they thought...

A foreboding new dark academia thriller of deception and suspense, This is How it Ends follows the unraveling of a close group of students as they contend with what it means to lie, and be lied to.]]> 330 R.J. Jacobs 1728254108 b e a c h g o t h 2 3.46 2023 This Is How We End Things
author: R.J. Jacobs
name: b e a c h g o t h
average rating: 3.46
book published: 2023
rating: 2
read at: 2024/03/14
date added: 2024/03/14
shelves: creme-de-la-crime, dark-academia, next-secret-history-claim, read-during-renos, vices-and-virtues
review:
I couldn’t for the life of me get into this one - it synopsis sounds amazing “psychology students doing a study on lying and someone ends up dead� but it was� so boring, the characters were flat, the writing was telling you what happened instead of describing it in a way that you feel you’re part of the book, ugh, I just wanted it to be over. And is the plot twist even a twist if you don’t care? I know heaps of people loved this and if you liked “if we were villains� you’ll probably like this too. But *Simon Cowell voice* it’s a no from me
]]> Before She Knew Him 40390756
But when they meet the neighbors next door, that calm begins to erode as she spots a familiar object displayed on the husband’s office shelf. The sports trophy looks exactly like one that went missing from the home of a young man who was killed two years ago. Hen knows because she’s long had a fascination with this unsolved murder—an obsession she doesn’t talk about anymore, but can’t fully shake either...]]> 309 Peter Swanson b e a c h g o t h 5
I just finished one of his other ones “eight perfect murders� , 5 stars, and then started this expecting like� lighting can’t strike in the same place but low and behold, another 5 stars. Everything you want in a psychological thriller! ]]> 3.85 2019 Before She Knew Him
author: Peter Swanson
name: b e a c h g o t h
average rating: 3.85
book published: 2019
rating: 5
read at: 2024/03/12
date added: 2024/03/12
shelves: alexas-a-list, creme-de-la-crime, literary-crack, netflix-pls-make-this-a-series, psychos, read-during-renos, vices-and-virtues
review:
I couldn’t I glue this book from my hands PETER SWANSON IS A CRIME WRITING GENIUS

I just finished one of his other ones “eight perfect murders� , 5 stars, and then started this expecting like� lighting can’t strike in the same place but low and behold, another 5 stars. Everything you want in a psychological thriller!
]]> There Should Have Been Eight 123004912 In this chilling thriller from New York Times bestselling author Nalini Singh, a remote estate in New Zealand’s Southern Alps hosts a reunion no one will ever forget.

Seven friends.

One last weekend.

A mansion half in ruins.

No room for lies.

Someone is going to confess.

Because there should have been eight. . . .

They met when they were teenagers. Now they’re adults, and time has been kind to some and unkind to others—none more so than to Bea, the one they lost nine long years ago.

They’ve gathered to reminisce at Bea’s family’s estate, a once-glorious mansion straight out of a gothic novel. Best friends, old flames, secret enemies, and new lovers are all under one roof. But when the weather turns and they’re snowed in at the edge of eternity, there’s nowhere left to hide from their shared history.

As the walls close in, the pretense of normality gives way to long-buried grief, bitterness, and rage. Underneath it all, there’s the nagging feeling that Bea’s shocking death wasn’t what it was claimed to be. And before the weekend is through, the truth will be unleashed—no matter the cost. . . .]]> 408 Nalini Singh 0593549767 b e a c h g o t h 5 3.39 2023 There Should Have Been Eight
author: Nalini Singh
name: b e a c h g o t h
average rating: 3.39
book published: 2023
rating: 5
read at: 2024/02/19
date added: 2024/02/19
shelves: alexas-a-list, creme-de-la-crime, dark-academia, literary-crack, lyrical-dream, netflix-pls-make-this-a-series, psychos, read-during-renos, recommended-to-me, this-book-is-a-mood, vices-and-virtues
review:
Have you seen that Netflix show “the haunting of Hill House� ???? This book reminds me soooo much of that - atmospheric and so eerie that I feel like I lived this book instead of read it. I swear the pages just turned without my hands even touching them I couldn’t get enough. It’s been years since I read a book that I felt a loss after it was over but got that glorious feeling after this one finished - ALL OF THE STARS!!
]]> The Confession Room 62921614
Some people confess to affairs, others to stealing. Some admit deep, dark wishes.

But one day, a confession is posted that nobody expects: murder. And not just one named victim, but two.
As more victims are named, and more bodies found, people begin to fear who could be named next.

Because it seems that if you have a secret, they'll find you.

They know who you are. They know what you've done. Not everyone can survive The Confession Room.]]> 384 Lia Middleton b e a c h g o t h 4 3.84 2023 The Confession Room
author: Lia Middleton
name: b e a c h g o t h
average rating: 3.84
book published: 2023
rating: 4
read at: 2024/02/14
date added: 2024/02/14
shelves: creme-de-la-crime, literary-crack, netflix-pls-make-this-a-series, psychos, recommended-to-me, vices-and-virtues
review:
I read this in one day, it was glued to my hands!! I loved the ending not being the predictable-happily-ever-after *golf clap*
]]> The Island of Doctor Moreau 15990644 'That black figure, with its eyes of fire, struck down through all my adult thoughts and feelings, and for a moment the forgotten horrors of childhood came back to my mind'

Adrift in a dinghy, Edward Prendick, the single survivor from the good ship Lady Vain, is rescued by a vessel carrying a profoundly unusual cargo - a menagerie of savage animals. Tended to recovery by their keeper Montgomery, who gives him dark medicine that tastes of blood, Prendick soon finds himself stranded upon an uncharted island in the Pacific with his rescuer and the beasts. Here, he meets Montgomery's master, the sinister Dr. Moreau - a brilliant scientist whose notorious experiments in vivisection have caused him to abandon the civilised world. It soon becomes clear he has been developing these experiments - with truly horrific results.]]> 143 H.G. Wells 0141389397 b e a c h g o t h 5
Like UGH that gives me the heebie jeebies, was this book just like a low key confession? Maybe not, but� what if it is.
Makes it all the more terrifying.

I’ll always have this book in my mind under the “non fiction?� genre]]> 3.60 1896 The Island of Doctor Moreau
author: H.G. Wells
name: b e a c h g o t h
average rating: 3.60
book published: 1896
rating: 5
read at: 2024/01/22
date added: 2024/01/22
shelves: alexas-a-list, dark-academia, ear-candy, far-fetched-asf, gotta-get-a-pretty-copy, henry-beckett, pretentious-classics, recommended-to-me, rory-gilmore, struck-a-cord, vices-and-virtues, tinfoil-hat
review:
This was completely and utterly terrifying. And the fact it was an audiobook, ugh, it was perfect to listening to doing housework on a moody, foggy Southland afternoon. You know what freaked me out the most? HG Wells studied biology at uni, was part of occultic secret societies AND is rumoured to be the author of the article in issue 2047 of the Saturday review titled “the limits of individual plasticity� which� basically is this book but as a REAL scientific study.

Like UGH that gives me the heebie jeebies, was this book just like a low key confession? Maybe not, but� what if it is.
Makes it all the more terrifying.

I’ll always have this book in my mind under the “non fiction?� genre
]]> These Violent Delights 49203397 The Secret History meets Call Me by Your Name in Micah Nemerever's compulsively enjoyable debut novel - a feverishly taut Hitchcockian story about two college students, each with his own troubled past, whose escalating obsession with one another leads to an act of unspeakable violence.

When Paul and Julian meet as university freshmen in early 1970s Pittsburgh, they are immediately drawn to one another. A talented artist, Paul is sensitive and agonizingly insecure, incomprehensible to his working-class family, and desolate with grief over his father's recent death. Paul sees his wealthy, effortlessly charming Julian as his sole intellectual equal - an ally against the conventional world he finds so suffocating. He idolizes his friend for his magnetic confidence. But as charismatic as he can choose to be, Julian also is volatile and capriciously cruel. An admiration isn't the same as trust.

As their friendship spirals into an all-consuming intimacy, Paul is desperate to protect their precarious bond, even as it becomes clear that pressures from the outside world are nothing compared with the brutality they are capable of inflicting on one another. Separation is out of the question. But as their orbit compresses and their grip on one another tightens, they are drawn to an act of irrevocable violence that will force the young men to confront a shattering truth at the core of their relationship.

Exquisitely plotted, unfolding with propulsive ferocity, These Violent Delights is a novel of escalating dread and an excavation of the unsettling depths of human desire.]]> 460 Micah Nemerever 0062963635 b e a c h g o t h 4
Best way to summarise I guess is.. this is a fever dream of obsession, homo-erotica, philosophy and I know this has “best thriller� reviews written all over its title but it’s ONE MURDER. Come on, people. From the first chapter I thought, Omgsh yessss serial killer lovers!!! But no. It’s more� intensely descriptive of friends becoming lovers and then becoming more than that and even though I loved almost every chapter because of the lyrical prose (the underlining i put into my copy is unhinged) it felt� drawn out? A little bit insufferable? UGH I DONT KNOW did I love this book with the intensity one loves a butter chicken curry when hungover or did I find it irritatingly negative like a sandfly on a beach day that won’t leave you alone? I can’t decide.

I guess that’s the beauty of this book though, it’s neither and both. One thing it ISNT though, is a crime novel. It has elements of crime, yes, but it’s more� The Secret History with gay lovers and less.. less something. I feel like a star crossed lover, forever searching for the one that got away (TSH) in every book that I read but I feel like heaps of people read TSH and think “I can write a version of this� and nobody ever can. Sigh. ]]> 3.96 2020 These Violent Delights
author: Micah Nemerever
name: b e a c h g o t h
average rating: 3.96
book published: 2020
rating: 4
read at: 2024/01/11
date added: 2024/01/11
shelves: creme-de-la-crime, dark-academia, lyrical-dream, next-secret-history-claim, psychos, read-during-renos, recommended-to-me, struck-a-cord, this-book-is-a-mood, vices-and-virtues
review:
I’m really at a loss at how to rate this because at the exact same moment I feel severely contrasting emotions, like this is one of the best books ever and also one of the slowest, most painful books I’ve ever read.

Best way to summarise I guess is.. this is a fever dream of obsession, homo-erotica, philosophy and I know this has “best thriller� reviews written all over its title but it’s ONE MURDER. Come on, people. From the first chapter I thought, Omgsh yessss serial killer lovers!!! But no. It’s more� intensely descriptive of friends becoming lovers and then becoming more than that and even though I loved almost every chapter because of the lyrical prose (the underlining i put into my copy is unhinged) it felt� drawn out? A little bit insufferable? UGH I DONT KNOW did I love this book with the intensity one loves a butter chicken curry when hungover or did I find it irritatingly negative like a sandfly on a beach day that won’t leave you alone? I can’t decide.

I guess that’s the beauty of this book though, it’s neither and both. One thing it ISNT though, is a crime novel. It has elements of crime, yes, but it’s more� The Secret History with gay lovers and less.. less something. I feel like a star crossed lover, forever searching for the one that got away (TSH) in every book that I read but I feel like heaps of people read TSH and think “I can write a version of this� and nobody ever can. Sigh.
]]> Bright Young Women 101124639
The survivors, including key witness Pamela Schumacher, will be forever changed by this night. They have all become victims. But they tell their perspectives here, they remain masters of their stories. And they hunt the perpetrator on their own - against resistance from the justice system and the police; against public opinion, which idolizes the serial killer.]]> 384 Jessica Knoll 1501153226 b e a c h g o t h 4
Jessica Knoll is such a brilliant author, this was equal parts drama and crime, heart warming and disturbing, and that takes true skill. I loved how she pulled from Ted Bundy’s serial murders and pulled it into modernity, making it feel as if I lived through them myself. It was brilliant! ]]> 3.99 2023 Bright Young Women
author: Jessica Knoll
name: b e a c h g o t h
average rating: 3.99
book published: 2023
rating: 4
read at: 2024/01/07
date added: 2024/01/07
shelves: creme-de-la-crime, read-during-renos, struck-a-cord, vices-and-virtues, psychos
review:
This book gave me the creepiest sense of morbid dread reading the first couple chapters about the murders in the sorority house, because I read this in the wake of the Idaho 4 massacre and all I saw was Brian Kohlburger’s face every time she described the killer.

Jessica Knoll is such a brilliant author, this was equal parts drama and crime, heart warming and disturbing, and that takes true skill. I loved how she pulled from Ted Bundy’s serial murders and pulled it into modernity, making it feel as if I lived through them myself. It was brilliant!
]]> The Last Word 61767163 No Exit and Hairpin Bridge.

Emma Carpenter lives in isolation with her golden retriever Laika, house-sitting an old beachfront home on the rainy Washington coast. Her only human contact is her enigmatic old neighbor, Deek, and (via text) the house’s owner, Jules.

One day, she reads a poorly written—but gruesome—horror novel by the author H. G. Kane, and posts a one-star review that drags her into an online argument with none other than the author himself. Soon after, disturbing incidents start to occur at night. To Emma, this can’t just be a coincidence. It was strange enough for this author to bicker with her online about a lousy review; could he be stalking her, too?

As Emma digs into Kane’s life and work, she learns he has published sixteen other novels, all similarly sadistic tales of stalking and murder. But who is he? How did he find her? And what else is he capable of?]]> 337 Taylor Adams 0063222892 b e a c h g o t h 3
This isnt going to win any huge literary awards but is an EPIC slasher thriller. There’s blood, twists and turns, psychos, and no fear of killing people off. But like all good horror films, you kind of don’t get too attached to any characters and you expect blood and shocks, so nothings too much of a plot twist.

I read this in one sitting, by a fire, with a pack of caramel tim tams and I highly recommend you do the same.

]]> 3.67 2023 The Last Word
author: Taylor Adams
name: b e a c h g o t h
average rating: 3.67
book published: 2023
rating: 3
read at: 2023/11/06
date added: 2023/11/06
shelves: creme-de-la-crime, far-fetched-asf, hate-that-i-enjoyed-this, predicable-asf, psychos, read-during-renos, recommended-to-me, vices-and-virtues
review:
You know how there’s a massive difference between a good regular film and a good horror film? Thats a similar difference between a great novel prize winner and the good that this book is.

This isnt going to win any huge literary awards but is an EPIC slasher thriller. There’s blood, twists and turns, psychos, and no fear of killing people off. But like all good horror films, you kind of don’t get too attached to any characters and you expect blood and shocks, so nothings too much of a plot twist.

I read this in one sitting, by a fire, with a pack of caramel tim tams and I highly recommend you do the same.


]]> The Night Interns 60858767
The Night Interns beautifully conjures the alien space of the hospital wards and corridors through the viewpoint of one of the interns, as he comes to terms with the bodily reality of the patients and the bizarre instruments of healing. Equally unsettling for the inexperienced junior staff are the dysfunctional hierarchies of the hospital workplace. Under intense pressure and with very little sleep, the interns become inured to their encounters with sickness, all the while searching for the meaning in their work.

By turns moving, shocking, and darkly funny, The Night Interns fizzes with nervous energy, forensic insight and moral tension, as it evokes life and death on the frontline.]]> 208 Austin Duffy b e a c h g o t h 3 3.35 2022 The Night Interns
author: Austin Duffy
name: b e a c h g o t h
average rating: 3.35
book published: 2022
rating: 3
read at: 2022/12/18
date added: 2023/08/30
shelves: read-during-renos, sad-girl-lit, vices-and-virtues
review:
Imagine if sally Rooney wrote about medical interns, that’s this book. I worked in a hospital for a few years and can confirm, this is literally to a T what it’s like for the interns. As much as I enjoy a good existential crisis, I didn’t soften to any of the characters because� as everyone knows. A good doctor is emotionless. And these characters were just that.
]]> <![CDATA[Savage Spawn: Reflections on Violent Children]]> 167101
“Ethically and morally, kids are works in progress. Throw in psychopathy and you’ve got a soul that will never be complete.�

In this powerful, disturbing book, bestselling author and noted child psychologist Jonathan Kellerman shines a penetrating light on antisocial youth—kids who kill without remorse—asserting that “psychopathic tendencies begin very early in life, as young as three, and they endure.” Criticizing our quick impulse to blame violent movies or a “morally bankrupt” society, Kellerman convinces us that it is the kids themselves who need to be examined. Carefully.

How do children become cold-blooded killers? Kellerman warns that today’s aggressive bully is tomorrow’s Mafia don, cult leader, or genocidal dictator. Violently psychopathic youths possess an overriding need for power, control, and stimulation, and all display a complete lack of regard for the humanity of others. He examines the origins of psychopathy and the ever-shifting debate between nurture and nature, offering some controversial solutions to dealing with homicidal tendencies in children.

As timely as today’s headlines, more gripping than fiction, Savage Spawn is a provocative look at the links between society and biology, children and violence. Kellerman’s sobering message will remain with you long after the last page is turned.]]> 134 Jonathan Kellerman 0345429397 b e a c h g o t h 3 3.51 1999 Savage Spawn: Reflections on Violent Children
author: Jonathan Kellerman
name: b e a c h g o t h
average rating: 3.51
book published: 1999
rating: 3
read at: 2023/07/10
date added: 2023/07/10
shelves: creme-de-la-crime, ear-candy, non-fic, psychos, read-during-renos, vices-and-virtues
review:
I really enjoyed the voice in this narration - it felt like I was just having a conversation over a cup of tea with Mr Kellerman. The first chapter had me addicted but my attention waned drastically after that.
]]> Nine Elms (Kate Marshall, #1) 43909064
Fifteen years after those catastrophic, career-ending events, a copycat killer has taken up the Nine Elms mantle, continuing the ghastly work of his idol.

Enlisting her brilliant research assistant, Tristan Harper, Kate draws on her prodigious and long-neglected skills as an investigator to catch a new monster. But there's much more than her reputation on the line: Kate was the original killer's intended fifth victim . . . and his successor means to finish the job.]]> 400 Robert Bryndza b e a c h g o t h 5 I loved this gore and graphic nature of this - no sugar coated crimes here, it’s harsh and brutal and I’m so here for it.

Spoilers below:

My ONLY qualm� is that Peter & Joseph didn’t get away. I would’ve loved for them to have gotten away. I mean, with the unexpected nature of this book I half expected them to kill Kate (even though I LOVE Kate) and then her son Jake takes on the task of hunting down Peter and Joseph in the next books.

But that’s just me.

This series is gonna be so good, I can feel it. I’ve already ordered the second book. ]]> 4.17 2019 Nine Elms (Kate Marshall, #1)
author: Robert Bryndza
name: b e a c h g o t h
average rating: 4.17
book published: 2019
rating: 5
read at: 2023/05/13
date added: 2023/05/13
shelves: alexas-a-list, creme-de-la-crime, psychos, read-during-renos, vices-and-virtues
review:
My advice is to go into this book blind so the the first few chapters really rock you into an addiction to this book.
I loved this gore and graphic nature of this - no sugar coated crimes here, it’s harsh and brutal and I’m so here for it.

Spoilers below:

My ONLY qualm� is that Peter & Joseph didn’t get away. I would’ve loved for them to have gotten away. I mean, with the unexpected nature of this book I half expected them to kill Kate (even though I LOVE Kate) and then her son Jake takes on the task of hunting down Peter and Joseph in the next books.

But that’s just me.

This series is gonna be so good, I can feel it. I’ve already ordered the second book.
]]> The Shards 61729352 A sensational new novel from the bestselling author of Less Than Zero and American Psycho that tracks a group of privileged Los Angeles high school friends as a serial killer strikes across the city. His first novel in 12 years, The Shards is Bret Easton Ellis at his inimitable best.

Los Angeles, 1981 -17-year-old Bret is a senior at the exclusive Buckley prep school when a new student arrives with a mysterious past. Robert Mallory is bright, handsome, charismatic, and shielding a secret from Bret and his friends, even as he becomes a part of their tightly knit circle. Bret's obsession with Mallory is equalled only by his increasingly unsettling preoccupation with The Trawler, a serial killer on the loose who seems to be drawing ever closer to Bret and his friends, taunting them with grotesque threats and horrific, sharply local acts of violence.

Can he trust his friends - or his own mind - to make sense of the danger they appear to be in? Thwarted by the world and by his own innate desires, buffeted by unhealthy fixations, Bret spirals into paranoia and isolation as the relationship between The Trawler and Robert Mallory hurtles inexorably toward a collision.

Gripping, sly, suspenseful, deeply haunting and often darkly funny, The Shards is a mesmerizing fusing of fact and fiction that brilliantly explores the emotional fabric of Bret's life at 17 - sex and jealousy, obsession and murderous rage.]]> 597 Bret Easton Ellis 1800752296 b e a c h g o t h 5
Please, BEE, never ever stop writing. You were clearly born to do it. ]]> 4.01 2023 The Shards
author: Bret Easton Ellis
name: b e a c h g o t h
average rating: 4.01
book published: 2023
rating: 5
read at: 2023/04/24
date added: 2023/04/24
shelves: alexas-a-list, creme-de-la-crime, gotta-get-a-pretty-copy, lifetime-favorites, literary-crack, lyrical-dream, psychos, read-during-renos, recommended-to-me, vices-and-virtues
review:
I’m basically frothing at the mouth about how much I love this book. There aren’t enough stars to explain how good this was - I DEVOURED IT. One of my favourite books I’ve ever read, the existential crisis humming in the background of a low burn psychological thriller? Best genre in the world.

Please, BEE, never ever stop writing. You were clearly born to do it.
]]> <![CDATA[The Girls Are All So Nice Here]]> 54304089
Two former best friends return to their college reunion to find that they’re being circled by someone who wants revenge for what they did ten years before—and will stop at nothing to get it—in this “propulsive� (Megan Miranda, bestselling author of The Girl from Widow Hills ) psychological thriller.

A lot has changed in years since Ambrosia Wellington graduated from college, and she’s worked hard to create a new life for herself. But then an invitation to her ten-year reunion arrives in the mail, along with an anonymous note that reads, � We need to talk about what we did that night. �

It seems that the secrets of Ambrosia’s past—and the people she thought she’d left there—aren’t as buried as she believed. Amb can’t stop fixating on what she did or who she did it larger-than-life Sloane “Sully� Sullivan, Amb’s former best friend, who could make anyone do anything.

At the reunion, Amb and Sully receive increasingly menacing messages, and it becomes clear that they’re being pursued by someone who wants more than just the truth of what happened that first semester. This person wants revenge for what they did and the damage they caused—the extent of which Amb is only now fully understanding. And it was all because of the game they played to get a boy who belonged to someone else and the girl who paid the price.

Alternating between the reunion and Amb’s freshman year, The Girls Are All So Nice Here is a “chilling and twisty thriller� ( Book Riot ) about the brutal lengths girls can go to get what they think they’re owed, and what happens when the games we play in college become matters of life and death.]]> 320 Laurie Elizabeth Flynn 1982144629 b e a c h g o t h 5
Triggered by this story, the girls (we all know a sully, who brings out the worst in us) and The Killer - unexpected and incredible. One of the few twisted crime novels I legitimately read every page until the very end. Most crime ends in a big reveal with like 20 pages of “everything’s fine now� but this just kept slashing at your mind to the very last page. Much like Flora’s wrists.

After the beginning, I lovedddddd every disturbing, dark, crazy second of this. ]]> 3.54 2021 The Girls Are All So Nice Here
author: Laurie Elizabeth Flynn
name: b e a c h g o t h
average rating: 3.54
book published: 2021
rating: 5
read at: 2022/12/16
date added: 2022/12/16
shelves: alexas-a-list, creme-de-la-crime, hate-that-i-enjoyed-this, literary-crack, psychos, read-during-renos, struck-a-cord, vices-and-virtues
review:
The first 50 pages of this book, I almost put it down a million times. And then, something snapped and I literally couldn’t put it down at all.

Triggered by this story, the girls (we all know a sully, who brings out the worst in us) and The Killer - unexpected and incredible. One of the few twisted crime novels I legitimately read every page until the very end. Most crime ends in a big reveal with like 20 pages of “everything’s fine now� but this just kept slashing at your mind to the very last page. Much like Flora’s wrists.

After the beginning, I lovedddddd every disturbing, dark, crazy second of this.
]]> Never Saw Me Coming 56383038
Chloe is one of seven students at her DC-based college who are part of an unusual clinical study for psychopaths—students like herself who lack empathy and can’t comprehend emotions like fear or guilt. The study, led by a renowned psychologist, requires them to wear smart watches that track their moods and movements.

When one of the students in the study is found murdered in the psychology building, a dangerous game of cat and mouse begins, and Chloe goes from hunter to prey. As she races to identify the killer and put her own plan into action, she’ll be forced to decide if she can trust any of her fellow psychopaths—and everybody knows you should never trust a psychopath.

Never Saw Me Coming is a compulsive, voice-driven thriller by an exciting new voice in fiction, that will keep you pinned to the page and rooting for a would-be killer.]]> 400 Vera Kurian 0778311554 b e a c h g o t h 2
But every single thing fell short, it was a total let down.
And the subtle “anti-conservative� content really got me down, I’m reading to escape politics thanks. ]]> 3.60 2021 Never Saw Me Coming
author: Vera Kurian
name: b e a c h g o t h
average rating: 3.60
book published: 2021
rating: 2
read at: 2022/11/21
date added: 2022/11/21
shelves: could-not-finish, creme-de-la-crime, ended-up-skim-reading, eye-roll-into-next-week, psychos, vices-and-virtues
review:
2 stars for the premise of this book - a group of psychopaths getting free tuition if they agree to be monitored at college? Um yes!!!

But every single thing fell short, it was a total let down.
And the subtle “anti-conservative� content really got me down, I’m reading to escape politics thanks.
]]> Acts of Desperation 49535227
Part breathless confession, part lucid critique, Acts of Desperation renders a consciousness split between rebellion and submission, between escaping degradation and eroticizing it, between loving and being lovable. With unsettling, electric precision, Nolan dissects one of life’s most elusive mysteries: Why do we want what we want, and how do we want it?

Heralding the arrival of a stunning new literary talent, Acts of Desperation interrogates the nature of fantasy, desire, and power, challenging us to reckon honestly with our own insatiability.]]> 288 Megan Nolan b e a c h g o t h 5 I feel....attacked, like the author plunged into my mind, cracked the code on the safe of my deepest secrets and spread them out on ink and parchment. Finally, I feel... known.
This. Is. A. Motherfucking. Masterpiece.
A female Brett Easton Ellis (I didn’t think this could ever exist?!?!?)
All of the stars!
All of the awards!
Somebody nominate this for The Booker!
And Megan Nolan, please never ever stop writing, write books forever, because this? This is your CALLING girl, this book is pure perfection.
]]> 3.71 2021 Acts of Desperation
author: Megan Nolan
name: b e a c h g o t h
average rating: 3.71
book published: 2021
rating: 5
read at:
date added: 2022/11/04
shelves: alexas-a-list, cupids-library, french-cigarettes, gotta-get-a-pretty-copy, lifetime-favorites, literary-crack, lyrical-dream, netflix-pls-make-this-a-series, recommended-to-me, struck-a-cord, this-book-is-a-mood, vices-and-virtues, sad-girl-lit
review:
BEST BOOK OF 2020, without a doubt.
I feel....attacked, like the author plunged into my mind, cracked the code on the safe of my deepest secrets and spread them out on ink and parchment. Finally, I feel... known.
This. Is. A. Motherfucking. Masterpiece.
A female Brett Easton Ellis (I didn’t think this could ever exist?!?!?)
All of the stars!
All of the awards!
Somebody nominate this for The Booker!
And Megan Nolan, please never ever stop writing, write books forever, because this? This is your CALLING girl, this book is pure perfection.

]]> <![CDATA[Clown in a Cornfield (Clown in a Cornfield, #1)]]> 49046268
Quinn and her father moved to tiny, boring Kettle Springs to find a fresh start. But ever since the Baypen Corn Syrup Factory shut down, Kettle Springs has cracked in half. On one side are the adults, who are desperate to make Kettle Springs great again, and on the other are the kids, who want to have fun, make prank videos, and get out of Kettle Springs as quick as they can.

Kettle Springs is caught in a battle between old and new, tradition and progress. It’s a fight that looks like it will destroy the town. Until Frendo, the Baypen mascot, a creepy clown in a pork-pie hat, goes homicidal and decides that the only way for Kettle Springs to grow back is to cull the rotten crop of kids who live there now.]]> 346 Adam Cesare 0062854593 b e a c h g o t h 5 But� HERE WE ARE.

I loveddddd this. It was like reading a slasher movie but in a novel…with more character development, so when people were killed off you weren’t like meh, you were more like NO NO NO this can’t be real. And the kill scenes?! Blood soaked hand giving a chef’s kiss. Gross and gory and I was here for every page of it. I loved everything about this horror novel and I could not, would not put it down.

Write a sequel please !?!]]> 3.73 2020 Clown in a Cornfield (Clown in a Cornfield, #1)
author: Adam Cesare
name: b e a c h g o t h
average rating: 3.73
book published: 2020
rating: 5
read at: 2022/10/15
date added: 2022/10/16
shelves: alexas-a-list, creme-de-la-crime, gotta-get-a-pretty-copy, hate-that-i-enjoyed-this, literary-crack, netflix-pls-make-this-a-series, psychos, vices-and-virtues, electronic-literature, young-adult
review:
This book, my gosh THIS BOOK. I expected that because it had an INCREDIBLY ATTRACTIVE cover (I mean, could it be more stranger things crossed with Stephen king?) that�. Basically I thought that this books cover would pick me up and only for the internal story to drop me like a bag of lead in an icy river.
But� HERE WE ARE.

I loveddddd this. It was like reading a slasher movie but in a novel…with more character development, so when people were killed off you weren’t like meh, you were more like NO NO NO this can’t be real. And the kill scenes?! Blood soaked hand giving a chef’s kiss. Gross and gory and I was here for every page of it. I loved everything about this horror novel and I could not, would not put it down.

Write a sequel please !?!
]]> Animal 55711559 Honestly, sometimes I think it’s the only recourse. Killing men in times like these.

Joan has spent a lifetime enduring the cruel acts of men. But when one of them commits a shocking act of violence in front of her, she flees New York City in search of Alice, the only person alive who can help her make sense of her past. In the sweltering hills above Los Angeles, Joan unravels the horrific event she witnessed as a child—that has haunted her every waking moment—while forging the power to finally strike back.

Here is the electrifying debut novel from Lisa Taddeo, author of the #1 New York Times bestseller and international phenomenon Three Women, which was named to more than thirty best-of-the-year lists and hailed as “a dazzling achievement� (Los Angeles Times) and “a heartbreaking, gripping, astonishing masterpiece� (Esquire). Animal is a depiction of female rage at its rawest, and a visceral exploration of the fallout from a male-dominated society. With writing that scorches and mesmerizes, Taddeo illustrates one woman’s exhilarating transformation from prey into predator.]]> 336 Lisa Taddeo 1982122129 b e a c h g o t h 3 She’s an amazingly written voice but I think if the book was shorter, her sharp character would have become piercing. ]]> 3.71 2021 Animal
author: Lisa Taddeo
name: b e a c h g o t h
average rating: 3.71
book published: 2021
rating: 3
read at: 2021/08/28
date added: 2021/08/28
shelves: electronic-literature, netflix-pls-make-this-a-series, psychos, vices-and-virtues
review:
I frickin loved Joan�. For the first half of the book. Then she started get itch at me, bit by bit.
She’s an amazingly written voice but I think if the book was shorter, her sharp character would have become piercing.
]]> <![CDATA[The Forbidden Universe: The Occult Origins of Science and the Search for the Mind of God]]> 11281917 400 Lynn Picknett 1849014094 b e a c h g o t h 5 It’s fantastically written, it was like reading an page-turning novel instead of a non fiction brick sized book.
I simply must get a real life copy of this for my bookshelf - I don’t even want to give this copy back to my library! ]]> 3.85 2011 The Forbidden Universe: The Occult Origins of Science and the Search for the Mind of God
author: Lynn Picknett
name: b e a c h g o t h
average rating: 3.85
book published: 2011
rating: 5
read at: 2021/02/15
date added: 2021/02/15
shelves: alexas-a-list, gotta-get-a-pretty-copy, literary-crack, non-fic, vices-and-virtues
review:
This book was absolutely fantastic and is a must read for anyone interested in discovering more about occult origins, when magic became science (and back again) and hermetic origins and beliefs.
It’s fantastically written, it was like reading an page-turning novel instead of a non fiction brick sized book.
I simply must get a real life copy of this for my bookshelf - I don’t even want to give this copy back to my library!
]]> What I Loved 72260 What I Loved begins in New York in 1975, when art historian Leo Hertzberg discovers an extraordinary painting by an unknown artist in a SoHo gallery. He buys the work; tracks down the artist, Bill Wechsler; and the two men embark on a life-long friendship. Leo's story, which spans twenty-five years, follows the growing involvement between his family and Bill's--an intricate constellation of attachments that includes the two men, their wives, Erica and Violet, and their sons, Matthew and Mark.

The families live in the same New York apartment building, rent a house together in the summers and keep up a lively exchange of ideas about life and art, but the bonds between them are tested, first by sudden tragedy, and then by a monstrous duplicity that slowly comes to the surface. A beautifully written novel that combines the intimacy of a family saga with the suspense of a thriller, What I Loved is a deeply moving story about art, love, loss, and betrayal.
]]> 391 Siri Hustvedt 0312993870 b e a c h g o t h 5 This is elegant, beautiful, and utterly tragic all at once. What’s it about? A man’s life. It’s about everything and nothing at all.
Why’s it so good? The way this is written is a work of art, I lingered on every phrase and held the words in my mouth like tasting a fine wine.
This is what books dream of being when they grow up. ]]> 3.89 2002 What I Loved
author: Siri Hustvedt
name: b e a c h g o t h
average rating: 3.89
book published: 2002
rating: 5
read at: 2020/04/10
date added: 2020/04/09
shelves: alexas-a-list, artists, french-cigarettes, lifetime-favorites, lyrical-dream, on-my-bookshelf, this-book-is-a-mood, vices-and-virtues, read-in-the-2020-isolation
review:
I don’t even know what to say, how do I put into words that feeling you get when you finish one of the best books you’ve read in years???
This is elegant, beautiful, and utterly tragic all at once. What’s it about? A man’s life. It’s about everything and nothing at all.
Why’s it so good? The way this is written is a work of art, I lingered on every phrase and held the words in my mouth like tasting a fine wine.
This is what books dream of being when they grow up.
]]> <![CDATA[Perfect Prey (D.I. Callanach, #2)]]> 33229419
Inspecteurs Ava Turner en Luc Callanach hebben geen aanknopingspunten en kunnen geen motieven vaststellen. Ze tasten in het duister, totdat blijkt dat de slachtoffers op diverse gebouwen in de stad met graffiti worden beschreven.

Dan ontdekken ze dat de boodschappen geschreven zijn voordat de mensen vermoord werden en begrijpen ze dat de moordenaar zijn volgende slachtoffer zo aankondigt. Hoe onschuldiger de prooi, hoe beter…]]> 464 Helen Sarah Fields 0008220042 b e a c h g o t h 5 I love it when a book can shock me like this did.
I also didn’t mind the romance side of things either, which is rare for me because generally the whole cop romance thing makes me wanna hurl ]]> 4.29 2017 Perfect Prey (D.I. Callanach, #2)
author: Helen Sarah Fields
name: b e a c h g o t h
average rating: 4.29
book published: 2017
rating: 5
read at: 2020/03/31
date added: 2020/03/31
shelves: creme-de-la-crime, electronic-literature, vices-and-virtues, read-in-the-2020-isolation, alexas-a-list
review:
Holy shit this is gory. Extremely face paced and bloody shocking.so many times I’d be reading along and think blah blah wait WHAT did that just happen??
I love it when a book can shock me like this did.
I also didn’t mind the romance side of things either, which is rare for me because generally the whole cop romance thing makes me wanna hurl
]]> Her Every Fear 29938032
Soon after her arrival at Corbin’s grand apartment on Beacon Hill, Kate makes a shocking discovery: his next-door neighbor, a young woman named Audrey Marshall, has been murdered. When the police question her about Corbin, a shaken Kate has few answers, and many questions of her own—curiosity that intensifies when she meets Alan Cherney, a handsome, quiet tenant who lives across the courtyard, in the apartment facing Audrey’s. Alan saw Corbin surreptitiously come and go from Audrey’s place, yet he’s denied knowing her. Then, Kate runs into a tearful man claiming to be the dead woman’s old boyfriend, who insists Corbin did the deed the night that he left for London.

When she reaches out to her cousin, he proclaims his innocence and calms her nerves--until she comes across disturbing objects hidden in the apartment and accidentally learns that Corbin is not where he says he is. Could Corbin be a killer? What about Alan? Kate finds herself drawn to this appealing man who seems so sincere, yet she isn’t sure. Jet-lagged and emotionally unstable, her imagination full of dark images caused by the terror of her past, Kate can barely trust herself, so how could she take the chance on a stranger she’s just met?]]> 384 Peter Swanson 0062427040 b e a c h g o t h 4 I know Henry and Corbin are basically evil but I love it. Very Strangers On A Train. Very The Talented Mr Ripley. Basically a modern day Pat Highsmith novel and I’m here for it.
I fricking love Peter Swanson. ]]> 3.75 2017 Her Every Fear
author: Peter Swanson
name: b e a c h g o t h
average rating: 3.75
book published: 2017
rating: 4
read at: 2020/02/10
date added: 2020/02/09
shelves: creme-de-la-crime, psychos, vices-and-virtues
review:
Whoa, that went somewhere I had no idea it would.
I know Henry and Corbin are basically evil but I love it. Very Strangers On A Train. Very The Talented Mr Ripley. Basically a modern day Pat Highsmith novel and I’m here for it.
I fricking love Peter Swanson.
]]> Vengeful (Villains, #2) 37534835
But Marcella Riggins needs no one. Flush from her brush with death, she’s finally gained the control she’s always sought—and will use her new-found power to bring the city of Merit to its knees. She’ll do whatever it takes, collecting her own sidekicks, and leveraging the two most infamous EOs, Victor Vale and Eli Ever, against each other.

With Marcella's rise, new enmities create opportunity--and the stage of Merit City will once again be set for a final, terrible reckoning.

A super-powered collision of extraordinary minds and vengeful intentions�#1 New York Times bestselling author V. E. Schwab returns with the thrilling follow-up to Vicious.]]> 478 Victoria E. Schwab 0765387522 b e a c h g o t h 4 I FRICKING LOVED VICIOUS.
And after reading Vengeful... I realised why exactly I loved Vicious so much.
I loved it because of Victor and Eli, not so much the “powers� they receive. I loved their rivalry and their college frienemy relationship.. not really the supernatural aspect to the story.
For some effed up reason my brain found a similar kinship in their friendship that reminded me of The Secret History. And a little of The Bellwether Revival.
And in this second book, that story got a little lost amongst the emergence of the new EO. The new FEMALE EO. And y’all know how I feel about the obvious “strong female lead� trend that’s spreading itself throughout recent novels. I feel like authors out there are saying “Chuck a girl in as a strong lead - that shit sells lately�.
Despite this, this new EO actually has a firecracker of a story and her revenge kills are awesome and gruesome and perfect, so I actually rather liked this part of this series instalment. The only reason this is 4 and not 5 stars is because I’m a nostalgic piece of trash that wants to hold on to the Victor and Eli from the first book and some part of me was annoyed when Marcella was introduced.
But aside from that, this book has V.E.Schwab’s exceptional writing magic, excellent characters and gore gore GALORE.
]]> 4.13 2018 Vengeful (Villains, #2)
author: Victoria E. Schwab
name: b e a c h g o t h
average rating: 4.13
book published: 2018
rating: 4
read at: 2019/12/30
date added: 2019/12/30
shelves: far-fetched-asf, netflix-pls-make-this-a-series, psychos, vices-and-virtues, young-adult
review:
Ok I officially hate myself for not falling head over heels for this book. I mean, I definitely have strong feelings for it but not like how I feel about Vicious.
I FRICKING LOVED VICIOUS.
And after reading Vengeful... I realised why exactly I loved Vicious so much.
I loved it because of Victor and Eli, not so much the “powers� they receive. I loved their rivalry and their college frienemy relationship.. not really the supernatural aspect to the story.
For some effed up reason my brain found a similar kinship in their friendship that reminded me of The Secret History. And a little of The Bellwether Revival.
And in this second book, that story got a little lost amongst the emergence of the new EO. The new FEMALE EO. And y’all know how I feel about the obvious “strong female lead� trend that’s spreading itself throughout recent novels. I feel like authors out there are saying “Chuck a girl in as a strong lead - that shit sells lately�.
Despite this, this new EO actually has a firecracker of a story and her revenge kills are awesome and gruesome and perfect, so I actually rather liked this part of this series instalment. The only reason this is 4 and not 5 stars is because I’m a nostalgic piece of trash that wants to hold on to the Victor and Eli from the first book and some part of me was annoyed when Marcella was introduced.
But aside from that, this book has V.E.Schwab’s exceptional writing magic, excellent characters and gore gore GALORE.

]]> Junky 23940 The definitive edition of Burroughs’s seminal first novel.

Before his 1959 breakthrough, Naked Lunch, an unknown William S. Burroughs wrote Junky, his first novel. It is a candid eyewitness account of times and places that are now long gone, an unvarnished field report from the American post-war underground.

Unafraid to portray himself in 1953 as a confirmed member of two socially-despised under classes (a narcotics addict and a homosexual), Burroughs was writing as a trained anthropologist when he unapologetically described a way of life - in New York, New Orleans, and Mexico City - that by the 1940s was already demonized by the artificial anti-drug hysteria of an opportunistic bureaucracy and a cynical, prostrate media.

For this fiftieth-anniversary edition, eminent Burroughs scholar Oliver Harris has painstakingly recreated the author's original text, word by word, from archival typescripts and places the book's contents against a lively historical background in a comprehensive introduction. Here as well, for the first time, are Burroughs' own unpublished introduction and an entire omitted chapter, along with many “lost� passages, as well as auxiliary texts by Allen Ginsberg and others.]]> 166 William S. Burroughs 0142003166 b e a c h g o t h 3 3.87 1953 Junky
author: William S. Burroughs
name: b e a c h g o t h
average rating: 3.87
book published: 1953
rating: 3
read at:
date added: 2019/12/11
shelves: pretentious-classics, rory-gilmore, vices-and-virtues, henry-beckett
review:

]]> American Psycho 28676 American Psycho is a bleak, bitter, black comedy about a world we all recognize but do not wish to confront.]]> 399 Bret Easton Ellis 0679735771 b e a c h g o t h 5 3.82 1991 American Psycho
author: Bret Easton Ellis
name: b e a c h g o t h
average rating: 3.82
book published: 1991
rating: 5
read at: 2015/01/26
date added: 2019/12/09
shelves: alexas-a-list, creme-de-la-crime, psychos, vices-and-virtues
review:

]]> Vicious (Villains, #1) 13638125 Через десять років Елі так само захоплений ЕкстраОрдинарними, але тепер його мета знищити якомога більше надздібних. Віктор тікає з в’язниц�, аби помститися Елі. Озброєні жахливою силою, спонукані пам’ятт� про зраду та втрату, колишні друзі жадають помсти. Хто ж правий? І хто ж залишиться живим у кінці?]]> 368 Victoria E. Schwab 0765335344 b e a c h g o t h 5 YES. Yessss. I loved this book. No, no, I absolutely ADORED this book.
It's exactly what I want in a novel. It's Sci-Fi, but so realistic that I nearly started to be believe that near death experiences could make you extra-ordinary. Her writing style is so magnetic that once you start, she hooks you in and after chapter 2, you've fallen for her book - hook, line and sinker. She isn't trying to make any phrase more thoughtful or meaningful than it already was. She didn't try to hard. She didn't make it bland or blunt. She just knows how to draw you into a story and she knows how to write that makes you enjoy every, single page. And, it had been a while since I slowed down as I neared the end of book because I didn't want it to finish.
It's based around 2 university students that are too smart for their own good and start experimenting at playing God. I know what you're thinking. Alexa, you ALWAYS read books about intelligence bordering on madness. But you're wrong. I have never, ever, read a book like this one. And unless I'm retardedly lucky in this lifetime, I probably never will again.
Thankyou, V.E.Schwab, for just basically winning at life.
5/5 massive betelgeuse stars
Review by ]]> 4.24 2013 Vicious (Villains, #1)
author: Victoria E. Schwab
name: b e a c h g o t h
average rating: 4.24
book published: 2013
rating: 5
read at:
date added: 2019/12/09
shelves: alexas-a-list, young-adult, vices-and-virtues, psychos, netflix-pls-make-this-a-series
review:
VICIOUS by V.E.Schwab
YES. Yessss. I loved this book. No, no, I absolutely ADORED this book.
It's exactly what I want in a novel. It's Sci-Fi, but so realistic that I nearly started to be believe that near death experiences could make you extra-ordinary. Her writing style is so magnetic that once you start, she hooks you in and after chapter 2, you've fallen for her book - hook, line and sinker. She isn't trying to make any phrase more thoughtful or meaningful than it already was. She didn't try to hard. She didn't make it bland or blunt. She just knows how to draw you into a story and she knows how to write that makes you enjoy every, single page. And, it had been a while since I slowed down as I neared the end of book because I didn't want it to finish.
It's based around 2 university students that are too smart for their own good and start experimenting at playing God. I know what you're thinking. Alexa, you ALWAYS read books about intelligence bordering on madness. But you're wrong. I have never, ever, read a book like this one. And unless I'm retardedly lucky in this lifetime, I probably never will again.
Thankyou, V.E.Schwab, for just basically winning at life.
5/5 massive betelgeuse stars
Review by
]]> <![CDATA[The Dirt: Confessions of the World's Most Notorious Rock Band]]> 25378 The Dirt.

Here -- directly from Nikki, Vince, Tommy, and Mick -- is the unexpurgated version of the whole glorious, gut-wrenching story. In these pages, published for the first time anywhere, are Tommy Lee's letters to Pamela Anderson from prison: Mick's confession to having an incurable disease that is slowly killing him; Vince's experience burying his own daughter -- and the train wreck that his life became afterward; and Nikki's anguished struggle to deal with an entire life fueled by anger over his childhood abandonment, his discovery of the family he never knew he had -- and his subsequent loss of them. And all of it accompanied by scores of rare, never-before-published photographs, mug shots, and handwritten lyrics. No one is spared. Not David Lee Roth, Ozzy Osbourne, Vanity, Aerosmith, Heather Locklear, AC/DC, Lita Ford, Iron Maiden, Pamela Anderson, Guns N' Roses, Donna D'Errico, RATT, or those two girls from Dallas, Texas.

Make no mistake about it: these guys are geniuses. They invented glam metal and then left it in the dust; sold more than forty million albums from Shout at the Devil to Dr. Feelgood; toured the world dozen times and have the scars to prove it; and maintained a rabid following in an era of throwaway pop stars. Mötley Crüe has done nothing less than tattoo the psyche of the entire MTV generation. They are the ultimate rock 'n' roll band. And if you don't believe it, read The Dirt. You don't know what decadence is...]]> 431 Tommy Lee 0060989157 b e a c h g o t h 4 4.13 2001 The Dirt: Confessions of the World's Most Notorious Rock Band
author: Tommy Lee
name: b e a c h g o t h
average rating: 4.13
book published: 2001
rating: 4
read at:
date added: 2019/11/05
shelves: artists, psychos, vices-and-virtues
review:

]]> If We Were Villains 30319086
As one of seven young actors studying Shakespeare at an elite arts college, Oliver and his friends play the same roles onstage and off: hero, villain, tyrant, temptress, ingenue, extra. But when the casting changes, and the secondary characters usurp the stars, the plays spill dangerously over into life, and one of them is found dead. The rest face their greatest acting challenge yet: convincing the police, and themselves, that they are blameless.]]> 354 M.L. Rio 125009528X b e a c h g o t h 2 I can almost hear the author through the pages... I’ll just tweak this and this and swap Greek Mythology for Shakespeare and vwah-lah! My novel was born!
But because I love TSH so much I thought “who cares if it’s a cheap imitation, I’m sure I’ll love it anyway�. My mistake.
This was well written - but not elegantly enough for its story. It was more action/adventure well written, not poetic and lyrical. 1 point to Donna Tartt.
The characters were barely distinguishable.. what made them THEM? Nothing. Just typical stereotypes (jock,gay guy, outcast, femme fatale, etc etc). So many times Wren or Pip would pop into conversation and I’d be like “oh I forgot you existed�.
Another point to Donna Tartt.
The PRETENTIOUS use of Shakespeare in regular conversation? Is it not enough we have to read entire chunks of the plays while they are acting (why? It’s beautiful and I love Shakespeare but what does reading Ceasar line for line have to do with us getting to know the characters?) but to hear them quote Shakespeare constantly? Cringe. I couldn’t help picturing these 7 young adults being Instagram influencers and frowning at people that use plastic bags at the supermarket.
Another point to Donna, I actually LIKED her characters.
And the murder? In Act II? Who gives it all away 1/3 of the way through the book?

God I just wanted to like this so so much and instead I hated it. My hat goes off to M.L.Rio for even trying to offer the world another Secret History but by my point system... you failed miserably. ]]> 4.11 2017 If We Were Villains
author: M.L. Rio
name: b e a c h g o t h
average rating: 4.11
book published: 2017
rating: 2
read at: 2019/05/30
date added: 2019/11/05
shelves: could-not-finish, eye-roll-into-next-week, next-secret-history-claim, vices-and-virtues
review:
I should just never read any more books that are quoted to be “the next secret history�.
I can almost hear the author through the pages... I’ll just tweak this and this and swap Greek Mythology for Shakespeare and vwah-lah! My novel was born!
But because I love TSH so much I thought “who cares if it’s a cheap imitation, I’m sure I’ll love it anyway�. My mistake.
This was well written - but not elegantly enough for its story. It was more action/adventure well written, not poetic and lyrical. 1 point to Donna Tartt.
The characters were barely distinguishable.. what made them THEM? Nothing. Just typical stereotypes (jock,gay guy, outcast, femme fatale, etc etc). So many times Wren or Pip would pop into conversation and I’d be like “oh I forgot you existed�.
Another point to Donna Tartt.
The PRETENTIOUS use of Shakespeare in regular conversation? Is it not enough we have to read entire chunks of the plays while they are acting (why? It’s beautiful and I love Shakespeare but what does reading Ceasar line for line have to do with us getting to know the characters?) but to hear them quote Shakespeare constantly? Cringe. I couldn’t help picturing these 7 young adults being Instagram influencers and frowning at people that use plastic bags at the supermarket.
Another point to Donna, I actually LIKED her characters.
And the murder? In Act II? Who gives it all away 1/3 of the way through the book?

God I just wanted to like this so so much and instead I hated it. My hat goes off to M.L.Rio for even trying to offer the world another Secret History but by my point system... you failed miserably.
]]> The Zero and the One 30842441 A gothic twist on the classic tale of innocents abroad, THE ZERO AND THE ONE is a meditation on the seductions of friendship and the power of dangerous ideas that registers the dark, psychological suspense of Patricia Highsmith's The Talented Mr. Ripley and the intellectual and philosophical intrigue of John Banville's The Book of Evidence.

A shy, bookish scholarship student from a working-class family, Owen Whiting has high hopes of what awaits him at Oxford, only to find himself adrift and out of place among the university's dim aristocrats and posh radicals. But his life takes a dramatic turn when he is assigned to the same philosophy tutorial as Zachary Foedern, a visiting student from New York City. Rich, brilliant, and charismatic, Zach takes Owen under his wing, introducing him to a world of experiences Owen has only ever read about.

From the quadrangles of Oxford to the seedy underbelly of Berlin, they practice what Zach preaches, daring each other to transgress the boundaries of convention and morality, until Zach proposes the greatest transgression of all: a suicide pact. But when Zach's plans go horribly awry, Owen is left to pick up the pieces in the sleek lofts and dingy dives of lower Manhattan. Now he must navigate the treacherous boundary between illusion and reality if he wants to understand his friend and preserve a hold on his once bright future.]]> 272 Ryan Ruby 1455565180 b e a c h g o t h 3 This book is like a bad boyfriend.

Ok so loved: the philosophy, the secret history-esque feel, the university, the quotes and Zachary

Hated: the pious overtone of this book, the "whore" experience and the NARRATOR drove me nuts.


This was written well, but that doesn't mean I like it. Imagine Lev Grossman had written The Secret History and this is that book.]]> 3.26 2017 The Zero and the One
author: Ryan Ruby
name: b e a c h g o t h
average rating: 3.26
book published: 2017
rating: 3
read at: 2017/06/13
date added: 2019/11/05
shelves: next-secret-history-claim, recommended-to-me, vices-and-virtues
review:
Three stars because I literally CANNOT decide how I feel about this book. Love it? Hate it? Ugh I think hate but then I think about all the things I love about it and I swing back to love again.
This book is like a bad boyfriend.

Ok so loved: the philosophy, the secret history-esque feel, the university, the quotes and Zachary

Hated: the pious overtone of this book, the "whore" experience and the NARRATOR drove me nuts.


This was written well, but that doesn't mean I like it. Imagine Lev Grossman had written The Secret History and this is that book.
]]> Security 25810610
Writing in the tradition of Edgar Allan Poe and Stephen King, and with a deep bow to Daphne du Maurier, author Gina Wohlsdorf pairs narrative ingenuity and razor-wire prose with quick twists, sharp turns, and gasp-inducing terror. Security is grand guignol storytelling at its very best.

A shocking thriller, a brilliant narrative puzzle, and a multifaceted love story unlike any other, Security marks the debut of a fearless and gifted writer.]]> 229 Gina Wohlsdorf 1616205628 b e a c h g o t h 5 Are you a fan of slasher movies??
Because if you aren't, you'll hate this.
Think "I know what you did last summer" and "final destination" but in a hotel and you have no idea why people are being slaughtered on this Tuesday afternoon.
The way Gina writes is utter perfection for the type of novel she has created. And that type is..... like nothing I have ever read before.
Written through the eyes of someone (who's eyes however, is unknown for half the novel) watching everything unfold on CCTV cameras of the hotel. Each member of staff is slowly picked off and murdered (slasher style) and I cannot stress enough how heart-pumpingly awesome this whole novel was. I genuinely felt like I watched this novel, rather than read it.
Look, I'm not going to lie to you, if you want literary, elegant prose, mind blowing character build up and criminal masterminds, this book won't give it to you.
But a rainy day slasher read that is a rollercoaster of emotions??
HI THIS BOOK IS FOR YOU ]]> 3.28 2016 Security
author: Gina Wohlsdorf
name: b e a c h g o t h
average rating: 3.28
book published: 2016
rating: 5
read at: 2017/02/12
date added: 2019/11/05
shelves: alexas-a-list, psychos, vices-and-virtues
review:
This was AB-SO-LUTE-LY BRILLIANT!!!!
Are you a fan of slasher movies??
Because if you aren't, you'll hate this.
Think "I know what you did last summer" and "final destination" but in a hotel and you have no idea why people are being slaughtered on this Tuesday afternoon.
The way Gina writes is utter perfection for the type of novel she has created. And that type is..... like nothing I have ever read before.
Written through the eyes of someone (who's eyes however, is unknown for half the novel) watching everything unfold on CCTV cameras of the hotel. Each member of staff is slowly picked off and murdered (slasher style) and I cannot stress enough how heart-pumpingly awesome this whole novel was. I genuinely felt like I watched this novel, rather than read it.
Look, I'm not going to lie to you, if you want literary, elegant prose, mind blowing character build up and criminal masterminds, this book won't give it to you.
But a rainy day slasher read that is a rollercoaster of emotions??
HI THIS BOOK IS FOR YOU
]]> The Bellwether Revivals 13069261
But when Oscar is lured into the chapel at King’s College by the ethereal sound of an organ, he meets and falls in love with Iris Bellwether, a beautiful and enigmatic medical student. He follows her into a world of scholarship, wealth, and privilege, and soon becomes embroiled in the machinations of her older brother, Eden.

A charismatic but troubled musical prodigy, Eden persuades his sister and their close-knit circle of friends into a series of disturbing experiments. He believes that music � with his unique talent to guide it � has the power to cure, and will stop at nothing to prove himself right. As the line between genius and madness blurs, Oscar fears the danger that could await them all.]]> 428 Benjamin Wood 0771089317 b e a c h g o t h 4 The only part that tired me with this book was the obvious fact that the author is a Donna Tartt fan and I got the feeling he was trying to write his kind of version of The Secret History.... but I respect that too.
This book would have made an absolutely fantastic thriller movie, it has everything - moody lighting, cognac in crystal glasses and rich teenagers that are so intelligent that they can't help thinking they are on some way, gods.

"There is no great genius without some madness"

4/5 stars
Because it's not the greatest book I've ever read but I absolutely loved this creepy story]]> 3.59 2012 The Bellwether Revivals
author: Benjamin Wood
name: b e a c h g o t h
average rating: 3.59
book published: 2012
rating: 4
read at:
date added: 2019/11/05
shelves: next-secret-history-claim, vices-and-virtues
review:
I finished this book last night and I really really enjoyed it. Very Secret History-esque, The Bellwether Revival is about a group of moody, intelligent teenagers pushing the boundaries of their own intelligence. The story follows Oscar, a 20 year old carer at a rest home and he bumps into Iris and Eden one night at a concert practice. Something about them draws him in, the siblings that are extremely intelligent, witty and loaded. However, as the story goes on, you discover that they are eerily close as if their souls are intertwined, and when Oscar starts having feelings for Iris, jealousy enters the storyline with gusto. One night, after a few cognacs, the brother of the two starts a debate on whether you can be hypnotised by music, if music can make you feel emotion even if you aren't in that mindset. A sad song makes you sad, etc etc. This debate leads into experiments to prove his point and thrusts the friends into a dark rabbit hole none of them will ever really get out of. I LOVED this part of the novel, it was so dark and so creepy, pushing the boundaries of incest, narcissism, hypnotism, and intelligence.
The only part that tired me with this book was the obvious fact that the author is a Donna Tartt fan and I got the feeling he was trying to write his kind of version of The Secret History.... but I respect that too.
This book would have made an absolutely fantastic thriller movie, it has everything - moody lighting, cognac in crystal glasses and rich teenagers that are so intelligent that they can't help thinking they are on some way, gods.

"There is no great genius without some madness"

4/5 stars
Because it's not the greatest book I've ever read but I absolutely loved this creepy story
]]>