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juushikaTitle: Night of the Mannequins
Author: Stephen Graham Jones
Narrator: Gary Tiedemann
Published: Tantor Audio, 2020
Rating: 3.5 of 5
Page Count: 135
Total Page Count: 486,830
Text Number: 1724
Read Because: fan of the author, ebook borrowed from the Multnomah County Library
Review: The aftermath of a failed prank leaves a teenage friend group dead. The rest of the premise is a spoiler; don't read the blurb. This is ridiculous, and I enjoyed it. I normally don't have any appetite for humor, especially comedy horror, but I like the balance that Jones finds: over the top images and questionable leaps of logic which are more horrifying for being so ridiculous, which point to & hinge on their own improbably. The audio experience is hit and miss (first person teenage dialect in an adult voice threw me out of my immersion more than once), but this was a fun little diversion.
Title: Helpmeet
Author: Naben Ruthnum
Published: Undertow Publications, 2022
Rating: 4 of 5
Page Count: 95
Total Page Count: 486,925
Text Number: 1725
Read Because: personal enjoyment, ebook borrowed from the Multnomah County Library
Review: The wife of a dying man assists him in his final days. I've read too much literary horror recently; it's refreshing to encounter a take on body horror which has more to say than 'bodies sure are gross, huh? especially if they're socially deviant?'. Very gross; and it starts weird and just gets weirder; and the novella length and emotional restraint provides a lot of narrative explanation while refusing to worry about justifications. I like that: the willingness to let the speculative elements and the martial relationship and the protagonist's imperfect emotional distance stand without any further handholding.
Title: The It Girl
Author: Ruth Ware
Published: Scout Press, 2022
Rating: 4 of 5
Page Count: 445
Total Page Count: 487,370
Text Number: 1726
Read Because: reviewed bymrissa, ebook borrowed from the Multnomah County Library
Review: In college, our protagonist's roommate and best friend was murdered; ten years later, she worries that the wrong man was convicted for the crime. What I learned from coincidentally watching Laura Crone's The Pink Aisle of Crime Fiction Must Be Stopped video while finishing this is that it's not you, book; it's the domestic(/personal) noir and me. My issues with this - the too-convenient list of suspects investigated and dismissed; the totality of the final explanation and the thriller gimmicks that preserve momentum - seem like they're perfectly satisfying executions of genre conventions; the genre just doesn't work for me. (I also don't like the modern-day version of our protagonist, pregnant and anxiety-ridden; that, too, feels like an issue of personal taste.) This reads fast, the college bits are engaging; but my big takeaway is that I should just say no to the genre.
Author: Stephen Graham Jones
Narrator: Gary Tiedemann
Published: Tantor Audio, 2020
Rating: 3.5 of 5
Page Count: 135
Total Page Count: 486,830
Text Number: 1724
Read Because: fan of the author, ebook borrowed from the Multnomah County Library
Review: The aftermath of a failed prank leaves a teenage friend group dead. The rest of the premise is a spoiler; don't read the blurb. This is ridiculous, and I enjoyed it. I normally don't have any appetite for humor, especially comedy horror, but I like the balance that Jones finds: over the top images and questionable leaps of logic which are more horrifying for being so ridiculous, which point to & hinge on their own improbably. The audio experience is hit and miss (first person teenage dialect in an adult voice threw me out of my immersion more than once), but this was a fun little diversion.
Title: Helpmeet
Author: Naben Ruthnum
Published: Undertow Publications, 2022
Rating: 4 of 5
Page Count: 95
Total Page Count: 486,925
Text Number: 1725
Read Because: personal enjoyment, ebook borrowed from the Multnomah County Library
Review: The wife of a dying man assists him in his final days. I've read too much literary horror recently; it's refreshing to encounter a take on body horror which has more to say than 'bodies sure are gross, huh? especially if they're socially deviant?'. Very gross; and it starts weird and just gets weirder; and the novella length and emotional restraint provides a lot of narrative explanation while refusing to worry about justifications. I like that: the willingness to let the speculative elements and the martial relationship and the protagonist's imperfect emotional distance stand without any further handholding.
Title: The It Girl
Author: Ruth Ware
Published: Scout Press, 2022
Rating: 4 of 5
Page Count: 445
Total Page Count: 487,370
Text Number: 1726
Read Because: reviewed by
mrissa, ebook borrowed from the Multnomah County LibraryReview: In college, our protagonist's roommate and best friend was murdered; ten years later, she worries that the wrong man was convicted for the crime. What I learned from coincidentally watching Laura Crone's The Pink Aisle of Crime Fiction Must Be Stopped video while finishing this is that it's not you, book; it's the domestic(/personal) noir and me. My issues with this - the too-convenient list of suspects investigated and dismissed; the totality of the final explanation and the thriller gimmicks that preserve momentum - seem like they're perfectly satisfying executions of genre conventions; the genre just doesn't work for me. (I also don't like the modern-day version of our protagonist, pregnant and anxiety-ridden; that, too, feels like an issue of personal taste.) This reads fast, the college bits are engaging; but my big takeaway is that I should just say no to the genre.
