Mini Reviews: I Know What You Read Last Fall

My life was pretty chaotic in September, October, and December, which means I read a lot of books, but I didn’t have time to review them. Instead of ignoring those poor books, I thought I’d do rapid-fire reviews. I’m not going to include summaries because then you’d be scrolling forever. Click the titles to open Goodreads.

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Mini Reviews: I Know What You Read Last Summer

Last summer was intense for me. I had so much stuff going on that I pretty much gave up on blogging. I didn’t give up on reading, though! I actually read some awesome stuff. Instead of ignoring all the books I finished in summer 2019, I thought I’d do rapid-fire reviews. I’m not going to include summaries of the books because that would make this post colossal, so click the titles to open Goodreads.

Reading And Walking: Sadie

Audiobook Reviews: I, Alex Cross || The Adventures Of Sherlock Holmes

Mini Reviews: Revival || The Talented Mr. Ripley

Review: Vengeful By V.E. Schwab

Vengeful By V.E. Schwab

Series: Villains #2

Pages: 478

Genre: Adult Science Fiction

Publication date: September 2018

Eli Ever and Victor Vale were only medical students when their mutual discovery that near-death experiences can, under the right conditions, manifest extraordinary abilities.

They were best friends, and rivals, and then enemies. They were dead, then alive, and then—Eli killed Victor, once and for all.

Or so he thought—but Sydney Clarke felt otherwise, and used her own superpower to tip the scales. Now, a trio hides in the shadows, while another takes advantages of post-death life to take over the city of Merit.

If there can be life after death—will there be calm after vengeance, or will chaos rule?

Mini Reviews: The Great Alone || An Absolutely Remarkable Thing

Mini Reviews: Psycho || The Snowman

Mini Reviews: The Possessions || Stranded

Review: A Storm Of Swords by George R.R. Martin

A Storm Of Swords by George R.R. Martin

Series: A Song of Ice and Fire #3

Pages: 1179

Genre: Adult high fantasy

Publication Date: August 2000

Of the five contenders for power, one is dead, another in disfavor, and still the wars rage, alliances are made and broken. Joffrey sits on the Iron Throne, the uneasy ruler of the Seven Kingdoms. His most bitter rival, Lord Stannis, stands defeated and disgraced, victim of the sorceress who holds him in her evil thrall. Young Robb still rules the North from the fortress of Riverrun. Meanwhile, making her way across a blood-drenched continent is the exiled queen, Daenerys, mistress of the only three dragons left in the world. And as opposing forces maneuver for the final showdown, an army of barbaric wildlings arrives from the outermost limits of civilization, accompanied by a horde of mystical Others—a supernatural army of the living dead whose animated corpses are unstoppable. As the future of the land hangs in the balance, no one will rest until the Seven Kingdoms have exploded in a veritable storm of swords.

Mini Reviews: A Head Full Of Ghosts || Grief Is The Thing With Feathers

Review: A Clash Of Kings by George R.R. Martin || This Is How You Write Multiple POVs

A Clash Of Kings by George R.R. Martin

Pages: 1010

Genre: High Fantasy

Series: A Song of Ice and Fire #2

Publication Date: November 1998

A comet the color of blood and flame cuts across the sky. And from the ancient citadel of Dragonstone to the forbidding shores of Winterfell, chaos reigns. Six factions struggle for control of a divided land and the Iron Throne of the Seven Kingdoms, preparing to stake their claims through tempest, turmoil, and war. It is a tale in which brother plots against brother and the dead rise to walk at night. Here a princess masquerades as an orphan boy; a knight of the mind prepares a poison for a treacherous sorceress; and wild men descend from the Mountains of the Moon to ravage the countryside. Against a backdrop of incest and fratricide, alchemy and murder, victory may go to the men and women possessed of the coldest steel . . . and the coldest hearts. For when kings clash, the whole land trembles.

This review is for book 2 in a series. It's spoiler-free, but you might want to check out my review of A Game of Thrones.

Review: Bird Box – Josh Malerman

Bird Box – Josh Malerman

Something terrifying that must not be seen. One glimpse and a person is driven to deadly violence. No one knows what it is or where it came from. 

Five years after it began, a handful of scattered survivors remain, including Malorie and her two young children. Living in an abandoned house near the river, she has dreamed of fleeing to a place where they might be safe. Now that the boy and girl are four, it is time to go. But the journey ahead will be terrifying: twenty miles downriver in a rowboat—blindfolded—with nothing to rely on but her wits and the children’s trained ears. One wrong choice and they will die. And something is following them. But is it man, animal, or monster? 

Engulfed in darkness, surrounded by sounds both familiar and frightening, Malorie embarks on a harrowing odyssey—a trip that takes her into an unseen world and back into the past, to the companions who once saved her. Under the guidance of the stalwart Tom, a motely group of strangers banded together against the unseen terror, creating order from the chaos. But when supplies ran low, they were forced to venture outside—and confront the ultimate question: in a world gone mad, who can really be trusted?

Review: I guess it’s unpopular opinion time. I didn’t hate this book, but I’m not as obsessed with it as everybody else seems to be.

Malorie learns she’s pregnant on the same day the world ends. No one knows why, but strange creatures have appeared outside, and they’re driving people into violent rages. One glimpse of a creature can make a person commit suicide or homicide. Malorie and a few other survivors move into a house and board up the windows, but they can’t stay there forever. They will eventually run out of supplies. Also, the creatures seem to be multiplying. Four years after the world ends, Malorie and her children climb into a boat—blindfolded—and hope that the river takes them somewhere safer.

“It's better to face madness with a plan than to sit still and let it take you in pieces.” – Bird Box

The concept for this book is so creepy! Imagine being blindfolded and surrounded by creatures that want to kill you. Um . . . no thanks. That would be completely terrifying. The characters come up with a few ingenious methods of detecting the creatures, but none of the methods are 100% effective. This is one of the most unique concepts for a horror story I’ve seen in a long time.

The pacing is excellent. In the present-day timeline, Malorie and her children are floating down a river blindfolded. They can hear the creatures in the forest around them, but if they take off their blindfolds, they’ll die. The flashback chapters show how the apocalypse happened and how Malorie got herself to safety. The chapters are very short, so it felt like I was flying through this book. I could sit and read big chunks of it without getting bored.

“We left because some people choose to wait for news and others make their own.” – Bird Box

Unfortunately, other than the concept and the pacing, there isn’t a lot I love about this novel. The writing and character development are kind of . . . atrocious. I know that’s a mean word, but I didn’t like them at all.

The writing feels amateurish at times. Malorie has these repetitive inner monologues that bugged me. They just don’t seem necessary. I know she’s scared. She doesn’t need to have a half-page argument with herself about being scared. She especially doesn’t need to have the same argument with herself a dozen times. 

The reader doesn’t learn much about the characters. We get one or two traits about each character, but none of the characters have any depth. Tom is the leader, Don is the paranoid one, Jules has a dog. None of them feel like real people to me. Malorie doesn’t have a personality. Her kids are called Boy and Girl, and we don’t learn anything about them. It’s hard to be scared for the characters if I don’t care about them.

I think there are too many coincidences in this book. Two random pregnant ladies show up at the safe house, and they both have their babies at the exact same moment. Malorie’s roommates find two dogs that both happen to be huskies. Malorie is forced to drive a car without her blindfold, but she doesn’t see any creatures, even though they are everywhere. The coincidences frustrated me because I didn’t see a reason for them.

Finally, we don’t learn anything about the creatures. I know that showing us the monsters would ruin the suspense, but I was hoping we’d learn something about them by the end. Where did they come from? What do they look like? How intelligent are they? We never find out.

Sorry if this review is harsh, but I was kind of disappointed in this book. The concept is amazing, but the execution could have been better.

“A grisly story, but one whose notoriety Malorie attributes to the seemingly senseless way the Internet has of making random occurrences famous.” – Bird Box

TL;DR: Creepy story that kept me turning pages. It could have been truly terrifying if I cared about the characters.

Review: The Dumb House – John Burnside

The Dumb House – John Burnside

In Persian myth, it is said that Akbar the Great once built a palace which he filled with newborn children, attended only by mutes, in order to learn whether language is innate or acquired. As the years passed and the children grew into their silent and difficult world, this palace became known as the Gang Mahal, or Dumb House. In his first novel, John Burnside explores the possibilities inherent in a modern-day repetition of Akbar’s investigations. Following the death of his mother, the narrator creates a twisted variant of the Dumb House, finally using his own children as subjects in a bizarre experiment. When the children develop a musical language of their own, however, their gaoler is the one who is excluded, and he extracts an appalling revenge.

Review: Well, that was severely messed up. It’ll be a long time before I can get this book out of my head.

I saw The Dumb House on a list of classic horror novels. It was first published in 1997, but I guess the book gods have already decided that it’s a classic. (Who decides which books are classics? I must Google that.)

Anyway, I was familiar with the story of Akbar the Great and his palace of silent children, so I was curious to see what John Burnside would do with that tale in The Dumb House.

The narrator, Luke, is an awful gentleman who’s obsessed with language, thought, and the soul. As a child, he attempts to dissect animals while they’re alive to see how their insides work. After his mother dies and he inherits her house, he moves on to bigger experiments. He convinces a homeless woman to move in with him and have his children. When his twins are born, he locks them in the basement and studies what happens to children if they never hear a human voice. The twins eventually develop a language of their own. Luke is so jealous of the twins’ love for each other that he decides to murder them.

“No one could say it was my choice to kill the twins, any more than it was my decision to bring them into the world.”  - The Dumb House  

Luke is one of the most screwed up fictional characters I’ve ever encountered. He’s realistically screwed up. This isn’t some over-the-top-supervillain nonsense. The guy is like a real serial killer. He has trouble connecting with people and gets violently envious of their relationships. He’s extremely selfish and doesn’t mind killing people or animals when he no longer has a purpose for them. Luke has no empathy at all. He believes that animals (and mute humans) are incapable of thought, so he doesn’t see the problem with killing them. He’s so creepy! Definitely not someone I’d want to meet in real life.

“If the components of the body were organs and veins and cells, then the components of thought and language were words and grammar.” – The Dumb House

I think Luke’s tone is what makes his narration so unsettling. He says all these horrific things in a very cold, detached way. He sees himself as a scientist, an observer whose job it is to learn about the world. He thinks he’s doing something good for humanity. His emotions only come through a few times, but they’re messed up, too:

“The very act of breaking the skin, of entering another human body, intrigued and excited me. I could see why people might kill for that sensation.” – The Dumb House

The story starts with Luke telling the reader that he murdered his children. Then he backs up to explain how he got to this point. I love the slow way the story unfolds. Luke was always a profoundly screwed up guy, but as the plot progresses, he becomes more isolated, more paranoid, and more violent.

John Burnside is a talented writer. Everything in this book is vivid and believable. As terrifying as this story is, I’m convinced that it could happen in real life. This story is scary because it’s so believable.

“When Mother had told me that animals found quiet, unexposed places to die, I had always imagined they knew they were dying, and accepted it, almost gratefully. Now I saw that this wasn't so at all: they crept into corners in the hope of surviving, they only knew they were weakened and exposed, easy prey, and their instinct was to find a hidden place and try to outlive whatever it was they were suffering. It had been a mistake to imagine they wanted to be alone, to die in peace. Animals have no knowledge of death: for them, death is the unexpected end of life, something they resist by instinct, for no good reason. In that sense their existence has an almost mechanical quality.” – The Dumb House

Since this novel is called The Dumb House, I expected the children to be a bigger part of it. They’re mentioned at the beginning, but then they don’t show up again until the last 50 pages. This is a slow, character-driven story, so it doesn’t have much of a plot. Toward the middle, I found myself getting impatient to read about the children. I guess it makes sense that they’re not a huge part of the novel. Luke is selfish. He wants to talk about himself, not them. They’re just pieces in his experiment. Still, I wanted to see more of them.

The Dumb House is only 200 pages long, but it’s one of the most subtly creepy horror stories I’ve ever read. I think the book gods made the right decision when they proclaimed this book a classic.

TL;DR: Slow and somewhat plotless, but the brilliantly messed up narrator makes it worth reading.

Review: Ararat – Christopher Golden

Ararat – Christopher Golden

When a newly engaged couple climbs Mount Ararat in Turkey, an avalanche forces them to seek shelter inside a massive cave uncovered by the snow fall. The cave is actually an ancient, buried ship that many quickly come to believe is really Noah’s Ark. When a team of scholars, archaeologists, and filmmakers make it inside the ark for the first time, they discover an elaborate coffin in its recesses. The artifact tempts their professional curiosity; so they break it open. Inside, they find an ugly, misshapen cadaver—not the holy man that they expected, a hideous creature with horns. A massive blizzard blows in, trapping them in that cave thousands of meters up the side of a remote mountain . . . but they are not alone.

Review: I had such high expectations for this horror story. It sounds amazing, but when I finished it, I was very underwhelmed. Everything in this novel just seems so . . . average.

The first sentence of the synopsis is a lie. The newly engaged couple isn’t trapped in a cave by an avalanche. The avalanche exposes an ancient ship on the side of Mount Ararat, and the couple race up the mountain to be the first ones to explore it. Inside the ship, they find a cadaver with horns. As an archology team tries to excavate the remote site, the cadaver causes tension between the team members. Is the creature something evil? Does it prove that the world’s religions are real? Soon, the arguments over the creature turn deadly.

My main frustration with this novel is that the characters are archeologists, but they don’t discover anything. What are all these highly-educated people doing for weeks inside this cave? What else is in there besides the corpses? We don’t get any backstory about the ship, or the mummies, or why they’re on a mountain. The characters argue about whether this is Noah’s Ark, but that’s pretty much it. Whenever the author gets close to talking about the mysteries of the boat, he backs off and refocuses on the far-less-interesting personality conflicts between the archeologists. I think the story of the boat would’ve been more compelling than the angry-archeologists-murder-each-other plot.

Speaking of the plot, it’s too predictable for my tastes. I was really hoping this wouldn’t become a demon possession story because that would’ve been obvious. Guess what? It became a demon possession story.

I did like how the demon moves from person to person. The creature has an unusual way of jumping around. Still, I wondered how the demon got into the first person ever. The demon has a specific way of getting inside people, and I don’t understand how it originally found someone that met its standards. Once it’s inside someone, it can use that person to turn other people into its ideal body, but that still doesn’t explain how it got into the first person. I was hoping that question would be answered, but it wasn’t.

I’m not a big fan of the characters or writing, either. The characters are flat, and the writing feels amateurish. By the end of the book, I didn’t care about any of the characters. I just kind of shrugged when they brutally slaughtered each other.

So, I didn’t love this novel. It’s fairly fast-paced, which is good, and the religious mystery is intriguing. It just didn’t live up to my expectations.

TL;DR: Great premise, but it isn’t executed very well.

Review: A Conjuring Of Light – V.E. Schwab

A Conjuring Of Light – V.E. Schwab

The precarious equilibrium among four Londons has reached its breaking point. Once brimming with the red vivacity of magic, darkness casts a shadow over the Maresh Empire, leaving a space for another London to rise. 

Kell—once assumed to be the last surviving Antari—begins to waver under the pressure of competing loyalties. And in the wake of tragedy, can Arnes survive? 

Lila Bard, once a commonplace—but never common—thief, has survived and flourished through a series of magical trials. But now she must learn to control the magic, before it bleeds her dry. Meanwhile, the disgraced Captain Alucard Emery of the Night Spire collects his crew, attempting a race against time to acquire the impossible. 

And an ancient enemy returns to claim a crown while a fallen hero tries to save a world in decay.

Review: This review is for book 3 in a series. I tried to avoid spoilers, but you might want to check out my (very old) reviews of book 1 and book 2.

OMG, guys, this finale is so good! Why did it take me so long to read it? Also, how am I supposed to blather about it without spoilers? Everything is a spoiler!

Okay. Deep breaths.

The third book picks up right after that heart-attack-inducing cliffhanger at the end of book 2. The doors between the parallel worlds have been opened, and something evil has escaped from Black London. It has already infected White London and Red London. Now it’s trying to worm its way into Gray London. Kell and Lila are the only ones strong enough to stop it. How many parallel worlds will fall before they can destroy the spreading darkness?

“Scars are not shameful, not unless you let them be. If you do not wear them, they will wear you.” – A Conjuring of Light

How do I review this book? The rational part of my brain keeps pointing out problems, but the rest of me is just fangirling like an idiot. There is so much Rhy in this book! Guys, I love that character. My heart almost exploded every time he was in trouble.

This series definitely isn’t a work of literary genius, but it’s so much fun. There’s adventure, and magic, and sassy badass characters. There are knife fights, and action scenes, and lots of blood. I adore the parallel Londons. They’re all unique and mysterious. I’m very happy that the author is releasing more books set in this world. There is more to see, and I’m not ready to leave the Londons yet. This world is huge. I need more magic and danger in my reading life.

“Life isn't made of choices, it's made of trades. Some are good, some are bad, but they all have a cost.” – A Conjuring of Light

My favorite part of the finale is that Kell gets to leave London. I wanted to see more of the worlds, and I finally got to see them.

All of the characters I love from the earlier books are here: Kell and his fabulous coat, Lila and her knives, Rhy and his personality. Rhy is my favorite character, and I’m happy that so much of the story is from his point-of-view. The reader gets to see him grow up and become less of a party boy and more of a ruler. Even though he’s maturing, the banter between him and Kell is still hilarious, so no worries there. In this book, the reader also gets to learn more about Kell and Rhy’s parents. Basically, there’s more backstory about all the characters. We finally get full explanations for their feuds.

“She was a thief, a runaway, a pirate, a magician. 

She was fierce, and powerful, and terrifying. 

She was still a mystery. 

And he loved her.” – A Conjuring of Light

Okay. Here come my complaints. First, what is up with the typos? I noticed them throughout the entire series. In all three books. Does Tor not have proofreaders? These are very obvious typos. They distracted me because I had to stop reading and scowl angrily every time I saw one.

I also think the pacing in this book is too slow sometimes. The book is over 600 pages. I don’t think it needs to be that long. There are times when the characters are trapped in the palace or traveling between locations, and it seems like nothing is happening. I guess I was impatient? I wanted to see the characters kick bad guy ass, not wander around.

Since I don’t read much fantasy, I spent the whole series being slightly confused by the magic system. I understand that magicians can manipulate “elements” (air, bone, fire, water, metal). Antari magicians can travel between worlds and do other types of fancy magic. (Like bring people back to life.) But, then there’s a teacher who can cast a sleeping spell over a whole city? And there are magic objects? I never felt like I understood what magic could and couldn’t do.

Despite my issues, I’d happily read a hundred more novels set in this world. I love books about parallel universes, and this is one of the more-entertaining ones I’ve found.

TL;DR: Excellent finale. I’m eagerly awaiting the companion novels.

Review: Agents Of Dreamland – Caitlín R. Kiernan

Agents Of Dreamland – Caitlín R. Kiernan

A government special agent known only as the Signalman gets off a train on a stunningly hot morning in Winslow, Arizona. Later that day he meets a woman in a diner to exchange information about an event that happened a week earlier for which neither has an explanation, but which haunts the Signalman. 

In a ranch house near the shore of the Salton Sea a cult leader gathers up the weak and susceptible—the Children of the Next Level—and offers them something to believe in and a chance for transcendence. The future is coming and they will help to usher it in. 

A day after the events at the ranch house which disturbed the Signalman so deeply that he and his government sought out help from ‘other’ sources, Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory abruptly loses contact with NASA's interplanetary probe New Horizons. Something out beyond the orbit of Pluto has made contact.

Review: This is going to be a black sheep review because I accidentally didn’t like this book. I say “accidentally” because I was supposed to like it. I mean, look at that cover. That’s a very “me” cover. The book also has great reviews on Goodreads. All the evidence points to me liking it, but I didn’t.

Honestly, I’m not completely sure what this book is about. It’s very short—only 125 pages. There’s a doomsday cult that’s trying to help an alien fungus take over the world. Then there’s a government agent and a psychic lady who are trying to stop the fungus. The psychic lady thinks the fungus will win? Is that it? I don’t know, guys. I’m a bit confused here.

“Too often, it occurs to him that he’s lived just long enough to have completely outlived the world that made sense to him, the world where he fit.” – Agents of Dreamland

I think my problem with this book is that there are a lot of words being used, but nothing is really happening. Characters meet, have cryptic discussions, and leave. There’s a whole chapter of a girl standing on a roof. It’s all very bizarre. I never felt like I had a firm grasp on what was happening or why it was happening. Mostly it feels like nothing is happening. It’s a wordy story with a plot that wanders all over the place.

I know there are allusions to other sci-fi stories in this novella. I haven’t read those other stories, so maybe I would have more appreciation for this book if I had read them?

I did really love the premise and the imagery. All the “nothing” that happens is quite vivid. It’s creepy to think about an alien fungus that preys on humans. That’s enough to give me nightmares. I always appreciate it when a book can creep me out.

Maybe this novella would have been better if it was longer? There would have been more space to flesh out the characters. Except, I don’t think I would have finished it if it was longer.

I guess this is going to be a short review because I don’t know what to say about this book. Everything is confusing, a spoiler, or a confusing spoiler. I’m baffled.

TL;DR: This book is smarter than me. I didn’t get it.

Review: A Game Of Thrones – George R.R. Martin

A Game Of Thrones – George R.R. Martin

In a land where summers can last decades and winters a lifetime, trouble is brewing. The cold is returning, and in the frozen wastes of the north of Winterfell, sinister and supernatural forces are massing beyond the kingdom's protective Wall. At the center of the conflict lie the Starks of Winterfell, a family as harsh and unyielding as the land they were born to. Sweeping from a land of brutal cold to a distant summertime kingdom of epicurean plenty, here is a tale of lords and ladies, soldiers and sorcerers, assassins and bastards, who come together in a time of grim omens. Amid plots and counterplots, tragedy and betrayal, victory and terror, the fate of the Starks, their allies, and their enemies hangs perilously in the balance, as each endeavors to win that deadliest of conflicts: the game of thrones.

Review: I’m a massive fan of the Game of Thrones TV show, and I’ve wanted to read the series for years, but I put it off for three reasons:

Reason 1: I have zero faith that the author will actually finish writing the series. It’s really frustrating to start a series and never know how it ends. 

Reason 2: George R.R. Martin’s writing style is very average. There’s nothing wrong with it, but there’s nothing about it that makes me go, “OMG, I can’t wait to read 837 pages of this!” 

Reason 3: 837 pages. The other books in the series are even longer than the first one. I didn’t know if I could handle it without getting bored.

After years of putting off the series, I finally gave in and read the first book. And . . . I thoroughly enjoyed myself.

The first season of the TV show follows the first book pretty much exactly. The book has all the same death, destruction, and decapitations as the show. The story mostly centers on Eddard Stark and his children. Eddard accepts a job as Hand of the King, but when the king suddenly dies, Eddard is arrested for treason, and a power vacuum ensues. Several people promptly declare themselves the new king. Eddard’s children set out to rescue their father from jail, but their lives are threatened by all the wannabe-royals.

“The things we love destroy us every time, lad. Remember that.” – A Game of Thrones

I had so much fun reading this book, which is weird because I already knew the plot. None of the deaths were shocking. Still, I loved being back in Westeros and seeing all my favorite characters again. If you like the TV show and can handle reading 837 pages, you’ll probably like the book.

I was shocked by how young the kids are in the novel. Jon and Robb are 14. Danerys is 13. I can understand why the show decided to go with older actors because reading about a 14-year-old fighting a war, and a 13-year-old being raped is icky. The older actors cut down on the ick factor a little.

Since I liked this book, what I’m about to say will sound weird, but here it goes. If I wasn’t already a fan of the show, I probably wouldn’t have finished the book. I’m not a patient reader. I don’t like books that have big learning curves. A Game of Thrones is massive. The world is complex; there are tons of characters and plotlines. Since I was familiar with the show, I got to skip the learning curve. If I hadn’t already known about the characters and their relationships, I don’t think I would’ve had the patience to learn. There are so many characters! I can't remember all those names.

“And I have a tender spot in my heart for cripples and bastards and broken things.” – A Game of Thrones

If you can keep all the characters straight, this is a twisted and action-packed story. Like I said, George R.R. Martin isn’t a great writer, but he’s a wonderful storyteller. The world in this series is immense and creative. I love that the story is told with short chapters and multiple perspectives. For such a big book, the plot moves surprisingly fast. I never got bored. It also doesn’t have those massive info-dumps that make me dislike fantasy novels. I liked this book a lot more than I thought I would.

I’m glad I finally read this one. I will happily move on to the next book in the series.

“Why is it that when one man builds a wall, the next man immediately needs to know what's on the other side?” – A Game of Thrones

TL;DR: If you like the TV show, give the books a shot.