My most recent read was The River is Waiting by Wally Lamb.

It was my 38th book this year and only my 3rd 5 stars. I finished it this morning, it’s now the evening, and I can’t stop thinking about it.

I was enthralled by this story - it had sat on my TBR for a few months and I finally picked it up as just a lucky dip after being in a bit of reading slump.

After finishing, I saw a lot of criticism on Goodreads about the narrator Corby being “unlikeable”. I see this criticism a lot with other books - and I’ve never quite understood.

For me, a good reading experience is a complicated, flawed, or at least a character who is thought-provoking. Given one of the main themes of The River is Waiting being redemption, and finding out very early on that Corby accidentally kills his son while intoxicated, surely the reader wouldn’t expect the MC to be a “hero?”

There were times while I was reading that I thought “oh yeah he’s kind of a douche”, I’ve thought this about other MCs as well before, but it would never impact negatively on my rating as long as the story itself was enjoyable.

Would love to have a discussion below! And I’d really recommend this book if you can handle a gut-punch ending!

I have seen many Reddit posts where readers have posited that the behavior of MC Nattie of Yesteryear was due to postpartum depression or a psychotic break. To me, that seems to excuse her behavior and possibly makes her a sympathetic figure. I considered her an unlikable character with no justification for her actions.

My take away was that Nattie’s extreme behavior is that of a malignant narcissist from the very beginning, in her individual life as well as in family life. The world needed to bend to her will throughout the book and every time she screwed up pre- or post-tradwife she just doubled down. This made the ending where she is tried and given a sentence of decades for child abuse very believable to me. The character’s flaw was she was simply unable to see and process how her decisions affected anyone but herself, the textbook definition of narcissism.

I am loaning my copy of the book to my therapist after she indicated interest. It will be interesting to hear her analysis as a medical professional.

I’m interested to hear other’s perspectives on Nattie’s mental health or lack of it.

Edit: I greatly enjoy unreliable narrators, particularly unlikable ones. To me, Nattie seemed to be a perfectly consistent character, whether one views her as mentally unhealthy or simply a flawed personality, and her viewpoint increased the book’s overall effectiveness.

I’m doing a deep dive on Glen Cook’s The Black Company series and so far it’s been richly rewarding. The cast of characters is a flamboyant, if somewhat generic, group of mercenary soldiers working for an evil sorceress. The “company” has wizards of their own. One named Goblin, the other One-Eye. The latter is a black man the former, a toad-looking white one.

This was written in the late 70’s/early 80’s I believe so I appreciate Cook’s forward thinking nature, but I just wish he didn’t have to mention the man’s skin color every time he describes him.

This book definitely scratched an itch I had from Children of Dune. It felt like the realisation of all the explanation I wanted, delivered very convincingly by a petty worm man who I both love and loathe, talking circles around his fanatical followers (and us for that matter).

I love how "the Duncans" are a character all their own. I love how they are one set of genetic instructions, spat out and tested in Leto's crucible ad infinitum. They all shift and change in small ways based on their different experiences and reach vastly different end points depending on all these little shifts in their path. Leto's almost childlike obsession with the Duncans grounds him for us, we can recognise this love from the very first book. It's all that's left of the young Paul who we identified with before his transformation in to Muad'Dib.

I love how clinical their indoctrination of the Duncans is and how they fret and fuss over how it's going, marking their progress against all their previous repetitions. Leto likens it to playing a fish on a line, and notes that bringing him in always hastens his end.

If there was one truly tragic element of Leto's life that resonated with me, it's this process , which he seems to have down to a science, of building these companions by showing them parts of himself and his golden path. It sickens them, they cant handle it. Ultimately it destroys them.

Leto does this over and over, nurtures these companions only to watch their devotion falter and their inevitable betrayal approach. His reward is a fleeting moment where he can share some infinitesimally small part of his burden, before putting down his friend and starting again.

This brotherly conflict was, for me, such an effective way to humanise Leto. The perfect counterweight to his brutal tyranny. It sets the stage for what Hwi does to him and makes it believable. I'm once again totally ready to believe he sees what's necessary and takes no joy from walking the path.

Herbert has pulled off a miracle here, writing a convincing prescient god-like creature that you can both hate and pity.

Anyway, way too many parts I loved about this book to cover them all. No way I can't read on now.

“Jackknife” by Joe Hill (The Shivers Collection #1) is the first book in this exclusive Amazon Original Series of horror short stories. I’m so glad they started this off with Hill because this is one hell of a way to start a collection.

In case you’re interested in “The Shivers Collection” and which authors are a part of it, here’s the entire collection…

Jackknife by Joe Hill (The Shivers Collection #1)
The Indigo Room by Stephen Graham Jones (The Shivers Collection #2)
The Blanks by Grady Hendrix (The Shivers Collection #3)
Night and Day in Misery by Catriona Ward (The Shivers Collection #4)
Letter Slot by Owen King (The Shivers Collection #5)

I love every author in this collection, and I can’t wait to complete it. Before I begin my review, here are all the trigger warnings I found while reading…

- Grooming teenagers (nothing graphic)
- Drugs
- Dead animals (very graphic involving a cat)
- Politics
- #MeToo movement
- Sexual abuse of minors
- Suicide

If any of these trigger you, please do not read this book. Moving along, I have to give credit to Hill, since I’ve never read a “tree horror” book as scary as this. I love his writing style, as it was great and over the top. It’s barely 46 pages, and my goodness, what a powerhouse of a freaky read.

The main character, Dennis, was someone I loathed. Hill’s character development of Dennis was surreal. I hated him and was hooked on what kind of karma was coming his way. I would never ruin a book for anyone, so no spoilers here, but this was fantastic from start to finish.

As always with Hill’s work, I enjoyed his references in this book. As a coffee lover, it was great to see Dunkin’ mentioned, and of course, The Lord of the Rings thanks to Ents. I love LOTR, but the tree horror found here was so wild, I made many weird faces while reading.

The backstory and insight in “Jackknife,” with its uniquely written tree horror, were compelling and felt like they could have easily been part of The Conjuring universe. This was a genuine page-turner that I couldn’t put down from the sheer horror of it all.

When it comes to the ending, this was on the level of Stephen King because I didn’t see that coming at all. I finished this book with a huge smile on my face, thanks to a beyond satisfying ending that has a “drop-the-mic” moment and proves why Hill is such a phenomenal author. The apple doesn’t fall far from the tree. Get it? Tree? Tree horror? Okay, I’ll see myself out now.

I give “Jackknife” by Joe Hill (The Shivers Collection #1) a 5/5 for being one hell of a fun ride with a refreshing take on tree horror. Seriously, you’ll probably never want to look at a barren tree the same ever again after reading this short story. I’m so excited to dive into the rest of this collection.

Now, if you’ll excuse me, since I already found a jackknife, it’s time to go hang out in an indigo room.

Finally been getting around to reading some of Bloch's short stories, and the first collection I chose happens to be his very first one, "The Opener of the Way".

These are primarily the early stories that he did when he started writing for the pulps in the mid thirties. Much of the stories have a distinct Lovecraftian flavor to them, and that does make a lot of sense since Bloch was an admirer of Lovecraft, and had even corresponded with him for quite a while.

I love some of Bloch's more Lovecraft inspired stories like the title story "The Opener of the Way", "The Mannikin" and "The Dark Demon". But in stories such as "The Cloak" and "Yours Truly, Jack the Ripper", I also see a Robert Bloch slowly, but surely, finding his own voice.

There's also a couple of SF stories that are pretty good, and also another instance of him finding his voice.

This is a very good collection with some nice gems in it, but I'm still just the surface when it comes to his short stories. This is just one of three other collections that have been reprinted by Valancourt. and the other two, "Pleasant Dreams" and "Midnight Pleasures". And in those collections Bloch will already have found his voice. And there's even a few novels, other than the one I already have and read (that being "Psycho"), that are also reissued by Valancourt, and I'll probably will be checking those out in the near future!

When We Cease To Understand the World by Benjamin Labatut is a collection of biographical short stories about prominent scientists and mathematicians of the early 20th century written with creative liberties. It's most famous for blending fact with fiction. I'm not familiar with the luminaries mentioned in this book (Fritz Haber, Alexander Grothendieck, Werner Heisenberg, Erwin Schrodinger, etc) outside of their contributions to science so I couldn't tell you how much of it is fiction and how much of it is factual. Tone wise, it reads like a very well written, engaging non-fiction to the point where I know I'm going to be tempted to drop some "fun facts" about Schrodinger only to realize that I don't know if it's fact or not.

Labatut is Chilean and When We Cease to Understand the World is the title of the English translation. I like to look up the original titles of translated works. Looking through the list of various translations, depending on the language, it seems the title has been translated into some form of either When We Cease to Understand the World, A Terrible Verdure (with Un Verdor Terrible being it's original title in Spanish), or Blind Light.

In the first story, Prussian Blue, the scientist, Haber- who invented the chlorine gas used during WWI, as well as the process of extracting nitrogen from air to make fertilizer- express guilt. It's the duality of creating a weapon of mass destruction, and something that saved lives (preventing starvation of a growing population). Science givieth, and science taketh. Haber does not feel guilt for the deaths he caused with his chlorine gas, but the deaths he predicts will come from plants overtaking the Earth due to his fertilizers. He expresses guilt for the extinction that will be caused by the "terrible verdure" that will suffocate all living things. The novel ends with the story The Night Gardener which is a great bookend to Prussian Blue. Both stories mirror each other, and I think the "terrible verdure" is the rampant appetite for destruction we seem to have. Fueld by science it will destroy us all. The Night Gardner starts with a warning that we need to burn it all down before it causes more destruction. The terrible verdure is a "vegetable plague" infecting tree after tree (tree of knowledge? life?).

In the short story (novella?) When We Cease to Understand the World Heisenberg goes to a bar and meets a stranger who expresses extreme frustration that instantaneous communication has messed up his sense of time. He argues against time relativity, says that the inability to contend with the future is a sign of "psychological disturbance" and prevents people from taking control of their lives. He blames the scientists and asks "When did we cease to understand the world?" In The Night Gardener, a mathematician points out that our science has advanced to the point where even scientists "no longer comprehend the world" and we're fast approaching a point of scientific development so advanced that our mind won't be able to comprehend and we will cease to understand the world "and simply not be able to grasp what being human really means."

...I kind of think (hope) the stranger Heisenberg meets at the bar is William Faulkner. I know the timing doesn't make sense but the irrelevance of linear time is the point in title number three...

In the short story When We Cease to Understand the World, Heisenberg, who is friends with Bohr, runs away from the angry stranger at the bar and sees a hoard of thousands of charred Asians who were "carbonized in an instant by that flash of blind light" he got the sense that they were trying to warn him of something... Heisenberg later worked on developing nuclear bomb for the Nazis and Bohr was part of The Manhattan Project. I think the title Blind Light speaks to the destruction caused by science while addressing quantum mechanics.

War and death is a strong theme throughout the book and in that regard, I think the original title, Un Verdor Terrible is the most fitting. But, I do like how When We Cease to Understand the World makes the books seem a tiny bit more optimistic. Science isn't leading us towards destruction, just away from humanity in general. Blind Light is an obvious reference to the nuclear bomb and if Heisenberg can see Hiroshima victims in a Danish forest, I think he did talk to Faulkner in the bar and it's Hitler giving cyanide to all the dogs in the last story.

If you've read this book, you know there's so much to discuss. I also really liked how Labatut wrote all the scientists like they were tortured artists- frenzied, anxious, naturally brilliant, misunderstood, and fully engulfed in their passion, possibility mad. It's interesting to see them portrayed as Byronic heroes and not stuffy academics.

I would love to know which of the three titles you think fits the book best.

Don't you hate it when you only find out about an author's existence after they do something terrible?

That's my experience with Craig Silvey. I had no idea who he was until he was arrested a few months ago. I only found out after the fact that he was one of Australia's most loved and respected living authors, that he wrote literary and daring novels for Young Adults and children, that he played an electric ukulele and fronted his own indie rock band, that his work was standard and popular fare for school libraries in his home country.

....Then, of course, I also found out that he'd been arrested on charges of producing and distributing child SA material (that first charge was dropped but he apparently did plead guilty to the distribution charge). By chance, I found a used copy of his famous book Jasper Jones at my local used book store for pennies on the dollar.

That's how I discovered that Craig Silvey was both a horrible human being...and an absolutely amazing writer.

The book itself takes place in Corrigan, a small Australian town in the mid-1960s and is told from the perspective of 13-year old Charlie Bucktin. Charlie is sleeping in his bed one night when he's awoken by someone throwing pebbles at his window; an older kid named Jasper Jones. Jasper is the 'troubled kid' of the town, as famous for getting up to mischief as anything else, essentially making his the town outcast (the fact that Jasper is also part-aborigine also plays into it). Jasper leads Charlie out into the woods where they make a terrible discovery: the body of an older girl (and Jasper's only friend) named Laura Wishart swinging from a noose. After inspecting the body they also discover that she was assaulted before she died. This makes Jasper panic even worse since this makes him the primary suspect, so he convinces Charlie to help him hide the body in the nearby dam until they can find out who actually did it (Jasper suspects a crazy old man named Mad Jack Lionel).

Meanwhile, Charlie is trying to live the life of a typical young man in small town Australia: he loves to read, loves to play cricket (a not insignificant part of the book revolves around the game), and hanging out with his neighbor Jeffrey Lu. They act and talk like real kids of the era, including frequent cursing (It's Australia, after all. I'm pretty sure even the priests drop the f-bomb at least once per sermon). Jeffrey in particular not only plays cricket, he's also really good at it and is trying to join the town's cricket team. The problem? Jeffrey is Vietnamese, and 1960s Australia was really really racist (if Jasper's issues didn't clue you in). This is further complicated by the fact that the Vietnam War is happening, a many of Corrigan's young men are off fighting it. Charlie also occasionally hangs out with his love interest, a girl named Eliza. Problem is, Eliza is also the younger sister of Laura the dead girl, which complicates things even further.

Things are even further complicated by Charlie's somewhat troubled home life. His incredibly headstrong (and some would say narcissistic) mother is a very controlling woman, often overly dramatic and taking her ire on her more passive (one would even say passively aggressive) husband. Jeffrey's family is dealing with the constant racism (there's a rather dramatic event that happens in church where one of the women snap and attack Jeffrey's mother). Some of those young men I mentioned earlier aren't making it back form Vietnam, and Jeffrey's family is an easy target for their trauma.

I won't lie: the last third of this book is intense (for a YA novel, at least). You find out that Corrigan has secrets, and that the town isn't just troubled; it's rotten to its core. There are good adults (like Charlie's father), but there's just as many (if not more) who are actively denying or looking away at the ugliness that's happening just underneath the surface.

....And you know what? I want more.

Yeah, that's the real conundrum here. Craig Silvey is a legitimately amazing writer. I'd even go so far as call him a new favorite if it wasn't for the fact that he...well, you know. I suppose buying his books second hand is a possible solution but as of right now his publishers are basically trying to bury everything he ever wrote (at least until the trial is over).

I just finished Young Mungo by Douglas Stuart and my heart feels heavy. I read Shuggie Bain a couple of years ago, so I knew I was in for an emotional ride, but damn, this one was heavy.

My spoiler-less description of this book is that the book is about Mungo, a teenager from a poor family in Glasgow, with an alcoholic mother, a gangster brother and a sweet but tough sister. He’s visibly gay (they mention this several times, though the character himself wonders how everyone always knows) but no one, including himself, talk about it, at least until he falls in love with a catholic kid.

This book is HEAVY. It probably has every trigger known (sexual abuse, child sexual abuse, pedophiles, homophobia, violence, addiction…) but none of it feels gratuitous. You can see that the story is somewhat based in the authors life, who grew up in a similar setting (hopefully less awful), which makes the book real and not just misery porn.

What I loved in comparison to Shuggie Bain is that Young Mungo features a romance, you have something pure and innocent to look forward to. It’s a romance that’s not a romance. It’s beautifully written and an emotional gut punch. I think it will take a while to overcome this book, what a ride.

I just had a thought. I'm currently reading Doris Kerns Goodwin's biography of Abraham Lincoln: "Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln". So far it is phenomenal. She is also known for writing high-end very-well-received bios of other famous influential people including the Roosevelts, the Kennedys, and Lyndon Johnson.

Walter Isaacson has done the same, writing bios of Ben Franklin, Steve Jobs, and a bunch more, all very highly praised.

Who else is up there as a famous biographer or historian that has published numerous books, and (maybe??) seems to continue to do so?

I want to include William Shirer and his WWII books. He wrote many since he was in Germany as a US reporter before Hitler came into power and then stayed as long as it was safe. He published mostly first-hand accounts from '41 through '99, a really long time. His books were historical, covering (mostly) how and why WWII came to be, but he also included a lot of biographical material in them because the past was incredibly important in understanding the current. Only thing: He died so no more material, but what I've read from him is astonishingly great.

As someone who only sort of knows about migration challenges, having learned about migration mostly through a human rights course in uni and climate refugees in research, I didn’t realise how I had clinically separated the matter in my brain. To get this introspective view, different from the reports you see on the news, really immersed me in the minds and choices of every day parties.

I‘m not gonna lie about half way through I started to find it very repetitive and wondered if it should‘ve just been a short story. I will say I do still find it repetitive, I can’t imagine how difficult it must be to concoct a narrative out of two sentences while still trying so hard to remain close to the subject matter with internal monologue. But it does pay off. I must admit I have never thought of the issue from the rescuer‘s pov or every day people that this extends to, especially being from East Africa myself. But I think the questions this book asks apply in a myriad of contexts hence why I would recommend it to everyone. What do we owe each other and where are the limits or bounds of our empathy and sympathy? I think starting to seriously interrogate these issues can help society heal and help us turn up better for one another in our respective capacities.

“Carry Me to My Grave” by Christopher Golden is a horror novel that was so refreshingly unique, it completely blew my mind. This is the first time I’ve ever read Golden, and I’m genuinely impressed. His writing skills are exceptional, and this was one hell of a jam-packed read.

Before I dive into my horror book review, here are all the trigger warnings I found while reading:

- Parental abuse (physical)
- Self-harm
- Religion

If any of these trigger you, please do not read this novel. Moving along, I loved how this book started off with a horror mystery right at the start. I had no idea what was going on, why it was going on, and what made one of the main characters, Mary Wise, so special. It added a nice element of suspense to the entire story, and my goodness, was it wild.

Don’t worry, no spoilers here, but this was one creepy as hell story. Golden ​sure knows how to write a killer story, as this was outstanding. I loved the cast of characters, villains, and everyone else in between. There was zero fluff here, and I couldn’t read this book fast enough since there was so much going on. Nothing was confusing or dragged on at all. It was just awesome, old-fashioned horror taken to the next level with familiar tropes, but written in a way that I guarantee you’ve never read anything like this.

For me, I love horror books that are one-of-a-kind. I don’t want the same tropes done for the billionth time, but something that stands out from the rest. This was a deeply unsettling book with an original twist, and horror events and situations that literally made me make weird faces while reading.

​My goodness, Golden brought the horror ​big time in this one, in such a brutal, visceral, wild kind of way. I loved every moment of it, from all the gore, bloodshed, violence, and again, things I’ve never read before which made my horror-loving heart smile. Several of these scenes were action-packed and gave me a natural adrenaline rush from this epic journey across different places​ on a timer​ with the clock ticking.

Eventually, this journey would come to a​ bloody end in one of the most unpredictable and thrilling ways. I loved the climactic race to the end, especially when this massive horror mystery starts to finally unravel, and you get the true backstory that helped fill all the gaps. The clarity I got once things were revealed just left my jaw on the floor. The ending was incredible, satisfying, and Golden just earned himself a brand new reader in me. I plan to read more of his work in the future because this was a horror novel masterpiece.

I give “Carry Me to My Grave” by Christopher Golden a 5-Star rating out of 5. This has everything I look for in a horror novel, and then some. The storytelling, characters, plot twists, and horror are all top-notch. I regret not getting into Golden sooner, because this was a powerhouse of a read, and it checks all the boxes for a story horror readers will remember for many years to come.

Mary Wise will take your eyes.

Thank you to NetGalley, the author Christopher Golden, and St. Martin's Press for providing me with an ARC (Advanced Reader Copy) for review consideration. This horror book review reflects my honest, personal opinion.

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I'm once again rereading Lord of the Rings (the last time was about 20 years ago). While I'm once again enjoying Tolkien's beautiful descriptive prose, I can't help but feel the dialogue between the characters often feels stiff and stilted. Much of it not real flowing dialogue, but a collection of isolated quotes in-between sections of third-person prose.

Does anyone recognize this? Is this simply how dialogue was written in that time, is it a deliberate stylistic choice or (and this feels sacrilegious to type) was Tolkien just not very good at writing dialogue?

I missed these when they came out this year

I've finished reading Tomorrow, tomorrow and Tomorrow last week. I've bought it some time ago because i've really really liked the plot. It talks about two people who firstly met when they were kids (Sam and Sadie) in an hospital and shared the love for Videogames. They stop seeing eachother until they are grownups, where they meet again as adults. When they meet again they try to create games togheter, and it all starts with their game "Ichigo". Besides them, there is even Sam's roomate of university, Marx, which helped them with making ideas for Ichigo. Eventually all three of them create a company where they make more games, called "Unfair games". But after that, things between the three of them slowly changes.

This kind of plot, where to people bond with videogames and collab to make one, is the one that i've really wanted to read from a while, because it's a really cute idea, because there's nothing so good than making friends and bonding with "making Videogames". Kind of reminds me of my childhood, tbh.

Now, i'm gonna go to the spoiler section where i talk about some things:

I know that Sam and Sadie are flawed and some people find them annoying, but it's that type of flawed that you can fell empathy for them and understand why they react in certain ways. Especially Sam, since all his flaws comes from the trauma of him and her mom seeing a woman die in front of them, and his mom eventually dying from a car crash while he is inside the car. And the trauma of his fractured foot that made him feel different from any other human (That's why in the hospital period, when he met with Sadie, he pushed her away when he thought she was her friend only out of pity).

Marx is an absolutely great character, and there's no doubt why many people like him. I've suffered for his death, when the company got assaulted by two teenagers that wanted to kill Sam. The whole chapter where we see him getting conscious of his death and "rebirth" is so good and painful to read.

The title of the book comes from act V of Macbeth, which is even mentioned in the book itself by (if i recall correctly) Marx. It's a really good touch that matches with the themes of the book of continously starting over.

Now, there's only one thing that i've hated so much in this story: Dov. i Hate that man. Basically he's Sadie's teacher when she went to this course of making Videogames. (Note: Sadie, from what i've understood, was like 18 years old at those times, in the start of the book; and Dov was around 30). It's true that he helped a lot Sadie with the making of her games and he gave her his Engine to build Ichigo when later on meets with Sam after a lot of time and sometimes tried to support her, but it all falls badly because he basically had a romantic and sexual relationship with her (and he had wife and kids). He acted a lot like a prick, he's annoying as hell. But the part that makes me Ugh a lot is the huge age gap between the two and the fact that he wanted to be a teacher to "find more puppies (that's how they translated in my language), and eventually find someone like Sadie". I don't know, guys, but i felt really uncomfortable every time this guy appeared. Sorry.

Overall, i really reccomend this book to everyone. I've enjoyed every single page of it.

If you've already read it, i would be pleased to read what you think about it. Even if you didn't liked it, so i can see why.

Ty for reading (and sorry for some mispelling, just in case)

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Now I went into this book thinking that it’s going to be a heartbreaking book and my emotions will be shattered (which they were) but my god the writing was absolutely terrible.

1- The thing that bothered me the most was that for some reason the characters every response to tragedy/depression is for some reason either suicide or sex! Like why?! I don’t mind +18 scenes but I felt the whole suicide/sex thing was so forced in this book.

2- I assume this is going to be a bit controversial but at some points in the story I started to feel like Toru deserves better love interests because both of them sometimes treated him so badly. Now I am more forgiving to Naoko since she was mentally ill and going through a lot, but my god I just wished she tried to at least think about Torus feelings! What really didn’t sit well with me was that when she killed herself she didn’t even write or leave anything for Toru which seemed so unreal to me! I understand her not writing letters before because it was hard for her but before she killed herself Reiko said that she was “free” and was able to talk so much. It felt so weird for me that she didn’t leave anything for Toru and she also has the audacity to say she doesn’t love him. Lmao what?! Literally anyone from a mile away can see she was in love with him. As for Midori, I honestly didn’t have any problems with her until she ghosted Toru just because he forgot to tell her he moved to different places. Excuse me?! Lmao what is this high school drama? Woman you are in college grow up. What pissed me off more was that Toru apologised to her and kept trying to connect but she kept acting like a middle school teenager! And then came the haircut thing lmao my god I never despised a female character more. How is this woman in college?! Now I know later on we find out that it was more than just about the haircut and she was jealous of Toru thinking about Naoko but still woman what are you doing? Can you act like a mature adult for once in your life?! Then came the call after Naoko death. She gets angry at him for “ghosting her”, ummm woman can’t you see that your “lover” is going through a crisis?! Why can’t you be patient with him the same way he was when you had troubles?! I started comparing how Toru dealt with Midori after her problems and how kind and patient he was in comparison and I was like god Toru you absolutely deserve better. Now then I’m not saying Toru was an absolute saint because he wasn’t but I felt like his shortcomings and flaws were a lot more realistic and understanding than Midori. Sometimes I straight up felt like Midori was a girl in middle school not someone who is in college.

3-Reiko, I had no problem with this character even with her very weird lesbian encounter with a 14 year old child which I decided to ignore and forget. Never mind the fact that her getting turned on by a 14 year old girl when she already has a loving husband who she also loves was so stupid and weird. Anyways, I loved the relationship she had with Toru, that is until they had sex. Whyyyyyyyyy? Why? Why? Why? Why does everything in this book lead up to sex or suicide? And why did Toru and Reiko end up having sex?! Mind you that Toru is 20 years younger than Reiko! I never even felt any romantically interactions between these two. I genuinely felt their relationship was between a very older sister and her younger brother and I felt so weird seeing them have sex because what the hell?!

4-Toru, Now I’ve seen many people say that he was a boring character and wasn’t that very interesting. But I disagree, I actually liked his character. I do wish at some points I got to see more of his personality or see him react more to things instead of being like a complete robot. But honestly the main thing I liked about him was that I felt that his flaws were more realistic and understandable. I was able to sympathise with him a lot more than Midori or Reiko. On a side note: can he please keep it in his pants? Why is he having sex so much? Why is the natural response in this book to trauma is to have sex?! One of my favourite parts of the book was when he actually stopped having sex because of Naoko. I don’t know why but that started to make me like him more until of course he ended up having sex with Reiko

Despite all these flaws and the terrible writing for mainly the female characters v the book was actually engaging and I was interested to know what happened next. I feel like for me I started to hate the book in the last 80-100 pages, but before that I was fine with it. If I went back in time I honestly still would’ve read it. Was it a great book? No. Did I still enjoy reading it? Strangely, yes even though I hated it and think the writing is terrible. Anyways would love to hear your thoughts to those who read this book. Do you agree or disagree with me?

Edit: Just wanted to say that if the genders were changed and Reiko was a 45 year old man having sex with a 20 year old girl a lot of you will not be defending this book lmao

“The Bird Eater” by Ania Ahlborn is a fantastic novel with the most chilling horror I’ve ever read about birds. This felt like a modern version of “The Birds,” with a haunted-house aesthetic filled with creepy twists. The story gripped me, and even though it just misses perfection for a perfect 5-Star read, it’s a bird horror gem.

Before I begin my review, here are all the trigger warnings I found while reading…

- Suicide
- Drinking and driving
- Self-harm
- Car accidents
- Dead animals (birds)
- Violence against animals (very graphic against birds)
- Alcoholism
- Death of a child
- Domestic abuse
- Violence against kids

If any of these trigger you, please do not read this book. Moving along, I’ve read countless horror books in my life, and the first chapter of “The Bird Eater” was incredible. I was shocked by what I read, as it immediately hooked and excited me for what was to come.

If you’re unfamiliar with Ahlborn’s work, her writing style is terrific, especially with how she develops characters. My favorite character in this book was Aaron. Ahlborn’s fantastic character development with Aaron was fun to read, especially with fun references to Guns N’ Roses, GWAR, Pearl Jam, death metal, and even Psycho. Being a metalhead, this was awesome to read.

The only setback for me is that this book got too heavy with dialogue, repeated conversations, and parts where nothing happens. These parts made the book drag on, but the horror moments helped balance that to a degree.

The book’s horrific dream sequences, which Aaron endures, were a highlight. I would never spoil anything for my fellow horror readers, but these were magnificent. They got more frequent towards the end, and my goodness, what a wild ending!

From a crazy plot twist to all sorts of tension and suspense, the ending was a satisfying and unpredictable way to end this book. I never saw it coming, and was shocked, to say the least. It literally left me speechless.

I give “The Bird Eater” by Ania Ahlborn a 4/5 for being one hell of a bird horror ride. I enjoyed the story, characters, plot twist, and all the unique horror in this book. Ahlborn once again delivered a solid book, and if it weren’t for parts dragging on due to too many conversations and dialogue that wasn’t needed, it would have been a perfect 5/5 for me. Either way, this is worth reading if you already enjoy Ahlborn’s work and want a refreshing twist on bird horror done so brilliantly that you’ll think twice the next time you see a crow.

Ryder was here.

In the 1930s, a German doctor leaves his marriage and moves to Floreana in the Galápagos Islands with a patient, intending to live out his life in harmony with nature. It soon becomes apparent that farming is not quite as smooth as they had imagined, forcing them to rely increasingly on the help of tourists arriving by ship. After months of solitude, new settlers arrive on the island; coexistence with them is far from idyllic—in fact, conflicts escalate sharply.

Abbott Kahler has crafted a compelling documentary novel based on the memoirs of the real-life survivors, as well as newspaper articles and archival materials. The dialogue and plot are consistently supported by source citations and assessments

I read it at the hairdresser’s, the doctor’s, the canteen, and even on the bus. With the related images and supplementary material available online, it easily provides weeks of reading. The author also skillfully placed the characters' fates within the context of world history and neatly tied up all the loose ends by the end.

In addition to the wealth of memoirs and documentaries, a feature film based on the story was released last year, starring Jude Law, Vanessa Kirby, Ana de Armas, and Sydney Sweeney; I plan to watch it.

And of course, if I had plenty of money, I would also visit the mysterious island where the descendants of the only surviving family run a hotel today.

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