Margaret Atwood's My Evil Mother is free from Audible and is under 1 hour. It's a perfect little between chonker read.
We don't actually learn anyone'Margaret Atwood's My Evil Mother is free from Audible and is under 1 hour. It's a perfect little between chonker read.
We don't actually learn anyone's name, but our narrator begins as a 15 year old who is arguing with her mother, declaring her to be evil. Her mother agrees and says she only uses her evil for good. Thus, we start learning that her mother may or may not be a centuries old witch in modern times.
This was a lot of fun packed into a small space....more
The Black Girl Survives in This One is a collection of short stories in the horror genre from Macmillian Publishing..This incredibly good YA audiobookThe Black Girl Survives in This One is a collection of short stories in the horror genre from Macmillian Publishing..This incredibly good YA audiobook came out in April 2024 and guess what? It defies the regular horror tropes by having a Black girl, front and center, beating all the odds and surviving each story.
Knowing that, I probably shouldn’t have screamed at the girls in the first story, Harvesters by LL McKinney, to RUN RUN RUN LIKE HELL!!! Because the title of the anthology is truth in advertising. I yelled at this book a lot, to be honest, because I was worried for the girls. I couldn’t help it.
The authors that contributed are Erin E. Adams, Monica Brashears, Charlotte Nicole Davis, Desiree S. Evans, Saraciea J. Fennell, Zakiya Dalila Harris, Daka Hermon, Justina Ireland, L.L. McKinney, Brittney Morris, Maika & Maritza Moulite, Eden Royce, and Vincent Tirado.
Harvesters kicks it off with a bang and one of my fears: creepy cornfields.
As soon as this title was said, I knew I was going to be creeped out: The Skittering Thing: By Monica Brashears (and I was).
Queeniums for Greenium! by Brittney Morris wasn’t as scary but it was pretty horrifying as women obsessed with their MLM tries to “cure” a girl with severe allergies. Drink the smoothie! Lavender oil! REIKI!
It ended with Foxhunt: By Charlotte Nicole Davies and I just knew from the get-go things were bad bad bad.
Really, all of the stories were really good, these were just my standouts. I super sincerely recommend this book. Are you the target audience? Well, neither am I, but I loved it all the same. ...more
I’m just starting to really dip my toes in fantasy. I usually prefer things a little more reality-based, but reality is sucking lately. I bought The DI’m just starting to really dip my toes in fantasy. I usually prefer things a little more reality-based, but reality is sucking lately. I bought The Darkening by Sunya Mara because it sounded good and had a beautiful cover.
I might need to dip more than a toe into fantasy. I got a little lost with this one, but overall, I enjoyed the story. Vesper Vale is a teenager who lives in the fifth-ring, right in the path of the Storm. It’s hard to get details at this point on what the Storm is, but anyone who is touched by the Storm is cursed. There’s Stormborn and Stormtouched. Vesper’s mother walked into the Storm as punishment (for trying to overthrow the King) and was never seen again. Vesper’s dad has tried to keep her safe and hidden from the Storm and all the King’s men.
Things go sideways pretty quickly when the Prince arrives at the Stormtouched orphanage looking for Vesper’s dad. They needlessly destroy things and leave, but somehow, Prince Dalca starts capturing Vesper’s heart.
I’m hard pressed to understand the attraction here myself, but I guess kids are kids? Once Vesper’s dad is captured, we fully dive into the story.
I felt like we needed more world building because I didn’t fully grasp how the Kingdom was laid out and how the Storm came to be. A lot of this was revealed but pretty late in the book. Also, I was a little confused about the magic portion, what is ikonography, what is really magic, etc.
I did enjoy the story, and I picked up speed reading just under halfway through. This is the first in a duology....more
I finished Holly by Stephen King on audio and it was So. Damn. Good.
This was narrated by Justine Lupe (excellent narrator!) and clocked in at about 1I finished Holly by Stephen King on audio and it was So. Damn. Good.
This was narrated by Justine Lupe (excellent narrator!) and clocked in at about 15.5 hours and I listened every single moment I could. I also was tempted to just find the ending to read it and know how it all turned out (I didn’t). I was even happy with the ending, which is somewhat unusual for me to say with a King novel.
Published in September 2023, this is fully set in the pandemic. At this point, authors really can’t get away with not writing in Covid and the shit we all went through. Holly Gibney gets this novel all to herself and she’s earned it. I’m so glad she became a character that King loves and wants to keep around.
You don’t need the background from the Mr. Mercedes trilogy or even the If It Bleeds short stories, but those are well worth the read too.
Holly takes on a case for Finder Keepers to find a missing woman. She mostly takes the case to keep her mind off her mother’s covid death. But soon, Holly is picking up threads of missing people, seemingly unrelated in every aspect, and starts tracking down a potential serial killer.
You learn very quickly who the killers are in the book but I won’t spoil the horrific discoveries. There were a lot of “Oh my GOD” moments and moments of me wondering where the hell KIng gets his ideas. (Listen to/read the author's note and he’ll tell you. Ick.)
This is really one of his best. I loved Holly as a character and I love her more after this.
I’ve said it once, I’ll say it again. King is most terrifying when there’s nothing supernatural in his stories. Humans are truly the worst and, even when you think you’ve heard the worst a person could do, someone else tops that. ...more
Wow. The Fourth Wing by Rebecca Yarros was worth the hype. It’s a chonker of a book, clocking in at almost 21 hours in audio. It’s romantasy (fantasy/Wow. The Fourth Wing by Rebecca Yarros was worth the hype. It’s a chonker of a book, clocking in at almost 21 hours in audio. It’s romantasy (fantasy/romance) and, despite those being my least favorite genres, I really enjoyed this story.
Is it entirely original? No. I can think of another prominent silver-haired girl who could handle dragons well. You have your broody, handsome villain. The best guy friend who could be something more. Dragons. Great action sequences. Steamy love scenes with sex hot enough to literally set the curtains on fire.
Think Hunger Games + Harry Potter + Forever by Judy Blume.
Violet Sorrengail is forced into the Riders quadrant by her mother, the Commanding General. Violet is smaller than everyone else with brittle bones and weak joints (Hey Girl! I feel you!) and she’s now forced into the War College for dragon riders. Apparently, it’s normal for other students to just murder the weaker ones to get rid of them so Violet is on high alert all of the time. Her best friend, Dane, is a second year and Squad Leader. He tries to protect Violet at all costs but I QUICKLY got annoyed with him. I wanted Violet to get more irked with him than she did. Hmmph.
Xaden Riorson is the broody, handsome villain who hates Violet since her mother killed his father during the uprising. You’d think that would put a damper on their relationship. *raised eyebrow*
This book is chockful of everything: Violet’s relationships to everyone, surviving all of the challenges, dragons, more dragons, dragons incinerating people because they thought the humans sucked, the uprising, lying leadership, sex, sex, sex (and possible UTIs at this point…yikes), and, *checks notes* death and more sex and more dragons and dragons having sex.
This was propulsive reading at its best. I don’t recall blowing through a 21 hour audiobook this quickly. I already have the second in the series, Iron Flame, on its way to me....more
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