“All this he sees because it’s what he wants, but it’ll never happen because Senor Urami is talking about numbers, about the new chemicals and dyes be
“All this he sees because it’s what he wants, but it’ll never happen because Senor Urami is talking about numbers, about the new chemicals and dyes being tested at the tannery, and telling him, as though he didn’t already know it, how difficult it is now with this product, that he misses working with cow skin. Although, he clarifies, human skin is the smoothest in nature because it has the finest grain.”
After I read this line, I realized just how horrific this dystopian novel is. It industrializes cannibalism. Humans are butchered and their body parts are sold in plastic-wrapped packages in a chilled supermarket. It's completely natural to eat fingers glazed in a spicy sauce or buy a hunk of rump meat to stick in the oven. Animal milk is replaced by breast milk. Animal leather is supplanted by human skin. Pregnant women have their limbs removed to prevent them from smashing their bellies into a wall to kill their baby.
(view spoiler)[The ending caught me completely by surprise. I thought it would end with Marcus getting found out and being shipped to the meat plant. But nope, it's worse. He uses Jasmine as a broodmare and murders her once he has what he wants: a healthy baby to replace his long dead son. It is debatable whether this is what he intended all along, but I already found it really iffy that he fucks the female/Jasmine. She has the mental intelligence of a child due to her upbringing and is unable to give consent. He was blatantly taking advantage of her. (hide spoiler)]
With that being said, I agree with other reviewers who said that while this book is an interesting thought experiment, it isn't realistic in the sense that it's a scenario that could really happen—not in the near future at least. Tender is the Flesh takes place 10+ years after a supposed virus made animal meat poisonous, so there are still people who remember eating animal meat and having pets. I find it very difficult to believe that they would readily turn to cannibalism so quickly, especially with all the vegetarian and vegan options out there.
Still. The possibility that it might happen keeps me up at night.
If you enjoy the main series, you'll love Fire & Blood.
It is as it claims: a comprehensive history of
“Who can presume to know the heart of a dragon?”
If you enjoy the main series, you'll love Fire & Blood.
It is as it claims: a comprehensive history of the Targaryen reign before Baratheon's rebellion. Fire & Blood covers Aegon's conquer of the Seven Kingdoms to the end of Aegon III's regency. The Targaryen-Blackfyre conflict we hear about in A Dance with Dragons isn't covered in this volume, but it does cover the time in history called the Dance of the Dragons, a Targaryen civil war that's also the focus of HBO's House of the Dragon.
It's written as a historical account by a maester within the ASOIAF universe and adds nice realist touches, like having its maester author draw on multiple sources for what happened in this particular event. As a scholar, I adored this style—and it never feels dry or boring. I could be biased, but I was fully riveted the whole time, especially while reading about King Jaehaerys I and Queen Alysanne. They were largely nice people who enacted legislation and practices to improve the realm, in contrast to the power-hungry and vindictive participants of the Dance of the Dragons.
I highly recommend reading this alongside watching House of the Dragon because the show is a pretty faithful adaption. Hopefully it doesn't go the same way as Game of Thrones.
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I very much look forward to the release of Blood & Fire....more
"Do not go seeking the Rabbit, else you wish for more death and madness."
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Are you ready for the darkest, most fucked up retelling 3.75 stars
"Do not go seeking the Rabbit, else you wish for more death and madness."
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Are you ready for the darkest, most fucked up retelling of Alice in Wonderland yet?
Like The Child Thief, Alice has all the elements of the original classic, but dusts off the powdered sugar and lets you see the darkness underneath.
Madness isn't whimsical—it's horrifying.
Years ago, Alice (the character) went down the rabbit hole and came back mad. Blood slicked her thighs as a result of rape. She resides in an asylum at the beginning of the novel until a sudden fire lets her escape. Her friend Hatcher, who lived in the room next to hers, tells her a monster called the Jabberwocky escaped too and they have to hunt it down. To do that, they have to confront Alice's forgotten past and her rapist—the Rabbit.
I feel obligated to mention that rape is a key theme within the narrative. Aside from Alice, the villains rape and torture lots of other girls.
“The wings were not attached to her shoulders by straps. The girl’s back had been cut from the top of her shoulder to the bottom of her rib cage on both sides of her spine. The beautiful butterfly wings were neatly sewn into the exposed muscle. As the girl flexed her shoulders, the wings would beat.”
I've spent some time thinking whether its use is gratuitous or necessary, but can't come to a good decision. But I do like that Alice doesn't judge the other girls. For instance, a mermaid was imprisoned and raped for years at the Caterpillar's. After Alice sets her free, the mermaid is shown to have a proud, rather unpleasant personality and resents Alice for taking away her right to kill her captor. It would be so easy to paint the mermaid as an ungrateful bitch, but it doesn't happen. Alice acknowledges they'll never be friends and they go their separate ways. The inclusion of hateful women without turning it into girl-hate is a rare gem in fiction, and I'm really glad Christina Henry went down that path.
And while there's romance, it doesn't overwhelm the plot. It's not portrayed as a miracle cure either. Alice's trauma isn't magically cured nor is Hatcher's.
The world-building is admittedly sparse. It's not bad, just lacking in detail. But it's to be forgiven given Alice and Hatcher's mental states and that they're running for their lives pretty much the entire book.
I sort of want Alice the book to be longer, yet also stay the way it is. If it were longer, the world and characters could have been fleshed out a bit more. But its current length works well in terms of pacing. We know enough about the characters to be invested and really, that's all a good story needs.
The ending was a little... simple? I don't know how to explain it. I just expected more in a way. But it fits overall.
Still, those problems are tiny things. The book in general is lovely. Well, not lovely. It's dark. Grotesque. Fucked up.
"No matter what you face on those sands, fear is the only enemy in your path. Conquer your fear, and you can conquer the world."
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Th4.5 stars
"No matter what you face on those sands, fear is the only enemy in your path. Conquer your fear, and you can conquer the world."
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The Nevernight Chronicle is, in a nutshell, about a teenage girl mastering new and creative ways to murder people. Last time, it was the art of assassination. This time, it's the way of gladiatii— gladiator.
"If Vengeance has a mother, her name is Patience."
What can I say about this series that I haven't thoroughly gushed over? It's gloriously plotted, with complex, morally grey characters and a fictional world—complete with extensive history—that keeps expanding book after book like embroidery on a tapestry.
We learn more about the Republic and the Red Church in Godsgrave, building on the already layered foundation Nevernight offered. I'm fairly certain I've mentioned this in other reviews, but I love this style of world-building. It's comprehensive without overwhelming, and gives readers a chance to digest information before adding details. (Don't skip the footnotes. Seriously, don't. That's where the fun stuff happens.)
Readers who felt Nevernight's prose was too purple will be pleased to know Godsgrave dials down on that aspect. While no less absorbing, there are less "weird" metaphors and similes. It's not something I had a problem with, but I know some did. I did feel it got repetitive at times, with Mia constantly reminding herself of her dead family, though that's a minor annoyance.
Villains are amazing and lovingly written. There are people you're very clearly not supposed to like, such as Leona, owner of Mia's gladiatorial collegium and her slave master. Aside from the obvious (slave owner, yo), she's a proud rich girl who hasn't quite understood she's not rich anymore. But Kristoff invites us to sympathize with her, or at least understand her.
The ending will kick your mind across the room and play skip-rope with it. A few of the twists I guessed(view spoiler)[—Jonnen and the rebel gladiatii were obvious, and it makes sense saving the consul for the third and final book— (hide spoiler)]but the final kicker I didn't see coming at all and it fucking nailed my heart to the basement wall.
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Some minor things that irked me:
1) Where's Naev?? She and Mia were pretty tight back in the Red Church.
2) Carlotta deserves a mention. She was a slave and given what Mia experiences, the very least she deserves is a passing thought.
3) (view spoiler)[It really, really pushed the lesbian romance at the expense of Mia's character. Every time she's in the same room as Ashlinn, she's thinking about her curves, her lips, her [insert random sexy body part here].
This is the girl who murdered Tric. MURDERED HIM. Mia may not be loyal to the Red Church anymore, but Ashlinn still hurt and betrayed her. I'm not letting her hormones off the hook just because DIVERSITY.
And they were friends before everything happened. It would have been nice if Mia recalls some of those memories instead of remembering that one time they kissed for the millionth time. Just to be clear, I'm not against Mia/Ashlinn or LGBTQIA relationships in general. In the space of this book, however, I thought the transition from enemy-to-lover could have been written better. (hide spoiler)]
But like I said, they're minor annoyances, and five shimmering stars are sitting on top of this review. I can't recommend this series enough.
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P.S. If the third book isn't called Truedark, I'll eat my sweater.
"You'll be a rumor. A whisper. The thought that wakes the bastards of this world sweating in the nevernight. The last thing you will ever be, girl,
"You'll be a rumor. A whisper. The thought that wakes the bastards of this world sweating in the nevernight. The last thing you will ever be, girl, is someone's hero."
FREE BEER AND KITTENS. FREE BEER AND KITTENS. FREE BEER AND KITTENS.
Now that I have your attention, run to your nearest bookstore and buy Nevernight. It is a gem of a story. Gothic and layered and absolutely ruthless. The ending will murder you. It will cut your heart into tiny little pieces and blend it into mush.
I was terrified going into Nevernight because Khanh and Emily May, two reviewers I trust and respect, mentioned the writing is really purple. I see where they're coming from, but the prose didn't bother me at all. If any, it enhances the story. Nevernight is set in a fictional land that resembles Venice or Renaissance Europe and the Shakespearean writing further eases out the atmosphere, fully immersing you into this world.
The narrative style is extremely creative as well, switching back and forth from the past and present and drawing parallels between them. In the first chapter, we see Mia losing her virginity as a younger girl and then murdering someone in the present. The shifting of timelines may seem confusing at first, but trust me, you'll get used to it and the flashbacks eventually peter out halfway.
Like I mentioned, the world-building is fabulous.Do not skip the footnotes. They're where the real details are. Krisoff cleverly keeps just enough description and history within the narrative to invite you into Itreya, yet not overwhelm. If you don't want to get bogged down, I recommend reading them during reread. They add so much to the fabric of this world.
And then there's the protagonist Mia. Wily, pragmatic, brilliant Mia.
"Cock is just another word for 'fool.' But you call someone a cunt, well..." The girl smiled. "You're implying a sense of malice there. An intent. Malevolent and self-aware. Don't think I name Consul Scaeva a cunt to gift him insult. Cunts have brains, Don Tric. Cunts have teeth. Someone calls you a cunt, you take it as a compliment. As a sign that folks believe you're not to be lightly fucked with."
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Finally, finally an assassin book where the assassin does some actual killing. The book opens with her doing some floor painting. She is an antihero in the best way. As a child, her father was executed as a traitor and her mother and baby brother were thrown in prison, so she's going to study at the Red Church to get revenge—Arya style.
"A girl some called Pale Daughter. Or Kingmaker. Or Crow. But most often, nothing at all. A killer of killers, whose tally of endings only the goddess and I truly know."
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At the same time, she retains her ability to show mercy. I don't mean to say she's one of those heroines who rag on about their black soul and cold heart, but are about as dangerous as a daisy. Her rationale is the Red Church will take everything from her, mold her into the perfect assassin. Holding onto emotions like pity in quiet defiance enables her to hold onto herself. It's an excellent way to keep Mia in character and add an extra layer of complexity to her personality.
And she's smart, too. God, this plot twist later down the line. Just magnificent.
The romance is deftly written and doesn't overwhelm the plot or the vicious soul of our little assassin. Tric is as dark as Mia, though slightly kinder. Slightly, because this is a school of assassins after all. Entry requires a tithe obtained through murder. He wears his heart on his sleeve, let's just say that. (view spoiler)[I knew he would die. My precious darling was practically a lamb marked for slaughter. I'd hoped he would be the narrator in the beginning, but no. Krisoff likes torturing us. (hide spoiler)]
I should probably mention Nevernight isn't for younger readers. It's upper YA, bordering on NA. Some of Mia and Tric's interactions get... steamy.
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The other characters are brilliant, too. Everyone has their own story and motivations. Mia's best friend Ash is there to fulfill her father's dream. Carlotta used to be a slave. Even the typical bitch archenemy is a bitch for a reason. Jess's dad was a soldier under Mia's dad and when he rebelled, her dad was executed alongside everyone.
"Don't trouble yourself about what that bitch said," Ash whispered, glancing at Carlotta's flawless cheek. "That's not who you are anymore."
"It was never who I was."
Carlotta's hands fell still. Her stare grew clouded.
"It was just who they made me."
Awesome world-building, awesome characters and plot twists that will leave your head spinning. I honestly can't recommend this enough.
Someone (Stephen King, I believe) once said sci-fi is one small step from horror. They both deal with what-ifs. What if there is a monster under your bed? What if an Artificial Intelligence became sentient?
I give you props for leading me on at first. The confusing epistolary format, the ships I couldn't tell apart, the Erza/Kady romance I didn't—and still don't—give two shits about.
Then at the halfway point, something changed. All the reviewers who told me to hang on, hang on for the sake of donuts everywhere, were right. I became invested. I reluctantly put it down at 12am, then instantly picked it up again when I got up.
The second half is horror. Crazed plague victims running afoot, screaming "Don't look at me!" before driving an axe in your brain. The second half is romance, the slow tentative bond between a sarcastic hacker who believes she's lost it all and a confused, supposedly pragmatic AI discovering the humanity buried deep within his code. It's tense, it's beautiful and it hurts like a sucker punch to your brand new laptop.
AIDAN: I WISH TO TELL HER I AM SORRY. I WISH TO TAKE THIS CUP FROM HER HANDS. I WISH FOR THINGS THAT I CAN NEVER HAVE, AND IN THAT, I THINK PERHAPS I AM CLOSER TO THEM THAN I EVER HAVE BEEN.
AND STILL A BILLION LIGHT-YEARS AWAY.
I can't even begin to imagine the love and effort that went into constructing Illuminae. The brainstorming sessions and late-nighters you had to pull to piece a coherent story out of fragmented IM conversations, surveillance reports, and journal entries. The ship diagrams and loopy text across a star-studded page.
What I'm trying to say is, you have me. Heart and soul. Despite the confusing format and the hell it wracked on my eyes, you reached inside my chest cavity and made me feel something for a machine that wasn't never meant to emote.
I will be reading Illuminae #2.
May your stars glow bright and your ships stay functional, Natalie...more
"Santa Claus wiped the blade clean of blood, replaced it in his sheath. [...] 'Krampus, my dear old friend, you will pay. Your death is mine and I
"Santa Claus wiped the blade clean of blood, replaced it in his sheath. [...] 'Krampus, my dear old friend, you will pay. Your death is mine and I intend to make it a terrible one."
He sees you when you're sleeping. Oh, yes, he does.
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I gave the The Child Thief five stars off the bat last year and was really looking forward to diving into another one of Brom's novels. He's such a gifted writer, on par with the King (Stephen) himself, and it's a shame his work isn't better known.
All I know about Krampus is from that Supernatural Christmas episode. He is Santa's evil twin and punishes the wicked during Christmas. Brom's Krampus is a bit like that. He's a pagan Norse god and demands sacrifices every winter solstice. Santa has chained him up for centuries, but he manages to escape with the help of his slave-elves and our down-on-his-luck protagonist, and goes looking for revenge.
And spread a little Yule cheer.
"It's time to be terrible."
Like Peter from The Child Thief, Krampus is an antihero. He's infuriated the world has forgotten him and the Yule Festival and not above spilling a little blood in his quest to return to power. He threatens to beat little kids with birch rods if they don't believe. At the same time, he's capable of great good. He's confused and lost in a time where pagan gods no longer hold sway. Imagine your elderly grandma on a highway. That's what it's like for him.
"Other than his thumbs, the boy barely moved the whole time, staring glassy-eyed, his mouth half-open, looking like a lobotomy patient.
'He is bewitched.' Krampus strolled purposefully across the room, right up to the screen and smashed it in with his fist.
The boy clutched the cake controller to his chest and froze, his eyes threatening to burst from his head. Krampus leaned over to the boy. 'You are free. The world is now yours. Go take it."
There's also a heavy religious theme since Christianity and pagan religions don't exactly have the best relationship. It does a great job criticizing religion while showing things back then aren't all that great either. Both have their good points. Krampus represents nature and energy. Christianity represents charity.
Despite all the good things going for it, I didn't like it as much as The Child Thief. The plot is a little run-of-the-mill Hollywood. You have the loser dad with his estranged wife and cute kid. The wife has a new boyfriend who's beefy and successful and belittles the hero. Bad Thing happens to his family and Dad saves the day, all while recovering his self-esteem and loses ten pounds. Closing shot: happy reunion.
Consider gifting this as a Christmas present though. It'll certainly get you noticed.
"I think of all my people bound in the darkness. Of all the Colors on all the worlds, shackled and chained so that Gold might rule, and I feel rage
"I think of all my people bound in the darkness. Of all the Colors on all the worlds, shackled and chained so that Gold might rule, and I feel rage burn across the dark hollow he has carved in my soul. I am not alone. I am not his victim.
So let him do his worse. I am the Reaper."
In the acknowledgements, Pierce Brown says he was scared to write Morning Star. He couldn't see beyond Darrow breaking out of jail following the events of Golden Son.
In a way, it shows. Morning Star, I personally think, is the weakest out of the series. The plot is more linear. It's not as dark as its predecessors set it up to be.
Towards the end, I kept noticing similarities to Suzanne Collins's Mockingjay. Darrow was depressed and mentally unstable after he escaped. The revolution is bigger than him, much like Katniss being on the fringe of the fighting throughout most of the narrative. He's also a symbol of the revolution. Not the only one—that honor belongs to his dead wife and martyr Eo—but a big one. Then there's a wedding and everyone's dancing and happiness momentarily blooms during these dark times.
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What separates them mostly is Mockingjay is braver. It isn't afraid to pull punches. Red Rising has better world-building, brilliant actually, but it falls flat in this regard. How do you get people to feel the pain and loss war brings? By killing a fan favorite character. (view spoiler)[While I would have been devastated if Sevro really died, the Shakespearean Juliet trick was a total copout. (hide spoiler)]
Why still four stars? Sentimentality partially, but mostly because it is a bloodydamn good conclusion.
I love that Brown doesn't flinch from the word terrorist. I love that there are divides among the rebel faction itself like in history. I love that he expands on Eo's role and made me reconsider my stance on heroines choosing love over the world.
"'I always think about how life would have been if Eo never died. The children I would have had. What I would have named them. I would have grown old. Watched Eo grow old. I would have loved her more with new scar, with each new year even as she learned to despise our small life. [...] It would have been a small life,' I say with a shrug, 'but I would have liked it.'"
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Darrow knows he wasn't enough for Eo and it rips him up inside. The reason he became a Gold, suffered, murdered, lost his friends, was to fulfill his wife's dream. We learned in the previous book that Eo was pregnant when she died. She whispered it to her sister before the hanging, and her sister told Darrow later. She knew that would inspire him even more and her dream of freeing the Reds would be fulfilled. That is Nehemia-level of manipulation.
Should she have chosen Darrow over the welfare of her people? Obviously not. But it was interesting seeing it from the "love interest"'s perspective.
Another thing Morning Star does amazingly well is the messiness of war. It's not clear-cut like in history books. Plans sometimes come out of nowhere. Dirty jokes are insensitively exchanged in the dark hull of a starship. Fights of tears and weak punches take place between friends. There is rage and mistrust and light. It makes you feel dirty reading it. It's real.
I may rag that it's not dark enough, but ultimately I respect Brown's decision and his take on dystopia. After all, revolutions are fought through darkness in the name of light.
"You and I keep looking for light in the darkness, expecting it to appear. But it already has. Broken and cracked and stupid as we are, we're the light, and we're spreading."
Just when you think you've hit the bottom of the crappy writing trough, the god of purple prose and shitty metaphors comes along and dumps aDNF at 68%
Just when you think you've hit the bottom of the crappy writing trough, the god of purple prose and shitty metaphors comes along and dumps a new bucket of slop on your face. Sort of like this sentence actually.
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This book is what happens when someone pays a little too much attention in their Creative Writing 101 class. It has themes! It has underlying parallels! It has literary devices! The whole fucking package! Another book I read, The Troop, falls in the same trap, but whereas The Troop's plot eventually saved it, The Last Werewolf has absolutely no redeeming qualities.
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The writing tries so hard to sound deep and literary that it completely neglects the main purpose—tell the fucking story. I don't give a crap if you swallowed a Thesaurus or about the offspring of your English degree. I read to be entertained, not to marvel over how clever the author is.
But a couple of the metaphors were pretty entertaining:
"I could have broken stone with the erections I had."
"Her scent was a ring through my bull's nose."
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This book even has the audacity to copy Jane Eyre's iconic line "Reader, I married him.":
"Reader, I ate him."
You do not fuck around with classics, pal. I'm not a huge fan of Janie, but even I know that golden rule. Unless you think you're hot shit (which you aren't), you leave the Bronte sisters be.
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The plot takes ages to kick in. The blurb attempts to tell me that this is a beautiful tale of a man coming to terms with his own monstrosity and struggling to remain human through it all.
Haha. No.
Until the 30% mark, I was subjected to pages and pages of the MC, Jake (so this is to appeal to the Team Jacob Twilight moms?), whining and fucking, and whining and fucking, and whining and fucking. He killed/ate his wife before because he gets super horny as a werewolf so now he only screws prostitutes.
[image] Yeah, I don't get it either.
There are so many sexual references inside. Yes, I get it, sex symbolizes eating, Red Riding Hood is about sexual devouring and yadda, yadda, yadda. But the way it's written makes it really disgusting. He has all kinds of kinky Christian-Grey-sex with whores. He uses the words "cunt" and "anus" frequently. The crowning jewel is the scene where his love interest (I'll get to her later) is driving and telling Jake that she killed people in the past. Jake is apparently so turned on by this that he begins finger-fucking her:
"I tasted it," she continued calmly. "All of it. His youth and his shock and his desperation and and his horror. And from the first taste I knew I wasn't going to stop until I had it all. The whole person, the whole fucking feast." She moved her hips gently in response to my stroking. The argument with herself about what she was, what she was willing to be, was effectively over. Her bigger self had gone onahead and accepted it. these were residual emotional obligations. "Then afterwards," she said, lifting slightly as my finger slipped into her anus. "The big talk, the promises to myself I wasn't ever going to do it again."
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I'm so glad we had this talk on morals over a round of sticky fingers.
Look, I'm not against disturbing sex scenes. There are loads in Nenia Campbell's Terrorscape. They freaked me out, yes, but I wasn't grossed out. There's a very fine line between the two.
Despicable characters are cool too. Heaven knows Amy and Nick from Gone Girl are horrible human beings, but I can still relate to them on a certain level. Ditto for Humbert in Lolita. It's all about that spark of connection and I don't feel anything for Jake. Oh, I feel something. But it's more along the lines of this:
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To top off this fuckfest, there is also insta-love. Jake is supposedly the last werewolf on earth, but by miracles of miracles, he smells another werewolf at a place he's staying at.
And it's a girl!
Praise Jebus, my race now has a chance for survival! And because she's a werewolf, I won't accidentally fuck her to death! This means we have to love each other!
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I can't believe I'm saying this, but you might be better off with Shiver if you're in the mood for a werewolf book. And I fucking hate that book.
"Hang out with Brooklyn, I mean. I don't think she's seen you with us yet. You can find out why she's such a bitch now."
"You want me to sp
3.5 stars
"Hang out with Brooklyn, I mean. I don't think she's seen you with us yet. You can find out why she's such a bitch now."
"You want me to spy on her?" I ask.
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Ladies and gentlemen, may I present Mean Girls! Now with an extra dash of exorcism!
"We exorcise you, impure one, you satanic power." Her clear voice fills the cold corners of the basement.
Next to Dorothy Must Die, The Merciless was one of my most anticipated reads for 2014. I'd added it long before it had a cover because the blurb promised me a teenage version of Carrie's mom. How can anyone not be into that?
Unfortunately, as I was reading, it became evidently clear that the author had bitten off more than she could chew. She had a fantastic concept of a bunch of religious psychos torturing a girl, whom they believe is a demon, but decided to screw it and go in the far easier (and cheaper) direction of supernatural horror.
There's nothing wrong with supernatural horror, of course. The Shining features a haunted house after all. But it is the corrosion of Jack's humanity, his turning onto his wife, his beloved son and hunting them down with a rouque mallet (off with their heads!) that truly turns the cheap Halloween prop into a afriad-to-go-to-the-bathroom-at-night frightfest. People are the true monsters, and Vega tossed that away for a cheap "Boo!" She does incorporate bits and pieces of humanity's dark side by having the religious girls confess their sins, but it feels like an afterthought and turns into a freaking catfight midway.
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I am dead serious. That gif above is one of the sins they confess. The first half of the book equals the first half of Mean Girls. Sofia is the new girl in school and meets Janis Brooklyn and Damien Charlie. The Plastics, Riley, Alexis, and Grace adopt her into their group, but instead of wearing pink, they pray. Riley, aka Regina, was even friends with Brooklyn in middle school.
"We all used to be friends, you know," Riley says. "Brooklyn too."
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Riley asks Sofia to hang out with Brooklyn, and one thing led to another, and the next thing you know, Brooklyn is trussed up in a basement and getting her nail sliced off.
That part I did enjoy. Some people said that it catered to the gore factor instead of horror and while I agree (psychological horror trumps clowns), it didn't bug me. I've had very low expectations for YA horror since Anna Dressed in Blood, which should be labelled YA Paranormal instead of Horror. Reading about people tearing their own hair out and stabbing themselves in the leg with a pen effectively made me cringe and put me right off the barbequed pork I was eating that night. Not bad for YA horror.
Character development is lacking though. With such a simple premise, you really need to rely on the characters to tide the readers through. While Sofia and the girls weren't cardboard cutoffs, they felt underdeveloped alongside plot points that could've upped the scare factor. Stephen King suffers from overwriting and Vega suffers from underwriting. So many things could have been built on more, like Sofia's grandma's religious tendencies, Alexis's codependent friendship with Riley, or Sofia's mom being an atheist.
Despite all those irks, I was going to give The Merciless 4 stars. Until the cheesy horror-movie ending.(view spoiler)[Brooklyn turns out a witch/demon and Riley, the religious nut, was right all along. What was the point of painting Riley as a manipulative hypocrite if not to show her as the ultimate bad guy? And how on earth is Sofia one of them?
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It makes no sense. Has Sofia always been a demon? Or did she turn into one because she killed her friend? If so, shouldn't Riley be spared because I'm certain she killed Alexis. You can argue that Riley tormented Brooklyn and she killed her for revenge, but what about Alexis, Riley's pawn? Alexis put her own sister in a coma, so by the logic of this universe, Alexis is a demon, like one of them. Or do the victims have to die to count? But wait, how does attempted murder factor into this? See, now I'm getting muddled up.
Final verdict: if you like a side of Gossip Girl with your blood, guts, and gore, give this a try. if you want true YA Horror, go to my man Christopher Pike. That guy does not screw around.
I haven't. (Not for lack of wanting but because Mother Dearest said no) But my grandparents, who live out inHave any of you ever owned a dog or a cat?
I haven't. (Not for lack of wanting but because Mother Dearest said no) But my grandparents, who live out in the countryside do. They have 2 dogs and 3 cats, and every time my family visit, me and my sister would pet the dogs and pester the cats. Mother Dearest would then yell at us—"You could get fleas!" and order us to wash our hands before dinner. We would obviously, because the dogs don't take regular baths and quite frankly, sort of smell but we've never feared fleas or lice. They were lumped in the obscure part of my brain where cobras and scorpions lay. They were out there but didn't exist in my reality.
After reading The Troop though, you can damn well believe that I would always, always wash my hands (with soap) after petting animals.
The Troop is about a bunch of kids and their scoutmaster who go to a remote island for a camping trip. Then, a stranger washes up on shore, bringing with him an infectious disease. And...well, it's a horror story, you can pretty much guess what happens next: [image]
Okay, that didn't really happen but it still freaked me out enough to make me stop reading it halfway through—that's why it too me so long to finish it. In my defense, I had ordered spaghetti for lunch and (view spoiler)[tapeworms (hide spoiler)] and spaghetti do not mix. That's why I decided to read something a little more more wholesome—like Jodi Picoult's The Storyteller (It made me seriously depressed though)
As awesome as The Troop was, there were some things that prevented me from giving it full 5 stars. First off, the author tried too hard to be Stephen King—but failed miserably. If you're one of his Constant Readers like me, you know King has a unique quirk to his writing. He likes putting words into colons midway through a sentence to indicate the character's true thoughts or subconscious.
Ex:(Not a direct quote) A hotel was just a building after all (Redrum) It didn't—couldn't have supernatural powers.
It looks something like that—yes, it's from the Shining—I'm too lazy to search it up but The Troop had a sentence exactly like that.
There was also this sentence: "Jesus Christ, it's constricting" Tim's mind yammered. " It's choking him Now if that isn't blatant copying of King (I distinctly remember an exact same sentence in one of his books), I don't what is. The difference is that King would've done a better job. Lord knows the mind isn't that coherent when it's frightened out of its wits.
Some of the characters are extremely similar to King's as well. (view spoiler)[Newton is a tamer version of Eddie from It and Shelley is a carbon copy of Patrick Hockstetter. (hide spoiler)]
In addition, The beginning turned me off a bit because it was so slow. I remember thinking that this was obviously a debut attempt because his writing style read like he was trying too hard to follow his Creative Writing 101's teacher's instructions. But as the book went on, it flowed a lot better—either because I had gotten used to his style or because he had finally gotten into his groove—but I was literally rapid-clicking the buttons on my Kindle to find out what happens next. (view spoiler)[ But to be honest, I had a hunch that Max would be the only one left after Shelley got infected. And I didn't like the last sentence: A nameless hunger was building inside of him. It gnawed on his guts with teeth calling his names I felt like it was trying too hard to be a metaphor for the emptiness and loneliness Max feels in the end. At least, that's what I thought the first time I read it. The second time (when I needed to copy down that sentence for this review), I felt like Max had gotten infected again. So which to believe? I have no idea and I suspect that's what the author wanted to do. I only wished he had done it in a way that didn't scream "Notice how clever my ending is!" at me. (hide spoiler)]
All in all though, The Troop is an amazing debut and I would definitely recommend it to fans of horror everywhere. But I would advise you against eating pasta while you read it.
![Another [アナザー] 1st period](https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1492824935l/13494466._SX50_.jpg)
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