lrtc but immediate reaction: wow mona awad has done it again! what an absolute masterpiece? i have read everything mona awad has published thus far anlrtc but immediate reaction: wow mona awad has done it again! what an absolute masterpiece? i have read everything mona awad has published thus far and even have 4 Bunny-inspired tattoos on my body and yet this mysterious gothic romantic drama about a young woman getting sucked into a beauty cult her late mother who died mysteriously was obsessed with when she travels to la jolla for her mother’s funeral might have become my favorite mona awad work to date. i cannot count the amount of times i cried reading this story, and so much of my hard copy i read along with as i listened to the audiobook is underlined, tabbed, and annotated. i absolutely loved the audiobook narrator’s performance, too. there’s a lot of wordplay throughout the story that is key to the progression of the plot that really is enhanced by an audiobook narration that i don’t think is as impactful with just reading a physical copy text and i really appreciated the immersive experience reading + listening gives me. the more senses i can drip in the story feasibly i will attempt to do so! wow just such a fun time but also a very masterful breakdown of how the beauty industry can be extremely scary and sinister under a pretty facade. absolutely brilliant work.
Merged review:
lrtc but immediate reaction: wow mona awad has done it again! what an absolute masterpiece? i have read everything mona awad has published thus far and even have 4 Bunny-inspired tattoos on my body and yet this mysterious gothic romantic drama about a young woman getting sucked into a beauty cult her late mother who died mysteriously was obsessed with when she travels to la jolla for her mother’s funeral might have become my favorite mona awad work to date. i cannot count the amount of times i cried reading this story, and so much of my hard copy i read along with as i listened to the audiobook is underlined, tabbed, and annotated. i absolutely loved the audiobook narrator’s performance, too. there’s a lot of wordplay throughout the story that is key to the progression of the plot that really is enhanced by an audiobook narration that i don’t think is as impactful with just reading a physical copy text and i really appreciated the immersive experience reading + listening gives me. the more senses i can drip in the story feasibly i will attempt to do so! wow just such a fun time but also a very masterful breakdown of how the beauty industry can be extremely scary and sinister under a pretty facade. absolutely brilliant work.
Merged review:
lrtc but immediate reaction: wow mona awad has done it again! what an absolute masterpiece? i have read everything mona awad has published thus far and even have 4 Bunny-inspired tattoos on my body and yet this mysterious gothic romantic drama about a young woman getting sucked into a beauty cult her late mother who died mysteriously was obsessed with when she travels to la jolla for her mother’s funeral might have become my favorite mona awad work to date. i cannot count the amount of times i cried reading this story, and so much of my hard copy i read along with as i listened to the audiobook is underlined, tabbed, and annotated. i absolutely loved the audiobook narrator’s performance, too. there’s a lot of wordplay throughout the story that is key to the progression of the plot that really is enhanced by an audiobook narration that i don’t think is as impactful with just reading a physical copy text and i really appreciated the immersive experience reading + listening gives me. the more senses i can drip in the story feasibly i will attempt to do so! wow just such a fun time but also a very masterful breakdown of how the beauty industry can be extremely scary and sinister under a pretty facade. absolutely brilliant work....more
This story started out very promising to me but slowly started shifting towards a direction that made me feel increasingly uncomfortable as a queer woThis story started out very promising to me but slowly started shifting towards a direction that made me feel increasingly uncomfortable as a queer woman who also realized they were queer and came out later in life that pushed this book into 2.5 star territory for me. There is so much I could say about this book but also at the same time I feel exhausted by the characters, the story, and much of the dialogue. I understand the author was trying to tell a story of a character coming out later in life but, wow. The heavy internalized biphobia was a lot to deal with over and over again, so much so that I the impression I am left with coloring the book more than any sort of satisfying resolve and education and remorse and growth and relearning is internalized biphobia and the obsessive insistence that only penetrative intercourse counts towards losing virginity. The obsession "losing virginity" to begin with made the story read much more Young Adult than New Adult, which was not at all what I was expecting given the ages of the characters and the setting of the story. The trope the book ultimately ends up being is one of my favorite romance tropes to read, but in this iteration of the trope, the pivot from where the story was going did not work for me at all. I’m happy for the characters finding happiness but this journey was just not for me. I will round my overall score up to 3 stars from 2.5 because the rating doesn’t allow half stars and Carlyn Greenwald is mother for giving us that Hot Ones training scene. Never have I ever felt so seen in a romance novel and I love her so much for giving the culture that scene. Iconic. I really enjoyed how seamlessly Greenwald incorporated inclusive phrases so that non-binary, trans, queer people can feel seen, respected, and held space for in a romance novel and do it well I really appreciated.
Thank you to NetGalley and Vintage for providing an electronic advanced reader galley in exchange for my honest review....more
full of genuinely sinew-chilling horror tales that gave me continual full body shudders and left me terrified. the creepy dread is next level and so wfull of genuinely sinew-chilling horror tales that gave me continual full body shudders and left me terrified. the creepy dread is next level and so well-actualized. at the same time this collection is so fun and experimental! i absolutely loved getting to live in so many incredible well-fleshed out worlds in one collection! i absolutely loved the audiobook, it felt like having ghost stories told to me in the dark and absolutely unlocked an addititonal layer of terror during the reading experience. I find it hard to believe a time will come when I will no longer get goosebumps from Danielle Verayo's voice. They really nailed the perfect tone for each story and poem. I also LOVED how the collection featured both poetry and prose. It was such a delightful surprise and added a dreamlike quality to the pacing and rhythm of the collection that i really feel complemented the greater journey we readers go through as we move through the collection from start to finish. if you enjoy films like ginger snaps, jennifer's body, bones and all, she dies tomorrow, dual, and enjoy ethel cain's album, preacher's daughter. this collection may be for you. very much looking forward to reading more from all of the contributing authors of this collection.
Great thanks to NetGalley, ECW Press Audio, Arsenal Pulp Press for an early review audiobook in exchange for my honest review; to David Ly and Daniel Zomparelli for editing the collection; and Amber Dawn, David Demchuk, Hiromi Goto, Jaye Simpson, Eddy Boudel Tan, Matthew J. Trafford, and Kai Cheng Thom for contributing stories....more
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