Before y'all jump on me, I love all books. E-books, physical books, audiobooks. I don't care. I'll read 'em. If it's on my phone, I can blow through it like it's nobody's business, at least if it's interesting to me, probably just because it's more accessible?? It's right there, whenever, and it's easier for me to move my position to get comfy. But recently someone lent me A Great and Terrible Beauty by Libba Bray, in book form, and I'm having the hardest time with it. I read a few pages at a time before my neck gets stiff or my back starts to hurt and I need to just move, so getting through this book feels like wading through molasses.
It's conflicting, for sure, because I used to be a purist about books. E-books are the devil! Real books will prevail! If we can't handle real books we're headed for a Fahrenheit 451-esque dystopia! You get the idea. But it's honestly so much easier to read e-books or listen to an audio book, and that switch was something I hadn't even realized I'd made until now.
Don't get me wrong, I adore books, and I especially adore book stores. Walking through the aisles, reading a few pages, trying to find that book you really connect with that you might not have even known existed until you picked it up. It's bliss. However, when it comes down to it, I haven't really bought a physical book in years. That kind of makes me sad, even if I get why. It might just be a part of the integration of electronics over hardcover into our society, but it still makes me feel a little guilty for leaving physical books in the dust.
Thanks for reading (however you do it!),
Davis
Sunday, March 31, 2019
Monday, March 25, 2019
I'm a Fan of a Band That Isn't Real: Daisy Jones and the Six by Taylor Jenkins Reid
For the people who haven't read it yet, Daisy Jones and the Six is written as a 'Where Are They Now'-esque interview with a band from the seventies. Technically, a band (The Six) and a solo artist (Daisy) more or less thrown together by their record label. I'm excited to see it how I think it should be seen in it's upcoming TV miniseries produced by Reese Witherspoon and Amazon. Regardless, this book drew me in and even squeezed some tears out of me. Not the way I ugly sobbed for Evelyn Hugo, but I digress.
Reid has a way of writing incredibly realistic characters, and the situations they find themselves in and the reactions they have to them are so relatable, and visceral, that even when you're going, "Christ, no, stop it," you get why it's happening. She also has a knack for writing characters that at face value are very shiny and one-dimensional, and you think you know what they'll do, and then the way things play out is so human and they feel so human that it just takes your breath away. Also, I can't help picturing Daisy as Florence Welch meets Stevie Nicks, with Kim Carnes voice.
Stop reading here to avoid spoilers, thank you!
My one big issue with this book was the twist. It didn't feel as though it made sense as much as the twist from Evelyn Hugo. I mean, the narrator being who the narrator turns out to be made some sense, but the character that died–the big reveal–left me kind of confused, and although it made me sad, I wasn't as sad as I felt I should have been. I felt as though a twist purely centering on Daisy and Billy would've tied things together a lot nicer, especially since it seemed to me they were all being interviewed anyway, they were in the same room, so do something! You know? I liked the letter, and I feel as though the narrator giving Billy the letter during the interview and having him (and possibly Daisy?) react to it would've been great.
Spoilers over! Read on!
All in all, I truly enjoyed this book. I want to read the rest of Reid's books, and any future books she may produce as she is massively talented. If you're a history buff or a rock 'n' roll fan, this book is an absolute must.
Plot: 4.5/5
Writing Style: 4.5/5
Pacing: 5/5
Characters: 5/5
Overall: 4.8
Thanks for reading!
Davis
Saturday, March 23, 2019
Someone Wrote a Whole Book of Stories of Women Being Bizarre, and I'm Sad I Didn't Love It: You Know You Want This by Kristen Roupenian
First of all, hi, it's been a minute. Finished my first semester of community college and abruptly switched career goals. I read this bizarre book during my break between semesters, picking it out from a list of 2018/19 horror novels on Goodreads. Let me tell you, I don't know what I was expecting but it was not what You Know You Want This (hereafter referred to as YKYWT) turned out to be. I was apparently really, really out of the loop, as one of the stories from YKYWT, "Cat Person," went super viral. Ironically, that might've been my least favorite story, because I just didn't get it.
YKYWT is a collection of stories "explor[ing] the ways the ways in which women are horrifying as much as it captures the horrors that are done to them." So, needless to say, a fun-filled, light summer read. But I will say, aside from some specific stories that were more blatantly horror, I just was not as "shook" as I wanted to be. Most of the time I was left scratching my head, going, "What the fuck did I just read?"
"Bad Boy," our introductory story into this venture, tricked me. Reading this, I thought, "Holy shit! I'm in for some crazy stuff! Let's see what happens!" And to be fair, there was crazy stuff, but not what I was expecting. I promise I'll try to stop saying that. The gist of the story is, a couple invite their friend over after a bad breakup, let him watch them fuck, then it unravels into a threesome later, and then some violent stuff that feels like what people think BDSM is all about. And it just gets worse from there. As the story goes on, the narrator's thoughts kind of seem to pick up speed, and the events of the story pick up speed until you hit the end of the story going a hundred miles an hour. Personally, it knocked me on my ass, and I felt a mix of emotions ranging from pity for the titular bad boy, disgust at the narrator, and exhilarated from the sheer speed with which the story went by.
"Look At Your Game, Girl," is the second, and my first inkling of frustration with the stories in this book. The story follows Jessica, a twelve-year-old girl, who watches people at the local skate park, and befriends a Charles Manson stan (stalker fan, for those not in the know). As soon as we're introduced to "Charlie," a sketchy guy who gives her a bloody walkman and a CD of Charles Manson's songs, I was convinced I knew what was coming. That she'd listen to the songs, like them, want to meet up with her new friend when he asks her to hang out in the middle of the night in a playground like normal people do, but she doesn't. The entire story, every time I think the proverbial boogeyman is about to pop out and she'll get snatched up into the night, never to be seen again, I'm left hanging. Thinking on it, being left on edge that way, even when a girl (that is not our girl Jessica) is taken and she points the finger at Charlie and he doesn't turn out to be guilty, I'm almost darkly annoyed. Like I was outsmarted, because I never got the "Aha! I knew it!" moment. But I also kind of liked that. Even so, in a way, I think I would've preferred for things to play out in a darker way. I understand that not all horror has an unhappy ending, but in this case I think it would've darkened the tone if there was at least some small, dark twist at the end.
"Sardines" was honestly pretty difficult to get through. This may sound callous, especially as a child of divorce, but I just don't give a shit about a woman being snarky and bitchy and getting wine drunk at her ex-husband's house during her daughter's birthday. When we finally got to what I thought was the point, and everybody has to run out into the woods to play some bizarre game the daughter made up with her friends, I thought we were onto something. Some Slender Man type shit (sidenote: God, remember Slender Man?). But no. What we got instead was a little girl making a fucked up birthday wish because her mom could not shut up and stop being petty about the divorce. Cool. I was not a fan. Even when the wish was revealed and it was weird and gruesome, I was like, "Okay, but... Why?" It just did not leave a great impression on me. Spoiler-ish, the end result just reminded me of a multiple-person version of I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream.
"Night Runner" is the point at which I felt like I was being pranked. My thoughts before, during, and after were, "Why the hell is this story in this book?" The majority of these stories are at least somewhat creepy, but this was just... All my whats. The story is about a guy from the Peace Corps going to teach in Kenya and winding up being stuck with the "bad girl" class. But honestly, I was not impressed with the things these girls did. Girls can be so cruel, I promise they can do more than mimicking his voice or flicking boogers or meowing. And oh, you know, leaving shit on his doorstep and walls. Super weird, felt like I was largely missing the point. Maybe if I hadn't, I would've liked it better.
"The Mirror, the Bucket, and the Old Thigh Bone" was one of my favorites, possibly because it immediately followed Night Runner and I felt like it renewed my faith in this weird little collection of stories. It's written stylistically like a fairytale, the story of a princess who can't choose a husband. Now, being a giant raging lesbian, I thought she'd turn out to be a lesbian. Unfortunately, that is not the case, but the insanity that ensues truly makes up for it. Spoiler: I would have killed to be a fly on the wall when the advisor to the king and queen was like, "Boss, I think your daughter is probably just a giant narcissist and wants to fuck herself. Can I test that?" Jokes aside, it was a great, very dark story, that just when you think it might be a happy ending the rug is yanked out from under you.
"Cat Person" was a disappointment, and here's why: There are no cats. It's called Cat Person, for God's sake. I thought I was getting into a story about a hoarder with a shit ton of cats, or maybe a werecat/tiger/etc. Nope. Not a single whisker to be found. Truly disappointing. However, the bit that really stuck with me (and, upon further research, lots of people) was the protagonist's hesitance to change her mind about a sexual encounter out of fear of how he might react or view her. I think we all might have experienced those moments before, and it sucks. I feel like the story would've been more poignant if it had focused more on that encounter instead of dragging out every single goddamn detail of their relationship.
I fully expected "The Good Guy" to be about a stereotypical Good Guy. You know, befriends you, asks you out, begins stalking you and starts a smear campaign against you when you turn him down. But no, this is about a fairly normal, if slightly douchey guy named Ted, who ends up in the ER after he breaks up with a girl and she smashes a glass in his face, and how he reminisces about ending up where he did. Tl;dr: he was a loser in high school and had a crush on a popular girl named Anna, but she friendzoned him so he started fucking a weird girl, and eventually dumps her for Anna, and it's not all it's cracked up to be. I guess. IDK. I didn't have many feelings at all about this one, except Ted's inner monologue was hilarious and relatable at times, and I loved what ended up happening to him.
"The Boy in the Pool" is by far the most relatable story of the bunch to me, because I have had unfortunate crushes on my very straight friends and gone to ridiculous, stupid lengths to make them happy. But all in all I just felt bad for the titular Boy in the Pool who clearly is not loving his life post-Boy in the Pool fame. It read weirdly like a Bridesmaids/The Hangover short story, and I was not a fan. I came here for horror, y'know? Not to be outright rude, but it seemed like a really pointless story.
"Scarred" was just.... A morbid, ridiculously sadistic read. Like, okay, you conjured up a man, and instead of being like "Oh, neat, let's stop that now!" She just goes right off the deep end with it. If I were reaching, for the purpose of humor, I might say it's very anti-feminist that she needed a man to make all her heart's desires happen. I wasn't a fan of the protagonist, and her really abrupt change from being scared of the guy she conjured to being the villain, basically, was so out there it caught me off guard.
"The Matchbox Sign" felt like a tailored personal attack. Fun little factoid about me: Several years ago, I bought dresses from Goodwill. Those dresses had scabies in them. I didn't stop itching for three months, to point of bathing with bleach and cayenne pepper and scrubbing my skin raw. So, upon discovering that the premise of this story is a woman develops an itch that may be real or imagined, I started to feel itchy and stayed that way until I could forget about this goddamn story. Loved it. Gimme more stories that leave an impression. Also, the significant other of the itchy woman in the story is kind of an asshole. Just saying.
"Death Wish" just felt like it was asking me to kink shame. And I totally did. This guy finds a girl on Tinder and invites her over, and it turns out her kink is getting beaten to shit. The guy, and myself, are confused and appalled. Eventually he does, she leaves, he gets his act together. I can't believe the moral of this story is that beating up women will cure depression (kidding, totally kidding).
"Biter" is the closer. It's graphically violent, it's twisted, it's great. It's what I wished every story had been in this series. Also, shout out to the protagonist, Ellie. I too was a biter as a kid. But I don't, uh, do what happened in the story. That'd be fucked up. And the fact that it's so fucked up and such a bizarre "What the hell" kind of experience to read makes me kind of mad the rest of the stories weren't on this level.
Plot: 3/5
Writing Style: 3.5/5
Pacing: 3/5
Characters: 3/5
Overall: 3.1
Thanks for reading!
Davis
 | |
| Image credit: Simonandschuster.com |
YKYWT is a collection of stories "explor[ing] the ways the ways in which women are horrifying as much as it captures the horrors that are done to them." So, needless to say, a fun-filled, light summer read. But I will say, aside from some specific stories that were more blatantly horror, I just was not as "shook" as I wanted to be. Most of the time I was left scratching my head, going, "What the fuck did I just read?"
"Bad Boy," our introductory story into this venture, tricked me. Reading this, I thought, "Holy shit! I'm in for some crazy stuff! Let's see what happens!" And to be fair, there was crazy stuff, but not what I was expecting. I promise I'll try to stop saying that. The gist of the story is, a couple invite their friend over after a bad breakup, let him watch them fuck, then it unravels into a threesome later, and then some violent stuff that feels like what people think BDSM is all about. And it just gets worse from there. As the story goes on, the narrator's thoughts kind of seem to pick up speed, and the events of the story pick up speed until you hit the end of the story going a hundred miles an hour. Personally, it knocked me on my ass, and I felt a mix of emotions ranging from pity for the titular bad boy, disgust at the narrator, and exhilarated from the sheer speed with which the story went by.
"Look At Your Game, Girl," is the second, and my first inkling of frustration with the stories in this book. The story follows Jessica, a twelve-year-old girl, who watches people at the local skate park, and befriends a Charles Manson stan (stalker fan, for those not in the know). As soon as we're introduced to "Charlie," a sketchy guy who gives her a bloody walkman and a CD of Charles Manson's songs, I was convinced I knew what was coming. That she'd listen to the songs, like them, want to meet up with her new friend when he asks her to hang out in the middle of the night in a playground like normal people do, but she doesn't. The entire story, every time I think the proverbial boogeyman is about to pop out and she'll get snatched up into the night, never to be seen again, I'm left hanging. Thinking on it, being left on edge that way, even when a girl (that is not our girl Jessica) is taken and she points the finger at Charlie and he doesn't turn out to be guilty, I'm almost darkly annoyed. Like I was outsmarted, because I never got the "Aha! I knew it!" moment. But I also kind of liked that. Even so, in a way, I think I would've preferred for things to play out in a darker way. I understand that not all horror has an unhappy ending, but in this case I think it would've darkened the tone if there was at least some small, dark twist at the end.
"Sardines" was honestly pretty difficult to get through. This may sound callous, especially as a child of divorce, but I just don't give a shit about a woman being snarky and bitchy and getting wine drunk at her ex-husband's house during her daughter's birthday. When we finally got to what I thought was the point, and everybody has to run out into the woods to play some bizarre game the daughter made up with her friends, I thought we were onto something. Some Slender Man type shit (sidenote: God, remember Slender Man?). But no. What we got instead was a little girl making a fucked up birthday wish because her mom could not shut up and stop being petty about the divorce. Cool. I was not a fan. Even when the wish was revealed and it was weird and gruesome, I was like, "Okay, but... Why?" It just did not leave a great impression on me. Spoiler-ish, the end result just reminded me of a multiple-person version of I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream.
"Night Runner" is the point at which I felt like I was being pranked. My thoughts before, during, and after were, "Why the hell is this story in this book?" The majority of these stories are at least somewhat creepy, but this was just... All my whats. The story is about a guy from the Peace Corps going to teach in Kenya and winding up being stuck with the "bad girl" class. But honestly, I was not impressed with the things these girls did. Girls can be so cruel, I promise they can do more than mimicking his voice or flicking boogers or meowing. And oh, you know, leaving shit on his doorstep and walls. Super weird, felt like I was largely missing the point. Maybe if I hadn't, I would've liked it better.
"The Mirror, the Bucket, and the Old Thigh Bone" was one of my favorites, possibly because it immediately followed Night Runner and I felt like it renewed my faith in this weird little collection of stories. It's written stylistically like a fairytale, the story of a princess who can't choose a husband. Now, being a giant raging lesbian, I thought she'd turn out to be a lesbian. Unfortunately, that is not the case, but the insanity that ensues truly makes up for it. Spoiler: I would have killed to be a fly on the wall when the advisor to the king and queen was like, "Boss, I think your daughter is probably just a giant narcissist and wants to fuck herself. Can I test that?" Jokes aside, it was a great, very dark story, that just when you think it might be a happy ending the rug is yanked out from under you.
"Cat Person" was a disappointment, and here's why: There are no cats. It's called Cat Person, for God's sake. I thought I was getting into a story about a hoarder with a shit ton of cats, or maybe a werecat/tiger/etc. Nope. Not a single whisker to be found. Truly disappointing. However, the bit that really stuck with me (and, upon further research, lots of people) was the protagonist's hesitance to change her mind about a sexual encounter out of fear of how he might react or view her. I think we all might have experienced those moments before, and it sucks. I feel like the story would've been more poignant if it had focused more on that encounter instead of dragging out every single goddamn detail of their relationship.
I fully expected "The Good Guy" to be about a stereotypical Good Guy. You know, befriends you, asks you out, begins stalking you and starts a smear campaign against you when you turn him down. But no, this is about a fairly normal, if slightly douchey guy named Ted, who ends up in the ER after he breaks up with a girl and she smashes a glass in his face, and how he reminisces about ending up where he did. Tl;dr: he was a loser in high school and had a crush on a popular girl named Anna, but she friendzoned him so he started fucking a weird girl, and eventually dumps her for Anna, and it's not all it's cracked up to be. I guess. IDK. I didn't have many feelings at all about this one, except Ted's inner monologue was hilarious and relatable at times, and I loved what ended up happening to him.
"The Boy in the Pool" is by far the most relatable story of the bunch to me, because I have had unfortunate crushes on my very straight friends and gone to ridiculous, stupid lengths to make them happy. But all in all I just felt bad for the titular Boy in the Pool who clearly is not loving his life post-Boy in the Pool fame. It read weirdly like a Bridesmaids/The Hangover short story, and I was not a fan. I came here for horror, y'know? Not to be outright rude, but it seemed like a really pointless story.
"Scarred" was just.... A morbid, ridiculously sadistic read. Like, okay, you conjured up a man, and instead of being like "Oh, neat, let's stop that now!" She just goes right off the deep end with it. If I were reaching, for the purpose of humor, I might say it's very anti-feminist that she needed a man to make all her heart's desires happen. I wasn't a fan of the protagonist, and her really abrupt change from being scared of the guy she conjured to being the villain, basically, was so out there it caught me off guard.
"The Matchbox Sign" felt like a tailored personal attack. Fun little factoid about me: Several years ago, I bought dresses from Goodwill. Those dresses had scabies in them. I didn't stop itching for three months, to point of bathing with bleach and cayenne pepper and scrubbing my skin raw. So, upon discovering that the premise of this story is a woman develops an itch that may be real or imagined, I started to feel itchy and stayed that way until I could forget about this goddamn story. Loved it. Gimme more stories that leave an impression. Also, the significant other of the itchy woman in the story is kind of an asshole. Just saying.
"Death Wish" just felt like it was asking me to kink shame. And I totally did. This guy finds a girl on Tinder and invites her over, and it turns out her kink is getting beaten to shit. The guy, and myself, are confused and appalled. Eventually he does, she leaves, he gets his act together. I can't believe the moral of this story is that beating up women will cure depression (kidding, totally kidding).
"Biter" is the closer. It's graphically violent, it's twisted, it's great. It's what I wished every story had been in this series. Also, shout out to the protagonist, Ellie. I too was a biter as a kid. But I don't, uh, do what happened in the story. That'd be fucked up. And the fact that it's so fucked up and such a bizarre "What the hell" kind of experience to read makes me kind of mad the rest of the stories weren't on this level.
Plot: 3/5
Writing Style: 3.5/5
Pacing: 3/5
Characters: 3/5
Overall: 3.1
Thanks for reading!
Davis
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