Review: THINGS HAVE GOTTEN WORSE SINCE WE LAST SPOKE, AND OTHER MISFORTUNES by Eric LaRocca

 

Rating: 3.75/5 stars 

“Things Have Gotten Worse Since We Last Spoke”—4/5 stars 

So this was the most disturbing story I’ve ever read. I’ve heard about this book a lot without ever hearing what this book was about. I’m trying to find my niche horror genre so I’ve been reading different types of horror stories lately, and this was definitely the most disturbing of the bunch. 

“Things Have Gotten Worse Since We Last Spoke” is an epistolary novel that chronicles the correspondences between two people. It dives deep into manipulation in a master/slave type of relationship. That’s all I’m going to say though because I think it’s best to go in knowing little. 

I don’t really know what to rate this story as I couldn’t look away and was completely engaged as I flew through the narrative, but I also don’t know if I really enjoyed it or not. The story will stick with me as it’s definitely unforgettable, but it’s also just so disturbing. I know I’ve already used that word in this review but it really is the best way to describe this novella. It’s disturbing and gross and, at times, baffling. It’s almost like the author deliberately included scenes that were intended to have the biggest shock value with the reader. 

Even saying all that, I would recommend this to fans of horror—maybe specifically those of body horror?—and fans of fast-paced epistolary stories. 

“The Enchantment”—3.5/5 stars 

Once again, this was disturbing, but not as much as “Things Have Gotten Worse.” Maybe that’s just Eric LaRocca’s style. 

It’s about a couple who goes to live on an island all alone when weird things start happening to them. 

I thought this story started out strong and had a good middle, but I didn’t love how it ended, mostly due to the fact that the story isn’t speculative but then adds in speculative elements at the end. I think I have found that I prefer non-speculative horror, while I prefer speculative elements solely in fantasy and sci-fi instead.  

I am curious after reading the first two stories what the author’s fixation is with crucifixion as it comes up in both stories. 

“You’ll Find It’s Like That All Over”—3/5 stars 

This was the weakest story in the collection for me. Still interesting, but not as memorable and disturbing as the first two. 

A man finds a shard of bone in his backyard with his neighbor’s initials carved into it and begins to investigate it. This story is about how far one will go to maintain appearances to continue being a “good neighbor.” 

As stated in the author’s afterward, all three stories in this collection focus on the human desire to connect with someone or something else, and to what extent someone will go to find or maintain that connection. I appreciated that they all had a connecting theme to tie them together. I would recommend this collection to fans of macabre horror stories that shock you and make you think. 

Review: NIGHTFALL AND OTHER DANGERS by Jacob Steven Mohr

 

Rating: 2.4/5 stars 

My rating for this book based on an average of my ratings of all the individual stories is 2.4/5 stars.

I am fairly new to the horror genre, having really just started reading it earlier this year. I was able to meet the author of this short story collection, and he sold me on it by telling me that it contains stories from a variety of horror subgenres, so it would help me figure out which subgenres I prefer reading. 

I’ve always struggled with short stories in general because of the lack of any kind of character development, world building, or concrete plot, so do keep in mind that I’m already a little biased against them. I know short stories are meant to deliver something different than the aforementioned story traits, but it’s still hard for me to enjoy most short stories simply because they are so short. 

I will preface my reviews of each story by saying that I think Mohr is a good writer, but a lot of these stories were simply not my style preference. I rate books based solely on my enjoyment level, so while I didn’t really enjoy too many of the stories in Nightfall and Other Dangers, I think seasoned horror readers and short stories lovers will enjoy this collection more than I did as they are more used to the genre conventions and will be able to tell the difference between the various subgenres within. 

“Nostalgia”—3.5/5 stars

I love the idea of a garden of hands, but at only half a page long, this story is too short to even be called a story. At best, this is the start of an idea for a story. I wish this had been longer because I enjoyed what little there was. 

“You Are the Hero of Legend”—3/5 stars

Every sentence in this story starts with the word “you.” I love stories told in second-person perspective, but it felt a little repetitive here. I feel like that’s the point though, although we never discover who the narrator is, which I feel is one of the best mysteries in any second-person POV story. I liked the writing style, but the story was quite short again so it’s hard to form a real opinion on it. 

“Song of the Summer”—1.5/5 stars

Finally a story of a proper length, but unfortunately this did nothing for me. I saw the twist coming and I was kind of bored with this one. I also don’t prefer slasher stories. 

“The Panic”—5/5 stars

This story was great! The only one in the collection that I truly loved. I love stories that feel unsettling and eerie, that evoke a sense of impending dread. There’s something inexplicably mysterious and creepy going on and I was desperate to figure out what was happening. The only thing I didn’t prefer here was that this story had an ambiguous ending because I am someone who needs ANSWERS. But I still liked it. I need more horror like this, but I don’t know what to call this subgenre. 

“Some Bad Luck Near Bitter Downs”—2/5 stars 

Two brothers accidentally obtain a severed head. Sounds cool, except this story felt like it was a western, which I didn’t like. Guns and whiskey and guns: not my thing. I like the idea of severed heads, which may or may not still be alive, but I didn’t like the setting or characters in this one. 

“Mister Mickenzie”—3/5 stars

This was a longer story that had me simultaneously intrigued and bored. Two little girls are joined during playtime by their mysterious imaginary friend who decides the rules to all the games: Mister Mickenzie. My main problem here was once again the lack of a concrete ending. I like my stories wrapped up neat with a bow, but this one had a more ambiguous ending, alluding to something but it’s still not clear what will happen. Those who enjoy open-ended stories will likely like this better than I did. It wasn’t bad—certainly creepy and unsettling—but it was also not really my jam either. 

“1855”—1/5 stars 

I don’t have much to say about this story as it did nothing for me and I was honestly quite bored, which is unfortunate as the author states this is his favorite story in the collection. 

“A Real Likeness”—2/5 stars 

This story had a strong start but ultimately was a flop for me. A college art student notices something strange take shape in his portraits. I thought it sounded cool, but there was no real resolution, no noticeable horror aspect, and the ending didn’t make sense to me. 

“Copilot”—4/5 stars 

This is a bit of sci-fi horror, although the horror element is pretty minor to me. I like stories where other beings invade human bodies though, so this worked for me. This is my second favorite in this collection, and the only story besides “The Panic” that I genuinely enjoyed here. 

“Red Meat”—2/5 stars 

I don’t know if this is Japanese horror or just a generic gory story, but it didn’t really do anything for me either way. The gore didn’t bother me, and the ending was interesting, but I just felt nothing while I read. I think it needed to be longer. 

“Last Supper”—2.5/5 stars 

Definitely an interesting concept with a cliffhanger ending, but again, it needed to be longer. I want to know more about the world because I kind of get the sense the two characters are some of the last characters alive and I want to know why. 

“She’s New in Town”—1.5/5 stars 

A girl with weird eyes buys a pair of sunglasses at a grocery store. That’s it, that’s the whole story. What was the point? Where was the horror? 

“When It Rains”—1.5/5 stars 

Once again, what? Maybe I’m just dumb or a very unseasoned horror reader, but I’m just not seeing the point of most of these stories or what makes most of them horror stories. This story was kind of pointless to me. A sort of anti-meet-cute. 

“Sometimes You Get Two”—2/5 stars 

I’ve never cared about hunting, and this, the longest story in the collection, happens to be entirely about deer hunting. Completely just not my thing, and I could not wait for it to end. And then then end was so convoluted that it just made me angry. What the heck even happened? It made absolutely no sense to me. 

“The Machete at the End of the World”—1.5/5 stars 

I got more from the author’s description of what’s happening in this story than I did from the actual story. He said it’s a slasher meets post-apocalyptic fiction, and I wouldn’t have guessed either of those genres from actually reading it. I feel like a broken record at this point, but this was confusing and I don’t understand what it was supposed to communicate. 

Review: SALT TO THE SEA by Ruta Sepetys

 

Rating: 1.5/5 stars 

DNF at 44%. 

Ruta Sepetys has a real talent when it comes to writing historical fiction, and this book is no different. It is well written and well researched. The reason I DNFed it though is that it is very sad, and I have realized I can’t do sad World War 2 fiction anymore. I just have no desire to continue reading it. I need something happy. But if you enjoy authentic WW2 stories then I would definitely recommend this novel, and I would also recommend checking out other books by Ruta Sepetys as well, especially The Fountains of Silence, which is just as well written and researched, but it’s happier and romantic instead. 

Review: THE BOOK OF SPECULATION by Erika Swyler

 

Rating: 2/5 stars

The Book of Speculation is objectively good; it’s well-written with fleshed-out characters and an interesting plot. “A librarian vs. the sea vs. his house vs. his sister vs. a curse,” as the author describes it. It’s mysterious with lyrical writing. 

Subjectively, however, this book is simply not for me. 

My coworker described this novel as Mr. Penumbra’s 24-Hour Bookstore plus Night Circus plus Water for Elephants, and I’d say that’s a pretty accurate description. It’s a tricky description for me though because I rated those books 5, 4, and 3 stars, respectively, so I really had no clue how The Book of Speculation was going to go. I decided to rate it 2 stars purely for my enjoyment level, but it’s not a bad book by any means, and I’d definitely recommend it if you think it sounds up your alley. 

I’ve come to realize that I do not like books that center around a circus (Night Circus being the singular exception here). I also do not care about tarot cards, and those play a pretty big role in this novel. Mermaids also play a big role in this book, and I’m pretty impartial to them as well. Subsequently, I was not really attached to any of the characters, even though they were written well, so I wasn’t very invested in them uncovering truths about their past. And lastly, this book was weirdly similar to another book I was reading at the same time that I didn’t enjoy (The Strange and Beautiful Sorrows of Ava Lavender) even though they had no right being so similar, but I think the comparison was slowly turning me off of this novel. 

In short, this is a good book but it’s not a good book for me. I hope if you read it that it’s good for you though. 

Review: BRING ME YOUR MIDNIGHT by Rachel Griffin

 

Rating: 5/5 stars 

I've been a fan of Rachel Griffin since the release of her first novel, The Nature of Witches. After reading her sophomore novel, Wild Is the Witch, and now her newest novel, Bring Me Your Midnight, I can safely say that Rachel Griffin is an auto-read author for me at this point. 

Each of her stories so far has been a cozy contemporary fantasy set in the Pacific Northwest (my favorite location on earth!) about a witch learning to use her magic while also falling in love. The books are fun, fast-paced, emotional, and heartwarming. 

Bring Me Your Midnight is Rachel's strongest book yet! I loved every minute of it and completely flew through the story. This novel contrasts the duty one has to their family, their ancestors, and their community with the desires of their heart that are completely at odds with what is expected of them. Would you let down everyone around you for your own happiness, or sacrifice your own happiness and future for the safety and happiness of those closest to you? This is the dilemma that the protagonist, Tana Fairchild, faces in this novel. 

As the coven leader's daughter, Tana has been expected since birth to marry the governor's son, Landon, to secure an alliance between the witches on the island and the non-magic humans on the mainland. Tana has always agreed to this plan, until she meets Wolfe, a member of the forbidden dark magic coven, and learns that her coven's magic is slowly killing their island and the surrounding ocean. As Tana learns the truth about her coven's history and the truth about her magic, she will have to decide on a fate that will affect not only her future but the future of everyone in her coven. Bring Me Your Midnight deals with the consequences of one's choices and how something can be both good and bad, both desirable and undesirable at the same time. 

This novel was magically ethereal and thoroughly enjoyable. If you haven't read a Rachel Griffin book yet and love cozy and romantic witchy stories, definitely check out Bring Me Your Midnight. I can't wait to see what novels she has planned for the future. 

Review: STARLING HOUSE by Alix E. Harrow

 

Rating: 4.75/5 stars

Arthur Starling is the mysterious and rarely seen Warden of Starling House, protecting the surrounding land from the Beasts of the Underland that may or may not lurk beneath the house. 

Opal will do anything for her brother, Jasper, to help him leave their small town for good and make his way in the world, including confronting Starling House and its reclusive sole resident. 

While this contemporary southern gothic fairytale is told from the dueling perspectives of both Arthur and Opal, neither is truly the main character of this novel; the house itself lies at the center of the story. 

I love stories containing a creepy, old house, and better yet if the house is a sentient character in the story. The Starling house is darkly magical, mysterious and beautiful, while also crumbling in disrepair. It’s a labyrinth that haunts people’s dreams to draw them to it. And it might also be haunted itself. 

The imagery and vivid descriptions in this story captivated me from the very beginning. I loved letting my mind get lost in Eden, Kentucky while also being glad that I wasn’t physically present in this creepy accident-prone small town.

Starling House is an ethereal and transportive novel perfect for those interested in the dark secrets of a cursed town, an old house with monsters inside, generational history that gets twisted throughout time, family ties and found family bonds stronger than steel, a pair of protagonists fighting for survival, and a swoony romance that rivals that of Howl and Sophie (from Howl’s Moving Castle, another incredible book featuring a sentient house). 

Starling House was one of my most anticipated books of 2023, and it’s definitely on my list of top books I’ve read so far this year. I love Alix Harrow’s lyrical and beautiful writing, and I will continue to read anything she publishes. This is her best novel yet, and it’s a strong recommendation from me.

Review: THE LEFT-HANDED BOOKSELLERS OF LONDON by Garth Nix

 

Rating: 1/5 stars

DNF at 48%. 

The concept of this book sounded really interesting to me: left-handed booksellers and right-handed booksellers, the fighters and the creatives. An underground secret society in London.

Unfortunately, everything about this was a letdown for me. This book is marketed as a young adult fantasy, but it reads like a middle-grade contemporary, except has swearing similar to a young adult or adult novel, so it all just feels really jarring to read. 

The entire story so far was about Susan becoming close with the booksellers as they help her try to discover who her father was. I’m sorry but that is not an exciting plotline in what was supposed to be a fantastical and mysterious novel. It was rather slow-moving as well.

Ultimately I realized that I didn’t care about a single character or what happened to them or who Susan’s father was or any implications related to that. The entire story was boring, in my opinion, and I didn’t care to spend any more time reading it when I could spend time reading a book that actually excites me.

Review: POP KIDS by Davey Havok

 

Rating: 0.25/5 stars

DNF at 13%. 

I remember walking into Barnes and Noble on this book’s release day over ten years ago and seeing a stepladder display at the front of the store entirely filled with copies of Pop Kids. Drawn to the eye-catching hot pink cover, I excitedly grabbed myself a copy and checked out. Then I proceeded to put this book on my shelf and not touch it for a decade. 

I have been a fan of AFI since middle school, and the band’s vocalist is the author of this book, which is the sole reason I wanted to read it. I enjoy a lot of the lyrics he has written for his songs, so I figured some of that writing skill would transfer to his novel.

I was wrong. 

I think the main reason this book sat unread for so long is that the synopsis never sounded interesting to me. A bunch of teens doing unrelatable but stereotypical teenage things like having sex, stealing the car, skipping school, having sex, doing drugs, having big opinions, and did I mention having sex? The short amount of this book I read was truly repulsive and so over-the-top vulgar and sexual that I just could not continue. Included in that is the very uncomfortably misogynistic way he writes about females, as if they are made of only boobs and genitals and have no personality or depth. 

This book is a big disappointment for sure, and not just because of the subject matter. Davey’s writing in his novel is not at all reminiscent of his profound lyrics I’m used to hearing, and I have a hard time believing the same person who wrote this book also wrote the band’s songs that I love. 

My other major problem with this book is the highly apparent and egregious lack of any kind of editing whatsoever. If you are in a world-famous band and can afford to pay for your (self-published) book to be on a full stepladder display at the front of the biggest bookstore in the country, you can afford to hire an editor. It wasn’t just punctuation or formatting issues—of which there were many—but there were misspellings aplenty, word choice issues, redundant scenes and sentences, and many other problems on every single page that made focusing on the actual content of the story quite difficult (especially for an editor like myself who has a keen eye for the small details). Plus the many pop culture references felt very dated and have not aged well, adding a layer of cringe to my already poor reading experience.

This review is probably the harshest I’ve ever written, but Davey Havok will never see it, and honestly it’s in good company (unfortunately). I would not recommend this book at all and truly wish I could just forget everything I read of it. I’ve always been 100% honest in my reviews so I hate to say that, but it’s the truth. The only positive thing I can say about Pop Kids is that I genuinely like the cover. But that is sadly it, my friends.