It’s been a while since I posted a book haul!! Here is my chaotic pile of books I’ve accumulated over the last few months that I now need to find space for on my shelves 😅
📚 Book Haul 📚
🔪Slasher Books🔪
Hello friends it’s Top Ten Tuesday time and this week’s prompt is Books that Include/Feature your favorite theme or plot device. Lately I’ve been delving into the horror genre and I discovered that I tend to enjoy a good slasher! So here at the last 5 slasher books that I really enjoyed:
Rest Stop Review
A young musician finds himself locked inside a gas station bathroom in the middle of the night by an unseen assailant, caught between the horrors on the other side of the door and the horrors rapidly skittering down the walls inside.
Abe is a deeply layered character, and despite this being a novella, we’re given plenty of insight into his background, which I really appreciated. The story delves into his past and explores his relationships with those closest to him. That phone call with his brother at the beginning did a great job of establishing who Abe is and where he stands within his family.
I really enjoyed the gradual buildup of tension and anticipation throughout the story. The addition of the animals from the reptile farm was unsettling, and as someone who’s terrified of spiders, those moments in the bathroom were particularly tough to get through. I can’t even fathom being in that situation—trapped, terrified, and then having to decipher cryptic notes on top of it all.
This wasn’t the most gruesome book I’ve read, but it definitely had its fair share of unsettling moments. While I didn’t find it especially scary, the vivid descriptions made it easy to picture everything playing out in my mind. It certainly makes you think twice about stopping at a gas station in the middle of the night!
⭐️3/5 A shorty, wacky and wild read!
Chlorine Review
Ren Yu is a swimmer. Her daily life starts and ends with the pool. Her teammates are her only friends. Her coach, her guiding light. If she swims well enough, she will be scouted, get a scholarship, go to a good school. Her parents will love her. Her coach will be kind to her. She will have a good life. But these are human concerns. The concerns of those confined to land. Ren grew up on stories of creatures of the deep, of the oceans and the rivers. Stories that called sailors to their doom. Stories that dragged them down and drowned them. Stories of the creature that she’s always longed to become: a mermaid. Ren aches to be in the water. She dreams of the scent of chlorine – the feel of it on her skin. And she will do anything she can to make a life for herself where she can be free. No matter the pain. No matter what anyone else thinks. No matter how much blood she has to spill.
I enjoyed Ren’s character for the majority of the book however, she does become more and more unlikeable as the plot progresses. I think it’s mostly to do with her slow descent into madness and her lack of empathy and awareness of the feelings of those around her. She was so mean and nasty to Cathy throughout the book and it was very unwarranted I feel. Cathy continuously shows up for Ren and the couple of times where the peer pressure was too great for the both of them Ren blames Cathy for not speaking up more.
The pacing of this book wasn’t really consistent for me. There are times where Ren is on the go and then it slows down and we’re going around in circles a lot of the time. This is a pretty short book in terms of pages but it felt like kind of a slog to get thorough which made me a bit hesitant to pick it back up at times.
This book had a lot of potential. I can see how some of the themes in here can really relate to a lot of young people, especially those that are still in high school but I’ve realised whilst reading this book that coming of age stories aren’t my favourite thing to read any more. I don’t really have the patience to sit through hundreds of pages of young people making obvious and unnecessary mistakes over and over and not really take accountability.
⭐️3/5 stars fell a bit flat for me
Buzzword Reading Challenge
If you are unaware what the Buzzword Readathon/Challenge is see my prior post HERE. Last month the buzzwords were ‘water related words‘ and I ended up completing Chlorine by Jade Song which I really enjoyed!
With March the buzzword is a book with ‘thing’ in the title and I have one book on my physical TBR that I would love to read for this prompt which is:
Nothing to See Here by Kevin Wilson
Amy Leigh Reads 