Tag: horror books

Reviews

The Final Girl Support Group Review

by amyleighreadsLeave a Comment on The Final Girl Support Group Review

*SOME SPOILERS AHEAD*

Lynnette Tarkington is a real-life final girl who survived a massacre twenty-two years ago, and it has defined every day of her life since. And she’s not alone. For more than a decade she’s been meeting with five other actual final girls and their therapist in a support group for those who survived the unthinkable, putting their lives back together, piece by piece. That is until one of the women misses a meeting and Lynnette’s worst fears are realized–someone knows about the group and is determined to take their lives apart again, piece by piece.

Lynette as our main character felt like a realistic portrayal of a victim. Had I have lived through the same situation she has I don’t know how I would of coped so her mannerisms and ultra awareness gave the book depth for me. I of course think she went too far in her quest to find out ‘who’ is trying to kill them and came across as a little out of touch but in the end her experience as a final girl is what pulled her through.

It was a little difficult to differentiate between all of the women. I kept forgetting who was who and how what happened to each of them. We are definitely given a back story on each of them and where they have ended up now but this was glossed over too quickly for me to feel a connection to any of them.

There was a steady build up of anticipation and mystery surrounding who was trying to kill them all, but in the end everything just felt a little rushed. I needed more of an explanation as to why that person decided to go ahead and kill all of these final girls. What motivated them to groom their accomplice and put together this elaborate plan and kill so many people.

In the end this was very entertaining and thrilling. I thought it was a pretty quick read and the twists and reveals definitely kept me engaged. I think I was expecting a lot more blood and gore though. Just being told about all of the horrifying things that happened to these women instead of being in that moment was a little anticlimactic for me. The majority of the story was just Lynette on the run and brainstorming who was behind everything, there wasn’t very much action until right at the very end.

⭐️3/5 stars I was expecting more…

Reviews

All’s Well Review

by amyleighreadsLeave a Comment on All’s Well Review

Miranda Fitch’s life is a waking nightmare. The accident that ended her burgeoning acting career left her with excruciating, chronic back pain, a failed marriage, and a deepening dependence on painkillers. And now she’s on the verge of losing her job as a college theatre director. Determined to put on Shakespeare’s All’s Well That Ends Well, the play that promised, and cost, her everything, she faces a mutinous cast hellbent on staging Macbeth instead. Miranda sees her chance at redemption slip through her fingers.

Miranda as our main protagonist isn’t the most likeable of characters. She’s quite a miserable person and doesn’t really ensnare me as a reader. But rightly so because of the debilitating nature of her pain. I think the commentary surrounding the medical field not believing woman when they say they are in pain was a great inclusion in this book and was a great topic to explore.

The way Miranda devolves during the course of the plot left me quite confused. I didn’t know what she was talking about half the time and didn’t know what was real or if she was just imagining most of her interactions.

I really want to know Mark’s intentions when he was treating Miranda. Did he really just not believe in her pain or was he just being intentionally harmful to her. She expressed to him a few times in her sessions that he was hurting her and the stretches weren’t helping and he would still persist. I can understand her frustrations for sure and I was somewhat satisfied when she projected her pain onto him or whatever it was that she did.

I think what I didn’t really enjoy about the book was that there was no explanation. How the three men gave her the powers and healed her of her pain and how she was able to transfer it to the others. Did she suck out their energy and vitality and used that to heal herself or did she just give them her pain. At the end of my read I’m still left with questions and I’m just not feeling satisfied.

⭐️2/5 stars Regrettably forgettable!

Reviews

My Heart is a Chainsaw Review

by amyleighreadsLeave a Comment on My Heart is a Chainsaw Review

*SOME SPOILERS*

Jade Daniels is an angry, half-Indian outcast with an abusive father, an absent mother, and an entire town that wants nothing to do with her. She lives in her own world, a world in which protection comes from an unusual source: horror movies…especially the ones where a masked killer seeks revenge on a world that wronged them. And Jade narrates the quirky history of Proofrock as if it is one of those movies. But when blood actually starts to spill into the waters of Indian Lake, she pulls us into her dizzying, encyclopedic mind of blood and masked murderers, and predicts exactly how the plot will unfold.

Jade as our main protagonist is very interesting. She very much pulls you into this world of slashers and she is the kind of character that you can form a bond for pretty quickly. There’s a sense of mystery surrounding her and her circumstances about why she chose to try to commit suicide right at the start of the book and her obsession with slashers. Her relationship with her father and mother were also an interesting aspect of the story and even though it isn’t fully explored we definitely get a sense of what went on earlier in Jade’s life.

I understand how her essay’s to Mr Harvey that are inserted are a way to give us more context as to Jade’s frame of mind and just how ingrained these movies are into her psyche but they pulled me out of the story. I skimmed through the majority of them simply because after the first two or three I wasn’t interested in what she was saying. I was kind of bored and wanted to get back to the actual plot and figuring out who this killer was.

Even though the other characters are the main protagonists in Jade’s slasher plot she keeps a majority of them at a distance so we don’t get to know a lot of them in depth. I didn’t feel connected to any of them and when the killings actually started I wasn’t all that horrified that these people had died. Sure their injuries were gruesome and the descriptions certainly didn’t shy away from all the nitty gritty but because the connection wasn’t there the stakes were low.

I don’t know whether it’s Stephen Graham Jones’ writing style or just Jade’s perspective in particular but I was confused as to what was happening for the majority of the story. Where she was and what she was doing and also who she was talking to, it was framed in a way that was a bit too chaotic for me. She was kind of devolving slowly but also as people kept dying she was become more assured of her predictions. It was very much a stream of consciousness style of writing and I couldn’t really follow along and appreciate it as much as others seem to.

⭐️2/5 stars Just not for me…

Reviews

The Southern Book Club’s Guide to Slaying Vampires Review

by amyleighreadsLeave a Comment on The Southern Book Club’s Guide to Slaying Vampires Review

*SPOILERY!*

Set in the ’90s about a women’s book club that must protect its suburban community from a mysterious and handsome stranger who turns out to be a blood-sucking fiend.

Patricia was a great perspective throughout the course of the storyline. She undergoes such a transformation and even though some of her actions are questionable there is no doubt that she is highly entertaining. She’s a proud, dedicated, resolute woman and even though James did his best to undermine and gaslight Patricia at every turn but she stuck to her guns and did whatever she thought was necessary to protect her children.

James’ character was definitely intriguing! I liked how we get a bit of context about his character from Miss Anna and her explanation about what happened with her daddy and how James inevitable killed him. I would of appreciated if we were given a more comprehensive history of James and how he came to be. He boasted at the end how he was one of a kind and there was no one who could compare to him, but I want to know why. Why is he the only ‘vampire’ out there and who created him?

Right at the start meeting all the different ladies was a little confusing. I couldn’t really differentiate between them all, but as the story continued each of the women started evolving and we get more of each of their story. They all felt like real, relatable characters that you would find in that time period, not really taken seriously by their husbands who think they don’t do anything all day. It’s frustrating in that aspect that these women have to just simply drop everything and cater to their husbands whims, but again very much applicable to the time period. I love how the book highlighted that these woman are just supposed to be ‘housewives’ that aren’t capable of anything, but when their community/families are in danger the lengths to which they will go to in order to protect what is theirs.

There was the perfect amount of build-up of anticipation in my opinion. The twists were perfectly timed to ensure I was continually intrigued and wanting to know more! I knew this was a horror book and there were some scenes that had me on the edge of my seat for sure, but for some reason I was expecting a little more blood and gore. I was very much invested in the story and seeing how everything was going to play out and I wasn’t disappointed!

⭐️4/5 stars A thrilling, tense and entertaining read!