Tag: horror

Reviews

Chlorine Review

by amyleighreadsLeave a Comment on 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

Reviews

Guillotine Review

by amyleighreadsLeave a Comment on Guillotine Review

*SPOILERS AHEAD*

Thrift fashionista Dez Lane doesn’t want to date Patrick Ruskin; she just wants to meet his mother, the editor-in-chief of Nouveau magazine. When he invites her to his family’s big Easter reunion at their lake retreat, she’s certain she can put up with his arrogance and fend off his advances long enough to ask Marie Caulfield-Ruskin for an internship someone with her pedigree could never nab through the regular submission route. When they arrive at the enormous mansion on an island in the center of a Georgia lake, Dez is floored―she’s never witnessed how the 1% lives before in all their ridiculous, unnecessary luxury. But once all the family members are on the island and the ferry has departed, shit gets real. For decades, the Ruskins have made their servants sign contracts that are basically indentured servitude, and with nothing to lose, the servants have decided their only route to freedom is to get rid of the Ruskins for good…

I absolutely loved the fact that Dez is just using Patrick to get to his mother and her feelings for him doesn’t change throughout the book, if anything she finds him more repugnant. It’s one thing to just have the thought of using Patrick but her commitment level and the lengths that she would go to just to get into the same room as Marie Ruskin was very entertaining to read. Having her being this morally gray character right from the start gave the book more chances to surprise us because we know that Dez is capable of pretty much anything.

I almost wish that I didn’t read the synopsis and was just surprised by what was going to happen because this was just so well done. Establishing from the start that Dez doesn’t belong to this world and how uncomfortable she already is and being unsure of how the staff are acting and not wanting to say anything because she has no precedent. Are they being super weird or is this just the norm for the uber rich? I also really enjoyed how much of a full circle plot this was despite being a shorter novel. I almost wish it was more of a fill length so we can learn more about Patrick’s family and not just finding out about them when they are about to die.

There are some truly shocking and gory moments and it didn’t shy away from describing all of the details. You really can’t help but wonder if this kind of thing is happening out there in the real world which is quite sad. I definitely found myself aligning with the staff and feel as though they are righting the wrongs this family has wrought on them throughout the years. The fact that these Ruskin men were so arrogant that they never seen this coming and got what they deserve really was the icing on the cake of this fantastic book!

⭐️4/5 stars I ate this up!

Reviews

The Haar Review

by amyleighreadsLeave a Comment on The Haar Review

*SPOILERY FILLED*

Muriel McAuley has lived in the Scottish fishing village of Witchaven all her life. She was born there, and she intends to die there. But when an overseas property developer threatens to evict the residents from their homes and raze Witchaven to the ground in the name of progress, all seems lost… until the day a mysterious fog bank creeps inland. The Haar. To some it brings redemption… to others, it brings only madness and death. What macabre secrets lie within… The Haar.

I really loved Muriel. Hearing her story and all the happy memories she had with her life with Billy really showcased how sad and old she has become. I loved how staunch she was in dealing with the execs who keep coming and soliciting her to sell her home. I can’t even imagine the feeling of helplessness and despair the whole situation would of caused.

I thought the Haar was going to be the monster in the story and not seperate. The Haar was just used as cover for Avalon to appear and was again used for their escape at the end. Given it was the name of the book I thought the fog was going to have more of a substantial role in the plot but it went another direction.

Avalon wasn’t that scary in my opinion, this kind of horror felt more on the campy side. The writing was very descriptive and the various method Avalon used to consume his victims were creative to say the least (the one where they turned into Muriel was definitely an interesting one). Overall this book was quite sad but it took us on a journey and was entertaining for sure!

⭐️4/5 stars Bloody, disgusting, sad and oddly charming

Reviews

Black Sheep Review

by amyleighreadsLeave a Comment on Black Sheep Review

*BEWARE OF SPOILERS AHEAD*

Nobody has a “normal” family, but Vesper Wright’s is truly…something else. Vesper left home at eighteen and never looked back—mostly because she was told that leaving the staunchly religious community she grew up in meant she couldn’t return. But then an envelope arrives on her doorstep. Inside is an invitation to the wedding of Vesper’s beloved cousin Rosie. It’s to be hosted at the family farm. Have they made an exception to the rule? It wouldn’t be the first time Vesper’s been given special treatment. Is the invite a sweet gesture? An olive branch? A trap? Doesn’t matter. Something inside her insists she go to the wedding. Even if it means returning to the toxic environment she escaped. Even if it means reuniting with her mother, Constance, a former horror film star and forever ice queen.

Vesper felt like quite a refreshing main character. She is very self aware and her cynicism and snarkiness was highly entertaining to read from. She does go through quite the emotional journey throughout the course of the storyline and I can’t say I agreed with every decision she made, and yet I was here for it! She definitely shouldn’t of went back to the farm the second time but the series of events that occur after was crazy.

I have to say that first twist that this religious cult Vesper comes from is actually a satanic cult actually shocked me.. I was NOT expecting that at all so that was quite fun. Again, it was quite a refreshing change from the usual cult tropes I’ve read from before. And the fact that the plot gets more and more unhinged as everything unfolds really sucks you in. I really liked how we are introduced to Hells Gate and how their whole way of life is explained. I wish we would of gotten more clarity about Constance though. She was such a compelling character and backstory that I wish we would of learnt more about her life and how she was ‘chosen’ by Lucifer and why she didn’t love Vesper.

I had absolutely no idea what was going to happen at any point of this book and there was just this overall creepy atmosphere and tone of dread laced throughout that added a nice contrast to how over the top and wild the concept which was quite surprising. This is another book where you really need to suspend your beliefs and just follow along for the ride.

⭐️4/5 stars gripping, shocking, fun and entertaining!

Reviews

I Was A Teenage Slasher Review

by amyleighreadsLeave a Comment on I Was A Teenage Slasher Review

*THERE ARE SPOILERS AHEAD*

1989, Lamesa, Texas. A small west Texas town driven by oil and cotton—and a place where everyone knows everyone else’s business. So it goes for Tolly Driver, a good kid with more potential than application, seventeen, and about to be cursed to kill for revenge. Here Stephen Graham Jones explores the Texas he grew up in, and shared sense of unfairness of being on the outside through the slasher horror Jones loves, but from the perspective of the killer, Tolly, writing his own autobiography. Find yourself rooting for a killer in this summer teen movie of a novel gone full blood-curdling tragic.

Tolly as our main character was likeable but pretty pathetic in a way. I think it was the fact that he allowed people to do things to him that any other normal human being would take offense to which in a way I guess that parallels nicely with Justin’s storyline. Even the way he let Amber (his best friend) continually smash his head on her windscreen was a bit of a red flag for me. I was intrigued as we get straight into the book how he was going to ‘turn’ into a slasher and how he managed to evade capture all these years and I was quite happy with how the storyline played out albeit for the majority we aren’t shown exactly what happens.

I loved how Amber was just 100% on board with what was happening and actually believed Tolly. The fact that she even went as far as to call up her brother and then conduct those series of tests was very entertaining and makes the story a bit more believable in a way. I mean you definitely have to suspend disbelief for the most part as these events have only occurred because a teenage boy came back from the dead to enact revenge but it makes you more invested.

The only real flaw I found with this book was the amount of times Tolly would just go on these random long tangents in the middle of chapters. It was just very disjointed and made the story harder to understand, very chaotic. Which I suppose makes sense since he was infected and not in his right frame of mind at the time but made me have to slow down and focus on every word which took me out of the story.

⭐️3/5 very entertaining but confusing at times!