So here's the thing: I could talk about some of the craft elements of this book that either I don't think were too well done or that just didn't work So here's the thing: I could talk about some of the craft elements of this book that either I don't think were too well done or that just didn't work for me in general -- how I wish that more outside perspectives had been incorporated alongside the diary rather than just two interviews, how I had some trouble delineating whether the footnotes/historical notes were actually real or invented for the story, which affected my immersion, how I had the hardest time keeping a lot of the characters straight because they didn't feel like they had terribly much personality, how I didn't find Kate a great narrator because her inner voice sounded very young and wishy-washy and it was difficult to get too much sense of her as a character, let alone feel very attached to her. And under other circumstances all of those things might have been enough to ding this down to a three-star read on their own! But the truth is that they don't matter to me anywhere near as much as the real reason that this is getting three stars, which is that the subject matter of this book is not one that I enjoy, and even though I do think that it is overall an at least decently, if not outright well, written and executed story, it just wasn't enough to overcome my instinctive aversion.
I feel like I'm on a hot streak of books that I felt that way about, ha -- two authors in a row, now, where I've picked up a book that usually wouldn't be my jam because I unexpectedly liked a previous book of theirs starring subject matter that wasn't my jam (Grady Hendrix's We Sold Our Souls and Brooks's World War Z), and was hoping that I'd strike gold twice -- but no dice! The Southern Book Club's Guide to Slaying Vampires was too gory/overtly-horror-y for my taste, and now this one is too survival-y/horror-y to appeal to me. There's only so much work that can be done to overcome that, and in this case, I admittedly did find the writing solid and the approach creative (I loved the overall tone of ... not excessive realism and not sensationalism, but as matter-of-fact as one could be as a veneer barely covering what a huge and terrifying discovery the existence of sasquatches was? it was the perfect note to hit), and I did keep reading out of wanting to know what was going to happen next and how it would all wrap up. But it just wasn't enough to get me fully engaged in a premise I just intrinsically don't like and a denouement I didn't enjoy because it's not my kind of content. None of which is the book's fault! Again, I think that as a book, it is at absolute minimum decent, possibly even pretty good. But for my own part, it was just not for me. Sorry, Max, I followed you through zombies but I can't meet you at Bigfoot....more
Boy, horror is so not my thing that I'm a little surprised I was so interested in reading this -- and I honestly can't even remember what it was that Boy, horror is so not my thing that I'm a little surprised I was so interested in reading this -- and I honestly can't even remember what it was that made me grab it -- but YOU KNOW, WHATEVER MY REASONS, FULLY, FULLY WORTH IT. This book is, incredibly, both a very good execution of a classic gothic novel and a very skilled subversion of it, bringing in classic tropes like The Real Horror Is White Supremacy, The Real Horror Is Colonialism, and The Real Horror Is Patriarchy, with a healthy dose of The Real Horror Is The Horror interwoven throughout. And every facet is executed so perfectly! The writing is engaging, the characters are compelling and appalling, respectively, the scenario is skin-crawling, the plot is compelling -- every aspect of it works so well in concert that I never wanted to put it down and couldn't wait to pick it back up again whenever I was forced to. I wanted to race to the end and then savor the last few pages because it was almost over. It's so good!! If you love horror, you'll love this book; if you're a big ol' wimp like me, you'll probably love this book too.
Some things I especially loved about this: the slow and creeping pace of it (I know some people had issues with the pacing, but I thought it worked perfectly and never felt like it was dragging); the multiple side characters that slowly stopped appearing as the story got more claustrophobic; Noemi as a bold and competent and disobedient sort of heroine, she is just WONDERFUL; the sheer visceral descriptions of all of the horror, slowly ramping up in detail and grossness, because OH MY GOD; Francis's sweetness contrasted with Virgil's bone-deep awfulness; the WRITING, Silvia Moreno-Garcia is SO GOOD, even when she's writing stuff that isn't my thing, I have to fully respect and appreciate the way she does it (and when it IS my thing it's SO GODDAMN EXCELLENT). The only thing I would really say I didn't love was the sort of disjointed eleventh-hour-reveal confusing and swift nature of the ending; it all felt a little too overwhelming and difficult to follow and throwing a bunch of stuff in at the very last second that was only going to be relevant for a couple more pages anyway. But as you can see, that's a pretty minor issue that in no way impacted my satisfaction at the way this closed out or the enjoyment I got from reading the rest of it. This is one of those books where the more I sit with it and think about what I liked about it, the more highly I think of it. So -- five stars, everyone should read this (unless you're, like, TRULY weak of constitution and don't think an enjoyment of great writing and better storytelling can overcome it)....more
(Realistic rating: these average out to 3.8 stars, so I'm rounding right up because I enjoyed both the premise and the structure of this so much, and (Realistic rating: these average out to 3.8 stars, so I'm rounding right up because I enjoyed both the premise and the structure of this so much, and the stories I enjoyed feel stronger than the ones that didn't work for me!)
I love anthologies like this, and despite the fact that I'm only kind of into vampires as a whole, I was looking forward to seeing all of these takes. There was less variety on the traditional concept of vampires than I was hoping for, but I did like the way that a lot of them addressed different aspects of vampirism, combined with the little asides from the authors (I LOVE anthologies that have context notes!!). As I said above, a few of these didn't quite work for me, but most of them were a lot of fun, even if I wished they were a lot longer!! (Always a good problem to have with fiction, tbh.)
4.5 stars: "Senior Year Sucks" by Julie Murphy (so!! cute!! and good!!! honestly I'm just furious that we don't get an entire novel of what happens after this, because I love it SO MUCH and would absolutely adore reading it); "A Guidebook for the Newly Sired Desi Vampire" by Samira Ahmed (this is like.... JUST too actively tongue-in-cheek and Clever for me to boost up to five stars, but it's still so clever-with-a-lowercase-c and fun and enjoyable that I liked it a lot?? so much thought and creativity put into every aspect of developing it! so many nods to the author's culture that feel so real yet so relatable!!); "Mirrors, Windows, & Selfies" by Mark Oshiro (as far as I can tell, Mark is VERY good at hinting at a world much wider than what he actually covers in short stories, and sometimes it works super well and sometimes it doesn't -- in this case, it mostly does! the format is amazing and I'm very attached to the characters and the story, but GOD do I want SO MUCH FUCKING MORE, OH MY GOD)
4 stars: "Seven Nights for Dying" by Tessa Gratton (I loved the contrast in perspectives between young human girl and ancient creature, and the different explanations for why teenage girls make good vampires, and the vein [ho ho ho] of sadness and grief and fury running through it; a wonderful, tragic, powerful story); "The Boys from Blood River" by Rebecca Roanhorse (this isn't ENTIRELY my jam, but it's so well-crafted that it's borderline 4.5; so, so creepy and aching and horrifying and longing and GOOD, ugh, what a wonderful take on vampires and their creation); "Vampires Never Say Die" by Zoraida Cordova & Natalie C. Parker (!!! I want this to be a fucking novel!!! I love the world it sets up, but it feels so much like a glimmer or a sliver of something that I want to be way, way bigger, and to read way more words about!!); "The House of Black Sapphires" by Dhonielle Clayton (I'm ranking this one more on potential than reality; it's probably a 3.5-4 borderline, because there is SO MUCH alluded to and hinted at and then SO LITTLE actually happens?? I'm so deeply intrigued but there is not a lot actually on the page here and IT DRIVES ME NUTS, GIMME THE NOVEL, DHONIELLE!! HELL, GIVE ME THE SERIES!!! I'LL READ EVERY SINGLE ONE); "First Kill" by V.E. Schwab (I feel like this, too, spoke to a much larger world than was actually contained in the story -- it's more like a backdoor pilot or a prologue than an actual self-contained story, and I would ABSOLUTELY read the novel!!)
3.5 stars: "In Kind" by Kayla Whaley (I liked the idea of this a lot and I think it's really important, and I especially love the detail of vampires not instantly being perfectly healed from whatever ailed them in life -- but it was also just SUCH a downer, so it's hard to really call it enjoyable? but I would also say that I'm not necessarily the intended audience for this, so grain of salt!)
3 stars: "The Boy and the Bell" by Heidi Heilig (I loved the trans rep and the clear thought put into how the story would be structured as a result, but otherwise this was just okay? not a lot going on in it!)
2 stars: "Bestiary" by Laura Ruby (this was just... so bleak, and so confusing, and so untethered; I barely got to know the characters or the setting or the story because it all felt so deliberately obscured, and I found that very frustrating! really not my thing)...more
(Realistic rating: a pure average of the stories clocks in at just under 3.5, which feels just about right, but given how much better I wanted the who(Realistic rating: a pure average of the stories clocks in at just under 3.5, which feels just about right, but given how much better I wanted the whole conceit of the anthology to be, I gotta round down here, tragically.)
This is absolutely, unfortunately a conceit that I wanted to love and ended up liking and being disappointed by in equal measure, which is SUCH a downer. I love the idea of using food as a vehicle for stories, a link to culture and a way to express love and connection, and I love even more the idea of using intertwining characters and places and stories to do so -- but this barely pulled off the former and really didn't quite pull off the latter. Rather than fun easter eggs and enjoyable connections, the namedrops of other characters and settings throughout the stories just felt weak and confusing and barely realized; the connections between all of them didn't feel real. The wide variety of subjects and tones didn't make these stories feel like they were set in the same place, and I really didn't get the sense that the people involved knew or cared about each other at all -- which was the exact opposite of what I wanted! SO disappointing, when I was so looking forward to it.
And the stories themselves -- well, they were mostly just fine? I didn't dislike most of them, but I was underwhelmed by a lot of them, as you'll see below with my specific ratings!
4 stars: "Rain" by Sangu Mandanna (a really lovely meditation on grief and how to keep your loved ones with you and bonding with those it hurts as much as you, all wrapped up in food, a metaphor for love if I've ever heard one; the end was so, so lovely, so hopeful and funny and bittersweet all at once); "The Grand Ishq Adventure" by Sandhya Menon (this is a REALLY strong four stars, by virtue of "I had absolutely no problems with it but also nothing super exceptional about it stood out to be, but also it's SO DELIGHTFUL" -- a gorgeously structured little fluffy romcom of a story, full of burgeoning self-confidence and delicious food and sweet romance and lovely little cameos from the other characters! I really liked this!!); "The Missing Ingredient" by Rebecca Roanhorse (UM!!! THIS FUCKED ME UP BUT GOOD!!! I almost wish it had been longer, because it felt way too intense for its short timeframe, but also I think that worked in its favor? also it was SO FUCKED UP AND CREEPY AND GOD THAT ENDING ugh this was really really good); "Side Work" by Sara Farizan (I almost wish this had had just a tad more conflict, which is rare for me? but it's SO cute and sweet and lovely, and I felt so heartwarmed upon finishing it, such a beautiful story about family and forgiveness [and incredibly good lesbians!!]); "Panaderia - Pasteleria" by Anna-Marie McLemore (sort of a weak borderline 4; this was so sweet and I really liked it, but I do wish we'd gotten a little more time with Lila after seeing her throughout everything -- I knew this was going to be short, going in, but it needed at least a few more pages to properly shine!)
3.5 stars: "Kings and Queens" by Elsie Chapman (sort of a borderline 3.5-4; I really love the way every element of this story is executed, but the actual content of essentially a mob story doesn't really appeal to me at all, so there's only so much that good storycraft can do in the face of trying to overcome that!); "Sugar and Spite" by Rin Chupeco (this is probably my least favorite thing of hers I've read, not just because of the second person [which works decently here, I'm just not a huge fan] but because the first half or so feels SO very dense, with very little actual movement in either plot or character; the end, though, is really satisfying, and I love the magical and culinary traditions explored here, so it definitely turned around a bit at the end and left me feeling content with what I'd just read); "The Slender One" by Caroline Tung Richmond (this was fun and sweet with a cute ending, but a little too traditionally teen-y and predictable to be something I really, genuinely enjoyed); "Bloom" by Phoebe North (I really enjoyed the conceit of this and the execution of a character like Naomi and the slightly unpredictable arc of it, but I appreciated it in theory more than I liked reading it in practice -- it's good, it's just not quite my jam)
3 stars: "Moments to Return" by Adi Alsaid (it's just bad luck on this one, as it's good enough to have been rated a bit higher if the non-own-voices culture the author had chosen to explore hadn't been my own?? and after reading, say, Lana Popovic writing about Montenegro as a person who's from there, and me practically being able to feel the sea breeze and taste the food and be catapulted back to my teen holidays in Podgorica, I might not have noticed the lack quite so much, but -- don't just arbitrarily pick a place and talk about generic fear of death without bothering to actually make your character feel like they're from there?? it's a decently written story with a solid, subtle arc, but it absolutely lacked any cultural nuance or soul, so while I'm sure this might not have bothered other people, personally, I can't say that I really enjoyed it)
2.5 stars: "Gimme Some Sugar" by Jay Coles (I loved the premise of this, and the way it talks about food, and the predictable but nonetheless heartwarming story arc -- but the writing style just absolutely did not work for me, to the extent that it might have even dipped below two stars if it didn't have a happy ending); "Hearts a la Carte" by Karuna Riazi (honestly I felt like this was very lackluster? it's decently written, and it's got a fun premise, but it packs way too much in way too short of a space, without enough time to get emotionally attached to any of the significant happenings, and the back end of the story falls completely flat as a result; I'd say it's borderline 2.5-3 stars, because I didn't actively dislike anything about it, but I can't find anything that particularly grabbed me, either); "A Bountiful Film" by S.K. Ali (this is also almost a borderline 2.5-3, because I think it could have been a higher rating if it had been a full book? I mean, a professional rivalry, a relocation and getting to know and love and new place, a mystery of a runaway boy... there's a lot going on in here! and trying to cram it all into a short story means no part of it feels real or fully realized, which does all of the really interesting elements a huge disservice)...more
(I REALLY struggled with what to tag this, genre-wise, so I'm compromising by going with my gut feelings as to the boxes it kind of checks, ha.)
This b(I REALLY struggled with what to tag this, genre-wise, so I'm compromising by going with my gut feelings as to the boxes it kind of checks, ha.)
This book MELTED MY GODDAMN BRAIN. Like, I literally could not actually objectively tell you whether I think it's good or whether I enjoyed the process of reading it; I THINK the answer to both is "yes"? But it is so hard to be sure when MY BRAIN IS LEAKING OUT OF MY EARS EVERY TIME I SO MUCH AS THINK ABOUT IT. Like, what.... what the fuck?? What the fuck did I just read?? What just happened to me?? THESE ARE THE REAL QUESTIONS THIS BOOK PROMPTS, BECAUSE SERIOUSLY, WHAT THE FUCK.
In all seriousness, though: this book is, in many ways, unlike anything I've ever read before. Reading it feels like listening to a concept metal album would. It starts off slow, then absolutely crashes, then builds towards a mythology that feels equal parts grounded in reality and abstracted in metaphor, and by the end, you really have no idea what just happened. It's a lot! It's overwhelming, and deliberately so, and I think the effect I described above is very much intended, too, ha. It's off-putting and confusing and hard to grasp, but the fact that that's very much by design, and succeeds so thoroughly, makes me feel better about it. I have some minor craft-based complaints (the characters are a little hard to keep track of -- some feel a little unused/poorly fleshed out as a result, which is unsatisfying -- and the pacing is a bit off in places), but the premise and structure is just so absolutely, wildly creative and the writing is so visceral, disgusting and vivid and emotional and real, that it's hard to care too much about that. Definitely enough to stop it from being a Forever Fave for me, but nowhere near enough to stop it from being intensely enjoyable (if you can subsume "brainmelting" into "enjoyable," ha, which I think I would like to do here). The experience of reading this was wild, and the ending felt bewildering yet satisfying, and ... wow, just, damn, was this book ever a thing that happened to me. WAS IT EVER.
Also, I have not wanted a fictional album to exist so badly since I finished Daisy Jones and the Six and wanted to listen to Aurora more than anything. WHY CAN'T I FILL MY EARS WITH TROGLODYTE, IT'S WHAT WE DESERVE!!...more
(Realistic rating: the average of all of these clocks in just below 3.5, but I definitely have to round up because even if I didn't love the execution(Realistic rating: the average of all of these clocks in just below 3.5, but I definitely have to round up because even if I didn't love the execution of all of these, I love the premise SO MUCH.)
What a fun, FUN anthology concept -- and how much better it is for having the original Poe tales appended to the end!! It was such an utterly delightful experience to get to read or reread each Poe tale before seeing how it was retold -- sometimes, admittedly, to the detriment of the new story, but often to its advantage! The ones that got it right here highlighted the fun and creepy aspects while creatively updating them; the ones that didn't either felt stale or pointless, but were mostly still at least enjoyable. Even if the execution wasn't perfect, I just love the fact that this exists, and it was so completely enjoyable to sift through.
So below I've ordered the new stories by star rating, as I usually do, and below that I've ordered the Poe stories -- not starred, since I'm ranking the new stories, but ordered roughly by how much I enjoyed them! (And the ones that are rereads for me are marked with an asterisk.)
So, new stories:
4.5 stars: "Night-Side" by Tessa Gratton (okay, technically this is bury-your-gays, but it's an Annabel Lee retelling, so... you kind of expect it going in?? and making it gay just makes it so much lovelier and more tragic, and I love how explicitly condemning of attitudes toward queer teenage girls this is, and it has such a particular beautiful melancholy tone, and!! I love it A LOT); "Happy Days, Sweetheart" by Stephanie Kuehn (oh, I'm SO impressed by how well this riffed on my favorite Poe story, how it used modern issues to craft a similarly well-prepared murderer, how it turns the ending on its head and reveals instead a moment of triumph -- it's hard to avoid making points seem like they're dropping anvils in short stories, but they're ones that so need dropping, in this case); "Lygia" by Dahlia Adler (I looooooved this, what a perfect tragic gay adaptation of a story which in its original form made me go a little ?? at its exigence; this and "Night-Side" are, I think, the only two stories in here that actively find ways to improve upon the original and leave me liking them way better, this one left me SO impressed and horrified and also sad and sympathetic)
4 stars: "The Glittering Death" by Caleb Roehrig (I can't decide if I love the creativity of this retelling or hate that it takes away the isolation of the original by expanding the character's world? but that's just with regards to how it holds up as a retelling -- as a story, it's wonderful, brutal and real and with such a solid, good, true narrative voice); "A Drop of Stolen Ink" by Emily Lloyd-Jones (if this had been longer, I think it easily could have reached 4.5?? but the worldbuilding is a bit too complex to fit into a short story, as is the resolution -- otherwise, this is LOVELY, such a good adaptation, with such real-feeling characters and such a creepy cyberpunk setting); "The Murders in the Rue Apartelle, Boracay" by Rin Chupeco (this is definitely a 4-4.5 cusp; I LOVE Rin Chupeco's writing, and even the words that were unfamiliar to me flowed so naturally through this, it wasn't a struggle to place them at all, and I love the world she creates here, the magical and psychedelic nature of it shot through with such a natural teen voice grounding it in something like reality, and every aspect of this -- the modern elements and adaptations, the romance, the twist at the end -- works so well for me, but a lot of it feels just a BIT too abrupt, without giving me quite enough time to ground myself or absorb the changes, so even though I love it I'm rounding down a bit here)
3.5 stars: "It's Carnival!" by Tiffany D. Jackson (a pretty straightforward retelling that doesn't add a whole lot to the story itself, but a much more sympathetic reasoning behind the murder and a GREAT way to update the setting/timing of the original); "Changeling" by Marieke Nijkamp (this is kind of a borderline 3.5-4 -- I love the premise of a group of disabled children banding together to find their own family and live their own lives, but the actual threads of the story felt disconnected, more like a trailer to a movie I'd really want to watch [or a teaser for a novel I'd really want to read] than a story that could actually stand on its own)
3 stars: "The Oval Filter" by Lamar Giles (as a story, this is a strong three stars, definitely close to 3.5 -- I like the arc of the story, and the creepy elements of it, and I would read a whole book about Courtney, who sounds amazing -- but as a retelling, I was totally bewildered by how much further it took the premise and how much it built out; I think this would have served way better standing on its own, out of Poe's shadow)
2.5 stars: "The Fall of the Bank of Usher" by Fran Wilde (an intriguing premise, with characters I really wanted to learn more about, but on the whole, way too confusingly worldbuilt and structured for me to feel anything other than brief flickers of interest)
2 stars: "She Rode a Horse of Fire" by Kendare Blake (hard eh overall; decently written and an okay retelling, but genuinely doesn't feel like it adds anything new to a story that I honestly don't find particularly compelling to begin with?); "Red" by Hillary Monahan (pretty much the exact same thoughts here, only I DO like the original story a lot, so it feels even worse, ha; the anvils are dropped a little too hard here, and it truly just reads like kind of an updated version of "eat the rich," which -- legit, but pointless, when the original already does it so well?)
1 star: "The Raven (Remix)" by Amanda Lovelace (man, I'm not going to say it's impossible to create anything better than "The Raven" from its own words, but I feel like this was barely trying? I don't think this poem format belongs in an anthology like this, I don't think the actual poem worked even one bit, and amidst all the other creative retellings here, I was INTENSELY underwhelmed; miss this ENTIRELY)
Poe stories (* indicates a reread):
"The Tell-Tale Heart" * (this is the first Poe I ever read, so it's absolutely mythical in status to me now as the Ur-Poe; I'd reread it all the time, always feeling that shiver of terror and thorough enjoyment of the arc of the story and beautiful writing, and I still love it super deeply now) "The Raven" * (I mean, I will love this poem forever?? I know it's practically memetic, but it's so lyrical and haunting, so bleak and poetic, practically impossible not to read out loud for the sheer joy of how well the words fit together; I just adore it, and it'll always have a place in my heart) "The Cask of Amontillado" * (memetic as this, too, is by now, it's one of my favorite Poe stories of all time; the memory of reading it in eighth grade and loving everything about it -- the sinister narrator, the lugubrious turns of phrase, that fucking cold-blooded ending -- is forever engraved into my memory, and every time I read it I enjoy all of those things anew) "Hop-Frog" (I'd never even heard of this story before, let alone read it, but OH MY GOD a disabled person's revenge story??? the brutality they suffer is a little overwhelming to read about, but the end is SO goddamn satisfying, and I'm so pleased to read something so... surprisingly progressive by Poe? though maybe it's the disabled person winning that he considered the horror?? WHO KNOWS, but either way, I really loved this!) "The Masque of the Red Death" (OH, HOW TIMELY THIS ONE IS RIGHT NOW; I'd actually never read it before, but OOF, it's so dark and so real, and shows just how little the attitudes of the rich have changed since Poe's day, and WHAT AN ENDING, GOD) "The Pit and the Pendulum" * (a tad overwrought and dense, but oh, it captures the terror of solitary confinement so thoroughly and terrifyingly -- it's so gloriously claustrophobic and chilling -- and pulls off a happy ending super rare for Poe!) "The Oval Portrait" (this is too short to have too much of an impact either way, but it's a nice, brief, chilling moment, easy to follow and very depressing!) "The Murders in the Rue Morgue" (not quite sure how I feel about this one!! I love the obvious simultaneous embrace and parody of the Holmes type character, but it still feels over the top, and while I do love the total absurdity of the ending, it's also... kind of A Lot lmao, so this is a perfect middle point for these stories!) "Ligeia" (fun and creepy and decently self-contained -- I enjoyed reading this, but I also definitely found myself going "so like, what's the point" lmao) "The Fall of the House of Usher" * (I always kind of want this one to be cooler and more intense and fun than it actually is? it's a story that just SOUNDS like it should be amazing, but the summary always sounds better than the actual story, which drags quite a bit and never quite manages to be as chilling as it promises) "The Purloined Letter" (part of me enjoys the subtle humor and tangled means of solution in this, but part of me finds it dense and complicated and confusing -- maybe it would have helped to read the other Dupin stories first before I hit this one? It's certainly a Choice to have them out of order here!) "Annabel Lee" * (beautifully written, but man, the tragedy in this is so overwrought it's almost comical) "Metzengerstein" (have to admit I was not impressed by this; the writing is decent as Poe goes and it's an all right premise, but it's dense and overall not a whole lot of import or interest really happens in it?)...more
(Realistic rating: ... mmmm GOD I had no idea how to rate this book. Did I like the bits that worked for me well enough to round up? Was it enough of (Realistic rating: ... mmmm GOD I had no idea how to rate this book. Did I like the bits that worked for me well enough to round up? Was it enough of a mess to merit rounding down? I'm going to go with the former, because I am just... not a horror person in general, so it's possible this book will work better for people who are? Even though I don't even think the horror element is nearly as strong as it was touted to be?? But whew, it was quite a close call there.)
I... legitimately don't even know where to begin talking about this book?? I don't! I just don't!! I expected it to be more horror than it was; I expected it to be more explicitly supernatural than it ended up being, at first. I expected it to be more about family than it was. I expected it to be more monstrous, on the whole, and less... let's say "straight male fantasy," because I think people will know what I mean what I say that? It was the better end of that sort of genre, but had it gone a little less hard on that angle, it would have been much more enjoyable. So at the end of the day, given the ways it subverted my expectations -- and for the most part not for the better -- the entire stretches of time that it bored me and the ways in which it was, at the end of the day, SUCH a cishet male story... I honestly have no idea how I feel about it. I really don't! This review is probably going to be pretty disjointed, because this is a disjointed-as-hell story, and I just cannot put my thoughts about it together in a coherent way.
It took a very, very long time for this book to get genuinely interesting and genuinely creepy; we spent so much time on the setup, the first bit of payoff almost felt anticlimactic. And we didn't really get much family content at the same time as monster content, which made it hard to feel what the emotional core of the story was. The narrative really wanted to pay lip service to focusing on other members of Noah's family while also spending the overwhelming amount of time with him, which made it hard to really care about anyone else -- and quite frankly, so much of Noah's life felt so stereotypical (monster's gotta turn into a beautiful woman who loves him and wants to only be with him! of course! SO STRAIGHT DUDE IT HURTS, MAN), it was hard to root too much for him, either. The narrative tried to fit so much into such a short space, it meant that the rare moments of genuine horror felt, for the most part, totally misplaced amidst much more mundane happenings rather than being the core of the story, which made most of it feel awkward and mispaced.
I WILL say, however, that the end of the book almost makes the poorly paced, emotionally disorganized, straight-man-fantasy nonsense nature of the rest of it worth it. ALMOST. I still wish it had been tighter, and better developed on an emotional level, and more cognizant of where its actual story was... but boy, does the end deliver in terms of both horror and emotional punches. I don't think this story could have ended any other way, and OOF, did I ever feel it. I felt it in my damn soul. I wish the majority of this book had been something different, except for the ending, and I think for someone more able to overlook a lot of my particular issues, the end is going to hit even harder and better....more
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