Review: Bird Box by Josh Malerman

Something is out there, something terrifying that must not be seen. One glimpse of it, and a person is driven to deadly violence. No one knows what it is or where it came from.

★★★★

Echo | 2014

Filed Under: Russia is once again fucking things up for the rest of the world.

Yeah, okay, so I really liked this.

While I was reading, I was reminded of Supernatural where Castiel reveals his true angel visage to a woman and her eyes burn out of her skull. Humans are simply not equipped to handle the overwhelming righteousness of these holy warriors’ true form. But this woman couldn’t help but look. She needed to see, couldn’t live in that moment without knowing. And so, bad shit happened to her even though she’d been warned.

I feel like if I had been in Bird Box world, I’d be dead. For real, I give myself three minutes. Five tops.

I wouldn’t be able to not look at this mysterious, unfathomable thing that was causing people to lose their minds and horrifically kill themselves. I’d be tilting my head back, just taking a peak under my blindfold, like when I was a kid and cheated at pin-the-tail-on-the-donkey at birthday parties.

Definitely dead.

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Review: Pretty Ugly Lies by Pamela Crane

It seems like everyone who settles down is miserable. They’re either broke or stressed or plagued with a sense of duty to someone who doesn’t appreciate them.

★★★½

Bloodhound Books | 2018

Filed Under: Whiny bitches, but like, I totally get it.

This book is going to vibe with different women in different ways because the content is so heavily focused on the various “caregiver” roles that women play. Wife, mother, friend, sister, lover.

It focuses on those roles with a decidedly negative lens. Like, suuuuuuuper negative. Like, if you were thinking about getting married, this will give you pause. If you are on the fence about having kids, this will confirm your worst fears.

Literally, everything is presented as a living nightmare and I’m so grateful for my boring, drama-free life.

The story is told by four women – Jo, Shayla, Ellie and June – who all live on Oleander Way. Some know each other, some don’t, but they are connected by their neighbourhood, Desperate Housewives style.

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Review: Marked for Life (Jana Berzelius, #1) by Emelie Schepp

★★

MIRA | 2016

Filed Under: A child’s jam-hand marks on a murder scene.

I’ll be honest, the only reason I read this was because of the cover. It’s pretty sexy.

Unfortunately, outside of that shallow element, this book didn’t work for me at all. And go figure, basing a decision on literally nothing of depth didn’t leave me fulfilled. Shocking.

I’ll chalk up my low rating of this Scandinavian thriller to an all-encompassing “lost in translation” excuse. But in my typical nature of full disclosure, the other reviews I’ve read have said even the original language version is a sleeper. TBR at your own risk.

What we get with this story is a prosecutor, Jana Berzelius, working with the local PD to find the killer of a man who served as the head of the country’s migration board. You go from that dead guy to a dead boy and a missing girl, and it’s all tied up in a sex trafficking ring. Jana has a personal history with some of the themes explored so she turns into a little bit of a vigilante, which seems to be against her nature.

The synopsis for me wasn’t what would typically catch my eye, but combined with that striking cover I thought WHAT THE HELL, I’LL TRY IT. And here I am now:

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Review: The Breakdown by B.A. Paris

★★

St. Martin’s Press | 2017

Filed Under: Can’t a person just sit in their car without being murdered anymore?

I’m pretty sure me and B.A. Paris should break up.

I read and mostly enjoyed Behind Closed Doors, but I was not over the moon about it like most other reviewers were. Even now, when I think back on that reading experience the only things I remember are that 1) the main character was super annoying and 2) it’s totally ridiculous to believe that a high-powered attorney who works 60+ hour weeks on huge cases, would also have enough time to be that on the fucking nose when it came to keeping his wife hostage.

You don’t want the things a reader remembers about your book to be just the illogical, annoying bits. But then again, I’m a total bitch.

With that said, The Breakdown might be the end of me reading this author’s work.

B.A. Paris seems to have a habit of writing the most annoying female main characters – clueless, meek and insecure – who are married to the most obviously untrustworthy men. I can’t be the only one who is seeing the perfect, loving and thoughtful husband routine as completely shady? Maybe it’s because I’m no stranger to shitty men who do a really good job of tricking you. Even the most romantic of men are not going to be perfect. If they are, they are trying to bamboozle you, bitch!

Basically what we’ve got here is the MC, Cass, driving home one evening on a dark, twisty shortcut that is secluded, because of course it is. On her way, she sees a car parked with a woman inside. She considers checking if the woman needs help, but decides it’s too scary and dark and will call the police from home about the woman simply chillin’ in her car. As you would.

The next day, that woman is dead. Not just dead, murdered!

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Review: Guess Who by Chris McGeorge

“Today, we are going to be playing a little game of Murder.”

★★★½

Hanover Square Press | 2018

Filed Under: If Maury and Robert Stack had a baby, but that baby was drunk all the time.

I went into this novel with every intention of loving it. I swear to the god of thunder. But okay, obviously I didn’t completely get there. Story of my life. No one is shocked.

Guess Who started off as a five-star read until I passed the halfway mark and then this cookie fell apart into crumbly pieces. For the first half of the book, it is very much SAW meets Clue, minus the horror elements. It creates a sinister tone and frantic pace that definitely had me hooked like a stupid fish. It’s a locked-room mystery that feels both extravagant and desperate, and that definitely worked for me in a totally non-sexual sexual way.

Morgan Sheppard is a TV star who has made a living doing a Maury meets Unsolved Mysteries-style show called Resident Detective, which I would have definitely watched when I faked sick as a kid… or even now as an adult.

As a child, Morgan solved the murder of his math teacher and created a very successful career riding (read: exploiting) his 15 minutes. Through his fame and guilt, he’s turned into an alcoholic, drug addict and womanizer. The only problem is that Sheppard has been full of shit for a very long time. And someone knows it. And someone hates him.

This villain, known as The Evil Man, who wears a goofy fucking horse mask, locks Sheppard and five other people in a hotel room with a dead body in the bathtub. Sheppard has 3 hours to find the killer – one of the people in the room – and prove what kind of detective he really is, or the hotel will be blown up.

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Review: The Flight Attendant by Chris Bohjalian

“A smart girl is nobody’s pushover and nobody’s foe. A smart girl is both sword and smile.”

★★

Doubleday | 2018

Filed Under: I woke up like this (next to a dead body.)

Ho, boy this is super disappointing.

The Flight Attendant had been on my radar for a while. Maybe I should have paid more attention to the other reviews on the matter, but my ability to make a snap decision based on a good synopsis has been my downfall once again.

All I saw was “she wakes up next to a dead body,” and I was 100% on board with this. (That was a genuinely subtle plane pun.)

But omigod, it was not at all what I was hoping it would be. The kick-off has so much promise to be suspenseful and thrilling, but it didn’t end up working for me.

I knew it was a thriller. But no one warned me that this was a spy thriller. Jesus, take the wheel! I don’t think I have ever liked a spy thriller. As Peter Griffin would say, they insist upon themselves.

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Review: Wychwood (Wychwood, #1) by George Mann

★★★

Titan Books | 2017

Filed Under: Running through the woods, Jason style, drinking tea

I’m wavering between 2 and 3 stars for this one because, on one hand, it’s not a bad book. The writing is good, the characters don’t suck, the setting is kind of spooky, and the crimes were unique, not something I’d ever read before.

But then, on the other hand, if I think about it, this book was super formulaic; there was nothing different about the plotting or the villain’s reveal. And although the crimes were in-depth and thought out with great detail, the ending was also pretty predictable (read: typical).

Nothing about this book was outside the box, which is disappointing because it had every opportunity to be, considering it was working with a partly supernatural storyline.

It came across as if the author had read a bunch of mediocre crime fiction and decided those examples are how you plot a mystery. It’s kind of like movie scenes that we’ve seen a hundred times, but we know that they never happen in real life, yet we rarely question what we’re watching.

Why does the mother keep preparing a glorious breakfast feast for the kids/father/pets, just for them to only take one bite and then run out the door? Or why do so many people dream of being kissed by a beautiful woman, only to wake up and realize it’s the dog licking their mouth? Or someone calls with terrible news, and instead of explaining it, they say, “turn on the news!” and when they do, it just so happens to be at the very beginning of the event, so you get all the pertinent details.

There are a million more examples, but has any of that ever happened to you? Ever? If I make a giant breakfast, you’re damn straight every single person knew it was happening in advance, and they are going to sit there and fucking eat all of it.

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Review: Ink and Bone by Lisa Unger

“Never talk to strangers. If someone ever tries to take you, fight with everything you have. Scream as loud as you can. (He’d never told her what to do if the man was too strong and there was no one to hear her screaming.)”

★★★

Touchstone | 2016

Filed Under: I see dead people-ing it.

I don’t know why I keep trying to read books with psychic characters, because I never like them.

Also, apparently, this could technically be considered part of a series called The Hollows, but I have zero experience with Lisa Unger or that series, so perhaps that’s why I’m not as jazzed about this book as other readers have been.

This does read like a standalone for all intents and purposes, though.

Basically, what you have here is a twenty-something who is a developing psychic, so she goes to live with her grandmother, who is an experienced psychic, to get her psychic abilities up to snuff. While she’s doing her psychic training, she starts to hear a persistent noise – squeak, clink – and her psychic grandmother is all, “that’s your psychic gift telling you to start doing psychic shit,” so she gets onto the case of a missing child, who has some psychic connections in her life as well.

Basically, everyone is a goddamn psychic.

I’m not sure how a town full of psychics hasn’t been able to find the answer to “where’d that kid go?” but they haven’t, and everyone is distressed; marriages are falling apart, and life is just generally terrible.

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Review: Tear Me Apart by J.T. Ellison

“The words I’ve heard in the past few days are ones I never expected – new, untried, untested. Casket. Body. Funeral. Viewing. Embalming. Autopsy. Severed. Seven-inch non-corrosive steel blade. Homicide.”

★★★★

MIRA | 2018

Filed Under: Broken bones, broken dreams.

Okay, okay, OKAY. Y’all know I love me some J.T. Ellison.

It all started with her Taylor Jackson series more than a damn decade ago (ugh, that makes me feel old), and I’ve been a loyal reader ever since. I love women writing tough women. It’s a thing.

Ellison’s move from series writer to standalone started with Lie to Me, which most people loved, except for yours truly.

What can I say? I’m a picky fucking reader.

I had a few issues with the pacing of Lie to Me (the second half sucked the life out of it) and with the ending (“it was all for nothing, just a giant misunderstanding” doesn’t really work for me. That’s not a twist), but I’m happy to say that I liked Tear Me Apart a lot. A lot, a lot. It’s almost love.

But five-star ratings are so hard to predict. The reading vibe just has to hit me the right way, and I have to feel it in my soul. You know when you know.

So, with perspective, 4 stars is a really good rating for me.

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Review: Meddling Kids by Edgar Cantero

“What about the house? The pentacle? The empty coffins? The symbols written in blood?!”

★★★

Double Day Books | 2017

Filed Under: Jinkies and Zoinks!

Here’s a fun fact about me: one of my go-to stress-relieving pastimes (and just pastime, in general) is getting as baked as a potato. And what often follows is watching Scooby-Doo.

I have always had an affinity for mystery-solving kids because I wanted to be a mystery-solving kid. But as it turned out, I had really boring neighbours growing up, so as much as I tried to catch them committing nefarious acts, my Rear Window/Disturbia moment never happened. I had to live vicariously through shows like Ghostwriter, The Secret World of Alex Mack and the Scooby Gang.

So, kick me in the crotch and spit on my neck if I wasn’t through-the-roof excited to find that someone had taken my beloved Scooby Gang and used it as the basis for a brand new adult caper! Not only that, it’s mixed with a little Lovecraft flair?!

THIS IS EXACTLY WHAT YOU NEED IN YOUR LIFE, my heart screamed.

Turns out, my heart jumped the gun, and it is still firmly in the “cartoons and weed” category.

That’s not to say that this wasn’t a fun read. It totally was. It just didn’t live up to the hype or the nostalgia it so clearly was trying to honour. But A for effort!

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