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Dangerous Behavior
My Review: I didn’t know that this book was a romantic suspense novel when I picked it up and I was surprised when I was flooded with so much romance. It is my first experience with the genre and I’m honestly not sure if I care for it. While the romance can be great, I found it distracting and kind of eye-roll worthy in this particular story. Sam and Jules were high school sweethearts, but after a betrayal, they break up and Jules marries Sam’s brother. After tragedy strikes, Jules can’t remember anything about the love for the husband that was there for her and spends all of her time…
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The Grave Tender
Warnings: Violence My Thoughts The Grave Tender is a haunting and beautifully woven southern gothic about a broken family and the love that binds them together. The story starts slow as the story introduces Hadley, her friends, family, and their small town which on the surface seems idyllic. It’s the sort of town where everyone knows each other over generations, but the smiling town hides many secrets. What I loved most about this book was how it dealt with matters of appearance. It’s easy to point fingers and blame those that look the most guilty, who are the most eccentric. It’s the folly of letting appearances dictate our perception of…
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That Weekend
Warnings: Violence, Domestic Abuse, Mature Themes My Thoughts An intensely readable page-turner with more twists than an M. Night Shyamalan movie, That Weekend is a young adult mystery thriller about a trio of friends that disappear in the woods. The story begins with Claire, the only one of the three that is found injured and alone in the woods with no memory of what happened that weekend. It’s the perfect set-up for a summer thriller. The first twenty percent of the novel was slow, setting up Claire’s story and her relationship to her two best friends. It was essentially just Claire’s romantic drama with three different teen boys and while…
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Kink: Stories
My Review: “It was the first real pain he had caused me, it made me suck in my breath, but it wasn’t too much pain, and not unexciting.”Kink is a curious little collection of literary short stories with heavy doses of BDSM and other kinks. It is a nuanced collection that explores human sexuality, relationships, communication, and consent through a diverse lens. I loved the wide spectrum of sexual orientations that are represented while also exploring various themes about desire and the joys and frustrations that come with it. The collection is definitely spicy, especially in the earlier stories. I was surprised that I could find some stories relatable, particularly…
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Goblin: A Novel in Six Novellas
Warnings: Violence My Thoughts Weird towns, we love to see them, and I’m always interested when a previously rare book is republished. I was excited for Goblin the premise sounded good, I love novellas, and the idea of interconnected stories that tell a greater narrative about a town is solid. The idea is good, but the execution was lackluster at most and terribly boring at worst. Happy Birthday, Hunter! was my favorite story of the bunch, the characters and atmosphere are perfect, and the ending was satisfying. A Man in Slices was also decent, while it drags at parts, the idea of having a friend that’s not quite right was…
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Sisters’ Entrance
Warnings: Violence, Racism, Islamophobia, Trauma My Thoughts I’ve struggled to gather my thoughts on this collection, I was just so blown away and overwhelmed by the emotions elicited by this book. The poetry collected here comes from a very personal place for the author, who is a Sudanese refugee that survived the war and genocide in Darfur. Some poems were heavy and spoke of her traumatic experiences such as in People Like Us and The Bride. Others, like Why I Haven’t Told You Yet, were more light-hearted but still carry a strong message. All of these poems pulled together shape the author, her family, her experiences, and her outlook on…
