My eyeballs hurt from all the rolling. Review of The Cursed Carnival and Other Calamities

 I wanted to read The Cursed Carnival and Other Calamities when I saw that Rebecca Roanhorse was one of the short story writers. I've read all of her books and enjoyed them.

Since I'm not between 8 and 12 years old, I might not be the best for reviewing this collection of hero stories. Maybe if I put a month between reading each selection I would have enjoyed them more. The problem with reading them one after another was that they sounded too much alike.

Different kids with different abilities, sometimes from different places in the universe, yet they all seemed just the same. Each hero managed dialogue that was witty even when they were about to be eaten, killed, squashed, whatever. Friends and enemies were snarky toward each other. There was usually a clueless adult. And, don't get me started on eyeball rolling. I think characters rolled their eyes in every story. I know tweens roll their eyes, but everybody, all the time, in every story? I'm going to have to buy a second eyeball-roll-o-meter to keep up with all the optical athletics. 

I did like Ms. Roanhorse's story even if the character's eyeballs were unhinged. The good news was that her protagonist realized her snarkiness might keep her from being a good friend and changed her ways, if not her eyeball theatrics.

I might not be crazy about this anthology, but 6th graders would probably love it.  Me, I just rolled my eyes at the stories.

Thanks to Netgalley for an advance readers digital copy in return for an honest review.

Math, Money, Monsters, and Magicians A review of The Peculiarities.

 Where have the books by David Liss been all my life?

I like books that are different, odd, and peculiar and The Peculiarities certainly is. You want creepy, murderous monsters? Liss gives us The Elegants. We have some kindly werewolves, people who turn into trees, mathematical solutions, and the infamous Aleister Crowley, a real person (though odd) borrowed from history. Holding the story together is the protagonist, Thomas, who responds to the bizarre goings-on as a proper Victorian gentleman. When asked by a man married to a werewolf what he thinks of that, Thomas replies, "I celebrate your domestic happiness." He always has the right, though often baffled, reply.

Thomas grows as a character. At the beginning, when his brother demands he marry a certain woman, Thomas can't imagine marrying a Jewish woman. As the novel goes on, Thomas realizes how narrow his rich white man Victorian view has been. A new world, and worlds, open to him.

The Peculiarities is strange and humorous, gory and startling, and thought-provoking while being lots of fun to read. 

Thanks to Netgalley for allowing me the opportunity to read an eARC in return for an honest review.

Whoopee! Netgalley Says I'm a Top Reviewer!

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A Ghost Dog! Here boy! A Review of Under the Whispering Door.

 I had to go out and buy an almost new spittle-o-meter due to this book, but I'll explain that later.

I found Under the Whispering Door quite charming. It's also profound in it's way, if you look deeper at what's really happening to the characters. And the dog, Apollo! Why can't my dog stay with me as a ghost? I would snuzzle him and woofle him and love him. This novel gives us hope in many ways. Hope for people. Hope for the afterlife. Hope that our dogs hang around us after they're dead. I went into my back yard awhile ago just in case Yahtey was still out there.

The characters are just smart-ass enough that their goodness doesn't get irritating. They are good but not goody-two-shoes. I have to admit there was something attractive about Wallace, the protagonist, when he was a jerk. I guess it was because he was so good at it. And the Manager! His assholery was a highlight. Mei, is too perfect in what she does, but she endeared herself to me because she knew just the right insults to make her goodness even out.

Back to the spittle-o-meter. As you know, if you follow my reviews, it irritates me that modern books are full of smirking, eyeball rolling, and lip-biting. I'm happy to say that I didn't have to use my smirk-o-meter at all on Whispering Door. It's out for repairs, anyway, as so many novels cause it to top out. My eyeball-roll=o-meter got about halfway across it's arch. But, every character in the book had to gnaw on their lips. Changing bite to gnaw does not make it original. My lip-bite-o-meter had to be oiled after this. And, and, I've noticed that more and more spittle-on-lips is showing up in books. Almost everyone in Whispering Door had spittle on their lips including the ghost dog. My new spittle-o-meter smoked...smoked!

Authors are so original with their stories, yet they copy each other with such silly things as lip biting (or gnawing), eyeball rolling, smirking, and now spittle...of all things. I'm begging all writers, begging them on my arthritic knees, to please think twice before smirking, spiitling, eyeball rolling and chewing on lips. Too many say the same thing. Think of new words. Make them up if you have to. Shakespeare made up words and everybody wants him over for dinner, right?

I'm going out again to see if my ghost dog is here. Here, boy! Good Dog!

Thriller, Mystery, Ghosts! Review of The Summoning

 The Summoning was different than I thought it would be, which is a good thing. The description made it look as though the protagonist, Kit, mainly targeted the relatives of people killed on 9/11. I thought it was too early (even though it's been 20 years) and too raw for a book to have a protagonist who is scamming 9/11 relatives of the dead. That was only a small part. The majority of her targets (or clients, as she thought of them) were indeed mostly moms of dead children. Kit thought she was helping them because she made them feel better even though she actually didn't contact the dead.

Until the day she started having visions of their murders or hearing their voices in the night.

Kit scans the memorial section of the New York Times looking for "clients" but most are not from 9/11. If you are triggered, there are a lot of mentions of 9/11 because Kit's husband died in the North Tower.

The are surprising twists, especially the climax. I could see the bad ending coming for the lousy detective boyfriend but never anticipated the way it came about. I never anticipated what would happen to the protagonist. Some good zigzags on the part of the author. 

I enjoyed The Summoning more than I thought I would. It's more of a mystery story than supernatural or horror, although there are ghosts.  Thanks to Netgalley and Poisoned Penned press for allowing me the read and review The Summoning.

Sometimes the future isn't horrible. A review of A Psalm for the Wild Built

 This is one of the most charming, relaxing, and hopeful book I've read in a long time. But it's not treacly, it's modern and witty. Most of the fiction I read about the future is depressing. The worst happens and people accept it and live terrible lives. A Psalm for the Wild Built shows a future where humans finally figured things out, changed the way they lived, and stopped climate change in the nick of time. Being human, Dex the protagonist, can't figure out why he's unsatisfied when everything seems perfect.

I liked the pace of this novel. A lot of writing teachers tell us to make things worse for the protagonist, always make things worse. A Psalm for the Wild Built shows that a novel can be interesting without having to endanger the main character.

A lovely book. Thanks to my library for allowing me to read it on Overdrive. Libraries are great.

A Book About Medieval Manuscripts...With Some Cool Horrifying Stuff, too.

 I was fascinated by Medieval literature once upon a time but left it behind when I realized I'd never have my own personal wizard. The new movie, The Green Knight, got me fascinated all over with stories of saints doing weird things and other oddities of life. The Gilded Page, by Mary Wellesley, came along at the right time. Most Medieval manuscripts have been lost or destroyed through the ages, but the ones that survive have fascinating histories. We picture monks scribing away at illuminated books, but there were nuns, secular people writing commercially, and more women scribes (called a scriptrix) than our modern minds can imagine.

Talk about horror stories! That's what I mainly write about, but there were plenty of horrifying things going on in the Middle Ages. A few hundred men and women (mostly women) had themselves walled up in 12 square foot cells on the north side of churches, where they slept in their own graves and had a window looking out on the graveyard. They spent their lives there and at least one women lived to be seventy-three. They're in this book because they got a lot of writing done...as you can imagine. 

 I can get a good horror story out of walling up a recluse. I get crawlies thinking about it. I never would have thought about being walled up and having to sleep in a grave until I read this book.

I realize that putting color photography in books is expensive, but illustrations of Ms. Wellesley's wonderful descriptions would be nice. This would make a wonderful coffee table book, but would probably cost a fortune. I'm interested enough that I'm going to google-up these manuscripts so I can see the beautiful artwork. Isn't that what a good book does, make you want to learn more?

This is a dandy book for anybody interested in the history of books and/or Medieval history.  Thanks to Netgalley for allowing me to read and review The Gilded Page.

Have you ever felt your lover's pet licking your toes in the night?

 

Before there was Dracula, there was Carmilla. How to live comfortably even if you're really lazy.

 Le Fanu missed a golden (or should I say "blood red") opportunity. He could have written at least four more Carmilla books if he'd only left her head on. I'd read Lilarcam, or Racallim, or Cimallar, or Aracmill. You see, Carmilla kept getting away with her dastardly deeds by appearing under new names at each castle, all anagrams of Mircalla. She was Carmilla and Millarca (which sounds like malarkey) so why not Cimallar? If Le Fanu won't come back from the dead to write sequels, I guess I will. Write sequels, not come back from the dead, although I won't eliminate that as an option.

Carmilla actually was kind of a relaxing read. Carmilla, herself, was the epitome of of lazy, though she's called "languid" because that's a more high-brow way of saying lazy. Nobody saw her doing anything but lying around and occasionally strolling at dawn. The story does leave an unanswered question. Who are those people who keep dumping Carmilla at different homes and never come back for her? "Here, keep my daughter whom you've never met and keep her for a few months. I'll be back for her. Heh, heh, heh.

If you want a quick read that is also a historic read (as the stepping stone to Stoker's Dracula) take a look at Carmilla, the Deluxe edition. I'm reading it a second time so I can learn how to live with rich people while they feed me (feed me, Yikes!) and I basically lay around all day and get waited on. If a 150-year-old woman can do that, I should be able to also. Meanwhile, I'll be writing the sequel to Carmilla...Aracmill.

Thanks to Netgalley and Pushkin Press for letting me read the upcoming Deluxe edition of Carmilla. I'd thank Le Fanu but he's dead...unless he keeps coming back like Carmilla.

I Was Ready for the Monster to Eat Them. A Review of Freaks.

 Good news and bad news. I think this is a good story about bullied kids getting superpowers. The bad news is that I didn't like any main character in the book. After awhile, I rooted for the monster to devour every one of them.

There is no law that says the main characters have to be likable. But, they do have to be interesting. The bullied kids were physically and emotionally abused, but they were insulting and belittling to each other, too. They were bored by their teachers, bored by their parents, bored by pretty much everything, and their answer to anything was, "Whatever." Haven't they ever heard the phrase, "A bored person is a boring person?" The most annoying kid was even mad that his poverty-stricken, overworked mother bought him a desktop rather than a laptop computer.  Maybe 15-year-olds are bored and mad at everything, but I don't want to read about it.

Honestly, I wanted to start bullying these kids because they weren't even nice to each other. And, the bully friends weren't nice to each other either. And, the Feds weren't nice to each other. Nobody was nice to each other. Just let the monster eat them all.

It's an exciting story, but I couldn't drum up any sympathy for 98% of the characters. Whether bad guys or good guys, they complained, they insulted, they were bored. They set fire to whole bunches of trees! Yikes! Their grammar was horrid, even the one who was college bound. Two more books are coming in the series. I hope the superpowered kids get a little humanity. 

Great cover. 

Thanks to Netgalley and the publishers for allowing me to review this eARC