Looking for Spooky in all the Wrong Places

 Well hey, hi, hello there.

So I've read three out of the four books I set out to finish for my spookiest of book-a-thons. I'm very tired. I have failed in my quest, passed out, and given up when I was a mere one whole book from the finish line. It sounded like a good one too. I'll get to The City in the Middle of the Night later.

An Auspicious Start!

I'm going to talk about the one good one I read because I don't have the energy to talk about the other two right this second.

Sad face emoji because I didn't get to The City in the Middle of the Night.

Anyway, Severance by Ling Ma! It was really good! I liked it a lot! It's relevant to the time we live in!

It's a zombie apocalypse story but it's one of the best takes I've ever seen. Rather than your traditional Zombies Bad, the fevered (as they're called) are just stuck. The repeat the routines they had in life, endlessly. There's not hungry, shuffling hoards. No panicked flights from camp, no drama about being bitten and turned. They're just there, in the background. It's honestly kind of sad to think about?

The descriptions in the book are beautiful in a haunting sort of way and honestly? The book hits different now that we're in the midst of a global pandemic. COVID-19 isn't like Shen Fever. Except when it is. It's like watching the movie Contagion. You're not watching a story that's only theoretical. You're watching a story that's happening to you so the points where it differs are jarring. They might make you chuckle at the sheer optimism/pessimism you see on the screen. Or on the page in this case.

I honestly wish the blog Candace Chen runs in the book is real. It makes me want to draw, makes me want write, to create. In my humble onion, that's one of the best things a book can give you: an image so vivid you want to commit it to a page of your own.

4/5 pumpkins. Check this book out, readers. It's really good.

Now let's talk about the worst thing a book can do: waste my time.

So I didn't go into to I'm Thinking of Ending Things with the highest of hopes. I wasn't prepared to read a gripping story. Which is a good thing because I'm Thinking of Ending Things is not a good story. It's really, really bad. 

I'm about to spoil the ending here folks so if you want to read it organically avert thine eyes. 

My rating is 1/5 pumpkins, scroll away to the next bold section to avoid unwanted knowledge.

Spoilers for I'm Thinking of Ending Things

This book features the longest car ride in the history of literature. It's boring. I was bored. The book is almost stream of consciousness and like. I get it, it's a choice the author mad. But he could have just. Not done that. This book reads like some of the stuff I had to critique in undergrad fiction class and I'm so tired, dear reader. I don't want to go back to that time. I suffered greatly.

So I would tell you the plot of this novel, but none of it matters. Literally none of it, because at the end of the book you find out that what you have been reading is all made up by one of the characters who then kills himself at the end. 

He was writing an elaborate suicide note from the point of view of a girl he met in a bar one time and who he pretended throughout the narrative was his girlfriend. LIKE.

Okay, first of all: Bold move on the authors part for revealing that he's been wasting your time for two hundred pages. Pity it didn't work out like he wanted.

Second, I have to give him this: I didn't see it coming. Mostly because I assume that the story I'm reading is justified within universe. I can't critique this story because in the end it's all a lie anyway. It's a lie In Universe. It retroactively ruins the book. And the book wasn't that good to start with!

Thirdly, I did finally pin down my issues with most horror/thriller novels. Since they are saturated with white, het, and able-bodied authors, the scariest thing they can think to write about is the Other. 

That's me. I'm the Other. I'm the queer, disabled, neurodivergent Other that haunts their pathetic nightmares. (I am white tho, that is important to note. I am like them in that respect). I'm not afraid of a femme sounding man leaving voice mails. I have so much more to deal with than that, my guy. 

I'm highly salty, as you can tell. And I'm also Tired(tm)

I didn't like this book, it was a tragic mess. My advice for future fiction writers? Don't have the twist at the end be that everything that just happened was fake.

End of Spoiler Zone

Welcome back, reader.

The next book is just mechanically a little bad, rather than thoroughly bad like I'm Thinking of Ending Things.

It's The Forest of Hands and Teeth by Carrie Ryan.

I wanted to like this book. It had potential. The setting was so interesting! The concept was so good? A novel taking place at least four generations after a zombie apocalypse? Hell yes?! 

Okay, here's what I did like:

The setting was great, I loved the idea of the walled town and the Forest. That was super cool. There were walled paths between villages. Iconic. Inspired. More of this please.

And that's all I can think of. 

Here are my issues with the book:

It felt like a first draft to me. Like, the bones of a good story are there and I feel just terribly pretentious for saying that. Just over here twirling my mustache and adjusting my monocle. I stand by this, though. I felt like I kept imaging ways the story could go that would have been more interesting. My mind would wander away from the page and go down a rabbit hole. There was a ton of stuff that I wanted to see developed more that I don't think will, despite the fact that this is a trilogy. 

Anyway, my next beef is with our main character Mary. It was agonizing being in her head for this story. Like, girl! You are in the middle of a zombie attack, could you please stop lusting after Travis! You are going die!

She's so in her own head about everything and just will not make a choice in the first half of the book. In the second half she tries to make choices and no one in her party will let her. It was so frustrating. What's more, she could have been a really good character. She's been trained to fight, she's flawed, she wants so much more from her life but she's so confused and scattered that it all comes to nothing. If she were able to hold her two motivations--love, and freedom as represented by the ocean--it would have been better. But she keeps ping ponging back and forth between "I want more from my life" and "Lick Travis." 

The other characters suffer because of this too. We don't really get to see them since we're so tied to Mary. They feel a little flat and that's a shame because I'm sure they have more to offer. 

I didn't like the book, but at least it was a story that didn't shoot itself in the foot by the end. 

2/5 pumpkins.

Hoo boy.

After all this I think I need a little break. 

I feel like I was very negative here, reader, and if you have read these books and enjoyed them that's perfectly fine. Tastes differ. I think the main takeaway here is that I'm bad at choosing spooky books. None of these were very spooky at all. 

I shall have to continue my quest, and by quest I mean my TBR list. I'm working my way through Middlegame right now and, reader? It's very good so far.

I hope your reading is going well.

Until next time reader 🎃