Tuesday, November 30, 2021

December Preview

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It is the 29th of November as I write this, almost the 30th and I'm banking on the fact that I'm 99.99% sure that I won't finish my current book in the next 24 hours or so, despite this being a Monday night and my usual stay up most of the night thing. For the most part my reading plans for December are mostly cozy, fuzzy holiday books...and one nonfiction...maybe. So without further ado here are the two books being read by my book clubs/buddy reads. 

  • Fuzz: When Nature Breaks the Law by Mary Roach: this is the December pick for the Literati Atlas Obscura Finding Wonder book club. This is a nonfiction book about the science of human-wildlife conflict and how humans and animals interact from a legal standpoint. This book has been on my radar all year, in fact I purchased a copy of it for a Christmas gift for my little brother so I'll see what he thinks when he reads it. 

  • Twelve Slays of Christmas by Jacqueline Frost: this is Oliviareadsalatte's patreon buddy read for December. This is a cozy mystery and the first book in the Christmas Tree Farm Mystery series. You follow a woman named Holly who has returned home after her fiancé calls off the wedding and ends up in a mystery when a body is left in front of her family's Christmas tree farm.

     
  • Comfort & Joy by Kristin Hannah: this isn't really a book club book but this is the final book for the final prompt on my 52 books in 52 weeks which is to read a book by Kristin Hannah. I have already started this book and gotten a good way into it so far. You follow a woman named Joy who boards a plane during the holidays and then a detour sends her to an inn run by a man and his son in the first year after the boys mother died. It sounds cute and is considerably shorter than her other books so I'm enjoying it so far. 

There's also a ton of other holiday books I have put on my TBR to read this month and we'll go through them as I choose to pick them up. 
So there's the variety of books I have as possibilities for December. Comfort & Joy by Kristin Hannah is the first book on my TBR for December but Twelve Slays of Christmas by Jacqueline Frost and If the Fates Allow by Rainbow Rowell are also very high on the list. I'm not sure if mysteries, thrillers, horror or nonfiction will happen but cozy books are high on my list for December. 

Hope you're all well and have exactly the December reading you want on your own TBR. 
Happy Reading!
Richelle

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Monday, November 29, 2021

November Wrap-Up

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So this is my wrap up for November. I'm just going to end up skipping the full reviews to this point and start fresh in December...maybe. It's been a bleh month for book reading, but a good month for book buying. I read a grand total of four books in November, one being one I started in October and another being a children's picture book. I fulfilled two of the four nonfiction November prompts and for the most part I enjoyed my reading. 

So first up are the four books I read in November. 

  1. Dark Harvest by Norman Partridge (2006): this was the last book I read for Camp Weekend Ween and I read it from October 30 to November 2nd and gave it 4 stars. This was a horror about a town where teenage boys hunt a monstrous scarecrow known as the October Boy. It was a good solid horror story with a good twist to it and although I wish certain things had been slightly more fleshed out but I liked it well enough. 

  2. The Anthropocene Reviewed by John Green (2021): this is a book of essays I read for nonfiction November's Collection prompt. I read it from November 2nd to 13th and gave it another solid 4 stars. There were essays on everything from Canada Geese to Soccer teams and I enjoyed most essays in it (even if I didn't always agree with his rating of the topic) and the presentation was very entertaining. I highly recommend this book as nonfiction for people who don't read nonfiction. 

  3. Vanderbilt: The Rise and Fall of an American Dynasty by Anderson Cooper and Katherine Howe (2021): This was my book pick for nonfiction November's Industry prompt. I read it from November 16-28th and gave it a 4 star rating. This is a nonfiction book, kind of a collection of biographies really, all about the Vanderbilt family split into two sections: the rise with the building of the Vanderbilt dynasty, and then the fall with the destruction of their opulent homes and squandering of their riches. The book is written primarily by Anderson Cooper, whose mother was Gloria Vanderbilt the last real Vanderbilt born into the dynasty. This would've been much closer to a 5 star read without the inclusion of a singular chapter that involved far too many details about the racing of sailing yachts for my taste. 

  4. Jumanji by Chris Van Allsburg (1981): this was a last minute choice. I needed a book to fulfill my 52 books in 52 weeks prompt for a National Book Award Winner which was a group of books I really didn't want to read. So I read Jumanji, the book that inspired the films both the one with Robin Williams and the more recent ones starring The Rock. This book was fine, it was nothing spectacular especially when put up against the nostalgia that the Robin Williams film holds for me. I read it on November 28th and gave it three stars. 

That being said I also started and did not finish three other books this month, not because they were bad but because they just weren't what I was vibing with this month. 
Despite my terrible reading slump I did buy a lot of books: physical, ebooks, and audiobooks. More than a few of these books were holiday themed ones both ot decorate my display bookcase for Christmas as well as because I am really in the mood for fuzzy Christmas reading. 
  • Feasting Wild: In Search of the Last Untamed Food by Gina Rae La Cerva (2020): hardcover nonfiction from Literati's Atlas Obscura Finding Wonder book club. 
  • The Keeper of Night by Kylie Lee Baker (2021): hardcover young adult fantasy from BOTM.
  • The Collective by Alison Gaylin (2021): hardcover thriller from BOTM. 
  • Tithe by Holly Black (2002): Modern Faerie Tales book 1; paperback young adult fantasy from Barnes and Noble. 
  • Valiant by Holly Black (2005): Modern Faerie Tales book 2: paperback young adult fantasy from Barnes and Noble. 
  • Ironside by Holly Black (2007): Modern Faerie Tales book 3: paperback young adult fantasy from Barnes and Noble.
  • The Matzah Ball by Jean Meltzer (2021): a paperback holiday romance (Hanukkah/Christmas) from Barnes & Noble
  • Christmas by the Book by Anne Marie Ryan (2020): a paperback holiday fuzzy book from Barnes & Noble
  • The Holiday Swap by Maggie Knox (2021): a paperback holiday romance from Barnes & Noble.
  • Always, In December by Emily Stone (2021): a paperback holiday romance from Barnes & Noble.
  • The Twelve Dates of Christmas by Jenny Baylliss (2020): a paperback holiday romance from Barnes & Noble
  • The Hygge Holiday by Rosie Blake (2017): an ebook holiday romance from Amazon
  • The Holiday Ex-Files by Jennifer Peel (2021): an ebook holiday romance from Amazon
  • Window Shopping by Tessa Bailey (2021): an ebook Holiday romance from Amazon
  • Collie Jolly by Leigh Landry (2019): an ebook Holiday romance (F/F) from Amazon
  • A Family for Christmas by Jay Northcote (2016): an ebook Holiday romance (M/M) from Amazon
  • Mangos and Mistletoe by Adriana Herrera (2019): an ebook holiday romance (F/F) from Amazon
  • Faux Ho Ho by Nathan Burgoine (2019): an ebook holiday romance (M/M) from Amazon
  • Comfort & Joy by Kristin Hannah (2005): a paperback holiday chick lit from Barnes & Noble
  • Mongrels by Stephen Graham Jones (2016): a horror ebook from Amazon
  • All of Us Villains by Amanda Foody and Christine Lynn Herman (2021): a young adult fantasy hardcover from Barnes & Noble
  • The Nobleman's Guide to Scandal and Shipwrecks by Mackenzi Lee (2021): Book 3 in The Montague Siblings series, hardcover historical fiction from Barnes & Noble.
  • Voices in the Snow by Darcy Coates (2020): paperback horror from Barnes & Noble
  • Mapping the Interior by Stephen Graham Jones (2017): paperback horror from Barnes & Noble
  • The Winter People by Jennifer McMahon (2014): paperback horror from Barnes & Noble
  • Cunning Folk by Adam Neville (2021): horror ebook from Amazon
  • Lore Olympus Volume One by Rachel Smythe (2021): hardcover webtoon volume 1 from Amazon.
  • Where the Deer and the Antelope Play: The Pastoral Observations of One Ignorant American Who Loves to Walk Outside by Nick Offerman (2021): nonfiction audiobook from Audible
  • Yours Cruelly, Elvira: Memoirs of the Mistress of the Dark by Cassandra Peterson (2021): nonfiction audiobook from Audible
So that's everything I read and purchased in the month of November. I think that my favorite book I read was The Anthropocene Reviewed by John Green and my least favorite was definitely Jumaji although nothing was really all that bad. I hope your reading month was better than mine but onward to December and cozy winter stories!

Happy Reading!
Richelle

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Monday, November 22, 2021

The Sun Down Motel review

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Apologies for the long absence but we're back with more book reviews! To continue with books I've read in October/November, next up is The Sun Down Motel by Simone St. James. I read this book from October 13-15th and gave it a 4.5 star rating on Goodreads. This is a book that straddles the line between horror and thriller and meshes elements of a classic haunted house story with the elements of thrillers. 

This book is told in dual timelines but primarily focuses on a a young woman in the present time named Carly. Carly is left directionless after the death of her mother and her subsequent decision to take some time off school so she travels to upstate New York and the titular Sun Down Motel where her Aunt Viv disappeared without a trace in 1982. Upon her arrival, Carly is drawn into the mystery not only of her aunt's disappearance but also of the motel and its many ghosts. The other timeline in the book follows Viv in the past as she arrives at the motel by chance on her way to New York City and decides to stay and work night shifts at the motel. 

This book was surprisingly amazing. Not only were the ghost stories surrounding the motel well fleshed out and spooky but the thriller was also well fleshed out and engaging. It's been quite a while since I enjoyed a thriller as much as this one, especially one that had a legitimate haunting as part of the plot. It was a solid thriller and one that I might reread again, unlike most of the thrillers I read. 

As always, spoilers exist after the cover photo. 


The thing I liked about this book was that while the haunting was connected to the disappearance of Viv, not all of them were. You have the main ghost, Betty, who was a victim of the killer at the heart of the story but then you have the little boy who died after an accident in the motel's pool and the night clerk who died in the office. Betty is the most important ghost and the most active, but the other ghosts have nothing to do with the disappearance of Viv and the case she's investigating. I liked that Betty's ghost was the catalyst in both Viv and Carly's investigations at the motel. I also enjoyed the fact that when the primary antagonist in the novel appears in Carly's timeline, he's a ghost like the others at the motel but you don't realize that until much later in the book when his body is discovered. It's after his body is discovered and identified that you realize that the characters you meet in Viv's timeline, ones who help her with her investigations but are so unhelpful to Carly, the cop and the photographer, are all covering for Viv and the death of the salesman. It all comes to a head with Carly and her not-quite boyfriend are confronted by her timeline's antagonist, the grandson of the original antagonist. At the climax the ghosts come to defend the motel and Carly against this man, and you discover that Viv is alive and has been in hiding all these years after she killed the salesman who kicked off the hauntings and the original killings. Viv rescues Carly as the ghosts destroy the hotel and get their vengeance on the antagonist's grandson. At the end fo the book, Carly remains in town to attend the local college, dates the guy from the motel, and is besties from the girl she roomed with in the apartment her aunt had rented back in the day. 

All in all I loved how everything worked together and how the ghosts were all connected even though they had little in common save for the motel. I was kept guessing until the very end about how everything would play out and it is one of my favorite thrillers of all time as well as one of my favorite reads from 2021's spooky season. 

All in all this is a solid 4.5 star read and one that is quite close to perfect. I highly recommend this one to anyone wanting a spooky thrilling quick read. 

Happy Reading!

Richelle

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Tuesday, November 2, 2021

Camp Weekend Ween Wrap-Up

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So I finally finished the last book for my definite Camp Weekend Ween TBR so I'll do a review of all three books together in a single wrap up post since all three books were novellas. There were four prompts and I read three novellas for those prompts. The four prompts were:

  1. Read a book with a green cover (to match a forest)
  2. Read a book with a group of teens as the main characters
  3. Read a slasher, thriller, or horror book
  4. Read a book with a camp setting
So I read three books which fit into the four prompts easily. They were: 
  1. The Tent by Kealan Patrick Burke: a book with a camp setting; a slasher, thriller, or horror book
  2. Night of the Mannequins by Stephen Graham Jones: a book with a group of teens as the main characters; a slasher, thriller, or horror book
  3. Dark Harvest by Norman Partridge: a book with a green cover (to match a forest); a slasher, thriller, or horror book
So I enjoyed all three books I read for this readathon and although I managed 2 of the three before the weekend was up I did not finish the third until after midnight on November 2nd. As always after the photo from the first book there will be spoilers. 


So The Tent is a novella about a family lost in the forest during a storm which destroyed their tent. The husband and wife are on the verge of divorce and are with their 12 year old son. While walking through the forest the son suddenly disappears and while the parents are looking for him they come across a tent in the middle of a clearing surrounded by strange "bushes". Upon investigation the pods are full of bones and other detritus, which are likened to owl pellets. As he investigates the wife approaches the tent and when it opens it is revealed to be a creature, the tent top being wing like appendages with a small parasite at the bottom. The wife is killed and consumed by the creature and when the husband fights back he knocks the creature back revealing a pit which he falls into the bottom of it, impaling himself on a rock spike above the immature creatures in the bottom of it. After the death of the parents, the boy walks out of the woods with a strange backpack on his back when a man at the campsites approaches him he realizes the backpack is impaling the boy and then he is infected by the creature. The story ends with the people from the campsite infected by this parasitic creature and leaving the woods to presumably infect the general population. I read this book in a single sitting on October 29th and gave it a 4 star rating. It was a good story, creepy and dark and while it definitely isn't a new favorite and I definitely liked the other book I read by him, Sour Candy, a lot more. I am definitely not disappointed by this choice to read for this readathon. 


The second book I read for this readathon was Night of the Mannequins by Stephen Graham Jones which is a novella I've had on my kindle for quite a while but hadn't read yet. This is about a group of high school aged friends who decide to play a prank on one of the girls in the group by sneaking in a mannequin with them to the movies where she works. But then at the end of the movie the mannequin gets up and shuffles out with the rest of the crowd. The narrator is shaken by what he thinks he saw with the mannequin walking out and is convinced its a bad omen. Then the girl who worked at the theater is killed along with her family when a truck smashes through her house and he is convinced that the mannequin is coming for them all one-by-one. To spare the families of his friends he decides he has to kill the rest of them before the mannequin comes for them and kills them and their families. Each of the deaths occurs with the movie from the initial incident involved in the background. As the killings continue he gets a mannequin like mask and becomes Manny (which is what they named the mannequin as kids) at the end with the death of the last friend it is revealed that the girl from the car accident didn't actually die in the accident and confronts him and he loses the remainder of his grip on reality and enters the lake to placate Manny and presumably commits suicide. This book ended up being much different than I thought but I really enjoyed it. I didn't enjoy this as much as My Heart is a Chainsaw by the same author but this book was still very enjoyable and cements Stephen Graham Jones as one of my favorite authors. I read this book from October 29-30 and gave it a 3.5 star rating. 


The final book I read for Camp Weekend Ween was Dark Harvest by Norman Partridge. This book takes place in a nameless town and is narrated by a nameless omniscient narrator who addresses you as someone who has insider knowledge of the events. You primarily follow a 16 year old named Paul who is participating in an event called the run where boys 16, 17, and 18 pursue a monster known as the October Boy from dusk to midnight or until the October Boy is killed. As you go through the book you start with the creation of the October Boy in a cornfield outside of town where vines have grown up a frame into clothes to make arms and legs and a body and a man carves the jack-o-lantern for his head and stuffs him full of candy before giving him a butcher knife and leaving him to fight his way to the church. As the story goes on you find out that the winner of the run is the only person allowed to leave this town, his family gets money and no bills for a year as well as a new house and car. The boys are starved for days leading up to it and the food sources are guarded so they want to kill the October Boy for the food inside his body. The only way for the October Boy to win is to reach the church and step inside before midnight. From adults' reactions you get the impression that this ritual with the October boy repeats every year to keep the town going as it is but I was still surprised when Paul figures out that the October Boy is the winner from the previous year who is killed immediately after the run is won and is buried with the seed to grow into the next year's October Boy. Paul decides the only thing to do is to escape with his friend Kelly and his sister Kim but ends up running into the October Boy by the church. After a confrontation with the cop he and Kelly help the injured October Boy into the church, where they find the boy's father who had been left to stop him if he'd gotten that far but had killed himself instead. Having won the run at long last the October Boy lets Paul and Kelly leave out the back and confronts the cop again himself and kills him in the same way the cop had killed him in his original life. As the town burns behind them, from the fires the October Boy lit as a distraction to reach the church and from his own suicidal inferno after winning: Paul, Kelly, Kim and Paul's father leave the town forever and are long gone before the fire goes out. This was an incredibly interesting story with an interesting concept. The only thing I wish had been fleshed out that wasn't was why this ritual exists. I wanted a history of how the run came to be and what this repeating cycle does for the town that keeps the town leaders killing a boy every year to be reborn as this monster the next year over and over again. That being said it was a good story and I liked it a lot. I read it from October 30th to November 2nd and gave it an enjoyable 4 star rating. 

So that is everything I read for Camp Weekend Ween. I really liked what I read for this readathon and considered it a success. 

Happy Reading!
Richelle

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November Preview

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This is one of my favorite reading months of the year. As much as I love my spooky season reading through September and October, Nonfiction November is such fun. I participated in this last year for the first time and it was really great for getting me out of my comfort zone when it comes to reading and I have a lot of unread nonfiction both in hard copy and on my kindle. In addition to my Nonfiction November books I have a couple other books that I'll be either reading or finishing for some book club content. We'll do the normal stuff first and then I'll get into the Nonfiction November prompts and selections and alternates. 

  • Dark Harvest by Norman Partridge (2006). This was the last novella I was reading for Camp Weekend Ween and I've actually since finished this and enjoyed it. 

  • The Death of Jane Lawrence by Caitlin Starling (2021). This is the horror/thriller pick for Books and Lala's book club for November. 

  • False Witness by Karin Slaughter (2021). This is the thriller book club pick for GabbyReads The Book Troop. 

  • Feasting Wild: In Search of the Last Untamed Food by Gina Rae La Cerva (2020). This is the food memoir book picked by the Atlas Obscura Literati book club. 

  • The Storyteller: Tales of Life and Music by Dave Grohl (2021). This is an audible version of Dave Grohl's memoir that I plan to listen to on my way to and from work. 

So those are my "normal" books on my TBR this month. I don't know how many of these plus my Nonfiction November books on my TBR this month as well. Now on to the nonfiction. 

So Nonfiction November is a readathon that takes place every year and focuses on nonfiction books. There are four single word prompts that can be followed as you wish and can be interpreted in any way you see fit. So I have a book for each of the prompts and I'm kind of excited for my stock TBR. In addition to that I have a number of alternates for each prompt as well, in case something really falls flats. The four prompts are: 
  1. Industry
  2. Style
  3. Collection 
  4. Treatment
My set TBR for Nonfiction November is four books that I've worked to fit into my prompts: treatment and collection were actually the easiest for me to choose as I have a lot of essay format kind of nonfiction and a lot of medical related nonfiction. Style and Industry were a little harder since those topics aren't really my jam.
  1. Vanderbilt: The Rise and Fall of an American Dynasty by Anderson Cooper and Katherine Howe (2021). This is my pick for Industry and is a biography of the Vanderbilt family which made its fortune in the railway/shipping industry. 

  2. Yours Cruelly, Elvira: Memoirs of the Mistress of the Dark by Cassandra Peterson (2021). This is my pick for style and is a memoir written by Elvira herself, with all the style and flair she lent to her iconic role as Elvira in TV and film. 

  3. The Anthropocene Reviewed by John Green (2021). This is my pick for Collection and is a collection of essays by novelist John Green where he rates a variety of human topics from Diet Dr. Pepper to Plague. 

  4. Starvation Heights: A True Story of Murder and Malice in the Pacific Northwest by Gregg Olsen (2005). This is my pick for treatment and is a true crime novel which is about two women who ran a sanitorium touting a fasting cure that ended with theft and death. 

In addition to those books I have a couple alternates per prompt as well in case any of them are unreadable or I want more. 
So that's all the books I'm hoping to read or that I could potentially read in November. I'm very excited for Nonfiction November and I'm pretty excited for my book club books as well.

Happy Reading!
Richelle

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