March is here and gone and I've got some more read books under my belt! I managed to get through a total of 8, one of which was for publicity consideration so I won't be counting it in this list.
I actually thought I would have gotten through more books last month due to some work related travel that had me spending the better part of two days in airports and on flights but...
Let's check out what I read!!
Don't Fear The Reaper by Stephen Graham Jones
A solid follow up to My Heart is a Chainsaw. Jones changes things up a bit, adding multiple POVs this time around rather than telling it all through the original single close-third-person perspective. The audiobook helpfully featured a slew of different narrators, which helps you to quickly identify which character is the focus of each chapter.
What you need to know: Jade is back in Proofrock after years of battling the courts over the events that took place on Indian Lake just in time for the small town to suffer its second slasher attack. Jade is older, wiser, and thought she had put her love of the kitchy horror genre behind her but the world, it seems, has other plans for her. High schoolers are being killed left and right in the middle of the worst snowstorm the town has seen in ages, and there are rumors than the Indigenous serial killer Dark Mill South escaped his transport when it was overtaken by an avalanche while it was relocating him. Jade joins back up with Cinnamon, Ginger, Leah and the town's Sheriff to make a final stand against whatever's coming for them... again!
Dwell Here and Prosper by Chris Eagle
I want to first start by acknowledging the cover. Tell me it doesn't beg for you to pick it up and read the description?! I can practically smell the bitter skin and cigarette smoke!
Dwell Here and Prosper will be releasing in May with Tortoise Books. It's coined as 'One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest for a different generation' and honestly, that's not too far off the mark. In it, we follow Dick, who has found himself in an assisted living facility following a pretty brutal stroke. Initally set on this being a temporary stop on the road to recovery, he begins to collect the stories and histories of his fellow residents to help pass the time as he walks his laps around the yard and up and down the hallways. Of course, his body has other plans and as the days turn into months turn into years, Dick finds himself reluctantly comforted by the crazy chaos, repetitive routine, and whackado crew he's holed up with.
Poignant and gritty, it paints a cheeky yet heartbreaking picture of what it is to grow old and infirm, of what most of us will have to face as we age or with our aging parents. I'll tell you one thing, I plan to go down swinging like ole Dick here, making the best of a bad situation and nurturing some amazingly strange ass friendships along the way.
Ghost Eaters by Clay Mcleod Chapman
This one was kind of tough for me. I liked the book overall, but it wasn't what I thought it was going to be. I wanted it to be way more scary and creepy than it actually was (maybe my horror threshold is higher than most?). It didn't help that about halfway in, the book took me down a road I was not expecting - less haunty ghosty and more fungaly druggy. Anyone else feel a little gypped by that?
Sure, there's some spooky shit in here, and some interesting body horror, but ultimately it's less a book about ghosts and more a story about our willingness to do whatever it takes to see a dead loved one again, regardless of the associated risks or cost.
Clay introduces us to Erin, who loses her on-again off-again boyfriend Silas to an overdose. After she skips out on the funeral, her BFFs Tobias and Amara pick her up and take off for an abandoned development site. They pick an empty, half finished house and plan to perform a seance in order to say their final goodbyes to Silas, when Tobias drops a bomb on them. Before his death, he and Silas created a drug called Ghost, which when ingested, makes you more susceptible to seeing and speaking with... you guessed it... ghosts. Tobias convinces them to down a pill each and hoo boy, let the hauntings begin.
After leaving the seclusion of the house, Erin begins to see ghosts everywhere. And they begin to take notice of her, too. She starts to question reality, blaming it on the drug, assuming she's just hallucinating and, looking for answers, eventually returns to Tobias, who appears to have set up shop permanently in the abandoned building they were in. Word has spread about the drug and its unique abilities, and people are flocking to the house, clawing at the opportunity to reconnect with their dead.
This is where Ghost Eaters changes gears, and quite drastically. Instead of reading a book about a group of friends who are "haunted", it begins to dip deeper into drug addiction territory and the strange physical side effects the Ghost pills are having on their minds and bodies.
Don't get me wrong, it was an engrossing read. I guess I'm sour at the bait-and-switch.
The Marigold by Andrew F Sullivan
I have somehow found myself immersed in fungal fiction, between recently finishing up Ghost Eaters and binge watching The Last of Us. Not that I'm complaining because it's a pretty neat horror sub-genre. I mean, what's scarier than plants evolving and adapting and overtaking, right?!
Here we have The Marigold, which is a highrise apartment complex in a Canadian city that is slowly being overtaken by a strange black mold. Cathy, a public health inspector, is determined to understand what this toxic goop is and attempts to locate its source as it continues to spread, infecting and killing those who come into contact with it. Soda, a taxi driver, ends up with a thumb drive that contains some answers. And Henrietta, a thirteen year old girl, returns to an underground tunnel on the hunt for the thing that took her friend.
A bit slower and clunkier than I had anticipated, these three individual storylines come crashing together, as they tend to do, in this eco-horror, fungal fiction dystopia. No one is safe from the Wet, and once it comes for you, there's little chance of escape.
The Trees by Pervical Everett
I finally read my first Percival Everett book! I've been 'collecting' his books for years, and they all sound amazing, but for some reason I've just left them lingering in my tbr stacks until now. Why didn't anyone tell me I would love his writing so much?!?!
Within the first few pages I knew I'd made a mistake not having read him sooner. Everett's writing is sparce and witty, with a deep southern grittiness that spends a lot of time poking fun at itself. It was a freaking blast to read, even though I, like most of his characters, had no idea what exactly was taking place.
The Trees has us knee deep in a local Money, Mississippi murder mystery that continues to become more and more mysterious when the same dead Black man's body is found at not one but TWO different murder scenes. Both times the White male victims are nearly beheaded with barbed wire and their testicles appear to have been torn from their bodies, and are sitting, strangely, in the dead Black man's hands.
As word about these cases spread, the sheriff is provided additional support from the MBI and FBI, and the dark pasts of the recently deceased, along with many of the local residents, are suddenly coming to light.
A deliciously vicious look at ugly racist people getting their just desserts... although how it's being served still has me scratching my head!!
Monstrilio by Gerardo Samano Cordova
Up to the top of the list of the best books I've read so far this year you go!
Holy hell this book was amazing!
The LA times calls it "an unearthly hybrid that’s part horror, part literary meditation on grief, part wildly entertaining tale of an impossible being forced to live in the shadow of the dead boy he replaced" and I really couldn't describe it any better than that.
It's the story of a young boy's death and how each of his parents process his passing. His father, and the mental and physical toll it takes on him. The mother, and her disturbing reaction, cutting into her son's chest and removing a piece of his lung for safe keeping. On a whim, she brings it to her mother's house and begins to feed it, ushering in the birth of a strange creature they name Monstrilio, who develops an insatiable hunger that propels the story foward in incredible, unexpected ways.
Is it horror? Not entirely. Sure, it's a little gory at times, and yes, there are elements of body horror but it's more focused on the horror of what's left of a family when they lose a child. It's lush and literary and incredibly captivating. A must read for those are who fans of monster fiction, grief fiction, and weird mother fiction.
The Swallowed Man by Edward Carey
I picked this one up at an independent bookstore in Indiana while I was travelling for work. I hadn't heard of it before but while browsing the shelves, the title and the cover intrigued me. When I realized it was a retelling of Pinocchio from Geppetto's pov inside the belly of the whale, I knew I had to have it.
I read it on my flight home and enjoyed it, though it didn't quite go where I anticipated it would have. It's less about the relationship between Geppetto and Pinocchio and more the journaling of a man who is slowly becoming unhinged, as you'd imagine one would when trapped inside the stomach of a giant sea beast.
It's dark (pun intended) and haunting, and sheds a whole new perspective on the beloved children's book.
Have you read any of these?
What did you think of them?
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