Here's what I read in April. Thirteen books (and 2 DNFs)... ain't nothing the sneeze at!
A total of 4293 pages read.
But Won't I Miss Me by Tiffany Tsao
This is a perfect example of why I hesitate to DNF a book.
In But Won't I Miss Me, women give birth to their babies and simultaneously give birth to a clone of themselves — a process called rebirthing — and that clone then in turn devours the woman. Hair, bones, everything. Then... it takes her place. Same memories, same body, only stronger, same same same.
Only… WTF, ladies. You die. You are eaten by a thing you grew inside you that slides out and literally fucking eats you and then becomes you. And everyone is just fine with this. It’s considered natural. Expected. Sometimes even admired. And every time the new you gets pregnant, the cycle starts again. You can be eaten and copied multiple times in your “lifetime.” Seriously, WTF right?!
As wild and fascinating as that sounds, the book doesn’t actually lead with it. We jump in after our narrator, who was terrified to be killed, has already been rebirthed, only... something went wrong. She’s not strong like the others. She’s sickly, detached from her new baby, and clearly suffering from postpartum depression. The doctors run her and the baby through a slew of tests to understand why her rebirthing failed, and determine it was malabsorption, and we follow her through a bit of a boo‑hoo spiral: her husband is disappointed she rebirthed poorly, she can’t do the super‑mom feats the other rebirthed women can, and he’s annoyed at the extra work her weakness creates for him.
This is where I almost DNF’d. It was slow, repetitive, and I knew I couldn’t keep going if that was all the book had to offer.
But it’s not! If you’re reading this and you’re slogging through Part I like I did, wondering if it’s worth it... hang in there until Part II. Trust me. The book shifts in a completely different direction, and suddenly I found myself riveted. Like, fully locked in, didn’t want to put it down, riveted.
And that’s all I’ll say, because like the last book I reviewed, going in blind is best!
I can't wait to hear what you think of it.
She Waits Where the Shadows Gather by Michelle Tang
OMG I rage‑read this book so hard!!
This was another in a growing line of books where I nearly DNF’d multiple times because I could not handle the main characters, and every section that wasn’t about their deteriorating marriage moved at such a slow, agonizing crawl I wanted to scream.
Carlos and Avery — the married couple at the center — completely rubbed me the wrong way. Carlos is a full‑on narcissistic ass, and Avery has been with him too long and loves him too much to leave. He drags her out to his family home in another country under the guise of helping his parents clean it up and get it ready to sell. Except… that is NOT why they moved there. And when Avery learns the house is haunted, she does what every non‑believer in every haunted‑house story does - she takes it on the chin and explains away every weird, unsettling thing she experiences.
See? Rage‑bait material.
But I’m noticing a trend with books releasing this year... or at least with the ones I've decided to pick up so far. They start out blah and boring, splashing around in the shallow end, testing your patience... and then, right when you’re about to give up, they cannonball you straight into the deep end and nearly drown you with a twist you might have seen coming if you weren’t so busy mentally talking yourself out of chucking the book across the room.
And that twist... the one I almost didn’t stick around for? It actually bumped this from a two‑star “I suffered so you don’t have to” read to an “okay, you surprised me” three‑star read.
If you pick it up, stick it out. You're going to get pissed and you're probably going to want to curse me out. But I think you might like where it goes.
And Side By Side They Wander by Molly Tanzer
Oh man you guys.
DNFd at 16%. Before you come at me for not giving it a fair chance, the book is barely over a hundred pages so 16% is a decent sample of it.
This killed me too, because I adore Molly Tanzer and I had such high hopes for it. It was one of my most anticipated.
Her novel A Pretty Mouth is still one that I think about, all these years later. But I just could not get into this one at all.
I usually do pretty good with sci fi space stuff but the characters and world building were thrown at me way too fast and I wasn't able to settle in at all, rereading paragraphs to try to recall what I just read as the book continued full speed ahead without me.
Sigh.
The Palaces of the Crow by Ray Nayler
When I saw this on NetGalley, the cover immediately caught my eye, and the description sealed the deal — a young Jewish girl, a Polish soldier, a Roma horse trader, and a mute boy with no name, all banding together for survival deep in the woods with the help of a flock of highly intelligent crows as they try to escape the horrors of WWII. Caught between the Nazis and the Red Army, guided by birds? Ok, call me curious!
Strangely, this is the third war‑set book I’ve read this year, which is usually a hard no for me. But the first two — Sarafina by Philip Fracassi and The Girl With a Thousand Faces by Sunyi Dean — both had elements that intrigued me. Sarafina leaned into historical horror with touches of magical realism. TGWaTF was an alternate historical fantasy. So when I picked up Palaces of the Crow, I was hoping it, too, would lean in one of those directions. I mean… a group of kids being led through the woods by crows practically begs for magical realism, right?!
So there I was, waiting for something strange or uncanny to happen — and instead, I found myself reading a much more grounded story about a group of children who’ve lost everything, hunkering down with their feathered companions. It’s a book rooted in survival, friendship, trauma, and loss and explores the world through multiple perspectives, breaking down the boundaries between humans and animals... yet it never fully steps into the magical or fantastical space I was expecting.
Taken at face value, it’s a solid story about resilience and connection in the midst of war. But I can’t pretend I wasn’t disappointed that it didn’t dive into the elements that initially drew me to it. Is it unfair to say I feel a little cheated?
Hunger & Thirst by Claire Fuller
I am such a fan of Claire Fuller, and it’s officially my goal to read her entire backlog. I started with The Memory of Animals, which I loved, then moved on to Unsettled Ground, which was also fabulous. I own Swimming Lessons and Our Endless Numbered Days (still unread, but soon!), and I just snagged Bitter Orange on Pango — so yes, I can now proudly call myself a Fuller Completist.
I was thrilled to land a NetGalley ARC of Hunger & Thirst, and it did not disappoint. This is an incredibly unsettling read — slow and layered at first, and then suddenly it smacks you upside the head with a mallet, leaving you stunned and deliciously freaked out. If you loved the way Kliewer’s The Caretaker crawled into your brain, or if you’re a sucker for haunted‑house vibes that keep your nerves humming, don’t miss this one.
We follow Ursula in two timelines that are set thirty six years apart: in the present, where she’s actively avoiding a journalist who wants to interview her for a documentary about her involvement in the unsolved disappearance of Sue, her friend and coworker; and in her teenage years, where she’s bouncing between unstable living situations and spending time with a sketchy little crew in an abandoned house where the owners allegedly died in a murder‑suicide.
Ursula idolized Sue, a bold, bad‑influence girl who always pushes things one step further and when Sue suggests a séance in the murder‑suicide house, of course they do it. But then Raymond channels something that turns its attention on Ursula, something that claims to know her past and her future, and the floor drops out. From that moment on, the book slides into full‑tilt creep mode and really starts to get under your skin.
If you want to know more, you're going to have to pick it up. But make sure you close all the curtains and lock all the doors. Trust me!
Kill All Wizards by Jedediah Berry
A tea‑sipping, well‑dressed barbarian sets out for vengeance against The Fifth Committee — a tribunal of wizards — after the death of his little brother. He’s on a mission to track down one very specific wizard with whom he has some unfinished business.
Told in third‑person plural and set in a bar built inside the skull of a long‑dead god (yes, really), our barbarian Gotchimus... a name I actually loved... sits at a table with his friend and colleague, trying to barter for information about this elusive wizard. But before his friend will spill anything, he demands the story behind Gotchimus’s newly acquired eyepatch.
Sounds simple enough but omg this thing is so confusing.
I thought the cover and description sounded intriguing, and I accepted the review copy from Tordotcom... a publisher I usually enjoy... but Kill All Wizards was just too strange, too meandering, and too out‑there for me. I tapped out on page 74. And considering the book is only 133 pages long, that’s saying something.
As much as I hate DNFing books, I simply could not bring myself to care about Gotchimus, whether his friend ever gave him the information he needed, or whether he’d get his revenge.
Count. Me. Out.
Decomposition Book by Sara Van Os
Come for the menty‑b girl vibes, stay for the corpse companionship.
Savannah is a neurotic twenty‑something taking a semester off college and hiding out alone in her parents’ summer home, trying to recover from a recent traumatic event and get her head on straight. She calls her mom daily out of obligation, checks in with her therapist weekly, and spends the rest of her time drinking too much wine and slow‑dosing Ambien to quiet her relentlessly negative internal monologue.
One night, after mixing a little too much of everything, she wakes up in the woods behind the house… lying next to a dead woman. After a very understandable freakout, Savannah convinces herself there was no foul play. She rummages through the woman’s backpack, finds a journal that begins with “If you’re reading this, I’m either safe or dead. Either way is fine by me,” and learns the body's name: Ava.
In her already fragile state, Savannah delays calling the police and instead begins spending time with the corpse — reading Ava’s journal entries, piecing together her final days, and forming a one‑sided relationship that grows stranger and more intimate by the day.
What starts as morbid curiosity slowly spirals into something much darker, as Savannah’s mental state begins to mirror the decomposing body in the woods.
It’s a gripping read, pulling you along chapter after chapter as you come to understand what both women endured to end up where they are.
That said, there were some things that didn't sit right with me, spoilery things, and if you've already read this, maybe you know, and those things kept threatening to pull me out of the story.
If you’re into books about women on the cusp of losing thier shit, and have enjoyed The Pisces, The Bus on Thursday, To Be Devoured, Beta Vulgaris, you'll definitely want to get this one into your reading line up once it releases.
Dead Weight by Hildur Knutsdottir
A delightfully twisted domestic thriller where not a whole lot is happening on the surface, but what does happen is a LOT. If you know, you know.
Unnur is living her life — gunning for a promotion, jetting around the world with her married lover, convincing herself she’s totally fine. Then one evening she comes home to find a black cat curled up on her couch. She shoos it out, only to find it waiting outside her apartment door the next day. Assuming it’s a runaway, she tracks down the owner: Ásta, a young woman clearly going through some stuff, who reluctantly asks Unnur to watch Io until she’s in better shape.
And that’s where things start to unravel.
Ásta and Io slip into Unnur’s life with alarming ease, and before long Unnur finds herself pulled into the center of a very bad situation... but one she’s uniquely, almost disturbingly equipped to handle.
Unnur is a fascinating and quietly unhinged MC. She’s sharp, self‑possessed, morally flexible, and absolutely committed to maintaining control of her world… even when that world threatens to control her. Watching her navigate chaos with an eerie, serene determination is half the fun.
Don’t get in a lady’s way when there’s a mess to clean up.
This was loads of fun and easily digested in a few hours. The words practically run off the page. But check your triggers with this one — the story may seem low‑key, but it’s built around infidelity and domestic abuse.
If you've enjoyed Eat The Ones You Love, I Am Agatha, or Too Old For This... this one is a must-read.
The Black Farm by Elias Witherow
Sooo many of you have gushed over this one, so when I saw it for cheap on Chirp, I figured sure, why not. I hate FOMO and I’m always down for a super bloody read. But honestly? This one was just… meh.
The Black Farm kicks off with Nick and his girlfriend Jess shoving pills down their throats after deciding life just isn’t worth living anymore. Jess has never recovered from the loss of their unborn son. Nick can’t imagine living without Jess. Sounds kinda Romeo-and-Juliet tragic, right? But uh-uh. Nope.
Nick wakes up in The Black Farm—a twisted, purgatory-adjacent afterlife where all suicidals are dumped. The place is run by a guy named Danny, who forces newcomers to make a choice:
Feed the Pig (aka sacrifice yourself to the entity that created the Farm, who will digest you and decide whether you go to hell or get a second chance at life), or refuse, and spend eternity sprinting from Pigborn—grotesque creatures who will capture, torture, and kill you… only for you to respawn somewhere else on the Farm, forever and ever, amen.
Nick says fuck the pig and decides to take his chances on the Farm, on an insane mission to find Jess, who has to be out there somewhere, and then figure out how to get the two of them out of this nightmare.
It sounds cool enough. And it was gross, but not turn-me-off gross. It made for an alright companion on my commute. Did I love it? No. Did I hate it? Also no. Do I have any interest in book two? Yeah, no. One ride through the Farm was plenty for me.
The Hive by Ronald Malfi
I was a little late requesting a review copy of this one, but the publisher granted it to me anyway and so I wasted no time and dove right in!
What a chunky and intimidating guy this was! I cannot remember the last time I read a book this long. The closest I've been was when I read Bury Your Bones in the Midnight Soil which clocked in at over 500 pages. And I've never read anything by Malfi before so this felt like quite the risk for me. Think about how many more books I could have read in the span of time I was reading this one?! I heard my gigantic TBR pile collectively sigh when they saw me open this one on my kindle.
The Hive takes place in a small town pummeled by a bizarre storm. When the skies clear, the residents of Mariner’s Cove head out to assess the damage — only to find themselves strangely drawn to random bits of debris scattered across lawns, trees, and water: a colander, a bike wheel, wire hangers, even someone’s front door. They don’t know why, only that they must protect these objects at all costs.
Those afflicted begin having vivid dreams — climbing a metal structure high in the sky, seeing strange symbols that slowly reveal themselves as instructions. There’s something they need to build. Something important. And Malfi makes you wait until the final quarter to find out what it is.
God, this thing was long. And I’m not convinced it needed to be. Malfi could’ve shaved off a good two hundred pages by trimming the repetition. Still, he does a solid job introducing the (many) main characters and keeping their bizarre storylines straight while gradually ramping up the tension and WTF energy.
Not a book I’ll be shouting from the mountaintops about, but not one I’d tell you to skip either. Worth the read — just maybe not at this length.
The Cat Bride by Charlotte Tierney
“…when you are a girl trapped in a tower, in a world made of boy, it is essential to understand how not to attract attention.”
Holy hot mess and so much more.
We meet sixteen-year-old Lowdy, who’s done something bad enough to get her mother fired and the two of them kicked out of their cushy living situation. They end up moving in with Lowdy’s ailing grandmother… who still resides in Astra's childhood home located in the family's abandoned zoo.
Astra, Lowdy’s mother, grew up performing with her own mother’s lynx back in the 70s. The zoo was once a tourist draw thanks to their rare hybrid cat — a tynx, part tiger, part lynx — until it escaped its enclosure and killed a man. The tynx was supposedly put down, the lynx rehomed, and the zoo shuttered.
Sixteen years later, as Astra returns with Lowdy in tow, rumors start swirling that the tynx never died at all. Something is stalking the neighborhood. Livestock is turning up brutally slaughtered. People are being mauled. And Lowdy begins to fear that she, her mother, and her grandmother are far more entangled with the creature than she ever understood.
Holy gaslighting, Batman. This entire book is one massive mindfuck. The family dynamics are as toxic as the home's peeling lead paint, and the childhood trauma runs ridiculously deep. Tierney never shows her hand — not once — and we’re dragged along page after page trying to figure out whether Lowdy is mentally unraveling, whether Astra is a suffocating manipulator, or whether both things can be true at the same time.
As the truth behind Lowdy’s horrid behavior back home slowly surfaces, and the generational damage between mother, daughter, and grandmother comes into focus, it becomes painfully clear that no one is getting out of this story unscathed.
The Cat Bride is equal parts fable and fairytale, wrapped in a suffocating, atmospheric setting that’s as compelling as it is repellent. It’s weird, it’s feral, it’s unsettling — and it absolutely sinks its claws in.
Definitely for fans of novels like Our Wives Under the Sea, Nightbitch, and The Book of X.
Bone of My Bone by Johanna Van Veen
This is another one of those cases where I would’ve declined the publisher’s pitch if I judged books solely by their cover. It’s perfectly appropriate for the story, sure — but it leans a little too “M’lord and fair maiden” for my taste, and not nearly enough “holy saint’s skeleton head.”
The novel drops us into the 1600s during the Thirty Years’ War, where we meet Elsebeth, a rough‑and‑tumble woman who has just left her family behind to die, and Ursula, a nun disguised in layman's clothing, desperate to reach the safety of her convent. The two narrowly escape a band of soldiers who are pillaging, burning, and assaulting their way across the countryside. As they flee into the Bavarian Forest, they stumble upon a dying peasant who begs them to take the box he carries and deliver it home.
Inside the box? A saint’s skull. And “home”? The burial site of the rest of her bones. Reunite them, he says, and the saint will grant them a wish.
So off Ursula and Elsebeth go, on a grim little pilgrimage they never asked for... unaware that a necromancer and his rotting companion are close behind, determined to reclaim what was stolen.
If you liked Alex Grecian’s Red Rabbit, there’s a lot here that will feel familiar in the best way. It’s dark but cheeky, atmospheric without being dreary, and full of quirky characters and unexpected side quests. The religious horror is subtle but steady — it's the quiet pulse that keeps the story moving.
I think I’m in the minority when I say I liked it, but didn’t love it. The story is entertaining, the journey was fun, and the characters memorable, but some of the language and the way the women framed thier queer relationship edged into eye‑roll territory for me.
Still, Bone of My Bone is a lively, macabre road‑trip fable with charm, grit, and a saint’s skull rattling around in the center of it all. Not a new favorite, but absolutely worth the trek if you enjoy dark historical adventures with a tongue planted firmly in its cheek.
Make Me Better by Sarah Gailey
I’m not entirely sure what’s shifted in Sarah Gailey’s writing lately, but they aren't writing books like they used to. Gone are the days of alternate history gender bending hippo riders and futuristic gun wielding queer librarians. Gone too are the creepy haunted house vibes and the page-turning thriller crawling with clones, jilted wives, dark twisted secrets, and murrrrrrder.
I’ve always admired how Gailey reinvents themselves with each new project. That said, even though I loved the outer space setting, Spread Me veered a little too hard into weird kink territory for my tastes, and now Make Me Better turns in the complete opposite direction by delivering a more subdued story. The premise of an isolated cult community that hosts a monthly “Salt Festival” promising healing and transformation is compelling on paper. It sounds like it would have all the right ingredients... tension, mystery, emotional depth.
But the pacing here is extremely slow, and even with the undercurrent of unease threaded throughout, I struggled to stay invested. By the time Celia, one of the Salt Fesitval's visitors, finally uncovers what’s happening, the reveal didn’t carry the weight I hoped for, and I wasn’t as surprised as the book seemed to want me to be.
Of all Gailey’s books, this one feels the most conventional and the least distinctively “them.” There’s nothing wrong with a quieter, more mainstream approach... it just wasn’t giving what I’ve come to love most from their work.
In the end, Make Me Better is a thoughtful, restrained take on the cult subgenre, but it doesn't quite find the spark that made Gailey’s earlier novels so unforgettable. Readers new to their work may enjoy its slow‑burn mystery, but longtime fans might find themselves wishing for a bit more of that old fire.
For similar vibes that do a bit more, try The Island by Kerri King and Reef Mind by Hazel Zorn.
Filth Eaters by Ito Romo
"Everything in this book is historically accurate—except, of course, the vampires. Oh, and what happens in the future. But almost everything else is historically accurate." - Ito Romo
Filth Eaters takes a genre that’s been done to death (and undeath, lol) and manages to carve out something genuinely new. Ito Romo introduces a fresh breed of vampire — one that can reproduce, that doesn’t crumble under the usual folkloric tricks, and that feels more like an evolving species than a static bloodthirsty monster.
This nonlinear novel traces a thousand‑year bloodline beginning with Shandor in 1099, moving through the turning of the young Spaniard Radames in a 1400s bathhouse, and landing in 2069, where Radames’s son Doro livestreams his kills on the streets of a drowned, neon‑soaked New York City.
It’s ambitious, sweeping, and often fascinating.
Romo uses this multi-century timeline to explore survival in all of its physical, emotional, and generational forms... where his characters wrestle with identity, the exhaustion of existence, and the deeply human hunger to love and be loved, even when your species is dependent on taking life in order to sustain your own.
The structure is bold, the ideas are fresh, but the emotional impact didn’t land firmly for me. I definitely admired the concept more than I connected with the characters.
In the end, though Filth Eaters breaks new ground in the vampire genre and was a solid, intriguing read, it never fully sunk its teeth into me.
The End by Adam Cosco
Eli and Selene are two tech‑heads heading to a remote cabin for a much‑needed reset. Their relationship has been strained, Selene has been stuck in a fog she can’t shake, and Eli is convinced that some time away without distractions will help them reconnect.
But shortly after they settle in, Eli runs out to the store, leaving Selene curled up on the couch with a book. When he returns, she’s gone. The only clue is the time‑lapse camera she set up to record the sunset. As he rewinds the footage, he watches Selene walk naked into the frozen lake… and vanish. By the time he reaches the shore, it’s already too late.
While drowning in grief, Eli notices an email notification on her phone — a welcome message to a “gathering of the faithful.” Curiosity (and desperation) lead him to the meeting, where he encounters the leaders of a strange, cult‑leaning group who believe the dead can reconnect with the living through chosen vessels. And Selene’s death, they insist, is the sign they’ve been waiting for.
What follows is a dark, twisted descent into one man’s inability to accept loss and his growing obsession with understanding why she left him behind. The book plays with grief, delusion, and the seductive pull of belief systems that promise answers when life refuses to give any.
It’s an intriguing setup with some genuinely eerie moments, but the story never fully clicked for me. The atmosphere is strong, the premise compelling, yet the emotional payoff felt muted. In the end, it’s a story with sharp edges and haunting ideas... just not one that cut as deeply as I had hoped.
