Aspen's Library

⭐⭐⭐⭐

I absolutely loved this book!! It is written as a manuscript for a memoir that the author’s friend finds and writes notes in to correct the information/give her side of the story. I love when books are written in a way that breaks our idea of what a novel is. I found the story to be sad yet compelling and thoroughly enjoyed the book.

What made the book even better was at the end, Tremblay basically tells us it is a self-insert and based on his life. This fictional memoir is essentially his actual memoir!! This book is boring in places, felt like it lacked a plot, and was not a horror novel in my opinion. But if you go into believing it is a semi-fictional memoir, I think it is really interesting and a fun read.

⭐⭐

This book seemed like it had it all: it is a zombie/cannibal horror novel, queer, found family, MTF rep, great vibes, etc. And typically, I don’t care how well-written books are if I enjoy the worldbuilding, plot, and characters. However, this book was so poorly written. It needed some heavy editing to deal with the constant use of phrases like “once, twice, three times.” The characters in this book are 16/17, they are drinking vodka and getting drunk, etc, but it feels like a much younger YA book, which left me feeling talked down to in a way. I really wanted to love this, and I hope the author improves because she seems to have very fun plot ideas, but as is, I cannot get past the bad writing/need for editing. 

⭐⭐⭐⭐

I am going to review both of these books at the same time, since they follow the same main character.

My Heart is a Chainsaw started slow and was a bit too long for my liking, but the second half was captivating! I am a huge fan of slasher films, so I found all the references and callbacks very fun. I was in a huge reading slump before this book, and it lit a fire in me. I am now trying to find every slasher book available to read. I thought Jade was a slightly insufferable yet surprisingly good protagonist. 

Don’t Fear the Reaper is the sequel and in this I hated Jade. Everything that I enjoyed about her in the first book was stripped away as she was “denying her true self.” I still enjoyed the book overall and loved the storyline but found that the book dragged on in places. The ending was really good.

I thought both of these books were fun to read and found the gore to be well done. I am extremely excited for the third book of this trilogy.

⭐⭐⭐

First and foremost I would like to say that I dislike how Hendrix writes women. It is very stereotypical and an issue I have with all of his novels that I have read. That said, I do typically enjoy his novels. I find them nostalgic in a way and recently heard his books described as “Goosebumps for adults” and I would have to agree. They usually don’t require a lot of brain power and allow me to relax and not have to think too hard.

This book disappointed me though. I really enjoyed the first half, I found it incredibly interesting and was in the mood for a good haunted house story. About halfway through, it became evident that it was about a haunted puppet instead. That took me out of the story some, as haunted puppets are less believable and more annoying than haunted houses. I could’ve forgiven the house itself not being haunted if this book had less gore for gore’s sake and was more of a psychological horror.

⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

This is hands down the most important book I have read so far this year. At this point I am convinced that I am in love with Nagoski. She is a sex educator and writes boring information in a way that is not hard to consume. I learned so much from this book even though it focuses primarily on cishet allosexual women. The science of women’s sexuality was incredibly intriguing, and I found a lot of things I can apply to my own life (like, in my opinion, the dual control model is not a “cishet women only” thing, it is something a lot of people can use to understand their desires). I would love to see Nagoski expand in the future on trans sexuality as well as queer sexuality and asexuality, however as she mentions in the book, science is doing very little to explore those things right now. 

⭐⭐⭐

This is a modern day retelling of Pride and Prejudice. I am not a fan of Pride and Prejudice to begin with, so I disliked the elements where these two books were very close in story. I found the commentary on gentrification to be intriguing and I liked Liza a lot.

I hate Dorsey. He is a stuck up millionaire and while I was hoping he would get a thorough redemption, it felt very rushed in this book. For around 85% of the book, he is a total ass, yet he makes a big change to be a nice guy. I felt like the change itself should’ve been a slower progression and not a sudden 180. 

I enjoyed the writing itself and look forward to reading more by Payne.

⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ / ⭐⭐

The handling of mental illness in this book, and the constant unanswered question of “is she possessed or is it schizophrenia” is not handled well at all. I chose to read this as if she was possessed, since the handling of it being a potential mental illness lacked nuance and was a caricature of people with schizophrenia. 

As a possession story, I found it very intriguing and thoroughly enjoyable. It was a fun discussion on if the families that are well-known for their children being “possessed” are actually being honest as well as a critique of how films, shows, and documentaries based on true stories of possession are handled by the director and crew. I liked the blog posts critiquing the similarities between famous possession stories, fictional possession stories, and the story in the book. Having the main story be told through the eyes of an eight year old was unique.

If I take into account the fact that the “possessed” girl could’ve been suffering from a mental illness and instead of continuing to get her health care, they instead took her to a priest and then made a show to profit off of her, that changes how I feel about the book. While I feel like that is a conversation that needs to be had about real life possession stories, especially ones that have become famous, I don’t think this book handled that discussion very well.

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I went into this book not knowing what it was about. It turned out to be a funny, yet insightful commentary on Sikh women (particularly widows) and the customs they follow. It was very interesting to see the widows explore their own sexuality and discuss the days of their youth. I was not expecting this book to turn into a murder mystery at all! That took me by surprise and I could not stop reading. I expected this book to be lighthearted, but it ended up covering some very heavy topics.

I loved the writing and found the main character relatable. I hope to read more from this author soon.

⭐⭐⭐.5

This is a romance book where the main characters were side characters in Sweethand. I absolutely loved Sweethand, so I was really looking forward to this book. I found Don’t Go Baking My Heart to be a bit disappointing. It is longer than I thought it needed to be, and the main conflict is a partially overheard conversation where one main character lacks the context to know what was actually said. I find that trope to be tiring and overdone, so I was really let down by Peltier using it. 

I really enjoyed the characters and the writing, so I will keep reading Peltier’s novels as they come out, I just hope that they veer away from overdone tropes.

⭐⭐⭐.5

I saw this book being raved about online and by friends and thought I would really enjoy it. I typically love psychological thrillers and digging into why characters commit murder. This book though? I am so disappointed by it.

Firstly, the way multiple characters who are psychologists, psychiatrists, therapists, etc discuss the mental health of patients is repulsive. Comments made about BPD specifically made me very angry. I hoped that characters who are trained in mental health wouldn't make the ignorant comments that were made in this book. And the characters get away with it!! Multiple times in this book therapists are abusing their patients and it isn’t critiqued at all!

Secondly, the plot twist. It was very predictable and overhyped. I was told multiple times that I would never see it coming and it was going to blow me away, but within the first 15-20% of the book, I knew what the twist would be. That may be because I read a lot of thrillers or it may be that it just isn’t that good of a twist.

I hope this author learns that you can write psychological thrillers without playing into harmful stereotypes.

⭐⭐⭐⭐

I am all for apocalyptic fiction and zombie/vampire children. I found this book to be disturbing which I enjoyed. I thought the premise of the disease and how it acted was intriguing. I thoroughly enjoyed the exploration into the science behind the parasite. The social issues that arose were also interesting to read about, however I think it would’ve had more impact if the characters weren’t middle class/upper class white people. 

⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

This is definitely going to be in my Top 5 books I've read this year. One thing you should know about me is that I love novels that play with our idea of what a novel "should be." This book does just that.

The book is transcripts from found footage films, emails, texts, etc and it is so well done! I honestly think anyone who enjoys found-footage horror movies, ghost hunting shows, or unique novels should definitely give this a read.

⭐⭐⭐.5

I wanted to love this book. I loved the plus size representation, the bi representation, and how positively sex workers are viewed in this book. As you can probably tell based on the fact that I didn't finish this Christmas book until March, I found some things I disliked about this book.

I felt like this book could've had 100 less pages and still be the same. I didn't feel like the characters had as much depth as I'd like for a 400+ page book.

Overall, I love the main female character but dislike the main male character. I was left somewhat unsatisfied because of how long and dull certain parts were and how they dragged on.

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A queer sci-fi novella where a wormhole opens up in a knock-off Ikea and the company sends retail workers in to retrieve a customer.

One thing to know about me is that I am a huge sucker for books set in knock-off Ikea stores. I love the anti-capitalistic characters who hate their job (as I also hate my job and capitalistic company I work for).

I found the characters extremely relatable and the world/multiverse incredibly intriguing. I immediately started the second book in the series (Defekt).

⭐⭐⭐

At times this book felt slow and weird. A lot of the book is the main character moping and being self centered, especially when at the school. I wish the main character was more interested in learning about the dolls and why they are used, and less time feeling bad for herself. It is interesting how much the main character and her doll got emotionally attached to each other.

The school itself was just as racist, sexist, and homophobic as our current CPS system, which I think is really interesting to make commentary on in a speculative fiction novel. Our main character does come from a place of privilege, despite being a woman of color. Due to this, I felt like she sometimes ignored the black mothers struggles, which was frustrating. Overall I didn't enjoy the main character very much.

I also disliked the ending. It felt very anticlimactic, despite it being written as a cliffhanger. Our main character never grows as a person, the dolls don't do as much creepy stuff as I expected, it felt disappointing. I feel like the story idea had so much potential, but the story went in a way I didn't enjoy.

My most read author this year was Mia P. Manansala. I love the Tita Rosie's Kitchen Mystery series and cannot wait for the next one to come out!