...the Soul of Wit - Latest Short Reviews

There are times in life when every read basically sucks... Putting together this selection, I realized what a bad reading month (or two) I had and it is just such a chore to write reviews for books that are meh or even worse. In the hope to better motivate myself to finally write down those thoughts, I decided to arrange them starting with the one I least liked and ending with the month's favorite. I don't know what I was thinking because I ended up finishing the favorites quickly and putting off reviews for the bad ones anyway. But don't be discouraged, who knows, maybe you can find more joy in them if you try! Here goes!

The Pallbearers Club by Paul Tremblay

We're following the story of two unreliable friends/frenemies through the manuscript of a memoir as well as the editorial notes and cuts scribbled in it: Art Barbara, an uncool teenager who starts an extracurricular club of volunteer pallbearers at poorly attended funerals and the girl he admires, who brings along her Polaroid camera to take pictures of the corpses and has obsessive knowledge of New England folklore.

Never thought a Paul Tremblay book would be a flop for me but here we are... How? Why?
Thanks to Richard Chizmar's Chasing the Boogeyman I realized early this year that this whole memoir / mystery / horror / meta fiction thing doesn't work for me at all and The Pallbearers Club was no different. Way too experimental...
The principal problem with it is that you really need to warm up to and be interested in the characters of this story to persevere until the very end where the real thing happens that turns this memoir / contempoorary novel into genre. That didn't happen for me, so the whole concept of the book didn't work out in my case.
But, I can imagine that if you're able to connect to main character, you like 80s/90s punk rock, have a soft spot for vampires and wordy, slow-paced friendship stories, this might be your book - just not mine.

The Death of Jane Lawrence by Caitlin Starling

When the pragmatic and reticent Jane Shoringfield asks reclusive doctor Augustine Lawrence for his hand in a marriage of convenience that rather resembles an entrepreneurial partnership, he is first surprised but soon sees the advantages of such a union where both can be emotionally independent and occupied with their work. When his one condition that she must never visit his countryside manor Lindridge Hall is broken by an accident, Jennifer finds a totally changed, terrified, delusional man, who has many many secrets.

This, my friends, was the major disappointment of the year for me and I really don't want to go much into details and the depths of how I disliked this book. I was on the fence whether I hated this book or the previous one more, and the result was a really close call. The main advantage of this neo-gothic YA dark fantasy (It is not horror!) is that it at least has a structure. That being said I want to leave both these books behind as soon as possible and move on.

Motherthing by Ainslie Hogarth

Again, a book that in my opinion should be listed as horror adjacent the most, but is listed as horror and disappointed as a result. But the fact that I was disappointed doesn't mean this was a complete waste of time for me. The story is about Abby Lamb, who is desperate for a mother figure in her life, trying to find that figure in her mother-in-law Laura, who, on her part, is only interested in her son and getting him rid of Abby. She and Ralph move in with Laura all the while trying to become parents themselves when mother in law takes her own life, yes. And the ghost of this toxic and hateful woman keeps on haunting them - albeit in unusual ways, escalating the novel to sometimes funny but usually dark and even sad situations.

Recommended if you think a domestic thriller that has its humorous moments is what you are looking for, otherwise a soft nope from me.

Sair Back, Sair Banes by Anthony Engebretson

This is the fortunate point where the books get better and recommendable, dear folks, it's all uphill from here on.

Revolving around monsters that we're not very used to see in fiction - the eerie, shape-shifting kelpies in the Scottish countryside - Sair Back, Sair Banes is a nice, quick, atmospheric read ideal for the (pre-) Halloween season. Main character Genevieve, who came to the Lochs to visit an old family friend, is a rather quiet, faint protagonist, which sets the tone for the entirety of this book – a slightly gothic and slightly melancholy folk horror which I enjoyed reading.

I want to add that I really really love the cover of this novella, beautiful! 

Your Mind Is a Terrible Thing by Hailey Piper

We're aboard the star ship M.G. Yellowjacket and the shy and anxiety-ridden communications specialist Alto wakes up to find out that everybody has vanished and a weird, hostile, giant brain thing which can hack and control minds has boarded the ship. Alto is the least likely person to pick up a fight with these powerful creatures but they will have to somehow reach the ship’s bridge and call for help... and they will discover that they are facing a much bigger problem than thought. 

I genuinely like and enjoy Hailey Piper's writing – I like how she explores gender, psychology and identity in metaphoric ways and her style is particular and intense. In Your Mind is a Terrible Thing, I was served a little too much of that intensity, which I usually so enjoy reading in her books. The story is very concentrated, we are taken on a journey very much about isolation, anxieties, confrontation; a very inward turned, strong novella, it was just too intense for me this time.

The Printer From Hell by Amy Cross

Next time you think you struck a good deal buying a cheap printer, think twice! Steve Holland thought exactly that and had to deal with the deadly consequences. After having just moved into a new apartment with his wife and son, he buys a no-name printer at an indie shop around the corner but soon regrets it when the machine works only sporadically and then it prints stuff unknown to him.
When his son starts acting disturbed and has mysterious bruises on him, he also thinks it is a kind of phase that will pass. The last straw though is that the printer starting to print hideous photos from a nightmarish and sadistic world. Only it is his own apartment, but at the same time it isn't. So how will he save his family?

I loved reading this! I was lucky enough to be invited to an Amy Cross reading group and discovered this awesome author, whom we'll be reading on a bimonthly basis from now on and I can't wait. Cross combines just the right amount of absurdity and a slight humor with gruesome horror which speaks to me. She definitely has a new fan and gave me a lot to think about not buying cheap products. It's a cheat, let me tell you.

We Spread by Iain Reid

When artist Penny has to evacuate the apartment in which she has lived for decades, she also has to leave behind the comfort and the artifacts of her life. She moves, due to some agreement that has been made years ago, in a room in a unique long-term care residence and although initially all is well, she gradually starts to lose her grip on things, not knowing if this is the normal aging process, or if there is something sinister going on.

Wow, I finished at one sitting in one morning, amazing pace and never boring!

I don't always understand the writing of Iain Reid and he leaves too many questions in his writing for my taste. But there is one thing he does that I madly appreciate – dealing with the subject of growing old and with his older characters with respect and empathy. 

There is an almost traditional ongoing trend in especially horror literature from North America where youth is held in the highest regard and it is normal to represent old people as scary and evil and dumb, with the entertainment and publishing industries using aging bodies as sources of horror and stigmatizing them with stereotypes, while the truth is, and at least people who have worked with older people will know this, they are terrified themselves. It is terrifying to get old, to slowly disintegrate, to lose control over your body and mind, yes, but the least helpful thing is pointing at people affected, discriminating them.

So Reid is rad for going against this trend in his writing, and very successfully transmitting that helplessness and fear. Read this if you liked his previous, I’m Thinking of Ending Things, you won’t regret!

Stolen Tongues by Felix Blackwell

A man, his fiancée, his future parents-in-law's cursed cabin in the middle of nowhere during a blizzard and one creepy ass monster who steals his victims' speech. Not going to say more about the plot, but I'm going to add that this is one of the scariest book I have read in a while.

Apparently Felix Blackwell is known to some redditers where he used to publish some short scary stories and later decided to write his own horror book. A very good decision, I think, because in times of frustratingly unscary horror literature, Stolen Tongues was a genuinely frightening, spine chillingly cold breath of fresh air.

I hope to hear more from this author in the future. 

And, as promised above, here comes the winner of this month's reads, a thriller from an author I have read before, but never was totally infatuated with, but am now.

The Kind Worth Killing by Peter Swanson

An insanely riveting story!

Ted Severson meets the striking and beautiful Lilly Kintner on a flight from London to Boston and it's instant chemistry between them. After a few martinis he tells her maybe a little more than he should - his wife Miranda is cheating on him and he wishes she and her lover were dead. Lilly's not the kind to judge, she even supports his wish very actively by offering her help killing these people who in her opinion deserve it. So they start plotting... but they are not the only ones to plan murder and as their back stories slowly unfold, the motives and lives of everyone involved will offer one surprising twist after another!

Thinking about the beginning of the book, which is apparently based on Patricia Highsmith's Strangers on a Train, two people meeting, talking and finally spilling the beans on a flight from London to New York and the very end feel like two completely different books, so much happens in between! Plus, how can one author create so many unlikable people in only one book? You basically hope for them to die or be caught.
I like the structure of two points of view per part but that very structure leads to repetitions, especially at the beginnings of chapters, and that was a little overdone sometimes. Apart from that I have nothing to complain about and can gladly report this is my favorite Swanson book so far.