...the Soul of Wit - Short Reviews

As the year nears its end, I'm honestly getting a little anxious if I will be able to read all the books I wanted to read in my challenges (clue: no, I won't, I took on too much and didn't plan well, but I will not give up and will keep on trying) and what my best books of the year will be, but that last one isn't that much of a mystery because I think I know my selection already, haha. I'm just leaving it to publish them in a month or so, because who knows, maybe I'll read the book of my life within that one month, although I wouldn't hold my breath.

Enjoy the short reviews until then!

Boys in the Valley by Philip Fracassi

Boys in the Valley follows a catholic orphanage somewhere in a remote Pennsylvanian valley around the year 1900. As if the torturous treatment from the priests wasn't enough, there now is some kind of supernatural entity haunting and possessing the boys and they start dying one by one in gruesome ways.

Amazing how this book abruptly lost its charm for me in the last, say, 50 pages.

What starts as a wonderfully creepy tale appealing to empathy and giving serious chills, turns into a dull, formulaic, religious resolution in which priests possess supernatural powers, can save people by baptizing them, stop evil “in the name of Jesus”, and the religion, of which the representatives have been abusing and assaulting children throughout the whole book, is what saves the few remaining children at the end of the day. Is there a thing called Christian horror? Is this it?

I have to say though it is really well written and has the potential to glue you to the pages. The characters are so vivid, their pain so real you actually feel with them, and want to quickly know what happens.

Looking at all the reviews it’s hard to find anything less than 4 stars and I have to add that I'm a pretty godless person and redeeming any kind of religion in a book won't work with me. I would have expected a lot more critical voices, so wow, I’m obviously the outlier, I guess.

AHH! That's What I Call Horror: An Anthology of '90s Horror, ed. by Chelsea Pumpkins

Ahh, not enough horror here!

I have the greatest sympathy with what the contributors wanted to do here - an anthology of stories set in their childhood era, a time of dial-up internet connection, grunge rock, action figures and Barbie dolls - but most (not all) of these fourteen stories feel more like enhanced Goosebumps episodes and rather successfully reproduce the 90s feel, but don't really give the reader a thorough scare.

My highlights were - Caution:Choking Hazard by Mathew Wend, in which Cabbage Patch Kid Dolls and Tickle Me Elmos go murderous during the pre-Christmas season; Alive and Living by Carson Winter, a very disturbing sitcom show where the audience's misplaced laughter sounds increase the eeriness and finally The End of The Horror Story by Patrick Barb which revolves around the shooting of the latest installment of a horror franchise by a newbie director who is send to Siberia for the filming.

Despite all, I did enjoy reading these and they temporarily took me to another time, and that's always good.

Collage Macabre: An Exhibition of Art Horror ed. by Gemma Amor

One of my favorite subgenres is art horror, as is widely known, especially the horror of unanimated objects, statues or paintings, reaching out of their exhibition frame and moving around doing destructive things. So, it was interesting for me that in this anthology of art horror, Collage Macabre, it was rather the other, less conventional corners of art that spoke to me. My highlights were Ai Jiang’s Breathe, Blow, Burn focusing on the Chinese folk art Sugar People; A Study in Umber by Jessica Peter which is about a mummy unrolling, which people in the nineteenth century Britain apparently really did, and a subsequent color production from the mummy’s body for rich people to paint with (this gets weirder by the minute); Lack by TJ Price in which a scary painting should have been got rid of before it gets rid of everything and finally Like the Devil by Matthew Maichen, which revolves around a very avantgarde and deranged ballet show. This was a genuine pleasure to read and would recommend it!

Men Without Women by Haruki Murakami

I really enjoyed reading these stories from Murakami’s pen, and like everything I have read by him until now, and it’s really not much, I felt… soothed, maybe comforted a little. All of them revolving around men whose lives are marked by the absence of a significant other, whether they are widowed, divorced, lonely or simply single, these tales show the very different lives they lead and the very different ways they see life.

My highlight was Samsa in Love in which a beetle wakes up as Gregor Samsa, lol. I like the way Samsa falls in love, so pure.

If all Murakami stories are like this, I’m happy I haven’t read much by him until today, because that means I still have a load of great stories waiting to be discovered.

This is the December Light read over at Shine and Shadow, finally a selection in this group that is one hundred percent good!

And now, thriller time!

Three Sisters by Owen Mullen

The traditional Christmas outing of sisters Molly, Alex and Sam Kennedy goes so wrong this year: a car accident kills one of them, and leaves the other two shattered. Their and driver Lewis Stone's lives will be irrevocably changed after that.

The plot of this one keeps up with its flashy catch phrase: THREE SISTERS – ONE LYING, ONE DYING, ONE HELLBENT ON REVENGE! Dun dun dunn.

I loved this, just a tiny bit predictable, still the killer twist lives up to its name, very satisfying. Finally, a good thriller which kept me engrossed, I listened to an advanced listening copy from Libro FM via the Otherland Bookstore, by the way.