Time for new book reviews... I did an audio-attack and listened to many books that I'm reviewing here in audio format, so there are a lot. Enjoy!
Tales from the Gas Station: Volume Two by Jack Townsend
Gas station night shift worker and long term high-functioning insomniac Jack is at it again... All he wants is to read his book in peace and do the bare minimum while at work and he's really trying to keep out of trouble, but it's coming at him thick and fast.
After the first installment's catastrophe, a new crew has been hired at the only gas station built upon an ancient deity, and the weirdest best buddy Jerry is aboard too. They're not less crazy than the original crew, though, plus need to deal with the resident psychopath who is after Jack, murder conspiracies, strange encounters with demons, rituals and more.
I really like Jack, and in this book we as readers have a better glimpse into the kind of person he is when he retreats from his work and hangs out in a bookstore. I also love the life in the unnamed small-town which is a little creepy and plenty chaotic, and I can't wait to keep on reading to see if there's an underlying bigger plot that hasn't been revealed yet, because I think there is.
It Lasts Forever and Then It's Over by Anne de Marcken
So, this is awkward. This book was a present to me from someone who was very enthusiastic about it and I hate it. I need to be honest - it wasn't for me.
The main character, an unnamed, undead woman browsing the post Zombie apocalypse, has a very vivacious inner world that totally contrasts with her Zombie being and the environment, and that sometimes leads to darkly funny and macabre scenes/situations. That is basically the book's one shtick.
She is very aware and thinks and observes her surroundings not only like a living person, but a very cerebral, almost intellectual, emotional and well-spoken living person, in a way you wouldn't expect from a Zombie with a crow stuck in her chest and losing body parts as she walks.
A side character in a bigger Zombie saga? Yes! Yes, please. A whole ass book about this character? Sorry, not really.
The Discomfort of Evening by Lucas Rijneveld
Jas lives in rural Netherlands with her ultra religious family when one day her brother dies during an ice skating trip. The atmosphere within the family gets ever tenser and darker after this incident and a lack of communication between the members, the mother and father and Jas who blames herself for what happened, gets progressively heavier and heavier.
This was possibly the darkest thing I've read in a while. Claustrophobic family stories can have something triggering, like I've felt my chest tighten while reading this book. Also, it’s funny how, as soon as a book is about a strictly religious family, the church plays a big role, and it’s set on a farm, I automatically fell into the habit of imagining Jas and her family in the Middle Ages, and then she’d talk about mayonnaise or olive oil or ice skating and I would remember that this is in fact a contemporary story, haha.
The Rictus Grin and Other Tales of Insanity by Erica Summers
I don't even remember when but I added this collection to my list mainly because I like the cover and the title. I recently got the chance to get the audiobook narrated by the author herself, so I could cross that title off my list and on the side got to listen to a couple of nice stories.
I quite liked Tines, which is a piece of folk horror about a young neglected girl who ends up spending her summer with her uncle, not knowing who or what the town he lives in worship; Sated, where the owner of a diner reacts (much) to a food critic and finally, my absolute favorite of the bunch, Secondhand Kiss, which is about a boy and a girl sitting against the sky outside, smoking some weed and talk about everything, and the boy is basically dreamily in love. Until they lean in for their first kiss and he realizes that she is not really what he thought she is. A twisted tale of cosmic horror...
I have to say that I didn't really klick with the narration and I think I would have enjoyed it more if I had read it on paper, but, oh well... I probably wouldn't have read it at all then.
We Are All Completely Fine by Daryl Gregory
Well nobody wanted to have any of the books I offered to you guys in the birthday giveaway (see this as a last call, if you want me to leave any of the giveaway books for you at the Hammett Bookstore, let me know) so before I part from this one, I wanted to read it for a last time and I did.
The book is about a group of survivors of extreme violence, sort of the original Final Girls Support Group, if you want, but it goes into a different, into a much more supernatural direction. The members of this support group are Harrison, a storybook hero who fights monsters, the wheelchair-bound Stan who was partially eaten by a group of cannibals in the 70s, Barbara was the victim of a villain who carved something into her bones that haunt her to this day, Greta who doesn't speak, and finally Martin, who never takes off his sunglasses. Except for psychotherapist Dr. Jan Sayer no one believed the stories they tell and once they regularly meet up they will have to face the monsters that still haunt them.
I almost wished this would have stayed on a psychological level, but it turns into a kind of action story with the visual power of a graphic novel or comic, and that was nice too. Very recommended.
Music to Sacrifice Virgins To by Kristopher Triana
At the ripe age of 24, Asher has to move back in with his mother after a series of setbacks. With his girlfriend gone and no job, he reaches and holds on to the one thing that will bring him some kind of sense and excitement: the heavy metal record collection and a vintage stereo left to him by his recently deceased Uncle Rex. Among the records he finds a mysterious album titled Music to Sacrifice Virgins To which will change his life. It's no ordinary record and transforms Asher into a misogynistic asshole of a Satanic warlock who rapes his way through life and acts evil in a myriad of ways. He forms a cult and intrigues even Lucifer himself, but how much of this is Asher and how much is Rex?
I usually love and highly value Kris' writing but Asher was an asshole of the degree that was too much even for me, so I really disliked this book, unfortunately. But it's OK, I've got the next Triana book lined up, The Prettiest Girl in the Grave, let's see how that one goes.
Die Flucht der Bärin by Joanna Bator
I absolutely adore short story collections in which the short stories are connected to each other, preferably loosely, with the appearance of a character or the mentioning of an event that took part in a previous story. Joanna Bator's Die Flucht der Bärin is exactly this kind of book and comprises whopping sixteen interwoven short stories.
At first glance the stories are anchored in our very reality and show the mundane, often precarious life of a circle of people some of whom live in Poland and some in Crete but on a closer look have a very dark core. You almost always suspect a touch of supernatural, and can't really exclude that there was indeed some otherworldly elements at play, but you can't be sure either. Her characters are such powerhouses too: a woman looking for her husband who disappeared almost immediately after the couple moved to Crete to heal their relationship; a terminally ill woman persistently encountering two kids during her walks in the forest; another woman becomes best friend with the ancient tortoise in the garden of her new home; a man leaves his family for another woman and builds a new life with her only to return to his old family decades later after losing his short term memory in an accident; a hotel that gives shelter to the most peculiar group of homeless and jobless people... Bator's protagonists are in their hearts of heart deeply lonely, but thus open for the unforeseen, and thus deeply interesting. I was especially smitten with the story of the woman who, as a way of escapism, keeps dressing up with clothes that she later returns and goes to sightings of houses and apartments in order to imagine new lives for herself and her disabled child because her real life is so unbearable.
This book is fantastic (and thank you, Dorothy, for recommending it to me!) and it's a shame that there is no English translation...yet.
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