Trad Wife

Trad Wife

by Saratoga Schaefer

Blurb:

Every #tradwife needs a baby. She’ll get one at any cost.

When Camille Deming isn’t cooking, cleaning, or homesteading in her picture-perfect country farmhouse, she’s posting about her tradwife lifestyle for her online followers. She takes inspiration from other tradwives on social media, aspiring to be like them, but Camille’s missing a key component: a baby. And contrary to what she posts online, things with her husband Graham have been strained. Pressured by her eager followers, Camille fears that without a baby, her relationship will suffer and her social media will never grow out of its infancy.

When Camille discovers a mysterious, decrepit well in the wheatfield behind her house, she makes a wish for a baby. Afterwards, she has unsettling experiences that she convinces herself are angelic in nature, and when she’s visited one night by a strange creature, her wish comes true. 

Camille’s pregnancy announcement gets more engagement than anything she’s ever posted—so what if Graham’s reaction is lukewarm? Camille’s life is finally falling into place. Never mind that her pregnancy is developing freakishly rapidly and she’s suddenly craving raw meat. Being a traditional wife is worth it.

Rosemary’s Baby for the digital age, this disturbing horror novel is one you’ll want to devour in just one bite.

My Reaction:

I saw this recommended on YouTube, heard the comparison to Rosemary's Baby, and didn't really bother looking into it any further before starting. 

I have no desire to go through all the reasons this didn't hold a candle to Rosemary's Baby, but you can browse other negative reviews on Goodreads to get the gist, if you care. To put it briefly, it can't seem to decide what kind of book it wants to be—the body horror is just gross and often unnecessary (though I accept that some people enjoy body horror, so... whatever... but this is my review, and I don't like it at this level)—it's far too repetitive and dragged-out, which makes it boring at many times (and I don't think it was intentionally so)—the "message" is muddled and contradictory—the husband character is lacking any hint of subtlety, a caricaturized selfish "tradhusband"—the main-character wife supposedly has a bright, scientific mind, yet she somehow didn't know about male infertility and is stunningly slow on the up-take at times—and to top it all off, the course of the plot is completely predictable, once it gets rolling.  (Well, I guess I went into my reasons for disliking this, after all...)

If I had only seen the "acknowledgements" section before starting the book—or, heck, even the "they/them" pronouns for the author in the Goodreads bio (and the back of the book)—I may have understood that this wouldn't be a book for me.  To be fair, finding the term "pregnant people" (as opposed to, you know, "women", who are the only type of people who can get pregnant) was a pretty strong clue, earlier in the book. 

Here, let me just share the opening of the "Acknowledgements":  "The rise of tradwives is a symptom of society's larger, more persistent issues. Capitalism, racism, sexism, etc., have created a culture that can twist things as simple as aesthetics and farm living into something far more insidious.  Zen Buddhists say the only way out is through. I believe the only way out is to devour. Let's consume, transform, and in that way, resist."  

...Okay, then.  

I don't really know enough about it to have much of an opinion on the whole "tradwife" thing. If some women want to live a more traditional life, I don't see an issue with that, though for the ones obsessed with posting it all online, it does feel... performative, to put it mildly.  I doubt many women honestly consider themselves part of the movement (is it a movement?), and if anything, I suspect it's fading in popularity. Just another passing trend.  Some women will stick with the more traditional lifestyle, as some women always have. The ones who were in it for the clicks will drift back to something more mainstream (or chase whatever new fad catches their eye). The author obviously despises the tradwife lifestyle.  Alright, fair enough—but I'm not really clear on how she's linking it to capitalism and racism... Whatever.  I don't even care!

Bottom line: I just didn't enjoy it.

We Used to Live Here

We Used to Live Here

by Marcus Kliewer

Blurb:

As a young, queer couple who flip houses, Charlie and Eve can’t believe the killer deal they’ve just gotten on an old house in a picturesque neighborhood. As they’re working in the house one day, there’s a knock on the door. A man stands there with his family, claiming to have lived there years before and asking if it would be alright if he showed his kids around. People pleaser to a fault, Eve lets them in.

As soon as the strangers enter their home, inexplicable things start happening, including the family’s youngest child going missing and a ghostly presence materializing in the basement. Even more weird, the family can’t seem to take the hint that their visit should be over. And when Charlie suddenly vanishes, Eve slowly loses her grip on reality. Something is terribly wrong with the house and with the visiting family—or is Eve just imagining things?

My Reaction:

This is yet another horror book I've seen highly recommended, so I thought I'd give it a try.  So many other readers apparently found it terrifying and loved it, but for me it was just "okay".  The premise is great, but once you start to figure out what's going on (well, figure it out as much as anyone can, given that there are no definite answers), I found it a little disappointing.  That particular trope or style of horror has never been my favorite, and I can't reveal what it is without spoilers, so I'll leave it for now.  

The frequency of "oh no, religion" had me rolling my eyes, and apart from a few genuinely scary moments, I just wasn't feeling the terror.  Definitely not the scariest book I've ever read.  I think this might be one of those stories that works better as a movie than a novel—though I did enjoy the idea of the documents and the "hidden messages" doled out through the book.  (More about them in the spoilers section.) 

All in all, I enjoyed this novel well enough, but I also don't think it's as amazing as many others evidently do. I simply have too many unanswered questions. 

I struggle with rating this one, so I'm going straight down the middle of the road with 3 stars.

SPOILERS:

Okay, are the anti-spoilerites gone? 

Good.  

There are so many terrifying possibilities available, when the book starts with a family of strangers at the door—possibilities both paranormal in nature and completely within the realm of brutal reality.  What I wasn't expecting was a tale of "the old gods" toying with and mentally torturing hapless humans for no apparent reason except possibly their entertainment.  (Well, either that or Eve has lost her mind, and I don't think that's the conclusion we're supposed to settle on.)  

I think the paranormal can be incredibly frightening, when done right, but Lovecraftian horror generally isn't as effective for me as it seems to be for many other readers.  Maybe I just haven't found the right book, yet.  Yes, there are moments of this book that are scary, and the uncertainty is unsettling—but nothing in here kept me up at night or made me hesitate to walk down the hallway at night without switching on the light (as has been known to happen on occasion, with other books). 

Regarding the "hidden messages":  Maybe it's not exactly a hidden message when it's in the form of Morse code clearly visible at the end of chapters and random capitalized letters, but I'm not sure how else to describe them. I missed the wingdings messages completely and only read about them in another review.

The Babysitter Lives

The Babysitter Lives

by Stephen Graham Jones

Blurb:

When high school senior Charlotte agrees to babysit the Wilbanks twins, she plans to put the six-year-olds to bed early and spend a quiet night studying: the SATs are tomorrow, and checking the Native American/Alaskan Native box on all the forms won’t help if she chokes on test day. But tomorrow is also Halloween, and the twins are eager to show off their costumes.

Charlotte’s last babysitting gig almost ended in tragedy when her young charge sleepwalked unnoticed into the middle of the street, only to be found unharmed by Charlotte’s mother. Charlotte vows to be extra careful this time. But the house is filled with mysterious noises and secrets that only the twins understand, echoes of horrors that Charlotte gradually realizes took place in the house eleven years ago. Soon Charlotte has to admit that every babysitter’s worst nightmare has come true: they’re not alone in the house.

My Reaction:

I tried to keep an open mind, but this turned out to be another DNF.  The thought of picking it up to read was making me unhappy, and life is just too short to persist with books that you hate reading!  I read a few reviews to confirm that it wasn't just me, and after learning a couple of the things that came after I stopped, I'm glad I quit when I did.  This was not for me.  

I read the first part of the acknowledgements, and this phrase leapt out at me:  "I never have much idea where my stories are going..."  Yeah. I have to say, that doesn't come as a surprise, after this reading experience.

Incidents Around the House

Incidents Around the House

by Josh Malerman

Blurb:

To eight-year-old Bela, her family is her world. There’s Mommy, Daddo, and Grandma Ruth. But there is also Other Mommy, a malevolent entity who asks her every day: “Can I go inside your heart?”  

 

When horrifying incidents around the house signal that Other Mommy is growing tired of asking Bela the same question, over and over . . . Bela understands that unless she says yes, soon her family must pay. 

 

Other Mommy is getting restless, stronger, bolder. Only the bonds of family can keep Bela safe but other incidents show cracks in her parents' marriage. The safety Bela relies on is on the brink of unraveling.  

 

But Other Mommy needs an answer. 

 

My Reaction:

I guess I'm just an extremely picky reader.  Either that or I'm bad at selecting books—because it feels like it's nearly impossible to find a book that satisfies me, these days.  This is another one that was recommended by a horror booktuber.  After reading a couple of duds (or at least not roaring successes) suggested in her videos, I was skeptical of this one, from the start.  However, the beginning was actually intriguing, so I thought maybe I'd finally found one that I could agree was a good read.  

Alright, I wasn't crazy about the choice to leave out quotation marks.  I get that it's told from a child's perspective, but... so?  Why does that mean you don't need quotation marks?  Especially given that all the other punctuation is there.  Seems like laziness or a misguided attempt to be fresh and different.  But as I say, I got past that and was hopeful.  But then... It just got worse and worse.  By the end, I was very disappointed.  In between some genuinely creepy moments, it was a combination of the boring, the annoying, and the outright ridiculous—with a little confusion thrown in to make it even more irritating to read.  I would not recommend this to anyone I know.

Now I see that they're making a movie adaptation of this book.  Maybe they can improve upon it, or maybe it's better suited for the screen.  If I get the chance to see it streaming, I'll probably give it a try, but I wouldn't go to see it in a theater—not based on this reading experience.

I don't even feel like putting in the effort to list the reasons this book annoyed me.  Just read some other negative reviews; they probably cover most of it.  

Well, it may have been an underwhelming conclusion, but at least I no longer have to read more obnoxious psychobabble crap from "Mommy", "Daddo" (ow, another strain from extreme eye-rolling), Bela's grandmother, and every other adult in the book.  Phew!

The Silent Companions

The Silent Companions

by Laura Purcell

Blurb:

When newly widowed Elsie is sent to see out her pregnancy at her late husband's crumbling country estate, The Bridge, what greets her is far from the life of wealth and privilege she was expecting . . .

When Elsie married handsome young heir Rupert Bainbridge, she believed she was destined for a life of luxury. But with her husband dead just weeks after their marriage, her new servants resentful, and the local villagers actively hostile, Elsie has only her husband's awkward cousin for company. Or so she thinks. Inside her new home lies a locked door, beyond which is a painted wooden figure —a silent companion —-that bears a striking resemblance to Elsie herself. The residents of The Bridge are terrified of the figure, but Elsie tries to shrug this off as simple superstition--that is, until she notices the figure's eyes following her.

A Victorian ghost story that evokes a most unsettling kind of fear, this is a tale that creeps its way through the consciousness in ways you least expect--much like the silent companions themselves.

My Reaction:

Hm.  Unfortunately, I didn't like this one as much as I hoped I would.  (I'm beginning to think my horror tastes don't align sufficiently with the "booktuber" who recommended this.  I keep feeling let down by their suggestions.)

There were a few creepy moments, but I didn't find it all that scary, actually.  I was more frustrated than frightened, which is never a good thing in horror.  I could see most major plot-points coming from far away, so there was no element of surprise, either—and now that I sit here thinking about it, there are several things that weren't explained, unless I missed it.  (I'll get into that in the spoiler section below.) 

I think I had difficulty getting into the story because it didn't feel authentic.  (I know, I know: It's paranormal horror!)  Some of it just felt too modern for the time periods represented.  For instance, there's a multi-volume journal penned by a female character who lived in the 1600s.  I don't think that was likely, to begin with, but to make it worse, it's one of those "only exist in fiction" diaries that go into far more detail (including transcriptions of conversations) than any real diary ever does. Unfortunately, things like that gave the book an amateurish feeling, in my opinion.

It's okay, but I don't get all the enthusiasm for this one. 

SPOILERS

to

follow...

So, the plot holes, unexplained parts of the story, or whatever you want to call them... I guess you can just wiggle your fingers and whisper "Magic!" to explain away some of these things, but they annoy me.  

First, why does the companion that is known as "Hetta" so closely resemble Elsie?  They are not connected by blood.  Maybe they don't look that much alike? I can't recall if it's only Elsie who observes a resemblance... 

Second, the way the original silent companions are introduced into the story is strange.  We are given the impression that the mysterious shopkeeper knows there's something odd about them and seems to almost trick Anne into buying them.  Then when she tries to return them, the whole building is gone.  ...Huh?  What's the sinister history of the companions?  Are the companions the source of the evil that later contaminates Hetta—and if not, what are the odds that Anne would have such crappy luck (evil kid and evil home decor, totally unrelated)? 

It definitely feels like there was something wrong with the shopkeeper, and by extension the companions, even though they apparently never killed anyone until after Hetta's blood seeps into them and she possesses them, or whatever else is meant to have happened to make them evil and capable of murder.  And then there's the fact that Elsie seems to think that the companion version of Rupert (her deceased husband) is holding his soul captive and tormenting him.  (It seems like there was another character who may have been trapped inside a companion, but I can't recall for certain...) What's going on with that?!  It's never really fleshed out to my satisfaction. 

Third, are we supposed to think that Hetta was actually born evil, or... what?  She seems like she's just a bit fey and misunderstood (and poorly treated by her father) until she's forbidden to perform for the King and Queen, at which point she promptly turns evil in an extreme overreaction that makes no sense whatsoever.  

What's up with the splinters?  I'm not clear about how people would be getting splinters from contact with painted, clothed wooden figures that don't seem to be particularly roughly textured.  And how in the world does Elsie's unborn baby end up covered in splinters?!  (Yeah, it's one of the creepiest parts of the book, but it makes no logical sense whatsoever, as far as I can see.) 

Are we supposed to doubt Elsie?  Is she an unreliable narrator?  I never really doubt anything she says, so if that's the intention, maybe that's another part of what's missing.  

Are we supposed to like Jolyon?  Blurgh.  Couldn't stand the guy.  I get it that Elsie loves him (and that he's actually her son conceived through incestuous abuse, reading between the lines), but... I think he's kind of a jerk, if I'm honest. Not that I liked Elsie much, either.  None of the characters are especially relatable. 

Night of the Crabs

Night of the Crabs

by Guy N. Smith

Blurb:

The Welsh coast basks in summer tranquility, then the drownings begin... Not until the monstrous crustaceans crawl ashore, their pincers poised for destruction, does the world understand the threat it faces....

My Reaction:

This was selected for the 372 Pages We'll Never Get Back podcast, and as usual, Donald and I read it together.  

I was expecting this to be a slightly sillier version of Jaws.  (I've never read the book, but I've seen the movie very many times.)  It was even sillier than I'd expected—and surprisingly risqué.  (Perhaps that aspect is less surprising when you read the author's biography and see the other types of "literature" in his bibliography.)  

SPOILERS follow...

The marine biologist/renowned botanist/professor/very "with it" uncle of what's-his-name isn't quite as brilliant as he thinks he is, but then again, everyone in this book is kind of dumb!  

There's an obvious hole in their first big plan to thwart the evil crabs, and everyone is SHOCKED when the plan doesn't work—but then they have another idea that seems so stupid it couldn't possibly work, so of course it does.  

Except... There are no dead crabs under the sea or washing up on shore... And didn't they just go through a time when the crabs were nowhere to be seen... and everyone became complacent... until the crabs resurfaced and killed a whole bunch of people?  Nah, I'm sure it'll be fine this time!  

I don't care for creature-feature monsters that are too impervious to everything that should by rights kill them.  Sure, they're big and armored, but I'm not buying that they're invulnerable to fire or that you can't, you know, aim for their eyes and blind them with good old-fashioned bullets. 

We never do get a satisfying answer as to where they came from—and why only now.   The whole scene with Cliff Davenport (full name, please) spying on the planes at the military base, being shut in "the hole" and then interrogated—leads nowhere!  Very disappointing.  

The only part of the book that actually felt creepy was the poor train engineer (I guess?) who has had a prophetic recurring nightmare about his death that then comes true.  I don't know why, but that gave me a genuine chill.   

Oh well.  The story ends with Cliff Davenport and Pat Benatar Benson heading off to London to marry and live happily ever after (or at least until they learn that the crabs survived, because this is the first of a series of 7—SEVEN!!—books). 

Society Place: A Ghost Story

Society Place: A Ghost Story

by Andrew David Barker

(Edited) Blurb:

Set during the blazing English summer of 1976, recently widowed Heather Lowes moves into the house where she was supposed to live with her husband.

But now she is alone.

Or at least, she thinks she is...

My Reaction:

Warning: There will be spoilers in this mini review!  

I saw this title recommended somewhere and thought I'd give it a try, since it was available to read for free.  I enjoyed the early part of the book, but further along in the story, I began to lose interest.  I just skimmed the last section to see if it ended as expected. (It did.)

I could nitpick, but the biggest problem by far was the characters' lack of gumption, which was tiring and frankly unbelievable.  If you want me to accept that all these people were living on a haunted street and wouldn't have found some way of leaving, you need to explain that more fully.  I guess we're supposed to assume that they couldn't afford to move or that things weren't that bad until starting in the summer of 1976, but none of that is explained to my satisfaction.  Why did it take so many decades for someone to do the obvious and burn the place down?  Rafferty's own mother suggested as much.  Nearly everyone in this book is cursed (or something).  Most of them seem to just accept that they're cursed—and it's very frustrating to read!  I can't stand books or movies where the characters just give up.  I suppose Poppy doesn't give up, but... Eh, it's too little too late, as far as I'm concerned!

I don't know. Maybe I'm expecting too much, but I stand by my position that the story and motivations (or lack thereof) needed more fleshing out—not to mention a more diligent proofreader to catch the typos.  

The September House

The September House

by Carissa Orlando

Blurb:

A woman is determined to stay in her dream home even after it becomes a haunted nightmare in this compulsively readable, twisty, and layered debut novel.

When Margaret and her husband Hal bought the large Victorian house on Hawthorn Street—for sale at a surprisingly reasonable price—they couldn’t believe they finally had a home of their own. Then they discovered the hauntings. Every September, the walls drip blood. The ghosts of former inhabitants appear, and all of them are terrified of something that lurks in the basement. Most people would flee.

Margaret is not most people.

Margaret is staying. It’s her house. But after four years Hal can’t take it anymore, and he leaves abruptly. Now, he’s not returning calls, and their daughter Katherine—who knows nothing about the hauntings—arrives, intent on looking for her missing father. To make things worse, September has just begun, and with every attempt Margaret and Katherine make at finding Hal, the hauntings grow more harrowing, because there are some secrets the house needs to keep.

My Reaction:

I chose to read this knowing only that it was recommended by someone, somewhere, to people who want to read books about haunted houses.  (Or at least that's all I remembered by the time I got around to reading it!)  Right off the bat, I was intrigued. It obviously wasn't your typical horror novel.  In fact, I'd describe this as "cozy horror", because it felt like a mash-up of rather gory horror and cozy mystery.  It wasn't what I expected, based on the cover, but it was interesting.  

Unfortunately, I found the book fell a bit flat for me.  I don't regret reading it, but it wasn't completely satisfying.  I'll discuss why below, because there will be spoilers.  Final verdict: Not my ideal ghost story style, but if you're up for something different, it's definitely that!  

SPOILERS

to 

follow

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Okay.  Reasons I didn't fully enjoy this book:

Katherine is extremely bratty and annoying.  Couldn't stand her, to be honest. 

The cursing really annoyed me.  There was so much of it, and I found it so unnecessary.  

The gore isn't for me.  I dislike gory stuff, though I found that when the gore really ratcheted up, it was more boring than anything else.  Gore in movies and TV shows bothers me more because of all the sounds and, well, the visuals, but when I'm reading and it's just one gory thing after another, I find my mind shuts off and I skip over it.  I don't get anything from it, so why read it?  I'm not the best, these days, at visualizing things from books, anyway—more of a dialogue person, I guess—but when it's something I don't even want to imagine, why bother?  But yeah, that's another strike against the book for me. Not a fan of gore.  Give me eeriness, psychological horror, and a creepy atmosphere instead, please. 

The domestic abuse angle... I don't know, I guess it was there for a reason, but I felt it didn't pay off as much as expected.  

It was completely predictable that Hal would be discovered in the basement. 

The grand finale, final battle, or whatever you want to call it was oddly anticlimactic.  That was the part where I just started skimming—because, okay, I get it, the ghosts are all banding together and tearing Master Vale apart, and it's really disgusting and brutal and... yawn.  Once it's clear where this is all heading, I don't need the play-by-play.  Let's just get to the next part of the story.  So I found it boring, but worse, it just didn't make a lot of sense to me.  If all it took to vanquish Master Vale was for the other ghosts to band together, I don't understand why it took them so long to do it.  It doesn't make sense to me that it was so easy—or if it was so easy, why no-one else had done it already.  Yeah, Margaret was defending her daughter, like she (finally) defended her from Hal.  ...Okay?  I don't know what else to say, but it was not a satisfying ending, and I feel the book didn't give satisfying explanations for the ghosts' stories, either.  Not sure what I wanted, but not this. 

The positives?  
I really liked the housekeeper ghost.  The idea of a ghost who makes you supper and offers friendly chit-chat was oddly appealing to me.

The Sundial

The Sundial

by Shirley Jackson

Blurb:

Before there was Hill House, there was the Halloran mansion of Jackson’s stunningly creepy fourth novel, The Sundial. Aunt Fanny has always been somewhat peculiar. When the Halloran clan gathers at the family home for a funeral, no one is surprised when she wanders off into the secret garden. But then Aunt Fanny returns to report an astonishing vision of an apocalypse from which only the Hallorans and their hangers-on will be spared, and the family finds itself engulfed in growing madness, fear, and violence as they prepare for a terrible new world. For Aunt Fanny's long-dead father has given her the precise date of the final cataclysm!

My Reaction:

Hm.  I think there's a reason this is one of Jackson's "forgotten" novels.  

I started reading this one on the Kindle, but after a while, it was obvious that I was having trouble making progress with it, so I switched to audio format.  That helped me finish it, but didn't really make me like it all that much more.  

When you start reading a "lesser-known" novel by a famous author, it can be difficult to come to it with a completely open mind.  After all, it's a pretty safe bet that it's not going to be a huge crowd-pleaser, else it wouldn't be lesser-known.  Sometimes you may be pleasantly surprised, but in this case, maybe not.  There are some amusing and creepy moments, but I had a feeling early on that the end would be disappointing, and I can't say that I was wrong.  I just feel like shrugging, unfortunately.  

I'm not sure if I'll ever bother with the remaining of the "lesser-knowns" that I've yet to read.  Revisiting one of the stronger novels might be a better bet, if the mood strikes me.

A Sincere Warning About the Entity in Your Home

A Sincere Warning About the Entity in Your Home

by Jason Arnopp

Blurb:

"Dear friend,

This is no chain letter, hoax or prank.

It is a sincere warning about your home and the entity which dwells within.

Your home has been haunted for quite some time.

I am sorry that I could not personally deliver this document. I did not even post it myself. The postmark on the envelope will not help you, should you ever attempt to locate me.

When this letter is complete, I shall entrust a friend in another country with repackaging and sending it on my behalf. This letter also may or may not have been translated from its original language.

You do not know me. You must never know me.

Neither do I know you, beyond your name, address and appearance. I have seen you in person but you have not seen me.

Think back to the day that you moved into your home. I contrived to casually pass by as you stood outside. I saw your face, but you did not so much as glance my way. I did not stop walking. I simply committed your face to memory and moved on before you became aware of my presence.

Why did I want to see you?

I suppose my conscience drove me to it. Just as it compels me to finally write this letter.

I wanted to see exactly who I was passing the entity on to."

My Reaction:

Depending on your perspective, this is either a long short story or a short novella.  I saw it recommended somewhere as a good creepy tale and was intrigued by the premise.  The idea is that you've received a large envelope in the mail, with no way to trace it back to its source.  Inside is a letter from the previous occupant of the home into which you've just moved—but instead of wishing you happiness in their much-loved former home, or letting you know that there's a trick to one of the window latches, or even asking to come around and revisit the house they grew up in—though that alone would be worthy of a shudder—they're warning you about a dangerous entity attached to the house—one that they're certain you will encounter soon, if you haven't already.  

It's a great idea for a story!  I didn't personally find it quite as creepy as some readers have.  If I'd read it alone at night, in an empty house, it might have felt a bit more disturbing.  However, I did read part of it in the wee hours after waking and being unable to get back to sleep, and even then I don't think I felt many chills.  (I've lived in this house for over 20 years, and we had it built ourselves, so maybe that has something to do with it.)  

Still, it's an interesting premise, so I'll give some points for that!

Quiet Houses

Quiet Houses

by Simon Kurt Unsworth

Blurb:

Simon Kurt Unsworth reinvents the classic English ghost story with a portmanteau collection that takes the haunted house genre and makes it scream...quietly. Because the most terrifying screams are the silent ones.

My Reaction:  
DNF.  I just couldn't get into this one.  I read four or five of the stories, I think, but I gave up in the one about the team camping in and documenting the contents of the hotel.  It wasn't for me, unfortunately.  

"The Thing in the Hall"

"The Thing in the Hall"

by E.F. Benson

Synopsis:

A man invites an unknown spirit into his home.  This proves to have been unwise.

My Reaction (with SPOILERS):

I don't have much to say about this one.  It has some gruesome and creepy elements, but I didn't find it particularly effective, overall.  Not destined to be a favorite, I'm afraid.  The main thing that stuck out in this one, for me, was the fact that cheating at cards is presented as roughly the equivalent of torturing one's own pet to death.  Both are described as "depravity", but needlessly, intentionally hurting an animal (especially one you've agreed to protect and care for) is several orders of magnitude worse than card sharping, in my opinion.  The two aren't even comparable.  I've observed this attitude in books before: In the past, at least in certain circles, cheating at cards was seemingly a much bigger deal than it seems to me.  Not that I condone cheating, of course, but it simply doesn't feel deserving of quite the level of gravity that some authors grant it. 

That my main focus from this story was this should tell you that the rest of it fell a bit flat for me.  There are some things going for it, but they are undercut by the same pseudo-scientific approach and strange pacing that plague many of these stories (from what I can recall of the ones I read years ago).  There are moments of horror and eeriness, but sometimes they're buried under too much "evidence".  Does the author think we can so quickly forget that these are fictional short stories?  Frankly, I'm not interested in made-up science or "proof", because—how can I put this politely?—I know you just made it up.  Trying to dress it up as scientifically documented truth is pointless.  Just make it feel creepy!  To be fair, Benson is doing essentially the same thing as M.R. James and many other successful "ghost story" writers, framing his tales in realism and attempting to lend them a sense of verisimilitude, but maybe he's just not as good at it.  Some of his horror tales are lacking in a sufficiently haunting atmosphere and instead have an almost clinical feel.  

And...that's it!  That was the last story in the collection of E.F. Benson's short horror fiction!

This was a bit of a weak note to end on, but I'm glad to have finally finished this collection of short stories so I can scratch it off the list once and for all.  I can't believe it was sitting neglected on my Kindle all this time with only two stories left to read!  

It's been so long since I read the bulk of the stories that I no longer recall much about the individual tales.  My opinion is that Benson is a much better satirist / humorist than writer of horror, but that's not to say that his eerie stories aren't worth reading (and some might be worth a re-read, at some point).  However, I suspect most of them may be a little too dry to appeal to the casual modern reader; they're better suited to people who appreciate a more old-fashioned writing style.

"Inscrutable Decrees"

"Inscrutable Decrees"

by E.F. Benson

Synopsis:

An unnamed narrator stumbles upon the death notice of a remarkable woman he once knew.  He then shares his memories of the woman, followed by a discussion with an old friend, which reveals the solution to a macabre puzzle.  

My Reaction (with possible SPOILERS:

I can no longer recall if I stopped writing reviews for individual stories in this collection of E.F. Benson's short stories that I have... I know I stopped reading, years ago, but am uncertain of whether or not there may have been a backlog of stories I had read but not reviewed.  At this point, I suppose it doesn't matter.  I thought I might try to finish the collection, so I'm picking up where I left off with reading (if not reviewing).  

I found the beginning of the story was actually more amusing than horrifying, which reminded me that it may be time to revisit the Lucia series again.  As for this story, it was merely okay.  There's some vague creepiness, but you see the culmination coming from a mile away, so there's no element of surprise, and if anything, I thought the crime committed was milder than expected.  The ghostly element undercuts the horror, I think.  I'm not big on stories with seances that reveal visible ghosts, and... well, spoiler alert, I guess!  There's a visible ghost called forth by a seance.  Not the best of his work, but the central character herself is an interesting one for an armchair criminological psychologist to ponder.  

Horrorstör

Horrorstör

by Grady Hendrix

Blurb:

Something strange is happening at the Orsk furniture superstore in Cleveland, Ohio. Every morning, employees arrive to find broken Kjerring bookshelves, shattered Glans water goblets, and smashed Liripip wardrobes. Sales are down, security cameras reveal nothing, and store managers are panicking.

To unravel the mystery, three employees volunteer to work a nine-hour dusk-till-dawn shift. In the dead of the night, they’ll patrol the empty showroom floor, investigate strange sights and sounds, and encounter horrors that defy the imagination.

A traditional haunted house story in a thoroughly contemporary setting, Horrorstör is designed to retain its luster and natural appearance for a lifetime of use. Pleasingly proportioned with generous French flaps and a softcover binding, Horrorstör delivers the psychological terror you need in the elegant package you deserve.

My Reaction:

This was my first time reading anything by this author, and it was a shared read-aloud with Donald.  I happened across it on Goodreads; the idea of a horror story set in an IKEA was too intriguing to pass up.  Since Donald is Swedish, I thought he might be interested, too.  

I didn't know exactly what to expect, but I guess I was picturing very mild, even goofy horror.  Something like a slightly more adult version of Scooby-Doo, maybe.  It started out kind of like that, but then it turned into more traditional horror.  Unfortunately, that part of the novel wasn't really to my taste. 

There is one genuinely creepy scene where people are trying to navigate the empty store and simply can't find their way around.  That's my kind of horror.  After that, when the scary stuff is actually there in the flesh and starts inflicting torture and blathering on and on, I basically lost interest and just wanted it to be over.  On a positive note, it did get a tiny bit better again at the very end.   

The catalog format is clever, and I did like the humorous IKEA references.  I've never worked retail, but I can see how the book is tailored for those who have or do.  Still, I think suggesting (even in jest) that working retail is akin to being imprisoned and tormented is extremely silly, to put it mildly.  

I feel the novel as a whole lacked polish.  There are major plot points that are never fully explained (such as why the police couldn't find the store for so long), and it lagged a lot in the middle (again, the horror-heavy part).  Still, I'm intrigued by the blurbs/titles of some of the author's other books, so I'll probably try another.  

The Lost Village

The Lost Village

by Camilla Sten

translated by Alexandra Fleming

Blurb:

Documentary filmmaker Alice Lindstedt has been obsessed with the vanishing residents of the old mining town, dubbed “The Lost Village,” since she was a little girl. In 1959, her grandmother’s entire family disappeared in this mysterious tragedy, and ever since, the unanswered questions surrounding the only two people who were left—a woman stoned to death in the town center and an abandoned newborn—have plagued her. She’s gathered a small crew of friends in the remote village to make a film about what really happened.

But there will be no turning back.

Not long after they’ve set up camp, mysterious things begin to happen. Equipment is destroyed. People go missing. As doubt breeds fear and their very minds begin to crack, one thing becomes startlingly clear to Alice:

They are not alone.

They’re looking for the truth…

But what if it finds them first?

My Reaction:

This started off promisingly, with a creepy and interesting premise—abandoned village, about 900 people disappearing without a trace, evidence that something went terribly wrong—but at some point the plot began to run out of steam, and the ending didn't win me back, unfortunately.  I can't get into my issues with the book without spoiling it, so keep reading past the spoiler alert, if you're interested in why this is only a 3-star read for me...

SPOILER 
ALERT!!

Spoilers follow.

So, where to start?  As I mentioned above, the premise is intriguing and creepy.  I love the idea of a whole village vanishing without a trace—shades of Roanoke—and the fact that the book has it happen in the relatively recent past (1959), gives an interesting twist.  The prospect of a Swedish ghost town, preserved untouched, like a time capsule?  That's fascinating, too.  Then there's the evidence of a brutal crime, the mystery baby, etc.—all very good.  

Our modern-day ("Now") characters are a bit of a mystery, themselves, at first.  Some of them are connected and have obvious history, but what are their different backstories?  What's the source of the tension?  What are the secrets they're keeping from one another?  Some of it is precisely what you'll probably guess, but that's fine. 

As for the "Then" characters (those living in the mining town in the 1950s)... Eh.  That was a bit mixed.  The dual timeline thing is sometimes effective, but at other times I groaned when we switched perspectives yet again.  I think it interrupted the flow, at times.  

Maybe this is just me.  So many of the books I've read lately do this, splitting the story into multiple perspectives or different timelines, then flashing from one to the other throughout the novel.  It can work, but it doesn't always work, and it almost feels like a crutch.  I think it's overdone at the moment, and I'm ready for some thrillers that don't do this!

The set-up—getting to the village, starting their exploration—I loved it.  

But then things started to unravel for me.  I didn't know whether to expect something supernatural or not, but either way, it could have worked.  Except it just didn't, really.  It's not exactly surprising when "all is revealed", because by then you've pretty much worked it out on your own, but it's simply unbelievable.  

So here are the things that annoyed me or didn't work for me:

First, I loathe the whole cult angle of the book.  It's such a terribly boring explanation for what happened—so disappointing!!—and also not very believable here, in my opinion. 

Yes, cults exist, but as I understand it, unless the members are raised in the cult (groomed from an early age, with no idea that there's any other way of living), they're targeted and gathered together from a wider area.  It's not like a wannabe cult-leader can go somewhere and expect to recruit everyone in a five-mile radius into his madness, no matter how charismatic he may be.  I find it doubtful that it's this easy to "convert" almost everyone in a whole, single village.  

These characters are people who were raised in a normal, mainstream society (isolated, but definitely normal for the time).  Surely there should have been more people who would be steadfast in their faith—strong enough in their personal convictions to resist the pressure to succumb to the mass hysteria.  I guess the mine shutting down is supposed to be the disruption or catalyst that makes something like this possible, but... I strongly dislike that plot element, too, which brings me to the next point:  What were these people thinking, staying in the village so long after the mine closed down?    

I suppose I can accept that Elsa can't bring herself to abandon Birgitta, though what miracle she was waiting for to save the day, I can't say... As for everyone else in this town, why wouldn't they accept the inevitable and get out while they still had some savings?!  It's not easy to leave behind your home, I know, but if you have no way of earning a living there and no prospect for improvement, you have to leave and start over!  No-one was stopping them from leaving; they simply didn't want to, I guess.  It's just... Well, it's just stupid that so many of these characters were just watching their savings dwindle away and refusing to take action.  I don't believe that is likely, either.  (Maybe I'm overestimating the level of common sense in the average human.)  

But okay, you have a community of mostly good, Christian Swedes in the late 1950s.  Times are tough (because they're too darned stubborn to take the plunge and get out of their dying town to start a new life somewhere else).  Men have no work, and some of them turn to drink for escape (since apparently they lack the gumption to plan a literal escape for themselves and their families).  Then this new, androgynous-faced pastor comes to town, and before you know it, he's converted everyone to his twisted cult religion.  

(Ugh, I hate that plot point.)

And then he gets them riled up against one mentally ill (or challenged?) woman who can barely communicate and stays shut away in her own little hut, bothering no-one. ...Why do they go along with him on this?  We're all familiar with the concept of a witch hunt, but this is modern times and all targeted at one single, solitary woman who doesn't have anything of value to covet and doesn't even venture out her own door!  I find it difficult to believe that a whole village in 1959 Sweden could be so easily and quickly brainwashed to believe that she was any kind of threat to them, purely because some newbie preacher-man told them so.  

Oh, good grief!  I just can't bring myself to get into most of the rest of the nit-picking, because the basic premise annoys me so much, but I can't go without commenting on the king of all "um, what?" aspects of this novel:

Aina has survived for 60 years in complete isolation, with no human companionship, no medical attention, no technology, no nothing.  All she has is what the other villagers had in their homes, for her clothes, shelter, and food.  She's been living for 60 years on the old canned food left by people who were already starting to struggle for money.  ...No, I don't believe that, either.  No mention at all of her having a vegetable garden, hunting, or fishing, so I'm assuming she didn't.  She just lived off a very limited supply of slowly disintegrating canned food for SIXTY YEARS.  

And after a lifetime of this meager diet and no medical care, now in her 70s, she manages to overpower healthy young people who are fresh from civilization, with all the benefits of a consistent diet and modern medicine.  Yes, in at least one case there are circumstances that work in her favor, but in general, I'm not convinced that this is at all likely.  

Before wrapping up, I'm annoyed that the book tries to have it both ways:  We have the physical threat of the Amazing Aina, 70-something-year-old miracle who doesn't need no stinkin' nutrition or medical care to take down those young whippersnappers—and yet we also have some supernatural elements that I don't think can be explained rationally.  

Anything that Aina thinks she hears, sees, or knows can be discounted, because she's obviously cuckoo, but the others see and hear spooky, supernatural things, as well—things that I don't believe can be explained away by the existence of Aina.  And then there's the odd case of Tone, who seems to have been temporarily possessed by the spirit of her grandmother, only to immediately return to her usual self as soon as the crisis has passed.  

This probably shouldn't irritate me as much as it does, but there you have it.  It was a disappointing ending.  I didn't even get into how annoying the present-day characters are, but plenty of other reviewers covered that.  

A Head Full of Ghosts

A Head Full of Ghosts

by Paul Tremblay

Blurb:

The lives of the Barretts, a normal suburban New England family, are torn apart when fourteen-year-old Marjorie begins to display signs of acute schizophrenia.

To her parents’ despair, the doctors are unable to stop Marjorie’s descent into madness. As their stable home devolves into a house of horrors, they reluctantly turn to a local Catholic priest for help. Father Wanderly suggests an exorcism; he believes the vulnerable teenager is the victim of demonic possession. He also contacts a production company that is eager to document the Barretts’ plight. With John, Marjorie’s father, out of work for more than a year and the medical bills looming, the family agrees to be filmed, and soon find themselves the unwitting stars of The Possession, a hit reality television show. When events in the Barrett household explode in tragedy, the show and the shocking incidents it captures become the stuff of urban legend.

Fifteen years later, a bestselling writer interviews Marjorie’s younger sister, Merry. As she recalls those long ago events that took place when she was just eight years old, long-buried secrets and painful memories that clash with what was broadcast on television begin to surface—and a mind-bending tale of psychological horror is unleashed, raising vexing questions about memory and reality, science and religion, and the very nature of evil.

My Reaction:

Hm.  I'm feeling ambivalent about this book.  

First things first:  I listened to the audiobook version, and while this is the first book of this author's that I've "read"/listened to, I did watch Knock at the Cabin, the film adaptation of The Cabin at the End of the World, then went and skimmed a synopsis of the novel (after reading that the movie went in a different direction from the original story).  Based on that experience (both the movie and reading the synopsis), I wasn't feeling confident I'd love A Head Full of Ghosts—but I'd already put it on my list a long time back after seeing it recommended highly, so when the opportunity presented itself, I gave it a try, anyway.  

It's not bad, but it's also not a favorite.  There are a few good, chilling moments, but in my view it doesn't live up to the hype.  Maybe I missed something, but... Eh, I wanted more answers rather than questions and hints and suggestions that, more often than not, seem self-contradictory.

Specifics:

—I've never watched The Exorcist and have no desire to do so.  It's one of those "classic" horror movies that holds no allure for me.  The whole "exorcism genre" has never appealed to me, and any time a movie includes an exorcism, I wish it would finish quickly so we can get on with the interesting parts of the story.  I just don't get the appeal.  The idea of actually being possessed (or being around someone who is or believes they are) is, of course, horrifying, but the actual exorcism itself?  No, not interested in that.  Since so much of the book revolves around that plot point, that's a strike against the book right away.  

—I see that I'm not alone in finding the blogger character's writing style frustrating to read.  I believe I understand why the author did it this way, but it's still deeply irritating to read, after a while.  

—Didn't care for how the narrator voiced male characters... And her way of pronouncing "always", shortening the second half of the word so it sounds like "alwys", makes me shudder, for some reason.  Funnily enough, I catch myself saying it that way sometimes, too—but not alwys.  (Ha ha.)  Oh, and the "yeah?" that the two sisters kept tacking onto the ends of sentences drove me up the wall, too.  (Okay, maybe I'm a bit too easy to irritate.)

—Marjorie really annoyed me.  "Mom" annoyed me. "Dad"?  Also annoying.  Young Merry is mostly relatable, though even she is occasionally annoying.  The whole cast kind of rubbed me the wrong way, at one point or another.  (Let's just get it all out there... Grump, grump, grump!)

—This novel is also being made into a movie, evidently.  I'd be interested in seeing it, at some point, to see how they adapt it.  It might work better on the screen, though I'm not sure how they'll handle the blog element...

Home Before Dark

Home Before Dark

by Riley Sager

Blurb:

What was it like? Living in that house.

Maggie Holt is used to such questions. Twenty-five years ago, she and her parents, Ewan and Jess, moved into Baneberry Hall, a rambling Victorian estate in the Vermont woods. They spent three weeks there before fleeing in the dead of night, an ordeal Ewan later recounted in a nonfiction book called House of Horrors. His tale of ghostly happenings and encounters with malevolent spirits became a worldwide phenomenon, rivaling The Amityville Horror in popularity—and skepticism.

Today, Maggie is a restorer of old homes and too young to remember any of the events mentioned in her father's book. But she also doesn’t believe a word of it. Ghosts, after all, don’t exist. When Maggie inherits Baneberry Hall after her father's death, she returns to renovate the place to prepare it for sale. But her homecoming is anything but warm. People from the past, chronicled in House of Horrors, lurk in the shadows. And locals aren’t thrilled that their small town has been made infamous thanks to Maggie’s father. Even more unnerving is Baneberry Hall itself—a place filled with relics from another era that hint at a history of dark deeds. As Maggie experiences strange occurrences straight out of her father’s book, she starts to believe that what he wrote was more fact than fiction.

My Reaction:

I believe this is my second time "reading" (listening to an audiobook version) anything written by this author.  The previous one, The House Across the Lake, was more to my liking, though the major plot twist comes out of the blue and feels odd and out of place.  Home Before Dark, on the other hand, had essentially the opposite twist—a comparison that will make no sense unless you've read both books...

I found it more entertaining before it became obvious that... Well, without going into spoilers, before that twist I referred to before.  

The atmosphere through much of the book reminded me of the recent(ish) miniseries adaptation of The Haunting of Hill House.  But unfortunately, part of that similarity was a pervasive feeling of sadness.  It feels less frightening than depressing.  So much wasted potential, in so many lives!  

Another problem was that I couldn't warm to the main character, or feel much of anything for her, one way or the other.  Her father, who speaks through his "book within a book", is more engaging, but there are issues with him, as well.  (For one thing, you never know—until the end—how much of what he's saying is true.)  

Ultimately, it's fine, but not something I'll revisit.  I'd happily read or listen to more by the author, though.  This type of book doesn't need to be amazing and unforgettable to be a perfectly decent read, in my opinion.  I'm just looking for something fictional to think about while I quilt, and this did the trick!

Nitpicky Specifics:

• The title doesn't make much sense.  I like it as a title, but it doesn't fit with the story.  
• I really don't understand the need for a father to discuss any aspect of his sex life with his daughter.  Gross.  Should have been left out, as it was completely unnecessary. 
• The regional accents adopted by the two narrators are strange and distracting.  Every time the male narrator voiced the teenage girl I cringed, and all the "locals" voiced by the female narrator sound like a version of Rhoda Morgenstern from The Mary Tyler Moore Show, which I very much doubt was intentional.  
• The female protagonist keeps making unforced errors, putting herself into stupid situations for no apparent reason.  Not uncommon in fiction, but always annoying!

3.5 stars, but not rounding up this time. 

The Victorian Chaise-Longue

The Victorian Chaise-Longue

by Marghanita Laski

Blurb:

A young married woman lies down on a chaise-longue and wakes to find herself imprisoned in the body of her alter ego ninety years before.

My Reaction:

I've had this one on my list for years, but now that I've finally read it, I never want to read it again—and that's not because it's so horrifying that I couldn't bear to revisit it.  Though this work of psychological horror certainly is unsettling—and it also happens to feature the type of horror that probably bothers me most, body horror, health horror, medical horror—it's not calculated to leave me sleepless or anxious.  

Sadly, I wouldn't care to read it again because I didn't find it a satisfying reading experience.  Though it's already short, as a novella, it felt in need of yet more pruning.  It could easily have been cut even shorter, and I believe it would have been more effective if it had been.  As it was, it felt repetitive in a way that numbed and stupefied rather than heightening the tension.  (On the other hand, it could have been fleshed out into a more engaging full-length novel, but the repetitiveness still would have needed to be addressed.)

There were some interesting ideas to explore here, especially the way that a culture's standards of morality and acceptable behavior shift over time.  What would be an unpardonable sin during one period of time might be almost a mere foible a hundred years later.  When (not to mention where) we are born can be the difference between life and death, joy and misery.  

As for the ending, maybe it's just a matter of taste... I know some people like open-ended stories, but I'm not one of them.  A little ambiguity can be okay, but this felt disappointing.  At least it was short!

Hidden Pictures

Hidden Pictures

by Jason Rekulak

Blurb:

Mallory Quinn is fresh out of rehab when she takes a job as a babysitter for Ted and Caroline Maxwell. She is to look after their five-year-old son, Teddy.

Mallory immediately loves it. She has her own living space, goes out for nightly runs, and has the stability she craves. And she sincerely bonds with Teddy, a sweet, shy boy who is never without his sketchbook and pencil. His drawings are the usual fare: trees, rabbits, balloons. But one day, he draws something different: a man in a forest, dragging a woman’s lifeless body.

Then, Teddy’s artwork becomes increasingly sinister, and his stick figures quickly evolve into lifelike sketches well beyond the ability of any five-year-old. Mallory begins to wonder if these are glimpses of a long-unsolved murder, perhaps relayed by a supernatural force.

Knowing just how crazy it all sounds, Mallory nevertheless sets out to decipher the images and save Teddy before it’s too late.

My Reaction:

I found this an enjoyable paranormal thriller.  It made a change to get a Christian main character.  It's been a long time since I've read anything (written in the recent past) that didn't portray Christians as either boring simpletons or evil hypocrites, so this was a nice surprise.  

Judging by some of the reviews I skimmed after finishing the book, this novel has struck a nerve with some readers, to an amusing degree.  I guess a book has to be 100% "woke af" to pass the smell test.  (Purity spirals are so much fun.)  

I, on the other hand, thought the author did a decent job of not being totally skewed in one direction or the other, politically.  I'm bemused that people read this and thought it was "right-wing propaganda" full of "conservative dog whistles", because that's not at all how it came across to me.  I didn't agree with or like everything in it, but on the other hand, it didn't slap me across the face with so many obnoxious political opinions that it was impossible to enjoy the story.  It walked the line better than many other recently published books I've read.

I wouldn't say this was amazing, unbelievably good, or mind-blowing.  On the contrary, some of the twists are predictable, and at times I found the writing style a bit odd, almost as though it were written for a slightly younger audience—but it was an entertaining read, all the same.  The drawings add an interesting element, too.  

This would probably ordinarily be a 3 or 3.5 for me, but I'll bump it up to 4 just because I appreciate reading about a Christian character presented as a normal person.  

The Talisman

The Talisman

by Jonathan Aycliffe

Blurb:

A statue, unearthed in ancient Babylon during the course of an archaeological dig, is transported to London. Once there, it quickly exerts an evil influence over those with whom it comes into contact; an influence which threatens to spread throughout London and beyond, and which pits the living against the dead in a battle for all mankind.

My Reaction:

This was a three-star read for me.  I've enjoyed some of this author's horror in the past, but it doesn't always land.  This one was right in the middle—effective in spots, but not quite there.  

There are elements of classic horror here, such as Rosemary's Baby, which is a good thing (in my opinion, at least), but ultimately it's just too flat and meandering.  It's like a less interesting and less compelling version of those old classics.  For much of the story, we're getting the second- or third-hand version of events, and while epistolatory writing can be very effective for spooky or creepy tales, somehow it just doesn't work as well here, for me.  

Perhaps part of the problem is that an element of horror will be introduced, but then it just doesn't ever quite "climax".  It's just... lingering there.  In the background.  Which is becoming progressively more cluttered with "horror stuff".  The story is being pulled in too many different directions, and it doesn't know where it wants to go!  

I also found that this book lacked the proper sense of urgency, especially toward the end.  Something dramatic will happen—something shocking will be hinted at or even discovered—and then in the next scene, the characters act like they've forgotten all about it or can't be bothered to get a hustle on and do something about any of it.  The fate of the world is hanging in the balance (not to mention their own loved ones, friends, and allies), and they decide to have a leisurely (boring) conversation.  Frustrating and unrealistic behavior.  

It wasn't all bad, though, and I actually thought the epilogue was okay.  

(I listened to an audio version of this book, by the way.  Entertainment while piecing a quilt!)