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Grad-school dropout Matt Fuller is toiling as a lowly research assistant at MIT when, while …
it's like just misogynistic enough to make me roll my eyes without being too egregious so far. it could be worse but it could so easily be a lot better
Here is the unforgettable story of the Binewskis, a circus-geek family whose matriarch and patriarch …
shrugs
Here is the unforgettable story of the Binewskis, a circus-geek family whose matriarch and patriarch …
i'm back to work, which means back to reading!
i'm a little underwhelmed right now. the writing style's alright, but it feels like it's trying too hard to be shocking while also not being anywhere near as disturbing as people keep making it out to be - though i'm sure it'll get worse, i can assume where this is going in at least a few aspects
good. glad that ending was subverted
oughh, vampirism working very well as part of an exploration of parentification. it sucks to relate to this at all
on another note, it's interesting that the book doesn't call them vampires, but "saras" (from 'saratov's syndrome') which is something i see more often from zombie media. there's some interesting worldbuilding though, with inspiration obviously taken from covid, with a society that's aware and on alert for vampires.
Anna Sinjari―refugee, survivor of genocide, disaffected office worker―has a close encounter that reveals universe-threatening stakes. …
oh shit i was expecting this to be standalone but this is definitely gonna have a sequel huh. i'm excited!
Anna Sinjari―refugee, survivor of genocide, disaffected office worker―has a close encounter that reveals universe-threatening stakes. …
i love healing/resurrection as horror and dickinson really goes all out. i really wish i'd picked up on some of those details when i wrote someone coming back from the dead
Anna Sinjari―refugee, survivor of genocide, disaffected office worker―has a close encounter that reveals universe-threatening stakes. …
the way this scumbag justifies his decision by saying "well this lady made the same choice when she was seven"
like sure, a grown man with political and military experience making a bad decision is the exact same as a traumatized seven-year-old making a bad decision. exactly the kind of bullshit rationalization this kind of person would make irl though
Anna Sinjari―refugee, survivor of genocide, disaffected office worker―has a close encounter that reveals universe-threatening stakes. …
i was expecting this to be A Lot what with it being a seth dickinson sci-fi book but not even reaching the start of the book and being hit with "Turns out I’m really good at killing people. Didn’t know that was gonna be a strong suit of mine. —President Barack Obama" was not what i anticipated
Content warning spoiling the whole thing
so like you have the whole premise, sister's new husband and his family are cannibals and start attacking everyone at the party. run.
after the entire evening on towards dawn the main character, out of nowhere, randomly does a complete 180 and decides to join the cannibals who just killed her parents and have been trying to kill her? and is suddenly fine attacking and eating her sister with whom she has been surviving this whole time?
and i cannot stress enough that i get that she has a rough relationship with her family and she's meant to be an unreliable narrator but 'leaving her family to get eaten' would make more sense for her character than this. she has nothing but contempt for all these people even aside from their cannibalism
well anyway after she bites her sister some weird shit happens and it's revealed that actually none of the cannibalism really happened, the entire wedding and long night of surviving after was just an incredibly vivid audiovisual hallucination caused by her withdrawals but actually only a couple of seconds? minutes? unclear. have passed. but she DID maul her sister's face irl and now she's going to jail womp womp
and i know the author thought she was being clever by mentioning hallucinations being a possible symptom, and having the mc go "wow this sure is stupid and makes no sense" all the time but. it's stupid. also felt pretty damn offensive. it would've made a better movie than a book, but it wouldn't have made a good movie either
oh this sucked shit
i am kinda impressed that they did a huge stupid plot twist that makes no sense at the end and them immediately doubled down with an even bigger, stupider plot twist
we've got some until dawn level of dialogue writing here, with such gems as “Hashtag Here’s-Your-Goddamn-Phone”
also it's kinda reminding me of the movie ready or not which i haven't actually seen but intend to
i think the memoir by the author's grandmother after the book might've been more interesting than the book itself
Content warning spoilers i guess, nsfw talk
my god, david sodergren writes with the subtlety of a brick through a window.
but once you get past the childhood memory demolition team you end up with an 84 year old woman fucking an old jellyfish she's convinced herself is her long-missing husband, so that's something
i suspect that a lot of the scariness of this book for some people is the amount of penis dissolving/exploding. sodergren's really honing in on the cock annihilation. because simply turning someone inside out and melting them isn't quite enough, you gotta be sure you let the reader know that includes the dick. every time.
eh. honestly just skip this and read the devil takes you home instead
