Reviews and Comments

didn't have great pacing, prose, or atmosphere but it really started to grab me toward the end only to not really do anything with anything. like, i enjoy a good open-ended unresolved ending, like with IWHNNM which i finished recently, but...eh. it sort of just felt like blindsight but less interesting

sees the words ship and fool and goes rote mode

been picking at this one for a while, but finally finished it. honestly didn't love most of the stories except the vampire one and the werewolf one, the latter of which seems to have been expanded as his book mongrels, so that's definitely going on the to-read list

ohhhhh this is so good. wow. this is going to stick with me for a long time i think

hmmm i'm wondering whether it's worth finishing this...it's a neat enough concept but i suspect i'm not gonna get much from it and that it'll mostly feel familiar from having read fifteen dogs/plague dogs

hmmm. idk. definitely some interesting concepts but ultimately felt like it could've been more polished. and some.....interesting writing choices

i can't tell if this writing style annoys me or if i'm just being too hard on it bc of the quote from ken jennings praising it at the start

that was pretty cute but mostly it just didn't feel finished? it was more like an early draft with potentially interesting concepts that didn't go anywhere or do anything. also can't STAND how he writes women and matt's relationships with them and it's almost worse that he's self aware of how weird it is

this probably would've made a pretty neat movie/miniseries

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

shrugs

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.

oh shit i was expecting this to be standalone but this is definitely gonna have a sequel huh. i'm excited!

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