Finding 5⭐ Horror from a Decade Ago

I got 120 pages in and I have to give up. I just don't feel like anything that interesting is actually happening, and I'm so incredibly bored.

I liked it and so technically it's going in here even though it's only a four-star. Her writing is stunning in here and I think being 182 pages, like she's just really good at description. I just thought it was really well done and I had a good time.

It ended in a crazy way, but I mean it fit with the tone of the book. It felt like a big cautionary tale for people to like not kiss and not have sex because something's going to happen. So, I don't know how to rate this. Probably in the threes.

And I don't usually love books, horror books that revolve around children, but I do like Lord of the Flies.

Like I didn't love Mexican Gothic. I don't love Rebecca. They're good, like they're three-star reads, but it takes a little something extra to make me absolutely love a gothic novel.

I love Our Share of Night by her, this very long, translated by Megan McDowell, horror novel.

I read Penpal about a month ago now and it really surprised me because it's one of those books that I feel like I saw people pitch as maybe really gratuitous or really gruesome or maybe there was some type of comp given for it that sounded like extreme horror to me. And maybe not pick up Penpal for the longest time and then I finally had to and it was so good.

Like I didn't love Mexican Gothic. I don't love Rebecca. They're good, like they're three-star reads, but it takes a little something extra to make me absolutely love a gothic novel.

It was kind of like three different narratives all happening at the same time... and he kept me on my toes. it kind of felt like a fever dream that was really fun. Think we call it a four and we pop it in there.

The Grip of It is also a four.

I cannot finish this. I got 50 pages in. there's only 120 pages. I can't do it. I hate it.

It was definitely gross, like one of the most descriptively uncomfortable, gory scenes with these children. So, would recommend for that. Would still definitely recommend. It's not going to be above a four. It might be a 3.75.

I think I'm DNFing The Silent Companions. It's so dry. It's so boring. I just don't think I could do three to four more hours of this.

And we found another a three-star for the video. This was fine. It was another book about recovering memories or kind of the attempt to do so. But at the end of the day, I just didn't really like the writing of it. I didn't like the head that we were in.

It was weird. It was kind of a fever dream, and I was having an interesting time, and then it got so much so quickly. So much about sex, and this guy couldn't stop talking about his dick like so aggressively much.

I love books about obsession and I would almost say this is kind of that because the fear that this man feels is an obsession of its own. I would definitely recommend this one. I think it holds up.

So, I'm going to give Things We Lost in the Fire, unfortunately, a three. I just don't know that this is what I'm looking for in a short story collection, but I thought it was all kind of fine.

And what happened to me with Unbury Carol is it sat in my TBR closet for years, and then I put it off and put it off. And when I finally got to it, I loved it.