Hello, hello, hello, and welcome to my official introduction post! Whether you are only stopping by for a brief moment in time or you plan on sticking around for a while, I appreciate you all the same. You all may feel free to call me Darling or Lambkin, as I strongly prefer to go by a sort of nom de plume whilst online. This blog will serve as a home for several types of content, including musings about my current projects, information regarding the characters in my own works, excerpts from my writing, commentary and reviews on some of my current reads, literature quotes, and whatever else happens to come to mind that fits with my theme.
Outside of pretending to matter on the internet, Iâm not entirely certain where I fall on the scale from âuninteresting burnout wasting oxygenâ to âunique and intriguingâ. I am a university student working towards a career in the medical field, and outside of reading and schoolwork, my primary hobbies consist of drawing, crochet, learning to play various musical instruments (the current total is 19, if anyone is curious), and above all else, indulging in horror-related media.
In regards to contacting me, my ask box is always open with anonymous asks accepted, so feel free to ask questions or strike up a chat! I do prefer to leave the direct messaging to friends and mutuals (fair warning, when I follow back, it is from the account @cr3atur3-but-not-quit3), though if you do happen to find me interesting enough to befriend, I welcome you to start a conversation. I may take some time to respond, and I may seem a bit hesitant at first, but I can assure you that the fault is on me in that situation. I often struggle with a sense of anxiety and paranoia regarding how others perceive me, and while I am making a constant effort to get better about that, it does still occasionally bleed into my ability to socialize without feeling as though I am doing everything wrong.
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#Darling Charactersâdescriptions, artwork, and perhaps the occasional blurb including the characters of my own creation. I am Victor Frankenstein, and they, my beautiful Adam.
#Lambkin Ramblesâmy personal rantings and ravings, which may or may not be literature-related. A good look into how my mind works.
#Lambkin Writesâanything ranging from rough drafts to excerpts to fully fledged pieces of my writing. This tag is unlikely to be updated very often, thanks to a wavering sense of motivation, though I am determined to get something posted under here.
#Lambkin Reviewsâbasic information surrounding my latest reads, including my own thoughts and opinions. To be taken with a grain of salt, but potentially useful, nonetheless.
#Literature Quote Databaseâan assortment of my favorite quotes from various literary sources, most of which have already been reviewed or are likely to be reviewed in the near future.
Would you few who follow this account be vexed if I were to post content besides book reviews and literature related content? I was considering using this as my space to live indulgently via pretty trinkets, perfumes, and the like, but I'm not quite certain just yet...
Warning: This book review will contain spoilers. I have tried several times to re-format my analysis in a way that doesnât give away too much of the content, but with the depth at which I prefer to discuss what Iâve read, it is simply not possible for any of my reviews to be completely spoiler-free. If you do wish to read this book, I encourage you to purchase it for yourself. Keep in mind that I do not claim to be any sort of real literary critic. I am simply one of many people online who enjoys publicly stating their opinions.
Title: War of the Foxes
Author: Richard Siken
Publication Year: 2015
Genre: Poetry, LGBTQ+ Literature
Average Goodreads Rating: 4.2/5
My Personal Rating: 4.25/5
Pages: 49
Date Started: January 19th, 2025
Date Finished: January 19th, 2025
Synopsis: In this long-awaited follow-up to Crush, Yale Series of Younger Poets prize-winner Richard Siken turns toward the problems of making and representation, in an unrelenting interrogation of our world of doublings. In this restless, swerving book simple questionsâsuch as, Why paint a bird?--are immediately complicated by concerns of morality, human capacity, and the ways we look to art for meaning and purpose while participating in itsâand our ownâinvention. Filled with truths and fabrications, the poems in War of the Foxes investigate the fallacies and epiphanies inherent in any search for perfect order or truth. Violently romantic, Sikenâs poetry takes the self and turns it, over and over, in an unsettling conflation of thought, dream, and speech. Sometimes brutal and frank, often tender and compassionate, Richard Siken has created an ambitious sequence of poems that secures his reputation as one of the most compelling poets writing today.
As I stated in my review for Crush, my latest endeavor into this collection of poems was a re-read. It felt necessary to come back to something so emotionally moving in a time of such distress; for the first time in far too long, I had the privilege to choose what it was that made me cry, rather than letting the cruel world decide for me. Similarly, even during my first read through, I had a rather good grasp on what I was getting myself into. I had already skimmed a few of the poems beforehand, and when it comes to a writer with such a distinctive style, one has to know, at least in part, what to expect.Â
Unfortunately, when reading an authorâs works back to back, the easiest thing to do is to compare them against each other. While I do spend my fair share of time wondering about human nature and motivation, I fear that I simply prefer topics of love and loss. Call me a sentimental, hopeless romantic, or call me one of the millions of writers who feel the same way, but the truth still stands. Now, that isnât to say that I disliked this bookâon the contrary, actually. For me, this was the way to come down from the pathetic sniveling state Crush left me in. This gave me a beautifully complex place to land.Â
From this collection, my favorite poem was definitely The Worm Kingâs Lullaby. Yet again, it was the imagery and symbolism that drew me in, and I found myself returning to it again and again, each time highlighting a new line or writing a new note in the margin.Â
Favorite Quotes:
âThe enormity of my desire disgusts me.â (Birds Hover the Trampled Field)
âShe is living and her dead hand feeds her pills that donât work.â (War of the Foxes)
âI imagined my wrists broken just enough to keep the feeling from crawling up my arm.â (Portrait of Fryderyk in Shifting Light.)
âYour body told me in a dream that itâs never been afraid of anything.â (Detail of the Woods)
âSomeone has to leave first. This is a very old story. There is no other version of this story.â (The Worm Kingâs Lullaby)
Warning: This book review will contain spoilers. I have tried several times to re-format my analysis in a way that doesnât give away too much of the content, but with the depth at which I prefer to discuss what Iâve read, it is simply not possible for any of my reviews to be completely spoiler-free. If you do wish to read this book, I encourage you to purchase it for yourself. Keep in mind that I do not claim to be any sort of real literary critic. I am simply one of many people online who enjoys publicly stating their opinions.
Title: Crush
Author: Richard Siken
Publication Year: 2005
Genre: Poetry, LGBTQ+ Literature
Average Goodreads Rating: 4.4/5
My Personal Rating: 5/5
Pages: 62
Date Started: January 18th, 2025
Date Finished: January 19th, 2025
Synopsis: Richard Sikenâs Crush is the winner of the 2004 Yale Series of YOunger Poets competition. It is a powerful new collection of poems driven by panic and obsession. As the distinguished poet and competition judge Louise Gluck writes in the Foreword, âIf panic is his ground note, Sikenâs obsessive focus is a tyrant, the body. His title, Crush, suggests as much. In the dictionary, among the wordâs many meanings, âto press between opposing bodies so as to break or injure; to oppress; to break, pound or grind.â Or, as a noun, âextreme pressure.â Out of this cauldron of destruction, its informal meaning: infatuation, the sweet fixation of girl on boy. In Siken, boy on boyâŠThe risk of obsessive material is that it may get boring, repetitious, predictable, shrill. And the triumph of Crush is that it writhes and blazes while at the same time holding the reader utterly: âsustaining interestâ seems far too mild a term for this effect. What holds is sheer art, despite the apparent abandon.âÂ
I knew more going into this book than I typically do when starting a new read. I feel as though I ought to preface this review by making it clear that this was a re-read for the sake of my own mental health, but even when I read it for the very first time, I knew more than I often do. I had been blessed enough to come across a few of Sikenâs poems before, and upon falling in love with them, I put this book on my âto be readâ list where it sat for monthsâŠand monthsâŠuntil I got out of my reading slump and decided that it was time to start somewhere.
I genuinely cannot sing enough praises regarding this collection of poems. While reading, I had to stop several times, not due to lack of interest, but to calm myself down. The number of times the words âthis is going to be catastrophic for my mental healthâ left my mouth is downright ridiculous, but in the end, I was right. Something about the way Siken writes, the cadence, the imagery, the way he manipulates language into something soul-crushingly beautiful, is something that I wonât soon forget. When I say that my heart ached the whole way through, I mean it in the best of ways.
My favorite poem from this collectionâand of all time, I may as well addâwas Straw House, Straw Dog. Truthfully, that poem was the nail in the coffin that got me to add the book to my list. It grabbed my attention and would not release it until I caved and spent my money on another book that I didnât need, but oh, how glad I am that I took that leap. I donât think that I could properly convey exactly what it is that Straw House, Straw Dog makes me feel, but the emotional response which it evokes from me is almost ridiculous, and that is the sign of a true masterpiece.
Favorite Quotes:
âSo weâre helpless in sleep and struggling at the bottom of the pool.â (Little Beast)
âYou are a fever I am learning to live with, and everything is happening at the wrong end of a very long tunnel.â (Straw House, Straw Dog)
âIâll be your slaughterhouse, your killing floor, your morgue and final resting.â (Wishbone)
âI sleep. I dream. I make up things that I would never say. I say them very quietly.â (Meanwhile)
âThis is the Moon. This is the Sun. Let me name the stars for you.â (Snow and Dirty Rain)
Book Review: They Were Here Before Us: A Novella in Pieces by Eric LaRocca
Warning: This book review will contain spoilers. I have tried several times to re-format my analysis in a way that doesnât give away too much of the content, but with the depth at which I prefer to discuss what Iâve read, it is simply not possible for any of my reviews to be completely spoiler-free. If you do wish to read this book, I encourage you to purchase it for yourself. Keep in mind that I do not claim to be any sort of real literary critic. I am simply one of many people online who enjoys publicly stating their opinions.
Title: They Were Here Before Us: A Novella in Pieces
Author: Eric LaRocca
Publication Year: 2022
Genre: Horror Fiction, Short Stories
Average Goodreads Rating: 3.6/5
My Personal Rating: 4.5/5
Pages: 96
Date Started: January 14th, 2025
Date Finished: January 16th, 2025
Synopsis: From the author of the viral sensation Things Have Gotten Worse Since We Last Spoke comes They Were Here Before Us, a novella written in pieces, designed to be consumed as a single, thematically cohesive work. The only thing more brutal than nature is love.
Going into this book, I knew next to nothing. I knew that it was composed of several short stories, and I had heard ravings about how beautifully written it was, but that was about it. This really was a âtrust the processâ sort of deal, but that isnât necessarily a bad thing.
With no real idea of what to expect, it wasnât difficult for the short stories in this book to really shine. I know that I have complained before about pieces written from a first-person perspective, but in the case of such chapters of this novella, I was pleasantly surprised. It was immensely refreshing, being able to read stories that were so cruel in the niche way that only nature itself can be. Love, survival, inevitability, regretful burdensâeach story left my heart aching and my jaw on the floor.Â
Truthfully, it was difficult for me to pinpoint an exact favorite character, simply for the fact that these stories were so short that it gave little time to learn their intricacies. Having said that, I suppose the one that evoked the biggest emotional reaction from me was the mother bird depicted in âA God Made of Strawâ. The idea of this poor creature, unable to do anything but pray for protection to an idol upon which her nest rests as a cruelly curious child takes the innocent lives of her nestlings, shattered my heart thoroughly. Upon struggling to finish that narrative through the tears in my eyes, I genuinely had to set my book down and seek out some levity in the form of nostalgic childrenâs television showsâwhich, admittedly, only made me cry more, but thatâs beside the point.
Favorite Quotes:
âI can still distinctly recall the moment when it first happened to me: the crucial, soul-defining moment when I realized that I loved her and loved her in such a way that I understood I could never fully possess her as I always had intended.â (All that Remains is Yours to Keep)
âIn a moment of weakness, I pray to him: Please donât let him come back. Please keep us safe.â (A God Made of Straw)
âSometimes things that are delicate and fragile are more difficult to destroy. I say this with the utmost certainty.â (To Hurt the Weakest One)
âAfter all, she knows full well that any room with a bed in it is a place where a young woman can be hurt.â (Bird and Bug are Happy)
ââItâs strange,â Bird says. âHow people so close can eventually become strangers.â (Bird and Bug are Happy)
Warning: This book review will contain spoilers. I have tried several times to re-format my analysis in a way that doesnât give away too much of the content, but with the depth at which I prefer to discuss what Iâve read, it is simply not possible for any of my reviews to be completely spoiler-free. If you do wish to read this book, I encourage you to purchase it for yourself. Keep in mind that I do not claim to be any sort of real literary critic. I am simply one of many people online who enjoys publicly stating their opinions.
Title: To Be Devoured
Author: Sara Tantlinger
Publication Year: 2019
Genre: Horror Fiction, LGBTQ+ Fiction
Average Goodreads Rating: 3.8/5
My Personal Rating: 2.5/5
Pages: 92
Date Started: December 29th, 2024
Date Finished: January 14th, 2025
Synopsys: What does carrion taste like? Andi has to know. The vultures circling outside her home taunt and invite her to come understand the secrets hiding in their banquet of decay. Fascination morphs into an obsessive need to know what the vultures know. Andi turns to Dr. Fawning, but even the therapist cannot help her comprehend the secrets sheâs buried beneath anger-induced blackouts.
Going into this book, I was looking forward to the opportunity to watch a protagonistâs mentality deteriorate as they spiral into obsession. Perhaps itâs the lapsed catholic in me, but the notion of consuming flesh has always held a sort of inherent poetic quality for me, be it the flesh of animals or the flesh of our fellow man.
I feel as though I ought to preface this review by saying that as a general rule of thumb, I do not like books written from a first-person perspective. Of course there are exceptions, but for the most part, reading a narrative from the protagonistâs perspective feels a bit juvenile in a âI threw my hair up in a messy bun and put on my Converse with a dress before going downstairs to be sold to One Directionâ sort of way; like the types of narratives we used to write as children, before we had fully grasped the concept that perspectives other than our own exist. Having said that, this book felt a bit edgy for my personal taste, in the sense that there were several moments where it felt like it was trying too hard to be something it simply couldnât. The protagonist herself was downright insufferable, and while perhaps that was the intention, all of the other characters felt so flat that there was simply no relief from Andiâs dark musings. In particular, the sex sceneâor rather, the aftermath of the sex scene, was so physically revolting that I considered abandoning the book entirely, not simply because of the particular act, but more so because it felt like shameless shock value.Â
With a story stocked with subpar characters, my favorite character had to be Dr. Fawning, as ridiculous as that may sound. From the very beginning, I assumed that Andiâs therapist was a figment of her imagination, to some extent. The wide, glassy eyes, the silence, the constant whinging about the tan suit with the white undershirtâsomething wasnât lining up for me, and that was my motivation to keep reading. For a short period, I assumed that she may have been a vulture herself, but I was pleasantly surprised to learn of her true identity, though the way she was treated in the end did make my heart ache for her sake.Â
Favorite Quotes:
âCancer doesnât give a damn who you trust; it just takes away, eats up a person without giving anything back to the earth.â (pg 16)
âThe yearning to crawl inside the warmth of her washes over me like the steamed heat of an open oven door. For her, I would disintegrate inside steam. For her, I would burn.â (pg 36)
âI am a body learning to consume other bodies. There are no wrong bodies here when the meat is all dead and just food.â (pg 61)
âI love you so much. I want to know what every part of you tastes like. Whatâs wrong with that?â (pg 71)
âI want to apologize. I want to swallow you whole.â (pg 76)
Warning: This book review will contain spoilers. I have tried several times to re-format my analysis in a way that doesnât give away too much of the content, but with the depth at which I prefer to discuss what Iâve read, it is simply not possible for any of my reviews to be completely spoiler-free. If you do wish to read this book, I encourage you to purchase it for yourself. Keep in mind that I do not claim to be any sort of real literary critic. I am simply one of many people online who enjoys publicly stating their opinions.
Synopsis: It's 1900, and Louise Wilk is taking her dying husband from Manhattan to the upstate orchard estate where he grew up. Dr. Edward Wilk is wasting away from a mysterious affliction acquired in a strange encounter: but Louise soon realizes that her husband's worsening condition may not be a disease at all, but a transformative phase of existence that will draw her in as much more than a witness.
Going into this book, all I knew was that this story involved some type of body horror, which for me, was a major selling point. As someone who has been religiously watching horror movies since before my developing mind began to form retrievable memories, there is very little that still makes my skin crawl and my heart race. One of those such things just so happens to be body horror. We, as humans, can run from knife-wielding maniacs and hide under the covers until the monsters go away, but what we cannot run from is our own bodies. We are confined to these vessels, and when there is a flaw in the system, it arouses a primal type of dread; the feeling of âgod, I hope that never happens to meâ. In the story of a wife and her gradually rotting husband, there is no role that seems ideal to be played.Â
While I was confident that I would find, at least, a moderate level of enjoyment in this book, what truly surprised me was just how engaged I was. For years, reading has felt more like a chore than an activity to be cherished, and thus, I found myself taking a step back from literature. Even now, with my renewed motivation, I often still find myself dreading that time of night when itâs time to pick up my book and settle down without a screen. This story, however, had me coming back at every opportunity. I read in favor of sleeping, I read to put off countless writing projectsâwhen I say that I was itching for each new chapter, I truly mean it. The descriptions of Edwardâs deterioration were vivid enough to leave me feeling uneasy, and I found myself begging for some sort of levity, grasping at straws for answers regarding exactly what was causing his body to decay. While I did enjoy the ending overall, I will confess that upon the revelation of the sinister antagonist, I was rather underwhelmed. Cosmic horror and the likes simply doesnât appeal to me at most times, and for me, it was difficult to comprehend exactly what the creature itself may have looked like. Having said that, I was pleased when it was clarified that the creature was something that has been here for a long time, rather than something from space or an alternate dimension; new to this world and eager for a host.Â
Perhaps this is a common opinion, but personally, my favorite character in this narrative was the final version of Louise Wilk. Despite the strife Edward put Louise through in life, there is still something so inherently romantic about finding a life literally inside the body of your deceased spouse. The concept of two becoming one, of two souls and two minds speaking to one another internally until they become so deeply fused that they cannot tell where one ends and the other begins, is something that I can only hope to mimic somedayâmetaphorically, of course!
Favorite Quotes:
âBut she never tended to anyone who mattered, until she married someone who did.â (pg 20)
âIsnât the earth better off after a burning?â (pg 35)
âI cannot explain to you how it feels because I am too cowardly to feel it.â (pg 40)
âA word can have such force, and a name is an entire incantation.â (pg 41)
âThey could feel, in the drifting moment just before or just after sleep, a flower between and behind their lungs. Its roots wrapped around their joined vertebrae, and it grew slowly, careful not to exceed their body until they died.â (pg 67)
