âHumans are primitive creatures that are afraid to die and afraid to suffer. You represent mortality and pain, and these truths will stun them. The more humans think about death, especially their own deaths, the more panicked theyâll get, the more confused - like a bird that bashes against its own reflection.â - K.E. Flann, How to Survive a Human Attack
ONE SENTENCE REVIEW BELOW:
This was honestly just fun, but I didnât really understand the gendered aspect of it.Â
âMore than a hundred news stations, and not a single one reporting on the greatest catastrophe mankind has ever experienced.â - Darcy Coates, Parasite
ONE SENTENCE REVIEW BELOW:
Nice to see a horror novel that was 1.) actually horror 2.) had good action and 3.) was legitimately funny.
âFrom the beginning, this world has been built by cannibals out of the corpses of their forefathers. Mors janua vitae: death is the gate of life.â - Grady Hendrix, The Final Girl Support Group
ONE SENTENCE REVIEW BELOW:
A fun and cinematic romp for sure, but I understand the controversy around Hendrixâs female characters a bit more now.
âFinishing the Book left me feeling slightly abused. I had been exploited, though I didnât quite understand that at the time. All I knew then was that I felt confused and humiliated and misrepresented. Not to mention angry. So fucking furious that my younger self didnât know what to do with it.â -Riley Sager, Home Before Dark
ONE SENTENCE REVIEW BELOW:
 Fun twist but I think Iâd prefer the haunted house, actually.Â
â'I know our start these last few days hasnât been the most auspicious, but I swear to you, I am yours. Every inch save what this house demands of me.ââ -Caitlin Starling, The Death of Jane Lawrence
REVIEW BELOW:
Now this met expectations! (sorry Plain Bad Heroines)
I think this is my first real foray into the âhaunted houseâ trope and I honestly really enjoyed it! The suspense was really well done and culminated well. The reader is right there with her as she falls into madness. The ghosts and the house itself were intriguing and unique - for such an old and extensively used trope I was surprised by how original it was, especially regarding lore. Iâll admit, when I saw math connected to philosophy and magic, I was a bit turned off, but Starling manages to weave them together well. That being said, our protagonist Jane often went on long mathematical tangents that, while somewhat necessary, got increasingly harder to follow. I did end up zoning out a few times at the end trying to understand what exactly was going on.Â
Believe it or not, the romance is actually pretty tender at times, for a financially-motivated, functionally compromised marriage. Her other, smaller characters are either charming or revolting, but both are masterfully crafted.Â
The singular invention of hers I disliked was the very, very, very-similar-but-not-the-same-name convention, partly because it was so blatantly obvious what she meant (e.g., Great Breltain and Ruzka) because it felt retroactive. As if Starling decided she wanted a war-orphan protagonist but didnât want to deal with the standard of historically accuracy by choosing a real war.Â
I really enjoyed her prose, as well, and she leaned into the neo-Victorian atmosphere to great effect.Â
âMother had told her that in the old days, before the Europeans washed up on the coast of Veracruz, when her kind were priestesses, the Great Temple ran red with rivulets of blood, offerings of hearts and heads to the gods. The bodies of sacrificial victims tumbled down the steps of the temple. The people below stabbed, pierced, and bled themselves in sacrifice. They were not a plague, nor vermin, nor common killers that hid in the shadows. Not the Tlahuelpocmimi. Not her family.â -Silvia Moreno-Garcia, Certain Dark Things
REVIEW BELOW:
First things first: Style. Iâll be honest, after reading Mexican Gothic I was expecting her prose to be a bit more lyrical. I know part of the directness of it is a result of multiple P.O.V.s and how they have to change with the characters, but Domingoâs narrative voice was so straightforward, that if I had just picked this up without looking at the title at all, I wouldnât have known it was a Silvia Moreno-Garcia book. It was still good, just not my favorite.Â
In terms of lore, it comes with a Encylopedia Vampirica which was beyond helpful, but to be honest the world-building was a bit lacking to me. Itâs so clear that Moreno-Garcia put a lot of time and research into it, but it really felt like most of the time we were just...given the information, rather than the opportunity to experience it. For example, Atlâs dog is revealed to be genetically modified, but we donât really get any background on why animals have become genetically modified, how the technology became available, etc. I know this is a really small example, but I think itâs representative of my major issue with the story. I would really love to learn a bit more about vampire culture though.With that being said, the Aztec elements throughout were really well woven in throughout the story, though, and honestly one of my favorite elements of the book.Â
I also really enjoyed her characterization and dialogue. It was all really organic and everything flowed naturally. Further, it was one of the few books from the challenge that I felt was genuinely spooky: it was intensely atmospheric and gritty, which I donât think we get enough of in most "horrorâ stories.Â
Final Rating: somewhere between 3.75 and 4Â â, but I couldnât tell you where/5Â â
âIf there was a curse at Brookhants, Libbie thought, it wasnât from a book. It was her own resentment and perpetual discontentment. How did Mary MacLane put it? I am a selfish, conceited, impudent little animal, it is true, but, after all, I am only one grand conglomeration of Wanting...â -Emily M. Danforth, Plain Bad Heroines
REVIEW W/ SPOILERSÂ BELOW!!
I have...conflicting feelings about this story.Â
I was looking forward to buying the paperback the second I saw the hardcover in stores. Needless to say, I was absolutely foaming at the mouth to get my hands on this.Â
But hereâs where we encounter our first problem: I was excited to read a horror story, and horror it is not. Donât get me wrong, itâs eerie, suspenseful, and certainly gothic, but it is nowhere near horror.Â
Which leads me to my next complaint. The pace was, quite frankly, agonizing. Let me explain: I usually really love extravagant and lengthy prose, and I did really enjoy Danforthâs style!! But, Iâll be honest, I was really pressed for time when I read this (read: I had, like, six more books to read in a week), so I couldnât really luxuriate in the writing like I typically would. My own issues notwithstanding, I donât think the pace makes much sense anyway. Part of the premise is the filming of a âBlair Witchâ-esque movie based on a series of deaths at a girlâs school in 1902. Filming of aforementioned movie begins on about page 200...Of 600...That being said, the ending felt incredibly rushed. We get a bit of dialogue and about 20 pages (again out of 600) to explain the foundation for the issues at Brookhants, and it felt as though nothing was resolved.Â
I felt like the LGBTQ+ representation was good, although the repeated use of the word âcelesbianâ makes me want to scream. Danforth has a pretty unflinching approach when it comes to discussing the consequences of misogyny and homophobia, but the narrator typically maintains a quippy tone throughout. Polyamory is also introduced but I donât feel like the polycule really gets to meet its full potential by the end.Â
Finally, Iâm all for unlikeable heroines, but it was sometimes physically painful to read about Merritt. Itâs just one of my own pet peeves when rudeness is passed off as endearing just because the protagonist is insecure and nerdy.Â
âI know, I know. But thereâs no shame in caring about another human beingâs fate.â -Oyinkan Braithwaite, My Sister, The Serial Killer
REVIEW W/ SPOILERS BELOW:
I was pleasantly surprised by this story!! I went into this thinking it would be akin to a Jessica Knoll novel (do with that what you will), but Braithwaite really exceeded expectations. Braithwaiteâs style is a bit more direct than I usually like, but I ended up really falling into it. It matched Koredeâs personality so well and it made the story that much more compelling. It puts the reader in the role of confidant, similar to Muhtar.
Needless to say, I adored Korede. I think itâs really refreshing to see a protagonist in a thriller who is âin the knowâ so to speak, without being the killer themselves. She was so passionate and simultaneously so self-possessed that each page was steeped in emotion.
Additionally, Iâve never read a book set in Lagos, Nigeria before, so it was fun to explore the city and culture through the characters!
The ending, in my opinion, was immaculate. It was easy to get mad at Ayoolaâs careless, man-eating behavior throughout (I mean...yeah, she kills people), but the solidarity between the two sisters endured precisely because Ayoola protected Korede, instead of Korede cleaning up Ayoolaâs mess yet again.Â
âI, however, took love much more seriously. Love was no girlhood game. It was an iron yoke, forged in fire and heavy to wear.â - S.T. Gibson, Dowry of Blood
Oh. My. God. This book was my favorite of the challenge by a LANDSLIDE!!
 Gibsonâs writing was so poetic, sweet and bitter, but always delicious! Usually, Iâm not the best with slow-paced books, but her writing let me savor every minute!Â
The world-building was masterfully done. We know only as much as Constanta knows, and she knows only what Dracula will allow. Each betrayal and revelation is a shock to the system and Constanta was an absolute pleasure to learn with! The story itself was a character-focused revel that was romantic and gruesome in equal measure. The evolution of each character was so deeply personal and masterfully connected to the plot that we as readers get to know our protagonists as deeply as they know themselves.Â
((Spoiler hinted at below!!)
In terms of representation, I really enjoyed the exploration of queer polyamorous relationships, and I adored how Gibson balanced longing and resentment in such a painfully honest depiction of love. Further, I really appreciated how the journey of healing among the Brides was not to dissolve into a âtraditionalâ or monogamous heterosexual relationship, but instead to ...eliminate... the toxic element in the relationship.Â
âI have heard all the stories about girls like me, and I am unafraid to make more of them.â - Carmen Maria Machado, Her Body and Other Parties
This is the first book I read for my challenge and it was really a great start!! I had heard people talking about this book for SO LONG, so I couldnât wait to get my hands on it!!
To start, Machadoâs prose is really luxurious and lush, which made it an absolute pleasure to read!! I also think the intensity of the language really complimented the brevity of the stories and made them super atmospheric and eerie. Her prose was by far my favorite aspect of this book because it was descriptive and sensual but still accessible! But..,, that leads me to one very mild downside.
Many of her stories had a pretty obvious metaphor - obvious in the sense that there definitely was one, but I often couldnât place my finger on what exactly it was supposed to be. For example, in her story âthe Green Ribbon,â we have snippets like:Â
âOne of the mothers has a pale yellow ribbon on her finger, and it constantly tangles in her thread. (...)Â âItâs such a bother isnât it?â she says. I nod.â
To briefly summarize, the story is about a woman with a green ribbon around her neck (exactly like In a Dark, Dark Room and Other Scary Stories), as she goes through love and motherhood, struggling all the while with her husbandâs inability to respect her boundaries. So, contextually, I understand whatâs going on, but I often felt like I was just...missing something... I donât know if Iâm just not the target audience here, but I was still able to form my own interpretations, so Iâm not too terribly upset about it.Â
I almost every story with the singular exception of âEspecially Heinousâ, so on the whole it was a really fun and insightful experience with a treasure trove of WLW and queer representation that felt genuine and raw in a way I havenât encountered in a really long time.
Memento Mori (1604) by Jacopo Ligozzi (1547 -Â 1627)
The Latin phrase memento mori literally means, âRemember that you must die.â The phrase has its origins in ancient Rome, where it is believed that slaves accompanying generals on victory parades whispered the words as a reminder of their commanderâs mortality, to prevent them from being consumed by hubris (excessive pride and self-confidence). The concept has become a familiar trope in the visual arts from the medieval period to the present.
In Christian contexts, the memento mori acquired a moralizing purpose, urging the faithful to turn away from fleeting earthly pleasures and focus instead on the afterlife.
In the Renaissance and Baroque periods, artists frequently incorporated symbols of mortality into their paintings, from obvious imagery such as skulls to more subtle references such as wilting flowers or timepieces.
The vanitas still life, popular during the 17th-century Dutch Golden Age, combined symbols of mortality with sumptuous depictions of material riches to create moral allegories about the follies of human vanity and the permanence of death.
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