#m. rickert

[flyicarus]

Lucky Girl, How I Became A Horror Writer: A Krampus Story - REVIEW

★★★1/2

Note: I received a copy of this book from NetGalley in return for an honest review.

Ro, a struggling writer, knows all too well the pain and solitude that holiday festivities can awaken. When she meets four people at the local diner—all of them strangers and as lonely as Ro is—she invites them to an impromptu Christmas dinner. And when that party seems in danger of an early end, she suggests they each tell a ghost story. One that’s seasonally appropriate. But Ro will come to learn that the horrors hidden in a Christmas tale—or one’s past—can never be tamed once unleashed.

I had a fun time reading this novella - horror around the holidays is one of my niche interests, and I can always do with more Black Christmas. I admit that I don’t know too much about krampus, but I was intrigued by the idea of telling ghost stories around the holidays and the horrors that are imagined become all too real. M. Rickert crafts a great atmosphere and throws in several red herrings; I thought I knew several times where the story was headed and it turns out I didn’t at all. Would recommend this one to any who enjoy a healthy mixture of horror in their yuletide.

[the-hearth-and-the-wild]

How do stories help us solve the terrible riddle of being human? How do we take all our suffering, the rapes, and wars, and children dying, and turn it into something like a bird song in the night? How do we become better than we’ve been? And how do we get from here to there, when the gods seem so reluctant to help? Could it be, even they don’t know the answers?

-M. Rickert, “The Machine” from Holiday (2010)

[ethereallad]

BOOK REVIEW: The Shipbuilder of Bellfairie by M. Rickert. Tragicomic magical realism.

M. Ricket’s novel The Shipbuilder of Bellfairie is almost uncategorizable. It’s a magical realist character study/slice of life smalltown drama. The magic in the novel is more in the vibe than it is in concrete acts of wonder. There are hints of fabulism in the stories the characters tell one another, and when ghosts do appear, they are as natural as the sea air that drenches the small New…

View On WordPress

[brightbeautifulthings]

Lucky Girl, How I Became A Horror Writer: A Krampus Story by M. Rickert

"You never know when you might want a monster, I thought."

Year Read: 2022

Rating: 3/5

About: Ro is alone and down on her luck one Christmas when she meets four strangers in a diner and impulsively invites them to a holiday dinner. They each tell a Christmas horror story, exchange meager gifts, and go on with their separate lives. Years later, now a successful horror novelist, Ro receives an invitation to a reunion dinner at a beautiful estate for Christmas. All too late, she learns that some stories are terrifying because they're true. I received an invitation to read a free e-ARC through NetGalley from the publishers at Macmillan-Tor/Forge. Trigger warnings: character death, parent/sibling death, fires, captivity, stalking, grief, guilt.

Thoughts: I don't know whether the title of this novella is deliberately misleading or just accidentally, but this is only barely a Krampus story; it's more like a decoration around the edges than the actual point. It's also ill-suited to being a novella, since there are the bones of what could be a really good story here, except there's no time to develop it to any satisfaction. It covers far too much time for the number of pages. Instead, we blow through years with characters we (and the main character) only barely know, and there's no time to get attached to any of them or have any particular feelings about what happens to them. There are only the vaguest personalities there, most of them leaning into cliché, including the faux-goth horror writer who is our narrator.

All that being said, I liked the story itself. Ro's grim history with the unsolved murders of her family provide a creepy backdrop, and it was probably my favorite part of the novella, well above anything supernatural. It's also better developed, though. The Krampus thread is established at the beginning and then barely utilized, despite setting up an interesting point of potential crossover for the two storylines. Instead, it's almost like two different stories got mashed together to lukewarm effect. I was so far removed from everything that the ending didn't have much of an impact. Oh, well. Maybe it would make a better movie.

[libertyreads]

Book Review #97 of 2022--

Lucky Girl: How I Became a Horror Writer, A Krampus Story by Mary Rickert. Rating: 3 stars.

Read from July 4th to 5th.

Before I get into the bulk of the review, I want to say a quick thank you to NetGalley and the publishers over at Tordotcom for allowing me access to this ARC in exchange for an honest review. Lucky Girl is a quick horror story set around the Christmas holiday. We start with. our main characters meeting up for Christmas after realizing they all had nowhere to go for the holiday. The recent college graduates decide to tell scary stories set around the holidays. This sets off events that none of them could begin to imagine. Lucky Girl is out on September 13th and is available for preorder now.

I want to start out the review by saying that this novella is not exactly what it says on the back of the book. I assumed that this story would start out with our five main characters meeting in this small town diner and deciding to meet up for Christmas a few weeks later, then the horror stories start flowing and possibly murder? But this story actually takes place over the course of about 25 years. I wish we had met everyone in the diner instead of that first Christmas they spend together. Also, this story is told with flashbacks to the main character’s past which sometimes feels like it gets in the way of the main plot, but does come around in the end. Tor usually does a pretty good job with keeping stories the right length. They’re usually exactly what a reader needs to truly enjoy a story, but this time I feel like they missed the mark. The ending to this one feels so unsatisfying. As the reader, I have so many questions and I don’t love how multiple plot points are left without resolution or explanation. The length of the story also keep me from feeling like I ever really knew any of the characters.

I will say that the atmosphere for this novella was the exact right mix of Holiday Spirit and Absolute Terror. I would feel comfy and cozy and then the author let the horror seep in. I also felt like I could picture most of the settings really well. I especially enjoyed the estate on top of the hill and the church on the grounds. This was the kind of story that you could read in one sitting. It kept me wanting more and was such a quick and easy read. I found the setting and the atmosphere and sometimes the plot compelling enough to keep propelling me through the story.

Overall, I think this is good for those readers who don’t like things wrapped up in a nice, neat bow and who like to come up with their own conclusions for the how or the why. It’s also good for people who prefer their mystery/thriller/horror novels over the Christmas-y counterparts.

[thegirlwiththelantern]

The Little Witch

Every Halloween, an elderly woman hands out candy to a young trick-or-treater who’s dressed as a witch each time, looking exactly the same a

[coollovebibliophilethings]

Burning Castles by M. Rickert

Is her mother really a #witch ? #PastLives #Witches #MRickert

Title: Burning Castles Author: M. Rickert In: Under My Hat (Jonathan Strahan) Rating Out of 5: 3.5 (Liked this) My Bookshelves: Easy reading, Fantasy, Witches Pace: Medium Format: Short story Publisher: Hot Key Books Year: 2012 5th sentence, 74th page: It’s important not to be late.

Young Marissa believes her mother is a witch, but she also thinks her mother is lying to her about certain things. What…

View On WordPress

[talknerdywithus]

Evidence of Privilege in a Case of Ignorance: One Writer's Personal Response

Evidence of Privilege in a Case of Ignorance: One Writer’s Personal Response

    a quote from John Joseph Adams’ introduction to M. Rickert’s short story M. Rickert’s short story “Evidence of Love In a Case of Abandonment,” drew me in immediately with its slow, mysterious tone, steady character development, and themes of government secrecy and conservatism. In the future that Rickert imagines, America has undergone “a conservative revolution,” with “harsh rules for women,…

View On WordPress