​   Owen and Luna are best friends. Bffs supreme, reigning from college to present day, which is nearly two decades later. Proving everyone that a platonic friendship between two heterosexual individuals of opposite gender is, indeed, a possibility. And sure, their friendship can get somewhat claustrophobic in its closeness or even toxic in its nature and sure some people might drop dead around them, but that’s just one of those things, a regrettable byproduct of their cojoined awesomeness. Or is it?
    Well, that and many other theories get put to the test when Owen’s wife is found gunned down one day. The woman was also Luna’s friend and also they are neighbors, because, you know, close like that. So naturally the spouse is the first suspect and what makes it all the more suspicious is that Owen already had someone who loved him die under mysterious circumstances back in college.
   So while the cops are investigating all around them, Owen and Luna are having their own soul searching party, reevaluating their very special relationship, past and present, uncovering years fraught with well intended misunderstandings and yet, always, unwavering devotion to each other.
    And then, of course, there’s Luna’s secret, something she is desperate to hide from the world and yet the only practical thing she did about it was change her last name from Brown to Grey. Because Luna Grey would fool everyone. Not very smart, Luna. But then again, it won’t be the first of your mistakes. Or Owen’s.
      So technically this is a thriller and it has all the right components, the split timelines, the shifting narratives, the plot twists, etc. And there is a proper murder mystery, too, in fact. But the overall effect is very much that of a literally novel about a friendship, albeit spiced up with a murder or two. In fact, it’s weirdly jaunty about it, especially the ending.
      But it’s interesting too, such a meticulous undoing and studying layer by layer such a close friendship and the way it both buoys and sinks one’s canoe, because of the inherent power exchange dynamics in such situations. Can you ever know someone too well? Are there intrinsic dangers to such a relationship? Can it turn deadly?
      Well, get his book and find out. It’s worth a read, certainly. This was my first introduction to a popular genre author with a series and a number of standalones (of which this book is one) and it’s definitely a favorable one. The writing is very good, even the college age characters were tolerable, although it stands to mention the plotting was really convoluted, most likely to surprise the readers all the more. So nicely done on the literary drama side, competently twisted on the thriller side, mostly not predictable (which is always good) and an entertaining read all around. Recommended. Thanks Netgalley.

​      For all the evils of social media, there’s something nice about having followers. I’ve accumulated 330some on GR in recent years and I like the general idea of having people display that sort of interest in my reviews. But that’s as far as I’m comfortable taking that.
      Some people take the idea of internet fame much, much further and this is a story of one of them. Sidney, her character’s name an obvious homage to Sidney Prescott of Scream franchise, is a fame hungry person, obsessed with horror. In fact, it was the Scream movies that first got her started down this bloody and gory winding road. And now in her 30s it is her refuge from the world in which she has thus far failed to make a mark.
      Sidney’s life leaves a lot to be desired. She had completely failed as a wife, she’s middling as a mother and she’s an available warm body of a cell phone store manager for a career. But she has good friends and optimism, the latter leading her to believe that she can parlay her passion for horror into a moneymaker. Because that’s the pervasive evils of social media, everyone thinks they can be the next (insert some Kardashian sort of waste of space here), everyone thinks they got what it takes.
       Sidney knows words alone (her reviews and tweets) won’t take her there (our social media addled society is too vapid for that and if you don’t think so check out how many more likes reviews with memes and gifs get and that’s just GR) so she also models, nude and bathes in blood. In fact, that’s how we’re introduced to her. She’s flexing her body in a bathtub of congealing blood while her gay bff is snapping away photos.
      And, because discretion and privacy are well and truly dead, on the world wide web it all goes. To be fair, Sidney actually think she is practicing some discretion, but alas she simply isn’t smart enough or cautious enough of a person, as frequently evidenced by her chattering her entire life away to a host of perfect strangers on the internet, for that and so soon enough she finds herself source of all sorts of unwanted attention.
       And so, to paraphrase Nietzsche, this is a book about a woman who had gazes into horror for so long, the horror gazed back. Now Sidney is the star of her very own slasher and she is determined to remain standing like a proper final girl.
      If this sounds like a dumb story about a dumb woman getting something like her just deserts and learning an important life lesson…it might have gone that way, but it didn’t. For one thing, the author, whoever she is, is too good of a writer for that. She writes dumb smartly and the book ends up being a much more engaging read than you might have anticipated.
       Even with all the clichés in it. Of which there are many. And mostly they are straight out of chicklit field, like the supersupportive roomie who used Girl in every freaking sentence or the supersupportive wildly flamboyant gay bffs.
       You probably have to be a horror fan to really appreciate this book and, by extent, Sidney. Thing is Sidney and I are very different genre fans, I prefer the psychological darkness, she leans toward the obvious, I enjoy literary horror, Sidney goes for gory B and C list movies. But still, there is enough mutual appreciation of a good scare that’s there and will probably resonate with most fans, despite their specific preferences.
       In the end this was a fairly fun read, despite many, many things, even despite the lamentable predictability of the final plot twist. It had potential to be a lot more, like maybe almost an A level, but got stuck and C going on B territory. It’d probably be fun as a B movie, actually, if somewhat meta.
       Many thanks to the publisher for providing a free copy for review purposes.

​Aha. At last. Some answers. This universe is getting set up quite nicely, in all timelines. Plus we finally get to learn all about the mysterious Pentoculus. Literally can’t rave about this series enough. It’s so clever, so eerie and so strikingly gorgeous. Some of the best comic art out there is within these pages, definitely the best, most creative panel use out there. The way this panels are cut up and arranged is an art in and of itself. Love, love, love these books. Can’t wait to read book five. Please hurry up library. Recommended.

​Well on the way to becoming one of my all time favorites, book three of this descent into barn shaped madness takes the reader on a journey back in time and boggles the minds some, the way time travel tends to, but also it's beginning to look a lot like answers. some answers might be coming the readers way in the near future. Awesome. Can't wait. Read these books. They are scary and as gorgeous as you'd ever hope for a genre comics to be.

​   This book was a perfect combination of two things I find enormously fascinating…cults and linguistics. Because our language shapes so much of our reality, it is never just words. Words matter, they have weight to them, words are power. And some people have mastered the art of wielding them to serve their own sinister purposes.
     It isn’t just cults, either. It’s in direct sales and advertising and fitness crazes and conspiracy theory websites and marketing. All of those things are not cults per se,but have cultish elements and certainly utilize cultish language. Made up lingo is only the beginning of it, for language has the power to embolden or isolate and that works very nicely into the psychology of brainwashing. Although, even brainwashing may not be an accurate descriptor, read the book form more on that.
     This book was an absolutely fascinating look at the awesome and dangerous power of linguistics. Well researched, engagingly written, clever, funny and very very hip in the right way, it’s potent enough to change the way you think. It may even save your life. Depending on what cult you were planning to join. The suicide ones get a lot of coverage in here and the language there was as much of a weapon as the Flavor Aid. And yes, that was Flavor Aid, accuracy over the genericized trademarks.
     A lot of this played in well with my social psychology studies, a lot of played in well with my parallel universe linguistic career, a lot of it was just good notes for when I manage to turn my GR followers into a proper cult ;), all of it was absolutely fascinating and enormously interesting. Popscience at its absolutely best and smartest. An excellent read.  Recommended.

​Aha, thought the name sounded familiar. Check and yes, I’ve read the author before. Twice, in fact. Both times to great enjoyment. This novella didn’t bring great enjoyment, but some enjoyment was had all the same. And the primary cause of that enjoyment was the story’s originality. Something not easy to do in zombie fiction, because there’s so much of it.
And most of it follows a formula. And this one didn’t. There are, mind you, a few genre books that focus instead on zombies as thinking beings, Scott Kenemore’s books come to mind for one thing, but this is more like the long game situation.
So a zombie tried to snack on you and you got away? Well, the good news is that you’re ok, for the moment anyway and possibly for the foreseeable future, it’s a death sentence, but a prolonged one and not without its perks. You’ll get stronger, tougher, you’ll practically become a superhero…and then it might eventually kill you. Or not, You may have months or decades. But in any case, there is life afterwards and a forward direction.
It’s an interesting set of rules. And the book’s protagonist finds herself living them after she heroically intervenes one day during a zombie attack in the park. So the social and familiar implications and ramifications of her situation are really interesting, especially when it comes to her family.
After the attack, she gets to go live in a facility for similar inbetween individuals and the book follows her story. I didn’t find a story especially emotionally engaging, which is most likely a strictly personal thing and would vary for different readers, but it was an entertainignr ead all the same. A short and fairly compelling read and it does a good job of reinventing the rules of a familiar story, so for that, kudos. Zombie fans (and why wouldn’t you be a zombie fan, seriously?) will likely enjoy this original novella. Thanks Netgalley.

​This was an absolute delight of a book combining several of my interests 9random trivia, geography, maps, extinct countries, etc.) and Dafoe’s terrific humorous presentation.
I was actually only familiar with the author’s work through his pirate series and I’m thrilled he’s branching out. The man created a wildly entertaining and appropriately amusing (for these things are genuinely funny) guide to all manner of almosts, neverquites, just abouts, WTF, oops and what were they thinkings snafus of ambitious if misguided out geopolitical snafus.
A quick fun read, this armchair travelogue’s speed is set on gallop, but you’ll get the idea. You might get many ideas, actually. You might even start a country…
Recommended. Absolutely.

​    I didn’t realize this right away, but this wasn’t a first celt read for me. I’ve read her Invitation to the Bonfire some time ago and liked it, mostly. I’ve just revisited my review of it and the phrase that stood out was that it had a nice twist but it took you down the WTF road to get there. Because that is very much the case with this book also.
    This is a story of friendship, first and foremost. A sort of dedicated female friendship that evolves or devolves over time, a sort of thing that potentially I’d label and dismiss as women’s fiction. But it is set in a mildly apocalyptic world and had time loops in it. Now that’s interesting.
     If you’re wondering what constitutes a mild apocalypse…well, it’s the one that sort of fades to the background. Most apocalyptic stories feature it front and center, but in this book it’s merely a stage setting. There are expositions that are not attributed to anyone, there are climate change based disasters, but overall majority of lives remain unaffected or at least there is still a consistent semblance of the world as we know it.
     And in this world two best friends, Bertie and Kate, decide to do it up and go to Paris, where Kate promptly disappears in the Louvre and Bertie finds herself groundhogging the same day over and over. 
     It takes a while for her and for the readers to figure out what’s going on, by which time the book takes a decidedly romantic turn. But it’s all connected, in a trippy and loopy (literally) way and it’ll all be understood in the end. 
     So definitely an interesting and origjnal plot. The execution…well, it was pretty good too. I didn’t love it, to be honest, for two main reasons…a. the plot was too precociously trippy as if enamored with its own weirdness and b. I didn’t really connect with the characters. I’m not sure if they were too girly for me or too millennial or just not interesting enough, but there it is. Something that’ll probably vary for different readers, but reading is personal like that.
    It was a pretty fun read, I was entertained, the writing itself was very good, the plot had cleverness about it, so the overall result is much the same as my previous book by the author, somewhere inbetween. Thanks Netgalley.

      I’ve recently had a friend say something to me that I found so galling, so preposterous, so ignorant, frankly, that I just had to write about it.  Granted, this isn’t the first time I’m speaking about this, I’ve been mentioning this in my reviews over time. Trying to do my share in raging against this inane notion of appropriation in literature.
      This is a recent PC police invention that gets bandied around a lot and usually has the word cultural preceding it.  Cultural appropriation is a huge no no nowadays. Because everyone has apparently forgot the definition of fiction which is based in invention.
     So, the idea is that no one can speak for another person until they have (literally) walked in their shoes, meaning in a PC ideal men would only be able to write male characters, white people only white characters, etc. This can be expended, exponentially, and that’s why it’s so dangerous. Because we’re talking about a form of censorship, however well meaning, which isn’t ok. 
     Like so many things these days, this all goes back to race. The loudest voices in the cultural appropriation camp were heard recently when American Dirt came out and the white author has dared (dared, they tell you) to write from a Mexican perspective. Mind you, Oprah LOVED this book, but that’s the wrong race. Mind you, the author has since reveled that she had a Latin American abuela (that’s grandmother to those who rage before they learn), but it wasn’t enough. She simply wasn’t brown enough or the right kind of brown to tell the tale. The tale she imagined…because she’s a fictional writer and that is literally her job. They had to cancel her book tour for safety concerns.
     There should not be safety concerns when it comes to books. Maybe some incendiary sort of books, but not books like this.
       And at any rate, what's all this huffing and puffing really about? The author, whatever color her skin is, with this book is raising awareness of the immigration crisis. Should that be the bottom line? Or is it somehow invalidated because she makes a profit from selling her book? Well, by that logic you can also discount most public speakers of any media format. If this is about the plight of Latin American immigrants...than the protesting crybabies should be pleased the message is getting out there. If this is about appeasing one's preciously heightened and finely tuned to present day social media preset sensibilities...that's another matter.
      So anyway, what I’m trying to say is this…in this day and age of rampant political correctness and the now two generations of the increasingly snowflakey namby pamby thin skinned adultbabies everyone and it seems everyone has their own precious trauma and for some reason everyone assumes some sort of weird monopoly on it. Which means that only fellow members of their trauma club can write about what they’ve gone through. The rest are apparently lying liars and, worse yet, cultural appropriators.
     In fact, the reason my friend was so upset is that she found out that the book she was reading about a girl whose father dies at an early age, like hers did, was in fact written by a man with two living parents. She liked the book until she found that out, but once she did, she felt backstabbed or something and went into a how dare you mode. Write what you know, she says.
    My friend is an intelligent person, mind you, just a stereotypical product of her generation, a proper millennial in all respects, whose innate faith in her personal specialness has somehow led her to misinterpret what fiction is or how it works.
    I reminded her that fiction is FICTION, it is quite literally an imaginative narrative. If the author does their job well and the reader finds their inventions relatable, that's just a testament to the author's power of talent, empathy, imagination, etc. To think that only people who have had certain experiences have the right to write about them seems extremely limiting and, franky, kind of morally wrong.
       And the thing is, there's already a genre out there where you don't have to deal with any of it, one that will not let you down or cheat you or trick you into false relatability. Nonfiction. Where all experiences are true, real and authentic...or so they claim.
There are literally about a gazillion memoirs out there where you can read about a death of a parent and know for a fact those people are speaking from experience. They may be neither more emotionally engaging nor more relatable than the fictional accounts, but at least they'll be from the same trauma club, as it were. 
     I dislike memoirs as a genre. I’ve barely found any that were actually good reading and not look at me, look at me whines. But it is a popular genre, so people are obviously getting a lot out of it, relating, emoting, etc. And that’s great. Maybe it’ll engage them enough so that they’ll stay away from proper fiction and not muddy the waters for the rest of us just trying to find a good imaginary story to disappear into.

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