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4/5

Mothtown was such a unique story. It was like a fever dream, fluid and moving. It’s so hard to pin down and felt like my head was constantly swimming in the lyrical prose. It really sucked me in and left me wondering what was real and what was not.

We follow David from when he was ten, a lonely and very introverted child who never seems to fit in. His father gave up on him, his mother only worried in what felt like a necessary motherly way, his sister was inconsistent and the only real friend he had was his grandfather. So when his grandfather disappears one day his whole world is shattered and he falls into an ever falling depression.

It felt like I was right there tumbling into the deep along with David through his life as he tries to go through what should be normal situations but he just doesn’t seem to grasp anything. He turns into himself, pushing everyone away with every step. Sometimes you could see through the fog and imagine just how strange he must have been to everyone else, but in his mind it made perfect sense.

It started off slow but I really loved it overall. The conclusion was kind of perfect and really wrapped things together in a way I think made sense for such a fluid story.

Thank you to NetGalley and Angry Robot for the review copy.

3/5

This book was a real strange one. It felt like it was trying a bit too hard to be too many things and not succeeding fully with any of them. There were certainly some good pieces there, I loved a section in the middle where we watched a woman slowly go into deep madness in a short span. It gave me chills. But that was about the only thing that did actually feel creepy.

There were some interesting bones of a story there but the way it was put together didn’t quite fit for me (though it seems that many people did like it). I just couldn’t quite suspend my disbelief when it just kept throwing more and more strangeness in to complicate the story more. It feels like half the pieces could have been thrown out entirely and it would have been a far better overall.

I wasn’t the biggest fan of the main characters either, and every other dialogue between them was some sort of sexual innuendo which was also odd. I just didn’t really click with them and the annoying trope of them keeping too many secrets they didn’t share despite choosing to stay together. It felt very silly considering the circumstances they were in.

Overall I wish it had been cut down and more focused. It wasn’t bad but it wasn’t something that worked for me.

Thank you to NetGalley and Scholastic for the review copy.

4.5/5

This has been one of the strangest stories I’ve read in a while. It was so abstract and so creepy, like I couldn’t quite grasp the wrongness that was lurking within the words. It’s so hard to put into words how unnerved I felt reading it and yet I didn’t want to put the book down!

It really kept me guessing as to what was happening, how real were the horrors the characters faced? How much of it was a lie? How much did they lie to themselves? I did have a good idea before the end, and yet it still managed to surprise me. It was very well done, and it makes perfect sense when you read the final notes from the author at the end. It truly is a horror in many ways.

My only complaint was the too neatly tied up ending. I feel like there was a lot of room to show that not everything ends happily, even when you try really hard. But maybe it’s better this way.

Overall, I really enjoyed the weirdness and even though not everything was answered and there were strange choices along the way it was a great book!

Thank you to NetGalley and Random House Publishing for the review copy!

4/5

This was a fun and thrilling read, full of killer mermaids and a boat packed with scientists with very little self preservation instincts. It was almost comical how everything that could go wrong did go wrong.

I did enjoy the amount of research the author put into making the mermaids feel believable, and sprinkling in pieces to tie in real biology in ways that it almost felt plausible that they could live in the deep dark parts of the ocean.

The characters also felt very real and interesting, each with their own reasons for joining the crew but also flawed in their own way. There were many of them, almost too many, but they were all well done.

The thing I did not like though was that omniscient narration. It felt very jarring for me to head hop so much with no warning. I got confused many times as to whose head I was in all the way through the book. It worked in some sections but overall it was a bit of a struggle to keep shifting my mental image so much.

Overall though it was a fun read, even with a slower start and possibly going on longer than it needed to, I still enjoyed it quite a bit.

4.5/5

There was something about this book that was just so incredibly captivating. Something about how the mystical was woven through the mundane and slowly ramped up throughout the story. I really enjoyed the amount of detail put into everything, starting from the historic cinematography references all the way to audio technician work during the era, it was just all so rich and I really loved it.

The characters were both so good as well, each with their own troubles and hardships but still close friends through both good and bad. I loved the interwoven story and the progression of them understanding more and more what they have stumbled into.

The magic as well was just so interesting and strange. I wasn’t sure how well it would work in such a grounded novel and there were some instances that may have been a bit too much but overall the mysticism was well done.

Overall I really enjoyed it and will certainly be looking out for more books by Silvia!

Thank you to NetGalley and Random House Publishing for the review copy!

2.5/5

Going into the book I had high hopes. Folk horror is such a cool sub genre and the book promised a really cool story. However I was a bit disappointed by the end.

The story centers around Anna, an outsider looking to find herself a new home in a town nobody really knows about, which was a great premise. Things go wrong right off the bat and immediately we are plunged into a town full of mystery and strangeness and I would have loved for this to be expanded upon much further. Instead the story seems to go way too fast and too slow at the same time. Friendships are made within hours and characters are introduced but then never really expanded upon before rushing into the next thing.

I felt like the pacing was very off the whole time, especially the beginning and end. The middle was where things shined the most as the world came much more alive. There were some great vivid and creepy scenes I really enjoyed, only to be then diminished by stilted dialogue or a poorly placed joke.

I wish there was more time spent on exploration and learning rather than being whipped about and getting info dumped on us. I also wish we were given more time to understand for ourselves how to feel rather than being told directly by the story.

Overall though I did love the Whispers and the strangeness of the other world. The description of the creatures were great and I loved the eerieness they brought. I think there is some great potential there, it just felt a bit too rough in its current state.

Thank you to NetGalley and Flame Tree Publishing for the review copy.

3.5/5

The Ghost in Bone was a great fast paced and light read. It’s perfect for someone who wants a fun paranormal mystery with a snarky main character and a range of various characters from a ghost to a succubus.

I do wish that we spent more time with the other characters overall. Things went so quickly that some felt to have very little time, but I assume if you had read the previous books of the series they would have been bigger parts of the story.

The book was described as a good entry point in an ongoing series and I would say I wish there was a bit more. We tended to get a brief description and backstory which was alright but felt not super fleshed out along with the brief character appearances.

I also wish there was just more to bite into overall. The world seems very interesting, a blend of current day and paranormal, but that was very little in actually fleshing it out further. Lots of scenes as well felt rather rushed with a focus on conversation rather than grounding it into a real space giving me the vibe of not really knowing where things took place. The magical aspect was also super intriguing but sparsely used, and I really just wanted to see more of it!

Overall though it was a quick and fun read!

Thank you NetGalley and Subterranean Press for providing me with the ARC.

3.5/5

The book follows a split timeline between the present and the fiction novel written by Maggie’s father. The similarities between the stories are probably the most interesting bits and I was very interested in seeing how the events unfold despite being set apart by many years. However there was something about how the story was written that kept me from being fully immersed. It felt like instead of letting me make my own conclusions and judgments I kept being told hold to feel, which really took away from the experience.

There were some truly creepy parts that I thought were so well done, only to be followed by something that would feel unoriginal and almost cliche. I really wish it would have gone deeper into the unknown rather than rely on generic tropes.

I especially thought that having a real explanation of the events by the end ruined the real magic. However it was still a decent read overall especially when you want something more familiar.