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I should have listened to many low-rated reviews of this book. It's obvious the author wanted to come off profound, incorporating inane life events, horrifically realistic dialogue (with LOTS of repeated words, hesitations, and misused vocabulary), and pointless images into what appears to be a proper mystery. Put simply, the book is pretentious and bloated for the sake of "art". Chalk this up to another disappointing ergodic novel. (Will I ever find one as interesting and compelling as House of Leaves? Who the hell knows.)

The idea of history being used as political propaganda is fascinating. The prose was well constructed and the narrator had plenty of character. But nothing really happened, at least nothing compelling or properly fleshed out. This could have been more interesting with a deeper dive into the linguistics, architecture, art history, literature, and geography that the professors were experts in.

A horror novel about how alt right media is a major problem and brings forth societal terrors? Yeah, sounds cool. A horror novel written by an author who names the problematic organization Fax News without flinching? That kind of blatant, unabashed "gimme" annoys the living shit out of me. This book immediately devolved into "Look at those crazy people! They must be possessed by literal demons." I don't have time for boring, overdone "satire" that has nothing to do with nuance and everything to do with ridiculing those you disagree with--and I say that as someone who disagrees with everything that comes from the alt right.

Chuck Tingle never disappoints. Lucky Day is full of highly unlikely but definitely possible body horror. When it's gory, it's a macabre Rube Goldberg machine reminiscent of a Final Destination installment. But it's not just about displaying crazy, blood-filled sequences. It's also about the chaotic, fucked-up events of our daily lives and how we view our simultaneously insignificant and profound existences. It's about staring down the absurd, twisted, unfair, and horrific aspects of life and determining that life is worth living because the bad is balanced out by beauty, love, joy, and miraculous coincidences.

I recommend this novel to anyone who grapples with existential dread or has ever believed their life was pointless or inconsequential.

Thank you to Tor Nightfire and NetGalley for the ARC.

I'll admit to being disappointed. Despite having low expectations from the go, I was left with the nagging sense that I wasted my time. I wanted something compelling, interesting, or shocking to happen. I didn't get that, and 80% of the book is summed up in the back cover blurb. Hannah was obnoxious and narcissistic, William was bland, and the true killer is so obvious that it was difficult to care about anything that happened. All in all, it's a book best avoided.

There were far too many prose red flags in the opening chapter--like mentioning her dead brother four times in a handful of pages and the MC suddenly realizing why the postcard she's had for FIVE YEARS weirds her out because she just so happens to take a magnifying glass to it the first instance the reader is introduced to the image. Not worth the slog through poor writing decisions.