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These Familiar Walls is a suburban horror set during the 2020 lockdown. Amber and her family move into her childhood home months after her parents' murder. What follows is a dual timeline narrative that centers on her tense childhood friendship with a troubled kid named Nathan and the increasing hauntings of the current day. What transpired in her youth is irrevocably linked to the terrors unfolding in the present.

Dotson writes compelling prose dripping with suspense. Amber, while not the most reliable of narrators, is sympathetic. Nathan, her troubled neighbor, is creepy from his first appearance and only becomes more unhinged and obsessive as the story progresses. I was hooked from the opening chapter and read the novel in two days, but the twist and ending fell flat; I was hoping for something more visceral and thought provoking.

If you enjoy psychological horrors with creepy kids, supernatural happenings, and a protagonist that rides the line between hero and villain, you'll like this one.

Thank you to St. Martin's Press and NetGalley for the advanced copy.

Fforde is a worldbuilding wizard. This dystopian, outlandish novel oozes quirkiness, humor, and hierarchical nonsense while painting a vibrant picture of the Chromatasia. The protagonist, Eddie Russet, begins a life-altering adventure in the Outer Fringes, a place he believed drab or otherwise below his middle-hued status. He meets abrasive Yellows, a feisty Grey, snobbish Purples, and untrustworthy Reds. But what's most exciting is the journey Fforde creates for Eddie. Even when nothing but set building and historical significance seems to unfold, it's hard not to be sucked into the prose.

Shades of Grey is perfect for fantasy lovers and fans of the absurd alike.

I picked this up after someone compared it to Danielewski's House of Leaves. This novel reeled me in with its first contact premise. The graphics and typography are cool but offer little to the already-lacking story. Once I hit the third volume of the eight-part "novella within a novel", I dipped out. While Hughes has a knack for crafting a sentence and designing graphic content, the story was too shallow, meandering, and repetitive for me to power through another 600 pages. It doesn't help that some of the fonts were impossible to read on an e-reader.

I picked this up after skimming similar books and was disappointed by the general lack of content. Most of it could be summed up in a few pages. I stopped reading actively around the 10% mark and skimmed the rest, realizing it's more about creating a space for deep work so you can be another cog in the machine than finding purpose and enjoyment in creating something exceptional by locking in and putting in the hours.

I'd like to note that there's nothing inherently wrong with this classic. Tolkien paved the way for high fantasy and has inspired so many phenomenal works of fiction, from novels to films to tabletop RPGs. But the narrative style of The Lord of the Rings is dry and was difficult to engage with after the hobbits left the Shire. I respect Tolkien and am certain my stories would be vastly different without his influence, but I'd much rather watch the condensed and visually striking films than slog through another thirty hours of text. I understand the draw and loyalty of Tolkien's biggest fans, he simply isn't for me. After struggling through the text for weeks, I finally called it at the 25% mark.

There's nothing revolutionary here. The major takeaway is: Find what's important to you and remove the rest. DNF at 25%