In my last “What I’ve Been Reading” post, I wrote a more in-depth review of The September House by Carissa Orlando. Doing so was great because it gave me a chance to go into detail about why a story works for me; but it also meant I wasn’t able to write about the other books I’d been reading. So here we go:
The Last Ronin by Kevin Eastman and Peter Laird
This one was fueled by nostalgia for me. I was a kid when the first comic book and the movie came out and I loved playing Ninja Turtles with my friends. Even now, for people my age, I think you can tell a lot about a person based on which turtle they identified with most. Can you guess which one was my favorite?
The story was also tragic, the last Turtle, now a ronin without a family, fighting only for revenge. But after reuniting with April O’Neil, the last Turtle (I won’t spoil who, because that’s the reveal of the first chapter), and her daughter, he finds meaning through family once again.
The art is awesome, colorized now, but still in the same style as the original comic, which I read in black and white. If you were or are a Turtles fan, you will probably enjoy this book as much as I did.
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The Final Girl Support Group by Grady Hendrix
After reading How to Sell a Haunted House several months ago, I asked for more Grady Hendrix books for Christmas. And he has not disappointed me yet.
Written with the conceit that slasher movie franchises were inspired by real-world events, the story focuses on the Final Girls of those events and how they cope after unimaginable, repeated tragedy. Now, a new killer is stalking Lynette and her support group of other Final Girls. Once a Final Girl, always a Final Girl, Lynette manages to outwit and outpace the killer until a twist reveals that she trusts the wrong person.
This story was like reading a slasher movie, as well as a meta commentary on the genre. Hendrix is quickly becoming my favorite writer both through his original ideas and the quality of his writing.
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The Eyes Are the Best Part by Monika Kim
I received this book for Christmas from my partner, and after I read it, I said thank you all over again. I am on a streak of reading good, enjoyable horror that I hope never ends.
Ji-Won’s father has left the family, leaving her Umma despondent and on the verge of suicide. But when her mother takes up with George, a white man who fetishizes Asian women and culture, Ji-Won feels a rage growing in her. At once a story of family tragedy and a cannibal serial killer’s origin, this story will leave you hungry for more.
(Sorry, that was corny as hell, but I couldn’t resist.)
I considered doing another in-depth review of this story because it was that good. I highly recommend this one!
The Bicycle Diaries by David Kroodsma
I received this as a Christmas gift from a dear friend, who had bought it as a Book Blind Date. She saw bikes and climate science and immediately thought of me.
Kroodsma was able to combine his personal dream of riding from Palo Alto to the southern most tip of South America with his career as a climate scientist. Along the way, he gives lectures, interviews, and appeared on local television news, perhaps learning more than he was teaching as he went.
It’s an enjoyable read, not repetitive like other bike travel books I’ve read, probably because it focuses more on climate science that on the act of riding a bike. But there’s not necessarily a throughline that compels me to continue reading. I sit with my coffee and read a chapter or two some mornings, and on other mornings, it just sits on my coffee table.
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Horrorstör by Grady Hendrix
As I said above, Hendrix is quickly becoming my favorite modern horror writer. This is the third book of his that I’m reading in under a year.
Amy works for Orsk, a furniture store modeled after Ikea. Mysterious calamities beset the store, so Basil, her manager that she despises, enlists Amy and another coworker to pull an overnight shift to figure out what’s going on. But the mysteries accumulate and turn sinister and Amy and her coworkers might not make it to dawn.
A seriously brilliant idea to set a haunted story in a store that I’m honestly a little (okay, a lot) jealous that I didn’t think of, being a denizen of the retail industrial complex myself. I know I’m enjoying the hell out this one because I need to stop myself reading at night so I can get some sleep and be up early for work.
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The Last to Leave the Room by Caitlin Starling
I bought this for myself for my birthday, which happened to fall on Independent Bookstore Day this year. I read The Death of Jane Lawrence and enjoyed it, so decided to pick this up too. Also, look at that cover art!
The back cover description reminds me of the kind of Gothic doppelgänger stories of Henry James, which I really enjoy, and the distorted perceptions of haunted house stories like House of Leaves. I’m looking forward to reading this one.
The Chimerical Dark 