Slasher Girls & Monster Boys: A Short Story Anthology

This is it, the impossible has been achieved. I have actually found a 5 star anthology!

I had hoped I would love this book. One of my favourite Booktubers gave it high praise and everyone knows I love my short stories, especially horror. What I didn't expect it to actually love it as much as I hoped I would. I honestly didn't think it was possible but here we are. Slasher Girls & Monster Boys is a wonderful collection of horror short stories and every single one ended up being something I enjoyed.

Don't get me wrong, I don't want to overhype it. A realistic review is probably 4 or 4.5 stars but this was catered so well to my personal tastes that I felt like I had to give it 5. I read it entirely in one day and the variety in it is astounding. The overall tone of the anthology manages to be remarkably consistent though which is so nice to see. Usually with anthologies every writer has a different voice, and while I think each author probably has different strengths, in this book you could tell me they were all written by one person and I would believe it.

Onto the stories themselves-I think almost every (if not every) story is supernatural in some way which normally isn't my jam but it definitely works here. It's YA horror so it manages to be incredibly creepy without any weird sexual horror. There is sadly a bit of vagueness or ambiguity in some of the stories which I am not a fan of. For some reason authors seem to think they can get away with being confusing in horror short stories and it very rarely works for me in a positive way. However, I did genuinely enjoy every story and none of them felt dramatically weaker than the others, even if I ended up liking them less. If I had to pick some favourites, I would have to go with 'The Girl Without a Face', The Flicker, The Fingers, The Beat, The Sigh' and 'Hide and Seek'. The weakest were probably 'Fat Girl with a Knife' and 'Emmeline'. Even then, there were no stories I actively disliked.

Honestly I would definitely recommend checking this anthology out. If you like horror, there is so much creativity and talent to be found here. I will be checking out books from every single one of these authors (to be fair, most are on my TBR list anyway) and I wish there could somehow be a sequel to this anthology.

Overall Rating:

This I Would Kill For by Annie Buist

I received an ARC from NetGalley and publisher Legend Press in exchange for an honest review.

I am so pleased I requested this book! I don't think I have ever read a book similar to this and I was pleasantly surprised. I didn't realise it is the third in a series and while it is one of those detective-type series where you don't have to read the ones before it, there were still some rocky elements at the start which it took me a while to adjust to. However, after that I was completely hooked.

This I Would Kill For is a book about a forensic psychiatrist who is asked to determine whether or not a child is being abused by their stepdad. The child's parents are separating and both of them want custody, even though neither is an ideal parent. This premise is handled brilliantly with the plot swerving you so at first you side with one parent, then you begin to doubt them and then even more doubt is introduced until you feel as uncertain as the main character. It really did keep me invested in the story and I read it very quickly to try and find out what was going on.

Speaking of our main character, I adored Natalie. She is one of the most fleshed-out protagonists I have read about in a while and I loved that her personal life actually made up a fair bit of the plot. She was very likeable and her attitude towards the case went a long way in adding to the tension of what decision she would make. You really felt for her as a character. It was also nice to read about someone who isn't a police detective for once (and I don't just say that as a Psychology student).

There were unfortunately just a few niggles which stopped me giving this 5 stars. As mentioned, the opening was a bit clunky for me and it took me a few chapters to work out what was going on. The ending also wasn't the best and it let the story down a little bit. Finally, I'm not sure the author understood how Twitter works? It seemed like everyone Natalie interacted with on Twitter turned out to be someone she knew in real life which...yeah no, the internet is a big place.

Overall, I would definitely recommend this book and I am planning on seeking out the others in the series. If you want an engaging thriller which is a little different from the typical abduction/murder/domestic breeds, then you should definitely give this a try. I can't wait to read more from this author.

Overall Rating:

Fierce Kingdom by Gin Phillips

I listened to this as an audiobook rather than reading the physical copy.

In an attempt to reduce my ever-growing TBR list, I joined my local library and got some audiobooks to listen to. Fierce Kingdom is the first audiobook I have listened to for years and so my opinion of this book is very much shaped by the audiobook experience, so bear that in mind.

Firstly, I would not actually recommend this as an audiobook. The narrator is quite a prolific one it seems but while her normal voice was fine, the voices she gave many of the characters were unbearable. Fierce Kingdom is the story of a mother and her son who get trapped in the zoo when some shooters come. The little boy voice that this narrator does is honestly one of the most irritating things to listen to. Half of my listening experience was just me getting unbelievably frustrated by how stupid and annoying the child was being. I think if I had read this myself, I would still have been as frustrated by the character but the voice certainly didn't help.

Almost all of the tension from this book comes from the child character messing everything up. I know he is a young child and to be fair, maybe he is acting exactly how a real child would. However, I did not enjoy the fact that he refused to be quiet or do anything his mother said. Honestly it made me want the character to die and no book should have me wishing a child would do that.

The narrator also does extremely annoying voices for the two gunmen. I tried reading some of their dialogue in the book and it came across as far more menacing in the written form compared to her inexplicable decision to use whiny teenage voices for everything they said in the audiobook. Again, I know they were meant to be whiny teenagers. But they weren't scary for even one minute due to the fact that every time they opened their mouths, I wanted to punch one of them.

I can't judge the pacing particularly well from the audiobook (it was over 8 hours long and I read at a much faster rate than that myself) but it did seem that not much was going on, particularly early on. The plot itself is pretty gripping though and it definitely gets more interesting later on. I really liked the main character and I cared about her enough that it balanced out my hatred of her son. The other side characters were also really likeable and compelling. The dynamic between Mrs. Powell and Robbie was great, particularly the way that Joan wants Mrs. Powell to suck up to him and then is disgusted when she does. I feel that overall, the author handled a lot of complex emotions and reactions to such a terrifying situation with a great deal of depth and understanding. Nothing the characters did felt particularly unlikely or unrealistic, even if they didn't exactly always act in the best possible way.

As other people have noted, there are quite a few loose ends. If you're the kind of person that needs definite answers, I would probably avoid this book just because it will frustrate you. For everyone else though, I would still say this is worth a read if you like the sound of the premise. Just avoid the audiobook unless you have a high tolerance for annoying children.

Overall Rating:

The Trap by Melanie Raabe

The Trap has the kind of intriguing, meta premise that drew me right in. Unfortunately, it was a little like being trapped into reading it. It is a book about an author writing a book to trap the killer of her sister. The main character is a reclusive author and when she thinks she sees her sister's killer reporting the news on TV, she decides to write a crime book and get that reporter to interview her, hoping that reading a book about the murder he committed will get him to confess.

First of all, I feel I should say that this book is pretty weird at points. It has a strange false-start thing early on where you think something is happening (and something that goes on for quite some time) only to suddenly be told by the narrator that they were imagining how something would play out. This felt like a complete waste of my time and instantly made me wary when I was reading anything else that was going on, in case that also turned out to be not real.

The book unfortunately drags a lot too which is very weird given how relatively short it is. It really doesn't have much meat to the story at all and the pacing suffers massively because of it. I thought I would breeze through it due to the length but it turned out to take me longer than usual because there just isn't much going on. Half the wordcount is taken up by the in-story book that the main character is writing and to be honest, I skipped almost all of those sections. Maybe it would have added some extra depth to the story if I'd done more than skim them but from what I did read, it really didn't seem like it.

Overall, I think this book had the potential to be really great but the author didn't know what to do with the premise beyond the basic idea. There is a throwaway line at the end about how the main character hasn't really written a crime story but a different kind of story (not revealed because no spoiler review) and this was clearly meant to be some clever meta commentary on the actual book. However, it just falls flat because really this book isn't any kind of genre particularly. For a thriller, there aren't enough twists or tense moments. The crime aspect is not focused on, nor are any of the relationships particularly developed.  Even for its short wordcount, this book doesn't deliver on the story and for that reason I can't recommend it.

Overall Rating:

.5

The Death of Mrs. Westaway by Ruth Ware

A new Ruth Ware book? Don't mind if I do!

It is no secret that I love Ruth Ware's writing and I'm pleased to say The Death of Mrs. Westaway is no exception. This book has a very different tone to her other ones but it is no less compelling because of it. There are very strong Rebecca vibes going on here but the thing it reminded me the most of is Agatha Christie.

Don't get me wrong-this is not a first class mystery by any standards. There are some twists in here but the focus is on the atmosphere and characters rather than the mystery itself. If you want to be on the edge of your seat and shocked by the ending, then this is not the book for you. But what I mean by the Agatha Christie comparison is the atmosphere of having a creepy old house, a closed set of characters who are a family and that focus on how each person fills a role within that family, secrets included. It reminds me most strongly of Five Little Pigs-there is that atmosphere of tragedy and everyone knowing the truth but no one speaking it.

While I did love this book, there were a few flaws that stopped it being a 4 star. Like I said, the thriller/mystery aspect is fairly easy to predict past a certain point and I wasn't particularly surprised by anything that happened. I also found the opening fairly slow in terms of getting our protagonist to the house. I understand needing to set up the context but it seemed to pile on a lot of detail that wasn't relevant later on. Finally, I would have liked a little more focus on Mrs. Westaway herself. I didn't need her to play more of a role in the story (being dead and all) but you don't get any detail about her character and it seems weird for everyone in the family to make vague generic statements about her not being nice, then say absolutely nothing else at all.

Rest assured, these are all minor niggles though. I still really enjoyed reading this book and I got through it very quickly (a good sign in a thriller). If you love atmospheric, character-focused tales with brilliant writing and an intriguing setting, you should definitely give this a try.

Overall Rating:

.5

I Never Lie by Jody Sabral

I received an ARC from NetGalley and publisher Canelo in exchange for an honest review.

I am literally so baffled. I genuinely loved reading this book. It is extremely well-written, the characters are interesting and I was definitely invested in the story. So why am I only giving it three stars? Because the only 'twist' of the book is mentioned on the cover and the blurb.

Let me make this clear-I am not going to spoil anything about the plot of this. But both the blurb and the cover hint strongly that Alex (the protagonist) might be the one behind the serial killings. The very possibility of this is not mentioned until well over 80% of the way through the book and I am dumbfounded. Again, I am not saying for definite whether Alex is behind it or not and therefore am not going to spoil the ending. But the fact that she may be behind it is treated as a twist in the plot and it's so stupid when it's mentioned on the cover and in the blurb!

If it weren't for this one major flaw, I would absolutely be giving this book 4 stars. Alex is a developed and fascinating protagonist, the side characters all feel like they could be real people and the general plot is very good. I've read thrillers about journalists and I've read thrillers about alcoholics before but Sabral's writing style means that it all feels pretty fresh and new.

There's also a pretty major editing mistake in one of the 'Dear Diary' chapters. The mystery POV character describes crushing a mouse and then a few sentences later, talks about squashing a fly instead. This was very distracting as it was clearly a fly in the original draft and was changed to make it more dramatic.

Overall, I would still recommend this book for a good read but don't expect to be surprised by anything. It's not the kind of thriller with a lot of twists (or any twists really) which is such a shame because it could have been so much better.

Overall Rating: