Little Darlings by Melanie Golding

I received an ARC of this book thanks to Net Galley and publisher Crooked Lane Books in exchange for an honest review.

Ooh. Normally I am not a fan of thrillers where you don't know whether something mystical is happening or not. However, with Little Darlings it really works. This is the story of new mum Lauren who, after giving birth to twins, starts to really struggle with motherhood and finds changeling stories filling her mind. Her husband Paul is not as helpful as she'd hoped he would be and it culminates in Lauren being convinced her babies have been swapped with fairy alternatives. To get them back though, she must make a dark decision...

This is a fairly straightforward story for a thriller but honestly that is one of the book's greatest strengths. The whole time you are guessing whether there is a mundane explanation for Lauren's beliefs or whether perhaps something magical has occurred. The book never loses focus of this key element and as a result, it is a tightly-wound and atmospheric read. You're kept at a slight distance from most of the characters but again, it really works. Can you trust Lauren's perception as our narrator? Is her husband just selfish or is he up to something more sinister? The detective character adds a much-needed outsider viewpoint and her thoughts mirror that of the reader's. It all adds up to a great reading experience and Golding clearly has writing talent.

I will not give anything away about how the story ends or whether the book crosses into full-fledged fantasy or not, but rest assured that the ending is both satisfying and excellently built to. This is a fantastic debut novel from Golding and I will definitely be keeping an eye out for her future work. If you enjoy thrillers that slowly suck you into their world and deal with some harsh aspects of reality at the same time, I highly recommend checking this out.

Overall Rating:

Odd One Out by Nic Stone

This book!!!

This book has reduced me to a rambling wreck. The first thing I have to say is that I absolutely love it and I want you to go read it right now. This was soooo close to being a perfect read for me. It was 5 stars literally until the last few pages and I was so disappointed by how it ended that I had to knock half a star off just for that. Having said that, this is one of the most important and well-crafted books I have ever read and I literally think every teenager should at least try to read it, if not every person.

Let me backtrack a little. This is the story of two best friends, Coop and Jupiter. At the start of the book, Coop is crushing hard on Jupiter who is quite vocally and insistently a lesbian. They have a very intense and intimate friendship which confuses a lot of people. Then through Rae into the mix. She initially identifies as a straight girl but as she is welcomed into this intense friendship group, finds herself crushing on Coop and Jupiter. And they're both crushing on her.

The way this book handles the queer elements is beyond my highest expectations. At the start, I was worried Coop would be unlikable and problematic. Not the case at all thanks to fantastic writing and characterisation. Similarly, Jupiter does some pretty shocking things at various points but she remains so understandable and three-dimensional that I couldn't help but like her. This is honestly one of the best portrayals of queer teenage characters that I have found anywhere. I stress 'teenage' because they do act like teenagers and so their actions must be viewed through this lens. I can see some people detesting Jupiter and that might be fair enough, but for me she rang so true of the way a lot of queer teenagers might worry and think about things. Rae was just super likable and also raises some good points about how someone can be questioning and the guilt and complexities surrounding that. Her section rang particularly true to me as I have recently identified myself as demisexual and am experiencing attraction to women for the first time. I have many queer friends and for the longest time, I was afraid to say anything in case they thought I wasn't 'queer enough' or just jumping on the bandwagon.

The ending...I won't spoil it but I had a perfect ending in mind and alas, it didn't end that way. Normally I wouldn't mark a book down for that alone but because it did such a good job handing some complex queer questions and issues, I really wanted it to tackle one particular thing. HIGHLIGHT FOR SPOILERS The book seemed perfectly set up to have all three protagonists enter a polyamorous relationship with each other. Instead, Rae gets shafted and pushed to one side in my eyes. Things end positively but I don't understand why polyamory wasn't considered given that all three are attracted to each other and have such a strong bond. Polyamory isn't for everyone but it really was an ideal solution in this case and it's a missed opportunity in my eyes.

Despite this, I still very much love this book. Nic Stone is swiftly becoming one of my favourite authors and I love how she is able to cover something like this so intelligently and with so much life woven into the characters. I cannot recommend it more and I hope you will give it a try.

Overall Rating:

.5

The Heartbreaker by Mark Young

I picked this collection up on a whim through my Kindle Unlimited subscription and I am very glad I did! At first I was a little worried when I started because the first story is not really horror at all and I'm not much of a sci-fi/fantasy person. Thankfully the rest are primarily horror. As per usual with my anthology reviews, I will go through each story and my opinion of it.

The Heartbreaker-This was not a great start to the anthology, mainly because it's much more of a sci-fi/action story. This is about a soldier who gains a mysterious power and wakes up in a facility after an accident. Not really what I was expecting and so I didn't enjoy it much.

Black Mist-This was a surprisingly deep story about a young girl who has been abused by her stepdad and gets the chance for mystical revenge. It felt on the cusp of problematic with some of the details, but this was one of the stories with the characters I was most invested in and I couldn't predict where it was going.

Curse of the Dreamweaver-This was a solid little fable about a footballer who doesn't appreciate what he has in his life. It's predictable and a little confusing in its description near the end. It also had some imagery that made me feel physically sick which wasn't great. However, it told a good story and there was some interesting stuff happening.

The Artist-This is about an actress who catches the eye of a mysterious man who decides he wants to paint her. It was fairly predictable but told well and had some nice elements revolving around the main character being an actress.

Let's Not Talk About Kevin-A boy named Kevin has been chained up by his family. This story has an interesting start and subverts expectations but it felt a bit lacking? I wanted more detail about what had happened to Kevin and less of the repetitive action sequence it ends with. I feel like this story had more to tell.

Heavenly Waters-A man goes fishing and encounters a mermaid. Sexy times ensue followed by horrific times. A fairly linear plot but it doesn't suffer for this. The sexual elements are...interesting.

The Good Boy-This was about a man whose son has gone missing. His wife claims to be visited by their son's ghost and tells him to go search a cave for him. Again, there was a little confusion in the details of what was happening but it had a cool premise and a creepy atmosphere.

Living With Your Parents Can Be Murder-Did not like this story. It's about a 42 year old man living with his parents and he has like a devil on his shoulder talking to him the whole time. There were no surprises and the ending was abrupt and weird.

The Vanished-A boy who is bullied accidentally wishes away the entire world except him and his bully. I feel like this could have been better than it was but again, it was a little weird in the execution. It's low on horror elements but it was more my speed than the first story.

The Unforgiving-This one was really cool. This is about a man and his son, and the dad was responsible for bullying someone to death when he was a child. He's experiencing guilt from that in the present day so he goes to talk to his dad about it but creepy stuff starts happening from there. A lot happened in this story and it was all so interesting and hard to predict. It felt like it had enough detail to be fleshed out into a full book, compared to some of the others which are more like snippets of horror.

Gone-Oh god, this one is weird. A man gets bitten by a mosquito and then...stuff happens. Very gory and full of disturbing details, but also it doesn't go where I expected it to which was a nice surprise. Perhaps the weirdest story which is saying something.

The Diary of Ethel Edie Browne-A woman moves into her new house and discovers an old diary with dark secrets. The characters in the present day were very odd-acting but the diary part was compelling and I really liked where the story went, even though it used something I'm usually not a fan of.

Protege-A man goes to interview someone and bad things happen. This was a really good story to end on and has some genuinely scary/disturbing moments in it. This was probably the story closest in tone to a modern horror movie.

So overall, this is a good little collection of horror stories. The writing style is decent and straightforward which is how I like my horror. There is a fair amount of gore, some sexual content in certain stories and also gross-out stuff (which I am particularly sensitive to and so found difficult to read). I would recommend checking this out if you're looking for some short horror to devour quickly. There are definitely some gems in here.

Overall Rating:

.5

The Stranger Inside by Laura Benedict

I received an ARC of this book thanks to Net Galley and publisher Mulholland Books in exchange for an honest review.

Oh boy, this was a rough read. And it started off so promising! The Stranger Inside is about what happens when a woman comes home from a long break to discover someone else is living in her house. That alone is a great thriller premise but unfortunately that's pretty much the only great thing about this book.

A lot of other reviews have complained about the main character, Kimber, being incredibly unlikable. This actually didn't bother me much because a) I don't think anyone deserves horrible things to happen to them and so I have a high tolerance for terrible people in thrillers, and b) Kimber was so flat that she didn't have much of a personality for me to dislike. I just could not understand her actions at any point. From the very first chapter, the way she reacts to someone being in her house is just..off.

There is also unfortunately a serious case of the plot only happening because certain people act like morons. Pretty early on Kimber discovers something which could get the stranger out of her house. Does she tell the police? Nope. Instead she keeps it to herself and decides to investigate and continue not being allowed to live in her house. I understand curiousity but what she knows about the stranger isn't intriguing enough at this point for her to want to investigate further. From that point onwards I was just frustrated because everything could be stopped if only Kimber went to the police with what she knew.

The other major problem is that this book really dragged for me. This is a combination of poor pacing, a dull protagonist and a really weird way of doing plot reveals. One spoiler-free example goes like this: Kimber finds out the name of the stranger in her house. A flashback chapter then reveals who that stranger is in regards to her life. Then in the present day, Kimber finds out who that person is through a friend. Then another character tells her who that person is. Then she finds evidence to confirm who that person is. Then another character tells her who the person is. This is the same bit of information talked about again and again with no new details, and we have to sit through characters talking about stuff we already know.

The ending as a whole was a mess. There is one very weak 'twist' which you actually again, get told earlier on through narration. This basically amounts to Kimber going at one point 'Hmm, that mysterious person reminds me of X. But that's silly haha.' and then at the end, 'Omg, that mysterious person is X! Who could have seen this coming?'. I came dangerously close to not finishing reading this and I skimmed the end as a result. The final few pages hold another 'twist' which just erases a pretty major thing and it's about as awful as that sounds.

I really don't feel good when I dislike ARCs that I've requested but sadly, The Stranger Inside just did not do it for me. If characters really aren't important to you and you don't mind not being surprised by a thriller, then you might get more enjoyment out of this than I did,

Overall Rating: