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:

Dying Truth by Angela Marsons

I received an ARC from Net Galley and publisher Bookouture in exchange for an honest review.

I had yet to read a book by Angela Marsons, although I had heard very good things from her from several people. Unfortunately this perhaps isn't the best book to showcase her talents. This is a perfectly acceptable, fairly interesting crime thriller but I was not blown out of the water by it. The plot starts off quite gripping and I like most of what it does but the biggest problem by far is the writing.

For starters, this book is far too long. It could have easily been condensed without losing anything and that might have helped with me being engaged with the plot. The author also has the annoying habit which I call 'the Goosebumps effect'. That is, often a chapter will end on an artificial cliffhanger, created only by people acting like no one ever has in real life. For example, one point a character says something along the lines of 'And you won't believe what I'm about to tell you'. Who would ever say that? Why wouldn't someone just say the actual thing, especially when both people are part of the police force and working on the same case?

Honestly aside from the writing, there isn't much to fault here. The characters managed to be interesting on the whole, although they all had a slightly unsettling air of apathy to the situation about them. However, if you know you like Marsons' writing then it might be worth checking this out, especially if you are a fan of the series. It hasn't put me off reading her other works and there are definitely some on my list to check out.

Overall Rating:

One Was Lost by Natalie D. Richards

I was so disappointed by this book! I mean look at that gorgeous cover. To be fair, I had forgotten this book was YA going into it so I was expecting more of an actual thriller tone. You can definitely tell that this is a YA book. I also found the first few chapters incredibly hard to get into. Something about the writing style and the way things are introduced is very messy at the start and I was a bit confused until I got settled into it.

Apart from that slight niggle, this really isn't a badly written book in terms of style. The characters were fairly interesting and I was intrigued anytime the story chose to focus on them. Unfortunately, the big weakness of this book is the thriller aspect. I'm not going to spoil anything but the ending is incredibly obvious and it's almost painful how long it takes the main characters to work things out. There are the obvious double-meaning conversations where characters will not say things properly, so the main character will jump to a conclusion which you know as the reader is going to turn out to be false because the conversation was so vague.

The existence of the other camp is a factor I think was greatly underused. It does show up in the plot eventually but only to provide some new suspects, which are promptly abandoned a few pages later. Further exploration of this would have helped the story and potentially made the actual solution a lot less obvious. This also applies to the side characters as well come to think of it. Each character is kind of developed in turn, briefly becomes a suspect and then is pushed to one side. It's a shame because they really had the potential to be interesting characters.

Alas I don't really have much more to say about this book. I may explore other titles from this author because there was nothing wrong with the writing style or the characters, and she may have the potential to write better stuff with a different plot. Sadly the failure of a compelling mystery is too big a flaw for me to ignore.

Overall Rating:

.5

The Retreat by Mark Edwards

I received an ARC from Net Galley and publisher Thomas & Mercer in exchange for an honest review.

I LOVE Mark Edwards. I don't think I've actually reviewed any of his books properly before but I read through all of them about two summers ago. He is one of the few authors where I have consistently loved everything he's done and The Retreat is no different.

For starters, the setting of this book is amazing. I have actually been on a writer's retreat to Wales before and this book captured the creepy atmosphere brilliantly. I also love the basic idea. The main character is a horror writer (whose biggest book is clearly a homage to It) famous for writing about missing children. He accidentally chooses to stay at a place where the woman who runs the retreat had her child go missing. It provides the opportunity for a lot of great character interaction, as well as a solid reason for him to get invested in the mystery.

Before I get too gushy, this book isn't perfect. The story gets a little convoluted near the end, although I still found the ending satisfying. There's also a recurring thing that Mark Edwards does which is he describes female characters somewhat sexually, even when they're not meant to be love interests. It's very minor in this book but I still noticed it to a degree.

On the whole though, I would still very much recommend this book. It has an exciting story and I could not predict where it was going, which was so refreshing. Even if it got a little convoluted, each new hint to the solution was surprising to me and I could not put it down whilst reading it. There are a lot of genuinely creepy moments in here as well, or little atmospheric things which really strengthen the story. Ultimately this is another great book from Edwards and I highly suggest you pick it up.

Overall Rating:

The Good Twin by Marti Green

I received an ARC from Net Galley and publisher Thomas & Mercer in exchange for an honest review.

I was honestly so disappointed by this! So the twin/thriller thing has been done to death and this doesn't exactly have the most original plot. However, that gorgeous cover and the potential for a good story sucked me. After all, I don't really mind how original my thrillers are in premise so long as they keep me entertained. Unfortunately due to a poor writing style, The Good Twin barely did that.

It is ultimately the writing that lets this book down. The characters are very flat and don't feel like actual people at all. It switches between focusing on Mallory and Ben, but Mallory's chapters are written from her POV and Ben's chapters are in third person. This makes for a very jarring reading experience. I can only assume this was done so we could tell who the focus was on without the chapters saying 'Mallory' and 'Ben' all the time, but it's really not a great solution.

You also then get flashback chapters from Charley's POV which don't add much new to the story and you have the whole thing of having to go over events you've already read about. This is a good chunk of the book and it just feels like you're waiting to catch up with the present again. Out of all three of the main characters, Charley is probably the best written but that isn't saying much.

My other major problem with this book is that it swaps plots a fair bit in the standard twisty thriller way. The issue with this is I was far more interested in the story I thought I was getting before the twists happened. I liked the whole 'can I really trust them?' aspect of both Ben and Mallory's interactions, and the same thing at the end part too (not going into detail because I don't want to spoil but it should be clear what I mean if you've read it). The first twist has been done to death in books like this while I haven't really read many books that cover the whole 'can I trust my partner in crime?' thing.

Overall, this book isn't bad enough to really annoy me but it was a bit of a slog to get through. There isn't really anything positive that would make me recommend it. It's passable but there are far better thrillers to pick up.

Overall Rating:

.5

Eleanor & Park by Rainbow Rowell

Okay, so confession time-I was not expecting to like this book. I have actually been avoiding reading this book for several reasons, the main one being that I'm not the biggest romance fan anyway and I'd heard that the romance in this is one of those where all the problems are caused by stupid teen pettiness. This is definitely not the case. Anyway, what finally made me pick it up is we got it in at work in our £1 sale bin so I caved and decided to try it. I was not expecting to love it as much as I did.

So this is a fairly straightforward story of a boy and a girl who meet on the school bus, fall in love and deal with a lot of family drama whilst doing so. I haven't read anything by Rainbow Rowell before and I was not prepared for the beautiful writing style. This is not written like most YA romances-it is definitely not fluff and the characters are more like mini serious adults, only somehow also realistic and not in the least bit pretentious. The problems dealt with in this book are also very real.

I liked both of the main characters immensely. Eleanor is the kind of character who should annoy me. She picks fights with Park when she has no real reason to and her entire style of thinking is very odd and eclectic. However, I felt like I 100% understood her at all times. The strength of this book really comes from the two protagonists. I never had to deal with anything like what Eleanor goes through but I could recognize my teenage self in her all the same. I also really like Park a lot. His storyline is pretty understated compared with Eleanor's but it is made up of brilliant moments. The whole eyeliner bit is brilliantly done, as is his dad stuff. His mum's attitude to Eleanor is another thing I loved. The family is extremely present in this book for both protagonists and again, every single one of them felt like a real person.

There are a few problems with this book but nothing major. As I said, Eleanor does pick fights and I can understand why people would be frustrated with her. There's a whole scene where she gets mad that Park likes her when she wears makeup, although this makes perfect sense when you consider she is probably playing down her femininity to avoid catching her stepdad's eye even more. Understanding Eleanor stopped stuff like that bothering me personally. There are also a ton of weird metaphors or bits of writing which again, I quite liked but I can see how it would be annoying. They all came from Eleanor's POV.

Overall, I am so happy that I decided to read this book. It has definitely become one of  my favourite YA romances and I will be seeking out more from the author. I would highly recommend it if you're looking for a romance which is low on the fluff but high on the emotional connections and character detail.

Overall Rating:

Three Truths and a Lie by Brent Hartinger

SPOILERS AHEAD.

Oh boy. So I admittedly decided to read this book after seeing it on a Booktuber's 'Worst of 2017' list so maybe it's my own fault that yeah, it kind of ended up sucking. To be fair, this book is definitely not the worst thing I've ever read. It's just that the ending...wow.

So this book is about our main character Rob who goes to a cabin in the woods with his boyfriend Liam, Liam's best friend Mia and her boyfriend Galen. Galen gets murdered, they end up stranded in this cabin and then suspicion falls upon everyone. Blah blah blah, pretty standard thriller story.

First of all, the three truths and the lie listed on the blurb are not three truths and a lie. In fact, technically none of them are true? Also I've always played it as 'two truths and a lie' so I can only conclude that the title was changed to have it fit the story and the final twist.

I can't talk about anything else without discussing this ending. So first twist-Liam is behind everything all along. Big surprise. Rob and Liam have only been together for 3 months and yet Rob never suspects Liam once. In fact, he talks constantly about how Liam is his soulmate and acts shocked that he might not know everything about him. In 3 months? Really? By the end of the book, Mia is also dead so there is really only Rob and Liam left, and the book is told from Rob's perspective.

Now the second twist.

Liam and Rob are the same person. Yeah.

You can tell that Hartinger is trying so hard to be clever here. Admittedly, I like that 'Three Truths and a Lie' ultimately refers to three real people, one fake one. But he has this weird scene at the end where a psychiatrist points out to Liam/Rob that Liam and Rob never spoke to each other around other characters and this just reeks of self-congratulatory behaviour on behalf of the author. Like 'look, look how clever I am! See? It's totally not a nonsensical twist at all'.

Also there's another twist with Liam having hated Mia all along (see what I mean about the blurb?) which just makes him seem like the dumbest character ever. He hates her so he deliberately befriends her for years and years just on the off-chance he'll be able to murder her someday. Ah yes, perfect logic there.

I can't be totally unfair to this book. The writing style isn't the worst and I managed to breeze through it. It's just that the plot is so dumb that it overrides everything else. I picked it up out of curiousity but I'm not sure it's even worth that.

Overall Rating: