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Our beloved Eddie Munson ♡

#Q: #tw: blood #eddie munson #gifs #stranger things #film

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“If I am going to spend eternity visiting this moment and that, I’m grateful that so many of those moments are nice.”

— Kurt Vonnegut, Slaughterhouse-Five

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JOSEPH QUINN as EDDIE MUNSON       ⮑ STRANGER THINGS 4 (Vol. I, 2022)

#Q: #eddie munson #gifs #stranger things #film

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"Ronan caught Adam's eye. When Adam's mouth quirked, Ronan's expression stilled for a moment before turning into the loose smile he ordinarily reserved for Matthew's silliness. Adam felt a surge of both accomplishment and nerves. He skated an edge here. Making Ronan Lynch smile felt as charged as making a bargain with Cabeswater. These weren't forces to play with."

--The Raven King, Maggie Stiefvater

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Lucas Sinclair and Max Mayfield in Stranger Things 4 

Chapter Five: The Nina Project

#Q: #max mayfield #lucas sinclair #gifs #stranger things #film

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“Most of us are gifted with the ability to see the monsters hidden within another, but are unable to see past them. It takes a special kind of person to see the light inside of every living being.”

— Lynette Simeone (via quotemadness)

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Her heart stopped. For over a minute. She died […], then she came back. The doctors don’t know how. They say it’s a miracle.

STRANGER THINGS 4 S04E09 | “The Piggyback”

#Q: #eleven #max mayfield #gifs #stranger things #film

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The Inheritance Games by Jennifer Lynn Barnes

"Spoken like a person so rich she can't imagine the weight of problems money can solve."

Year Read: 2024

Rating: 4/5

About: Avery Grambs is living in her car when she gets an invitation to the reading of a will for Tobias Hawthorne, a billionaire she's never met in her life. Why Hawthorne would leave her his fortune is as much a mystery to her as it is to his many furious family members, who now feel cheated out of their inheritance. The catch is that Avery must live with them at Hawthorne House for a year in order to get her money. Tobias's grandson, Jameson, is convinced that the will is a final puzzle from a master gamemaker, but somebody may be playing for blood… Trigger warnings: parent death, classism, manipulation, grief.

Thoughts: This is pretty standard for Jennifer Lynn Barnes, in a good way. I enjoyed her Debutantes and The Naturals series quite a bit, and fans of those will find a lot to like about this (and vice versa). Indeed, it's a little hard to tell Swayer, Cassie, and Avery--the main characters of each series--apart. They're all girls who come from nothing, have complicated relationships with their mothers, and rely on their intellect to get by. Since I very much enjoy this kind of main character, I'm fine with that. I like reading about girls who are smart about things I'll never be smart about.

Truthfully, the mystery fell a bit to the wayside in this one for me. While it's fun to watch Avery and the Hawthornes work their way through the clues, I don't know that the reader (or Avery) ever has all the necessary information required to figure anything out on our own. It means we're more along for the ride than active participants in the game, and it's far more interesting trying to puzzle out the various personalities of the Hawthorne family. There are lot of fascinating main and side characters, and I was never bored. While there's enough thematic closure to be satisfying, it's clear the game is still afoot for the next books.

#book review #jennifer lynn barnes #the inheritance games #ya thriller #ya mystery #4/5 #rating: 4/5 #2024

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Before I Let Go by Marieke Nijkamp

"'It doesn't have to be a happily ever after or happily always. Just a happily once. A happily sometimes. Hope. That'd make our pain worth it.'"

Year Read: 2024

Rating: 3/5

About: Best friends Corey and Kyra grew up together in the small town of Lost Creek, Alaska. When Corey moves away for school, Kyra promises to wait for her return, but just days before her visit, Kyra is found dead beneath the ice. Skeptical that her death was an accident or a suicide, Corey returns to Lost to look for answers, only to find herself ostracized by the town she used to call home. The more secrets she uncovers, the darker the picture of Kyra's last months in Lost, and the more Corey realizes her own life might be in danger. Trigger warnings: character death, suicide, suicidal ideation, abuse, drowning, fire, untreated mental illness, neglect, threats.

Thoughts: I don't know if I would classify this as a mystery/thriller so much as a contemporary drama. While the stakes and tension ramp up toward the end, the novel as a whole is a lot more introspective. It's by no means fast-paced, and I think it's actually a little long for what it is. There's a lot of Corey wandering around Lost Creek, noticing weird things, and reflecting on her friendship with Kyra. The sense of place is strong, and I really felt like we were in Lost, cold and isolated and vaguely threatening. While I enjoyed the message, it's occasionally beaten to death that Corey is an outsider now and this town abused a mentally ill girl.

But it is a powerful message. There's some ambiguity about whether Kyra was actually a prophet or whether she was simply good at observing and the town just interpreted her art that way. While I generally prefer more answers in my fiction, I think that works here. It ultimately doesn't matter whether the magic is real or not. What matters is that Kyra was in desperate need of doctors and medication, and the town denied her treatment to serve their own selfish interests. It's horrifying because it's not hard to imagine it happening in any small town anywhere, and I think the novel's haunting atmosphere will stay with me longer than the details of the plot.

#book review #before i let go #marieke nijkamp #ya contemporary #ya thriller #3/5 #rating: 3/5 #2024

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Heads Will Roll by Josh Winning

"'Listen,' she says, 'this is the best piece of advice I can give. As long as you're kind, and unprejudiced, and haven't hurt anybody: Refuse. To. Be. Ashamed. Wear your mistakes with pride. Look them in the eye and own your space on this Earth. Own it shamelessly, without regret, and no fucker has any power over you.'"

Year Read: 2024

Rating: 3/5

About: After a fateful Tweet that went viral in the worst way, Willow's life is falling apart. She's been fired from her sitcom, her fiancé's left, and the internet as a whole is calling for her head. A retreat to Camp Castaway, where adults who want to put their mistakes behind them and disconnect from their phones, comes at the perfect moment. But Camp Castaway hides a dark history, and when campers start to go missing, it's clear someone wants to cancel all of them… for good. I received a free e-ARC through NetGalley from the publishers at Penguin/Putnam. Trigger warnings: character death (on page, graphic), decapitation, child abuse, gore, cancer, severe injury, addiction, homophobia (countered), strong religious themes, bullying.

Thoughts: This is a perfectly fine adult slasher novel and a nice addition to the genre. Winning doesn't skimp on the gore or the body count, and, not surprisingly, the horror scenes were my favorite parts. They're nicely cinematic and well-paced, as well as a loving (bloody) homage to slasher films of days gone by. There are a couple of powerhouse Final Girls as well, and I especially loved Juniper as the aged, tough Final Girl who takes no shit and offers wisdom to the younger generation. It's harder to get a read on Willow since she's having a bit of an identity crisis, but she's a worthy heroine who always tries to help her fellow campers, even before the heads are rolling. There's also a sweet but complicated wlw romance, representation that still isn't as prevalent in horror as I'd hope.

One of my favorite things about horror and what basically cemented my love for George Romero movies in high school is horror's natural ability to be a vehicle for social commentary. Winning targets cancel culture with Head Will Roll, and one has the sense many influencers would rather be chased through the woods by an ax murderer than be "canceled" on Instagram. Not being much of a social media person myself, it's not an issue that particularly resonates with me, but it's nicely developed throughout the novel. Occasionally, I did feel like the issue was overshadowing the story and the horror a bit, but had I connected more to it, I might not have felt that way. All in all, it's fun, gruesome, and meaningful, as horror should be.

#book review #heads will roll #josh winning #horror #adult ficiton #3/5 #rating: 3/5 #putnam #netgalley #2024

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The Angel of Indian Lake by Stephen Graham Jones

"I used to be all about the final girl standing on top of a pile of the dead at the end of the movie, her face dripping blood, her chest heaving, her eyes fierce. Now I'm all about holding the door of the slasher-proof shelter open, so everybody can duck in, ride this out."

Year Read: 2024

Rating: 4/5

Thoughts: I put this off for a bit because I wasn't ready for the trilogy to be over, and I'm pretty emotional about this horrific, blood-drenched, heartfelt series as a whole--which honestly tells you a lot about me and it. Fans of the first two books will find plenty to love about it, and the character development for Jade throughout the series is really good. I adore her as a main character and a final girl. She's the beating, bloody heart of these books, and I'm excited that she'll live on in slasher history for girls to look up to and see themselves in and celebrate alongside Laurie Strode and Sidney Prescott as peak examples for the genre. There's a lot of her trying to manage her own trauma in this book, which typically isn't something we get to see a lot of in horror. While I felt the narrative was tighter in Don't Fear the Reaper, this one falls back into some of the habits of My Heart Is a Chainsaw, where it sometimes feels like we get a bit lost in her internal monologue at the expense of what's happening. It feels intentional--the very real consequences of a trauma spiral--but as a spectator it's occasionally frustrating.

It's up there with the first two books as far as gore and body count, and I enjoy the fact that no matter how much I know I'm in a slasher, I'm still surprised when the violence explodes out of nowhere from the least expected directions. Jones has a talent for dreaming up horrific mass death scenes, usually not once but several times in a book. The killers are a little all over the place in this one, no looming specter of Dark Mill South to ground the book, but I think it works. It dips into some seriously dark territory at one point, but I like the way it's all pulled together by the end, the lore of previous books coming back to shape this one. While Don't Fear the Reaper is still my favorite (weird, right? way to go all Catching Fire with it), I enjoyed the series a lot overall and will be glad to return to Jade and Proofrock in future rereads. I received a free e-ARC through NetGalley from the publishers at Saga Press.

#book review #the angel of indian lake #indian lake trilogy #stephen graham jones #horror #horror fiction

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House of Roots and Ruin by Erin A. Craig

"This house has always felt full of ghosts to me--not of spirits in white sheets and chains, nothing as cliched as all that--but of memories snatched away. Memories I'll never be able to claim as mine."

Year Read: 2024

Rating: 3/5

Flash Book Review: Atmosphere & Insta-Love

About: Verity is the youngest of the Thaumas sisters. After tragedy took so much of their family, her oldest sister, Camille, has kept her close at the Highmoor estate, but Verity longs for her own life to start. When she receives an invitation from the Duchess of Bloem to paint a portrait of her son, Alexander, Verity flees Highmoor without permission, afraid to see her life pass her by. She's instantly charmed by the beauty of Bloem and its kind future duke, but there are dark secrets beneath the surface of Chauntilalie estate. I received a free e-ARC through NetGalley from the publishers at Random House/Delacorte Press. Trigger warnings: character death (on page), child/parent death, poisoning, fire, violence, severe injury, ableism (countered).

Thoughts: This has a lot in common with House of Salt and Sorrows, as in, it's still recognizably Craig, an atmospheric mix of horror, fantasy, and mystery, with a strong dose of flawless romantic love interests. I think the difference for me came down in the kind of atmosphere. Whereas the first book had spooky ghosts and an ocean aesthetic, this one has lush gardens, plants, and mad science. I'm a ghost girl, not a flower girl, so it's fairly easy to see why I didn't really vibe with this, but that's going to vary from reader to reader. After the initial chilling twist (which, having now read the description, I realize is not actually a twist), most of the ghosts turn out to be helpful rather than spooky.

The plot is a little slow-moving, and there are points where it seems like we're floundering around in the same clues, all of which lead to a pretty obvious conclusion. I do enjoy Craig's flowery (in this case literally) descriptions and the rich cultural fantasy worlds she creates without ever bogging us down in world-building details. I don't find the People of the Petals as interesting as the People of the Salt, but again, that's just a personal preference. Verity is a more naive heroine than Annaleigh, but they're both ruled by their kindness. (In fact, I'm finding it a little difficult to tell Craig's leading ladies apart, if we're also including Small Favors.)

What really threatened the book for me is the romance. While I sometimes enjoy romance as a genre, I tend to not like it as well in my fantasy, and there's just so much of it here. The two leads have an instant connection that's very deep as well as sappy (I'm sorry, don't mind my aro heart), and Verity's instant devotion makes me want to shake her. Girl, you just met him five minutes ago, and you've barely even spoken to another man before this. While I appreciate a disabled love interest (Alex uses a wheelchair after a childhood accident left him paralyzed from the waist down), we're practically beaten over the head with his goodness. Let the man have a flaw. The ending seems to be going for shock value more than logic, and while I didn't love it, I'm interested to see how the consequences play out in the third book.

#book review #house of roots and ruin #erin a craig #sisters of the salt #ya fantasy #ya paranormal #delacorte press #random house #netgalley #3/5 #rating: 3/5 #2024

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“Fairy tales are more than moral lessons and time capsules for cultural commentary; they are natural law. The child raised on folklore will quickly learn the rules of crossroads and lakes, mirrors and mushroom rings. They’ll never eat or drink of a strange harvest or insult an old woman or fritter away their name as though there’s no power in it. They’ll never underestimate the youngest son or touch anyone’s hairpin or rosebush or bed without asking, and their steps through the woods will be light and unpresumptuous. Little ones who seek out fairy tales are taught to be shrewd and courteous citizens of the seen world, just in case the unseen one ever bleeds over.”

— S.T. Gibson (via sarahtaylorgibson)

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They would’ve loved him. Even in the end, he never stopped being Eddie, despite everything.

#Q: #eddie munson #gifs #stranger things #film

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this will forever be iconic

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“May I present my esteemed travelling companion, former cartographer and sometimes Saint: Alina Starkov.”

#Q: #alina starkov #nikolai lantsov #gifs #shadow and bone #film

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Fake Dates and Mooncakes by Sher Lee

"Grief has a way of sneaking up on you when you're least expecting it. A song, a phrase, a scent ... then you're falling into an empty space inside that you thought you'd patched. That you thought could bear the weight."

Year Read: 2024

Rating: 3/5

About: Dylan is determined to win the Mid-Autumn Festival mooncake competition to help save his aunt's failing Chinese takeout. He doesn't have time to fall for someone like Theo, a rich, handsome customer who's worlds apart. When Theo convinces Dylan to be his fake date at an elaborate wedding in the Hamptons, there are sparks of real feelings-- but Theo's distant father will do anything to keep them apart. Trigger warnings: parent death, cancer, drowning, classism.

Thoughts: I was looking for an easy, fluffy queer romance, and that's exactly what I got with this book. There aren't a lot of twists or surprises, nor does there need to be, just a handful of cute tropes popular to romance novels and fanfiction: fake dating (obviously), bed sharing, miscommunication, grand gestures, etc. The writing is passable but doesn't stand out, and despite its short length, the pacing is a bit slow at times, with more focus on what the characters are wearing than advancing the plot. Everything is wrapped up a little too neat and quick at the end, but I'm not going to complain about the happiest possible ending.

The characters are pleasant enough, and Dylan feels quite well-rounded with his dedication to his family and the takeout, his grief over losing his mother, and his goal of perfecting his grandmother's lost mooncake recipe. Theo is a bit blander as the handsome, charming rich boy with daddy issues, but I tend to let that go in LGBTQ+ romances. They deserve all the wish-fulfillment of straight romances. My favorite part of the novel was the crash course in Chinese culture and cuisine we get from Dylan, and it's a lot of fun learning about the different traditions and daydreaming about tasting mooncakes. Fans of the genre will find a lot to like about it.

#book review #sher lee #fake dates and mooncakes #ya romance #lgbtq fiction #3/5 #rating: 3/5 #2024