percontaion-points

[percontaion-points]

Delicious Monsters chapters 23 & 24

Today's review might be difficult for some; reader discretion is advised

Click to see the rest of the snark & image descriptions

Click here for the rest of the series!

Chapter 23

“I can’t. I know these things… but if I say exactly what’s going to happen, there’s no changing it anymore. It gets locked in. Warnings are all I have, and you’ve already ignored the biggest one.”

Ah yes, the prophecy curse. We’ve all seen it. 

In case you might not know: it’s the thing where somebody hears a prophecy about themselves, try to avoid it happening, and end up fulfilling the prophecy. 

Example: when Voldemort heard the prophecy about the baby born in the end of July who would destroy him, he went off and killed all of the boys born around that time. However, failing to kill Harry led to his downfall… and Harry survived in order to finish the job. If Voldy had done nothing with what he’d heard, I doubt Harry, Nevil, or any other boy, would have given half as many shits. 

And in that instant I knew that this ability he had was not one he wanted. 

Do you want to see the consequences of people’s bad decisions play out, and be 100% unable to stop them? 

“No one wants to be advised. They don’t want to make better choices. That’s why it doesn’t matter if psychics are real or fake. Everyone just wants to do whatever the fuck they want to do.”

Unfortunately, I feel like this has less to do with his abilities and more about how inherently stupid humanity in general is. 

E.g, I know that the 17 year old high school girl shouldn’t be hanging around with the college-aged boy. I know this because I was once in a similar position. Sometimes, people need to learn the hard way why 17 year olds don’t date 20-somethings. Sometimes, it only takes once. Other times, you need to keep coming back in order to fully understand why this has caused you pain. 

 It was enough to throw me back into memories on a bed, his fingers pressing against my throat so hard that a tear leaked from the corner of my eye. Him panting on top of me while I waited for it to be over.

Holy fucking shit, is that…?

“Because that means it might resist how very delicious it would be to make you scream.”

Chapter 23 summary: As they walk through the halls, Daisy questions King about stuff that he might still be keeping from her. He basically says that telling people about visions of the future will practically ensure that it happens. It’s at this point that Daisy realises that it’s not exactly like King wanted this power. 

They continue on, and eventually get to the door where the first two guests are staying. They hear the woman, Mary, screaming out about a bee inside the room. Then the buzzing grows from a singular “bee” to an entire swarm of them. They heard Mary and Tod pounding on the door, trying to get out. King tries to open the door from the other side, but it won’t budge. Ivy unemotionally tells them that the only way for the house to let them go is if they give up something. 

Daisy runs out, where she flips out about Ivy’s shit behaviour back there. But it’s like… what the hell do you want Ivy to do? Ivy’s exactly like Daisy and King, in that she has supernatural powers. She can basically “communicate” with the house. Much like with King and Daisy’s power, it’s not like she asked for it, nor can she get the house to stop. King is only worried that they’re too late; the house has already claimed its first victims. 

Daisy tells them to leave her alone and runs back to the guest house. However, to her immense surprise, she finds Mary and Tod talking with her mum. They’re checking out, and Grace will be taking them back to the other shore via the boat. Daisy runs off again, only to run back into Ivy. Ivy says that people who give up things to the house don’t remember what happened after. 

They go back into the house, to the room Mary and Tod had been in . There’s nothing out of the ordinary in there. Ivy reminds Daisy that the two of them are more alike than she thinks. But she goes on to say that the house usually feeds on the dead, but it’s gotten a taste for human flesh recently… But not to worry, since it seems to like Daisy. 

Chapter 24

“I’m sorry that I let Robert hit you.” 

That was the one that hooked me. Truly reeled me in. Robert, a man my mom dated from when I was six to ten. He was a guy who believed in corporal punishment. Not just for being bad. For anything. 

For forgetting to say “please.” For not washing the dishes right. For breathing too loud. 

And she let him. She would sit on the couch and say, “If you behaved, then he wouldn’t have to do this.”

I am once again asking where the hell CPS was. Mandated reporters in school? Doctors? LIterally anybody? 

/I also have no idea how CPS works in Canada… Or even what their version of CPS is. 

“Forgotten Black Girls” wasn’t just about the media preferring to highlight a “nice white girl” instead. It was also the girls who everyone expected to fail from the start. Expected that they wouldn’t have a dad. Expected that their moms were struggling alone. Expected that they get poor grades and not achieve because that’s just how it went. And if you lashed out, that was what they expected of your ghetto ass too. Left alone to slip through the cracks. And when you failed, they would say it was your fault. If you succeeded, you were a special case. Not like those other girls. 

Going to leave this right here…

I think of my mom breaking down via voicemail about Robert. She was afraid of him too. What was she supposed to do? But I don’t have memories of her afraid. I can only remember her sitting there, saying it was my fault that he had to discipline me.

It is literally the JOB of an adult to protect children from harm. Both physical as well as psychological/emotional. 

The fact that Brittany’s mum sat there, blaming Brittany for all of the hurt Robert caused, and did nothing to stop any of it… Honestly tells me everything that I need to know about her. 

“She was growing maggots in the goat stomach. Huge, disgusting things.” She shudders. “She wanted to put one in my ear.” 

“She wanted to do what?” Jayden blurts out. 

I can’t say I disagree. “She wanted to put a maggot in your ear?” 

“Yes. She said it would protect me.” 

“From what?” 

Katie twists her hands in her lap. “She was scared. That was when I really understood how scared Grace was. I thought she was fearless, but she wasn’t. She just hid it better.”

I’m sorry, but I feel like I missed something here. How did we get from “she was scared of the house” to “I need a goat stomach” to “putting a maggot in your ear will protect you!”?

“What were you both afraid of?” My voice is so quiet, I’m low-key shocked that I said anything. 

Katie bites her lip and shakes her head. “I’m sorry. I can’t. I thought about telling you ever since you booked me. But I just can’t do that to her. My truth is hers, too. And if I tell it, everyone will know, and she won’t have had a say in it. Grace Odlin was not a good friend to me, but I can’t help being one to her.”

The stupidest thing is that Grace probably wouldn’t hesitate if she thought that there was something in it for her. 

“We can learn the truth.” And I’m ready to make them tell it.

Chapter 24 summary: Brittany and Jayden schlep out to a campsite, where Katie is with her family for the summer. As they drag their gear to where Katie is, Brittany thinks about her shitty mom being shitty. Today’s new wave of “shitty ways to be shitty” is apologising for the abuse she intentionally put Brittany through in dating shitty men who beat Brittany when she was a child! Whee, so much fun! NOT!!

They sit Katie down, and she begins to tell them about how she’d gone to Peter for piano lessons. She hadn’t liked being in the house, but refuses to explain why. During breaks in her lessons, Dione would put out snacks, which Grace and Katie would eat outside. 

Then Katie explains that once, Grace came to them and said that she needed the stomach of a goat. Katie explains that Grace wasn’t unlike a charismatic cult leader, in that she could convince you to do literally anything. But Katie doesn’t think that she meant it in an evil way, but I’m not convinced. This includes helping to slaughter a goat on Helga’s parents' farm. The kids were caught on the new security cameras, because… WTF. Later, Grace was found to be growing maggots from the stomach. She tried to get Katie to put one into her ear. This is never explained, except to hint at that Grace wasn’t mentally well.

Katie also said that after Grace got pregnant, she insisted that the baby would be special because it was conceived in the manor. But she goes on to say that Daisy was insanely troubled, in ways that were difficult for Katie to reach by the time Daisy was in her class. 

Brittany asks about what really happened in the house, but Katie clams up. Says that it’s shared trauma between her and Grace. And despite how shitty that Grace was towards her, Katie is still a better person than that. 

Brittany then says that she has an interview with Dione, before they go to leave. They don’t actually, but their source claims that if they tell Katie that they have an interview with Dione, then Grace will get jealous. And then Dione will get angry and jealous. And then they can put both of them in the same room, and have the interview of the century. But most importantly, they’re eager to uncover the truth of what really happened. 

#delicious monsters #bookblr #book review

[percontaion-points]

Delicious Monsters chapters 21 & 22

Today's review might be difficult for some; reader discretion is advised

Click to see the rest of the snark & image descriptions

Click here for the rest of the series!

Chapter 21

I slammed her door shut and rushed to get ready. There was no premade lunch waiting in the fridge, which wasn’t surprising. It was always like this. There would be promises to make life different, and then something would shift, something I couldn’t see that she could, and suddenly it would be over.

This literally lasted a day.

And you wonder why it is that Daisy is so messed up. 

Instead, I found the goat. 

There wasn’t much else to do but stare. It was quiet. No more bleating. I pulled my phone out of my pocket and texted Mom to not let the guests into the greenhouse. 

[...]

I had zero desire to discuss the goat.

I mean, you can guess what happened. 

But actually telling the readers what happened is for fucking squares, I guess. 

I wished that I had Megan’s version of a bad day. A colder-than-usual shower and messy hair. That would be nice.

Chapter 21 summary: Daisy wakes up the next morning to the sound of the goat screaming, and the sound of the birds flapping their wings really hard. The sound of the birds is really triggering to her, because of what happened a week earlier. She finds that the window blind is open, despite the fact that she closed it last night. And her headphones are out, which she’d never do. But she isn’t too worried about the dead, since they’re all attracted to whatever’s in the main house. 

She tries to get Grace to take her across the lake again, but her mum’s motivation to be a good parent has already ended. Daisy is disappointed but not surprised; how can she when it’s like this every couple of months for the two of them? 

As she starts to walk over to where King lives, she sees that there’s already frost on the greenhouse glass, so she goes inside to turn the heater on. Instead, she finds the goat with its throat slashed (the fact of which we don’t discover until the end of the chapter). 

King meets her outside, and they walk over to his house. After Daisy gets into the car, King’s mum comes over and tells Daisy that she’s welcome at their house anytime. Daisy is pretty sure that she won’t take them up on their offer. 

Her school day is glossed over. After school, King has to do grocery shopping for his family, so Daisy decides that if Grace has stopped being a parent, then she’s going to need stuff for lunch every day. As she’s walking around, she runs into one of her classmates, the most bubbly girl that Daisy could find. This was because the happy classmates keep the ghosts away; not because Daisy wanted to be friends. After chatting with Mackenzie a bit, Daisy continues on and sees Katie. She thinks about how different lives that Katie and Grace ended up leaving… But randomly paints Katie as a loser simply because she chose a different path than Grace did. (Yet Katie is the one with the stable job, in a stable marriage, probably not moving from home to home every few months.) 

As they go to check out, Daisy asks King for his phone, and uses it to stalk Noah’s new girlfriend. He immediately identifies Noah as her ex, and then goes on to say that he can get reads on people. But for some reason, not Daisy or Grace. He picked up a bit of info when she was thrashing around in the thornbush, but that’s about it. Daisy tells him to stop being so fucking creepy, and to mind his own goddamned business. Which is kind of fair, NGL.

Chapter 22

I thought about bringing it up with Mom but didn’t. It would just go down like mentioning the worm had.

Pretty sure Daisy could wake up missing an entire arm and Grace would say “It’s all in your head.” 

I got the distinct feeling that little by little, day by day, Mom’s plan was falling apart.

I can’t even pretend to be surprised about this. It’s like she was expecting easy money, and instead, she’s probably pulling back whatever sort of TRAUMA the house caused her 17 years ago. 

“Why did we buy a goat?” I asked. 

Mom’s expression deflated. “Can you just stay on topic and celebrate with me?” 

I pressed my lips into a line. 

“Goat’s milk is good for you.” Mom got her information from a variety of sources, none of which she could accurately cite.

There is literally no way that the ownership and maintenance of a goat (plus the cost of properly pasturing the milk so that you don’t get sick) is somehow less than the cost of going and getting a jug of goat milk from the store. 

But I’m going to file this under “suspicious shit Grace will not stop doing” and move on. 

There was no way the dead in that house wouldn’t eventually create problems. Not to mention, the house must be drawing them in for a reason, and I didn’t think I was wrong to assume that it wasn’t something innocent.

Daisy has already told us that the dead are drawn to misery. Something terrible happened in that house… And judging by Brittany’s chapters, the worst is yet to come. 

She pushed her sunglasses onto the top of her head. “Here we go.”

Chapter 22 summary: Helga and Joe came over and butchered the goat for them. Later, when Daisy tries to ask Grace why she even got a goat, her mom is like “Goat milk is good for you!” without further explanation. I said what I said. Grace is more focused on how popular that the Airbnb is getting than over literally anything else. 

However, as her mum goes to leave, Daisy has a sinking feeling that things aren’t half as good as Grace is making them seem. She knows that no matter what happens, Grace is going to blame her for all of this. 

After Grace leaves for her MYSTERY ERRANDS, Daisy meets up with King and Ivy so that they can go into the main house. In there, Daisy has to move away to avoid being touched by a ghost, and King asks her about it. He also asks about his great aunt who died nearby. But Daisy says that only those unsatisfied in life would linger for so long. But even those would eventually pass over. 

King explains to her that the house, when working correctly, is supposed to attract, trap, and release all of the nearby spirits. His great aunt was drawn to the area, and made a blood pact with the land in order to help keep this running. However, they need the homeowner’s permission to do a “factory reset” on the house. Which they really need to do, since the house is currently only trapping the dead, but not sending them on to the afterlife. 

The three of them start to look around the house after that. King refuses to split up, calling it, and I quote, “White people bullshit.” He’s not wrong. 

#delicious monsters #book review #bookblr

[percontaion-points]

Delicious Monsters chapters 19 & 20

Today's review might be difficult for some; reader discretion is advised

Click to see the rest of the snark & image descriptions

Click here for the rest of the series!

Chapter 19

“I need you to listen to me, Daisy. Really listen to me. We can’t have any more unpredictable things like what went down the other day. That shouldn’t have happened at all. That wasn’t in the plan.”

Why do I get the feeling that a plane could have literally crashed on top of Daisy, and Grace would still find a way to blame it on her daughter?

I wondered now if she had experienced anything like I had inside the house. If that’s why she was avoiding it. 

Again, why the fuck did she take the house if that’s the case?

 I could count on several fingers the times when Noah had cut off contact because he was upset with me.

Girl, that should have been your first clue to run. 

“You can’t control me.” 

“I’m not trying to control you. I’m trying to give you advice. If you wanted to go skating, and I told you the ice was too thin for that this time of year, would you go just because you thought I was controlling you? Or would you figure that, living here all my life, maybe I know a thing or two about ice thickness and was trying to help?”

 I squished down farther in the seat. When he put it like that, it made me look like some impulsive and reckless person who did the opposite of what people said for the sake of it.

I am once again stating that telling people “Don’t go into the house!” without actually telling them why isn’t exactly going to convince them to stay out. 

Every single person in Daisy’s life has completely and utterly failed her. Every single one of them. 

“I mean, why would you want to go inside?”

WHY THE FUCK WOULDN’T YOU?!

The house now belongs to Daisy’s mum; she’s fucking living there! Every single person tells her not to do it, but can’t be arsed to actually tell her why! 

“My mom and aunts want your mom’s business to fail because of how dangerous that place is.”

From the perspective of Grace, that has “lawsuit” written all over it. 

Note: I have no idea how the Canadian justice system works. 

I traced my fingers across the scratches on my face. I was doing a bang-up job already.

Chapter 19 summary: A week passed following Daisy falling, and the start of her first day of school. Grace is weird about the incident, and randomly seems to blame her daughter for the accident. Like yes, Daisy probably should have stayed on the path, and paid more attention to what was (not) under her feet. But at the same time… She literally fell off a cliff, JFC. 

Anyway, it’s her first day of school, but also the first guests are coming to stay at the main house. Grace takes Daisy across to drop her off, but also to meet up with the guests. 

King agreed to take Daisy the rest of the way to school, and the first half of the trip was spent in stony silence. He finally asks her why she went into the house, and then is kind of angry and disappointed at her. Yet he continues to refuse to explain why she shouldn’t have done it. He eventually tells her that he only warns people once, and then it’s kind of on them if they do the stupid thing or not. Which… I get it. But he’s being such a sanctimonious shitweasle about the entire thing. Again, without giving any sort of reason for his behaviour. 

Inside the school, Daisy is surprised to find out that King is kind of popular. He calls her out on her questioning this, though. They both agree that they aren’t interested in the other romantically. He then drops her off at the front office and leaves. 

Chapter 20

“How are your teachers?”

 “Fine… Why?” 

“Just making sure. Not everyone who works with children should.”

I get that there are people who probably shouldn’t be working with children, or anywhere near a school, full-stop. (Not simply for paedophile reasons.) 

But this is simply such an odd thing to say. 

“How are your teachers? Are any of them PAEDOPHILES?!” 

I wondered now what sort of friend Katie Kuru had been to Mom. And how she knew to be afraid of the house.

Chapter 20 summary: We mercifully skip over to the last class of the day, which is biology. After class is over, Mrs. K asks that Daisy stay behind for a second while the other kids leave. Once they’re alone, Mrs. K asks if Daisy is Grace’s daughter, and goes on to explain that she used to hang out with her mom and dad back in the day. She gives Daisy her phone number and asks that she pass it on to Grace; that Grace should call her, and they can have dinner sometime. Mrs. K is also surprised to hear that they’re living at the mansion. 

Grace picks Daisy up from the dock, and asks how her day at school was. As mentioned, she asks in such a bizarre way. Then Grace gets upset when Daisy tells her about Mrs. K, whom Grace identifies as Katie. Grace is of the opinion that Katie is a “summer friend”, and that you’re supposed to lose touch with them after the summer is over. Which Daisy thinks is utter bullshit. But Daisy also thinks that the reason why Grace keeps these sort of people separated in her head is because she felt like she could confess her deepest sins to them, and then move on after the summer was over. 

#delicious monsters #bookblr #book review

[percontaion-points]

booty shorts that say ASK ME ABOUT THE BOOK I'M READING on the ass

[percontaion-points]

Lord of the Rings fanart! I watched for the first time recently and loved it

[percontaion-points]

Delicious Monsters chapters 17 & 18

Today's review might be difficult for some; reader discretion is advised

Click to see the rest of the snark & image descriptions

Click here for the rest of the series!

Chapter 17

Mom didn’t want that cleansing, and I didn’t think it would work anyway, but he knew something more about the house than I did. He might talk. Mom wasn’t going to give me any details. She wanted to avoid it.

The stupidest thing about Grace’s behaviour is like… Why did you come and take the house if you’re going to be this weird about it?

Noah once said that he didn’t even speak to his high school friends. That his real friends were at university. I’d wondered if, when he was done with school and a full-time adult, he would be saying he didn’t even speak to his university friends and that his real friends were at work.

To be fair, I’ve met people like that. They’re quick to burn bridges, no matter what. 

They’re usually never worth your time in the long-run. 

I still don’t know why Daisy’s so hung up over this asshole. 

When I chanced a look up into her face, she was staring back at me, pale, trembling lips, and sweat beading on her forehead. She was just as afraid as I was.

Chapter 17 summary: Daisy runs back to the guest house, only to find two weirdos waiting there. One of them has a box of food, and the other a live goat. Daisy is like “JFC, mom wasn’t kidding about the goat. Why the fuck did she get a goat?!” 

Grace had mentioned that she’d known Helga from her own childhood, so Daisy now asks what her mom was like. It’s wild to Daisy that her mom didn’t pop into existence right before Daisy was born. The Grace Helga describes is a complete stranger to Daisy. 

After Helga and Joe leave, Daisy decides that she needs King to come to the house and do his ritual cleaning of it. She isn’t sure that it’ll help, but she has to do SOMETHING. She’s walking through the woods when she thinks she hears the snapping of twigs. But every time she stops, she hears nothing. 

She then foolishly steps off the path, and immediately tumbles off a cliff for her stupidity. Into a thorn bush. Then to add insult to injury, a butcherbird lands on her and starts to peck her. She’s struggling to get out, when Grace grabs her up to safety. 

Chapter 18

“Grace was the sort of girl you couldn’t quite belong to, you know what I mean? You have friends where you just orbit around each other. You belong to the same universe. But Grace always hovered beyond ours.” 

“She kept herself at a distance.” 

“Yeah. When she came back to town to open that Airbnb, she was different. Friendly. Open. Approachable. I would have never called her that stuff before, but suddenly she was.”

That’s what not seeing somebody for nearly 20 years does. People change. 

Nevertheless, Jordan sent receipts. He’d paid out Grace on the first of every month since Daisy’s birth without fail. He also had phone records to show that he’d regularly called his daughter during that time. Which wasn’t what we asked for.

The problem is that you can send the money and call your child every Saturday. But none of that makes up for the fact that you make it obvious from the get-go that you weren’t actually interested in a relationship with her. 

Jayden crosses his fingers. “I really hope she saw ghosts.” I roll my eyes even as a smile creeps onto my face.

Chapter 18 summary: Brittany and Jayden go over to Helga’s and Joe’s farm for an interview. During the cab ride over, Brittany can’t stop thinking about the email from their anonymous source: “Grace and Dione are hiding something. Without them, you’ll never understand the full scope of why she’s dead.” There’s no explanation as to who “she” is. 

As Brittany and Jayden get the cameras and mikes set up, and have Helga sign the release form, she tells them about how she came to own the farm that once belonged to her parents. I’m not sure that any of Helga’s background matters much in the long-run, though. 

She tells them of the emotionally distant Grace. That the woman who came back years later with a teenage daughter was so far removed from the pregnant teen who left 17 years earlier. 

Helga hints that there was something funny between the relationship of Grace and Peter. That he “hugged Grace for too long”. But then she takes it back, and asks that they delete that footage. That there were already a lot of rumours going around; she doesn’t need to be a social outcast because of her speculations. Especially without any proof. 

Brittany then tells the readers that she understands where Helga was coming from about “hugging for too long”. That she was once in a situation like that. It was one of the few times her mom actually protected her from a would-be predator. 

Helga goes on to talk about Daisy’s dad, Jordan. That Grace apparently only had him in the house once so that they could have sex… But it only takes once, and I get that. But the entire thing is kind of odd. Especially when you factor in what Helga said about Peter’s relationship with Grace. But Grace seemed happy to be leaving for Toronto after she got pregnant. Brittany tells the readers that when they asked Jordan for an interview, he sent his lawyers after them, and their producer told them to stop. But Jordan sent evidence that he sent his child support payments every month, and called Daisy weekly. But that wasn’t the kind of stuff that they were after. 

As Jayden starts to pack up, Brittany asks Helga about the “goat incident” from when they were children. Helga brushes over the entire thing, but says that her parents forbade her to see Grace after that. But that it didn’t matter, because Grace got pregnant and left. 

Outside, the two of them talk about how when Daisy moved there, that she seemed to be on a quest to understand who her mother was and is. Brittany identifies with that, because she knows her own mother is so full of fucking shit and lies. 

#delicious monsters #book review #bookblr

[percontaion-points]

Delicious Monsters chapters 15 & 16

Today's review might be difficult for some; reader discretion is advised

Click to see the rest of the snark & image descriptions

Click here for the rest of the series

Chapter 15

I hadn’t come this far up north to do nothing. I reached out my hand and shook hers.

Chapter 15 summary: Daisy walks through the woods for a bit before Ivy comes back. She randomly tells Daisy about butcherbirds. Which is weird to me, because google tells me that they only live in Australia. I guess googling things was too difficult for the author.

Anyway, Ivy goes on to warn that if Daisy is going to be walking through the forest, she needs to wear hunter orange, since people like to hunt around here. She plops her orange beanie onto Daisy’s head, and asks how she’s liking living around here.

Daisy asks Ivy if she’s ever been inside the main house, to which Ivy says no. She jealously thinks that Daisy has explored the entire house, but then brightens up when she learns that Daisy hasn’t even been inside. The two girls agree that they should go explore the house right now. 

Chapter 16

Out of a tiny hole in my head, a tip of white was wriggling.

Me reading violent SA scenes: Whatever

Me reading gruesome murder scenes: It doesn’t matter

Me reading horrific child abuse: alrighty then

Me reading about a girl who’s hallucinating maggots in her scalp: I THINK THE FUCK NOT. 

She disappeared into the trees, and I kept standing there. Shaking. Listening to the butcherbirds call to one another.

Chapter 16 summary: Inside the house, there are a lot of the dead. Like way too many. Daisy knows that she should do something about all of them, but she can’t do it when Ivy is there. They go further into the house, only to come to a sunroom that’s completely full of them. 

They go up to one of the bedrooms, where Daisy lingers behind to look at herself in the mirror. That’s when she sees the maggot in her scalp again. Ivy isn’t around, so Daisy picks up some tweezers and pulls the thing out. It’s impossibly long, but it eventually comes out. (And I seriously wanted to vomit reading this scene. Why.) She drops it onto the ground and stomps on it. Ivy shows back up a second after this, and Daisy kind of explains that there was this thing in her scalp. However, there is blood and goo, but Daisy isn’t sure that it isn’t her own blood. Ivy helps her to clean it up, and they throw the towel in a trashcan. 

It’s at this point that Daisy realises that Ivy has been inside before. Ivy explains that she lied because then Daisy wouldn’t have wanted to come explore the house with her. 

However, there’s something that’s bugging Daisy about the house: King told her that the place was dangerous. And Ivy is acting like she’s a little scared as well. Her mom is afraid of the place. But aside from the dead, Daisy can’t quite figure out what’s going on. 

#delicious monsters #bookblr #book review

[percontaion-points]

Delicious Monsters chapters 13 & 14

Today's review might be difficult for some; reader discretion is advised

Click to see the rest of the snark & image descriptions

Click here for the rest of the series!

Chapter 13

We’d come all the way out here for this house. This beautiful, amazing house where Mom had spent those elusive summers she’d never thought to mention. But I couldn’t go in by myself. 

’Cause that made sense.

I bit the inside of my cheek. 

There was something in there that she didn’t want me to see. A secret. Something she wanted to keep hidden like everything else in her life. That was the only reason that tracked. 

In Brittany’s POV, they’re talking about the Daisy of past-tense, who murdered several people in the house.

But from where I’m sitting, Daisy is a victim of years of abuse and neglect from practically every single person in her life. 

His hair was in its usual style, curls popping and juicy…

She says “his usual style” as if this isn’t the second time she’s seen him. 

“What’s a four-wheeler?” 

King openly laughed at me. Like my question was the most hilarious thing he had been asked in a while. I was suddenly glad that I hadn’t also asked what a Ski-Doo was. Once he’d composed himself, he smiled. Bright and shiny. Like a magazine cover. “You’re really like born and bred Toronto, eh?” 

“Yeah, well.” 

“It’s like… It’s hard to describe. Google it.” 

It’s honestly not that hard. It’s like a motorised dirt-bike with four wheels. 

Maybe I shouldn’t have. The dog would have loved me back.

Chapter 13 summary: Later, Daisy goes to the greenhouse, which is mostly dead from neglect. As she looks around to get started, King shows up with a wheelbarrow for her to use. He offers to help, but she’s randomly nasty towards him for no real reason. (It’s the years of systematic abuse talking.) He says that the house is dangerous, and that it’s why his family wants to get in and “cleanse” it. 

He leaves, so she gets to work clearing things out. He comes back after a bit with some trash bags for her, so she asks him to help her clear out on the other side. As they work, she asks him about how his family claims to be psychic. From her perspective of being able to see the dead, it’s an awful lot like Harry Potter with his real magic looking down his nose at Harry Houdini for his stage magic. 

King explains to her that when the family first came to the area two generations ago, it was a quick way to get involved in the community. Now, the family wears the traditional Nigerian garb because they think that it’ll add legitimacy to their claims. Their real surname isn’t even Okeke, but they adopted it in an effort to try and reclaim their roots. However, King scoffs over the idea, since none of them know if they’re even from Nigeria or not. 

Daisy is only impressed that they can pretend so well. Her own grandmother came over from Trinidad as a child and immediately shucked all of her prior culture in order to fit in. 

She asks if he’s going to continue the family tradition, but he says no. Asks if she does everything her mother asks her to do. She says no. That the only thing she’s ever wanted to do is to care for her plants. 

She then tells the readers that when she was 9, she asked her mom for a dog. Grace got her a monstera plant instead, with the idea that if she could keep the plant alive, she could get a dog. It died. So Daisy got another one, which she researched heavily on how to keep it alive. That turned into multiple plants. Grace then said that Daisy wasn’t going to have time to care for her plants AND a dog, but Daisy said that she no longer wanted a dog. 

Chapter 14

“We’re really not going to go inside the house?” 

“If necessary, we will. And it’s not currently necessary.” Mom let out an exasperated breath and leaned back on her stool, balancing on the back legs. “I’m not going to have this conversation with you over and over.”

That isn’t a fucking explanation. 

“I just don’t understand how we’re going to run this whole operation like this.”

 “You don’t have to, Daisy!” she cried. Her voice was strained. “I’m the adult. Let me worry about it. All you have to do is manage the garden, go to school, and… you know. That’s it. Just be a kid.” 

This was not how this was supposed to go. 

There were the plans Mom and I made, and now, apparently, there were alternative plans that she made on her own. Ones where I was less of a helper and more of a bystander. Leaving her the sole responsibility of making this business work.

It’s not so much that I disagree that children should be allowed to simply be children. Even 17 year old children. 

But at the same time… This entire situation is super suspicious and terrible. Daisy is right to be on edge. 

“This isn’t like Toronto. I don’t need you to support me. I’m going to handle this.”

You can’t go for the first 17 years of somebody’s life expecting for them to take care of you. And then do an about-face and suddenly tell them that it’s not the job of the child to take care of the parent… Only to be surprised that you’re getting push-back from them about it!

I woke up the next morning with the distinct feeling of an itch on my scalp, and when I reached up, something moved under the probing of my fingers. Goose pimples danced over my skin. I should get up. Needed to get up. I had to check. But at the same time, I couldn’t, wouldn’t, didn’t want to. 

[...]

“Is there anything on my head?” I whispered. 

“Stop it!” she shouted. The sound was too loud in the small space, echoing through the high ceilings. “We are not going to do this again. Get it together. You know what’s real and what’s not, don’t you? Because if you don’t, then we can leave right now and skip over you imploding.”

Grace: Her psychotic break came out of nowhere! There were no signs leading up to it at all!

But then again, King could kiss my ass. He would probably enjoy it too.

Chapter 14 summary: Daisy and King wrap up in the greenhouse and start to leave when they come across Grace returning with some groceries. King leaves after Daisy makes it clear that he is no longer welcome there anymore. Inside the guesthouse (I refuse to call it a “bunkie”, in the same way I refuse to call it “chicky nuggies”), Grace tells her that she’s arranged for a local farmer to have orders of food ready to be picked up; the new house is too far away for delivery. 

Daisy and Grace get into an argument over why they aren’t to set foot in the actual house. Grace insists that now is the time for Daisy to be a child, and to let Grace “handle things”. However, the parentification and adult-incompetence is immense; Daisy is scarred from a lifetime of needing to pick up the slack from her mother in order to avoid late fees and overdraft fees. Ugh. 

The next morning, Daisy wakes up to the sensation of a maggot moving around on her head once again. Grace comes in to say that she’s going to go smooth over the butthurt feelings of their neighbours. While she’s gone, the photographer will likely show up, so Daisy is to let him into the house without Daisy herself going in. The entire thing is beyond stupid. 

Daisy asks if there’s anything on her head, but Grace gets beyond angry at her. Tells her to separate fact from fiction. She then leaves. 

After a shower, Daisy starts to walk to the greenhouse when she sees a ghost who’s heading for the main house. Daisy decides to take matters into her own hands, so she sticks her hand into the woman’s chest. With her hand in there, Daisy can hear the ghost’s thoughts, which are about I guess the ghost’s (presumably still alive?) baby. Daisy freaks out, and then realises that another neighbour girl, Ivy, had witnessed the entire thing. 

#delicious monsters #bookblr #book review

[percontaion-points]

Delicious Monsters chapters 11 & 12

Today's review might be difficult for some; reader discretion is advised

Click to see the rest of the snark & image descriptions

Click here for the rest of the series!

Chapter 11

Rain check on the driving, I guess. Too much independence with a license.

So, does Mrs. Terrible Mother plan on keeping Daisy with her until Mrs. Mom eventually dies? Daisy is 17… is the plan not for her to go off to college at some point? What about getting a job? 

“Is this why the lawyer thought we would know them? ’Cause they’re Black?” I asked. It would explain why Paulie was so adamant in grilling her husband about “Why would they know them?” and all that. 

Mom pursed her lips. “I’m sure that’s not why.”

[...]

“You have so much attitude.” Mom shook her head at me.

I’m sorry, but how is calling out somebody’s racist behaviour somehow “having attitude”? It’s  a legitimate question and I also want to know why the lawyer also thought that Daisy’s mom would know these people. 

“I’m Grace, and this is my daughter, Daisy.”

It took nearly a hundred pages to drop this singular factoid. 

My lips curled and I jerked away, my footsteps loud in my ears as I rushed home.

Chapter 11 summary: As they walk through the growth, they find wild blueberries. Eating them kind of gives Daisy some indication as to what Grace has always been on about finding the “right” kind of blueberry. However, she looks around and also sees wild daisies growing everywhere and begins to wonder if her mom’s story about how she named Daisy isn’t more of a romantic fantasy born out of a teen pregnancy. Daisy also laments to the readers about how whenever Grace talks about Daisy’s (still unnamed) father, it’s always in this romantic, past-tense sort of way. That maybe it makes their terrible relationship better somehow. 

They find two teenagers in the forest, and Grace asks if their mom is around. The girl runs off, and the boy goes up to the other house. After a while, three women come out. They introduce themselves as Tambara, Corinne and Yolanda, and their son, Kingsley “King”. They say that they’re psychics, although Daisy treats them in the same way that I think anybody would: that stuff isn’t real, so maybe find a new hobby. Yes, despite the fact that Daisy herself can see the dead. The women offer to do a spiritual cleaning of the house, but suddenly Grace is eager to be anywhere but there. Despite the fact that she wanted to go over and talk to the neighbours in the first place. 

When they get back to the house, Grace pointedly tells Daisy not to go inside. The entire thing is beyond weird. Grace claims that there’s supposed to be people working inside, but I’m wondering where all of their cars are; it’s the middle of nowhere, don’t tell me that they walked. Anyway, that’s simply another nail in how weird that this situation is, and how odd Grace is acting. 

Chapter 12

Our contact hasn’t revealed who they are yet. But they’ve shared something juicy enough to distract from it.

Chapter 12 summary: Brittany and Jayden go to Timmins, where they set up their cameras in the law offices of Perry. He introduces himself as Peter’s estate lawyer, who helped to get Grace set up after she inherited the property… And who also defended Daisy in court when she killed a bunch of girls in her mom’s Airbnb. 

As they talk to Perry, they’re kind of floored that he knew Dione. He waves it off, insisting that it’s part of living in a small town; you know everybody. He explains to them that Peter and Dione were like Grace’s parents. That at one point, they wanted to legally adopt the girl. But that never happened. Towards the end of the Peter/Dione relationship, Dione wasn’t even living in the town anymore. Perry doesn’t know what happened, but knows that Peter still thought of Grace like a daughter. The night Grace stopped in for the keys, he tried to ask her about Dione, which made Grace angry. 

After ending the interview, the two of them walk outside and do their “walk away” thoughts to edit down later. They know that Grace was making way more money than she let on, and was getting at least $1k a month from Daisy’s dad in child support.  However, Brittany and Jayden start to fight about if Daisy knew how wealthy her mom was or not. And it’s not so much that they’re doing a witty back and forth, but Jayden is kind of being an asshole about the entire thing. For no real reason. It’s obviously upsetting to Brittany. 

She tells the readers that not even Jayden knows the full truth about her relationship with her mom. That everybody assumes since the book came out that Brittany and her mom are working to fix their shitty relationship. But instead, the healing belongs to only one person, and it’s not Brittany. She’s hoping to fix some of that by exposing the house for what it actually is. 

Jayden then shows Brittany that they have a new email from their anonymous source, but the chapter ends with that. 

#delicious monsters #bookblr #book review

[percontaion-points]

Delicious Monsters chapters 9 & 10

Today's review might be difficult for some; reader discretion is advised

Click to see the rest of the snark & image descriptions

Click here for the rest of the series!

Chapter 9

“Study session tonight?” I asked. She’d said she was exhausted earlier, but it was Wednesday. That meant it was time for Mom to unsuccessfully drill perfection into my head. At the very least, I hadn’t cried after one in years, which was nice. That was how it was the first few times. Now I was numb to it all. 

She let out a soft sigh. “At some point, you need to stand on your own two feet.” She planted a hand on her hip. “There’s only one uncontrollable factor in this equation. You and I both know it. Now you just have to show that you can manage.” 

I couldn’t form a sentence. 

Mom left me alone in the room for her shower.

Mom seriously announced that she thought Daisy was too stupid to function and then bounced. 

I must have nicked myself with the clippers, maybe when Mom surprised me. 

Except that she nicked herself on the eyebrow with the clippers. 

I would ask where the editor was, but I think we all know that there was none. 

After the shower, I methodically parted my hair and checked for both the scab and the creature, but I couldn’t find either. Whatever I saw, it was gone now.

Chapter 9 summary: Following returning to the car, mom is in a bad mood. (I’d like the record to state that we still don’t know her mother’s name.) They drive to a campground, where mom says that they’re going to leave all of their stuff overnight, and then take a boat out to the house. Daisy is obviously like “Um…????” over the entire thing. Since if you left all of your earthly belongings anywhere in Toronto, it wouldn’t be there after five minutes. 

The house is really big, with a separate… The narration calls it a “bunkie”, but I’d call it a guest house. They have plans to turn the main house into a hotel or B&B or something and live in the guest house. 

Daisy is a little on edge at the thought of having her own room. Which is so insanely sad, that for her entire life, she’s never had that. She’s worried about the ghosts coming to her in her sleep, even though that’s only ever happened exactly once before. There aren’t any dead hanging around the house, and Daisy doesn’t know why. 

After mom drops the line about Daisy being too stupid to function, Daisy then runs her hand over her head and discovers a scab. Sometimes when she uses hair relaxer, she gets chemical burns which turn into scabs. But she hasn’t used the relaxer for a while, so she doesn’t know what this is. She starts to pick at it, and then grabs some tweezers to try and grab it. Then a maggot/white worm pops up, which naturally freaks her out.

But when she tells her mom about it, her mom can’t find anything there. Neither can Daisy. Her mom insists that it must be lice, but in the same breath, and I quote, “Black people don’t get lice.” Daisy doesn’t believe that for a second, but agrees that she’ll scrub her head extra hard. (Because that’s totally how you get rid of lice. /sarcasm.) But she still can’t find the spot, or the worm. 

Chapter 10

The night after the “porn star” incident, I’d woken up bleary-eyed and sick to my stomach.

Would you like to tell the readers what the “porn star incident” was?

No?

Editor? Anybody seen an editor around here?

“I’m Paulie, that’s P-A-U-L-I-E. I’m Perry’s better half.” 

Why did this woman think I cared how her name was spelled?

I’m more curious as to why the author seems to think that there’s somehow another way to spell this. 

[The monstera plant and I] had a history together that Dad and I didn’t.

To be fair, the bar is on the ground with her dad. 

I decided to spend tomorrow in the greenhouse as I followed Mom up the steep path into the forest, where the thick tall trees blocked out sunlight and swallowed us whole.

Chapter 10 summary: The next morning, they go back to where they’d left their U-Haul, which is exactly where they’d left it, untouched. However, also in the morning light, Daisy sees the dead wandering around, which she’d missed in the dark last night. There’s also ones in the lake, recreating drownings. 

As they’re loading their things onto the boat, the lawyer comes over to have mom sign some final paperwork, and to reiterate that the two of them have to remain in the house in order to hold onto it. But it shouldn’t be a problem to let out the main house. 

After Daisy gets her plants settled, she goes to ask her mom what she’s doing. She says that she’s trying to figure out how to get the Airbnb set up. Daisy doesn’t think that it’s a good idea, because this is simply one of probably thousands of her mom’s hairbrained schemes to get rich. Each of them ended in a huge flop. Daisy doesn’t know why her mom thinks that this one is somehow going to be any different. 

Since there’s nothing to do, and mom says that they can’t go to the main house “because of the cleaners”, Daisy thinks that she’ll go for a walk in the woods. There’s this long interlude about mom’s obsession with blueberries that doesn’t really amount to anything. But then she says that the two of them should go introduce themselves to the neighbours. 

As they go, they pass by the main house, where Daisy sees somebody moving one of the curtains. The entire thing is kind of odd. Mom suggests that Daisy should be the estate gardener, and that there’s a greenhouse. 

#delicious monsters #book review #bookblr

[percontaion-points]

Delicious Monsters chapters 7 & 8

Today's review might be difficult for some; reader discretion is advised

Click to see the rest of the snark & image descriptions

Click here for the rest of the series!

Chapter 7

Jayden and I were in our first year and hadn’t made any sort of media connections that could tell us we were being offered scraps. Both of us were just happy to be able to pay our tuition for the semester. Everything felt so shiny. Torte made it clear that this was also an investment in our future at the company. More money to come. 

This is exactly why there was such a brain-drain at Buzzfeed. After people got their start there, they left to do it on their own… Without being beholden to a company that was pocketing probably like 70% of the money made from somebody else’s hard work. 

“My connection to Daisy was… complicated.” 

“How so?” I interject. 

Noah rolls the words around in his mouth. “We met through a program at my alma mater. It paired up university upperclassmen and high school kids so you could help coach them. I signed up for people who didn’t know what they wanted to major in because, honestly, you get more interesting mentees that way.” 

More interesting mentees. I bet you also get a lot of young girls who don’t know what they want to do with their lives. Lost girls.

Brittany’s POV is interesting because it’s not holding any punches in explaining that Noah is a fucking paedophile piece of shit. 

I echo back his words with less enthusiasm, “Time for Timmins.”

Chapter 7 summary: Brittany and Jayden go over to Noah’s house to interview him for their show. Brittany starts getting bad vibes from the guy at his home, since he’s the guy who tries so hard to pretend like he’s poor when his couch costs more than what Brittany and Jayden make in a year. Part of their show involves the people talking about the people in past-tense, no matter if that person is still alive or not. 

Noah tells them about how he was at university, and signed up to mentor high school students. He says that he wanted to help those who didn’t know what they wanted to do in college, because that was “more fun”. Brittany mentally calls him a creep for intentionally putting himself close to vulnerable teenage girls. 

But Noah continues on and insists that he and Daisy weren’t in a romantic relationship. That Daisy became obsessed with him, and went so far as to stalk his actual girlfriend on social media. Again, Brittany doesn’t like that much. 

Brittany and Jayden wrap up the interview and leave. As they’re going, they do “on the spot thoughts”, which they’ll edit into a coherent storyline for the show later. Brittany calls Noah out on his shit, and insists that everybody else in Daisy’s life insists that Daisy was in a romantic relationship with Noah. Jayden only sees what Noah said as further proof that Daisy was mentally unhinged to start with, and being in the house gave her a psychotic break. 

They briefly talk about trying to find somebody who knew Peter when he was still alive. But the entire situation with him is beyond weird. Nobody liked him. His ex-wife’s family has disappeared into a void. There is exactly one person who they think could be good, but the entire situation is odd. 

Again, Brittany can’t help but hold onto the idea that Daisy was a victim in all of this. Not the obsessed stalker that Noah painted her as. 

Chapter 8

He had texted me several times during the drive. Asking why I hadn’t listened to him. Pleading for us to not move. But, of course, when I’d asked him why, he’d had nothing to say.

If you can’t be bothered to explain yourself, then it’s clearly not important. 

That was the difference between Mom and Dad. One of them pretended to know me, to care about me, and one of them actually did.

Chapter 8 summary: Daisy does a lot of thinking on her way home. When she gets in, she tells her mom that they should go to the house. 

So they make plans and then go. The closest city is Timmins (BTW, this is all taking place in Canada, so this isn’t that odd.) The worst thing about learning about all of this is finding out that Daisy’s mom spent six summers up there, and never once told Daisy any of this. 

As they drive, Daisy keeps getting texts from her dad begging her to please stop this, but refusing to explain why he’s so dead-set against them moving. When mom stops the car, she begs Daisy to call her father while she goes into some random house to talk to somebody. 

On the phone, dad tells Daisy that if she changes her mind or needs out, he’ll send her money so that she can go… Live with grandma. Not even him. Grandma. Daisy gets pissed off about the entire thing, and quizzes him about her personal likes. He has no answers for any of them. When mom comes back, Daisy asks her the same questions, to which she responds with the actual answers. Daisy thinks that simply knowing what her favourite colour is makes a huge difference between “caring” and “acting like you give a shit”. 

#delicious monsters #bookblr #book review

[percontaion-points]

Delicious Monsters chapters 5 & 6

Today's review might be difficult for some; reader discretion is advised

Click to see the rest of the snark & image descriptions

Click here for the rest of the series!

Chapter 5

 Now it was just the thing that sold me out—my accounts giving Tara everything she needed to expose me as the underage one of their group.

To expose you… Or to expose the literal child groomer? 

But when Grandma saw [the 5th grade graduation award] and found out she hadn’t been invited to the [5th grade graduation] ceremony, she burst into tears.

I’m not even sorry about saying this, but being invited to the child’s important events is for family members who actually give a shit about the child. 

I would be leaving behind memories of places I’d walked with Noah, laughed with Noah, slept with Noah. If I left, what would happen to them?

Babygirl, listen to me: Noah ghosted you after you accidentally let slip that you were still in high school. He ran because he knows that what he’s doing is wrong. He found a new girl to con and manipulate and groom. 

Why are you holding onto those memories? Why do you want to?

He’s literally a guy. Hit him with your car!

“Why am I deciding?” I didn’t usually push back, but this felt too big. “You’re the one with a job.” 

You’re the one who wanted this. Who planned for it. Meticulously. Feverishly. Obsessively. 

Except I wanted it too. Of course I did. Freedom was a single “yes” away. So why couldn’t I just say it? 

Mom took in a deep breath before settling back into that stillness. Her eyes met mine across the room. Perfect matches. The same too-light-to-be-black-andtoo-dark-to-be-plain-brown shade. Eyes that would get lost in the night and found as it turned to day. “Because I can’t be impartial. Besides, this only works if you want it to work. You need to keep everything under control.”

Why does this feel like a trap?

I didn’t know if I wanted that or not. Besides, this only works if you want it to work.

Chapter 5 summary: As Daisy cleans up the mess she made of the bathroom, she thinks about… Well, it’s not exactly abuse-abuse, but it’s obviously not good for the child. The parentification that she’s been forced to do, because her mother is emotionally immature. 

When she gets out of the bathroom, her mom forces her to take a call from her dad. After having hung up on her daughter, grandma called Daisy’s father. He tells her not to go, but then doesn’t bother to explain why. Or at least, Daisy tunes out his lecture, so the reader never actually finds out. Dad is a deadbeat. He spent the first four years of Daisy’s life not in it. Then he spent two years with forgettable meetings before dipping out again, and only calling every so often. 

Once she hung up, Daisy went to her mother, who explains about this house. It belongs to dearly departed Uncle Peter, who was married to the mother’s sister. Grandma is upset because the house should go to Aunt Dione. But they’re divorced, and nobody in the family actually talks about Dione anymore. Peter wanted Daisy and her mother to have it instead.

Daisy is hesitant to leave the city behind… As mentioned, because of her memories of her toxic relationship with Noah. I still don’t know why she cares so much about a guy that ghosted her and moved on. 

However, Daisy is somehow hesitant to agree. The entire thing seems like some sort of trap, but I need more info about what’s going on. 

Chapter 6

Right. Mom’s study sessions. Evenings where I couldn’t hang out with Megan or her friends and instead had to spend a night with Mom. Learning. Her trying to form me into that picture of perfection that I could never fit. Shoving square-pegged me into a round hole. It was just as painful as it sounded. 

It was easier to lie and call them “study sessions” than to say what really happened on those nights. 

I’m going to go out on a limb now and call it for what it is: abuse. 

“What did your dad say?” 

“He said that he would prefer I not go.”

“Because it would interrupt school?”

I shrugged. “He didn’t give a reason.”

I’m not even sorry for saying this, but you can’t say shit like that and then refuse to give an actual reason. 

Daisy is 17, not 7. She’s old enough to be told the reasons. Even if it’s about her mother being fucking terrible. 

“We really just shouldn’t have hung out. Tara was pissed at me about you being so young, and she was right.” 

What? Tara was right? We shouldn’t have hung out? What did “hung out” mean? We were dating. 

“But you always said that age didn’t matter.” The words ran out of my mouth. Timid. Meek. Like a soft piece of shit. I hated myself for saying them. 

Noah shrugged. “It’s just like, it’s a big chore. I know you’re mature for your age. I really do, Daze, but other people don’t get it.”

HE’S ONLY UPSET THAT HE GOT CAUGHT BEING A PAEDOPHILE AND GROOMER. 

I would just be a girl with a little fro. I wanted to be free. And for that, I would need the house.

Chapter 6 summary: Later, Daisy meets up with her only friend, Megan, who is the daughter of wealthy Korean immigrants. Megan peppers her with questions that Daisy isn’t ready to answer. 

After leaving her friend, Daisy lies in wait for Noah to come home. He feeds her all of this BS about how inappropriate that them “hanging out” was. I’ve said what I’ve said about that. He also insists that his new white girlfriend is over 18, but Daisy doesn’t know if it’s in the same context that Daisy also claimed to be over 18, too. I don’t think it matters much in the long run, however. 

Since her relationship with Noah is now officially over, Daisy goes to eat schnitzel and try not to cry. Because crying only attracts the dead. (I’m still waiting for the payoff about her being able to see the dead, rather than a bizarre footnote that adds nothing to the plot.)

#delicious monsters #bookblr #book review

[percontaion-points]

Delicious Monsters chapters 3 & 4

Click to see the rest of the snark & image descriptions

Click here for the rest of the series!

Chapter 3

The thing about having a name like Brittney is that it creates a certain image. An impression. People have thoughts about a name like Brittney. 

Picture a Brittney. Right now. Think of who that might be. 

I bet you’re not imagining me. 

That’s the best part about my name. People never see me coming.

I stride through the office, towering over the other interns at my full 5’11” height, taking up space with a Yeah, I’m fat, get over it attitude, black-and-lilaccolored braids swinging above my shoulders, and my laptop tucked under my arm. The thing about confidence is that it doesn’t matter if you really have it or not, so long as you pretend well enough.

The problem with the name Brittney is that it was so popular when millennials were being born. I’ve met so many Brittneys. 

The problem with this character introduction isn’t the fact that she’s black. Because I’ve met black Brittneys before. 

The problem is that the girl that I’m picturing is a giant bitch who thinks that she’s better than everybody. And uh… The introduction to this is already kind of proving my point. 

“The stakeholders feel that ‘Forgotten Black Girls’ as a theme is a bit isolating and niche.”

Quick question: are the stakeholders white baby boomer men? 

And I can show that her beloved house of miracles is a thin cover-up for a house of horrors. A sham, just like her.

Chapter 3 summary: I guess that the narration is going to switch between Brittany in the present day and Daisy 10 years earlier. Or something, IDK. 

Anyway, Brittany is 19 years old, and works for an online company called Torte… But the only thing you need to know about this company is that it’s basically off-brand Buzzfeed. They started off doing content farm garbage, moved on to making videos making fun of their original videos, and then started branching out from there. 

Brittany and her BFF, Jayden, got picked up by Torte because of their youtube channel, in which they discussed hauntings. Their supervisor, a do-nothing middle-aged white man, tells them that the stakeholders rejected their proposal about “Forgotten Black Girls”, with the thought that it was a little too niche. 

Backing up a little, we’re introduced to some of Brittany’s obligatory Tragic Backstory™. She was abused a lot as a child, but then her mom turned her life around. Seemingly only so that she could write a best-selling book about it. Said book is on Torte’s “communal bookcase” in the office. The entire thing pisses Brittany off something fierce, but she can’t make a scene about it, or else it’ll make her situation worse. 

Anyway, after their supervisor tells them to come up with a new proposal, Jayden mentions an anonymous email they got about the “miracle house” that supposedly cured Brittany’s mother, Daisy. (Yes, I’m aware that the maths ain’t mathing with that. I’m hoping for an explanation later.) However, in the email, the person implied that there was a darker side of the house that was now so famous thanks to Daisy’s book. 

Brittany’s and Jayden’s proposal about “houses that kill” is immediately approved for the third season of their youtube series. 

Chapter 4

Delighted. Absolutely delighted. She breathed out, “Yes.”

Chapter 4 summary: We’re back over with Daisy. Apparently, we’re going to be jumping back and forth between these two. Hoping for a big pay-off as to what’s going on later, but we’ll see. 

Anyway, so Daisy goes back to the hovel of an apartment she shares with her mother. There’s a moment where she explains to the readers that in order to keep the ghosts away from her while she’s sleeping, she has to listen to Kidz Bop. (Covers of popular songs done by children, for children.) She hates it, but it works, so it doesn’t matter. 

When she comes in, she finds her mom on the phone with grandma. They’re talking about The House. Which almost seems like one of those metaphorical things. “Our lives will be so much better when we’re able to afford a house!” kind of situations… Yet you know that mom will never be able to actually afford a house. And she also seems to blame Daisy for “wanting to live in the city”. Ugh. 

Mom gets angry that Daisy is standing there, so Daisy goes into the bathroom, where she looks at herself in the mirror. She doesn’t know who the greasy-skinned girl staring back at her is. For sure not the girl that dated Noah. We’re then subjected to a painstakingly long and detailed description of Daisy washing and then combing out her hair. Why. 

She eventually grabs her mom’s wig hair scissors, and starts hacking off her own hair. Mainly the parts of it that are chemically treated to be straight. Exactly like how Noah likes it. 

As she does this, she thinks about how she accidentally got drunk at a college party with Noah’s friends. This girl is 17, BTW. Noah is 100% a groomer. It’s not so much the drinking that lead to their break-up, but the fact that she let slip that she’s not exactly in college. Because she’s still in high school. One of Noah’s female friends tried to message Daisy claiming to want to help (trust me, I’ve been on both sides of that conversation, and it’s never fun.), but Daisy blocked her. That was right before Noah ghosted her. You know, because Daisy accidentally outed him as a creeper. 

Mom comes in and startles Daisy, so she accidentally slices her eyebrow with the scissors. As her mom helps Daisy to take care of the injury, she laments over Daisy having shorn most of her hair off. Daisy asks about The House, to which her mother only says “Yes”. 

#delicious monsters #bookblr #book review

[percontaion-points]

Delicious Monsters chapters 1 & 2

Click here to see the rest of the snark & image descriptions

Click here for the rest of the series!

Chapter 1

That my name was nothing more than a pretty tattoo: permanent and meaningless.

Chapter 1 summary: This chapter was barely a page in length, and I’m not quite sure what the point of any of it was.

Unnamed main character explains what their name is… Without somehow ever once actually telling us what their name actually is. Basically, when their mother was pregnant with them, she was driving down the roads in Ontario and came across a patch that had been completely destroyed by a wildfire. (I think?) She pulled over and found a blueberry bush heavy with fruit in the middle of the destruction, completely untouched. She picked and ate a bunch of berries. But on her way back to the car with more that she’d picked, she also found a daisy. 

Our unnamed MC refers to their name as something that’s forever, yet somehow pointless. 

Chapter 2

He knew I spent time in my head because there were thoughts there deeper than other kids my age had.

She’s not like other girls, u gais!!11eleven!!

The door to the breakfast place swung open, and I tugged my body to attention. I went from a state of limp ivy to a snake plant, my leaves shoved up high and rigid. 

What the fuck does this even mean. Help. 

She looked younger than me, anyway. Maybe sixteen to my seventeen, or younger?

Wow, a whole year. So much younger! /sarcasm

She thought people should date within their age zones. High schoolers with high schoolers. University-aged with university-aged. Professional working people with professional working people.

Uh, yes. Let’s not have the freaking 40 year old dating an 18 year old. 

“But she’s legal!” Her frontal lobe isn’t fully developed, and she doesn’t have the life experience. 

This is predatory and creepy behaviour. 

I curled in on myself and dropped back into my seat, ducking under the shade of the bistro table umbrella like I had delicate leaves prone to scorching in the sunlight. 

She’s a plantkin, and you cannot convince me otherwise. 

And my tongue tasted like stomach bile and sour milk.

Chapter 2 summary: Our main character is named Daisy. (What that has to do with blueberries, I don’t fucking know. None of that first chapter made a goddamned lick of sense.) She can see the dead. This factoid is thrown out there, but never actually goes anywhere.

Anyway, Daisy is sitting in a cafe across the street from a breakfast place, basically stalking her ex. The narration takes way too long to get to the actual point of anything remotely relevant, let alone interesting. The girl can see dead people, yet she’s yapping for 2 paragraphs about needing to wash her hair and her desire to use hair relaxers. Ugh. 

She goes on to explain a little to the readers that she and Noah used to be in a relationship together. I kind of get the impression that Noah was a bit too old for her, but she didn’t seem to give a fuck about it. (This also gives a bit of an air of groomer to the entire “you have deeper thoughts than girls your age” business. Yuck.) Then they got into a fight at a party, and he basically ghosted her. A few days later, he’s walking around town with some pretty white girl (I think Noah and Daisy are both black?), like he hadn’t been in a relationship with Daisy a few days earlier. 

#bookblr #book review #delicious monsters

[percontaion-points]

Going to slowly get back into the swing of things.

Glad to be back. Holidays are way too exhausting!

My SIL on the red-eye back home: I need a holiday.

Me: Aren't holidays supposed to be relaxing? Which tantrum [from our niece] was your favourite?

#bookblr #book review #delicious monsters

[percontaion-points]

My SIL sent this to me.

forbidden knowledge

[percontaion-points]

I'm in a group on FB called "Rejected Fated Mates Emporium - Your One Stop Shop for Cringe Werewolf Smut" (yes, that's the entire title!) and... well. We've all seen some things multiple times.