#francesca zappia

[haveyoureadthisbook-poll]

#eliza and her monsters #francesca zappia #young adult #book poll #have you read this book poll #polls

[thereadingchallengechallenge]

JOMP BPC - December 11th - Books With Maps

feat. Now Entering Addamsville by Francesca Zappia

#now entering addamsville #francesca zappia #justonemorepage #jompbpc #booklr #bookblr #trcc original #portraits #lgbt books

[brightbeautifulthings]

Katzenjammer by Francesca Zappia

"They're all so dark, Dad said one day, watching over my shoulder as I worked at the kitchen table. Why don't you paint things like a blue sky, or a field of flowers, or a bird flying on a breeze? Something happy that your mom can put on the fridge. She can put these on the fridge, I said. Maybe just one flower? he asked. There are no flowers where I live, I said."

Year Read: 2023

Rating: 4/5

About: Cat has been stuck in School for as long as she can remember. The hallways slowly expand and contract with School's breathing, the showers run red with blood, and the students have divided themselves into changed and unchanged. While the unchanged hide in the fortress of administration, Cat and her friends haunt the courtyard and hallways. Her best friend is turning into cardboard, and Cat's face has become a cat mask made of her own hardened flesh. There are no doors or windows in or out of School, and something is hunting them down one by one in the hallways. To escape, Cat will have to understand why they're trapped in the first place. Trigger warnings: Some triggers are listed at the end of the review because they include spoilers. Character death, guns, violence, blood/gore, dismemberment, body/eye horror, bullying, slut-shaming, vandalism.

Thoughts: Thanks to @ninja-muse for recommending this book, since I'm not sure I would have found it on my own. This is probably my favorite Francesca Zappia novel to date, and one of the best novels on this subject I've ever read (more on that after the spoilers). However, I believe it's best to go into it not knowing much more than the description provides. This book works extremely well as a slow reveal. What starts out as a mindfuck becomes slow understanding as we realize more or less alongside Cat what is happening in School, and you'd be doing yourself a disservice to read the spoilers if you plan to read this. However, it covers a number of very heavy and potentially triggering topics (and it's difficult to gush about how I think it works without giving things away), so I'll include those thoughts at the end. I can't stress it enough though. If you're not easily triggered, stop here and go read this book!

This is also one of the best examples of uncanny horror that I've read in a long time. Zappia expertly manages to capture the quality of a nightmare without sacrificing the continuity. School is creepy and semi-sentient, and the changes it brings about in half the students are a study in body horror. Perhaps even more terrifying are the parallels it draws to some very real life horrors such as bullying and, indeed, I found the flashback chapters of Cat's surfacing memories of her former life of being targeted, bullied, and slut-shamed at school more difficult to get through than the surreal scenes of hacked up bodies or bloody showers in School. Real life horror always affects me a lot more than the supernatural, and Katzenjammer does an excellent job of balancing both. The ending is cathartic and effective, and there's less of a plot twist than a sort of inevitable, dawning horror-- which is honestly the best kind.

SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS. TURN BACK BEFORE IT'S TOO LATE.

Remember how I said that real life horror is always worse than the supernatural or the uncanny? I stand by that statement. Zappia draws such excellent parallels to real life in her uncanny School that it's almost impossible not to realize before Cat does that the traumatic event that put them there was a school shooting. I've read a couple YA novels that handled the subject fine, but I don't think any of them capture it as well as this one. We need something like the supernatural School and the horror of bodies changing in ways we can't explain to fully grasp the senseless horror of gun violence. Killing children makes no more sense than hallways that breathe or girls who turn into their cat masks. It takes Cat the entire novel to understand the horror and absurdity of what's been done to her and to accept it-- that there are reasons but not excuses, and that we will never know all of them. I cried a little at the end, but I think the real life horror of it is too big for tears. Instead, it's a feeling that will sit with me long after I've turned the last page.

#book review #francesca zappia #katzenjammer #ya horror #underrated books #4/5 #rating: 4/5 #2023 #ninja-muse

[auntieblues]

“Yeah. I told you he was crazy, right? I heard he does some weird stuff at home, too.' He said it with a conspiratorial stage whisper. 'Like mowing his lawn, and trimming his peonies.'

'Peonies?' I balked. 'God, he really is a freak.” ― Francesca Zappia, Made You Up

original auntieblues

#Francesca Zappia #Made You Up #peonies #weird stuff #trimming his peonies #freak #blue girl #ai artwork #auntieblues

[themelodyofspring]

JOMP Book Photo Challenge

May 12, 2023 - Should Win An Award

Truth is the worst monster, because it never really goes away.

#jompbpc #justonemorepage #eliza and her monsters #francesca zappia #booklr #mypics #books #bookblr #read #books and plants #book quotes

[exeuntstormtroopers]

Hey! I read Katzenjammer in one day and I loved it so so much!!! <3333 I'm planning on buying another one of your books soon! Also, I was wondering about Katzenjammer- If Cat had a cat mask because of her name, and Sissy had tentacles because she had a skin condition that reminded Cat of an octopus (I think she said this, I'm not 100% sure lol), why was Jeffrey made out of cardboard? Was there any meaning behind their changes or am I just reading too much into this??

More Katzenjammer spoilers!

☠️☠️☠️

This is a great question! You're absolutely NOT reading too much into it. Each of the changed students' mutations came from a specific way they were bullied or felt insecure about themselves. For many of them it was a physical insecurity, like Sissy's tentacle, but for Jeffrey, the cardboard was a symbol of his feelings about himself related to his father leaving and his tenuous relationship with his brother.

After the meeting with Jake, Jeffrey fully turns into cardboard for this reason. He literally has trouble holding himself up on his own. He stumbles around. He's structurally unsound.

But the mutated students were just the ones who were outwardly bullied. Even the unchanged students have insecurities, and after that meeting with Jake, he himself starts to show a mutation—his black hand.

The other thing to remember is that this is Cat's purgatory, so these are her projections on these people. The unchanged students don't have mutations because she doesn't seem them as being bullied. Time doesn't have any because she sees him as almost a part of School itself, more powerful than either the changed or the unchanged. Laserbeams is the worst of the changed, not only a full ventriloquist dummy, but one that commandeers the bodies of the other changed.

Cat also had a Cat mask specifically because she remembered being shot in the face. In a way, her base identity was removed, so she could only be what everyone else in her high school knew her as.

I hope that helps! Never doubt your reading intuition.

#asks #katzenjammer #francesca zappia

[beyondthedustjacket]

You found me in a constellation.

Eliza and Her Monsters by Francesca Zappia

#quotes #eliza and her monsters #francesca zappia

[libertyreads]

Hello! Are there any books that exceeded your expectations this year? 😊

Hiiii!

I've had such an up and down reading year this year. How has this year gone for you? I've had some low lows and some high highs this year.

So, me being me, I have a list of books that surpassed my expectations. 😆

Royals by Rachel Hawkins was oddly good for me? Almost 4 stars.

Greymist Fair by Francesca Zappia was better than anticipated. Over 4 stars.

The Curse of Broken Shadows by Laura Winter was one I didn't know what to expect walking into it but it was a solid 4 star book for me. The character work is just chef's kiss.

Lovelight Farms by B.K. Borison is my Christmas entry to this list. It was a SOLID romance and it had a lot of Christmassiness to make my heart happy. (4.25 stars from me.)

Fourth Wing by Rebecca Yarros. Look. Look. I KNOW. I know. But this book had me twirling my hair and blushing like a school girl. I don't know what you want from me. (One of only a handful of 5 star reads from me out of 164 books so far this year.)

#books that exceeded expectations #royals #Rachel hawkins #greymist fair #Francesca zappia #lovelight farms #b.k. borison #fourth wing #Rebecca yarros #the curse of broken shadows #Laura winter #questions #Liberty answers questions #booklr #bookblr #bookstagram #bookish #therefugeofbooks

[elmundoestahechodefrasesyletras]

Sentí como si me estuviera pateando en el estómago, y con cada patada me dijera: No te quiero. No te necesito. No te amo.

#citas #frases #notas #escritos #libros #leer #lecturas #book #yo te invente #francesca zappia #patadas #dolor #estomago #no te quiero #no te necesito #no te amo #amor #amor no correspondido #desamor #tristeza #angustia

[gaychaoticgod]

Eliza and her monsters aesthetic

#eliza and her monsters #francesca zappia #aesthetic #books #high school #booklr #moodboard #big mood #bookstore #bookblr #reading #drawing #sketchbook #sweatsuit #thats literally like my favourite book and I read it about 50 times by now #yes my copy is falling apart #and I would die to buy new one in english (now i have the one in my native language) but original is like five times normal price #also im this close to doing tattoo from eliza #egg

[maciscominghome]

#made you up #francesca zappia #quote #quotes #book quotes #young adult #fiction #book recommendation !! #mine

[owl68]

On page 300, once again reminded of how obsessed I was when I read Katzenjammer. This is heart wrenching

(Francesca Zappia is awesome!!!)

#eliza and her monsters #bookblr #book #reading #Francesca Zappia

[thereadingchallengechallenge]

JOMP BPC - December 13th - Unexpected Ending

the big reveal at the end of Katzenjammer by Francesca Zappia definitely blew me away

#katzenjammer #francesca zappia #justonemorepage #jompbpc #booklr #bookblr #trcc original #portraits

[bigcats-birds-and-books]

9. a book that was better than you expected it to be?

23. the book with the prettiest cover?

34. what's a book you've recommended the most this year?

hello! thanks!! referencing this post:

9. a book that was better than you expected it to be

okay the cheater answer here is ALL SYSTEMS RED, because the cover looks like very Not My Thing, but holy shit it’s one of my all time faves, and tbh i don’t think the cover does the first one justice. (this is the cheating answer because bot is only on my list from this year because i did a Reread)

the non-cheater answer is A SWIM IN A POND IN THE RAIN: IN WHICH FOUR RUSSIANS GIVE A MASTER CLASS ON WRITING, READING, AND LIFE by George Saunders, because i didn’t love it (or the writer lol) at the start but he definitely grew on me by the end! i read it with a buddy as a writer craft thing, which was more fun than i thought it would be.

23. the book with the prettiest cover?

*sweats in covers work As Intended On Me, so most of my impulse buys skew Pretty* THE DAUGHTER OF DOCTOR MOREAU by SIlvia Moreno-Garcia is definitely a top winner (maybe The Top Winner), but honorable mentions to A PRAYER FOR THE CROWN-SHY, KATZENJAMMER by Francesca Zappia, and WHAT WE HARVEST by Ann Fraistat

34. what’s a book you’ve recommended the most this year?

i’ve been infecting everyone i possibly can with LEECH by Hiron Ennes, which has rocketed into one of my all-time faves but please approach with Caution and check the content warnings, because it’s a rough ride.

thanks again for asking, this was fun!!

#text #answered #book games #ask games #books #murderbot #all systems red #martha wells #george saunders #a swim in a pond in the rain #the daughter of doctor moreau #silvia moreno garcia #a prayer for the crown-shy #becky chambers #katzenjammer #francesca zappia #what we harvest #ann fraistat #leech #hiron ennes

[brightbeautifulthings]

All of the characters are my favorite. I've known them all for so long even the ones I used to hate are my favorites. They're more real to me than most of the real people I know.

Francesca Zappia, Eliza and Her Monsters

#Q: #francesca zappia #eliza and her monsters #fictional characters #writing #book quotes #books

[ninja-muse]

It’s been a long time since a horror novel scared the pants off me. And YA horror, when I’m getting less and less hooked by teen fiction as the years go on? That is a sign of a great book, right there.

Katzenjammer is surreal and claustrophobic and tense, to the point where I wanted to keep reading but couldn’t, because tension overload and fear of nightmares and all that. The stakes and the horror keep ratcheting up and every time I thought I had a handle on the the world of School and how horrific everything was going to get, I was not prepared. Like, to the last page I was unprepared. “Body horror” + “trapped in high school” + “she's slowly remembering everything” doesn’t even scratch the surface. This is so real and angry and beautiful and creepy and pointed and terrifying and I’m going to be thinking about this book for a while as I unpick all the layers. I want to scream from the horror and from how good it was, all at the same time.

Damn, but Zappia knows how to write.

@brightbeautifulthings​, I feel like this one might be for you.

Please, please check content warnings on this one, everyone, please. This was A LOT, and I haven’t even been in school recently.

(Releases June 28. Thanks for the publisher and my work for providing me an advanced copy.)

#books #booklr #bookblr #book covers #book photography #book reviews #horror #YA #book recommendations #katzenjammer #francesca zappia #read in 2022 #my photos