cestcallie's reviews
294 reviews

As a long time avoider of the natural world and all of it's pitfalls and inherent dangers, Nameless Things is just another terrifying reason to add to my ever-growing pile of why one should never go camping. Mike is all in his feelings over a recent breakup with a longtime boyfriend, and for some reason decided to clear his head with a little nature in a camping trip with his longtime childhood friend, Wade. While hiking, they run into a family. Next thing you know, an meteor strikes nearby, they find terrifying worms, and the wife gets sick with a mysterious illness and dies. The father and son, an Australian couple, and Mike and Wade all try to make their way back down the trail to get help. But soon, they realize that the troubles in their campsite have spread much further than their little group, and with a ticking clock and fading daylight, man of that family is starting to look ill in a very familiar way. 

Nameless Things was an entertaining horror. If you like Stephen King, Robert McCammon, Richard Matheson, I think you'd like this. It was giving a lot of Dreamcatcher vibes in the beginning, but definitely came into a story on its own as things progressed. The audio experience was also pretty good. I felt like the narrator would appeal to the target audience of this book; what I affectionately call midwestern dad horror. I could see listening to this one with my dad. And I also personally appreciated that the everyman main character, Mike, was also a gay man, which is rare in this genre. 

Overall, I enjoyed the book. It was a bit graphic at some times, scatological (sometimes quite literally) at others, but I'm certain those elements would a appeal to someone, and I don't think these moments were gratuitous. I'm certain I'll think about this book the next time someone mentions the idea of camping to me. 

This book is absolutely beautiful. I loved the combining of kindred cultures in the hoodoo tradition and the Navajo beliefs. The prose was gorgeous and emotional, while still keeping the story clear and easy to slip into. The words felt like dancing on the page, the rhythm was music, which fit the characters. I didn't fully grasp the intensity of this ghost story walking into it, and the ending was, not so much a surprise, but emotionally impactful. 

Let's start with the good things. Cosmic horror is probably my favorite in the horror genre. So, the antagonist of this book is both truly and deeply terrifying, and completely compelling for me. It drove me to keep reading all the way to the end. I also liked the sibling relationship between Dylan and Liz, which reminds me of my own sibling relationship sometimes. I relate to the idea that no matter how wild and unhinged my sibling gets, I will drop everything to be there for them. I also think some of the exposition was beautifully written, with vivid and creative descriptions. Ultimately, there were several engaging excerpts in the novel, and I think that the direction the plot took was well constructed. 

And now for the bad. First, I will admit that it is possible that the writing style is just not for me. However, I think that the grandiose nature of the exposition was poorly matched with the characters. It clouded the text and made it so that it was difficult to follow the story, and it made it hard to connect with the characters. 

There were a few other issues that made it difficult to connect with the characters. The dialogue was poorly constructed, and felt divergent from the exposition. The characters also just didn't talk like real people, often making the dialogue a struggle to read, which was unfortunate because that was often the only way to get information about the past or details about what was actually happening. The characters themselves don't feel completely believable. Liz's career is far too advanced for her age and qualifications. Dylan is treated like some elder, but he's still too young to rent a car in most places. I can suspend my disbelief, but combined with all the other issues, it's too hard to ignore these issues. 

Next, I found several errors. I'm not talking about a few typos either, some of these errors are egregious. For example, when a very intimate scene between Liz and her boyfriend suddenly turns into an unfortunate scene between Liz and Dylan, because the author accidentally used the wrong name. The text also wavers between the use of passive voice, active voice, and a few verb conjugation slips. These errors make the already gratuitously verbose text difficult to read. 

There are also some issues with the plot. A lot of details get lost in the murky exposition. There appear to be rules that the Dark Lady and her minions must follow, but they are confusing, and not well laid out. Dylan is meant to be this expert in the situation but we don't see that side of him very often, especially during his final ritual, which one could argue is because the fog folk started to get to him, but that isn't made clear. The scenes where we learn about the past when Dylan and Liz were kids and things with the grandmother were kind of just described or told to us instead of experienced. In a story like this, a shifting timeline might have worked better. 

I did like the direction of the plot though, and I felt the pacing was good. There are really good nuggets of exposition among the confusing or poorly constructed ones. I think that there's good parts in the text that could be worked on. It just needs that work and ideally, to see an editor to help facilitate that. As it is now, I would not recommend this title. 

 This is the story of the madness of Christian Shaw, the girl at the center of a real life historical event where young Christian Shaw accused 35 people of witchcraft, resulting in the execution of seven people. The book starts at Christian’s adult life, as she is working to start a thread and textile company, which the real life Christian Shaw also did, but in the story, she is obsessed with bleaching threads of purest white as if that will clear her family’s name and bring them in better societal standing. But as the 25th anniversary of the executions is approaching, Christian’s hold on her sanity is deteriorating, and she is spiraling as the truth of her real sins are resurfacing. In the end though, she has to face the truth of what she did and can choose to either continue with her evading and false piety, or she can embrace it and relinquish her soul to its darkness. This is a historical literary horror, with a lot to unpack under the surface. The messaging is heavy with themes of internal misogyny and fear of sin, all of which would have been perpetuated by the adults in Christian’s life, pressuring her to hide and cleanse what she perceived as sin: her burgeoning womanhood, and carnal relations. It’s a short read, but the depth of it kept me coming back to see how Christian Shaw’s descent into madness would end. 

 

I was excited to read a book set in Puerto Rico, especially when dealing with spiritualism and superstition culture in the area. This one had me emotionally connected and crying by page 5. It's not exactly scary, but definitely dark, unsettling, and gory as hell. 

I'm mad at this book. It is absolutely unforgivable that it ended like that and I have to wait until the end of the year to find out what happens?! Wretched behavior! But no, this was such a good read. Intense, with real stakes, and a frothing rage that bubbled across the surface of each page. Can't wait for the next one. 

Okay, so I don't love short stories, so I know any struggles I had with this was because of that. I think every story in this was strong though. I could tell because I had wished most of them were novels. I really loved Bridget has Disappeared and the one with the tree.

For a YA title, I thought this was nice. I was really excited to see a ghost story set in Jamaica. I loved the cultural references, but I wish there was more direct patois. We hear mention of people speaking patois, but never actually see it. I would have preferred to see the language and have translations written in.