curiouslykatt's reviews
1086 reviews

Walking Disaster: My Life Through Heaven and Hell by Deryck Whibley

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funny inspiring lighthearted reflective fast-paced

4.0

“Punk said everything I felt inside and I wanted in.”

How can you not have a soft spot for a Canadian icon? I still remember when Fat Lip came out and listening to it on the windows media player, yes the one with the visuals, and being excited and thinking “hey, this band sounds pretty cool.” Now full honesty, after their first album my personal music taste evolved and I stayed away from a lot of radio rotations so I don’t have the full Sum 41 discography in my memory vault. 

Deryck goes over his whole life up to now in this one. Him having to move a lot as a kid because he had a single mom who had him while she was in highschool. The weird years of highschool where he met his fellow bandmates and started to really carve out his identity. The early years of the band and how they had to scrap their way to getting signed. The hard knocks of your life, especially when his body was failing him. The rock bottom of his addiction and so much more.

“I have a face people want to punch.”

Deryck lays a lot out in this memoir and inevitably while he had some really great moments he was also subjected to abuse and some really bad people. It takes a lot of courage for anyone to come forward and open old wounds and talk about the abuse they went through and my heart breaks for the sixteen year Deryck. 

While I really enjoyed this memoir it does have a bit of odd pacing, some stories he gets really down into the dirt with. Others where you expect some more depth are almost treated like a flippant anecdote. I will say while the pacing was a bit weird for me, the ability to talk about the really dark stories and toss in some humour and levity in other areas, really resonated with me. Trauma babies unite here. We might be damaged but we sure as hell are pretty funny. 

Overall it was a solid audiobook where you feel like you’re just sitting down and shooting the shit with a really likeable dude, even if he has a face you want to punch. 
Honor by Thrity Umrigar

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emotional reflective sad
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.5

“As children, we were taught to be afraid of tigers and lions. Nobody taught us what I know today - the most dangerous animal in this world is a man with wounded pride.”

Honor was our first bookclub pick, and I couldn’t have been more happy with it. 

Honor follows Smita as she returns to India to as a journalist to report on a case of a Hindu woman and a Muslim man were attacked by her own family strictly for the fact they were married. He did not survive. She was left permanently injured. Meena is now set to press charges against her own brothers and members of her village who tried to burn her alive. While many passages focus on Meena, Smita also shares her story and why her family left in the first place. 

This is hard novel to read at times and will hurt your heart. Sometimes as outsiders it’s hard for many of to understand old traditions in this day and age that are so detrimental and punitive to women. While this book is fiction, Meena’s story echos true stories of women being attacked, brutalized and murdered that for many of are immaterial life choices but for a heavily patriarchal and conservative group are morally just reasons for acts of violence. 

While the book does explore some really dark topics, there is a small amount of hope throughout and the last chapter will break your heart while also leaving you hopeful. 

Overall across formats (physical reads, e-reads, and audiobook) this was well received in the group. I think it’s safe to say we’d all recommend it. I can’t thank the women enough who were able to attend Bookclub to have the deep discussions and share their personal stories that run in parallel with Meena and Smita and talking about when and why we’ll never really be the same. 
Ripped from the Headlines!: The Shocking True Stories Behind the Movies' Most Memorable Crimes by Harold Schechter

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dark informative medium-paced

3.0

I wouldn’t do this in one sit. Instead have a copy ready so once you watch the movie you go to the corresponding chapter
The Love Hypothesis by Ali Hazelwood

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lighthearted medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Strong character development? No
  • Loveable characters? It's complicated
  • Diverse cast of characters? No
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? No

2.25

No. Just no. 
I realize this came out in 2021. Peak panini time but yall are really saying collectively a pandemic skewed our benchmark  and said this was a great romance read? 
Emotional intelligence of a cocomelon. 
The only thing that was done right is Fast Five is the best movie in the franchise. 
Also what in the unhinged anaconda jaw? 
I cannot unsee blade 2 the mutant vampire Venus fly trap mouth. 
Maniac: The Bath School Disaster and the Birth of the Modern Mass Killer by Harold Schechter

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challenging dark informative sad medium-paced

4.0

Macbeth by William Shakespeare

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dark tense slow-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Diverse cast of characters? No
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

Capote's Women: A True Story of Love, Betrayal, and a Swan Song for an Era by Laurence Leamer

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informative lighthearted sad fast-paced

4.5

Haunt Sweet Home by Sarah Pinsker

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funny lighthearted fast-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? No
  • Diverse cast of characters? No
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.25

“Maybe lucky places were haunted, the rest were just forgotten.”

Mara is 26 and floating through life with little aspiration. She feels like a bit of a leftover in her own family. Her cousin who is a tv host of a home renovation haunted house show offers her a job as an assistant. So while Mara is amping up the haunted houses scares, she is facing a haunting of her own. 

I didn’t even think labelling something cozy horror would be accurate but here we are. It has classic supernatural horror elements but there’s no gore and nothing viscerally scary about this one but it still can’t be fully removed from the horror genre. Think Casper the friendly ghost as an angsty teenager, that’s what this novella felt like.

An easy and fun, cozy horror novella, this is one where certain story elements shine in audio. It is a full cast narration and there are transcripts from the episode Mara is helping film sprinkled throughout. It was a delightful little romp through the behind the scenes of a tv home improvement show with the quirky fun of a ghost hunting reality show. 

Are the haunts real? Do they just need a little coaxing to come out? Do the ghosts think your millennial grey aesthetic might be what sends them over the veil? 




Lay Your Body Down by Amy Suiter Clarke

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dark mysterious medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Strong character development? No
  • Loveable characters? No
  • Diverse cast of characters? No
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.25

Scream: Chilling Adventures in the Science of Fear by Margee Kerr

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informative lighthearted medium-paced

3.25