horourke's reviews
92 reviews

emphasis on SHORT stories. not as impressive as “tender is the flesh.” a lot of the stories felt a bit half baked. 
favorites:
- Unamuno’s Boxes
- Dishwasher
- Elena-Marie Sandi’s
- Mary Carminum
- The Solitary Ones

bleak

favorites:
out of body
the sleep
foster (my #1)
property
dog bites
phantoms 
ID
escape from spider head 

very gripping and a fast read. felt like the story had a lot of potential that wasn’t fully realized. part Piranesi, part The Haunting of Hill House, and a significant amount of r/nosleep influence. might look into the original Reddit series to see if that adds any more details. the morse code was a nice touch 

DNF. there’s a tactful way to write despicable characters that are still interesting. unfortunately, this book did not. 

very dense and very Irish. “in silhouette” was my favorite. most of the stories are forgettable 

unsettling and unreal. fitting title. loved the writing style and the brevity of the novel. will have to read more reviews to fully understand it all 

Sally Rooney’s most mature novel to date. a stunning and heartbreaking portrait of love, grief, and family. she seemed to be experimenting with a different style of prose in this novel, and it took a bit to adjust to it. slow, but very well paced. 

ugh. I understand Eugenide’s intention with this book (I think) -the boys are voyeuristic and detached from the girls, always watching but never understanding.  but it felt so gross. they just use these poor girls then wonder what became of them. the parents weren’t much help either, but I guess the novel takes place in a time before therapy was widespread. anyways, I think Eugenides might be too much of a male author for me … his lived experience as a man seeps soo deeply into his work that it makes it unenjoyable