kalventure's reviews
522 reviews

 Gritty & dark, RELUCTANT IMMORTALS consumed me from the first page to the very last. The horrors of being irrevocably changed by someone without your consent. It asks if we’re doomed to be monsters if we come from one?

Friends, this book sunk its teeth into me and didn't let go. I've been thinking about it since I finished almost a week ago: this is a book that will stay with you long after reading and worm its way slowly into the recesses of your mind, changing you irrevocably. I want to re-read and annotate as this is a book that both entertains and makes you think deeply about the world.

Reluctant Immortals follows the immortal afterlives of Lucy and Bee, forgotten women of history who were irrevocably changed by the monstrous men in their lives: Dracula and Mr. Rochester. I love retellings that take characters who play a small role in fiction to explore the work through their lens, and Kiste does an excellent job with Lucy (Dracula) and Bee (the wife in the attic, Jane Eyre). Sidenote but I am now horrified that I viewed Jane Eyre as a romance and want to re-read it through the gothic lens of Rochester's wife standing in the way of his happiness with Jane.)

It's 1967, and Lucy and Bee have lived in Los Angeles for about ten years, doing their best to live the quiet afterlives forced upon them. The friendship and support Lucy and Bee give each other, including giving space to not discuss traumatic events of their respective pasts, is so sweet and I found myself happy they found one another. Their nightly routine of going to the local drive-in? Yes. This book largely centers their friendship and I love that.

This is not your typical Gothic Horror novel. Reluctant Immortals is fast paced with a sense of wry humor oozing from Lucy's narrative, giving the book the feel of reading Urban Fantasy. Where the gothic comes through is in the themes: the confinement and isolation our characters escaped when they found each other, the exploration of power, and decay; but this is not a book where tension slowly builds. It's there from the first paragraph and mounts as the story progresses. This would be an excellent read for anyone who enjoys the back third of gothic books ("where all the action happens") like Mexican Gothic but may have struggled with the slow pace.

The theme of decay is tied to the horrors of abusive men and their lasting effect, changing the women and destroying who they were Before. Trauma permanently changes a person's brain, and decay is an representation for that. This theme extends beyond our protagonists and their home, though. The drive-in theatre itself is experiencing a form of decay as the once thriving business has lost patronage for years and is a husk of what it once was. The setting of Los Angeles is perfect for this story because of how it's a place romanticized, much like immortal life, but the harsh realities are much worse than we care to notice.

Los Angeles is famous for Hollywood and countless people flock there to "make it big," only to be consumed by a brutal -- and at times abusive -- industry. Just as Lucy and Bee were consumed by Dracula and Rochester, these nameless and faceless Hollywood hopefuls had their lives irrevocably changed by the power wielded by others, making the city a perfect setting for Lucy and Bee to call home. I could honestly write essays about the use of decay in Reluctant Immortals!

I loved the way Relutant Immortals expands on vampire lore in unexpected ways, particularly how sunlight actually affects them. Since the book is told from the perspective of someone who had essentially been written out of history, Kiste was able to play around with other omissions of history or things that were just plain wrong. And seriously, Lucy and Bee's daily routine of racing around their house to clean up the decay is the sweetest part of this whole book. (Oh no, I am about to write more about the decay, abort! Abort!)

Overall, just WOW. Reluctant Immortals is a feat of genre-bending, retelling Gothic novels Jane Erye and Dracula in 1967 California through the lens of two forgotten side characters who today are relegated to a footnote. It's poignant and hopeful, beautiful and macabre. This is a book that will consume you while reading and won't let you go, a book that has a lot there to analyze if you're so inclined but also stands on its own as a powerful and feminist tale of two girls trying to regain some agency over their lives and be free of the trauma they experienced at the hands of men. Kiste is absolutely a horror author to watch and I look forward to checking out her backlist immediately. I can't recommend this book enough and can't wait for you to read it!

I received an ARC in a Twitter giveaway hosted by the author. This does not affect my opinions of the book or the contents of my review. Quotations are from an unfinished proof and are subject to change upon final publication. 

 This was okay, I guess. I almost DNF'd a few times but the mystery itself was plotted really well and I was interested enough to see what happened. I kind of found the main character's obsession with Agatha Christie a little insufferable, and the characters didn't feel fleshed out: they felt like a handful of characteristics in a trenchcoat rather than an actual person. Not to mention that Alice's motivations didn't feel strong enough for me to drive the plot.

THERE SHOULDN'T BE. And I would be remiss to not mention that it is WEIRD that an actual defense attorney breaks confidentiality to essentially work with a handful of teenagers because??? she babysat one of them? I can suspend my disbelief at the roundabout sharing of intel to find the truth but kind of draw the line at a murder board pizza party. Of course, take this with a grain of salt as I am an adult and not the target audience (but it's still weird af).

The reading experience was a definite 2 but the mystery was done well and it got a little better character-wise towards the end so I rounded up to 3. A sequel was just announced but I won't be continuing.
 

 Told in dual timelines, Dead End Girls is the sapphic thriller you didn't know you needed in your life! Tightly plotted, the book is full of action and high stakes that is utterly addictive and impossible to put down. I was on the edge of my seat the whole time while listening. Protect Maude & Frankie!

This plot is bonkers in the best of ways. From pseudocide to accidental murder and running from the cops (as well as their past), Maude and Frankie are going through it in this book and just trying to start over. Maude's a mastermind who's probably watched way too much True Crime Content and I'm honestly in awe of her brain. But as they find out: even the best laid plans cannot account for everything.

I love that we learn about Frankie's reasons for wanting to disappear through timeline POV chapters, slowly piecing together everything as the chapters get closer to the present-day. We learn so much about Frankie's character through these flashbacks.

Words cannot express how much I adore Maude and Frankie. They start out as partners-in-crime but their chemistry sparks and the their slowburn romance so good. Because honestly, falling in love while on the run from the police is just iconic.

Dead End Girls is explosive, gripping the reader from the first page until the last. I love the way things get more and more unhinged as they stray further from The Plan, doing their best and making some of the worst decisions possible. But this book also explores identity: as Maude and Frankie escape their lives, their narratives explore question the sexuality and gender, making Dead End Girls a beautiful coming of age story of self-acceptance in addition to a captivating sapphic thriller. Highly recommended and this won't be my last book from Wendy Heard!

Audiobook notes: 10/10 performance from Natalie Naudus & Taylor Meskimen! They really brought the story and characters to life and somehow managed to instill the page-turning sense of urgency with their narration.

Representation: nonbinary rep, wlnb, sapphic, fat rep

ALC provided by the publisher via Netgalley for my honest review. This does not impact my opinions of the book nor the contents of my review. Quotations are from an unfinished proof and subject to change upon final publication. 

 Overall I enjoyed this one, but imagine you read an entire book and the very last paragraph makes you groan and leaves a sour taste in your mouth. 😭

Sixteen year old Calliope lives in a small town in the Adirondacks with her father and two younger sisters, a life where she is known by everyone and her trauma is common knowledge. I can't imagine having the worst day of my life on everyone's mind and being something I cannot escape, so my heart instantly hurt for Calliope and her family. The hometown she never envisioned leaving suddenly became a place she couldn't wait to escape.

Mysteries old and new collide when sixteen year old Calliope transfers to Tipton Academy and she realizes there may be more to the "accident" that caused her mother's death six years ago. She's almost immediately tapped to join Haunt and Rail, the only active secret society at the academy. But where most secret societies brim with privilege and elitism, Haunt and Rail serves as a social justice society that encourages the school and community to do better.

A girl who's been searching for where she belongs, Calliope finds her place at Tipton and a purpose within Haunt and Rail. But are things as good as they seem?

Full of moral quandaries and ethical debate, Calliope is forced to reconcile her belief in the rules with disruption of inspiring change. Is it wrong to break a rule if it is for a good reason? If so, how big of a rule can you break before it skews into Bad Territory?

I loved the subtle critique on the systems in place that make progress difficult and how Tipton Academy basically serves as a microcosm for society at large. The people in power protect their own and the systems in place are built to maintain the status quo. The red tape and bureaucracies, how often (student) government actions make little progress at all; it highlights not only the need for social justice but also importance of awareness campaigns... and how they must appeal to what people care about.

While I wasn't fully invested in any of the characters per se, I really liked the relationship between Calliope and Nico. They are just two kids who have no idea what they're doing, full of awkward behavior and assumptions. It was so refreshing to see Calliope be brave and direct, expressing not only what she wants and asking for permission, but also seeking clarification to avoid misunderstandings.

This is a book that's a wild ride, fully engaging with a web of secrets and mysteries the reader and Calliope must unravel together. The writing style is very blunt and to the point, which makes it easy to consume in one sitting. The ending isn't quite what I like to see in a book, but I can understand why Kit wrote it the way she did (doesn't mean I like it though!). If you like your characters morally grey, then Very Bad People is a must-read!

eARC provided by the publisher for my honest review. This does not impact my opinions of the book nor the contents of my review. Quotations are from an unfinished proof and subject to change upon final publication.

 I still think about how much I enjoyed Jar of Hearts back in 2018, so of course I jumped at the opportunity to read Hillier's upcoming July 2022 release. While I didn't quite enjoy this one as much, it was a powerful and engaging read.

- Deals with heavy topics of child abuse, cycles of abuse, and statutory rape. It's painful to read at times, so be sure to be in the right mindset when picking this one up.
- More of a mystery than a thriller, so go in with the right expectations.
- Told in six parts and in dual timelines, the pacing feels a little uneven and the narrative a little repetitive at times. Drew's POVs often shared the same information and by the latter third of the book, it dragged things for me.
- I'm sorry but why didn't they use her doing Sun Salutations in the holding cell the morning after her husband was murder as evidence of her guilt?

Content warnings: abuse, blood, child abuse, drug abuse, mentions of mental illness and suicide, misogyny, murder, sex work and Opinions about sex workers, statutory rape

eARC provided by the publisher for my honest review. This does not impact my opinions of the book nor the contents of my review. Quotations are from an unfinished proof and subject to change upon final publication. 

 I really wish I loved this one more than I did, but sadly the writing style and narrative flow just wasn't for me. Everything felt too obvious and "on the nose", the first-person narrative exacerbated that with the main character talking in circles about the obvious Red Flags, and then deciding to do it anyways.

I love the sibling relationship in this book and Myra's quiet determination to take care of her sister, no matter the risk. The scenes where they interact were so much FUN and I wish the narrative had more of the interactions rather than descriptions and being in the MC's head.

While A Forgery of Roses wasn't for me doesn't mean you won't enjoy it, we all have different tastes and preferences. Read my friend Meaghan's 4.5 star review before making a decision!

Representation: anxiety, chronic illness
Content warnings: abandonment, ableism, child death, gore, graphic injury, loss of a loved one, miscarriage

eARC provided by the publisher for my honest review. This did not affect my opinion of the book nor the contents of my review. Quotations are from an unfinished proof and are subject to change upon final publication.