maketeaa's reviews
242 reviews

i ADORED the first few stories -- the head literally made me GASP. there is something so unique about asian horror that's very different to western, in that a lot of it is based on very simple, routine things in life getting very fucked up (rabi thakur does this really well too in his short stories!) but bora chung takes it to a whole new level in some of the stories in this collection. her horror isn't horror for the sake of shock value, but to dig into the deep repugnance we have for certain things -- anthropomorphised human excrement, pregnancies gone wrong, child abuse, incest, brain-eating rabbits (lol) -- and makes them... plausible. it's insane. i left an annotation that said 'i am literally never using the toilet again'. her stories feel like an exercise in creativity.

buttt. the last few stories felt a little... lackluster? the beginning was SO PROMISING but like. at one point it felt a little bit less like horror and more just like... unfortunate events? particularly the story about the prince and princess, for example, or the polish man that liked being tied up. idk!! im still rating it high because my GOD when chung writes horror SHE WRITES HORROR. i just feel like the last few selections could've been better!

there are some books that, as soon as i finish reading them, i know what i'll rate them. this is not one of those books. unlike a lot of other horror i've read this one nails the sense of eeriness, of foreboding, of genuine horror at some moments, but getting closer to the end i sometimes didn't quite understand what was happening. but then i have to ask myself, isn't that the point for a book called fever dream?

the story starts in a hospital room where our protagonist is speaking with a young boy on her bed. she's recounting the story of how she first met the boy's mother, carla, who transmigrated his soul after he was poisoned after drinking water from a stream. throughout, we see (and FEEL, viscerally feel) carla's own anxiety with her daughter, nina, vividly represented by the 'rescue distance', the feeling of a rope between the two of them, the constant attachment between a parent and child to make sure they're okay.

it is after her meeting with carla that this anxiety appears to worsen. she is nervous around carla, around david, about what might happen to nina, unawares, if she's with them. and heartbreakingly we see that her efforts to protect her are fruitless, because what gets nina in the end isn't carla or david, but the grass she's playing with and poisons herself with. it's carla, then, who steps in when the protagonist herself cannot, and leaves the protagonist to feel the rope of their rescue distance break while nina's soul is transmigrated.

upon reading some other reviews i gained a new appreciation for the theme of poisoned nature, given argentina's use of pesticides. however, the ending still remains slightly confusing, like maybe i missed something. was amanda, the protagonist, poisoned by the grass too? is that what 'the worms' are? and in terms of literary structure, it feels a bit unsatisfying for carla to have taken nina to the greenhouse without amanda being able to do anything about it. would it not be a more interesting reflective moment if it were amanda forced to make that decision for nina, to choose which way she'd prefer the rescue distance rope to be broken?

however. this is still a great book. creepy, foreboding, and highlights what seems to be nature's most visceral horror story: parenthood.

crime fiction always makes me nostalgic because it's what i spent most of my time reading when i was 13/14. wild houses feels like that same nostalgia repackaged, a crime novel which maintains all the thrilling beats of a typical crime novel but all the reflection of literary fiction.

the story opens with dev hendrick opening the door to his friends, sketch and gabe, dragging in a 17-year-old-boy named doll english. it's a revenge kidnapping against doll's older brother, cillian -- chillingly, we read of the sentiment that this is the only thing that can threaten a man that doesn't care for his own skin. however, it's clear from the beginning, and his later actions, that dev himself is not fully on board with his house being the location of this kidnapping. on the other side we see nicky, doll's girlfriend. a seventeen-year-old waitress, we see her interactions with a large cast of characters, including doll's older brother, and through her perceptive nature begin to question the relationships between the characters.

a big theme is doll's allegiance to cillian. it's brought to our attention first by nicky and her silent indignance towards it, but also in the aspect of the kidnapping itself. does cillian truly care for doll as much as sketch and gabe assume so? there is little emotion we see towards his brother after the kidnapping, most of it being seen from their mother, sheila, upon her finding out. in fact,

it's sheila herself who develops the plan to get almost 18k to get doll back, while cillian only carried it out. it's also noteable that cillian didn't even try to bring together another 3k, showing up to dev's house short.

nicky, additionally, as young as she is, plays a courageous role in his rescue.

but what i feel is the most noteworthy part of the book is dev's character arc. dev, who allows his two friends to use his own home as they wish, with a history of violent bullying, and who, despite his large stature, simply can't get himself to stand up for himself, does stand up for doll. he takes agency over his own house when doll's life is on the line, rescuing him in his own way, finding some form of allyship between the younger boy which seemed like as a result of both their victimhoods.

a really vivid and unique take on a crime novel, steeped in detailed imagery and irish culture. definitely deserves its place on the booker prize longlist!

a sprawling family tree of a book, tracing a cheyenne bloodline from the 1800s to the 2020s. orange explores the complexity of a native american identity, of being part of a people living on soil that is yours but not yours, that was yours but maybe not yours yours and should you know more about that, since it may have been yours a few generations ago? he explores ethnic identity in the context of the widespread massacres, disappearing, and cleansing of indigenous americans, and the impact a stolen home trickles down through the psychology of generation after generation.

i went into this a little cynically. i thought it would be a textual version of those tiktoks that use sally horner's story and its connection with lolita as sensationalised clickbait that appeals to those that salivate over painful details. but what i left with was awe for the incredibly well-researched and critical examination of a case with such little information available for report, and gives sally horner's short life a narrative that has been overshadowed time and time again, first by frank la salle, then by news outlets, then by the booming spread of lolita. weinman displays an expert level of knowledge of nabokov, his works, and what seems like an encyclopedia of lolita, and uses it all like aluminium foil to bounce the sparse facts of sally horner we have to bring her to life. a true justice done to what has been done to her story.

a really fantastic introduction to art history! comparing and contrasting famous examples, woodford takes us through the various elements of painting and provides a guide on how they can be interpreted. she demonstrates a critical eye for technique and symbolism and makes such an eye accessible to her readers to pursue beyond her work afterwards. the last two chapters, especially her worked examples of wolfflin's principles in analysing baroque and renaissance art, were particularly informative, and coupled with the rest of the book is a great starting point for anyone wanting to impress their friends at an art gallery lol!!!

an incredibly holistic look at the tragic murder of kitty genovese, stripping back the mainstream glamours pasted over the crime and giving an analytical, x-rayed depiction of the horrific details from the entire timeline of the case. pelonero begins by describing the murder as a shocking summation of details, the way in which we can imagine everyone glancing at a newspaper new of the crime. but then she takes us deeper, allows us to meet kitty genovese as everyone in her life did, see the smile she was well known for, feel the warmth of her kindness. subsequently, we learn of winston moseley and his upbringing, and, in particular, his unexpectedly reserved, quiet demeanour for someone capable of his crimes. we return to the crime, and, most importantly, the fallout of it -- how can 38 witnesses have heard what happened and not called the police? this question ties together the theme of the whole case account. explanations ranged from 'i thought they were teenagers messing around outside' to 'i didn't want to get involved' to, most concerningly and prevalently, 'i thought it was a lovers' quarrel.' important points are made about sexism and how underlying misogynistic sentiments hindered actual help being called for kitty genovese. what i found most poignant was that, while the author could have easily stopped here, given what the genovese case is most well known for, she also gives an incredibly moving and human voice to genovese's loved ones -- what struck me the most was her partner mary ann zielonko, who, in her police interview, was unnecessarily made to discuss her sex life with genovese.

this book was ALMOST five stars. but i really didn't like the last few pages which explored the recently risen statements that denounced the fact that 38 witnesses had ignored the murder. while i think there is some value in the way pelonero considers the believability of these statements, i feel like her argument of their falseness is diminished by the fact that her main point for not believing them is that it's based simply on people saying it 'wasn't possible' -- but is there any stronger evidence from the police reports that calls *did* come through? did the police themselves not literally just say 'there's no way calls could have come in early on and we wouldn't have heard it'? more should've been done to look at the efficacy of the police in new york at the time and comparisons with other cases where police officers may (or may not) have arrived at the scene any faster than they should have.

this was more literary than horror, imo, and definitely the kind of read where you need to go through your annotations again afterwards before you can totally figure it out. a mysterious figure at new seoul park hands out free samples of pink jelly, claiming that whoever shares it will stay together forever, only for the entire theme park devolving into a grotesque jellied massacre of pairs of loved-ones once the sun had set. we're taken through the events before and after the massacre through varying point of views, learn of the gritty lives under the cheery theme park mascots, one man's obsession with money, and the murderous conflict between two users of a devil-worshipping forum who insist that they are the one that has been entrusted with the real words of their deity. albeit in a disjointed, and sometimes incohesive manner, we explore the consuming nature of love, and, most of all, the inherent horror of allowing oneself to be blended and mixed with another person, along with its inevitably when you wish to belong to something -- whether that be a parent to a child, or a girlfriend to a boyfriend, or a follower to their deity. however, the last few chapters makes us question whether it is better to be totally separate from the ones we love in order to avoid such a blending, and whether life is worth living without it. i think the overall theme of this work was very interesting, especially with the aspect of horror added to the bonds of love between people, but honestly it felt like so much was going on that i didnt really know what to focus on all the time

will come back to this later in the month 

genuinely one of the freakiest books ive ever read, the kind that's short and easily formatted enough to keep you rooted through one sitting but in that singular sitting makes your very essence feel scrambled. like gerald's own consciousness, this work feels like the literary equivalent of the sunset.gif, of the disintegration of form and sense and meaning to be left with the nonsensical code of existence. this book is like a study of why things have given forms and questions what we are left with when the shape of our self is lost. 

in other words: the definition of a biblically accurate novel.