minnowslibrary's reviews
249 reviews

A totally gripping, sharp, fast-paced murder mystery that pulls you into the story with unique perspectives and pictures! I could not put this book down! From the opening story about a young girl who commits a terrible crime and the analyzation of her drawing, I was hooked. As the chapters change perspectives I couldn’t help but lean in and wonder why I was being told this person’s story and how it might connect. By the time things started to really piece together my heart was racing and my jaw was on the floor!

The writing was straightforward and enticing, the characters were complicated and lovable, the plot was mysterious and scary, and the ending was satisfying. A truly fun and stimulating read! I felt like a little detective looking at the pictures and evidence and connecting the dots! 

I was sold on this book before I even knew what it was about because I looove both the UK and US covers, and the author is shrouded in mystery and seems to be an interesting weirdo, which I also love. An anonymous masked author is everything to me! Idk! I almost never buy any books brand new but I splurged on this one for myself because I didn’t want to wait for it at the library or for it to start turning up at secondhand stores and it was totally worth it. (This means a lot coming from me!)

Check out Strange Pictures if you’re looking for something fast and murderous and intriguing! I think this would be great to pull fans of horror and mystery out of a reading slump. It’s also 236 pages with quite a bit of illustrations and graphs and whatnot so it’s a quick read!

I wanted to like this so bad but I was confused and bored and did not vibe with the writing style. Maybe one day!

Really was looking forward to this one and tried to read it for over a week, made it about 30% and just didn’t care what was going on. Felt like a great idea and poor execution, just really wanted to have Studio Ghibli vibes lol. Also, the dialogue was very unrealistic and it was bothering me. 

“This sadness is not an empty church and not an empty house. It is the whole empty world and I am in it and it is in me.”

It Lasts Forever and Then It’s Over is one of the most unique and intriguing books I’ve read. I waited in line for it at the library for a while because it kept being mentioned by reviewers I like and I saw someone say it was perfect for people in reading slumps or who didn’t know what to read next. I wasn’t in a reading slump when I picked it up nor do I have any lack of books to read at the moment but I really couldn’t stop thinking about the premise of this book!

A truly haunting and unforgettable perspective on grief, It Lasts Forever and Then It’s Over by Anne De Marcken will tear your heart out in just over 100 pages. Told through the voice of a sentient zombie who can’t remember her name or her lost love’s name, we follow her journey as she travels a post-apocalyptic world and mourns her past. This story is just filled to the brim with stunning prose and lines that made me stop and soak it all in. I wish I could’ve/would’ve read it all in one sitting because I think it would’ve hit me much harder, but life was chaotic at the time. Ironically, dealing with some grief in the real world. Not my best escapism choice but it did make it more meaningful! Lol 

If you’re looking for a zombie apocalypse book that gives you details and explanations on how we got to this point or how the undead function or anything like that, this is not the book for you. This book isn’t really about zombies in that way. I am always curious to know more lore, but I was happy with the lack of it in this story. Buuuut if you ARE looking for a literary novel about a sentient, grief-stricken, lovesick zombie who gives up eating people and yearns for the ocean, this book might be for you. It was definitely for me.

this book was fine and fascinating at times but mostly felt more like personal anecdotes and far too much “more on this in chapter 4” or “we’ll touch on that in part 2”

I have been at a total loss for words for this review since finishing The Unworthy. Bazterrica has done it again with another eerie, skin-crawly, unique horror! The narrator shares her story and circumstances via journal entries using anything she possibly can. She is part of a religious cult convent, the Sacred Sisterhood, where she is one of the lower members, referred to as “the unworthy.” She aspires to ascend the ranks to become one of the Enlightened and is mostly accepting of enduring the control and punishments she is currently under, until a newcomer arrives. 

As the narrator and the newcomer get to know each other in secret, she begins to wonder about her past and her future. She can’t remember how she got to the Sacred Sisterhood, she is beginning to piece together how she survived the devastation in the outside world, and she no longer wants to accept things as the way they are for her (and her new… friend…) in the convent. 

We were limited by the narrator’s limited knowledge and memories, but I would have loved to know more about the Sacred Sisterhood and the crisis going on in the outside world. In the same breath, I think it also added to the story to only be able to see it as she sees it. The vagueness and my curiosity add to how scary things are for the narrator! The Superior Sister and “Him” are the leaders of the convent and were such perfect villains, I also would’ve loved more of them! But the succinctness of the story and focus on the narrator and the newcomer once she arrives stood well on its own. Bazterrica absolutely stuck the landing on this one too! I’ve been reeling since I closed the book. 

From the genius author of Tender is the Flesh, perfect for fans of dystopian futures, creepy religious cults, and torture! Lol

Thank you so much to Scribner for the ARC and opportunity to be an early reader for one of my most anticipated reads of 2025!

Out for release in the US on March 4th!

this is a me problem but I wanted more sea creature talk! more octopuses please!!! 

I don’t know if I’ll write a full review for this but at least for now, mostly I just found myself not caring very much about the characters which is important to me. I liked Evrim and I was always intrigued by Rustem’s scenes, I also really liked Dr. Ha. Maybe too many POVs? I didn’t find myself very interested in what was going on with Eiko when it was his turn, but his chapters did make me sad. It was interesting to see how they all came together in the end. Final chapter was good but kinda pissed me off because I was most invested at the end and it just dropped me off the cliff LMAO