noellesmagicallibrary's reviews
388 reviews

 I love how these stories end on a cliffhanger of sorts, it makes them more scarier this way.
There were some a loved, some I liked, and a couple that I didn't enjoy. I tried to put myself back in the mindset of 10 year old-Noelle when reading these. I think that I would have had a great time reading these when I was younger. Even as an adult there are a few that stand out.

These are my initial, very brief, thoughts on each story.

1. 👍A short story about middle school werewolves and cliques.
2. 😍 Sometimes your bad luck is just a curse from a little wooden imp.
3. 👎A scientist travels to another dimension and is stuck in the body of a dog.
4. 👍 Experimental monstrous pet fish.
5. 😍 Thanks to a haunted tree house you won’t look at walnuts the same way.
6. 👎A magician’s hat meets Mary Poppins bag.
7. 😍 This magician isn’t evil, he’s just Bad.
8. 😍 Zombie’s night out.
9.👍Don’t go choosing your dreams.
10.👎Guess you never know if someone else is pulling the strings. 

If you had told me I was going to enjoy a story titled “Gas Station Dick Pills”, I would have laughed in your face. But you know what? It was good! That story was ridiculous, horrifying, funny and sweet. It sounds crazy but a story about a murderous monstrous penis just works. 

As for the first one, Otter Chaos, I needed more. There was something there but the story wasn’t complete. I liked the bloodthirsty otters but what’s their deal? And we didn’t spend nearly enough time with any of the characters to care about their deaths. 

I shouldn’t have read this book but I’m glad I did. Having a stranger in my house is an honest fear of mine. If I wake up in the middle of the night and hear a noise downstairs, I’m convinced someone’s there. So reading a book about a mom protecting her young kids from an intruder did bad things for my anxieties. 

Nightwatching is written damn near perfectly. The story is only told from one perspective and is propelled forward with flashbacks. Up until the very end you’re left wondering what actually happened that night in the house. 



I always love to see representation for my career, but people, please! It’s “physician assistant” not “physician’s assistant”.

Well that was fun!
These characters are fully formed and realistic. They felt like real kids experiencing an exciting and terrifying backyard camping trip.
The creature is equal parts silly and cool and I liked the explanation in the end. There’s also a nice lesson about controlling fear. 
For a kid, this story is probably actually scary. It’s definitely a great introduction to horror for younger readers.

Chloe and her bff Avery are getting ready to have the best camp out in the backyard. But at the last minute Chloe’s cousin Madison joins in. She doesn’t really fit in with the group but they make the best of it. As the girls are getting ready to sleep they feel something moving under the tent. It feels like a snake slithering around. If that wasn’t scary enough, when they look out the tent flap, there are giant purple tentacles with thorns thrashing around.

The rest of the summary contains spoilers

No one can hear them scream and all of their cell phones have dead batteries. The tentacles are multiplying in number and they mean business dragging the kids around the yard. 

They make it to a tree house to hid out and formulate some new plans. The neighbor kid has joined them now too. He came over to the yard to play a prank on them but got sucked up into the nightmare. 

Unless you’re standing in the yard, you can’t see what’s going on; everything looks completely normal. So the grown ups don’t notice anything’s wrong until it’s too late. Aunt Cindy is sucked into the ground by a tentacle and once Avery escapes to the next yard she immediately loses her memory. 

More people are sucked into the earth. They finally have a solid plan to defeat the creature. But they all end up underground at some point and lo and behold, Chloe’s dad is there! He’s been missing for the past year. 

He admits to the group that he never worked in marketing. He’s actually a scientist studying strange alien monsters and this creature was his project. It thrives off of fear so they all have to calm their nerves to defeat. Which they do. 

I didn’t connect with this book too much which is weird because I usually love Greek mythology and retellings. Especially feminine forward ones. I think that had I read a print copy instead of the audiobook I would have liked it a lot more. 
The narrator didn’t make the book special. It came across as rather monotone and I had a hard time with some of these names. 

The story is about Aeneas, demigod, son of Venus and star warrior of the Trojan War. But it’s told from the perspective of the women in his life. Except for Venus, which I’m now realizing and think would have been pretty cool to add. To be honest, I didn’t know much at Aeneas, and nothing about Lavina or Creusa before reading this. I’m interested in learning more about them now. 

This book started out slow for me, I couldn’t get a handle on the characters or the plot. But once I did everything changed for me. 

These characters stole my heart and I was on the verge of tears the entire time. I even let a few slip out at the very end. 
I loved the urban legend of it all with The Patron and the creepy abandoned house in the woods. That’s one of my favorite horror settings. 


Three young queer teens are outcasts in their community and families. They find an abandoned house in the woods which becomes a safe place for them. One night only two of them leave alive and their memories have been altered. Fast forward 5 years and those memories start to return as does a ghost from the past. 


This book can be difficult/triggering for some readers. This story heavily revolves around transphobia and homophobia.  

I was given an advanced copy for review, all thoughts are entirely my own. Thank you G.P. Putnam's Sons and NetGalley for the opportunity

I liked this narrator. She had a lovely tone to her voice and I could easily understand the Irish accent. 

The writing was OK but I didn’t always like the dialogue between the characters and the pacing felt slow at times. 
Overall it’s a pretty solid ghost story with HOD and queer representation. 

There’s too much sex for my personal tastes BUT I really loved these characters, including secondary/tertiary ones. Three weeks drinking and eating my way  through Europe sounds like a dream. 

What an adorable, kid-friendly graphic novel! Reading Penguin and Panda gave me all the warm-fuzzies.
The artwork is really cute and I loved some of the background characters (like the axolotl magician).

The short chapters will be easy for a young reader to get through and then think about the message in the story. The four stories are as follows:
1. Favorites: these two friends are different and that's awesome. Also, turtles aren't rocks.
2. The Carnival: it's easy to get over excited and sharing is cool.
3. The Bicycle: don't take something without permission and apologize when you do something wrong.
4. The Pet: love is love.

I just love these characters so much and I know a lot of young readers will as well. 

Historical fantasy is a genre I tend to really enjoy but something about this one didn't hit.
I was switching between audio and my physical copy and I think that was my down fall. I had a harder time following along with the audio because of the names and non-English words were unfamiliar to my ear. When I was physically reading the book, I found myself enjoying it more. 

The Spanish Inquisition isn't a time in history that I know much about and isn't a huge point of interest, so that too probably added to my trouble getting into the story.