porge_grewe's reviews
164 reviews

The False Sister by Briar Ripley Page

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dark hopeful mysterious sad medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

This is a very good coming-of-age horror story, rather in the vein of an old Fear Street novel, though significantly more directed and tight than those. The characters are all well-realised and feel authentically young, and the mystery is well-paced until around the third quarter of the story, where it feels like the mystery rather skips to the end. This and a few bits of clunky phrasing pull it down from five stars, but this is an impressive novella, and heartily recommended if the concept appeals to you!
Scott-King's Modern Europe by Evelyn Waugh

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dark funny reflective slow-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix
  • Strong character development? It's complicated
  • Loveable characters? It's complicated
  • Diverse cast of characters? No
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.5

A school teacher getting invited to an extremely-thinly-veiled allegory for Franco's Spain for a conference on a poet who never accomplished anything? Oh yes, it is very Waugh, with all that entails - It's funny, it's witty, it's deeply dark, several elements of it are best left in the mid-twentieth century, especially, as usual, Waugh's treatment of race. It's Waugh! If you like Waugh, you'll like it.
Limelight and Other Stories by Lyndsey Croal

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5.0

The Island of Doctor Death and Other Stories and Other Stories by Gene Wolfe

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adventurous challenging dark emotional funny hopeful inspiring lighthearted mysterious reflective relaxing sad tense medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix
  • Strong character development? It's complicated
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.5

A good set of short stories, some great, some middling. The whole thing is centred around the tryptich of stories: "The Island of Doctor Death and Other Stories", "The Death of Doctor Island", and "The Doctor of Death Island", of which the first is a touching picture of a troubled childhood and the power of fiction, the second is a brilliant sci fi tale and the gem of the whole collection, while the final sets up a fascinating hook (what happens to people serving life prison sentences when everyone becomes immortal?) and just kind of drops it...
Otherwise, Tracking Song and The Eyeflash Miracles provide pleasing novelette to novella length stories, really showing Wolfe's breadth as a writer, while the other stories provide briefer flashes of possible futures and fantastic worlds. Parts definitely feel dates, but if you want a varied hit of classic sci fi, I would very much recommend this collection - Just, feel free to skip around a bit!
Don't Fear the Reaper by Stephen Graham Jones

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dark funny medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Plot
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.75

The difficult second instalment of the Indian Lake trilogy - This was a bit of a disappointment after the excellent "My Heart is a Chainsaw" kicked off the trilogy. Things in this story are bigger, generally - The stakes are higher from earlier, we get more expansion of the Indian Lake mythos (and satisfying stuff it is, too) and we have more setpieces, but... The plotting felt off. The story felt a bit more like Halloween II, shuttling characters between setpieces, rather than using setpieces to punctuate a plot. Jade and other main characters have satisfying arcs, but they take a while to get going, leaving the side characters to shine - Territory in which Jones always does some of his best work - But it would have been nice to have the story be a bit tighter throughout. Similarly, the essays on slasher films return in this book, but they are less focused and less satisfying than in the first book - The world in this book seems to accept the importance of slasher films, it's all a bit too knowing and a few too many people are in on it. It's a bit too much.

Still a good book, though, and I very much look forward to the third! 
Freakslaw by Jane Flett

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adventurous challenging dark emotional funny hopeful inspiring sad tense fast-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

I loved this - This is the sort of book you luxuriate in. Flett juggles a large ensemble cast incorporating multiple point of view characters, giving each their own humour, rhythm, and humanity. Flett lets her characters be weird and flawed and magical in a way I've seen with few other authors, and the narrative voice has a close, conversational style which puts me in mind of Stephen Graham Jones. 

I have so much more to say, but I don't want to spoil anything - So suffice to say that I love it, I love it, I love it, now go out and read this grimy, messy gem of a book!
The Southern Book Club's Guide to Slaying Vampires by Grady Hendrix

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adventurous dark hopeful sad tense fast-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? No
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

This book is excellent! It is an exhibition of many of the things Grady Hendrix is so good at, beaten only in my estimation by his incredible How to Sell a Haunted House. This is a beautiful book about family, friendship, motherhood, adulthood, and vampires and it is fitting that it shares a setting with My Best Friend's Exorcism, because it really feels like a lot of the themes are similar to ones brought up there, but applied to the older, wearier, more lonely members of the family. It gets a bit grisly (it is horror, after all, and it is Hendrix), but I would strongly, strongly, strongly recommend this to anyone.
Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? by Philip K. Dick

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challenging dark emotional reflective sad medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? No
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

Absolutely brilliant! This is the rare book which marries really in-depth, interesting philosophy with a strong focus on characters who feel deeply and fundamentally human. This is the kind of nuance which has, unfortunately, been flattened by both film adaptations, so it really is worth returning to the source - This is such a different beast from either Blade Runner. Dick balances two contrasting point of view characters impressively deftly and through it all is this beautiful, horrible depiction of a world dissolving into rubbish ("kipple", in the book's vernacular), its sad current inhabitants and what feel like its inevitable inheritors, with no one really coming off well - Empathy is lionised throughout but the reader gets the sense that it has been lost somewhere along the way. It is the most compelling post-apocalypse I have ever read. Read it! Following that, maybe read it again - It is short enough to re-read and I have the sense that it would certainly reward it!
Thin Air: A Ghost Story by Michelle Paver

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dark hopeful medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Strong character development? No
  • Loveable characters? No
  • Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

2.75

The second of Michelle Paver's adult books which I have read, and it is a major improvement on Dark Matter. Unfortunately, that is not saying much. The biggest problem this book has, like Dark Matter before it, is just that it's boring - It is a very traditional ghost story, with glimpses of apparitions giving way to more and more sinister occurrences, but the escalation is miscalibrated to the extent that nothing much happens until we get to the ghostly climax, and then it is just over.
Paver is clearly interested in this traditional form of ghost story and in the early twentieth century, as seen in both this and Dark Matter, but it does make for quite unpleasant reading. When the local sherpas get involved, most of the narrative is based around the same "What if local beliefs have it more right than our science?" narrative that was played out in the 1960s.
With all that said, it does also share the excellent dog characterisation which was the saving grace of Dark Matter before it, but unless you're really into dogs and traditional ghost stories I would give it a miss.
One of Us Is Lying by Karen M. McManus

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dark emotional funny mysterious fast-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

This is a very solid, funny, well-observed YA mystery. The characters are believable and well-drawn, it brings excellent drama from multiple different angles and focusing on each of the POV characters which work well both individually and where they intersect, as well as in building to the overall mystery. Each POV character has a clear, delineated voice, they all feel entirely human, and they interact well, creating some of the best dialogue available in YA literature. The mystery itself is compelling and, while I found the twist distasteful, it did cap off the mystery well. Strongly recommended!