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Because my victory over illiteracy should be documented.
Unseaming
A horror anthology
This was a great read. It's pretty rare to find a horror anthology, or any anthology that's good. Pretty much all the stories kept me interested and a lot of them were genuinely creepy. But I hate that book cover.
A Death in Sweden
He was once a CIA agent and now he's hired to hunt down fugitives. He's meant to track a certain individual who just so happens to have died rescuing someone in a bus crash. Now he must uncover who that person was.
Banal story with the most pompous, generally annoying characters I've encountered in any book, ever.
Suffer the Children
Kids begin to drop dead left and right and no one knows why. Parents begin to grieve and massive graves are dug to bury these children. But it's not long until something even stranger begins to happen. The kids are coming back to life only there's something not right about them.
The concept grabbed my attention right away. It did have its eerie moments, but where certain aspects should've been horrifying I felt it held back and sometimes lost its momentum. However, the story was handled fairly well from a character's perspective and though it's a purely fictional scenario it had some realistic dialogue and situations which made it that much more effective. This would actually make a great film.
Memoirs of My Nervous Illness
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daniel_Paul_Schreber
"Schreber was a successful and highly respected judge until middle age when the onset of his psychosis occurred. He woke up one morning with the thought that it would be pleasant to "succumb" to sexual intercourse as a woman. He was alarmed and felt that this thought had come from somewhere else, not from himself. He even hypothesized that the thought had come from a doctor who had experimented with hypnosis on him; he thought that the doctor had telepathically invaded his mind. He believed his primary psychiatrist, Prof. Paul Flechsig had contact with him using a "nerve-language" of which Schreber said humans are unaware. He believed that hundreds of people's souls took special interest in him, and contacted his nerves by using "divine rays", telling him special information, or requesting things of him. During one of his stays at the Sonnenstein asylum, he concluded that there are "fleeting-improvised-men" in the world, which he believed were souls that temporarily resided in a human body, by way of a divine miracle."
The book is an account of Schreber's stay in an asylum and it's a fascinating read. It's eye-opening, heartfelt and heartbreaking. This was once a respected judge and suddenly everything derailed due to schizophrenia. Though it was also thought that a lot of this occurred due to Schreber's repressed homosexuality. Either way, it's an intriguing albeit tragic story and really makes you realize just how fragile the mind can be.
Teatro Grottesco
Horror anthology
A lot of interesting characters here. The book is divided into 3 sections "Derangements" which I would say my favorites from that are "Purity" and "The Town Manager". I would love to see either one made into a film or if they ever brought back The Twilight Zone these would make for great episodes. Especially the latter. "Deformations" and "The Damaged and Diseased" are the other two sections. It's been a while since I've read this book so I can't recall all the stories in it that I liked, I know I'm missing one in particular but for the life of me I can't remember the title. Either way this is a good book and I recommend it.
NOS4A2
goodreads.com
"Victoria McQueen has a secret gift for finding things: a misplaced bracelet, a missing photograph, answers to unanswerable questions. On her Raleigh Tuff Burner bike, she makes her way to a rickety covered bridge that, within moments, takes her wherever she needs to go, whether it’s across Massachusetts or across the country.
Charles Talent Manx has a way with children. He likes to take them for rides in his 1938 Rolls-Royce Wraith with the NOS4A2 vanity plate. With his old car, he can slip right out of the everyday world, and onto the hidden roads that transport them to an astonishing – and terrifying – playground of amusements he calls “Christmasland.”
Then, one day, Vic goes looking for trouble—and finds Manx. That was a lifetime ago. Now Vic, the only kid to ever escape Manx’s unmitigated evil, is all grown up and desperate to forget. But Charlie Manx never stopped thinking about Victoria McQueen"
I commend the author for his creativity and building this crazy and fanciful world. But at times I was turned off by the characters and the way they would interact and things they'd say, which I just found silly and it ruined the atmosphere for me. Also, considering the grand nature of the story, I think it could've pushed the boundaries a bit more. I recently read that there might be a series or movie made. It would be interesting to see it come to life.
Bird Box
goodreads.com
"Something is out there, something terrifying that must not be seen. One glimpse of it, and a person is driven to deadly violence. No one knows what it is or where it came from."
Trust me, that's all you need to know about it. Any more and it could ruin the utter awesomeness that is Bird Box. Talk about imaginative, this was that and so much more. Really innovative book and a great accomplishment for Malerman with this being his debut novel. It's gripping from beginning to end and the characters are relatable and convincing. This is another one that's up for a movie adaptation and I, for one, am very interested in seeing how it all turns out.
A horror anthology
This was a great read. It's pretty rare to find a horror anthology, or any anthology that's good. Pretty much all the stories kept me interested and a lot of them were genuinely creepy. But I hate that book cover.
A Death in Sweden
He was once a CIA agent and now he's hired to hunt down fugitives. He's meant to track a certain individual who just so happens to have died rescuing someone in a bus crash. Now he must uncover who that person was.
Banal story with the most pompous, generally annoying characters I've encountered in any book, ever.
Suffer the Children
Kids begin to drop dead left and right and no one knows why. Parents begin to grieve and massive graves are dug to bury these children. But it's not long until something even stranger begins to happen. The kids are coming back to life only there's something not right about them.
The concept grabbed my attention right away. It did have its eerie moments, but where certain aspects should've been horrifying I felt it held back and sometimes lost its momentum. However, the story was handled fairly well from a character's perspective and though it's a purely fictional scenario it had some realistic dialogue and situations which made it that much more effective. This would actually make a great film.
Memoirs of My Nervous Illness
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daniel_Paul_Schreber
"Schreber was a successful and highly respected judge until middle age when the onset of his psychosis occurred. He woke up one morning with the thought that it would be pleasant to "succumb" to sexual intercourse as a woman. He was alarmed and felt that this thought had come from somewhere else, not from himself. He even hypothesized that the thought had come from a doctor who had experimented with hypnosis on him; he thought that the doctor had telepathically invaded his mind. He believed his primary psychiatrist, Prof. Paul Flechsig had contact with him using a "nerve-language" of which Schreber said humans are unaware. He believed that hundreds of people's souls took special interest in him, and contacted his nerves by using "divine rays", telling him special information, or requesting things of him. During one of his stays at the Sonnenstein asylum, he concluded that there are "fleeting-improvised-men" in the world, which he believed were souls that temporarily resided in a human body, by way of a divine miracle."
The book is an account of Schreber's stay in an asylum and it's a fascinating read. It's eye-opening, heartfelt and heartbreaking. This was once a respected judge and suddenly everything derailed due to schizophrenia. Though it was also thought that a lot of this occurred due to Schreber's repressed homosexuality. Either way, it's an intriguing albeit tragic story and really makes you realize just how fragile the mind can be.
Teatro Grottesco
Horror anthology
A lot of interesting characters here. The book is divided into 3 sections "Derangements" which I would say my favorites from that are "Purity" and "The Town Manager". I would love to see either one made into a film or if they ever brought back The Twilight Zone these would make for great episodes. Especially the latter. "Deformations" and "The Damaged and Diseased" are the other two sections. It's been a while since I've read this book so I can't recall all the stories in it that I liked, I know I'm missing one in particular but for the life of me I can't remember the title. Either way this is a good book and I recommend it.
NOS4A2
goodreads.com
"Victoria McQueen has a secret gift for finding things: a misplaced bracelet, a missing photograph, answers to unanswerable questions. On her Raleigh Tuff Burner bike, she makes her way to a rickety covered bridge that, within moments, takes her wherever she needs to go, whether it’s across Massachusetts or across the country.
Charles Talent Manx has a way with children. He likes to take them for rides in his 1938 Rolls-Royce Wraith with the NOS4A2 vanity plate. With his old car, he can slip right out of the everyday world, and onto the hidden roads that transport them to an astonishing – and terrifying – playground of amusements he calls “Christmasland.”
Then, one day, Vic goes looking for trouble—and finds Manx. That was a lifetime ago. Now Vic, the only kid to ever escape Manx’s unmitigated evil, is all grown up and desperate to forget. But Charlie Manx never stopped thinking about Victoria McQueen"
I commend the author for his creativity and building this crazy and fanciful world. But at times I was turned off by the characters and the way they would interact and things they'd say, which I just found silly and it ruined the atmosphere for me. Also, considering the grand nature of the story, I think it could've pushed the boundaries a bit more. I recently read that there might be a series or movie made. It would be interesting to see it come to life.
Bird Box
goodreads.com
"Something is out there, something terrifying that must not be seen. One glimpse of it, and a person is driven to deadly violence. No one knows what it is or where it came from."
Trust me, that's all you need to know about it. Any more and it could ruin the utter awesomeness that is Bird Box. Talk about imaginative, this was that and so much more. Really innovative book and a great accomplishment for Malerman with this being his debut novel. It's gripping from beginning to end and the characters are relatable and convincing. This is another one that's up for a movie adaptation and I, for one, am very interested in seeing how it all turns out.
Last edited by MonnoM; 09-11-17 at 02:57 PM.
im going to see if i cant find them at the local bookstore 
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