cass_lit's reviews
1354 reviews

Honestly shocking that I enjoyed this as much as I did because I couldn’t have told you a single thing about Garfield a month ago. 

I didn’t know anything about this before reading, but was pleasantly surprised by Cahalan’s recounting of this time in her life — both her own reflections and the science. Some aspects in Cahalan’s writing felt a bit dated. 

Even if I didn’t love the story (the characters were insufferable), Dostoevsky conveyed human emotion so well that I was immediately struck. 

It feels wrong to say that I loved this because of its serious, dark subject matter. I couldn’t put it down though. I never got into the true crime obsession that many do (and which is referred to in the book), so it’s possible that I was sucked in because I didn’t already know this story. I didn’t even know it was based on truth until I started reading some reviews. But the way Knoll wrote this was so inspiring to me. The plot and writing style was there to draw me in but the message and themes were so important. 

This was maybe the least personally relatable poetry collection I’ve ever read, which is not at all a knock on the author or the book but did affect my reading experience. I loved the doodles with certain poems though, which made this poetry collection unique and were maybe my favorite part. 

This wasn’t for me. I didn’t like the language (tons of trigger warnings here for hate speech, vile language, sexual language, etc etc), I didn’t get the metaphor (fascism, racism, transphobia, antisemitism are bad yes but what did they have to do with the haunted house), I didn’t like the characters (both of them need therapy and god are there literally ONLY unhealthy relationships in this), I don’t know why we had to be so racist/ transphobic/ antisemitic/ etc to prove a point, and I don’t understand the house plot. I still don’t know why the house is haunted. I know why Alice and Ila have trauma but I don’t know what I’m supposed to take from it — that sometimes rape accusations are all in your head? That can’t be right. 

Maybe there was a point to this book and maybe it will mean something to someone, help them feel seen. Not me, but I wasn’t the target audience, so…

I liked this! It felt a little drawn out at the end and there were some plot holes, but generally a good time.