goody_reads's reviews
242 reviews

Billy Whistler by Bill Thompson

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medium-paced

4.0

Book 4 in the series. 

Would have been better without Cate honestly but I can see why she and her scenes were added. 

This is a story about a cult and a parish in the bayou. Secrets abound for over 100 years. 

Overall a good boogeyman story in a good setting. Love all the mentions of food as NOLA really has the best food. 
Daughter's Drawings by Nick Botic

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adventurous challenging dark fast-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix
  • Strong character development? No
  • Diverse cast of characters? No
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? No

4.5

This was good! At first I did not like the writing style but I am glad I stuck with it. You can feel the uncertainty and creepiness through most of the book.  

Essentially a happy family is on vacation, their car gets broken into, and someone steals all their daughter’s artwork. It’s a shitshow from there. 

Warning: the dog DOES die.  
Sinister Spiders of Saginaw by Johnathan Rand

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fast-paced

3.0

This was fine. A girl who doesn’t like spiders has to find the courage to battle spiders trying to take over the town. 

The dog doesn’t die. That’s nice. 
Madame by Sara Cate

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slow-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? It's complicated
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

2.0

This is how you ruin a great series. 

It would have been good as book 1 or 2 but the author took a bad ass character and gave her every cliche and foible she could think of. 

Then to make it worse did the most predictable and boring ending ever. Along with leaving an opening to continue the series of course. 

Do yourself a favor. Stop the series before this one and live in bliss. 
Last Girls by Demetra Brodsky

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adventurous challenging emotional tense medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Strong character development? It's complicated
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes

5.0

I really loved this book. It’s a mix of Hunger Games and a little Maze Runner. 

The MCs are 3 sisters raised on a doomsday prepper compound. The style is a mix of POV shifts and letters written by one of the sisters. There are dark family secrets that keep the story interesting and complex. 

Secrets, betrayal, a lot of Shakespeare references, and an appreciation of art make this a compelling story. Would read another from this author. 

The dog does NOT die. Neither does the bird. 
53 Sleepless Nights: 50+ Monsters, Murders, Demons, and Ghosts. Short Horror Stories and Legends. by Tobias Wade

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fast-paced

4.0

Collection of scary short stories. All very different from each other. Not as good as 52 SN IMO. 

Will continue the rest of the series. 
Just Our Luck by Julia Walton

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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

This is the CUTEST book. I mainly read horror or smut but this was like a cutesy lil YA hallmark movie. 

The formatting flips between prose, journal entries, and text messages. 

The POV is Leo, an anxious Greek teenager who is the victim of an ages long family curse. 

It’s happy, it’s sad, it’ll piss you off, but at the end it’s just a feel good story with some funny characters going through so big important things. 
Punished for Dreaming: How School Reform Harms Black Children and How We Heal by Bettina L. Love

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medium-paced

4.0

I really like her works. She is detailed, organized, provides all the data, and gives solutions based on facts. 

Her style of writing shows where her biases are but gives information through thorough research. 

I am always one who wants to change the system and I think Love shows us how we can start to do that on a larger scale. 
The Grim Effect by Chandra Kelton, Chandra Kelton

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3.0

The idea of this book was good. 

Someone dies and he becomes the grim reaper to restore balance to the world. 

But holy moly. The errors. Some pages were nearly unreadable due to the amount of misspellings or fragments or words missing. 

I think someone could really take this idea and run with it to make a great series though. Just maybe not this author. 
Tell Me I'm Worthless by Alison Rumfitt

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challenging dark tense slow-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.0

I don’t really know how to feel about this book. I’m not actually sure what it was about. 

It’s LGBTQIA+.  Female forward. There’s a haunted house. All the trigger warnings for homophobic language/slurs. UK based. 

I don’t know. I don’t think I want to read another by this author but there were some interesting POV chapters written in a way that I’ve never seen before.