howlinglibraries's reviews
1719 reviews

 I hate to be so blunt and negative, but this was awful. "Encouraging tales of resilience" - where? I skimmed the rest of the book after deciding to DNF it, just to see if those tales showed up later, and they don't. The book is written like a Dr. Seuss motivational book for adults who hate their jobs, which is somehow both obnoxious and incredibly boring. The very first story talks about how, if you hate your job but can't afford to take an 8-week vacation, maybe you could go part-time — because y'know, in this economy, we can all totally take a pay cut! /s

Sorry. I hated this. 😅

Thank you to the publisher for the gifted copy! All thoughts are honest and my own. 

 Okay, not a new favorite series yet, but I can see why people get so addicted to these books. It definitely kept me engaged! I'm super excited to continue the series. I'll post a full review in a bit, but for anyone who's read this series and wants my thoughts on The Bonds™️:

- Atlas is a darling and delight

- Gryphon is fine, thanks, no real complaints here

- Gabe is kind of douche-y in a "broken-hearted frat boy" way that grew on me significantly by the end of the book

- North is an over-domineering asshole who probably thinks he's doing "what's best for everyone"; fully expecting a solid grovel outta this guy

- Nox can go get fucked by a cactus coated in hot sauce.

Buddy read with my besties Malli and Misty ♥ 

 I simply assume at this point that anything KAM writes will be a hit with me. I loved this. I'll be honest and admit that the synopsis wasn't the most compelling thing for me and I basically only picked it up because I love KAM's writing so much that I was willing to try it out and hope for the best, but this was phenomenal. I was so invested in the history between these sisters and stayed on the edge of my seat until the very end!

I suspected the culprit from fairly early on in the story, but it didn't feel predictable as it was more of a gut feeling than anything, and even with my suspicions, I still fell for one big red herring hard — enough so that, when the reveal happened, I was somehow surprised despite having guessed it so early on. 😂 That might have made more sense in my head than it does on paper, but it's true!

I really enjoyed the different POVs of all three sisters, but JJ was definitely my favorite. I just loved her perspective, and some of the reveals about her past broke my heart! 10/10 would root for these women again.

I read a final copy borrowed from the library, but for the sake of disclosure, I was also given an early review copy. All thoughts are honest and my own. 

 

From the very first line, you know The Only Safe Place Left is the Dark will be a bleak, unsettling tale, and it surely delivers. It's a unique perspective on a post-apocalyptic "infected" scenario, and Quinton is an easy character to empathize with. The writing was lovely, the pacing was solid, and the underlying plot about Quinton's experiences as an HIV+ gay man in the 80s was absolutely heartbreaking.

My only complaint is that I wish this story had been longer! I think it would've worked beautifully as a 150- to 200-page novella, and then we would have had more time to watch certain emotional elements and characters develop, which would have allowed the story's high stakes to be even better. That said, I still immensely enjoyed this and highly recommend it!

Thank you to BookSirens for the review copy! All thoughts are honest and my own.

✨ Representation: Quinton is gay and HIV+; mentions of a (deceased) gay character; Billy is Black, gay, and HIV+ 

 2024 challenge for me: stop taking booktok recs for extreme horror

2024 challenge for booktok: recommend horror books that are well written and don't primarily rely on descriptions of dirty genitals to gross out readers

Honestly, this was... I don't know, I just expected so much more after seeing SO much hype. 😩 I was hoping this would be one of those rare extreme horror finds that was really well-written and genuinely GOOD, but the page length should've been cut in half, the dialogue and internal thought processes were so unrealistic and boring, and these children made me wonder if the author ever interacts with actual kids IRL. Couple all of that with way too many descriptions of an elderly woman's genitals and her kinks, and this was simply Not A Good Time.

I did, however, really enjoy the final scene with a certain adult clumsily breaking playground toys. No spoilers, but iykyk and it was cute.