nerdyprettythings's reviews
495 reviews

It’s pretty bad, but it was perfect for listening to all day at work while pulling reports together, and there really is something to be said about a book that works as some good noise for you. 
To be more specific: I rolled my eyes at the writing quite a bit. It’s set in DC, but I can’t really tell why? Just to make the MC sound like an important lawyer? It doesn’t feel like the author actually knows the area that well. There’s a lot of lawyer talk that doesn’t actually make sense in a very Law and Order “this needs to be wrapped up in 42 minutes” way. And the other MC, the husband, is so awful that despite the fact that he’s being framed, I hated him so much that I was okay with that. 

Still, not a bad time!

I really enjoyed this one! The book babes have been passing around a physical copy and I finished it faster than I’ve read a hardcover book in many years. It’s so engrossing and I think going into it with as little information as possible is the way to go, it’s a very fun (fun for horror lovers) ride. It really is scary at times, especially in a psychological horror way. If you loved choose your own adventure-style bleak ending creepiness (like I do) you’ll love this one.
I don’t quiteeeeee think the ending stuck the landing. Unlike a lot of comments I’ve seen, I actually think it should have been more open-ended given how many options and universes were presented. 

The good: I love an audiobook with a full cast and sound effects. I know it’s not for everyone, but that radio play style is something I really enjoy. This book includes the script of the titular horror movie as well as past and present day, and I tend to eat that stuff up. I didn’t love this book, but the style had me getting through it in a couple days on audio. A couple characters were really interesting and I would have liked to know more about them. 
The bad: the MC is not one of those interesting people. And he really could have been, he makes weird choices! But as a young man, he’s one of those dudes whose personality is “tall,” and as an older man, his personality is “knows the backstory.” There was some fun creepy stuff going on, but the MC is boring, and by the end I was just kind of sad for everyone else and annoyed he’s the only one who got a voice. I also wish we had gotten even more mixed media stuff! With the references to the fandom, we could have gotten reddit posts and stuff rather than have the MC tell us “apparently there are forums” 

One thing I’m going to do is read horror from #womenintranslation and say “wait wtf was that?” This book was very quick and you know what’s going on with the MC… but you also do not know what’s going on with the MC. I enjoyed the weird and a few very good gasp- and dread-inducing moments. (Do recommend checking the CWs)

This book was so cute but also it’s horror-adjacent. Sort of straddling YA and new adult, it’s the story of 4 recent high school graduates going to a Burning Man-style music festival. Except they turned into zombies/vampires - “Hollow people” - a couple years ago, and they have a freezer full of synthetic human meat. I really enjoyed the MCs and the cutaways to the characters’ histories. There’s also a very cute pining BFF romance with a cis woman MC and her trans woman bestie. One character is a famous influencer and I would have liked to see the book do more with that, it’s mentioned a couple times, but she doesn’t do a lot of like influencer work or worrying that she never posts at all during the festival. At times the treatment of hollow people is a pretty heavy handed metaphor for homophobia. BUT overall, a very fun little spooky summer read.

Hi I loved thissss. I didn’t even read the synopsis because I trust Alyssa Cole, and honestly I think it was really fun to go into it that way. But a quick rundown: a woman with dissociative identity disorder is hired as a caretaker for a castle on a private island, and to be paid, she has to survive the night. This book was giving Get Out meets And Then There Were None, with a lot of that mystery happening inside the MC’s head. This book felt like a BIG SWING and imo Cole pulled it off really well. 
Caveat: I don’t know anything about actual DID, but the book read like it was well researched. 

TLDR: Well written and engaging, but super duper depressing. 
So yeah, religions with better press do just as much abusing kids and oppressing women. This book’s study of Mormon historical and recent violence (child r*pe, murder, honor killings, etc) was written at an interesting time. Krakauer compares two extremist “religious fervor” murders to the 9/11 attacks, and the book was about 15 years too early for him to know about the whistleblowing on the establishment Mormon church’s $100s of billions in hidden assets. My takeaway was - in the end, the religious extremists are often exactly what the religion’s founders were like, despite the modern church’s attempts to create distance from them. The more out there the beliefs (also v v interesting given how recent and how much info on Mormonism’s founding we have) the further into the group people will go. And there are a lot of people willing to take advantage of that. 

You can see why I picked this one up - hello to you, amazing cover! And I really enjoyed it. I needed something to get me back in the swing of audiobooks and I devoured this one. Told in dual POVs, the main characters are an unstoppable force meeting an immovable object. I really enjoyed the dynamic - neither really knows what the other is up to, and their assumptions lead to so much drama- in their heads and IRL. I don’t want to say too much, I had a few great surprises throughout, and I don’t want to spoil anything. I was a wee bit confused by the characters in the beginning, but it was worth it to get there.

I DEVOURED this book in one day, basically listening to it every moment I was able. This book felt like a thriller, despite a PTA election being at the center of the book's countdown. This book is what would happen if Big Little Lies and Mean Girls had a Miami-based mom-drama baby, and I enjoyed it from start to finish. The book is told in multiple POV, and the audio is a cast of narrators (including my fav Robin Miles!) I think this one would be an incredible slump buster or poolside read. Publish date is July 3oth!