courtneydoss's reviews
785 reviews

About two years ago, I set about reading a large anthology of H.P. Lovecraft's work. One of the best beloved science fiction writers of the 20th century, H.P. Lovecraft's brand of weird has infiltrated pop culture in every imaginable way; from plush toys in the shape of Cthulu to Lovecraftian mythos in Dungeons and Dragons. Still, despite the major cultural pressure to be familiar with Lovecraft, I had never read anything by him up until that point, and so when I did, I wanted to really throw myself into it. Predictably, when such a monolithic goal is tackled without any forethought, I gave up on it about 30% into the collection. So, now, at the tail end of 2019, I decided to pick up the anthology once more and reread Lovecraft's collection of stories.

For whatever reason, The Nameless City is the first of Lovecraft's stories in my Kindle copy of his collection, so it was my introduction into Lovecraft's style. Centered around an unnamed archaeologist/explorer, the narrator tells us the story of a mythical unnamed city, his descent through the ruins, and his eventual discovery of a strange and unusual undercity hidden beneath. A highly palatable 23 pages, I really liked this story. There is a definite sense of foreboding about the whole thing, and Lovecraft's bloated prose work extremely well to convey a powerful atmosphere. There is a palpable terror as the narrator descends through the ruins, a curiosity as his discoveries become weirder and weirder, and a crescendo of dramatic irony as the reader discovers the truth that the narrator has not yet noticed.

Although I'm certain that there are many of H.P. Lovecraft's works that would leave this story firmly in the dust, I think that this is a really good starting point for getting into his work. For me, it did a good job of setting the tone for the spooky, funky world of the rest of his stories and novels.

The Festival is a short story about a man who is summoned, by way of ancient tradition, to Kingsport for a mysterious festival in honor of Yuletide. He meets a spooky guy, follows him into an ooky spooky locale, and is takes part in a ritual from the Necronomicon. There is some A+ atmospheric description, but all in all there is a distinct lack of oomph to this plot for me. I think that it was weak and not particularly memorable, especially when compared to some of Lovecraft's more famous works. I think that anybody interested in only reading Lovecraft's best would be justified in passing this story up entirely.

I have heard it said by other Goodreads reviewers that the Stalking Jack the Ripper series gets better the further you go along, and so far that has proven true. Hunting Prince Dracula was a better story than its predecessor, but it still had its fair share of negatives.

I said in my review of Stalking Jack the Ripper that I thought Kerri Manscalco was not particularly good at writing. Her story is good, but the way she puts it on paper is lacking. She is repetitive in her language style, using the same phrases over and over. I was particularly annoyed by how often Audrey Rose mentions her skirts. Unless you've read it, and noticed what I'm talking about, I can't really express how frustrated this particular quirk in the writing was to me. It was as though the only way that she could fill the page was by bringing attention to Audrey Rose's clothing every other sentence.

Other than the constant use of skirts as filler, Kerri Manscalco's sentences were sometimes rather clunky. Why convey an idea in five words when you can do it in ten, and make sure that the idiots really get how sexy Cresswell is, or how cool and before-her-time Audrey Rose is. The additional words did nothing to add to the sentence's power, and instead drew my attention to grammar and syntax rather than the images the words were meant to conjure. Maybe that's just me. Maybe I'm just used to reading books that are more polished than this one. Maybe Kerri Manscalco is just as good as any other awesome writer but they just had better editors. Who can tell? Regardless, the writing was not good in my opinion, and it took me out of things a little bit.

Happily, Audrey Rose improved in her general pomposity in this book as compared to the previous one, and although she spent most of the book with a stick still firmly shoved up her ass, she definitely wasn't clenching as hard in this book as in Stalking Jack the Ripper. This made her slightly more tolerable as a heroine, and by the end I was actually rooting for her. Thomas Cresswell, too, won me over in this book. He has always been more likable than Audrey Rose, but he was much more vulnerable in this book.

So yeah, this book was much better than the previous one in the series, and I'm curious to see if the trend continues through the next one.

I really like mythology of all kinds. I am moderately well versed in Norse mythology, Celtic myths, Hindu deities, and Egyptian gods. My favorites of all the myths, though, have long been those of Ancient Greece. When I was a kid, I remember learning about a slightly censored version of the Greek myths in school, and wishing like Hell that the gods were real. They were just so much more interesting than anything I was used to at that point. I was excited about their stories, because, as I would come to learn, I have always been a whore for drama.

Circe is the epic tale of the well known but poorly understood witch of The Odyssey fame; best known for turning men into pigs. This novelization of her mythos pulls together all the little threads of her story found throughout the ancient stories, placing her into context with other well known myths, and providing her with a solid ending to wrap up her story instead of leaving it hanging after the action is over, as myths tend to do.

The story of Circe, as told by Madeline Miller, is one of growing confidence and learning to be yourself. Circe is seen as less than her other family members, because she is not as godly as they are. The Titan blood within her doesn't show itself the way that they had expected, and so she is mistreated. However, what Circe finds is that the things that make her special are uniquely hers. There is power within her that is not found from her parentage. Instead, it comes from the sheer force of her will. She does not need the power of her family. All she needs is herself.

I loved the rise of Circe from timid daughter of Helios to vicious witch of Aiaia. She was such a relatable character, and exactly the kind of heroine that we deserve.

5-stars, well deserved.

Le sigh Nathaniel Eaton. My first love. The literary hottie that sent my eight year old heart into palpitations and effected my taste in men pretty much forever.

The Witch of Blackbird Pond was one of the first books that I ever read, and the book that I always professed to be my favorite in my childhood. I was a big history buff, and a story centered around the Puritan days of early America was right up my alley. Add in a dose of teenage romance, a wonderfully rebellious heroine, and accusations of witchcraft, and I was hooked.

Kit Tyler, the main character of the novel, is a young girl from Barbados who relocates to the British colony of Connecticut after the death of her grandfather. Raised in luxury, Kit is surprised to find that life in Connecticut is far simpler than it was in Barbados, but the social requirements are infinitely more complex. Unused to the Puritanical rule of the town, Kit finds herself on the bad side of most people's moral opinions quite quickly, and is accused of witchcraft after she begins to hang out with a local Quaker woman named Hannah Tupper.

Looking at this book from an adult perspective, I can see why this was such a favorite of mine. The story of a weird girl who is transplanted into a foreign land and doesn't know the right things to do to make people like her rang pretty close to home for me, as an army brat with a hard time making friends. The love stories between Nathaniel and Kit, and two other lesser characters that I won't name for fear of spoiling it, were about being loved and accepted for who you are, even if others never saw your worth.

I rated this book 4-stars because of the nostalgia factor. Really, the writing would put it solidly at a 3-stars rating because it was a bit dry and boring, if I'm being honest. However, the oomph that came from a sweet love story combined with the nostalgia made me rate it a little bit higher. I couldn't bring myself to do the whole 5-stars, though, because the dry prose did make reading this book, even as short as it was, drag on.

I read this book as part of my 2020 goal to reread books from my childhood that I enjoyed now that I'm an adult, just to see if they hold up.

It feels as though Abbi Waxman was secretly stalking me for years in order to write Nina Hill. Clearly, that is not the case and I'm not nearly as unique a person as I thought I was, but when I say that Nina Hill is the living embodiment of everything I am, I'm only slightly exaggerating. There are significant differences in appearance and circumstance, obviously, but so much of Nina's internal thoughts and feelings and interests sync with mine. She is my fictional character soul mate, which means I should love her, and I did, but I wasn't in love with her.

Nina Hill is an introverted bookworm who is wooed by a trivia team rival at the same time that she discovers she has a long lost paternal family. Both of these situations are overwhelming for the normally very private Nina, and seriously infringe on her reading time. A stickler for planning, so much spontaneity challenges Nina, and she has to learn to go with the flow a little bit in order to form meaningful relationships with her newfound family members and her love interest.

I think what turned me off from The Bookish Life of Nina Hill was the romance aspect. I enjoyed the story line of the long lost family, and the subplot of the bookstore's money troubles, but I felt that the romance was weak. For one, there was very minimal chemistry between Nina and her love interest. I just didn't believe the sexual tension that the author claimed was existent between the two but never actually showed. Secondly, the pair had very little in common. While the message of the story is

Spoiler

to accept people's differences as strengths rather than weaknesses

, I think that it is important for people to have at least something in common.

Spoiler

Just because Tom was the perfect compliment to her interests on paper, with his sports knowledge and his book shelf making, doesn't mean that he was an actually good partner for her in reality

.

Also, forgive me fellow Goodreads reviewers, but I found Nina to be remarkable selfish and annoying in certain chapters. I understand anxiety. I have it, and I know all about being averse to social interaction. However, I felt that there were quite a few instances where Nina used her anxiety as an excuse to be a dick. She was a bit of a snob, uncompromising in her relationships, and generally uncommunicative. I suppose a few of those can be chalked up to anxiety, but I'm a firm believer in people taking ownership of their actions and the consequences despite their mental illness, and Nina never sought help to improve her anxiety.

Because of everything stated above, I cannot in good conscience rate this book higher than 4-stars. It is, however, a cute little story and Nina is likable despite her weaknesses, so the 4-stars and Goodreads Choice Awards Fiction nomination were well deserved.

This Is How You Lose the Time War is a love poem made into a novel.

The story centers around two Time agents from competing agencies who begin to fall in love through letters. The letters themselves are gorgeous, once Red and Blue begin to fall in love, but all throughout Amal El-Mohtar's prose is lyrical and gorgeous. The writing style does take a moment to get used to, the setting intangible and difficult to pin down, but once you start to understand the world that you're reading about and the characters within it, the whole thing melts into a luxurious, lovingly written tale of slow burning affection in the most unlikely of places.

Amal El-Mohtar's writing is superb. Her story is unique, unlike anything else that I've ever read. The only place where she falls short is in the coherency of what she writes -- the average reader will spend quite some time confused about what the heck is actually going on. I listened to this on audiobook, which also meant that there were moments when I was woefully confused in a way that I might not have been if I had the book in print in front of me. I could have gone back through the story more easily to decipher what I was reading. However difficult this book was to understand, at first, it quickly became one of the most beautifully written novels that I've read this year.

4-stars.

Practical Magic, the film directed by Griffin Dunne and based on Alice Hoffman's novel, was probably one of the most influential pieces of fiction in my young life. I was eight years old when the movie came out, and like many young girls at the time, I was enraptured by the concept of magic and witchcraft. The idea that I, like Sally and Gillian Owens, could effect the world around me in small but profound ways despite the fact that I was young and inconsequential moved me deeply. It wasn't even really about the magic -- it was about the underdog possessing the power to control their own lives, about finding the people with whom you belong even on the fringes of society, about the sacredness of femininity and the finding of the Divine in the world around you. With the film having had such a profound effect on me, it was not likely that the book could live up to the hype.

It has been many, many years since I read Alice Hoffman's novel Practical Magic but I remember feeling quite disappointed with it. I felt like it lacked the magic, but when I saw that Alice Hoffman had written a prequel focusing on everyone's favorite aunts, I knew that no matter my impression of her writing beforehand, I would have to read this.

The Rules of Magic tells the story of Franny and Jet Owens, and their brother Vincent. Although remarkably different from one another, the siblings each possess a unique magic of their own that defines their world. Despite the wishes of their mother, Susanna, the siblings all discover their witchy roots in small town Massachusetts, growing into their power as they grow into adulthood. Unfortunately for the Owens siblings, with their magic comes a curse upon anyone who ever dares to loves an Owens.

Franny, Jet, and Vincent are very well written characters, though I can't help but to feel that poor Vincent is woefully inadequate in comparison to the girls. It can't be helped, though, because Franny and Jet are icons. Does Vincent have Midnight Margaritas? No. Who can compete with that?

My favorite thing about this novel is the infusion of magic and superstition in every page. The hidden meanings of every herb, every color, every seemingly innocuous occurrence was just what I needed to disrupt the humdrum of my sadly magicless life. The infusion of magic and meaning into everyday life thrilled me. To give power to fallen brooms and backyard gardens and spilled salt just allows the reader to live for ever so brief a time in a world that holds within it magic at all times. It is an incredibly uplifting story, and with how much I loved this novel I think it might be time to revisit Practical Magic

In An Absent Dream chronicles one of the most interesting characters in the Wayward Children series; child psychologist and physical child Katherine Lundy. At a young age, Lundy finds herself in the Goblin Market, a faerie realm in which everything has value and everything must be fair. It is a world of rigid rules that don't always make sense right away, and of consequences both unpleasant and unexpected. Alongside her friend Moon and her mentor, the Archivist, Lundy explores the world of the Goblin Market and falls in love with the life there. But, the world of her birth calls her back, again and again throughout her life until finally she has to make the ultimate choice.

The Goblin Market is one of the most interesting worlds that Seanan McGuire has come up with, in my opinion, because of the very unusual rules. Borrowing from traditional faerie lore, the Goblin Market is a world where the careless could end up completely screwed. Lundy, fascinated with the written word, belongs in this world, where every word has to be so deliberate. Nothing one says in the Goblin Market can be carelessly thrown out there; you have to say exactly what you mean, promise only exactly what you're willing to give, and never reveal too much. It was such a fascinating setting, and Lundy's story was super cool.

The one thing that this book was missing was the powerful ensemble cast. I like the mixture of different people from different worlds, and as this was set in a single world it lacked that element. However, this book did display the emotional conflict between taking your own path and following the path laid out before you by your family. Lundy loves the Goblin Market with everything inside her, but she also cares for her family and so to make them happy continually jeopardizes her own happiness. The entire thing is an apt metaphor for what it is like to balance individual and familial desires.

The entire series is a metaphor for people embracing their differences and finding a place that they belong, even if that place isn't at home, but I feel like In an Absent Dream is the book that best drives that point home. While this book wasn't my absolute favorite in the series, I think that it is definitely in the top two.

When Rick Riordan's Percy Jackson and the Olympians series began, I was in the awkward age range where I was aging out of Young Adult titles, and but not quite adult enough to enjoy more decidedly adult fiction. Recommended to me by a friend, this series slipped into my life at the last possible second, and I'm very grateful that it did.

I will always love Rick Riordan's books, and even though I am pushing 30, I know that I will continue to read anything that he publishes. His books are fun, creative, and best of all, inclusive of many races, sexual orientations, and gender identities. It is a superior YA series that I recommend highly to everyone. Clearly, because of my love for the series, I decided that it was a good place to start for my 2020 quest to reread books I enjoyed when I was younger.

The Lightning Thief is a funny, action packed introduction to the series. In this book, young demigod Percy Jackson is recruited to track down a stolen lightning bolt for the Olympian god Zeus, all the while being attacked by monsters who think that he stole it. Along with his satyr friend Grover and daughter of Athena, Annabeth, Percy travels across North America and fights monsters straight out of the Greek myths.

I think what I like the most about this book is the world building. The comical modernization of Greek myths, such as making Ares shield into a bulletproof vest, is so entertaining and I love guessing what or who the characters are dealing with when they encounter monsters. This book is just straight up fun, on par with the Harry Potter series, and I will continue to love this series until I'm old and gray.