minimicropup's reviews
479 reviews

dark mysterious sad medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? No

1.5

Don’t eat the pie? More like don’t read this book. Just kidding! But seriously, this missed the mark on so many levels for me. It failed on atmosphere, horror, or even basic storytelling. The premise was interesting, and it had potential for some eerie small-town vibes, but the execution was disjointed, juvenile, and clunky. It felt more like an outline than a cohesive story. It seemed like the author just spun a wheel of tropes and included each one for a chapter or two before moving on.

Energy: Inattentive. Immature. Oblivious.

🐺 Growls The plot was all over the place with too many events dropped in—baking processes, toxic family drama, paranormal shit, pregnancy scares, tragedy, walking around places—all without focus. Any spooky elements were diluted by cheesy melodrama but the kind where everyone is like “OMG!” followed by “hmm, oh well”. The present-tense narration didn’t add urgency, it felt monotone and overdramatic. This disconnected pretty hard every time the perspective switched—swinging from YA friendships and crushes to awkward descriptions of the mother having sex and craving the stepdad’s dick (I think I kept forgetting it isn’t actually a YA so it was jarring!).

🐕 Howls The writing style was too simplistic and spoon-fed. The characters felt like caricatures and their dialogue and inner thoughts didn’t match their supposed ages (both the mom and daughter sounded much younger than they were written to be). It didn’t help that the audiobook narrator made the mom sound weird – like croaky but high-pitched older voice? Too many tedious dream sequences used for heavy-handed symbolism. The “spice” scenes were dry, clinical, and random.

Scene: 🇺🇸 An island in North Carolina, USA

Perspective: A parent of a teenage daughter who is marrying their partner and meeting the family. The 16-year-old child of the parent who is meeting their new (and rich) stepfamily for the first time.

Timeline: 2010s or 2020s. ☀️ Spring/Summer

🔥 Fuel: What happened to the neighbour? What’s with the sexism and obsession with reproduction on this island? Are they safe? Are they being used? Who can they trust?

📖 Cred: Over-the-top suspended disbelief

Mood Reading Match-Up:

Seagulls caw. Crickets. Beachy blooms. Guesthouse. Bulges. Hospital waiting rooms.

Simplistic YA style writing
Newlyweds romance
New stepparent
Creepy neighbours and creepy things Gramma’s say
Chilling with the cousins and bestie summer coming-of-age
Dream sequences
Deadbeat parent drama
Mom probs
Rich people behaving strangely
Horror-lite, but horrific things happen
Dark Lifetime B-movie vibe
Pregnancy tropes
Keep it in the family witchy-ness

Content Heads-Up: Sexual content (consenting, off page; marriage). Sexism, forced gender roles (character opinions). Loss of parent. Loss of sibling. Parental abandonment (as child; trying to reconnect as teen). Pregnancy complications. Pregnancy (

unwanted

, experience, body feelings; descriptive, on page). Loss of child. Vomit. Car crash (on page, life threatening). Hospitalization (on page experience; incubation, injuries). Death of loved ones. Matriarchy. Body fluids. Blood.

Rep: American. Cis. Hetero. Snow white and ambiguous skin tones.

📚 Format: Libro.fm

My musings 💖 powered by puppy snuggles 🐶

Content Warnings

Lucy Undying by Kiersten White

Go to review page

adventurous dark emotional funny hopeful lighthearted mysterious reflective tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? No

4.5

I read Dracula ages ago, but I remember getting lost in it, and that's what happened here. Loved the immersive vibe, vampire lore, characters, seamless world-building, and the bio-sci-fi angles. The pacing and humor were great, and even though the ending dragged, I'm glad I read it. 😍

Energy: Resilient. Playful. Wry.

🐕 Howls The ending felt both dragged and rushed. It's long, and some parts felt unnecessary (mostly after the 70% mark). The vampires' aversion to tech felt forced (I know it's picky, but why adapt to other changes and not tech?).

🐩 Tail Wags Loved the bio-sci-fi vampirism and how vampire tropes were woven into the story. Iris's sarcastic humor. Enjoyed all perspectives without feeling pulled away from the 'good' one. The pacing (mostly) and 'Just one more chapter' feeling. Natural world-building. It left space for me to connect the dots and reminded me of the original Dracula without info-dumping. Historical but with a casual modern style (if you're a stickler for historical accuracy, this might be a flaw). Great chemistry between the main characters. Exploring lives across different eras.

Scene: 🇬🇧 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿 🇺🇸 🇨🇳 🇹🇷 🇳🇬 London and Whitby, England; Boston and Salt Lake City, USA; Liaoning China; Istanbul Turkey; Lagos Nigeria.

Perspectives (4): Dracula. A character turned into a vampire by Dracula while trying to protect their love-that-could-never-be through the decades, with journal entries from before they met Dracula in the 1800s. A character who just inherited the family wellness MLM but wants nothing to do with it. A character who joined the wellness MLM and works as a security guard there.

Timeline: Sept 2024-Oct 2025. 1890s leading up to 2024.

🔥 Fuel: Will Iris escape the family business? What's with that MLM? What's Lucy's backstory? How does her life turn out? Will Iris's crush turn into something more? Will the romance fizzle out or are they fated to be together?

📖 Cred: Supernatural realism

Mood Reading Match-Up:

Wood panel. Look right. Mausoleum. Thirst. Moonlight.

Tagging along with the characters, almost like they’re talking to us
Atmospheric, immersive world-building
Biosci-fi vampirism
Historical fiction immortals saga
Autobiography of a vampire
Journal entries and transcripts
Character-driven dramedy
Present meets Past
Sapphic soulmate romantic suspense
Fleeing the family cult
Whisps of multi-level marketing schemes
Casual, modern, intimate writing style
Sprinkling of dark fantasy vibes
Slow-burn character drive starts, switching to faster paced romantasy-style quests and high-stakes escape endings
How far would you go for love?

Content Heads-Up: Dementia, hallucinations (brief; parent). Abusive, controlling, distant parent. Culty organization (bigoted, homophobic, racist). Sexual content (behind closed doors). Unrequited love, betrayal. Murder. Blood. Body horror, gore (brief, on page). Sleep paralysis. Sexual harassment, assault (unwanted advances). War (WWI; brief on page; battlefields, hospitals). Involuntary hospitalization (off page recall). Stalking, violence against women. Homophobia (historical; closeted, forced into heterosexual engagement).

Rep: American. British. Cis. Hetero. Lesbian. Gay. Pan. Pale white, cream-coloured, warm brown, rich dark brown, rich black, and honey skin tones. Autoimmune condition (kind of like cold agglutinin disease).

📚 Format: Library Digital

My musings 💖 powered by puppy snuggles 🐶

Content Warnings

When Mimi Went Missing by Suja Sukumar

Go to review page

dark emotional mysterious sad medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

1.5

This had a promising premise but was poorly executed. It was bogged down by endless rehashing, stiff dialogue, clunky plot devices, and flat characters. It desperately needed editing to help with the flow and trim down the repetitive narration to keep the plot moving.

Energy: Lost. Grieving. Melancholic.

🐺 Growls All the friendships lacked warmth or authenticity – Krista read more like a friendly on-call AI robot than a friend. The narrative kept circling back to repeat background details we already knew, sometimes word for word (I even double-checked a few times to see if I had accidentally flipped backwards). The musing were overly repetitive (like, ‘Did I do something? No, I couldn’t have. But did I? No, it’s impossible. But did I?”). Painfully slow pacing. Motivations were clumsily delivered by villain monologue right in the middle of an escape attempt, where everyone inexplicably paused to listen instead of running for their lives 😂.

🐕 Howls The characters felt like stiff caricatures. All the teenagers were rigid and spoke so formally even with each other. The story relied too heavily on contrived plot devices. The characters withheld vital information for absurd reasons, making the plot feel artificially dragged out. Even during high-stakes scenes, the tension was lost because we kept pausing for the repetitive musings and reflections of the main character. The villain was cartoony and predictable (that one may just be because I’m an adult).

🐩 Tail Wags When things finally started happening in the later parts of the book, it was slightly better. Letters and journals provided some intrigue.

Scene: 🇺🇸 Set in Orin, Michigan, USA

Perspective: Our main character got bullied a lot growing up because of a family tragedy. Their cousin, who they lived with and were super close to, always had their back and felt more like a sibling. But things changed when the cousin got into the popular clique at high school and started joining in on the bullying. After sneaking out to a party, the cousin goes missing.

Timeline: Current (2020s). Late summer/early Fall.

🔥 Fuel: Why is the main character’s cousin suddenly ghosting her and cutting her out of her life? What happened at the party? Is her cousin alive or did something terrible happen to her? Why did the main character wake up with dirty clothes the night her cousin went missing? Can we trust our her take on things?

📖 Cred: Suspended disbelief realism

Mood Reading Match-Up:

Acrid scent. Shadowy wisps. Bruises. Musty earth. Beach. Black candles.

Family tragedy
YA amateur sleuthing
Potential unreliable/untrustworthy narrator
Missing cousin mystery
Friends taking different path betrayal
Mean girls popularity contest
Missing memories
Eavesdropping on mc thoughts
Dense reflection and inner monologue
Heavily withholding and over-hinting

Content Heads-Up: Bullying (high school; non-consenting recordings, peer rejection, purposeful triggering). Loss of parent (as child). Murder-suicide (off page). Betrayal (secrets, bullying). Panic attacks. PTSD. Generalized Anxiety Disorder. Drug use (cocaine, marijuana). Dismissive, disbelieving authorities (police). Pandemic (very brief mention). Gun violence. Physical attack. Murder. Grief. Miscarriage (off page recall; after-effects, psychosis). Healing cons/fraud.

Rep: American. Indian-American. Mixed race (Indian-White). Cis. Deep brown, light brown, black, and pale skin tones.

📚 Format: Library Digital

My musings 💖 powered by puppy snuggles 🐶

Content Warnings

Rest Stop by Nat Cassidy

Go to review page

challenging dark emotional funny mysterious tense fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? No

5.0

As a lifelong member of the Claustrophobic Arachnophobes Club I both loved and hated this 😅. This capitalized on all my childhood fears around those gross gas station bathrooms. It was chilling and thought-provoking horror, but also fun with a little dark humour. I keep thinking about it, it

said a lot with a little.

Energy: Suffocating. Disturbed. Astute.

🐩 Tail Wags How it effectively blends extreme horror and gore with emotional depth and raw humanity. Showing how those who endured monstrosities can grow to dismiss others’ fears as trivial, but how that can also have a protective effect. Sharp, dark humour. Terrifying setting and tension. Vivid see-hear-feel writing style.

Scene: 🇺🇸 Set in a gas station along a deserted stretch of American highway.

Perspective: Our main character is feeling down about their crush dating a bandmate and is driving late at night to get to visit their grandparent in hospital. They stop for a snack and a bathroom break along the way.

Timeline: 2016. ☀️⭐️ Summer nights

🔥 Fuel: Why is the gas station empty? Why won’t the bathroom door open? How are the creatures getting in? What do the ominous notes mean? Escalating stakes, what is happening out in the store? Will our main character survive and escape?

📖 Cred: Plausible

Mood Reading Match-Up:

Yacht rock playlist. Summer breeze. Corn Nuts. Googly eyes. Candy wrappers. Tangy meat smell. Neon condoms. Blood everywhere.

Feeling down about a crush
Show-not-tell exploration of life and death, survival, terror, and trauma
Cinematic sensory writing style
Arthouse-grindhouse horror fusion
Pit stop gone wrong
Swipes of unhinged bizarro villainy

Content Heads-Up: Stroke (off page). War (off page brief mention). Racism (character, bullying; off page mention/recall). Bullying (antisemitic slurs). Creepy crawlies. Body horror (blood, desecration, guts, bodies).

Rep: American. Jewish heritage. Cis. Hetero. Ambiguous skin tones.

📚 Format: Kobo Plus

My musings 💖 powered by puppy snuggles 🐶

Content Warnings

You Better Watch Out by James S. Murray, Darren Wearmouth

Go to review page

adventurous dark funny lighthearted mysterious fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

4.0

This was a fast-paced survival thriller with twisted justice, memorable villains, and a morally complex twist. This is a good one for fans of survival horror and book clubs that like a good ethical debate.

Energy: Devious. Diabolical. Amusing.

🐕 Howls The festive snowy atmosphere fades out. I initially listened to this while multitasking but found it’s better suited for focused listening or text to keep track of characters and developments (I think because it’s fast paced, but it’s also a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it style read at times).

🐩 Tail Wags Schadenfreude-y bad guys face a reckoning. Rooting for some characters but also rooting for them to get picked off one by one. Twisted villains. Fast pace that avoids bogging down in overly detailed action or drawn-out bickering. The survival elements stay engaging. The twist at the end (I had my suspicions but it was still captivating). Creative traps that didn’t feel cartoonish and how characters meet their demise.

Scene: 🇺🇸 Set in a deserted old west town made to look old artificially, with modern tech. I think in upstate New York, USA

Perspective: Mostly a career criminal who has gotten by through robbing vulnerable people. Their latest attempt goes horribly wrong when they wake up to find themselves in an unknown location with several strangers. We also get snippets of some peripheral characters POVs as needed.

Timeline: Current (2010s or 2020s).

🔥 Fuel: Who drugged and abducted the characters? Why place them all together in this fake deserted town? What do each of them hide in their pasts that may have made them targets for this set-up? Will they work together or turn on each other? Is the set-up survivable?

📖 Cred: Suspended disbelief with a side of camp

Mood Reading Match-Up:

Old timey town. Silent night. Blowing snow. Wine. Grizzly bear. Ax. Hatch. Barbed wire. Carousel horses.

Reminiscent of Home Alone style traps but with gruesome consequences
Abandoned eerie winter setting
Light exploration of eye-for-an-eye style ethics, morals, and psychology
Ethical and moral questions around criminals and bad people
Murder mystery while trapped
Picked off one by one slasher
Festive survival thriller
Short chapters
How far would you go for your child?
Sprinkling of reality-tv-but-make-it-a-murder-competition energy
Flip the script twist endings
Hints at a sequel

Content Heads-Up: Body horror. Gore, blood, dismemberment. Theft. Death. Murder. Confinement, abduction. Drugging. Animal attack (descriptive on page). Intoxicated driving (off page). Violence, homicidal tendencies (sexually aroused by). Serial murder. Psychopathy.

Rep: American. Cis. Hetero. Ambiguous skin tones.

📚 Format: Everand Audio

My musings 💖 powered by puppy snuggles 🐶

Content Warnings

The Extinction of Irena Rey by Jennifer Croft

Go to review page

Did not finish book. Stopped at 10%.

The synopsis of this sounds sooo good. Maybe I’m not smart enough to appreciate the literary elements here, but the writing style is driving me crazy. Every little thing is described in the most convoluted insider purple prose foreshadowing way possible in excruciating detail. And yet for all that word salad I often have no damn clue wtf is going on 😂. It’s so bogged down but also feels like a scholarly/literary arts thing maybe. Either way it’s something I’m not appreciating and getting frustrated with, so I’m calling it. Def not for me.

Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead by Olga Tokarczuk

Go to review page

Did not finish book. Stopped at 20%.

Not bad I just can’t get into it and there’s so much sad animal stuff. The character is telling us her thoughts almost stream of consciousness, which I usually like, but for this one I found myself thinking ‘when does the story start?’ It’s good just not for me!

The Darkest Night by Lindy Ryan

Go to review page

Did not finish book. Stopped at 40%.

Everything I read so far was just sad fic or, as another reviewer mentioned, stories that drift off to nowhere.

They also were just ‘everyone is sad/grieving/heartbroken. It’s close to Christmas btw’. No atmosphere, festive vibes, chills, or horror.

So if you like sad-fic or grief/heartstrings horror, I think it’s a good collection (they aren’t badly written).

Edit: now that there are more reviews posted with story lists, I’m seeing that the last half of this sounds more like what I’m looking for (like from Nat Cassidy/Rachel Harrison on? I didn’t make it to their stories). So maybe I’ll give this another try but I’ll pick which ones to read based on reviews 😀

Boy Parts by Eliza Clark

Go to review page

Did not finish book. Stopped at 42%.

nothing bad about this i’m just getting bored and it’s not really my kinda book. But I think it’s well written, I got this far before calling it! The main character in this was so unlikeable but fascinating in a trainwreck kinda way.

Content Warnings

The Sleepwalkers by Scarlett Thomas

Go to review page

adventurous dark emotional mysterious tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.5

I liked the literary, dark, unsettling vibes, though it lost me near the end when that was replaced with high-stakes faster-paced thriller chaos. Once I got into the flow, it was okay, but I think this one is best suited for those who appreciate dark, complex narratives and can roll with its quirks.

Energy: Imperious. Condescending. Perverse.

🐺 Growls The narrators do a great job, but the audio-transcription app used in the story introduces intentional mistakes and cuts off, so the audiobook was hard to understand in those parts.

🐕 Howls Trying to do too much in one story. Seems like it’s trying too hard to shock or be edgy sometimes. The heavy-handedness near the end clashed with the subtler, slow-burn tone established early on. Don’t overanalyze - these characters are supposedly hand-writing novella-length letters to each other 😂.

🐩 Tail Wags Piecing things together as I progressed through the book. The stream-of-consciousness style letters. Some of the dark twists. How it captured arguments, passive aggression, and pettiness with excruciating precision. Intriguing exploration of deeply flawed humans. The atmosphere.

Scene: 🇬🇷 An unnamed Greek island

Perspectives (3): Two spouses writing to each other, but almost in a way where they don’t expect the other person to read them (more of a cathartic exercise?). The sleepwalker’s wife. And transcripts from recordings.

Time: Current (2020s). ☀️ Summery.

🔥 Fuel: How did these two end up married? Why is their marriage falling apart? What happened with the sleepwalking couple? High stakes action and questing. Can one of the characters find what they’re looking for?

📖 Cred: Plausible with emotional hyper-realism

Mood Reading Match-Up:

Soft heat. Underripe melon. Pomegranate. White-washed buildings. Distant lightning. Howling winds. Singing goldfinches.

Honeymoon gone wrong
Deep-dive into complex characters and relationship dynamics
Stream of consciousness narratives
Flowery writing style, veering into purple prose (fits the character writing it though)
Melodrama and scandal, marriage unraveling
Fast-paced quests and cat-and-mouse games
Exploring the same events from multiple perspectives
Immersive and atmospheric world building
Dark ominous themes with a mix of literary and thriller elements
Epistolary-ish reading notes and listening to transcribed recordings

Content Heads-Up: Classism, entitlement. Marriage troubles (dismissive, arguments, name-calling, demanding). Intrusive in-law. Sexual content (consenting, fantasizing). Hospice (recall). Sexual grooming (preteens/teens). Voyeurism of minors. Non-consenting sex (intoxication). Drugging. Trafficking. Refugee camp, status. Vomit. Dieting (food restriction). Fatphobia. Homophobia (prejudice, persecution). Sexual violence. Excrement (brief). Covid (fatal; very brief mention).

Rep: British. Greek. Turkish. Cis. Hetero. White, olive, tan, and ambiguous skin tones.

📚 Format: Everand Audio

My musings 💖 powered by puppy snuggles 🐶

Content Warnings

More...

minimicropup's reviews 479 reviews

minimicropup's reviews
479 reviews