mmccombs's reviews
703 reviews

A solid atmospheric read! I loved the setting and the premise, though it ended up being much more of a romance than I anticipated. The romance was still good, but I thought there’d be much more vampires! When the vampires did show up, I thought they were cleverly imagined and integrated into the story, I liked that they were more “creature” than human. Both characters were interesting and I enjoyed the complex social dynamics at play. I will say that I didn’t really enjoy the narration of this one and probably would have been more invested if I had read this physically instead. But all in all I thought this was a perfect fall read with just the right amount of spooky atmosphere and historical romance.

This is just not what I expected (and wanted)! Based off of the first chapter, I was under the impression this was going to be about wolves (e.g. how they evolved, what they do for ecosystems, general facts about them, more science-y I guess), our stories/perceptions of wolves, and how those perceptions impact human relationships with wolves. But this immediately was just a lack luster memoir? I mean, a book focusing on folktales, gender, and wolf symbolism in a woman's everyday life would be an interesting and perhaps more focused one, but that was not the book I was promised when reading the summary and first chapter. And the book it actually was did not do anything for me, the author's reflections felt shallow, disjointed, and unclear. The quotes pulled from other sources only seemed peripherally related to the arguments she was trying to make, and by the end of chapter 2 I was confused about her actual thesis. I'm thinking this book is just trying to do too much, and in doing so lost focus. I just wanted a wolf book!

Hmm, I kind of hated this?? An interesting concept, but it was entirely boring and disjointed. It could have gone further into a horror angle in my opinion, otherwise it was just kind of magical realism and misogyny: the novel. I didn’t get Irene, I never quite understood why she even wanted a child (other than for “you’re supposed to do this” and “keep your husband happy” reasons), so her going through all of this trouble just didn’t make sense to me. Also why was she so rude all of the time? I mean, being pregnant and having bad things happen to you is definitely reason enough to be angry, but she just seemed to be mean at strange times that didn’t make sense to me. The ending was bad and didn’t do anything for me. Especially at the end, the conflation of fertility/motherhood with being a woman (and not having the “right parts” to have children as being a curse that mothers pass on to their daughters) was kind of icky to me? I’m just not sure I liked what this had to say about being infertile, being pregnant, or being a woman on the whole. I don’t know, I have read a lot of the “pregnancy/motherhood as horror” genre and this did nothing new or interesting.

Probably one of the most devastating books I’ve read in a long time. For it being a fairly long and incredibly heavy book, I still found myself flying through each chapter. The character work, especially for Robbie and Gloria (and for many side characters) was phenomenally done. We spent enough time with them both to fully understand their motivations, dreams, fears, and love for each other, so when we raced towards the conclusion it felt immensely satisfying. I loved how this book combined historical fiction, horror, and ghost stories, it wasn’t just one thing and made for an immersive and heart-wrenching journey.

Liked the vibes and the story, but the writing was mostly just okay! I don’t think I ever nailed down the tone of this book, sometimes it felt kind of silly and campy, other times it felt more like a serious horror novel.

I think the devil being someone’s dad is just a kind of funny idea, which may have been the point, but I never quite took the Satanism seriously because like… Satan is your dad?!

I wish the characters had been fleshed out a bit more, but I appreciated the final girl vibes and the dysfunctional family aspect. This probably won’t be one that sticks with me, but it was fun enough to read!

That was… fine. The plot was pretty boring and felt low stakes, so even when the more interesting sci fi elements were happening my overall impression was one of flatness. The writing was fine, I didn’t really care for the style but it wasn’t bad either. I enjoyed what it had to say about grief and being stuck in the past, but I just didn’t care about the tv show side plot and felt largely confused about the “commuting” aspect. I’m thinking if this was just a bit longer, or if more time was spent digging into one thing instead of every element this book introduces, this would have been a stronger book.

Uh… what?! I thought I knew where this was going at like 30% in, then thought I knew where it was going again at like 50% in, and then gave up trying to guess what was happening after that. It was like a haunted house story, body switching, portals, different dimensions, maybe an evil entity, and a psychological thriller all at once, which made for a freaky time but also I’m unsure if all of these pieces worked together. I leave this book with way more questions than answers, which has made it very fun to think about but also I might lose my mind not knowing exactly what happened to Eve. And just in case you’re nervous, the dog is fine by the end of this book (I was very nervous lol)! I might revisit this rating and review in a bit after sitting with it, but it was genuinely pretty scary, if a bit open ended.

This almost felt like reading a horror novel, it was absolutely harrowing. I thought this was very propulsive and I loved that this was mostly told from the direct perspectives of the women and families involved. Sometimes the writing felt a bit cheesy and repetitive, but on the whole I couldn’t put this book down. The descriptions of each woman’s slow and painful deaths were sometimes a bit much but did capture just how bonkers it is that these people were literally dissolving and somehow these corporations were still able to wriggle out of responsibility. Absolutely maddening, describing how profit and capitalism will always take precedence over the wellbeing of workers, clearly showing how labor rights are disability rights and vice versa. If you want to be equally upset and informed, this is the book for you!

Truly a devastating and captivating read. I really didn’t know anything about the Challenger disaster (other than that it happened), and I thought this did a great job of introducing background, covering the sweeping issues plaguing NASA and its partners, and compassionately highlighting the astronauts, families, and staff that made up this story. I was worried it would get a bit to sciencey (I do walk away from this knowing a lot about o-rings) but this was a deeply human story. Higginbotham followed natural threads to help make sense of the complex and often chaotic moving pieces that were happening all at once, and in the end I felt like I knew each person, which made the inevitable conclusion all the more harrowing. The journalism felt respectful and thorough, it made me think a lot about how a toxic mix of capitalism, arrogance, and bureaucracy can turn the romantic and lofty aspirations of space exploration into a machine that just eats and spits people out. I couldn’t put this book down and would definitely recommend for an engaging piece of nonfiction!

I was reading this at the same time as I was reading Challenger by Adam Higginbotham and I can honestly say that I was much more stressed out while reading this romance than I was reading about an explosion on a space shuttle. That’s not exactly what I was hoping for!

The romance was good, the setting and office drama felt very relatable, and the story felt very much like a classic 80s romcom. But the lies spiraling out of control led to an incredibly nerve wracking reading experience. This book examines what it’s like to be the first in your family to work in an office, and how people take advantage of that lack of experience or completely keep you from the opportunity altogether, especially when you’re not a white guy. So in some ways I understood why Ember lied so much, most of the time you’ve got to fake it till you make it in order to make ends meet. But some lies just felt unnecessary and outside of what I would have expected for her character, and this made me root less for her romance (let this hot dude help you! At the very least let him in on the truth!). 

On the whole, this felt like something that should immediately be adapted into a movie but could be taken down by like a couple notches in the stakes just to make sure the romance really shines (and so the stress does not!). I really hope we see more romances for side characters that came up in this book, I’d love to stay with these characters in different scenarios!