shereadytoread's reviews
725 reviews

 This is a book that focuses not just on paranormal occurrences but also the science behind it and the study of parapsychology. If you are a frequent reader of the paranormal, you may know a lot of these but there are probably a good amount that you have not heard of as well as some deeper perspectives on the more commonly known hauntings.

Bat Eater and Other Names for Cora Zeng is a claustrophobic, haunting, gory, horror novel. This book explores anti-Asian hate and hate crimes exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic using both crimes in NYC and the traditions of the Hungry Ghost Festival. 

Cora is a character dealing with her own anxiety, obsessions, and compulsions related to cleanliness, trying to grieve her sister, managing complicated family relationships due to her multicultural background, and working her job as a crime scene cleaner. 

While the book is heavy both in theme and content, there are some light moments and the book sprinkles in moments of humor well. This book is squarely horrific, both with the imagery of the ghosts and killings, but also the reflection on racism and isolation. The inclusion of the lighter moments gives some reprieve from the dread of the story, without completely taking you out of the plot.

I found the plot really interesting. However, it also has a distinct three act structure where the plot specifically shifts. It's a little jarring, but Cora's internal musings do manage to keep the story moving along without feeling complete disjointed.  

Disclosure: I received an ARC and eARC of this book from the publisher.

This book had all the elements of something I would love but I ended up just liking it. Marriage of convenience in a high powered family. But this book felt a little too much like the first part of a series. It intros you to the family but it didn’t feel like a full story. It does end on a cliffhanger but in general it felt like all set up and not enough story. I enjoyed what I read but wanted a bit more from the plot. Looking forward to the next installment!

This was an excellent read and history of lesser discussed aspects of the Civil Rights Movement and the Freedom Movement. The writing is compelling and there is a lot of specific time and biographical information.

This author recognizes two things at the beginning of the book that did greatly affect my reading experience: 
1. It is not in chronological order and so there is some repetition and at some points it feels like backtracking 
2. There is lack of documentation of female organizers’ contributions to both movements. It is acknowledged in the preface but there is little to no discussion of the impact of that throughout the narrative and there is no discussion of where the gaps in the history exist. 

This book fell middle of the road for me. I found the ancestry compelling and seeing how the family sins fell through the generations but because there is no order to these happenings, it feels extremely disjointed. In general it felt more like an anthology of short stories rather than a multigenerational family novel. The author’s prose is compelling and with a short page count she manages to provide multiple deeply complex characters in their own separate stories. I think heavier magic realism would have served this story to connect the chapters. I would give this author another try.

This was an excellent read that expands the understanding of drag and gender performance. It is one of the most accessible texts on gender and gender performance that I’ve come across while still being very informative and introducing many texts and visual performances to explore. 

This book is a haunting depiction of a woman consumed by grief whose inability to move forward (or her failed attempts to) with her son culminate in monstrous horror. I think this book succeeds so well at depicting the rumination and spirals that happen with grief. Unfortunately its success is also its failure. The novella is very short and so the large focus on those spirals makes the book feel repetitive and the ending feel very disconnected and abrupt. 

There is not enough fleshing out of the relationships or any other plot points outside of the grief to orient the reader to the world or really give any interest into wanting the character to succeed. I genuinely didn’t care what happened to a single person in the book because you learn nothing except they are grieving. There is no sense of their life before the death and no indication of what has bappened in the time since.

This was a quick reflective piece that combines the author's love for Jurassic Park with their upcoming and identity exploration as a queer kid dealing with the loss of their mother. I thought it made some great points in how we interpret this film through various lenses. It offers some great texts as supplemental reading (both similar to this book based on Jurassic Park, and others). It's a pocket read so not too long and definitely worth reading if queer studies and Jurassic Park are two of your interests.

We Had to Remove This Post is a queer social horror that follows our main character and her coworkers as they form relationship after becoming content moderators for a social media platform. Facing both the demands of the job, and the toll the exposure to the content takes on them, they are each affected by their new reality in different ways.

This is novella that doesn't waste any space and manages to hide most of its hand until the final twist hits. It's horror lies in social commentary and our ensemble of coworkers falling victim to the secondary trauma of content moderation in different ways. It touches on radicalization, indoctrination, capitalism, and how we use denial and distancing to protect ourselves and others. 

What I enjoyed most about this book is that the plot twist at the end really reframes (but doesn't undo because I hate that) a lot of what we knew or thought to be true during the story. I think it definitely leans for the possibility of a reread, and the potential of re-examining those prior events once we are aware of the ending. 

Because this is a book that is dealing with what the worst of us post online, TWs for mentions of violence, graphic content, antisemitism, racism, and animal death.