lord goth of doom 🥀 @guerrillarain@eldritch.cafe

Kick-starting this thread of books and stories I've heard this year, with a review or log or something for those interested. 📚🌸

My goal is to read at least 52 stories this year, and I'm specifying stories because some are short stories, some are novellas, and some are 742-page bricks (looking at you, Mr. Gaiman). Some are rereads, some are first time reads, old, new, contemporary, horror, romance, fantasy, and *gasp* sci-fi? We'll see.

oh yeah, in case you didn't know, i'm not a girl or a woman, i am stardust and ethereal moonlight occupying a confusing human body that i don't particularly agree with.

(i borrowed from the library and it's so perfect i want to own it)

(29/52) THE MONSTER OF ELENDHAVEN by Jennifer Giesbrecht

🌟🌟🌟🌟🌟/5

"Monster was... his favorite word. The first part was a kiss, the second part a hiss."

Great for fans of Hannibal, a horror novella with hints of eroticism about Johann, a monster spit out from the sea, and Florian, a sorcerer seeking revenge in the dying city of Elendhaven. They're both horrible murderers absolutely *made* for each other. Excellent writing, worldbuilding, character, tension, gore, ugh. Buying immediately.

(28/52) HONEY GIRL by Morgan Rogers
no rating

Not rating bc I DNF'd after about 25% and skipped to the end. The concept sounds amazing—type A overachiever goes to Vegas with her friends to celebrate a birthday and wakes up married—but the structure is really confusing. The focus is more about an anxious woman struggling to know what she wants to do postgrad and having a strict father, shoehorned into a romance trope when it really isn't a romance. Dialogue and character were forced and cheesy.

(27/52) HOWLS FROM THE DARK AGES, an anthology edited by P.L. McMillan and Solomon Forse
🌟🌟🌟🌟🌟/5

ARC (advanced reader copy) from Netgalley, provided for free in exchange for an honest review. This is a historical horror short story collection by a bunch of authors, curated around a theme of "medieval manuscripts." Very fun concept, and in between each story is a little intermission that feels like a guided tour through a museum.

A patient who was supposed to get a bladder stone remove chickened out and hid in the bathroom. Liston (who is 6’2”, which is 8 inches above average at the time) broke down the door and dragged the screaming man into the theater. 😂😂

“His most famous (and possibly apocryphal) mishap involved an operation during which he worked so rapidly that he took off three of his assistant's fingers and, while switching blades, slashed a spectator's coat. Both the assistant and the patient died later if gangrene, and the unfortunate bystander expired on the spot from fright. It is the only surgery in history said to have had a 300 percent fatality rate.”

my dude 😭😭😭

He worked so fast, in fact, that he once sliced off a patient's testicle along with the leg he was amputating. 💀💀💀💀

Robert Liston was the first recorded surgeon to anesthetize a patient in London. (So I've gathered, I'm still reading.) He was tall, strong and fast, which was both as asset and a problem in operating rooms.

i.e. He was so strong, he used his left arm as a tourniquet while his right hand handled a blade (that is, before he learned of anaesthesia). He could amputate a leg in 30 seconds. He also sometimes held the blade with his teeth to keep his hands free.

THIS WHOLE TIME I THOUGHT HENRY PUBLISHED THE BOOK AND THEN DIED LMAOOOOOOO HES ALIVE????

Have I been understanding this wrong the whole time?

This reads like if Will Graham and Hannibal Lecter met outside of the context of the FBI, and now I can't picture anyone else.

just your neighborhood accountant taking his undying, homicidal monster out on walks around town~ 💕

(26/52) WE FREE THE STARS by Hafsah Faizal
🌟🌟🌟🌟.98 / 5

An excellent sequel, especially as this is Faizal's debut series. Arawiya is in danger: the team of misfits managed one success, but in conquering one beast, they've unleashed a greater force that'll test their bond. Absolutely nothing goes right until like, the last 25%. Still action, blood, gore, betrayals, yearning~ but it was long. Faizal knows how to write scenes and plot twists, but in the last 100 pages, I was getting fatigued.