Cupid Bow Mouth

A Good House for Children is rife with quiet, creeping dread that feels like the languid dream that happens when you're far too tired and you can't quite wake up from it. It rides the edge of a kind of gentle folk horror. Its not scary, but it is unsettling and nightmare flavored, and resonates so much with the exhausted, unappreciated rhythms and sacrifices of child-rearing.

It is a haunted house story, but also a story about grief, boundaries, love, and the sublimation of individual identity to the ideal of Motherhood.

A warning for the edges, A Good House for Children surprised me with its ending and leaves a lot of questions unanswered. I think it makes you work to make your own meaning in many ways and if you want your story wrapped up with a bow, this may not be the book for you.

DNF.

Piranesi was not for me. Made it 1/3 of the way through (80/245 pages) and Did Not Care. At any point. I found Piranesi tedious and excruciatingly boring. I wanted to like it. I've heard so many things! Alas, not my cup of tea, and if it does get interesting at some point, it took too long to get there. My general rule is you get 3 chapters. I gave the essentially chapter-less Piranesi more than a fair shake.

It's an allegory of the mind is the best I can come up with. I'll go read a recap later. The specifically opaque and meandering plot, at times, reminded me of The Sound and the Fury. Other times, I was reminded of Beloved. I LOVE Beloved. As a narrative committed to the very limited (re: intentionally restrictive) interiority of its main character, I was reminded of Sold and The Drowning Girl. Books that I love. Piranesi could not get me there. After falling asleep on it for the umpteenth time, I woke very cranky and out of sorts with this book. So we are done. Broken up. Don't let the door hit you on the way out, Piranesi. Not everything is for everybody. And we are never, ever, ever getting back together.

C'est la vie.

Also, it wasn't as terrible as Hemlock Island. So there's that.

Edited to add: I loved This is How You Lose A Time War which is arguably just as structurally complex as Piranesi. It is perhaps all of the mindless cataloguing that broke this book for me.

Holy Mary Mother of Fucking Gods!!!!!!

What did I just read?! The twisty, bendy, creepy psychological tale spin that is We Used to Live Here just kicked my chest in. I wasn't sure what to expect except that every review I came across was a good one. Finally the Bookstagram algorithm actually used its powers for good.

We Used to Live Here was deliciously creepy and strange and felt like walking on shale or sand that's falling away beneath your feet. No matter how fast you try to move to keep up, its never going to end with you on solid ground. Firm footing is impossible to obtain.

Its like Everything, Everywhere All At Once had a baby with The Shining and then moved to Silent Hill. It's a slippery book and every time something changed, I could SEE it but still couldn't put my finger on how or why.

AND THEN THAT END. I was not prepared. I'm having thoughts about a conversation I had with sarahbatistapereira this July and how much I need to decide on the landing for the end of April and Darling.

For this! I don't have words. Just get thee hence and read it. Let's discuss. I need my slippery, creep loving storytellers to read this and help me think about how it works.

I'm digging the surge in Gothic novels.

What Moves the Dead is atmospheric and chilling in the best way. The waitress at lunch startled me TWICE while bringing me water where I sat outside in the afternoon sun!!! Its written close to the bones of its inspiration (its a rework of Edgar Allen Poe's The Fall of the House of Usher) and carries well the flavors of Romantic 19th century literature. I loved the ways that it was updated, Easton and Miss Potter specifically, but also the creepy fungi with a side of body horror. Oh, yes, please!

I love when I read a book that, somewhere along the way, warns me this will not end well.

Addie LaRue shoved my heart into my throat and left me light headed for better than half the book. All I could think was "this way lies disaster." I adored it. How did it take me so long to discover V.E. Schwab? How was The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue such a gift waiting to be found?

I'll be over here pondering and melancholy and deeply in love for a good long while.

Damn, that was a good book ...

Edited to add: I think Gideon the Ninth was the last book to leave me in an emotional hole quite this deep. Damn.