jan_coco_day's reviews
135 reviews

Ghost Stories of an Antiquary by M.R. James

dark lighthearted mysterious slow-paced

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

3.25

This book is suprisingly funny at times. 

It's interesting to see the mysterious-figure-approaches-the-observer-in-a-static-picture trope is older than the 1990s! 

Leviathan Wakes by James S.A. Corey

adventurous dark mysterious tense fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Plot
• Flaws of characters a main focus? No

4.5

Hell yeah, vomit zombies.

In my notes, I have a lot of complaints about how women are depicted in terms of their sexual availability to the men characters in this first book. However, the series gets better as the universe opens up, and your favorite characters will all be women by the end of the series. I promise. 

Chrysalis by Anuja Varghese

dark emotional mysterious reflective medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

4.5

Stunning stories of transformation. Varghese aims prose directly at your guts.

The Lost Tomb: And Other Real-Life Stories of Bones, Burials, and Murder by Douglas Preston

adventurous dark informative tense fast-paced

4.25

Not a single dull word. 

Since Preston is inspired by the nonfiction stories that he's covered in his essays in his novels, this is a great way to get people who listen to true crime/dark history podcasts into Preston's suspense fiction. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Cannibalism and Murder

Birchers: How the John Birch Society Radicalized the American Right by Matthew Dallek

informative

3.25

Where the Dead Wait by Ally Wilkes

adventurous dark emotional mysterious reflective sad tense slow-paced

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

4.0

I usually get frustrated when secondary characters seem to "vanish" or stop existing when they are not in the scene/on the page. But Wilkes uses this effectively to lay bare Day's obsession with his own loneliness.

The one character who isn't present haunts Day so much that he is "realer" than any of the other characters on the voyage with Day. Much of his isolation is self-imposed.

The story falls apart a little bit at the end at the reveal that there is no larger supernatural horror, but just one psychopath Stevens and his psychopath friends. And they were all pretty easily defeated.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Confinement, Death, Gore, Terminal illness, Toxic relationship, Blood, Medical content, Grief, Cannibalism, Murder, Schizophrenia/Psychosis , Gaslighting, Abandonment, and Injury/Injury detail

Moderate: Emotional abuse, Colonisation, and Classism

The Wonder by Emma Donoghue

dark emotional mysterious reflective sad tense slow-paced

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

5.0

Donoghue somehow manages to write some of the most fucked up things I've ever read without writing in the horror genre.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Body horror, Child abuse, Chronic illness, Confinement, Eating disorder, Emotional abuse, Terminal illness, Medical content, Religious bigotry, and Medical trauma

Moderate: Death, Physical abuse, and Kidnapping

Minor: Sexual violence

Swim Home to the Vanished by Brendan Shay Basham

challenging dark emotional reflective sad slow-paced

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

3.75

As a work of literary fiction about grief, transformation, and a mythological journey to a remote land inhabited by vengeful witches, this book should be my jam. But I couldn't get into this one. That is entirely due to a personal character trait that I brought to the book as a reader, not to the book itself. 

The writing is gorgeous, and the book leans into emotion, eschewing narrative structure at times in favor of haunting atmospheres of what it feels like to swim/drown in a sea/river of mourning.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Alcoholism, Animal death, Body horror, Death, Toxic relationship, and Grief

Moderate: Medical trauma

Minor: Self harm and Suicide

The Tatami Galaxy by Tomihiko Morimi

adventurous funny lighthearted fast-paced

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

4.25

I, too, was once a college student who “accomplished absolutely nothing during the two years leading up to the spring of my junior year in college,” which, of course led to its own kind of existential crisis. However, unlike the nameless narrator of The Tatami Galaxy, mine didn’t involve alternate timelines or endless copy of the same room or an infinite moth glitch (I would have remembered that). 

Alternate timelines are hot right now, and the alternate presents found in The Tatami Galaxy are less “parallel worlds” than overlapping loops of the narrator’s stumbles, utterly charming at every gaffe and goof. Morimi is a master satirist of the self-obsessed college-age youth. 

If you’re in the mood for a low-stakes, amusingly eccentric romp through the surreal lives, divergent from the point when a generic college student chooses among four different extracurricular activities (I cannot stress how the stakes have never been lower), The Tatami Galaxy is your ticket. 

Zombies of the Gene Pool by Sharyn McCrumb

medium-paced

• Diverse cast of characters? No

3.75

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Content Warnings

Minor: Adult/minor relationship