Reading Log

Strange Houses - Uketsu

( 1 / 5 ) // mystery, horror, fiction

A writer and his architect friend investigate a peculiar house's blueprint and find themselves digging into the dark history of its previous occupants.

I have nothing nice to say about this book so I'll just say maybe I'm not the target audience. I am actually so frustrated with the disparity between the hype I read online about this book and how bad it actually was, I am never trusting online reviews again lmao.

Pet Sematary - Stephen King

( 4 / 5 ) // horror, thriller, fiction

A family moves to rural Maine, soon discovering the nearby Pet Semetary and facing the consequences of what it is truly capable of.

This is probably the quickest I have been able to finish such a lengthy book, I was completely engrossed with it. The characters and setting are so beautifully and thoroughly built. I did find myself just slightly disappointed with the ending, wishing it brought out the same level of horror and dread that far less gruesome scenes were able to depict. Still, a really good book that I could find myself rereading in the future because the atmosphere is just amazing.

Spirals in Time - Helen Scales

( molluscs / 5 ) // nonfiction

A biography of the scientific and cultural history of molluscs.

A great book if you want to learn just like a little bit of everything about molluscs in one well written book. The emphasis on the impact of molluscs on human culture is awesome and fascinating. The information is very well organized and formatted.

Tender Is the Flesh - Agustina Bazterrica

(2.5 / 5 ) // dystopian fiction, horror

After a deadly virus wipes out virtually all animals, the world quickly moves on to an era of farming and consuming human meat. The protagonist manages a large human meat processing plant while dealing with various conflicts, grief, and an unexpected gift.

This book is very yucky lol and holds no punches in very thoroughly describing a meat processing plant for humans. Honestly I felt the writing was good, the story was interesting enough, however... the story kind of requires you to suspend disbelief in order to accept the world as it is, and I COULD NOT! Spoilers ahead...

SO! 1. they are eating people because of a virus that wipes out all animals. The author is way too vague about what this actually means. Because if they just meant like land mammals, then fish and bugs are still a very viable protein option, and I have a hard time believing we would farm humans before eating fish and bugs, especially considering that's already a thing. 2. lets say it DID wipe out ALL animals, so including the bugs and fish and everything between... protein would be our last concern, as that would just be the collapse of the entire ecosystem anyways. 3. large parts of the world are already vegetarian, and I don't get why the author is so set on "well no one is getting protein without meat so they gotta eat humans" because that's really not an issue... 4. they mention how the human cattle are fed like a kibble or whatever. So they are capable of raising INDUSTRIAL FARM amounts of humans to adulthood using this kibble, but the general population isn't getting protein without meat? But the kibble is sufficient, no?

I really think the premise of this book was interesting, but the virus and protein dilemma just had too many plot holes for me to immerse myself in the story without getting hung up on dumb details.

n glimmers, in shreds of thought, in the aftermath of my reading, I wondered if he kept a journal still, or if the dolphin's eye had been familiar for a reason other than that it was so human. But soon enough I banished this nonsense; some questions will ruin you if you are denied the answer long enough." -Jeff VanderMeer

ravings, instincts, desires that harm humanity, a strange hidden reservoir to burst forth suddenly and inundate the whole being of the creature with anger, hate or fear. These creatures of mine seemed strange and uncanny to you so soon as you began to observe them; but to me, just after I make them, they seem to be indisputably human beings. It's afterwards, as I observe them, that the persuasion fades." --H.G. Wells

suppose everything in existence takes its colour from the average hue of our surroundings." --H.G. Wells

nd here are trees and I know their gnarled surface, water and I feel its taste. These scents of grass and stars at night, certain evenings when the heart relaxes-- how shall I negate this world whose power and strength I feel? Yet all the knowledge on earth will give me nothing to assure me that this world is mine. .. .. So that science that was to teach me everything ends up in a hypothesis, that lucidity flounders in metaphor, that uncertainty is resolved in a work of art. What need had I of so many efforts? The soft lines of these hills and the hand of evening on this troubled heart teach me much more. I have returned to my beginning. I realize that if through science I can seize phenomena and enumerate them, I cannot, for all that, apprehend the world." -Albert Camus

said that the world is absurd, but I was too hasty. This world in itself is not reasonable, that is all that can be said. But what is absurd is the confrontation of this irrational and the wild longing for clarity whose call echoes in the human heart." -Albert Camus

f God does not exist, I am God.' To become god is merely to be free on this earth, not to serve an immortal being. Above all, of course, it is drawing all the inferences from that painful independence. If God exists, all depends on him and we can do nothing against his will. If he does not exist, everything depends on us." -Albert Camus