I have some hits this week and I hope you are prepared. We will play with buttons, remember details that may have escaped us, play in the sand of a modern THE LORD OF THE FLIES but with body horror, and finally tidy up a family heirloom.
Let’s get into them.
GWENDY’S BUTTON BOX
By Richard Chizmar and Stephen King
Well, this one surprised me.
Gwendy’s just playing and minding her own business when Mr. Richard Farris gives her something, something so important that she can never tell anyone she has it. A box… and in that box are button and levels. Some are good and some are bad. But if she chooses to utilize the buttons, there will be consequences. Oh, and she’s twelve.
GBB is a short, quick read but don’t be fooled by that. Gwendy shows us over eight years of her life. Some good, some bad. But always with the button box close. Her decisions to use the levers are the most important. It’s almost Pavlovian in a sense, a chocolate and something good happens. Use the other lever and you get a coin.
I can’t wait to continue this trilogy. A HIGHLY, HIGHLY RECOMMEND 5/5.
Gwendy's Button Box: A Novella (Gwendy's Button Box Trilogy Book 1) - Kindle edition by King, Stephen, Chizmar, Richard. Mystery, Thriller & Suspense Kindle eBooks @ Amazon.com.
THE DETAILS
By Ia Genberg
Would you like a book that is beautiful and full of prose that will make you yearn for your past? But is also sharp edges that make you anxious because you don’t remember every detail of your past? Well, friends, do I have a book for you.
The FMC (female main character) has a fever and happens to open a book that she was given as a gift from a former love. This sets off memories from her past that seem passing fancies but are revealed to comprise important times in her life; the loss of true love, friendship, oneself, and so much more.
THE DETAILS will become your personality and it’s scary. The wishing that we could remember every detail in such vividness is saddening. Somethings we may think mean nothing but later meant everything and then some. Honestly, this is a book where nothing happens, yet everything happens. It’s … pure lyrical prose.
Here are some of my favorite quotes:
“Some books stay in your bones long after their titles and details have slipped from memory.”
“That’s all there is to the self, or the so-called ‘self’: traces of people we rub up against.”
“All relationships have the potential to end abruptly, it’s an inherent risk…”
“Trust, after all, is only a word when you can’t feel it in your body.”
If you want to feel all your emotions at once and then go into an existential crisis that becomes a spiral of joy, this is your book. As the author writes, “It had just taken a detour through me.”
A DOUBLE HIGHLY, HIGHLY RECOMMEND 10/5.
The Details: A Novel - Kindle edition by Genberg, Ia, Josefsson, Kira. Literature & Fiction Kindle eBooks @ Amazon.com.
THE TROOP
By Nick Cutter
Holy The Lord of Flies seasoned with some body horror Batman! Cutter rocked this one out.
A group of scouts and their troop leader head to a deserted island off the mainland in their yearly getaway. Little do they know they will all face an experiment gone awry when an unknown man shows up marooned on the island. In a “us against them” that brings out dark secrets many of the boys are not prepared for.
Wowzer. Wowzer. Wowzer. THE TROOP had it all. I was a bit worried when it began because it felt like it was going to come up flat but it is anything but, friends. Interviews, paper clippings, and journal entries add to the suspense that builds through the whole novel. Between this and THE DEEP, I am definitely a Nick Cutter stan.
Also, Shelley is a baby back bitch.
A HIGHLY, HIGHLY RECOMMEND 5/5.
THE DOLLHOUSE FAMILY
By Mike Carey, Peter Gross, and Vince Locke
What an odd duck of a graphic novel and it completely worked.
A family is cursed when the man that started it all has sex with someone he isn’t supposed to. Then the curse is sexually transmitted to the wife… then their placenta isn’t a placenta… and turns into a dollhouse that has dolls… but the dolls are nice…
That doesn’t even touch the surface of THE DOLLHOUSE FAMILY. It’s difficult to explain but such a weird and fun read. The flashbacks are a bit confusing at the beginning, but the reader gets the hang of it in a couple of them. We start to like all the characters but one, you will know them when you get to them.
A DEFINITE RECOMMEND 4.5/5.
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