Erika Powers > Recent Status Updates

Finished -30- by Laird Barron. Fucked up! Loved the writing, not as big of fan of the ambiguity. You don't really know what's going on - virus, zombies, animal infection like rabies, radioactive materials, government experiments, gaslighting, psychos, cult, ancient rituals spoiled the ground (like pet semetary), the devil, aliens. You get the feeling any or all are at play but it's never revealed.

Sucky! I listened to the great God pan thinking I was getting The original by Arthur Machen in 1894, the classic of horror literature and has influenced H.P. Lovecraft and SK. But i got the a modern adaptation by M. John Harrison. It sucked. You don't get to know who the first person protagonist is. You don't get to know what the horrible thing they did was. I hated it.

First story ok. Second story sucks - a girl is going to turn into a butterfly and kill her rapist or something. Why's it gotta be a rape in the story? Pick someone else to kill. A politician. Skipped that one.

Stuffu.

Stupid! The guy is going to kill himself with whisky and pills? I'm nit an expert but I have read academic papers on suicide, and men don't die by pills. That's a woman thing.

I swear some of this is familiar.

Now it sounds like King writing

All the personality has gone out of SK :(

I wish it was over. Looong long long, lots of descriptors, not a lot of action. Not a fan of fantasy. This is the first time I've heard that mental illness symptoms and thoughts mimic that of fantasy/science fiction/fairy tales. I guess it is a novel - yet literary - which bothers me bc readers with zero to little experience with mental illness could get a very wrong idea about it.

Also the children looked down on earth from heaven, and could see their families and watch them is a common element of these stories. I argue that if you can see earth from heaven, then heaven isn’t much. Bc you can still see all the suffering here, therefore you still suffer in heaven if that was true.

The children also say they picked their moms or their families. Nothing much said about fathers yet.

Skeptical. If dif people from around the world wrote in, why are their stories written in the same pen? As if the same boring dumbass wrote them. I’m sure someone rewrote and edited them; the writing is so bad. The entries are shallow. Consistent though. Toddlers recognize family members they’ve never met on earth and say I knew so and so in heaven. Another common one is I want to go home.

Amy has so much self doubt it’s obnoxious. Lamenting always about who am I.

It’s too simple but I keep reading bc I’ve become attached to the storyline. I want to know how it ends. It took 240 pages to learn Amy’s mom is a loser, Amy went to Oz and trains to be a witch to defeat Wicked Dorothy. Kinda like hunger games for three year olds with very long attention spans.

Spoilers! the original builder made every angle off by a fraction of a degree. This explains the phenomenon of why they can’t see the tower from one room when they should be able to see it if all the angles were 90°. It’s also to explain swinging doors and why they are disoriented. This isn’t A haunted house. It’s their psychological perception after being primed.

I’ve only read the part on validation, then it was due back to the library. I don’t recall if I wanted to finish it or not.

Loved the first story called Suicide Club. Got interested in other things but want to pick this up again. It held my interest and I didn’t want to put it down.

Hilarious. Loving it. The scenes with the Pastor and the Priest are spot-on in their theologies. All of the characters are the epitome of who each one of them is - symbols of real people in rural, small-town Minnesota.

I only read the part on validation.