Leah > Recent Status Updates

I don’t know if I’ve ever connected to a protagonist as immediately and readily as I have to Joanna. Ira Levin, I apologize for underestimating you. I wasn’t familiar with your game.

This book is scratching the historical fiction itch I’ve had all year. Meagan Church is an underrated author and I hope this book gets her the recognition she deserves.

After 2.5 blissful hours in Barnes & Noble I finally found a book that makes me want to curl up and read for hours!

In preparation for the Guillermo del Toro adaptation I am ready to reread a classic.

While in the middle of an unexpected move I hit a major reading slump for the past month. Like clockwork I crave this book and IT around fall/Halloween season. “The literary equivalent of a Big Mac and fries.”

Existentialism is everything I believe about the world and myself but I didn’t know there was already a word for it. I didn’t know the framework had been defined already by philosophers like Sartre and de Beauvoir.

Time for my annual reread. I am ready to feel some good-horror while I meddle through of bad-horror we’re currently living with in the US.

I don’t really like this book, but I’m going to finish it. I find the characters flat and, frankly, boring. Why should I care about any of these people? I kind of care about Billy, but that’s about it. Theres no dimension in any of the immediate family members. Trite is the word that comes to mind.

As I read this I’m also deep in the trenches of a Sopranos rewatch, and I’m struck by the similarities between Mafiosos and financiers. The only difference is the legality of what they’re producing.

The writing is indulgent, almost excessively so, but the story-within-a-story has really drawn me in. Helen Rask in particular fascinates me and I’m looking forward to following her arc.

I didn’t read much about this book before I started, and I’m glad I didn’t. I’m just letting the author take me where he wants to go, enjoying the journey and trusting the process.

When I tell y’all this book sucked me in… it’s giving small town mystery in the best way. Top tier writing, structure, character development… if it wasn’t summer vacation with my 3 kids I wouldn’t be able to put it down

I don’t know how Grady Hendrix got so gifted at writing complex teen girls, but he’s got me hooked as quickly, if not more quickly, than he did with My Best Friends Exorcism. Pair that with historical fiction from the 1970s? Yeah, I’m hooked.

If the writers of PEN15 and Stranger Things teamed up to write a novel it would be exactly this.