emilypoche's reviews
269 reviews

Thank you to Saga Press for providing this ARC for review consideration via NetGalley. All opinions are my own. 

The Buffalo Hunter Hunter by Stephen Graham Jones is a horror story framed in a work of historical fiction. Inspired by the very true (and truly horrific) events of a massacre of 217 people and the over hunting of bison in the American west, the story is a a nesting doll of three narrators in three different times. Etsy, in present day, is a communications PHD researching a recently unearthed journal of a Lutheran preacher. Arthur, the aging and gluttonous minister is outrunning his own past as he takes confession from Good Stab, a seemingly supernatural being confessing his story of violence. 

The first thing that struck me about this novel that really made it stand out to me was the establishment of vampirism and vampire horror that was distant from the Western literary cannon. Although the word vampire is never said in the text in English, it is clear that is what plagues the characters. While there are elements that are familiar; blood drinking, aversion to the sun, the story and understanding of the condition is interpreted through a native lens. This is a perspective that is so unique and interesting. The vampire of The Buffalo Hunter Hunter is not a sexual icon, nor a gothic predator. Honor, revenge, and bloodshed are the core motivations here. 

The next thing that Graham Jones really excels at in this story is the distinctiveness of the narrators. There is never confusion as the chapters shift; from the sentence structure and tone alone the reader can guess who is narrating, regardless of want they’re doing. I thought the way Arthur is written is particularly masterful; at first he seems doddering, benign, while still paternalistic and prejudiced. His true character is unfurled in his journal entries as he attempts to justify himself and his actions, showing that his surface appearance masks a much darker and murkier truth. 

Where this book is a little uneven is in the pacing. The first 80% proceeds in traditional horror novel fashion but seems to grind to something much slower for the last 20%. It feels as if the rising tension takes a large step back, and simply doesn’t have the same impending uncertainty and rising fear as the earlier portions. 

I really enjoyed this book and think that the historical setting made for a very compelling and unique takes on the vampire novel. It is horrifying and devastating in equal manner. 

4.5/5 stars, rounded up to 5 stars for review purposes. 

I love a horror book that is unashamed in its gross imagery. I love one that revels in disgusting, gory, squelching imagery that turns the stomach and creates skin-crawling, vivid imagery that lingers long after the book binding is closed. Kim’s greatest triumph in The Eyes Are The Best Part is how the images of violence, nightmares, body horror and revenge are rendered in such meticulous, bold detail. 

The story of Ji-Won as she navigates a downward spiral starting with her father walking out is fascinating. Her character did have some passing similarities to Gone Girl’s Amy; scheming, calculating, murderous, and completely under estimated. Ji-Won is however compelled by the rage and disgust that comes with being fetishized, racially profiled, and disrespected. The anger that she feels is so palpable to the reader that despite all of the unspeakable things she’s willing to do, there’s still something that is sympathie about her. 

The thing that kept this from being a 5 for me was that the author seems not to trust the reader to pick out the misogyny and sexism and fetishization of the men in the story. Characters other than the protagonist, Ji-Won, are cartoonishly evil and so heavy handed. At times it just felt like with all of the other finesse the author uses that it just felt out of place to have the male chapters like glaring ‘I AM BAD’ signs. 

The beginning of the story was somewhat slow, but it built to a fever pitch by the end of the story. I felt like it had a very classic horror story pacing, which creates a normal scenario and then slowly edges it towards the uncanny and terrifying until it reaches a point of no return. I would just want other readers to know that despite a more slow pace in the beginning, the pacing does pick up. 

For me this was a great 4/5. I love a gruesome female rage centered horror story, and this is a great addition.

Thank you to Tin House Books for providing this ARC for review consideration via NetGalley. All opinions are my own. 

Hellions by Julia Elliott is a collection of short stories that, while not strict in their theming, contain elements of the supernatural and sublime. The stories, often set in the American south, are highly atmospheric and often times create imagery that is both incredibly vivid and incredibly grotesque at the same time. 

The stories are very high brow, in both their intelligent references and theming. For readers with a love for brief, challenging, but ultimately worthwhile short stories, the collection is a wonderful choice. I would caution that readers who don’t enjoy works that don’t have concrete plot arcs or finite explanations. Part of the allure of this book is the somewhat mysterious ambiguity that defines many of the stories. It is often impossible to discern whether a character is in reality or dreaming, and whether creatures are real or imagined. 

As with all collections of short stories or essays, not all of them are going to land as successfully as the others. However, Elliott’s works display a high level of consistency across selections. Personally, I found that the most compelling story was ‘Gricklemare,’ but I did particularly enjoy ‘Another Frequency’ as well. 

One of my favorite things that Elliott does throughout Hellions is describe the wild, at times feral, highly magical time of girlhood. Whether her young, female characters are raising alligators, riding shoeless on mini bikes, imagining fantastical worlds on other planets, or obsessing over demons, they defy the conventions of traditional imagery. These young girls and teens have deep connections to the natural and the supernatural and are hellions as much as any of the boys depicted in the book. 

I found this to be a somewhat challenging read at times. It was nevertheless enjoyable and unusual. 4/5 stars! 

Thank you to Random House Publishing Group for providing this ARC for review consideration via NetGalley. All opinions are my own. 

What Kind of Paradise by Janelle Brown follows a teenage girl, Jane, who has spent her childhood in seclusion in the Montana wilderness with her father. After introducing the early internet into their lives, Jane realizes that she’s part of something much greater and more sinister than her father’s led her to believe. Fleeing to San Francisco, Jane seeks to find a truth about her identity by both learning about her past and about who she wants to be on her own. 

(Spoiler alert here:) This book’s main premise is a fictionalized version of the Unabomber saga. The father, Adam, is the same ‘tortured, radicalized genius’ with a similar career and backstory. He writes a manifesto and turns to domestic terror. Where things depart history is that this posits, what if he had a daughter? What if he had an ex-wife as part of his lore? This is what is probably the most interesting element of the story, which is seeing how easily the concept of a younger, unwitting accomplish slots in. A brainwashed, sheltered teen with esteem for her father creates a nice, complicated narrator grappling with her identity. 

Without spending too much of this review going through the individual questions the book posits, this story does bring up a lot of discussions of agency, technology, parentage, and radicalization. While the author can sometimes be a little too over handed with trying to pose some of the questions, it would be an excellent option for a book club, as it covers a lot of pretty big ideas. 

I think that this book, despite dealing with some pretty heavy themes, is very readable. The prose is relatable and engaging, while still not trivializing what Jane is going through. 

Where this book was disappointing was in the pacing. It felt like the book came to such an ending, and then the ‘postscript’ was so abrupt. It felt like a quick summary that didn’t do justice to the rest of the story, and it seemed a little hurried comparatively.  It’s my opinion that the two book end chapters in present day did little to add to the narrative. I felt like they made the pacing somewhat uneven. The information that was  given in these chapters didn’t improve the story, and I think the narrative is best ended on the very finite but open ended note of the final 1990s chapter. 

I think for people who enjoy crime stories, this is a wonderful choice. Despite the fact that it’s not true crime per se, it uses a real life inspiration that makes it compelling option. I’d rate this a 3.5/5.

Thank you to Atria Books and Washington Square Press for providing this ARC for review consideration via NetGalley. All opinions are my own. 

Friends of the Museum by Heather McGowan follows the motley assortment of characters working at a storied but downtrodden museum in New York. The book takes place over a single twenty-four hour day. Shifting narration between several characters, it blends the day’s hectic events in vignettes, never resting on one character for too long. Major players include Diane, the museum’s director, Shay, the chief of security, and Benjamin, a newly hired film curator. 

This book does a wonderful job at creating a sense of frenetic energy—the choice of punctuation framing, the quick vignettes that switch between character, and the way that individual flashbacks blend together creates a picture of a very frenzied day. Admittedly, the punctuation choices do make it somewhat difficult to read on an eReader, but after a few pages the style becomes more intuitive. It enhances the sense of chaos. 

This book also does a pretty clear job of lambasting the status quo in the museum industry; sucking up to the Uber wealthy, lack of diversity, mistreatment of employees. The scenarios of the plot, and more directly, some of the characters make some salient points about the dark side of prestigious art institutions as inefficient, elitist, corporate machines that alienate common viewers. 

The thing that the book did slightly less successfully was land on whether or not it was a plot-driven work or one that was more character-driven. While certain characters are more important to the main plot arc, they were given equal weight to the more atmospheric characters. It seemed like some of the story lines existed only to add chaos and suggest more problems with the organization. Certain stories seemed to never braid in to the main narrative, and yet seemed to get overly weighty sections of the story. The sections with Clive and Iona, for example, didn’t really seem to have as much plot values for the 24-hour cycle, and seemed like they were added to have more intrigue without payout. 

Ultimately, I did think that the book was pretty engaging and that the characters did have a really interesting plot lines. At time the pacing was a little inconsistent, and the background could be given too much weight compared to more central issues. 3/5!