Getaway Lodge: 14th Floor - Tully Oldin - Book Review

 

                    Recently back from a reading slump, I was looking for a couple of quick reads when I landed upon this novella from the Book Sirens. The name and book cover seemed intriguing enough to get the book.

                Anya just robbed the bank and is on the run with her friend. She is very much antsy, and after a couple of incidents, she ends up at a motel. The hotel is not an ordinary one, and she is trapped. The hotel seems to dig deep into her darkest secrets. What transpires forms the rest of this short novella.

                As I mentioned earlier, this is a novella and was therefore a quick read. The story comes under the psychological horror genre. It was interesting to see the character arc of Anya unravel as we progress, and the hotel opened the downward spiralling of Anya. However, once the hotel scene is set in, it all turns out too predictable. Having said that, it was presented interestingly. The only other character, the getaway driver, gets little scope but is interestingly brought out. The flashback involving Anya's childhood and parents was very brief but well written. The language seemed simple enough, keeping the momentum of the story.

              In short, an interesting premise that is presented neatly. The climax was a dampener for me. 

What Hides in the Dark - Blair Daniels - Book Review

 

                    Recently, I have been struggling with a bad reading slump for almost a year due to some career decisions and a lack of time. To bounce back from such a slump, I depend on short stories. Especially from the horror genre. That is when I got hold of yet another Blair Daniels book.

               The dead husband of a lady keeps texting her while a lady is stuck in a youtube ad. A lady encounters a mandatory smile zone in a city while another lady gets into a ruckus with the owner of a beat down rusty cabin on google reviews. While a person hosts a party in a haunted house yet another person is employed in her aunt's thrift shop where she encounters strange things. 

               As usual, the author provides some interesting ideas as stories. This is one of the main factors that makes me seek out more of Blair's books. She does not disappoint this time either. Not all the stories have hit the right mark, but the ideas amaze me nevertheless. We get a feel of reading a bunch of creepypasta stories by finishing the book. Most of the stories are very short with no start or end. They are just presented as a couple of scenes, which might irk some readers. There are only two stories that seem to cover a few pages, and they did impress me. The reading is simple and can be finished within a couple of hours.  I would not say the book is scary, but there are instances where a few stories can be a little creepy. As I told earlier, some stories were total misses for me. At the same time, some of them did find their mark.

               Horror short stories have always enthralled me with their crazy storylines and the thrill they give me whenever I read them. This book also gives me the same experience, even though there are a few stories that missed their mark. A decent enough read from Blair Daniels that would satisfy horror readers.

Ararat - Christopher Golden - Book Review

 

I have been reading horror for a long time. I was recently browsing through the list of Bram Stoker Award winners when this book caught my attention. A different name! This set me reading the book.

A newly engaged couple sets out on a trip to Mount Ararat in Turkey. This mountain is supposedly the site of Noah's Ark. The couple get a call from their friend that there has been a discovery at a cave on the mountain. The couple make their journey to the cave on the mountain where there are a team of archaeologists, professors and filmmakers studying the coffin that was discovered. As they discover a disfigured cadaver, the climate takes an ugly turn into a blizzard and the people are stuck in the cave. As the blizzard intensifies, an unknown evil seems to linger in the cave. What transpires forms the story.

The biggest plus for me in this book is the pacing. The first ten pages starts at a slow pace and as the story progresses, the pace picks up and keeps upping our experience. The author succeeds in creating tense claustrophobic moments for a big part of the story. Most of the characters are well written and their emotions convey the situations very well. I would not categorize this as a full fledged horror genre intended to scare us but you can see equal mixture of horror, thriller and disaster genres. The genuine scares that I felt were due to the whole atmosphere. The natural settings play an important role in taking the story to a different level. I liked how the author brings people of different beliefs together thereby triggering discussions on belief and atheism. The demon force remains strong and a mysterious force throughout the story keeps us on tenterhooks. One thing I was not satisfied was the way the novel spiralled towards the end. There was an ambiguity on what happens to the evil entity. May be the author had left the story that way on purpose. But for me the ambiguity was a damper.

In short, a quick read filled with a lot of tense moments that keeps the reader at the edge of the seat.

Random Ramblings # 8 - Are we destined to fail?

 

                    When I was pondering over what to write, my little girl suggested this quote: "No one is destined to fail" 😊

As humans, we encounter failures more often. Even the most successful people have had to taste failure at some point in time. Many people stay away or step back when they face failure. Many see failure as a dead end or warning that nature may be indicating. This might be correct in a few instances.

In reality, these failures might be the way nature prepares us to face the odds and conquer the world around us. Failure should be considered as the final fate. Instead, it should be a plank that helps us step on and achieve what we need.
However, each human is unique. They may have different levels of struggles and systemic barriers that may need different levels of effort to break down.

Failure is never an end to anything. See it as a learning experience to improve ourselves. With such a mindset, you can beat self-doubt, laziness and the tendency to postpone things, thereby placing you on the right track to victory.

 There is a Vadivelu dialogue in a Tamil movie - "Enakku End Card ae illa da". Translated as 'I do not have an end card' that metaphorically implies you do not have an end no matter what. Embrace failure, learn from it, beat the odds and carry on ahead in your life journey.

How do you see failure?

The Bewitching : Silvia Moreno-Garcia : Book Review

 

                    Last year, the book Mexican Gothic caught my attention. It was a good read, and I was looking forward to reading more of Silvia's works. Recently, while browsing Net Galley, I came across this book, which is yet to be published and ended up selecting it as my read.

               Minerva is a graduate who is studying horror literature and is doing a thesis on the works of Beatrice Tremblay. Throughout the study, Trembley's novel 'The Vanishing' becomes an obsession when she realizes it is based on a true incident that happened to Ginny, a friend of Beatrice. As she digs deeper, she realizes that there is a malice angle associated with it. Delving into the incident, she remembers the stories that her great-grandmother Alba had told her as a kid. The terrifying stories where Alba encounters a witch. Slowly, Minerva realizes that the malicious force might be after her as well. The remaining story explores how the three women from different timelines encounter this witchcraft and how Minerva tries to solve the mystery of Ginny's vanishing.

               What prompted me to read this book was the subject of witchcraft and the three timelines. This book was good in both respects. I liked how the writer can blend the horror into these eras and invoke the same feeling in us. The read may not be too scary, but the story invokes a slight chill as we read on. The storyline is plain without any twists (well, at least for me). I was able to decipher who was behind all the happenings. Having said that, this did not cloud my reading experience in any way. I like how the execution of scenes kept its tempo in a plain storytelling. The placement of scenes during three eras was what kept it going. It was interesting to see how the witch folklore from different places was imbibed into the story and that is a major plus point. The few recurring characters that appear during these timelines provide great support to the story, however small they may be. The setting of the stories is another big plus point. The Mexican village and the college set in New England play perfect host to the witching in the novel. The ending was also satisfactory, and there may be a hint at a second part. But I don't mind reading another part of this book.

               In short, a fantastic novel by Silvia Moreno Garcia. Like Mexican Gothic, this book is also a slow but very engaging read. This is one of the writers I am definitely willing to read in the future. If you like witches and curses then this is the perfect book for you.