Top Ten Tuesday and 3 Truths and a Lie Review

As always, Top Ten Tuesday is hosted by the wonderful The Broke and Bookish

For this Top Ten Tuesday, we had to fill in the blank for ten books if you want to feel....

I went with ten books to read if you want to feel like you need to double check that your doors and windows are locked. These are the books that are creepy, mysterious, and have you huddled in your chair jumping at any and every noise.

This book is centered around a creepy, underground horror film director, and the creepy, unsolved death of his daughter. Needless to say, it is a scary, amazing read. Readers get snippets of his movies described to them, have no idea who to trust, and are taken through some of the eeriest settings in any book I've ever read.

This is a book where even if your doors and windows are locked, you're not safe. The house itself may just be out to get you, and once you're inside, there's no escape.

In this book, you've been locked in the room with the yellow wallpaper, and it just might be the room itself that is driving you insane. You want to check your doors and windows in the hope that someone has made a mistake, and left one a crack open for you to escape.

You don't want any of these characters getting in, not the possible ghosts, not the utterly creepy children, not the nanny who may or may not have gone completely insane.

Even locking yourself in your room won't keep you safe. The killer is among you, and he's already inside the house.

This is a classic go-to in this genre. It's guaranteed to make you sleep with the lights on, especially if you're staying in a hotel while reading this.

This book starts with mysterious deaths, and continues through the history of a building in ruins, that holds a secret that has ruined lives.

This is the kind of slow-build creepy that gets under your skin and stays with you.  It's one of those scary books that feels all too real.

This is a book that epitomizes the slow-burn scare, where you are constantly on edge because you know something is about to happen.

This book is not for the faint of heart. I love scary books and Joyce Carol Oates, and I almost couldn't finish this one. It's centered around a serial killer, but Oates takes it to the edge and keeps right on going.

3 Truths and a Lie Review!

I received an ARC of this book from the publisher in exchange for an honest review. This did not effect my opinion of the book or the review itself.

This novella features Gardner's popular detective, D.D. Warren, who has been roped into teaching a seminar at a mystery writer's conference. Concerned that her topic won't be interesting enough to keep a group of writers' attention, she spices it up by telling them about her most unusual recent case-that of the seedy hotel room, the amputated leg, and the hooker. She challenges the writers to decide what is the lie hidden in her story.

What follows is a great locked room mystery, full of twists and turns and lots of bizarre details that all work in context. The reader is as enthralled as the group of writers, and as eager to learn the solution.

This is a unique, fun, concept to frame a mystery in, and Gardner does it well. I would love to see this expanded into a whole book, maybe with Detective Warren teaching a multipart class with multiple case studies.

She's Not There by Joy Fielding

I received an ARC of this book from the publisher in exchange for an honest review. This did not effect my opinion of the book or my review itself.

A work of fiction that seems to owe its premise to the Madeleine McCann case, She's Not There centers around the disappearance of Samantha, a two year old girl who goes missing while her parents eat in a nearby cafe.

While this is most assuredly a mystery, full of psychological suspense, Fielding also tackles some very weighty issues. Cutting back and forth between past and present, readers are shown how Samantha's disappearance completely decimated her family in a way they have never recovered from. Her mother, Caroline, is reminded every anniversary of how the press blamed her for leaving her children alone in their hotel room, even though it was her husband's idea. Her husband, Hunter, moves on to start a new family while grappling with deep guilt from that night. And their older daughter, Michelle, is in a state of constant rebellion, refusing to eat, and getting caught driving drunk.

As I neared the end of this book, I thought I was going to be disappointed. The ending seemed pat, and anticlimactic. But then, to give Fielding a lot of credit, she played off that perfectly. She makes readers think that they know it all, but then offers up a shocking twist that changes everything.

While I didn't love this as much as I've loved other books in this genre, this was a good, quick, gripping read. If you like psychological thrillers, I would say you should give this one a try.

The Dead House by Dawn Kurtagich

This is a book full of creativity and creepiness in equal measure. It tells the story of a mysterious fire that happened at a high school two decades ago, an unsolved crime where the main suspect is a girl who doesn't seem to exist. Kaitlyn Johnson is the alter ego of Carly Johnson, and it is her diary that is discovered so many years later among the ruins.

Readers learn about what happened right alongside "the witness", who has collected Kaityln's diary entries, notes between her and Carly, medical files, transcripts of therapy sessions and police interviews, and video clips (described for the readers in great detail), in an attempt to piece together what really happened that night.

I love YA horror/mystery books, and I love books that utilize mixed media (like Night Film, another really creative, really creepy read). The Dead House had me hooked from the first page and never let me go. It kept me guessing, left me reeling, and had me curled up on my couch for hours to find out what happened next. I look forward to seeing more from Dawn Kurtagich!

Take Control of Your TBR Pile Challenge! (Plus TBR 24 Hour Readathon!)

I'm very excited to participate in this challenge! Throughout the month of March, I will be especially focused on reading books from my TBR shelves. I'm not setting a specific goal, but my general goal is to read predominantly from those shelves in March.

I will be posting my results here :) Check out the challenge, it should be a lot of fun!


1) Knit One, Kill Two by Maggie Sefton
2) By Flower and Dean Street by Patrice Chaplin
3) The Dead Girls of Hysteria Hall by Katie Alender
4) Finding Jake by Bryan Reardon
5) Dragonwell Dead by Laura Childs
6) A Head Full of Ghosts by Paul Tremblay
7) Careless People: Murder, Mayhem, and the Invention of The Great Gatsby by Sarah Churchwell
8) The Dead Lie Down by Sophie Hannah

1) Dragonwell Dead by Laura Childs

Try Not to Breathe by Holly Seddon

I received an ARC of this book from the publisher in exchange for a honest review. This did not effect my opinion of the book, or the review itself.

Amy Stevenson has been in a coma for fifteen years, the result of a vicious attack that occurred when she was a teenager. The perpetrator was never caught, and though Amy's scans still register brain activity, she has not been able to communicate any information about what happened to her.

Alex Dale is a reporter who has fallen from grace. Marriage over, job gone, she discovers Amy in a hospital ward while there to interview a doctor.

Alex begins to investigate, sitting by Amy's bedside hoping for discernible responses, tracking down the people from Amy's past. But can she possibly hope to bring a suspect to justice when the victim is trapped in silence?

The thing I loved most about this book was how it kept me guessing. I kept thinking I had it solved, and then kept being proved wrong. I never correctly guessed the ending, and Seddon had me on a roller coaster ride throughout the entire story.

The amount of different characters who get their own chapters, as well as the back and forth of what year the action takes place, can get a bit confusing, especially in an ebook format. But Seddon more than makes up for that with a gripping, well-written psychological thriller that packs a punch.

Bullies: A Friendship by Alex Abramovich

I received an ARC of this book from the publisher in exchange for an honest review. This did not effect my opinion of the book or my review itself.

Alex Abramovich's memoir is centered around an unusual subject. He tracks down the person he remembers as being his childhood bully, Trevor, to find out what his life is like now, and they end up becoming friends.

Trevor is living in Oakland, the head of a motorcycle club known as the East Bay Rats. After Alex visits, he ends up moving to Oakland with his then-fiancee, and becomes the "embedded" recorder of the life of Trevor and his East Bay Rats.

This book is about so many topics, and Abramovich writes about all of them with knowledge and skill. Bullies is about childhood, forgiveness, morals, loyalty, poverty, the unreliability of our memories, the power of our past, masculinity, violence, freedom, and politics. It covers both the decline and gentrification of Oakland, the Occupy Oakland movement,and a local murder and subsequent trial.

But these weighty topics, as many as there might be, never get lost, or short-shifted. Abramovich weaves them all together, to tell a story about not only the impact we have on others, and on our environment, but the impact others, and our environment, have on us.

Top Ten Tuesday: Ten Books I Enjoyed That Weren't My Typical Genres or Were Out of My Comfort Zone

As always, Top Ten Tuesday is hosted by the wonderful The Broke and the Bookish !



1 and 2: Cast of Shadows by Kevin Guilfoile, and Girlfriend in a Coma by Douglas Coupland

 

These are both genre-defying novels, a little bit science fiction, a little bit fantasy, a little bit thriller, and both unlike anything I have read before or since.

3: Ready Player One by Ernest Cline

I don't typically read much science fiction, but my dad and brother both told me I would love this book, and they were right.

4, 5, and 6: Pines, Wayward, and The Last Town by Blake Crouch

These were three more science fiction books that I absolutely devoured. I had gone in expecting them to be more mystery/thriller, but was pleasantly surprised by just how much I loved the deviation into science fiction territory.

7: What If? Serious Scientific Answers to Absurd Hypothetical Questions by Randall Munroe

I am not a science person, and I am especially not a math person. But this book, with all its physics and numbers, was entertaining, informative, and sometimes laugh out loud funny.

8: Death Cloud (Sherlock Holmes: The Legend Begins) by Andrew Lane

This one may come as a surprise on the list, as if you know me you know how much I love Sherlock Holmes. But I rarely read any prequels to the original canon, as one of my favorite parts of the Holmes stories is his friendship with Dr. Watson. This book was a good read though, and I plan to pick up the rest of the series someday.

9: Bones and All by Camille DeAngelis

While I enjoy horror novels, I normally avoid books that have a "squick" factor, in this case cannibalism. But this book was really well-written, and DeAngelis managed to make the main character likeable, sympathetic, and someone to root for.

10: Ender's Game by Orson Scott Card

This is way outside my usual reads, in terms of being so strongly science fiction, but it is my brother's favorite book of all-time, so I had to read it. I ended up finding it a really good read.