One part Scooby-Doo, one part Scream, and a whole ass fun ride.

Let's Split Up by Bill Wood was marketed and pitched as Scooby-Doo meets Scream and I can't help but feel like that's entirely accurate.

There are moments where you think it's more scream. It opens with a murder of the most popular kids at their high school. There's a mysterious "ghost" like figure. It centers around four teens including this oddly suspicious one that is the new girl in town. There's a greater mystery around Robert Carrington and his seemingly abandoned manor.

As I was reading this, I couldn't help but smile and even laugh at the fact that it was like I was literally reading a scooby-doo episode but a lot bloodier. It was like if the man behind Riverdale decided to make a Scooby-Doo show.

But then there were times where it felt like I was watching a Scream movie. The creepy way the killer is presented, the presence of a shady reporter (Gale, anyone?), and just a lot of certain tropes that Scream has been known for.

Now, don't take this as me saying it is a bad book or that I had a bad time with it. This is the furthest from the truth. I did have a good time with it and I will be buying the sequel. I will also say that I came out of the ending feeling quite satisfied. I've seen a lot of people say the tone of the epilogue felt off or different in tone, but I think that's because they needed to end on a happier note.

Plus, the epilogue teased what I assume the sequel, Be Right Back, will be centered around.

As for Let's Split Up, definitely worth it. It's fun, it's somewhat dumb entertainment, and I just had a blast with it.

AMAZE! AMAZE! AMAZE!

Oh, Andy Weir the writer that you are.

Project Hail Mary is about the survival of our species. When a microorganism threatens to eventually destroy our sun, the world's government puts together a team and they come up with a plan to save the Earth. And that's where Ryland Grace, a school teacher who has a very unique set of skills to help in this mission.

On the surface, the concept of a man waking up in a spaceship, with no memories of how he got there and eventually learns he's on what is basically a suicide mission wouldn't make sense. In fact, if I just saw the concept on paper, I would probably laugh at it, but instead laughing at it, I was laughing with it. I was laughing because of it.

This is not just a story about a species' survivor. About OUR species' survival but it is a story about finding your purpose. In this story, there were moments where I thought I might DNF. The first 20% was a slow burn and not a fun on but I think because of the way Andy Weir writes, the very approachable way he writes, it made it easier. He explained the science and math in a way that was easy to understand.

I personally loved Ryland Grace. He's a character you want to root for and of course, there's a specific character that you meet in the first quarter of the book that will absolutely become your favorite!

So not perfect but not at all a bad book. And putting aside some of Weir's less-than-ideal comments recently, this book was a great ride full of happy happy happy moments and full of bad bad bad moments!

First off, I want to thank Orbit, A.S. Tamaki, and Netgalley for this ARC in exchange for an honest review.

Family. Duty. Fate.

These are the three words that author A.S. Tamaki said are the core themes of The Book of Fallen Leaves and, as I read, I couldn’t agree more.

In this fantasy story that was pitched as Shogun meets Game of Thrones, we follow a brilliantly-crafted cast of characters. Some focused on the three core families of Gensei, Keishi, and Ten’in, some not related to the main family but still just as important to the story. In a world where there’s civil war on the horizon, gods and monsters and demons existing and two people who were rescued from certain death and secrets slowly unraveling, you have to ask yourself one simple question: Is fate something you can avoid or is it written in stone?

Throughout this book, A.S. Tamaki did something quite brilliant and hard to pull off, especially for a debut novel, which I believe this is that for him, is create a lot of intrigue for readers and don’t hold their hand that much with all of the world building in this first of a debut trilogy.

And don’t be mistaken: there is a lot of world building and tension building. For the first 40-50% of this book, there’s a lot of pieces on the chess board that needed to be set before the actual game could be played. There were parts where it felt like a drag or that it was taking too long but I have to give credit to Tamaki’s prose. With so much poetic language thrown in, it felt like we were actually reading old stories from a thousand years ago in Japanese history. It’s the kind of writing that risked being too purple prose-y, but Tamaki knew when to dial back when needed and when to not.

The action scenes were, for a lack of better words, truly cinematic. They read like classic — and epic — samurai fights. Truly like Game of Thrones but with that Shogun-esque flare.

I did find myself truly enjoying the characters of Sen and Rui, as well as Yora. Yora is probably my favorite.

At the end of it, I was left feeling intrigued, satisfied with the first third of the overall story, and very interested to see where it will go. My problems with this are very minor and only extend into some questions left unanswered but alas that is the making of a true artist.

Fred is an accountant. One day, a vampire bit and turned him. Now, he's Fred an undead accountant. A vampire accountant.

This was one of the quirkiest stories I've read in a minute. Very different from Drew Hayes' Super Powereds. It had a cheesy flare that I'm recognizing as Hayes' style. A bit like Terry Pratchett but more modern and not quite as fantasy-leaning. It was funny but Fred the undead accountant felt more like a handful of short stories connected by an underlier of Fred and Krystal than I thought it was a cohesive story.

Now, don't get me wrong, all of the smaller stories were nice and it all came together in the end and connected wonderfully. It just wasn't one grand story per se.

Despite this, I found myself enjoying this one a crapton. Fred himself isn't a remarkable character in his bravery or courage but he has a lot of heart. He's loyal to those close to him and very compassionate. Lot of likable traits and even at the end, this remained to be true. So I didn't have any issue with him as a character, nor any of the side characters. Something that Hayes does remarkably well is making the side characters feel like they matter to the endgame.

Overall, if you're looking for a SyFy Channel-esque story that's quirky, hilariously corny, a quick read but full of heart, then the Utterly Uninteresting and Unadventurous Tales of Fred, the Vampire Accountant is for you.