T Kingfisher has a way with words that just really works in short form story telling, especially in the horror and mystery flavor. I really enjoyed this book. The flow of it reminds me of her writing in What Moves The Dead etc, with a similar pace. I almost, strangely enough, want to classify this alongside the previous mentioned series of books, as a cozy horror. I find myself intrigued in the mystery and wanting more. There is not wild and crazy turns but there are moments that create that same feeling. I found myself very interested in each individual character, and I enjoyed that overall the cast of characters were older than what is typical for the genre. The pace made it digestible. It’s disturbing but you get relief from it in the form of breaks where there’s details about her creating the illustrations and the relationships and the town lore. The weaving in of scientific and tangible elements really helps this story to feel like something you are experiencing alongside our main character. I also really enjoyed Sonia’s anxious internal dialogue that we get throughout the book. It helped me feel connected to her character and added tension where it was needed. Finally, I am horrified of bugs. That definitely helped this story feel extra creepy for me, and there are some descriptions that will unfortunately live rent free in my head for eternity on account of my vivid imagination. This book was great fun.

This was my second attempt in the last few years of reading this. I decidedly do not enjoy this book. For the first half it seemed promising but the further we progressed in the story I just didn’t care for where the author went with it and it seemed ridiculous and just not entertaining for me. It lacked something that keeps me immersed in a story. I thought I would like this because I used to work as a holistic aesthetician in the clean beauty space for largely popular clean beauty giants and left for many reasons. I would have loved this to go somewhere a bit more tangible but still incorporate some of the same elements. Idk. It was a dud for me!

I never thought I would feel so seen and see myself so much in a story where the main character is an alien faxing her human experiences back to her home planet and yet here we are. This book really hit me in the guts. It is whimsical and funny and heartwarming. There’s so much honest truth to Adina and how she experiences life that I think many would resonate with. Her bluntness of observation is comically real. I laughed, remembered parts of my own life and childhood, cried and had so many feelings I was not expecting from this. This isn’t a book with some grand plot occurring, but that is the magic here. It feels authentic, slow paced. I found myself reaching for this book any moment where I could. It makes me think about all the friends i’ve had. It makes me remember the smell of my mother’s jacket when I was a child and she would come home late from working at the Chinese restaurant and how she was doing night classes at the same time. It sent my mind down rabbit holes of remembering people and things I haven’t thought of in very long. It acted as some sort of nostalgia bait for my brain and I just simply love this book.