This book is what happens when you mix the Jim Crow laws of 1954 black America with Lovecraftian weirdness and horror. The main characters include a black man who recently returned from the Korean war who loves sci-fi and horror, his uncle who owns a green book travel agency, his young nephew who writes comic books, his aunt who has a passion for astronomy, and others related to them in some way. The book also features bloodthirsty monsters in the woods, a secret society absorbed with the language of Adam, a haunted house, secret rooms in museums, a planetarium with keys to other planets, ghostly time travel, body switching, a magic book, and other oddities. This landed on my radar days before I found out there was going to be an HBO series based on the book, and I finished right as it hit the screen. It's definitely written in a way that lends itself to a television series. Early in the book, a chapter ended well enough that I was surprised to see there was about 70% more left in the book. It seems that the series is doing some gender switching of characters. And I really hope it does a better job of ending than the book does. I felt like the ending came out of left field, especially with the way that everyone ganged up on one of the characters in the end.

I find it interesting that the author is white, but he's done a decent job of research. I think this is a timely series to hit HBO as people spend more time watching tv and the Black Lives Matter movement has brought a need for more understanding from the world. I think this is possibly one case where the series really may outshine the book. It already has in the one episode I've watched.

Really enjoyed this one (even with the slow start imo). The vignette-style chapters may not be for everyone. Still, they perfectly mirror the nature of the creature itself: fragmented, stitched together from different lives, each piece carrying its own story.

The novel offers a compelling exploration of cycles of violence and the uneven ways war shapes people’s lives. Hadi, for instance, exists in that uneasy space between victim and perceived criminal, while the Whatsitsname begins as a kind of justice-bringer only to become something more desperate and human, driven by survival rather than principle.

You can tell by the multi-page cast list just how many characters are in this story, and each one is intriguing (even Mahmoud, despite how gross he is toward women). At first, I thought that would be overwhelming, but every character’s perspective feels essential, offering a layered view of the world and contributing to the larger, haunting overall story.

Not as gothic as Mary Shelley's Frankenstein, but a great homage.

the kind of book that feels like a warm hug (but leaves a little cat hair on your sweater)