
Rigatoni commented...
11h
I’ll look at sometimes read reviews when adding something to my tbr, but I’ll forget about that by the time I get to actually read it.


Ever feel you set yourself up for success or failure of expectations before you've even started reading the book? Like you've decided that's my kinda thing and your brain just.... decides to agree?
I love checking out star ratings before I read a book, and sometimes I'll even take a cheeky sneak peak at reviews while desperately trying to avoid spoilers (doesn't always work!). Sometimes this is valuable, as it shows me if a novel is going to be worth my time, and highly rated books sometimes do end up being a 5 star read!
But sometimes, especially with books that float towards the 3 star for a lot of folks, I wonder if I would've enjoyed the book more if I'd just gone in completely blind to public opinion.
I read Eileen by Ottessa Moshfegh recently and ate up every word. From the description it was exactly my kind of novel, and I loved it. But looking at it objectively? I know it's maybe not the best example of the genre, but I'd gone in thinking - even "knowing" - that I'd love it.
On the flip side, I read How High We Go In The Dark by Sequoia Nagamatsu after seeing a couple of reviews thay shared a more negative point of view, and I realised very quickly while reading that yes I agreed with those reviews, and I wasn't having a good time.
What are your thoughts? Do we let public perception interrupt and influence our enjoyment without even really meaning to? Do you fully avoid opinions of books before reading them because of this?

Rigatoni commented...
1d
I think it can make sense to say something on a social platform like this because people may see a dnf in their feed as a red flag for a book.
I don't know why, but I keep hearing people say "It's not the book's fault I couldn't finish it, there was just x y z going on," after soft DNFing. Now, this is interesting to me because there's an implication that, if you can't bring yourself to finish a text, there has to be some level of blame attached to either you or the work itself for you being unable to complete it.
Now, full disclosure: I don't think like this at all currently, but I definitely had this kind of mentality when I was a lot younger than I am now, especially if it received a lot of buzz or critical acclaim. Now I kind of approach reading a book kind of like going out with somebody: if you click immediately, great. If you don't click immediately, that's okay, give it another try. If you're both clearly not on the same page about anything? There's no shame in calling it quits.
Anyway, do you place blame on either yourself or the book when you DNF? Did you used to, like me? Do you even DNF books to begin with?

Rigatoni commented...
1d
I didn’t really like the writing style. Like kind of overly flowery but then also had moments that I thought lacked clarity.
And then it ended with a big narrative style change I didn’t really like.

Rigatoni finished a book
1d

Coup de Grâce
Sofia Ajram
A mindbending and visceral experimental horror about a young man trapped in an infinite Montreal subway station, perfect for readers of Mark Z. Danielewski and Susanna Clarke. Vicken has a plan: throw himself into the Saint Lawrence River in Montreal and end it all for good, believing it to be the only way out for him after a lifetime of depression and pain. But, stepping off the subway, he finds himself in an endless, looping station. Determined to find a way out again, he starts to explore the rooms and corridors ahead of him. But no matter how many claustrophobic hallways or vast cathedral-esque rooms he passes through, the exit is nowhere in sight. The more he explores his strange new prison, the more he becomes convinced that he hasn’t been trapped there accidentally, and amongst the shadows and concrete, he comes to realise that he almost certainly is not alone. A terrifying psychological nightmare from a powerful new voice in horror.

Rigatoni started reading...
1d

Lost in the Garden
Adam S. Leslie
"Like an old wives’ tale, like a piece of wisdom passed down through generations which no one questioned or even thought about too hard. Like folklore. It was just something everyone knew, a rule to be followed: Don’t go to Almanby." Heather, Rachel and Antonia are going to Almanby. Heather needs to find her boyfriend who, like so many, went and never came back. Rachel has a mysterious package to deliver, and her life depends on it. And Antonia—poor, lovestruck Antonia just wants the chance to spend the day with Heather. So off they set through the idyllic yet perilous English countryside, in which nature thrives in abundance and summer lasts forever. And as they travel through ever-shifting geography and encounter strange voices in the fizz of shortwave radio, the harder it becomes to tell friend from foe. Creepy, dreamlike, unsettling and unforgettable—you are about to join the privileged few who come to understand exactly why we don't go to Almanby.

Rigatoni finished a book
1d

Coup de Grâce
Sofia Ajram
A mindbending and visceral experimental horror about a young man trapped in an infinite Montreal subway station, perfect for readers of Mark Z. Danielewski and Susanna Clarke. Vicken has a plan: throw himself into the Saint Lawrence River in Montreal and end it all for good, believing it to be the only way out for him after a lifetime of depression and pain. But, stepping off the subway, he finds himself in an endless, looping station. Determined to find a way out again, he starts to explore the rooms and corridors ahead of him. But no matter how many claustrophobic hallways or vast cathedral-esque rooms he passes through, the exit is nowhere in sight. The more he explores his strange new prison, the more he becomes convinced that he hasn’t been trapped there accidentally, and amongst the shadows and concrete, he comes to realise that he almost certainly is not alone. A terrifying psychological nightmare from a powerful new voice in horror.

Rigatoni started reading...
1d

Coup de Grâce
Sofia Ajram
A mindbending and visceral experimental horror about a young man trapped in an infinite Montreal subway station, perfect for readers of Mark Z. Danielewski and Susanna Clarke. Vicken has a plan: throw himself into the Saint Lawrence River in Montreal and end it all for good, believing it to be the only way out for him after a lifetime of depression and pain. But, stepping off the subway, he finds himself in an endless, looping station. Determined to find a way out again, he starts to explore the rooms and corridors ahead of him. But no matter how many claustrophobic hallways or vast cathedral-esque rooms he passes through, the exit is nowhere in sight. The more he explores his strange new prison, the more he becomes convinced that he hasn’t been trapped there accidentally, and amongst the shadows and concrete, he comes to realise that he almost certainly is not alone. A terrifying psychological nightmare from a powerful new voice in horror.

Rigatoni finished a book
2d

In the Company of Men
Véronique Tadjo
Drawing on real accounts of the Ebola outbreak that devastated West Africa, this poignant, timely fable reflects on both the strength and the fragility of life and humanity’s place in the world. Two boys venture from their village to hunt in a nearby forest, where they shoot down bats with glee, and cook their prey over an open fire. Within a month, they are dead, bodies ravaged by an insidious disease that neither the local healer’s potions nor the medical team’s treatments could cure. Compounding the family’s grief, experts warn against touching the sick. But this caution comes too late: the virus spreads rapidly, and the boys’ father is barely able to send his eldest daughter away for a chance at survival. In a series of moving snapshots, Véronique Tadjo illustrates the terrible extent of the Ebola epidemic, through the eyes of those affected in myriad ways: the doctor who tirelessly treats patients day after day in a sweltering tent, protected from the virus only by a plastic suit; the student who volunteers to work as a gravedigger while universities are closed, helping the teams overwhelmed by the sheer number of bodies; the grandmother who agrees to take in an orphaned boy cast out of his village for fear of infection. And watching over them all is the ancient and wise Baobab tree, mourning the dire state of the earth yet providing a sense of hope for the future. Acutely relevant to our times in light of the coronavirus pandemic, In the Company of Men explores critical questions about how we cope with a global crisis and how we can combat fear and prejudice.

Klara and the Sun
Kazuo Ishiguro

Rigatoni is interested in reading...
4d

Tales from the Gas Station: Volume One
Jack Townsend
Working at a dead-end retail job in the middle of nowhere can be hard. The long hours. The helpless customers. The enormous eldritch horror living deep below the building… As the only full-time employee at the twenty-four hour gas station at the edge of town, Jack has pretty much seen it all. But when he decides to start an online journal documenting the bizarre day-to-day occurrences, he unwittingly attracts the attention of much more than just a few conspiracy theorists. With the body count steadily on the rise and a dark, ancient force infecting the dreams of everyone around him, Jack will do everything in his power to stay out of the way and mind his own business. After all, he’s just a gas station clerk. It’s not like he’s getting paid enough to wage battle against the nightmarish aberrations plaguing his community. Besides, he already has his hands full attempting to manage all those mysterious lawn gnomes, the mutant raccoons, and the charming phantom cowboy who lives in the bathroom. Based on the award-winning creepypasta by GasStationJack, Tales from the Gas Station: Volume One is a love letter to the pioneers of classic horror tailored to a generation that grew up in the era of smartphones and WiFi.

Rigatoni is interested in reading...
4d

A Brutal Design
Zachary C. Solomon
“There were moments in Solomon’s novel that truly frightened me, and yet, like its narrator, Samuel Zelnik, I found myself obsessively compelled to uncover its mysteries. This is a haunting, thought-provoking novel that shows a place where the senseless meets reality.” — Gabe Habash, author of Stephen Florida “Keenly political, rich with implications for both the past and the future. This is an exhilarating and boldly original debut.” — Helen Phillips, author of The Need "A BRUTAL DESIGN is a deft blend of sci-fi, noir, and a dash of Sebald that examines our yearning for utopia. It is propelled by unease, yet funny and beautiful, too. Once I started reading it, I could not stop." — Erin Somers, author of Stay Up With Hugo Best “An uncompromising portrait of the human psyche.” — Soon Wiley, author of When We Fell Apart After the fascist takeover of his homeland and the murder of his parents, Jewish architecture student Samuel Zelnik thinks that he and his friends are bound for the gulag—or worse. Instead, he receives an unexpected offer of freedom working in the experimental utopian city of Duma. Awed by the city’s dramatic architecture but confused by the other residents’ strange behavior, Zelnik searches for his long-lost uncle who emigrated to Duma before him. His wanderings reunite him with Miriana Grannoff, an exiled avant-garde artist who was once his teacher. Her memorial installations hidden around the city equally enchant and repel him. And gradually, they begin to reveal a Duma is not the workers’ paradise it pretends to be.

Rigatoni started reading...
5d

In the Company of Men
Véronique Tadjo
Drawing on real accounts of the Ebola outbreak that devastated West Africa, this poignant, timely fable reflects on both the strength and the fragility of life and humanity’s place in the world. Two boys venture from their village to hunt in a nearby forest, where they shoot down bats with glee, and cook their prey over an open fire. Within a month, they are dead, bodies ravaged by an insidious disease that neither the local healer’s potions nor the medical team’s treatments could cure. Compounding the family’s grief, experts warn against touching the sick. But this caution comes too late: the virus spreads rapidly, and the boys’ father is barely able to send his eldest daughter away for a chance at survival. In a series of moving snapshots, Véronique Tadjo illustrates the terrible extent of the Ebola epidemic, through the eyes of those affected in myriad ways: the doctor who tirelessly treats patients day after day in a sweltering tent, protected from the virus only by a plastic suit; the student who volunteers to work as a gravedigger while universities are closed, helping the teams overwhelmed by the sheer number of bodies; the grandmother who agrees to take in an orphaned boy cast out of his village for fear of infection. And watching over them all is the ancient and wise Baobab tree, mourning the dire state of the earth yet providing a sense of hope for the future. Acutely relevant to our times in light of the coronavirus pandemic, In the Company of Men explores critical questions about how we cope with a global crisis and how we can combat fear and prejudice.


Rigatoni finished a book
6d

The Buffalo Hunter Hunter
Stephen Graham Jones
A diary, written in 1912 by a Lutheran pastor is discovered within a wall. What it unveils is a slow massacre, a chain of events that go back to 217 Blackfeet dead in the snow. Told in transcribed interviews by a Blackfeet named Good Stab, who shares the narrative of his peculiar life over a series of confessional visits. This is an American Indian revenge story written by one of the new masters of horror, Stephen Graham Jones.