TheMulletedWriter

D.D., he/him, mid-twenties, 🏳️‍🌈🏳️‍⚧️ A bibliophile with a strong preference for horror, who also loves dogs and strong cups of tea...

269 points

0% overlap

My Taste

Reading...

The Name of This Book Is Secret (Secret, #1)

Welcome to the Family: The Explosive Story Behind Fast & Furious, the Blockbusters that Supercharged the World

Sherlock Holmes and The Beast of the Stapletons

TheMulletedWriter commented on Loyaute's update

Loyaute TBR'd a book

Human Acts

Han Kang

In the midst of a violent student uprising in South Korea, a young boy named Dong-ho is shockingly killed. The story of this tragic episode unfolds in a sequence of interconnected chapters as the victims and the bereaved encounter suppression, denial, and the echoing agony of the massacre. From Dong-ho's best friend who meets his own fateful end; to an editor struggling against censorship; to a prisoner and a factory worker, each suffering from traumatic memories; and to Dong-ho's own grief-stricken mother; and through their collective heartbreak and acts of hope is the tale of a brutalized people in search of a voice. An award-winning, controversial bestseller, Human Acts is a timeless, pointillist portrait of an historic event with reverberations still being felt today, by turns tracing the harsh reality of oppression and the resounding, extraordinary poetry of humanity.

TheMulletedWriter commented on LaDonnaQ's update

LaDonnaQ is re-reading...

Pain Woman Takes Your Keys, and Other Essays from a Nervous System (American Lives)

Sonya Huber

Rate your pain on a scale of one to ten. What about on a scale of spicy to citrus? Is it more like a lava lamp or a mosaic? Pain, though a universal element of human experience, is dimly understood and sometimes barely managed. Pain Woman Takes Your Keys, and Other Essays from a Nervous System is a collection of literary and experimental essays about living with chronic pain. Sonya Huber moves away from a linear narrative to step through the doorway into pain itself, into that strange, unbounded reality. Although the essays are personal in nature, this collection is not a record of the author’s specific condition but an exploration that transcends pain’s airless and constraining world and focuses on its edges from wild and widely ranging angles. Huber addresses the nature and experience of invisible disability, including the challenges of gender bias in our health care system, the search for effective treatment options, and the difficulty of articulating chronic pain. She makes pain a lens of inquiry and lyricism, finds its humor and complexity, describes its irascible character, and explores its temperature, taste, and even its beauty.

TheMulletedWriter commented on a post from the Pagebound Club forum

clackamaslee

Do you judge yourself for reading brain candy?

That's the question.

I'm currently reading the You series by Caroline Kepnes and am feeling kind of bad about "wasting time."

My thoughts are:

I read a lot of heavier and academic stuff, so I should feel just fine about taking a break and reading brain candy (like the entire Guild Codex series), which isn't going to do anything toward making me a better person or opening the world to me. But for some reason I judge myself and get little embarrassed by it... just as I would be embarrassed if I ordered pizza every day (whether people knew about it or not).

Except I should feel fine about it even if that's ALL I read! I don't judge other people for reading exclusively brain candy, so why am I not allowed to?! (and the right pizza can actually be a readonably balanced meal!)

Dang it! If I want to read John Saul's entire catalogue that is just fine!! It's familiar and comfortable! It's no different than watching all of Dexter for the sixth time!!

Do you judge yourself like this, even when your rational brain knows better? How do you get yourself out of it? Do you admit it (anyone here not track their brain candy so nobody will know?)? Is it maybe a consequence of my age and when I was educated? [sigh]

Please tell me I'm not alone.

TheMulletedWriter finished a book

The Eyes Are the Best Part

Monika Kim

“Violent, smart, gruesome and wildly original, this novel pulls readers into a horrific world of murder and cannibalism while also critiquing misogyny, exploring Asian fetishization and stereotypes, sharing what it’s like to navigate two cultures and telling a touching story of a family in turmoil.” —New York Times Book Review Crying in H-Mart meets My Sister, the Serial Killer in this feminist psychological horror about the making of a female serial killer from a Korean-American perspective. Ji-won’s life tumbles into disarray in the wake of her appa’s extramarital affair and subsequent departure. Her mother, distraught. Her younger sister, hurt and confused. Her college freshman grades, failing. Her dreams, horrifying… yet enticing. In them, Ji-won walks through bloody rooms full of eyes. Succulent blue eyes. Salivatingly blue eyes. Eyes the same shape and shade as George’s, who is Umma’s obnoxious new boyfriend. George has already overstayed his welcome in her family’s claustrophobic apartment. He brags about his puffed-up consulting job, ogles Asian waitresses while dining out, and acts condescending toward Ji-won and her sister as if he deserves all of Umma’s fawning adoration. No, George doesn’t deserve anything from her family. Ji-won will make sure of that. For no matter how many victims accumulate around her campus or how many people she must deceive and manipulate, Ji-won’s hunger and her rage deserve to be sated. A brilliantly inventive, subversive novel about a young woman unraveling, Monika Kim’s The Eyes Are the Best Part is a story of a family falling apart and trying to find their way back to each other, marking a bold new voice in horror that will leave readers mesmerized and craving more.

TheMulletedWriter created a list

Iconic Hardboiled Detective Fiction/Noir

by TheMulletedWriter

15 books

A list featuring classic hardboiled detective capers—largely cynical novels (and a few story collections) hailing primarily from the 20’s-50’s, populated by quick thinking and hard drinking detectives, femme fatales, gangsters, murders, and periodic guns fights; where coffee is served late at night, and there is almost always an abundance of cigarette smoke…

🚬

🥃

🔍

TheMulletedWriter earned a badge

Level 3

250 points

TheMulletedWriter is re-reading...

13h

The Name of This Book Is Secret (Secret, #1)

Pseudonymous Bosch

Warning: this description has not been authorized by Pseudonymous Bosch. As much as he'd love to sing the praises of his book (he is very vain), he wouldn't want you to hear about his brave 11-year old heroes, Cass and Max-Ernest. Or about how a mysterious box of vials, the Symphony of Smells, sends them on the trail of a magician who has vanished under strange (and stinky) circumstances. And he certainly wouldn't want you to know about the hair-raising adventures that follow and the nefarious villains they face. You see, not only is the name of this book secret, the story inside is, too. For it concerns a secret. A Big Secret.

TheMulletedWriter is interested in reading...

13h

Discontent

Beatriz Serrano

From a dazzling new international voice, an audacious, darkly funny novel about a young woman whose carefully crafted office persona threatens to crack when she’s forced to attend her company’s annual retreatOn the surface, Marisa's life looks enviable. She lives in a beautiful apartment in the center of Madrid, she has a hot neighbor who is always around to sleep with her, and she’s quickly risen through the ranks at a successful advertising agency. And yet she’s drowning in a dark hole of existential dread induced by the banality of corporate life. Marisa hates her job and everyone at it. She spends her working hours locked in her office hiding from her coworkers, bingeing YouTube videos, and getting high on tranquilizers. When she has the time, she escapes to her favorite museum where she contemplates the meaning of life while staring at Hieronymus Bosch paintings, or trying to get hit by a car so she can go on disability.But Marisa's dubious success, which is largely built on lies and work she's stolen from other people, is in danger of being exposed when she's forced to go on her company’s team-building retreat. Isolated in the Segovia forests, haunted by the deeply buried memory of a former coworker, and surrounded by psychopathic bosses, overzealous coworkers, flirty retreat staff, and an excess of drugs, Marisa finds herself acting on her wildest impulses and is pushed to the brink of a complete spiral.

TheMulletedWriter is interested in reading...

Disappoint Me

Nicola Dinan

After a rough tumble and maybe-serious head injury, a disillusioned trans poet falls for a charming corporate lawyer in a love story that grapples with the explosive ghosts of relationships past, romantic and familial, from the Lambda Award-nominated author of Bellies, Nicola Dinan “Fell down the stairs and woke up a trad wife.” Max is thirty, a published poet and grossly overpaid legal counsel for a tech company. With a lifetime of dysphoria and fuccbois rattling around in her head, Max is plagued with a deep dissatisfaction during what should be the best years of her life. After taking a spill down the stairs at a New Year’s Eve party, she decides to make some changes. First things first: a stab at good old-fashioned heteronormativity. Max thinks she’s found the answer in Vincent, a corporate lawyer and hobby baker, whose trad friendship group may as well speak a foreign language, and whose Chinese parents never pictured their son dating a trans woman. This uncharted territory may have rough terrain, but Vincent cares for Max in a way she’d long given up on as a foolish fantasy. Yet Vincent is carrying his own baggage from his gap year in Thailand a decade prior: an explosive entanglement with a mysterious, gorgeous traveler. Voice-driven, warm, and poignant, Disappoint Me is an exploration of millennial angst, race, trans panic, and the allure of bourgeois domesticity that asks if we are defined by our worst mistakes.

TheMulletedWriter is interested in reading...

You Did Nothing Wrong

C.G. Drews

A relentless, horror-inducing psychological suspense for fans of The Push and Baby Teeth by New York Times bestselling author CG Drews. Single mother Elodie’s life has become a fairy tale. She’s met Bren, equal parts golden-retriever devoted and sinfully handsome. He’s whisked her and her autistic son, Jude, to the crumbling family house he’s renovating. She has a new husband, a new house, and a new baby on the way. Everything is perfect. Then Jude claims he can hear voices in the walls. He says their renovations are “hurting” the house. Even Elodie can’t ignore it–something strange is going on. The question is, is it with the house, or with her son? Then the one secret Elodie has been hiding is revealed, and no one is safe anymore. A pulse-pounding, clever take on the haunted house novel, You Did Nothing Wrong examines the complexities of motherhood and the twisted bonds of family as it races to its shocking ending.

TheMulletedWriter commented on a post from the Pagebound Club forum

x.adix22

Edited

question

so i had a discussion with my brothers today, cus i finished a book (which i have already read this year) and they said that it doesn’t count as a “new book read” since i have already read it, so it shouldn’t count for my year challenge

so my question is in other words, what do you all think? does it count? (cus a book is a book) or doesn’t it? (cus the challenge is to read ‘different’ books)

in addition to that, the same discussion was on the topic of, reading the same book in different languages. same question there to, does it count?

srry for any grammar errors 😔

TheMulletedWriter is interested in reading...

The Princess Bride

William Goldman

What happens when the most beautiful girl in the world marries the handsomest prince of all time and he turns out to be...well...a lot less than the man of her dreams? As a boy, William Goldman claims, he loved to hear his father read the S. Morgenstern classic, The Princess Bride. But as a grown-up he discovered that the boring parts were left out of good old Dad's recitation, and only the "good parts" reached his ears. Now Goldman does Dad one better. He's reconstructed the "Good Parts Version" to delight wise kids and wide-eyed grownups everywhere. What's it about? Fencing. Fighting. True Love. Strong Hate. Harsh Revenge. A Few Giants. Lots of Bad Men. Lots of Good Men. Five or Six Beautiful Women. Beasties Monstrous and Gentle. Some Swell Escapes and Captures. Death, Lies, Truth, Miracles, and a Little Sex. In short, it's about everything.

TheMulletedWriter commented on a post from the Pagebound Club forum

nohara66

Need book recommendations

Books that you would recommend to a person who just got a big break from their studies. A book to read right after your exams are over, with snacks. Any book that is gripping enough, I do not mind hard language. Thank you.

TheMulletedWriter commented on a post from the Pagebound Club forum

clackamaslee

Do you judge yourself for reading brain candy?

That's the question.

I'm currently reading the You series by Caroline Kepnes and am feeling kind of bad about "wasting time."

My thoughts are:

Dang it! If I want to read John Saul's entire catalogue that is just fine!! It's familiar and comfortable! It's no different than watching all of Dexter for the sixth time!!

Please tell me I'm not alone.

TheMulletedWriter commented on Esparza's update

Esparza finished a book

Needful Things

Stephen King

Leland Gaunt opens a new shop in Castle Rock called Needful Things. Anyone who enters his store finds the object of his or her lifelong dreams and desires: a prized baseball card, a healing amulet. In addition to a token payment, Gaunt requests that each person perform a little "deed," usually a seemingly innocent prank played on someone else from town. These practical jokes cascade out of control and soon the entire town is doing battle with itself. Only Sheriff Alan Pangborn suspects that Gaunt is behind the population's increasingly violent behavior.

TheMulletedWriter commented on Esparza's review of Needful Things

Esparza

Jun 20, 2026

Needful Things

5.0

Enjoyment: 5.0Quality: 5.0Characters: 4.0Plot: 5.0

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🧨

👹

Needful Things was my second SK book and it did not disappoint. I really loved the main premise of having “evil” being an object to be sold and ultimately, resulting is pure chaos. The twists were very fun & unexpected. I do wish there was a map of the city like in some of his newer books.

I am very glad I picked up this book. I would recommend to other & re-read!

TheMulletedWriter is interested in reading...