…yeah, this one isn’t for me, imma only try her standalone books instead.

kidnapping young girls to kill them? sure. a cannibalistic family ala The Sawyer family from The Texas Chainsaw Massacre? also sure, let’s go. a troubled morally-grey son that doesn’t wanna be like his family? we get it and we empathise, yes.

until i reached the 85% mark. and how it made me feel utterly nauseous for the first time (i’m a seasoned extreme horror/splatterpunk reader btw).

absolute perfection, Ania Ahlborn. 10/10, no notes, for i drank every single word and devoured every single page of ‘Brother’.

p.s. also as deviant as Rebel was, i do aspire to have his patience ;)

delectable, gorgeous prose about a wife who masturbated in the middle of chopping up her shitty (no pun intended!) husband 🙂‍↕️🙏🏽

DOES THIS MEAN WE'RE GETTING A BOOK 2??? :D

ngl that introduction was brutal, but i really appreciated how this didn't end up as your typical straightforward revenge story.

you get to be in the head of Jason, and then you get to be in the head of Betty. and how they truly met each other's match, it was RIVETING.

inserts Thor's GIF here of him throwing down a coffee cup while exclaiming 'ANOTHER!'

Erin misses the flight she was supposed to take with her sister, Lori. But does this save her life, or just unravel it even further?

There are only so many directions a destination thriller that involves a plane can go, right? Is this a ‘Lost’ situation? Or an MH370 situation (shoutout for touching on that in the book)? Or are we getting another version of T.J. Newman’s plane thrillers that are all the rage right now?

I’ve definitely read better thrillers, but Lucy Clarke’s ‘The Castaways’ has its own merits. The writing doesn’t have much dialogue, but it makes up for it with rich, descriptive prose that pulls you into the setting. So you really feel like you’re there, thinking you’re re-enacting Tom Hank’s ‘Cast Away’ but you’re just trying to survive.

With that being said, every single character was insufferable. But for the actual castaways on the island, I get it. You spend a month stranded on an island with no help in sight and see how rational your thinking stays. It’s pure survival instinct after all, ‘survival of the fittest’ as they say.

Overall, I felt like this destination thriller took itself way too seriously, but I appreciated the vibes. And kudos for taking itself way too seriously anyway, especially since it became a TV show. So look who’s laughing now, am I right? Although I won’t be watching it (not only because I don’t have access to it being outside the US, but also... eh).

Still, I’d recommend it if you’re looking for a thriller that strays from your everyday domestic-typical tropes.

Thank you NetGalley and Grove Atlantic for this e-ARC!

the grief, the drama, the nuances. Taylor’s writing really made me feel like I was Piper. also 10/10, no notes.

sickest, bleakest shit i’ve read to kickstart off 2026 because why not. an absolute 10/10, no notes.

my first Sodergren!!! and im impressed because man can actually write. minus a star because the plot could be better. and also tbh the scariest part was when he mentioned an israeli director and their movie in the acknowledgements, so, meh.

In ‘Banana Brain’, Adam takes a job as a night guard at a rundown zoo. Things quickly go sideways when he gets drunk one night, and his phone ends up in the hands of the zoo’s new chimpanzee.

But this isn’t just any chimp; it’s a deranged, possibly demonic, supernatural one. As it taunts Adam, slowly unraveling his life in torturous ways, things take a dark turn.

I was ABSOLUTELY HERE for the plot and the writing. It kept me so engaged, I literally finished the book in two hours.

The dialogue could use some work, though? Like what’s with the potty-mouth on Ruby, the 12-year-old sister, double orphan or not, lol (is double orphan even a thing? Where I’m from, we just call it “anak yatim piatu”).

So that sometimes took me out of the story. But I did appreciate the random, real-life chimpanzee facts that added some depth to the supernatural aspect because it made the whole story feel just a tiny bit more believable.

I don’t think Uncle Jeff and Emma's characters really moved the story forward because they didn’t make a difference in the end either. But maybe that’s just me.

Also don’t expect any character development because the chimpanzee is the real star here, not anyone else. So yeah, the ending is bleak, but that’s why I loved it, hence, 4 stars.

The minus 1 star is due to all the annoying Coldplay references. Though, now I see that was probably the point; mirroring Adam’s own frustration. But it’s a bit different since his frustration was more on the traumatic side.

So is it unrealistic? Yes. Is it chimp-shit crazy? Yes. Does it make zero sense? Absolutely, suspend all disbelief.

But it’s HELLA entertaining, because I would definitely watch a movie based on this.

Thank you NetGalley and Albatross Book Co. for the e-ARC!

despite my reservations for short stories collection in general (i truly only ever liked 1, and it's the only one i re-read every year), but it's as if it's a culmination of all my favorite things; reminiscent of reading Singapore True Ghost Stories by Russell Lee when i was growing up, enjoying both movies of Thailand's 4Bia franchise.

most importantly, this takes me back to The Eye franchise, where when you reach The Eye 10 (or The Eye Infinity/The Eye 3 for our Western counterparts probably), you will finally get the stories-within-stories; where the characters in the final movie would just briefly touch upon what happened in The Eye 1 and The Eye 2.

so this made me feel a lot like that, and i love it.