Buzz's Babbling Book Opinions- p2

Hi! Welcome back to my book opinions. I still have a lot of books to go through so buckle up buckaroos. I'm going to finish out the standouts of 2023 before I move on to this year.

As I stated in part 1 I do try to avoid spoilers.

1. Zombabe- I.S. Belle.

⭐⭐⭐⭐/5 stars.

"Zombabe is a heartwarming LGBT Horror YA about a group of friends putting down an ancient evil inextricably linked to their sleepy town of Bulldeen, Maine.

Two weeks before graduation, Henry “Babe” Simmons is resurrected by his best friend (and secret crush) Eugene “Dude” Marsh. Consequences include freaking out a town who just buried you, an overwhelming hunger for human flesh, and a monster who will step in if you ignore that hunger too long. Thankfully they have Kate Higgins on their side, a whiskey-drinking police chief who is all too eager to get rid of the town riff-raff. Armed with the power of friendship and a vague yet crucial understanding of Latin, Babe and his friends must uncover Bulldeen’s dark secrets and kill the monster for good.

Perfect for anybody who wanted Jennifer's Body to have a happy ending."

I love this book! Found family and unbury your gays are tropes everyone needs in there life.

Considering many of my critiques in my last book blog were poor characterization and uninteresting characters, I want to start off with the fact this book couldn't be anymore different. The characters are written well, have actual chemistry, and their motivations are clear. I was so invested in the lives and friends of Dude and Babe, and their plan to kill local neo-nazis. 

That being said, I do have some complaints about some characters. Throughout the book, Babe has to learn to come to terms with both his monster tendencies and his queer ones. The parallels are there, but it falls flat at the end. I gave this book 4 stars and for a long time I couldn't quite figure out why other than something was missing. I think this is it. The ending and the parallels fall flat at the end, with a satisfying conclusion just in arms reach. Furthermore, I have a bone to pick with another character, Kate. She's an interesting character, that's for sure. She's an unhappy corrupt lesbian cop, and an objectively bad person. She helps out our beloved skittles squad, but with no real lesson to show for it. I'm not saying she has to be a better person, just a more developed one. As I said before, she's corrupt, covering up crimes ranging from the cannibalization of local bigots, to more heinous and less nuanced ones. This is just her way of life, facing no consequences for any of them. 

I don't want to keep ragging on this book because I really did enjoy it and I really do think it's worth reading, but I do have one more criticism. The story takes place in a spooky cursed small town, but it felt clumsy at moments, almost like a parody of IT's Derry.

Once again, I want to emphasize despite what I said, this book is fun and heartwarming, and perfect for those who are tired of having the "bury your gays" trope. This book is an easy read, and I really think it is worth checking out, especially if you're a Halloween gay.

2. The Echo of Old Books- Barbara Davis.

⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐/5 stars.

"Rare-book dealer Ashlyn Greer’s affinity for books extends beyond the intoxicating scent of old paper, ink, and leather. She can feel the echoes of the books’ previous owners—an emotional fingerprint only she can read. When Ashlyn discovers a pair of beautifully bound volumes that appear to have never been published, her gift quickly becomes an obsession. Not only is each inscribed with a startling incrimination, but the authors, Hemi and Belle, tell conflicting sides of a tragic romance.

With no trace of how these mysterious books came into the world, Ashlyn is caught up in a decades-old literary mystery, beckoned by two hearts in ruins, whoever they were, wherever they are. Determined to learn the truth behind the doomed lovers’ tale, she reads on, following a trail of broken promises and seemingly unforgivable betrayals. The more Ashlyn learns about Hemi and Belle, the nearer she comes to bringing closure to their love story—and to the unfinished chapters of her own life."

I have no critiques about this one. Like I'm struggling to find something worth writing, it's just that good. The story telling is so immersive, and Ashlyn's powers feels so natural and never super out there or anything. This is a whimsical book about romance and tragedy, and just so much more.

I really am having trouble conveying my thoughts that properly demonstrate this book so I'm going to paste a portion of a good reads review, thank you to Marilyn for being able to transcribe your thoughts so effectively: "The Echo of Old Books by Barbara Davis was about family, love, forgiveness, betrayal and secrets. It explored the growing anti-Semitic feelings that were taking root among some of the wealthiest and most influential Americans as World War II began. The roles of the affluent women that lived during the 1940’s were described. These women were meant to live their lives in relation to their place in society. Women were expected to marry, dedicate themselves to raising their children and take a backseat to their husbands. Some brave women rebelled against these norms. They wanted more. Those women were not interested in staying home, raising children and planning dinner parties. Some of these women wanted more out of life. They wanted to be treated more as equals to the men in their lives. The Echo of Old Books was also about second chances. I loved how Barbara Davis used “Regretting Belle” and “Forever and Other Lies” to weave together the lives of so many people. The Echo of Old Books brought tears to my eyes, it made me smile and it made me hope. I really enjoyed The Echo of Old Books by Barbara Davis and highly recommend it. I look forward to reading more books by Barbara Davis."

I know using someone else's review defeats the point of this blog, but I couldn't just not include this book despite my lack of words. If you read any books from this list, make it this one.

3. The Cannibal Gardner- Joe Pawlowski.

⭐⭐/5 stars.

"Edmund has a secret.

Besides working as a gardener at Harbo’s Garden Center, he has a separate existence on the dark web, where he is known as Raoul153. There he flirts with the notion of eating people. This idea comes from his grandmother, who tells him stories about the history of his ancient ancestors, the Cannibal Gardeners of New Guinea.

Surprisingly, many share his dark interest. Some even volunteer to be his main course.

One of the people he encounters on the dark web is someone he one day meets in real life. Her name is Denise and she isn’t one of his volunteers but is a force to be reckoned with. Her Goth sensibilities and morbid interests make her a perfect match for Edmund. Or so he thinks.

She’s not so sure.

And, oh, yes, there is a real cannibal on the loose for them to contend with, and he's bringing along a friend.

The Cannibal Gardener combines chilling, supernatural suspense with a love story and generous doses of humor from a master storyteller."

I was really excited when I won the giveaway for this book. I couldn't way to read it. Unfortunately, it just really wasn't that great of a read. Like all these characters are cannibal wannabes/dark web users, and they have no other connection other than that but they were all just thrown together at the end. And Baba Yaga too for shits and giggles I guess. It was just so rushed and nonsensical. I had to open the book again and skim the end just because it was so stupid I wasn't sure I was thinking of the right book.

4. Junior Missing- Khristina Chess

5/5 stars.

"For fans of Sarah Dessen’s Dreamland comes a steamy thriller about a runaway teenager who escapes an abusive relationship.

Love isn’t supposed to take prisoners.

Sixteen-year-old Grace Keegan, darling of the child pageant world, is missing. Police initially believe she ran away—until they locate her abandoned cell phone along the highway. No one knows she met someone online, someone older, a musician named Quentin Brock who has a cool band named Acid Mozart. He seems to be romantic, cute, and funny. He seems to be the perfect guy.

By the time he reveals his true colors, Grace is trapped in another state with no way out.

She doesn’t even have shoes."

In the time of booktok dark romances and all those wack books, I think it's really important to have books about abuse that don't glorify or romanticize it. There was also an author's note including resources to help those facing domestic violence. The book's message is clear without being overly preachy.

It's hard to talk about this book without spoilers, so I'll keep it short. Throughout the book we follow Grace as she tries to navigate her situation, but the author makes sure to emphasize she isn't just a victim. Grace is so much more than her situation, she loves to dance and cheer, and just wants a better life. She is such a captivating character, and that can be said for all the characters, good and bad. The cast of characters is small, working in the book's favor, really highlighting Grace's for isolation. 

I really recommend this book as well.

5. Later- Stephen King.

⭐⭐⭐/5 stars.

"The son of a struggling single mother, Jamie Conklin just wants an ordinary childhood. But Jamie is no ordinary child. Born with an unnatural ability his mom urges him to keep secret, Jamie can see what no one else can see and learn what no one else can learn. But the cost of using this ability is higher than Jamie can imagine - as he discovers when an NYPD detective draws him into the pursuit of a killer who has threatened to strike from beyond the grave.

Later is Stephen King at his finest, a terrifying and touching story of innocence lost and the trials that test our sense of right and wrong. With echoes of King's classic novel It, Later is a powerful, haunting, unforgettable exploration of what it takes to stand up to evil in all the faces it wears."

I genuinely cannot remember what happens in this book. I really don't. I don't know why I rated this 3 stars. I can't remember.

6. Circus- Alistair MacLean.

⭐⭐/3 stars.

"Reissue of the classic tale of espionage set in Cold War Europe, where the world s greatest circus acrobat must break into an impenetrable fortress, from the acclaimed master of action and suspense. Bruno Wildermann of the Wrinfield Circus is the world s greatest trapeze artist, a clairvoyant with near-supernatural powers and an implacable enemy of the East European regime that arrested his family and murdered his wife. The CIA needs such a man, and recruits Bruno for an impossible raid - on the impregnable Lubylan fortress, where his family his held. Under cover of a circus tour, Bruno prepares to return to his homeland. But before the journey even begins a murderer strikes twice. Somewhere in the circus there is a communist agent with orders to stop Bruno at any cost."

Before I talk about the book itself I want to talk about how I got my hands on it. I go to school in the middle of nowhere, but one day my friends, one of their mothers, and I decided to go even more in the middle of nowhere ig. I don't remember what we were doing and what exactly led to this, but we found a used book store. I honestly thought it was closed or it was the wrong building or we were gonna get killed by an axe murderer or something. But the inside of the building was very cozy! I got so many books. It was a used bookstore btw so some of these books were not looking too great. There were also some old pins, including confederate flag pins in the shape of states for some reason (even non-confederate states). My friend got a vintage special Olympics pin.

So onto this book itself. The second star comes from the inclusion of a map. The book was not very good. It was well written grammar wise and such, I guess, but it was just very boring. Nothing really happens for the majority of the book. I'm not even going to bother worrying about spoilers with this one. So the author spends several pages describing these two guys just for them both to die immediately after, nothing substantial happens most of the book, and then Bruno does the thing he's supposed to do. 

Also, I'm convinced MacLean doesn't know how to write women. There is a single female character in this book and just oh my fcking god. Why is Maria, who is supposed to be a highly skilled CIA agent, a bumbling fcking idiot. So she and Bruno were supposed to pretend to be love interests, and then she (and maybe he as well? I don't really care to figure that out) develops real feelings. Instead of doing whatever CIA do, her only purpose is to prove how smart our men are (which is not hard by comparison, she is very dull), and be like "Oh Bruno, you're going to get killed. Oh Bruno you can't, Bruno kiss me" or whatever. She has an almost childlike whimsy at everything Bruno and the CIA does, AND SHE IS CIA. She's a prop, and not a good one at that. Her character could have been taken out in its entirety and it would have made NO difference. None. Nada. She doesn't even provide anything towards the final plan/raid.

Furthermore, the all the villains felt the eastern European caricature that you would see in a children's movie, and poor ones at that.

7. Redneck Rebels- Jamila Jasper.

⭐/5 stars.

"“The three of us men are kin. We share everything… especially her — Caroline Coulson, the woman we ain’t s’posed to love…”

3 alpha male country boys…

1 Black intellectual woman…

A segregated town that isn’t ready for interracial love.

Exposing town secrets & scandals threatens all four lovers in this interracial reverse harem.

Can Caroline keep the quad together, or will she have to choose between the strapping men who love her and her career in politics?

⚠Stay Alert⚠ The hottest scenes are in Chapter 4 and Chapter 8. If you aren’t ready for Caroline to get ridden like a bronco by three beefy, strapping, muscular, and rock hard country boys, hop away from this searing hot interracial romance."

What made me buy this book for a whopping $0.99 was the cover. Like whose idea was it to throw a confederate flag on a romance book, like obviously racism is a pretty important factor in this book, but the cover doesn't even look good to begin with and it just sets the stage for how stupid this book is going to be.

To start off with, the plot execution is so cartoony. It was so hard to get through it and it wasn't even that long. At first I dnf at 54% then for whatever reason I decided to go back and finish it, AND I WASN'T EVEN THAT FAR FROM FINISHING IT. About 100 pages are just promos and previews for other books (I did cave and join her newsletter for a free book).

The spicy scenes were fine I guess? at least so start off with. There were so many of them and they were so repetitive. The scenes itself were ridiculous and cringe, and the words choices were cringe. For example, "slippery honey pot," "canoodle," "twisted pretzel of passion." That's just the more tame ones I can put on this site. 

There were also so many grammatical, formatting, and spelling errors, as well as inconstancies. For example, there was one scene (in the beginning btw, really setting the stage here) where she's getting in on in the car, and it says Caroline's back is against the seats, and then the NEXT SENTENCE says the car door handle dug into her back. Also, there's another scene where Caroline gets into a physical fight with a coworker, and she rips out her bun, despite the page before describing her "bouncy ponytail."

8. Holly- Stephen King.

⭐⭐⭐⭐/5 stars.

"Holly Gibney, one of Stephen King’s most compelling and ingeniously resourceful characters, returns in this thrilling novel to solve the gruesome truth behind multiple disappearances in a midwestern town.

“Sometimes the universe throws you a rope.” — BILL HODGES

Stephen King’s Holly marks the triumphant return of beloved King character Holly Gibney. Readers have witnessed Holly’s gradual transformation from a shy (but also brave and ethical) recluse in Mr. Mercedes to Bill Hodges’s partner in Finders Keepers to a full-fledged, smart, and occasionally tough private detective in The Outsider. In King’s new novel, Holly is on her own, and up against a pair of unimaginably depraved and brilliantly disguised adversaries.

When Penny Dahl calls the Finders Keepers detective agency hoping for help locating her missing daughter, Holly is reluctant to accept the case. Her partner, Pete, has Covid. Her (very complicated) mother has just died. And Holly is meant to be on leave. But something in Penny Dahl’s desperate voice makes it impossible for Holly to turn her down.

Mere blocks from where Bonnie Dahl disappeared live Professors Rodney and Emily Harris. They are the picture of bourgeois respectability: married octogenarians, devoted to each other, and semi-retired lifelong academics. But they are harboring an unholy secret in the basement of their well-kept, book-lined home, one that may be related to Bonnie’s disappearance. And it will prove nearly impossible to discover what they are up to: they are savvy, they are patient, and they are ruthless.

Holly must summon all her formidable talents to outthink and outmaneuver the shockingly twisted professors in this chilling new masterwork from Stephen King."

This book is fairly controversial depending on who you ask. This book has A LOT of King's political opinions in it. While I don't think this is necessarily an unfair criticism, as it is more in your face than past works, King has always included his opinions in his book since his coke and alcohol and whatever else days. Personally I don't care whether it is or isn't blatant, as politics always has and will be a part of art, King or not. 

Now onto the book itself. I love this book, but maybe I'm biased when I say that because I LOVE Holly Gibney. She is genuinely one of my favorite fictional characters of all time. I was obsessed with her in Mr. Mercedes, and that still holds true today. I've read every story she's in. When this book was announced, I was so happy to find out that she was getting her own novel and time to shine. Watching her grow throughout 5 books and a short story is incredible. She went from anxious and unsure in her first appearance, to strong and independent. She still has strong relationships with characters, specifically Jerome and Barbara, and it's just really exciting to see. 

This book is a truly horrifying page turner. The book switches between present day and flashbacks, and follows Holly as she pieces together the mystery. It's wild and gross, and I would recommend this to fans of Hannibal, Fresh, and other such media. 

I both read the book and listened to the audiobook, which is narrated by Justine Lupe (aka the superior on screen Holly Gibney).

9. Stiff: The Curious Lives of Human Cadavers- Mary Roach.

⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐/5 stars.

"Okay, you're thinking: "This must be some kind of a joke. A humorous book about cadavers?"

Yup — and it works.

Mary Roach takes the age-old question, "What happens to us after we die?" quite literally. And in Stiff, she explores the "lives" of human cadavers from the time of the ancient Egyptians all the way up to current campaigns for human composting. Along the way, she recounts with morbidly infectious glee how dead bodies are used for research ranging from car safety and plastic surgery (you'll cancel your next collagen injection after reading this!), to the authenticity of the Shroud of Turin.

Impossible (and irreverent) as it may sound, Roach has written a book about corpses that's both lively and fresh. She traveled around the globe to conduct her forensic investigations, and her findings are wryly intelligent. While the myriad uses for cadavers recounted are often graphic, Roach imbues her subject with a sense of dignity, choosing to emphasize the oddly noble purposes corpses serve, from organ donation to lifesaving medical research.

Readers will come away convinced of the enormous debt that we, the living, owe to the study of the remains of the dead. And while it may not offer the answer to the ancient mystery we were hoping for, Stiff offers a strange sort of comfort in the knowledge that, in a sense, death isn't necessarily the end."

I wrote a book report on this so I really, don't feel like getting to into it, but I really enjoyed it so I feel like it's worth mentioning. As you probably already noticed I don't have much to say about books unless it's to complain anyways. It's fascinating, who new cadavers were a part of so many things. Roach explores the obvious organ donation, but also the less thought of things such as cadaver use in plastic surgery and body farms, as well as different way the deathcare industry may dispose of a cadaver. It's not just modern uses she talks about though, as she covers the history of cadavers such as grave robbing and ancient Egypt. I thought this book was informative, fun, and witty (although some reviews criticize her comments and euphemisms. I thought they were funny).

10.Stranded With the Alien King- Lindsey R. Loucks.

⭐⭐⭐⭐/5 stars.

"On Alien Love Island, the days are hot, but the nights are scorching...

It's not every day I tie up an alien warrior king. It's because, in part, he put his hands down my pants to retrieve a top-secret package. Hey, where else was I going to put it? For some reason he's not telling me, he wants this mysterious package. My orders are to deliver it and not to him.

But when we're both kidnapped and dropped onto a deserted island, my plans for ringing his neck and then day-drinking shoot out the window.

Only the island's not so deserted. The alien king and I have just stumbled onto the set of the first season of Alien Love Island, an intergalactic reality TV dating show.

Big, sarcastic yay.

One of the many, many problems with this? We never agreed to appear on the show. The producers make it clear that we have no choice though.

To stay alive, we play our parts. But when the cameras aren't rolling, the alien king and I must work together to find out what's really going on.

Is this mysterious package the reason we're here? What's the alien king hiding? Who invented sizzling-hot alien kings I can't take my mind--or my hands--off of anyway?"

Book one in the Alien Love Island series. The only one I've read, but I'll probably get around to reading the rest at some point.

It was a little slow in the beginning, but once I got passed that it was pretty good! This book and the lore is insane and I didn't expect to get that emotionally invested as I did. There's alien drama and enemies-to-lovers, for those of you who enjoy that. There is a spicy scene, as you probably guessed by the cover, but it wasn't cringe or ridiculous, unlike another book in this list. Honestly, it wasn't the spice that was the page turner. It was the alien politics and war that had me so invested, because yeah. There are alien politics and assassination attempts on Alien Love Island. Wild. 

-buzz :)