Spoiler warning! This is book 11 in the October Daye series, and because of this it is impossible for me to review this book without revealing spoilers for some of the earlier books. If you want to start at the beginning, the first book is Rosemary and Rue. If you’re not entirely caught up, proceed at your own risk. When the biggest of October “Toby” Daye’s worries is whether she’s going to be forced to sing karaoke during her bachelorette party, it’s safe to say that things are so uncharacteristically […]
“You can’t choose blindness when it suits you”
At 153 pages, one can get through The Ballad of Black Tom in an afternoon, but the issues that author Victor LaValle raises will stay with you long beyond that. This is a fantasy/horror novella set in 1924 New York City. The main characters are in touch with the mystical realm, but their interests in it will lead to horrors beyond imagination. There will be monsters, and some are of their own making. Though set in the ‘20s, LaValle’s story is a brilliant commentary on […]
Cthulhu is An Equal Opportunity Employer
What could be worse than living in the world where the mythos of Cthulhu is real and the Old Ones are merely a spell book reading away from returning to earth to devour humanity? This is the question asked in this novella, a re-telling of one of Lovecraft’s more infamous and racist stories, “The Horror at Red Hook.” Before I read this novella, I read that story in preparation. Well, more accurately, I skimmed it. I’ve read some Lovecraft and enjoyed it, when it wasn’t […]
“Never love a wild thing…If you let yourself love a wild thing. You’ll end up looking at the sky.”
While I was gearing up to read Fifth Avenue, 5 AM (and by gearing up I mean placing it on my library request list) when it struck me that, while I’ve seen the film numerous times, I’ve never read the novella in which Holly Golightly is based! Our unnamed narrator is reflecting on the past after an old friend calls him with news about a woman, Holly, he used to know. Holly Golightly has left her home town and reinvented herself as a society girl. She drinks […]