The Hollow Chocolate Bunnies of the Apocalypse by Robert Rankin

How do I even begin to explain this book...

Let me start with, this isn't for everyone. You will want unusual stories with a specific brand of humor. Though this is a mystery, I am not sure how intriguing that was and was more of a device just to keep moving through Toy Town and to the next character.

I am getting ahead of myself though. 

So this was a book club pick, and this is why I love my book club. I am being exposed to books and authors that I would never naturally gravitate to or pick up. I liked the writing style in this book. I know some of the other members did not but I was entertained by it. It is the rest that kind of fell flat for me. I felt like maybe the author was trying just a smidge too hard to make the story absurd.

Jack is heading to the city to seek his fortune. After having a rough start to his adventure he ends up in The City finally only to realize that its inhabitants are all toys. These toys are second class citizens to the humans that are nursery rhyme characters that are being murdered in the order of their fame.

In this chaos Jack meets Eddie who is an alcoholic teddy bear who is searching for the missing the Detective Bill Winkie who was tasked with finding out who was murdering the nursery rhyme characters.

I liked the play on the characters and would have been happy travelling through Toy City learning about them in this odd retelling. I think the mystery just kind of through a wrench in me liking the story.

For Better and Worse by Margot Hunt

An entertaining book I kept coming back to see what would happen next.

Natalie and Will are married with an 11 year old son, Charlie. Their marriage is okay, fraying a bit around the edges. Then everything implodes. As they pull into school one morning there are police there. As the gossip mill turns the reason is quickly spread around the small community.

The principle, Robert, is being charged with a horrible crime against one of Charlie’s schoolmates. All the parents are shocked, but Nat believes the former family friend might be painted in a bad light.. Being a defense attorney, Nat digs in to learn more and as things are revealed decides to take matters into her own hands to correct what has happened to her family.

There are many difficult topics in this book that I think for the most part were handled well. I did not like Will and this could have been by author design. He was typical party frat boy married facing midlife crisis and blaming everyone but himself for his problems. We think he sees the error in his ways but the ending leaves a lot of open story lines, which I love and hate.

Thanks to Netgalley for sharing a copy of this book in exchange for my honest opinions.

Agents of Dreamland (Tinfoil Dossier #1) by Caitlín R. Kiernan

I LOVED this cover. If you have a chance to pull it up and look at the detail please do!

This is Lovecraftian horror and slow apocalypse this little novella was disturbing. If this was fleshed out into a novel I think I would have enjoyed it more. It was written well and made me uneasy and horrified but it also left me very confused. Maybe because I dont know Lovecraft enough to understand the origins of the character?

If you love Lovecraft and you like horror, this is the novella for you!

Wayward Children by Seanan McGuire

This series is so hyped that I was worried it would be disappointing. I had the first book, Every Heart a Doorway, on my shelf for over a year before I finally picked it up as one of my last few books to be read in 2019. Now its the end of February and I am completely caught up with the series as its published today, five total books!

These are all short little novellas but they pack quiet the punch. I have to say though that Jack and Jill were my favorite characters and that made book two, Down Among the Stick and Bones, my favorite of all five books.

Though all the books were good the ones with Jack and Jill I definitely enjoyed more and was happy when they made an appearance in most the stories. I cannot wait for the continuation of this series!!!

Horrorstör by Grady Hendrix

Let's be honest, this book was a total novelty buy. I first saw this on Natasha's, My Reading is Odd, BookTube channel and just knew I had to have it.

Horrorstör looks like an IKEA catalog and is a horror parody of the IKEA store. I expected humor and was excited to dive in to the story and see where the horror part came in, and trust me it did.

The characters were exactly what you would expect when you walk into any box store with its variety of workers from the ones that just want to punch the clock and get through the day, ones just trying to run out the clock before they retire and the ones that want it to be their stable career and family. We get to know each character and their motivation for their actions and reactions and it keeps the plot moving right along.

The first half the book was comedic, the second half moved into paranormal horror and it did freak me out and gross me out and say WTF out loud. It was unique and interesting and I cannot wait to read more by this author!

Confessions by Kanae Minato

Wow...just wow.

This book, excuse my language, was a mind fuck.

You know when a comedian has his first joke and the punchline is great? Then he moves on in the story about something unrelated and then all the sudden you are back at the same punchline and it makes it even better? That is this book.

Have you learned about the Butterfly Effect/Ripple Effect? Where one action causes another and so on until the bat of a butterfly wind is a tornado on the other side of the world or the little stone ripple on this side of the ocean is a huge wave on the other? That is this book.

Yuko Moriguchi is a single parent that works as a school teacher. Her four-year-old daughter Manami is found dead on the grounds of the middle school where she works. It was ruled a tragic accident but Yuko knows better. Before she leaves the school though she has one more lecture and one more lesson to give. This sets ripples that were already going through the students to grow exponentially and over the course of the next school year to grow into a wave of punishment, despair, fear and anxiety to tidal over everyone.

This was told in multiple perspectives covering relatively the same time frames and events. It was a crazy ride and being a shorter novel packed a gigantic punch.

Heart Shaped Box by Joe Hill

"No one puts on all that armor unless they been hurt by someone who didn't have no right to hurt them." Judas Coyne is an aging rock star that is sent unique and bizarre things just because that is his image. One day though through random circumstance he is put in the position to buy a suit that is supposedly haunted by a ghost and he just has to have it. When it arrives in a black heart shaped box the adventure begins. I was entertained but I was also a little bored. I think this book could have been shortened up a bit and had a better thriller/horror impact. It was a weird mix between slow burn terror and lots of crazy action. That being said, I enjoyed the book and can see where Joe Hill is finding his niche and pulling away from his father's shadow to claim his one place in the horror genre. I cannot wait to read more by him!