Cannonball Read 17

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

My Best Friend’s Exorcism – A nostalgic and wild ride

My Best Friend's Exorcism by Grady Hendrix

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What a wild and crazy ride this book was! Equal parts, horror, humor, coming of age, and a nostalgic love letter to the 1980s. Looking back at that sentence it is clear that Hendrix was being a bit ambitious in scope, as this is a lot to balance, but he does so with ease. I don’t remember ever vacillating so quickly and constantly from laughter to terror, but the pendulum swings back and forth again and again over the course of this book. What starts […]

You Got Me Readin’ Hell’s Bells

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Dave Eggers has written that his mother read a horror novel every night. “I couldn’t look at her books,” he wrote. “[I] would turn them over so their covers wouldn’t show, the raised lettering and splotches of blood–especially the V.C. Andrews oeuvre, those turgid pictures of those terrible kids, standing so still, all lit in blue.” If that was ever true of Grady Hendrix, great enthusiast of and advocate for grim books, it’s not now. The author of Horrorstor has put out a celebration of the kind […]

She remembers when the word “friend” could draw blood

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This was one of those books that I noticed on the shelf and pretty much decided to buy before I even picked it up. The cover is designed like a video rental jacket from the 80’s, front to back, right down to the “Be Kind, Rewind” sticker, and it’s like I had no choice. I still remember in fourth grade when the one liquor store in town started renting VCRs and movies on VHS, and just looking at this book brought back the sights and […]

If IKEA was built on the site of an abandoned super scary prison

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So in my profile writeup, I say that I have a hard time not finishing books.  I tried really hard to finish this book.  At first the issue was that the story was a little dark and creepy, which I love.  However, I read my Kindle books at night, and dark and creepy doesn’t really connect well with me sleeping!  This made it a little more difficult, because I had to read during lunch at work, or at a time during daylight.  I kept trying […]

I read this book in one sitting

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But I’m not really sure why. But there must have been something I liked to read it all at once. So why the 3 star rating? Well friends, in this house we deduct major points for a book that spends all of its time queerbaiting its readers. But I’m getting ahead of myself, and as glaring as it is this isn’t my only problem with the book. So let’s start at the beginning. Our story opens with Abby Rivers, now a successful adult with a […]

Well, the cover’s cool, but as they say…

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Why do people like this book? Am I missing something? I get it. Bad writing and an improbable plot that could also operate as a pasta strainer have united like a defective pair of power twins before to create cult successes (I’m looking at you Sharknado). And really, there is a whole genre of bad horror films…but does it work with books, too? I’m not a horror book reader, so I’m sincerely asking. Why do people think this book is so scary? Creepy kids? Scary. […]



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