Password-protected posts contain heavy spoilers and are there to prevent accidental spoiling. They can each individually be accessed with the password "SPOILME(#of the post)". That means if the post is numbered #0000, the password is SPOILME0000 - SPOILME all in caps, no space in between.
Enter at your own risk. And have fun!
A carjacker lurking in a shopping mall parking lot. An abusive husband pounding on the door. A disgruntled employee brandishing a gun. These days, no one is safe from the specter of violence.
But according to Gavin de Becker, everyone can feel safer, act safer, be safer — if they learn how to listen to their own sixth sense about danger.
De Becker has made a career of protecting people and predicting violent behavior. His firm handles security for many of the leading figures in Hollywood and Silicon Valley, and his computerized risk-assessment system helps analyze threats to members of Congress and the Supreme Court.
Now, in this unprecedented guide, de Becker shares his expertise with everyone. Covering all the dangerous situations people typically face — street crime, domestic abuse, violence in the workplace — de Becker provides real-life examples and offers specific advice on restraining orders, self-defense, and more. But the key to self-protection, he demonstrates, is learning how to trust our own intuitions.
For everyone who’s ever felt threatened, this book is essential reading.
I’ve seen this book recommended many times as essential reading. And after reading it, I concur.
The Quotes
“It is understandable that the perspectives of men and women on safety are so different–men and women live in different worlds…at core, men are afraid women will laugh at them, while at core, women are afraid men will kill them.”
“I encourage people to remember that “no” is a complete sentence.”
“There’s a lesson in real-life stalking cases that young women can benefit from learning: persistence only proves persistence—it does not prove love. The fact that a romantic pursuer is relentless doesn’t mean you are special—it means he is troubled.”
“We must learn and then teach our children that niceness does not equal goodness. Niceness is a decision, a strategy of social interaction; it is not a character trait. People seeking to control others almost always present the image of a nice person in the beginning. Like rapport-building, charm and the deceptive smile, unsolicited niceness often has a discoverable motive.”
“I’ve successfully lobbied and testified for stalking laws in several states, but I would trade them all for a high school class that would teach young men how to hear “no,” and teach young women that it’s all right to explicitly reject.”
The Narrator(s)
The author, Gavin de Becker.
My Thoughts
This is essential reading for both men and women. I’ve been hearing about it for some time and finally decided to read it, and it made me wish I had read it sooner. Much of it talks about extreme situations, but there are also very good insights into how to set boundaries and not engage with people who make you feel uncomfortable in the first place. As a woman, I have myself been groomed since I was a child to be nice instead of assertive, to make men feel comfortable even while they make me uncomfortable, to allow myself to be “persuaded” (coerced) into situations I’ve already said no to.
I had a lot of deprogramming to do and this book would’ve been very helpful if only I had read it years ago. However, it’s still helpful now, and I believe that both men and women would benefit from reading this, because while women are more likely to be victims of violence, men are not exempt to it. Plus, I think that a lot of men don’t understand women’s concern for safety and this book might open up their eyes to it a little bit, and maybe help them be better allies and/or be more aware of not doing things that creep women out.
There are some things laid out in this book that can seem shocking and stark, and there are definitely some things that might be triggering, but I think some of it is necessary because the topic is stark and scary, and we should all be taking it seriously. So I’d recommend it as essential reading, but caution to go into it with some care and awareness.
My Rating
⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐/5 stars.
Have you read this book? Would you read this book? Did you like the book or do you think you would like it?
‘Nobody in the world was more inadequate to act the heroine than I was.’
Why did Agatha Christie spend her career pretending that she was ‘just’ an ordinary housewife, when clearly she wasn’t? As Lucy Worsley says, ‘She was thrillingly, scintillatingly modern’. She went surfing in Hawaii, she loved fast cars, and she was intrigued by the new science of psychology, which helped her through devastating mental illness.
So why – despite all the evidence to the contrary – did Agatha present herself as a retiring Edwardian lady of leisure? She was born in 1890 into a world which had its own rules about what women could and couldn’t do. Lucy Worsley’s biography is not just of an internationally renowned bestselling writer. It’s also the story of a person who, despite the obstacles of class and gender, became an astonishingly successful working woman.
With access to personal letters and papers that have rarely been seen, Lucy Worsley’s biography is both authoritative and entertaining and makes us realise what an extraordinary pioneer Agatha Christie was – truly a woman who wrote the twentieth century.
“Evil people are those who will not or cannot grow up,’ Agatha wrote. ‘A man who is a child,’ says one of her characters, ‘is the most frightening thing in the world.”
“Like so many writers, Christie was an introvert. She didn’t seek publicity and in fact often fled from it. Many members of the public seemed to resent her unwillingness to open herself to them”
“Christie’s success came as a woman in a world made by men.”
“Someone once said that the greatest character Agatha Christie ever invented was Agatha Christie herself.”
The Narrator(s)
The author, Lucy Worsley. It was great, no notes.
My Thoughts
I recently read The Christie Affair by Nina de Gramont for the 2026 52 Book Club Reading Challenge prompt for biographical fiction and it was paired with another prompt to read a nonfiction about the character in the book for the first prompt. I did not like The Christie Affair very much and thought the drama surrounding her disappearance was much ado over nothing, to the point where I was questioning if I should read another, different book for that prompt so that I wouldn’t have to read about it again in a nonfiction setting. The Christie Affair represented Christie so badly that I wasn’t sure I wanted to know more even though I have always been curious about her.
It took me a while to find a nonfiction book about Agatha Christie that looked interesting, and even then I was hesitant, but I’m so glad I stuck with it because this book ended up getting me so interested and invested in Christie’s life and works again. She really came to life for me, and I loved how the book told her story from her birth until her death and made it all sound so exciting.
The “downside” is that now I have to add a whole bunch of Christie’s books to my already massive TBR. I first discovered her books from my school library and binge-read as many as I could when I was 11 or 12 years old, but I’m sure I missed a lot of details at that age, and I’d love to rediscover them again now and read them with more mature eyes. I really enjoyed this book and finding out more about Christie’s real life. I’m excited to reread her books too!
My Rating
⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐/5 stars.
Have you read this book? Would you read this book? Did you like the book or do you think you would like it?
First loves, first songs, and the drugs and reckless high school exploits that fueled them—meet music icons Tegan and Sara as you’ve never known them before in this intimate and raw account of their formative years.
High School is the revelatory and unique coming-of-age story of Sara and Tegan Quin, identical twins from Calgary, Alberta, growing up in the height of grunge and rave culture in the 90s, well before they became the celebrated musicians and global LGBTQ icons we know today. While grappling with their identity and sexuality, often alone, they also faced academic meltdown, their parents’ divorce, and the looming pressure of what might come after high school. Written in alternating chapters from both Tegan’s point of view and Sara’s, the book is a raw account of the drugs, alcohol, love, music, and friendships they explored in their formative years. A transcendent story of first loves and first songs, it captures the tangle of discordant and parallel memories of two sisters who grew up in distinct ways even as they lived just down the hall from one another. This is the origin story of Tegan and Sara.
They’re from Calgary, Alberta, where I currently live, so I got interested to learn more about them.
The Quotes
“I had never considered what it would be like to be in love until I was in it.”
“I could think of nothing but her. I half listened in school, half studied for my tests, half completed my assignments, half lived when I wasn’t next to her.”
“I wasn’t a quitter, I just finally knew who I wanted to be.”
The Narrator(s)
The authors, Tegan Quin and Sara Quin. I did find it hard to tell their voices apart and often didn’t know whose chapter I was in without double checking, but I enjoyed their narration in general.
My Thoughts
I had never heard of Tegan and Sara until we moved to Calgary and while I’m still not very familiar with their music, I do enjoy a couple of their songs like Closer and Everything is Awesome. My curiosity stems mostly from the fact that they are from Calgary, and I loved that I recognized some of the places they talk about in this book.
Through my own fault, I was unprepared for all the high school drama contained within this book entitled High School. To be fair, there isn’t any more drama than what a normal high school teenager would’ve been going through, but perhaps I was more so unprepared for the stark honesty and raw emotions Tegan and Sara share in the book. I’m not sure that I would’ve been able to do the same talking about my own high school experience.
The thing that struck me most was how much it seemed that they didn’t get along at all as twin siblings, and yet were so on the same page when it came to making music together. I’m sure we don’t know the full story of their sibling experience and this book only shows us part of it, but it was quite interesting to see! Overall, I love their dedication to being open and honest about their high school experience and how they navigated being LGBTQ in a time when it wasn’t necessarily safe to be so. Some of those scenes made me well up from how emotional they were. I think this could be a great book for any teenager in high school.
My Rating
⭐⭐⭐⭐/5 stars.
Have you read this book? Would you read this book? Did you like the book or do you think you would like it?
Stephen King’s most gripping and unforgettable novel, Bag of Bones, is a story of grief and a lost love’s enduring bonds, of a new love haunted by the secrets of the past, of an innocent child caught in a terrible crossfire.
Set in the Maine territory King has made mythic, Bag of Bones recounts the plight of 40-year-old bestselling novelist Mike Noonan, who is unable to stop grieving even four years after the sudden death of his wife, Jo, and who can no longer bear to face the blank screen of his word processor.
Now his nights are plagued by vivid nightmares of the house by the lake. Despite these dreams, or perhaps because of them, Mike finally returns to Sara Laughs, the Noonans’ isolated summer home.
He finds his beloved Yankee town familiar on its surface, but much changed underneath — held in the grip of a powerful millionaire, Max Devore, who twists the very fabric of the community to his purpose: to take his three-year-old granddaughter away from her widowed young mother. As Mike is drawn into their struggle, as he falls in love with both of them, he is also drawn into the mystery of Sara Laughs, now the site of ghostly visitations, ever-escalating nightmares, and the sudden recovery of his writing ability. What are the forces that have been unleashed here — and what do they want of Mike Noonan?
As vivid and enthralling as King’s most enduring works, Bag of Bones resonates with what Amy Tan calls ‘the witty and obsessive voice of King’s powerful imagination.’ It’s no secret that King is our most mesmerizing storyteller. In Bag of Bones — described by Gloria Naylor as ‘a love story about the dark places within us all’ — he proves to be one of our most moving.
For my Stephen King challenge. This one is a reread.
The Quotes
“I felt lonely and content at the same time. I believe that is a rare kind of happiness.”
“I see things, that’s all. Write enough stories and every shadow on the floor looks like a footprint; every line in the dirt like a secret message.”
“Grief is like a drunken house guest, always coming back for one more goodbye hug.”
“Readers have a loyalty that cannot be matched anywhere else in the creative arts, which explains why so many writers who have run out of gas can keep coasting anyway, propelled on to the bestseller lists by the magic words AUTHOR OF on the covers of their books.”
The Narrator(s)
Stephen King, the author himself. What a treat!
My Thoughts
I read this book a while ago and rated it four stars but it didn’t stand out to me at the time. As I was rereading it, I remember parts of it and why I enjoyed it the first time. My favorite part about Stephen King’s books is the way he approaches the supernatural and talks about it like it’s not something fictional or unbelievable, but just a part of the many mysteries of our world.
One of my favorite characters that we never even really meet is Jo, the MC’s late wife. She dies in the beginning of the book and we only get to know her through Mike Noonan’s memories and ghostly encounters, but she comes across so strong and passionate. I also really like Kyra. The almost-romance in the story is a bit of a turn-off for me but I understand this was written a while ago (still!).
It’s kind of why I included the quote, “Readers have a loyalty that cannot be matched anywhere else in the creative arts, which explains why so many writers who have run out of gas can keep coasting anyway, propelled on to the bestseller lists by the magic words AUTHOR OF on the covers of their books.”
I actually became a fan of the author through his more recent books (so it’s the inverse of the above quote but the sentiment applies) and am now reading his backlist for the sake of The Stephen King Constant Reader Challenge. His older books are still good but there are definitely questionable themes in them. I like that he’s self aware enough to call himself out on some of those things now that he’s older though!
My Rating
⭐⭐⭐⭐/5 stars.
Have you read this book? Would you read this book? Did you like the book or do you think you would like it?
Ignatius Perrish spent the night drunk and doing terrible things. He woke up the next morning with a thunderous hangover, a raging headache . . . and a pair of horns growing from his temples.
At first Ig thought the horns were a hallucination, the product of a mind damaged by rage and grief. He had spent the last year in a lonely, private purgatory, following the death of his beloved, Merrin Williams, who was raped and murdered under inexplicable circumstances. A mental breakdown would have been the most natural thing in the world. But there was nothing natural about the horns, which were all too real.
Once the righteous Ig had enjoyed the life of the blessed: born into privilege, the second son of a renowned musician and younger brother of a rising late-night TV star, he had security, wealth, and a place in his community. Ig had it all, and more—he had Merrin and a love founded on shared daydreams, mutual daring, and unlikely midsummer magic.
But Merrin’s death damned all that. The only suspect in the crime, Ig was never charged or tried. And he was never cleared. In the court of public opinion in Gideon, New Hampshire, Ig is and always will be guilty because his rich and connected parents pulled strings to make the investigation go away. Nothing Ig can do, nothing he can say, matters. Everyone, it seems, including God, has abandoned him. Everyone, that is, but the devil inside. . . .
I needed a book for the prompt above and I’d been thinking about trying Joe Hill again.
The Quotes
“The best way to get even with anyone is to put them in the rearview mirror on your way to something better.”
“It bewildered Ig, the idea that a person could not be interested in music. It was like not being interested in happiness.”
“There’s only room for one hero in this story-and everyone knows the devil doesn’t get to be the good guy.”
“Him and God are supposed to be at war with each other. But if God hates sin and Satan punishes the sinners, aren’t they working the same side of the street? Aren’t the judge and the executioner on the same team?”
The Narrator(s)
Fred Berman. I have no issues with the narration.
My Thoughts
I loved the concept and the story itself, but for some reason I just don’t like the author’s writing style. I found the book difficult to get into and the writing felt clunky, obvious, and disjointed to me. It’s difficult to get immersed into the book and forget I’m reading; I’m constantly aware of the story and standing outside of it.
The first book I read by the author was Heart-Shaped Box and I rated it two stars. I read it almost 20 years ago so I don’t remember why I didn’t like it but I thought I would give him another chance, because after all, I wasn’t a huge fan of Stephen King either back then like I am now. I do intend to reread Heart-Shaped Box again though because apparently it’s his best one. I’d like to give it one more try before deciding if he’s not for me.
I must say again that I do enjoy his stories themselves; I also loved the adaptation of NOS4A2 although I didn’t read the book, but maybe I just don’t enjoy his writing style. Hopefully I’ll prove myself wrong when I try him again.
My Rating
⭐⭐⭐/5 stars.
Have you read this book? Would you read this book? Did you like the book or do you think you would like it?
Eden Fox, an artist on the brink of her big break, sets off for a run before her first exhibition. When she returns to the home she recently moved into – Spyglass, an enchanting old house in Hope Falls – nothing is as it should be. Her key doesn’t fit. A woman, eerily similar to her, answers the door. And her husband insists that this stranger is his wife.
One house. One husband. Two women. Someone is lying.
Six months earlier, a reclusive Londoner named Birdy, reeling from a life-changing diagnosis, inherits Spyglass. This unexpected gift from a long-lost grandmother brings her to the pretty seaside village of Hope Falls. But then Birdy stumbles upon a shadowy London clinic that claims to be able to predict a person’s date of death, including her own.
It was already on my TBR and I was looking for a book that fit the above prompt, and this book turned up in my Goodreads recommendations!
The Quotes
“Your biggest enemy is always the person you see in the mirror.”
“People are grief vampires. They just want to suck on your sorrow, feed on your fear, and feast on your failures. It makes them feel better about themselves.”
“Some people love a good party; personally, I prefer a good book.”
“Accepting that things change and learning to navigate wrong turns is the secret to a happy life.”
The Narrator(s)
Bel Powley. Henry Rowley. Richard Armitage. It was a great cast and I enjoyed all of the narration.
My Thoughts
I’m not sure where to start with this book. I had very high hopes for it because it has been reviewed so highly and it started so well. It really devolved at the end, however, to the point where I wondered if I had been reading a completely different story and missed important details or imagined the whole first half of the book.
I get the concept of the unreliable narrator and that mystery fiction tend to hide the true story from us, but the way this story is presented and told is just sloppy, inconsistent, and undeveloped. The characters blatantly gaslight the reader in the weirdest ways and it makes me wonder what exactly are we reading on the page? Are we reading the character’s internal thoughts on the page? Are we reading their diaries? Are they writing down false information to mislead us? Who exactly is their audience? Because it doesn’t make sense for them to say the things they say throughout the whole book when we finally get to the reveals.
It’s just plot hole after plot hole after plot hole, and I have no idea what the story is trying to achieve. I don’t get it and I’m very disappointed.
My Rating
⭐⭐/5 stars.
Have you read this book? Would you read this book? Did you like the book or do you think you would like it?
In an unnamed South American country, a world-renowned soprano sings at a birthday party in honor of a visiting Japanese industrial titan. His hosts hope that Mr. Hosokawa can be persuaded to build a factory in their Third World backwater. Alas, in the opening sequence, just as the accompanist kisses the soprano, a ragtag band of 18 terrorists enters the vice-presidential mansion through the air conditioning ducts. Their quarry is the president, who has unfortunately stayed home to watch a favorite soap opera. And thus, from the beginning, things go awry.
Among the hostages are not only Hosokawa and Roxane Coss, the American soprano, but an assortment of Russian, Italian, and French diplomatic types. Reuben Iglesias, the diminutive and gracious vice president, quickly gets sideways of the kidnappers, who have no interest in him whatsoever. Meanwhile, a Swiss Red Cross negotiator named Joachim Messner is roped into service while vacationing. He comes and goes, wrangling over terms and demands, and the days stretch into weeks, the weeks into months.
With the omniscience of magic realism, Ann Patchett flits in and out of the hearts and psyches of hostage and terrorist alike, and in doing so reveals a profound, shared humanity. Her voice is suitably lyrical, melodic, full of warmth and compassion.
It’s a reread, and the BOTM for my in-person bookclub.
The Quotes
“It was never the right time or it was always the right time, depending on how you looked at it.”
“Some people are born to make great art and others are born to appreciate it. Don’t you think? It is a kind of talent in itself, to be an audience, whether you are the spectator in the gallery or you are listening to the voice of the world’s greatest soprano. Not everyone can be the artist. There have to be those who witness the art, who love and appreciate what they have been privileged to see.”
“For a man to know what he has when he had it, that is what makes him a fortunate man.”
“If what a person wants is his life, he tends to be quiet about wanting anything else. Once the life begins to seem secure, one feels the freedom to complain.”
The Narrator(s)
Anna Fields. It was good, I find that the best narrators are the ones who make me forget I’m listening to an audiobook and just get me immersed in the story.
My Thoughts
I read this book for the first time many years ago and it has stuck with me. I didn’t remember a single detail about the story itself but I have always remembered how it made me feel. This time around I thought I was prepared for the feels, but honestly, I might have expected it but I was still not prepared for it.
A lot of the details of the story surprised me this time around, and there were parts where I wondered at how realistic a scenario like this could be. I did have to turn on my suspension of belief, but after that, focusing on the story and the characters, it was just beautiful writing. The way the author writes about the passion for music, the way passion for something brings people together, the ways people find connection with each other. I fell in love with all of it.
Reading it again objectively, I can see the flaws in the story and there are definitely parts that I don’t like and felt were unnecessary. However, it’s so easy to get lost in the story and the writing, and you can’t help but want to know more about the characters. It’s still a wonderful journey the second time around.
My Rating
⭐⭐⭐⭐/5 stars.
Have you read this book? Would you read this book? Did you like the book or do you think you would like it?
Ella Minnow Pea is a girl living happily on the fictional island of Nollop off the coast of South Carolina. Nollop was named after Nevin Nollop, author of the immortal pangram,* “The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog.”
Now Ella finds herself acting to save her friends, family, and fellow citizens from the encroaching totalitarianism of the island’s Council, which has banned the use of certain letters of the alphabet as they fall from a memorial statue of Nevin Nollop. As the letters progressively drop from the statue they also disappear from the novel.
The result is both a hilarious and moving story of one girl’s fight for freedom of expression, as well as a linguistic tour de force sure to delight word lovers everywhere.
*pangram: a sentence or phrase that includes all the letters of the alphabet
I’d been wanting to read this for a while but never got around to it. I saw that it fit one of the prompts for the 52 Book Club Reading Challenge, so I decided to finally read it.
The Quotes
“Today we queried, questioned, and inquired. Promise me that come tomorrow, we will not stop asking why.”
“The Council is wrong. Yet, observe that none of us will risk telling it so, for fear of the consequences.”
“Any one of us could have come up with such a sentence. We are, when it comes right down to it, all of us: mere monkeys at typewriters.”
My Thoughts
This book surprised me; I thought it was middle-grade, and it sort of is suitable for younger readers, but it was deeper and darker than I expected. I thought it was going to be a fun and light-hearted take on the idea of letters falling off the alphabet and only being able to use the letters that were left, but it turned out to be quite a serious exploration on the absurdity of going along with ridiculous ideas because people are too afraid to fight back. The result of losing your “voice”, losing the ability to communicate clearly, because of those missing letters, is such a strong metaphor for being censored and silenced by the powers that be. It’s very well-written and such a powerful story, especially for impressionable young readers, and I wish I had read this book a long time ago!
My Rating
⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐/5 stars.
Have you read this book? Would you read this book? Did you like the book or do you think you would like it?
Welcome to Top Ten Tuesday, a weekly bookish meme hosted by Jana @ That Artsy Reader Girl that features a different bookish topic every week.
Today’s topic is Books on My Spring 2026 to-Read List
Some of these books have been on my TBR for years! I’ve featured a couple of them on several TBR lists over the last few years and it’s just embarrassing at this point, but I feel like I’m going to keep featuring them and purposely embarrass myself until I read them, as a motivation for me to finally read them! Hopefully it works? 😅
Top Ten Books on My Spring 2026 TBR
The Mighty Red by Louise Erdrich – I’ve become a fan of the author ever since I read The Sentence and I’ve been wanting to read more of her books. This one has been on my TBR since it came out in 2024 but I haven’t gotten around to it for some reason. I’ve borrowed it multiple times from the library but kept returning it unread. I ended up purchasing the audiobook so I could listen at my convenience but I haven’t started it yet. Hopefully sometime soon!
In The Woods by Tana French – I came across it while researching Irish authors for last week’s Top Ten Tuesday and I’m very excited about it because it really sounds like the kind of book I’d love, and if so, there are a whole bunch of other books by the author I’d probably read too!
Foundryside by Robert Jackson Bennett – This would be a reread, but I didn’t finish the series the first time I read it, and my intention is to reread to finish the whole series.
Cat’s Eye by Margaret Atwood – This would aso be a reread. I read this book years ago and loved it, but it’s been a while and I think I’ll get a lot more out of it this time around.
Educated by Tara Westover – This book was overhyped at one point which made me hesitant to read it, but it’s been a while and people are still consistently talking about how good it is. So I’ll give it a try.
Someone You Can Build A Nest In by John Wiswell – This is relatively new on my TBR but it sounds so good and I love a good monster romance!
The Glass Château by Stephen P. Kiernan – I have loved all of the author’s books and I have featured him and his books many times on my blog. I’ve also featured this book on many of my TBR lists but just haven’t gotten around to reading it yet. This is the one book I hope I will have read by the time the next TBR list feature comes around!
Between Us by Mhairi McFarlane – I don’t understand the holdup for me reading this book either. It’s been on my TBR a long time and I just need to get to it.
Bel Canto by Ann Patchett – This would be another reread. I loved this book when I read it so many years ago and I’ve just been craving the vibes. I’ve also been meaning to read other books from the author, but somehow just never did.
The Turn of the Screw is an 1898 horror novella by Henry James that first appeared in serial format in Collier’s Weekly magazine (January 27 – April 16, 1898). In October 1898 it appeared in The Two Magics, a book published by Macmillan in New York City and Heinemann in London.
A very young woman’s first job: governess for two weirdly beautiful, strangely distant, oddly silent children, Miles and Flora, at a forlorn estate… An estate haunted by a beckoning evil. Half-seen figures who glare from dark towers and dusty windows- silent, foul phantoms who, day by day, night by night, come closer, ever closer. With growing horror, the helpless governess realizes the fiendish creatures want the children, seeking to corrupt their bodies, possess their minds, own their souls. But worse-much worse- the governess discovers that Miles and Flora have no terror of the lurking evil. For they want the walking dead as badly as the dead want them.
I’ve been curious about this book for a while. It was available from my library and was relatively short, so I thought why not.
The Quotes
“Of course I was under the spell, and the wonderful part is that, even at the time, I perfectly knew I was.”
“To gaze into the depths of blue of the child’s eyes and pronounce their loveliness a trick of premature cunning was to be guilty of a cynicism in preference to which I naturally preferred to abjure my judgment and, so far as might be, my agitation.”
“An unknown man in a lonely place is a permitted object of fear to a young woman privately bred.”
The Narrator(s)
Simon Vance, and Vanessa Benjamin. Simon Vance does the prologue, and the rest of the story is predominantly narrated by Vanessa Benjamin. She was wonderful.
My Thoughts
I finished this book in one sitting because it was relatively short and it kept me on the edge of my seat wondering what was going on and what was going to happen. The story was very confusing, very ambiguous, you don’t get many questions answered, and in fact, the deeper in you go, the more questions you have that don’t get answered. But somehow it worked for me.
To be clear, I think I love the effect of this book more than I actually love the story, but I also think that’s by design. The phrase “the turn of the screw” meaning to add insult to injury, and/or to make something already bad even worse, I feel like James is playing with us. Getting us invested in the story, making us curious, bringing us on a journey, and then leading us to a non-destination that is absolutely dissatisfying and curse-worthy.
You end the book with more questions, in disbelief, wondering if that was it and why the hell you spend the last few hours reading the book at all. You question everything you read in the book, wondering what you missed, wondering what it meant, wondering if any of it was real or true or the ramblings of a madwoman. Well, at least I did. I am both pissed off I read the book and marveling at the brilliance of it, so as I said, I’m not as taken by the story as I am by what it’s doing to me. I feel like I’ve been punked and I kind of like it.
My Rating
⭐⭐⭐⭐/5 stars.
Have you read this book? Would you read this book? Did you like the book or do you think you would like it?
