Through the Woods / Emily Carroll

   If there is one word to describe this book, it is "HELLA CREEPY", which , I admit, is two words, but "creepy" by itself just doesn't cut it. There was one particular panel in "His Face All Red" that made me GASP OUT LOUD. FOLKS, this book is GOOD and it is SCARY and I told the barista who recognizes me that she needs to read it and she said she already has and she loved it. Both the barista and I recommend this book, you should defs go get it.

an appropriate reaction, really

   SO: Emily Carroll is a genius of horror and atmosphere. Like Shirley Jackson, but with comics, and more monsters. This book is a wee collection of short stories, each one with a sort of fairy tale (in the Grimm-est sense) feel to it and an underlying menace and unease. Innocuous things are worrisome, and there is so much tension created by some ambiguous endings. It's great. Even Emily Carroll's choice of colour is spot-on, with plenty of black with huge splashes of red and blue and mostly red.

   "His Face All Red" is the only title I can remember right now but the other stories are ALSO GOOD, and ALSO SPOOKY, and I'm just gushing now so do yourself a favour and read this tome. It'll take you an afternoon and the time of year is perfect for it. The snow is just starting to fall (although it is late as) and it is getting darker and darker so why not read something that will make you have some difficulty sleeping? Why not indeed.

make fairy tales terrifying again

The Weight of Blood / Laura McHugh

   I finished listening to this book recently, and I've been mulling it over since and trying to figure out how to review it and what to say about it. And so: bullet points.

• Multiple POV in multiple time-settings! I am a fan of this device. A then and now structure with slowly revealed mysteries? Yes please. 
• SMALL TOWN, DARK SECRETS, you heard it here first. 
• A lot of sexual violence (however, it's violence that comes with PTSD, which is a point for the book).
• A+ audiobook, excellent voicing.
• Lots of "who is family, what is family" questioning, but not terribly deep.
• Everyone has a great name.
• Here's the first sentence: "That Cheri Stoddard was found at all was the thing that set people on edge, even more so than the condition of her body" WHAT, right?
• This is really good for a debut page-turner-y novel, honestly I have very few complaints. 

   SO: Lucy was a friend-of-a-sort to Cheri, who disappeared and then was found cut into pieces and discarded in a tree by the river about a year later. The nature of her death and condition of her body combined with the discovery of a necklace that belonged to Cheri lead Lucy to start an investigation into her death. Where was she (clearly: nearby)? Who killed her (clearly: someone Lucy probably knows, this is, after all, a small town with dark secrets)? How did her parts get into the tree? AND: what is the connection, if any, between Cheri's disappearance/death and the disappearance/apparent suicide years earlier of Lucy's mother Lila? MYSTERIES.  

   Lucy/Lila/Cheri live/d in a small town called Henbane in the Ozarks which made me think of Winter's Bone and how I need to read that book since I saw and loved the movie. There's a moment in the book where for some reason the characters are like "hen bane [the plant] is totes medicinal" but hen bane is a VERY POISONOUS PLANT, do not eat it for medicine. Just a warning here.

   The pace of the book is spot-on and the characterization is good and even though some parts are frustrating it is, overall, a good read. Nothing earth-shattering, but a good read nonetheless. There's some "if you liked Gone Girl you'll like this" but every book written by a woman with a mystery in it has that description lately, so WHATEVER, GONE GIRL, I didn't even like you. I would more say that this book is weirdly reminiscent of Neverhome but not in any way that I can actually explain.

   P.S. If there's one thing we all love it is Awesome Historical Ladies, and here are nine who I mostly hadn't heard of, THANKS A LOT, silencing of women's history.