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Disco Witches of Fire Island by Blair Fell

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


This was a 3.5 read for me rounded up. I know there are going to be some that this will anger, especially the younger crowd. This plays in to hard the gay club scene in the 80s where some of the negative gay stereotypes come from (i.e. sleeping around with multiple partners.) I remember this. I was a doctor in NYC about 4 years after this novel is set. I saw the devastation of AIDS and had to give countless HIV diagnoses.

And make no mistake this is NOT a book of queer joy. Oh there's some of that there but it about their agony as HIV destroys their world. And one of the hardest hitting lines was about how the entire country came together to find out what happened to a few dozen people who died of Legionnaire's disease but the same could not be said when thousands of queer people were dying. I also remember doctors refusing to see HIV infected people. I had no respect for them. I was not one of them and yes I was exposed to HIV while in NYC (I got lucky)

Content warning. HIV infection/death, loss of loved ones, grief, drug use, casual sex, suicidal ideation

The main character is Joe, a young Armenian would-be doctor who lost his lover, Elliot to AIDS and his new friend, the Fabio-look alike, Ronnie who has the big idea of we're going to bartend on Fire Island and find us some rich boyfriends. All Joe really wants is to get away from himself and his pain and gets talked into it only to find out Ronnie didn't have all his ducks in a row.

Homeless and jobless, Joe is taken in by two year round residents, Howie, rather a hippie and Lenny, a bondage guy, both of whom are middle aged house cleaners and two of the titular Disco Witches. They give him a home and find him a job working with Vince, a truculent Irish bartender who works for an old woman who has this bar and her home open to dying AIDS patients with the help of her friend D'Norman, a nurse (both of them are also witches)

It follows Joe and Ronnie over the summer. We spend most of our time in Joe or Howie's heads with occasional journeys into Ronnie, Lenny and a few others. We have Scotty Black, the biggest club owner trying to destroy Joe's place of business. We have the Disco Witches who are as they sound, a group of queer folk who believe in the Great Mother Goddess who is good and needs to be in balance with the Great Darkness which is not. Their leader, Max, is dying of AIDS sequelae and their group of twirling disco queens is falling apart and Howie fears that the Egregore a mystical villain who will kill one of the holy lovers if he can is back on the island.

We the reader know things Howie doesn't (such as Joe has been lying and he fits the holy lover rubric and he's been seeing the Egregore) We can also guess who is going to fulfill the role left when Max dies. I loved Howie and Lenny. Joe I wanted to slap half the book.

This is a pile of angst with a happy ending. I won't ruin it but I will say it doesn't end badly. The Disco Witches will dance another day.

Now for the problems because yes there are some beyond the above mentioned casual sex. But honestly that IS the biggest problem for me because it goes on and on and on. The author thanks his editor for helping carve this down to something readable. Yeah, it needed carved down more. It's overly long and it began getting repetitive with Joe constantly beating himself up over Elliot and then Fergal, someone he met on the Island. Some of the metaphors were pretty tortured and this is the horniest bunch of people gay or straight I've ever seen. It did get to be a bit much. Still, I am glad I read it though it brought me back to those times and the people I lost in the late 80s and early 90s to AIDS, to exposure fears and just how easy it is to victimize an entire group of people unjustly.



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The Princess and the Grilled Cheese Sandwich by Deya Muniz

My rating: 3 of 5 stars


I think this was just too cheesy for me (sorry, had to go there). I'm the wrong audience for this. I'm not that into rom-coms, not even sapphic ones. But more than that, I didn't much like Cambert. I had sympathy for her but I had more sympathy for poor Feta (yes everyone in the land of Fondue has cheese names).

Cam's father is dying and rather than force her into a loveless marriage and because women can't inherit in this land, he urges her to live a quiet life as his male heir. Okay at age 20+ it's a little old to suddenly pretend you have a son (and literally Gorgonzola 'Zola', points this out in the first meeting which is ignored for the entire book).

They move into the capitol city (I assume Cambert's holdings are rural and not that important which is why her father thought moving to the city would work). Cam's okay with living like a man so she says. Feta urges her to keep a low profile and to that end she walks in Princess Brie's no-fur gala wearing fur, fake fur so realistic everyone is offended putting her in the limelight (she wanted to show off this fake fur to help the creator, okay noble but still. Feta's fate is tied to Cam's and she immediately throws that all away with zero regard for her maid and she continually does it in spite of Feta's begging her not to so right there I lose respect for Cam)

I don't have much for Princess Brie either because as Zola points out along with Lady Ricotta (who I DID like I very much enjoyed Zola and Ricotta) Brie is the freaking crowned princess and is an activist but not for the really big things affecting women in her kingdom. (I'm not saying animal rights aren't important, they are)

I do appreciate that Muniz is trying to shine a light on things in the past (that could become future again) where women couldn't own property (I'm old enough that I couldn't get student loans without a man's permission and to this day we can't get a necessary hysterectomy without our husband's permission) and that LGBT people couldn't marry. But Brie does diddly to fix any of this, meekly accepting she can't love Cam and must marry a man because even as princess she can't rule or own land.

Obviously because this is a rom com Brie and Cam have to act the fool about each other (which is why I'm not a rom-com fan) and I accept that as part of this but for me the very best part was when Zola reads Brie the riot act and points out what she COULD be doing with her station in life where someone like Zola could not (she married well and lucked into a husband who let her work).

Of course it has a happy ending. It's a romance after all. I can see I'm in a minority when it comes to loving this but yeah, I thought it was okay and I don't see me thinking of it ever again.



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Rare Flavours by Ram V.

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


CW - cannibalism (sort of, as Rubin points out he's not exactly human)


Rubin Baksh is motivated by the death of Anthony Bourdain to set his own culinary journey down on film and to that end, he hand picks a filmmaker who is down on his luck, Mo. He has hunted down some old movie of Mo's that infuriates the young man but in the end makes him agree to work with Rubin and they set off across India in search of the titular rare flavors.

What Mo doesn't know is that Rubin is a demonic Rakshasa from folklore, a monster of such appetites he cannot be sated. He was stopped once upon a time by a mythic hero who snapped his spine and left him to die in a cave. He did not but he's been lying low until now.

Mo does learn of Rubin's habit of eating people (and doesn't run) and that there are two demon hunters on their trail. The contrast of Rubin's love of food history, of preserving food culture that is disappearing, is a stark one when you consider he's eating some of the people along the way. For much of the graphic novel you also don't know who this Masi is he's talking to in the narration but we learn of her later.

It's also told nonlinearly as we have segments of Mo nervously debuting his documentary. I very much enjoyed the story. I was less of a fan of the art style, especially how oddly with little regard to human form that Rubin was drawn in. I loved the attention to details and the recipes as we went. It's worth reading even with its dark theme.



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H.P. Lovecraft's The Shadow Over Innsmouth by Gou Tanabe

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


What to say about this other than it needs to be seen. Gou Tanabe's artwork is breathtaking in its detail and adds layer to Lovecraft's cosmic horror. Innsmouth was Lovecraft's only novel published in his short life and while he is such a problematic creator, it would be a disservice to ignore the immense impact Lovecraft had on the subgenre of cosmic horror.

Set in the late 1920s and opens in a shadowy room with a man whose back is to the viewer, a gun to his head. He begins to relate the story of how he got to this point and what happened in the town of Innsmouth and why the government razed it to the ground.

The story truly begins when our narrator is a wide eyed young man (and oh does Tanabe's artistic choices here really shine. The narrator is the one bright, pretty, immensely 'normal' person contrasting sharply with the people of Innsmouth) on a New England tour between semesters from Oberlin College in Ohio. He's a lover of museums, antiques and genealogy (a man after my heart) and he's trying to get to Arkham where his mother's people are from.

But when he decides the train is too expensive and he needs to save money (as many a college student can sympathize with) he opts for taking a bus into Innsmouth and then getting the bus from t here to Arkham which is much cheaper. The ticket master and other townspeople try hard to dissuade him with their tales of ill defined horror about the town and the Innsmouth 'look' Even the people at the museum warn him against the weirdness of Innsmouth right down to their distinctive and creepy jewelry art style.

He chalks this up to the town being run down and maybe dangerous in the way a poor town can be but he quickly sees what they mean about the Innsmouth Look with people having bulgy eyes, strange shambling gaits and odd manners. His one ray of sunshine in the town is a grocery clerk from elsewhere consigned to work there who draws him a town map and tells him of an old drunk who might know more about the town's history than anyone.

The narrator makes the fateful error of looking for that man. Maybe that's why the bus out of town that night 'breaks down' maybe that's why they come for him. Maybe that's why he has to flee for his life. The sins of Obed Marsh, the one time merchant turned cult leader have stirred up things best left alone but now so has our narrator.

What happens next you need to read for yourself. If you've avoided Lovecraft because of his reputation, this might be an interesting way in for you because Gou Tanabe's adaptation is worth the look.



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The Turn of the Screw and Other Stories by Henry James

My rating: 2 of 5 stars


I read a lot of historic horror and SFF so the antiquated language in this isn't a bother to me. However, I can say two things about The Turn of the Screw in particular, 1. It's a seminal work in gothic horror spawning countless adaptations in film/tv/etc and the inspiration for even more stories 2. If I hadn't known the premise of the story I'm not sure I would have gotten it from the work.

This was a muddled and worse, boring, slog with an ending that doesn't pay off. The narrator is a young woman taking on the role of governess to two young children with an absent uncle (as their parental figure), Flora and her older brother Miles who was expelled from his boarding school for reasons neither the governess nor the housekeeper Mrs. Gorse know.

The children and our narrator are seeing things, people in the shadows, one of which is Peter Quint, their uncle's valet. Only problem is he's dead. Is he back to take the children? Is the governess and the kids seeing things? Does anyone actually care?

James overwrites everything. He's known for it. His sentences meander and are packed with extraneous garbage because why settle for only one way to describe things. The real mystery is why didn't she try harder to contact the uncle (she gives a letter about the kids TO the kids to post I mean why?)

Glad I read the source work but it was painful.



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When the Bones Sing by Ginny Myers Sain

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


I received an arc from Netgalley. I loved this story. Set in a very small town, Lucifer Creek (named for the sulfurous stench it puts out), Dovie has a special matrilinear gift; she can hear/feel the bones singing. The sheriff has been putting this to good use in helping to recover lost hikers on a major hiking trail through the Ozarks. In the last three years over two dozen hikers have gone missing and the town is oddly quiet about it. Well, not so odd when one considers without the hikers bringing dollars into the town the town doesn't exist so they're hushing up a serial killer.

Dovie's best friend from her earliest days, Lo(wan) returns from wherever he ran off to still haunted and frantic. He claims the ghosts of the murdered and buried hikers are after him and he must solve the mystery of their deaths. Dovie doesn't believe in ghosts or religion or the Ozark Howler (in spite of her father a glass artist making a huge one for his friend's massive lodge (a very poor local boy made very good and generous to the town).

Also in the story are Dovie and Lo's grandmothers former friends who fell out after Lo's mother was drowned in Lucifer's Creek and Dovie's mother disappeared. And we also have the hell and brimstone preacher who is turning the town against the kids as witches and Xan a young man who I don't want to spoil.

I found Dovie and Lo captivating. While I did figure out most of the mystery I think the red herrings were deployed to great advantage in this. The stakes are high as more and more hikers are disappearing and waiting for Dovie to find them. Are her friends and family involved? What about their missing moms (something else I did figure out but again enjoyed the journey to the conclusions) There were twists I didn't predict which is always a delight and I found the end very satisfying. I thought the setting was rich. You could practically feel the heat, humidity and the bugs. I love it when an author takes a rich setting and makes it almost its own character. It brings something extra to the story.



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Ghostlore Vol. 2 by Cullen Bunn

My rating: 3 of 5 stars


This was an interesting evolution of where the first book left off. It felt better paced than the first volume (but still we're not really in Harmony's head enough. While I don't need the story to dwell on it, it seems so unlikely she's spared zero thought to the car accident that killed her mom and brother while she was driving)

Harmony is half mad with all the ghosts trying to tell her a story and the first half of this volume revolves around that. She is found and taken in by others who can also hear the ghosts and try to help them. THey live communally on a farm and Harmony finds a measure of peace there until someone sends people there to force them to work for him or else.

The second half revolves around her father Lucas who is trying to find Harmony. He too hears the ghosts and also runs across the group trying to strong arm the ghost-sensitive into working for him (to do what we're not entirely sure but it has something to do with the mysterious 'the storm.') The group Lucas deals with has no subtly whatsoever, even less than the ones after his daughter. They straight up murder an entire diner to get his attention and that's when we can see what Lucas can do at this point.

I'm still with the mixed feelings here. It's interesting enough but on the other hand I'm glad I'm getting this from the library and not my own wallet.



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You Must Not Miss by Katrina Leno

My rating: 3 of 5 stars


I had such mixed feelings about this one. It started out strong, foundered in the middle and I didn't like the end at all. In some ways it doesn't quite match the blurb and the title makes no sense whatsoever. (though I don't blame the author for that one. She might not have been the one to choose it).

Magpie Lewis starts off sympathetically enough. Her life has imploded. She caught her dad cheating on her mother with her mother's sister (and the family believes the aunt about the events of that day), her mother reverted back to her alcoholism as a result, her older sister has cut her out of her life for her own mental health and abandoning Magpie to deal with their mother's drinking until Maggie is 18 and can leave too. She got drunk herself at Brandon Phipp's party and did something to cause her to do something that made her best friend Allison to stop talking to her (Brandon is Allison's boyfriend so you can figure out what this is)

She's left making new friends with the other h.s. outcasts: Clare (whose father committed suicide) Luke (gay), Ben (trans masc and Magpie's potential love interest) and one more whom I've already forgotten because basically the book did too. Honestly these were good friends (expect Clare constantly insisting they all had to go to Brandon's next party even knowing what happened to Magpie the last time)

The only adult on her side is her english teacher who keeps giving her more changes to not fail his class and the school year than Magpie probably deserves. Her mom is busy drinking herself to death and her dad is out of the house. Her grandma and the rest of mom's family has cut her out.

Magpie has been writing in her yellow notebook about the town of Near which unlike the town she lives in Farther, is kind and empty of people and no one will ever abandoned her there. And then it becomes real. Her guide to this place is Hither a shape shifting speck of ether? Magpie's power? and that's where this begins to bog down.

Frankly the cover and the blurb talks about female rage (I'd like to think any child with all this going on would be enraged regardless of gender) and we don't really see that in believable ways or maybe it's just me. This rage seems to be let me fail out that'll teach them and let me be disengaged with my new friends because they're not the amazing Allison.

Magpie is actually rather unlikeable. I might be sympathetic toward her but I don't like her or what she does, especially at the end when that rage is first turned against her teacher who had the audacity of enforcing consequences for her lack of actions. The ending is weird, confusing and anticlimatic which is all I can say without spoiling it. The story was interesting but I also found it pr oblematic



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ブルーロック-EPISODE 凪- 1 [Blue Lock: Episode Nagi 1] by Kota Sannomiya

My rating: 3 of 5 stars


I was not much of a fan but rated it a bit higher to offset the fact I could care less about soccer manga (I'm reading this for a reading challenge prompt) so maybe it's better than I think. It's hard to argue with the success of Blue Lock that this is spun off of. That said both boys were highly irritating to me.

Both are h.s. students. Reo is a wealthy student who doesn't want to follow in his father's footsteps. He wants to be a soccer star and has decided that Nagi is a prodigy and drags him along for the sake of his own dream. How he's decided this I have no idea. Nagi's only goals are to nap and play video games. He thinks even eating is too much of a chore. He's goal less and doesn't seem to be the brightest of bulbs.

Reo is, of course, right about Nagi's abilities (how? It's anyone's guess). Reo's father aims to squash his son's dreams and sets up a team of bruisers for Reo's newly formed soccer club to face and you can imagine how this goes. Reo and Nagi are unstoppable.

They're recruited for the Blue Lock program and you get to suffer through tedious speeches about them becoming the best striker in all of Japan (the one hint we have that Nagi knows what's going on, he correctly assesses it as he and Reo will eventually have to turn on each other). The Blue Lock program puts them through a weird challenge that Nagi wants to fail out of (so you do have to feel a little sorry for him. He's being forced into this) but Reo won't let him.

Obviously I'm in the minority of not enjoying this much and if you liked the original series you'll probably like this. At least the art is very nice.



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Kill Creek by Scott Thomas

My rating: 3 of 5 stars


This had a lot of fun ideas in it but there is a fair amount of misogyny in it so I knocked off points for that. It has multiple points of view but Sam McGarver is probably the main on. Four horror authors have been brought together Wrainwright, a podcaster who wants to do an interview/shock the author sort of thing in the infamous Finch house in Kansas, last owned by a pair of sisters with a room that has been sealed off (it was the room of the disabled sister) and is known for bad things happening.

Sam is stuck, writers block preventing him from his next bestseller and helping to erode is marriage.

TC Moore is the character I liked the least, and the one that irritated me the most because she is sort of the man hating type (please let's not confuse this with being feminist, it's not the same) also she has to out-man the men. She has all the toxic male characteristics you care to name (rolled my eyes so hard that her routine is to swim naked and then write the same way) She writes erotic horror/extreme horror more for shock value than any literary value.

Daniel Slaughter shocks me that he's even a horror writer. He's so fundamentalist religious that I'm surprised he's writing kids horror ala R.L. Stine and even at that his pastor thinks he's getting too far from God and he's worried about (the priest and Slaughter)

And last Sebastian Cole who was the second most interesting to me, he's your Peter Staub/Stephen King grand old master of horror (and closeted gay man for much of his career which is believable seeing as that career was mostly in the 70s)

The book is told in parts, part one getting them to the house, part two being at the house, part three spooky shit post being at the house and part four going back to the house to end the horror.

I did like it. Would have liked it more if TC Moore was a better developed character vs a stereotype (and that Wainwright's girlfriend, the only character of color of note wasn't fridged to give him his angst).



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