Two Sentence-ish Sometimes-Horror Reviews (Part 1)

I’ve been writing reviews for a month or so now and have yet to get out of my December reading. In an effort to catch up. I’m just going to do a batches of one or two sentence reviews. Given that I read two-three books a week, I’d otherwise just be a skeleton typing things 400 years from now like some Muir protagonist. 

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Death By Cashmere by Sally Goldenbaum: 3.5. Ocean-side knitting club investigates the murder of upstairs roommate while doing traditional, wealthy East Coast BS. Fun little murder mystery with a focus on yarn; also, you get a knitting pattern in each book!

Death of Jane Lawrence by Caitlin Starling: 3.5. Young orphan seeks a loveless marriage that will meet her requirements for a husband and lifestyle, but doesn’t anticipate the necromancy (or actually falling in love with him). It’s okay, but suffers a bit from the trope of cosmic horror not requiring more than some creepy shite happening.

Troublemaker: Surviving Hollywood and Scientology by Leah Remini: 4. Sci-fi religion abuses those who speak out or ask questions about it: I mean, where is Shelly Miscavage? While not an entirely unbiased view of Scientology, it’s a worthwhile read where you can at least see why Remini left and continues to speak out against it.

Kingdoms of Savannah: A Novel by George Dawes Green: 2.5. In this mystery, Savannah’s wealthy elite does like rich people do as they seek one of the rumored locations for freed black men and women during the reign of slavery in the South. I feel like it’s coasting on Green’s reputation, since it’s not poorly written but still ultimately unsatisfying, unless you really enjoy the tiny snippets of history.

The Collected Schizophrenias by Esmé Weijun Wang: 3.5  A collection of essays about how Schizoaffective disorder sent one woman’s life off the tracks and how she has to constantly struggle with what it means to herself and others. Any person with mental illness can relate to how difficult it is to both find almost everything impossible while also trying to deflect what others perceive to be true,