Reception by Kenzie Jennings REVIEW

 Summary:

While her rehab counselor's advice replays in her mind, Ansley Boone takes on the role of dutiful bridesmaid in her little sister's wedding at an isolated resort in the middle of hill country, a place where the cell reception is virtually nonexistent and everyone else there seems a stranger primed to spring. Tensions are already high between the Boones and their withdrawal-suffering eldest, who's since become the family embarrassment, but when the wedding reception takes a vicious turn, Ansley and her sister must work together to fight for survival and escape the resort before the groom's cannibalistic family adds them to the post-wedding menu.

My Thoughts:

Oh my god, I loved this book. I don't even know where to start.

Ansley is the narrator, and pretty quickly, she gets you to sympathize with her. She's only in rehab because her doctor over-prescribed an addictive medication. Her parents seem awful, as they treat her like shit despite the fact that the situation was not at all her fault. Shay, Ansley's sister, is a much better person. While she often gets annoyed by her addict sister sometimes, she actually seems to care about Ansley.

The groom's family is kept mysterious until the cannibalism starts. The fight for survival is intense and vivid.

The ending is odd. We are basically told that Ansley is an unreliable narrator, and much of what happened was actually just symptoms of withdrawal. We know that her eating her sister at the end was real, but we don't know how real or fake much of the action was.

My Rating: 5 stars

Hate to Feel by Chandler Morrison REVIEW

 Summary:

Love is not patient, and it is not kind. It is envious, boastful, and proud. It dishonors others, and is self-seeking. It is easily angered, and keeps record of all wrongs. It delights in evil and recoils from the truth. It never protects, never trusts, never hopes, and, most importantly, it never perseveres.

Love always fails.

These are truths Derek Diver has yet to fully comprehend, but the time of his enlightenment is approaching. His lesson will be steeped in blood, and he will learn that love is the most violent force on Earth.

My Thoughts:

Shortly after reading Dead Inside, I decided to read all of Chandler Morrison's books. I am yet to be disappointed.

Derek is a sweet, introverted guy who struggles with intrusive thoughts. He falls for Scarlet, his co-worker, but she is married. He decides to have an affair with her anyway, thinking that she'll leave her husband for him. Derek is wrong.

Derek longs to not feel, to be numb all of the time. He finds this numbness after killing three teenagers outside with a rock, a murder that was not at all planned. But the numbness never stays, and he keeps killing in order to keep that feeling.

There is also a minor satanic subplot where Derek was directed by a friend to go to a house to get laid, but instead there is a ritual performed. A man appears out of nowhere, supposedly the devil. He makes a few appearances here and there, but the only important one is near the end, where he gets Derek to sign a contract.

A surprise appearance from the security guard in Dead Inside is there, and the connection between Derek and Helen (the nurse in Dead Inside) is revealed.

My Rating: 5 stars

The Sanatorium by Sarah Pearse REVIEW

Summary:

Half hidden by forest and overshadowed by threatening peaks, Le Sommet has always been a sinister place. Long plagued by troubling rumors, the former abandoned sanatorium has since been renovated into a five-star minimalist hotel.

An imposing, isolated getaway spot in the Swiss Alps is the last place Elin Warner wants to be. But Elin's taken time off from her job as a detective, so when her estranged brother, Isaac, and his fiancée, Laure, invite her to celebrate their engagement at the hotel, Elin really has no reason not to accept. 

Arriving in the midst of a threatening storm, Elin immediately feels on edge -- there's something about the hotel that makes her nervous. And when they wake the following morning to discover Laure is missing, Elin must trust her instincts if they hope to find her. With the storm closing off all access to the hotel, the longer Laure stays missing, the more the remaining guests start to panic.

Elin is under pressure to find Laure, but no one has yet realized that another woman has gone missing. And she's the only one who could have warned them just how much danger they are all in...

My Thoughts:

I FUCKING LOVED THIS BOOK! At first, I thought it was going to be a haunted house sort of thing, but it was so much better than that.

Elin is not your typical protagonist. She hates change and cannot stop grieving over her other brother Sam's death, even though it happened when she was a child. She blocked out the memory of that day for a long time, but it is coming back to her in pieces.

Isaac is...unlikeable, to say the least. He often flaunts Elin's issues whenever she tries to talk to him.

Laure is an intriguing character. I wish we got to see more of her backstory. She knew Elin when they were kids, but Elin cut her off at one point.

Margot's motives make so much sense. One of her family members was killed back when the hotel was a sanatorium.

Lucas is deliberately set up as one of the main suspects, but he was not the killer, nor was he working with them.

Cecile's motive to killing Daniel and attempting to kill Lucas makes a lot of sense. But the others that she killed did not make any sense to her motives or the plot.

My Rating: 5 stars

Zombie by Joyce Carol Oates REVIEW

 Summary:

Meet Quentin P. He is a problem for his professor father and his loving mother, though of course they do not believe the charge of sexual molestation of a minor that got him in that bit of trouble.

He is a challenge for his court-appointed psychiatrist, who nonetheless is encouraged by the increasingly affirmative quality of his dreams and his openness in discussing them.

He is a thoroughly sweet young man for his wealthy grandmother, who gives him more and more, and can deny him less and less.

My Thoughts:

I almost DNFed this book, as the beginning is quite slow.

Quentin is not a likeable character, and Oates doesn't try to make him one. He is a thoroughly terrible person that is not at all sympathetic. I like that. Too many people make their villains sympathetic and likeable. 

The narration is from Quentin's POV and we get a look into his disturbed mind.

I honestly wish that the book was longer, because there isn't really much of a conclusion.

My Rating: 3 stars

The Drowning Kind by Jennifer McMahon REVIEW

 Summary:

When social worker Jax receives nine missed calls from her older sister, Lexie, she assumes it's just another one of her sister's episodes. Manic and increasingly out of touch with reality, Lexie has pushed Jax away for over a year. But the next day, Lexie is dead, drowned in the pool at their grandmother's estate. When Jax arrives at the house to go through her sister's things, she learns that Lexie was researching the history of their family and the property. She dives deeper into the research herself and discovers that the land holds a far darker past than she could have every imagined.

In 1929, thirty-seven-year-old newly wed Ethel Monroe hopes desperately for a baby. In an effort to distract her, Ethel's husband whisks her away on a trip to Vermont, where a natural spring showcased by the newest and most modern hotel in the Northeast. Once there, Ethel learns that the water is rumored to grant wishes, never suspecting that the spring takes in equal measure to what it gives.

My Thoughts:

I adored this book and read it in only a few hours. The characters are outstandingly fleshed out and the writing is beautifully done.

Jax used to be close to her sister when she was younger, but the condition of her spread them apart. She knows next to nothing about the family and property's history, which she finds out later on. Her aunt and father are there with her when she returns for the funeral.

Ethel wants a baby so badly. When she hears that the water grants wishes, Ethel figures it wouldn't hurt to try, unaware of the coming consequences with her baby being extremely sick when she is born. We later find out that Ethel is Jax's great-grandmother.

The characters' relation to each other is so seamlessly woven. The ending is tragic yet beautiful.

Overall, I would definitely recommend giving this a read.

My Rating: 5 stars