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#ReadingLog

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I liked Book 2 of the #stephenking Dark Tower series because it was a crazy story with VERY different characters, all in an uncomfortable relationship.

This one… a lot of those differences have been sanded down and I feel like some identity was lost.

That said, this book is a wild ride and I liked bringing Jake back into the fold. I liked Oy as well, even if he seems REALLY convenient at points.

It’s a really good book.

I didn’t like the ending at all, though. It’s super frustrating when books end on cliffhangers (book 2 of Hunger Games or Girl With the Dragon Tattoo immediately jump to mind). It’s pretty frustrating as a reader.

What’s more frustrating is that I know Wizard & Glass is next and, as frustrating as books ending on cliffhangers are, whole damn books about the past that interrupt the story are even worse.

Side note: I tracked down the original cover art sans titles because just LOOK AT IT. That has got to be the most beautiful, creepy piece ever used on a book. Really puts today’s covers to shame because, for me, unless it’s romance, I want REAL artwork on my covers. Right? Who’s with me

#bringbackrealbookart #books #bookrecommendation #booktok #bookstagram #bookstagrammer #booksky #readersofpixelfed #read #readinglog #stephenking #darktower #wastelands #stephenkingbook stephenkingrules #constantreader

My #ReadingLog for June is here at last! Actually, I finished it shortly after the review I wrote on the weekend (the author complimented me on it!!!), but posting them both around the same time felt weird.

It's fairly late, but better late than never!

taylordrew.me/june-2025-reads/

Taylor Drew - Japanese to English Translatorjune 2025 readsWe're already nearly 2 weeks into July, so this reading log is somewhat delayed. However, I've been reflecting on what kind of reading month I had in June, w...
Halloween Kills suffers from “middle part,” problems like not having an actual ending and it feeling more like a slog.

There was a plot hole that I didn’t catch at first where Myers kills three and then chases Lindsey through the park.

She hides on a bank and he crosses a bridge, looks for her, says “guess she’s gone,” and continues across the bridge toward the Myers place.

So when did he go back and pose the bodies to be discovered?

Also, the sections in this book that deal with Michael’s inner monologue are thankfully short but seems to give his mask magical powers. He experiences pain for the first time and, unmasked, feels all of it. But then he pops back on his mask and PRESTO! Back to being a murdering machine.

I did like that most of the deaths were less graphic in the book. It’s obvious that the movie folks were making decisions about clever things to do with bodies to maximize horror, but… I don’t know.

I don’t want to say the movie took it too far, but it was just… I guess it was sadder than the rest? This wasn’t a good time of a horror slasher and I haven’t put my finger on why exactly.

This book answers the question of what would happen if a town was so freaked out that they fanned their own flames and jumped at every shadow and the answer is nothing good. Tons of people who have given up on a system and decide to take matters into their own hands die as a result.

In general, I don’t enjoy stories about mobs being generated because it seems too easy to do in real life. People get angry very easily and when they’re with other angry people and that energy is directed toward destruction, it’s never a good thing.

Maybe what it really is is that I came to see a monster movie and feel like, though horror movies have been mirrors to society and allegories of the horrors of real life, I didn’t really want it with this movie.

I’ve had enough of real world monsters.

#books #bookrecommendation #horrorbook #bookstagram #halloweenkills #horror #halloween
So… I’m either reading or re-reading all of Stephen King’s stuff and this is a thing that he wrote and published as an Amazon single.

It’s interesting.

He makes a lot of good points as a guy who owns and seems to like guns. There’s space for nuance here somewhere between “guns are evil,” and “all guns should be open-carried all the time in all the places by all the people,” that I feel not enough people want to acknowledge.

More importantly (to me), though, was the defeated tone that comes from having watched shooting after shooting after shooting. All the thoughts and prayers that don’t amount to shit, all the legal measures blocked by politicians that live in gun manufacturer’s pockets, and the crushing depression that comes from the certainty that this will continue to happen until the end of time or until something substantial happens.

But the thing that’s interesting to me is that so many people who obviously can’t read subtext in King’s books freaked out when this came out. They said he shouldn’t get political or opine on serious matters but held been doing that literally since his first book.

These are the idiots who failed English in high school for not being able to recognize symbolism, subtext, or meaning. The people who are taking everything at face value.

You know. Morons.

And these people were upset but I don’t get it. This isn’t anti-gun. This isn’t anti-gun owner. This is a measured appeal for common sense that made people upset because it dared to ask for limits on supposed freedoms.

Look, take it or leave it, okay? People believe what they want to believe. But I think there’s something wrong with someone who ignores literally everything except the boo-scares in a series of over 60 novels and then complains when the author’s feelings become too obvious to ignore.

Maybe King just isn’t for them.

#books #bookrecommendation #booktok #bookstagram #bookstagrammer #booksky #readersofpixelfed #read #readinglog #stephenking #guns
Oh man, I can’t wait for Pixelfed to slowly degrade this image like it’s done for SO many of my others!

Anyway.

Just in case you were curious, it’s impolite to ask a vet (or anyone, I guess?) if they’ve killed someone. It’s usually not something they’re stoked or wanting to talk about.

If you HAVE to ask, you ask “did you see any action?”

That’s the most polite way to ask an impolite question.

Just FYI.

Anyway, Beauchamp served in the Army and learned lessons that just about all vets learn like how you don’t fight for leadership but rather to keep the person next to you alive.

But the most interesting part is his identity crisis. After he got out of the Army he leaned hard into becoming a professional writer and found himself not fitting in with the typical city-dwelling writer crowd.

Or THINKING he didn’t.

I actually have doubts about this. There’s a lot of internalized “these people wouldn’t get me,” that is brought out of the service but I think the civilian population - while not being able to FULLY understand - could certainly understand ENOUGH to realize the nuance of the individual within the larger body of the military branch. They might not support wars or missions (or even the specific branch) but I have to believe that they won’t fully dismiss the vet for serving.

Anyway, I don’t think military service acts as a worthwhile contrast to critique modern culture. It just doesn’t make any sense.

Actually, it sounds more like regret than anything else. It’s like Beauchamp resents civilians for not going through or learning what he did. Kind of like how you envy/hate children because they don’t know the absolute joy of paying bills.

I didn’t hate it. There’s a lot of applicable stuff in here that would shed some light on typical service stuff for civilians if anyone is interested.

I wouldn’t hold it against anyone if they weren’t, though.

#books #bookrecommendation #booktok #bookstagram #bookstagrammer #booksky #readersofpixelfed #read #readinglog

I'm interested in #nonDualism and am reading The Untethered Soul by Michael A Singer.

I quite like the book and am getting some useful ideas from it. But the Americanisms are like a caricature - this book about liberation from psyche - with exercises like "when you get in your car" and examples like "you see your someone who looks like your girlfriend smiling in a corvette with someone else..." and "while at the lights.."

I know the author is trying to show how his concepts can be applied in "normal" life but it's like he can't see how much his assumptions and context are shaped by being a straight white American cis man.

I'm not saying this because I think I'm better, we're all shaped by our context and cultures, but just because the subject matter should lend itself to awareness of that and this is conspicuous by its absence.

I like comics, I like pugs. This was a must-buy at the used bookshop.

That said, I’m sure thinking about moving to New Zealand to go to university and I’ll need to pay to ship all my stuff so now I’m looking at my books with a critical eye.

How many of these things do I want to pay a LOT (probably) to ship to the other side of the planet just so I can try to jam them into a tiny (affordable) apartment?

How much do I want to pay weekly (they do rent by the week there) to let my books live with me?

It’s not only made me critical of the books I’ve read but also the books I HAVEN’T read. My TBR is looking less like a wine cellar waiting for me to be in just the right mood to dip into a book and more like a serious gamble as to whether it’s worth paying for the trip/real estate.

Anyway, I don’t think this one’s going to make the cut. It’s cute, but I don’t see me re-reading it often enough to bring it with me everywhere.

#books #bookrecommendation #booktok #bookstagram #bookstagrammer #booksky #readersofpixelfed #read #readinglog #newzealand #moving #tbr
A little about me: I grew up as an art kid failure. Big aspirations, not enough skill. But I took enough art classes to start to appreciate the unfinished project as much - if not more - than the finished.

So when I saw one of Batman’s critical arcs collected solely as penciled panels, I was sold. And in hardcover no less.

This is a good story. I think it makes for a fine bridge story from young, grieving Bruce putting all of his pain into playing detective to the Batman we all know and love.

The flaw here is that if Bruce gets scared away or fails, why did it take so long after donning the cowl to get back into the mystery as an adult?

Regardless. Court of Owls is a fantastic arc with very few flaws. It’s a shame it was used in the wildly mediocre Gotham Knights video game. Some of the scenes are direct lifts but would have been better as… well, you know. An actual Batman game rather than playing as one of the Knights.

And now the story feels used up because they used so much of the actual story in their padded game that anything new will feel derivative.

Bummer.

Oh well. We’ll always have the book at least.

#books #bookrecommendation #booktok #bookstagram #bookstagrammer #booksky #readersofpixelfed #read #readinglog #batman #courtofowls #detective
I generally like Stine’s longer standalones. They’re usually a good time.

This one’s a bit of a mess, though.

There’s a lot of head hopping, but it doesn’t happen between chapters so it’s easy to catch and you bounce between first and third-person for LONG stretches that probably would have been clearer if Stine used italics like King does to tell you were in the character’s head.

Meanwhile, Stine tries to write the worst character and does a decent job of writing a shallow, materialistic girl.

But it’s funny how time changes how you read something, right?

I read this as a kid and thought she was the worst. Then I read it as an adult and just saw a poor kid whose dad abandoned her, leaving her with a lot of trust issues for people and clinging to material objects because they will never go out for smokes and never come back.

This girl may be a villain, but she still needs therapy.

#books #bookrecommendation #booktok #bookstagram #bookstagrammer #booksky #readersofpixelfed #read #readinglog #rlstine #rlstinebook #theboyfriend #boyfriend
Oh boy. Ohboyohboyohboyohboy, did I love this book!

I think this is in my top 5 King books. It sums up everything (but horror) that makes King such a great author. You can relate to the characters, there’s a heavy sense of nostalgia, there’s crime (though I will admit that the amount of crime made me wonder why this was a Hard Case book), and it’s a big slice of life book.

It’s charming.

Yeah, that’s the word: charming.

It’s about a college boy who gets a summer job at an amusement park where there may or may not be a ghost but there was DEFINITELY a disappearance/death.

My only critique is that King’s mysteries aren’t so much “mysteries” in the traditional sense where the reader is given enough clues to figure it out on their own. Usually King’s involves a character looking at something and realizing SOMETHING doesn’t seem right but they just can’t put their finger on it until… oh my god, they figured it out. But you, the reader, are not given the clues. You’re one step away from the protagonist and you can’t read his mind.

Which is kind of strange since King’s known for conveying inner thoughts.

Anyhoo, I’d say I don’t like that delivery of a mystery if King didn’t make his books so entertaining.

To be clear: I don’t go to King for Christie stories. I go to King for King stories.

And I REALLY like this older King style of storytelling. It’s more conversational and way more… I don’t know… intimate? It feels like I’m a kid at the foot of my grandfather’s rocking chair next to the fire rapt in the yarn that he’s spinning and that makes King unique and special in my book.

Also, I think this is a PERFECT book to loan to someone who is uninitiated. At this point people will say they haven’t read him because his books are long or they don’t like horror. Neither is a factor here.

#books #bookrecommendation #booktok #bookstagram #bookstagrammer #booksky #readersofpixelfed #read #readinglog #stephenking #joyland #stephenkingbook #hardcasebook #crimebook
I like baseball so this might be a bit biased.

I do NOT like baseball so much that I thought King’s “Faithful” was an exciting read, but I do like baseball and a common critique I hear about this story is that it’s boring because it focuses on, well, baseball.

But I love it. This is a novella written as an interview transcript. The interviewee, a character talking to King himself, is giving his memories on a player called Blockade Billy. It documents their season and ends about how you would expect a Stephen King story to end.

This isn’t the first time King has done stories written as transcripts (Dolores Claiborne was a whole NOVEL written as one) but I could see how it would throw some people off.

Look: I get why people might not like this story.

It’s short, it’s not horror in King’s traditional sense, it’s a transcript, and it’s about baseball.

But I think it’s great. It reminded me of those 1990s Disney sports movies, documenting the dramatic rise of the underdog to a big ending (though the endings are quite different) and I thought it was very exciting. It felt weird to get this nostalgic hit for DISNEY movies while reading KING but it happened.

Also, if you’re struggling with the transcript angle of the story (same for Dolores), I recommend checking your favorite audiobook sources for it because the narrator is very good and gives the transcript a lot of life and drama.

I think this is easily one of King’s hidden gems. People see the cover, shudder because they don’t like baseball, and dismiss it. But they shouldn’t be so fast because there’s a lot to love in this little novella.

#books #bookrecommendation #booktok #bookstagram #bookstagrammer #booksky #readersofpixelfed #read #readinglog #stephenking #constantreader #blockadebilly #stephenkingbook

I finally wrote my April #ReadingLog! It's another long one, so I hope you enjoy it! I think a lot of the books in April focused on gender and adjacent topics. May is turning out to be the same, so it's clearly something that's weighing on my mind in a pretty significant way lately.

There's nothing wrong with that, but it's interesting to see in my reading trends.

taylordrew.me/april-2025-reads

Taylor Drew - Japanese to English Translatorapril 2025 readsHard to believe it's already halfway through May and I'm just getting to my April reading log now! I've just been so busy doing cool translation work that it...
Oh yeah, THIS is worth reading. Not joking at all.

It’s about a man who wakes up as a great big beetle-like thing. He was a former solider and had been happy once but that was a long time ago. Now he is the sole provider for his parents and his little sister and they are just worthless. Absolutely worthless. They leech off him and he’s not happy about it.

But here’s the thing: they’re not happy about it either and when he turns into this beetle the roles initially reverse and they have to take care of him but with no jobs, that’s a big ask.

So the father goes back to work and the mother rents out a room and the family suddenly realizes that they only THOUGHT they had nothing to offer so they never tried. Robbed of the guy they were mooching off of, they realized they are stronger and more resilient than they thought.

They’re still miserable, though, because they have to take care of this giant beetle.

Okay, small aside: most classic literature is spoiled. You know how Mice & Men ends and you might not have ever read it.

And studies have shown that if you know the ending you actually enjoy the story more.

But if that’s not the case for you, just go get this book and stop reading this.

I love this book. The learned helplessness of the family and the ridiculous martyrdom of the protagonist was so frustrating and well-written. I hated every single character in the best way if that makes sense.

And when our beetle guy gets stabbed and DIES and this turns out to be the family’s ticket to freedom, it really hit me.

I don’t think Kafka was writing about learned helplessness but that’s certainly what I got out of it and I began to look around me and wonder: as the breadwinner who is often not happy for a family who leans on me more and more, am I doing them a disservice by doing so much for them?

You know a book is good when it makes you reevaluate your whole life.

#books #bookrecommendation
#bookstagram #readersofpixelfed #readinglog #kafka #matamorphosis #read
You know what? Let’s go back to the beginning. To Fear Street #1.

I keep getting thrown with the Columbo/Law & Order: CI openings where a crime is committed by SOMEONE and then the story actually starts, but it’s fine. I like Columbo and I LOVED CI.

I will say that a common critique you’re going to hear from me is a plot driven by poor communication. It’s a pet peeve of mine and just lazy writing. It’s also all OVER the Fear Street series.

Anyway, this book centers around a kid in high school who falls in love with the new girl, Anna. It IS a little strange that none of his friends know who she is, has her in their classes, and everyone that DOES know Anna insists that Anna…

Is dead.

I looked this up on Wikipedia to make sure I remembered the plot since I read this a couple years ago and it says that the boyfriend was convinced she was alive with her “human-like kisses.”

I literally laughed out loud.

Anyway, it turns out “Anna” isn’t Anna at ALL and she’s actually WILLA, Anna’s sister who killed Anna out of jealousy and assumed her identity. There’s a brother, Brad, and he plays a pretty important role. He shoved a girl down some stairs and I think he even killed a cat to stuff in a locker as a warning, but I don’t care about him.

My mind got snagged HARD on the idea that a teenage girl killed her teenage girl sister and just ADOPTED her personality. Where were her parents? Where was Brad? Why had nobody heard of Anna? Why is Willa going to school?

I just think that if you’re going to murder a sibling and assume their identity, high school years are the WORST years to do it.

That said, it was fun to re-read and still way better than Goosebumps.

I’m excited for the next one.

#books #bookrecommendation #booktok #bookstagram #bookstagrammer #booksky #readersofpixelfed #read #readinglog #rlstine #rlstinebooks #fearstreet #fearstreetbooks #rlstinefearstreet #horror #horrorbooks #thriller #yathriller #yahorror
It’s super interesting to read a philosopher’s take on how he thought Covid would impact our culture as a whole.

He was wrong, but I think we all were. I distinctly remember thinking that Covid could - for all the heartache and death it brought with it - also bring a reframing of our lives and a refreshed priority list to all of us. We could really take a moment and breathe for a bit, look around, and evaluate whether we as a society are okay with the grind that is modernity.

Turns out yes, people were okay with it. Well. Rich people were okay with it. As so often happens, the curtain lifted a bit to show that that so-called “unskilled labor force,” is actually holding up civilization while the rich just pretend to do important things.

At this point, Covid feels like a wasted opportunity to right an awful lot of wrongs.

Edit: I wrote the above in 2022 and I feel like I’ve just gotten more radicalized year after year from my disappointment in all of us as a society. We could have done so much. We could currently be in such a better place. But no, the workforce was forced to cave to the rich, showing their trick of limiting wages to barely livable also meant that nobody had the opportunity to reject the systems that they set up.

We were set up, exploited, and manipulated and words cannot express just how fucking angry I am about the whole thing because now there are ZERO silver linings or redeeming values to Covid19. Just a whole lot of unnecessary death and tighter grip on the people by corporations and billionaires.

It kills me, man. I’m not even kidding. I hate it and it breaks my heart every. single. day.

#bookstagram #book #books #bookreview #bookrecommendation #bookrecommendations #booklover #booknerd #bookaddict #read #readmore #readmorebooks #reader #constantreader #philosophy #slavojzizek #covid #pandemic #covidbook #booksky #readersofpixelfed #read #readinglog #covid19
I’m calling it: this is my favorite Goosebumps book of all time.

I can say this with confidence since I’m reposting all of these from IG until I catch up to where I’m at now in my reading. I’ve read the rest. This is my favorite.

The story centers on a young writer banging out stories on a magic typewriter and I can tell you why I liked this so much:

1) I love typewriters. Always have. I have three now and need two more before I call my little collection complete (a Hermes 2000, perhaps with a German keyboard so I can keep practicing my Deutsch and an Olivetti because that’s what “Richard Bachman” used). The steady click clack sounds cool to me and when I’m writing, the tactile feels and loud sounds are inspiring. I want to hear more and to do that I have to write more.

2) I was absolutely that kid. Not with a typewriter - my parents hopped on the computer train pretty early - but writing. I wrote ALL the time. I still write. I’m working on a second-chance romance right now and it will be my fourth book. I don’t publish them - they’re just fun to write and I’ve been doing this since I was nine or so.

So this book could have done anything and I would have still been onboard with it. As it is, the magic typewriter makes everything the kid writes actually happen and hijinks definitely ensue. It’s a fun, fast-paced story and once it gets rolling, it gets pretty exciting.

Out of the whole series, this is the one I want a hard copy of the most.

Also, if you’re looking for an affordable, reliable, fairly indestructible typewriter, look for a mid-1950s Silent Super from Smith Corona. I’ve dragged mine around the world in my checked luggage (in its case) and it’s fine. Can’t recommend it enough.

If you’re more into apps, check out Hanx Writer for simulated typewriter typeface and sound goodness.

#books #bookrecommendation #booktok #bookstagram #bookstagrammer #booksky #readersofpixelfed #read #readinglog #typewriter #goosebumps #goosebumpsbook #hanxwriter #tomhanks
I cannot put into words my dread at knowing I would need to eventually read this book. The cover and title are memorable and I remember thinking “ugh, so that’s Goosebumps now, eh?” as a kid.

I wasn’t stoked.

But then I read it and yeah, it’s just as dumb as you think it would be. A girl is slowly turning into a chicken after upsetting the neighborhood witch.

The only entertaining thing about it is that RL Stine has often been called a reader’s stepping stone (one place called him a training bra which is just hilarious) to Stephen King and I don’t think either party liked that. It’s very dismissive of Stine’s work and King had a character call Goosebumps dumb in “Fairy Tale.”

And THIS book is Stine actually taking a swing at being “inspired” by a King book and reworking it to be a Goosebumps book.

The King book? Thinner.

So does that make this fanfic? Or is there a better term? Perhaps a more nefarious term? Because as it stands right now it feels like parody more than anything else. If Mad Magazine took on Thinner, it would probably be this book.

So it’s entertaining to see Stine try to boil down a full-length novel about racism, classism, the justice system, and a failing marriage into a children’s book.

Obviously it’s not going to be a success but damn it, I enjoyed seeing him try.

When King’s Under the Dome came out, it really freaked me out. Not the story, but the fact that so many people lost their minds and followed a madman just because he had charisma. He was able to whip up a crowd and it led to horrible results that I could (now can) absolutely see happening. It freaked me out so badly I stopped reading King for a long time with the exception of Elevation.

Until I read this book and thought “Thinner was so much better than this. I should re-read that.”

So there are TWO good things about this book!

#books #bookrecommendation #booktok #bookstagram #booksky #readersofpixelfed #read #readinglog #stephenking #thinner #goosebumps #goosebumpsbooks
I am forty-one. Okay? Fully grown, husband, father, about to wrap up his first career, and old enough to get freaked out and buy a red convertible.

A Miata. Cool car but Jesus, get used to buying batteries.

I say that because the next part sounds a little kooky:

I thought this one was a little spooky.

I don’t mean the actual story, but little details here and there. The cold is scary because you can’t go far from your threat. Snowmen are NOT scary, but I think ANYTHING where everything is pointed the same way or doing the same thing is SUPER creepy. When I drive (in my Miata) past a pasture with sheep and they’ve all got their heads down eating, I like HARD for one to lift their head.

I don’t know. Call it a quirk.

So these little details kinda creep me out. Cold, snow, uniform snowmen, a town of suspicious locals, all of this is creepy.

But then the last half of the book happens and we’re back to a silly book.

This is one of those books where a different author could take these bones and make a FAR different book. A far SCARIER book.

Actually, I think this book might have a practical purpose. You could give this to an aspiring horror writer and ask them to take the bones and make their own story. Every writer would take it somewhere new but these bones hold a lot of promise.

It’s a good start, a disappointing end, and a whole lot of promise.

#books #bookrecommendation #booktok #bookstagram #bookstagrammer #booksky #readersofpixelfed #read #readinglog #rlstine #rlstinegoosebumps #goosebumps #goosebumpsbooks