The start of this year's reading list
Locke and Key by Joe Hill and illustrated by Gabriel Rodriguez
Following the murder of their father, the Locke family moves to their father's childhood home of Key House. There the Locke children, Tyler, Kinsey, and Bode, discover mysterious keys each with their own unique, magical properties: a key that can transport a person anywhere in the world, a key that can let you into anyone's head, a key that can let you fly. So many possibilities, all of them hidden throughout the property. Also lurking around the house though is a hidden and dangerous enemy seeking to take the keys for their own gain.
A haunting story spanning six collected volumes (roughly 5 or 6 comic issues in each, I think), Locke and Key follows the three Locke children as they discover magical keys hidden throughout their house and protect them from the monster seeking to collect them too. At the time I picked up the first volume, I didn't know about the Netflix series adaptation because, well at the time I didn't have access to Netflix. Then, like a lot more books than I'd like to admit, it ended up buried under a pile of other books and papers until I recently found it again. By that time I'd already finished season one of the Netflix series. Then, I fell off of watching the show (still haven't gotten back to it yet, there's so many other shows) but managed to pick up the rest of the volumes (Vol 2 from Book-Off, and Vol 3-6 from Other Realms where the cashier was thrilled I was taking their entire stock from the shelves), and finished them. The comics and the show differ from the start (if that's a deal-breaker for you) but so far I enjoyed both. I am hoping the show ends differently than the comic series though because that one got really dark.
How to Fight Presidents by Daniel O'Brien
In the Introduction: "That's what you're reading right now. The most interesting, exciting, bizarre, or otherwise badass facts about every great psychopath who has ever stood on top of Mount America and declared himself its protector, and how you might be able to use these fact to your advantage, should you happen to, I don't know, travel back in time to find yourself face to face with a president you angered somehow."
In a fight with George Washington: "He would return from many battles unscathed but with bullet holes in his clothing ... so many times that George Washington admitted on more than one occasion that he could not be killed in battle."
A quick, funny, sort-of biographical look into 38 presidents who lead the United States of America (from George Washington to Ronald Reagan, not sure why some were skipped), ... and if you could beat them in a fight. Each chapter is dedicated to a brief look into the life of a president: his background, his character, his achievements, etc; followed by how to win a fight if you happen to go toe-to-toe with him for whatever reason (spoiler: there's some presidents that you just won't win a fight against).
I bought this book a long, long time ago, probably back when I still browsed Cracked.com at least once a day. I'm even pretty certain that's where I first saw this book advertised. For this particular read through, I started reading toward the end of December, deciding to finally give it another re-read as it's one of the funniest books I own (and I just wanted a laugh to end the year as, at the time, I was still under quarantine from COVID). Humorous and educational (I guess), it's definitely something I'd recommend reading if you want to laugh while also learning some facts about our presidents.
Failure by J.L Westover
A collection of comic strips by J.L. Westover chronicling glorious moments of failure to make you laugh in a "Hahahaha... aww fuck, that's me/ could be me" kind of way.
Just something to skim through and laugh at while at home when I was taking the Locke and Key comics to work to read during my lunch breaks. I ended up getting this through a Kickstarter fundraiser after someone shared it on Facebook way, way back. So far back, in fact, that when it was finally charged, I was scrambling through all my purchases to figure out where the money was going. Then came the printing delay and shipping delay alert emails until the book eventually arrived (along with a brand-new mug).
The Affair by Lee Child
"He said, 'Is there a reason I don't get out of this truck and kick your butt?'
I said, 'Two hundred and six reasons.'
He said, 'What?'
'That's how many bones you got in your body. I could break them all before you put a glove on me.'"
"He was a warrior. I wasn't. I was a brawler. He lived for the tactical victory. I lived to piss on the other guy's grave. Not the same thing. Not the same thing at all."
It's 1997 and Jack Reacher is still with the Special Investigators in the US Army. He's sent undercover to a base town in Mississippi to help the Army in its investigation of a young woman murdered and dumped in an alley. The local police suspect a soldier while the Army tries to pin the killing on a civilian. Reacher is unfortunately discovered immediately by the local police chief and former marine. She decides to keep Reacher on-hand, using his skills to solve the murder, as well as uncover a conspiracy and other hidden crimes.
Again, I don't know what to say about these books having gone through so, so many others (no, I'm not going back to count this time). If for some reason you read about me reading books and are wondering where my review of the previous book is, well, I didn't read it yet. Shocking, I know, as this means I've started to read them out of the order they were published (something I thought I wouldn't do). If you need to know, Barnes and Nobles was missing the previous book the last time I was there ... and I really needed the fix. So, as this one (and one other one) are technically prequels to the "Jack Reacher, drifter" character that we know, I figured there was no harm jumping ahead a bit (don't worry, I did manage to pick up the previous one just recently from Amazon and I've jumped it up my reading list).
Another thing that I also want to note (sort-of spoiler) is that this book starts off the "Jack Reacher, drifter" character. After x number of books (I told you, I wasn't going back to count), we finally have that reason for Reacher's separation from the Army and the start of his travels with nothing but a toothbrush and the clothes on his back.
Haunted by Chuck Palahniuk
"But the stories you can digest, that you can tell - you can take control of those past moments. You can shape them, craft them. Master them. And use them to your own good.
Those are stories as important as food.
Those are stories you can use to make people laugh or cry or sick. Or scared. ...
It's how we can eat all the shit that happens."
Replying to an advertisement for an exclusive and secluded writer's retreat, eighteen individuals are instead put into a Survivor-like situation as they find their supplies dwindling and conditions worsening, their captor forcing them to write their stories for his own enjoyment ... And that's sort-of the twisted plot of this whole thing, collections of haunting short stories and poems tied together by a kidnapping frame work.
I'm honestly not sure why I bought this book in the first place. Maybe it was around October/ November and I was looking for something spooky to read. Maybe I was interested because it was a Palahniuk novel. I don't remember. I know I got it about three batches of books ago and just left it, putting it aside again and again to read other stuff until I finally did read it. And what a fucking read it was, and I was completely wrong about what kind of story it would be. It isn't quite a horror story in the traditional monster-sense but "shock-value" stories set in the real world that haunt you long after you've closed the book. (sorry, I don't think anyone actually reads these things, but if you do, it's going to be long and full of spoilers). To be honest, I almost didn't finish it just because of the first short story "Guts". Holy fucking shit, what a ride that one was. Only 10 pages long and I still had a time getting through it especially since I do most of my reading these days at work during my lunch hour. There's an afterword where Palahniuk states that when he did live readings of this story, people would actually faint during this story. It's ... holy shit ... it's a lot, and it's just the first story of the 23. I literally had to limit my reading to either my lunch hour at work or a brief window of time at home several hours before I went to bed because reading it any closer to bed time would just leave me and my thoughts with these horrible and haunting stories. To me, it was the hardest of them all to get through. If you followed the link, you know what it's about. Other stories include a rich couple that finds thrills in pretending to be homeless until one night they witness a murder and the husband is later killed; a knife review written by a murder as blackmail against the company that manufactures those same great knives; the fear that grips a city when a believed supernatural entity goes on a killing spree ... which the killer is hinted at being a bowling ball simply dropped from a high enough roof.
Battlegrounds by Jim Butcher
"That destruction on this scale simply could not be brushed under the rug, that this many witnesses could not be silenced. Whatever happened in the battle, whoever prevailed, one fact was clear.
Things were going to change.
The mortal world couldn't take something like this in stride."
Obviously the negotiations between the Accorded Nations and the Fomor did not go well, and the Fomor, led by the last Titan, have declared war. With his city of Chicago under siege, Harry Dresden, his friends, and anyone else that can be mustered together will face off against the nightmares once forgotten to the civilized world. One of the most epic battles in the entire "Dresden Files" series, Dresden and company will have to use all their strengths and every trick they have to take down and army led by a monster older than humanity.
Following the "Halo 2" ending of Peace Talks, Battlegrounds in its entirety is simply one giant battle between the Accorded Nations (The Winter and Summer Faerie Courts, The White Council of Wizards, The White Court Vampires, Baron Marcone, etc) and the Fomor army along with other monsters that humanity had driven into hiding such as the Black Court Vampires and the Jotum giants. Obviously, as with any epic fight scene, Butcher pulls out all the stops, allowing each of his characters to unleash the full might of their powers against the other as they all fight to the death. It's a High Fantasy, swords-and-sorcery armies clashing together in modern day Chicago complete with spears and shields and magic and shotguns. Of course, the constant action of fight scene after fight scene needs to be slown down at times for pacing and so your brain isn't continuously bombarded by images of violence and death, and Butcher does a great job of this too with Dresden's reflections and full-stop descriptions of the scene. And, of course, with so much happening, at several spots I needed to stop and re-read, then re-read again what I just read because, well, what-the-fuck just happened. In the aftermath (spoilers ... whatever, you don't care) the Fomor are driven back and a new enemy reveals itself, and the city (and humanity in general) is left coming to terms with the reality that monsters are real, the conclusion promises more to come, perhaps soon the big conclusion trilogy Butcher hinted at in several interviews.
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