underwaterlily's reviews
88 reviews

What would happen if I copied one of my GoodReads reviews into a blank, evil Book of Shadows? Would it transform into a glittering work of literary criticism? Would I fall into a trance and scribble Black Phillip in the margins, as main character Mel does? Or see the creatures I draw out of the corner of my eye, late at night?

What would happen if I tried to get rid of the book, and a passing influencer pulled it from the trash? Would YouTube’s servers burst into flames? What would this catastrophe mean for the Internet? For those of us who aren’t members of the Megachurch of Personality?

I love the Diary of a Haunting series. Book of Shadows has its problems (an unlikeable main character, characters who make poor decisions, etc.), but it’s just what I wanted to read the week before Halloween.

Frequent typos and questionable reasoning aside (“The vampyre is beautiful; therefore, he MUST be good!”), this book is excellent. I love the lore, and I’m curious about the world itself. (Is it the Moon?)

This book is incredibly sad.

I struggle most with the knowledge that, following their escape, Jessop’s eldest daughter, Betty, decided to return to the FLDS.

How I love Amanda Grange! She writes such elegant fluff. (It’s a high compliment from me! I devour these delicious, cotton candy novels.)

I spy, with my magic eye, a few gems here and there. I certainly wish I had a spaceman lover, or a ghost in my waterbed.

One of the best memoirs I’ve read.

I borrowed one of my mom’s hunky town romance novels. It did not disappoint. (It reads like Scooby Doo, with sexual tension and a real ghost!)

Lush and lyrical. The blood imagery/the vampire lore is unique and seeps into my subconscious. (I dreamt about this book for weeks after I read it.)

My eyes glazed over as I read multiple sections of this book. (Though the love letters from Kim Jong Un are wild!) It’s not Bob Woodward’s fault—Trump talks in circles and believes he’s the savior of the world. At one point, he tells Woodward, “I’ve done a tremendous amount for the Black community….And honestly, I’m not feeling any love.” How do you get a low empathy, self-centered president to admit he’s your typical white supremacist to admit he has privilege and has made missteps with the virus response? Woodward’s frustration is palpable. Perhaps it’s why, in the end, Woodward states, “Trump is the wrong man for the job.”

When I was thirteen, I absolutely loved Cameron Dokey’s The Talisman. I don’t know how I’d feel about the book if I reread it as an adult, but the impression it made on me has stuck with me all these years. To say I’m disappointed by Eternally Yours is an understatement. She’s a better storyteller than this! I grumbled to myself. It’s not that it’s a bad book, per se. In fact, it reads almost like a meditation on the cycle of abuse... with vampires and weak characters and a spooky teen club that reminds me of a coffee shop I frequented in the mid-90s. Yay, nostalgia! (Side question: does every vampire in 90s YA have white-blond hair?)