I went into Unsweetened somewhat blind. I knew Jodie Sweetin had struggled with substance abuse, but outside of the occasional tabloid headline at a supermarket checkout, I’d never paid much attention to her personal life. It just wasn’t on my radar. I did, however, grow up loving Full House. No matter how saccharine sweet it got, I always enjoyed the episodes, and I especially liked reading some of the behind-the-scenes stories in If You Would Have Told Me by John […]
Tales from the Gas Station: Volume One is a little weird and a little dumb — but it never fails to be entertaining. The book blends elements of humor with bite-sized bits of horror, but more than anything, it just leans into being delightfully odd. It’s not quite scary enough to be true horror, and not quite sharp enough to be full-on satire. Instead, it exists in this strange middle ground that makes for a fun, easy read. There are […]
I have a real affinity for stories that play with liminal spaces — places where geometry doesn’t quite make sense — so I was genuinely excited to dive into The No-End House. I was hoping for a classic haunted house tale or maybe something leaning into the psychological horror of A Short Stay in Hell. What I got instead was a rushed story about uninteresting characters encountering midget Nazis (yes, really), dinosaurs, stolen kidneys, and Jason Voorhees. Absurd and implausible […]
The premise of The Black Farm caught my attention—a surreal purgatory reserved for those who take their own lives. It’s a unique and unsettling concept, one that offers a lot of potential for exploring deep philosophical and psychological questions. While the book wasn’t bad, I often felt it could have been written more effectively. The tone and the protagonist’s shifts in perspective happen quickly and sometimes without much buildup, which made the character arc feel abrupt. More than once, it […]
A Return To The Couch This audiobook is a perfect fit for the Dr. Katz style of comedy — laid back, but also tightly written. Longtime fans of the original show will appreciate how it captures the same humor and format, just without the animation. The guest comedians are consistently funny and witty, with Demetri Martin standing out as a real scene-stealer. Each chapter works best when enjoyed in one sitting, making it easy to slip into that familiar therapeutic […]
The Performance, Not the Person My Story feels less like encountering Marilyn Monroe the woman and more like watching Marilyn Monroe the performance. The book presents itself as a memoir but never shakes the sense of being unfinished, stylized, and more concerned with image than honesty.Monroe casts herself as a misunderstood intellect, yearning to transcend the “dumb blonde” roles Hollywood pushed on her. Yet the life we know she actually lived—her choices, her career moves, her embrace of stardom—rarely matches […]
A Short Stay in Hell is a deceptively simple, deeply unsettling novella that lingers long after you’ve finished it. Drawing from a unique blend of existential horror and speculative fiction, the story imagines a version of Hell that is quiet, repetitive, and almost maddeningly mundane—more Kafka than Dante. The book does a masterful job of evoking despair not through gore or torment, but through endless sameness, pointlessness, and the slow erosion of meaning. For fans of liminal spaces—the eerie in-between […]
I didn’t click with this one at first—it was recommended to me after reading “Piranesi” and “A Short Stay in Hell”. I expected a similar atmosphere, but Mount Char opened very differently. As the story progressed, though, the novel’s strange blend of myth and mundane slowly pulled me in. By halfway through, I was fully absorbed in Hawkins’ world, where ancient cosmic forces brush up against everyday reality. The figure of “Father”—obsessed with unlocking universal truths and extending his own […]
Reflections in Stone Piranesi grabbed me right away. As a fan of liminal spaces, I was drawn into Susanna Clarke’s vast, mysterious labyrinth — a House filled with endless halls, shifting tides, and massive statues that invoke both grandeur and unease. The setting is dreamlike and strange, but also richly constructed and oddly comforting. Clarke does a fantastic job of crafting a world that feels ancient and sacred, yet unknowable. The House is odd — both hopeful and hopeless at […]
When I picked up Danny Trejo’s biography, I thought I knew what I was getting into. I knew he had done time in prison, struggled with addiction, and was best known for playing the tough, intimidating — albeit often killed — presence on screen. But the book surprised me at every page turn, revealing the personal life of a complexly flawed, yet deeply compassionate man. I didn’t expect to learn about the deep respect he earned behind bars, or how […]
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