User Profile

Johnny Seven Moons

JohnnySevenMoons@bookrastinating.com

Joined 1 year, 4 months ago

Pseudonymous writer/reader who loves both maximalist novels and flash fiction. I also love to read about Buddhism; mindfulness; science (particularly astrophysics and human perception); Black history, literature and criticism; science fiction, fantasy; poetry; and psychology. I love to read newspapers, front to back, although it's a luxury these days. (I also love Harper's, but just for the cryptic crossword at the back!)

I created this account just to procrastinate from doing work!

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Silvia Moreno-Garcia: Silver Nitrate (Hardcover, 2023, Del Rey) 3 stars

Montserrat has always been overlooked. She’s a talented sound editor, but she’s left out of …

Great October read. Combination occult horror/romance/film buff novel set in Mexico City in the 1990s. Two long-time friends on the verge of a romantic relationship unknowingly risk reviving a Nazi hierophant with a growing cult following who are developing violent magic powers

I have a bias against books I think are written to be movies, and I think a few of the action scenes turned me off personally, but the relationship between the two characters is handled deftly and the main occult-based plot is built well. The magic is well contained -- not too much hand wavy stuff,

Keith Rosson: Fever House (2023, Random House Publishing Group) No rating

A small-time criminal. A has-been rock star. A shadowy government agency. And a severed hand …

This book pissed me off, because it’s not a standalone novel but the first book of a series and I didn’t pick that up before I started reading it.

It’s a fun set up — a severed hand (of a demon or devil?) causes people to go violently bonkers and/or kill themselves to show allegiance, but if someone dies near the hand they become something like a zombie

It has a fun gangster/noir vibe, but really you’re kinda waiting to see how the author is going to pull it all together … and then he doesn’t, because the story continues in a future book :(

@beladozer Isn't that the way too many times? Some call it the "Suck Fairy," i.e. someone came along and ruined that book you used to love! Part of it (for me) is that nothing is as good as the first time.

It is honestly why I rarely read books twice. The ones I love and cherish could get seriously tarnished. I tried to read The Phoenix and the Carpet and the Narnia books with my kids -- they did NOT stand up! ;)

Jem Calder: Reward System (2023, Picador) No rating

This book is really interesting to me because it's billed as a group of "short stories," (the first topping out at ~100 pages), yet the characters repeat -- all the stories are in the same universe.

It's very hypermodern -- set in London and its suburbs, but it could apply to any city anywhere. Very much in the present -- likes, replies, favorites and all.