Reviews and Comments

Johnny Seven Moons

JohnnySevenMoons@bookrastinating.com

Joined 3 years, 2 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!

This link opens in a pop-up window

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

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)

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 :(

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.