ThatBookIsOnFiyah

3.5/5 stars. While this story intrigues me with its contemplation of friendship, Puerto Rican life, and vengeance, it also frustrates me at times. Overall, Iglesias is a talented writer who weaves a story of a hurricane and its aftermath into a revenge tale about five friends trying to get justice when the mother of one of them is murdered. He ties the struggles of living in poverty on the island of Puerto Rico with battling with gangsters, inner demons, and actual demons.  My frustrations lie with the writer’s use of language in his story. I have some knowledge of Spanish, but not enough to read passages written in that language with no corresponding translation. I understand what he is trying to do with this technique, but I wish he or his editor would have considered the implications for accessing a broader audience. Early in the novel, I sought translations for these passages, but these moments really threw me out of the story. Further in, I quit looking for a translation and ...

5/5 stars. Jones writes some of the most interesting life-experience stories masquerading as horror novels, or in this case, a novella - about a young American Indian boy who wakes up one night to see his dead father walking through his house. The story revolves around the boy's experiences in trying to connect with his father but is really about how difficult every day has become for his hard-working mother, himself, and his little brother, since the death of his father. In less than 100 pages, Jones takes a significant life event and turns it into a coming-of-age tale that shares the experience of poverty with the reader, expounds on what it means to come from a tight-knit community (the reservation) but then to be alone trying to survive. This story delves into single motherhood, the difficulties of raising a child with special needs, and the loneliness and fear that comes from being different. Mapping the Interior is a powerful reading experience, ghost story, and coming-of-ag...

4/5 stars. A psychological thriller/horror story set in a small community in Maryland called Mariner’s Cove, where several of its inhabitants are overtaken by the urge to turn the local water tower into a ‘hive.’ One ten-year-old boy, Cory, realizes that something is wrong as graffiti begins showing up throughout the neighborhood, and his neighbor starts acting strangely. Malfi does an excellent job of ramping up the tension, paranoia, and uncertainty in the story, as the community members become increasingly obsessed with their project and focused on the Endgame. What is happening in Mariner’s Cove and what is Endgame? In some ways, this story reminded me of Joe Hill’s King Sorrow, that I read earlier this year, especially as the tension builds and the community members are uncertain of what will happen in the end. I was surprised to see, in his afterword, that Malfi has been sitting on this story for ten years. This is a powerful story for him to have held on to for so long. It has...

4.5/5 stars. (I listened to this on audiobook, so I apologize if anything is misspelled. I am just guessing phonetically!) Gehenna are bioengineered animal species that have been uplifted by humans to serve them, taking care of water, sewer, trash collecting, street cleaning, and other duties that humans would rather not do themselves. Scotch is a Gehenna of the raccoon variety who has found a way to work as a private eye. This story uniquely blends science, animal psychology, and detective noir into a wonderful novel of found family, friendship, and political intrigue. There are several factions in the Gehenna areas of the city, and they are all in search of one country mouse – Dr. Meese. Scotch has been hired by one of the factions to locate the mouse and bring him in; and so, Scotch ends up in the middle of all the infighting to find and control the mouse. Tchaikovsky is one of the most creative and prolific writers working in the SFF genre today. With this story, he has created a...

4.25/5 stars. Before I read the Green Bone Saga by Fonda Lee, I had heard about the wonderful characters and their growth throughout the story. After reading that trilogy, I agreed that the characters were great; however, except for two secondary characters, the growth of her characters was lacking. After reading this story, I believe she has done a much better job in demonstrating depth and growth of her three main characters, and for that reason, this novel is far superior to her previous work. The three primary characters are all ‘atier Contractors’ who work for an agency that assigns one Contractor to each Director of various governmental units responsible for maintaining human presence on the planet Aquilo. I appreciated that Isako and Kob were both fifty, at the ends of their respective illustrious careers, and in positions to make some difficult choices in their lives. As a person in my late fifties, I can relate to their circumstances and had a stronger connection to these two...

4/5 stars. I had heard a lot about this book before deciding to pick it up on Kindle and Audible. Almost everything I have seen has been very positive and I have to say this story has been very enjoyable and highly entertaining.   Andrew Givler is a talented writer with a wonderful imagination. I particularly have enjoyed the Romanesque setting and the military fantasy aspects of this cultivation/progression fantasy story. The magic system has been a unique one for me to think about, with the characters drawing their power from a variety of sources, but mostly iron, as they are soldiers. Some aspects of this system reminded me of the Saga of the Forgotten Warrior by Larry Correia, particularly the aspect of earning a Cor heart, taken from a meteorite(?), that allows the individuals to use their powers.   Our main characters come from a small town where they competed against each other for the honor of receiving their Cor hearts. We see them grow and learn to work together...