 Today on Typical Books we're going to talk about some of the books that I've read since finishing the Read What You Won't Challenge. It was only a 25-book challenge so it's not like it was a great big thing but yeah some books that weren't for me. Now I do want to say right off this was a patron pick and I am the one that picks what's on the patron pick poll so it's not about what was picked it's about what I put on it and I had in the past two years or so been reading more YA books and I think this might be the end of that because it's really not for me. I do desire something more horrific from my horror and I am going to be 50 in a couple years, very short years so I don't think the YA really works for me. Now there was a time and I think it was going through the virus where people needed some more cozy reading and that's probably where my desire to check out YA titles had come from so yeah we're done with that so I'm going to be done with reading the more cosier books. That does not include things like haunted house novels. I may still dip into YA for the haunted house stuff because it really lives side by side with cozy horror, cozy adult horror. You may note Darcy Coates writes a lot of really cool cozy horror. I'm certainly going to be continuing to read certain types of books from her but we're going to talk about the My Throat and Open Gray by Tori Bovolino which was really fun but I was really of two minds with it. Before we get into that something I loved you might have seen me posting on Instagram in a lonely place. Carl Edward Wagner sticks is one of my favorite short stories ever and it has been for years and years and years if you are interested in hearing a radio plate version of it I can probably find the link and put it in the notes below. It's really really really wonderful to listen to and it is just wonderful to read and always will be. So yeah I really enjoyed that. Fallon Court Books puts out amazing reissues so definitely check this out especially Carl Edward Wagner is a new name to you. Then I picked up some books right after that that just weren't for me and I tried like some little bits of reading little short books and one looked gorgeous 19 little stab wounds. This I stole from my husband's bookshelf by Alexis Dupont and we picked this up at Stoker Con in the dealer's room and the artwork is amazing and it is very poetic so I will have some poetry coming up very soon on the channel and I like stuff like Wrath James White writes amazing poetry and I do like some of the poetry that's in like Night Worms the zine and this these are short stories these are little drabbles little micro fictions which is neat too and I thought that would appeal to me because there's 19 little stab wounds little uh pica wrist short stories if you will and there are some very cute little ghost stories that I really did like but it was just a little too poetic and I guess when I in a poetry uh frame of mind I want my poems to be poems and I want my prose to be prose or something I don't know but I do like very poetic prose like Kathy Koja writes very poetic prose in my estimation so I don't know why this was a miss for me but I can see it being a hit for a lot of people so I still recommend it because if you like something a little more whimsical then 19 little stab wounds may be for you not a sentence you think you'd say all the time 19 little stab wounds may be for you Waif by Samantha Klossnik I did enjoy this quite a lot but it still missed some marks for me I think what I wanted was something longer a little more meaty and I wanted a longer time spent with the couple because there is a couple in this and the female is a wretched human being and she really wants something else from her husband and that instigates some body dysmorphia on his part perhaps or just wanting to throw his money around and please his wife for whatever reason I don't know why he'd want to please her because she's pretty horrible but yeah a really good study in horrible people if you like that and I do and I do like her writing and I like the way this is written all these books have written really well and we'll get to the one that's written the best but that I like the least oh well Waif was good just I don't know what it was maybe it was just the way that the story changed halfway through to be about some very different people I wish I could read that story we got sort of a Cronenberg style story going on here where we deal with body issues and it gets kind of body horror but it doesn't go all in there we have some angry horrible people that are trapped in a relationship together and we don't stay there and then we have a sort of subculture counterculture sort of organization not unlike fight club but a girl fight club in a way but worse than that and we don't go all in there so I think I wanted to follow one of those threads longer than I was able to but yeah really good I'm so glad that it's been reissued oh my gosh I do have to say a big thank you to off limits press for reissuing that because I probably wouldn't have gotten otherwise this book was the patron pick speaking of the patron pick there is a new one it's a tie as far as I can see yeah it's still a tie oh no it's not the haunting of velkwood by gwendoline keist is what I'm gonna be reading I came here to do this video to announce a tie breaking poll that I'll post up on youtube and just shortly before I guess or during recording another vote rolled in so hey here we are announcing the next patron pick poll read for next month will be the hunting of velkwood by gwendoline keist you're welcome to read along if you want to hear more about that particular book jason from jason's weird reads interviewed gwendoline keist not long ago it was a live stream I'm pretty sure it's up now the haunting of gwendoline keist and it was really cool I got to hang out for most of that I only missed a little the beginning then went back and watched it again so if you're interested in watching the author interview definitely check that out if you've already read the haunting of gwendoline keist don't spoil it for me because I'm very interested in reading what these co-mingled stories taking place in a town that is under a veil of foggy secrecy and it is sort of like a supernatural place not unlike my throat and open grave the plot here is likened to labyrinth in that a young girl leaves her town to rescue her brother who's been kidnapped by the lord of the wood in this case or l o w as they so jauntily call him I thought that this was a period piece it's not it is contemporary and I loved it I loved that I loved that it is a folk horror told in the common era people have cell phones and people watch trash tv I like it I like that a lot there's a lot I like about this book the style is very good it's very well written I like the characters even the little tiny characters uh fletcher is like this person who hangs out that is a like a helper of some sort like a house person or something and they are really cool they're the one that watches trash tv but they're also trapped into this lord of the wood place the hollow where they live and it is a place across the river somewhere in like pennsylvania it's within the appalachian mountains so that's a different state I think I'm thinking of the pokonos perhaps but appalachia goes through new york state as well so this could be anywhere on the east coast very interesting how people come of their own accord to this little hovel this hollow that is hidden in the woods under a veil of secrecy uh also people get kidnapped there as well because if somebody offers someone else from the small towns nearby the lord of the wood has rights to go and claim them much like little owen a baby I think he's three months old and he is lee's younger brother and he gets taken by the lord of the wood who of course and this is where the story gets weird to me so the first like third is awesome the last like eighth is great and like sort of the big big reveal the big triple reveal the third reveal of all the reveals is really good this middle part is why a fantasy romance and that's not for me I didn't know that's what it was I didn't know it was a romance and it really is more of a romance than a horror oh well it has a fantastic cover it is a beautifully bound beautifully printed book I love that and some people might not like this that it is a wrap hard cover of the same cover that is on the dust jacket it's not a traditionally printed hardcover book in that sense but it is gorgeous and I love this I love the selection of the font I like the saturation of the ink it is slightly desaturated it seems to me so all the ink seems a little bit gray I like the frontest piece on each chapter I think is just a gorgeously put together book and the even the back pieces where you have a little bit of advertising for the author's other books it's just tastefully done it's a very tastefully done book and I can see how this would work very well in an ebook so you're going to probably get and I'm just guessing here but it would be foolish if it wasn't this way the same experience reading this on an ebook then you do reading it hardcover or paperback because it looks like they're going to use the exact same files for everything so it's not vastly different and I think that's lovely I think it's a lovely thing it's a lovely book it's just the middle parts not for me a lot of the pandering made for an awkward reading experience from time to time although I really love the character that was attached to and of course the weird way that it is feminist not feminist where you know a Bechdel test or Bechdel test however you pronounce it isn't something I like to apply to books or films because a lot of time that fails it is still a wonderful thing or a lot of times it is a feminist thing and they just happen to fulfill a lot of the rules of that test but it is handy from time to time when you're trying to place what it is about this book that strikes you as so anti-feminist it's the fact that it's all about the dude now I am not one to go social science on something like fiction and I did enjoy a lot of this book but I really rolled my eyes and I don't know if it's because I'm a little older and I'm not interested in romance to begin with I'm not interested in her wanting to be seduced or the the want of the lord of the woods to seduce her and none of that interested me whatsoever I wanted him to be an aloof king of the forest and not a sexy love interest and maybe maybe it is my age because it's just gross reading about young people wanting to get it on it's gross although the spicy scene as people say the sex scene was really fantastical and it was no different really than the sex scene in fight club and I've said fight club twice in this so I'm gonna have to watch it sometime soon where it's just you know really surrealistic impressionistic it's not like pounding flesh or anything like that so it is like really light if you don't like sex scenes like I don't I think it did very very well it just still wasn't for me the wraparound story though of the lord of the woods is great it is a great folk horror so if you like YA if you like romance fantasy this is really fun if you're in for the horror like I was maybe not so much so we've had like a whole deal of disappointments here I picked up a jack london book which for a cleanse palette people of the abyss where he goes to london right a few years maybe a decade after the white chapel murders jack the ripper and hangs out with all the destitute and forlorn so I think that will really brighten my day we have all these review copies gray dog withered this is gonna be fantastic and before I get to those I'm hallow by tim McGregor my podcast partner west dead air night from the dead air podcast actually specifically recommended that I get to that soon because he's very curious so I'll be reading it so he doesn't have to although he probably will I bet you by the time I'm done anyway have you read any of those did you read I throw it an open grave are you interested in following along while I read the haunting of velkwood by gwendolyn keist let me know in the comments below thank you ever so much for watching and have an oaky spooky day