This was a really beautiful story, and even though one of my best friends is Nigerian, I found myself learning some really fun new things about Nigerian culture from the setting of this book. Tragic, but a really well written depiction of grief.

This little book is a great resource for some of the wisdom and thoughts of Fred Rogers. Mr. Rogers was as much a part of my growing up as Sesame Street and Disney. Hearing his words now so many years later hits on a deeper level, a more appreciative level. With all the negativity and chaos going on in the world right now, it may do you some good to read this book or listen to the audiobook. An absolute 5 stars.

This was a very well-written book that managed to be extremely thorough without being excessively dry. Funny enough, I found myself finishing his sentences because I had read a book to the kids I nannied, Nathan Hale's Hazardous Tales: Donner Dinner Party, that I actually knew a lot of the historical details from family names and fates to the side-adventures of various characters that joined and left the wagon trail along the way. This book was always going to be heavy due to the subject matter, but it never felt sensationalized or drawn out, treating the history as a matter of fact without being too dramatized. A great and quick read!

While maybe not my favorite SK book, I really enjoyed this as compared to something like the Hunger Games. A misinformed competition that is treated like a badge of honor but all it yields is trauma and tragedy. The exploration of why and how the contestants all got there and the raw horrors of the loss one by one was almost more of a philosophical exploration than thriller/horror novel. Excited to see the movie when it comes out!

What a great audiobook cast! I did find myself a little zoned out in the middle of this book based on the short chapters that could range from emotional to gory to highly military technical, but overall the voice acting was really strong and did keep me in a lot of parts. I loved the world building that often gets overlooked in the highly focused apocalypse books like the vernacular and cultural shifts that come during and after big moments in history, it felt like a really interesting sociological study in that way!

This is an awesome book that helps you to examine your own fears, insecurities, and cognitive biases using inventive metaphors and wacky humor. Campbell Walker, aka struthless on YouTube, uses creative illustrations, his wonderful sense of silliness, and his own lived experiences to help you journal your way to accepting and understanding yourself better. His approach is not only funny and whimsical, but easy to comprehend. You can tell that he's been through it all himself and that he knows what he's talking about. For anyone struggling for mental clarity, I highly recommend this book.

Junji Ito does it again! This is perhaps my first standalone I've read from Ito; I'm more familiar with his short story collections. This is an absolutely horrifying tale of a planet from another dimension that crosses into our realm and makes a devastating approach to Earth, destroying everything in its path. This is a story that goes hard in both its storytelling and its visuals.

I was hoping that this would get a little bit more of a story climax than it had, but I definitely am finding myself thinking about the storyline of this and I'd definitely be interested in reading more of the series. Between this and Psalm for the Wild-Built, I think I can enjoy robot fiction but it's just not entirely up my alley!

This was a very interesting read and my first experience with an unreliable narrator. To be honest, I almost DNF'ed this because the main character, who is a high school teenager, was very rambling in his narration. It was as if his narrative style was 90% rambling with only 10% of the actual plot threaded through what he was saying. However, when I got to Chapter 4 or 5, the whole thing started to come together for me, and I could see a path that the story could or would take. While I'm only giving it 3 stars, I'm honestly glad I read it! It gave me a new horror reading experience that I didn't expect.

This was a really incredible novel, it built a really amazing universe in such a short time! I thought the monsters were incredible and terrifying, and the final battle was blockbuster worthy. I think this would make an incredible movie or limited series! So glad I bought a digital copy on Libro.FM so I can revisit this again and again!