Jyvur Entropy's Blog, page 7

I Read a Grocery Store Haunted House Book

I love buying books at the grocery store. It’s one of my favorite things. I go do a weekly chore and get to pick up a new romance novel.

The grocery store doesn’t have a massive selection and they really only carry a few genres. Mainly romance, thrillers, and some horror. Every once in a while you’ll see a memoir or a beloved classic if a movie adaptation is about to come out.

A couple of years back, I started noticing a lot of one specific type of horror novel: Haunted House horror.

Every time I go to the grocery store, I see these damn things. The covers are nearly identical. A good deal of them are pumped out by Poisoned Pen Press.

I don’t know what’s up with it. Has the Haunted House subgenre experienced some sort of weird resurgence?

Mass market books are all about what sells. What sells quickly and what sells a lot. Mass marketing publishing gained popularity in the 1930s. Pocket Books was the company that truly popularized this business model. They made paperback versions of popular genres available in drugstores and newsstands (UNC).

From the inception of mass market books, it’s all about selling the popular genres. The genres that literary snots turn their pretentious noses up at. The stuff that people are likely to buy on impulse.

For me, that usually means a swoony bodice ripper that I can’t resist grabbing on my way from trail mix to iced coffee.

But I guess for a lot of people, that impulse buy is a haunted house story.

So I bought myself a grocery store haunted house book and gave it a read to see what the fuss is all about.

Here is the book I purchased fall of 2020.

So, it took me a while, but I finally finished reading this haunted house book that I bought at the supermarket.

Look, this isn’t life-changing literature or anything, but it’s not supposed to be. It’s solid for what it is: a light, fluffy spooky story. It’s not a page-turner or anything, but it’s entertaining enough.

This book consists of one longer story and then three short stories. I actually think the short stories were a lot scarier than the main Gillespie House story. Especially the mannequin story! That one really freaked me out. And a mall is such an unusual place to set a horror story. I think it was really neat.

As for the main story, as I said, it was good for what it was. Of course, the main character is an absolute idiot putting herself in all kinds of dangerous, crazy situations. Like running around a creepy possibly-haunted house, exploring hidden passages in the middle of the night. But that’s part of the fun of horror. Having an idiotic unnecessarily risk-taking protagonist gives readers a masochistic thrill.

And none of the characters in any of these stories are all that complex. They don’t have hardly any distinguishable characteristics and half the time you can’t even tell what age or gender they are. But I’m going to argue, for stories like this, it’s fine. Not every story needs to do every single thing.

Remember Goosebumps? I loved reading those as a kid. The protagonists of those books were always very bland too. Because fluffy horror stories are far more about plot than character. We don’t need a fully-fleshed out main character or a character arc. That’s not what most people are reading for.

So, I really don’t have the same complaints as many of those who have rated this book so low.

But I will say I thought some aspects of Gillespie House could have been improved. The cult aspect was very interesting at first, but that sub-plot just wasn’t explored as much as it could have been. I would have loved more details about that. I also think the haunting would have seemed more sinister if the father had truly starved to death and died inside of the mausoleum his daughter locked him in. That could have been so creepy. This girl hearing the pounding of her father as he slowly weakens and dies. but, he doesn’t have that torment, and he doesn’t die (or does he??…It’s all a little unclear). Because when our protagonist finds him, he’s still moving around inside of the mausoleum. He seems to be living in some kind of walking zombified state. This is all supposed to be because of some pact with evil he made through his skull-on-the-wall cult thing (not entirely sure-this really could have been explained better). But if his pact with evil kept him living on inside the tomb….eh, just not as horrifying as a human being locked up to slowly die. him just being this supernatural thing made the climax fall a little flat for me.

All of that said, I did still enjoy this book. It took me over a year to finish it, because it became my pick-it-up-and-read-when-I-don’t-feel-like-reading book. It’s not a page-turner, but it is entertaining enough, so I had on my shelf as my go-to reading slump book.

It’s a very tropey haunted house story, with some incredibly eerie bonus short stories at the end.

I’ll be picking up another supermarket haunted house book now that I’m finally done with this one

Some of my writing friends have told me they do not have haunted house books in the grocery store, so this may be regional.

Do you have half an aisle of haunted house books in your grocery store? Have you read any of these mass-market haunted house books?

Oh my Gosh, Lookit what’s back on wattpad

Revised to meet wattpad standards. Now 100% free of edgy boy bullshit.

The word incel is not in this book. I don’t want to talk to anyone about incels. I’d love it if people would stop with the ‘Jyvur is the incel lady, let me go explain to her why they are evil and bad’ because I have no damn energy left to white knight for that community anymore. I give zero fucks what anybody has to say about incels. I’m not gonna agree with you that they’re all a bunch of rapist mass shooters and I’m also not gonna white knight.

The book has nothing to do with incel memes, incel forums. I took all of that out.

I’m very regretful that I ever went poking around that side of the interweb. I’ll never go back there again.

And if people will stop saying the i-word at me, maybe I can completely forget the whole ridiculous saga that was 2019/2020.

This is now a book about a sad, lonely guy with depression who wishes he had a girlfriend. Not an incel. That is what the book should have been from the start.

But I’m sort of an asshole who loves to provoke people and likes attention, sometimes even if it’s negative. So that’s why I had such a grand time shocking and appalling everybody by calling the book ‘Incel’ and incorporating blackpill memes and shit.

So, my bad. The book is not steeped in shock value any more.

I’d love it if every trace of the original book could be removed from the internet, but I don’t really have control over that.

Anyway, here it is if you want to read it: Feels Bad, Man

Can people please stop saying ‘incel’ in my comments section?

I just want to finish my damn book without going crazy again. I’ve never deleted comments until now. I am gonna delete comments that throw out the i-word.

I’m a nut and I can not be provoked into fucking around on that side of the interweb again.

But if y’all can act right and not call every damn sad, lonely dude an incel, please read my book and leave comments.

Like I’m done white-knighting. Everybody got what they wanted. I’m just trying to finish a book that I once really really cared about without going crazy again.

I tried to write other things, but I haven’t been able to capture the passion that I had for that book. I hope the rewrite will be stronger than the original. I’ve thrown out over a hundred pages of content and made significant changes to plot and characters.

Coping with Depression

I don’t know exactly when I first started feeling depressed.

Before I get any further, let me just acknowledge that like, literally everyone has depression.

Very few people I’ve met don’t have issues with depression.

You know why?

Because being alive sucks.

It’s awful.

All the terrible things are so so terrible, and all the good things are just…meh. They’re fine.

So I’ve seen and been through so many horrible things. I’ve seen and experienced so much violence.

That was the terrible things. They all happened a long time ago, but it almost always feels like it’s still happening. I don’t know how to make it stop feeling like it’s still happening.

Therapy didn’t help me make that feeling stop. All they did was tell me I have a chemical imbalance and stick me on various prescription drug cocktails that made me feel worse.

Nothing makes that feeling stop.

And the older I get, the more pathetic I feel. Like you sad old bitch, shut up already. So some bad stuff happened when you were a kid. Then it got a little better, but there were a few more events of that nature in your early twenties. It’s over now. Everything is fine and it’s over and it’s okay and you never have to talk to any of the people who did those things ever again, not if you don’t want to. So shut up, because you’re a really pathetic fuck and nobody cares about your trauma, because everybody has their own trauma, so shut up, you self-absorbed whiney pathetic fuck. It’s been almost ten years since the last time somebody was violent to you. It will be ten years very soon. So get over it get over it get over it get over it.

Well, you know, everybody has something. My thing is just that a lot of chaos and violence happened in my home growing up and I feel like my brain is still all scrambled up from it, even though I should have found a way to settle myself down by this point.

Everybody says you have to process your trauma. I’m saying that I don’t know how. I’ve talked and talked and talked.

It still always feels like everything bad that happened is still happening. It always feels like something horrible is going to happen.

And even when nothing horrible happens, it’s like….okay, well…this is fine. I went through so many horrible things. The horrible things are so so horrible and the good things are just…meh.

They’re just fine. They’re nothing to write home about.

The horrible things were when I saw my two year old sister picked up and hurled into a wall. The time my mom beat our dog with a chain and the dog kept screaming and I didn’t know anything could scream like that and every time I think of it, that scream is in my ears again. The horrible things are the time there were maggots in the kitchen and my mom made me scoop them up with my bare hands and I tried to shut my brain off, because I couldn’t deal with what was happening. The horrible things are sitting in the closet when I was nine and looking at the welts and dried blood on my arms, and reading the Babysitter’s Club, trying not to think about anything except Kristy and Claudia.

Those are the horrible things.

What are the good things? A walk outside. Watching movies with my husband. Trips to the beach.

Those things are all fine. They are just fine.

They just weren’t worth all of the horrible things.

Being alive is stupid and horrible and I hate it.

Because none of the good things will ever come anywhere close to feeling as good as the bad things felt bad.

There were so many strong, awful emotions that went with the horrible things.

Shouldn’t there be some kind of equal but opposite reaction? Shouldn’t I feel joy as strong as the pain? Shouldn’t I feel bliss as strong as the torment?

It doesn’t exist.

The good things will always just be fine.

And the bad things are unbearable. They make you wish sadness could kill you. Unfortunately, it can’t.

The first time I remember feeling hopeless, I was five. I was just about to move out of my grandparents’ house and in with my mom and her boyfriend, my younger sisters’ dad. Their dad, my stepdad, really didn’t like me. He yelled at me a lot and made fun of me a lot. I was incredibly sad that we were going to be moving in with him. I used to always wish on bright stars when I was little. I started doing it with my grandma, after we watched Pinocchio together. I was sitting in the backseat with my younger sister Carly. She was a baby then. My stepdad had left us in the car and gone into one of his friends’ houses for something. I leaned against the glass and looked up at a bright star. I tried to think of a wish. I felt…a very strong, very hollow sort of emotion. Then I said, “I wish that everything was better.”

The first time I wished I was dead, I was nine. My mom dragged me across the house by my hair and threw me out the front door. She screamed at me to go. I did go. But then she got in the car and came after me. It was raining that day. As I got back in the car with her I wished a bolt of lightning would come down and hit me.

I didn’t know what suicide was.

I learned what suicide was in middle school. We had to watch a video about suicide in health class in 7th grade. My immediate reaction was something like, “Huh…People can just decide to die?…What a good idea.”

That same day I went through the medicine cabinet and pulled together all the pills. I wondered how many I’d have to take to die like the girl in the movie.

And I’ve never stopped wanting to die. Even when I’m “happy.” The version of happy that I’m capable of, anyway. I smile a lot and joke around a lot and people think I’m a happy person. I act that way because it makes people like me. It’s the only reason I do it. I’ve realized over the years that the energetic, making stupid jokes version of me is the one that attracts people the most.

I don’t even feel attached to that version of myself. I feel like I’m operating a marionette.

So look, I guess what I’m saying is I’m not the best example of someone who copes with depression. But I have come up with some strategies.

Okay, actually I only have one strategy:

Keep busy.

Write books, read books, collaborate with people.

Busy busy busy busy busy

I love writing books, because then I always have something to think about and if I’m always thinking about a project, then I spend less time thinking about how I’d like to not exist.

We went hiking today and saw a snake

Photographic Evidence

I have a writer’s discord

I made it about a year and half ago and we just hit 60 members

Help us make it 70!

You are cordially invited: https://discord.gg/773JvDYy

We do lots of fun events like writing drop-in help, webinars, map-making streams, and watchalongs.

This Friday we will be streaming the original War of the Worlds broadcast from the 30s and next week we’ll be doing a movie watchalong.

Come join if you want to make friends and be part of a growing and active community

If you don’t know what discord is, it’s sort of social media, but communities are semi-private. You need an invite to join communities (like the invite I linked above). If you haven’t used discord before, don’t be overwhelmed. We’re always happy to explain stuff to newbies

The Seven Deadly Sins Book Tag

I found this tag on The Biblioshelf’s blog. I tried to track down the original creator of the tag, but it appears the original video where it originated on booktube has been taken down. If anybody has a link to the creator’s socials, please let me know and I’ll be happy to credit them!

GREED: What is the most expensive book you own?

I don’t buy a lot of fancy books. I buy most at used bookstores or at library sales.

But recently, my super sweet husband bought me a special edition of Frankenstein. I have no idea what he paid, but since I only pay like a dollar or so for most of my books, I’m assuming this is probably the most expensive book I own.

What is the least expensive book you own? 

Probably all the free arcs I’ve received from fellow indie authors over the years. (I swear I will get around to reviewing them all eventually! I know I’m a flake).

GLUTTONY: What book(s) have you shamelessly devoured many times?Stargirl has been one of my absolute favorites ever since I first read it when I was 10. I reread it every couple of years. I’ve lost count of how many times I’ve read it at this point.SLOTH: What book or series have you neglected out of sheer laziness? 

I keep meaning to read this classic. I even bought a copy a few years back. But the thing is massive and the premise just doesn’t grab me at all. I haven’t quite been able to work up the nerve to tackle this behemoth.

PRIDE: What book(s) do you bring up when you want to sound like an intellectual reader? 

I don’t much care about sounding intellectual. Pretentious people are my least favorite people, so I hope I never come across as pretentious. If something is interesting and I find it worthwhile, I’ll read it, regardless of whether it’s considered “high brow” or “low brow.”

There are a lot of things I want to be: I want to be genuine, I want to be kind (I’m aware that I’m not-it’s a goal, not a current character trait), I want to be self-aware, I want to be hardworking, and I want to be interesting.

I think out of all of that, I MOST want to be genuine and interesting.

But I don’t want to be intellectual. I don’t care if anybody thinks I’m smart. Intelligence is a really over-hyped personality trait. Genuine and interesting people are always so much better than smart people.

LUST: What attributes do you find most attractive in your characters? 

Really? this is the question paired with Lust?

Thought y’all were gonna ask about smut and give me an excuse to horny post.

Well, I’m gonna take the question literally and horny post anyway.

Awkward shy virgins who want to be dominated make the hottest male leads. But nobody else writes them.

So, I do!

Here is my GFD romance on Vella.

ENVY: What books would you most like to receive as a gift?

Well, since I liked the special edition of Frankenstein my husband got me for my birthday so much, he says he will probably get me a special edition of another favorite for Christmas. I’ll like whatever he gets me, but I do have my fingers crossed for Wuthering Heights or Dracula.

WRATH: What author do you have a love-hate relationship with?

Obviously I had to pick a Columbine book.

Come on, Wrath? Where the other Columbine weirdos at. Somebody get my in-terribly-poor-taste joke.

In all seriousness, I do have mixed feelings on this book. I don’t like that Brooks Brown upholds the bullying victim narrative that has already been thoroughly debunked. That ‘poor bullied outcasts’ narrative is harmful. It gives bullied, isolated teens a social script to follow. It gives them a revenge fantasy. An anti-hero story to call their own.

But people die when that social script is followed.

People are close-minded and don’t like to stray too far from the “acceptable” viewpoint. So the acceptable viewpoint is that poor bullied kids commit school shootings. And all we really need is less access to guns and less bullying.

It’s disgusting to paint murderers as sympathetic.

I absolutely loved the movie ‘Run, Hide, Fight,’ which you can find on the Daily Wire streaming service (and I know, because it’s on Ben Shapiro’s streaming service and you’ve all been told how big and bad Ben Shapiro is-even though most people who dislike Ben Shapiro can not articulate why when asked; they’re simply parroting the vague idea that he’s bad from other people-so obviously, with it being affiliated with Shapiro it MUST be a terrible movie /s)

This is one of the only school shooting movies that made the shooters look like idiot losers who were murdering people for no good reason: because they were a bunch of whiny snowflake fucks who couldn’t make anything of themselves, so they had to resort to murder. The people who stop the school shooters are portrayed as the cool badasses.

None of that ‘cool rebel anti-hero taking revenge’ lunacy that we see in movies made by more left-wing filmmakers.

You can see my full review of the movie on my booktube channel

That’s it for the Seven Deadly Sins Book Tag! If you feel like doing it, then consider yourself tagged

September Bookish Wrap-Up

I finished 7 stories in September:

2 Wattpad Shorts (one personal essay and one smut)

3 classic novellas (all by Joseph Conrad)

1 Philosophy audiobook

1 Thriller novel

Everything else that I read was beta reading for the romance/erotica anthology I’m involved with, and I did a paid developmental edit through Fiverr (you can hire me here, if you need an affordable developmental edit for your novel).

Best Reads

My absolute favorite read of the month was Break Out. Soooo good! I raved about it so much, that I succeeded in convincing two of my friends to read it and both of them ended up binging the book in just a couple of days. It’s really impossible to put down.

I also found a profile of GFD smut on wattpad and I’m in love with it.

This has to be the hottest erotic one-shot I’ve ever come across.

And I read a personal essay by Alix Hicks. He writes about his experiences with gender dysphoria and transitioning. The essay is currently being featured by wattpad for Trans Day of Visibility.

Worst Reads

Yes, I dislike the story for the obvious reason. It’s impossible to separate ourselves from a modern mindset when reading a classic. And I’m not going to try.

There are a lot of my fellow white people engaging in fucking histrionics over on goodreads.

Nobody is saying the book should be burned or banned. Nobody is saying you can’t read it.

Fuck, I read it.

I’m saying that a use of a word that deeply hurts many people detracts from the story. It doesn’t matter what poignant insights Conrad has on human nature (and yes, I do think he has some). The story is full of racial slurs and the narrative hyper-fixates on the race of the one black character, James Wait.

Classics are classics when they endure and hold up to scrutiny in a timeless way.

This one doesn’t. We all know better now (or…most of us…a lot of white people on goodreads picked a weird fucking hill to die on…pick a better hill, my friends. It’s hella weird to be so hell-bent on defending the use of racial slurs).

I listened to this audiobook while cleaning my bathroom the other day. I went in knowing almost nothing about Nietzsche.

I still know almost nothing about Nietzsche. Well, his philosophy anyway.

I know a fuck-ton about how much of a social retard Nietzsche was around women. And how he was a pathetic cuck who orbited a woman for ages, before asking the OTHER DUDE orbiting her to propose to her FOR HIM, and then threatened to kill himself when she said no……

So, yes, this book decided to waste a SHITLOAD of that 90 minutes on doing Nietzsche real fucking dirty and telling us all about what a weird dumbass he was around females.

What did I learn about his actual philosophy?

Something something edgy reddit athiest….something something Super Men…but NO the Nazis were wrong to take that literally, and NO the book will not elaborate further

Soo…that was a waste of 90 fucking minutes.

The book was 80% laughing at Nietzche for being so weird, 10% talking about his relationship with Wagner, and maybe 5% on his philosophy (with another 5% for various unrelated nonsense).

That was my September reading!

I hope to get a lot more done in October. Currently reading both Frankenstein and Dracula

The Last Ten Book Tag

I snagged this tag from Ali’s Books

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The Last Book I Bought:

I bought the kindle edition a few days ago, after seeing it in the bookspry newsletter. I’m starting to get really into shifter romance.

The Last Book I ReRead:

I reread this book twice this year. I was tentatively thinking of doing a booktube video on Conrad, but I’ve shelved that idea for now.

Last Book I Gave Up On:

I’m sure I’ll check this collection out from the library again. I do want to make it through Conrad’s entire oeuvre eventually. But I think I just got burnt out after the first three stories (two of which are novella length). There is a lot to admire about Conrad’s writing, but the writing is also very dense and self-indulgent at times.

Last Book I Said I Read But Didn’t:

I only ever did this in school. But during my M.A program, I regularly DNF’d books I didn’t like, then just made up a thesis and read the wikipedia page. Not sorry XD

I think the last time I did this was with the play The Duchess of Malfi by John Webster.

Last Book I Wrote in the Margins of:

A little over a year ago I wrote a lengthy essay comparing Bacon and Locke. I think it actually came out really good. But as per my usual, after I finished, I did nothing with it. I haven’t even tried submitting it for publication anywhere.

It’s like I think it’s really good, but am also convinced it’s total shit…if that makes sense.

Anyway, in the process of figuring out my angle, I left a fuckton of notes all over the essays of Bacon.

No, I don’t treat my books like a museum exhibit. Not unless they’re vintage or special edition.

Last Book That I Had Signed:

Speaking of vintage books, here is a signed one that I have from 1898. And yess, I keep it in plastic! The thing feels like it’s gonna fall apart every time I touch it.

It’s not signed by the author, but (what appears to be) one friend giving the book to another. It’s a romance adventure story set in the fictional land of Ruritania. It launched a subgenre called ‘Ruritanian romance.’

I love that! A signature from 1903!

This is something physical books have that ebooks could just never replicate. There’s that human connection through the ages.

I don’t know if that counts. It is A signature, not an author signature though. I’ve never been one to go out of my way for signed books. Autographs just aren’t really my thing.

I think the last book I got signed by the author is ‘The Fundamentals of Unicult.’ It came with the author’s signature when I ordered it off etsy.

This is the most boring book I’ve ever read. It’s such regurgitated self-help nonsense. For a hot minute, I thought maybe a deep dive into Unicult could be interesting, but for all their ironic retro candy rave imagery they truly are the most boring motherfuckers on the planet.

No originality. Just all the same shit we’ve seen with ‘The Secret’ and all the other iterations of that manifestation baloney we’ve seen a thousand times.

They’re even boring in their discord server. I couldn’t do a deep dive because there was genuinely nothing to say about them.

Also, I just don’t believe Unicole’s attempted suicide story. I just don’t.

I had many attempted suicide attempts in my teens and early twenties.

They were all shitty attempts. That is why I’m still here.

Anybody who takes an entire bottle of painkillers and then drives off a cliff…look, it makes a cool story, but that enby is lying zir ass off.

I’m sure zie genuinely was depressed and unsatisfied with zir life. I’m betting zie probably even had a suicide attempt or two. But I’m thinking they were far less cinematic than zie made it out to be.

Last Book I Lost:

I had a physical copy of ‘The Metamorphosis’ (in an anthology, but I don’t really care about the other stories in the anthology). When I went to do my Kafka readalong livestream I couldn’t find it. I think I may have purged it accidentally during my last book unhaul. I ended up having to buy an ebook of it [image error] I’m a little annoyed at myself that antho ended up in the unhaul pile (which, since I looked everywhere and haven’t located yet, I’m fairly certain is what happened).

Last Book I Had to Replace:

Back when I was still teaching, I lent my old tattered copy of Frankenstein to a student. Of course, I never saw that book again. It’s all good. I got a teenager to read a classic. I consider it a win.

I hadn’t yet replaced the book, but my husband went and got me a special edition of it for my birthday in August. It’s super pretty. Much nicer than the stained, ripped, used copy I bought for like 50 cents in a university bookstore.

Last Book I Argued Over

I wrote a pretty lengthy essay about male disposability and how that’s the theme this novel hinges on. I partnered up with a few other people in academia (and one other prospective academic like myself-I want to be a professor, I’m just…not yet. I was in this critique group and my critique group hated the focus on male disposability.

I was also the only woman in the group. It irritated and confused me that a bunch of men kept making that awful “but what about women??!” argument.

No matter how many times I was like, “Yes, there are issues women deal with. I’m writing about an issue men deal with. I don’t think either gender is unilaterally privileged over the other”-they just didn’t get it. They kept circling back to “But women have to deal with x, y, z!”

At this point in time, I don’t really care that much about men’s issues, but at that point in time I did. I think I lost steam on it, because I got the exact same thing from men’s rights activists. It was like anytime I mentioned something women deal with it was, “But how is that worse than what men deal with?! But what about men going through x, y, z!!”

And I’m really not into the oppression olympics.

I don’t know why both sides view it as a competition. Like if you mention men’s issues that is somehow dismissing women’s issues, and vice versa.

I think I got firmly pushed over the line into “don’t give a fuck anymore” when two MRAs argued with me that they have a god-given right to catcall and getting crass and disrespectful messages from men I don’t know is female privilege.

That really left me like, whatever guys. My team is winning the gender wars, and if y’all are gonna tell me I don’t even have a right to be bothered by boundary-crossing men, I’m sort of fine backing out of the fray and letting y’all lose.

Basically, my beliefs and opinions haven’t changed, but my passion levels have. I just don’t care anymore.

That’s it for this tag!

I tag…anybody who feels like doing it

Finally Fall Tag

I snagged this tag from Becky over at Becky Bookstore.

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1. In fall, the air is crisp and clear: name a book with a vivid setting!

The Wheel of Time series has an incredibly vivid setting. Robert Jordan’s worldbuilding is incredible! I just started book three and I’m currently trying to convince basically all my writer friends to read the series with me

2. Nature is beautiful… but also dying: name a book that is beautifully written, but also deals with a heavy topic like loss or grief.

Kafka’s The Metamorphosis is one of the most brilliant stories I’ve ever read. The story itself is gruesome and disturbing, but the writing itself is beautiful (I mean…if describing a man turning into a giant cockroach and leaking brown fluid from his injured roach body can be beautiful…I guess I mean that the writing is skillful and you want to reread sentences over and over, for how gritty and evocative they are). This book has themes of male disposability, body horror, and death.

3. Fall is back to school season: share a non-fiction book that taught you something new. 

What I learned in this book is that the very basis of mental health treatment-the biomedical model-has almost no evidence backing it up. In fact, it was invented AFTER a medication was invented to treat depression. A medication, by the way, that was originally supposed to treat tuberculosis and was made from German rocket fuel left over from WWII.

So they created a theory to justify selling the pill.

All of the research is compromised by profit motive. Patient treatment is compromised by profit motive.

More people need to talk about this.

Maybe for no other reason than this: patients should be aware of the profit motive compromising research and treatment models, so that they can make more informed decisions.

4. In order to keep warm, it’s good to spend some time with the people we love: name a fictional family/household/friend-group that you’d like to be a part of.

These books were such a huge part of my childhood and I read them for years. I read them from second grade up until…hehe…well, into high school. I secretly read them for comfort, even as I decked myself out in Hot Topic tripp pants and emo kid black eyeliner.

My favorite was Claudia. But I also had a strong parasocial relationship with Dawn. I even tried to go vegetarian in 6th grade so that I could be like her.

I always wanted to be part of such a tight-knit friend group, and especially one that knows everybody in the neighborhood, AND has this whole entrepreneurial venture going! I’ve definitely never been as attached to a group of fictional humans as I was to the girls in the BSC.

5. The colourful leaves are piling up on the ground: show us a pile of fall-colored spines!

6. Fall is the perfect time for some storytelling by the fireside: share a book wherein somebody is telling a story. 

This is one of my absolutely favorite novels. It’s so beautiful and atmospheric. It’s the perfect gothic romance for the fall season.

During the Romantic literary era authors often experimented with POV. In this book, the majority of the novel is the housekeeper (who witnessed the events between Catherine and Heathcliffe)relating the events to a tenant of Heathcliffe’s. Every night, the housekeeper and the tenant sit together and she tells him the story of the tumultuous doomed love story of childhood friends turned starcrossed lovers.

7. The nights are getting darker: share a dark, creepy read. 

This is just a cheesy haunted house book I bought in the supermarket. I started reading it about a year ago. It’s been my go-to ‘pick it up and read when I’m bored with everything else’ book. I am finally just about to finish it.

It’s not anything thrilling or anything. It’s a standard just-entertaining-enough book. It does have some creepy moments though. The climax of the main story (there’s one longer story and three short stories) is a tad lackluster, but there were enough scary moments leading up to it to make up for that. If you want some creepy fluff, this is a good one.

8. The days are getting colder: name a short, heartwarming read that could warm up somebody’s cold and rainy day. 

Okay, I know this is a Christmas read, but I read Christmas romance all year round. This is a really cute and sweet novella by a romance author I really enjoy.

9. Fall returns every year: name an old favorite that you’d like to return to soon.

My husband got me this gorgeous special edition of Frankenstein for my birthday. He got it from Juniper Books and it is so pretty! It’s a perfect excuse to reread one of my favorites

10. Fall is the perfect time for cozy reading nights: share your favorite cozy reading “accessories”! 

I’m simple. I just curl up on my recliner couch with a blanket under my neck (my neck always hurts).

11. Spread the autumn appreciation and tag some people!

Well guys, ignore this if you don’t like tags: I am tagging Emily Hurricane, Anna the Book Critter, and anyone else who feels like doing it!