Shirley Jackson is a legend in the literary world. She's also considered a classic horror and mystery novelist, predating modern masters like Stephen King and Ruth Ware. But how well does her work hold up? Here's my review.

    Lets start with the premise. Mary Katherine Blackwood (Merricat) lives with her sister Constance and their ailing Uncle Julian. Constance hasn't left the house in six years traveling no farther than the garden on the estate. Merricat only goes into town once a week for supplies and deals with the hostility from the townsfolk. Years ago everyone in the Blackwood family died by poisoning except Merricat, Constance, and Julian and the three live their sheltered existence until one day their cousin Charles shows up and everything changes. 

    I hated everyone. No I'm not just being dramatic. There were no characters I could even pretend to like. The towns people were awful  in the now stereotypical way of "old timey ignorant folk who hate anything different or spooky." The uncle was senile so he gets a bit of a break but his character just got old by the end of the book. He's like that person you know who only has one story to tell and tells it over and over and over again. Constance had something like anxiety with a side of agoraphobia so she kind of gets a pass except when it comes to Merricat where she's the pure definition of enabler. Charles was an ahole and has a lot of nerve just showing up and trying to take over and that leaves us with Merricat. The most annoying, airheaded, foolish, character I've ever read. Any one of her aspects could have made for an interesting character but everything combined was just too over the top. Her use of "sympathetic magic" could have been cute but instead it was annoying. Oh no! The hat I nailed to a tree fell off, now we're no longer safe! I better burry some silver forks in the garden if we're going to make it through! I think if I had read this when I was younger I would have liked it more. I think I would have found Merricat to be quirky and cute but adult me just sees her as a brat who is never called on her crap. 

    I'll be honest, I would probably have DNFd this book if it wasn't so short and it would count towards the Halloween readathon my wife and I were doing. This wasn't a bad story at all. In fact I liked certain parts of it. The main downside was that I didn't have a single character I liked that kept me coming back for more. The mystery was the only thing that kept me opening the book again and again and even then I was pretty sure I knew what had happened. I was right, but there was always the chance that all the signs I picked up on were just red herrings, which would have been very exciting. But alas, it wasn't.

    The next paragraph has some spoilers so I'll give you a chance to skip it just in case you're worried about spoilers for a book published 57 years ago. Just scroll passed the second gif.

The story was also pointless. Even though a lot of stuff happens, the characters wind up right where they started. The towns people were kinder, but mainly out of fear. The two sisters just live in the now dilapidated house where Merricat continues to live as a spoiled brat. She killed her whole family because she was acting like a child and was sent to her room without dinner. God only knows what would have happened if they were the type of family that spanks their kids. Merricat is a psychopath and a murderer and she never gets what she deserves. In fact, she gets her dream come true. Just her and her sister, alone. So the story had no point and Merricat is awful. The end.

    I can see this being a very interesting book back in 1962 when it was published but now it only survives on the name of Shirley Jackson. She's known for The Haunting of Hill House which has spawned various movie retellings and this sits as her second best known work, maybe third if you count The Lottery. But it just doesn't hold up. It's not bad, but this should only be read by people who are huge fans of 60's gothic fiction fans. This book has nothing going for it and I really wished I liked it. I had been wanting to watch the movie with Taissa Farmiga, Alexandra Daddario, Crispin Glover, and Sebastian Stan, but now I'll only watch it if my wife wants to.

We Have Always Lived In The Castle gets a 4.5 out of 11

 Punching the Air by Ibi Zoboi and Yusef Salaam is about a young man named Amal Shahid how gets wrongfully accused of a violent crime and sent to a juvenile detention facility. This story, written in verse, is about Amal and how he fights to maintain his sense of self and humanity in a prison that aims to break him. This story is loosely based on Yusef Salaam’s experience was one of the Central Park Five.

I received this audiobook as an advanced listening copy from Net Galley and Harper Audio in exchange for an honest review and honestly, I’m thankful I got to listen to this.

Books in verse are always hit or miss for me because poetry can be a more fluid art form that can leave more up to interpretation than prose can. This story was easy to follow but the ease of reading (or listening in my case) didn’t stop it from being deep and meaningful.

The narrator, Ethan Herisse, did a wonderful job and had a unique voice for all the characters. His cadence carried the intensity of the verse wonderfully and he helped me get lost in the story.

Amal was a great character because he was wonderfully in the middle. He wasn’t some perfect angel of a kid but on the other side of things, he wasn’t some “bad kid” who always got into trouble. It could be said that Amal has a bad attitude. He has a problem with authority figures who don’t seem to believe in him and more than once his first instinct is to throw a punch.  He’s a very realistic young man and I think it helps to show that this type of injustice can happen to anyone.

Punching the Air is very blunt about prison. Nothing graphic happens but there is violence against inmates, some of which obviously comes from a place of racism. But there’s also a few positive elements too like a kind guard, a friend Amal makes, and a poetry class that captures his attention. But the good stuff never once made prison look like anything other than an awful place. It just showed that Amal was finding ways to stay sane during it all.

This story has an important message. We need prison reform and we need to share stories about those who were wrongfully incarcerated as well as those who did commit a crime, but got harsher sentences due to the color of their skin, as well as addressing the treatment of prisoners.

Punching the Air is a wonderful book that tells an important story and it does so with a memorable main character and it’s written in a style that captured my attention from the first moment.

Punching the Air gets a 10 out of 11

    Clay Johnson needs a new job thanks to the Great Recession. While he's on the hunt for a new job, he stumbles upon a well hidden bookstore that just happens to be hiring. But Mr. Penumbra's Bookstore is more than just a purveyor of books that never closes. It's a front for a secret society bent on deciphering a centuries old code by finding clues in seemingly gibberish books. This job is just the first step of many that will lead Clay down the oddest adventure of his life.

    This book was on my TBR for quite a while, at least two years. I picked it up initially because of it's pretty cover and then I bought it because of the interesting premise. It took me a while to read it because my wife and I were always doing some sort of readathon or other reading challenge and then I would forget about it and it'd sit there on my shelf with all my other forgotten books. Then one day I was looking for a new audio book on Libby and there it was, ready to be checked out. So I started listening to it.

The audiobook was narrated by Ari Fliakos who was in a few episodes of the show Homeland. He was a good narrator and was able to create unique voices for each of the main characters, which I find to be a key element of a narrator. His characters weren't the kind of different and unique a voice actor could do, but they were good enough for me to be able to pick out who was talking without a "Clay said" or the like after a piece of dialogue. But enough about the narration. The most important part is if the book was good or not. Even a five star narrator can't save a bad book. 

Mr. Penumbra's 24-Hour Bookstore was a good book that fell short of being great. The world Robin Sloan created was fun and full of promise but the characters he created were lackluster. Clay was a fine main character but he was a bit bland. He was like a YA protagonist. Not bad, but not a lot of personality either. He did a lot without having any growth as a character. The most interesting character was Mr. Penumbra himself, which could be why Sloan chose to write a prequel about Penumbra instead of a sequel. 

The side characters were where the book lost me. Neel Shah was just odd and creepy. A tech millionaire who made his fortune from being at the forefront of boob physics in video games. Really? He just sounds like a creepy neckbeard made it big. Sloan tries to salvage him by having him start a foundation supporting women in the arts, but it comes across more as a lame apology for his career instead of a god deed. 

The main love interest, Kat Potente, was just a sad attempt at a powerful career driven woman. Instead of coming across as strong and independent, she was just a hollow shell. Instead of strong and independent, she's just cold and flippant. Having the main female character be more career focused instead of love focused would have been great, but it just wasn't done right. 

The characters really were where the book's main shortcoming. The only characters I liked were Mr. Penumbra and Rosemary Lapin (a member of the book cult). Everyone else was either plain and forgettable or just plain bad.

The resolution of the whole book was also lackluster. This is spoiler free, of course. There was a ton of buildup as to what the secret really is that's been hidden in the books, and then it's discovered and revealed with little pomp and circumstance. When all was revealed, it didn't feel like it mattered at all. You know that big thing you've been waiting for? There it is, don't let the door hit you on the way out. 

But the interesting thing about this book is that even though I had quite a few things I didn't like about it, I still enjoyed it. It still kept me coming back for more. I still kept looking forward to listening to it and I still want to read the prequel. Despite the many negatives about the book, it still has that je ne sais quoi.

If the premise seems interesting to you at all, give this book a chance but please realize that it's the story alone that drives this book and the characters don't add much. If you think that'd be okay with you, then you may like this. If not, then maybe I saved you the trouble. You're welcome.

And the hardcover glows in the dark! I'm not sure about the paperback.