The Turnout

The Turnout by Megan Abbott
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

When their ballet studio catches fire one night, Dara, Marie, and Charlie invite a contractor into their lives but he's clearly after more than just another job...

I've been out of the novel loop for a few years but I took advantage of a 2.99 sale on this a while back and I finally had time to read it.

Like I've said before, I enjoy all of Megan Abbott's books but the ones that hit the hardest are the ones about the secret lives of women. This one, about the dark underside of ballet, is firmly in that vein.

Dara and Marie are intensely close sisters, former ballet stars who trained under their ballerina mother. Charlie, Dara's husband, is a now broken down ballet dancer their mother took in when they were all teens. When a contractor threatens the close bond between the three, the train to hell leaves the station.

Even more than most of Megan Abbott's books, The Turnout almost feels like a Jim Thompson book. The inevitable trainwreck is coming and you have to grab on to something and hope you survive the crash and the aftermath. And what an aftermath it is!

I didn't understand teenage girls when I was a teenager and now I'm kind of terrified of them. The Megster shows us the horrible lives ballet dancers lead, from eating cotton balls soaked in ranch dressing instead of actual food to keep their weight down to hiding razor blades in each others' shoes. It was apparent that Dara, Marie, and Charlie were keeping some dark secrets from the beginning but I didn't think they'd bubble up the way they did.

That's about all I want to say. Five out of five stars.

View all my reviews

Beware the Woman

Beware the Woman by Megan Abbott
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

When newly pregnant Jacy and her husband Jed visit Jed's father on Michigan's north penninsula, When her father-in-law starts saying and doing odd things, is it pregnancy hormones or something more sinister?

I've largely fallen out of reviewing actual books since my son was born in 2019. Now that he doesn't require total attention all the time, I requested this from Netgalley and they approved. Netgalley still thinks I'm somebody, I guess.

I wasn't sold at first. It seemed unsettling and I was horrified to think Jacy would end up banging her father-in-law. Spoilers, she doesn't. The craziness comes in baby steps so things sneak up on your. Reading this on the heels of Lock Every Door, Megan Abbott succeeds with the psychologic suspense where the other book failed. It helps when the characters have some personality and seem pretty fleshed out.

Like I said, I wasn't thrilled with it at first but when I started sensing the wheels would come off at any moment, it was very hard to put down. Four out of five stars.

View all my reviews

Lock Every Door

Lock Every Door by Riley Sager
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

When Jules is down on her luck, she scores the opportunity of a lifetime - occupying an empty NYC apartment overlooking Central Park for three months in exchange for 12 grand? What's the catch? And what happened to the previous tenant?

According to the piece of paper inside that I used for a bookmark, my mom got me this in Christmas 2019. Time flies when you have an autistic toddler and the world is ravaged by disease, I guess.

Okay, I didn't think there was anything wrong with this but I didn't exactly like it either. Sure, it was engaging enough at times. Free apartment, lots of strict rules, sinister goings on, etc.

The first of my problems was with Jules. She's a cypher with no real personality and nothing memorable about her except her dead parents and probably dead sister and a book she was obsessed with as a kid. On the heels of reading two Roxane Weary mysteries, I needed something more that Jules was giving me.

It was an average thriller for the most part, although the glimpses of the future built up the suspense a bit. Jules does something incredibly stupid near the end which made my eyes nearly roll out of my head. I detest when people do stupid things because the plot requires it.

Unremarkable, underwhelming, unimpressed. I think that covers it. Two stars. This one's definitely going into the half price books box.

View all my reviews

Once You Go This Far

Once You Go This Far by Kristen Lepionka
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

When Roxane has a chance encounter with a hiker who winds up dead shortly after, she gets hired by the deceased woman's daughter to look into her mother's death and uncovers a lot more than that...

As I said in my last review, I'm chewing through the backlog of books I've accumulated in the last few years now that I have some extra time on my hands. I wish I would have tackled this one immediately because it was pretty damn good.

In this volume in the ongoing saga of Roxane Weary, she gets entangled with a runaway kid, an evangelical group, and finds out she has a half sister. Some other stuff happens too.

The Roxane Weary books are good mysteries but the main attraction for me now are the characters. Roxane and her two bothers, Tom, Shelby, and probably Blair in the next book even though she hasn't stepped on stage yet. Roxane is a tough lady with problems but that's what makes her so interesting. More importantly, her relationships are in a constant state of flux, something that doesn't always happen in a mystery series. There's no perfect love for Susan Silverman here.

Well, two Roxane Weary books in two days. I'll find some way to amuse myself until the next one comes out, hopefully soonish.

View all my reviews

The Stories You Tell

The Stories You Tell by Kristen Lepionka
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

When her brother calls her in the middle of the night, Roxane Weary is thrust into a web of mysteries involving a missing girl, a hookup phone app, and lots of people lying about various things.

So a few years ago, my reading time partially dried up and I mostly started reading comics and other things I didn't pay a lot of attention to. Now that my son is older and I don't lose two hours of my life to the commute, I can read actual books again.

Enough about me, though. This is the third Roxane Weary book and it's some good shit. Kristen Lepionka writes a good gritty mystery. I wouldn't exactly call it noir but it's darker than the average mystery. Lepionka has definitely read her Chandler, though.

The mystery isn't really a solvable one, although there are some pretty big hints out there. A one time hookup shows up at Roxane's brother's place and he's quickly in the soup. Roxane pokes around, uncovers a lot of unsavory things, and eventually things are set as right as they're going to get.

Roxane is a great lead character, flawed as hell but still determined. Her relationships with the other characters make this a cut above a lot of books of this type. From her toxic relationship with her girlfriend Catherine to whatever her feelings for Tom, her father's former partner are, to her somewhat motherly role with her teenage neighbors.

I don't know what else to say without giving away too much. There's a lot of catfishing in this so be careful who you're talking to online would be the core lesson of this, if there is one.

Four out of five stars. I'm going to blaze through the second one today pending unforeseen interruptions.

View all my reviews

John Severin: Two-Fisted Comic Book Artist

John Severin: Two-Fisted Comic Book Artist by Greg Biga
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

As the title indicates, this is a chronicle of Jovial John Severin: birth, death, and everything in between.

Like a lot of guys my age, I first stumbled on John Severin in Cracked. It wasn't until decades later that I saw his EC stuff and learned of his vast output over the years. Anyway, the book starts with John Severin's birth and is loaded with photos and art, from John's early stuff printed in Hobo Times all the way to his final professional jobs in his 80s.

Every time I run across some Severin work I haven't seen before, my esteem for the man grows. After reading this, I have Severin esteem leaking out of every orifice. The war comics, the westerns, Kull, Cracked, the man could draw anything and seemed like a good guy to boot.

My favorite piece of art in this is probably the restored American Eagle stuff but it's all great work. I might have to break down soon and get that Blazing Combat hardcover since Severin has a few stories in it.

I'm not sure what else to say. The name on the cover is John Severin and that's what you're getting. Four out of five stars.

View all my reviews

The Woman Who Would Be King: The MADUSA Story

The Woman Who Would Be King: The MADUSA Story by Debrah Miceli
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I was never that into women's wrestling back in the day but Madusa always seemed legit. I don't usually take on ARCS anymore but ECW Press hit me up and I couldn't refuse.

There's a lot of dark stuff in this. Madusa grew up in a rough home with an unaffectionate mother, raped by her alleged father at a young age, and was in trouble a lot as a teen. Her life turns around for the most part when she gets involved in wrestling, first with Ed Sharkey, then the AWA, then Japan, WCW, and finally the WWF. Things weren't always great there either.

The last big Madusa moment I remember was when she threw the WWF Women's title in the trash on Nitro. The WWF acted like a victim but they already told her they weren't renewing her contract and scrapping the entire women's division at the time so it's not like she had a lot of options.

From there, Madusa finishes up in WCW and becomes a monster truck driver for over twenty years. She was married a couple times, had some medical issues, and finally got inducted into the WWE hall of fame.

BUT WAIT! There's more. Madusa eventually learned the identity of her real father. He'd passed years earlier but she now has half-siblings she never realized existed! So there's a happy ending.

Madusa doesn't really pull any punches but doesn't go out of her way to get sued either. I feel like she could probably fill another book with a look of shady shit that went down with the Kliq. The stuff she does reveal was dark enough, like Eddie Gilbert being on pills constantly and the Kliq shitting in her bag to teach her a lesson.

I didn't realize how long Madusa was driving monster trucks. Time flies once you're in the steady job grind, I guess. The monster truck stuff was weirdly interesting to me. The Japan stuff was probably the most interesting to me. Like I said earlier, I wasn't that into women's wrestling but I'd like to track down some of her Japanese stuff. She seems like a bad ass.

Four out of five stars.



View all my reviews

The Charlton Companion

The Charlton Companion by Jon B. Cooke
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

I've long been fascinated by Charlton Comics, the second tier comic company that finally went under not long after I really got into reading comics. This book contains everything you want to know about the operation and then some. There are tons of cover shots but more interesting are all the quotes from people who worked there.

From the founder's prison stint and probable mob connections to paying the lowest page rate possible, I'm surprised it lasted as long as it did. I can't imagine running my own printing operation and shooting for putting out as much passable material as possible instead of a handful of quality titles but I'm not in the printing business either.

On the other hand, the creative freedom compared to Marvel or DC had to be a big attraction. Still, Santangelo seems like the shifted prick this side of J. Jonah Jameson. Imagine having flood insurance on your building, collecting on it, and still cutting your employee's page rates IN HALF to compensate for damages. Dick Giordano's assertion that Charlton was more interested in saving five dollars than making five dollars pretty much sums up the Charlton philosophy.

A lot of pros cut their teeth at Charlton, like Steve Ditko and Denny O'Neil, so they had some value. On the other hand, imagine cluttering up your printing area so much with old engraving plates that no one could get past them while you're waiting for scrap metal prices to go up?

I've strayed far from whatever point it was I was trying to make. This is a great look at a shitty operation that somehow remained open for decades and spawned a lot of great talent. Five out of five stars.

View all my reviews

Fairy Tale

Fairy Tale by Stephen King
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

So my wife was listening to the audio book for this and wanted to talk to me about it so I wound up with a homework assignment.

The book started slow, with Charlie Reade looking after his injured elderly neighbor, Mr. Bowditch. For the first 200 pages, that's pretty much all the book is, though I enjoyed it. The rest of the book is Charlie going down the hole and getting involved in the affairs of another world.

Overall, I liked the book. King has lost none of his Shine over the years in the technical writing department. Charlie was a well crafted character, although I had a strong "Hello fellow kids" vibe from him at times. I think a degree of that is to be expected when a septuagenarian writes a teenager.

Radar getting old was a perfectly understandable motivation for Charlie to go down the hole for me. There was good dramatic tension at times and for once, I didn't feel like people sat around talking for hours and hours knowing that the world was about to end.

The meat of the book was a good fairy tale influenced fantasy story. I think the good guys got off a little light, though, as I have in many a book since Stephen King got hit by that van years ago. A lot of cool stuff went down but I get waiting for that final kick in the balls that never came.

Fairy Tale was a good read but I don't imagine I'll feel compelled to read it again any time soon. 3 out of 5 stars.

View all my reviews

Player's Handbook (D&D Fifth Edition)

Player's Handbook by James Wyatt
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I haven't played D&D since they brought out 3.5 edition way too soon after 3.0 and said piss on it. I've been eyeing this book from afar for a couple years and jumped on it when it got marked down to around 16 bucks for Black Friday.

I don't know when I'll ever get to use this with no gaming group and an autistic three year old running around but I enjoyed thumbing through it. Obviously, it's an RPG manual so I didn't read EVERY page but I read enough to digest the mechanics.

The book was organized fairly well, although explanation of advantage/disadvantage before they were repeatedly mentioned would have been nice instead of saving it for the abilities chapter. The art pretty good but not anything I feel compelled to get tattooed on my back. There's even a nice appendix of recommended reading material in the back.

Everything about this edition seems to be geared toward simplifying things and spending less time making characters and more time playing, which I love. So many hours of potential gaming have been lost when somebody can't decide what skills to take, etc.

There aren't as many skills and feats are optional so character creation is sped up quite a bit. I like that race, class, and background all contribute to a character's skills, languages, starting equipment, etc. I thought 3.0 had too many choices and this reins things in a bit. Hell, there's even a quick build if you really don't want to put much thought into character creation.

I was skeptical about the new Warlock class but it's different enough to be interesting now, a spellcaster who gets their powers from a pact with an extradimensional creature is right up my alley. The monk feels more like the 1st edition monk than anything else but also has some cool features as you advance. While I'm on the subject, the way characters have ability choices as they advance is pretty cool. Wizards and Sorcerors now have a d6 hit die instead of a d4 and rogues are now d8s. That should make for fewer deaths at low levels.

I'm not crazy about what Tieflings have become since 2nd edition but I guess it's not that big of a deal. The new Dragonborn race has potential for abuse but seems interesting enough. I'm sure there are more optional races and classes than you can shake a yew wand at in later supplements but I'll have to wait until those drop into my cheapness zone.

Four out of five stars.

View all my reviews