Author: Louise

Asian Horror on My TBR and Watchlist

Asian Horror on My TBR and Watchlist
Posted October 7, 2023
Books, Movies, Spooky Month, TBR Lists, Watchlists

Hi ghouls, long time so see! đŸ‘‹đŸ» I am always looking for ways to diversify my reading and watching habits, especially when it comes to horror. Different cultures have different things that they find scary and it’s always fascinating to learn about past and present social issues that influence stories as well as folklore and mythology. Originally, this post was just about Japanese horror but I decided to branch out and look for horror from all over Asia and from Asian diaspora people all over the world. Asia’s a big place with a huge amount of different cultures so it’s not fair to narrow what I’m looking for down to just one single country. An unfortunate thing I ran into when compiling this list was a big lack of South Asian horror and almost next to nothing from West Asia or the Middle East. A lot of people still forget that Asia is not just China, Korea and Japan so a lot of what I found is from East and Southeast Asia. (i did a class on orientalism in literature when i was in university and one classmate complained the whole time that we didn’t look at any chinese literature, […]

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My Summer 2023 TBR

My Summer 2023 TBR
Posted June 17, 2023
Books, TBR Lists, Top 10 Tuesday

Hi friends! đŸ‘‹đŸ» We’re now into summer in the Northern Hemisphere and I am not looking forward to it. I don’t need to explain how much I hate summer and hot weather in general but my hatred for it just intensifies as I get older (thanks to global warming). Usually, I centre my seasonal TBRs around specific genres and contemporary has been my summer genre for a long time now, but I’ve been reading so much horror and thriller recently that it’s all I want to read really. And that doesn’t bother me one bit because whoever said that horror is only for Halloween? The Texas Chain Saw Massacre took place in the summer, after all. House of Hunger by Alexis Henderson – Normally I wouldn’t pick a book about vampires for the summertime, but I’ve ended up picking five. Whoops. I’ve had a copy of House of Hunger on my shelves for a little while and since we’re nearing the end of Pride Month, I figured there’s no better time to read it. Because I am a vampire in real life. The Deathless Girls by Kiran Millwood Hargrave – Another sapphic vampire book, but a YA one this time. I’ve never read […]

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Dead Book Genres

Dead Book Genres
Posted June 10, 2023
Books, Discussions, Ramblings

Hi friends! đŸ‘‹đŸ» Recently I’ve been thinking a lot about genre trends and whether certain tropes or whole genres will make a comeback in the future. A lot of people claim that “elevated horror” is the current big thing thanks to directors like Ari Aster (Hereditery, Midsommar) and some horror movies becoming more cinematic and focusing on psychological elements instead of physical horror, but I don’t really think that’s true. The genres that are popular often reflect the world around us, with some genres being more trendy than others at certain times. Publishing and movie studios like money more than anything so they’ll pump out more and more of the current popular thing until general audiences get sick of it and want to see something else. Think the recent claims of “superhero burnout” or the resurgance in cosy crime books in the UK. There are also genres that die off because of sociopolitical reasons; the messages and tropes that they promote just aren’t considered acceptable to modern audiences and the genre looks stuck in the past. I wouldn’t say that there are a lot of dead genres since genres as a whole tend to be evergreen, but tropes and subgenres are […]

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Book Things I’m Sick Of

Book Things I’m Sick Of
Posted June 3, 2023
Books, Discussions

Hello again! đŸ‘‹đŸ» It’s been a while since I made a post, but I’ve missed blogging regularly so now is as good a time as ever to make a comeback! I have never really considered myself to be a very active participant in online book spaces, but I do consider myself to be someone who is very easily annoyed. Almost 13 years of book blogging has made me into a bit of a grouch because I’ve seen so much crap that gets on my nerves. Is a vent post a good post to make for a first post back? Probably not, but this is my grump space and I will grump if I want to. Edit 13/06/23: Better late than never to throw my hat into the ring for 2023’s Book Blog Discussion Challenge! song title titles Usually, I would call this a fanfiction thing, and it’s something that I’ve been guilty of too, but there are so many books now that share their names with songs that I’m bored of them. Off the top of my head I can name You’re the One that I Want (Simon James Green), both Carry On and Wayward Son (Rainbow Rowell), Owner of a Lonely Heart (Eva Carter), Norwegian Wood (Haruki Murakami), You Should […]

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I Watched the Winnie-the-Pooh Horror Movie and It Was Bad

I Watched the Winnie-the-Pooh Horror Movie and It Was Bad
Posted March 25, 2023
Movie Reviews, Movies

Winnie-the-Pooh: Blood and Honey Director: Rhys Frake-Waterfield Cast: Nikolai Leon, Maria Taylor, Craig David Dowsett, and Chris Cordell Based on: Winnie-the-Pooh by A.A. Milne Released: 10 March 2023 (UK) Run time: 84 mins (1h, 24m) Age rating: 18 / R My rating: Oh, bother. The days of adventures and merriment have come to an end, as Christopher Robin – now a young man – has left Winnie-the-Pooh and Piglet to fend for themselves. As time passes, feeling angry and abandoned, the two become feral. After getting a taste of blood, Pooh and Piglet set off to find a new source of food. It’s not long before their bloody rampage begins… Well. This was indeed a set of pictures in motion with sound. Was it good? Of course not, it’s a slasher movie based on a beloved children’s character that just went into the US public domain (but is also still protected under UK copyright law, which is where the movie was made). The biggest problem with this movie, I feel, is that it takes itself too seriously. I’m usually a fan of movies with ridiculous premises that are taken seriously because they can work, but this movie is so stark and bleak that it’s not […]

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