The Houseguest and Other Stories

I was walking through the bookstore last week when this cover caught my eye. I flipped to the back cover and took it all in; "Like those of Kafka, Poe, or Shirley Jackson," "a writer obsessed with obsession," "nightmares come to life." It was everything I was looking for.

It's essentially a book of short horror stories. There were a few that stuck out to me, Fragment of a Diary, Musique Conrete, Tina Reyes, The Breakfast, and The Funeral. For some reason these stories spoke to me the most. Fragment of a Diary really resonated with me. It was raw and uncontrollable. Each of these stories spoke on love, lust, isolation, and fear. I've been in an incredibly vulnerable place lately so I can't even begin to describe the emotions I felt while reading all 122 pages of this book.

This is Amparo Davila's first book to be translated into English. It's my understanding that all of these desperate themes are found throughout her work. If more of her work isn't translated soon.....I'm going to pull out my high school Spanish lessons and do it myself!

Friends, Lovers, and the Big Terrible Thing

Could I be more excited for this book?!

I know, I know, Matthew Perry is tired of that cadence but I just couldn't help myself.

I pre-ordered this book as soon as it was announced. As a die hard Friends fan, I knew I needed Matthew Perry's book in my life. But if you're looking for a celebrity tell all, this is not the book. While Hollywood has been such a big part of his life, there was always something bigger. He calls it "the big terrible thing," but the rest of the world knows it's his lifelong battle with addiction.

What I enjoyed about this book was the honesty. He didn't shy away from the fact that he had everything, literally everything. The biggest television show on the planet, the biggest movie, the best life that money could buy but that didn't stop him from wanting to escape. An escape that he could only find through drugs an alcohol. Addiction is no joke and it was absolutely heartbreaking when he joked about how this disease is going to kill him.

I went into this knowing that he wasn't going to be sharing fun antidotes from his time on set. I knew he wasn't going to be the fun loving version of Chandler Bing that we all know and love. But I wasn't prepared for the absolute terror that he endured while trying to maintain a healthy lifestyle.

He mentions hoping that his story will bring addiction into a different light and hopefully it will help others get clean and stay clean. He's one of the lucky ones who actually made it through.

Looking for other books about Friends?

I'll Be There For You

Just Like Home

I love book boxes. I had my eye on Just Like Home for awhile, so I snatched up a Halloween themed box from Once Upon a Book Club!

I'm not going to lie, I thought this was going to be soooooo much darker than it actually was.

The premise is simple; a man builds a strong, sturdy house for his family, his daughter starts hearing noises from the basement, the cold, distant mother calls said daughter on her death bed to come home.

Oh, but maybe I should mention, the dad is a serial killer and the daughter was witnessing all of the deaths through a peep hole under her bed. Which in itself is weird, but obviously there's something more supernatural lurking beneath the surface.

I thought maybe it was a slow burn, but it really just never picked up.

It's worth reading, especially if you're new to the supernatural horror genre. But overall, I got kind of bored with it. However, I feel it's important to tell you that I read the first half of this book in a day and then hit such a slump in my personal life that reading kind of fell to the back burner for me and that may have swayed my opinion a little bit.

The book box was super cool though. It came with a Ouija Board throw, a cute ass water bottle, and a handy dandy floral pattern screwdriver (super excited because I can use it at work!!)