iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Cam 🦂🏳️‍🌈 @szyca.bsky.social · 01/11/2025

Woof ok this month really got away from me, my dog had an emergency surgery so I have been neglecting all my accounts and reviews 😭 Buy anyways here's my October stats! I made this a classics month so a lot of oldies and mostly goodies 📚💙📚🩸

My October reading stats

Books: 13 Pages: 3229 Av. Rating: 4.06

Highest rated reads: The Stepford Wives, Something's Wrong With Maddie, and the Haunting of Hill House

92% fiction
8% Non fiction

Top genres: Horror, classics, Literary, LGBTQIA+, and mystery

92% audio
8% digital

My ratings collage:

Dracula: 4/5
Carmilla: 4/5
The Haunting of Hill House: 4.5/5
Turn of the Screw: 3/5
Madhouse at the End of the Earth: n/a
At the Mountains of Madness: n/a
Something's Wrong With Maddie: 4.5/5
Necronomicon: n/a
We Have Always Lived in the Castle: n/a
The Monk: 4.25/5
Tales of Terror: 3.5/5
The Stepford Wives: 4.75
Picture of Dorian Gray: n/a

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Cam 🦂🏳️‍🌈 @szyca.bsky.social · 06/10/2025

The Hollow Kind - Andy Davidson I had a hard time getting into this one. It kind of felt like The Ruins with a Southern Gothic twist. I usually like multiple POVs but the way this one jumped back and forth got a little confusing. The premise and the writing were good, it just wasn't for me. 📚💙📚🩸

Cover and rating for The Hollow Kind.

3/5

A blue cover with an upside down bear. It has glowing red eyes red vines growing from it.

Moodboard for The Hollow Kind. A dark brick well, an old staircase with framed portraits, roots snaking over the ground, moss growing on trees.

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Cam 🦂🏳️‍🌈 @szyca.bsky.social · 29/09/2025

Leech - Hiron Ennes Probably one of the most unique protagonists I've ever read, and the whole gothic atmosphere was super well done. It got a little slow at points but I was enjoying the vibe so much I really didn't mind. I'm excited to read more from this author! 📚💙📚🩸

Cover and rating for Leech by Hiron Ennes. 4.5/5 stars. A pale background with a dark bottle containing a large manor. The lid of the bottle is open and and a spiky substance slithers out.

Moodboard for Leech. Anatomical diagram sketches, an icy cityscape, a medical diagram of a heart, a snow covered manor, strange spiky looking objects

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Cam 🦂🏳️‍🌈 @szyca.bsky.social · 28/09/2025

The Girl with All the Gifts - M.R. Carey I watched the movie forever ago and loved it, and the book is even better. This is one of my favourite takes on the zombie apocalypse, and I always love a good dose of science fiction in my horror! 📚💙📚🩸

Cover and rating for Girl with All the Gifts. 4.5/5 stars, a yellow cover with a dark silhouette of a young girl with her arms raised

Moodboard for Girl with All the Gifts. Hands grasping at a pair of legs above them, a looted grocery store boots marching, a barbed wire fence

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Cam 🦂🏳️‍🌈 @szyca.bsky.social · 28/09/2025

The Folly of Realism - Alexander Vindman This was a really interesting account of how the US has spent the last few decades waffling between supporting Ukraine but also refusing to condemn Russia. (So nothing's really changed much huh) Super informative, and a little rage-inducing. 📚💙📚💡

Cover for The Folly of Realism. Bold white typography over a greyscale image of a close up of half of Vladimir Putins face

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Cam 🦂🏳️‍🌈 @szyca.bsky.social · 20/09/2025

I struggled with Child of God, I didn't like it nearly as much 😅 I definitely agree it was chilling though!

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Cam 🦂🏳️‍🌈 @szyca.bsky.social · 20/09/2025

The Road - Cormac McCarthy "To be on the road with the last god would be a terrible thing." I'm kind of embarrassed it took me this long to read this. Absolutely incredible, wild how much I ended up caring about characters whose names we never learn. 👨‍👦⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️✨️🥫 📚💙

Cover for The Road by Cormac McCarthy. A simple black background with the authors name in brown and the title in white

Moodboard for The Road. Several post apocalyptic scenes; overgrown buildings, abandoned cars on a highway, empty cans around a propane stove, a man and a young boy pushing a cart full of their belongings

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Cam 🦂🏳️‍🌈 @szyca.bsky.social · 15/09/2025

Cunning Folk - Adam Nevill As someone who occasionally puts weird witchy shit out in her yard, I honestly sided with the neighbors for most of this. I didn't find the protagonist particularly likeable and I struggled to really get invested in this one. 🧙‍♀️⭐️⭐️✨️💀 📚💙📚🩸

Cunning Folk cover. A black and red background with a shadowy boars head with circular red eyes

Moodboard for Cunning Folk
A room of dried herbs, a shadow group dancing around a fire, a dark hallway, a dimly forest with glowing lanterns in the distance, a white stature shrouded by the shadows of the trees

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Cam 🦂🏳️‍🌈 @szyca.bsky.social · 08/09/2025

Bury Our Bones in the Midnight Soil, Hungerstone, and Into the Drowning Deep are some of my faves!

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Cam 🦂🏳️‍🌈 @szyca.bsky.social · 08/09/2025

Sign Here - Claudia Lux Basically hells version of a door to door salesman and a super toxic family vacation. More thriller than horror but really fun! I enjoyed the different perspectives we got and even tho none of the characters are really great people they're all still likeable. 😈⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️✨️📝 📚💙📚🩸

Cover for Sign Here.
A handwritten title with a red line intertwining the letters; the top is a pitchfork and the bottom is a pen

Moodboard for sign Here.
A dimly lit investigation board, kids jumping from a train bridge into a river, an orange smoggy building with several levels of fire escape staircases

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Cam 🦂🏳️‍🌈 @szyca.bsky.social · 06/09/2025

Blood on her Tongue - Johanna Van Veen I'm just collecting sapphic vampire novels at this point (Though the queer romance is more of a subplot here) This one was a really cool take I hadn't seen before, and the first half really hooked me immediately with the bog body situation! 🩸⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️✨️😷 📚💙📚🩸

Cover for Blood on her tongue
A black and white dog stands in from of a dark wall of foliage and red flowers

Moodboard for Blood on Her Tongue
Two girls in white dresses sitting next to each other, Blood coated lips, a half full moon over a swamp, a dark cathedral window, a girl braiding another's hair, a moss covered arm next to a body of water

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Cam 🦂🏳️‍🌈 @szyca.bsky.social · 06/09/2025

It was very bleak, but I think it was totally worth it!

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Cam 🦂🏳️‍🌈 @szyca.bsky.social · 06/09/2025

A little late, but here's my August wrap up! Three 5-stars this month! 📚💙📚🩸

My Storygraph reading wrap up

Books: 10 Pages: 3262 Av. Rating: 4.16

Highest rated: The Drift, I Who Have Never Known Men, Bury Our Bones in the Midnight Soil

Av. Length: 332 pages
Av. Time to finish: 7 days
80% fiction
20% Non fiction

Top genres: Horror, Literary, history, dystopian, politics

90% audio
10% print

Ratings collage

Bury our bones in the Midnight soil: 5
Mary: An Awakening of Terror: 4.25
This Thing Between Us: 4
Child of God: 2.75
King Leopold's Ghost: n/a
And Then I Woke Up: 4
I Who Have Never Known Men: 5
Command and Control: n/a
The Bell Chime: 3.25
The Drift: 5

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Cam 🦂🏳️‍🌈 @szyca.bsky.social · 30/08/2025

The Woods All Black - Lee Mandelo This was really good! Took a minute to adjust to literally every other character consistently misgendering the protagonist, but it was really well written and the ending was *chefs kiss* ✝️⭐️⭐️⭐️✨️🩺 📚💙📚🩸

Cover for The Woods All Black by Lee Mandelo. A dark forest with eyes drawn overtop

Moodboard for The Woods All Black. A room with floral wallpaper, family photos and a wooden cross, a dark forest with a cabin, old medical equipment, eyes glowing in the woods.

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Cam 🦂🏳️‍🌈 @szyca.bsky.social · 28/08/2025

Rot - Padraic X Scanlan "An imperial history of the Irish famine" I think this is a super interesting topic, and unfortunately I didn't learn anything about this in school so this book was definitely informative but it felt a little slow, and tough to get through at some points. 📚💙📚💡

Cover for Rot by Padraic Scanlan. A background of wooden planks with a pile of potatoes in varying states of decay

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Cam 🦂🏳️‍🌈 @szyca.bsky.social · 21/08/2025

Propaganda Girls - Lisa Rogak "The secret war of the women in the OSS" Super short, but really interesting! Followed four women who worked to create "black propaganda" during WWII, which was basically just psychological warfare tbh. 📚💙📚💡

Cover for Probaganda Girls by Lisa Rogak.
A white background with an illustration of a smiling woman in a US military uniform

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Cam 🦂🏳️‍🌈 @szyca.bsky.social · 19/08/2025

The Dark Half - Stephen King It's been a while since I read Stephen King, and his stuff is usually hit or miss for me, but this one started off strong. I liked this one quite a bit, I just wish the wife got to play a bigger role. The villain was super scary tho. 🪦⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️🐦‍⬛ 📚💙📚🩸

Cover for The Dark Half by Stephen King

A gravestone in a field with the inscription: "George Stark. 1975-1988. Not a very nice guy" a black bird sits on top of it, with a flock in the background

Moodboard for The Dark Half. A flock of birds, an old car with "high toned son of a bitch" on the back, a gravestone with the name George Stark, an old book being pulled off a shelf, a person writing.

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Cam 🦂🏳️‍🌈 @szyca.bsky.social · 10/08/2025

The Hiding Place - C.J. Tudor This started off really strong, but i feel it started to fall off towards the end. I think certain aspects didn't really end up coming together, but the overall premise was so scary I still really enjoyed this! ⛏️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️👥️ 📚💙📚🩸

Cover for The Hiding Place by C.J. Tudor
A dark room, a deck of cards strewn on the floor, the corner of a bare bedframe, with the title and authors name written in red on the wall

Moodboard for The Hiding Place
A woman standing next to an identical ghostly figure, a dimly lit cavern, an empty classroom, a telephone pole with an old "missing" poster, with the photo torn out

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Cam 🦂🏳️‍🌈 @szyca.bsky.social · 06/08/2025

Black Sheep - Rachel Harrison Slowed down a bit around the middle, and felt a bit predictable after the initial twist. Great characters tho, would read the exact same story again from her mom's POV. Also i love a protag that's not a great person but is still likeable 🐑⭐️⭐️⭐️✨️👿 📚💙📚🩸

Cover for Black Sheep by Rachel Harrison
A pink background, with a black sheep illustration with legs transitioning into paint drips with red dots for eyes

Moodboard for Black Sheep. A goth woman with short black hair, a crowd of people with glowing eyes, a ballroom with dancing people, a woman working as a waitress, a group of people dancing in red light

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Cam 🦂🏳️‍🌈 @szyca.bsky.social · 03/08/2025

The Changeling - Victor LaValle This was really beautifully written, and LaValle does a really great job making his characters feel so real and human. It did feel like it slowed down a little in the middle, but I liked the overall fairytale vibe. 👼⭐️⭐️⭐️✨️📖 📚🩸📚💙

The cover for The Changeling by Victor LaValle.

A blue background with white tree illustrations and a baby carrier on the ground

Moodboard for The Changeling
An empty crib in a derelict room, an illustration of fairies in the woods, a row of old books, a shadow of a child holding up a mask

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Cam 🦂🏳️‍🌈 @szyca.bsky.social · 03/08/2025

Oooh ill add that one to my list!

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Cam 🦂🏳️‍🌈 @szyca.bsky.social · 03/08/2025

My July wrap-up! On book 65 right now, might actually hit my goal of 100 for the year! 🎉

My July Storygraph wrap up

Books: 8 Pages: 3051 Avg. Rating: 3.88

Highest Rated Reads:
The Girl with All the Gifts: 4.5
The Road: 4.5
Leech: 4.25

Average book length: 350 pages
Average time to finish: 3 days

75% fiction
25% Non fiction

Top Genres:
Horror, dystopia, science fiction, LGBTQIA+, Literary

My July reads ratings collage

The Decline and fall of the human empire: n/a
Sign Here: 4.25
Cunning Folk: 2.75
The Road: 4.5
The Folly of Realism: n/a
The girl with all the gifts: 4.5
Leech: 4.25
The hollow kind: 3

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Cam 🦂🏳️‍🌈 @szyca.bsky.social · 03/08/2025

Code Dependant - Madhumita Murgia I've never been a fan of AI, but this made me want to delete my few remaining social media accounts and throw my phone into a lake! Gave me a bit of an existential crisis so that was fun. (Very well written and researched the topic just icks me out lmao) 📚💙📚💡

One cover for Code Dependant. A pink background with illustrations of people, buildings, and vehicles connected by a yellow web/net

An alternative cover for Code Dependant. A dark purple background with an iridescent CTRL keyboard key

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Cam 🦂🏳️‍🌈 @szyca.bsky.social · 29/07/2025

Rabid - Bill Wasik and Monica Murphy "A cultural history of the world's most diabolical virus" Reading about the treatment of animal and human patients was super depressing, but it was also neat to see all the stories and myths that evolved throughout history that clearly came from rabies! 📚💙📚💡

Cover for Rabid. A white background with a red scratchy texture at the top, and a black and white illustration of a dog foaming at the mouth with its tail between its legs

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Cam 🦂🏳️‍🌈 @szyca.bsky.social · 27/07/2025

Looking Glass Sound - Catriona Ward I still don't fully know how I feel about this one. I did really enjoy following Wilder through his life, and the parts about the killer were super disturbing and well done. The ending got confusing to me, but thats on me for listening while working. ✍️⭐️⭐️⭐️✨️🚣‍♂️ 📚🩸📚💙

Cover for Looking Glass Sound by Catriona Ward. Looking out into the water from the mouth of a cave. The rocks create the silhouette of a skull, and a boat and figure floating in the water look like the eyes

Moodboard for Looking Glass Sound. S small coastal town, and old fishing boat at the side of a building, someone writing pages on pages of a story, a partially submerged cave, a pile of Polaroid photos, and light reflected through a window

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Cam 🦂🏳️‍🌈 @szyca.bsky.social · 26/07/2025

Hungerstone - Kat Dunn "Who would I be if I was someone who wanted things?" Honestly sometimes you just need a bratty vampire to show you your husband sucks and you deserve better 🤷‍♀️ I really loved this, I was worried I'd be getting sick of vampires by now but nope still going strong. 🧛‍♀️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️🏰 📚🩸📚💙

The cover of Hungerstone by Kat Dunn. A classical looking painting of a woman laying dramatically over the edge of her bed, with the title and authors name in neon green

Moodboard for Hungerstone. An old Victorian painting room with candles and red curtains, a horse and carriage in the fog, a fancy dinner plate with blood on the edge, a wooden bridge into a castle, a dark haired woman embracing another woman in a white lace dress, and a vine covered garden veranda

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Cam 🦂🏳️‍🌈 @szyca.bsky.social · 05/07/2025

A few days late, but here's my June wrap up ✨️

My June 2025 wrap up!

Books: 9 - Pages: 2,645 - Av. Rating: 3.92

Highest rated reads: Blood on her Tongue (4.5) The Dark Half (4) The Hiding Place (4)

Average book length: 318 pages
Time to finish: 3 days
Fiction: 67%
Non- fiction: 33%

Genres: Horror, thriller, history, historical, fantasy

Audio: 100%

My June 2025 ratings collage:

Code Dependant: N/A
The Changeling: 3.5
Black Sheep: 3.75
The Hiding Place: 4
The Dark Half: 4
Propaganda Girls: n/a
Rot: n/a
The Woods All Black: 3.75
Blood on her tongue: 4.5

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Cam 🦂🏳️‍🌈 @szyca.bsky.social · 03/07/2025

When the Wolf Comes Home - Nat Cassidy This wasn't what I was expecting at all, and I really enjoyed it! Felt like a fever dream at some points, but in a fun way. This was probably my favourite Nat Cassidy book so far (tho I haven't read Mary yet) 🐺⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️✨️👩‍👦 📚💙📚🩸

Cover for When the Wolf Comes Home by Nat Cassidy. A snarling wolf stands outside a window, looking in

Moodboard for When the Wolf Comes Home. An empty diner, a fairytale illustration of a wolf walking on two legs, a screenshot from Who Framed Roger Rabbit, military boots, dog tags

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Cam 🦂🏳️‍🌈 @szyca.bsky.social · 20/06/2025

The Indifferent Stars Above - Daniel James Brown I've watched so many video essays on the Donner Party story but they don't compare at all to the level of detail this book goes into, so if you enjoy super dark historical events and somehow haven't heard of this one, I definitely recommend! 📚💙📚💡

Cover for The Indifferent Stars Above by Daniel James Brown. A faded blue image of a flat snowy landscape with mountains in the distance, and a star filled sky

A black and white illustration of a wagon party on an expedition

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Cam 🦂🏳️‍🌈 @szyca.bsky.social · 18/06/2025

Rolling in the Deep - Mira Grant The prequel to Into the Drowning Deep! This was a lot shorter, and I had a harder time getting invested in the characters because of that I think, but it was still a really fun little bonus to what may be my favourite book so far this year. ⛵️⭐️⭐️⭐️✨️🧜‍♀️ 📚💙📚🩸

Cover for Rolling in the Deep by Mira Grant. A woman with dark hair is being pulled under the water by two greenish hands with sharp nails and webbed fingers over her eyes

Moodboard for Rolling in the Deep. The book cover, a cloudy sky with the moon shining through, a submarine illuminating the bottom of the ocean, a woman with a camera, and several mermaids silhouettes in the water

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Cam 🦂🏳️‍🌈 @szyca.bsky.social · 16/06/2025

Lucy Undying - Kiersten White "We start this girls trip right. First, arson. Then, a visit to my therapist." I read Twilight too much as a kid so I swore off vampires for a bit, but my reading choices lately are making me rethink this. I loved this, Lucy's a super fun character. 🧛‍♀️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️✨️🌙 💙📚🩸📚

Cover for Lucy Undying by Kiersten White.
A woman with a sad expression looks back at us over her shoulder. She is wearing a Victorian looking off-the-shoulder red dress, with long blonde hair hiding the silhouettes of three snarling dogs.

Moodboard for Lucy Undying. The staircase of an old, dark house, the moon illuminating the clouds around it, a dog with its teeth bared, an old candelabra with 5 burning candles, two hands with painted nails holding each other, a foggy cemetery with a crow flying through it

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Cam 🦂🏳️‍🌈 @szyca.bsky.social · 13/06/2025

Yeah I don't think I've read anything like it before! Really loved the science-heavy parts haha

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Cam 🦂🏳️‍🌈 @szyca.bsky.social · 13/06/2025

Into The Drowning Deep - Mira Grant This was everything I love in one book. Mermaid sci-fi/horror? Hell yeah. I saw someone leave a negative review saying this was just the authors scientific theories on how mermaids could possibly exist which, yeah it was, and I loved it. No notes. 🧜‍♀️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⛴️ 💙📚🩸📚

Cover for Into The Drowning Deep by Mira Grant. A black background, a figure seemingly sinking into the darkness with a splash of red covering the face and drifting upward

Moodboard for Into the Drowning Deep. A full moon over a dark sea, a professional camera, three mermaids in the water, a back with sharp protruding fins, a surgical table, and a screenshot from the Autopsy of Jane Doe

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Cam 🦂🏳️‍🌈 @szyca.bsky.social · 11/06/2025

Camp Damascus - Chuck Tingle This didn't go the direction I was expecting at all, and I was very pleasantly surprised. I did think the first half was stronger, and I almost wish the reveal was dragged out just little longer, but overall it was a good read and I really liked Rose! ⛺️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️✨️😈 💙📚🩸📚

Cover for Camp Damascus by Chuck Tingle. A row of camp cabins, one with blue lights on, in the woods. A face overhead, mouth wide open with insects flying out

Moodboard for Camp Damascus. Rows of pews in a forest clearing, a wall of crucifixes, two women sitting in a window together, a burning vehicle, a shadowed silhouette of a man in a window.

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Cam 🦂🏳️‍🌈 @szyca.bsky.social · 02/06/2025

May Wrap-up! Lots of vampires lately, and coincidentally a lot of high ratings these past couple months lmao

Storygraph wrap up!

Books: 7 Pages: 2320 Avg Rating: 4.35

Highest rated reads: Hungerstone, Lucy Undying, and When the Wolf Comes Home

Average book length: 315 pages
Average time to finish: 4 days

Fiction: 71%
Non fiction: 29%

Genres: Horror, history, thriller, LGBTQIA+, biography

Audio: 100%

May reads rating collage:

Lucy Undying: 4.75
Rolling in the Deep: 3.75
Indifferent Stars Above: n/a
When the Wolf Comes Home: 4.5
Hungerstone: 5
Looking Glass Sound: 3.75
Rabid: n/a

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Cam 🦂🏳️‍🌈 @szyca.bsky.social · 31/05/2025

Private Rites - Julia Armfield This was slower than what I usually read, but I really enjoy her writing, and I liked the characters, especially Agnes. It was also cool to read a dystopia where the setting is very quiet, the environment was secondary to the family drama which was fun 🌧⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️✍️ 💙📚

Cover for Private Rites by Julia Armfield. A green sky, pouring rain with mountains in the background on a blue swirling ocean

Moodboard for Private Rites. An old mansion, a decrepit dark winding staircase, a bag full of cash, a shadow of two women embracing, a couple photos of flooded cities

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Cam 🦂🏳️‍🌈 @szyca.bsky.social · 31/05/2025

Small Town Horror - Ronald Malfi The story was pretty interesting, I always struggle a bit when the protagonists are mostly unlikeable dudes though. Definitely not bad, I just had a harder time connecting with the characters. 🚔⭐️⭐️⭐️✨️🏞 📚💙📚🩸

Cover for Small Town Horror by Ronald Malfi. A dark foggy shipyard is lit by a lighthouse.

Moodboard for Small Town Horror. A cliff into water, a row of small houses, a dark house with a silhouette in the window, a car parked on a dirt road lit by headlights, a cop car driving down a forested road.

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Cam 🦂🏳️‍🌈 @szyca.bsky.social · 17/05/2025

Harrow the Ninth - Tamsyn Muir "You are afraid that your life has incurred a debt that your death will not pay." I don't remember the last time I actually cried real tears over a book but Tamsyn fuckin got me with this one. Also incredible use of second person POV?? 💀⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️🌌 📚💙📚🩸

Cover for Harrow the Ninth by Tamsyn Muir. A young woman with skull face paint and a white cloak over black clothing, one arm half raised and surrounded by skeletons.

Moodboard for Harrow the Ninth. A woman in a white dress laying down holding a sword, a skeletons in religious robes, a red-tinted skull with an eye in the socket, a woman with vacant eyes and black hair hanging in her face

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Cam 🦂🏳️‍🌈 @szyca.bsky.social · 13/05/2025

Running out of characters so I'm putting my thoughts in a separate comment: I think everyone should take the time to read this. It's short, but so impactful. Honestly felt like the most important book I'll ever read.

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Cam 🦂🏳️‍🌈 @szyca.bsky.social · 13/05/2025

One Day Everyone Will Have Always Been Against This - Omar El Akkad "One day, when it's safe, when there's no personal downside to calling a thing what it is, when it's too late to hold anyone accountable, everyone will have always been against this." 📚💙📚💡

Cover for One Day Everyone Will Have Always Been Against This by Omar El Akkad. A red background, a small girl holding a bouquet of flowers and reaching up to the sky while a missile descends towards her.

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Reposted by Cam 🦂🏳️‍🌈

Boze Herrington, Library Owl @sketchesbyboze.bsky.social · 15/04/2025

“Just calm down and let people enjoy chatgpt.” Sorry, no. I find it creepy that folks are treating a machine that mimics human speech as their friend / therapist. It is feeding you lies. It is destroying your thinking abilities. Shut it off. Talk to other humans. Go outside.

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Cam 🦂🏳️‍🌈 @szyca.bsky.social · 10/05/2025

One day I'll remember to add tags in the original post 😭 📚💙📚💡

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Cam 🦂🏳️‍🌈 @szyca.bsky.social · 10/05/2025

Unlikeable Female Characters - Anna Bogutskaya "How bitches, trainwrecks, shrews, and crazy women have taken over pop culture and liberated women from having to be nice." Obsessed with this, this was so much fun to read and such an interesting deep dive into how women in media have evolved!

Cover for Unlikeable Female Characters: The Women Pop Culture Wants You to Hate by Anna Bogutskaya. A pointilist portrait of the lower half of a woman's face with vampire fangs drawn on it

Screenshot of Amy Dunne from the movie Gone Girl

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Cam 🦂🏳️‍🌈 @szyca.bsky.social · 10/05/2025

So Thirsty - Rachel Harrison My first five-star book since starting this account! This was so much fun, and I liked that Sloane and Naomi's friendship got more focus and attention than the romance, I feel like I don't see enough of that. Big fan of this! 🧛‍♀️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️👭 💙📚🩸

Cover for So Thirsty by Rachel Harrison. A fancy glass goblet filled with red liquid dripping over the edges, with a white toothpick with a bat and crescent moon on it

Moodboard for So Thirsty. Blood bags, a glass with red fluid in it, flames reflected in a woman's eye, a woman with blood on her shirt, two women holding hands while driving

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Cam 🦂🏳️‍🌈 @szyca.bsky.social · 02/05/2025

April wrap up! Three 5 star books in one month is pretty crazy for me tbh. And I don't like to rate non fiction books but the two I read this month were also really good!

My April storygraph wrap up:

Books: 9 Pages: 3112 Average Rating: 4.43

Highest rated reads: Into the Drowning Deep, Harrow the Ninth, and So Thirsty

Av. Length: 349 pages
Time to finish: 8 days

Fiction: 78%
Nonfiction: 22%

Genres: Horror, LGBTQIA+, Science Fiction, Fantasy, Literary

Audio: 89%
Print: 11%

April 2025 rating collage:

Wake up and open your eyes: 4.0

So Thirsty: 5.0

Unlikeable Female Characters: N/A

One Day Everyone Will Have Always Been Against This: N/A

Harrow the Ninth: 5.0

Small Town Horror: 3.5

Private Rites: 4.0

Camp Damascus: 4.5

Into the Drowning Deep: 5.0

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Cam 🦂🏳️‍🌈 @szyca.bsky.social · 02/05/2025

Wake Up and Open Your Eyes - Clay McLeod Chapman It took me a bit to warm up to this one, it felt a little on the nose in places and I didn't care that much for Noah. I did really end up enjoying the parts they followed his family though. Full review on storygraph: tinyurl.com/ftr8fhk4 📺⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️🇺🇲 💙📚🩸

Cover for Wake Up and Open Your Eyes by Clay McLeod Chapman. A family sits at a white dinner table with a stark red background, their faces replaced with TV static

Moodboard for Wake Up and Open Your Eyes. A highway empty on one side, traffic stopped dead on the other, a dark room full of blue TV screens, a street full of people running, and graffiti reading "open your eyes"

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Cam 🦂🏳️‍🌈 @szyca.bsky.social · 26/04/2025

Cuckoo - Gretchen Felker-Martin I had heard this was pretty heavy on the body horror, (and it was) but I wasn't expecting it to be as sad as it was on top of that. (I mean, anything about conversion camps is gonna be heavy so I really should've seen that coming) anyways I love Nadine 💕 ⛪️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️🏕 💙📚🩸

Cover for Cuckoo by Gretchen Felker-Martin

A birds nest with a few broken eggs oozing yolks and dark liquid, with one pristine egg sitting upright behind them

Moodboard for Cuckoo. A building on fire, an alien creature with its face split open, a girl with blood on her face and shoulder, a white van, bloody hands, and a dark cabin with a stature of Mary outside

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Cam 🦂🏳️‍🌈 @szyca.bsky.social · 14/04/2025

This Wretched Valley - Jenny Kiefer I enjoyed this one! I always love a creepy forest, and I really like the cover design. It did drag a little around the middle, and I didn't particularly like most of the characters, but I think the premise was really cool! 🪨⭐️⭐️⭐️✨️👻 🩸📚💙📚

Cover for This Wretched Valley by Jenny Kiefer

A distant rock climber dangles from the nasal bone of a giant skull over a forest

Moodboard for This Wretched Valley

A woman in rock climbing gear, a dark forest lit by flashlight, a log eith mushrooms growing off it, a dark foggy forest with spectral figures between the trees, a forest lit by bonfire, and an Australian cattle dog

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