Emily

Yes, the stories are strong, and the performances are excellent.

A couple of the stories have eerie, disconcerting climaxes, but to describe them would be telling.

My favorite story was "The Enduring Chill," which features a few very funny scenes in which the tortured writer struggles with the fact that he is likely uncreative.

Mrs. Turpin of "Revelation." Here's a woman who thinks she knows herself body and soul. but she's terrifyingly wrong.

This story collection is very dark. People hope greatly, and fail terribly. There aren't any winners, only tension, and confrontations where everyone loses. There is a theme of bone-deep misunderstanding, of people across generation and color not being able to see each other clearly. I would recommend perhaps breaking it up if you're of a more optimistic persuasion.

No, and no. You could not pay me to read the next book in the series, and as bad as I felt this was, I think the audio production hurt it too.

Southern Gothic? Not at all. Young Adult? Probably. This book was like playing YA-trope bingo. Absent parents, insta-love, etc. I think I'll have to take a few weeks break before I read another YA.

The drawl. The terrible, terrible laid-on-only-for-dialogue drawl, sometimes in adorable falsetto.

Is this a trick question? What wouldn't I have cut? You could basically pick any scene in Twilight and have a near analogous one in Beautiful Creatures. That's not a complement. If I had to pick the biggest loser though, it would be the gym inquisition, followed closely by the bloated ending.

This is an overlong, unoriginal mess with lackluster characters. I finished it because I don't like quitting books, but last five hours had me sighing and wishing desperately that it were over.

Nope. Superheroes and zombies are not as cool as you'd think. What's awesome about zombies is the terror of conversion or of being eaten alive. If you're impervious, it's rather less interesting. Additionally, it's full of comic book stereotypes, but not self-aware enough to make it a celebration of those tropes instead of just displaying a distinct lack of originality. There's very little depth here, and if I'm going to read a comic book, I'd at least like to be able to look at the pretty pictures.

I don't think I would. Plot holes drive me crazy, and Clines is not very good at avoiding them.

I don't recall previously listening to a book read by either of them, but I think that they mostly did a good job. I did find that Kristine Hvam's higher-pitched terror voice was a little too shrill for my ears. I winced a few times.

Maybe. I didn't hate it, but I think I wanted it to deliver a lot more solidly than it did.

I did hate how utterly interchangeable the humans were. He really could have named them Human 1 through Human 7, and it wouldn't have made a difference in their treatment or personalities. They were the superhero book equivalent of red shirts, just there for violence fodder.