Lee Hunts

I just finished reading Pet Sematary, one of Stephen King's most widely praised novels, one which he, himself, thought he had taken it too far. This is a horror novel about a doctor who, with his wife and kids, moves to a home in Maine with a heavily trafficked highway just without their front door. The highway is notorious for killing pets, leading to the creation of the Pet Sematary, where children would bury their pets once they've turned into roadkill. But there is something deeper to this cemetery, something darker than you can imagine. What ensues is a disturbing, slow-burn story where you track the lives of this newly moved-in family. Overall, my reaction to this story is actually kind of mixed. The premise of the story is amazing, and most everything leading up to the end was great, but I thought the ending did not quite work, both coming off as low-brow and too sudden. Strides (Spoilers) Behind the Pet Sematary is an ancient Native American site called the Micmac buryi

I just finished reading The Poppy War by R. F. Kuang. This is a grimdark fantasy novel based on Chinese history. In particular, it is based on the second Sino-Japanese war that started in the late 1930s, bled into the Second World War, and ends with two atomic bombs being dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The novel follows a character named Fang Runin, who is a war orphan, a child left parentless in the wake of conflict and given off to a family who does not love her. She decides to study for a major nationwide exam that would purportedly give her opportunities beyond the impoverished life of a slave that she is confined to. This book is a visceral and violent experience, with nothing held back in terms of the brutality of war, or the troubles of class in the people's lives. The ending most of all, captures the horrors and the bleak nature of war, and what it does to people. Overall, I really enjoyed this book, my enjoyment increasing the further into the novel I progressed. Strid

I just finished reading The Outsider, by Stephen King. This is a novel about a gruesome child rape. The evidence points to a completely unassuming man whose record is cleaner than you could imagine. The man claims to be innocent, and eventually he manages to put forward an alibi that can't be ignored. This antinomy lies at the heart of this story, confounding the minds of the characters, particularly Ralph Anderson, the lead detective on the case. Overall, I thought this novel was meh. It was not amazing, nor was it horrible. Strides (Spoilers) The first half of the novel is much better than the second half of the novel. The story was set up in such a way that the plot of the story picked up quick, and I was able to get engaged from the outset. The reason I feel the need to bring this up is because of two interconnected reasons: (1) the story somewhat reminds me of BoneMan's Daughters. I won't go into what I think are the similarities; the overall point is that Bon