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Book List: 2021 Favorites

Monster Librarian’s staff reviewed over 100 books in 2021. These included fiction, nonfiction, anthologies, short story collections, poetry, novels, graphic novels, and novellas of all kinds, for adults, teens, and middle graders, both traditionally and independently published. While many excellent books came our way, the following titles received the designation of “highly recommended” from our reviewers. With the exception of seven books on this list, these can all be purchased from our storefront at Bookshop.org.

I really hope that you will choose to support Monster Librarian by making your purchases though our storefront at Bookshop.org. or through the links provided with publication information in our reviews. We received almost no funding this year and were lucky to cover our hosting fees.

 

 

Novels:

The Final Girl Support Group by Grady Hendrix
Lakewood by Megan Giddings
Whisper Down the Lane by Clay McLeod Chapman
Seeing Evil (Cycle of Evil #1) by Jason Parent
Mexican Gothic by Silvia Moreno-Garcia
Children of Chicago by Cynthia Pelayo
Neptune’s Reckoning by Robert J. Stava
(Con)Science by PJ Manney
Final Girl by Wol-vriey
The Between by Ryan Leslie
Constance by Matthew Fitzsimmons
To Dust You Shall Return by Fred Venturini
Devil’s Creek by Todd Keisling
The Deep by Alma Katsu
Goblin: A Novel in Six Novellas by Josh Malerman
The Burning Girls  by C.J. Tudor
The Last House on Needless Street by Catriona Ward
The Other Black Girl by Zakiya Dalila Harris
Of One Blood by Pauline Hopkins

 

Young Adult:

Clown in a Cornfield by Adam Cesare
Beasts and Beauty: Dangerous Tales by Soman Chainani

 

Middle Grade:

The Girl and the Ghost  by Hanna Alkaf
Root Magic by Eden Royce
The Year I Flew Away by Marie Arnold
Amari and the Night Brothers by B.B. Alston

 

Graphic Novels:

Road of Bones by Rich Douek and Alex Cormack
Elvira: Mistress of the Dark (vols 1 and 2) by David Avallone, art by Dave Acosta
The Shape of Elvira by David Avallone, art by Fran Strukan (issues 1-3) and Pasquale Qualano (issue 4)
The Masque of the Red Death: Fine Art Edition by Edgar Allan Poe

 

 

Collections:

Coralesque: And Other Tales to Disturb and Distract by Rebecca Fraser
From the Depths: Terrifying Tales by Richard Saxon
Children of the Fang and Other Genealogies by John Langan
Burning Girls and Other Stories by Veronica Schanoes
Grotesque: Monster Stories by Lee Murray

 

Anthologies:

Attack From the ’80s edited by Eugene Johnson
Howls from Hell: A Horror Anthology edited by HOWL Society
Not All Monsters: A Strangehouse Anthology by Women of Horror edited by Joanna Roye and G.G. Silverman
Wicked Women: An Anthology of the New England Horror Writers edited by Jane Yolen and Hilary Monahan
Miscreations: Gods, Monstrosities, and Other Horrors edited by Doug Murano and Michael Bailey

 

Poetry:

Tortured Willows: Bent. Bowed. Unbroken. by Lee Murray, Geneve Flynn, Christina Sng, and Angela Yuriko Smith
A Complex Accident of Life by Jessica McHugh
Cradleland of Parasites by Sara Tantlinger

 

Nonfiction:

Cult Cinema by Howard David Ingham
Encyclopedia Sharksploitanica by Susan Snyder
The Devil and His Advocates by Nicholas Butler
Women Make Horror: Filmmaking, Feminism, Genre by Alison Peirse
The Science of Women in Horror: The Special Effects, Stunts, and True Stories Behind Your Favorite Fright Films by Kelly Florence and Meg Hafdahl
1000 Women in Horror: 1895-2018 by Alexandra Heller-Nicholas
Glamour Ghoul: The Passions and Pain of the Real Vampira, Maila Nurmi by Sandra Niemi
Writing in the Dark by Tim Waggoner
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Posted on January 4, 2022 by , Reply

Book Review: Attack From the ’80s edited by Eugene Johnson

cover art for Attack from the '80s edited by Eugene Johnson

Attack From the ’80s edited by Eugene Johnson

Raw Dog Screaming Press, 2021

ISBN-13: 978-1735664446

Available: Hardcover  ( Bookshop.org  |  Amazon.com )

 

Eugene Johnson brings together 22 incredible short stories and poems as a fitting tribute to the horror of the 1980s. There is something for everyone in this collection. “Top Guns of the Frontier” by Weston Ochse, a strong open to this anthology, tells the story of friends coming face to face with an ancient evil. In “Snapshot” by Joe R. Lansdale and Kasey Lansdale, Gracie and Trevor, the famous Snapshot Burglars, rob the wrong house. Jess Landry’s “Catastrophe Queens” takes place on the movie set of an ’80s SS werewolf horror film. Pink fake blood starts to take over people…and anything it touches. In “Your Picture Here” by John Skipp, a couple decides to take in a double feature of horror movies only to discover one of the films is closer to the truth. Lee Murray’s “Permanent Damage” invites us to a bridal party at a salon that turns into a bloodbath. “Munchies” by Lucy A. Snyder is a great story about a group of drag queens and the terror that was Nancy Reagan who has come to deliver a check to the local high school’s antidrug drive.

 

No ’80s horror anthology would be complete without the topic of D&D. In “Demonic Denizens” by Cullen Bunn, friends at summer camp discover a new game to play after the counselors forbid them to play any more of that “satanic” Dungeons & Dragons. “Ghetto Blaster”, by Jeff Strand, presents Clyde, who is cursed to carry a rather heavy ghetto blaster until he learns his lesson about loud music in public spaces. Everyone, check your candy before reading “Stranger Danger” by Grady Hendrix. A group of boys, hell-bent on taking revenge on the Judge, discover an army of Yoda-costumed children who have their own havoc to create, with apples containing razor blades the treat of the night. In Lisa Morton’s “The Garden of Dr. Moreau”, a biology experiment on corn plants is a success, but it could be at a deadly cost for life on Earth.

 

Other authors in the anthology include Ben Monroe, Linda Addison, Thomas F. Monteleone, Tim Waggoner, Stephen Graham Jones, Vince A. Liaguno, Rena Mason, Cindy O’Quinn, F. Paul Wilson, Christina Sng, Mort Castle, and Stephanie M. Wytovich. Pick this up if you need a good dose of 80s horror reading. Highly recommended.

 

 

Reviewed by Lizzy Walker

Posted on November 28, 2021 by , Reply

Book Review: Tortured Willows: Bent. Bowed. Unbroken. by Lee Murray, Geneve Flynn, Christina Sng, and Angela Yuriko Smith

cover art for Tortured Willows by Lee Murray and others

Tortured Willows: Bent. Bowed. Unbroken. by Lee Murray, Geneve Flynn, Christina Sng, and Angela Yuriko Smith

Yuriko Publishing, 2021

ISBN: 9781737208

Available: Paperback  (Amazon.com)

 

A striking, heart-wrenching masterpiece, comprised of four vital voices in verse.

 

This four-poet compilation of works extends on themes addressed in the multiple award winning anthology, Black Cranes: Tales of Unquiet Women (Lee Murray and Geneve Flynn, editors). The individual poems are highly accessible and strike fiercely, each bringing to life “a story on skin” (Angela Yuriko Smith, “Her Hajichi”), and each written with unyielding voice and unique strength.

 

At once painful and powerful, the collection as a whole exemplifies the best of speculative poetry and is a collection that will be re-read again and again: first all at once because the poems bring you quickly into their vivid images and worlds, and then returned to over time for their courageous meanings and profound insights.

 

Highlights includes Murray’s “Defining Character,” which explores language itself and the associations inherent to female life; Flynn’s remarkable blackout poem “Abridge,” unearthing hidden realities and hopes for an end to gendered violence”; the harsh cruelties imposed by the wealthy on a young immigrant girl employed in the home in Sng’s “Phoenix.”

 

Alongside a combination of traditional forms and free verse work, the poets also offer short commentaries. This addition invites readers into deeper reflection on and conversation with the authors’ processes and purposes, an engaging and inspired aspect of the collection. Filled with diverse poems that explore complex themes like ancestral obligations, cultural appropriation and violence, intimate exotification and misogyny, the impact of the work also moves in intriguing, new directions toward empowering, reimagined histories and myths.

 

Beautifully arranged by individual author, each set of poems works on its own and contributes to the overall themes. The resulting range of voices and styles is merged into a magnificently cohesive set addressing intersecting issues of culture and gender. Potent truths, rich details, and dynamic verse, these poems bloom with taut images that slice away preconceptions and deepen attention to appropriations of heritage and impositions of restricting expectations.

 

Fans of Black Cranes looking for more work by the authors, as well as fans of modern speculative verse and horror poetry will revel in this impressive collection. From goddesses and teenagers to angry ghosts, these poems will haunt and inspire. Highly Recommend.

 

 

Reviewed by E.F. Schraeder

Posted on October 8, 2021 by , Reply
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