#sara gran

[backlogbooks]

"Are YOU Possessed by a Demon?

1. I hear strange noises in my home, especially at night, which family members tell me only occur when I am present.

2. I have new activities and pastimes that seem “out of character,” and I do things that I did not intend and do not understand.

3. I’m short and ill-tempered with my friends and loved ones.

4. I can understand languages I’ve never studied, and have the ability to know things I couldn’t know through ordinary means.

5. I have blackouts not caused by drugs, alcohol, or a pre-existing health condition.

6. I have unusual new thoughts, or hear voices in my head.

7. I’ve had visions or dreams of personalities who may be demons.

8. A psychic, minister, or other spiritualist has told me I’m possessed.

9. I have urges to hurt or kill animals and other people.

10. I have hurt or killed animals or people.

0-3: You are probably not possessed. See a doctor or mental health professional for an evaluation.

3-6: You may be haunted, or in the early stages of possession. Seek a spiritual counselor for assistance.

6-10: You are possessed. Consult with your spiritual counselor immediately. You may be a threat to the safety of yourself and your family."

[2clementines]

What I’ve read in January so far :) if you’re still using Goodreads, I highly recommend switching over to StoryGraph instead! Any amount of support we can take away from Amazon is good!

Books in order:

Among Flowers by Jamaica Kincaid

Come Closer by Sara Gran

A Pale View of Hills by Kazuo Ishiguro

The Wall by Marlen Haushofer

I think I’m going to read Just Kids by Patti Smith next. I read M Train last January and loved it.

[haveyoureadthishorrorbookpoll]

Have you read...

A recurrent, unidentifiable noise in her apartment. A memo to her boss that's replaced by obscene insults. Amanda - a successful architect in a happy marriage - finds her life going off kilter by degrees. She starts smoking again, and one night for no reason, without even the knowledge that she's doing it, she burns her husband with a cigarette. At night she dreams of a beautiful woman with pointed teeth on the shore of a blood-red sea. The new voice in Amanda's head, the one that tells her to steal things and talk to strange men in bars, is strange and frightening, and Amanda struggles to wrest back control of her life. Is she possessed by a demon, or is she simply insane?

submit a horror book!

[riladigi]

☆⋆｡𖦹°‧★ book review #7 ☆⋆｡𖦹°‧★

title: Claire DeWitt and the City of the Dead

author: Sara Gran

fin: 14/12/2024

rating: ★★★⯪☆

tags: mystery, detective novel, environmentalism, intersectionality

𓆝 𓆟 𓆞 𓆝 𓆟𓆝 𓆟 𓆞 𓆝 𓆟𓆝 𓆟 𓆞 𓆝 𓆟𓆝 𓆟 𓆞 𓆝 𓆟

centered around the aftermath of hurricane katrina in new orleans, claire dewitt is tasked with the mystery about a missing lawyer and uncovers a plethora of ugly truths. although, detective novels are not entirely my cup of tea, i quite enjoyed reading this one as it not only covers a simple mystery, but also includes themes like institutionalized racism, gentrification, climate change, and structural inequalities.

sara gran has an interesting narrative style, which was enticing in the beginning of the novel, but quickly became repetitive. often dewitt would start the chapter with a small introduction to a mystery or a person, such as her childhood friend, and end it with "but she was never seen again"/"claire would never talk to her again"/"xy would never speak again", which quickly turns boring and lazy.

claire was also a quite memorable character. she's mostly characterized by her strong will to discover the truth no matter how unpleasant it is, but also by her annoying and presumptuous behavior. especially, the scene where she delved into one of her monologues about disguises and how rookie detectives think simply a wig or a haircut will do the trick, only to then go in disguise as a biracial woman (and do blackface) and be immediately recognized by everyone.

all in all, an enjoyable book with important environmental justice themes.

[mylifeinfiction]

Come Closer by Sara Gran

The battle was all mine, and I was quickly, obviously, losing.

Sara Gran's Come Closer is a brisk psychological-horror story that's as successfully disorienting as it is exceedingly disturbing. The way Gran weaponizes the first-person - nearly stream-of-conscious - storytelling to build discomfort and fear as Amanda becomes less and less herself is immensely effective in both its execution and thematic heft. And while it's not nearly as traditionally terrifying as I'd hoped, Gran's prose handles the loss of control and sense of hopelessness throughout Amanda's dissociation so tactfully that it builds to a shockingly vicious, truly harrowing finale.

How as this not been adapted into a film, yet?!?

8.5/10

-Timothy Patrick Boyer.

[blogthefiresidechats]

Latest haul...

Well, as you can guess, I made another run at the bookstore. Today I actually got to visit two different bookstores….came home with 10 more books to add to the collection. My hubby and I didn’t really get to do anything for Valentine’s Day because we were both working. So much hubby took the day off from work today so that we could spend the day doing fun stuff.

[derailed-thoughts]

[unhallowedarts]

i wish i had someone to talk about The Book of the Most Precious Substance with, but unfortunately i cannot in good conscience encourage anyone to read it because it basically goes like this:

pages 1-100: very slow, nothing really good or bad

pages 101-200: amazing, intense, page-turning and gripping while still being thought-provoking, hints of greater mysteries beyond every page, everything i want in a book

pages 201-300: takes everything that was just set up and methodically shreds it throws it out the window. awful. stupid. no emotional payoff. embarrassingly bad “twist.” bonus: badly written bdsm.

pages 301-332: will haunt me for the rest of my life, so brilliantly disturbing and ambiguous that i will never ever get over it ever

[trutletruffle]

so i read Come Closer by Sara Gran and it was quite good. i feel like i havent read many books about possession from the point of view of the person being possessed. and this one was good. really unnerving, to think about how easy it would be, how hard it is to tell that you are changing, that your own mind is slipping out from under you. and also there's the temptation: am i not better this way? im not alone anymore. surely this is better, surely she knows better than i do.

[jonathanjudge]

[triada-literaria]

Reseña Acércate

[myhikari21things]

Read of Come Closer by Sara Gran (2003) (147pgs)

[shvtter-bug]

June Reads

Summarizing the books I read this past June, my enjoyment of them, and the books I’m planning on reading this July!

I’m rather new to reviewing books outside of my own head so bear with these almost awful descriptions.

I read 6 books this past month that contained 1,399 pages total! Nearly every single one of these books contained dark, mysterious, or reflective themes.

Life Ceremony- Sayaka Murata

Life Ceremony was a very quick read for me, if I hadn’t only been reading when I had time between classes I’m certain I would’ve finished this book much faster. I rated this book a 4.5/5 stars and would highly recommend. I will say that the mood of this book can be all over the place, though it isn’t something that bothers me. Stories would range from eerie to somewhat disgusting and then to shocking. The stories that really stuck with me upon finishing were Life Ceremony, Eating the City, and Hatchling.

Eating the city was, by far, my favorite out of the collection. I found that the way Murata wrote about the characters past experiences were beautiful and almost made me miss a place I had never experiences. If you could only read one story out of the collection I would highly suggest this one.

You’ve Lost a Lot of Blood- Eric LaRocca

Due to the fact that I have already left my thoughts about this book on my blog I’m going to keep this short. This was my first 5 star read of 2024 and one that I would read again in a second.

I am obsessed with the formatting that LaRocca uses and I finished this book within 12 hours from starting it(this only being due to the fact that I was asleep for 10 of those hours). If you would like to go back and read my partial review please go ahead though note there are spoilers within!

This story follows a serial killer and his works including a short story, a series of poems, his personal journal, as well as transcriptions of audio recordings. We come to understand the inner workings of this man’s mind, how he views his relationships, his motive to kill, as well as his drive to write.

Come Closer- Sara Gran

Come Closer follows a woman as she navigates her own possession and tries to cope in a series of countless ways. We see her relationships shift, even the one she has with herself, as she explores a part of herself she’s had buried for a very long time.

There isn’t much good I can say about this book. I finished it in full and am glad that the authors writing style is good or I couldn’t have been able to sit through this. I was extremely into this from the beginning and only lost interest close to the end when I saw the direction that the author was taking this.

It almost felt like a pointless read. I didn’t feel good or bad after reading it more so just felt like I wasted two hours I could’ve spent on something else. The rating I ended up giving it was a 1.5/5 stars.

If you’re extremely into literature focused around possession and demons you’ll find this very interesting it just wasn’t a book that stuck for me.

Spider-Gwen, Volume 0: Most Wanted- Robbi Rodriquez

3.75/5 stars. It was a comic book related to the spiderverse. I enjoyed it. Not much else to say.

And Then I Woke Up- Malcolm Devlin

The exploration of the impact that the media has on our minds is impactful, but I wish the twist wasn’t given away within the first chapter of the book. I feel like the impact would’ve been larger.

This book would be a very good intro to the effects that media can have on the mind. If certain language wasn’t as vulgar the ideal audience for this would be middle schoolers/young high schoolers.

Without giving much away we follow our main character deal with the fallout of an apocalypse. He builds relationships with other survivors through a first person perspective as he relays his story to the audience. An interesting take on the unreliable narrator. 3.5/5 was my rating.

My Year of Rest and Relaxation- Ottessa Moshfegh

The first thing that comes to mind is the unbelievable, seemingly forced resolution that was at the end of this book. I never had this book on my To Be Read List, but when I was it for 25¢ at the thrift store I figured I would pick it up and give it a read.

It was fine. Moshfegh is skilled at writing unlikable characters while still giving you a sense of sympathy for them even when they can’t feel it for themselves. I can’t say much about how I felt without giving the entire story away, but I understand how this book has gained so much popularity. Another read that left me feeling disappointed that I would ever listen to the suggestions of booktok.

July To Be Read List(some of these I’ve already finished but I’m throwing it in anyways)

The Goldfinch-Donna Tartt

Mysterious Skin- Scott Heim

The October Country- Ray Bradbury

Dreamseller- Brandon Novak

A Certain Hunger- Chelsea G. Summers

Factotum- Charles Bukowski

Below is my StoryGraph! Feel free to follow along with my journey!

[sleightsofheart]

I have a newsletter/substack thingy where I talk about horror in all its forms and I'll be posting on here when there's a new edition and what do you know, THERE IS A NEW EDITION

It's a review of this book

Come and read etc

[inarpa]

August's books (IV)

So I finished the first four audiobooks of Murderbot and I am now with the long novel, Network Effect. I didn't remember a single thing of it, and with the narration of Kevin R. Free, it's like a new book for me and I'm enjoying it.

I also finished, Come Closer, by Sara Gran, and it was okay. Not scary at all, just spooky. For me was really straightforward, but a friend told me there was room for interpretation (?)

And then I submerged myself into a romance, Hellfriend, by Myriam M. Lejardi, which, in spite of the title, is in Spanish. Lejardi writes mostly romcoms full of queer people and fun and sex and deep messages. This one had less sex than I expected, but I devoured it in a weekend. It has demons and angels and the threat of an antichrist, so it was perfect after Good Omens 2.

Now I have started another novella, Thornhedge, by T. Kingfisher, one of my favorite authors. I have set aside Possession for now, because August has jumped on me and I have to read a long book for a bookclub!

[cameratosee]

​Claire Dewitt and the City of the Dead by Sara Gran