Strange Buildings

Posted by cat2002116 on April 5, 2026
Posted in: Books, Mystery, Reviews. Tagged: , , , , , , . Leave a comment

My sister and I don’t share every genre of fiction, but those that we do share, we have very similar tastes in books…so when she told me how much she’d enjoyed reading the first book by this author and thought I would like it, I decided to buy this one…and the second book, which was also available in Waterstones.

Well…my sister wasn’t wrong. And just to give you an idea of how much I enjoyed this book – I wasn’t even halfway through it when I went onto Amazon and ordered the first book by the author!

Strange Houses is referenced during this book, but I don’t think it’s necessary to read that book to follow this one, as it seems to follow a completely different storyline/mystery…although there are characters referenced who I assume made an appearance in the previous book.

I did enjoy the fact that all of the short stories were connected, but I actually think the book would stand stronger if that fact hadn’t been revealed in the blurb. I know that there was the idea of getting the reader to put the pieces together themselves, but even without that explanation, I think it would have been obvious that the short stories were connected.

While this book wasn’t exactly a horror, there were definitely some very creepy moments in the short stories…especially with the account of the watermill and the egret that was seen. I also found the diary entries by Naruki to be incredibly sad…although I’m not sure why ‘Uncle’ didn’t seem to try harder to help Naruki, since it was fairly obvious he was being abused even without the photo that was later referenced. And I felt that was what revealed about the ‘Uncle’ later directly contrasted with what he’d done in his past and how he’d treated his daughter, so that made my suspension of disbelief a bit harder to hold onto.

Reading how everything fit together and the deductions at the end of the book were really interesting…but I was left with some questions by the end of it. For instance, how the cult got so many members. I know that there was the whole thing about cold calling, but…how did they even know who would be eligible for their cult? I mean, the very criteria…as revealed by the end…isn’t something that people would necessarily reveal voluntarily, so it felt strange to me that the undercover person saw so many people attending the cult meeting. To be honest, the cult didn’t really feel that…cultish to me. In my opinion, it was probably the weakest out of the eleven short stories.

On the whole, though, I did really enjoy this book…and it was a really unique and different way of telling a story. I’ve already started reading Strange Pictures, and should be getting Strange Houses in the next day or so. Plus, I see that Strange Maps is going to be released next, so I’ll be buying that when it comes out.

On the whole, I would highly recommend reading this book if you are on the fence about it. I read it in one day, which isn’t something I’m now able to do with a lot of books now. Plus, it’s very different compared to other books I’ve read…and considering how many books I’ve read, I think something so different is something of a palate cleanser.

Demon Slayer: Kimetsu No Yaiba: Infinity Castle

Posted by cat2002116 on April 1, 2026
Posted in: Anime, Fantasy, Movies, Reviews. Tagged: , , , , , , , . Leave a comment

Demon Slayer is probably my favourite series at the moment…let alone my favourite anime. I originally watched The Mugen Train movie, and that was my first introduction to the anime and the characters. And even with no prior knowledge, it engaged me right from the start.

This movie had much higher stakes than the previous two I’d seen, and since I had seen quite a bit of the anime by the time I saw this movie (for the second time now), I was much more familiar with the characters and the storyline…and found myself on the edge of my seat even after having seen the movie once already.

It was really great to see all of the demon slayers and the hashira. I really liked seeing Tanjiro and Giyu fighting alongside each other…and, of course, Akaza made an appearance in this movie, along with Doma. Doma is perhaps scarier than Akaza, since he comes across as really charming and almost kind…while brutally murdering people. Akaza, at least, never pretended to be anything other than what he was.

What was good was being able to see both Akaza and Doma as they had been as humans. With Doma, it didn’t really do much to humanise him. Even before becoming a demon, it seemed like he didn’t have any real empathy towards other people. For Akaza, though, learning about his past as a human was heartbreaking. By the time the battle between him, Giyu and Tanjiro was over, I actually had tears in my eyes. It was enough to make me hope that the demons who’d been able to return to their humanity would find some sort of peace in their next lives.

I also really liked the fact that Zenitsu confronted Kaigaku, and was actually awake during that battle. Prior to watching this movie, I’d seen Zenitsu only able to fight when he was sleeping…which was a really unique idea, even if he was annoying when he was awake and constantly freaking out. But in this movie, he showed a much more serious side to him, and it was actually really great to see.

I hated the fight between Doma and Shinobu, even though it allowed me to learn more about Shinobu…and to a lesser extent Doma, even though he was still obviously a bad guy. Just very charming with it, which left me with very conflicted emotions about how the battle was going.

I will say that I am Not Happy that I have to wait even longer for the next movies to come out. Okay, maybe it’ll give me time to watch the whole anime in its entirety, but I still don’t want to be waiting so long for the other movies!

Scream 7

Posted by cat2002116 on April 1, 2026
Posted in: Horror, Movies, Reviews. Tagged: , , , , . Leave a comment

So…I’ve watched all of the Scream movies, and while I was a bit hesitant about watching Scream 7, I felt like I had to, if only because the first Scream movie was such an iconic movie for the horror genre.

Sidney was always such an interesting character in the first few movies, and I was looking forward to seeing how the second generation…her own daughter…would handle the darkness of her mother’s past. And, well, the answer…was disappointing.

Sidney never struck me as the kind of person who would hide what she went through from her family. I mean, I get the whole overprotective mother thing…but keeping everything a secret from her daughter just didn’t feel like it fit with her previously established character. I would have liked the conflict between Sidney and Tatum (her daughter) a lot more if it had felt more true to Sidney’s character as a survivor of multiple massacres.

The first spree of killings was…very anticlimactic, to be honest. I think because the movie didn’t spend enough time setting up the characters before starting to kill them off. The identity of the first unmasked killer wasn’t a surprise…because there was really only one person who’d earlier been acting suspicious. The fact that he wasn’t known by any of the characters made it obvious that there was going to be another killer (or another two killers), even if the runtime hadn’t already made that obvious.

The whole thing with Stu supposedly not being dead might have been an interesting angle, if it wasn’t obvious (at least to me) that Stu couldn’t have actually been alive. I mean, don’t get me wrong; it was pretty awesome to see Matthew Lillard make an appearance. But it was pretty obvious that it wasn’t going to be him.

As to who the killers actually were…well, that was just as anticlimactic as the first killer, to be honest. Unfortunately, I feel like the killers (and their motives) are just getting worse and worse the more Scream movies there actually are.

I did like the appearance of Chad and Mindy, but it was disappointing that they didn’t get much screen time…and I felt that Mindy especially was toned down quite a bit. It would have been great to see them both get more room to shine.

Unfortunately, on the whole, I didn’t really enjoy this movie. It didn’t have anything that made previous movies good, and while the Scream murder house being turned into an airbnb was an interesting idea, the two characters at the beginning had nothing to do with the other victims…and honestly, most of what happened during that initial scene (and the rest of the movie) was really predictable…and pretty boring. I can’t really say I’d recommend watching this movie even if you have enjoyed previous Scream movies, as I do think Sidney’s character is somewhat ruined…and it doesn’t really have much to do with the most recent movies in the franchise, apart from Chad and Mindy making an appearance…and a brief conversation towards the end between Sidney and Gale about the events of the previous movie, which didn’t have Sidney in it at all.

Little Red Death

Posted by cat2002116 on March 31, 2026
Posted in: Books, Reviews, Thriller. Tagged: , , , , , , . Leave a comment

So, I picked up this book because the title and the cover both really intrigued me. And then I read the blurb, and I immediately thought this book sounded interesting…and different enough to hold my attention, over all the young adult books with really similar plots I keep seeing.

I felt that the book had a really strong start. Being a writer myself, there were some really interesting moral issues raised even from the very first paragraph. As a writer, it is true that I have killed characters in service of the plot. Never for no reason, though. I don’t do it just for shock value like I’m aware some people do.

But…going back to the book itself, I thought it got off to a really interesting start. As a writer myself, it’s interesting to consider the effects that a book can have on someone. And being addressed by who I assumed was the killer, about kidnapping a writer, was a really interesting idea.

I was a bit disappointed that the book started with Katie having been kidnapped, because it seemed to remove a lot of the mystery that the blurb promised. I’m a strong believer that less is more…and while this is mostly to do with movies (especially horror movies), I think the same is true for books as well.

This book also completely changed genres about halfway through and that…really ruined the book for me. I felt there was no foreshadowing for it to suddenly turn into a fantasy, and what had been shown before didn’t match up with the sudden swerve into fantasy territory. I mean…why was the killer writing messages to Lyla? I kind of get that maybe the whole speaking to the lead detective was meant to be Katie’s plan, but given that she didn’t even seem to know about Lyla until she saw the newspaper article…I felt it really fell short. And the other two ‘twists’ just felt like the book had lost its way somewhere along the second or third murder.

This book could have worked well as a fantasy thriller if there’d been more foreshadowing before the sudden swerve, but sadly, by the point that was revealed…I just lost my suspension of disbelief. By the end of the book, I couldn’t help wondering if this had actually been written with the help of AI. Mostly, this was due to a scene where Katie presses her forehead against another character’s…and that’s an action that seems to occur a lot in AI writing that I’ve seen.

Whether written with AI or not (and it’s pretty sad that I now have to consider that as a possibility when reading books), this really wasn’t as good as I was hoping it would be. It definitely could have been improved…and there is such a thing as too many twists, especially when these aren’t foreshadowed at all.

Unfortunately, this book simply wasn’t one I enjoyed reading…and I wouldn’t seek out another book by this author unless it was completely different to this one, and didn’t give me a sudden genre switch partway through. Because there’s not much more jarring than a sudden shift to fantasy when reading a thriller that had no hint of it until quite a way into the book.

Return to Silent Hill

Posted by cat2002116 on February 15, 2026
Posted in: Horror, Movies, Reviews. Tagged: , , , , , . Leave a comment

So…I watched the previous two Silent Hill movies, and I’m a big fan of horror (I don’t think that’s a secret, somehow)…which meant that when I had the opportunity to watch this movie, I of course took it.

To be honest…I was kind of disappointed. The first Silent Hill movie had some issues, but was pretty enjoyable for what it was. The second one…I did watch, but I don’t really remember a whole lot about it. I do kind of remember that I didn’t like the second movie as much as the first one. And to be honest…I enjoyed this one even less.

Full disclosure: I know bits and pieces about the Silent Hill lore and the games, but I’ve never actually played them myself…although I would like to at some point in the future, especially since I understand that Silent Hill 2 has been remastered.

So…the movie. I actually liked the use of the vivid colours in the opening scene where James meets Maria for the very first time. If the movie had been better, I would have liked the visual contrast between the almost romantic comedy of the beginning and the much darker colours later on.

I feel like there were attempts to include a lot of easter eggs and nods to the games in this movie, but…I personally felt like a lot of those were unnecessary and downright confusing at times. I haven’t played the Silent Hill games, but I’m aware of the plots of the games and many of the main characters. And I felt that this really fell short of what it could have been, especially as it seemed to completely disregard a lot of the established lore…and force connections that hadn’t been n the games themselves. I have to say that, honestly, I found the whole link between Mary, Angela and Laura to be one of the worst parts of the movie. That reveal ruined one of the main things about Silent Hill, at least for me, making everything revolve around only James, instead of having Silent Hill be a town that draws in a lot of different people.

I also felt like the monsters were really underutilised in this. I mean, they were there…but they really weren’t as scary or as much of a threat as they should have been. The only really creepy moment was the scene with the nurses, which was visually really well done…but it just fell flat when combined with the rest of the movie.

I can’t really say that this movie is worth seeing if you’re a fan of the Silent Hill franchise. Honestly, even for a horror without the backing of the Silent Hill lore, it…simply wasn’t great. And I’m really disappointed, because I’m still on the lookout for a really good horror movie…and sadly, this one was not it.

Mercy

Posted by cat2002116 on February 8, 2026
Posted in: Movies, Reviews, Science Fiction, Thriller. Tagged: , , , , , , . Leave a comment

This movie was definitely one that was high on my to-watch list, thanks to seeing it advertised on YouTube, so I went to see it on the opening weekend. And I have to say, I was not disappointed.

The whole concept of Mercy as an AI who plays judge, jury and executioner is something that feels like it could be scarily real with the way the world is going right now. I have to say that my original interpretation of the trailer was that the police detective, Chris Raven, would be literally fighting to prove his innocence against an AI in a fight to the death…but despite the fact that this movie had him strapped into a chair, fighting to prove his innocence with the evidence available to him, it did a really good job of building both tension and mystery.

Judge Maddox was a character who could have come across as really stilted and unfeeling, but in my opinion, Rebecca Ferguson portrays her in such a way that I could almost forget the AI wasn’t actually human.

The fact that Chris didn’t remember anything about what had happened the day before added so much tension to his interactions with Maddox. The deeper he tried to search, to find some shred of his innocence, the more I found myself questioning – did he actually do it? Did he murder his wife? I mean, it was the most logical explanation, given what was revealed as the movie went on. And I really liked being able to learn more about Chris’ history and relationships with his family as video recordings and social media evidence were sorted through.

The idea of guilt being judged by percentage was a really interesting one. The amount required for a guilty verdict seemed pretty high…but at the same time, Mercy lacked the humanity needed for seeds of doubt to be shown. After all, an AI is incapable of feeling human emotion. Maddox even says that to Chris. And yet, I found myself caring about the friendship that formed between Chris and Maddox, in spite of the fact that, as an AI, Maddox should have only been able to react within the parameters of her programming. At the same time, the way she changed over the course of the movie was done really well.

One main thing I liked about this movie was that it felt like it was something that could not only happen in real life, but something that isn’t too far from becoming a reality in the future. Of course, it’s not something that should ever be done in reality, since an AI doesn’t have the nuances required to consider reasonable doubt…and really, no one should be executed when there’s even a possibility they might be innocent. And interestingly enough, even Maddox says that the percentage of guilt can never go to 100%.

All told, I really did enjoy this movie, and I would recommend watching it if you’re interested in science fiction that actually could become reality in the future. This is definitely a movie I wouldn’t mind seeing again.

Not Quite Dead Yet

Posted by cat2002116 on January 18, 2026
Posted in: Books, Reviews, Thriller. Tagged: , , , , , , . Leave a comment

I’ve read most, if not all, of Holly Jackson’s books by now, so I was really eager to read this one when it came out – which I knew about thanks to my oldest nibling mentioning it.

I really enjoyed this book as a whole, although I wasn’t entirely keen on Jet as a character to begin with. For the first part of the story, she was…well, a bit annoying, if I’m honest. The catchphrase of ‘later’ became more annoying than anything else.

Once Jet was attacked and found out she only had seven days to live, I found her to be a more interesting character. However, I unfortunately didn’t like a lot of the secondary characters. I also felt like there was a bit too much information dumping at times. For instance, Jet’s prior friendship with Sophia was just mentioned when Sophia and Luke appeared, instead of being shown through dialogue and the body language of the characters.

I did feel bad for Jet after she woke up in the hospital and found out about the condition she was in. I was able to relate to the impossible choice she was left with, and it definitely felt like there was a lot of research that had gone into what Jet was going through. At the same time, the explanation was actually very easy to understand…helped along by the fact that Jet has no medical background or knowledge.

I will say that Jet was surprisingly accepting of the fact that she only had seven days to live…but I can’t really say that felt unrealistic. After all, it probably didn’t really feel real to her. At least not until she started experiencing more intense symptoms.

For everything that was going on in the book and all of the difficult relationships Jet had with other characters, one constant was Billy…who I did like. But Jet was seriously blind to the fact that Billy had feelings for her, and I’ve got to say that really didn’t strike me as realistic. At times, she was so oblivious that it was almost frustrating.

Jet choosing not to spend time with most of her family didn’t really surprise me, but it was disappointing to see that she didn’t even try to reach out to her father, given how close they seemed to be. And there were a lot of secrets that were revealed through the course of the book…but at times, there was so much going on, and so many secrets, that it was a bit confusing. Especially towards the end, when the suspects were narrowed down…and one of them, I’d completely forgotten about by the time they were considered a real suspect.

I also have to admit that the ending was a bit disappointing. Certain parts of it were good, but I was a bit disappointed by the execution.

On the whole, this book was entertaining…but I didn’t like it or the main character as much as I liked A Good Girl’s Guide to Murder, or Five Survive. It took me longer to read than the other books I’ve read by this author, and despite the time limit for the main character, the book felt like it did drag at times. Still, the premise was a very unique one, and there was clearly a lot of work put into making this book as realistic as possible.

Happy New Year…I’m back! And I have a review, too!

Posted by cat2002116 on January 10, 2026
Posted in: Books, Dystopian, Reviews, Thriller. Tagged: , , , , , , , . Leave a comment

I know…it’s been a long time since I’ve posted here! A lot has happened, but we’re now in a new year, and I have several resolutions for 2026. Including being more active with writing my reviews. And reading more.

Apart from that, I also want to start learning to drive this year. And make meal plans that I actually stick to. Oh…and actually work properly on my writing and perhaps even get something close to submitting to a publisher/agent this year. So no pressure at all!

Do you have any New Year’s resolutions? Feel free to share them!

Anyway…onto the review.

So, this was the first book I read in 2026, and…I’m a little disappointed, to be honest. Reading the blurb, I was quite interested in it. I read a huge amount of genres, but a dystopian that feels quite close to the world we live in now is always something that catches my attention. And the idea of everyone having a Q score that dictates everything about them, including their school placements, was really interesting…at least on the surface.

One main problem I had with the idea of the Q score was that I didn’t really know what it was supposed to measure. I originally thought that it was supposed to indicate a person’s level of intelligence, which would make sense, considering the amount of tests schoolchildren have to take. But then things like sick days affect Q scores, which…okay, I can kind of get behind that. But someone’s Q score being affected by their sibling’s behaviour seems really odd to me. I mean…considering that one of the main character’s children ends up being sent to a yellow school, wouldn’t something like that affect her family’s Q scores? But there’s nothing that’s mentioned about that.

There were some good parts to this book. It’s true that a lot of the views and politics actually do reflect what people are saying and posting about now, but…there were times I felt things were repeated when they didn’t need to be. Like one of the people who voted for the new system implied that she did so believing her own daughter would never be affected. And then that was repeated at least twice over, which was unnecessary.

I did feel that Elena wasn’t nearly as intelligent as the narration tried to make her out to be. There were a lot of choices she made and things she did that, as someone as intelligent as she was supposed to be, really should have done better. The two friends she made were more prepared than she was for the yellow school she went to…and it’s really clear that she had no plan for actually rescuing her daughter. And her reliance on Malcolm, given their history, just felt incredibly foolish.

I would have preferred there to be much fewer, if any, flashbacks. Most of them seemed entirely unnecessary, and those like the scenes after giving birth to Freddie just reiterated what had already been confirmed through the book. And the time in the yellow school was actually a much smaller part of the plot, considering how important the events were to the ending…which, in my opinion, was way too dragged out in a way that was not only unnecessary but seemed entirely unrealistic.

I think the book would have been much better and engaging if either Freddie or Ann had been the main character, not their mother. Despite the fact that Elena apparently came up with the idea for cards (or inspired them? I actually didn’t really understand how it went from that to their whole nation adopting the Q score), she felt like a really passive character…and, at times, was actually pretty boring. I just couldn’t engage with her for most of the book.

On the whole, I’m glad I gave this book a chance and did read it (especially as I was gifted it for Christmas), but I think it could have been better. The flashbacks could have been cut out, and the narrator could have been much closer to the problems in the society than someone who felt removed until it affected her personally. I mean…imagine being at a silver school with a group of your friends, and some of them get dropped to the lowest possible school…even though you know they’re too smart for that? It would feel more impactful to see the events through the eyes of someone who has grown up in that society.

Venom: The Last Dance

Posted by cat2002116 on November 17, 2024
Posted in: Marvel, Movies, Reviews, Superhero. Tagged: , , , , , , . Leave a comment

Very similar to Deadpool, Venom is one of those Marvel antiheroes that I always know I’ll really enjoy every movie they’re in…very similar to Deadpool, if I’m honest. And Venom, despite not being human, is actually a lot of fun…and I very much enjoy his friendship with Eddie.

I liked the opening scene, where Venom and Eddie are in a different dimension and then switch over to their original one. However, I would have liked it if a bit more of the plot had focused on the other dimensions. That whole opening scene where they’re in one dimension and then end up in another one really just felt unnecessary…but honestly, that was the only ‘bad’ part of the movie, in my opinion. Well, apart from the main villain of the piece being mostly offscreen…but the danger from the xenophages felt real.

One of the main things I liked about this movie was that none of the symbiotes really felt like bad guys. Yes, they’re parasites…but I don’t think they can really be blamed for that. As is indicated in the movie, they’re fleeing from another threat…but the trailer of the movie did seem to indicate that the symbiotes were the main enemy of the movie. It was nice that they weren’t and in fact ended up allying themselves with the humans by the end.

I found it really easy to empathise with most of the characters in the movie…at least the humans and the symbiotes. I liked the fact that Strickland wasn’t really a ‘bad’ guy, even though there was a lot of conflict between him and Eddie and Venom. Of course, if I’m honest, the conflicts were there for very good reason…and I’m not entirely sure I could disagree with Strickland’s perspective about things. Interestingly enough, the actor who plays Strickland, Chiwetel Ejiofor, also appears in the MCU as Karl Mordo. While I doubt very much that the two characters are connected in any way, I feel like it would be awesome if there is a connection, given that the opening scene of this movie indicates that the multiverse does in fact exist in this movie.

I did feel there was a great balance of humour and action in this movie, and I loved that Mrs. Chen put in an appearance. I will say that the whole dance scene, while a lot of fun, did have me shaking my head. Venom feels like such a child sometimes, always wanting things now with no thought to the consequences. I felt that the stakes were high in this movie, and by the end, I was on the edge of my seat, waiting to see how things would resolve.

This film was a great addition to the Venom franchise, and I kind of hope that there’ll be future movies, even though it might be unlikely. But if you enjoy Marvel, and especially if you like Venom, you should enjoy this movie.

Oh – and there’s one end credits scene that’s kind of fun, but no others past that, so no need to stay until the very end of the credits.

Smile 2

Posted by cat2002116 on November 16, 2024
Posted in: Horror, Movies, Reviews, Supernatural. Tagged: , , , , , . Leave a comment

I watched the first movie when it came out at the cinema, so when the sequel came out at the cinema, I was immediately interested in watching it.

If you’ve seen the first movie, then you’ll probably have a fairly good idea of what to expect from this one. It pretty much picks up only a short time after the original, with Joel (the police officer cursed at the end of Smile) trying desperately to find someone to pass the Smile curse onto. His initial intention is to subject a murderous criminal to the curse…but, of course, if the curse had been passed onto a bad guy, the movie would be very different to the one we got.

The curse passes on to a drug dealer, Lewis, who doesn’t have a very big role to play…outside of being the person who passes the curse onto the main character of the movie, Skye Riley. Still, even though he doesn’t appear much in the movie, I felt that Lukas Gage did a really good job of portraying Lewis after he was infected by the Smile entity.

As is made clear in the first movie, the Smile entity feeds on trauma…but all of its victims seem to have more trauma than just seeing someone else kill themselves. I don’t know what kind of trauma Lewis was suffering, but there was a video he posted to social media that seemed to hint at a deeper kind of trauma that hadn’t been explored.

Skye Riley was an interesting character in this movie. She’d obviously had some very traumatic events in her life prior to witnessing Lewis kill himself in front of her (in an extremely gruesome way, to be honest; the movie does not hold back on the gore). I liked that the movie didn’t reveal everything that had happened all at once, instead showing more and more through the flashbacks as the movie went on.

I also found it easy to empathise with Skye, especially seeing how she was treated as an object by everyone around her, from her mother, who was her manager, to her fans…including a man who was clearly a stalker and who is later used by the Smile entity to toy with Skye even more.

One of the main things the Smile entity does is play with its victims’ minds, leaving them unsure of what’s real and what isn’t. The movie does a really good job of showing this at times, but there’s a whole scene in Skye’s apartment with her backup dancers coming at her. This is obviously not real, and something that, in my opinion, kind of pushed the movie into (perhaps unintentional) comedy.

Sadly, although there were some good parts to the movie, it fell into the same trap of so many other horror movies I’ve seen, and the same kind of trap that the first Smile movie fell into. As soon as the entity appears in its own form, it loses a lot of the horror and fear that the movie’s built up to, because what you don’t see is always scarier than what you do see. (It Follows was a really good example of this).

I did enjoy this movie for what it was, but I don’t think I’d get anything out of watching it a second time. There were some very predictable scenes and, of course, the movie did end on a cliffhanger. If you did enjoy the first Smile movie, though, you’ll probably enjoy this one too.