Overdue: Apologies and Book Reviews

Hello friends!! I want to start by apologizing for disappearing out of the blue in such turbulent times, and thank those of you who reached out to check in.  We’re all safe and healthy, for which I am grateful.  I’ve been in a strange place- trying to homeschool my daughter and work full time while also feeling fairly isolated from other adult contact and feeling paranoid everytime I had to leave the house.

It didn’t make for a good time to read, and I ended up gaming and binging movies all weekend because I couldn’t focus enough to read.  I tried, and my eyes drifted off the page every two minutes. And then by the time I figured out I wasn’t going to be able to read any time soon and therefore wasn’t going to be able to blog any time soon – it felt like too much time had gone by to double back and put any sort of notice up.

So again- I’m sorry, but please know how much I appreciated it when you all reached out, if only to check in and say hi.

That being said- I took a vacation a couple weeks ago, and was able to get a couple books read! And though I seem to have less reading time on my hands now that I’m back home I’m still trying to keep up.  I’m moving slower than I used to so bear with me if posts are still infrequent.

I have tons to catch up on, so I’m going to start with my long overdue review of:

Devolution: A Firsthand Account of the Rainier Sasquatch Massacre, by Max Brooks

Rating:  ★★★★

I posted a Can’t Wait Wednesday about Devolution back when I first heard about it- and that excitement never waned.  When I attempted to read over the past few months, this was the book I picked up.

It starts a little slow- an introduction to the world and the characters, their relationships with each other.  It took me until about the 25% mark to get into the unputdownable parts.  Is it a little over the top? Yeah.  Did I care?  Nope.

The sasquatch (es? what is the plural of sasquatch?!) in this book reminded me a lot of the creatures encountered in Michael Crichton’s Congo, and I ate up every second of it.  There was tree knocking and howls, rock throwing and glowing eyes in the dark.  It was exactly what I hoped for.

It was both similar and different to Max’s previous success, World War Z.  It’s similar in style – where WWZ was an oral retelling, this is told mostly in journal entries.  It’s different because it is told primarily from one POV – Kate’s. I found this style much better suited to my tastes, because with the journal entries felt like one cohesive, connected story, not bits and pieces of a much larger story.  There’s no knowing how or if Kate survived, only that her journal did.

There were parts that made me cringe away in horror and parts that had me holding my breath.  The atmosphere and tone were perfect.  I only deducted a star for the slow beginning.

If you liked WWZ, if you’ve ever wondered about the existence of sasquatch, I’d definitely recommend this! It’s a fun summer read with a creepy tone.  Thank you to the publisher and NetGalley who provided a free copy in exchange for a review.  Devolution can be found on GoodReads and Amazon.

If you read Devolution and I missed your review – please link to it below! I’d love to know what you thought.