Ocean City Free Public Library Book Blog

      Trigger Warning is Neil Gaiman's newest collection of short stories addressing topics that question the boundaries of human capacity of disturbance and horror. True to Gaiman's usual style of writing, the stories contained in this collection are macabre in nature, at times bordering on terrifying, but never breaching the barrier into outright gory. They focus more on the building of suspense rather than the jumpscare value, in a truly H.P. Lovecraft style of story building.       What made this book stand out from Gaiman's other writings, and what made it interesting to me, was his explanation of his choice of title. In the introduction, Gaiman sets out to give a brief explanation of what the phrase "trigger warning" implies, how the landscape of storycrafting is evolving alongside social media, and how the personalisation of social media through user-tagging is changing the landscape of blogging and entertainment.       A "trigger...

      Night Film by Marisha Pessl follows the story of disgraced journalist Scott McGrath as he attempts to unravel the mystery behind the death of the daughter of an enigmatic horror film director, Stanislas Cordova. To solve the mystery of Ashley Cordova's death, McGrath must also unravel the mystery of Stanislas Cordova himself--an endevour previously undertaken by McGrath, which resulted in the loss of both his marriage and his career. In his attempt to expose Cordova, McGrath enters " a hypnotic, disorientating world, where almost everyone seems afraid " ( Goodreads ). ***       If, during the course of this novel, you begin to experience a very faint case of déjà vu , you wouldn't be alone. The descriptions of Stanislas Cordova and the films for which he is famous in this novel, are a bizarre hybrid of Alfred Hitchcock meets Orson Wells; a deliberate choice on the part of Pessl, I believe, in order to allow the reader to be able to ...

“Some places are too good to be true. Under a pink moon, there is a perfect little town not found on any map. In that town, there are quiet streets lined with pretty houses, houses that conceal the strangest things…” (taken from the Goodreads summary ) ***       American Elsewhere by Robert Jackson Bennett follows the story of former policewoman Mona Bright, as she tracks down information regarding her deceased mother and finds herself in the small town of Wink, New Mexico. Suddenly the benefactor of her mother’s old house, Mona decides to temporarily reside in the town of Wink while she decides what to do with the house. The town is strange, mysterious, and dangerous as a whole, and even stranger as individual residents are introduced. The undoubtedly human residents seem quite content to make arrangements and conditions for strange unseen forces while never ever venturing out of their houses after dark; staple community members are unquestio...