Jekyll2026-10-19T19:20:29+00:00https://itslids.github.io/lids-reads/feed/reviews.xmlLids Reads | ReviewsBook reviews by Lids. I read about 100 books a year and I have opinions about all of them.LindseyFruit Fly2026-10-14T00:00:00+00:002026-10-14T00:00:00+00:00https://itslids.github.io/lids-reads/reviews/fruit-flyThis was a really entertaining thriller with a great little ending. I thoroughly enjoyed it and thought it was smart, funny, and cringey.

I’m not quite sure why it’s getting five-star reviews, though. I wouldn’t say it crosses into five-star territory in any way other than entertainment value. It wasn’t particularly deep or literary, and it dragged a bit in the middle.

]]>Josh SilverThe Girls2026-10-12T00:00:00+00:002026-10-12T00:00:00+00:00https://itslids.github.io/lids-reads/reviews/the-girlsI did enjoy this somewhat, but I also felt that it was really drawn out and kind of tired. I feel like I’ve read/seen/consumed a hundred different variations of media about this subject and there was hardly anything original here for me. I’m Manson’d out. I’m cult-girl’d out. I found very little here to be unique, interesting, refreshing, or revelatory, and I don’t really understand the hype.

It was quite well written, thus the 3-star review.

]]>Emma ClineSay Nothing2026-10-10T00:00:00+00:002026-10-10T00:00:00+00:00https://itslids.github.io/lids-reads/reviews/say-nothingThis was easily one of my favorite books of the year. This story is incredible: the body of a missing widowed mother of ten is found 40 years after the fact, and Patrick Radden Keefe impeccably uses this event to unpack the charged history (and present) of the Troubles in Northern Ireland.

He somehow manages to keep it literary while also pulling from a blend of factual records and, most compellingly, firsthand “oral histories” that may or may not be flawed, fraught, and misleading.

]]>Patrick Radden KeefeWe Spread2026-10-04T00:00:00+00:002026-10-04T00:00:00+00:00https://itslids.github.io/lids-reads/reviews/we-spreadPenny is an elderly artist who gets moved into a strange little care home where time stops making sense. I picked this up as a suggestion after enjoying Death in Her Hands. Same unreliable elder narrator with psychological thriller vibes.

The creepiness and atmospherics definitely worked. This was a bit flat, though. And the sentence and paragraph structure absolutely drove me bonkers! Short sentences and one-to-two-line paragraphs with a ton of white space. It could have been half as long.

]]>Iain ReidSmall Boat2026-09-29T00:00:00+00:002026-09-29T00:00:00+00:00https://itslids.github.io/lids-reads/reviews/small-boatA French coast guard operator is questioned after a boat of migrants drowns in the Channel on her watch. I cannot believe this slim little three part book was so phenomenal.

Five stars for making the reader question whether she, too, is just languishing in passive and impotent outrage, and whether that’s just as bad as being truly apathetic toward human life. I felt absolutely skewered.

]]>Vincent DelecroixEileen2026-09-27T00:00:00+00:002026-09-27T00:00:00+00:00https://itslids.github.io/lids-reads/reviews/eileenOttessa Moshfegh’s usual deranged and unlikable protagonist. I just did not enjoy this one.

She’s a great writer. She knows how to make someone believably terrible, and she can also make them just barely relatable enough to earn more than a couple stars.

But I just do not like her writing. It’s too mean. There’s nothing good or uplifting. What am I supposed to learn or take away from this and carry out into the world?

]]>Ottessa MoshfeghWhat Am I, a Deer?2026-09-20T00:00:00+00:002026-09-20T00:00:00+00:00https://itslids.github.io/lids-reads/reviews/what-am-i-a-deerA woman moves from London to Frankfurt for a fresh start, a stranger on the tram hands back her forgotten umbrella, and suddenly she’s obsessed with him for a year.

Theme of the year still seems to be obsessive outsiders. This was a 3-3.5 for me.

I found the narrator simultaneously relatable and totally unrecognizable as a real archetype. Was this good or just breathy?

Side note: the audiobook narrator (also the author) drove me absolutely insane and gave me palpable anxiety.

]]>Polly BartonMapping the Interior2026-09-14T00:00:00+00:002026-09-14T00:00:00+00:00https://itslids.github.io/lids-reads/reviews/mapping-the-interiorShort horror novella. SGJ is a true talent—his horror is the top notch and his sentence structure is so killer. My brain always feels a little off balance reading his work. Like he makes me work for it as a reader. Impossibly skilled.

I loved this one and felt he was really at his very best here.

]]>Stephen Graham JonesNever Whistle at Night2026-09-12T00:00:00+00:002026-09-12T00:00:00+00:00https://itslids.github.io/lids-reads/reviews/never-whistle-at-nightAdmittedly, I’m bad at short story collections. I struggle to finish them. Many of these stories were truly excellent and spooky, especially the first half of the book. A few were meh and fine. And a handful were total duds, imo.

I probably will still read the second anthology that just came out.

]]>Shane HawkThe Man2026-09-10T00:00:00+00:002026-09-10T00:00:00+00:00https://itslids.github.io/lids-reads/reviews/the-manConflicted about this one.

Pros: Thrilling, an exciting audiobook, not too difficult.

Cons: Somehow also boring, with no resolution, and one truly awful character with zero good qualities. Kinda shallow.

]]>Laura Sims