Review: The Black Guy Dies First: Black Horror Cinema from Fodder to Oscar

The Black Guy Dies First: Black Horror Cinema from Fodder to Oscar by Robin R. Means Coleman
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Full Disclosure:  I received an Advanced Reader's Copy of The Black Guy Dies First: Black Horror Cinema from Fodder to Oscar by Robin R. Means Coleman and Mark H. Harris from Gallery/Saga Press via NetGalley.

My mom was a horror fanatic, and she passed that love onto me.  So when Gallery/Saga Press offered me the opportunity to read The Black Guy Dies First, I couldn't resist.  I've seen many of the movies mentioned in the book.  I still think Candyman is one of the scariest films I've ever seen.  You won't catch me saying that name, let alone repeating it.  I didn't even see the new version because NOPE.  This was an easy-to-read, informative analysis of the history of black horror and people of color in horror.  It was also surprisingly funny for a scholarly book.  It made me think about many of these movies in new ways, going beyond the surface scares to what they really represent and how they reflect society.  If you like horror, you owe it to yourself to read this.

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Review: The Broken Girls

The Broken Girls by Simone St. James
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

The Broken Girls by Simone St. James is a fantastic ghost story even though the most haunting part is how badly people will treat each other when they can get away with it.  Told in alternating narratives across different timelines, the story explores mysterious deaths at a depressing boarding school for "troubled" girls.  This was so good I didn't want to put it down.  And while I called it a ghost story, it is more mystery than horror.  Provided you don't hang around abandoned, supposedly haunted boarding schools in your spare time, you should be fine.  

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Review: Arcadia

Arcadia by Lauren Groff
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Arcadia by Lauren Groff is the type of literary fiction I will turn up for.  She had me at commune.  I'm a big fan of stories of religious groups, communes, utopian societies, things of that ilk.  It is so interesting to see how they structure themselves, what they think will cure the ills of the world.  This story follows the life of "Bit," a boy born at a commune in upstate New York.  Bit is a visual creature, a lover of photography, and the writing, with its vivid descriptions, matches the way he views the world.  Bit's life is in a world similar to our own.  I'm not sure why the pandemic in his mid-life surprised me, but it did.  One might say he goes from utopia to dystopia although I am not sure his world is any more dystopian than ours.  That's kind of just life.  

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