Jelly Ferret: 24.01.25 - Books and Night Walks

So in today's rambling, I'm going to talk about a few books I've been reading (I already wrote more than I expected on a fb book club post, so I may as well start with that. I'll also include some pictures I've taken when walking in the dark, and that pretty much catches you up on everything I do.

So, some thoughts on some books.

Wake Up and Open Your Eyes

This seemed very topical, a zombie/possession take on the influence of screens, social media, fake news, ragebait etc. It jumps straight in with horror and violence in part 1, then you go back and see how each member of a family is infected by either 'fax news', Instagram or twitter in part 2.

It feels a bit preachy at times, but it's also critical of aspects of both left and right. Part 2 is a bit confusing as it jumps between the different viewpoints and time gets a bit confused, but it's very unsettling.

Part 3 is where it becomes an apocalypse road trip story, and has lots of 'found footage' bits (transcripts of YouTube videos, police bodycam footage, etc) which I love. But because it includes all these different opinions of 'what's really going on' you never actually get many answers.

I started to worry that it was going to have a 'non-ending' where nothing is resolved, then it for very silly and then the ending was...ok. not satisfying but it was an least an ending 😄

Hope you're enjoying this post

Incidents Around The House

This is a haunted house story told from the view of a small child who is haunted by a figure she calls 'Other Mommy'. Sometimes the childlike narration actually made it seem less scary to me, but then at other points it highlights it so it's a good contrast I suppose. It's very sweet at times.

I enjoyed this one a lot more on the whole, but I didn't like the feeling that maybe it was meant to be more metaphorical than literal (I know a lot of fantasy/horror uses supernatural stuff to represent everyday issues and that's fine but i really don't like 'it was all a dream' endings).

The ending for this one though... it leaves you thinking but in a deliberate way rather than 'the writer wrote themselves into a corner and now they explain it'.