Saturday, July 5, 2025

Review: Ring Shout by P Djèlí Clark

Ring Shout by P Djèlí Clark
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Ring Shout is horror mixed with magical realism and historical events. To me, it’s a perfect horror story: it uses horror to frame something bigger. It’s set in 1922 in Macon, Georgia and follows Black female monster hunters as they confront the evil and horror of racial hatred embodied in the KKK. They face the everyday racism of the Klan but fight what they call Ku Kluxes, demons from another dimension who feed off hatred.Only some people can see the demons for what they are. These demon Ku Kluxes were responsible for the Tulsa race massacre in 1921, a real event. In this world, D. W. Griffith’s 1915 film, the Birth of a Nation, carries a magic that expands its influence over the second rise of the KKK. In our world it was used as Klan propaganda.


Several things come together to make it a perfect horror:

The characters — the women in this story are fully realized, three dimensional characters with both strength and flaws. They show courage, heroism, self-sacrifice and strong bonds of friendship. There isn’t one I wouldn’t want to know.

Emotions — Ring Shout engenders heightened emotions as the women battle evil and face loss and defeat. There are others to affect the reader: the sensual atmosphere in a night club and the ecstatic power of music in the religious ring shout dance.

Language — the language used isn’t forced but a natural part of the characters. Spoken Gullah and Gullah culture are also used effectively.

Story — This isn’t a long book(192 pages) and I read it in one sitting but from the strong opening chapter through to the end it has a flowing narrative that pulled me into the story. The way it blends fact and fiction contributes significantly to the story.

Horror — There is intense visceral gore so beware but it is necessary to the story and well written

Clark is a terrific writer. If you can handle some gore I recommend this book for its story telling and the story it tells and the characters in the story.

Review: Ghosts by Dolly Alderton

Ghosts by Dolly Alderton
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This is billed as a romantic comedy which is way outside my usual reading but it’s much more than that. It follows the life of Nina Dean, a single woman in her 30s living in North London and published author. The story is described on Goodreads and Amazon so I’m going to focus on how I feel about the book.

It is very funny with that dry, wry, cynical observational humor often found in British novels. For example:” …and happy that big arses had come back in fashion. So much so that I had observed with pride that we now occupied more than two categories on any given porn streaming platform.” Her observations on navigating a dating app are a hoot. She finds humor in even the most mundane things in everyday life.

I found it sad and poignant within the humor.There is Nina’s loneliness at being single in a world where everyone is married with children. She wants to be in a relationship and thinks she’s found it in Max. She and Lola, the only other single woman in her friend group, often find themselves several bottles deep into wondering where their lives have gone. Much of this book will/should make male readers uncomfortable but I saw it as a glimpse into another world and giving some understanding of that world. We see the strength of female friendship.

One aspect hit especially close to home for me. Nina’s father has Alzheimer's and the author really captures the pain of watching a loved one slipping away, the man he was disappearing as she watches.I went through that myself and I appreciate how the author is able to bring out the rawness of the experience,

As for the title, there are a couple of ways it relates to the story. You’ll see.

Ghosts is a remarkable five star read for me and not what I was expecting in a “romantic comedy”. Highly recommended.

Trigger warning for misogynists and incels: they will hate this book and rant about it on subreddits.
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