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Posts<\/h2>\n
Manga Reviews<\/strong> Other Posts<\/strong> Books<\/strong> Manga<\/strong> 2025 Books of Horror Indie Brawl<\/strong> For those not in the know, Books of Horror is a Facebook group for horror readers. Every year there is a community run “brawl” where members select, read, and vote on books in a March madness style bracket. Selections have now been completed, so we’re now in the season of reading until sometime in September. Membership closes ahead of voting to ensure votes remain with the group only, but now that we’re in the reading period you should be able to join if you’re interested in participating.<\/p>\n Home Renovation<\/strong> Well we finally ripped it all up, painted the walls black (its not as edgy as it sounds), and installed pet proof carpet. Tossed out our old desk and bought two corner desks, and instead of the previous TV stand we had in here we created a little corner reading nook with a recliner chair and new spinning book shelf! I’m still working on decorating the room hanging art, and we plan to mount the TV on the wall above my husband’s side of the room, but for now we are both so incredibly happy with how much cozier it is in here!<\/p>\n While working on this however, we did discover that the remaining 1\/4 of the garage, which frankly we never go into. It became a sort of outdoor shed\/outdoor storage has a mold problem on the ceiling (near the garage door). My step dad checked it out and confirmed it’s from a roof leak where the storm drain hangs over the garage. Over the next month we plan on clearing out all of the stuff out there and fixing that hole. Once that’s done, we’ll be removing removing the dry wall with the mold and taking a look up there to assess the full extent of the damage. Fingers crossed that it is not too bad. Thankfully the roof over the rest of my house is in good shape. Also, having a step dad that is a contractor is honestly THE BEST.<\/p>\n eARCs (NetGalley)<\/strong> Giveaway<\/strong> Ebook Purchases<\/strong> Physical Purchases<\/strong> Amazon First<\/strong> I honestly have no idea what May will bring. I’m winding down after all the chaos of March and April, so this month I plan to take it easy and catch up on some ARCs and Indie Brawl reads. Well, and fixing the ceiling in the garage, but that’s a whole other thing.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Blog Updates Just two quick updates to state that I edited some pages under the “Lists & Challenges” tab. The first was to create a page for the Books of…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":25624,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[3217],"tags":[],"book-author":[],"book-illustrator":[],"book-series":[],"book-publisher":[],"book-genre":[],"book-source":[],"book-format":[],"class_list":["post-25518","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-monthly-blog-review"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/pastelgoth.net\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/blogreview_apr2025-header.png?fit=1080%2C540&ssl=1","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/pastelgoth.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25518","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/pastelgoth.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/pastelgoth.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pastelgoth.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pastelgoth.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=25518"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"https:\/\/pastelgoth.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25518\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":27398,"href":"https:\/\/pastelgoth.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25518\/revisions\/27398"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pastelgoth.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/25624"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/pastelgoth.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=25518"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pastelgoth.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=25518"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pastelgoth.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=25518"},{"taxonomy":"book-author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pastelgoth.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/book-author?post=25518"},{"taxonomy":"book-illustrator","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pastelgoth.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/book-illustrator?post=25518"},{"taxonomy":"book-series","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pastelgoth.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/book-series?post=25518"},{"taxonomy":"book-publisher","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pastelgoth.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/book-publisher?post=25518"},{"taxonomy":"book-genre","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pastelgoth.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/book-genre?post=25518"},{"taxonomy":"book-source","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pastelgoth.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/book-source?post=25518"},{"taxonomy":"book-format","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pastelgoth.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/book-format?post=25518"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"\"](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/pastelgoth.net\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/manga_homeofficeromance.png?resize=211%2C300&ssl=1\")
Book Reviews<\/strong>
\n\u2665 Bernie Sanders Guide to Political Revolution<\/a> by Bernie Sanders (5\u2605)
\n\u2665 Hungry<\/a> by Ruth Anna Evans (5\u2605)
\n\u2665 Saturday Mourning Cartoons<\/a> by Aron Beauregard (4\u2605)
\n\u2665 Tethered By Kismet<\/a> by Camille Danciu (3\u2605)
\n\u2665 Wave of Filth<\/a> by Aron Beauregard (4\u2605)<\/p>\n
\n\u2665 Fragments of Horror<\/a> by Junji Ito (3.5\u2605)
\n\u2665 Home Office Romance<\/a> by Kintetsu Yamada (5\u2605)
\n\u2665 Mansion of Water<\/a> by Miho Obana (2\u2605)
\n\u2665 Sweet Poolside<\/a> by Shuzo Oshimi (3\u2605)
\n\u2665 You\u2019re My Pet Vol. 1<\/a> by Yayoi Ogawa (4\u2605)<\/p>\n
\n\u2665 10 Great Horror Cover Artists<\/a>
\n\u2665 May 2025 New Release Horror Books<\/a><\/p>\n
\nBooks Read<\/h2>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/pastelgoth.net\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/book_pastdueruraldecayii.png?resize=188%2C300&ssl=1\")
Man have I been in a reading slump this month! It really is peaks and valleys with my reading sometimes. After a whopping 14 books last month, I managed 4 books and 6 manga this month. I don’t know what it was, since I read two excellent books by two authors I really admire: Ruth Anna Evans and Jason Nickey. I re-read Fragments of Horror by Junji Ito and something in my brain switched that made me want to start picking up more manga again. So I knocked a few out and it was fun.<\/p>\n
\n\u2665 Hungry by Ruth Anna Evans (5\u2605)
\n\u2665 Mon Amour by Cat Voleur (2\u2605)
\n\u2665 Past Due: Rural Decay II by Jason Nickey (5\u2605)
\n\u2665 Tethered by Kismet by Camille Danciu (3\u2605)<\/p>\n
\n\u2665 Fragments of Horror by Junji Ito (3.5\u2605) re-read<\/em>
\n\u2665 Home Office Romance by Kintetsu Yamada (5\u2605)
\n\u2665 Sweet Poolside by Shuzo Oshimi (3.5\u2605) re-read<\/em>
\n\u2665 Nijigahara Holograph by Inio Asano (4\u2605)
\n\u2665 Toxic Daughter: Chi-chan by Shuzo Oshimi (4\u2605)
\n\u2665 You’re My Pet Vol. 1 by Yayoi Ogawa (4\u2605)<\/p>\n
\nLife and Other Things<\/h2>\n
\nThings are heating up for the Books of Horror<\/a> Indie Brawl, and I’m excited to get started! From the onset I had only previously read two of the books on the list, while a good portion of the rest were authors that I had read other books by. While I would have liked to see a larger number of new authors selected this year, the books on the list mostly seem interesting. I’ve created a page to track my progress with the bracket here: Books of Horror Indie Brawl 2025<\/a>.<\/p>\n
\nMy husband and I knocked out a little home renovation this month! We moved everything out of our “game room,” which is what used to be 3\/4 of our home’s garage that was converted to a living space. My husband and I had our computer desks (one long desk) and a TV with game systems in there, and it is where we spend a lot of quality time. The flooring is slightly not leveled, so the laminate flooring we had installed when we bought our house several years ago had slowly been cracking and breaking over the last two years. We also learned the hard way that because this space was previously part of the garage that insulation is terrible, and the floor got really cold.<\/p>\n
\nBooks Hauled<\/h2>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/pastelgoth.net\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/book_ashesofaugustmanor.png?resize=188%2C300&ssl=1\")
\neARCs (Author\/Publisher)<\/strong>
\n\u2665 Ashes of August Manor by Blaine Daigle
\n\u2665 Beyond Repair by Matthew Salinas
\n\u2665 Red Walls by Christina Bergling<\/p>\n
\n\u2665 Coffin Moon by Keith Rosson
\n\u2665 Hivetown, USA by Thomas Stewart
\n\u2665 The Shivers collection by Joe Hill, Stephen Graham Jones, Grady Hendrix, Catriona Ward, and Owen King
\n\u2665 Toxic Daughter: Chi-chan by Shuzo Oshimi
\n\u2665 What Hunger by Catherine Dang
\n\u2665 When the Wolf Comes Home by Nat Cassidy<\/p>\n
\n\u2665 We Burn Our Dead by Ted Laughton (ebook)![\"\"](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/pastelgoth.net\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/book_weburnourdead.png?resize=188%2C300&ssl=1\")
<\/p>\n
\n\u2665 Baise-Moi by Virginie Despentes
\n\u2665 Blood and Guts in High School by Kathy Acker
\n\u2665 Burner by Robert Ford
\n\u2665 Chasers by Mariah Darling & Eve Harms
\n\u2665 Conversion: The Ultimate Edition by J. F. Gonzalez
\n\u2665 Embracing The Darkness by Jeremy Mac
\n\u2665 Hungry by Ruth Anna Evans
\n\u2665 I Crave the Bleeding Flowers by Ash Ericmore
\n\u2665 Infliction by Rob Ulitski
\n\u2665 Les Femmes Grotesques by Victoria Dalpe
\n\u2665 Take Your Turn, Teddy by Haley Newlin
\n\u2665 The Black Farm by Elias Witherow
\n\u2665 The Light at the End by John Skipp & Craig Spector![\"\"](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/pastelgoth.net\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/book_baisemoi.png?resize=197%2C300&ssl=1\")
\n\u2665 The Pet by Charles L. Grant
\n\u2665 Wildfire by Duncan Ralston<\/p>\n
\n\u2665 A Sorceress Comes to Call by T. Kingfisher
\n\u2665 Recessive Nature by Brandon Perras-Sanchez
\n\u2665 Terror! Horror! Agony! by Judith Sonnet
\n\u2665 The Lamb by Lucy Rose
\n\u2665 The White Bishop by Aron Beauregard & Brandon Perras-Sanchez
\n\u2665 Woom by Duncan Ralston<\/p>\n
\n\u2665 The Artist of Blackberry Grange by Paulette Kennedy
\n\u2665 The One That Got Away by Mike Gayle<\/p>\n
\nNext Month<\/h2>\n