Spoiler-Free Book Review: I Know You Like A Murder by Amy L. Sauder

"You don't start writing good stuff. You start out writing crap and thinking it's good stuff, and then gradually you get better at it. That's why I say one of the most valuable traits is persistence." - Octavia Butler

With it being Spooktober and all, I thought this would be an appropriate review. 

But, more importantly, this is my friend, Amy L. Sauder's novella! Spoiler, I LOVED beta-reading this novel. And guys, it's only like 60 pages, and they go by in a heartbeat!

Disclaimer: I was sent this book in exchange for an honest review.

Unlike many of my other reviews, this will be SPOILER-FREE. Nobody likes a spoiled mystery, and since this is a new release, I want you to get the chance to read it for yourself first. 

The Bad

1. Pacing

While I do think that IKYLAM should be a short novella, the pace isn't conducive to the slow burn murder mystery that it is. It goes both ways: it works short, but I feel like it could be longer. 

IKYLAM is one of those books that you should just sit down and read in one sitting. And while this is a plus considering the story, plot, and characters, it does have some downsides for being so short. 

The most notable being that it doesn't really get to ruminate and stew around inside you. A good mystery strings you along, giving you just enough to keep you turning that next page but not too much that you start to feel bored. Sauder does this well. However, this could have been even more impactful if the story was a bit longer, so the mystery and suspense really could have simmered and built up, leading to a smashing conclusion. 

The Good

1. Tone/Style

This is really what IKYLAM has going for it. I can't say enough good about the writing style and the tone that it exudes. It's absolutely perfect. It's surreal and suspenseful and pulls you into its tongue-in-cheek atmosphere.

The awesome thing is that it feels coldly detached, yet so laser-focused. The use of language is refined and specific, and it echoes nineteenth-century classic mysteries with modern accessibility. 

I can't even accurately describe how awesome the writing style and tone is in IKYLAM. You just have to experience it for yourself. 

2. The Characters

While IKYLAM isn't a character study, the characters are at the forefront. Each one of them is complex in their own way, but they feel mundane and accessible. That's the draw of IKYLAM - mysteries can feel daunting and pretentious, but IKYLAM is lightning-fast and down-to-earth. 

The narrator is humorous and cunning. Equal parts insecure and maniacal, Camille is . . . stunning and so incredibly interesting. Shy Boy is guarded and unstable. Divas and egos run rampant, and you can't help but enjoy every juicy second.

Each character has their masks - pun intended - but we get to see glimpses of their inner layers and their complexity. This style of character development is perfect not only for the tone but also for the length of the novel. I'd love to see more of some of the characters, but I think that's the beauty of it. IKYLAM feels like a flashbulb of an old-timey camera, revealing the true nature and how deep the motives go. 

Objective Rating: 9/10
Enjoyment Level: 10/10

~

Overall, I thoroughly enjoyed my time reading this. I was swept up in the style and encapsulated by the foreshadowing and suspense. 

So, in the words of my author blurb on the inside cover:

"This is SUCH a quirky meta-mystery and I am 100% on board."

I recommend this for everyone tired of the mystery/crime thriller genre, fans of The Phantom of the Opera, and anyone who loves a good 

I'm so happy for you, Amy! Go buy I Know You Like A Murder on Amazon here!

~The WordShaker

Why I haven't been blogging as much... (plus a Casually Homicidal snippet) | Olivia J

"Step into a scene and let it drip from your fingers,"

-MJ Bush

I love this blog. Even if very few people read it, I would still probably write for it. I love the content I produce, I love sharing stuff with you, and I love analyzing literature. This blog is a portfolio of me.

And I hate that I haven’t been able to write on it as consistently as I did during high school. I usually only missed one or two blog posts a year.

And then college happened.

I’ve resorted to being able to write one blog post every two weeks, and that’s iffy. I just don’t want to put out subpar content when I truly don’t have the time - or mental energy - to produce quality content.

It sucks, but that's my life right now. And my content on this blog should reflect my life. Don't worry, I'm working on getting blogging back into my weekly schedule. Literary analysis will be few and far between, but then you might be getting more lifestyle posts.

However, there is another reason why I haven't been blogging as much, and it's a much better excuse than busyness.

Casually Homicidal, the current YA Thriller/Contemporary novel I'm writing, is almost done. Yes, you heard that right. I'm almost done. I've only got five chapters left, and then draft one is done.

But really, it's beautiful. I have fallen irrevocably in love with this story and these characters. I was afraid it was never going to happen again, but here we are. Casually Homicidal has taken over my life, and I'm 100% here for it.

Now, there hasn't really been an official synopsis for Casually Homicidal since I'm still perfecting it, and the only info you guys have gotten is over on Instagram (@olivia.j.the.wordshaker) in the form of collages and snippets.

However, there is a little bit more I can share with you, in the form of a short piece about the themes of Casually Homicidal. And some photos of course.

***

So . . . what is Casually Homicidal even about?

Casually Homicidal is about change, and the insane things we do to stop time.

It’s about being so rejected that all you can manage to do is reject other people.

pic creds to Pinterest

It’s about the secrets we keep and what they drive us to do.

It’s about being so incredibly empty that we don’t even realize we’re filling a void.

It’s about small towns and nostalgia and the wilderness of young adulthood.

pic creds to Pinterest

It’s about pain and the people, memories, and experiences that change us.

It’s about accepting the past and facing the future.

It’s about deciding who you really want to be.

pic creds to Pinterest

Casually Homicidal is about two eighteen-year-olds trying to find out where they fit in a world that wants nothing to do with either of them.

Cue the existential crises, road trips, and bloody murder.

***

And a snippet, just because I'm so generous.

***

“Was I right about you, Hendrix?”

“What?”

“Was I right, that you want to leave too? That you feel this terrible, awful stringing feeling inside, like your stomach is made of a ball of yarn and someone’s just pulling and pulling and pulling at it? Except you’re not sure where they’re pulling it, so the spool just grows smaller and smaller, until one day it’s just going to pop out of you Do you feel that way, too?”

Hendrix pauses. His eyes glaze and go far away - he’s thinking. “Yes.”

His voice strikes me, sharp and metallic. He’s lying, I can feel it right in the core of me. People lie to me all the time. I’ve gotten good at discerning it. “You don’t.”

Hendrix swallows audibly. “Yeah, I do.” It comes out more like a question.

My forehead tenses up. I ought to take him at face value - I really should. I sit up and start to walk over towards him, to see if he’s genuine. If he really means anything he’s saying.

But he turns on his heel and walks away from me, towards his side of the bed.

“We should sleep, Arden. It’s almost 2am.”

My chest splinters as I wander back into bed, swallowed by the soft darkness. I’m sleeping in the same bed as Hendrix, but he feels so far away. And the divide is lined with sinkholes and jagged rocks and fearsome creatures on both sides.

It’s not like he felt any closer when we worked together at that Godforsaken frozen yogurt shop. But us being in this together, it feels like we should be.

Granted, the world should be a lot of things.

But we both know it’s not.

***

Love you all. Thanks for supporting what I love.

~The WordShaker

BOOK REVIEW: 'The Forgotten Headline' by McCaid Paul | Olivia J

"Fiction is the truth inside the lie," - Stephen King

Olivia, do you ever read anything that's not an indie book anymore?

No. 

Disclaimer: I was sent this book in exchange for an honest review. Thank you, McCaid!
If you're reading this, then you probably know how my book reviews go. Let's not waste any time on formalities. 

Spoilers, duh.


The Bad

1. Writing Style

I wasn't a huge fan of the writing style of The Forgotten Headline. Most of it didn't stand out to me, or strike me as particularly creative or inspired. 

On a more technical level, linking verbs were used to an excess. Now, it's all fine and good for me to use linking verbs, but that's because of the context of what I'm writing. And linking verbs aren't inherently bad. However, in an action/mystery/thriller, strong verbs and active voice are your best friend. 

I'm so picky about prose because it is the vehicle for which your story rides on. How good the story is should partially hinge on the prose - because if the prose isn't the foundation, then why not just write a script or screenplay? Why not just make a movie or a short film? 

2. Chekhov's Gun: Setup & Payoff

This is a hefty one, because this really gets into the nitty-gritty of storytelling mechanics. However, it's undeniably one of the most important parts in creating a successful story. 

This video by Folding Ideas perfectly explains this rhetorical concept - Setup and Payoff. In so many words, set up and payoff refers to the way to successfully integrate a theme or an element in a story. The rule of three refers to the Set Up, then the Reminder, and then the Payoff. An example of this would be in my own novel, A Cactus In the Valley. (I'm not enamored of using my own work as an example, but this one just happens to fit.)

Mild ACITV spoilers ahead. In A Cactus In the Valley, the main female character, Terra Lombardi, is raped as a young girl, and she tells us about it in her first flashback. This is the Setup. The Reminder comes in the form of the second flashback, reminding the reader of the traumatic event, but also deepening our understanding of how this event has shaped Terra's life. A few other offhand instances of it are brought up in the period between the Setup and Payoff and even afterwards, but the primary Reminder is the second flashback. The Payoff comes in Chapter Seven, where Terra is alone and is forced to confront her trauma and how it has stifled her. The Payoff forces her to make a decision and move on, completing the arc. (This is just a general example. If it's a super important aspect, you can have several Reminders, but not too many that it loses subtlety. This principle can apply to anything as simple as an object and as complex as a narrative theme.)

Shoutout to Fifty Days by my best friend, Brittney Kristina. That book has some of the best Setup-Reminders-Payoff I've ever had the privilege of reading. 

Back to The Forgotten Headline. Unfortunately, this storytelling device is virtually nowhere to be found in TFH. The most significant instance of this is when Mick is reading newspapers in the library with Billie and he sees the name 'Mick Johnson'. This triggers a memory of Mick's father accidentally calling him 'Mick Johnson' a few times. To Mick and Mick alone does this connection make sense. To the audience, it comes out of left field. It feels like a detail just shoved in last minute in order to make things connect. 

A way to fix this would have easily been to use the triad of Setup & Payoff I just described. For example, at the beginning of the novel, when Mick and his father are hunting, Mick's father could have accidentally called him 'Johnson' - a.k.a. the Setup. Later, Mick could have mused about how he feels alienated and different, like he doesn't truly belong in his family - a.k.a the Reminder. And then when Mick sees the headline and has the 'aha' moment, the reader would be right on board with Mick and we would be having that 'aha' moment right along with him, instead of it having to be explained and set up after the fact. 

This technique ought to have been employed all throughout TFH, and in some instances, it was. I saw the pattern in the Red Mustang and in Billie's subplot. However, I didn't see this element in some of the most important aspects of the novel like I should have. Setup and Payoff is one of the most crucial parts of a story, and it should be everywhere. You can't overuse this trope because it's just so incredibly effective and it cannot be divorced from good storytelling. Mysteries rely on setup and payoff because, throughout the story, the reader is given clues that don't connect, but when there's that one revelation, everything falls together for both the character and the reader. 

Because of this, many elements in The Forgotten Headline fall flat because of their lack of set up. Stories rely on setup and payoff because that's how a story progresses logically and how a story makes sense - if it's not important, don't mention it; if it is, give it appropriate emphasis. But more significantly, setup and payoff is how a story feels satisfying to the reader. 


3. Pacing

This sort of tags on with my last point. The setups and payoffs in TFH either don't work or are nonexistent because everything moves so fast. However, I think the beginning of the story is the strongest because it employs both suspense and interesting setups. Mysteries - and even thrillers - are often slow burns, relying on unknowns and tangled plot threads and an abundance of clues. However, due to TFH's length, this was cut short. The story wasn't allowed to simmer and build to the startling revelations contained within the plot (excluding the cliffhanger). 

4. Backstory

"Evil is not born, it's made," -Regina Mills, Once Upon A Time.  Granted, I'm not the best person to consult in writing villains, since most of my stories don't have one single person who is the primary antagonist. However, I still have something to say about it.

Truly, the most essential part of a villian is their motivation. Really, that's one of the core parts of any character. The two primary antagonists of TFH are Mr. Welch and Mick's dad, however, neither of them have clear and interesting motives. Robert's - Mick's dad's - motivation is only a reflection of Mr. Welch's motivation. 


The Good

1. Mick & Billie

I wasn't planning on loving the relationship between Mick and Billie as much as I did. I was actually surprised to find that Billie was a girl, but I loved it. She and Mick were really interesting foil characters, and I liked their strong friendship and that it didn't explicitly veer into romance. It really felt like the heart of the story, and I'm looking forward to seeing how it develops in the sequels moving forward.

2. Setting/Aesthetic

This one's minor, but it's important in that it adds to the overall effect of the story. TFH reminded me of Hatchet for some reason, and I love Hatchet. Maybe it's the forest/hunting setting, but I got massive Hatchet vibes. 

3. Interesting Set-Up for a Series

This might sound strange, considering my larger issue with Setup and Payoff that I discussed earlier. However, I felt that there still were interesting aspects that I have hope will be developed more in the future. 

First of which being Mick and Billie's relationship. They have the awesome potential to become a sleuthing power couple. Their friendship and their paralleled struggles could lead to some awesome character development. 

Mick's subtle murderous tendencies I though was an interesting touch. It could develop more later, but I enjoyed the parallel to Mr. Welch, Robert, and Mick in terms of their overwhelming rage and how that can lead to reckless and murderous behavior. If Paul expands upon this concept, he could have a really interesting arc on his hands. 


I think it all comes down to that The Forgotten Headline showed it's hand way too early on. The story wasn't nearly long enough for the mystery to fully develop or simmer like all good mystery/thrillers ought to. 

~

Yikes, another long one! I just really love literary analysis, can you tell?

Honestly, the section about Setup and Payoff could have been its own blog post. That's such a heavy topic but it's super important to literally any story. 

Also I kinda hate that I've been posting biweekly on this blog, but what can you do? College is a bitch. 

~The WordShaker