*book spoiler alert*
I finished reading Jessica McHugh’s Rabbits in the Garden last night. (https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/10504227-rabbits-in-the-garden)
The last thing I would want to do is spoil this book for other readers.
But I can’t not talk about at least a little fluffy bit of it.
Generally, I run from anything where animals are in agony. I still have this mental image of the poor kitten in one of…Poul Anderson’s?…book, I believe. I read it when I was somewhere between ten and twelve.
But I couldn’t not continue to read this book.
It’s Harry Potter for adult women.
Wonderfully, painfully, heartbreakingly thrilling horror.
It’s amazing.
After I finished Rabbits in the Garden, I wanted fall asleep with it cuddled in my arms. But I’m a book nerd, and I didn’t want the pages to get bent. So I didn’t. But I wish I had. Because I had a non-Rabbits-in-the-Garden-inspired nightmare.
It’s a horror book, but I found so much solace within the pages. Light-in-the-darkness, beacon-of-hope, life-put-right kind of solace. It’s a terrifying read, but so dang beautiful as well.
I took this book to heart, symbolically speaking.
I’ve been downsizing my books, but this one I won’t let go of for a while, if ever. Maybe I’ll even re-read it tonight, and fall asleep with it as my pillow as I bask in the aftermath glow of the book’s ending.
Check out Jessica McHugh’s blog here: https://mchughniverse.wordpress.com/.
Willow Croft 
Sounds very interesting! I love reading horror–something that will make me afraid to turn off the lights and go to bed, something that will force me to read only in the day time. Oh, and you can give me spoilers anytime haha
Keep smiling,
Yawatta
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What are some of your fav horror stories/books? (I need to go by your blog again–but what are you working on now?)
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Hey Willow,
My favorite horror book is The Ruins, which had also been turned into a movie. I just finished Cirque Berserk and really enjoyed it. I love all of Angel Gelique’s books too. The darker, the better for me. What’s your favorite horror books?
Keep smiling,
Yawatta
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Oh, yes, I had that book, and I was (BIG MISTAKE) keeping it along with my entire book collection in my folks’ basement, and the sump pump failed and the basement flooded. I’ll have to get it again. And for favourites—I’m quite out of date (so I’ll have to check out your favs!) but there was a period of time from when I was about ten to about twelve or thirteen when the books I read were somehow more…vivid and immersive. Stephen King’s Thinner and Dead Zone, V.C. Andrews’ The Flowers in the Attic, Poe’s Masque of the Red Death (my favourite), and, perhaps weirdly, Black Beauty. If you’ve read it, you know the scene I’m talking about. If I close my eyes, I can still see it. Or my mental image of it.
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Oh, I just remembered. I lost a book in the flood and it was about terrifying plants…horror stories about plants. It had a purple cover and maybe green on it too. Have never been able to remember what it was called?
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Ook I found it: https://www.amazon.com/Roots-Evil-Stories-Supernatural-Plants/dp/0800868374
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Wow, I’ve never heard of it but the cover was interesting. I liked the gray plants with the touch of yellow. Was it fiction? Or real? If I read something like that, I’d probably jump every time I had to walk past a bush or plant lol. I’m a huge scaredy cat.
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Spooky fiction stories! And I’m there with you; I can handle fictional guts and gore, but in real life, I can’t even deal with a child’s paper cut without feeling faint! Nosebleeds? Forget about it!
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Me too! I don’t want to see anyone’s blood. Heck, I can have a panic attack thinking of all the germs getting inside my papercut lol. During my online CPR, I was gagging at the deep bruises and cuts (and those were animated online!) lol
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Oh goodness, you are a brave soul for CPR training!
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Yeah, I did all that online CPR training. Now, the in-person 7 hour training is next week. I hope I remember everything haha. Keep smiling, Yawatta
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Break a leg! (Well, maybe not, but you know what I mean. Probably bad form for a CPR certification hopeful to “break legs”, and all! *laugh*)
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If you’ve jinxed me, I’ll cry! LOL
Keep smiling,
Yawatta
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Don’t cry! You’ll nail it because you’re awesome!
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Hope it goes well…keep me posted!
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P.S. Hope I didn’t give you nightmares *laugh*
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Nah, you didn’t. lol
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LOL!
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Suffering animals, ei-yi-yi. That’s gets me, too. But I tell myself it’s only fiction, not real, and usually by the end of the story the bad person gets his or her come-uppance! Sounds like a really well written horror story.
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It was pretty good…I’m glad I stuck with it! Yeah, I can barely watch it on TV shows or movies either…
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Animal suffering/cruelty is so hard for me to read but sometimes I’m brave and end up being thankful I stuck with a book. The Only Good Indians is one such book.
Also, on the rabbit theme I wanted to come here and recommend Bunny by Mona Awad, if you haven’t read it already. It’s wild and fabulous.
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Ha, it’s on my Goodreads “To-read” list already…most likely from reading LOHF’s recommendations/reviews! 🙂
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