Annie Kapur
Bio
I am:
🙋🏽♀️ Annie
📚 Avid Reader
📝 Reviewer and Commentator
🎓 Post-Grad Millennial (M.A)
***
I have:
📖 280K+ reads on Vocal
🫶🏼 Love for reading & research
🦋/X @AnnieWithBooks
***
🏡 UK
Stories (2895)
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Book Review: "Summer of the Monsters" by David Sodergren
I am back reading David Sodergren novels. In the past, I have enjoyed The Haar and The Forgotten Island and honestly, nothing has topped that first one as of yet but some have been pretty close. I've often praised David Sodergren's novels for being more than just meaningless gore. Instead, they have this weird extended metaphor that runs beneath them, the gore simply adding a layer to the horrors of all that is happening. Sodergren's novels are written often in atmospheric and quite fun ways - often creating whole backstories to characters and situations in a novel that also doesn't overwhelm the reader with information. Let's take a look at this one then, entitled Summer of the Monsters...
By Annie Kapur6 months ago in Geeks
Lime Marmalade. Content Warning.
Name: Darlene Age: 20 years and 5 months Affliction: depression, paranoia and a possible personality disorder Doctor's Notes: patient suffers from insomnia, repeated behaviours and no desire to marry. She is moody, disruptive and more than often has bursts of fear or anger in which she refuses to come out from her room. She is currently on a diet of vegetables and biscuits in an effort to get her to eat healthy foods. She is emaciated and often refuses dinner.
By Annie Kapur6 months ago in Fiction
Book Review: "Cows" by Matthew Stokoe
I know what you're thinking. It's one of two things. The first one is probably: when is she going to get on to a new thing? She's been stuck on indie horror for a while now, I'm getting kind of sick of it. Or, you'll probably thinking: what kind of a name for a book is that? And both are perfectly valid. Though I do think that if you're expecting something different to reading horror, thriller or psychologically dark novels from me then you don't really know me at all. I recently reviewed The Travelling Vampire Show and so, we're going to be here for some time.
By Annie Kapur6 months ago in Geeks
Book Review: "The Travelling Vampire Show" by Richard Laymon
I was searching the horrors of Reddit (no, literally - I was on the horror that is Reddit, looking for horrors as well - I mean, where else would you go) and I found someone talking about The Travelling Vampire Show by Richard Laymon, saying that it was a great horror novel they read a while back. No, it is not an off-shoot of The Rocky Horror Picture Show and no, it has nothing to do with Dracula. It feels, at least at the beginning, like a teen novel. But then it really does transform into something else entirely. Let's see what it's all about and whether Richard Laymon lives up to the hype that one Redditor created...
By Annie Kapur6 months ago in Geeks
Book Review: "Phantoms of Kernow" ed. by Joan Passey
Full Title: "Phantoms of Kernow: Classic Tales of Haunted Cornwall" edited by Joan Passey Don't be surprised that this is yet another review of a British Library Tales of the Weird collection. I live for this collection. If you have read some of my stuff in the past, you'll see that sometimes I can overhype these collections for myself and that means that they can (though rarely) fail to meet my expectations - but that's on me. More than often though, they are the perfect answer to a cold rainy night, or a sweaty summer night where you can't sleep because of the heat. If you want to read a comprehensive account of my favourite anthologies in the series, then click here for more.
By Annie Kapur6 months ago in Geeks
Book Review: "Out There" by Kate Folk
I was recently asked a great question by a person under 21. The question was: how do you get better at reading? Here's the answer: read stuff you enjoy and allow it to challenge you. Have your mind open to new ideas and even if you're in a 'slump', pick up a short story or a poetry anthology. Anyways, I'm not in a 'slump' but I am reading a short story anthology called Out There. An absurdist collection by Kate Folk, it has some contemporary themes that really resonate with our own day. Some stories may have been better than others, but overall I can say this was a positive reading experience.
By Annie Kapur6 months ago in Geeks
An American Tragedy by Theodore Dreiser
Theodore Dreiser’s An American Tragedy, first published in 1925, is a seminal work of American naturalism, drawing on real-life events to explore themes of ambition, class conflict, and moral ambiguity. Dreiser was inspired by the infamous Chester Gillette case of 1906, in which Gillette was convicted of murdering Grace Brown, a young woman who was pregnant with his child. The trial and its sensational coverage captivated the nation, providing Dreiser with a compelling framework for his novel.
By Annie Kapur6 months ago in Geeks
Book Review: "Maggie's Grave" by David Sodergren
I adore David Sodergren's books and I've read quite a few of them. One of my favourites was The Haar which I just ate up entirely. You can read on what I thought about it here. David Sodergren mixes folk and urban legend horror with contemporary themes and thus, his books are right up my street. At times, they can be overwhelming, which is not something I am complaining about - it can be really great to have horror that isn't just about grossing out the reader. So, let's get on with this newest addition to my collection of David Sodergren's books - Maggie's Grave. It's about how the dead...sometimes don't always stay dead.
By Annie Kapur6 months ago in Geeks
Is Anyone Else Seeing This Too?
There's something that has been going down on Vocal which has confused me for a number of reasons. I think everyone else is seeing this same issue and yet, nobody can see why it's happening. One could call is shameless self-promotion, but in self-promotion the person doing the promoting knows they may get some traffic out of this. What we are seeing is self-promotion where you are left thinking 'you actually cannot be serious, right?' Let's break down the problem.
By Annie Kapur6 months ago in Geeks
Book Review: "The Retirement Plan" by Sue Hincenbergs
I needed something a bit lighter. If you've been paying attention to the blog then you'll know that I've been reading some indie horror, some very emotional fiction and obviously, some Dostoevsky. Mixing it up to read a breezy comedy muddled with some crime is something that I definitely need to wind the atmosphere down. I cannot lie though, I am really itching to read some ghost stories or some contemporary horror. If you don't like my horror reviews (and judging by my stats that's a lot of you) then I apologise. I'll try to keep things fresh but for now, there's just certain things I need to repair myself.
By Annie Kapur6 months ago in Geeks
