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David McK (3649 KP) rated Playing with Fire (Skulduggery Pleasant, #2) in Books

Nov 9, 2025  
PW
Playing with Fire (Skulduggery Pleasant, #2)
Derek Landy | 2008 | Young Adult (YA)
5
6.5 (2 Ratings)
Book Rating
Hmmmm ... I'm unsure what to feel about this one.

The second in Derek Landy's 'Skulduggery Pleasant' series (after Skulduggery Pleasant), this - for large part - feels juvenile, very much aimed towards a younger audience.

And then we get short, sudden shocks of pure body horror, enough to give (I imagine) the more sensitive young reader nightmares.

So, if it was a movie, large parts PG, maybe, with certain other sections more like an 18.

Anyway, knowing that (and with that in mind), it's enjoyable enough, continuing on the story of Skulduggery Pleasant and Valkyrie Cain that was started in the previous novel, with plenty of plot threads left hanging open for the sequels.
  
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Gareth von Kallenbach (980 KP) rated Unrest (2006) in Movies

Aug 14, 2019  
Unrest (2006)
Unrest (2006)
2006 | Horror
9
8.5 (2 Ratings)
Movie Rating
For many medical school students the most daunting class they face early in their studies is that of Gross Anatomy. The class which introduces aspiring doctors to their first bodies, as well as the reality and complexity of the human anatomy is often seen as a make or break moment for the challenging studies that lay ahead.

In the film Unrest Writer/Director/Producer Jason Todd Ipson follows a group of new students in a Gross Anatomy class. At first the students are shocked by the disfigured cadaver in front of them, but soon begin the dissection they are required to do.

The appearance of the corpse they are working on becomes a source of fixation for one of the students named Allison (Corri English), who becomes convinced that something is not right with the body they are working on, as something tells her that things are not as they seem.

Allison’s concerns are dismissed as her being overwhelmed by her first encounter with a body, and she is told that her concerns will soon pass. Soon after, one of the dissection group is affected by a freak accident, and Allison becomes convinced that there are evil forces at work, and that nobody will be safe until the mystery behind the corpse is settled.

As the body count rises, Allison and her friend Brian (Scot Davis), face a race against the clock and the supernatural to find the cause of the unrest and make things right, before they end up the next victims of a vengeful specter.

Unrest is a very impressive debut for Ipson, who himself was a promising surgeon before turning his talents to directing. The film is well paced and has plenty of tension and suspense without resorting to the clichéd horror staples that have become all too common.

The plot is refreshingly original and deeper than most films in this genre attempt to achieve, as its complexity is deceiving simply. The film can be taken as a simple scare fest, but for those willing to look beneath the surface, there are deeper layers to the film that tackle areas such as the afterlife, intuition, possession, second sight, and the supernatural. While all of those have been covered before in various films, few have ever combined them in such an intelligent fashion that allows the audience to reach their own conclusions on the topics the film introduces.

The cast is solid especially Davis and English who take what could easily be stock characters and infuse a sense of purpose which helps the audience relate to them and their situation.

While the film might have what appears to some to be plot holes, the film is actually a clever examination of the spirit and afterlife, and delivers the goods. While much has been made about the alleged use of real body parts in the film, Ipson is careful not to let his film become a gratuitous gore fest and uses blood and carnage only in the amounts necessary to propel the story.

Unrest is a very solid effort that marks the emergence of a talent to be watched and will delight fans of the genre who want some intelligence with their horror.
  
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Suswatibasu (1703 KP) rated Her Body and Other Parties: Stories in Books

Nov 22, 2017 (Updated Nov 22, 2017)  
Her Body and Other Parties: Stories
Her Body and Other Parties: Stories
Carmen Maria Machado | 2017 | Fiction & Poetry, LGBTQ+
7
6.0 (8 Ratings)
Book Rating
Good writing but fairly disappointing
Her Body and Other Parties is like most short story collections I have read in that some of the stories worked for me far more than others.

Carmen Maria Machado mingles fabulism, body horror, erotica and 'feminist' commentary in her debut novel. The thrust of this book is perhaps best encapsulated by the second story in the book, 'Inventory'. It starts with the narrator cataloguing everyone she's slept with, taking on that now-near-compulsory clinical tone, that Muumuu House type of thing of talking endlessly about sex but doing so in an affectless style that doesn't communicate any passion or joy or pleasure. It suddenly becomes more interesting when a hidden narrative emerges: as the narrator progresses through her later conquests, she talks of a pervasive virus, family members lost, a quarantine zone, evacuations and refugees. It's an unexpected approach to the dystopian theme and a pleasing subversion of first impressions, yet the story as a whole remains unsatisfying.

Among the weaker stories is 'Especially Heinous', which reimagines plot summaries of Law & Order: Special Victims Unit episodes through a surrealist lens, playing on the ubiquity of violence against women in such shows. Except it was far too long, going through an entire seven series, becoming increasingly bizarre.

My favourite was 'The Resident'. While the subject matter is slightly more staid than some of the others – presumably semi-autobiographical in its portrait of a writer unravelling during a retreat – it's a relief that it isn't told at a cold, impersonal remove. It actually has heart and a personality, unlike so many of the others, and contains one of the few truly rousing scenes in the book, when the narrator lashes out at a patronising acquaintance and defends her right to write about 'crazy' heroines and madwomen in attics.

Nevertheless, there's something I find so depressing about the kind of writing that's ostensibly feminist but seems to focus incessantly on the negatives of being a woman. In fiction such as this, the approach is often paired with candid-yet-detached writing about sex that I also find off-putting (not to mention extremely unsexy). The stories are well-crafted and (when they don't feel workshopped to death) spark with strong ideas and entertaining metafictional touches, but Her Body and Other Parties didn't work for me the way I hoped it would.