“All the Colors of the Dark” is a sprawling novel that tries to do too much and ends up delivering very little. At best, it's aggressively mediocre, and at worst, it's a contrived and overly familiar story built on tropes.
All tagged not worth the time
Craven Manor – Darcy Coates
The first half of the book had genuinely good moments, and I'll give the author credit for including a cursed black cat—one of the few charming touches. By the end, however, the story lost all coherence, and I was skimming the last few chapters. All-in-all, “Craven Manor” is simply a gothic misadventure.
Blackouts – Justin Torres
Justin Torres’ “Blackouts” is a stylistic exercise that feels more concerned with its own cleverness than with engaging its readers. The novel's experimental structure, essentially a mixed media piece of art that blends past and present, is undeniably ambitious, but it frequently veers into pretentiousness masked as creativity.
Fight Club – Chuck Palahniuk
Chuck Palahniuk's “Fight Club” has gained cult status for its literary transgression and societal critique, but the novel is nothing more than a sophomoric and misogynistic rant. It’s the type of book that someone reads in their twenties and finds edgy and dangerous, but that’s simply because it is effective at appealing to those with an underdeveloped world view.
Beautyland – Marie-Helene Bertino
My enjoyment of the novel fully hinged on Adina being a true alien. When Bertino made me question this fact, everything that preceded the reveal felt tawdry. While others seem to enjoy this, it ruined an already mediocre story for me.
Ducks, Newburyport – Lucy Ellmann
Expectation: A unique journey into the mind of a Midwest housewife and baker.
Reality: A 1,000+ page run on sentence with no plot, or seemingly, purpose outside of threading random topics together.
The Groom Will Keep His Name: And Other Vows I've Made About Race, Resistance, and Romance – Matt Ortile
Between the bloat, uneven pacing and self-absorption you’ll quickly find yourself tired of the lecture and wondering how a book that started promisingly can derail so quickly.
Queer Ducks (and Other Animals): The Natural World of Animal Sexuality – Eliot Schrefer
While Eliot Schrefer had admirable intent in addressing long held and incorrect theories about how we perceive sexual behavior in the natural world, the execution was a hodgepodge of personal anecdotes and pontifications that showed the author’s biases – even though he frequently maligned scientific bias.
The Overstory – Richard Powers
Expectation: A powerful story about the human/nature connection and how an ever-accelerating eco-calamity will destroy us all.
Reality: Bloated and boring, there was far too much happening and very little of it was interesting. I’m struggling to see how this won the Pulitzer Prize.
Murder Road – Simone St. James
Expectation: Another twisty supernatural thriller from a rather reliable author.
Reality: St. James delivered a lazy, convoluted plot that asked more from the reader than should’ve been allowed.
Arthur and Teddy Are Coming Out – Ryan Love
Expectation: A different spin on the coming out story exploring it through two generations within the same family.
Reality: Mediocre execution that falls flat due to predictable characters and forced plot twists.
The Wishing Pool and Other Stories – Tananarive Due
Expectation: Stories to chill-the-bones from a noted voice in the Black horror genre.
Reality: Interesting scenarios and characters are largely overshadowed by ancillary details and incomplete endings.
Small Joys – Elvin James Mensah
Expectation: A dramedy about self-discovery and queer acceptance.
Reality: Terrible dialogue ruined the few bright spots in an otherwise undercooked story.
Fellow Travelers – Thomas Mallon
Expectation: A steamy political thriller about two up and coming politicos balancing a clandestine, queer love affair under the specter of the Lavender Scare.
Reality: Essentially a nonfiction novel with unlikable characters and flat development. Do yourself a favor and skip it in favor of the limited television series.
Hello Beautiful – Ann Napolitano
Expectation: A richly-layered tearjerker that tracks the ups and downs of four sisters and the people in their orbit.
Reality: Too many characters without development and repetitive sections showed the author couldn’t scale her storytelling ambition.
Motherthing – Ainslie Hogarth
Expectation: A dark and twisted domestic horror story about how far a young wife will go to save her husband from the ghost of her mother-in-law.
Reality: A bit of a recursive mess, the premise is too thin to sustain nearly 300-pages, but the last few chapters do deliver.
The Last Ranger – Peter Heller
Expectation: A “John Wick” revenge fantasy about a national park ranger seeking out an illegal wolf poaching ring.
Reality: The plot drowns in unrelated minutiae. Had I not been trapped in a car for six hours, I probably would’ve given up on it.
Big Swiss – Jen Beagin
Expectation: A quirky comedy about voyeurism and self-discovery.
Reality: The epitome of dark comedy, the back half is chock full of sex, lies and violence, which makes it sound a lot more intriguing than it ultimately was.
Chlorine – Jade Song
Expectation: A horror story of a high school swimmer turning into a bloodthirsty mermaid in an act of rage.
Reality: Aimless and boring, a few body gore sections weren’t enough to keep me interested before throwing in the towel.
What Moves the Dead – T. Kingfisher
Expectation: A queer retelling of Edgar Allen Poe’s “The Fall of House of Usher.”
Reality: Shortcomings of the gothic horror genre aside (for this reader anyway), there was nothing “moving” about this uninspired novella.