The Trajectory of Today’s Topics

• Hot off the press, Dark Romance Trope, Stalker Turned BF.

• Will You Let This One In?

• One Book You Might Not Want

• RIP LJ Smith

Hot Off The Press

Hot Netflix Psychological Thriller

Have you seen You yet? In case you haven’t been keeping up with one of the hottest psychological thrillers on Netflix… Where you been?? The final season of You just dropped, and it has everyone (40 million people) bingeing it. With an overall rating of 92% on Rotten Tomatoes, the series is one of the highest rated on Netflix. 

The popular series is based on a fantastic book. You is based on a series of books by Caroline Kepnes. You follows a disturbed bookstore manager, Joe Goldberg, who develops an unhealthy obsession for a beautiful aspiring writer, Guinevere Beck. Diving into the wonders of social media, Joe begins stalking her and “innocently” inserts himself into her life. Using his wit, charm, and underhanded manipulation, Joe goes from stalker to boyfriend as he controls every aspect of Beck’s life. 

The book’s POV (point of view) follows the manipulative Joe. It may be a little alarming reading about the things he does to control and manipulate Beck, but it gives startling insight into his twisted mind. Before you know it, though, you’ll likely be charmed by his humor, wit, and candor to the point you’re actually sympathizing with him. Yeah, that’s right, you’ll probably inadvertently sympathize with a psychotic, stalker, killer. Only because the writing is so engaging and well done. 

Need more creepy goodness? There are four books in the series: You, Hidden Bodies, You Love Me, and For You And Only You. The first season of the show tends to follow the book rather faithfully, but like most TV series, after that, it gets the old Game of Thrones treatment and deviates more each season. If you’re looking for something a little creepy and a little dark and seedy to watch, go check You out on Netflix. For a deeper, unsettling feeling, reach for You… The book by Caroline Kepnes, not literally yourself, that’d be weird. 😅 

The TBR Files

Let The Right One In by John Ajvide Lindqvist

Let this one in and you won’t regret it. Keeping with the unintended creepy themes of this week’s newsletter, we’ll review a foreign horror/thriller book. Let The Right One In hooked me long ago. A friend recommended that I watch the American movie with a slightly different title, Let Me In, several years ago and I thoroughly enjoyed it. When I found out it was based on a book, I had to find it. The problem was, being a Swedish book, and like I said, many years ago, it wasn’t readily available. It wasn’t on Amazon, and the library didn’t carry it. I found it on eBay and other sites, but it was way expensive.

Cue angelic music from above. Fast forward to a few years ago, I stopped into this small bookstore on a whim as I was coming home from work, and like a beacon on the pitch black ocean, there it was! I snatched it up, skipped out of the store, and started reading it. It was worth the wait. 

Where to start with this book? It’s hard to unpack everything that is going on in Let The Right One In. It’s set in 1981 Sweden, during the Cold War. There’s Oskar, a young, troubled, bullied boy, there’s a serial killer loose in the area, and most importantly to Oskar, a new girl named Eli has moved into the apartment building. She’s not like anyone else he has ever met. She doesn’t know what a Rubik’s Cube is, but can solve it nearly instantly, she only comes out at night, and appears to be immune to cold. 

Trigger warnings. There are grisly murders, bullying, self-harm, and Eli’s father is not who he appears to be. If you get triggered by violence, or bad things happening to children, don’t read this book. But if you enjoy dark characters, serial killers, or read Stephen King, Anne Rice, and others like them, do yourself a favor and get this book! It was so creepy, so dark, so intriguing that I could not put it down. As a matter of fact, I’m feeling like I need to revisit this one again. 

Book before movie, or movie before book? If you’re one who likes to watch the movie before reading the book, it will spoil a bit for you, but the movie is great, and reading the book after still reveals so much the movie left out. It stars a young Chloe Grace Moretz as Eli. If you get the chance, I’d recommend watching the Swedish version, Let The Right One In as well if you can find it. This version is closer to the book, but it’s also much more disturbing, so don’t watch it alone. 

Rating: ☕☕☕☕☕ 

(Stars are so overused, let’s try something else. 5 coffees. Had me zipping through it like I quaffed a quart of coffee.)

…And Then This Happened

Eww… Just Eww…

Some books just don’t need to be made. I love Halloween, and I love books, especially leather bound books. They’re so eloquent, and they make me feel like I’m finally part of the upper echelon. Pinkies out, sipping expensive tea and munching on crumpets. But there’s no way I’d want to own books bound in human skin! That went dark quickly… Don’t worry, there’s a reason, and that reason is… 

Why would someone do this? A second copy of a notorious book, bound in the skin of a 19th century murderer, was recently uncovered. Let’s back up a little bit here. In 1827, Englishman William Corder was convicted of killing his lover, Maria Marten. The heinous act was dubbed The Red Barn Murder, and of course, it was made into a movie. Corder was sentenced to death and executed, but after his death, some of his skin was saved and used to bind the book about Corder’s trial! Yikes! 

How did it go unnoticed for so long? The book is on display at Moyse’s Hall Museum in Bury St. Edmunds. But recently, another book with more of Corder’s skin has turned up. Apparently, this book was donated some 20 years ago, but was only recently found to have skin covering the spine and the corners of the book. It’s unclear how the book was overlooked for so long, but when they found out it contained more of Corder’s skin, it was placed alongside the other. 

The exact number of human skin bound tomes isn’t known. Books bound in human skin aren’t as rare as we’d want to believe. Apparently, human skin is difficult to differentiate from cow leather, and only DNA testing can 100% confirm the difference. So far, according to Wikipedia, there are eighteen confirmed books bound with human remains, with many more alleged to have grisly covers. And here I was thinking this act was only a trope for certain horror books. Go figure!