WWW Wednesday | 21/10/2020

WWW Wednesday is a weekly meme hosted by Taking on a World of Words that highlights three questions:

What are you currently reading?
What did you recently finish reading?
What do you think you’ll read next?

What did you recently finish reading?

 

I finished The Woman in Black by Susan Hill yesterday. This book was only 200 pages but for some reason it still took me a few days to even just pick it up and start it. This meant that I am now going to be rushing to finish my TBR this month but I'm still hopeful I can do it. A lot of people talk about how scary this book is but whilst I liked the atmosphere and the writing, I wasn't scared. This may be because I've already seen the film so I knew the basic plot and therefore I didn't find it as creepy as others. I don't know, it just takes a lot for me to actually be scared whilst reading a book.

 

What are you currently reading?

 

I've just started These Witches Don't Burn by Isobel Sterling and by just started, I literally mean I've read like 6 pages! Therefore, I don't have any opinions on it yet but I hope that I really like it because it's a book I've wanted to read for a while. I love witchy books so I do think I'll enjoy it.

Not gonna lie, I haven't made any progress in Daja's Book by Tamora Pierce. I've still only listened to the first chapter so I need to get my butt in gear and listen to some more when I have some free time.

 

What do you think you'll read next?

I'm planning on starting Relic by Gretchen McNeil today. This is to fit the prompt Read A Slasher Book for the Spooktober Readathon and this is what I went with because the options for slasher books on Scribd weren't great. I don't have massively high expectations but who knows? I may end up really enjoying it.

For Annie Kramer, the summer before college is bittersweet—both a last hurrah of freedom and the last days she'll spend with her boyfriend, Jack, before they head off to different colleges. So she and her friends plan one final adventure: a houseboating trip on Shasta Lake, complete with booze, romance . . . and an off-limits exploration of the notorious Bull Valley Mine.

The legends of mysterious lights and missing persons on Shasta Lake have been a staple of sleepovers and campouts since Annie was a kid. Full of decrepit bridges that lead to nowhere, railroad tunnels that disappear into the mountains, and terrifying stories of unexplained deaths and bodies that were never recovered, Bull Valley Mine is notorious and frightening—perfect for an epic conclusion to their high school lives.

The trip is fun and light—at first. But when a deranged stranger stumbles upon their campsite, spouting terrifying warnings and pleas for help, it's clear that everyone is in danger. And when their exploration of the mine goes horribly wrong, Annie and her friends quickly discover that the menace of Bull Valley Mine doesn't stay at Shasta Lake—it follows them home.

As one by one her friends fall victim to this mysterious and violent force, Annie must do whatever it takes to discover the ancient secrets of the mine and save her friends . . . if she's not already too late.

Trick or Treat: A History of Halloween by Lisa Morton will be my next physical read. This is also my non-fiction choice for the month and I'm pretty excited to get to it. I adore Halloween so I'm looking forward to delving into the history of the holiday and the ways different cultures celebrate.

Every year, children and adults alike take to the streets dressed as witches, demons, animals, celebrities, and more. They carve pumpkins and play pranks, and the braver ones watch scary movies and go on ghost tours. There are parades, fireworks displays, cornfield mazes, and haunted houses—and, most important, copious amounts of bite-sized candy. 

The popularity of Halloween has spread around the globe to places as diverse as Russia, China, and Japan, but its association with death and the supernatural and its inevitable commercialization has made it one of our most misunderstood holidays. How did it become what it is today? In Trick or Treat, Halloween aficionado Lisa Morton provides a thorough history of this spooky day. She begins by looking at how holidays like the Celtic Samhain, a Gaelic harvest festival, have blended with the British Guy Fawkes Day and the Catholic All Souls’ Day to produce the modern Halloween, and she explains how the holiday was reborn in America, where costumes and trick-or-treat rituals have become new customs. Morton takes into account the influence of related but independent holidays, especially the Mexican Day of the Dead, as well as the explosion in popularity of haunted attractions and the impact of such events as 9/11 and the economic recession on the celebration today.  

Trick or Treat also examines the effect Halloween has had on popular culture through the literary works of Washington Irving and Ray Bradbury, films like Halloween and The Nightmare Before Christmas, and television shows such as Buffy the Vampire Slayer and The Simpsons. Considering the holiday in the context of its worldwide popularity for the first time, this book will be a treat for any Halloween lover.

Have you read any of these? What were your thoughts? What are you currently reading and hoping to pick up next? Leave a comment or link your own WWW Wednesdays below for me to check out!