The Sunday Prescription

One reading topic, one week of plans, and plenty of books administered weekly for chronic readers.

Symptoms: We're all a bunch of liars!

Hi everyone, and welcome back to another Sunday Prescription. This week, I want to talk about some of the discussion going around the book world recently about creators and influencers being liars when it comes to the books they're reading. Most of this has come down to accusations that bookish content creators and influencers are not reading the books they are reviewing, and they're only reviewing books to chase clout when the book is popular/trending, or they have been paid or have been given free books and as such, just promote them blindly. Another one is that there is no way book influencers are really reading as many books as they claim they are. I definitely have some thoughts on this!

First, I am sure that there are people out there who do this kind of stuff, but I genuinely do not feel it is widespread. In terms of the accusations that influencers are paid for good reviews, companies and publishers do their research - when publishing companies have reached out to me asking if I want to try a book, it is typically because they have seen other book reviews I have done that are similar to that book, or that I liked and reviewed that author previously, and that's just research for sending out ARCs or copies of released books. When it comes to financial relationships, I would imagine they do their research even more. And most content creators do more positive than negative reviews because they don't want to trash authors, especially when they are high profile. So to me, it makes sense why you see so many positive reviews from people - the companies are finding the right books for the right people, and creators want to talk about books they love, not books they hate.

In terms of the volume accusations, I had someone recently make a similar comment on my YouTube page, saying I had clearly lied about how many books I read in the first half of the year. I think this stems from people not comprehending how someone could read that much when they maybe read a few books a year. In my case, I don't really watch much TV, and I make time to read every day. That adds up! I gain nothing from lying about how many books I've read.

And as far as whether or not people are reviewing books they have read, I have no idea how you can tell this. We all read for different reasons and at different levels, and we all have different retention abilities. Additionally, with AI and the internet, if you really wanted to fake it you could make as detailed a video as you want pretty easily without reading a book, so I just don't know how anyone can really tell.

So, all that said, here's my approach and what you all can expect from me in terms of my policies when it comes to bookish honesty. First, if I feel a creator is not genuine or just doing it for the content, I just don't watch, don't follow, and don't engage. Pretty simple. In terms of my own personal policies:

• I will never review a book without reading it. If I DNF a book, I make that clear. I also do not personally recommend books without reading them, and when someone asks me about a book I haven't read, I tell them that.

• If you watch my monthly reading wrap ups, you will notice I'm very transparent about what I have read and in what format (e book, physical, or audio). I do not and have never had numeric reading goals, and I stand to gain nothing from beefing up numbers, so what you see is what you get. And, that number is subject to change from month to month or year to year.

• I always tell authors that if they send me a book I will do an honest review. Now I won't make a video to trash an author or book I don't like (especially an indie book), but I will always write honest StoryGraph and Goodreads reviews. I have had authors withdraw their request to send me a book when they hear that!

• When I do reviews, video or written, I will always say whether that book was given to me for free or not, and who gave it to me. I think that's important for the viewing public to know so they can take any review with a grain of salt, because there can be subconscious bias there.

• Lastly, I have not entered into any financial agreements with companies in terms of direct reimbursement, but if I do down the road, I would always let you all know (in fact, legally I have to!).

So what's your take - do you think lying about books is rampant on social media amongst big influencers, or do you think this is another accusation without much basis?

The Rx: What I'm Reading and Doing

This has been a fun week of reading and hobbies. First, reading has been great. After I finish writing this newsletter I'm going to be finishing up Valour by John Gwynne, and I finished up Empire of the Vampire by Jay Kristoff last night. These have both been great fun! I am going to finish out the month with Robin Hobb's Assassin's Apprentice, and possibly finish up my reread of the Silmarillion.

With August on the horizon, there is some great stuff coming! For our main book club on Bindery and Discord, we'll be reading the Jasad heir, and for my new Fable Book Club, Dr. Bob's Literary Apothecary, we'll be reading The Wolf and His King by Finn Longman. Our monthly reading challenge is to "read an indie published book." You can read and be eligible to win a $25 bookshop.org gift card by participating in the StoryGraph Challenge page, or on our Discord server. I'm going to be reading The Butcher of Nazareth by David Scott Hay for this. And lastly, my paid member's picked King Sorrow by Joe Hill for the monthly pick a book. If you want to read along or hear my blow by blow thoughts, join up as a Dark Traveler!

In terms of hobbies, as you can see above, I'm working my way through the Minas Tirith Lego set that my lovely wife surprised me with for Father's Day. It's a beast, but I'm having so much fun! This is one of my favorite things to do while listening to an audiobook. The weather is nice, and I'm hoping to be able to get out and do some mountain biking as well here over the next few weeks.

And in terms of content, I took the weekend off of YouTube this week, and am working on batch recording some stuff for August since August is always a busy month. If you make book content or are thinking about it, I highly recommend batch recording - when you have your stuff all set up, recording a bunch of stuff at once and then editing later makes this much easier for me than trying to record a little every day!

Hope you all have a great week of reading and life, and I'll see you next week!

Want More In-Depth Access?

If you enjoy getting into the details with me about reading, then consider upgrading to The Dark Travelers tier! My Dark Travelers get an exclusive Discord role and channels, a weekly deep dive reading update video, early access to YouTube videos, and each month they get to pick a book for me to read. This can be a book they want to read with me, or something they want me to try for them. It's super fun and a great tight knit group that I really enjoy talking books with, and I'd love to have you part of it!

Every month, one of my paid members' perks is to pick a book for me to read. This can be one they read with me, or one they want me to simply read and review. For July, I was really excited to see the group pick Headlights by CJ Leede. I had Leede on my radar, and had heard some really good things about this one in particular. A few of the members were using me as a canary in the coal mine to test this one out, and a few read along.

Anyone who has been reading my reviews over the last year knows that I have been loving stories that don't fit easily into one genre. Genre bending/genre mixing stories that do more than one thing really well have been hooking me for some reason. Headlights is my first CJ Leede book, and I was really impressed with the layers that she built in to this story, and the different genre elements of the story that helped propel this one to some weird, wild places.

I have heard this described as True Detective meets the X Files, and I think that's a reasonably fair assessment. Headlights tells the story of an agent with a traumatic past with some possible supernatural skills who gets pulled back into investigating a series of murders that he was unable to solve in the past. What begins to unfold is part detective thriller, part murder mystery, part folk horror, and part cosmic horror. It is a story about trauma and grief, nature and man's destruction of it, and the horrors of our past and how we face and reconcile who we were and are.

The book is divided into 6 parts. As I first jumped into part one, where we get Daniel's introduction, some mysterious background, and his route back into the fold of this investigation, I was a little put off by the writing. Much of the first part, especially our main character's internal monologue, is written in that staccato "Blake Crouch-esque" micro paragraphing style. I think this writing style has its place, and can be used to build some tension, but for me I only enjoy it in small doses. As with Blake Crouch, it often makes me feel like I'm reading a screenplay versus a book, and I wind up fighting with the story, trying to avoid the skimming that this style pushes me towards. I was worried at first that the rest of the book would be a dump of this style of writing.

However, as we get more into the meat of the book, this style was definitely mixed in, and I began to understand why Leede was using it. Daniel's character suffers from post traumatic stress, and is constantly questioning and fighting himself, and this micro paragraphing became a good insight into how his mind was working. When juxtaposed with the dialogue and the exposition, we get the sense of someone who is calm on the outside while a war of feelings and thoughts wages within. There was a chapter in part 4 where this technique felt a little heavy handed to me, but again overall it was used well. As someone who also deals with cPTSD myself, I thought the subject was handled well, and it was a really interesting exploration of trauma and its impacts. I can certainly relate to Daniel and how sometimes, you look calm on the outside but inside you're a mess.

The horror elements of the book were also really well done. We have supernatural elements, cosmic horror, some folk and eldritch horror mixed in, with a sprinkling of gore and body horror. The book is also a love letter to Stephen King's The Shining. Our main characters have a connection to the cosmic and supernatural and they "shine," we get a scene in the hotel that inspired the book, our main character's mom loved The Shining, and we get multiple other nods and references to the story. This creates a fun element to the story for King fans.

One of the thins that impressed me the most is how Leede built tension as the story goes on. She never resorts to using cheap scares, opting instead to constantly build the fear and horror of the story while mixing it with the mystery and tension of the crime solving elements. Ultimately, some of the horror is what we as humans are doing to nature, to our environment, and to the world around us, and how that world can fight back. We get supernatural horror elements and cosmic horror blending in as time goes on, and the interplay with these and the violent/gore horror of the murders creates a very multimodal tension and fear.

The last two parts of the book were a brilliant catharsis of all of that tension. We get the reveal about the murders, why they were happening and who did them, and what role our main characters played. We get a beautiful exploration of our main characters' relationship, especially as it relates to accepting who we are, and accepting the people we love for who they are. Leede also does a great job exploring how facing our trauma and facing the difficulties in our past and present can lead to a better understanding of self and the world around us, and bring us some peace about the less peaceful elements of our lives. This includes some exploration of family dynamics, and how our subconscious can affect our conscious being.

My only issues were some of the writing elements, as discussed above, and I did want a bit more time at the end exploring some of the horror, as well as maybe a bit more time exploring what ultimately becomes of our main characters. On the whole, however, the great elements of the book ultimately far outshined the downsides.

Overall, this was a wonderful story, and I had a ton of fun with it. I would highly recommend you check it out, especially if you like weird horror that blends genres to explore big themes. I will definitely be reading Leede's other books! And if you want to read books like this with me or pick books for me to read, make sure to check out the Dark Traveler's membership tier!

4.25/5 Stars

Format: Hardcover