Bonding by Maggie Siebert. Horror stories of varying quality and originality. Mostly but not exclusively of the gore/body horror variety. A few decent attempts, a few rather meh ones. A very slim tome that can be read in one go, and obviously a debut publication. While even the best material here is derivative, I don't really mind that and I suppose I'm still curious to see what she'll do with a full-lenght novel format.
Mania by Lionel Shriver. Shriver is a writer I always enjoy, although her books tend to be follow a certain formula a bit too closely at times. Set in an alternative recent past where it becomes at first socially unacceptable and then illegal to state basic obvious facts, that in reality everyone is very well aware of. Sound familiar?
Knife: Meditations After an Attempted Murder by Salman Rushdie. A rambling, directionless mess of a book, written by a roaring egotist, almost certainly with money as the main motive. Yes, I'm sorry he was attacked and obviously writers should be free to write what they want without fear of being the targeted for assassination. That doesn't change the fact that this book is a POS.
Also at the moment I'm halfway through:
Penance by Eliza Clark. There are a lot of themes in this novel: teenage girls being awful to each other, toxic social media, the present day "true crime" obsession, the "ghost hunting" obsession. It's very well written and engaging, but often needlessly convoluted and dense. Still, it'll be interesting to see if all this resolves into something relevant, rather than just an exercise in technical brilliance..
