3/22/24 2:41pm
the winner of the poll is pearl by josh malerman (previously published as on this, the day of the pig)!
From Josh Malerman, the New York Times bestselling author of Bird Box and Malorie, comes the legend of Pearl, a strange new monster unlike any other in horror (previously published as On This, the Day of the Pig).
NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY THE WALL STREET JOURNAL • “Daring readers should find this tale of a malevolent telepathic pig to be a memorable experience.”—Booklist (starred review)
There’s something strange about Walter Kopple’s farm. At first it seems to be his grandson, who cruelly murders one of Walter’s pigs in an act of seemingly senseless violence. But then people in town begin to whisper that Walter’s grandson heard a voice commanding him to kill.
And that the voice belongs to a most peculiar creature: the pig named Pearl.
Walter is not sure what to believe. He knows he’s always been afraid of the strangely malevolent Pearl. But as madness and paranoia grip the town and the townspeople descend on Walter’s farm with violent wrath, they begin to discover that true evil wears a human face.
tag is bats reads pearl! though heads up, i've got a busy weekend ahead so this one might be a bit more sporadic
3/25/24 7:52pm
so anyway i was gonna read the pig book
3/25/24 7:59pm
Sing for me, Brother Paul. Sing for Pearl. Let Pearl Know.
did… did that really need to be its own chapter?
3/25/24 8:08pm
i'm not really liking the writing style, it's very repetitive & choppy so far, but at least we're getting right to the pig i guess
3/25/24 8:11pm
dude you are flexing on a pig
3/25/24 8:16pm
... bro i don't think we can blame the psychic pig for that one
3/25/24 8:35pm
oooh, okay. i'm starting to understand how the pig powers work now
4/3/24 9:31pm
i am very excited for these jackasses to get killed by the pig
4/3/24 9:44pm
sorry it took so long to get back to pig blogging btw. got some big writing projects in the works atm and i've also become one of those balatro people. so. not much time & headspace for reading. but my library loan is due soon so i gotta pick up the pace lol
4/3/24 10:00pm
this cop is kind of a scumbag creep. in other news, fork found in the kitchen
4/3/24 10:26pm
the people i want to die in this book keep not dying lol
4/3/24 10:38pm
I AM GOING TO KILL PEARL TOMORROW, DAD, BECAUSE IF I DON'T PEARL IS GOING TO KILL YOU, ALL OF US, EVERYBODY. THE PIGS ARE PLANNING, DAD! THE PIGS ARE PLANNING! THE PIGS ARE PLANNING TO KILL!
spoilers: she did not kill pearl
4/3/24 10:52pm
there's something about this book that's just exhausting. i can't quite put my finger on it. maybe it's just a headspace thing. but it's like i wanna keep reading to see what happens but also i really wanna put the book down and do something else, y'know?
4/4/24 9:28pm
i am very excited for these jackasses to get killed by the pig
4/7/24 5:47pm
i'm wondering if i should switch to the audiobook. at least i can double speed the audiobook.
again, the book isn't bad necessarily. i do want to finish it. it's just a lot of inner monologue "ooo this pig is so scary i've always known the pig was evil i'm so scared right now" and it's like. i'm glad you're taking the pig threat seriously. but i would like to progress with the plot.
4/7/24 6:09pm
just had a chapter entirely dedicated to one of the cops remembering that time the pig was kinda weird at the state fair
4/7/24 6:31pm
pearl's long meandering asides are fine, because at least those usually contain telepathic pig violence. like we're seeing the pig actively do fucked-up shit vs. ooo that pig is Weird you guys i just know itttt
i still really wanna get back to stuff happening in the present tho. like come on
4/7/24 6:41pm
i gotta stop again. i'll do my best to actually finish it but if it runs out it runs out, and i'll put a hold on the audiobook version
4/11/24 9:33pm
pig book update: so my loan did lapse before i could finish it. now, the reason i couldn't renew it was because someone else had a hold put out for it, but of course that person either immediately returned it once they got it or just canceled their hold, so i could just check out the ebook again if i wanted to.
i'm not gonna do that tho; i think i wanna instead go forward with my plan to try and get ahold of the audiobook instead.
in the meantime i'll probably either take a short break from reading or just read some stuff just for me
4/28/24 1:18pm
good news: pearl audiobook finally available
bad news: i. forgot what chapter i was on.
4/28/24 1:22pm
thankfully the chapters are pretty easy to skip around, and i can remember enough to tell pretty quickly if i read this one or not. found the state fair chapter so i should be just about there
4/28/24 1:30pm
and now we must remember the feeling of reading pearl.
4/28/24 1:45pm
going from a genuinely sickening horror scene right into "ohhh that pig… that pig… something's Weird about that pig…"
why did i want to finish this book again?
4/28/24 1:49pm
the tension management of this book is all over the place. sharp spikes then dull "spoooky" monologue then sharp spikes again.
4/28/24 1:51pm
at least the narrator is nice? she sounds lovely; it does help a bit. as does double speed, but the audio format makes it a lot harder to skim over the seemingly-endless monotony
4/28/24 2:15pm
here's the thing. the bits that are good are good. really good. malerman is generally good at his job and knows what he's doing. the problem is the writing gets... distracted? like it goes on introspective tangents that would work just fine earlier in the novel, but the farther in we get the more repetitive things get.
like i cannot stress enough that We Get It. We Know The Pig Is Weird. We Have Seen The Pig Be Weird. we do not need yet another character musing about how weird the pig is.
4/29/24 3:20pm
title drop!!!
well, kinda. the old title drop. the new title's been kicking around for some time now.
semi-related, i found this chapter's introspection a bit more engaging than previous, mainly because it wasn't just more rehashing of "that pig? weird." a breath of fresh air
4/29/24 3:28pm
i was too mild before. i love this narrator. she's doing so much and i love her for it
4/29/24 8:06pm
that was. a little anticlimactic?
i might have vibed with the vague ending more if the climax had had a bit more pizzazz, and if i in general had liked the book more. i'm also lowkey surprised at how few humans died when you take a step back and really look at the plot.
it's hard to give super definitive thoughts on the book, because as i mentioned earlier, the good parts are good! but it gets so repetitive so fast. i guess it was fine? the audiobook narrator really helped.
but wheee! we finished pig book
