What Moves the Dead

Strange writing style at times, occasionally telling over showing and the attempts at humor felt so out of place I ended up rolling my eyes.

Feels less like horror and more like fantasy in the beginning because of the fake country and language, with Alex going on monologues about Gallacian pronouns. But it’s too short and not enough world building to be fantasy. While also not being scary enough for me to consider it horror-it is creepy but only for a very short time. I’d say it’s less horror and more gothic mystery as most horror I’ve read give me genuine nightmares and this was just meh.

Made it feel like the book was trying to do too much in such a short amount of pages. I think if the made up country and language was abandoned while keeping the queer rep, instead using the already established they/them pronouns, it could’ve been more focused on the mystery (or horror for some I guess)!

I didn’t love it or hate it, it’s a story that was engaging enough while reading it, and despite my initial desire to DNF it did get better by the 3rd/4th chapter. I didn’t have any strong feelings while reading most of it nor any strong opinions after finishing, feeling like “that was it?” by the end. Plus I’m struggling to find positives about what I just read so for that plus trying to juggle too many things it made it a forgettable read as a result.

If you want something in a similar vein but that actually executes it well, I’d recommend reading Mexican Gothic instead. Also the author mentions in the authors note that she hated how in the OG Fall of the House of Usher there weren’t explanations for things AND YET SHE ALSO DOESNT GIVE EXPLANATIONS!