THE HERPLING BOOKS

A Clash of Kings - GRRM (Dec 2025)::

Weird to review on its own, a great continuation of the A Song of Ice and Fire series. Read the first book last around July of 2024, but I retained most of it since then so there was not much trouble keeping up. I believe this has a lot to do with GRRM great writing; characters and plot points stick easily despite their number, and even if you don't recall all million lords and ladies it is easy to pick up what is happening. I like how this is developing, fun twists and turns all created by these annoying head up their ass rich people who can't just chill the fuck out. Also love the further introduction of magic in this book because, oh wow, dragons are back. You only get hints of it but I am deeply interested in the world building now. Great time.

The Soft Machine - Willium Burroughs (Dec 2025) ::

Another Burroughs. Enjoyed? Like the writing style, notably the repetition. it's always been especially poignant to me, and this one feels to have more than Naked Lunch. Has its moments of depth and clarity, otherwise, feverishly digging towards them.

Steppenwolf - Hermen Hesse (Nov 2025)::

Great book, made and continues to make me rethink my relationship with isolation, how I engage with the world at large. Calls into question a lot of my worse habits, a lot of my thinking regarding my own perceived inhumanity. Meandering in the beginning but quickly becomes expressive and charming, ends vaguely and perfectly. Struggled to keep going in the beginning, and struggled to put it down in the end.

Piranesi - Susanna Clarke (Sep-Oct 2025) ::

Took a while to read this due to a book club, but I really enjoyed every moment of it. Incredible incredible voice. Sets up the rules to the world very believably that lead to a pleasant experience for me, made it easy to put myself within this maze. Enjoyed the complexity in a split conscious and a sense of belonging, or not, to the world you belong to. Relatable, comforting.

The Orchard keeper - Cormac McCarthy (August-Oct 2025)::

Story took a while to build but it built beautifully. Stuck with it due to the beautiful prose of McCarthy, though definitely weaker imo compared to The Road. I think it's more dense, which allows you to get lost within the environment beautifully, but at points near the beginning lead me to feel disconnected to the characters and story at large. I eventually caught up though, and enjoyed it for the most part.

Seasons of the Swamp - Yuri Herrera (Sep 2025) ::

Mediocre at best though I did read this in one sitting while waiting in a sweltering car. The semi-lucid meandering through of an expanse has been done better in other books. Interesting build off a historical moment, I just wasn't all that captivated. Overall also not very memorable

Annihilation - Jeff VanderMeer (Sep 2025) ::

Oh man. Great book. I will come back to write more on this later just read it in the meantime.

East of Eden - John Steinbeck (Sep 2025) ::

Complex but I enjoyed it overall. It just ends, for me, at a point that is not the end of the book. I care less for the ending not because it is unimportant but because I drew so much more from everything besides this one final conclusion, to a point where the growth and development of Cal and Aaron was not really the most interesting point of this book. Maybe something about my own disinterest with coming of age stories, as well as overall feeling less for these two as opposed to literally everyone else. Anyways, I still got a lot out of this, something about consequence and violence and learning to do and be better.

The Road - Cormac McCarthy (July 2025) ::

Read in two days. Really incredible, concise and meaningful. Great progression of time and location, everything moves so fast especially leading up to the end. Usage of dialogue and breaks allows you to tear through pages, adding to the feeling of intensity. Something really great about that. Made me cry, I understand why my parents cannot read it anymore.

Twenty Days of Turin - Gigrgio De Maria (July 2025) ::

Completely unmemorable and boring. Would've put it down but it was incredibly short and I had nothing else to entertain myself with

House of Leaves - Mark Z. Danielewski (Feb-June 2025) ::

Absolutely loved. I hear people often get frustrated at one narrator or the other, but I loved both. I enjoyed the pseudo academia that [zappano?] operated within, all this bullshit and foot notes and carefully researched understandings of anything from the physics of a coin drop to these peoples personal lives. I personally enjoy academic writing, and having it applied in this way felt incredible. On the other hand [Johnny's] interjections were perfect, a definitely separate voice from someone engaging with this media secondhand, and still feeling the abnormal consequences from it. He's messy, and draws on personal expectance heavily and I love it. You unravel him as you unravel this non-film. This is all complimented of course by the abnormal [erogogic?] method of writing that is used beautifully.

I did not read this that closely. I know people really parse it out, going line by line to catch everything but I didn't, and I still loved it so much, and got so much out of it.

Warren - Brian Evenson (Feb 2025) ::

Short read, was an attempt to ease my way back into reading more, before I got swept off my feet due to class. Good, honestly wish it was longer as I was left deeply curious about the world, setting, and biology. Something immense beneath the little we see.

Naked Lunch - Willium Burrougs (Dec 2024-Jan 2025) ::

??? I think about this book frequently. Wish I owned it so I could have writ in the margins. Kind of a vacuous space in my mind where Naked Lunch lives.