Hi, lovelies. Coming in late again, but here’s my month in books, movies, games, and podcasts.
Books
Two of the books I loved this month focus on women finding power through transformation. In Sorrowland by Rivers Solomon, a heavily pregnant Vern escapes from a religious compound into the woods, where she gives birth to twins. For a while she lives wild, raising her children as she pleases — all the while they are being hunted. As time passes, Vern begins to grow in strength, experiencing a physical transformation she doesn’t understand.
Sorrowland was described to me as gothic horror, though considering the extent of Vern’s physical changes, it could almost be described as body horror. The book definitely carried some dark elements to it, some terrible and terrifying things — but throughout the darkness, there was also a light showing through in the way Vern grows and learns to claim her own identity and space in the world, finding pleasure in the ways her body changed. The love she has for her children and they for her is wonderful, complex, and beautiful. And her family grows when she finds people with whom she can connect can care for, while receiving the same in return. That carries with it such a powerful light of hope through all the dark times she experiences.
The second book was Goddess of Filth by V. Castro, in which a group of friends perform a play seance, laughing and drinking — until their friend Fernanda begins chanting in Nahuatl and appearing to be possessed. As time passes, Fernanda continues to act strangely, “smearing herself in black makeup, shredding her hands on rose thorns, sucking sin out of the mouths of the guilty.” With her mother in a moral panic over the changes, Fernanda’s friends try to find a way to help her in any way they can.
I love so many things about this book — first and foremost the way these five friends are wonderful. They support each other, look out for each other, and do what that can for each other. Another aspect that I loved about is that Fernanda’s possession is not an assault, but more symbiotic. The goddess within her offers wisdom and strength, and Fernanda begins to change, finding strength and confidence in the presence of the goddess. When her friend Lourdes begins to realize this, she works to help Fernanda face this new reality. The story has its terrors, but it is also so beautiful. I’m so glad I read it.
The Route of Ice & Salt by José Luis Zárate presents a loose retelling of Bram Stoker’s Dracula, told from the point of view of the ship captain, who carries the crates of soil from Transylvania to England. Along the way, some deadly misfortune begins to befall the crew.
T. Kingfisher is a fantastic writer, taking fantasy tropes and turning them into pure horror. Portal fantasies tend to lead to wondrous worlds filled with fantastical creatures and adventures. However, in 
What should be no surprise to anyone who reads my blog at this point is that I love Junji Ito — a writer and artist who continues to prove himself a master of the horror genre with his graphic novel, No Longer Human. The story follows the life of a man who feels disconnected with humanity to the extent that he finds it incredibly anxiety inducing — and at times outright horrifying — to interact with other people My full review is 
After watching Hellier, I’ve taken an interest in the idea of synchronicity (or meaningful coincidences), which is often discussed on the show. Carl Jungthe concept in his paper, Synchronicity: An Acausal Connection. The paper presents his theories on synchronicity, which he ties to psychology, psychic phenomena, quantum mechanics, and and the collective unconscious. For Jung, synchronicity was a defining principle of nature as valid as space, time, and causality. It makes for a fascinating read, even if some of the technical aspects of the paper were a bit hard to follow. I found it so interesting that I put together a