The poetry, book reviews, and other writing of Amanda Růžičková

Content Warnings: death, murder, violence, blood, vampirism, suicide, loneliness and social isolation, aging and elderly characters, queer longing and unfulfilled desire, grief, period-typical homophobia (1980s flashbacks), emotional manipulation At its core, this is a book about the kind of loneliness that persists even in a life filled with relationships. I read it on honeymoon—almost a year late because of cancer treatments—and understood immediately what Cheon Seon-Ran's vampires were hunti…

First, the reviewer's bare minimum: The Buffalo Hunter Hunter is one of the best books I've read this year. It's Stephen Graham Jones at his most ambitious—a 448-page historical horror novel that uses the vampire as a lens to examine genocide and survival.…

It takes every lie, every slick manipulation, and turns them to tools—dismantling her life with a butcher's systematic attention to the joints. It's *The Ring* with receipts, and the bottom line is brutal.…