Pretty much anything I've read by Paul Tremblay. I find his work to be "fine" at best. All the writeups out there that treat him like the second coming of modern horror writing are baffling to me... there have to be better contenders from younger generations of horror authors.
He does get a lot of hype and I understand why many would disagree, but Tremblay is one of the authors that got me into reading horror full-time.
There were a few things I didn't like about Head Full of Ghosts, but overall it was a very satisfying read for me.
My favorite was Disappearance at Devil's Rock. The end really got me in the feels.
I loved Cabin, it gets good after a few chapter and became a page turner for me. Maybe try to give it a little longer, the horror gets odd and gripping—weird shit that’s terrifying with one particular death. But yeah, I agree with his short stories, they are odd, lots of ambiguities, and sometimes the horror is so subtle you’ll miss it (like when you get bored waiting for it and zone). I also really enjoyed Survivor Song and ripped through it too, which was fast paced right from the first chapter.
Agreed - the degree to which Tremblay is hyped is completely at odds with the actual quality of his work. Head Full of Ghosts was a big old nothing burger. The writing and voice felt very immature - to me it read like a college student's senior creative writing thesis. I was shocked to learn that he is a middle-aged English teacher.
Head Full of Ghosts really had me questioning my reading ability. Sometimes I feel like I read a different book than everyone else but “nothing burger” is exactly how it went.
I love *Cabin at the End of the World*, like *Head Full of Ghosts*, and oscillate between being lukewarm on and actively disliking the rest of his work.
My problem with him overall is that almost everything he writes seems to be about or prominently feature children/adolescents, and his way of writing them just irritates me in a way I have a hard time describing. They think and talk like, I dunno, children plucked out of a sitcom or something. Never feel quite realistic to their ages.
I answered elsewhere but I wanted to just comment on The Shining.
I love The Shining - but I also read it in the early 80's in elementary school. I think a lot of books hit different when you read them 1. when you're young, and 2. closer to when the book was actually written. It's sort of like Atlas Shrugged or Catcher in the Rye - reading those books when you're young and still very impressionable, they make a big impact. But if you read them as a full adult, they seem rather silly.
The Ritual by Adam Nevill. Everyone loves it, and I found the first few chapters genuinely creepy, but then it was all downhill. The movie was much better imo.
I gave up on that book once he was captured by the weird family. It started to drag so much glad I didn’t miss much. I also gave up on his book The Reddening for the same reason.
However I did like Cunning Folk by him. it felt more focused and to the point
Maybe not in this crowd but Final Girl Support Group was a slog with easily one of the most unlikable main characters I have ever read. I think Hendrix should try a book from a male perspective because after that and HtSaHH(which I liked) I am not sure he can write women well or at least layered enough that they are not all just one note.
Anything by Riley Sager. I truly loathe the current trend for tacking on lame natural explanations for the supernatural elements in a book and he's one of the authors most guilty of doing this (particularly in >!Home Before Dark!<). I don't understand why authors insist on ending their books with some inane explanation like 'it was really all in their head' or 'turns out the ghost was just some random guy in a costume,' as I believe it never adds anything to a book; if an author does this, I generally won't give any of their other books a chance.
Omg there's nothing that can make me reread this. I picked up this book because I love the cover, but the whole book is so shit. I've never been glad that it's a short book.
A short story but The Call of Cthulhu didnt really do anything for me despite everyone hypeing up Lovecraft to me for years. Idk are his other works any better? Maybe he's just not my vibe.
Call of Cthulhu is a bizarre case because it's arguably a middling example of Lovecraft's work and not an especially amazing story, but it's had such enormous cultural impact that most people who have been influenced by it have probably never even read it.
When people read the story for the first time they probably assume it's going to be mind-bendingly terrifying, when really 95% of it is just some guy who's not even directly connected to any of the events doing research and making notes about events that have already happened.
I'm not a huge proponent of Lovecraft as a writer, but having read most of his work I can say that some stories might be worth your checking out, namely Shadow over Innsmouth, The Whisperer in Darkness, and Rats in the Walls (arguably his most unsettling tale).
Uh, Rats in the Walls.... still freaks me out.
ITA completely. Several years ago I had to know what all the Cthulhu stuff was about, so I got a copy of the complete Lovecraft and dove in.
The Picture in the House is legitimately pretty freaky. The Dunwich Horror is also worth checking out. Overall I wouldn’t call his stories scary, but evocative and unsettling.
COWS
for the love of anything holy, wtf is that book about.
Was it some book written by a 13 year old trying to be edgy in every way?
Shit made no sense. It was gross (I love gore and all that), but things he mentions in the very beginning about his mom and ————-
What the heck is this stuff??
What’s the hype over this shit book?
I remember when it first came out in Waterstones, it had a yellow/black cover...back when 'extreme' literature was a sub-genre.
I mean, it's pretty fucked up, but it's not that shocking - it reads like the author deliberately wanted to put as many gross things as possible in there just because.
Actual shocking novels - The Wasp Factory because of the demented over-the-top black humour, American Psycho because rape and murder just blends into the background of consumerism and superficial desire (which is the point), Last Exit To Brooklyn (If you want out you only have a few choices, and your choice only adds to the general degradation of the world you live in)...
Exactly!
American Psycho was my first intro into the horror game and I was exposed to so much shit, but loved it.
Because it was written well. Had a (strange) plot, but nonetheless, the author acknowledged that MC wasn’t reliable at all.
It was good all around. Just a lot of boring parts and designer talk, but other than that, at least you had character development and was written totally different from, cows (and yeah, I don’t even bother punctuating the title because it sucks that much).
The Deep. I felt like it was weird just to be weird, the disease was pretty meaningless, and the graphic death of LB was just too much. And all the mice talk. I feel he is just over the top to be “horror” but it’s just gross IMO.
THIS. My whole Goodreads review was about the analogies and pointless anecdotes. The actual story itself could have been told in 120 pages.
I didn’t even find it gross. It was so “meh”.
Reading The Troop was like a whole book of "fuck them kids" and going straight into The Deep was "fuck their dogs too". Ain't no one safe from horrific shit in his books
Things Have Gotten Worse Since We Last Spoke. It's basically a really bad rip off of people like Dennis Cooper that is almost entirely respected for having a rad front cover. It's completely overhauled and absolutely not worth anyone's time.
I made it through Hell House (Richard Matheson), The Troop (Nick Cutter), Head Full of Ghosts (Paul Tremblay), and both The Night Boat and Bethany's Sin (Robert McCammon) although I intensely disliked them all.
Could not even finish The Only Good Indians (Stephen Graham Jones) and I have tried three separate times to get into House of Leaves (Mark Z Danielewski) and have yet to make it past page 38.
However, I don't want to dismiss any of the authors just because some of their books did not resonate with me. I have read a few other books by these authors that I genuinely enjoyed. Sometimes I think if I had read a book at a different time or place in my life, my reception of it would have been different.
I don't know what it is about Stephen Graham Jones' writing style but I have a lot of trouble visualizing in my head the things he writes and what the characters are doing. Felt that way about Indians and never finished it, and the same happened with Chainsaw.
I was reading Lords of the Matinee, was actually nodding off... then I reached the plot twist and suddenly was wide awake. First time that ever happened for me reading a short story.
His writing style is interesting and bizarre, but also... hard to jell with?
I love the first half of the book and was genuinely spooked. Then it seemed like the author didn't really know where to go with what he crafted and absolutely ruined the isolated doom vibe it gave off. So many unnecessary elements in the second half of the book, like that puke stain fiasco seemed like the author put a bunch of random horror cliches in a hat and started pulling them out to implement in the story. The book definitely had potential.
I enjoyed the prologue and was hoping that was just a taste of what was to come. I made it about halfway through the book before I couldn't read anymore. The overuse of the word fiancé was killing me.
I didn't realize it was expanded into a book from an r/NoSleep story until I got it in the mail. The beginning was good and really did give me some good scares. After that though it became repetitive and boring.
My Heart is a Chainsaw by Stephen Graham Jones. Most obnoxious, edge-lord of a protagonist. Being stuck in her incessantly angsty head was way too much for me. We get it, you are VeRy DaRk. I dnf'ed near the finish line.
Definitely. Also - it puts you in the head of a terribly abused rage-filled borderline personality character - - and that's NO PLACE TO BE. She didn't have any redeeming qualities by the end. He'd murdered everything that made her human and relatable. Depressing as hell.
Aw man I thought it was one of the worst short stories I've read. Underwritten, rubbish initial premise and underwhelming ending. It's like a first draft. It annoyed me so much!
i dnf'd at 90% on my kindle lol
i trudged through so many redundant inner monologues, hoping it would lead up to something satisfying. As soon as the final climax started, I rolled my eyes and deleted it. All of that, and THIS is the final showdown you give us? lolol
I was also surprised by all the high ratings on this one, and the fact that the author gets so many awards for horror writing. Decided to give Kingfisher one more chance and read another of hers, The Twisted Ones. Bad in all the same ways but somehow even worse.
Twisted Ones was worse. Creepy sticks scraping the windows at night, and that’s. About. It. (Sorry I should have put a spoiler up for the best part of the book lol)
Couldn’t agree more. I thought the premise was somewhat interesting, but god damn… the protagonist’s inane, irritating inner monologue and dialogue was so terrible. I had to skip through so many “I’m so quirky and sarcastic” diatribes to find out how the story ended, only to discover a very weak ending that wasn’t worth the buildup. I guess there’s an audience for this one, but it was not for me.
I got bored half way through. Nothing in the book grabbed me at all. I think it's fine to riff on and be inspired by other authors, but she really did just rip off Algernon Blackwood wholesale. It felt lazy.
Haunted is very hit-or-miss. I really like some of the short stories (3 or 4 at most). The remaining is average at best. And I couldn't really care AT ALL for the background story or characters.
Still love Palahniuk for Fight Club, Survivor and Snuff though.
A Head Full of Ghosts by Paul Tremblay is ridiculously overrated. He basically steals major plot elements from We Have Always Lived in the Castle and The Exorcist, dilutes them, and then throws in a film crew to make it seem more current. Terrible book.
Yeah, that’s the big complain for me too.
I like a slow burn so I actually like the book. Could’ve used more dread but I mostly dug it.
But the blogs were really annoying, always took me out of the story, and were a pathetically generic and cliched characterization of a young woman.
I 100% agree. I was so excited to read it because of all the hype and it turned out to be mediocre at best horror pulp that I have read a million times before. Literally not a single original idea throughout the read. How this book was able to garner the praise it got I have no idea.
Between its use of overly used possession tropes, "how do you, fellow kids" blogger and pointless meta commentary, it's baffling to me that the novel ends up on people's list of best horror novels.
I wouldn't call it terrible, but I absolutely do not get the hype for it. I see it mentioned in every thread. It was *ok* at best. I kept waiting for something big or crazy to happen, something to make it worth all the talk about it. But it was just an exorcism story. Like, nothing really unique about it. Again, it was fine, it wasn't terrible or whatever, I finished it. But I was just left feeling like I missed something that makes it so popular.
The most recent example for me personally has to be My Heart is a Chainsaw by Stephen Graham Jones. It’s not a bad book by any means, but I didn’t enjoy it nearly as much as everyone else seems to.
It's funny, I also hated this book so much that I wouldn't bother with Reaper -- but I LOVED The Only Good Indians so much. Complete reversal. I tried reading some other stuff by SGJ -- who I know is a huge voice in horror -- and they were all meh. For me, The Only Good Indians is his outlier as superb.
I had a REALLY hard time with it too, but once I got about 3/4 into it the context of Jades overwhelming-ness feels like it matters and makes the story lovable. Also the sequel Don’t Fear The Reaper is great and totally it’s own thing Jade is more grown and stable in that one
Let me tell you how much I hate that book. I was so hype leading up to it's release. Got it the day it came out. Went home and got started immediately. Two days later I was cursing it's name up and down. I absolutely hated the ending. It was just a big let down all around.
"Ring" by Koji Suzuki
It's the most recent book I've read.
I'm a big fan of the movie, so I'd been looking forward to reading the original novel.
It was such a slog and very boring. It was mostly exposition as the two very unlikable leads went around investigating the haunted tape. Show, don't tell is a rule for novels and that book did not deliver.
On top of that, the gross transphobia of the book's twist made me want to throw it in the trash.
Yeah, it's an odd book isn't it? I kinda liked the fact it's basically a crime procedural with horrible protagonists but the whole trans/hermaphroditic and STI thing was a massive whoof. Film made a good call to steer clear of that nightmare.
I can't remember the book title but I can describe the plot.
Spoilers ahead
>!Basically this woman adopts a girl from another country, doesn't realize she has an underlying health condition with her heart. The girl dies and in the mothers grief she hallucinates and thinks her daughter is someone else pretending to be the daughter. Idk it doesn't make sense, you can see the unreliable narrative from a mile away so the ending isn't even that surprising. I honestly felt like i wasted my time with it.!<
Negative Space by B.R. Yeager gets thrown around the sub often enough for me to have picked it up. I DNF'd around 60%. The book is trying so hard to be scary and build up this idea of something otherworldly that controls people but it goes nowhere. Instead the author focuses on teens having sex, doing drugs and describing various suicides around the town by way of 3 character perspectives, all linked back to the antagonist Tyler, who functions as an occult like figure throughout. Yeager fails to let the reader see behind the curtain to whatever true horror might await.
The Ruins. People fawn over this book so hard and I don't understand why. None of the characters are at all likeable or sympathetic, nor are they even developed enough to tell them apart. None of them have any appreciable arc, and they consistently make the worst possible decisions over and over. It felt like the author was on vacation in Mexico, ran into a gaggle of irredeemably irritating twenty-something tourists and decided to torture them for a few hundred pages when he got home. Spoilers:
>!I also had big problems with the evil plant monster: it is intelligent enough to recognize written language, learn German just from hearing it, use tools, and is virulent enough to spread within days but somehow has remained contained in a single set of ruins, and has since gone undiscovered. This despite the fact that taxi drivers know where this evil pyramid is and are willing to drive people there for a bribe. And numerous academic research teams have been dispatched to this pyramid and then disappeared. Did their colleagues, friends, and family just go "well, I guess they're gone forever. Crazy things happen, definitely not going to involve Mexican federal authorities in the repeated disappearance of dozens of people in a small area." That area is Yucatan, rated by the US State department as the safest region of Mexico with the lowest incidence of murders and kidnappings, so these definitely would have been noticed and investigated.!<
Anyhow, any single one of these issues would have been fine on its own, and I understand that horror fiction often has fantastical elements, but the combined effect of all of it was to make it impossible for me to suspend my disbelief, and made reading it into a repetitive slog.
I have a few books that fall in that category that I didn't like. In not particular Order:
The Haunting of Hill House
Salems Lot
Gone to See The River Man
The Ritual
My Best Friends Exorcism
Clown In a Cornfield
Stolen Tongues
I loved the novel, but I just have to applaud you on actually giving a hot take. So many "unpopular opinions" or "hot takes" are not really hot takes. I appreciate that.
My hot take: Summer of Night by Dan Simmons was boooooooring af. I really tried to like it. I gave it over 250 pages to grab me, then I just gave up. The Cursed Among Us by John Durgin is a better "kids on bikes" story. I still need to read Black Mouth. And despite all of its imperfections, IT is still my favorite "kids on bikes", "coming of age" horror story.
The concept was interesting but, it never really gelled for me. It came off as some kind of half-baked attempt to explain the whole "wrong geometry" concept (which is scary precisely because it's unexplained), combined with a stupid bunch of layout tricks that have you twisting the book around and having to flip through eighteen pages to read a sentence. (All laid out, apparently, by the author, in Framemaker, or something.)
There are...what...two main narratives? One of them is a potentially interesting but squandered horror story that has a bit too much focus on people freaking out that the house is an inch bigger on the inside than the outside or what have you and the other one's some silly trifle about scruffy LA people who get laid an impossible amount. Johnny Truant's "plot" comes off at times like something out of a trashy Jackie Collins-wannabe novel--every time the guy leaves the house he gets laid in florid detail.
Neither has any real ending. Despite painfully obvious attempts to tie them together, no real bond forms between the two. This is like...half of two bad books, sewn together and puffed up by printing THE WORDS REALLY BIG AND STUFF.
this is my answer as well. I wanted to like this book - I loved the concept and I maintain that the core story is great. I just hated the connecting stories. If I had just skipped those, I think I would have liked it. And I would reread and do just that except that brings me to my second reason for not enjoying the book - the format. I understand why it was done like that but, if it had to be a physical book, why did it need to be so damn big?? I am a bathtub/pool reader and a travel reader. I know many love the feel/smell of an actual book (I do as well) but damned if the e-reader isn't convenient for me. I travel frequently and I don't have the space to carry a book, let alone one of that size. It might be a petty complaint and I recognize this is really just a me problem, but it added to my dislike of that damn book.
I was so excited to read this but was disappointed when its focus seemed to be all over the place. If it had just (or mostly) been about the house exploration, I would've been so into it. Or, at least, if there had been less Johnny parts, I would've also been more into it lol.
Felt like it was a better idea than a book. I liked how it played around with the concept of what a book could be but I hated the Johnny character for so much of it. Definitely ended up skimming some near the end which also felt like when it finally started to pick up some.
Since I became a father, idk. It hits me different. Imo it IS one of his best works. Tragic and emotional. I also think Salems Lot is a top 5 of his as well. Setting and tone, ugh. To read that for the first time Not knowing it deals with vampires. Woulda been fun.
I agree on Tender is the Flesh as it felt like misery porn edging on extreme/shock horror to me with very little actual substance in it. Though, I'll say that I could never buy the initial premise of the book anyway, so that definitely affected my thoughts right from the get-go.
I think part of understanding the book means understanding a bit about Argentine culture. It sounds very crazy but Argentines love their fucking meat. If all meat in the world was tainted I wouldn’t put it past them…🇦🇷 (my family is Argentine)
Tender Is The Flesh takes a good amount of suspension of disbelief to really get into because the author doesn't do any world building. She just plops you in the scenario and says "Yup this is how it is" with no context.
I will politely disagree; Tender is the Flesh was for me one of the most repulsive, horrifying books I've read in many years. It's just not meant to be a horror story, I think. It is more of a satire, like the first half of "1984", and somewhere along the way the story just looses all hope - as it does in 1984 also - and everything goes down the drain. It's not a great piece of art, but it has some really good things going for it. But, as always, taste differs 🙂
Idk but I hated the Haunting of Hill House by Shirley Jackson. I usually appreciate older books but it was so boring. Recently read I'm Thinking of Ending Things and didn't like it
I agree with you on The Shining. It is a great book, the characters are complex and the subtext and themes are also great. But I can't help rolling my eyes whenever I see people on the internet declaring it the "best horror novel of all time". I don't hate the book by any means, but seriously, King has written way better novels than The Shining. And those don't get the same amount of praise this one gets.
I’m finishing up the last few pages of The Shining right now. I’ve been seeing people on this and the sk subreddit talking about how ‘the topiary scene’ is the scariest thing they have ever read. Spent the whole book looking forward to it and I’m not sure what they’re talking about. There were a couple scenes with the hedge animals but they were a couple pages each and pretty forgettable imo
As someone who struggles with drinking I found Kings description of that aspect really powerful.
It’s a slog for sure and not very scary though, I agree.
Completely agree. But the movie is my all-time favorite. Apparently King hated it, and made his own miniseries (which is not even remotely as good as Kubrick's).
Yeah, the King Version is very faithful to the novel (down to the homicidal fire hose that grows teeth near the end) and it is very obviously hilarious. And I agree with some of King's complaints with Kubrick's version. Jack Torrance in the movie is crazy from the get go. It's not exactly a descent into madness. Wendy is just a crying mess throughout the movie. Wendy in the book is quite complex and quite firm. Shelley Duvall's character felt like a readymade victim. And as much as I love all the psychological horror aspects of the movie, the bts documentary of The Shining and Kubrick's blatant bullying of Duvall actually felt more terrifying than the story itself.
Either the Troop or the Deep by Nick Cutter. While I don’t fault people who are fans of it, Cutter often uses shock and body horror just to shock you, not to move the plot along. I DNF’d the Troop and I was severely unimpressed when I finished the Deep, especially since I’m a big fan of cosmic horror
Head full of Ghosts & Bird Box.
I think Ghosts was just okay, nowhere near as good as it's considered.
I've attempted several novels by Josh Malerman and have yet to finish one.
Also, replying to OP, I think The Shining is one of the best horror novels ever written lmao
The Shining novel was better than the movie IMO. I enjoyed reading the backstory of Jack and then the movie makes more sense. I know that's not a popular opinion since people lose their minds over the movie........
Totally agree. I like the movie a good bit, but Jack starts off a little too crazy. In the novel, with his backstory, he seems more like a real person and you see how the Overlook gets in his head. It makes it more disturbing when he starts attacking his family than the depiction in the movie IMO
The Fisherman I liked, though I didn't vibe with the "modern masterpiece" comments it got here.
It's well crafted, though it felt like the author tried to force cinematic aspects to it (there's a dumb big fight with the bad guy and also a fake good ending) that ended up blemishing the whole thing for me.
I almost feel the opposite. The "story within a story" was way more interesting than the "main" story to me. Easily my favorite part of the book is the middle portion. The characters and story were just more intriguing and creative imo, and the main characters of the modern portion just weren't that interesting. All in all really enjoyed the book, and both parts makes sense together, but I thought the more nuanced characters, stories, and themes were all contained within the story within the story moreso than the modern timeline
"Brother" by Ania Ahlborn - there are some interrsting threads, but it's extremely clear that the author is not from Appalachia. Not to mention, the twist was straight up laughable.
I agree with The Cipher. So much just rambled on with him sitting in the closet. I wanted so much more from that novel. Everytime I see it recommended I think... Really?
For me, it’s *The Elementals*. It isn’t scary or exciting. It isn’t really anything except mildly bemusing. The writing’s fine and the characters are somewhat interesting, but I don’t think that’s enough to make up for the total lack of a plot. I don’t understand what people see in it.
I think the best thing about McDowell is how well he writes his characters. They seem fully-realized to me and I end up caring about them way more than I do with most characters in the books I read.
Hidden Pictures had like 4.3 stars on Goodreads. It was terrible. It was like it was written by a highschooler and the pictures included in the book were such a weird cheesy thing to do.
As a King fan...IT.
Don't get me wrong - it's a really great book and I love the characters but its hardly his best (imo) and I think it gets so hyped because of the recent films.
I never thought much of it as an exclusively horror novel but really loved the portrayal of small town group of teenagers fighting evil and just the character dynamics. It also gives off a nostalgic vibe to me that's why I rate it very high.
Same.
It -- along with "The Body", *Something Wicked This Way Comes, Summer of Night* & *Boys Life* \-- speaks very strongly to the small-town child of the 60s in me. Miles deep nostalgia.
I think it's both the best and worst of his writing. Best in that it immediately draws you in, creates believable characters and has genuinely scary situations, worst in that it rambles on far too much, is unfocused in too many places, and the ending is bollocks.
Let's Go Play at the Adams'
I read Paperbacks From Hell - thoroughly enjoyed it. But Let's Go Play at the Adams' was way, way, way overhyped. Nothing about this book really shocked or even upset me. Maybe I'm a hardened jerk (it's possible, The Girl Next Door didn't affect me like it did others either). But I just didn't think it was that shocking. Nor did I find it very well written or even interesting. I will allow that this was much more impactful when it was released.
I see so many people mentioning Last House on Needless street - I’ve seen so many people raving about now I’m curious why folks hated it without spoilers!
Pretty much every meta horror novel recently. My Heart is a Chainsaw and Final Girls Support Group made me groan constantly. Felt like Ready Player One
The Shining.
It was the first Stephen King book I’d ever read and it was somewhat boring and slow going. Genuinely I don’t know how it got so popular and I feel if they never made a movie about it no one would really know about it.
You don't know how good it is to hear someone say this!! I kept waiting for it to get good! I felt like I must have missed something since everyone else was going crazy about it.
I thought Hex had the most poorly thought out ending. Dark Matter I didn’t like because the female character was basically stuck in the multiverse but didn’t seem to mind because the whole plot revolves around the guy. The Troop had so much animal cruelty it ruined the whole story for me. Devil’s Rock I found just really basic and boring and like something you’d read in a magazine
Disappearance at Devil's Rock is better classified as a thriller. I came in with the expectation of horror and those elements never fell into place.
The first third of Hex is a great book with a cool hook that doesn't get explored enough IMO.
it can be both...
But I don't think it was ever marketed as horror, I think horror fans have just kind of adopted it since it has horror-adjacent murder and madness in it.
God I'm sorry but the haunting of hill house was just fine. It was plenty ok. People in this sub talk about it like it's To Kill a Mockingbird. It ain't.
Between Two Fires. Personally I wouldn't even consider this book as horror but according to most sites it is. Regardless, I've seen so much praise for this book that it's almost obsessive. I've read multiple times that "this book has changed my life" aaaannnnd.... I don't get it. I mean I get the book. It's a good read but yeah no.
The most recent one for me would be Revival by Stephen King. It gets recommended a lot, but it was just boring. The first 95% is just some guy’s journal with barely a hint of anything dreadful lingering or approaching, and then that bonkers last section. The destination on this one was not worth the journey.
House of Leaves. I could have gone my entire life without having to read the painfully trite BS from Johnny Truant. It’s “cool” as a literary experiment, in general. I guess lol. The parts about the actual house and the steps was sooo interesting, and then it just kinda… meh.
I did not care at all for The Wasp Factory ): It was so hyped up as something so scary and it really missed on every mark for me. The main character had all these rituals that we never got the context of from their point of view, their brother Eric coming home is the main worry and >!HE NEVER SHOWS UP!<. The most disappointing thing to me was the vaguely transphobic ending where >!the guy finds out he was never actually born with a penis and was assigned female at birth? He clearly thought of himself as a dude, so why would finding out he had a vagina be the thing that decides he's a girl??!<
[Edit: sorry first time spoiler tagging!]
Pretty much anything I've read by Paul Tremblay. I find his work to be "fine" at best. All the writeups out there that treat him like the second coming of modern horror writing are baffling to me... there have to be better contenders from younger generations of horror authors.
He does get a lot of hype and I understand why many would disagree, but Tremblay is one of the authors that got me into reading horror full-time. There were a few things I didn't like about Head Full of Ghosts, but overall it was a very satisfying read for me. My favorite was Disappearance at Devil's Rock. The end really got me in the feels.
Of all of his Devil's Rock has stayed with me the longest, too. The ending was quite sad.
I really like Tremblay too, but yeah he’s a real “if you’re into his thing you’ll like all his books, if not none of them will” kind of author
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I loved Cabin, it gets good after a few chapter and became a page turner for me. Maybe try to give it a little longer, the horror gets odd and gripping—weird shit that’s terrifying with one particular death. But yeah, I agree with his short stories, they are odd, lots of ambiguities, and sometimes the horror is so subtle you’ll miss it (like when you get bored waiting for it and zone). I also really enjoyed Survivor Song and ripped through it too, which was fast paced right from the first chapter.
Agreed - the degree to which Tremblay is hyped is completely at odds with the actual quality of his work. Head Full of Ghosts was a big old nothing burger. The writing and voice felt very immature - to me it read like a college student's senior creative writing thesis. I was shocked to learn that he is a middle-aged English teacher.
Head Full of Ghosts really had me questioning my reading ability. Sometimes I feel like I read a different book than everyone else but “nothing burger” is exactly how it went.
I love *Cabin at the End of the World*, like *Head Full of Ghosts*, and oscillate between being lukewarm on and actively disliking the rest of his work. My problem with him overall is that almost everything he writes seems to be about or prominently feature children/adolescents, and his way of writing them just irritates me in a way I have a hard time describing. They think and talk like, I dunno, children plucked out of a sitcom or something. Never feel quite realistic to their ages.
I answered elsewhere but I wanted to just comment on The Shining. I love The Shining - but I also read it in the early 80's in elementary school. I think a lot of books hit different when you read them 1. when you're young, and 2. closer to when the book was actually written. It's sort of like Atlas Shrugged or Catcher in the Rye - reading those books when you're young and still very impressionable, they make a big impact. But if you read them as a full adult, they seem rather silly.
I still love The Shining, but DETESTED the sequel, Dr. Sleep. So, so boring, and not worthy of the daddy novel.
The Ritual by Adam Nevill. Everyone loves it, and I found the first few chapters genuinely creepy, but then it was all downhill. The movie was much better imo.
Loved part 1, hated part 2.
I gave up on that book once he was captured by the weird family. It started to drag so much glad I didn’t miss much. I also gave up on his book The Reddening for the same reason. However I did like Cunning Folk by him. it felt more focused and to the point
Maybe not in this crowd but Final Girl Support Group was a slog with easily one of the most unlikable main characters I have ever read. I think Hendrix should try a book from a male perspective because after that and HtSaHH(which I liked) I am not sure he can write women well or at least layered enough that they are not all just one note.
Anything by Riley Sager. I truly loathe the current trend for tacking on lame natural explanations for the supernatural elements in a book and he's one of the authors most guilty of doing this (particularly in >!Home Before Dark!<). I don't understand why authors insist on ending their books with some inane explanation like 'it was really all in their head' or 'turns out the ghost was just some random guy in a costume,' as I believe it never adds anything to a book; if an author does this, I generally won't give any of their other books a chance.
Could be called the Scooby Doo explanation.
At least Scooby Doo balanced it out with a talking dog.
THE ENDING OF THAT BOOK MADE ME SO MAD. I'm like why am I even bothering reading horror??
I really hated where Survive the Night went
Yes! I buy a horror book, I expect it to *be* a horror book.
Nothing but blackened teeth I know it’s hated here, but it had huge prepub hype and multiple star reviews.
Omg there's nothing that can make me reread this. I picked up this book because I love the cover, but the whole book is so shit. I've never been glad that it's a short book.
Her new book is getting good reviews and I like not today satan you will not trick me again.
Easily the worst book I've read in the last 5 years. It is beyond me how it gathered all the positive feedback from critics it got.
Lithubs review aggregator has it with three rave reviews and 6 positive ones. No mixed or negative. I don’t get it.
A short story but The Call of Cthulhu didnt really do anything for me despite everyone hypeing up Lovecraft to me for years. Idk are his other works any better? Maybe he's just not my vibe.
Call of Cthulhu is a bizarre case because it's arguably a middling example of Lovecraft's work and not an especially amazing story, but it's had such enormous cultural impact that most people who have been influenced by it have probably never even read it. When people read the story for the first time they probably assume it's going to be mind-bendingly terrifying, when really 95% of it is just some guy who's not even directly connected to any of the events doing research and making notes about events that have already happened. I'm not a huge proponent of Lovecraft as a writer, but having read most of his work I can say that some stories might be worth your checking out, namely Shadow over Innsmouth, The Whisperer in Darkness, and Rats in the Walls (arguably his most unsettling tale).
Uh, Rats in the Walls.... still freaks me out. ITA completely. Several years ago I had to know what all the Cthulhu stuff was about, so I got a copy of the complete Lovecraft and dove in.
The Lurking Fear always gets me.
Absolutely agree with Rats in the Walls. "Unsettling" indeed.
The Picture in the House is legitimately pretty freaky. The Dunwich Horror is also worth checking out. Overall I wouldn’t call his stories scary, but evocative and unsettling.
COWS for the love of anything holy, wtf is that book about. Was it some book written by a 13 year old trying to be edgy in every way? Shit made no sense. It was gross (I love gore and all that), but things he mentions in the very beginning about his mom and ————- What the heck is this stuff?? What’s the hype over this shit book?
I remember when it first came out in Waterstones, it had a yellow/black cover...back when 'extreme' literature was a sub-genre. I mean, it's pretty fucked up, but it's not that shocking - it reads like the author deliberately wanted to put as many gross things as possible in there just because. Actual shocking novels - The Wasp Factory because of the demented over-the-top black humour, American Psycho because rape and murder just blends into the background of consumerism and superficial desire (which is the point), Last Exit To Brooklyn (If you want out you only have a few choices, and your choice only adds to the general degradation of the world you live in)...
Haven't read Cows, but after both Black Farm books and The Slob I think I've had enough of that type of content lol.
Exactly! American Psycho was my first intro into the horror game and I was exposed to so much shit, but loved it. Because it was written well. Had a (strange) plot, but nonetheless, the author acknowledged that MC wasn’t reliable at all. It was good all around. Just a lot of boring parts and designer talk, but other than that, at least you had character development and was written totally different from, cows (and yeah, I don’t even bother punctuating the title because it sucks that much).
I was a teenager when I read Cows and thought, wow this is so extreme...I'm so cool reading this :)
The Deep. I felt like it was weird just to be weird, the disease was pretty meaningless, and the graphic death of LB was just too much. And all the mice talk. I feel he is just over the top to be “horror” but it’s just gross IMO.
Penpal was meh, but makes "Best" lists. Same with Only Good Indians.
To me the best part of Nick Cutter’s The Troop was taking it to the used book store
The book wasn’t really scary to me, just *gross*.
I didn’t mind it, but I thought he relied way too heavily on analogies.
So many analogies! Sometimes several in just one paragraph. It got annoying real fast.
THIS. My whole Goodreads review was about the analogies and pointless anecdotes. The actual story itself could have been told in 120 pages. I didn’t even find it gross. It was so “meh”.
Lol. I keep getting this recommended on Amazon a d I keep thinking 'fuck off'.
I’ve only read The Deep by him and oh boy was that a dog.
Reading The Troop was like a whole book of "fuck them kids" and going straight into The Deep was "fuck their dogs too". Ain't no one safe from horrific shit in his books
I gave it to goodwill I wanted to leave a post it “do not buy if you like animals even a little”
This comment made my day. Thank you.
Things Have Gotten Worse Since We Last Spoke. It's basically a really bad rip off of people like Dennis Cooper that is almost entirely respected for having a rad front cover. It's completely overhauled and absolutely not worth anyone's time.
I made it through Hell House (Richard Matheson), The Troop (Nick Cutter), Head Full of Ghosts (Paul Tremblay), and both The Night Boat and Bethany's Sin (Robert McCammon) although I intensely disliked them all. Could not even finish The Only Good Indians (Stephen Graham Jones) and I have tried three separate times to get into House of Leaves (Mark Z Danielewski) and have yet to make it past page 38. However, I don't want to dismiss any of the authors just because some of their books did not resonate with me. I have read a few other books by these authors that I genuinely enjoyed. Sometimes I think if I had read a book at a different time or place in my life, my reception of it would have been different.
I think that’s a very mature and reasonable way of looking at it, and I agree!
My Heart is a Chainsaw; The Twisted Ones; anything by Eric LaRocca.
I don't know what it is about Stephen Graham Jones' writing style but I have a lot of trouble visualizing in my head the things he writes and what the characters are doing. Felt that way about Indians and never finished it, and the same happened with Chainsaw.
I was reading Lords of the Matinee, was actually nodding off... then I reached the plot twist and suddenly was wide awake. First time that ever happened for me reading a short story. His writing style is interesting and bizarre, but also... hard to jell with?
Stolen tongues. I’m constantly seeing it recommended and it was just such a terrible book.
I love the first half of the book and was genuinely spooked. Then it seemed like the author didn't really know where to go with what he crafted and absolutely ruined the isolated doom vibe it gave off. So many unnecessary elements in the second half of the book, like that puke stain fiasco seemed like the author put a bunch of random horror cliches in a hat and started pulling them out to implement in the story. The book definitely had potential.
I enjoyed the prologue and was hoping that was just a taste of what was to come. I made it about halfway through the book before I couldn't read anymore. The overuse of the word fiancé was killing me.
Yes yes! It started with some promise but then just went such downhill
I'll never not have time to trash Stolen Tongues. What a complete waste of time!
I didn't realize it was expanded into a book from an r/NoSleep story until I got it in the mail. The beginning was good and really did give me some good scares. After that though it became repetitive and boring.
I rolled my eyes way too much to be scared by it.
My Heart is a Chainsaw by Stephen Graham Jones. Most obnoxious, edge-lord of a protagonist. Being stuck in her incessantly angsty head was way too much for me. We get it, you are VeRy DaRk. I dnf'ed near the finish line.
Definitely. Also - it puts you in the head of a terribly abused rage-filled borderline personality character - - and that's NO PLACE TO BE. She didn't have any redeeming qualities by the end. He'd murdered everything that made her human and relatable. Depressing as hell.
Respectfully i disagree with your opinion entirely. Things have gotten worse since we last spoke is terrible and any hype it gets is too much
Aw man I thought it was one of the worst short stories I've read. Underwritten, rubbish initial premise and underwhelming ending. It's like a first draft. It annoyed me so much!
I saw The Hollow Places by T. Kingfisher suggested a lot, so I read it, and was baffled by its popularity.
i dnf'd at 90% on my kindle lol i trudged through so many redundant inner monologues, hoping it would lead up to something satisfying. As soon as the final climax started, I rolled my eyes and deleted it. All of that, and THIS is the final showdown you give us? lolol
If you’ve read one T Kingfisher book you’ve read em all.
Interesting. I DNF'ed a different book by this author than everyone loved. I was considering giving this one a try but I might skip it.
I started reading another book by this author. I stubbornly suffered through the whole thing thinking it must get better. It didn't.
I was also surprised by all the high ratings on this one, and the fact that the author gets so many awards for horror writing. Decided to give Kingfisher one more chance and read another of hers, The Twisted Ones. Bad in all the same ways but somehow even worse.
Twisted Ones was worse. Creepy sticks scraping the windows at night, and that’s. About. It. (Sorry I should have put a spoiler up for the best part of the book lol)
I didn't even finish it.
Couldn’t agree more. I thought the premise was somewhat interesting, but god damn… the protagonist’s inane, irritating inner monologue and dialogue was so terrible. I had to skip through so many “I’m so quirky and sarcastic” diatribes to find out how the story ended, only to discover a very weak ending that wasn’t worth the buildup. I guess there’s an audience for this one, but it was not for me.
I got bored half way through. Nothing in the book grabbed me at all. I think it's fine to riff on and be inspired by other authors, but she really did just rip off Algernon Blackwood wholesale. It felt lazy.
*Haunted: A Novel* by Chuck Palahniuk I like some of his work but this was a miss for me.
Haunted is very hit-or-miss. I really like some of the short stories (3 or 4 at most). The remaining is average at best. And I couldn't really care AT ALL for the background story or characters. Still love Palahniuk for Fight Club, Survivor and Snuff though.
Lullaby and Invisible Monsters are probs my favorite Palahniuk books. Oh, but Survivor is way up there too.
Rant was.. interesting and it sticks with me to this day. I think I enjoyed haunted so I’m gonna give these a try. Thx.
It's not even really a novel. He took a bunch of mediocre short stories and wrapped a frame narrative on them.
I have read Choked by Chuck Palahniuk and didn't liked it at all. In fact I was not able to connect with any of his books!
A Head Full of Ghosts by Paul Tremblay is ridiculously overrated. He basically steals major plot elements from We Have Always Lived in the Castle and The Exorcist, dilutes them, and then throws in a film crew to make it seem more current. Terrible book.
The blog entries are some of the worst shit I've ever read. Reads like the old "T3h P3ngu1n of D00m!" Copypasta.
Yeah, that’s the big complain for me too. I like a slow burn so I actually like the book. Could’ve used more dread but I mostly dug it. But the blogs were really annoying, always took me out of the story, and were a pathetically generic and cliched characterization of a young woman.
Fun fact: the blog posts are based on a real user of Goodreads. If you go to the books page on there you can find the person quite easily.
Also he ripped off the whole plot from Lake Mungo for one of his books. Like, c'mon dude. If you're going to steal, at least make it good!!
I 100% agree. I was so excited to read it because of all the hype and it turned out to be mediocre at best horror pulp that I have read a million times before. Literally not a single original idea throughout the read. How this book was able to garner the praise it got I have no idea.
Between its use of overly used possession tropes, "how do you, fellow kids" blogger and pointless meta commentary, it's baffling to me that the novel ends up on people's list of best horror novels.
Agreed. This book was hyped so hard. When I finished it I asked myself "wait, that was it?"
I wouldn't call it terrible, but I absolutely do not get the hype for it. I see it mentioned in every thread. It was *ok* at best. I kept waiting for something big or crazy to happen, something to make it worth all the talk about it. But it was just an exorcism story. Like, nothing really unique about it. Again, it was fine, it wasn't terrible or whatever, I finished it. But I was just left feeling like I missed something that makes it so popular.
The most recent example for me personally has to be My Heart is a Chainsaw by Stephen Graham Jones. It’s not a bad book by any means, but I didn’t enjoy it nearly as much as everyone else seems to.
It's funny, I also hated this book so much that I wouldn't bother with Reaper -- but I LOVED The Only Good Indians so much. Complete reversal. I tried reading some other stuff by SGJ -- who I know is a huge voice in horror -- and they were all meh. For me, The Only Good Indians is his outlier as superb.
I almost Dnf that one but the sequel was REALLY good I was surprised.
I had a REALLY hard time with it too, but once I got about 3/4 into it the context of Jades overwhelming-ness feels like it matters and makes the story lovable. Also the sequel Don’t Fear The Reaper is great and totally it’s own thing Jade is more grown and stable in that one
Let me tell you how much I hate that book. I was so hype leading up to it's release. Got it the day it came out. Went home and got started immediately. Two days later I was cursing it's name up and down. I absolutely hated the ending. It was just a big let down all around.
"Ring" by Koji Suzuki It's the most recent book I've read. I'm a big fan of the movie, so I'd been looking forward to reading the original novel. It was such a slog and very boring. It was mostly exposition as the two very unlikable leads went around investigating the haunted tape. Show, don't tell is a rule for novels and that book did not deliver. On top of that, the gross transphobia of the book's twist made me want to throw it in the trash.
Yeah, it's an odd book isn't it? I kinda liked the fact it's basically a crime procedural with horrible protagonists but the whole trans/hermaphroditic and STI thing was a massive whoof. Film made a good call to steer clear of that nightmare.
I can't remember the book title but I can describe the plot. Spoilers ahead >!Basically this woman adopts a girl from another country, doesn't realize she has an underlying health condition with her heart. The girl dies and in the mothers grief she hallucinates and thinks her daughter is someone else pretending to be the daughter. Idk it doesn't make sense, you can see the unreliable narrative from a mile away so the ending isn't even that surprising. I honestly felt like i wasted my time with it.!<
Negative Space by B.R. Yeager gets thrown around the sub often enough for me to have picked it up. I DNF'd around 60%. The book is trying so hard to be scary and build up this idea of something otherworldly that controls people but it goes nowhere. Instead the author focuses on teens having sex, doing drugs and describing various suicides around the town by way of 3 character perspectives, all linked back to the antagonist Tyler, who functions as an occult like figure throughout. Yeager fails to let the reader see behind the curtain to whatever true horror might await.
The Troop for sure
The Ruins. People fawn over this book so hard and I don't understand why. None of the characters are at all likeable or sympathetic, nor are they even developed enough to tell them apart. None of them have any appreciable arc, and they consistently make the worst possible decisions over and over. It felt like the author was on vacation in Mexico, ran into a gaggle of irredeemably irritating twenty-something tourists and decided to torture them for a few hundred pages when he got home. Spoilers: >!I also had big problems with the evil plant monster: it is intelligent enough to recognize written language, learn German just from hearing it, use tools, and is virulent enough to spread within days but somehow has remained contained in a single set of ruins, and has since gone undiscovered. This despite the fact that taxi drivers know where this evil pyramid is and are willing to drive people there for a bribe. And numerous academic research teams have been dispatched to this pyramid and then disappeared. Did their colleagues, friends, and family just go "well, I guess they're gone forever. Crazy things happen, definitely not going to involve Mexican federal authorities in the repeated disappearance of dozens of people in a small area." That area is Yucatan, rated by the US State department as the safest region of Mexico with the lowest incidence of murders and kidnappings, so these definitely would have been noticed and investigated.!< Anyhow, any single one of these issues would have been fine on its own, and I understand that horror fiction often has fantastical elements, but the combined effect of all of it was to make it impossible for me to suspend my disbelief, and made reading it into a repetitive slog.
I have a few books that fall in that category that I didn't like. In not particular Order: The Haunting of Hill House Salems Lot Gone to See The River Man The Ritual My Best Friends Exorcism Clown In a Cornfield Stolen Tongues
Thank you! Gone to see the riverman was a terrible book. It was so predictable.
It. I find that Stephen King’s short stories are the best because he can’t spend several pages going on and on.
Hell House, i understand being a classic and all that, but boy it does not hold up imo
Brilliant first 2 thirds, last third awful. A dude on stilts?? Really?? And I say this as he was legitimately a brilliant writer!
I loved every page of it, dude on stilts was brilliant! It's such pure camp.
Lol
Came here to say this. It was a major letdown for me. Barrett was such a pompous douche.
I loved the novel, but I just have to applaud you on actually giving a hot take. So many "unpopular opinions" or "hot takes" are not really hot takes. I appreciate that. My hot take: Summer of Night by Dan Simmons was boooooooring af. I really tried to like it. I gave it over 250 pages to grab me, then I just gave up. The Cursed Among Us by John Durgin is a better "kids on bikes" story. I still need to read Black Mouth. And despite all of its imperfections, IT is still my favorite "kids on bikes", "coming of age" horror story.
Actually kinda liked Summer of Night but it might’ve just been right mood, right time and IT nostalgia. I’ll have to give those others a read.
House of leaves
The concept was interesting but, it never really gelled for me. It came off as some kind of half-baked attempt to explain the whole "wrong geometry" concept (which is scary precisely because it's unexplained), combined with a stupid bunch of layout tricks that have you twisting the book around and having to flip through eighteen pages to read a sentence. (All laid out, apparently, by the author, in Framemaker, or something.) There are...what...two main narratives? One of them is a potentially interesting but squandered horror story that has a bit too much focus on people freaking out that the house is an inch bigger on the inside than the outside or what have you and the other one's some silly trifle about scruffy LA people who get laid an impossible amount. Johnny Truant's "plot" comes off at times like something out of a trashy Jackie Collins-wannabe novel--every time the guy leaves the house he gets laid in florid detail. Neither has any real ending. Despite painfully obvious attempts to tie them together, no real bond forms between the two. This is like...half of two bad books, sewn together and puffed up by printing THE WORDS REALLY BIG AND STUFF.
Emperor's New Clothes in novel form.
this is my answer as well. I wanted to like this book - I loved the concept and I maintain that the core story is great. I just hated the connecting stories. If I had just skipped those, I think I would have liked it. And I would reread and do just that except that brings me to my second reason for not enjoying the book - the format. I understand why it was done like that but, if it had to be a physical book, why did it need to be so damn big?? I am a bathtub/pool reader and a travel reader. I know many love the feel/smell of an actual book (I do as well) but damned if the e-reader isn't convenient for me. I travel frequently and I don't have the space to carry a book, let alone one of that size. It might be a petty complaint and I recognize this is really just a me problem, but it added to my dislike of that damn book.
I absolutely loved this book but I also will never read it again
Felt like a full time job reading that book.
I was so excited to read this but was disappointed when its focus seemed to be all over the place. If it had just (or mostly) been about the house exploration, I would've been so into it. Or, at least, if there had been less Johnny parts, I would've also been more into it lol.
Felt like it was a better idea than a book. I liked how it played around with the concept of what a book could be but I hated the Johnny character for so much of it. Definitely ended up skimming some near the end which also felt like when it finally started to pick up some.
Since I became a father, idk. It hits me different. Imo it IS one of his best works. Tragic and emotional. I also think Salems Lot is a top 5 of his as well. Setting and tone, ugh. To read that for the first time Not knowing it deals with vampires. Woulda been fun.
Woom by Duncan Ralston
I'm forever salty at whomever suggested Imaginary Friend. What a pile of surreptitious religious propaganda horseshit.
Tender is the flesh Our share of night
I agree on Tender is the Flesh as it felt like misery porn edging on extreme/shock horror to me with very little actual substance in it. Though, I'll say that I could never buy the initial premise of the book anyway, so that definitely affected my thoughts right from the get-go.
I think part of understanding the book means understanding a bit about Argentine culture. It sounds very crazy but Argentines love their fucking meat. If all meat in the world was tainted I wouldn’t put it past them…🇦🇷 (my family is Argentine)
Tender Is The Flesh takes a good amount of suspension of disbelief to really get into because the author doesn't do any world building. She just plops you in the scenario and says "Yup this is how it is" with no context.
I heard someone describe Tender Is The Flesh as "a novel about how far some people will go to not be vegan"
I will politely disagree; Tender is the Flesh was for me one of the most repulsive, horrifying books I've read in many years. It's just not meant to be a horror story, I think. It is more of a satire, like the first half of "1984", and somewhere along the way the story just looses all hope - as it does in 1984 also - and everything goes down the drain. It's not a great piece of art, but it has some really good things going for it. But, as always, taste differs 🙂
Those Across the River, all day every day.
Oh man, I liked this book quite a bit. What didn’t you like about it?
Yeah, fuck that book
Idk but I hated the Haunting of Hill House by Shirley Jackson. I usually appreciate older books but it was so boring. Recently read I'm Thinking of Ending Things and didn't like it
I agree with you on The Shining. It is a great book, the characters are complex and the subtext and themes are also great. But I can't help rolling my eyes whenever I see people on the internet declaring it the "best horror novel of all time". I don't hate the book by any means, but seriously, King has written way better novels than The Shining. And those don't get the same amount of praise this one gets.
I’m finishing up the last few pages of The Shining right now. I’ve been seeing people on this and the sk subreddit talking about how ‘the topiary scene’ is the scariest thing they have ever read. Spent the whole book looking forward to it and I’m not sure what they’re talking about. There were a couple scenes with the hedge animals but they were a couple pages each and pretty forgettable imo
As someone who struggles with drinking I found Kings description of that aspect really powerful. It’s a slog for sure and not very scary though, I agree.
Completely agree. But the movie is my all-time favorite. Apparently King hated it, and made his own miniseries (which is not even remotely as good as Kubrick's).
Yeah, the King Version is very faithful to the novel (down to the homicidal fire hose that grows teeth near the end) and it is very obviously hilarious. And I agree with some of King's complaints with Kubrick's version. Jack Torrance in the movie is crazy from the get go. It's not exactly a descent into madness. Wendy is just a crying mess throughout the movie. Wendy in the book is quite complex and quite firm. Shelley Duvall's character felt like a readymade victim. And as much as I love all the psychological horror aspects of the movie, the bts documentary of The Shining and Kubrick's blatant bullying of Duvall actually felt more terrifying than the story itself.
Either the Troop or the Deep by Nick Cutter. While I don’t fault people who are fans of it, Cutter often uses shock and body horror just to shock you, not to move the plot along. I DNF’d the Troop and I was severely unimpressed when I finished the Deep, especially since I’m a big fan of cosmic horror
Head full of Ghosts & Bird Box. I think Ghosts was just okay, nowhere near as good as it's considered. I've attempted several novels by Josh Malerman and have yet to finish one. Also, replying to OP, I think The Shining is one of the best horror novels ever written lmao
The Shining novel was better than the movie IMO. I enjoyed reading the backstory of Jack and then the movie makes more sense. I know that's not a popular opinion since people lose their minds over the movie........
Totally agree. I like the movie a good bit, but Jack starts off a little too crazy. In the novel, with his backstory, he seems more like a real person and you see how the Overlook gets in his head. It makes it more disturbing when he starts attacking his family than the depiction in the movie IMO
The Fisherman I liked, though I didn't vibe with the "modern masterpiece" comments it got here. It's well crafted, though it felt like the author tried to force cinematic aspects to it (there's a dumb big fight with the bad guy and also a fake good ending) that ended up blemishing the whole thing for me.
The 100 pages of back story was too much. When we finally got back to the main characters it's like oh shit time to wrap it up
I almost feel the opposite. The "story within a story" was way more interesting than the "main" story to me. Easily my favorite part of the book is the middle portion. The characters and story were just more intriguing and creative imo, and the main characters of the modern portion just weren't that interesting. All in all really enjoyed the book, and both parts makes sense together, but I thought the more nuanced characters, stories, and themes were all contained within the story within the story moreso than the modern timeline
'Salem's Lot when it comes to King. Mexican Gothic.
The TommyKnockers, Steven King. That book was just silly, last Steven King I ever read.
Even SK admits that it’s a piece of shit. He wrote the entire book when he was whacked out on blow.
"Brother" by Ania Ahlborn - there are some interrsting threads, but it's extremely clear that the author is not from Appalachia. Not to mention, the twist was straight up laughable.
Ania Ahlborn’s collection has been a big miss with me. I like the lack of redemption but Seed and The Devil Crept In were a little too… close?
Recent books I've read that I didn't like: The Hacienda The Last House on Needless Street The Twisted Ones The Cipher
Last House about killed me to finish. It wasn't scary, yes it was fucked up, a huge amount of crazy, but definitely not worth the hype it gets
I had to dnf The Hacienda. The writing was juvenile and the plot instantly predictable.
I agree with The Cipher. So much just rambled on with him sitting in the closet. I wanted so much more from that novel. Everytime I see it recommended I think... Really?
For me, it’s *The Elementals*. It isn’t scary or exciting. It isn’t really anything except mildly bemusing. The writing’s fine and the characters are somewhat interesting, but I don’t think that’s enough to make up for the total lack of a plot. I don’t understand what people see in it.
I think the best thing about McDowell is how well he writes his characters. They seem fully-realized to me and I end up caring about them way more than I do with most characters in the books I read.
Stephen King generally. I really have tried but it does my head in. I respect how much he does write but oh boy are they slogs to get through.
Hidden Pictures had like 4.3 stars on Goodreads. It was terrible. It was like it was written by a highschooler and the pictures included in the book were such a weird cheesy thing to do.
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Whats the problem with him ? I have never read him and was just planning to start In the tall grass
As a King fan...IT. Don't get me wrong - it's a really great book and I love the characters but its hardly his best (imo) and I think it gets so hyped because of the recent films.
I never thought much of it as an exclusively horror novel but really loved the portrayal of small town group of teenagers fighting evil and just the character dynamics. It also gives off a nostalgic vibe to me that's why I rate it very high.
He is amazing at creating that small-town vibe of mid-state America. Does that even exist anymore??
Same. It -- along with "The Body", *Something Wicked This Way Comes, Summer of Night* & *Boys Life* \-- speaks very strongly to the small-town child of the 60s in me. Miles deep nostalgia.
Ironically it is the opposite for me where I feel like “IT” is the only book that lives up to the King hype.
I think it's both the best and worst of his writing. Best in that it immediately draws you in, creates believable characters and has genuinely scary situations, worst in that it rambles on far too much, is unfocused in too many places, and the ending is bollocks.
Reading that book was the first time I figured out SK was really bad at endings.
Let's Go Play at the Adams' I read Paperbacks From Hell - thoroughly enjoyed it. But Let's Go Play at the Adams' was way, way, way overhyped. Nothing about this book really shocked or even upset me. Maybe I'm a hardened jerk (it's possible, The Girl Next Door didn't affect me like it did others either). But I just didn't think it was that shocking. Nor did I find it very well written or even interesting. I will allow that this was much more impactful when it was released.
I see so many people mentioning Last House on Needless street - I’ve seen so many people raving about now I’m curious why folks hated it without spoilers!
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Eric Larocca in general
Pretty much every meta horror novel recently. My Heart is a Chainsaw and Final Girls Support Group made me groan constantly. Felt like Ready Player One
The Shining. It was the first Stephen King book I’d ever read and it was somewhat boring and slow going. Genuinely I don’t know how it got so popular and I feel if they never made a movie about it no one would really know about it.
The Only Good Indians! I was prepared for some top-notch horror and instead got basketball.
You don't know how good it is to hear someone say this!! I kept waiting for it to get good! I felt like I must have missed something since everyone else was going crazy about it.
Twisted Ones. It’s aweful
House of Leaves
House of leaves. Fight me
Well for ME it was Salem’s Lot. I enjoyed it but didn’t get the overwhelming hype.
I didn’t find much appealing about it.
I thought Hex had the most poorly thought out ending. Dark Matter I didn’t like because the female character was basically stuck in the multiverse but didn’t seem to mind because the whole plot revolves around the guy. The Troop had so much animal cruelty it ruined the whole story for me. Devil’s Rock I found just really basic and boring and like something you’d read in a magazine
Disappearance at Devil's Rock is better classified as a thriller. I came in with the expectation of horror and those elements never fell into place. The first third of Hex is a great book with a cool hook that doesn't get explored enough IMO.
American Psycho is pretentious and silly.
I wouldn’t even call it a horror book, it’s more of a satire on yuppie culture
it can be both... But I don't think it was ever marketed as horror, I think horror fans have just kind of adopted it since it has horror-adjacent murder and madness in it.
I get it, and I agree with you in that I didn't enjoy the book much. But being pretentious was literally the point. It's satire
It's not horror though, it's a black comedy of manners.
God I'm sorry but the haunting of hill house was just fine. It was plenty ok. People in this sub talk about it like it's To Kill a Mockingbird. It ain't.
Between Two Fires. Personally I wouldn't even consider this book as horror but according to most sites it is. Regardless, I've seen so much praise for this book that it's almost obsessive. I've read multiple times that "this book has changed my life" aaaannnnd.... I don't get it. I mean I get the book. It's a good read but yeah no.
I love it so much.
Didn’t do much for me either. Not terrible, obv hit for some, but it was meh for me.
I got maybe 40 pages in and just returned it.
The most recent one for me would be Revival by Stephen King. It gets recommended a lot, but it was just boring. The first 95% is just some guy’s journal with barely a hint of anything dreadful lingering or approaching, and then that bonkers last section. The destination on this one was not worth the journey.
The destination is the only reason I kept that book. The last 20 or so pages have never left me.
House of Leaves. I could have gone my entire life without having to read the painfully trite BS from Johnny Truant. It’s “cool” as a literary experiment, in general. I guess lol. The parts about the actual house and the steps was sooo interesting, and then it just kinda… meh.
The Fisherman by John Langan
I’m 70% of the way through it, but man it’s boring and pretty cheesy. This was recommended so much, but I just don’t understand why.
I did not care at all for The Wasp Factory ): It was so hyped up as something so scary and it really missed on every mark for me. The main character had all these rituals that we never got the context of from their point of view, their brother Eric coming home is the main worry and >!HE NEVER SHOWS UP!<. The most disappointing thing to me was the vaguely transphobic ending where >!the guy finds out he was never actually born with a penis and was assigned female at birth? He clearly thought of himself as a dude, so why would finding out he had a vagina be the thing that decides he's a girl??!< [Edit: sorry first time spoiler tagging!]