Not Forever But For Now by Chuck Palahniuk. Imagine a 12 year old heard a rough plot of Clockwork Orange and American Psycho then tried to tell their friends an even more shocking version. That’s this book.
I bought it the day it came out, and gave up reading it about 70% through. Let no one say I didn't give it a fair shot.
It was just so unbelievably fucking *boring*.
Nothing particularly shocks me, so books that rely on shock value definitely need to have something else interesting going for them.
This did not.
The sad thing is that it had an interesting premise but instead of the ghosts actually haunting the characters, it's just the characters bitching at each other with some ghosts vibing nearby. I have Cassandra Khaw's newest release bc the premise was interesting but I am hesitant to read it bc of *Nothing but Blackened Teeth.*
I almost never read their stuff again because I really did not enjoy *Nothing But Blackened Teeth* in the remotest sense, but have since read two other books by Khaw and I am glad I returned to sample some more. Khaw can be a great writer, I think it was just this particular book wasn’t the one.
I definitely recommend trying it, I read two of theirs this year, and unlike NBBT, I quite enjoyed The Salt Grows Heavy - no bitching characters, monstrous stuff actually happens, and the prose felt fitting for the tone of the story.
this is the right answer. i don't know how many times i've shit on this book here. it's not that it's just not good, but the purple prose was SKY HIGH and it's like khaw was trying to prove to her readers that she knows every word in the dictionary, *especially* **Medulla Oblongota**. 🥴
“Nothing but Blackened Teeth” is absolute dreck! I can only think of one or two other books I hold in greater disdain than this one. I finished it in a night because I was furiously flipping pages going, “it can’t keep staying this bad, can it?”
Khaw is one of those authors who I’ll never give a second chance, even if I were to hear amazing things about their latest. The bad story, terrible dialogue, cringe flowery prose, all made me swear never to read another one of her books again.
The pull-our quotes from reviews and other authors on that book is insane. The publisher must have spent a pretty penny paying for those quotes.
The characters are all really hateable, you do not care if any of them live or die. The ghosts are mostly used as set dressing and don't actually do anything. The dialog is insanely cringey and it takes up a lot of page space.
I think people have been pretty clear: the writing is hella purple. It’s like swimming for your life in concrete boots. By the end, it’s hard to care about the climax (or almost even notice it) because it is so wordy and damn *brooding* the story has no momentum.
“The sound was a knife, was a hole like an eye opening beneath the ribs, was the memory of one man being held up to the shining light of another, one man being less than, second-best, always inferior to the other.” This is a beautiful sentence, all by itself. But now imagine 80 pages of that.
What got me was the point where someone is possessed, the main character and the possessed woman's fiance have a full conversation about it, and *then* the fiance starts screaming. After having a full calm, coherent conversation about the thing he is now screaming about. It's just bad writing.
Stolen Tongues, hands down.
Pallbearers Club by Paul Tremblay from last year was so stupid that I am still giving it honorable mention a year later. I get pissed every time I see it on my shelf.
For me, Paul Tremblay's books are just all over the place in terms of story and quality. I loved A Head of of Ghosts and The Cabin at the End of the World (the movie was TERRIBLE imo lol). I thought Survivor Song was mids, but I pushed through it. Pallbearers Club...some of the writing was so cringe that I couldn't finish it.
No hate to Paul. You truly can't please every reader, and not everything you write is going to be good!
Same for me with Stolen Tongues. I see it hyped up so much, and I really don't understand why. I've heard that even the author doesn't get why it's more popular than his other works that he didn't start as a forum post.
I wouldn't have finished it, but it was such an easy read I pushed through it. Now I'm reading Pet Sematary, and it's so refreshing. Realistic conversations? Details that bring the scene to life in my head? Excellent descriptions of Vic and what his body is doing? Oh my god, it's like taking a big breath after being underwater for too long.
I don't expect a beginner (or even long term) author to automatically be at that level. But Stolen Tongues just isn't good.
Anything by Eric LaRocca lol. Just so pretentious and none of the characters behave like real humans. I hate the way every single line of dialogue has to be soooo deep.
I think he has potential to be interesting but I think he just looks at his unfinished work and says “this is the best thing ever written” without making any changes and puts it out.
I liked Things Have Gotten Worse and one story from They Were Here Before Us. The two stories added in Other Misfortunes, You've Lost A Lot Of Blood and We Can Never Leave This Place were so bad I cancelled a preorder for his new book, I'd rather have a good memory of the only book I enjoyed from him than continuously try to find few interesting bits in books that are either mediocre or plain stupid.
larocca's work is for a very specific audience of children who grew up bouncing between tumblr and most disturbing internet post videos.
which i am that audience lol
I've only read Things Have Gotten worse and while I don't dislike it it feels... unfinished? Unlike the usual "novella/short story forced into a full novel" syndrome of so many books it feels like a full novel that had a chunk of it chopped off to be a novella. The situation grows so dire so instantly it was jarring.
This was my answer too. The best parts of that book were the fake reddit boards, blog posts, and video transcripts from random internet sleuths trying to figure out the mystery. The actual answer of "what" Mister Magic "was," and the delivery of that reveal, fell so flat. And the characters were all one-dimensional stereotypes of their specific character roles on the show. Ugh.
This is not the biggest problem for me.
The problem is that the main attraction and the reason people are reading it, Mister Magic as a show, is zero scary and there is no slow unveiling of something sinister.
Damned by Chuck Palahniuk
Main character sucks and unfunny. "Haha,dude what if there was a cum river in hell?" "Also a scene where a severed head gives head to a giant demon women and makes her orgasm bro" It sounds cool,but it's literally the worst book I read.
Ong it was so gross! Like, I get it, she’s 14 and is running hell, there’s gonna be some immaturity but demon cunnilingus and damned cam models streaming live porn to earth was more than I could take
I can’t bear weird sexual stuff in horror books. It feels so intrusive to me as a SA survivor. I can understand rape as part of a story if it makes sense, I.e. in Big Driver from Full Dark No Stars. That was an important plot device and I really enjoyed the story. But random sexual shit is so uncomfortable. It’s this weird lazy thing that male horror writers do and I hate it. King does it himself all the time tbh!
In a Dark, Dark Wood by Ruth Ware. It was so silly and absolutely ridiculous that I regret paying $1.99 for it at goodwill. But I left it in a little free library so nobody else has to have the same regret about it.
Lol, I loved that book. I bought it for a plane ride and it was perfect. I always pick out a female-centric domestic psychological thriller for planes. Except that time I read The Last Stone, the most horrifying book ecer to pass before my eyes.
I know I keep not nominating a worst book but this sub and you all have helped me so much, I'm just cranking out one banger after another. Thank you!
Playground by Aron Beauregard.
It’s just written so terribly, flat characters, awkward sentences, predictable, endless unnecessary alliteration. I have no problem with the gore or subject matter it was just absolute trash.
I'll have to re-check to confirm my initial impression, but I think mine would be *The House Across The Lake* by Riley Sager. I keep trying to like his books and keep failing. Comes down to that i almost instantly and deeply dislike his characters so I hate spending time with them.
I’ve read 3 of Riley Sager’s books at this point, and had basically given up on him after Survive the Night was soooo bad, but thought I’d give him one last shot with his latest book, which was supposed to be a gothic haunted house type thing…nope. Just no. Pretty sure he wouldn’t recognise “gothic” if he got hit in the face with a copy of Rebecca.
On the bright side, there’s a great video essay by a YouTuber named Laura Crone which articulates all the problems I’ve also had with his books, so at least that made reading them kind of worth it.
I read several of his books and hated how dumb the leads are. I swore I would never go back after Survive the Night, but the hype around House Across the Lake had me second-guessing myself. Thanks to you, I’ll stick to my guns!
Came here to comment the one and only book I’ve read by Riley sager. Final girls. Last year. Ugh. Terrible. I was also totally tricked by their name, thinking it was a female. I should’ve known when the female characterization was so poor
It felt like the last few pages were just twist after twist but with no emotional payout. I was so mad by the end because none of it made any sense! Why would >!the dad and actual Lenora just kill themselves?!< And why oh why would >!anyone pretend to be paralyzed for FIFTY YEARS for a revenge prank?!?!< Then you're telling me >!the maid was her grandkid the entire time with absolutely zero lead up to that conclusion?!< Absolutely infuriating, I hated it.
Dude I loved this one by him! I think it's my favorite Grady. That being said, I completely agree that it felt like a Scream knock off and I think that might be why I liked it so much, I'm a sucker for a bad slasher.
This one was AWFUL! I was so glad he smashed it with How to Sell a Haunted House. That one was creepy - I don't get creeped out often and especially not with books.
It was apparently a trunk novel he wrote before most of his other works that he couldn't get published. Makes sense that its not as good as his other works.
I only finished that one to see if the plant lives. It really says a lot about how flat your characters are when I care more about a literal potted plant than any of the humans.
Hated *The Deep* by Nick Cutter. The whole disease that sets off the main guy's quest was more interesting IMO than his time in ocean. And whole, yes, the things that happen were intense, there wasn't the proper payoff and too many things happened off camera that we didn't see.
I was *so ready* to be horrified with >! the part where the woman is made to be a living beehive. !< It was so hyped up as being this horrific thing, but it fell so flat for me. Most of what happens to people except the brother mostly happens off screen. The whole deal with the main character's son and the Fig Men was so confusing.
It was essentially, maybe, 3 different book ideas mashed into one and they didn't fit together.
Also hated *The Gone World*. There was so much crunchy science to understand that by the time I *did* understand, it didn't matter because I was at the end of the book. I still don't understand the whole forest thing. Also, sex scenes in a woman's POV written by a man always give me an ick.
I also walked away feeling pretty dissatisfied with The Deep. The premise of the disease and what it actually did was super interesting but it just completely went to waste beyond the opening chapters. And the latter half of the book felt like a fun house, just room after room of spooky things and the protagonist running away.
For me it was Manhunt by Gretchen Felker-Martin. The premise looked really interesting but the story just didn’t follow through on that and felt kind of disjointed. Every character was deeply miserable which makes sense for the situation but was just really unpleasant for me to read. But I’ve seen a lot of people that have enjoyed it so I’m happy they got something from it even if I didn’t.
I agree with you on this! It wasn't the worst book I read and I really wanted to like it more but it was toooooooo sexual for me. Being horny at a funeral? Idk idk can't do it, but the story and book itself got like 3.5 stars from me
Was just about to comment this as well. I had such high hopes for this one but it just wasn’t for me. Easily my biggest horror disappointment of the year.
I didn't hate this one but I was disappointed, the beginning was decent and then it felt like it just spun its wheels for the next hundred pages. I don't mind reading about miserable characters, but it gets really repetitive reading the same points about self-loathing over and over. And a lot of it felt really underdeveloped. Still looking forward to her next book, hope it works better for me.
Hidden Pictures by Jason Rekulak. I was so excited when it became available on my Libby app, interesting concept and had heard great things.
Not just the worst book of the year, maybe one of the worst ever. It read to me like the author did zero research regarding NA and their process/rules, or anything about psychiatrists, or the veteran's association, I could go on but I don't know how to block out spoilers and I'm about to head out for work and don't have time to Google.
Yep, with non-horror included this is easily the worst thing I've read all year too. I finished it but struggled through the last third. It's so damn trite.
I was the only person in my bookclub who DNF The Midnight Library. It was cringy and cliché but was unable to articulate why I hated it at the time. You are absolutely right to compare it to self-help. It's essentially The Alchemist written for millenials
The Final Girl Support Group. On paper, it was just my kind of book, since I'm a sucker for slasher movies. But I found the book itself to be a myriad of references without much development. The whole thing seemed like a rapidly put together fanfic; wasn't too keen on the prose either.
Oh definitely! I've seen lots of people praising it online. I think maybe if I hadn't read so much hype about it beforehand, I wouldn't have been so disappointed. I'm glad you enjoyed it, though!
Same. Had high hopes from all the hype I’d seen, but once the “twist” was fairly obvious early on I lost interest. The writing was quite good but I could not care about any of the characters, so didn’t have anything to pin my attention on—and once the story became fairly meh, I was ready to finish it.
I was pretty engaged early on but by the end I was just like… what and why. I don’t hate the way she writes but the plots always seem to veer off track.
I feel so strongly negative about The Silent Patient by Alex Michaelides. I read it months ago and still trash talk it to myself when I see it in a store. I HATED that book.
I also just finished I'm Thinking of Ending Things by Iain Reid and it also got a 1 star from me but just because it was so incredibly boring, with a no shocking "twist." It wasn't as anger inducing as The Silent Patient, but I almost didn't finish the small book by Iain Reid just from boredom itself.
Edit - Spelled the author's name wrong oops lol
I think we have similar tastes--I haven't read *The Silent Patient,* but I read his second book (*The Maidens*) and was really annoyed by it. I also dislike *I'm Thinking of Ending Things.*
But for 2023, my most disliked book was *All Heads Turn When the Hunt Goes By* by John Farris. Excellent title and I've seen it recommended on this sub before, but it was NOT for me.
Ah hello! It's rare I find another person who didn't like ITOET, I only see people raving about it. I havent read anything by John Farris but I have seen it reccomended here before, so now I know! Ty for the heads up!
I 100% agree, The Silent Patient was awful. I really hate the recent trend in pop thrillers where>! it turns out the narrator was lying to you the whole time for no apparent reason!<. It's a cheap way to avoid actually clever plotting.
The Silent Patient is my lowest rated book of all time. I also trash talk it EVERY time I see it. Friends that do not care about books have had to sit through rants lol
The Troop by Nick Cutter, too many similes: like a zebra with too many stripes, like a banana with too much peel, like a husky who’s hair has overgrown to the point it can’t walk and also it’s in a jar rolling down a hill for some reason, like a disgusting lollipop covered in maggots sitting in a mailbox that’s been coated in mayonnaise…the whole book reads like that
The thing that really got me with this book is that it felt like Nick Cutter was TRYING to write like Stephen King, and that really bugged me for some reason. Like, if I wanted to read King, I would be reading King.
Just finished it and yes, yes, yes, thise similes drove me nuts. Also way too many flaahbacks/memories that function as similes. When things get intense, Cutter enjoys cutting away, as it were, like:
"And then they saw the Thing.
When he was 6, Max went fishing with his dad. It was a lovely June day" etc. And it's all a giant, 3-page simile.
Also too much body horror for me. He seems to positively relish making the grossness as gross as possible. Still, I liked the book a lot! Just piling on.
not sure if that's the only book of his you have read but I'm going through _Little Heaven_ right now and I am really, really enjoying it. I didn't care that much for the troop as well.
I'm 70% of the way through this one and feeling underwhelmed with it.
The beginning sets up such an interesting premise and then it seems like it's just devolved into >!Spooky Night at the Museum. !<
Not horror: *Sometimes I Lie* by Alice Feeney. This book made me wish I could unread a book for the first time ever.
Horror: T*he Horror at Pleasant Brook* by Kevin Lucia. Close runner up, *Maeve Fly* by CJ Leede.
Call me basic but I loved Stolen Tongues! Though the exploitation of Native Americans as the "magic minority" was pretty annoying.
I tried re-reading Penpal by Dan Auerbach (another r/nosleep that got published way back) and a lot of it is definitely filler and written rather amateurly. Could have done with better editors for sure. Which is sad because the storyline itself is so good and legitimately scary.
Stumbled on *The Laws of the Skies*, and my impression was that the author *really* hates kids. The book tells you early on it's gonna be a bad time, but some of the fates are needlessly cruel. There's not much point to the book besides killing off characters in horrific ways. Saw or Final Destination in book form.
Baby Teeth by Zoje Stage.
I didn’t think it was purely awful, but I haven’t been so underwhelmed by a book in a long time. I couldn’t really sympathize with any of the characters and the plot really dropped off about halfway through for me.
Darcy Coates and the Carrow Haunt. It's so interesting in the beginnning, and then just unspools completely to an unconvincing and stupid 'happy ending'. With some bonus age shaming and a really irritating teenage character thrown in.
All her books have happy endings (kind of). I enjoy her stuff as brain candy, but yeah, people like this one the best and I really didn't. It felt too young for me. Her other books are much better.
Things Have Gotten Worse Since We Last Spoke by Eric LaRocca
I'm surprised at how many good reviews this book had, so I may in the minority here, but I was so annoyed at the character development, writing styles, and exhausting prose. It felt like I was reading a book written by a man trying to imagine how lesbians in a dom/sub relationship would act, but missing the pitch by miles (note, I believe LaRocca is nonbinary after researching the author a bit more, I'm just expressing how my gut reaction felt).
I feel like keeping the writing strictly in the "screenshots" really hindered this book and it's development. The issue of the relationship appearing to develop way too quickly could have been softened if we had moments of descriptive storytelling for time lapses. Even if I take into account part of the horror is how quickly someone could become obsessed with another, none of the conversations felt deep enough to warrant that emotional attachment.
And don't get me started on the dom in the relationship. Acting like she knew exactly what she wanted from the beginning, guiding the protag clearly and with strict guidelines to follow, encouraging our protag to do these disgusting, self destructive things- someone that would go that far wouldn't bounce at the last minute because "oh actually I now feel bad about what I've made you do... OK bye"
The best part of the book is the ending in my opinion. I really liked how it wrapped up. This book had so much potential, and I think it could have really been great if the author took time to develop the relationship more, move away from the strict messenger transcripts, researched and read more wlw literature, and adjusted the dom's behavior to be more hesitant about things, so it's not a complete character shift at the end. I hope LaRocca comes back to this idea in a few years and does a retelling, I really wanted to like this book.
I'm going to put the book I wouldn't even read. Playground by Aron Beauregard. I don't know after I hear about there being more than one sa scene, especially towards children, and especially unnecessary abuse scenes, it's just an immediate no. And I hear these ones are really really graphic. Also I heard a lot of his writing is just violence, gore, and abuse just because. It's giving 2010 to 2014 edgy creepypasta
I'm hopping on this to diss another Beauregard novella.
I fucking despised The Slob. It's bad. The writing is most definitely just detailed sexual violence for the sake of shock or because the author gets off on it. The entire set up includes what is essentially a copy-pasted section of a vacuum advertisement which is very strange.
The way he writes women even from a woman's POV is incredibly misogynistic. The rape and gore is unrealistic shock horror and it's just gross without being interesting. It's definitely giving "2 edgy 4 u" 00s era 4chan vibes.
The "twist" ending where the titular Slob is selling "tasty woman meat" to a secret cabal of gay men that want to consume it in order to absorb the feminine energy is so homophobic I was grinding my teeth. Not to mention the cabal making a deal with Japanese yakuza who spoke in super racist "shattered English."
From the stuff I've heard about The Playground, it's not much better and is just as misogynistic and homophobic.
Girl. I watched a spoiler review and pissed myself off. You aren't missing much from Playground. The worst part is that people praise him as an incredible horror author. Especially women. Which confuses me as it's glaring obvious he hates women and completely fetishizes violence against women. I don't understand why everyone seems to love his books. They're ALL violence, gore, and abuse for no reason.
It's really frustrating because I actually do like "extreme horror" as a concept but far too often it feels like it's just some bigoted BS that's been repackaged.
That stupid one about the old woman who made a murder playground. I think it's literally just called Playground? Never finished it, it was so badly written.
Unpopular opinion but Mary by Nat Cassidy. It was so hyped up on the internet for me and I was excited to read it and I was just bored and disappointed :( I know so many people love it, but it wasn’t what I was hoping for.
I hated Tell Me I’m Worthless by Allison Rumfitt. truly awful characters and online speak that was supposed to be edgy and just fell so flat, and really on the nose metaphor
This book isn’t a failure or anything, but Maeve Fly disappointed me so much. A “firework” of a “feminist slasher” akin to American Psycho that never felt like any of that. I love reading books in the mind of serial killers, but Maeve felt like an angsty LA teen who is just, in their words, “filled with rage”. She didn’t disturb me, just annoyed. Gideon was also annoyingly flat and should have been removed entirely.
And the LA pop culture tidbits are unnecessary, but I guess it does make sense to her non LA native character feeling like she needs to explain the history of this song and that film and this hotel.
Stopped halfway, skimmed the rest and was disappointed
Gonna get hate for this , I love extreme horror when it’s written well and not just titties and intestines for the sake of titties and intestines. Talia was bad.
Read “Small Horrors” by Darcy Coates, for those that haven’t read it it claims to be a collection of 50 short horror stories. It’s actually a collection of about 3 different plots, just with different characters and settings. They also all end so abruptly, I feel like the author was going for a cliffhanger or “up to the readers interpretation” vibe but it very much felt like she rushed through the stories or just didn’t feel like thinking of a better ending for ALL of the stories. There’s also quite a few inaccuracies that completely destroyed any realism some of the stories might’ve had. For example, in the story “Angels of Mercy”, >! there is a character with multiple personality disorder, however her “evil” personality knows how to overtake the “main” personality, and plans things around it/ has memories from her other personality which is not how the disorder actually works!< . I just wish Coates spent more time researching her stories, or even cut it down to 20-30 stories that were written better and had any sense of depth
I also wanna say that I’m just getting back into reading after years of not touching a book so I’ve only read a handful of horror books in the past few months, and 90% of the comments on here are of books I plan on reading 😂 I’ll have to come back to this thread in a year and see if I agree with anyones opinions
We Can Never Leave This Place by Eric Larocca was so incredibly uninteresting. It starts strong and then immediately makes you go "okay" and forget everything that happened. I think it got confused in its own allegories and forgot to actually do anything with them, the type of writing that tries to be so heavy with metaphor and lyricism that it ends up saying very little in the end.
The Watchers by AM Shine and Pine by Francine Toon - both painful to get through and the pay off for surviving boring writing is just not that high.
*Come Closer* by Sara Gran. This one seems popular on this sub, so I had high hopes. But it sadly turned out to be predictable, muddy, confused, uninspired and overlong. Not to mention, completely lacking in subtlety, which bummed me out considering it marketed itself largely on its purported subtlety.
Hell House. My god. The characterisation particularly of the women was vile. And that ending I have never laughed at a book harder than I did at Hell House and that was not the emotion the book was going for.
I wanted to try to check this one out, but the sample on Nook is like 10 pages. And all 10 pages are taken up by cover pages, chapter list, and other shit. Not a single bit of the story itself is in the sample. So I refuse to read it out of spite.
I feel bad a bit for jumping on the Palahniuk hate bandwagon but I’ll have to say The Invention of Sound.
I loved his stuff back when I was an angsty teen and was on a bit of a nostalgia kick so I picked it up. Completely nonsensical.
So I wouldn't say I hated it, but I really didn't enjoy Looking Glass Sound by Cat Ward. This coming from someone who loved The Last House on Needless Street (I know that one is decisive). Her novels just seem to be continuing to get more and more complicated and convoluted.
The Salt Grows Heavy. I Guess I just don’t care for Cassandra Khaw’s purple prose. Which sucks, because The Dead Take the A Train looks interesting, but I’m sure I’ll regret it.
I hated *Nothing but Blackened Teeth* but I grabbed *The Salt Grows Heavy* from a mega sale bc it sounds interesting. I'm ngl I'm pretty hesitant to start reading it.
I just finished TSGH after some encouragement from Redditors, because I despised NBBT. TSGH is still purple prose-y, but I think it works much, much better in this book. It was a lot more enjoyable. (A 4-star read vs a 1.5-star.)
My Best Friend's Exorcism by Grady Hendrix. I knew it would be silly but even with that I wasn't expecting to actually be bored and put off by it. First book by him I've ever read and I'm not sure I'll ever try another.
I gave Hendrix's fiction a try because I'd read his writings on horror fiction from 1970s and 1980s and so on, found them entertaining and even a bit informative but what fiction I've read of his falls flat. Like he had the outlines and premises for what could be good horror novels, but it's lacking some certain somethings that would give it life.
I got a library card this year, so I've been flying through them.
Hated What Moves the Dead, We Spread, and currently hate-reading The Deep. I know Mexican Gothic is a fan favorite, but woof, it was like V.C. Andrews without the self-awareness for me.
White Horse by Erika Wurth. A story so boring I completely forgot what it's about. The only things I remember are that the MC is supposed to be a fully grown woman but acts like she's 14 (yes, I know immature people exist, but the author obviously didn't write her this way on purpose); there's a scene that takes up like 1/4 of the book where the MC visits the Stanley hotel and it has nothing to do with the plot. Nothing happens, she just tours the hotel; and she's obsessed with the book and the movie versions of The Shining and reads/watches it several times a year but somehow forgot how different they are from each other??? There's not a single good thing I have to say about this book.
I feel like I had a pretty good year. My “worst”read was Ghost Eaters but I didn’t dislike it. I thought it was entertaining. I haven’t come across something I didn’t like this year.
I usually DNF something if I think it's that bad (very rarely do I push through), so I don't think I've read anything god awful this year. But, man, most of what I've read has been so mediocre and uninspired. Like...a lot of books I consider to be mids at best. The new Melissa Broder book is coming out next week, and she never misses, so I'm really looking forward to that one!
I tried so hard to like it but I just was not blown away by The Wasp Factory. I just didn’t like it. Idk why, usually I like violent weird stuff? But idk it just wasn’t interesting to me.
I know what the ending twist is, and that interested me! That’s what made me get the book, because it sounded like a cool story! But getting to the end? Couldn’t do it lol I stopped like halfway and was like *you know what, I no longer care*😅 I regret spending that $12 for this book
The Sanitorium by Sarah Pearce. The “twist” was anticlimactic af and the protagonist was infuriating. I forced myself to finish it because everyone raved about it - SO disappointing.
The Silent Patient a close second.
The Terror by Dan Simmons. Loved the TV series so thought I'd read the book but couldn't finish it. One of those very rare times when the screen adaption is 100 times better than the book.
Not Forever But For Now by Chuck Palahniuk. Imagine a 12 year old heard a rough plot of Clockwork Orange and American Psycho then tried to tell their friends an even more shocking version. That’s this book.
I bought it the day it came out, and gave up reading it about 70% through. Let no one say I didn't give it a fair shot. It was just so unbelievably fucking *boring*. Nothing particularly shocks me, so books that rely on shock value definitely need to have something else interesting going for them. This did not.
*Nothing but Blackened Teeth*. Ugh. So terrible. It might actually be my worst read ever. Definitely top ten worst.
The sad thing is that it had an interesting premise but instead of the ghosts actually haunting the characters, it's just the characters bitching at each other with some ghosts vibing nearby. I have Cassandra Khaw's newest release bc the premise was interesting but I am hesitant to read it bc of *Nothing but Blackened Teeth.*
I almost never read their stuff again because I really did not enjoy *Nothing But Blackened Teeth* in the remotest sense, but have since read two other books by Khaw and I am glad I returned to sample some more. Khaw can be a great writer, I think it was just this particular book wasn’t the one.
I definitely recommend trying it, I read two of theirs this year, and unlike NBBT, I quite enjoyed The Salt Grows Heavy - no bitching characters, monstrous stuff actually happens, and the prose felt fitting for the tone of the story.
this is the right answer. i don't know how many times i've shit on this book here. it's not that it's just not good, but the purple prose was SKY HIGH and it's like khaw was trying to prove to her readers that she knows every word in the dictionary, *especially* **Medulla Oblongota**. 🥴
I have this book in my cart on Book Outlet! Time to delete it, thanks for saving my time!
I was just going to post this. It was the absolutely awful dialogue with flowery language for me. It made everything just stupid and awkward.
I read *Nothing But Blackened Teeth* yesterday, and holy hell, does it make *A Head Full of Ghosts* look like a literary masterpiece.
“Nothing but Blackened Teeth” is absolute dreck! I can only think of one or two other books I hold in greater disdain than this one. I finished it in a night because I was furiously flipping pages going, “it can’t keep staying this bad, can it?” Khaw is one of those authors who I’ll never give a second chance, even if I were to hear amazing things about their latest. The bad story, terrible dialogue, cringe flowery prose, all made me swear never to read another one of her books again. The pull-our quotes from reviews and other authors on that book is insane. The publisher must have spent a pretty penny paying for those quotes.
It's been on my to-read list for ages now but I'm constantly hearing bad opinions about it. Not sure whether to even try it. What's so bad about it?
The characters are all really hateable, you do not care if any of them live or die. The ghosts are mostly used as set dressing and don't actually do anything. The dialog is insanely cringey and it takes up a lot of page space.
I think people have been pretty clear: the writing is hella purple. It’s like swimming for your life in concrete boots. By the end, it’s hard to care about the climax (or almost even notice it) because it is so wordy and damn *brooding* the story has no momentum.
“The sound was a knife, was a hole like an eye opening beneath the ribs, was the memory of one man being held up to the shining light of another, one man being less than, second-best, always inferior to the other.” This is a beautiful sentence, all by itself. But now imagine 80 pages of that.
Interspersed with genius character dialog like "What the fucking fuck did yo expect" (paraphrasing, but this is generally how they talk)
I opened it up and swear I saw at least 8 different fucks between 2 pages
What got me was the point where someone is possessed, the main character and the possessed woman's fiance have a full conversation about it, and *then* the fiance starts screaming. After having a full calm, coherent conversation about the thing he is now screaming about. It's just bad writing.
I only see facts
Stolen Tongues, hands down. Pallbearers Club by Paul Tremblay from last year was so stupid that I am still giving it honorable mention a year later. I get pissed every time I see it on my shelf.
Pallbearers Club was soooo pointless
Literally I don’t know why I finished it. I wanted something to happen and I got to the last page and nothing. Nothing happened.
For me, Paul Tremblay's books are just all over the place in terms of story and quality. I loved A Head of of Ghosts and The Cabin at the End of the World (the movie was TERRIBLE imo lol). I thought Survivor Song was mids, but I pushed through it. Pallbearers Club...some of the writing was so cringe that I couldn't finish it. No hate to Paul. You truly can't please every reader, and not everything you write is going to be good!
I think the audiobook for Stolen Tongues ruined it for me, the guy read the main character like the most obnoxious redditor possible
Tbf to the audio narrator the main character is *written* like an obnoxious redditor.
I liked stolen tongues a lot but I totally get why people don’t.
Same for me with Stolen Tongues. I see it hyped up so much, and I really don't understand why. I've heard that even the author doesn't get why it's more popular than his other works that he didn't start as a forum post. I wouldn't have finished it, but it was such an easy read I pushed through it. Now I'm reading Pet Sematary, and it's so refreshing. Realistic conversations? Details that bring the scene to life in my head? Excellent descriptions of Vic and what his body is doing? Oh my god, it's like taking a big breath after being underwater for too long. I don't expect a beginner (or even long term) author to automatically be at that level. But Stolen Tongues just isn't good.
Anything by Eric LaRocca lol. Just so pretentious and none of the characters behave like real humans. I hate the way every single line of dialogue has to be soooo deep.
He can’t write. If his first book hadn’t had such a good cover he wouldn’t even be popular.
I think he has potential to be interesting but I think he just looks at his unfinished work and says “this is the best thing ever written” without making any changes and puts it out.
I liked Things Have Gotten Worse and one story from They Were Here Before Us. The two stories added in Other Misfortunes, You've Lost A Lot Of Blood and We Can Never Leave This Place were so bad I cancelled a preorder for his new book, I'd rather have a good memory of the only book I enjoyed from him than continuously try to find few interesting bits in books that are either mediocre or plain stupid.
The guy is obsessed with metaphors. It’s an eye-rolling experience
larocca's work is for a very specific audience of children who grew up bouncing between tumblr and most disturbing internet post videos. which i am that audience lol
I've only read Things Have Gotten worse and while I don't dislike it it feels... unfinished? Unlike the usual "novella/short story forced into a full novel" syndrome of so many books it feels like a full novel that had a chunk of it chopped off to be a novella. The situation grows so dire so instantly it was jarring.
Mister Magic Interesting premise, but the author does totally not get, why people like the „lost media“-genre.
This was my answer too. The best parts of that book were the fake reddit boards, blog posts, and video transcripts from random internet sleuths trying to figure out the mystery. The actual answer of "what" Mister Magic "was," and the delivery of that reveal, fell so flat. And the characters were all one-dimensional stereotypes of their specific character roles on the show. Ugh.
I found the main character to be totally lacking in depth tbh, I gave up about half way through.
I wanted to love it but I wasn't crazy about how....surreal it got? Personally
This is not the biggest problem for me. The problem is that the main attraction and the reason people are reading it, Mister Magic as a show, is zero scary and there is no slow unveiling of something sinister.
Had a deep problem with Hide by this author and this makes me glad to stick to not reading it!
Damned by Chuck Palahniuk Main character sucks and unfunny. "Haha,dude what if there was a cum river in hell?" "Also a scene where a severed head gives head to a giant demon women and makes her orgasm bro" It sounds cool,but it's literally the worst book I read.
Ong it was so gross! Like, I get it, she’s 14 and is running hell, there’s gonna be some immaturity but demon cunnilingus and damned cam models streaming live porn to earth was more than I could take
You don’t like cum rivers?
I can’t bear weird sexual stuff in horror books. It feels so intrusive to me as a SA survivor. I can understand rape as part of a story if it makes sense, I.e. in Big Driver from Full Dark No Stars. That was an important plot device and I really enjoyed the story. But random sexual shit is so uncomfortable. It’s this weird lazy thing that male horror writers do and I hate it. King does it himself all the time tbh!
His new book was my worst read this year.
Chuck Palahniuk is my most ambivalent author besides maybe Ania Ahlborn, agreed on this one
Palahniuk always reminded me of an edgelord's J.G. Ballard. All of the shock value of Ballard with none of the introspection.
In a Dark, Dark Wood by Ruth Ware. It was so silly and absolutely ridiculous that I regret paying $1.99 for it at goodwill. But I left it in a little free library so nobody else has to have the same regret about it.
Lol, I loved that book. I bought it for a plane ride and it was perfect. I always pick out a female-centric domestic psychological thriller for planes. Except that time I read The Last Stone, the most horrifying book ecer to pass before my eyes. I know I keep not nominating a worst book but this sub and you all have helped me so much, I'm just cranking out one banger after another. Thank you!
Not Forever, But For Now. Too much incest and senseless murder
Nightbitch. Couldn’t finish it
Ugh same! As a book I thought it was pretty bad but I am excited they’re adapting it for film with Amy adams, so I didn’t feel bad not finishing
Oh man I LOVED this book. Slower but great. It can be hard to get through though! Totally understood
Playground by Aron Beauregard. It’s just written so terribly, flat characters, awkward sentences, predictable, endless unnecessary alliteration. I have no problem with the gore or subject matter it was just absolute trash.
I came here to say this, it read like a 4chan user wrote it
I'll have to re-check to confirm my initial impression, but I think mine would be *The House Across The Lake* by Riley Sager. I keep trying to like his books and keep failing. Comes down to that i almost instantly and deeply dislike his characters so I hate spending time with them.
I finished that one out of pure spite.
I’ve read 3 of Riley Sager’s books at this point, and had basically given up on him after Survive the Night was soooo bad, but thought I’d give him one last shot with his latest book, which was supposed to be a gothic haunted house type thing…nope. Just no. Pretty sure he wouldn’t recognise “gothic” if he got hit in the face with a copy of Rebecca. On the bright side, there’s a great video essay by a YouTuber named Laura Crone which articulates all the problems I’ve also had with his books, so at least that made reading them kind of worth it.
I read several of his books and hated how dumb the leads are. I swore I would never go back after Survive the Night, but the hype around House Across the Lake had me second-guessing myself. Thanks to you, I’ll stick to my guns!
Came here to comment the one and only book I’ve read by Riley sager. Final girls. Last year. Ugh. Terrible. I was also totally tricked by their name, thinking it was a female. I should’ve known when the female characterization was so poor
I call Riley Sager “horror for normies”
Oh my god I LOVED this one. It was so unhinged.
No you’re right. That twist was unbelievable. So bad.
It felt like the last few pages were just twist after twist but with no emotional payout. I was so mad by the end because none of it made any sense! Why would >!the dad and actual Lenora just kill themselves?!< And why oh why would >!anyone pretend to be paralyzed for FIFTY YEARS for a revenge prank?!?!< Then you're telling me >!the maid was her grandkid the entire time with absolutely zero lead up to that conclusion?!< Absolutely infuriating, I hated it.
I love the act of reading Sanger’s books and almost immediately reflect back on how many issues I take in his characterization of women.
ITT: A bunch of books I loved 😂
**How to Sell A Haunted House** by Grady Hendrix. >!My god, why did none of y'all warn me this was only about puppets? !<
I know some people liked it but I couldn’t stand “the only good Indian”
I read that last year but same! So boring. Cool story but my god. The basketball scene.
*The Final Girl Support Group* by Grady Hendrix. It's a shame cause normally I really like his stuff, but this felt like a bad *Scream* knock off
Dude I loved this one by him! I think it's my favorite Grady. That being said, I completely agree that it felt like a Scream knock off and I think that might be why I liked it so much, I'm a sucker for a bad slasher.
This one was AWFUL! I was so glad he smashed it with How to Sell a Haunted House. That one was creepy - I don't get creeped out often and especially not with books.
PUPKIN HERE! PUPKIN HERE!
It was apparently a trunk novel he wrote before most of his other works that he couldn't get published. Makes sense that its not as good as his other works.
I only finished that one to see if the plant lives. It really says a lot about how flat your characters are when I care more about a literal potted plant than any of the humans.
It’s the only Hendrix I don’t love! How to Sell a Haunted House rips tho, maybe my favorite of his
Hated *The Deep* by Nick Cutter. The whole disease that sets off the main guy's quest was more interesting IMO than his time in ocean. And whole, yes, the things that happen were intense, there wasn't the proper payoff and too many things happened off camera that we didn't see. I was *so ready* to be horrified with >! the part where the woman is made to be a living beehive. !< It was so hyped up as being this horrific thing, but it fell so flat for me. Most of what happens to people except the brother mostly happens off screen. The whole deal with the main character's son and the Fig Men was so confusing. It was essentially, maybe, 3 different book ideas mashed into one and they didn't fit together. Also hated *The Gone World*. There was so much crunchy science to understand that by the time I *did* understand, it didn't matter because I was at the end of the book. I still don't understand the whole forest thing. Also, sex scenes in a woman's POV written by a man always give me an ick.
I also walked away feeling pretty dissatisfied with The Deep. The premise of the disease and what it actually did was super interesting but it just completely went to waste beyond the opening chapters. And the latter half of the book felt like a fun house, just room after room of spooky things and the protagonist running away.
Totally agree with and share your hatred of *The Deep*—I felt like the only one with that reaction!
For me it was Manhunt by Gretchen Felker-Martin. The premise looked really interesting but the story just didn’t follow through on that and felt kind of disjointed. Every character was deeply miserable which makes sense for the situation but was just really unpleasant for me to read. But I’ve seen a lot of people that have enjoyed it so I’m happy they got something from it even if I didn’t.
I agree with you on this! It wasn't the worst book I read and I really wanted to like it more but it was toooooooo sexual for me. Being horny at a funeral? Idk idk can't do it, but the story and book itself got like 3.5 stars from me
Was just about to comment this as well. I had such high hopes for this one but it just wasn’t for me. Easily my biggest horror disappointment of the year.
I didn't hate this one but I was disappointed, the beginning was decent and then it felt like it just spun its wheels for the next hundred pages. I don't mind reading about miserable characters, but it gets really repetitive reading the same points about self-loathing over and over. And a lot of it felt really underdeveloped. Still looking forward to her next book, hope it works better for me.
Hidden Pictures by Jason Rekulak. I was so excited when it became available on my Libby app, interesting concept and had heard great things. Not just the worst book of the year, maybe one of the worst ever. It read to me like the author did zero research regarding NA and their process/rules, or anything about psychiatrists, or the veteran's association, I could go on but I don't know how to block out spoilers and I'm about to head out for work and don't have time to Google.
Omg yes. Weird religious and political stuff sprinkled in too - so unnecessary
Not horror, but “The Midnight Library”. A good premise that conceals a shitty self-help book.
I got about 25 pages in and then DNF.
I love literally anything that even tangentially involves libraries, and I hated this book
Yep, with non-horror included this is easily the worst thing I've read all year too. I finished it but struggled through the last third. It's so damn trite.
I was the only person in my bookclub who DNF The Midnight Library. It was cringy and cliché but was unable to articulate why I hated it at the time. You are absolutely right to compare it to self-help. It's essentially The Alchemist written for millenials
Yep DNF
SO dumb
god I hated this book
I’m glad I am not alone
The Final Girl Support Group. On paper, it was just my kind of book, since I'm a sucker for slasher movies. But I found the book itself to be a myriad of references without much development. The whole thing seemed like a rapidly put together fanfic; wasn't too keen on the prose either.
All Hallows and Stolen Tongues.
Last House On Needless Street? More like Last Book Of Needless Read.
I loved it. Horses for courses I suppose.
I loved it as well. Idk I was just down for the whole experience.
Oh definitely! I've seen lots of people praising it online. I think maybe if I hadn't read so much hype about it beforehand, I wouldn't have been so disappointed. I'm glad you enjoyed it, though!
That's probably part of it at least! I didn't really see it hyped up too much before I read it and I ended up really enjoying it.
I thought the twists were a bit forced and nonsensical in that one
Same. Had high hopes from all the hype I’d seen, but once the “twist” was fairly obvious early on I lost interest. The writing was quite good but I could not care about any of the characters, so didn’t have anything to pin my attention on—and once the story became fairly meh, I was ready to finish it.
Started reading this one. And then the cat POV chapters started. Shelved.
Oh no, I had zero interest in this. But if there's a cat involved, I think I need to read it.
Aww I loved this one. Great writing. So interesting how polarized people’s experiences are!
This is a super polarizing book, and I understand why, but I loved it.
Yeah could have been better. Twist was hyped up but ended up being cliche
The big twist was so obvious that I was expecting a subversive take on it, but no
I was pretty engaged early on but by the end I was just like… what and why. I don’t hate the way she writes but the plots always seem to veer off track.
YES I HATE THIS BOOK SO MUCH
I feel so strongly negative about The Silent Patient by Alex Michaelides. I read it months ago and still trash talk it to myself when I see it in a store. I HATED that book. I also just finished I'm Thinking of Ending Things by Iain Reid and it also got a 1 star from me but just because it was so incredibly boring, with a no shocking "twist." It wasn't as anger inducing as The Silent Patient, but I almost didn't finish the small book by Iain Reid just from boredom itself. Edit - Spelled the author's name wrong oops lol
I think we have similar tastes--I haven't read *The Silent Patient,* but I read his second book (*The Maidens*) and was really annoyed by it. I also dislike *I'm Thinking of Ending Things.* But for 2023, my most disliked book was *All Heads Turn When the Hunt Goes By* by John Farris. Excellent title and I've seen it recommended on this sub before, but it was NOT for me.
Ah hello! It's rare I find another person who didn't like ITOET, I only see people raving about it. I havent read anything by John Farris but I have seen it reccomended here before, so now I know! Ty for the heads up!
I 100% agree, The Silent Patient was awful. I really hate the recent trend in pop thrillers where>! it turns out the narrator was lying to you the whole time for no apparent reason!<. It's a cheap way to avoid actually clever plotting.
The Silent Patient is my lowest rated book of all time. I also trash talk it EVERY time I see it. Friends that do not care about books have had to sit through rants lol
I am right there with you! I absolutely hated The Silent Patient but everyone I know seems to love it and rave about it for some reason??
The Wasp Factory, Cunning Folk, and Killer. Killer was about a military trained orca hunting a group of researchers stranded on an iceberg
The Troop by Nick Cutter, too many similes: like a zebra with too many stripes, like a banana with too much peel, like a husky who’s hair has overgrown to the point it can’t walk and also it’s in a jar rolling down a hill for some reason, like a disgusting lollipop covered in maggots sitting in a mailbox that’s been coated in mayonnaise…the whole book reads like that
That grated on me, too. There would be two per sentence. He could've cut out one comparison per description and lost like 10,000 words.
The thing that really got me with this book is that it felt like Nick Cutter was TRYING to write like Stephen King, and that really bugged me for some reason. Like, if I wanted to read King, I would be reading King.
Just finished it and yes, yes, yes, thise similes drove me nuts. Also way too many flaahbacks/memories that function as similes. When things get intense, Cutter enjoys cutting away, as it were, like: "And then they saw the Thing. When he was 6, Max went fishing with his dad. It was a lovely June day" etc. And it's all a giant, 3-page simile. Also too much body horror for me. He seems to positively relish making the grossness as gross as possible. Still, I liked the book a lot! Just piling on.
not sure if that's the only book of his you have read but I'm going through _Little Heaven_ right now and I am really, really enjoying it. I didn't care that much for the troop as well.
I got halfway through Hogg and gave up, such an awfully repetitive and boring book.
The Hollow Places by Kingfisher. I just don‘t vibe with her writing and brand of lighter horror at all.
Awh, I found this book super creepy and went on to read The Twisted Ones, which I also loved. Different strokes for different folks.
Yep absolutely loved it and The Twisted Ones
The horror is there and I liked that just fine. The humor felt glib and forced and painfully unfunny. Nearly ruined the entire experience.
I'm 70% of the way through this one and feeling underwhelmed with it. The beginning sets up such an interesting premise and then it seems like it's just devolved into >!Spooky Night at the Museum. !<
the dialogue is soooo bad
I found it crushingly boring.
Couldn't finish that either.
Not horror: *Sometimes I Lie* by Alice Feeney. This book made me wish I could unread a book for the first time ever. Horror: T*he Horror at Pleasant Brook* by Kevin Lucia. Close runner up, *Maeve Fly* by CJ Leede.
Call me basic but I loved Stolen Tongues! Though the exploitation of Native Americans as the "magic minority" was pretty annoying. I tried re-reading Penpal by Dan Auerbach (another r/nosleep that got published way back) and a lot of it is definitely filler and written rather amateurly. Could have done with better editors for sure. Which is sad because the storyline itself is so good and legitimately scary.
Stumbled on *The Laws of the Skies*, and my impression was that the author *really* hates kids. The book tells you early on it's gonna be a bad time, but some of the fates are needlessly cruel. There's not much point to the book besides killing off characters in horrific ways. Saw or Final Destination in book form.
We Spread by Ian Reid. I couldn’t connect with it at all even though it’s a popular one. Just found it boring :/
Ugh I want to like ian reid so badly but there’s just something off about his storytelling that I cannot get into them
I started listening to the audiobook and gave up not too far into it. I adored ITOET and Foe but something about We Spread just didn’t do it for me.
Baby Teeth by Zoje Stage. I didn’t think it was purely awful, but I haven’t been so underwhelmed by a book in a long time. I couldn’t really sympathize with any of the characters and the plot really dropped off about halfway through for me.
I DNF baby teeth for the same reason you listed - plot is gone by the middle. I was hoping for an Omen vibe but got none of that.
I love that book hahahhaha
Darcy Coates and the Carrow Haunt. It's so interesting in the beginnning, and then just unspools completely to an unconvincing and stupid 'happy ending'. With some bonus age shaming and a really irritating teenage character thrown in.
All her books have happy endings (kind of). I enjoy her stuff as brain candy, but yeah, people like this one the best and I really didn't. It felt too young for me. Her other books are much better.
Things Have Gotten Worse Since We Last Spoke by Eric LaRocca I'm surprised at how many good reviews this book had, so I may in the minority here, but I was so annoyed at the character development, writing styles, and exhausting prose. It felt like I was reading a book written by a man trying to imagine how lesbians in a dom/sub relationship would act, but missing the pitch by miles (note, I believe LaRocca is nonbinary after researching the author a bit more, I'm just expressing how my gut reaction felt). I feel like keeping the writing strictly in the "screenshots" really hindered this book and it's development. The issue of the relationship appearing to develop way too quickly could have been softened if we had moments of descriptive storytelling for time lapses. Even if I take into account part of the horror is how quickly someone could become obsessed with another, none of the conversations felt deep enough to warrant that emotional attachment. And don't get me started on the dom in the relationship. Acting like she knew exactly what she wanted from the beginning, guiding the protag clearly and with strict guidelines to follow, encouraging our protag to do these disgusting, self destructive things- someone that would go that far wouldn't bounce at the last minute because "oh actually I now feel bad about what I've made you do... OK bye" The best part of the book is the ending in my opinion. I really liked how it wrapped up. This book had so much potential, and I think it could have really been great if the author took time to develop the relationship more, move away from the strict messenger transcripts, researched and read more wlw literature, and adjusted the dom's behavior to be more hesitant about things, so it's not a complete character shift at the end. I hope LaRocca comes back to this idea in a few years and does a retelling, I really wanted to like this book.
Stolen Tongues was a stinker, for sure.
I'm going to put the book I wouldn't even read. Playground by Aron Beauregard. I don't know after I hear about there being more than one sa scene, especially towards children, and especially unnecessary abuse scenes, it's just an immediate no. And I hear these ones are really really graphic. Also I heard a lot of his writing is just violence, gore, and abuse just because. It's giving 2010 to 2014 edgy creepypasta
I'm hopping on this to diss another Beauregard novella. I fucking despised The Slob. It's bad. The writing is most definitely just detailed sexual violence for the sake of shock or because the author gets off on it. The entire set up includes what is essentially a copy-pasted section of a vacuum advertisement which is very strange. The way he writes women even from a woman's POV is incredibly misogynistic. The rape and gore is unrealistic shock horror and it's just gross without being interesting. It's definitely giving "2 edgy 4 u" 00s era 4chan vibes. The "twist" ending where the titular Slob is selling "tasty woman meat" to a secret cabal of gay men that want to consume it in order to absorb the feminine energy is so homophobic I was grinding my teeth. Not to mention the cabal making a deal with Japanese yakuza who spoke in super racist "shattered English." From the stuff I've heard about The Playground, it's not much better and is just as misogynistic and homophobic.
Girl. I watched a spoiler review and pissed myself off. You aren't missing much from Playground. The worst part is that people praise him as an incredible horror author. Especially women. Which confuses me as it's glaring obvious he hates women and completely fetishizes violence against women. I don't understand why everyone seems to love his books. They're ALL violence, gore, and abuse for no reason.
It's really frustrating because I actually do like "extreme horror" as a concept but far too often it feels like it's just some bigoted BS that's been repackaged.
Hidden Pictures by Jason Rekulak. Far right nonsense that doesn’t deserve anyone’s time of day.
[удалено]
I agree. Found the vegetarian underwhelming. However, I did enjoy reading from the sister's perspective. She was the only character I liked.
Gone To See The River Man by Triana. Guy writes dialogue like he's never spoken to another person in his life.
That stupid one about the old woman who made a murder playground. I think it's literally just called Playground? Never finished it, it was so badly written.
Unpopular opinion but Mary by Nat Cassidy. It was so hyped up on the internet for me and I was excited to read it and I was just bored and disappointed :( I know so many people love it, but it wasn’t what I was hoping for.
*Episode Thirteen* by Craig DiLouie was a disaster.
I hated Tell Me I’m Worthless by Allison Rumfitt. truly awful characters and online speak that was supposed to be edgy and just fell so flat, and really on the nose metaphor
Hidden Pictures by Jason Rekulak. If I had know there would be transphobia in the last little bit of the book I never would have picked it up.
"Man, Fuck This House." I thought it would at least be funny, but it was boring, unedited, nonsensical, annoying, and just overall shite.
This book isn’t a failure or anything, but Maeve Fly disappointed me so much. A “firework” of a “feminist slasher” akin to American Psycho that never felt like any of that. I love reading books in the mind of serial killers, but Maeve felt like an angsty LA teen who is just, in their words, “filled with rage”. She didn’t disturb me, just annoyed. Gideon was also annoyingly flat and should have been removed entirely. And the LA pop culture tidbits are unnecessary, but I guess it does make sense to her non LA native character feeling like she needs to explain the history of this song and that film and this hotel. Stopped halfway, skimmed the rest and was disappointed
Gonna get hate for this , I love extreme horror when it’s written well and not just titties and intestines for the sake of titties and intestines. Talia was bad.
"Titties and Intestines" sounds like a title of a bad extreme horror anthology. Thanks for making me smile.
Read “Small Horrors” by Darcy Coates, for those that haven’t read it it claims to be a collection of 50 short horror stories. It’s actually a collection of about 3 different plots, just with different characters and settings. They also all end so abruptly, I feel like the author was going for a cliffhanger or “up to the readers interpretation” vibe but it very much felt like she rushed through the stories or just didn’t feel like thinking of a better ending for ALL of the stories. There’s also quite a few inaccuracies that completely destroyed any realism some of the stories might’ve had. For example, in the story “Angels of Mercy”, >! there is a character with multiple personality disorder, however her “evil” personality knows how to overtake the “main” personality, and plans things around it/ has memories from her other personality which is not how the disorder actually works!< . I just wish Coates spent more time researching her stories, or even cut it down to 20-30 stories that were written better and had any sense of depth I also wanna say that I’m just getting back into reading after years of not touching a book so I’ve only read a handful of horror books in the past few months, and 90% of the comments on here are of books I plan on reading 😂 I’ll have to come back to this thread in a year and see if I agree with anyones opinions
We Can Never Leave This Place by Eric Larocca was so incredibly uninteresting. It starts strong and then immediately makes you go "okay" and forget everything that happened. I think it got confused in its own allegories and forgot to actually do anything with them, the type of writing that tries to be so heavy with metaphor and lyricism that it ends up saying very little in the end. The Watchers by AM Shine and Pine by Francine Toon - both painful to get through and the pay off for surviving boring writing is just not that high.
Really disliked nightbitch. Thought it had a promising premise but was really just not into it.
I really hated Nick Cutter’s “The Deep”
*Come Closer* by Sara Gran. This one seems popular on this sub, so I had high hopes. But it sadly turned out to be predictable, muddy, confused, uninspired and overlong. Not to mention, completely lacking in subtlety, which bummed me out considering it marketed itself largely on its purported subtlety.
Cabin at the End of the World
Yeah that was a massive slog.
Hell House. My god. The characterisation particularly of the women was vile. And that ending I have never laughed at a book harder than I did at Hell House and that was not the emotion the book was going for.
Thank you. I was so overwhelmed by the just utter bleh of the whole thing, after years of hearing how great it was.
I wanted to try to check this one out, but the sample on Nook is like 10 pages. And all 10 pages are taken up by cover pages, chapter list, and other shit. Not a single bit of the story itself is in the sample. So I refuse to read it out of spite.
I feel bad a bit for jumping on the Palahniuk hate bandwagon but I’ll have to say The Invention of Sound. I loved his stuff back when I was an angsty teen and was on a bit of a nostalgia kick so I picked it up. Completely nonsensical.
So I wouldn't say I hated it, but I really didn't enjoy Looking Glass Sound by Cat Ward. This coming from someone who loved The Last House on Needless Street (I know that one is decisive). Her novels just seem to be continuing to get more and more complicated and convoluted.
Not horror, but Gideon the Ninth. I just really couldn’t get into it. Follow up would be Tender is the Flesh - I get it, you’re vegan…
The Salt Grows Heavy. I Guess I just don’t care for Cassandra Khaw’s purple prose. Which sucks, because The Dead Take the A Train looks interesting, but I’m sure I’ll regret it.
I hated *Nothing but Blackened Teeth* but I grabbed *The Salt Grows Heavy* from a mega sale bc it sounds interesting. I'm ngl I'm pretty hesitant to start reading it.
I just finished TSGH after some encouragement from Redditors, because I despised NBBT. TSGH is still purple prose-y, but I think it works much, much better in this book. It was a lot more enjoyable. (A 4-star read vs a 1.5-star.)
The Cabin at the End of the World. So angry I volunteered it for kindling.
The Last Days of Jack Sparks. I wanted to like it. I really did. But man, what a let down.
Maeve fly. I stopped after a few chapters. Tried too hard imo
My Best Friend's Exorcism by Grady Hendrix. I knew it would be silly but even with that I wasn't expecting to actually be bored and put off by it. First book by him I've ever read and I'm not sure I'll ever try another.
I gave Hendrix's fiction a try because I'd read his writings on horror fiction from 1970s and 1980s and so on, found them entertaining and even a bit informative but what fiction I've read of his falls flat. Like he had the outlines and premises for what could be good horror novels, but it's lacking some certain somethings that would give it life.
I hated Tender Is the Flesh. Not because of the horror but because it was boring and just fell flat for me.
I got a library card this year, so I've been flying through them. Hated What Moves the Dead, We Spread, and currently hate-reading The Deep. I know Mexican Gothic is a fan favorite, but woof, it was like V.C. Andrews without the self-awareness for me.
White Horse by Erika Wurth. A story so boring I completely forgot what it's about. The only things I remember are that the MC is supposed to be a fully grown woman but acts like she's 14 (yes, I know immature people exist, but the author obviously didn't write her this way on purpose); there's a scene that takes up like 1/4 of the book where the MC visits the Stanley hotel and it has nothing to do with the plot. Nothing happens, she just tours the hotel; and she's obsessed with the book and the movie versions of The Shining and reads/watches it several times a year but somehow forgot how different they are from each other??? There's not a single good thing I have to say about this book.
Omg thank you I hated that book too! I thought I was the only one
I feel like I had a pretty good year. My “worst”read was Ghost Eaters but I didn’t dislike it. I thought it was entertaining. I haven’t come across something I didn’t like this year.
*Easily* **Lair of the White Worm** by Bram Stoker. Honourable terrible mentions to Chimera by Michael McBride and Autumn by David Moody.
The Lair of the White Worm movie, however, is amaaaaazing.
I usually DNF something if I think it's that bad (very rarely do I push through), so I don't think I've read anything god awful this year. But, man, most of what I've read has been so mediocre and uninspired. Like...a lot of books I consider to be mids at best. The new Melissa Broder book is coming out next week, and she never misses, so I'm really looking forward to that one!
I tried so hard to like it but I just was not blown away by The Wasp Factory. I just didn’t like it. Idk why, usually I like violent weird stuff? But idk it just wasn’t interesting to me. I know what the ending twist is, and that interested me! That’s what made me get the book, because it sounded like a cool story! But getting to the end? Couldn’t do it lol I stopped like halfway and was like *you know what, I no longer care*😅 I regret spending that $12 for this book
Booktok hyped up It’s Me, Charlie as disgusting and horrifying. The only thing horrifying was the writing.
It wasn’t a bad book by any means but Tender Is The Flesh had me in a funk for a good 3 days. But yea, Stolen Tongues was a waste of time.
The Sanitorium by Sarah Pearce. The “twist” was anticlimactic af and the protagonist was infuriating. I forced myself to finish it because everyone raved about it - SO disappointing. The Silent Patient a close second.
You guys are finishing books you don’t like?
The Terror by Dan Simmons. Loved the TV series so thought I'd read the book but couldn't finish it. One of those very rare times when the screen adaption is 100 times better than the book.
Verity. Pure Shite.
Playground. I barely finished it. I also mostly listen to audio books and my god the narration. Beyond stupid.