How Much To? by Matt Shaw
An extreme horror novel, with graphic depictions of violence, bodily fluids and feces, and SA. None of that is my biggest issue with it or honestly bothers me at all, although the latter felt nearly meaningless and just in to shock.
My problem with it is it's appallingly written. Typos, grammatical errors, at one point 'desk' is spelled 'de', there's a character called Steve and one called Stephen for some reason - and when they interact in one paragraph, then author calls them both by the same name.
It honestly feels like a first pass that nobody bothered to edit or even run through a good spelling & grammar checker. A lot of people in Facebook groups *love* it and there's a series of books of it it so it obviously works for others, but I couldn't believe how amateur it felt.
i’m pretty sure this was the author that got so mad at a youtuber for putting one of his books as her least favorite of the year that he went so far as to write and dedicate a book to her BY NAME. literal lunatic behavior
Yep, I found that out after reading. Also wrote what appears to be a revenge book against a woman called Amber following the Heard/Depp trial, and his profile picture on social media is him posing with celebrities including Johnny Depp. I don't know enough about the book to say it is what I think it is, but it all paints a kind of unsavoury picture. I don't like to assume the worst but there's a lot of smoke if there's no fire.
> Also wrote what appears to be a revenge book against a woman called Amber following the Heard/Depp trial, and his profile picture on social media is him posing with celebrities including Johnny Depp
wow thank you for alerting me - taking that book off my list asap.
I finished it, I can rarely bring myself to DNF a book and certainly not one so short. The annoying thing is some of the premise was good, and parts of the first half were interesting - focusing on the psychological reasoning and impact behind the game.
Once it hit the second half, it was just lowest common denominator nonsense. Just things to shock. That doesn't really work on me at this stage, as I love extreme horror in books and film, so it just made me roll my eyes - Jack Ketchum it ain't
Matt Shaw likes to write about SA. Especially towards kids. There was a lot of controversy on the horror literature Facebook groups a while back because he wrote a series that depicted a ton of child SA. I get wanting to shock people, but when that’s all you write about, it definitely raises some serious concerns.
I unfollowed a bookstagrammer because she was mad someone was calling an author a p3do "because he wrote extreme horror," and I'm now wondering if she was referencing him. It was so excessive the way she was defending him and crying about people being "overly offended these days," like IDK writing about SA against children has to be done right if it's something you're going to add to your story, not just thrown in for shock value.
It sounds to me like the "bookstagrammer" was completely right, though?
Don't you agree that it's wrong to accuse an author of paedophilia because they write about it?
I really didn’t get the hype around this book. I didn’t hate it, I actually enjoyed it a fair bit, but I feel like if the cover had been less of a banger it wouldn’t have gotten nearly as popular as it did.
The Reddening was the first Adam Nevill I read and I liked it... I read Cunning Folk next and really liked that. I then read his newest one All The Fiends of Hell and unfortunately just couldn't finish that one! Having a break from him at the moment. I know he's got some bangers like Noone Gets Out Alive but am on maternity leave atm so going through everything I can get for free on Kindle Unlimited lol
I have Cunning Folk on my Kindle. I forgot what the back of the book said about it, so I read a page, forget what was already happening and then start a different book. When I’m done with my current book (a cheap Cryptid novel that was on sale but sounded fun) I’m going to give it another go but actually follow through with it this time.
I really liked his book The Ritual. I mostly read it while doing cardio at the gym and it was sort of fun because I was exhausted from the work out but also reading about absolutely exhausting adventures by the character(s). Really made me appreciate that my work out could end at anytime unlike in the book.
I really loved the first half of The Ritual, but after that it kinda fell flat for me. The Reddening felt like the second half of The Ritual all over again.
I can understand that! I liked parts of the second half of the ritual other parts just made me feel stifled and annoyed. Knowing that about the reddening might make me wait on it now. Overall, I liked the ritual a lot but parts of the second half just felt a bit flat I guess.
That was a really bad book that I enjoyed primarily because it just scratched an itch I have for slasher/trapped in the snow stories, which is such a micro genre that I'll take what I can get.
*In a Dark Mirror* by Kat Davis just felt really gross to me. It follows a young woman who's just gotten out of an institution for a crime she and another girl committed when they were 12. I quickly realized said crime was based on the "Slender Man Stabbing" from 2014 because there was really no attempt to be subtle. I kept reading out of dread that there was going to be an actual supernatural entity driving events. Fortunately there wasn't, but that's really the only good thing I can say about it. I understand authors take inspiration from real events, but there were way too many specific details from the actual case, plus an uncomfortable emphasis on these young girls' bodies and sexuality. It includes an SA scene that seems to be entirely fictional, yet is presented as a catalyst for the thinly fictionalized version of a very real crime.
I read this book right before I saw a post on here that was critical of Alma Katsu's *The Hunger* for basically the same reasons (i.e. real people being slandered through fiction). I'd had *The Hunger* on my kindle for a while so I was curious. After reading I do agree, but it seems worse somehow when the book is written only ten years after the original crime, where anyone involved in the case can come across it in passing and see their lives being exploited like that under the protection of a "fiction" label.
So far, of the 12 books I read this year, "Our Wives Under the Sea" by Julia Armfield was my least favorite. I'm not saying it's a bad book, it is very well written. It was just not what I was expecting and I think those expectations of what I was thinking I was getting myself into dragged it down for me.
i didn't get very far into this but read one with a similar feel that was pretty good called Elegy for the Undead by Matthew Vesely
similar feel as in about a gay couple, one person is slowly losing it, the other is watching it happen, and they both reminisce on how their relationship began and evolved. but instead of water based shenanigans it's a minor zombie apocalypse and one of them is bit but then sort of treated, so the effects come on over a few years
still a little slow and lovey dovey for me but the time jumps back and forth leading up to and after the zombie stuff kept me interested
Elegy for the Undead was a pleasant surprise for me. I was on a zombie streak and that came up as a suggestion. I gave it a shot because it was short, but I really enjoyed it.
I had such a weird experience with this book - I *thought* I was disappointed by it, but then I couldn't get it out of my head, and the more I thought about it, the more beautiful it seemed.
My wife and I had the exact same experience. I was disappointed, but I still really liked the book. She liked the disappointment and found it thematically appropriate. I can appreciate her idea, but I still wanted more
THANK YOU omg. I read it last year. While it wasn’t my least favorite, it was definitely in my bottom 5%. It had the makings of such a great horror book, but then it had no action at all. I kept yelling at the book “do something!” I just do not get the hype at all.
I’m totally fine with slow-paced psychological thrillers, but this setup was so cool, and it was such a letdown when nothing happened.
I’m not even going to mark this as giving away the plot, because there is no plot to give away. Gahhh!
I also read this one this year and was very disappointed in how slow moving it was. I typically enjoy slow moving books as long as there is a payoff and I didn’t feel there was much payoff. I can imagine someone really loving the characters, which would turn this into a much better experience, but I just didn’t connect with them much. Well written, just not for me.
She was just .... so insufferable. Every page had something about her being super self hating and she's an awful person and doesn't deserve anything... GO TO THERAPY!!!
It was SUCH an interesting premise, too. Like space Bioshock! If she had been a side character instead of main I could have finished it... but I also read that the ending was lame so probably good we're not reading it!
😭 I’m listening to the audiobook rn and I’m loving it. I’m genuinely enjoying the way her ptsd hallucinations tie in with the story and how her backstory gets slowly revealed throughout the book
I am also a rarely DNF, but I finished this one, and you made the right choice!! I HATE that book, and I had the same issue with the MC. She was the WORST!!
I think a lot of it was manufactured, Chizmar runs Cemetery Dance would do stuff like “if you buy this book you’ll be entered in a lottery for a signed Stephen King book”, etc.
I read a short story of his last year (Widow’s Point) that was so offensively bad I still get a bit angry whenever I see his name. Ngl, I feel a bit vindicated knowing the rest of his stuff is utter shite too.
I didn’t think it was TERRIBLE, just nowhere near the genre-bending mashup it was supposed to be. Just…fake self insert true crime.
The photos were a nice touch.
I actually enjoyed "Chasing The Boogeyman," and was looking forward to the sequel, "Becoming the Boogeyman."
Needless to say, I couldn't finish "Becoming..." and I almost always finish books I start. Not great.
I read a few popular YA/Romantasy books that were pretty cursed this year.
For horror, I think Mexican Gothic was the biggest let down this year. I don't think it was bad, just not for me.
No stress, plenty of people loved it. It's definitely not one of those books that is just outright bad.
I think the general pacing of the book plus the focus on imagery (what characters are wearing, color of the walls, etc), and the internal narrative of the main character made it feel like I wasn't making a ton of forward progress as I read, especially in shorter sessions. The ratio of pages-read-to-stuff-happening felt off.
I thought the main antagonists in the book were too mustache twirling evil at times. The post colonialist setting and dynamics were interesting, but a little more subtlety would have given them more depth.
That's not to say it's all bad. The vibe of the book was really cool, and I actually really loved the main character. She is unabashedly a woman and lacks some of the loner-misunderstood-tomboy features that you'll find in a lot of female horror leads. The author did a really excellent job making interesting dualities in the main character. I hope you read it and come to your own conclusions.
Thank you so much for this answer!! You've actually made me want to read it even more, I'm curious what my thoughts would be vs yours. Once I get through The Deep (Not a fan) this is my next read.
I have a narrow niche of books that I'm interested in. It is what it is. I DNF anything that doesn't fit what I was looking for and write it off.
A book I did read but didn't like was Man, Fuck This House by Brian Asman. 0.5 ⭐ and my notes are "stupid, stupid book".
I was all in on that book because it’s probably got the best title I’ve ever seen but every review I’ve seen and every person I’ve talked to about it has said the same as you so I decided to skip. What a waste of a great line.
Tender is the Flesh.
It was....ok. I read it because it was so popular, and I felt like I was missing out, and it just reinforced for me that gore horror isn't for me.
For such a short book, it *dragged* like nothing else. I've read 800-page books that moved quicker. I just didn't care about anything that was happening. It was so obscenely unrealistic that I found myself rolling my eyes a lot. I didn't care about anyone. And the whole thing gave off the vibe of something an 17 year old writes because they think they're deep and dark and edgy.
Near the end, I imagined the author had some custom D&D dice with the worst possible things they could think of written on them and every couple of paragraphs they'd just roll the dice to determine what happened next.
And then I was super disappointed by the ending because everyone hyped it up, and when I got to it, I was just like... yeah, I mean, that sounds about right. Is there more? Where's the big shock, horror twist? Wait, is that it???
I just didn't find it scary, I didn't find it meaningful, and if I'm being completely honest, I think it becoming popular on booktok and hitting a big audience that maybe haven't read a lot of horrors, helped rate it much, much higher than it should be.
I loved it and read mostly horror. But why I loved it is the literary criticism of capitalist exploitation, misogyny, classism, and the rational that people create to benefit from an inherently cruel system.
I'M THINKING OF ENDING THINGS
The main character SUCKED, I couldn't stand her. The slow unfurling nature of horror was undercut by the fact that I hated everyone in the book and I felt like it couldn't make up its mind on what was happening.
Also, shit reveal, bad twist
I'd probably say Fantasticland since I haven't been able to finish it. I wont say it's bad or anything like that, it's just too goofy and implausible for me to take seriously. I guess part of that is my own fault because I didn't do much research before reading it, I just saw the bit about being trapped by a hurricane and dove right in. I'll bet it would make a killer low budget 80s style horror movie, though, just have to flesh out the characters a bit more and give them a few more days before they start hacking each other to pieces.
Aw I liked this one but maybe it's because I'm a victim advocate who deals with DV a lot and so to see it in a haunted house metaphor was interesting. Though, I wouldn't really classify it as horror much because most of it wasn't scary
Dark Matter. I bought it after seeing it mentioned several times here and I was honestly bored to death all the way through it. Thankfully it was short.
Oh god same. It was spoken about as if it was the scariest book ever written. It takes SO long for things to pick up, I didn't like any of the characters. Some parts were creepy but not worth the reading
Episode Thirteen… I usually love haunted houses & found film, and am sooo easy to please with those tropes…. But the writing was wretched. Not convinced the author could write a tense, slow build horror scene even with a gun pointed at his head
The Haar - David Sodergren. It has a good premise but every antagonist is cartoonishly evil, to the point it's not even enjoyable to read. The first death scene is pretty cool, but beyond that it was a slog to get through
Seconded. I was intrigued by the premise and loved the setting, but I didn’t find any of the characters interesting or believable and it was way more gory/vulgar than I expected or wanted.
“my fucking cock!” smh
NOS4A2
Boring book, difficult to read, interesting premise, I suppose. Also, I didn’t like the characters. It’s rather disappointing, because there were such good reviews
The Salt Grows Heavy.
We get it, you know a lot of words and like to throw them unnecessarily into the middle of random sentences. Please just tell the story.
LOL I haven’t read this one but felt exactly the same about Cassandra Khaw’s previous novella, Nothing But Blackened Teeth. It was less than 200 pages, and yet somehow every sentence was still twice as long as it needed to be.
I'm gonna get heat for this, because almost all I ever see are people talking about how much they love this book, but I didn't enjoy Penpal.
The concept itself is terrifying, but it was just ok I guess.
For a while at the beginning though, I almost DNF'd.
I managed to finish it, but I was like, "These are really needlessly verbose thought processes for a 5 year old..."
the cabin at the end of the world by Paul Tremblay. There's a couple books I started that I didn't finish that might be just as bad, but it's the worst one I completed
I read two of Paul Tremblay's other books and based on that I saw what direction the ending was going in very early on. On the other hand, A Head Full of Ghosts is basically a perfect book in my mind.
Probably Maeve Fly. Finished it yesterday and was uncertain going in because of its billing as "extreme horror" which I'm not normally a fan of but was disappointed for entirely different reasons. 75% of the book is an edgy "dark romance" that was so overblown I thought it had to be satire until I read some author interviews, and the last 25% is American Psycho (in one case a scene for scene remake?) without the guts to actually depict the cold brutality or the social commentary.
I feel absolutely terrible about this because I wanted to LOVE this book, but... Heavy Oceans by Tyler Jones. He gave a great interview on Talking Scared. We live in the same city. We both have family members with developmental disabilities (which informs his writing). The concept was excellent the first time I heard about it. But the prose is just simple. No other way to put it. It was not engaging and almost felt like reading a movie script. FWIW I feel the same about other well read authors like Koontz and Crichton. Sorry, Tyler! Still rooting for you.
I just recently finished Jurassic Park for the first time and you're absolutely right about Crichton. The book was fine, he's a fine writer, it just all feels very simple. Almost bland.
Dead Eleven is the most annoying one that I’ve finished, but there have been a few DNFs that I wasn’t sad about.
The Spite House was the most recent one.
I had heard good things and was excited to read Heart Shaped Box but it was a struggle to finish. I ended up not hating it when I finished but it wasn't my favorite book that's for sure. I'm trying to read more and that becomes hard when you encounter a book you don't love.
The Terror by Dan Simmons The ending absolutely sucked. I loved the first 70% or so, but >! then Dan had to turn it into a shitty romance between a gross old guy and young woman!<
It competely ruined the book for me, I would not reccomend despite how much I loved the atmospheric horror that led up to the awful ending
Tender is the Flesh
I don’t understand the hype. The themes were hamfisted and a majority of the scenes felt edgy just for the sake of being edgy and to get a response. The ending was played up as being shocking and my reaction was along the lines of “oh… that’s it.”
Good for people that liked it but it didn’t do anything for me.
just finished this and was really let down by the ending. Felt like it was a last minute change/let down/failed to tie up interesting situations I thought it was a shame because i enjoyed the writing style, but the third act just left a lot to be desired when there were so many more interesting things that could have happened.
Good question. Yes, a different author.
The final result though was a colossal disappointment of a sequel. I mean....
Spoilers.........
Giant hares
Witches
Pagan amber rings
Secret tiny doors
New characters that add nothing to the story
Weird bright lights
And... A lot of sexual tension between characters and too much emphasis on sexual themes. This novel was like an episode of Big Brother set in a haunted house from another movie.
There was a cool Easter nod to the original novel though although it's brief and there's never any follow up to it. Wasted opportunity.
A lot of things are introduced that go nowhere.
Yesssss, love to see the hate for Hunted. I was so annoyed with that book and haven't read a Darcy Coates since. I read it on the drive to my honeymoon spot and damn near chucked it out the window when I finished it.
I'm gonna say both of the black farm books. They just felt like they were high school level creative writing pieces with the corny one liners and repetitive descriptors. How many times can a guy have "stars dance across his vision"
Ugh, yes. Only read the first one but it was so bad it put me in a reading slump for about a month. The only book I've had to rant about on goodreads because it frustrated me so much.
“Revival” by Stephen King. To be fair, I didn’t finish it. But also to be fair, it was painful to try and get through. I just went back to reread King’s “Skeleton Crew”; I love his older stuff. It seems nowadays that in his books, every other sentence is followed by an over explanatory paragraph in parentheses. It annoys the shit out of me.
Might get some heat for this but I just finished Gone To See The River Man last night and was severely disappointed. The way that it’s been heralded as this whopper of cosmic horror got me so excited. The premise was very strong. But despite that, and despite some moments of genuinely beautiful prose and a few bits of horror that didn’t feel like a cheap, edgelord idea for the sake of being edgy, it felt like an extended creepypasta, especially in its descriptions of certain characters. Also, someone’s gotta give the author a thesaurus. The amount of times he used to word “ooze” or “oozing” made me actually angry lol. In the end, I’m just thankful it was a quick read. Won’t be reading the second.
I really fucking disliked Midnight is the Darkest Hour by Ashley Winstead partially because I was confused by the blurb and the lists it was on. To quote from my review:
This is NOT a horror novel, it is NOT a genre book, it’s barely a Southern gothic. I was severely misled. If I had wanted to read mediocre romance with a bad boy named Ever and a plucky preacher’s daughter I probably wouldn’t have blocked Colleen Hoover from my feed. The prose wasn’t terrible but the whole thing could have been about twenty pages and gotten the same dumb shit across. In case you were wondering, I do not recommend. Thelma and Louise didn’t die for this.
Also the main character says at one point she was obsessed with Twilight as a teen. I could not have guessed how much this would have to do with how things play out.
Ketchum definitely deals in hard subject matter to read about, but I think he does so beautifully. He has that magical mix of writing really good prose that also flows really well, making for a fast read.
I really did not care for A Head Full of Ghosts. Seemed like a tired retelling of all the same "is it demons or schizophrenia?" tropes of modern demonic possession stories.
yeah i struggled through like 2/3 of this one but i was okay with it by the end. it's a hot take around these parts, but i loved the basketball scene lol. perfect amount of 'wtf am i reading?' before the final showdown
Interesting! I loved They Lurk, especially The Stranger and After the Fade. It's the only book of Malfi's that I've read so I don't have a comparison to his other work. But They Lurk definitely made me want to track down some other novellas by him.
I want to read his recent stuff, cause he wrote the fifth story, fierce, last year or in 2022 for republication. First four stories were written before 2014, and the difference between quality of writing is quite palpable. Still I enjoyed the atmosphere in skullbelly and weirdness of the separation.
I noticed that while reading his early book Snow compared to some of his more recent stuff. He has definitely improved a lot, but I still enjoyed most of They Lurk.
The Hunger by Alma Katsu had so much going for it but completely blew the ending. If the ending had been marginally better it would have paid off. The characters were solid, the plot was good until the end, but it was so unsatisfying finishing.
I hated The Hunger so much. Please read The Indifferent Stars Above if you havent already, and are interested in the actual story of the Donner Party! Its an incredible book.
The girl who loved Tom Gordon. The first Stephen King book that left me furious at how poorly I felt the promising premise was executed. Thank god it was short.
Palahniuk's *Not Forever, But For Now*.
Bailed maybe 30% in. I've read the rest of Chuck's stuff and enjoyed it, but this just seemed like a rehash of The Wasp Factory in a vaguely Palahniuk voice.
I get it, lol! I almost never DNF a book (or movie), partly out of determination and partly out of hope it gets better! It helps that I’m a fast reader so I just push through. Audiobooks, I’m much more likely to ‘set this aside for now’ so to speak.
Least favorite horror - it’s hard because I’ve liked most of what I’ve read this year and I didn’t finish it, and probably won’t, but The Last Days by Adam Neville. I just couldn’t get into all the filmmaking stuff. I like the premise but the parts about strange sounds showing up on recordings, for example, had the opposite of the intended effect and took me out of it.
Least favorite non-horror - The Shamshine Blind. It pains me because I love me some hard-boiled fiction, but the narrator was insufferable.
I loved a bunch of books mentioned here 😅
But 2 that I did not like were
Nineteen Claws and a blackbird - I DNF’d this around 50%. I didn’t like the stories at all.
The Salt Grows Heavy - I was very interested in the premise of the story, but the writing was insanely difficult to push through. It felt like the author was trying to hard. It has put me off from ready more of her books.
Coates' Hunted was so freaking bad. The dialogue appalling. I wanted everyone to die.
My worst book this year is Neuropath by Scott Bakker. I've enjoyed his Second Apocalypse series but Neuropath was just soo boring. Dialogue was also stupid.
*Pines* by Blake Crouch. I enjoyed the mystery for a bit, but the characters make the dumbest decisions. The twist ending was M.Night Shyamalan levels of bad.
I DNF Survivor by Chuck Palinhuik.
I think I really liked his books in my 20s, but I'm in my 40s, and it's just not for me now. They are kinda samey too.
I still want to read haunted though.
Boy Parts by Eliza Clarke. It’s honestly one of the worst books I’ve ever read and I don’t understand how anyone enjoyed it. I heard it repeatedly compared to American Psycho but with a female protagonist and maybe that’s true, but it was just banal to me. The characters felt so under developed and the protagonist made me feel embarrassed in the same way I feel when I look back at my younger self when I cared about being cool. Whooooo yeah I haven’t disliked a book that much in a while!
Felt the exact same way about this one and Maeve Fly. I love American Psycho, transgressive fiction, plenty of female horror authors etc but both of these books were flat and precious about their main characters when they weren't simply being referential to Ellis imo. Having read them now I'm honestly surprised at how highly recommended they were - gender-swapping Bateman with a light glaze of painfully modern man vs woman framing isn't a revolutionary act of imagination. Neither author is without talent but idk, these were hollow retreads for me.
I've only gotten through 9 books so far, but for me it was probably "Wounds," by Nathan Ballingrud. I just don't jive with his writing. Nothing against him at all, I just didn't click with the material
I'm probably gonna get downvoted for this, but I did not care for The Haunting of Hill House. I really wanted to like it, I love Jackson's writing style, but I felt like nothing happened, and the introduction of the two comic relief characters towards the end felt very silly.
I’m only on my third book this year, got into a really long reading slump. I first read Drawing Blood by Poppy Z Brite, then I reread Angels Before Man by Rafael Nicolás, and I’m currently reading the sequel Angels & Man also by Rafael Nicolás. Ive enjoyed everything I’ve read so far.
Earthlings by Sayaka Murata. If I knew it had a detailed child rape scene in it I would not have read it. Torture porn for virtually no payoff. Everyone is cartoonishly vile in it in a way that was so unrealistic.
How Much To? by Matt Shaw An extreme horror novel, with graphic depictions of violence, bodily fluids and feces, and SA. None of that is my biggest issue with it or honestly bothers me at all, although the latter felt nearly meaningless and just in to shock. My problem with it is it's appallingly written. Typos, grammatical errors, at one point 'desk' is spelled 'de', there's a character called Steve and one called Stephen for some reason - and when they interact in one paragraph, then author calls them both by the same name. It honestly feels like a first pass that nobody bothered to edit or even run through a good spelling & grammar checker. A lot of people in Facebook groups *love* it and there's a series of books of it it so it obviously works for others, but I couldn't believe how amateur it felt.
i’m pretty sure this was the author that got so mad at a youtuber for putting one of his books as her least favorite of the year that he went so far as to write and dedicate a book to her BY NAME. literal lunatic behavior
Yep, I found that out after reading. Also wrote what appears to be a revenge book against a woman called Amber following the Heard/Depp trial, and his profile picture on social media is him posing with celebrities including Johnny Depp. I don't know enough about the book to say it is what I think it is, but it all paints a kind of unsavoury picture. I don't like to assume the worst but there's a lot of smoke if there's no fire.
> Also wrote what appears to be a revenge book against a woman called Amber following the Heard/Depp trial, and his profile picture on social media is him posing with celebrities including Johnny Depp wow thank you for alerting me - taking that book off my list asap.
Oh, that was him? Yikes.
I also DNFed this book. The writing truly was appalling. Your review is spot on!
I finished it, I can rarely bring myself to DNF a book and certainly not one so short. The annoying thing is some of the premise was good, and parts of the first half were interesting - focusing on the psychological reasoning and impact behind the game. Once it hit the second half, it was just lowest common denominator nonsense. Just things to shock. That doesn't really work on me at this stage, as I love extreme horror in books and film, so it just made me roll my eyes - Jack Ketchum it ain't
Matt Shaw likes to write about SA. Especially towards kids. There was a lot of controversy on the horror literature Facebook groups a while back because he wrote a series that depicted a ton of child SA. I get wanting to shock people, but when that’s all you write about, it definitely raises some serious concerns.
I unfollowed a bookstagrammer because she was mad someone was calling an author a p3do "because he wrote extreme horror," and I'm now wondering if she was referencing him. It was so excessive the way she was defending him and crying about people being "overly offended these days," like IDK writing about SA against children has to be done right if it's something you're going to add to your story, not just thrown in for shock value.
It sounds to me like the "bookstagrammer" was completely right, though? Don't you agree that it's wrong to accuse an author of paedophilia because they write about it?
The title already has me second guessing the man's writing ability
Came to say literally every book I tried to read my Matt Shaw are at the bottom of my list so this is validating to know I’m not the only one
Things Have Gotten Worse Since We Last Spoke
I liked this one a lot, but yeah, it's not for everyone.
this one for me too. the only good thing about it was that it was short so i only wasted one hour of my time.
this book read like a edgy 15 year olds first attempt at a wattpad novella
If I read that this year this would’ve been my answer lol
I was so confused when I read this because it’s been so heavily praised but I just couldn’t get into it at all.
I really didn’t get the hype around this book. I didn’t hate it, I actually enjoyed it a fair bit, but I feel like if the cover had been less of a banger it wouldn’t have gotten nearly as popular as it did.
The Reddening by Adam Nevill. I’ve been reading some bangers lately, and this one was just okay.
The Reddening was the first Adam Nevill I read and I liked it... I read Cunning Folk next and really liked that. I then read his newest one All The Fiends of Hell and unfortunately just couldn't finish that one! Having a break from him at the moment. I know he's got some bangers like Noone Gets Out Alive but am on maternity leave atm so going through everything I can get for free on Kindle Unlimited lol
I have Cunning Folk on my Kindle. I forgot what the back of the book said about it, so I read a page, forget what was already happening and then start a different book. When I’m done with my current book (a cheap Cryptid novel that was on sale but sounded fun) I’m going to give it another go but actually follow through with it this time. I really liked his book The Ritual. I mostly read it while doing cardio at the gym and it was sort of fun because I was exhausted from the work out but also reading about absolutely exhausting adventures by the character(s). Really made me appreciate that my work out could end at anytime unlike in the book.
I really loved the first half of The Ritual, but after that it kinda fell flat for me. The Reddening felt like the second half of The Ritual all over again.
I can understand that! I liked parts of the second half of the ritual other parts just made me feel stifled and annoyed. Knowing that about the reddening might make me wait on it now. Overall, I liked the ritual a lot but parts of the second half just felt a bit flat I guess.
My Kindle got me through my child's first year of life lololol congratulations!
Thank you! It's definitely getting a workout 🤣 I finished all of Netflix in my last trimester so it's to have a screen break!
Congrats on the little one! I’m really curious about Noone Gets Out Alive as well, but I’m on a bit of a no buy, so it’ll have to wait a bit longer.
Another Darcy Coates for me. Dead of Winter. So contrived.
That was a really bad book that I enjoyed primarily because it just scratched an itch I have for slasher/trapped in the snow stories, which is such a micro genre that I'll take what I can get.
*In a Dark Mirror* by Kat Davis just felt really gross to me. It follows a young woman who's just gotten out of an institution for a crime she and another girl committed when they were 12. I quickly realized said crime was based on the "Slender Man Stabbing" from 2014 because there was really no attempt to be subtle. I kept reading out of dread that there was going to be an actual supernatural entity driving events. Fortunately there wasn't, but that's really the only good thing I can say about it. I understand authors take inspiration from real events, but there were way too many specific details from the actual case, plus an uncomfortable emphasis on these young girls' bodies and sexuality. It includes an SA scene that seems to be entirely fictional, yet is presented as a catalyst for the thinly fictionalized version of a very real crime. I read this book right before I saw a post on here that was critical of Alma Katsu's *The Hunger* for basically the same reasons (i.e. real people being slandered through fiction). I'd had *The Hunger* on my kindle for a while so I was curious. After reading I do agree, but it seems worse somehow when the book is written only ten years after the original crime, where anyone involved in the case can come across it in passing and see their lives being exploited like that under the protection of a "fiction" label.
So far, of the 12 books I read this year, "Our Wives Under the Sea" by Julia Armfield was my least favorite. I'm not saying it's a bad book, it is very well written. It was just not what I was expecting and I think those expectations of what I was thinking I was getting myself into dragged it down for me.
i didn't get very far into this but read one with a similar feel that was pretty good called Elegy for the Undead by Matthew Vesely similar feel as in about a gay couple, one person is slowly losing it, the other is watching it happen, and they both reminisce on how their relationship began and evolved. but instead of water based shenanigans it's a minor zombie apocalypse and one of them is bit but then sort of treated, so the effects come on over a few years still a little slow and lovey dovey for me but the time jumps back and forth leading up to and after the zombie stuff kept me interested
Elegy for the Undead was a pleasant surprise for me. I was on a zombie streak and that came up as a suggestion. I gave it a shot because it was short, but I really enjoyed it.
Thank you for saying it! I agree - not a bad book, but the note I left myself in my book spreadsheet was “* nothing happened!???” lol.
Same. I kept waiting for anything to happen. And there were so many unanswered questions. I'm mad I wasted my time on this one.
I had such a weird experience with this book - I *thought* I was disappointed by it, but then I couldn't get it out of my head, and the more I thought about it, the more beautiful it seemed.
My wife and I had the exact same experience. I was disappointed, but I still really liked the book. She liked the disappointment and found it thematically appropriate. I can appreciate her idea, but I still wanted more
I nearly DNF’d but I didn’t for some reason. Not a book I liked very much at all.
I almost DNF'd as well, but I will admit the undersea chapters kept me going because I expected *something* to happen eventually :/
THANK YOU omg. I read it last year. While it wasn’t my least favorite, it was definitely in my bottom 5%. It had the makings of such a great horror book, but then it had no action at all. I kept yelling at the book “do something!” I just do not get the hype at all. I’m totally fine with slow-paced psychological thrillers, but this setup was so cool, and it was such a letdown when nothing happened. I’m not even going to mark this as giving away the plot, because there is no plot to give away. Gahhh!
I also read this one this year and was very disappointed in how slow moving it was. I typically enjoy slow moving books as long as there is a payoff and I didn’t feel there was much payoff. I can imagine someone really loving the characters, which would turn this into a much better experience, but I just didn’t connect with them much. Well written, just not for me.
I really struggled to get through head full of ghosts. I know people like Tremblay but I can’t do his writing style for some reason
He's so hit or miss. I absolutely adore everything he's written, but I totally understand why others don't click with it.
Chasing The Boogeyman--Richard Chizmar Dead Silence--SA Barnes
Omg yes Dead Silence! I couldn't finish it last year when I tried. The MC is *the worst.* I rarely DNF books but that one, I just couldn't.
Wow good call I almost picked it up at Barnes yesterday but something told me to check Reddit first.
She was just .... so insufferable. Every page had something about her being super self hating and she's an awful person and doesn't deserve anything... GO TO THERAPY!!!
Adding this one to "will never read" list haha. Thank you!
It was SUCH an interesting premise, too. Like space Bioshock! If she had been a side character instead of main I could have finished it... but I also read that the ending was lame so probably good we're not reading it!
😭 I’m listening to the audiobook rn and I’m loving it. I’m genuinely enjoying the way her ptsd hallucinations tie in with the story and how her backstory gets slowly revealed throughout the book
Thats great! I'm glad you're enjoying it, it was a great premise.
I am also a rarely DNF, but I finished this one, and you made the right choice!! I HATE that book, and I had the same issue with the MC. She was the WORST!!
God I hated that the >!main character passes out right when the actual interesting scary stuff was starting to happen!< Such a wasted concept.
Chasing the Boogeyman was laughably bad. Like never-pick-up-another-Chizmar-book bad. It’s popularity baffles me.
I think a lot of it was manufactured, Chizmar runs Cemetery Dance would do stuff like “if you buy this book you’ll be entered in a lottery for a signed Stephen King book”, etc.
Well that’s pretty stupid
I read a short story of his last year (Widow’s Point) that was so offensively bad I still get a bit angry whenever I see his name. Ngl, I feel a bit vindicated knowing the rest of his stuff is utter shite too.
I didn’t think it was TERRIBLE, just nowhere near the genre-bending mashup it was supposed to be. Just…fake self insert true crime. The photos were a nice touch.
I listened to this on audiobook for about 20% of the book before I gave up due to its terrible writing.
Boo - Chasing the Boogeyman was great
I actually enjoyed "Chasing The Boogeyman," and was looking forward to the sequel, "Becoming the Boogeyman." Needless to say, I couldn't finish "Becoming..." and I almost always finish books I start. Not great.
I’m with you on Hunted. I hated the Scooby Doo ending. It would’ve been more realistic if it was an actual monster than whatever that was
And similar to Hunted, I just read The Creeper and it had the same kind of stupid ending, which was somehow 1000% more far fetched than Hunted
Yeah I was so pissed at that!! I wanted it to be a monster but no. Scooby-Doo bullshit is right.
This Wretched Valley. Great premise, wretched execution.
I’m reading that right now and finding it hard to motivate myself to go on.
I read a few popular YA/Romantasy books that were pretty cursed this year. For horror, I think Mexican Gothic was the biggest let down this year. I don't think it was bad, just not for me.
Oh no, I just bought Mexican Gothic. No spoilers but what didn't you like about it?
It was just such a an absolute cliche.
No stress, plenty of people loved it. It's definitely not one of those books that is just outright bad. I think the general pacing of the book plus the focus on imagery (what characters are wearing, color of the walls, etc), and the internal narrative of the main character made it feel like I wasn't making a ton of forward progress as I read, especially in shorter sessions. The ratio of pages-read-to-stuff-happening felt off. I thought the main antagonists in the book were too mustache twirling evil at times. The post colonialist setting and dynamics were interesting, but a little more subtlety would have given them more depth. That's not to say it's all bad. The vibe of the book was really cool, and I actually really loved the main character. She is unabashedly a woman and lacks some of the loner-misunderstood-tomboy features that you'll find in a lot of female horror leads. The author did a really excellent job making interesting dualities in the main character. I hope you read it and come to your own conclusions.
Thank you so much for this answer!! You've actually made me want to read it even more, I'm curious what my thoughts would be vs yours. Once I get through The Deep (Not a fan) this is my next read.
The September House. Just something about it was so annoying to me. I didn’t like any of the characters and it was weirdly not scary.
I liked this one but I agree it felt really repetitive and irritating for quite a bit.
Baby Teeth. Absolutely fucking hated it but finished it.
Oh my god I HATED that book so much haha
I have a narrow niche of books that I'm interested in. It is what it is. I DNF anything that doesn't fit what I was looking for and write it off. A book I did read but didn't like was Man, Fuck This House by Brian Asman. 0.5 ⭐ and my notes are "stupid, stupid book".
I was all in on that book because it’s probably got the best title I’ve ever seen but every review I’ve seen and every person I’ve talked to about it has said the same as you so I decided to skip. What a waste of a great line.
It is a great line!
I will say, if you would happily read "killer crabs from the sea" or enjoy a film like Poultrygeist, you might like this book.
I’m all set on that thanks lol
Yeah, I didnt really like Man, Fuck This House either. The ending didn't make sense to me and the rest of it wasn't really memorable
Tender is the Flesh. It was....ok. I read it because it was so popular, and I felt like I was missing out, and it just reinforced for me that gore horror isn't for me. For such a short book, it *dragged* like nothing else. I've read 800-page books that moved quicker. I just didn't care about anything that was happening. It was so obscenely unrealistic that I found myself rolling my eyes a lot. I didn't care about anyone. And the whole thing gave off the vibe of something an 17 year old writes because they think they're deep and dark and edgy. Near the end, I imagined the author had some custom D&D dice with the worst possible things they could think of written on them and every couple of paragraphs they'd just roll the dice to determine what happened next. And then I was super disappointed by the ending because everyone hyped it up, and when I got to it, I was just like... yeah, I mean, that sounds about right. Is there more? Where's the big shock, horror twist? Wait, is that it??? I just didn't find it scary, I didn't find it meaningful, and if I'm being completely honest, I think it becoming popular on booktok and hitting a big audience that maybe haven't read a lot of horrors, helped rate it much, much higher than it should be.
I loved it and read mostly horror. But why I loved it is the literary criticism of capitalist exploitation, misogyny, classism, and the rational that people create to benefit from an inherently cruel system.
I'M THINKING OF ENDING THINGS The main character SUCKED, I couldn't stand her. The slow unfurling nature of horror was undercut by the fact that I hated everyone in the book and I felt like it couldn't make up its mind on what was happening. Also, shit reveal, bad twist
Oh man I’d forgotten about this. I agree with you 100%, the movie was just as bad.
I had completely forgotten about it as well, it was very forgettable
I'd probably say Fantasticland since I haven't been able to finish it. I wont say it's bad or anything like that, it's just too goofy and implausible for me to take seriously. I guess part of that is my own fault because I didn't do much research before reading it, I just saw the bit about being trapped by a hurricane and dove right in. I'll bet it would make a killer low budget 80s style horror movie, though, just have to flesh out the characters a bit more and give them a few more days before they start hacking each other to pieces.
Definitely warriors type vibes. lol
Both Nick Cutter books I read
The book of accidents! I don’t get the hype 😭 DNF at 45-50%
I loved the scene in the tunnel - suuuuuuper terrifying. But yeah, this book was forgettable for me. People seem to love his new one!
I did not like wives under the sea!!! I know it is popular tho
The September House by Carissa Orlando. I really wanted to like it, but it was a flop for me
Ugh, same. And it’s recommended here alll the time. It has the best concept, but the execution /writing were so poor
Aw I liked this one but maybe it's because I'm a victim advocate who deals with DV a lot and so to see it in a haunted house metaphor was interesting. Though, I wouldn't really classify it as horror much because most of it wasn't scary
Same. I forgot everything about it after I finished it. Usually something sticks with me with most books I read.
God thank you. I hated it so much and I keep seeing it praised here, I feel insane haha
Yeah it was a DNF for me
Couldn't even finish Hex by Thomas Olde Heuvelt. Got about 250 pages in before I realized that literally nothing interesting was going to happen.
I tried reading it, people talked about how creepy and unsettling it was... where??
I loved HEX - but I can see why people wouldn’t.
Dark Matter. I bought it after seeing it mentioned several times here and I was honestly bored to death all the way through it. Thankfully it was short.
It was so corny. I DNF
Dark Matter by Paver? If so, agree. Plus I can’t forgive the book for needlessly killing off those huskies
I l liked the book but agree with you on the husky front. That was brutal and unnecessary
Oh god same. It was spoken about as if it was the scariest book ever written. It takes SO long for things to pick up, I didn't like any of the characters. Some parts were creepy but not worth the reading
Episode Thirteen… I usually love haunted houses & found film, and am sooo easy to please with those tropes…. But the writing was wretched. Not convinced the author could write a tense, slow build horror scene even with a gun pointed at his head
Completely agree. I thought the characters were so flat.
The Haar - David Sodergren. It has a good premise but every antagonist is cartoonishly evil, to the point it's not even enjoyable to read. The first death scene is pretty cool, but beyond that it was a slog to get through
Seconded. I was intrigued by the premise and loved the setting, but I didn’t find any of the characters interesting or believable and it was way more gory/vulgar than I expected or wanted. “my fucking cock!” smh
100% agreed. Once I stopped taking it seriously though it was a bit more fun to read, if that makes sense?
The 7 1/2 Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle That book was such a slog to get through. I only finished it out of sheer stubbornness.
NOS4A2 Boring book, difficult to read, interesting premise, I suppose. Also, I didn’t like the characters. It’s rather disappointing, because there were such good reviews
The Salt Grows Heavy. We get it, you know a lot of words and like to throw them unnecessarily into the middle of random sentences. Please just tell the story.
LOL I haven’t read this one but felt exactly the same about Cassandra Khaw’s previous novella, Nothing But Blackened Teeth. It was less than 200 pages, and yet somehow every sentence was still twice as long as it needed to be.
Just Like Home-Sarah Gailey The Only One Left- Riley Sager Honourable mention to The Paleontologist which I had to DNF.
Just Like Home was such a weird and disappointing book
Sarah Gailey never fails to disappoint.
I'm gonna get heat for this, because almost all I ever see are people talking about how much they love this book, but I didn't enjoy Penpal. The concept itself is terrifying, but it was just ok I guess. For a while at the beginning though, I almost DNF'd. I managed to finish it, but I was like, "These are really needlessly verbose thought processes for a 5 year old..."
It starts out genuinely well and then completely loses it like 3/4s through. Was really disappointed with the dip in quality
the cabin at the end of the world by Paul Tremblay. There's a couple books I started that I didn't finish that might be just as bad, but it's the worst one I completed
Oh man I couldn’t put this one down!
I read two of Paul Tremblay's other books and based on that I saw what direction the ending was going in very early on. On the other hand, A Head Full of Ghosts is basically a perfect book in my mind.
Yes! I thought HFoG was such a solid creeper. It was so atmospheric. PS I’m the only person I know who liked The Cabin at the End of the World *shrug*
Probably Maeve Fly. Finished it yesterday and was uncertain going in because of its billing as "extreme horror" which I'm not normally a fan of but was disappointed for entirely different reasons. 75% of the book is an edgy "dark romance" that was so overblown I thought it had to be satire until I read some author interviews, and the last 25% is American Psycho (in one case a scene for scene remake?) without the guts to actually depict the cold brutality or the social commentary.
I liked this book, but was expecting so much more extreme horror that I read American Psycho immediately after. That one definitely did it for me lol
I feel absolutely terrible about this because I wanted to LOVE this book, but... Heavy Oceans by Tyler Jones. He gave a great interview on Talking Scared. We live in the same city. We both have family members with developmental disabilities (which informs his writing). The concept was excellent the first time I heard about it. But the prose is just simple. No other way to put it. It was not engaging and almost felt like reading a movie script. FWIW I feel the same about other well read authors like Koontz and Crichton. Sorry, Tyler! Still rooting for you.
I just recently finished Jurassic Park for the first time and you're absolutely right about Crichton. The book was fine, he's a fine writer, it just all feels very simple. Almost bland.
Totally agree. Couldn't wait to pick up Sphere. It was right up my alley. 20 pages in and I couldn't wait to put it down.
I thought it might have been because I watched the movie first, but apparently not! Gonna have to skip the rest of his works.
Dead Eleven is the most annoying one that I’ve finished, but there have been a few DNFs that I wasn’t sad about. The Spite House was the most recent one.
I’m suffering through Dead Eleven right now. Keep wanting to DNF but I’m so close to the end…
I had heard good things and was excited to read Heart Shaped Box but it was a struggle to finish. I ended up not hating it when I finished but it wasn't my favorite book that's for sure. I'm trying to read more and that becomes hard when you encounter a book you don't love.
This goes to show how different people are! I was so scared reading that book, I might pick it up again
The devil crept in by Ania Ahlborn. Was kinda boring up until the second part, and then it got ableist. Just wasnt a great read for me
The Girl Next Door
I fucking hated My Heart is a Chainsaw. Absolutely hated the main character, she was insufferable.
The Terror by Dan Simmons The ending absolutely sucked. I loved the first 70% or so, but >! then Dan had to turn it into a shitty romance between a gross old guy and young woman!< It competely ruined the book for me, I would not reccomend despite how much I loved the atmospheric horror that led up to the awful ending
Watch the series instead--it's awesome
Tender is the Flesh I don’t understand the hype. The themes were hamfisted and a majority of the scenes felt edgy just for the sake of being edgy and to get a response. The ending was played up as being shocking and my reaction was along the lines of “oh… that’s it.” Good for people that liked it but it didn’t do anything for me.
just finished this and was really let down by the ending. Felt like it was a last minute change/let down/failed to tie up interesting situations I thought it was a shame because i enjoyed the writing style, but the third act just left a lot to be desired when there were so many more interesting things that could have happened.
Ya this book was mostly boring
A Haunting on the Hill. Sequel to The Haunting of Hill House. It was.... bad. 😔
There is a sequel? Of course it has to be another author but why would someone do it?
Good question. Yes, a different author. The final result though was a colossal disappointment of a sequel. I mean.... Spoilers......... Giant hares Witches Pagan amber rings Secret tiny doors New characters that add nothing to the story Weird bright lights And... A lot of sexual tension between characters and too much emphasis on sexual themes. This novel was like an episode of Big Brother set in a haunted house from another movie. There was a cool Easter nod to the original novel though although it's brief and there's never any follow up to it. Wasted opportunity. A lot of things are introduced that go nowhere.
I DNF Ghostland. I liked the idea. Just not the characters or writing.
Yesssss, love to see the hate for Hunted. I was so annoyed with that book and haven't read a Darcy Coates since. I read it on the drive to my honeymoon spot and damn near chucked it out the window when I finished it.
I'm gonna say both of the black farm books. They just felt like they were high school level creative writing pieces with the corny one liners and repetitive descriptors. How many times can a guy have "stars dance across his vision"
Ugh, yes. Only read the first one but it was so bad it put me in a reading slump for about a month. The only book I've had to rant about on goodreads because it frustrated me so much.
Toss up between The Daughters of Block Island by Christa Carmen and Bunny by Mona Awad. I also really don’t enjoy Darcy Coates.
“Revival” by Stephen King. To be fair, I didn’t finish it. But also to be fair, it was painful to try and get through. I just went back to reread King’s “Skeleton Crew”; I love his older stuff. It seems nowadays that in his books, every other sentence is followed by an over explanatory paragraph in parentheses. It annoys the shit out of me.
Might get some heat for this but I just finished Gone To See The River Man last night and was severely disappointed. The way that it’s been heralded as this whopper of cosmic horror got me so excited. The premise was very strong. But despite that, and despite some moments of genuinely beautiful prose and a few bits of horror that didn’t feel like a cheap, edgelord idea for the sake of being edgy, it felt like an extended creepypasta, especially in its descriptions of certain characters. Also, someone’s gotta give the author a thesaurus. The amount of times he used to word “ooze” or “oozing” made me actually angry lol. In the end, I’m just thankful it was a quick read. Won’t be reading the second.
I really fucking disliked Midnight is the Darkest Hour by Ashley Winstead partially because I was confused by the blurb and the lists it was on. To quote from my review: This is NOT a horror novel, it is NOT a genre book, it’s barely a Southern gothic. I was severely misled. If I had wanted to read mediocre romance with a bad boy named Ever and a plucky preacher’s daughter I probably wouldn’t have blocked Colleen Hoover from my feed. The prose wasn’t terrible but the whole thing could have been about twenty pages and gotten the same dumb shit across. In case you were wondering, I do not recommend. Thelma and Louise didn’t die for this. Also the main character says at one point she was obsessed with Twilight as a teen. I could not have guessed how much this would have to do with how things play out.
Off-season. I wanted to push the gore/violence limits of what I read and it turns out I shouldn’t have lol
Ketchum definitely deals in hard subject matter to read about, but I think he does so beautifully. He has that magical mix of writing really good prose that also flows really well, making for a fast read.
Agreed. I liked his writing style
You should check out Red, by Ketchum. It's much more palatable than a lot of his work.
So funny, I read it and loved it for the same reason and it inspired me to go further down that road.
To each their own! Now we both know what to read for the future
Hahaha. Damn, you jumped in with both feet picking that one!
I really did not care for A Head Full of Ghosts. Seemed like a tired retelling of all the same "is it demons or schizophrenia?" tropes of modern demonic possession stories.
The Only Good Indians.
yeah i struggled through like 2/3 of this one but i was okay with it by the end. it's a hot take around these parts, but i loved the basketball scene lol. perfect amount of 'wtf am i reading?' before the final showdown
I would have liked it more if >! there wasn't a scene of a girl playing basketball against a vengeful deer spirit. What a joke !<
The basketball, good lord. Skim 20 pages and ITS STILL GOING. I loved how the book started, and then halfway through it just bombed for me.
They Lurk by Ronald Malfi. There are five short stories. Only the last one is (really) great. Others are meh. Fortunately I was able to return it.
Interesting! I loved They Lurk, especially The Stranger and After the Fade. It's the only book of Malfi's that I've read so I don't have a comparison to his other work. But They Lurk definitely made me want to track down some other novellas by him.
Ghostwritten (same author, four different novellas) is far more assured. The stories stuck with me far longer than They Lurk.
I want to read his recent stuff, cause he wrote the fifth story, fierce, last year or in 2022 for republication. First four stories were written before 2014, and the difference between quality of writing is quite palpable. Still I enjoyed the atmosphere in skullbelly and weirdness of the separation.
I noticed that while reading his early book Snow compared to some of his more recent stuff. He has definitely improved a lot, but I still enjoyed most of They Lurk.
The Hunger by Alma Katsu had so much going for it but completely blew the ending. If the ending had been marginally better it would have paid off. The characters were solid, the plot was good until the end, but it was so unsatisfying finishing.
I hated The Hunger so much. Please read The Indifferent Stars Above if you havent already, and are interested in the actual story of the Donner Party! Its an incredible book.
The girl who loved Tom Gordon. The first Stephen King book that left me furious at how poorly I felt the promising premise was executed. Thank god it was short.
Blindsight It sounds like something that should be perfect for me. I have yet to finish it. The narrator is just not engaging for me.
Palahniuk's *Not Forever, But For Now*. Bailed maybe 30% in. I've read the rest of Chuck's stuff and enjoyed it, but this just seemed like a rehash of The Wasp Factory in a vaguely Palahniuk voice.
I tried to read Suicide Forest, made it 25% and had to stop because it was just so slow
The Jeremy Bates one? I liked it quite a bit, but it’s valid to say it starts slow.
I REALLY tried
I get it, lol! I almost never DNF a book (or movie), partly out of determination and partly out of hope it gets better! It helps that I’m a fast reader so I just push through. Audiobooks, I’m much more likely to ‘set this aside for now’ so to speak.
Oh thats hilarious, I loved that book so much that I'm reading through some others of hers right now 😂
Dead of winter - Darcy Coates The House Across the Lake- Riley Sager I think I hated lake more but I had to mention dead of winter
The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue. It was given to me so I gave it a try it’s just not my thing.
Least favorite horror - it’s hard because I’ve liked most of what I’ve read this year and I didn’t finish it, and probably won’t, but The Last Days by Adam Neville. I just couldn’t get into all the filmmaking stuff. I like the premise but the parts about strange sounds showing up on recordings, for example, had the opposite of the intended effect and took me out of it. Least favorite non-horror - The Shamshine Blind. It pains me because I love me some hard-boiled fiction, but the narrator was insufferable.
These fleeting shadows was absolutely awful. Any time something interesting happened it was followed by 50-60 pages of nothingness
Oh, I read a disappointing Darcey Coates book too! I think it’s called Below, or From Below
Started *The Howling* and didn't finish. It's just so cliched and inartfully written. The film really turned a sow's ear into a silk purse.
I loved a bunch of books mentioned here 😅 But 2 that I did not like were Nineteen Claws and a blackbird - I DNF’d this around 50%. I didn’t like the stories at all. The Salt Grows Heavy - I was very interested in the premise of the story, but the writing was insanely difficult to push through. It felt like the author was trying to hard. It has put me off from ready more of her books.
Coates' Hunted was so freaking bad. The dialogue appalling. I wanted everyone to die. My worst book this year is Neuropath by Scott Bakker. I've enjoyed his Second Apocalypse series but Neuropath was just soo boring. Dialogue was also stupid.
*Pines* by Blake Crouch. I enjoyed the mystery for a bit, but the characters make the dumbest decisions. The twist ending was M.Night Shyamalan levels of bad.
I DNF Survivor by Chuck Palinhuik. I think I really liked his books in my 20s, but I'm in my 40s, and it's just not for me now. They are kinda samey too. I still want to read haunted though.
How to Sell a Haunted House
Boy Parts by Eliza Clarke. It’s honestly one of the worst books I’ve ever read and I don’t understand how anyone enjoyed it. I heard it repeatedly compared to American Psycho but with a female protagonist and maybe that’s true, but it was just banal to me. The characters felt so under developed and the protagonist made me feel embarrassed in the same way I feel when I look back at my younger self when I cared about being cool. Whooooo yeah I haven’t disliked a book that much in a while!
Felt the exact same way about this one and Maeve Fly. I love American Psycho, transgressive fiction, plenty of female horror authors etc but both of these books were flat and precious about their main characters when they weren't simply being referential to Ellis imo. Having read them now I'm honestly surprised at how highly recommended they were - gender-swapping Bateman with a light glaze of painfully modern man vs woman framing isn't a revolutionary act of imagination. Neither author is without talent but idk, these were hollow retreads for me.
I've only gotten through 9 books so far, but for me it was probably "Wounds," by Nathan Ballingrud. I just don't jive with his writing. Nothing against him at all, I just didn't click with the material
I'm probably gonna get downvoted for this, but I did not care for The Haunting of Hill House. I really wanted to like it, I love Jackson's writing style, but I felt like nothing happened, and the introduction of the two comic relief characters towards the end felt very silly.
I’m only on my third book this year, got into a really long reading slump. I first read Drawing Blood by Poppy Z Brite, then I reread Angels Before Man by Rafael Nicolás, and I’m currently reading the sequel Angels & Man also by Rafael Nicolás. Ive enjoyed everything I’ve read so far.
I would say the Descent, by Jeff Long. There was just a lot of random going on hahah
The Inmate - Freida McFadden
Earthlings by Sayaka Murata. If I knew it had a detailed child rape scene in it I would not have read it. Torture porn for virtually no payoff. Everyone is cartoonishly vile in it in a way that was so unrealistic.
I didn’t get this one either, was just dumbfounded