#horror reading

[morvantmortuary]

heyy, i really wanted to read more horror/fucked up books this year and so i thought of you 🥺

is it too much to ask what are your favorite books with this genre (if you even can call that description a genre)? or even just books you really like...

anyway i love ya, hope you're well

babydoll, you sent this to me in January, and I am so, so sorry it has taken me this long OTL between my brain being swiss cheese and my dissertation, it's been A Time

I hope your desire to read more horror/fucked up books has not yet waned, because (after a stupidly long time, mea maxima culpa), I come to you with a list you might find interesting here at the beginning of this Spookiest of Seasons ✨

fiction (in descending order of disturbing, to me):

(*= Older lit where themes such as racism, classism, homophobia, and other issues of the era the book was written are given prominent focus and discussed in ways common to that time period. Be advised.)

The Turn of the Screw — Henry James* (An English governness frequently left alone with her two young charges suspects them of being possessed by her dead predecessor and her late lover, who are trying to resume their affair in new bodies. But is she just obsessed?)

Wuthering Heights — Emily Brontë* (Hurt people hurt generations of people. Not a love story unless you're like me and kind of fucked up about Themes. read it before that ridiculous fucking movie comes out.)

The Road Through the Wall - Shirley Jackson* (A nice quiet suburb full of nice quiet people experiences some Violence. Read it for my general exams for my doctorate. I love anything by my lady Shirley; check out The Haunting of Hill House and We Have Always Lived in the Castle too if you haven't yet.)

The Bayou — Arden Powell (Louisiana, 1935. A shy, closeted man deals with memories of the disappearance of his childhood best friend twelve years ago. As an ominous presence gathers in the bayou near his hometown, he meets Johnny Walker, a charismatic bank robber hiding out in town who might have something strange going on of his own. Psst. Church sex. Just trust me.)

Other Voices, Other Rooms - Truman Capote* (Read this for my grad seminar on Southern Childhoods in literature. Also, Maxi's favorite old novel! ∠( ᐛ 」∠)_ Joel is a twelve year old boy summoned from his lifelong home in New Orleans to a small town in Mississippi, in order to meet the father he's never known. But when he gets there, his father is somewhere out of sight. Instead he meets his off-putting stepmother, his very peculiar read: queer uncle, a young Black woman who cares for her ailing hundred year old father, and a tomboyish young girl who puzzles him endlessly. Skully's Landing is filled with ghosts, but not all of them are of the dead.)

The Ballad of the Sad Cafe — Carson McCullers* (Same seminar. McCullers was a friend of Capote's, and her relationship with gender has always fascinated me, especially with the protagonist in this novel.)

Suddenly Last Summer — Tennessee Williams* (Stage play. A psychiatrist is hired by a rich wealthy family to evaluate and potentially lobotomize a young woman who recently returned from Greece, having been on a trip with the late scion of said wealthy family who died… well, check the title.)

Abandoned by Disney — Slimebeast (creepypasta series. I know, mood whiplash, but! This is a fun, kind of grody creepypasta trilogy that imagines a lot about the nastier side of the sunny, happy Disney parks we all know and have complicated relationships with. Weird shit happens, frequently without logical explanation, and the writing style makes you feel deeply paranoid as a reader. If you want this without the supernatural elements, try the novel Fantasticland by Mike Bockoven.)

Scanlines — Todd Keisling (A group of friends find a VHS tape of a live suicide and become supernaturally obsessed with it, until some compulsive force threatens to pick them all off one by one. If you love cursed video tape-type stories, this one is a deeply bleak dip into the subgenre.)

Flowers in the Attic/My Sweet Audrina — V.C. Andrews* (The godmother of novels that people shouldn't have read when they were younger. Either one is a messy, Gothic romp with plenty of fucked up family relationships, prose in varying shades of purple, and deeply troubling feelings. Flowers centers on four children stuck living in their grandmother's attic for three years (it makes sense in context); Audrina centers on a young girl obsessed with living up to the image of her dead sister. Pick what sounds more like your flavor, and go with god.)

Beloved — Toni Morrison* (I'm including this book because the prose is gorgeous, it's one of my favorite haunted house stories, and I think everyone should read Toni Morrison in general but especially this book. A Black woman that fled slavery with her family to the relative safety of Ohio is haunted by the ghost of her dead infant, in the house that should be their sanctuary. Gorgeous, heartbreaking, terrifying.)

Wake Up and Open Your Eyes — Clay McLeod Chapman (You know the brainworms conservative people get when they watch Fox News and its affiliates for too long? The kind that make them overly aggressive and spoiling for a fight? Yeah. Those actually possess people in this novel, through a myriad of shitty platforms. Gross and violate-y for a number of reasons. Maybe a little too on the nose right now, but maybe also all the more compelling.)

The Road — Cormac McCarthy* (A man and his son travel on foot across an America ruined by some sort of apocalypse to reach the relative safety of the coast. Other people are terrifying. I was listening to parts of this on audio for my general exams while painting my nails and literally almost fell off my bed at the description of one scene.)

The Devil Takes You Home — Gabino Iglesias (This is the dude who's teaching the novel in a year program I'm in right now, working on the manuscript version of the Mortuary. This was the first book of his I ever read, and parts of it still haunt me. A man pushed to the edge of reason by his young daughter's lukemia treatments - and the resulting hospital bills - takes on a grim series of jobs that pay well in exchange for spilling blood. The one that takes him on a roadtrip across Texas blurs the lines between the world we understand and the world we don't. Beautiful, crushing, nauseating in parts. Just give it a go. Trust me.)

Basically anything by Eric LaRocca. Two things that are constant in his books: they're going to be queer, and they're going to be gross. (He's a super nice guy IRL, he gave a talk in the class I took with Cynthia Pelayo and was really encouraging!)

Woom - Duncan Ralston (A man seeking a very specific experience from a sex worker tells her a series of stories as they prepare for their night together. The stories turn out to be interconnected. It's… gnarly. Lot of detail.)

Motel Styx — Michelle Von Eschen and Jonathan Butcher. (After a push for necrophile rights is successful in the not-too-distant future US, people legally have the option to donate their bodies to hotels that allow people to… satisfy their urges in private. One man goes after the body of his late wife before she can enter the hotel's roster, but his own motives might be less than noble. I Do Not recommend the audiobook for this unless you're totally alone and fine feeling kind of nauseous every now and then. Fun trivia: the authors are married!)

The Necrophiliac — Gabrielle Wittkopp (1972), translated by Don Bapst (The journal of a necrophiliac, detailing his relationships with various dead bodies. In detail. I don't know what else you're expecting. The prose is beautiful and I was both horrified and morbidly transfixed.)

on my TBR: Born Under a Bad Sign — Sharo Velasco (friend of the House, aka @sharoscylla/ @eldritchcircus here on tumblr <3)

comics:

The Flinch anthology (A lot of random, horrifying stories, sometimes with some really compelling art.)

Nailbiter and Nailbiter Returns (A series that focuses on a town that has an uncomfortable history of manifesting more serial killers than anywhere else in the world due to unknown causes; from the point of view of a detective in charge of the case and her high school ex boyfriend, who eventually became a serial killer known as The Nailbiter for… well, biting his victims' nails.)

The Crossroads at Midnight — Abby Howard (Of Black Tabby Games' Slay the Princess and Scarlet Hollow! An anthology of horror stories set in the South with beautiful art to match.)

non-fiction:

Ghostland: An American History in Haunted Places — Colin Dickey (Not really fucked up, but a really fascinating look at how our ghost stories — and perceptions of the places tied to those stories — tend to shift over time to fit the social mores of the current tellers of the tale. I used an excerpt from this book when I taught a class on ghosts and rhetoric, and it was super helpful.)

Five Days at Memorial — Sherri Fink (An account of the doctors and patients stranded at Memorial Hospital in New Orleans for five days after Hurricane Katrina with no power, no supplies, and no consistent food and water. I pray to any god that exists that I never, ever have to be in a situation where I'd have to make these kind of decisions. I DNF'd not because it wasn't good but because I was heartbroken reading it, but I plan to go back to it. Also adapted into a television series, which is really hard to watch.)

Rabid: A Cultural History of the World's Most Diabolical Virus — Monica Murphy and Bill Wasik (In-depth history of Rabies, which terrifies me for all sorts of reasons.)

Necrophilia: Forensic and Medico-Legal Aspects — Anil Aggrawal (What I'm currently reading; not for the faint of heart or stomach. As someone who writes about death/dead bodies A Lot, I got very curious about '…yeah why do people do that,' which is what this book tries to address to a degree.)

Grave Desire: A Cultural History of Necrophilia — Steve Finbow (on my tbr)

theory/literary criticism (why we find things scary and how they work):

Playing in the Dark: Whiteness and the Literary Imagination — Toni Morrison (A short, fascinating read on the role of whiteness and Blackness in American literature, specifically)

Danse Macabre — Stephen King (Written a few decades ago so obviously a bit dated, and written by Stephen King, which can be a polarizing figure in horror. Still, I found it an insightful look from someone who's shaped so much of the US horror genre landscape, so to speak.)

Powers of Horror: An Essay on Abjection — Julia Kristeva (Note, this is not what I'd call light reading, but that's okay; this took me multiple reads to parse through until I could fully digest it, and it explains what the Abject is and how it functions in horror.)

The Monster Theory Reader, edited by Jeffrey Andrew Weinstock (a handy collection of multiple essays and articles that talk about literature's connections between monstrosity, horror, and difference; including the OG essays on the uncanny, Uncanny Valley, and the one mentioned above!)

I hope one or two of these will slake your thirst for the macabre, darling. 🖤 If you take a look at any, I'd love to know what you thought of them!

and, since it is spooky season, I'm tentatively opening my ask box to anyone who wants any kind of recommendations for scary films/books/etc. it might take me a couple days, and it probably won't be quite as long as this list (which I've been working on for a minute), but it is one of my favorite things to do this time of year. 🖤

[yourfavouritebookseller]

I WAS A TEENAGE SLASHER

By Stephen Graham Jones

[polyamorouspunk]

Moonstruck Market (the bookstore I sell in): if you’re wearing pride merch 10% discount

Me, sobbing because I left my polyam Pride flag in the car, digging around in my bag to hold up a polyam flag keychain like it’s the fucking holy grail: *unintelligible noises*

Moonstruck Market: that’s a pride flag?

Me: 😭

[phantomtomes]

The book I’m currently reading is a dual timeline set in the late 80s and early 90s with a horrifically haunted pinball machine and a bunch of friend drama and I am LIVING FOR IT

(Dead Flip by Sara Farizan)

[bl4ck--coffee]

[abalonetea]

The Possession Begins!

Pre-order The Possession of Joshua Roe, the chilling first book in the God Is Dead series, starting September 1st! Dive into a world where a simple prank spirals into a horrifying battle for survival. When Joshua Roe’s life is turned upside down by a demonic possession, he and his best friend Nole must confront unimaginable terror.

Don’t miss your chance to secure your copy and be one of the first to experience this haunting tale when it releases on October 1st. The darkness is coming—will you be ready?

Find out here!

[thatfreakmythosmedia]

Book Title: Tender is the Flesh

Author: Agustina Bazterrica

Ranking: [4/10] ●●●●○○○○○○

TWs (DEAD DOVE, DO NOT EAT): cannibalism, gore, body horror, misogyny, sexual violence, physical/emotional abuse, dehumanization, child sexual abuse, animal abuse, homophobic slurs

A book review is not a substitute for reading the actual book. If you are interested, please purchase the book, read it yourself, and support the original author. This post will contain a non-spoiler and spoilered section. All criticism is made in good faith and is not an attack on the original author.

TLDR:

This book has a very blunt writing style, so it doesn’t hold back on the disturbing scenes. Also, the concept is very interesting, and it does play with some very interesting world-building. Due to the book being so fast-paced, it’s hard to keep track of all the characters and fully understand what’s happening. I also don’t feel as if it's characters and world-building are developed to their full potential. 

Though if you are willing to extend your disbelief and not think super hard, it’s a quick and interesting read for those with a strong stomach.

SPOILERS/LONGER REVIEW BELOW CUT

(Reader discretion is advised)

In this dystopian world, a disease has spread throughout the planet that has made all animal meat poisonous. It only spreads through animals, but it can easily kill a human. The government has killed off all animals and transitioned into breeding humans for meat. The timeline is rather confusing, because the disease only occurred a few decades ago; however, the author describes this world as if this has been reality for centuries? 

The story explores a man named Marcos who works for a meat processing plant, and how he has poorly adjusted to the world transitioning into eating human meat, his father having dementia, and his wife leaving him due to the death of their child. Soon, he is given a female head (a head is what they call humans made for meat) that he is meant to butcher, but he can’t seem to, and eventually falls in love with her. 

Marco clearly has stopped seeing humans as humans and sees all of them as just possible meat, but he’s honestly not a well written character. He’s just rather boring and the book can’t seem to decide how he is supposed to develop. 

However, everything fell apart for me when I got to the time skip. If you read the book, you would know. 

When I first heard about this book and started to read it, I was most interested in a few things, 1) how our main character slowly grows attached to this human head he is supposed to feed on, and how that changes his worldview 2) the world building. For me, both of those are rather disappointing. I find both of these are disappointing for me because of the writing style. 

The writing style is very blunt, which I can see turning some people off from this book. It doesn’t pull its punches. The sentences and chapters are generally very short, and it’s very fast-paced. However, because this book was not first written in English, it seems like the translation wasn’t very good. Some words are very strange and don’t always make sense. Due to the fast-paced nature of the writing, it can be a little hard to keep up with what is happening, as the author doesn’t give the reader much time to digest what’s happening before moving on to the next scene. 

Also, because almost every single important character in this book is a man, sometimes without names, it can make it hard to tell what character is saying or doing what, which makes it even harder to follow. Some chapters are only a page long, and I just have to wonder why the author thought she needed to cut it up? Sometimes the sudden short chapters sort of break the follow of the story and the immersion of what’s happening. 

There are a lot of brutal scenes in this book. As for world-building, it feels like the author is talking right to the reader to drop and explain the world, and not weaving it in naturally. I also feel as if the author is adding in new ideas to the story instead of expanding on the already interesting ideas she already has. Yes, it can help expand the world, but it mainly muddles down what is already there. I wish the author had focused on a few interesting parts of the plot and characterization instead of just adding in every new idea to the world she thought of. I wish it would focus on the main character and how he slowly grows to get attached to the head, how he becomes almost toxicly attached, and how this new woman affects his previous marriage. But the main character is just so nothing…There are a lot of scenes that I feel could have been cut, but I also feel that with another editor and 50 more pages, this book would immediately be improved 

This book plays with the definition of who in this world counts as a human, and, as I stated earlier, doesn’t hold back on the descriptions of what the factory workers and meat processors do. That’s because the author wants to draw comparisons with the actual meat industry, mainly the beef industry. Characters in the world often compare how they used to work with beef or how they had family who did, and how the process is similar. They use very similar terminology, like calling the person about to be slaughtered a “head”. Some characters hunt humans, and some do brutal experiments on humans; the author is not holding back on how deranged the people in this story are.

I, however, as an animal welfare activist/nature conservation student, will say that this theme does kind of fall apart. I personally never enjoyed this idea that if we as humans treat animals poorly, we could as easily treat fellow humans this way. While no, don’t twist my words, I don’t support the unethical treatment of animals, animals are not humans, and treating them the same will only do more harm to animals and humans. That is a different post, however, and I don’t have the energy to fully expand on that at the moment.

For the sick freaks, I’d say the most disturbing scene for me personally is a scene in which rich businessmen have just finished hunting humans and proceed to eat them. One of the humans they ate was a pregnant woman, and the other was a famous rock star who was hunted for having too much debt. In this dinner scene, they describe in great detail how the human meat is presented. One of the rich men eats the penis of the rock star, saying it improves his own sexual health? However, the paragraph that made me put down the book for a few minutes was a paragraph describing how one of the rich men raped a 14 year old trafficking victim to death, then procceed to eat her. I could feel myself going pale. 

Finally, the ending… is very controversial. After seeing a few other reviews online, it seems as if fellow readers either love the ending or hate it. I am personally in team hate. It doesn’t feel like the story comes to a satisfying conclusion. The story doesn’t finish; the book just stops. 

I’d say if what I said didn’t dissuade you, and you have a strong stomach, this book could be an interesting read for you. It’s rather short, only 200 pages, so it would be a quicker read.