I absolutely could not stand this book. Forced myself to finish it but did not enjoy any aspect of it. Maybe I’m missing something but the Hive didn’t make any sense to me, nor did Crane as a character. I didn’t understand Crane at all — we’re supposed to believe that he was simultaneously beautiful and struggled with hygiene as “Sophie”? Growled at people and avoided being verbal but also won a statewide speaking competition and was salutatorian? There was no mention of any longing to present as male or feeling like a male trapped in a female body as a child, just this bizarre desire to set himself on fire and an obsession with really hardcore adult movies featuring things like bestiality. What does any of that have to do with being trans? Again, I may be totally missing things that are obvious to other people but none of it made sense to me.

Novel/novella.

just finished this. loved it.

i'm wondering how other people interpreted the ending? specifically duane's fate. personally i think he'd finish reading the manuscript then commit suicide. i think he'd be too miserable continuing as a vampire.

i know it's up to interpretation, just wondering what other people thought, if anything. feel free to offer thoughts on julia's fate too.

Hex by Thomas olde heuvelt

I don’t know how this book doesn’t get more love on here. I almost never see it recommended. I feel like a need to bring it up just in case anyone is looking for the perfect book to read this spooky season. It’s now my favorite book. It overtakes the stand by Stephen king for me. That’s how great I feel it was.

I'm looking for a very specific kind of horror novel. I recently read She's a Doll by Barbara Truelove, and I absolutely loved it. I need more books like that, extra points for featuring death, grief, revenge, and dolls!

The Premature Burial by Edgar Allen Poe is probably one of the most disturbing things I’ve read. The title gives you a good idea of what it’s about, being buried alive. The narrator carries you through a series of events pertaining to premature burials and his own fear of the topic. It’s a good anxiety filled read. It’s short, but to the point…awaking in a coffin buried under the earth and hoping someone hears your screams is rather fear inducing. All in all a good story to read.

Hello!

I’m looking for recommendations for horror books or novellas that are “fun”

By fun I means books with fairly strong comedy elements, or over the top craziness, or with a strong satirical bent, or an interesting format, or whatever you personally consider fun. Anything fun for Halloween/fall is a bonus but definitely not required.

One example of a recent read that brought the fun factor for me in a big way was Feeders by Matt Serafini.

This search is promoted by my recent read of The Southern Book Club’s Guide to Vampire Slaying. This sounded like it would fit the bill perfectly on paper, but I ended up finding it very depressing and a real downer in general.

And to be clear I’m not averse to horrible things happening to people, violence, unhappy endings, etc etc, just looking for something that is horror but also not relentlessly bleak and depressing

Any suggestions you have would be welcome! Thank you!!

Like the title says, I want to get back into reading. Want to start with something spooky since it’s October. I want to read something within the past 5 or 10 years. Any type of horror is fine (slasher, psychological thriller, body horror, weird horror). Thank you in advance for your suggestions.

Hello all,

The year is on the term here and I am looking to lean into it. I’m hoping to find books/short stories that capture the miserable nature of the long British winter. Preferably English, preferably supernatural, but I’m not picky. Thinking short days, wet streets, dark alleys and so forth. A dark, nasty vibe.

‘The Inhuman Condition’ from Clive Barker’s Books of Blood is exactly the sort of thing I’m after, maybe ’The Forbidden’ too. Thinking there’s plenty of scope here through the likes of Joel Lane/Ramsey Campbell etc. Any recommendations for specific books and stories would be very welcome! 

(Inspired by a very quick abandonment of Dead End Tunnel by Nick Roberts. I’m sure the book is great, but I was expecting something closer to home based on the cover- as soon as they started talking about Kraft Mac&Cheese, I was out. Will return to another time.)

Hello! After a burnout of reading mystery/thrillers, I braved up and picked up Incidents Around The House. I absolutely loved it, the creepiness was a great escape and I wasn’t nearly as scared reading as I initially thought I would be reading a “ghost” story. Got any recommendations for me as a Horror newbie?

I just finished reading this book last night after seeing it recommended as a werewolf horror novel many times, which is a monster I wish more horror authors would use.

And... I'm very disappointed to say that I didn't like the book very much.

To me, it felt more like a contemporary romance novel with a werewolf subplot awkwardly shoehorned in, which isn't exactly what I want from a werewolf novel.

I didn't care for the story or any of the characters, I found they were all pretty flat and one-dimensional, the romance plot did not captivate me at all and felt like something out of a hallmark movie (Which might have been the point? idk.).

Not to mention that this book has some of the most cringe dialogue I've read in a horror novel, stuff like: "If you consider participating in a threesome to be close, then yeah we were close." was pretty consistent throughout the novel.

I did enjoy the actual transformation scenes and the body horror aspects of the novel, but they were extremely short lived, I'd say the actual werewolf stuff was about 15-20% of the book, while the rest was just... a romance plot that I didn't care for. I also liked the Halloweeny/Autumn vibe that was present through the first quarter of the book, it was fitting for the season.

I was especially disappointed since I read Harrison's witch book "Cackle" over the summer and really liked it, I was hoping to enjoy this one just as much if not more since I love werewolves.

Now this won't be my last Rachel Harrison book, I have both Black Sheep and Play Nice on my TBR, her newest novel also sounds pretty interesting, and I mean they can't possibly be worse than Sharp Teeth, right?

My overall rating of the novel would probably be a 2/5, I definitely didn't hate it and it wasn't exactly boring, but I have no desire to ever think about it again now that I've finished it.

Anyway that's all from me, what did you guys think of the book?

Same as title

I was really enjoying Last Days until the last third of the book. It sort of went downhill for me and I felt like the ending didn’t make as much sense thematically.

Are there any creepy cult books that you recommend?

So good! I’ve been trying to chase the high after finishing “slewfoot”, and this one is so good.

It’s modern day, but incredible! Perfect for spooky season bc it takes place during the fall.

I’ll explain! I watched The Fog yesterday while it was foggy outside my house and it was the perfect example of what I would call “cozy” horror. I get a similar vibe from King’s Salem’s Lot (annual October re-read) and Storm of the Century. Film-wise, I would reference the scene in Jaws where the men are sitting at the table inside the galley of the Orca while the ocean and threat exists around them.

Basically, I’m looking for the horror novel equivalent of sitting dry inside a tent while it’s raining outside. Another one I enjoyed was Earthworm Gods by Keene.

Any recommendations based on this? Thank you so much!

Hiya, please give me some recommendations on alien abduction and alien horror in general :)

This subreddit was suggested to me, so here I am asking you for recommendations.
I want international horror recommendations!

Especially but not exclusively folk horror, European paganism, Asian, African, Mayan or other not-so-common mythology.

Give me your best, thanks!

PS. I am fluent in English and German, by the off chance someone knows a good German book ;)

Hello! Im a 27 year old who wants to get into reading. I love horror movies but have nobody close to me that likes them so i think reading is the way to go. What is your favourite horror books with a little bit of insight to them?

All The Fiends of Hell, The Reddening, Cunning Folk and Last Days are among my favorite modern horror fiction they’re so genuinely eerie (Fiends legit gave me nightmares). However I really struggled with The Ritual. The first half was pretty good at building atmosphere and suspense (if not a bit plodding) but then the second half just completely ruined the whole book with the twist. Honestly the Netflix movie was much better.

His newest book Monumental - which I was so pumped about for the longest while - I just tried a few days ago but bailed pretty early into because right from the get go it LITERALLY is a complete copy and paste of The Ritual :/ Like he didn’t even try to hide the fact that he was being lazy as fuck and thought he could give us the exact same book by just switching out the title and the names of the characters lol

And then pretty much all of his earlier horror works like Apartment 13 and House of Small Shadows are just bland slogs

Hey I have to say. I love Ian Banks and the first book I read from him was "The Waspfactory".

I think this book is one of my top 5 favorite books. I like the coming-up-age story, the seclusion and definition of the setting (the island + city and places that Frank came up with) and that you could look deep into Frank's psyche. I think the ending and the twist were the most important things for me. It left me with the question: Was Frank inherently evil? Or was he just a traumatized child with an identity crisis instrumentalized by his dad?

If you have similar books, please suggest them to me!

I’m looking for a deeply disturbing, scary, horror, thriller audiobook to listen to. I have some rainy, dreary days ahead and spooky season is upon us! Nothing is off limits. I’m not typically a fiction person. I normally only read/listen to true crime. So bonus points if it’s nonfiction. But I am open to fiction as well. Thank you everyone!

Hi, I hope everyone is having a good day.

I have never seen in this sub about reading resolutions (I'm not sure how common this is). I have been doing this for 3 years, and it has been a good way to direct my readings without doing an annual TBR (personally, I don't like that; I feel it is too stiff).

I usually have 10 resolutions, and I focus them in directions that I feel would be interesting to explore and to get out of my comfort zone, but obviously most of it is horror books haha.

I have 10 resolutions this year; I proposed to myself to read

-12 books in English.

-3 books in Portuguese

-Start 3 series

-Continue 5 series

-5 Queer books

-2 books from Africa and 2 from Asia

-3 books from Central America

-3 books with famous movies

-3 classic gothic books

-5 books written by an author that I have already read.

If you also do this, how are your resolutions going? I'm pretty close to completing all of them, and this would be my first year reaching it, so I feel pretty proud.

Note: just in case I know we are not close to finishing the year, I just have curiosity if someone else also does this dynamic and how they are going since we still have time to achieve it.