#horrorstor

[very-tired-child]

MORE SENTIENT ARCHITECTURE !!!!

[pikminenjoyer]

Read flowers for algernon for the first time and my god was that devastating

This means, however, it's time for a new read

[brokehorrorfan]

Grady Hendrix (My Best Friend's Exorcism, The Final Girl Support Group) will publish How to Sell a Haunted House on January 17, 2023 via Berkley Publishing. 

The 400-page horror novel will be available in hardcover, e-book, and audio book. Read the synopsis below.

Every childhood home is haunted, and each of us are possessed by our parents.

When their parents die at the tail end of the coronavirus pandemic, Louise and Mark Joyner are devastated but nothing can prepare them for how bad things are about to get. The two siblings are almost totally estranged, and couldn’t be more different. Now, however, they don’t have a choice but to get along. The virus has passed, and both of them are facing bank accounts ravaged by the economic meltdown. Their one asset? Their childhood home. They need to get it on the market as soon as possible because they need the money. Yet before her parents died they taped newspaper over the mirrors and nailed shut the attic door.

Sometimes we feel like puppets, controlled by our upbringing and our genes. Sometimes we feel like our parents treat us like toys, or playthings, or even dolls. The past can ground us, teach us, and keep us safe. It can also trap us, and bind us, and suffocate the life out of us. As disturbing events stack up in the house, Louise and Mark have to learn that sometimes the only way to break away from the past, sometimes the only way to sell a haunted house, is to burn it all down.

Pre-order How to Sell a Haunted House by Grady Hendrix.

[carriagelamp]

Found some excellent horror-related and horror-adjacent books to read this month! Not a common genre for me, so this was fun. Really can't recommend Grady Hendrix as an author enough, Horrorstör was definitely my favourite novel from this month

Eric

I hate saying it because I love the Discworld and Terry Pratchett is easily my favourite author, but man Eric did not do it for me. You could see some good bones in it, but as far as I’m concerned all the interesting bits that appeared were done significantly better in later books. It had some humour moments, but the only bits that I really enjoyed were when the Luggage was around.

This story followed a young, teenaged, would-be demon summoner who, instead of summoning a demon, accidentally winds up with the incompetent and fearful wizzard Rincewind. Obligated to answer this kid’s wishes, they end up bouncing through time and space while attempting to survive what each wish had to throw at them. 

Fantastic Mr Fox / Esio Trot / George’s Marvellous Medicine / The Enormous Crocodile

I went on a Dahl kick this month, I wanted to work through some of his shorter works that I’ve never bothered to read before. All of them were honestly delightful, I had a blast. Esio Trot was probably the weakest of the lot, but the other three were so much fun. The Fantastic Mr Fox may be my favourite just by virtue of being the most fleshed out, but listening to The Enormous Crocodile be read by Stephen Fry is an unparalleled experience.

Hockey Girl Loves Drama Boy

A story I enjoyed more than I expected. I have a strange soft spot for hockey narratives, but that might just be the Canadian in me. Alix’s one true love is hockey, it’s the one place she feels competent and happy, but her team captain is making the space increasingly hostile until, unable to take the bullying, she strikes out and punches her captain. Shocked by her own violence and given an ultimatum by the coach to get her temper under control, she ends up going to popular and poised Ezra, hoping that he could show her how to deal with harassment without losing her cool in a way that scares her.

Horrorstör

Easily the best book I read this month, this book was amazing, I can’t recommend it enough. It’s a “haunted house but in a knock-off Ikea” and I mostly picked it up as a joke because the premise sounded hilarious. But I was familiar with the author (I’d read The Southern Book Club’s Guide To Slaying Vampires a couple years ago) and trusted him to do something interesting with the premise. And wow. Just wow. It is very much a classic, grisly, nauseating horror premise, but in a way that explores capitalism, exploitation, and treatment of prisoners and the mentally ill. It’s been  a long time since I read a book that actually gave me chills, but I had to put this book down and walk away from it occasionally, it was intense enough.

The Kaiju Preservation Society

As a Pacific Rim lover, this book was everything I’d ever wish for it to be. It’s such a love letter to the kaiju genre as well as environmental conservation, and it’s speculative biology is fascinating!

After being fire from his job at the beginning of the Covid pandemic lockdown in New York City, Jamie Gray is barely making ends meet by acting as a delivery driver. He doesn’t know how he can possibly continue on like this, until he runs into an old friend who offers him a strange and intensely secretive job offer. With nothing to lose, Jamie agrees and finds himself on an alternate Earth, helping to study creatures that he only knows from campy monster movies, now very much real.

The Last Wish

Felt an urge to reread a Witcher book, so I’ve been picking my way through the short stories. They continue to be a lot of fun, and it felt good to reconnect with the original narrative voice again after reading a lot of fanfiction over the years. For anyone who has someone existed post-Netflix version without picking up the general premise: Geralt of Rivia is a "witcher", a person who was specifically trained to wield weapons and magics to hunt dangerous monsters that threaten humans. This is a collection of short stories that show Geralt on some of the various hunts he's had during the decades of his over-long life. (It's significantly better than the Netflix version, very much worth the read if you like classic high fantasy and/or fairy tale retellings.)

Mortimer: Rat Race to Space

A very dull youth novel. Mortimer is a lab rat at Houston who has aspirations to go on the space program and prove that rats are better suited for colonizing Mars than humans. If you’re a seven year old who wants to consume space facts, this is the book for you. For everyone else, it’s a bit of a slog.

My Best Friend’s Exorcism

Another Grady Hendrix book. This book was undeniably well-written, just as masterful as his others, but I didn’t enjoy it as much. A bit too much high school narrative and not enough all out horror. The conclusion was pretty decent, but the rest was… fine. A fun love letter to the 1980s though as you learn about two best friends and how they grow up together. ...A bit of a debate whether or not it warrants a queer marker or not, I'm not even going to make that attempt.

The One and Only Ruby

The newest book from the One and Only Ivan series. Much like The One and Only Bob this book was… fine. The original of the series was really wonderful and felt quite inspired, inspired by the real life story of a gorilla that’s kept in a small cage in a mall complex. The next two books take place after that one and each follows one of Ivan’s friends (Bob the dog and Ruby the baby elephant). A fun enough addition to the series, the art is still cute, and it has decent things to say about the hunting of endangered animals, but it was nothing amazing. 

Paperbacks from Hell

Look, I really just felt the desperate need to read a bunch of Hendrix novels after being so violently consumed by Horrorstör. This is a nonfiction book in which Hendrix dives into the evolution and popular tropes of horror novels throughout the 1980s, with the cover art being the driving thesis throughout. You can tell how much he loves these weird, pulpy horrors and it makes you want to go and find a bunch of these and read them yourself. It really is an interesting book, even if you aren’t a great horror lover (which I wouldn’t consider myself).

The Salt Grows Heavy

Now this is a fucking novella. An absolutely unhinged, body-horror rich retelling of both The Little Mermaid and Frankenstein. Yeah. After the complete destruction of her husband’s kingdom at the hands (and jaws) of her own children, the Mermaid finds herself travelling with a mysterious Plague Doctor. I won’t go further into this except to say that the way it portrays morality, life, death, and the mutability of flesh is just… something else. Would recommend. But not if you have a weak stomach.

Scott Pilgrim

A classic. I watched the new animated series with my brother and felt the need to go back and reread the entire original series. Absolutely perfect, no notes, continues to be one of my all time favourite graphic novel series. The magical realism is just *chef’s kiss*.

[ink-pocket]

workplace horror

(reupload because i accidentally deleted everything)

(included Severance bit from 'Best Tv of 2022) as i'd watched it after writing this piece)

bigcartel bonanza patreon

[token-evil-teammate-ii]

Poor Basil walking back into Orsk after the seance was literally this

[hqrker]

[the-plague-dog]

Terrible news for people who wanted normal fandom content from me. I just read Horrorstör and I'm OBSESSED.

Totally give it a read if you can handle horror, gore and heavy torture. It's a nasty read but great.

Anyways, I wanna draw book characters now so,,, sorry

[prince-of-pages]

i finished horrorstor by grady hendrix

okay so, as predicted it was a three-star read for me, but it wasn't bad honestly. i think since i didn't have the physical copy of it i listened to the audio book i didn't have the whole novelty of it all so it lost a bit of flair.

i thought the story was pretty okay all around, as i said before i really felt for amy through some parts because i really connected with what she was feeling sometimes. and i loved the catalog entries in the beginning of each chapter and it turning to more torture furnishings as the book started to turn. i definitely think that would've made the book a higher star for me if i could sit and read that physically.

some things were kinda ehh, like not bad but i feel like the ending was a little flat and wish it would've been better but i can't complain too much.

anyway, that was my 19th read of the year so i'm onto the next book!

[somethingusefulfromflorida]

2014 was a different time, huh?

[mbbookblr]

The real horror is working retail tbh

[thethiefofalways]

— I've had four back-to-back 5 star reads, all so different but so wonderful, and I'm reading what I think is going to be a fifth edition to this winning streak. Still behind on my reading goal 🥲 but quality over quantity!

[afulltimenerd]

Life doesn't care what you want, other people don't care what you want. All that matters is what you do.

Horrorstör by Grady Hendrix

[are-you-scared-yet-zine]

🩸 Watching the chaos from a high perch is our formatting mod, @severedleftie 🩸

🩸 Our zine applications are open 🩸

[wordsthatmattered]

Let's make sure it's really raining before we worry about floods. This could all turn out to be something nice.

Horrorstör

[kindledspiritsbooks]

My Month in Books: July 2023

Infamy: The Crimes of Ancient Rome by Jerry Toner Normally I’m always quick to pick up a book on the ancient Romans, but I grabbed this one double quick because Jerry Toner was actually one of my supervisors at university. He’s a fantastic teacher who runs a course on Roman popular culture and under his wise guidance I got to study (and write very long essays on…) everything from graffiti to…