Going into this, I thought this was going to be torture and pain rough, but it wasn‘t. Yes, some were gross and I wouldn‘t recommend eating while reading this, but besides one meh story out of 29, they were great. There was a lesbian couple and their daughter at the beginning of a mold apocalypse, a description of a werewolf woman eating of a fat accountant that sounded so sumptuous and delicious, an autopsy whose ME‘s blood sacrifice into 👇🏼

I liked this sentence. From “I‘m Always Here,” by Richard Christian Matheson. Photo is of artist Peter Pavlesnkiy in his artistic form of protest against the Russian government.

In a book of body horror themed short stories, I would never have guessed there would be one about the fashion industry. As someone who watched the first 6 seasons of America‘s Next Top Model back in the day, I was into it. It‘s so satirically scathing, making fun of all the pretentiousness, and yet, it manages to boil it down into a moment of beauty right before that last paragraph that knifes you in the back. Sooo good this story.

Just picked up this anthology of body horror yesterday. The cover looks like something Clive Barker would have done. The table contents is pretty awesome. Read the first story and even though it is about a family being caught at a roach motel and turning into roaches themselves it had a nice little lesson about life. I 🖤 horror.

@teebe this happened a couple of years ago. My entry this year into your #CreepyChristmas scary stories. Enjoy! 🧟 🧟🧟

There is this comedian, Katt Williams, who does this bit where he‘s talking to the ladies saying that there are no 100% men. That some of them are sitting next to 70% men hoping for an upgrade they can‘t even laugh at the joke because he‘s looking over at them. How some of them have a 98% man going to his job, paying the bills, cooking them food, taking care of her children better than he takes care of his own, and she throws him all away 👇🏼

This novella was good but I‘m glad it was only 122pgs because I kept hoping the mc would die in a fiery crash. We follow a very Karen-esque father driving in his Maserati from the city to the country village of Rookfield, where his ex wife has taken their son to ride out the pandemic with family. Once he gets there he is shocked that almost all pandemic protocols are being strictly enforced and do not gel with his agenda. The part of this 👇🏼

Today‘s story is brought to you by the letter H, which is for hacking. Tried to log into Netflix and found out I no longer had an account. Went to email and found out someone from Nicaragua hacked my account, changed my password, then cancelled my account. Lol. Then I decided to clean out my email and found this gift from Margie from weeks ago and then came home to this gift that might have been in the Postal Bermuda Triangle. 👇🏼

Just started this for my LPMBC pick and the writing is Appalachian exquisite.

This book disturbed me a great deal because it‘s much more than it seems and I found myself drinking the Kool-aid which I think was real. So we get a novelization of Camp Ghoul Mountain 6. It a story of Henry the Horror and how he butchers all those camp counselors but this entry into the franchise is different because of the extras. The ufos, the cults, the conspiracy theories. The author gives you footnotes to give you more info but then 👇🏼

#21DaysofHorror Day 21. Ever since I read Yo! by Julia Alvarez, I‘ve been a sucker for interconnected short stories. And in here it‘s basically a man collecting stories from all over the world from before, during, and after the Zombie World War. There have been stories from when I first read it over 15 years ago that still talk to me. One is a woman who falls out of an airplane into zombie trouble when a woman over the radio leads her to 👇🏼

Only 40 pages in and am LOVING it so far.

#21DaysofHorror Day 20. I love when horror also riffs on a message that is not really the horror itself but horror adjacent. From the sharp eye on parents at a random McDonalds in the first couple pages to a mother hunting her daughter‘s killer in the backwoods of New Hampshire where the creepy abounds, one starts to question how much parents should give of themselves to their children. A disturbing novella with nice writing.

I loved this. The writing, evocative and sharp, had me hooked from page one. Have you ever known someone for a while and shown up to an event for them and then wondered why the hell am I here? I don‘t even like this person. Imagine having that toxic friend tipping point at a wedding in a haunted mansion in Japan. My only complaint was that it wasn‘t longer.

#21DaysofHorror Day 19. This is one of the best haunted house novels I‘ve ever read. The story is told from different perspectives and one of them happens to be the house itself. We follow Miranda and her twin Eliot and their dad, Luc, as they grieve their mother and wife. They live in a very sinister house that at one point describes its killing of one of the family‘s relatives. It is one of the scariest things I have ever read.

#21DaysofHorror Day 18. Paul Tremblay is horror with elevated writing. He weaves characters, their relationships, and their stories together, so affecting and intricate, all right in front of a horror backdrop. Everything I‘ve read by him I have loved. Even when he shoots someone in the middle of a book that destroys my day right before I have to go to work. He wrote one of my favorite ever short stories. It‘s about a meth addict who kidnaps👇🏼

Maaan! So I love V. Castro, but this needed to be a 40pg, 100pg, or 500pg story but not the 200 one we got. We meet Belinda who is lost in the world who travels to a friend‘s wedding at a farm where decades earlier, a migrant worker, Milagros, was violently killed by the owner‘s jealous and racist wife. I was totally into the anger awakening a goddess who would allow Milagros to take revenge from the afterlife but V. keeps going and this book 👇🏼

#21DaysofHorror Day 17. The passage above is not a spoiler. It‘s in the prologue. This has got to be one of the most bleak and terrifying books I have ever read. Along with the discovery of how everyone dies, is the story the teacher tells from which the title is taken which in itself is a horror story within a horror story. This book put me into a funk for a couple of days while making me glad I‘ll never have kids. #thekidsarenotalright

#21DaysofHorror Day 16. A couple of years ago I was in an international horror postal group and this was one of those gems that came my way. We think of mermaids as beautiful creatures and Mira Grant says Funk that. Cause in here they are poisonous, disgusting, murderous, monsters!!! There is a lot to love in here, crazy scientists, queer people with agendas, different points of views including those of animals, people behaving stupidly in the👇🏼

#21DaysofHorror Day 15. There was a comicon at my work this weekend. These 2 girls were nice enough to let me take their picture and were the inspiration for today‘s post. I was in my teens, in the back of our family suburban on our way out of town reading about an evil clown. I was on campus during spring break reading about people who turned into zombies after having answered a phone call. I nearly pooped my pants reading Salem‘s Lot when I 👇🏼

I took this today after I got her permission to post it but people like her are my #readinggoals. I was just walking around my casino and there she was snuggled into the corner. Lol I wish I was her right now.

#21DaysofHorror. Day 14. Way before we knew him for The Only Good Indians and My Heart is a Chainsaw, SGJ wrote this book in 2006 which is a horror book given a horror movie script treatment with footnotes that are funny and informative. His love of the horror genre is on full display as he gives us a trilogy in 400 pages. The 2nd part even takes place in a hospital. (Halloween 2 anyone?) Glad he‘s finally getting his due. Also, if you see his👇🏼

Climate change is out of control and a United Zone Council has designated Virgin Zones in different parts of the world where no human is allowed in an effort for the world to start healing itself. Well, what happens when you say you can‘t do something to people? In this case it‘s a team of 7 adventure racers eager to race across the Eden Zone to be the first to do so. It is full of dread as nature has maybe grown tired of us. An eco-horror pick!

I‘m about to jump outta my skin reading this book. I kinda want to be put in a scary story, and hopefully it would be that short one where at the first red flag I make my group turn back and we all returned safely and lived long lives. Lol. This is like red flag 10 for these people and they‘re driving me nuts.
Get ouuuuut!!!

#21DaysofHorror Day 13. My favorite post apocalyptic novel written by one of my favorite authors. Nuclear missiles were launched and several characters spread across the country will meet up to either fight for good or evil. McCammon writes some real scenes of horror, one in a movie theatre where Faces of Death is showing, and another, a fight in the parking lot of a Kmart. Great characters, great story, and a lot of horror in this chunkster.

#21DaysofHorror Day 12. I should be recommending The Girl Next Door by Ketchum but in the world of horror that would be like recommending A Little Life. So instead I‘ll recommend the first 2 in his Dead River trilogy. Ketchum is so good about making you care about his characters and embroiling you in their drama……right before he sacrifices most of them to a clan of cannibals. If you can do the goriest of body horror, give it a try!

#21DaysofHorror Day 11. A father is searching for a daughter kidnapped 2yrs ago. It‘s the UK, 2053, and the world has been devastated by climate change. Billions have been displaced due to unlivable conditions, plagues are running wild, and I remember feeling sticky because of how hot and humid Neville kept writing the temperature. Just when you thought you had made it past the really bad stuff, there comes the final act. A climate horror pick!

#21DaysofHorror Day10. Imagine being a 3yo boy just playing outside your house when you get abducted by a family who tells you that your parents put you outside because they didn‘t want you anymore. So you‘re heartbroken but grow to love the new family even though they are a sadistic serial killer family. And you don‘t know you are in a sick competition with a brother whose games will turn this story into a horror Greek tragedy. Dark, but so good.

Women pictured clockwise from top left: Breonna Taylor, Sabina Nessa, Sandra Bland, Sara Everard. “Trowel, Brush, Bones,” by Audrey R. Hollis. I listened to this story on Pseudopod last night which about a group of women who go to South America with their professor to help on a dig on an archaeological site. You think you know the monster-the witch, the cursed object, the alien flowers that eat them, but you‘d be wrong. It‘s the professor who 👇🏼

Day 7. #21DaysofHorror I know, I know. McCarthy horror you think of The Road but lately I‘ve been thinking about the sheriff in here who is the conscience of this book. Who makes these observations that tell us maybe the world is headed in the wrong direction. Let‘s be honest, who hasn‘t felt that way lately? So much unease. There is a bargain made in here that leads to a wife‘s moment of horror that has always stuck with me. He‘s good stuff.

Have you ever wondered what happens after the final girl escapes the backwards hillbilly clan. Kin is that book. There is still plenty of blood and guts and in between them are plenty of interesting and well written characters. My favorite scene in here is where a father of a boy who was killed asks the final girl in her hospital bed if his boy at least went down fighting. She says yes. But then it shows her memory and how the boy took off👇🏼

If you‘re single like me and like to think about the hypothetical relationships you would be in and in some of the scarier iterations you get cheated on but think “what if there was a slant of horror to go along with that heartbreak/betrayal?” Well have I got a book for you!!! There‘s 7 stories in here(skip the 2nd one, I have no idea what it‘s doing in this book) and all of them feature betrayal!!! Langan‘s elevated prose can be considered 👇🏼

Hi #GroupH these are my picks for round 13. I‘m cool with either of these so let me know if something interests you.

This was really good. A man at a neighborhood dinner gets put under hypnosis only to find out later his mind has been opened to telepathy, psychometry, and a couple of other things. There was such suspense and thrill in here. Ashley, this will be going back to you either tomorrow or Monday. And thanks @MaleficentBookDragon @BookwormAHN @JackOBotts for a great round of LMPBC.

I love a good single author collection and this one is great. She has a story that rifts on a Christmas Carol that is 3 ghosts of ex bf‘s visiting an about to be bride on Halloween that is great. There is the one in the back called Flowers for Amaryllis that has to do with mental health and addiction that is also queer. And it‘s so affecting. And my favorite has to do with 4 girls trick or treating going up 1 by 1 to the haunted house and 👇🏼

Meet Teddy, a thoughtful octogenarian who happens to be from the Greatest Generation. Teddy and a couple of friends is all that‘s left of their mountain because the rains haven‘t stopped and the water keeps rising. There‘s also satanists, sea monsters, conspiracy theorists, and of course lots of worms. Favorite line: That was the morning the early worm ate the bird. Keene is so good and he wrote the hell out of this book. #21daysofhorror. Day 3.

Today at my casino, a woman was reading the book on the left. I asked her about it and she said she had been a 7th Day Adventist for over 25 years and that she had recently left. The book deals with a founder of the religion who said she was a prophet but many things have come to light that just didn‘t jive well with the woman reading the book. There was more to it, and she had a pen and showed me all the points she had underlined. She was 👇🏼

One of the best things about reading an anthology of horror is discovering new to you authors. A couple of years I was reading an anthology of addiction horror and came across a story about how a man after having sex with his gf discovers his penis is bleeding. A day later there is so much pain. A day later there is movement underneath the skin. A day later actually spiders coming out the tip. After the end I thought, Who is this?!!!👇🏼

One of the first horror novels I read as a teenager. I was in love at first read. Two men, Randall and Jaffe, discover a mystical place called the sea of quiddity One wants to use it for evil and one wants to protect it. Their feud will last decades and destroy lives in utterly gnarly ways. Barker never shies away from the body horror. If there is a totally 80‘s horror fantasy novel this is it. Day 1 of 21 days of horror.

Wow, for a first book this was great. We get 11 related short stories of people under the arc of the life and death of an American newspaper in Rome that they have a connection to. If I had read this 11 years ago when it first came out, I think I would have taken these stories better. The main character of each story suffers from an illusion, a delusion, a kind of fantasy. They all get brought back to reality. Very compelling, just a downer.👇🏼

I had the top two for two weeks and the other two came today. Thank you so much, Paula!❤️ Which one should I read first? I‘m excited the most for The Imperfectionists. And yes, hopefully the USPS and Australia and New Zealand can find a solution.

Translated from Catalan by Mara Fay Lethem this is about Paula, a 42yo neonatologist, who is meeting Mauro, her partner of 12 years, to have lunch. Mauro tells Paula he is leaving her for someone else and then dies by car accident 4hrs later. Told through Paula‘s eyes this is a nonlinear account of grief, rage, love and humor. I appreciated the middle agedness of this book. And even though I feel Paula didn‘t get the best closure, do we ever 👇🏼

This was great. It‘s 1919 England and Kitty Weekes is running away from danger straight into a haunted asylum. This was put in the mail this morning to you @BookwormAHN and should be there by Monday.

@JackOBotts thanks for picking this book. I‘m barely at the part where Kitty does her first night shift. Holy crap, the hairs on my arm stood up. Lolol it‘s my first Simone St. James and it‘s really good so far.

The gist is to try and think like a scientist. Put an answer out there to try for and try to not only prove it but also disprove it and adjust accordingly based on data that may or may not change. I learned a lot. Some that would be applicable to my job and some to how I have evolving feelings towards books I read a year ago. Grant was gentle and had humor that kept me engaged. This kind of nonfiction is not my jam but this book is a pick!

I‘m totally guilty of kummerspeck and shemomedjamo.

Really enjoying this book. He does some entertaining experiments that speak to much larger truths.

I loved this. Nichole is a Black woman in her 40‘s who wrote this bunch of essays that are candid and highly relatable. From dealing with abusive family relationships to power dynamics within relationships to frank sex talk, this was just great. There is a lot of pop culture critique in here that will stick with me (the name of her book comes from a Prince song), especially the part about Miss Piggy and Kermit the Frog. Good stuff!!!

Lol, Nichole has this essay on her adventures in dating and really knows how to balance out the serious stuff with some great humor. This book is the best thing I could have picked up today.