This was a quick weekend read after the author sent me a copy in exchange for an honest review. Thank you, Jeremy!

Petrified Women follows Harley as she pulls together a surprise for her boyfriend, Aiden. This novella is what I like to call “New Adult Horror”. Harley has had a string of seriously shitty boyfriends and is navigating adult life while simultaneously coping with trauma while something absolutely terrifying happens to her.

So it sort-of makes sense why she is putting up with Aiden and his love for scaring the crap out of his girlfriends. She’s willing to put up with a whole lot, because at least now she feels included. Valued. Understood.

Only, Aiden’s pranks are a lot more serious than Harley first realized. And his art? Those carvings of women? There might be a hell of a lot more going on there too.

She felt sorry for them: frozen forever because a man carved them to be that way.

Overall, I think this story did what it set out to do.

There is a very tense scene with Harley hiding in a the closet that just got me. It made my heart race and really freaked me out! The tension build up was done very well and I could really visualize the scene as it was happening.

However, I did find myself wishing that Aiden’s character was written to be less of an obvious villain. I think there would’ve been soooo much more tension if he felt more like an actual human. Harley felt very real and this story would’ve been elevated had Aiden’s dialogue felt less ‘movie bad guy’.

Overall, I think this was a solid, short weekend read and I give it a 3.5