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1.31k reviews by:
horrorbutch
This is a very interesting fantasy story set in a world where a person's gender, their last name, their social role and their future relationships are all determined based on the part of the moon cycle they are born under. Children born under the dark moon are normally banished from the community, but Sohmeng born only shortly before the moon phases changed was hidden by her parents and only introduced under a more favorable moon.
I really enjoyed the worldbuilding in this story, it is lush and interesting and I could envision the scenary particularly well, which made the book really intruiging. The characters and especially the sentient lizard race were also fascinating and interesting and I am excited to learn more about them in the sequel.
All in all this is a wonderful queer and magical coming-of-age story with some cool action scenes and exploration of nature vs nurture when it comes to identity formation, but mainly a lot of heart and insights into community, the good, the bad and the ugly. I enjoyed it a lot.
I really enjoyed the worldbuilding in this story, it is lush and interesting and I could envision the scenary particularly well, which made the book really intruiging. The characters and especially the sentient lizard race were also fascinating and interesting and I am excited to learn more about them in the sequel.
All in all this is a wonderful queer and magical coming-of-age story with some cool action scenes and exploration of nature vs nurture when it comes to identity formation, but mainly a lot of heart and insights into community, the good, the bad and the ugly. I enjoyed it a lot.
This book combines urban fantasy with cosmic horror and a whole lot of fun. Freelance magic operative Julie is the perfect mix of mayhem and self-destructive tendencies that are needed for any good monster hunter/supernatural detective, who needs to get ahead in their career. Despite this, she often finds herself screwed over by stingy costumers or her ex-boyfriend taking credit for her work. When a good friend of hers shows up needing a place to stay to escape her abusive ex, Julie realizes something's got to change.
The story is fast paced and travels through New York, from law firms at Wall Street to bachelorette parties for women pregnant with many, many little monsters that want to eat the guests. The romance is also adorable and very sweet and something I enjoyed a lot. There's even a magic little bookstore (even if the books they sell can bring about the end of the world).
The horror is also wonderful, gross, gorey and disgusting, cosmic and all encompassing and one of my favorite parts of this novel. Definitely something for fans of the macabre. I also really adored the narration in the audio book, the sarcasm was amazing!
So if you're looking for a gorey sapphic story that deals with the gritty and darker parts of magic check this one out.
TW: domestic abuse, stalking, nonconsensual monster pregnancy, gore, violence, murder.
The story is fast paced and travels through New York, from law firms at Wall Street to bachelorette parties for women pregnant with many, many little monsters that want to eat the guests. The romance is also adorable and very sweet and something I enjoyed a lot. There's even a magic little bookstore (even if the books they sell can bring about the end of the world).
The horror is also wonderful, gross, gorey and disgusting, cosmic and all encompassing and one of my favorite parts of this novel. Definitely something for fans of the macabre. I also really adored the narration in the audio book, the sarcasm was amazing!
So if you're looking for a gorey sapphic story that deals with the gritty and darker parts of magic check this one out.
TW: domestic abuse, stalking, nonconsensual monster pregnancy, gore, violence, murder.
This short horror story is a creepy journey through suburban America with a sweet just-recently-teenage protagonist and his older sister, who changes shortly after he discovers something horrible in the woods. As he continues to investigate what might have happened, he uncovers the rot underlying the normalcy of this town.
The writing style immediately drew me in and Briar Ripley Page has a great talent for writing characters with distinct and interesting voices. The character was childlike but never childish, the horror creepy, but not garish, the family confining, but not comically evil (and yet the big reveal made a lot of sense!). This coming-of-age story explores siblinghood and the loss thereof, queer realization (both of loved ones and yourself) and the horror of change, growing up and conformity.
I also really enjoyed reading the paperback version of this as it is sooo tiny (palm-sized) and I especially enjoyed getting to place it next to my "full sized" books. It's adorable.
TW: murder, gore, past forced therapy and medication, abusive parents, drugs.
The writing style immediately drew me in and Briar Ripley Page has a great talent for writing characters with distinct and interesting voices. The character was childlike but never childish, the horror creepy, but not garish, the family confining, but not comically evil (and yet the big reveal made a lot of sense!). This coming-of-age story explores siblinghood and the loss thereof, queer realization (both of loved ones and yourself) and the horror of change, growing up and conformity.
I also really enjoyed reading the paperback version of this as it is sooo tiny (palm-sized) and I especially enjoyed getting to place it next to my "full sized" books. It's adorable.
TW: murder, gore, past forced therapy and medication, abusive parents, drugs.
A new and incredibly good short story collection by Natalie Tautou. It's dark, it's messy, it's transgender, it deals with horrifying and terrible shit, it's bleak and dark and so, so good!
I really enjoyed reading it (blasted through it in an evening, emotions going from feeling queasy at points to incredibly intruiged by the stories and feeling very sorry for the characters to just deeply grateful to get to read great and messed up horror). The writing is crisp and very to the point, its extreme horror and filled with trigger warnings, but also strangely beautiful.
If you enjoy your horror extreme and dark and messy, check out this collection.
If you enjoy your horror extreme and dark and messy, check out this collection.
Fake: A closeted trans woman dating a younger trans woman and dealing with the fallout from her broken marriage, fun, fucked up and interesting, tw: implications of incest, daddy kink, suicide, transphobia, murder, domestic abuse
Wish: What if a closeted girl found a lovely mommy to take care of her and drug her with estrogen? Kinky and fun, tw: mommy kink, nonconsensual hormones
Numb: A trans woman meets up with two pornographers who promise her a lot of money... bad things ensue. I quite liked this one, its really nice and creepy! tw: underage, torture, body modifications, drugging, kidnapping
Love: Two trans women meet after a concert and move in together, high focus on music, sweet and somewhat melancholic, but a bit of a whiplash after the previous story, i liked it though, tw: drug use
Hurt: This one starts as the story of a fucked up and dark kinky relationship and the fallout after the relationship is forced apart, there's a lot of horrible people in this one, it get's quite dark, I enjoyed reading it a lot, I especially love the parts where the current online trans discourse gets brought up, it's just interesting to see a product of it's time presented like that, tw: mommy kink, underage, drugs, fucked up relationship (somewhat iffy re consent because one of the participants is a teen, but it was consensual to her, even if none of it would be healthy for a real life relationship. But hey that's what fiction is here for! Just want people to know what they are getting into), sexual boundary pushing, drugging, somnophilia, forced detransition, murder, past csa, suicide, self harm
Close: Two sisters (one trans, one cis) deal with the fallout of the death of their dad, who was found out to be a pedophile when he died, their relationship is also not quite normal, if you've read other stories by Natalie Tautou, you can probably guess where this one is headed, tw: csa, pedophilia, incest, suicide
Real: short story about a trans writer with a lot of darkness, fun and twisted and really interesting, tw: suicide, rape, incest, csa, detransition, graphic gore, violence
Stories of murderous mermaids already exist aplenty, but this is a wonderful and interesting twist on that genre. Instead of mermaids singing somebody to their sleep, this is the revenge of a mermaid stolen from her home. This novella is filled with body horror and gore and it does so with lyrical and lush prose. We begin our journey in the ashen embers of a kingdom destroyed in revenge and soon reach a cult of children in a dark forest. Our two main characters, a mermaid whose tongue had been cut out and her teeth pulled to keep her powerless, and a genderless plague doctor have to face their pasts and learn how to move forward, facing the horrors.
This is a very short, but really interesting look at fairytales, looking at the way stories can be used to offers us comfortable fictions that hide dark truths behind them. I found myself nearly unable to put the book down, reading the barely 100 pages in just a day and racing along with our protagonists to figure out what's going on.
The plot is not always super strong and sometimes (due to the shortness of the story no doubt) I found myself unable to truly suspend my disbelief enough. But if you are able to allow yourself to really dive deep into the fairytale you will probably enjoy this book as much or even more than I did.
This is a very short, but really interesting look at fairytales, looking at the way stories can be used to offers us comfortable fictions that hide dark truths behind them. I found myself nearly unable to put the book down, reading the barely 100 pages in just a day and racing along with our protagonists to figure out what's going on.
The plot is not always super strong and sometimes (due to the shortness of the story no doubt) I found myself unable to truly suspend my disbelief enough. But if you are able to allow yourself to really dive deep into the fairytale you will probably enjoy this book as much or even more than I did.
I am very happy to report that with this anthology I have finally found some stories by Eric LaRocca I really, truly enjoyed. While some of his other work unfortunately fell flat, I found myself really enjoying most stories here, being drawn into the creeping dread and horror of (almost) all of them.
My favorites three were Bodies are for burning (a story following a woman with intrusive thoughts that leave her terrified she'll harm people around her, very haunting), The Strange Thing We Become (a story about a relationship that changes after one parter is diagnosed as chronically ill, told through online postings, I really liked this one, especially the grief and complicated feelings) and You're not supposed to be here (A story of a family outing to the park gone horribly, horribly wrong, so terrifying and messed up, I loved it!). I also enjoyed the other stories, but these were my absolute favorites.
All in all this short story collection focusses on relationships, familial and romatic and sometimes the blending of both, the horror of losing that relationship, of harming somebody due to their (misplaced) trust in that relationship and the way these relationships can be leveraged against you. I think it was particularly this very intimate concept of that made this short story collection into a hit for me and if you want to read some interesting horror check this anthology out.
My favorites three were Bodies are for burning (a story following a woman with intrusive thoughts that leave her terrified she'll harm people around her, very haunting), The Strange Thing We Become (a story about a relationship that changes after one parter is diagnosed as chronically ill, told through online postings, I really liked this one, especially the grief and complicated feelings) and You're not supposed to be here (A story of a family outing to the park gone horribly, horribly wrong, so terrifying and messed up, I loved it!). I also enjoyed the other stories, but these were my absolute favorites.
All in all this short story collection focusses on relationships, familial and romatic and sometimes the blending of both, the horror of losing that relationship, of harming somebody due to their (misplaced) trust in that relationship and the way these relationships can be leveraged against you. I think it was particularly this very intimate concept of that made this short story collection into a hit for me and if you want to read some interesting horror check this anthology out.