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armandyke · 3 days ago

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As promised, here are my little reviews of the first 10 books I read in 2024. I'll try and post these daily so they should all be done by the end of the week :)

1) Gone to see the River Man by Kristopher Triana (4⭐)

This is a horrible book, and I mean that so positively. I started dabbling in the extreme horror genre last year. I read Cows by Matthew Stokoe, a couple of Aaron Beuregard’s books, plus a few others… You know, they were fine. I think I rated them all somewhere around 2-2.5 stars.

Anyway, the point of all that was to say that this book was the first extreme horror I read and really enjoyed. It was pretty much exactly what I’d been looking for when I first got into the genre, which is to say, it’s gruesome, twisted, depraved, but underneath all of that there is a good story. Without giving too much away, this book follows Lori, who for the last few years has been exchanging letters back and forth with a serial killer in prison named Edmund Cox. In one of his letters, Edmund asks Lori to go to a cabin in the woods to retrieve a key, and deliver it to the titular River Man. Lori accepts the task, bringing her disabled sister with her, and finds herself embarking on this gristly, supernatural quest which digs up a lot about her and her sister’s dark past.

I really enjoyed this book, especially the way Lori’s past is slowly revealed as you go through the story. Several times throughout the book Lori switches back and forth between being a sympathetic protagonist and an unlikeable one, but you never lose sight of who her character is and what motivates her. I rated this 4 stars, and the only reason I dropped that last little star was because I felt like we moved through the concluding scenes quite quickly when I would have liked to explore everything just a little bit more. If you’re into extreme horror and haven’t read this I really recommend it, and if you’re into horror and looking for a gateway into the more extreme stuff, I think this would be a good pick for you too. There is a pretty big trigger warning that needs to be given for this book, but because it’s one of the big major twists, I’m not going to explicitly list it here. Just know that if you have specific triggers you avoid in horror books then you should look up the warnings before diving into this.

2) Skeleton Crew by Stephen King (4⭐)

I have a few short story collections that I’ve read so far this year and I’m not gonna go into too much detail about them. Generally I rate short story collections around 3 stars because there’s almost always some stories I liked and some I didn’t. So for these I’ll try to just sum up the overall vibes and maybe give some honourable mentions to a few stories I particularly liked.

All that being said, I actually rated this particular collection 4 stars, and I think it’s my favourite short story collection of the ones I’ve read. Definitely my favourite Stephen King collection so far though God knows I have a load more to read at some point. If you’re thinking of picking up one of his short story collections I’d recommend going for this one. Some particular highlights for me:

The Mist: A group of people find themselves trapped in a supermarket as a mysterious mist descends over the town. Not just any mist, but a mist with creatures. This one is just a great read, and I’m pretty sure you can also buy it as an individual short story.

The Jaunt: A dad explains how teleportation came to be invented, and all the ways it can go wrong. Five stars no notes this one fucked me up for days.

The Raft: A group of teenagers find themselves stranded on a raft being stalked by a creature in the water. I do enjoy a creature. Can you tell?

The Man Who Would Not Shake Hands: Exactly what it says on the tin. You know exactly where it’s going but you’re still having fun.

Gramma: A boy is left home alone with his sick grandmother, terrifying chaos ensues. Just some classic Stephen King horror and suspense.

3) The Butcher by Laura Kat Young (5⭐)

Oh man, this book. I read her other novel, The Collector, last year and I think I rated it 4.5 stars but this one was a 5 star for me. Laura Kat Young is so good at creating these unique but believable dystopian societies, and what I love about this one particularly is that it isn’t a modern dystopia, but feels more like it’s set in the 1600’s Salem witch trials era. I’m gonna try not to say too much about what the book entails because I really recommend reading it for yourselves, but to briefly summarise it: this story is set in a society where any and all crimes are punishable by dismemberment, ranging from fingers and toes for petty crimes to full arm and leg amputations for more severe or repeat offenders. The main character, Lady Mae, is about to take over the position as The Butcher from her mother, meaning she is the one who will be responsible for performing these amputations.

Lady Mae and her mother are outcasts in this society, effectively becoming scapegoats for the common people to direct their anger at for the barbaric punishments rather than rising up against the authority. But as time goes on and punishments become increasingly brutal, we see Lady Mae begin to question her belief in the system and battle between the decision to fight or flee.

The book is able to explore the way class and power structures influence crime, and questions how crime is viewed and punished by those in authority compared to the common people. It weaves in religious aspects (questioning of the authority in this society is referred to as ‘blasphemy’ and is the highest possible offence, punishable by death) all while telling a beautiful and entertaining story. As I said, this got 5 stars from me and I really recommend it.

4) The Hollow Places by T.Kingfisher (5⭐)

T.Kingfisher is quite possibly my all time favourite author. Her writing is beautiful, her characters are beautiful, her worlds are beautiful. It’s rare for her books to get anything other than 5 stars from me and this was no exception. This is actually probably my favourite of all her books I’ve read. It’s just T.Kingfisher at her absolute best and perfectly encapsulates everything I love about her writing.

The premise of the book is pretty simple. Kara, known affectionately as Carrot, moves into her eccentric uncle’s museum, and discovers a hole in the wall that leads to another dimension. As you do. But guess what? There are creatures. Now you��re fucking talking.

And the creatures? Oh, the creatures. Without giving too much away, this opening at the museum leads Carrot and her friend Simon to a sort of between worlds (the comparison the book gives is to the Wood between the Worlds from The Chronicles of Narnia) and this between place is occupied by interdimensional creatures that can bend and warp reality to their will. If these creatures find you, they will either eat you, or play with you, and you better hope they eat you.

The body horror in this book is delicious, the creatures are unique and terrifying, the characters are real and hilarious, and the story is just beautiful. I cried at the end. Incredible. Loved it. 5 stars no notes.

5) Salem’s Lot by Stephen King (4.5⭐)

I feel like I don’t really need to go too much into the Stephen King books on this list. Both this one and the other further in the list are pretty well known classics so I’m not gonna sit here pitching them to you. It’s Salem’s Lot. Like, you get it. It’s the one about the vampires.

I gave this 4.5 stars rather than 5 because this is one of those Stephen King books where he goes off on a tangent about something and I end up skim reading trying desperately to get back to the plot. Love the guy but God he can yap. I’m trying to find out what these vampires are up to and bro is dictating the town's archived history to me, like good for you for having all this world building but sometimes I don’t need to hear it all.

6) The Shuddering by Ania Ahiborn (3.5⭐)

This was a bit of a mixed bag for me and I can’t really put my finger on exactly why. The premise is pretty simple: a group of people are stranded in a mountain lodge in the snow and, you guessed it, there are creatures. Oh yeah, baby.

By all accounts this should have been an easy winner for me because I love creatures and I love an isolated snowy setting. I think my main hangup with this book was that the characters were all fundamentally unlikeable, and I couldn’t work out if that was intentional or not. With the exception of one character, they were just a bunch of rich white assholes, and without giving too much away, the one character I was rooting for never even got a conclusive ending.

Other than that it’s a good read and I do recommend it if you’re a fan of creatures in the snow. The gore is really well written, the creatures are fun, and the story isn’t as predictable as you’d expect from something like this. The character I thought was being set up as the final girl ended up being the first one to die so, you know. Overall I initially rated this 3 stars but I feel like maybe that was a bit harsh. It’s more like a 3.5 I think.

7) Hex by Thomas Olde Heuvelt (5⭐)

I bought this book because Stephen King blurbed it and I wasn’t let down. This was really good and a really cool concept.

The story is set in a town haunted by a witch, but set in the modern day. The town has completely cut itself off from the rest of the world, essentially enforcing a quarantine to keep the witch a secret, and they have high tech surveillance everywhere to keep track of her. She’s mostly benevolent and just wanders around the streets or occasionally appears in people’s homes, but the small glimpses they’ve had of her powers in the past have left everyone terrified to intervene with her. Now though, because the kids in the town have only ever known her as benevolent, they are starting to push boundaries and end up unleashing something terrible.

At its core this is a book about paranoia and mob mentality, and it does an incredible job of building up the suspense right through to the climax. Everything in this story feels believable, from the decisions of the town authorities to the acts of brutality committed against the witch. The whole thing is just beautifully written and sent me on some major face journeys as I was reading. I gave it 5 stars and I really recommend it if you're a fan of suspenseful horror.

8) Nothing but Blackened Teeth by Cassandraw Khaw (3.5⭐)

I think my biggest gripe with this book is that it needed to be longer. This is maybe the first novella I’ve read that I really felt needed to be a full novel. I loved everything the book was doing, but everything went by so fast there was barely time to enjoy any of it before you’re speeding on through to the conclusion.

The story is told from the perspective of Cat, a young woman spending the night with a group of friends in a haunted house in Japan where they are haunted by a ghost bride. It’s really difficult to explain more than that because there was so much happening but so little was explored. The dynamics between all the characters were tense and high strung but barely explored, and the haunting itself lasted maybe a few dozen pages before coming to an abrupt conclusion. The book is only 120 pages long and I really think it needed to be twice that length.

All that being said, the writing was good and I’ll definitely be checking out more of this author’s work in the future. If you’re looking for a really quick read, though, then maybe check this out.

9) Exquisite Corpse by Poppy Z Brite (4⭐)

Just as a side note here, I’m aware this author has come out as a trans man, but I couldn’t find any information on whether his pen name has been updated. From what I can see, his books are still being printed under the name Poppy Z Brite so I’m sticking with that but yeah, the author is a man.

I enjoyed this book a lot. I wasn’t aware it was queer horror going into it (I just picked it up because I liked the title, sue me) so that was a pleasant surprise. Nothing better than cracking open your cannibalism serial killer book and finding out that it’s also gay, and I mean that with all my heart. This wasn’t advertised as an extreme horror book but I’d say it definitely classifies, there’s very graphic gore, cannibalism, and necrophilia in here so please for the love of god look after yourselves. But if you’re… well, not into that stuff, but if it’s something you can handle and are interested in reading then definitely check it out.

Essentially the book is about two serial killers who cross paths and kind of, find a kindred spirit within one another. It’s not a romance, don’t get it twisted, but they begin this sort of intimate affair of sharing and exploring each other’s methodologies and reasons for doing the things they do, which all culminates in them working together to target what they consider to be the perfect victim.

Because of the time period, setting, and nature of the book the AIDs epidemic is very present throughout the story, with the killers acting as an allegory for HIV. It’s definitely a lot, so if that's something that could be triggering for you then give this a miss.

10) Good Girls Don’t Die by Christina Henry (1⭐)

To cut an incredibly long story short: this was bad and I rated it 1 star. I have an entire essay I wrote on this book which I’m planning on turning into a video at some point.