#sara gran

[backlogbooks]

"Are YOU Possessed by a Demon?

1. I hear strange noises in my home, especially at night, which family members tell me only occur when I am present.

2. I have new activities and pastimes that seem “out of character,” and I do things that I did not intend and do not understand.

3. I’m short and ill-tempered with my friends and loved ones.

4. I can understand languages I’ve never studied, and have the ability to know things I couldn’t know through ordinary means.

5. I have blackouts not caused by drugs, alcohol, or a pre-existing health condition.

6. I have unusual new thoughts, or hear voices in my head.

7. I’ve had visions or dreams of personalities who may be demons.

8. A psychic, minister, or other spiritualist has told me I’m possessed.

9. I have urges to hurt or kill animals and other people.

10. I have hurt or killed animals or people.

0-3: You are probably not possessed. See a doctor or mental health professional for an evaluation.

3-6: You may be haunted, or in the early stages of possession. Seek a spiritual counselor for assistance.

6-10: You are possessed. Consult with your spiritual counselor immediately. You may be a threat to the safety of yourself and your family."

[haveyoureadthishorrorbookpoll]

Have you read...

A recurrent, unidentifiable noise in her apartment. A memo to her boss that's replaced by obscene insults. Amanda - a successful architect in a happy marriage - finds her life going off kilter by degrees. She starts smoking again, and one night for no reason, without even the knowledge that she's doing it, she burns her husband with a cigarette. At night she dreams of a beautiful woman with pointed teeth on the shore of a blood-red sea. The new voice in Amanda's head, the one that tells her to steal things and talk to strange men in bars, is strange and frightening, and Amanda struggles to wrest back control of her life. Is she possessed by a demon, or is she simply insane?

submit a horror book!

[bracketsoffear]

Dying in the Sun (Jon de Burgh Miller) "Synopsis: "It was the city of angels, and the angels were screaming…

Los Angeles, 1947: multi-millionaire movie producer Harold Reitman has been murdered and the LAPD are convinced that drug dealer Robert Chate is the killer. Detective William Fletcher isn't so sure — he believes that the man who calls himself the Doctor has a stronger connection to the crime than he's letting on.

While the Doctor assists the police with their enquiries, Star Light Pictures are preparing to release their most eagerly anticipated movie yet, Dying in the Sun, a film that rumours say will change the motion-picture industry for ever. Suspecting that the film holds secrets more terrifying then anyone could ever have imagined, the Doctor decides to do everything in his power to stop it from being released. In Hollywood, however, it is the movie studios that hold all the power… "

Why it's Web: Well, we already know that TV and film are pretty Web-aligned (Lagorio, that one line from Annabelle), so that's a start. The villains of the series create film stars by chemically enhancing their charisma to the point where they can hypnotize people into doing unspeakable things just by asking them -- but the stars, in turn, are under the sway of their alien masters. It's a pretty good metaphor for Hollywood, and a pretty good plot for the Web."

Come Closer (Sara Gran) "A recurrent, unidentifiable noise in her apartment. A memo to her boss that's replaced by obscene insults. Amanda - a successful architect in a happy marriage - finds her life going off kilter by degrees. She starts smoking again, and one night for no reason, without even the knowledge that she's doing it, she burns her husband with a cigarette. At night she dreams of a beautiful woman with pointed teeth on the shore of a blood-red sea.

The new voice in Amanda's head, the one that tells her to steal things and talk to strange men in bars, is strange and frightening, and Amanda struggles to wrest back control of her life. Is she possessed by a demon, or is she simply insane?"

[mylifeinfiction]

Come Closer by Sara Gran

The battle was all mine, and I was quickly, obviously, losing.

Sara Gran's Come Closer is a brisk psychological-horror story that's as successfully disorienting as it is exceedingly disturbing. The way Gran weaponizes the first-person - nearly stream-of-conscious - storytelling to build discomfort and fear as Amanda becomes less and less herself is immensely effective in both its execution and thematic heft. And while it's not nearly as traditionally terrifying as I'd hoped, Gran's prose handles the loss of control and sense of hopelessness throughout Amanda's dissociation so tactfully that it builds to a shockingly vicious, truly harrowing finale.

How as this not been adapted into a film, yet?!?

8.5/10

-Timothy Patrick Boyer.

[freckles-and-books]

Hoping I have a little more luck with this book. It seems like it should be a quick read at least.

[blogthefiresidechats]

Latest haul...

Well, as you can guess, I made another run at the bookstore. Today I actually got to visit two different bookstores….came home with 10 more books to add to the collection. My hubby and I didn’t really get to do anything for Valentine’s Day because we were both working. So much hubby took the day off from work today so that we could spend the day doing fun stuff.

[derailed-thoughts]

[bbadrituall]

the book of the most precious substance by sara gran

[judgingbooksbycovers]

The Book of the Most Precious Substance

By Sara Gran.

[jonathanjudge]

[triada-literaria]

Reseña Acércate

[myhikari21things]

Read of Come Closer by Sara Gran (2003) (147pgs)

[bracketsoffear]

The faceless old woman who secretly lives in your home (Joseph Fink and Jeffery Cranor) "Serious spoiler warnings for this one." (See below cut)

Come Closer (Sara Gran) "A recurrent, unidentifiable noise in her apartment. A memo to her boss that's replaced by obscene insults. Amanda - a successful architect in a happy marriage - finds her life going off kilter by degrees. She starts smoking again, and one night for no reason, without even the knowledge that she's doing it, she burns her husband with a cigarette. At night she dreams of a beautiful woman with pointed teeth on the shore of a blood-red sea.

The new voice in Amanda's head, the one that tells her to steal things and talk to strange men in bars, is strange and frightening, and Amanda struggles to wrest back control of her life. Is she possessed by a demon, or is she simply insane?"

It's framed like a biography that the Faceleed Old Woman is telling Craig, the descendant of the man who killed her. After she dies, as a sort of ghost, she haunts and attempts to kill her murderer, but she fails. She then spends the rest of time manipulating and killing all of his descendants. She is constantly doing things that they don't notice to get them to have kids, etc, and then when they get old enough, causes an accident so the first born son always dies. The villain, and TFOW murderer is also a manipulator. He gets her on a wild goose chase for years to find out who killed her father, and managed to trick her into a situation where he could kill her.

[shvtter-bug]

June Reads

Summarizing the books I read this past June, my enjoyment of them, and the books I’m planning on reading this July!

I’m rather new to reviewing books outside of my own head so bear with these almost awful descriptions.

I read 6 books this past month that contained 1,399 pages total! Nearly every single one of these books contained dark, mysterious, or reflective themes.

Life Ceremony- Sayaka Murata

Life Ceremony was a very quick read for me, if I hadn’t only been reading when I had time between classes I’m certain I would’ve finished this book much faster. I rated this book a 4.5/5 stars and would highly recommend. I will say that the mood of this book can be all over the place, though it isn’t something that bothers me. Stories would range from eerie to somewhat disgusting and then to shocking. The stories that really stuck with me upon finishing were Life Ceremony, Eating the City, and Hatchling.

Eating the city was, by far, my favorite out of the collection. I found that the way Murata wrote about the characters past experiences were beautiful and almost made me miss a place I had never experiences. If you could only read one story out of the collection I would highly suggest this one.

You’ve Lost a Lot of Blood- Eric LaRocca

Due to the fact that I have already left my thoughts about this book on my blog I’m going to keep this short. This was my first 5 star read of 2024 and one that I would read again in a second.

I am obsessed with the formatting that LaRocca uses and I finished this book within 12 hours from starting it(this only being due to the fact that I was asleep for 10 of those hours). If you would like to go back and read my partial review please go ahead though note there are spoilers within!

This story follows a serial killer and his works including a short story, a series of poems, his personal journal, as well as transcriptions of audio recordings. We come to understand the inner workings of this man’s mind, how he views his relationships, his motive to kill, as well as his drive to write.

Come Closer- Sara Gran

Come Closer follows a woman as she navigates her own possession and tries to cope in a series of countless ways. We see her relationships shift, even the one she has with herself, as she explores a part of herself she’s had buried for a very long time.

There isn’t much good I can say about this book. I finished it in full and am glad that the authors writing style is good or I couldn’t have been able to sit through this. I was extremely into this from the beginning and only lost interest close to the end when I saw the direction that the author was taking this.

It almost felt like a pointless read. I didn’t feel good or bad after reading it more so just felt like I wasted two hours I could’ve spent on something else. The rating I ended up giving it was a 1.5/5 stars.

If you’re extremely into literature focused around possession and demons you’ll find this very interesting it just wasn’t a book that stuck for me.

Spider-Gwen, Volume 0: Most Wanted- Robbi Rodriquez

3.75/5 stars. It was a comic book related to the spiderverse. I enjoyed it. Not much else to say.

And Then I Woke Up- Malcolm Devlin

The exploration of the impact that the media has on our minds is impactful, but I wish the twist wasn’t given away within the first chapter of the book. I feel like the impact would’ve been larger.

This book would be a very good intro to the effects that media can have on the mind. If certain language wasn’t as vulgar the ideal audience for this would be middle schoolers/young high schoolers.

Without giving much away we follow our main character deal with the fallout of an apocalypse. He builds relationships with other survivors through a first person perspective as he relays his story to the audience. An interesting take on the unreliable narrator. 3.5/5 was my rating.

My Year of Rest and Relaxation- Ottessa Moshfegh

The first thing that comes to mind is the unbelievable, seemingly forced resolution that was at the end of this book. I never had this book on my To Be Read List, but when I was it for 25¢ at the thrift store I figured I would pick it up and give it a read.

It was fine. Moshfegh is skilled at writing unlikable characters while still giving you a sense of sympathy for them even when they can’t feel it for themselves. I can’t say much about how I felt without giving the entire story away, but I understand how this book has gained so much popularity. Another read that left me feeling disappointed that I would ever listen to the suggestions of booktok.

July To Be Read List(some of these I’ve already finished but I’m throwing it in anyways)

The Goldfinch-Donna Tartt

Mysterious Skin- Scott Heim

The October Country- Ray Bradbury

Dreamseller- Brandon Novak

A Certain Hunger- Chelsea G. Summers

Factotum- Charles Bukowski

Below is my StoryGraph! Feel free to follow along with my journey!

[nocturnal-milk-dud]

For a book about sex magic, this one feels awfully un-sexy.

[sleightsofheart]

I have a newsletter/substack thingy where I talk about horror in all its forms and I'll be posting on here when there's a new edition and what do you know, THERE IS A NEW EDITION

It's a review of this book

Come and read etc