#sofia ajram

[bitterkarella]

Midnight Pals: Musk Deer

M. Lopes da Silva: submitted for the approval of the midnight society, i call this the tale of the glitter deer da Silva: what if elon musk got killed by a deer da Silva: but not just any deer da Silva: a gray goo glitter deer

da Silva: what if elon musk got killed by a deer Stephen King: god we should be so lucky King: i'm sorry i shouldn't have said that out loud King: he's just been really frustrating lately

Elon Musk: [rising from bushes] eyyyy Stephano king, itsa me elon musk! Musk: your besta friend! King: oh elon yeah we were just talking about you Musk: oh? why? King: King: no reason Barker: we were talking about you getting killed by a deer King: CLIVE

Musk: eyyy you thinka you so smart you writa about me da Silva: i don't usually write about you Musk: people cannta stop talking abouta elon! Musk: its because ima SO COOL da Silva: da Silva: right da Silva: mostly i write about thwarted trans masc love and weird brain bugs

da Silva: like, what if they put a worm in your head that ate all your gay thoughts? Barker: that would have to be one HUNGRY worm Barker: ha ha Barker: like, SO hungry

da Silva: have you ever been in love with a tree tho? Barker: well, i think everyone's fucked a tree at some point da Silva: no da Silva: have you been IN LOVE with a tree? Barker: Sofia Ajram: YEAH CLIVE Ajram: IN LOVE WITH da Silva: but also yeah fucking the tree

da Silva: submitted for the approval of the midnight society, i call this the tale of the pumpjack king da Silva: it's about a desert cult around a pumpjack da Silva: but also da Silva: get it? da Silva: eh? eh? King: i get it! King: ha ha i get it!

Musk: eyyy Stephano king whats so funny King: never mind elon you wouldn't understand King: it's kind of a pun Musk: i know da puns!! Barker: sure thing, Freddy krugerrand King: oh!! there's another one!!!!

[gerardpilled]

photos by Sofia Ajram

[jacobwren]

“I think there are moments in life that are so memorable to me because of their impact, only to find later that they were forgotten by others almost immediately.” - Sofia Ajram, Coup de Grâce

[gh0st-dust]

via

[inabooknook]

Coup de Grace by Sofia Ajram

This was such an interesting ride from start to finish. It was a very quick read, but if you love a good horror book, this is definitely for you. I am not normally super squeamish, but this was definitely something that made me squeamish. Beware the trigger warnings at the beginning, as they are definitely needed in this book. However, it was so well written and creepy/crawly I would highly recommend it if you want something to creep you out. The parallels being drawn between this book and House of Leaves is apt, but different. House of Leaves was a slog, and this is much more approachable and definitely easier to follow. I would recommend this book if you're looking for something to start the spooky season early!

This ebook was provided by NetGalley and the publisher in exchange for an honest review.

[spaceyraccoon]

I was really looking forward to reading the book Coup de Grace by Sofia Ajram, but found myself profoundly disappointed by it, for a few key reasons.

The prose. Dreadfully overwritten. The use of purple prose was a slog and obviously done in a way that the author was using a thesaurus to make herself seem more profound than I think the work really is. Sorry, but that's my opinion. The story and the shallowness of the "message" within it doesn't really reflect the pretentiousness of the writing.

The glorification of self-harm. I'm not going to go too much into detail on this because of how triggering it could be to some, but the way the author approached this subject is just downright disgusting, and not due to the imagery presented in the book, but due to the way it was handled. Self-harm is not beautiful. It is not artwork. It is harmful and people are in pain and need help. Stop propping it up like it's something cool.

You spend 2/3 of this book trudging your way through all this dreadfully overwritten purple prose and glorification of self harm, and for what? For the final 1/3 to sudden slap you in the face with an open-ended choose your own adventure multiple ending "ending", in which the first person character, who is a pretentious annoying dipshit glorifying his own suicide, berates you for not choosing the "correct" ending. I'll tell you what. I don't care how this man's story ends by this point in the book, because the author didn't make me care. And this is coming from someone who loves The Stanley Parable. I care more about a man who never speaks, than I do about the guy in this book because for some reason he thinks we are supposed to find his death poetic.

And this one I found especially egregious. The use of Elisa Lam's death in this story as some sort of gimmick. Elisa Lam is a real person, who really died tragically and under terrible, mysterious circumstances, and whose very real family did not deserve to have their family member's death paraded around as part of some ridiculous, dumb shit gimmick in some shitty, pretentious book, probably without their permission. I sure didn't see any credits or permission given in the book, and if it's referenced elsewhere then I will stand corrected.

Fuck this book, fuck the author, and fuck people who think it's okay to write self-harm as a glorifying thing. This book is harmful. End of story.

[jonathanpongratz]

New Book Release: Coup de Grâce by Sofia Ajram

    Blurb: A mindbending and visceral experimental horror about a young man trapped in an infinite Montreal subway station, perfect for readers of Mark Z. Danielewski and Susanna Clarke. Vicken has a plan: throw himself into the Saint Lawrence River in Montreal and end it all for good, believing it to be the only way out for him after a lifetime of depression and pain. But, stepping off the…

[battyaboutbooksreviews]

🌈 Queer Books Coming Out in October 2024 🌈

🌈 Good afternoon, my bookish bats! Here are a FEW of the stunning, diverse queer books you can add to your TBR before the year is over. Happy reading!

❓What was the last queer book you read?

[ Release dates may have changed. List below! ]

❤️ Back in the Hunt - K. Sterling 🧡 The Connoisseur's Christmas Courtship - L.M. Bennett 💛 Shoestring Theory - Mariana Costa 💚 The Black Hunger - Nicholas Pullen 💙 Wild Fire - Radclyffe 💜 Because Fat Girl - Lauren Marie Fleming ❤️ The Ace and Aro Relationship Guide - Cody Daigle-Orians 🧡 Soul Survivors - River Kai 💛 Stolen Hearts - Michele Castleman 💙 Reverence - Milena McKay 💜 Love Immortal - Kit Vincent

❤️ Take a Sad Song - Ona Gritz 🧡 Showmance - Chad Beguelin 💛 Redundancies & Potentials - Dominique Dickey 💚 Alexander - Karla Nikole 💙 Rest in Peaches - Alex Brown 💜 Rise of the Wrecking Crew - Kalynn Bayron ❤️ Language Lessons - Sage Donnell 🧡 Legend of the White Snake - Sher Lee 💛 Sorcery and Small Magis - Maiga Doocy 💙 Cried Out - Kate Hawthorne 💜 Skysong - C.A. Wright 🌈 No Rules Tonight - Kim Hyun Sook, Ryan Estrada

❤️ My Mother's Ridiculous Rules for Dating - Philip William Stover 🧡 I Shall Never Fall in Love - Hari Conner 💛 Castle Swimmer - Wendy Martin 🧡 The Hollow and the Haunted - Camilla Raines 💙 How Does That Make You Feel, Magda Eklund? - Anna Montague 💜 The Arizona Triangle - Sydney Graves ❤️ Every Rule Undone - Nancy S.M. Waldman 🧡 Mister Nice - Jamie Jennings 💛 Under the Mistletoe with You - Lizzie Huxley-Jones 💙 How to Fall in Love in a Time of Unnameable Disaster - Muriel Leung 💜 The Snowball Effect - Haley Cass 🌈 This Will Be Fun - E.B. Asher

❤️ Our Evenings - Alan Hollinghurst 🧡 Don't Let the Forest In - C.G. Drews 💛 Finding Delaware - Bree Wiley 💚 The Reeds - Arjun Basu 💙 The Bloodless Princes - Charlotte Bond 💜 Women's Hotel - Daniel M. Lavery ❤️ Alex McKenna and the Academy of Souls - Vicki-Ann Bush 🧡 A Vile Season - David Ferraro 💛 Synchronicity - J.J. Hale 💙 Writ of Love - Cassidy Crane 💜 Di-Curious - Erin Branch 🌈 Swordcrossed - Freya Marske

❤️ Stand Up! - Tori Sharp 🧡 Haunt Me, Baby - Rose Santoriello 💚 Planet Drag: Uncover the Global Herstory - Various 💙 Until We Shatter - Kate Dylan 💜 Metal from Heaven - August Clarke ❤️ Vicious Fates and Vast Futures - Tilly Bramley 🧡 The Daughter of Danray - Natalia Hernandez 💛 If I Stopped Haunting You - Colby Wilkens 💙 The Darkness Behind The Door - Mira Gonzalez 💜 Hunt Monsters, Do Magic, and Fall in Love - A.M. Weald 🌈 Jasmine Is Haunted - Mark Oshiro

❤️ Model Home - Rivers Solomon 🧡 Haunting Melody - Chloe Spencer 💛 The Door in Lake Mallion - S.M. Beiko 💚 The City in Glass - Nghi Vo 💙 Fang Fiction - Kate Stayman-London 💜 The Merriest Misters - Timothy Janovsky ❤️ Make the Season Bright - Ashley Herring Blake 🧡 My Kind of Trouble - L.A. Schwartz 💛 To Become A Flower - CEON 💙 What Was Lost - Melissa Connelly 💜 The Forbidden Book - Sacha Lamb 🌈 This Dark Paradise - Erin Luken

❤️ The Sound of Storms - Anya Keeler 🧡 Country Queers - Rae Garringer 💛 A Spell for Heartsickness - Alistair Reeves 💚 The Stars Inside Us - Kristy Gardner 💙 October's Ocean - Delaine Coppock 💜 Haunt Your Heart Out - Amber Roberts ❤️ The Dark Becomes Her - Judy I. Lin 🧡 Power Pose - Emily Silver 💛 The Magic You Make - Jason June 💙 House of Elephants - Claribel A. Ortega 💜 Tegan and Sara: Crush - Tegan Quin, Sara Quin, Tillie Walden 🌈 The Brightness Between Us - Eliot Schrefer

❤️ The Spring before Obergefell - Benjamin S. Grossberg 🧡 Pray For Him - Tyler Battaglia 💛 Coup de Grâce - Sofia Ajram 💚 Coal Gets In Your Veins - Cat Rector 💙 He Who Bleeds - Dorian Valentine 💜 The Revenge of Captain Vessia - Leslie Allen ❤️ Camelot's Tower - Brooke Matthews 🧡 The Manor - Tiffany E. Taylor 💛 Arcanum - Ashlyn Drewek 💙 Strange Beasts - Susan J. Morris 💜 On Vicious Worlds - Bethany Jacobs 🌈 Death Song - B. Ripley

❤️ Best Hex Ever - Nadia El-Fassi 🧡 I'll Be Gone for Christmas - Georgia K. Boone 💛 Make My Wish Come True - Rachael Lippincott, Alyson Derrick 💚 Gentlest of Wild Things - Sarah Underwood 💙 Troth - E.H. Lupton 💜 Solis - Paola Mendoza & Abby Sher ❤️ Lucy, Uncensored - Mel Hammond, Teghan Hammond 🧡 Mama - Nikkya Hargrove 💛 Under All the Lights - Maya Ameyaw 💙 Reclaimed - Seth Haddon 💜 The Devil's Dilemma - Alex J. Adams 🌈 The Jovian Madrigals - Janneke de Beer

❤️ Blood Price - Nicole Evans 🧡 Worship Me - K.C. Blume 💛 All the Hearts You Eat - Hailey Piper 💚 The Nightmare Before Kissmas - Sara Raasch 💙 Rogue Community College - David R. Slayton 💜 Mistress of Hours - Emma Elizabeth ❤️ The Dog Trainer's Secret - Sav Uong 🧡 Most Wonderful - Georgia Clark 💛 Antenora - Dori Lumpkin 💙 House of Frank - Kay Synclaire 💜 Sir Callie and the Witch's War - Esme Symes-Smith 🌈 Prince of Fortune - Lisa Tirreno

[tallahasseemp3]

bouta be controversial you can answer this privately if you’d prefer to do so. but what were your LEAST favorite books of the year?

oh not at all i LOVE being mean and controversial.

coup de grace by sofia ajram was my absolutely most beloathed book of the year. insanely overwritten to disguise that there is literally absolutely nothing going on there. it was 100-ish pages and i still struggled to finish. genuinely hated it so so much and i thought i was going to love it from the blurb etc. don't read this.

bury your gays by chuck tingle sadly flopped for me which was very disappointing because i really liked his first horror book camp damascus. unfortunately this one felt way too online and like it was arguing a point to me that i already agreed with (yes AI is bad yes writers should be allowed to do whatever they want with their gay characters) instead of telling me a story.

what moves the dead by t kingfisher was another beloathed book. really bad retelling (lol) of the fall of the house of usher with a main character i hated so so much i wanted them to suffer. and they didn't enough for my taste!!!! i think we need to ban retellings forever until we figure out what's going on.

[embodies]

btw i would highly recommend coup de grâce by sofia ajram as a short read with some really interesting writing style ideas to boost your own writing!!!

but only if you're alright with massive trigger warnings for suicide, suicidal ideation, self harm, substance abuse, etc. it's an intense exploration of these themes in an abstract way, similar to maybe house of leaves or piranesi in atmosphere. but the writing is gorg and will definitely supplement my replies for sure <3

[mariaangels]

Sofia Ajram

[innervoiceartblog]

“I have been in the dark; I have been hidden.”

— Virginia Woolf, The Waves

[Photograph by Sofia Ajram]

[jacobwren]

Tues Oct 8 at 7pm: Sofia Ajram launches COUP DE GRÂCE in conversation with Jacob Wren at De Stiil Books

[hobnobbingwithgingernuts]

Sofia Ajram

[ash-and-books]

Rating: 4.5/5

Book Blurb: "A sapling was starting to bloom there, strange stigmata, struggling to survive. My eyes watered at the beauty of it, the strange, cruel beauty." — The ArborglyphLimited Edition signed by Sofia Ajram.

Review:

How far would you go for someone you aren’t ready to say goodbye to? Part body horror part heart breaking beauty, this is a story that deals with love, saying goodbye, and the things left unsaid. After a terrible accident that killed him, he finds himself brought back... and turning into something else... but he has unfinished business he has to deal with, particularly the feelings he has for his best friend. This was a short and bittersweet read filled with emotion and a bit of body horror, which I adored.

[steddie-island]

November has been a really great month, reading-wise. I've finished 16 books this month (though, to be fair, a few of them were not started in November and several were very short!)

Finished

The Haunting of Alejandra - V. Castro 4/5 ⭐️

Electric Idol - Katee Robert 3.5/5 ⭐️

Learn My Lesson - Katee Robert 5/5 ⭐️

A Worthy Opponent - Katee Robert 4/5 ⭐️

Death Between the Pages - Peggy Jaeger 3.5/5 ⭐️

The Hellbound Heart - Clive Barker 3/5⭐️

My Darling Dreadful Thing - Johanna van Veen 5/5⭐️

Requiem for a Memory - Saige Denmark 2.5/5⭐️

Hunt on Dark Waters - Katee Robert 3/5⭐️

The Haunting of Hill House - Shirley Jackson 4/5⭐️

Things Have Gotten Worse Since We Last Spoke - Eric LaRocca 2/5 ⭐️

Camp Damascus - Chuck Tingle 4/5⭐️

When I Arrived at the Castle - Emily Carroll 4/5⭐️

From the Belly - Emmett Nahil 5/5⭐️

Hexis - Charlene Elsby 3/5⭐️

Hampton Heights: One Harrowing Night in the Most Haunted Neighborhood in Milwaukee, Wisconsin - Dan Kois 4/5⭐️ (This was sort of a book of short stories and would've been a solid 3/5 but one of the stories gave it another full star!)

How to Sell a Haunted House - Grady Hendrix 5/5⭐️

Incidents Around the House - Josh Malerman 5/5⭐️

The Mary Shelley Club - Goldy Moldavsky 4/5⭐️ (Could have used another edit, basically the first half of the book was setup, but holy shit it had a GREAT ending.)

My Best Friend's Exorcism - Grady Hendrix 4/5⭐️

A House at the Bottom of a Lake - Josh Malerman 4/5⭐️

We Used to Live Here - Marcus Kliewer 4/5⭐️

Horror Movie - Paul Tremblay 4/5⭐️

Pearl - Josh Malerman 3/5⭐️

Home is Where the Bodies Are - Jeneva Rose 3/5⭐️ This is like, a high 3 but not quite high enough for me to just round it up to a 4. There were bits that didn't and still don't make sense but it was still a good story.

A Dowry of Blood - S.T. Gibson 3/5⭐️ - Man I really really wanted to love this one and I just did not. It was Fine. I honestly think it would make a better movie than it made a book.

The Salt Grows Heavy - Cassandra Khaw - 2/5⭐️ -- Another one I wanted to love. I ate Nothing But Blackened Teeth up and have re-listened to it because it's so well done. This book was less than 100 pages and it took me over six months to read. I tried the audiobook, I tried the physical book, and this was just. Not a book that I enjoyed. It felt like a chore, but I made myself finish it.

Someone You Can Build a Nest In - John Wiswell 4/5⭐️ -- Very cozy, very sweet. This was recommended to me by someone recommending horror but this was honestly more fantasy than horror, it felt very D&D. I don't normally reach for fantasy but I'm glad I read this one.

Graveyard Shift - M.L. Rio 4/5⭐️

20th Century Ghosts - Joe Hill 4/5⭐️ -- Man there were a couple of stories in here that were so good. I wanted to give a book of short stories all written by the same author a chance and I'm glad I did. Pop Art and The Cape were both so fucking good and in entirely different ways.

You Like It Darker - Stephen King 4/5⭐️

Maus - Art Spiegelman

Maus II - Art Spiegelman - I honestly do not know how to rate these books. I rate based on how much I enjoyed the story, and I did not enjoy these at all but I don't think we're meant to? Like it's a horrific story but this was a great medium for telling it. It feels weird saying it made it more palatable when it was still so fucking horrifying, but it kind of did just that.

Red, White, and Royal Blue - Casey McQuiston 5/5⭐️ -- I had a tough time getting through this because we read it for book club during an election season. I didn't let that color how I felt about the book, though. I enjoyed this one so fucking much. Like the BANTER, my lord. So fucking good.

Wild Spaces - S.L. Coney 3/5⭐️

Coup de Grâce - Sofia Ajram 4/5⭐️

Gwendy's Button Box - Richard Chizmar, Stephen King 4/5⭐️

Gwendy's Magic Feather - Richard Chizmar 3/5⭐️

Gwendy's Final Task - Richard Chizmar, Stephen King 4/5⭐️

Penpal - Dathan Auerback 5/5⭐️ -- Goddamn. Just. Goddamn. It's been two days and I'm still thinking about this one.

Diavola - Jennifer Thorne 5/5⭐️

Currently reading

Season of Love - Helena Greer

Monstrilio - Gerardo Sámano Córdova

Upcoming TBR

We Came to Welcome You - Vincent Tirado

Delicate Condition - Danielle Valentine (I'm going to start one of these today probably but I'm not sure which!)

Intercepts - TJ Payne

DNFs of the year (I've removed anything that I had on here that I am actually going to try to tackle again!)

Wrong Place, Wrong Time - Gillian McAllister -- Another one that I wanted to love but after getting roughly half-way through the book I just. Did not care. At all.

(Previous versions of this post x x x x x )