#sofia ajram

[jinxproof]

© 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!!!!

[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

[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.

[gh0st-dust]

via

[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

[lexreadsdiversely]

Lex's January Reading Wrap Up! 🌨

Since I'm participating in @batmanisagatewaydrug 's 2025 book bingo, my reading wrap ups will look a little different this year. At the end of each month I'll post my bingo board, talk about what I've completed (both part of and outside of the board) and what else I've been reading. I am at all times rotating between like 6+ books, so it'll be fun to talk about progress with those.

And I got my first box, whoooo!

Read (Bingo):

Reread a Childhood Favorite: The Baby-Sitters Club #25: Kristy and the Mother's Day Surprise by Ann M. Martin

Read (Non-Bingo):

N/A

Currently Reading:

Little Rot by Akwaeke Emezi - 55% complete. Reading this is like watching the most bisexual car crash in slow motion, and I mean that as the highest compliment.

We Don't Swim Here by Vincent Tirado - page 96/297. Endlessly confused as to why Tirado isn't more well-known. This book has everything. Sibling rivalry, ritual sacrifice, lesbians, estranged cousins simultaneously on the same and opposite sides, creepy lake, ghost bus. It's so good!

The Haunting of Hill House by Shirley Jackson - Page 29/182. I'll admit, my having watched The Haunting (with Catherine Zeta-Jones *heart eyes*) growing up might be making this feel slower to get through, but I do like it. I especially like seeing more deeply into Eleanor's thoughts/background and filling the gaps that the movie left.

Little Fires Everywhere by Celeste Ng - Page 57/336. Calling it now, this will be the book that takes me the longest to get through this year, and I'm cool with that. It feels like a good book to take in a little at a time and really digest it. I'm so intrigued by whatever Mia's got going on (I'm getting big bipolar + past trauma related to Pearl's bio father vibes?). Haven't seen much of Izzy yet, but I'm looking forward to her. Already kind of a fan after that opening tbh

Coup de Grâce by Sofia Ajram - 20% complete. Okay, so. This is cool so far, and I like the conversation happening around depression and suicide. I particularly like that it's being discussed through a character who feels he's had a good life but still can't shake it off. Dialogue and action writing is pretty good. I want to love this. That being said, some of the descriptions are giant chunks of no-doubt beautiful language that, strung together the way the author saw fit, don't make a goddamm bit of sense. Whole paragraphs have me like "what does this MEAN?" And I'm a fan of funky metaphors, figurative speech, hyperbole. I love dramatics, and these descriptions are so big and dramatic, but unfortunately they don't always land well. I still want to love it, so we'll see what happens.

The End of the Alphabet by Claudia Rankine - 17% complete. Everything is going over my head and it very much seems to be a Me issue, but I'm going to be gentle with myself on account of the soon-to-be-tested-for-MS and my processing not being what it used to be. Worth reading in my opinion (most things are) and I'll try again on a better brain day.

That's it for now! If all goes well, I'll hopefully finish most of these in February (3 of them are for the board) and get back to reading short stories again.

Happy reading, my friends!

[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.

[jinxproof]

© Sofia Ajram

[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 )

[jacobwren]

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

[elastica1995]

started reading a book (coup de grace by sofia ajram) and something felt off. realized that this is the first book i've read this year with a male protagonist.

[mariaangels]

Sofia Ajram

[innervoiceartblog]

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

— Virginia Woolf, The Waves

[Photograph by Sofia Ajram]

[manuscripts-dontburn]

The Favourites

Author: Layne Fargo

First published: 2025

Rating: ★★★★☆

An ice-dancing Wuthering Heights? How could I have said no, especially after seeing that gorgeous cover? True enough, at first I was rather underwhelmed by the writing, which is, let´s be honest, quite artless. But the story is there and it just grabbed me and the more I read the more it was difficult to put the book down. The characters took me on a rollercoaster of emotions, and while the depth of the feeling of Wuthering Heights is hardly scratched, the toxicity of the relationships is definitely there. The character arcs too just feel GOOD, you know? And what am I doing now? Scrolling YouTube and watching some great ice dancing (Marina Annisina and Gwendal Peizerat forever!!!).

Coup de Grâce

Author: Sofia Ajram

First published: 2024

Rating:  ★★☆☆☆

This is a book with an interesting premise, but quite frankly, who is it for? Who is the intended reader? People who might recognize themselves in it cannot find really any consolation or encouragement there, and people who only relate slightly or not at all shall only be thrust into a truly uncomfortable state of mind. Was the intention to shock? To raise disgust? But why would you do that without offering something else as well? It is not a horror per se, I don´t think. There is hardly any story. You are trapped in a tortured mind with no way out and it just does not seem to really have a point or end.

We, the Drowned

Author: Carsten Jensen

First published: 2006

Rating: ★★★★★

Come and sit among us, reader. Enter this gloomy room and drink to adventure, ambition and death. Listen to our stories, which are many and yet it is just one. Over a century of broken families, impossible feats and human failure, of chance and luck and tragedy. Are those tears in your eyes? Or perhaps you feel your heart constrict and race upon hearing what we have to say? From the rough Northern Sea and unforgiving Atlantic to the feverish waves that cradle the tropic islands on the other side of the world, we have been everywhere and have seen what is there to see. Come and sit and listen, if you want. When the story is finished, you will have become one of us.

Evocation

Author: S.T. Gibson

First published: 2024

Rating: ★★☆☆☆

Went into this for the deal with the devil, a haunted house and secret societies. Got a polyamorous relationship I did not like, and people talking about the occult like Texas mums talk about essential oils. And TALK is really all they do. This was the third time I tried S.T. Gibson. Probably the last.

The Portrait of a Lady

Author: Henry James

First published: 1881

Rating: ★★★☆☆

A beautifully written character study, which is extremely slow-paced and very light on plot other than changing relationships. Unfortunately, I struggled a lot through the first third (I was bored), and the very end left me feeling unsatisfied.

Death of a Bookseller

Author: Alice Slater

First published: 2023

Rating: ★★☆☆☆

While it does make you uncomfortable, on the whole, this thriller is not really thrilling. It somehow never peaks either. One also gets easily tired of endless journeys from the bookshop to the pub and the characters being constantly hammered.

Kindred: A Graphic Novel Adaptation

Author: Octavia E. Butler, Damian Duffy, John Jennings

First published: 2017

Rating: ★★★★★

Kindred is simply an iconic and brilliant story. And I am happy to say that I believe this graphic novel made it justice. The use of colours, the choice not to needlessly leave out plot points, everything was very apt and in the end felt exactly as I wanted it to feel: as a worthy tribute to the original.

Purple Hibiscus

Author: Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

First published: 2003

Rating: ★★★★★

Told from the point of view of an introspective girl, limited in her views and experiences by an abusive and religion-obsessed father, this is a sensitive portrait of coming of age in an uneasy time and place. Of all the books I have read by this author, this one is probably my favourite. It is smaller in scope but more intimate, going straight to the heart.

Victorian Psycho

Author: Virginia Feito

First published: 2025

Rating: ★★★★☆

Completely unhinged but well-paced and well-constructed yet still so wrong I felt rather ashamed of gobbling this up in one go. I loved the slow unpacking of the wrongness, creeping in steadily and ever more with greater urgency, the ending itself left me rather speechless. It was WILD.

Clytemnestra

Author: Constanza Casati

First published: 2023

Rating: ★★★★☆

Aren´t we all just sick and tired of all the retellings connected to the Ilias? Yes, yes we are. But still, I let myself be taken in by the promise of yet another attempt at looking at the most famous myth through a new lens. And I was glad for this particular version of Clytemnestra to exist. Finally, she is in the focus not as a wicked side character or just a vengeful, crazed mother, but as a complex human being. She grows, she changes, she learns through all the trials and tribulations that are heaped upon her. I especially liked the importance that was given to the familial relationships between her and her siblings. Constanza Casati dove into a legend and managed to keep to all its points and make it very realistic. Are there any gods? Who knows? Our characters live in a world much like ours, where faith is tested at every step and many feel divine interventions are nothing but accidents and coincidences. The book is open-ended, at least if you are not familiar with the myth itself and how it plays out. Perhaps the author chose to leave Clytemnestra at a point in which she felt she triumphed on purpose, instead of thrusting her into the last agony. I can respect that. But at the same time, I feel the story is thus incomplete.

The Rebel Romanov

Author: Helen Rappaport

First published: 2025

Rating: ★★★★☆

Grand Duchess Anna Fyodorovna was somebody who never truly held any importance in history but was exactly at a place to experience all the momentous things of her era and met and was related to every influential royal from the Russian Tsar to Queen Victoria. Thus when you read this book, do so for a personal story of a woman and a view into the formalities and customs of her class, rather than for politics. The book flows very freely, as is always the case with Helen Rappaport, though she is also one of those authors who will never let an opportunity for mentioning a scandal (or musing on it from the most preposterous angles) go by. Now, I believe it is finally time for someone, anyone capable, to finally write an English biography of Empress Elizaveta Alexeievna. Pretty please?