#studyblr w/knives reading challenge: horror

[cropcirclesmp3]

🕸 Boys and girls* of every age, Wouldn't you like to see something strange? 🕸 *and enby legends

With the days getting shorter and darker, and halloween just around the corner is there anything better than sitting down with a hot beverage of your choice and reading a spooky book? Trick question the answer is no! Thus the Studyblr with Knives server brings you the Horror Reading Challenge!

RULES: like with all our reading challenges, the rules are pretty flexible, since the whole point of this is to motivate you to read just a little bit more :) this challenge doesn't have a set timeframe, so it's perfect for both horror beginners and seasoned enjoyers → reblog this post if you're participating → use the tag #studyblr w/knives reading challenge when you post your updates/pics → the challenge is ofc, as usual, also on storygraph (check the notes for the link)

once you’ve read a book that fits a prompt, cross it out on the template and/or share your thoughts on it in a post here on tumblr; make sure to mark any spoilers (hide them under a cut etc.), so people can avoid them if needed :) you can also have just one post and update it as you go, or you can post good ol’ aesthetic book pics!

as always, if you have any questions, feel free to send them to me or the wonderful @bulletnotestudies

[find the alternative template (no blood) below the cut!]

This challenge includes 9 prompts:

[prompts with the bulletpoint function in the tumblr editor; explanations below with shift+enter]

Children’s horror (Horror books written for children as the target audience)

Psychological horror (books that rely on mental, emotional and psychological states to scare the reader)

Horror with queer mcs

Body horror ( horror fiction based around the graphic destruction or alteration of the body)

Supernatural/paranormal horror

the ocean is scary/space is scary (scary books that take place either in space or on the ocean)

graphic novel/comic/manga

Historical fiction or Classics

Folk horror or Cosmic horror (folk horror:uses elements of folklore to scare the reader, Cosmic horror: horror that emphasizes the terror of the unknowable and incomprehensible)

The alternative template:

We hope you enjoy the challenge and can’t wait to see your posts and what books you decide to read for this! Feel free to send me an ask if you want recs or if you have any recs for me!

[bulletnotestudies]

.... it's autumn and you know what that means!

who's ready for the autumn reading challenges 🍂🍃🍁

[selkiestudies]

9 October 2022

Enjoyed listening to The Yellow Wallpaper this morning and on to the next book! It’s nice and cold which is perfect for reading. Happy times!

Currently listening to: Cardigan by Taylor Swift

[upside-down-uni]

THE STUDYBLR WITH KNIVES SERVER PRESENTS:

the Pride Reading Challenge🌈

you'll hear it everywhere in the next month and you'll hear it here too: Pride Month is every month and you're not less entitled to happiness outside of these random 30 days! So, we're kicking off our queer reading challenge with a bang in June and will be serving you hot and steaming queer recs for the next couple of months! we hope you enjoy it as much as our previous challenges; worry not, there will also be a Summer Reading Challenge 2.0, since so many people enjoyed it last year :)

RULES:

◆ please reblog this post if you’re participating

◆ for each of the prompts, read a book of your choice and cross the prompt out on the above template

◆ post your updates in the form of text posts, bookish photos, or anything else you come up with under the tag #studyblr w/knives reading challenge!

◆ the challenge will last from the 1st of june till the 31st of december, but feel free to finish it at your own pace

! be sure to hide any spoilers under the cut when posting updates/reviews, so people can avoid them if needed :)

if you want to make this a Pride Month only challenge or if you’re just starting to dip your toes into lgbtq+ literature, we have a template with fewer prompts for you as well (see below the cut). the storygraph challenge has the corresponding number of bonus prompts, so you can tailor it to your own preference

if you have any questions, feel free to send them to me or @bulletnotestudies

stay tuned for our recommendations for each prompt!​

[transcript of the prompts and what each of them means under the cut]

This challenge consists of 16 rad prompts:

queer found family you might not like this but this is what the ideal atomic family looks *like points at 5 very close friends who mean the world to each other*

queer academia the nonfiction prompt; queer history/politics/etc. - this includes essays and articles!

fucked up queers horror, crime, thriller books featuring queer characters

abolish annihilate aspec characters on the aroace spectrum

coming out book a book where coming out is a (relatively) major plot point

Public Universal Friend and Sappho Are Dancing On Your Grave or, alternatively, queer characters in a historical setting

epic queers because being queer is better with dragons and life altering journeys through space (a larger than life story featuring queer epic heroes)

in sappho's footsteps queer poetry

yes homo a queer romance book

queer joy everyone is queer and nothing hurts - what's on the tin, no hurt only queer joy, angst? we don’t know her

sword wlw a book featuring any kinda badass wlw characters

old queers as in old(er) queer characters or old(er) books (published before 2000) with queer characters

yes, i'm queer, mind your business characters are queer but it's not a major plot point

down with cis aka books that transed your gender a book with trans character(s)

ownvoices books by queer authors - fiction, memoirs, etc.

not gay as in happy but queer as in fuck you books featuring characters with lesser known orientations/gender identities

ALTERNATIVE TEMPLATE IF YOU WANT TO MAKE THIS A MINI READING CHALLENGE:

TAGLIST:

@kkul-bee @melaschnie @fluencylevelfrench @myhoneststudyblr @serendistudy @condenasttraveler @welcome-fuckers @thebudbblylinguist @caroloveslife @booksnscience @three-blogs-in-a-trenchcoat @soleciito @companion-of-the-earth @pencilspeaker @pothimi @autumnalglaze @starguiders @ngisi @hold-fire @yourneighborhoodbibliophile @thankstosoullesslovers @anurennero @dreamsdemandhustles-blog @selkiestudies @the---hermit @emdashaddict @thiqqachu @happylightdragonalmond @tranquilstudy @aaalias @perpetualanon @gloriousinternetpaper @dostoevskyforthewin @idkbruhhhhwtf @pandetrigo @simons-studyblr

[caffeinated-scarab]

A late #studyblr w/knives reading challenge update!

Pet Sematary by Stephen King

Finished: 25 Oct. 2022

Rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

Format: audiobook

Prompt: horror or nonfiction

It was quite a struggle to get through at times because of the heavy element of grief in it. Once I finished it I couldn't stop thinking about it for a while and had to rate it 5 stars.

-----

Clown in a cornfield by Adam Cesare

Finished: 6 Nov. 2022

Rating: ⭐⭐⭐.5

Format: Audiobook

Prompt: seasonal read or spoopy classic

[gladiates]

Bingo! I’m continuing with the Studyblr w/Knives Reading Challenge and I just finished reading Beloved for the historical fiction prompt! Beloved is probably the most famous book by Nobel laureate Toni Morrison, who passed away in 2019. The novel centers on Sethe, a formerly enslaved woman who killed her own daughter to prevent her from experiencing the horrors of slavery. It's definitely not a light read, but it's one of the best books I've ever read and now my favorite of Morrison's novels, which is saying a lot considering how much I love The Bluest Eye and Sula.

[greentea-studying]

Studyblr w/ Knives reading challenge - Dark Academia Setting: The Best of HP Lovecraft: Bloodcurdling Tales of Horror and the Macabre

You’ll need to excuse me for not having a physical copy of this book but because it’s in the public domain, I found an audiobook on YouTube, which I think was the perfect way to consume Lovecraft’s works because it makes it much creepier.

If you enjoy horror and mysteries, I’d check it out. A lot of the ideas are pretty cool, but please be aware that Lovecraft was a really awful and racist guy, and that shows in his works. People of colour are frequently villanized and several slurs are used casually. If that’s going to make you uncomfortable, skip this read. I enjoyed a lot of the collection, but the use of people of colour as a recurring villain made me too uncomfy to give it any more than 4 stars (which you will learn is a pretty low rating by my standards). It could have been so much better if a more creative and less harmful idea had been used. Blaming people of colour and minority religions is not only disappointing and harmful, but even if you can overlook that, it's just not scary, because as long as you know that Native Americans and Africans are not evil cultists, any sense of dread is gone. Luckily, reading it won’t give Lovecraft any money because he’s very dead and the collection can be found for free!

[the---hermit]

Who Goes There? by John W. Campbell

This is the novella that inspired the movie The Thing, which I have not seen in any of its versions. I was intrigued by the idea, because it's such a sci-fi classic, and the trope in my opinion is really cool, but this book was a huge disappointment.

This novella is a mix of science fiction and horror, two genres I particularly enjoy. The plot is following a research exploration in Antartica where our characters find a spaceship buried in the ice. They also find one of the creatures that came to Earth buried in the ice, and they have the genious idea of taking the thing to their camp. Soon they find out the thing is not dead, and it can shapeshift into anything or anyone and chaos starts to unfold. As I said this idea, the trope of the book is really cool in my opinion. I remember loving an episode of the x-files that was very much inspired by this trope, to this day it's one of my favoruite episodes of the series. But this novella was a huge disappointment. The writing is terrible, at times it's confusing, the characters are poorly made, I couldn't care less for them, and I felt no empathy or tension whatsoever while reading. What's even more annoying is the fact that there were all the elements for me to love this, but the execution was just absolutely not for me. I am intrigued to watch at least one of the movies this book inspired, to see whether another media might work better for me with this story, but this is certainly not a book I will be rereading. I don't even feel like recommending it to be honest, I know it's a classic, but I am pretty sure this trope has been used multiple times, and I will look for a better execution of it in the future.

I read this book for the classic prompt of the winter reading challenge (I'll soon post an update, since believe it or not I completed the challenge).

[bulletnotestudies]

i can't find the original post for the horror challenge, it never came up on my dash and i wanna do it so bad now 😫

well here you go :) enjoy!

[the---hermit]

Bunny by Mona Awad

I know everyone who talks about this book says it's really weird, and I was expecting it to be weird, but not this much. I had no idea where it was going for the whole time, but I had a lot of fun with it. It has been described as dark academia, mostly because we follow a group of creative writing students at uni, but that is just a frame for the story. There's some other typical dark academia elements, like a very closed off group of students in which the main character gets sort of accepted, but again the book is so much more than that. The base of the story is set around this group of girls who call each other bunny, and in general tend to act like little girls. It was the only thing that I knew before reading the book, and to be honest I think the less you know about this the more enjoyable it will be. As I was saying this is really weird. There's no way you can see what is coming next, only at the very end I could imagine where things were going, but it's such an absurd story it's worth diving into not knowing much. This is described as a psychological horror as well, and I can see why. There is a sort of tension in the background at all times, and I found myself anxious while reading it. I think it's really worth the hype, I have no idea how the author came up with the ideas behind this book, because as I was saying it's totally absurd. It's also really fast paced and the writing flows amazingly, I think I read it in just a two or three of days, and I am a slow reader. I definitely recommend giving this novel a try, and I think it will stay in my mind for a while now.

I read this for the studybr w/ knives horror reading challenge for the psychological horror challenge.

[the---hermit]

A Certain Hunger by Chelsea G. Summers

This book has been all over internet for the past few months, and since I don't read a lot of contemporary novels I felt this book could be the perfect way to comfortably read something different. In fact the themes and general vibe of the novel are much closer to what I would normally read. This novel is a first person narration of a food critic who turned out to be a cannibal. She murdered and ate several ex partners, and in the novel we get to see how she did it and why. This book is included in several unhinged women main characters lists,and it totallt fits in. I can see how it got so famous, because aside from the more horror-ish vibe of the story there's a lot of sections in which our main character shares her thoughts on femininity and how being a woman is generally perceved as well as how society tells you to act as a woman. There's some really interesting and nice passages on the topic, and overall I really liked the way this character is totally opposed to the classic female representation in litterature. I'm going to say something insane but bare with me for a second and you'll see where I am going. In classic Italian litterature I have always particularly enjoyed Boccaccio because other than proving that medieval litterature can be fun he did something extraordinary: he humanized female figures in litterature. Previousl the model of women in litterature was an angelic idea, then this guy came along and reminded everyone that women are humans have desires and believe it or not they can feel a varied range of emotions and enjoy sex. I feel like A Certain Hunger is a book that instead reminds the reader that women can be violent and feel anger, or even commit these kind of crimes withour an emotional explaination like revenge. There's a couple of specific passages in the book where the author addresses this topic directly and those were some of the best parts. The plot is overall good, you follow with interest because the narrating voice is really captivating.

There is one main thing I did not like and that I have complained about on goodreads as well because it really ruined the experience for me. The book has a lot of sections that take place in Italy (it was very fun and interesting to see Italy and Italians from the point of view of someone outside of our culture to be honest, and it really added something to te experience for me). To make things more elevated and since the main character supposedly speaks Italian and has a lot of interactions with Italian people there are many words and phrases written in Italian. Those were not at all checked by someone who activly speaks the language before publishing the book. If it were just a couple of sentences it wouldn't have been too much of an issue, but since it was so present it was very annoying to read cause it was avoidable quite easily. There's typos that change the meaning of sentences, wrong adjectives, and sentences that look translated by google translate. These phrases feel wrong because they were translated directly from English, meaning they either do not make sense or sound like stuff people would never say out loud. I understand that for an English speaker that cannot speak Italian this complaint is useless, but believe me it made the reading experience so frustrating. What leaves me shocked is that the cultural aspects were mostly accurate (shout out to the full page in which the main character complains about how Trenitalia is totally unreliable, it was as hilirious as it was accurate), so I really don't understand how this can live with all the language mistakes in the book. This is my only complaint for the novel to be honest, if it had been edited by an active speaker the reading experience would have been so much better. With this being said it's not a bad book, and it's worth reading for the themes I talked about. As an horror/thriller book it wasn't too disturbing, there were a couple more graphic scenes, but I feel like it could have been much worse. If you want to read if maybe check the trigger warnings but I think it's quite appoachable.

I read this book for the studyblr w/ knives horror reading challenge for the body horror prompt.

[the---hermit]

Wyrd And Other Derelictions by Adam L. G. Nevill

Someone recommended me this book in the comments of one of my posts a few months ago. I had never heard of this before, and I think I had asked for horror books that had a symilar vibes to The Magnus Archives podcast. Aside from Jonathan Sims' writing this is the closest thing I read to have that vibe, so whoever recommended me this book thank you, you were right. I should start by saying that I am aware I read this collection of short stories at the wrong time. If I had read this another time I'd probably enjoy it more, because the writing is quite challenging, especially for me since I am not a native English speaker and I probably have a mild for of dyslexia, but let's not get into that. The thing is that while reading I kept struggling and I could never focus as much as this book needed me to, so I am aware my reading conditions were not at their best. I should have probably waited to pick this up when I'd be more rested, but it had been on my shelf for a while and I was curious. The overall idea is amazing and the execution is stunning, and that's why I am sorry I didn't perform at my best as a reader with this one. This book is a collection of short horror stories, and the mind blowing thing is how horror is created in them. The horror isn't formed in actions you see a character perform, but it slowly builds in your mind as the narrating voice guides you with description of places. Each story forms a painting that slowly shows misplaced things, as your focus sets on the horror of each image. It's worth reading for this base idea alone, then as I said the writing is really beautiful, although it's a bit challenging. I will surely reread this book again in the future, since I feel I didn't experience it as well as I could have. I definitely recommend this, it was so unlike anything I read before, and as I said it's a great way to create horror in my opinion.

I read this for the studyblr w/knives horror reading challenge for the cosmic horror prompt.

[the---hermit]

Something Is Killing The Children vol.3 by James Tynion IV, Werther Dell'Edera and Miquel Muerto

Earlier this year I read the first and second volume of this horror comic series and loved it. It's dark and gory and based on a great idea in my opinion. The story is set in a world just like ours, but where monsters are real and they kill people. The catch is that only children can see these monsters. There's a secret organization that hunts monsters, and Erica, the protagonist is one of them, although we learn very soon that she isn't in great terms with the rest of the organization. This particular volume concludes the story started in the previous two, and I felt like it was a good conclusion to the story, that helped to set a base for this series. Since it's been a few months since I first read the other volumes I want to reread all three one right after the other in the future to see how they work together, but I was really satisfied with the start of this series which I will be surely continuing. I really like the illustrations, as I mentioned they are quite gory, so if you don't like that maybe avoid this particular series. The only thing I had already noticed in the other volumes is that sometimes you are supposed to follow the page normally when in other occasions you have to read from left to right on the whole two pages before going on the line below (I hope this makes sense it would be a nightmare to explain in Italian you can imagine how much I am struggling with English). I often find myself not realizing right away when it's one of the latter occasions, and it messes up the whole two pages, clearly. I don't know if I'm stupid (at this point I probably am) but I struggled with this thing multiple times in all three volumes, I feel like it's not always clear if I have to continue on the same line of the next page or to go directly on the line below. As I said I hope it makes sense, and in general this is my only complaint with the series so far. I'd really recommend giving this a try, you could just read the first three volumes and call it a day in my opinion, but to be honest I think the story does a great job at captivating the reader and you'll want to read more.

I read this book for the studyblr w/knives horror reading challenge for the graphic novel prompt.

[the---hermit]

Family Business by Jonathan Sims

Jonny is the only author besided Neil Gaiman I buy books without knowing anything about them. I trust him with my whole heart, his type of horror is exactly what I love, and to be honest I'd even buy his grocerie's list if he published it. Of course as soon as I heard this book was coming out I was super excited, and I did not care to research the topics, so I started reading without any base knowledge of the story which is something that has become rarer and rarer for me. This novel is a very simple supernatural themed horror. It deals with grief, death, and what is left of us after we die. The themes were a strong point of this book in my opinion, and I really liked how they played a role in the novel. We follow a main character who has recently lost her best friend of a lifetime, and is still processing her loss. She gets a new job working in a cleaning company that cleans after recently deceased people, and her new coworkers are also dealing with grief of their own for the loss of a bother. During jobs the main character will start seeing weird things that might be supernatural or might be linked to her recent loss. Another thing I really appreciate about Jonny's stories is the casual representation of queer people. Being queer is never the central focus, but he just reminds the readers that queer people do exist and we are everywhere. It's something I particularly appreciate, because casual representation is so important for people outside of the comunity as well. In these particular story we have both bisexual representation, which always makes me very happy because it's not that common, and there's also trans fem representation, which is delightful great to see. She ended up being one of my favourite characters of the book. With this being said I really like Jonny's stories, they feel clean, because this man manages to perfectly pull the strings of everything and have nice endings that just make sense. As I said I loved the themes and I would definitely recommend this novel, it's a lovely light horror with interesting themes to it. Jonny's writing is always worth it in my experiece.

I read this novel for the studyblr w/knives horror reading challenge for the sulernatural prompt, and for the autumn challange for the anticipated release prompt (alongside another book cause I couldn't pick juat one).

[the---hermit]

Horror reading challenge

Second proper update of this challenge! Here's the link my first update. This is probably the challenge I have been most excited to complete, as you might know from my posts horror is one of my favourite genre in books, and I love how this challenge has been pushing me to look for such different versions of this genre. I feel like people talk about horror only during October, and the majority of the horror recommendations are either classics or Stephen King, nothing bad with either, but horror is not just that. Anyway what I want to say is that I am really glad how this challenge helps with experiment with such different sides of this genre.

Bunny by Mona Awad for the psycohological horror prompt

I'll be honest and say I hadn't realzed this could count as psychological horror until I saw it in the recommendations for this prompt. But it totally makes sense to have it in this category. This book is weird and not easy to describe, moreover I think it's one of those books that will pull you in even more if you know very little about it. It was really fun and entertaining, and it is indeed creepy on a psychological level, I definitely recommend it.

Something Is Killing The Children vol. 3 by James Tynion IV and Werther dell'Edera for the graphic novel prompt

What can I say? I am obsessed over this series, and I am not big on series usually. The base of the story is very simple and effective. In a world just like ours monsters exist, they are very dangerous, but only children can see them. There's also a secret organization that hunts them and tries to keep hidden their existence. This volume concludes the first "adventure" presented in the comics, so if you are curious the first three volumes will give you a great idea of how these gaphic novels are. Beware it's definitely gory, so keep that in mind if you decide to read these.

A Certain Hunger by Chelsea G. Summers for the body horror prompt

This book has been all over the internet in the huge trend of unhinged women books. It's really interesting especially in the way it talks about femininity, and I really recommend it for that. I was not a fan of how much Italian there was in the text, because it was clearly not reviewed by an active speaker, and as one it was really annoying to see so many mistakes and sentences that were probably translated using google, but I complained enough in the review of the book.

Wyrd And Other Derelictions by Adam L. G. Nevill for the folk or cosmic horror prompt

I am not sure whether in the book review I mentioned I used this book for the challenge, but I did. I am not sure if this book fits perfectly the cosmic horror genre, but it's pretty close. It's a very peculiar type of horror that develops not with actions of characters, but with descriptions of places. The writing is a bit challenging, but stunning, and the idea at the base of the book is worth alone for this whole collection of short stories. It's absolutely amazing, and I'll definitely check out more stuff written by this author.

As usual the reviews of each book are linked in the titles above.

[the---hermit]

The Exorcist by William Peter Blatty

I read this horror classic for the studyblr w/knives summer reading challenge 2.0 for the adapter for a movie prompt. I have never seen the movie, but it's so iconic it felt like a good choice.

The plot is quite simple and very well known. It's the story of how Regan, the young daughter of a famous acress, gets posessed by a demon. I was very curious for this novel, since as I said I have never even seen the movie. I knew a couple of the most iconic scenes, as the majority of people, I think, but not much more than that. I thought it would have been scarier, but even though there's a lot of very graphic scenes it did not keep me up at night. I overall really liked it, it's written in a way that keeps you glued to the pages, even though looking back some passages were a bit slow for my taste. It's a weird thing to explain, because while reading it didn't feel too slow or anything, but when thinking of the story I felt like a few things take so much to happen. Aside from this it was a great book, it's a much more approachable book than I expected, and as I said it will keep you glued to the pages. I am happy I finally read this novel, because it's such an iconic story. If you are in the mood for a horror and have never read it I recommend giving this a try. As I said, keep in mind there's quite a few graphic scenes, so maybe check the trigger warnings.