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BurningBeard posted:I would be very interested to hear your thoughts when you finish the book. That one is one of the very few that I totally regret reading. Still kind of haunts me when I think about it. I finished The Girl Next Door. It got even more brutal before the end, although it still has restraint in how it handles the worst of it. Overall my opinion stands, and I don't regret reading it, even if it's a hard one to recommend. It left me with a lot of thoughts, mostly about how Meg was failed (and how we fail children in foster care, adoption agencies, victims of abuse, etc.), about culpability, about how you would criminalize kids in this situation, about irreversible guilt. It's a very good book that I totally understand wanting to bail on or regret reading. There's no happy ending to look forward to, and there's no way to have closure over the events of the book. They just exist. It's not fun. I had way more visceral reactions to say We Are The Flesh. This was more depressing and sad. I would probably have a harder time with it if I were a parent, since so much of it is about corruption, or the heinous acts kids are able to commit without being fully conscious of the morality or ramifications of their actions. The line between this being fiction and being true crime is also difficult to wrap my head around. It gives everything more credibility, like the mental illness of Ruth (the adult) and her misogynist repression, and how something like this could go on and involve a whole group of kids without people finding out, but it also doesn't give you the safety valve of "it's only a story".
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Oct 18, 2022 17:06
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| # ¿ May 20, 2024 03:04 |
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Double post, but what are some fun horror novels. Everything I’ve got lined up sounds bleak. I’m not looking for something like John Dies At The End. More like the Evil Dead 2 of horror novels.
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Oct 18, 2022 17:30
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escape artist posted:Do you like McCammon? I don't know if I'd call him Evil Dead 2-esque, but when I was looking for something that was fun and gory and reminiscent of 80s horror films, McCammon fit that mold decently I've got Boy's Life and Wolf's Hour on kindle, but have not read him yet. Would either of those fit the bill? I know Boy's Life is supposed to be a coming-of-age novel with supernatural elements. My library has a bunch, so if there's a specific one you're thinking of, I'd like to know. gey muckle mowser posted:this has come up before in this thread so you may have already read it, but Skullcrack City by Jeremy Robert Johnson is similar to John Dies at the End but in my opinion the better novel. This one's new to me. I'll check it out.
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Oct 18, 2022 18:19
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Jedit posted:McCammon is one of the most cinematic writers I've ever encountered. You can picture everything being on film. The Wolf's Hour, Swan Song, Stinger are all great and I really need to replace my copy of Usher's Passing that I got in 1987 because it's falling apart. Usher's Passing sounds great, so I may make that my first McCammon.
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Oct 19, 2022 12:48
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I finished Red Dragon by Thomas Harris. I know it's a bit more of a thriller than horror, but I feel like so much of the novel is built on dread and the violence and the almost supernatural aspects of the Red Dragon killer push it into horror. Either way, it was an excellent book.SSJ_naruto_2003 posted:The coolest part is how little punishment all of them caught for this. This makes adapting the story into a novel even more complicated. The crimes in the book are more gruesome than was was detailed in the trial, but the novel also has a greater punishment for the characters and their crimes. But yeah, the actual adult woman in charge of all of it got released because she was a "reformed Christian woman". Even though she denied the crimes originally by saying she was a "good Christian woman". escape artist posted:The Amulet was awesome. I liked it more than the Elementals although I can see how the Elementals is the more popular of the two. I did both of these in audiobooks and they were fantastic. I'm halfway through the audiobook for The Amulet. I put it on while doing chores and I listened for 5 straight hours. It's been fun so far. Jo is awful. Franchescanado fucked around with this message at 19:18 on Nov 7, 2022 |
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Nov 7, 2022 19:15
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I finished reading Can Such Things Be? by Ambrose Bierce recently. It's a solid little spooky collection. It's notable how tapped into ideas that made Lovecraft famous (unknowable monstrosities, supernatural events enlightening an individual to a point of insanity, people breaking laws of nature to explore the Other Side) 40 years before Lovecraft was published, while mixing it with more irony akin to Poe. I also liked how most of the characters featured in stories were hunters, bounty hunters, ex soliders, and other "rugged" men. Bierce was an interesting guy, having survived the Civil War, being a devout atheist in the late 1800s, and wrote everything from comedies to horror to war stories. I wouldn't say any of them were great, but they were pleasant and felt folky, like a great uncle or someone telling you a spooky tale around a campfire.
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Mar 20, 2023 13:32
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Shot in the dark, but does anyone have any Audible exclusive horror audiobooks they love? I have some credits I want to spend.
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Oct 4, 2023 16:11
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Kestral posted:Audible’s adaptation of Dracula is very, very good. I can also highly recommend Dark Matter by Michelle Paver as a book that comes alive in audio format. I have listened to that Dracula and it was very good. Grabbing Dark Matter. I know that’s a thread favorite that I have been putting off.
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Oct 4, 2023 18:15
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I'm absolutely loving Dark Matter by Michelle Paver. re: Hendrix chat: From what I've read of him, Grady Hendrix is R.L. Stine with more swear words and blood.
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Oct 11, 2023 22:08
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MrMojok posted:I had not heard of Grady Hendrix. Thanks to this thread I looked him up, and immediately found a few titles that sounded really interesting to me. Haven't read them all, but Horrorstor is the weakest of these.
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Oct 14, 2023 21:25
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I would really like something in the vein of Something Wicked This Way Comes by Ray Bradbury and Hell House by Richard Matheson. Not that the two are overly similar, but both are favorites of mine and I have a hard time finding something that hits those highs. Lovely prose, macabre ideas, inventive imagery, serious tone but still fun. The last horror book that really knocked my socks off was Blatty's The Exorcist. Any suggestions for me, friends? I've read Shirley Jackson and Stephen King.
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Mar 14, 2024 14:34
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Jedit posted:Ghost Story by Peter Straub. Weird question, but when does this get into the Ghost part of the Ghost Story? I read the first chapter last weekend on a whim trying to find something new to read and it was seemingly a kidnapping story? I liked it, but it was not at all what I was expecting with the title and blurb. Thanks for the suggestion! anilEhilated posted:The Shadow Year by Jeffrey Ford is pretty close to Something Wicked in tone, I think. Very different writing style obviously, but the setting is similar and it deals with similar themes. Not sure if it counts as horror, although it is a ghost story. Thank you! It sounds good. I'll look for a copy.
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Mar 14, 2024 21:26
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fez_machine posted:Have you checked out what Valancourt Press is publishing? I’ll check out that link. I’ve only read McDowell’s The Amulet, which was awesome and pretty spot on with the vibe. Blackwater’s a bit of a beast in length, cuz it’s a few books, so I haven’t made the plunge yet.
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Mar 15, 2024 18:14
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| # ¿ May 20, 2024 03:04 |
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Are there any books that are similar in premise or tone to the original Flatliners (1990) film? I watched it today and it made me wanna find something comparable to read.
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Apr 8, 2024 23:28
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