Diversity in Horror Fiction

Splinter by Jasper Hyde

Splinter by Jasper Hyde

Formats: Print, digital

Publisher: The Magnificent Engine

Genre: Folk Horror, Killer/Slasher, Occult, Myth and Folklore, Romance

Audience: Adult/Mature

Diversity: Black main character and author, Filipino British main character, asexual (demisexual) main character and author, bisexual main character, main character with ADHD, Trans masc/Non-binary author

Takes Place in: Sleepy Hollow, NY

Content Warnings (Highlight to view): Ableism, Bullying, Death, Drug Use/Abuse, Medical Procedures, Mental Illness, Police Harassment, Racism, Torture 

Blurb

In a small town hidden behind the hills of New York, things are far from ordinary. As Sleepy Hollow’s youngest Medical Examiner, the pressure intensifies for Dr. Drusilla Van Tassel when the headless bodies of her sister Katrina’s friends start surfacing. Meanwhile, Drusilla’s ex-lover Ichabod Crane returns to town, dredging up feelings better left buried.

Things take a turn for the worst when Drusilla comes face-to-face with the Headless Horseman, who is back to settle old scores – and she and her sister are the perfect targets. Drusilla can repel the horseman with an unknown power, but her sister isn’t so lucky, and she goes missing.

However, when Drusilla discovers Ichabod is a monster hunter, she has no other choice but to turn to him for help. Even if that means working with a man she feels an inexplicable attraction to. Will they find Katrina and banish the headless horseman once and for all?

I received this product for free in return for providing an honest and unbiased review. I received no other compensation. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255: Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.

If you decide to read Splinter, keep in mind that this story comes from a small, indie publisher and didn’t benefit from a professional editor. There are quite a few grammar errors sprinkled throughout. I didn’t find them particularly distracting, and the quality of the writing was still good, but I know this will bother some readers. I would encourage them to give Splinter a chance anyway, as it really is an enjoyable story and I hope my review will encourage you to check it out.

Dr. Drusilla Van Tassel is our main character, and I kind of love her. She’s an introverted, bisexual, horror fan who just wants to do her job as a medical examiner, and I can relate to that. Her sister Katrina, on the other hand, is outgoing, popular, and prefers her rich, white friends over her own sister. But Drusilla is just as hostile to Katrina, so it’s not your stereotypical mean girl situation. I found it interesting how Drusilla can relax and use AAVE in front of her Black assistant (and former lover) Kyndall, but codeswitches with Katrina like she does around white people. It underlines how “other” Katrina is from her and how uncomfortable Drusilla feels in her own sister’s presence. Although, she does feel guilty for not doing more to support Katrina when her husband Brom died under mysterious circumstances.

One night Drusilla is called in to deal with a murder, and the victim is no other than Denis Carter, Katrina’s close friend. Poor Drusilla just can’t catch a break! At the crime scene, we see firsthand the racism and sexism Drusilla faces on a regular basis from the law enforcement officials she has to work alongside when one rookie cop tries to stop her from entering the crime scene. Despite having graduated Magna Cum Laude from Cornell she still gets treated as a “Black girl playing dress up.”

Then Katrina’s former friend and lover, Ichabod Crane (who I like to imagine looks like Piolo Pascual), shows up out of the blue and starts pestering her for details of the strange murder. Because they ended things badly, she isn’t exactly thrilled to see him. But when another murder takes place, the two are forced to set aside their differences and work together. What follows is a fun, supernatural mystery with a great sex scene. This was the first time in a story I’ve seen someone on the asexual spectrum have sex. Not only are asexual character underrepresented in fiction, but they’re often stereotyped as always being completely sex adverse, which just isn’t true, especially in the case of people who are demisexual like this particular character.

I really appreciate that Hyde not only put the effort into getting Filipino sensitivity readers, but also included their email in the beginning of the story for anyone to reach out to them if they made any mistakes in representation. I wish more authors would do that!

If you were a fan of the Fox tv series Sleepy Hollow that aired from 2013-2017, but hated the way they treated Nicole Beharie and her character, this book is for you. It feels like a remedy to the show without being a fix-it fanfiction. Instead, Splinter gets to be its own thing. It’s a quick, compelling read that sucks you in, helped in no small part by its compelling and complex characters.

Tags: ADHD, Adult, African American, Asexual, BIPOC, Bisexual, Black, Book Review, Disability, Filipino, Folk Horror, Killer/Slasher, LGBTQIA, Myths and Folklore, Non-binary, Occult, Own Voices, Recommended, Romance, Southeast Asian, Trans
The White Guy Dies First: 13 Scary Stories of Fear and Power edited by Terry J. Benton-Walker

The White Guy Dies First: 13 Scary Stories of Fear and Power edited by Terry J. Benton-Walker

Formats: Print, audio, digital

Publisher: Tor Teen

Genre: Apocalypse/Disaster, Dark Fantasy, Eco Horror, Killer/Slasher, Monster, Mystery, Myth and Folklore, Romance

Audience: Young Adult

Diversity: Black characters and authors, characters of Chinese descent and Chinese New Zealander author, Indigenous characters and author (Seminole), Korean American characters and author, Bisexual characters, Queer women characters, Non-binary character and authors, Ace Spectrum author, MENA character, Bangladeshi-Irish author, Iranian-American author, Latinx characters and author

Content Warnings (Highlight to view): Alcohol Abuse, Amputation, Bullying, Cannibalism, Child Abuse, Child Death, Child Endangerment, Death, Drug Use/Abuse, Forced Captivity, Gaslighting, Gore, Mental Illness, Racism, Rape/Sexual Assault, Suicide, Verbal/Emotional Abuse, Violence, Vomit

Blurb

13 SCARY STORIES. 13 AUTHORS OF COLOR.
13 TIMES WE SURVIVED THE FIRST KILL.

The White Guy Dies First includes thirteen scary stories by all-star contributors and this time, the white guy dies first.

Killer clowns, a hungry hedge maze, and rich kids who got bored. Friendly cannibals, impossible slashers, and the dead who don’t stay dead….

A museum curator who despises “diasporic inaccuracies.” A sweet girl and her diary of happy thoughts. An old house that just wants friends forever….

These stories are filled with ancient terrors and modern villains, but go ahead, go into the basement, step onto the old plantation, and open the magician’s mystery box because this time, the white guy dies first.

I received this product for free in return for providing an honest and unbiased review. I received no other compensation. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255: Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.

This is a book that is going to make racists people mad, and I’m here for it. Consider yourself forewarned: if you’re white, this book is not written for you and you’re going to need a thick skin to read it. White people are so used to having positive representation in media that a book where white people make everything worse and always end up dead is going to rub the more sensitive white folks the wrong way, even those who might consider themselves allies. But for the rest of us? It’s awesome and a much-needed subversion of the “Black Guy Dies First” trope. Now, just because the white guy dies first in these stories does not make the BIPOC immune from horrific deaths. Hedge and The Protégé both have Black teens who meet violent ends. A Native person in Best Served Cold is tortured. They’re just not the first to die and get to be main characters.

Many (but not all) of the stories focus on the racism characters face and how often bad things happen to BIPOC people because of the actions of white people. Farz-joon from Break Through Our Skin by Naseem Jamnia is a non-binary, Iranian high school student who desperately wants a Smithosian internship. In order to secure one, they agree to volunteer at the University of Chicago’s Oriental Institute (thankfully, the problematic name was changed to the Institute for the Study of Ancient Culture in 2023) working under a condescending, racist, and transphobic old white professor named Dr. Hudson who thinks he knows more about Iran than Farz does because he’s studied it, speaks Farsi, and actually visited Iran, which Farz has not. He also objects to the Institute’s name change because the original name has “history” and “meaning.” Farz tolerates his boorish behavior so they can fulfill their dream of becoming an archeologist and challenge the idea that gender can be determined from a skeleton alone, but of course Dr. Hudson criticizes their “modern” ideas about gender stating “political correctness has no place in ancient history”, despite historical evidence of gender non-conforming people existing in ancient Iran and bioarchaeologist’s more recent views on sex and gender. Unsurprisingly, it turns out he only hired Farz to give the exhibits a “layer of authenticity” and he’s willing to jeopardize Farz’s future by withholding his recommendation.

Wasps by Mark Oshiro focuses on how gentrification hurts immigrant communities, while Hedge by Kalynn Brown has a topiary garden created by wealthy whites in the 1970s where anyone who enters winds up dead, including the main character’s father. In Grave Grove by Alexis Henderson, a Black teen named Rumi befriends a white Northerner named Kaitlin and she helpsadjust to life in the Southern US. The two even start a podcast together entitled Girls and Ghosts. Their newest episode is about Kyle Adams, a racist who went missing in the eighties after chasing a Black teen, William Jones, into an abandoned plantation. Unfortunately, we quickly learn that Kaitlin is not a good friend to Rumi. She ignores her at school in favor of hanging out with white girls, makes Rumi do all the grunt work for their podcast, and is actually pretty racist for someone who probably considers themselves liberal. She excuses Kyle’s racism because it happened in the past (the 1980s) and “everyone was racist back then.” She thinks William is a “drug dealer” who belongs in prison because he was caught with marijuana, despite smoking weed herself. She views Kyle as the victim, not William. She doesn’t want to talk about the racist history of the plantation or consider the slaves who died there, just the missing white boy. She even mentions her sister’s best friend got married at the plantation, a favorite location for Southern brides (gross). Side note, but I loved that Kaitlin believed in the supernatural while Rumi was the skeptic, since BIPOC are so often cast as superstitious and foolish compared to logical white people. I’m a skeptic myself so it was nice to see a character like me in both Grave Grove and Hell is Other Demons, where the Black main character is an atheist.

Best Served Cold by H. E. Edgmon and The Protégé by Lamar Giles both have the BIPOC main characters get into trouble specifically because they choose to trust a white person. In the former, our protagonist, EJ, makes the mistake of accepting a white man who befriended their brother. EJ struggled with internalized racism throughout their childhood, doing things like using cheap, unsafe contacts from the mall to change their eye color from brown to green. Kai, their brother, tells EJ that those are their ancestor’s eyes, and that their appearance connects them to their ancestry and they should be proud of them. Kai works to reclaim a past that was stolen by colonization (like learning traditional farming and hunting), and teaches EJ about ancestral trauma. EJ realizes the reason they feel angry and frustrated is because they are “playing a game whose rules have never been designed for me to win.” Their mother claims to be white because she passes, even though her grandfather was sent to a residential school in Oklahoma. She denies her heritage. EJ and Kai’s parents grew up together on a reservation in Florida, but moved to Chicago as adults. They told their children they’d left the Rez to give them a better life. Kai brings his white friend (possibly boyfriend) Isaac, who has intense green eyes, to a Pow Wow where the other Natives give him side eye. Clearly, they see something Kai doesn’t (there are other white people there but they don’t face the same level of scrutiny). One of the community leaders talks about MMIWC (Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Children) which serves as foreshadowing. It’s implied that the antagonist in the story is a certain evil spirit from Algonquian mythology (one who’s associated with winter and cannibalism). Edgmon is Seminole, not one of the Algonquian tribes, but he writes with respect, never breaking the taboo of using the spirits name which is said to summon it. This particular creature is also a perfect representation of colonialism with its insatiable hunger and destructive nature.  Kai and EJ do everything they can to fight colonialism but still fall victim to the evil spirit.

The Protégé by Lamar Giles, like Best Served Cold, is a particularly tragic story with the main character, Troy’s, life ruined by his best friend, in this case an older, white gentleman named Jack Meridian. Jack is a retired magician who’s been mentoring Troy in the art of card tricks and illusions, and one of the young teen’s only friends. Troy so admires the older man that he immediately agrees to do him a favor, accepting a package while Jack runs errands downtown. Simple enough, right? While Troy’s older brother Darius is having a party with his friends, Troy sees that the news is reporting a mass killing at the mall where Jack was heading. He tries to contact his magician mentor but the person who killed him answers the phone and threatens Troy if he doesn’t give them the package he received. The killer is revealed to be Danford Dread, a magician who “perverts” the art and performs dark and gory magic that “plays to the worst in people.” And now he’s after Troy and his brother. Even though the white guy in this story is a “good guy” he still ruins a Black boy’s life by bringing him into his world and putting him directly into danger.

In Hell is Other Demons by Karen Strong, the main character is killed (she spends most of the story as a ghost) because her crush’s white boyfriend starts meddling with the supernatural and summons a demon. The other stories of dating a white boy don’t end with dead young women, but they do highlight the perils of interracial dating, namely that white men often fetishize non-white women. I mean, just look how BIPOC women have their own categories on porn sites (gross). Obviously not all mixed-race relationships are problematic; my parents are a mixed-race couple, my sister has an amazing Chilean fiancé (who is himself biracial), and I’m friends with happily married couples in mixed relationships. Unfortunately, there are always bad apples.

In both the Golden Dragon by Kendare Blake and Docile Girls by Chloe Gong, Korean-American Sophie and Chinese-I-think-American-but-possibly-New-Zealander Adelaid are dumped by their white boyfriends (and subsequently lose all the white people they thought were their friends) who fetishized them but don’t view them as committed relationship material. As Sophie’s sister puts it, they’re an exotic bang to mark off their “international bang bingo card.” Even after she gets dumped, Adelaid’s ex sees her as too weak and docile to be the killer who’s been stalking the teens, an assumption that proves fatal for him. This is unfortunately common, as all the East Asian-American women I know I can attest to. When they’re sexually harassed, it almost always has racist undertones. They’ve been propositioned by white men looking for “submissive waifus,” had “me so horny” shouted at them, asked if they have sideways vaginas, or “complimented” on their “exotic” beauty. White men have long fetishized East Asian women, with examples dating as far back as 1898 with the book Madame Butterfly. A Columbia University study from 2007 showed that in online dating, White men seemed to have a strong preference for Asian women when it came to hookups, but when they wanted a committed relationship, they preferred white women. Meanwhile, Black women, especially those with dark skin, are considered less desirable than women of other races.

In All Eyes on Me by Faridah Àbíké-Íyímídé main character Helen deals with a white boyfriend, Asher, who is constantly committing microaggressions. He mocks her kinky hair, and implies she can’t be an actress because she’s Black and not a “bombshell.”  Yet Helen still feels guilty about wanting to break up with Asher because everyone else considers him the perfect, all-American boy. And as a Black girl she’s supposed to be grateful that a white boy wants her, even though being tied down to him and trapped in their small town forever sounds like a nightmare. Fortunately for all three girls, they end their stories without being tied down by their racist exes.

Not all the stories in the collection are focused on race and racism, however. The Road to Hell by Terry Benton-Walker has a very original set up, exploring an abusive relationship between a haunted house and a family living it with the house as the abuser. Everything’s Coming Up Roses by Tiffany D. Jackson is about a mentally unwell girl named Leesa who is obsessed with gardening and documents her daily life in her journal. Leesa is an unreliable narrator and the true horror is slowly revealed over the course of the story. Like most anthologies, the quality of the stories varies, but none that I would have rated below three out of five stars. Some were good, others, like Everything’s Coming Up Roses, Gray Grove, and Best Served Cold, were great. It’s also worth noting that many of the stories are VERY gory, which may be too much for younger teens who aren’t big horror fans. Of course, since most horror fans were reading Stephen King when they were eight, I don’t foresee this being an issue for anyone who decides to read this book.

Tags: American Indian, Anthology, Asexual, Asian, Bangladeshi, BIPOC, Bisexual, Black, Body Diversity, Book Review, Chinese, Iranian, Korean, Latine/Latino, Lesbian, LGBTQIA, Own Voices, Young Adult
Another Elizabeth by Elle Mitchell

Another Elizabeth by Elle Mitchell

Formats: Print, audio, digital

Publisher: Little Key Press

Genre: Killer/Slasher

Audience: Adult/Mature

Diversity: Main character and authors with hypermobile Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome (hEDS), bisexual main character

Takes Place in: Oregon

Content Warnings (Highlight to view): Ableism, Animal Abuse, Animal Death, Body Shaming, Imagined Cannibalism, Imagined Child Abuse, Imagined Child Death, Death, Forced Captivity, Gaslighting, Mental Illness, Pedophilia, Physical Abuse, Police Harassment, Self-Harm, Slurs, Sexism, Suicide, Verbal/Emotional Abuse, Violence

Blurb

Another Elizabeth is a gripping literary psychological crip horror novel that readers will sink their teeth into. Fans of dark humor and challenging fiction will be thrilled to delve into the mind of a deeply flawed disabled woman with a desire to kill.

Elizabeth’s life is taking a turn.
She has three jobs, a boyfriend that loves her too much, and a recent diagnosis of Hypermobile Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome. She’s coming apart at the seams. Now all she cares about is keeping her promise to her younger self before her body fails her—kill without getting caught.

Will she physically be able to satisfy her urge while maintaining her carefully built façade of normalcy? And if so, will she be able to stop with just one victim?

I received this product for free in return for providing an honest and unbiased review. I received no other compensation. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255: Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.

Inspiration porn is a real problem when it comes depicting people with disabilities. The term was originally coined by disability activist and comedian Stella Young. As Young puts it in her 2014 TED talk in Sydney, “We’re not real people. We are there to inspire.” She explains that we have been sold the lie that disability is a bad thing, and therefore living with a disability makes you exceptional. One of the reasons I love Another Elizabeth is because I thought of inspiration porn while I was reading it and what the reactions of able-bodied people might be. Elizabeth has Hypermobile Ehlers-Danlos syndrome (hEDS), which, if you’re not familiar, is a genetic condition that causes connective tissue to weaken resulting in hypermobility in the joints and chronic pain. She works at a grocery store called Juno Foods with her boyfriend, teaches ESL classes, and kills people who piss her off.  That’s right, Elizabeth “overcomes” her invisible disability despite struggling with pain and weakness to become a serial killer! How inspirational!

A drawing of Elizabeth wearing a gray T-shirt and jeans and leaning on a purple cane. In her other hand she holds a bloody knife. Her clothing is covered in blood. Behind her is a black, blood spattered background with bloody red lettering that reads "the only disability in life is a bad attitude."

All joking aside, I loved reading a book where the main character has  disability, written by someone with a disability (and not some well-meaning ally) that isn’t meant to inspire non-disabled people or demonize people with disabilities. Elizabeth is a great character. She shows hints of being a sociopath, is an expert manipulator, and often fantasizes about hurting others. When her doctor suggests she start using a cane, Elizabeth immediately wonders if she’ll use it for anything other than bashing people’s brains in. Even innocent things bring out the darkness in Elizabeth. When she sees babies, she imagines how easy it would be to break their fingers, and when she makes candy, she fantasizes about putting poison in it.

Yet she still seems to care about her friend, her ESL students, and her himbo boyfriend on some level, so she’s not completely heartless. Or at least Elizabeth admits she wouldn’t murder any of them. Awwwwww. In fact, she only kills people who she believes deserve it, like an ableist woman who abandoned her family after her husband became paralyzed, an obnoxious coworker, and maybe the odd pedestrian here and there. The fact that she happens to like their teeth is just a bonus. In her free time Elizabeth watches forensics shows and reads true crime novels for inspiration. This means she is meticulous about covering her tracks. I found myself greatly appreciating Elizabeth’s hyper-competence when it came to crime, carefully planning each murder down to the very last detail. Elizabeth is also someone who is usually good at whatever she tries, despite putting little effort into it, and this seems to apply to being a serial killer. Because she can’t physically overpower her victims, Elizabeth gets very creative finding ways to make her murders more accessible.

Villains with disabilities in fiction are often portrayed in a problematic way, at least when written by the non-disabled. They are the monstrous “other,” whose moral corruption manifests physically as disability. Jan Grue, is a Norwegian academic, author and actor (best known for role as Ivar Salvesen in Occupied) who uses a wheelchair. In his Guardian article The Disabled Villain: Why Sensitivity Reading Can’t Kill Off This Ugly Trope Grue writes “This particular trope, wherein a character’s moral and physiological natures mirror each other, is as universal as it is ancient. It is reflected in the philosophy of Plato, in commonplace phrases like ‘a healthy mind in a healthy body,’ and in the foundational texts of the cultural canon. In Buddhist tradition, too, disability has been construed as an impediment to understanding and enlightenment – and even, for some, as a punishment for actions in a past life.”

The Take’s video Why the “Disabled Villain” Trope is So Offensive, explains that disability is “used as a metaphor for villainy or moral failing.” In an interview with Den of Geek after the release of Skyfall, producer Michael G. Wilson explains, “It’s very much a Fleming device that he uses throughout the stories – the idea that physical deformity and personality deformity go hand in hand in some of these villains. Sometimes it’s a motivating factor in their life, and what makes them the way they are.” In other words, those with disabilities are assumed to despise their condition because being disabled is undesirable, and they seek to harm the able bodied. Unfortunately, this metaphor can cause real-life harm, as it reinforces the idea that having a disability is “bad” and difference is “scary.” Horror is especially notorious for using the “Evil Cripple” trope, with famous villains like Freddy, Jason, and Leatherface all sporting physical disfigurements. Other famous examples of disabled villains are the Phantom from The Phantom of the Opera, multiple James Bond antagonists, Mr. Glass in Unbreakable, Mason Verger from Hannibal, Captain Hook from Peter Pan, Mr. Potter from It’s a Wonderful Life, and Darth Vader from Star Wars.

 

Mr. Glass from Unbreakable (top left), The Phantom from the Phantom of the Opera (top right), Captain Hook from Hook, Raoul Silva from Skyfall, Freddy Krueger from Nightmare on Elm Street (bottom left), and Mason Verger from Hannibal (bottom right). None of the characters pictured here are portrayed by disabled or disfigured actors.

lizabeth is a villain protagonist with a disability, she’s an incredibly well written, well-rounded character. She’s an evil (or at least morally gray) character who also has a disability, rather than a character who is evil because of a disability. Most importantly, Elizabeth is written in such a way that the audience is rooting for her sociopath self and able to relate to her. (Or at least I was. Who among us hasn’t fantasized about killing awful people?) Usually, villains with disabilities are written in such a way that they feel alien and are frightening in their strangeness, and this is accentuated by their disability or disfigurement.  Instead of seeming scary because of her disability, Elizabeth finds the opposite to be true. People assume she’s helpless: something she uses to her advantage. When suspicion falls on her, Elizabeth plays up her disability, relying on other people’s ableism so they think she’s innocent. It also helps that the author has hEDS herself, so the book is Own Voices and Elizabeth’s character just hits differently.

Because the narration is first person, we get to see Elizabeth’s detached way of looking at the world and her twisted way of thinking. We get an intimate look at her struggles, both keeping her “other life” a secret and trying to kill victims when she’s not as strong as an able-bodied male killer. And of course, we get to learn about her frustration when dealing with her chronic pain and her boyfriend’s annoying abundance of concern for her. He’s convinced that she’s too fragile to function, yet doesn’t have the same concern for her comfort during sex. Side note, I love that Elizabeth gets to have hot sex scenes with her boyfriend. People with disabilities almost never get to have sex in fiction. In fact, outside of Mat Fraser in American Horror Story, George Robinson in Sex Education, and Peter Dinklage in Game of Thrones, I don’t think I’ve ever seen anyone with a disability have sex in popular media (and of course those examples are all white, cisgendered men with conventionally attractive faces).

Another Elizabeth is a fascinating look into a twisted mind with a character that you can’t help but root for despite the fact she’s a serial killer who manipulates others. The story is the perfect length, not so long that it drags but not so short that it feels rushed. The second half of the book is especially exciting and the story is interspersed with bits of dark humor.

Tags: Adult, Book Review, Chronic Illness, Disability, Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome, Killer/Slasher, Own Voices, Physical Disability, Recommended
Spectrum: An Autistic Horror Anthology edited by Aquino Loayza

Spectrum: An Autistic Horror Anthology edited by Aquino Loayza

Formats: Print, digital

Publisher: Third Estate Books

Genre: Body Horror, Folk Horror, Myth and Folklore, Psychological Horror, Sci-Fi Horror, Slahser/Killer

Audience: Adult/Mature

Diversity: Autistic characters and authors, trans, two-spirit, agender and non-binary characters and authors, gay characters, asexual author and characters, Mexican American author and character, Latinx authors, biracial Filipino and Taiwanese author, Afro-Indigenous author

Content Warnings (Highlight to view): Ableism, Alcohol Abuse, Animal Death, Bullying, Cannibalism, Child Abuse, Eating Disorder, Gaslighting, Gore, Illness, Medical Torture/Abuse, Mental Illness, Physical Abuse,  Rape/Sexual Assault, Self-Harm, Suicide, Torture, Transphobia, Verbal/Emotional Abuse, Violence

Blurb

Deep in the recesses of our minds are twisted realities that so closely mirror our own. In these pages, our nightmares are laid bare, made to manifest. There is no waking up; there is no going back once you fall into the tapestry of terrors that await. Are you ready? From courteous neighbors gone awry to the burning brightness of everlasting daylight comes Spectrum: An Autistic Horror Anthology reflective of the vast array of neurodivergent artists in our community and the things that keep them up in the night, the things they can’t look away from.

Don’t Blink.

I received this product for free in return for providing an honest and unbiased review. I received no other compensation. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255: Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.

Unfortunately, to review this, I do have to address some of the drama surrounding it. Anyone in the horror book sphere has probably heard it and it might turn some folks off this amazing anthology. However, you may not have heard about how Third Estate Books addressed it, and you shouldn’t pass on this book just because of a few bad apples.

One of the anthology’s original authors, Zach Rosenberg, was revealed to have a history of harassing and bullying women and femme identifying people. Writer and editor Evelyn Freeling details the harassment she received from Zach Rosenberg here. After Rosenberg posted a non-apology the next day Mattie Lewis shared her own negative experience with the author. Shortly afterward it was revealed that one of the editors of the anthology, Freydis Moon, had been impersonating a Latine person to sell their books and bullying others online. You can find details of the Freydis Moon controversy here. Third Estate Books released statements that both Moon and Rosenberg had been removed from Spectrum and that they would have no place on any other projects moving forward. Therefore, I would still recommend this book, as the publisher has taken steps to ensure the safety of everyone involved and removed anyone problematic. Now, on to the review!

I was happy to see that many of the authors and characters in the book were trans, agender, or non-binary (not surprising since trans and gender diverse folks are up to six times more likely to be autistic). There was also some BIPOC representation with Asian, Latine, and Afro-Indigenous authors, though I would have liked to have seen more. The stories were a very interesting mix. Some were straightforward and followed a classic story structure, while others felt more like stream of consciousness writing and focused more on  the poetic words used than forming a coherent plot (Survive Lot 666, Neighborly, and Discourses of the Seven Headed Monkey come to mind). But both styles worked well. A few of my favorites were Freedom was a Flaying by Onyx Osiris, Curse the Darkness by Die Booth, and The Sun Approaches Every Summer by Akis Linardos. The first of these stories was a violent revenge story where the bullies get violently massacred by the Aztec flayed god, Xipe Totec. I love revenge stories, and this one was particularly satisfying and twisted with a nice nod to the author’s heritage. Booth’s story was more of a “be careful what you wish for” tale, a genre of story I also greatly enjoy. The Sun Approaches Every Summer was particularly unique where a man with magical abilities slowly watches the town he lives in die because the sun is getting too close. As the townspeople fear witches, he’s forced to mask, hiding both his autism and his magical abilities. It reminded me of the Twilight episode The Midnight Sun, except in this story the protagonist is the only one immune to the heat due to his magic and is eventually the only one left alive.

The last story in the anthology, Different by Ashley Lezak, is one of only two in which autism is central to the story. In it, a little autistic girl named Abigail is “cured” by her parents who want a “normal” child.  One of ASAN’s (the Autistic Self Advocacy Network) core beliefs is that “autism cannot and should not be cured.” One thing many allistic and non-disabled people don’t seem to grasp is that Autism is part of who a person is and eliminating that would fundamentally change who they are. As Andrew Pulrang explained in an article for Forbes entitled What Do Disabled People Mean When We Say We Don’t Want A Cure? ,”Life without disabilities may at times have its attractions. It’s something that can be interesting, even fun to speculate about. But since it would often fundamentally change who we are, it’s not always a 100% attractive prospect.” The desire to “cure” autism is similar to the appeal of gay conversion therapy. Parents who can’t love their children as they are try to change them to be more “normal,” someone they can accept. This is what makes Lezak’s short story so frightening: the idea that not only can parents not love and accept their child as they are, but that they would fundamentally change her as a person without her consent. And while the procedure Ashley undergoes is fictional, it’s not too far removed from the lobotomies performed on unwilling patients until the 1970s to change their personalities and even sexual orientation.

The other one is Safe Food by Xochilt Avila, in which a teen named Cedar struggles with their avoidant and restrictive food intake disorder (unfortunately many autistic people also have eating disorders) and an abusive father. What their father doesn’t understand is that it’s not that Cedar doesn’t want to eat, it’s that they have such severe sensory issues around taste there are only certain foods they can palate, none of which their father ever gives them. This story is another example of how badly parents can treat their autistic children (although in Cedar’s case their dad probably would have been abusive even if they were neurotypical). Unfortunately, it isn’t uncommon for autistic individuals to be abused, and their abuse is often blamed on their “challenging behaviors” rather than society’s ableism. Often the media will portray the abuser with sympathy as they were “burdened” with having an autistic child.

But those were the only two stories that felt like they made autism and autistic issues major plot points. The others chose to focus more on undead creatures, migraines, curses, abandoned buildings with dead whales, monkey gods, music, haunted houses and a head in a box. And honestly, I like that. While autism is part of someone’s identity, it’s only one part and Spectrum allows its authors to be their full selves rather than just focusing on their autism. I also really enjoyed seeing how differently autism manifested in each of the fictional characters, underlying how autism really is a broad spectrum. Some had severe sensory issues requiring soft clothing and ear protectors, others didn’t. Some struggled socially, others did not. Some characters had trouble with eye contact while others didn’t. Some were single, while others in committed relationships (there seems to be a myth that autistic people don’t date or have sex, which is patently untrue). There was no “one size fits all.” Autism is just one aspect of their personalities instead of all it, like is often the case when neurodiverse characters are written by neurotypicals. But their autism also wasn’t downplayed like it didn’t matter at all. They got to be multidimensional people.

Tags: Adult, Anthology, Autism, Body Horror, Book Review, Disability, Filipino, Folk Horror, Latine/Latino, LGBTQIA, Mexican, Myths and Folklore, Neurodiversity, Non-binary, Own Voices, Recommended, Taiwanese, Trans
Bury Your Gays: An Anthology of Tragic Queer Horror edited by Sofia Ajram

Bury Your Gays: An Anthology of Tragic Queer Horror edited by Sofia Ajram

Formats: Print, digital

Publisher: Ghoulish Books

Genre: Anthology, Body Horror, Ghosts/Haunting, Killer/Slasher, Monster, Romance

Audience: Adult/Mature

Diversity: Queer and trans authors and characters

Content Warnings (Highlight to view): Alcohol Abuse, Body Shaming, Bullying, Death, Drug Use/Abuse, Eating Disorder, Homophobia, Medical Torture/Abuse, Medical Procedures, Necrophilia, Police Harassment, Rape/Sexual Assault, Slurs, Suicide, Torture, Transphobia, Violence

Blurb

A manifestation of ecstasy, heartache, horror and suffering rendered in feverish lyrical prose. Inside are sixteen new stories by some of the genre’s most visionary queer writers. Young lovers find themselves deliriously lost in an expanding garden labyrinth. The porter of a sentient hotel is haunted within a liminal time loop. A soldier and his abusive commanding officer escape a war in the trenches but discover themselves in an even greater nightmare. Parasites chase each other across time-space in hungry desperation to never be apart. A graduate student with violent tendencies falls into step with a seemingly walking corpse. Featuring stories from Cassandra Khaw, Joe Koch, Gretchen Felker-Martin, Robbie Banfitch, August Clarke, Son M., Jonathan Louis Duckworth, M.V. Pine, Ed Kurtz, LC Von Hessen, Matteo L. Cerilli, November Rush, Meredith Rose, Charlene Adhiambo, Violet, and Thomas Kearnes.

I received this product for free in return for providing an honest and unbiased review. I received no other compensation. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255: Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.

An exquisite anthology of queer horror that boasts such talented authors as Cassandra Khaw, August Clarke, and Gretchen Felker-Martin, this collection contains something for everyone. In its pages, you’ll find alien fungi, body horror, dark fairytales, undead lovers, and lonely ghosts. Named for the common trope where gay characters often meet with untimely ends in mainstream media, this anthology subverts the trope by putting it in the hands of queer writers.

In Your Honor, I’d Like to Put You in the Shoes of One of Dr. Morehouse’s Thirty Proven Clients by M. V. Pine, a trans woman (although she’s never referred to as such) struggles to find gender-affirming care. It’s the 1970s and she’s been dishonorably discharged from the army for “mental health” reasons. Her family doesn’t support her. She refers to her genitals as “a tumor.” A tumor that’s benign (hence, no doctor will remove it for her) but still mortifying. Because she’d do anything to be rid of it, she becomes an easy mark for Dr. Morehouse, who performs dangerous back-alley vaginoplasties on trans women. His surgical room is dirty and he runs out of anesthesia halfway through the procedure. He doesn’t provide antibiotics or pain medication. But the woman would rather die than go another day living with her “tumor.”

This is a story is about what happens when people don’t have access to safe, gender-affirming care. In 2017 a trans woman known only as “Jane Doe” underwent a back-alley orchiectomy which caused her to lose large amounts of blood. Police arrested James Lowell Pennington, who had performed the procedure without a medical license. Doe defended Pennington stating “Arranging a back-alley surgery was out of pure desperation due to a system that failed me.” Why would someone risk their life for what seems like an elective procedure? A study published in JAMA that followed trans and non-binary youths ages 13 to 20 showed 60% reduction of depression and 73% reduction of suicidality in participants who had initiated puberty blockers and gender-affirming hormones compared to those who had not. Another study published in JAMA on gender-affirming surgeries among 27,715 trans and gender diverse adults showed a 42% reduction in psychological distress and a 44% reduction in suicidal ideation among those who were able to receive gender-affirming surgery compared to those who wanted to but could not. There are many such studies that show similar results. Access to safe, gender-affirming care is quite literally lifesaving and immensely improves quality of life for trans and gender diverse people.

Another story that touches on the desperation many trans people feel just to have access to gender-affirming care is Worth the Dying Shame by Matteo L. Cerilli. In it, trans men are being infected by tainted, counterfiet testosterone with a disease that causes their bodies to decay as if dead (a clear parallel to AIDS). They hide their Body Rot under heavy clothing, dark glasses, and face masks. This causes an already unaccepting public to further turn on trans men. With jobs drying up, friends abandoning them, and doctors no longer willing to prescribe testosterone, the men who are able togo back in the closet. Others are forced to buy their T on the black market since doctors are no longer willing to prescribe the real stuff, which carries an even greater risk of infection. The story follows two trans men who have become infected, Dimeshine and Rictus. Rictus chose to detransition because he can still pass for a girl, but Dimeshine continues to inject T despite the risk of decaying faster. Both turn to the dark web to try and slow their Body Rot, trusting the community more than they do hospitals (understandable considering how often healthcare fails trans people). The two argue over whether Dimeshine’s little brother, Ratty, who is still early in his transition, should use testosterone or not. Dimeshine is firmly against it, worried Ratty might become infected like he was, but Rictus argues that he can’t blame Ratty for wanting to die for something they both would have killed for. These stories are a solemn reminder of what happens when the healthcare system fails LGBTQIA+ patients. As someone who works in healthcare, I held both stories especially heartbreaking.

Surprisingly for a horror anthology, many of the stories were love stories. Editor Sofia Ajram states the collection “was created out of a desire to read stories about tragic queer love. Love that is broken, love that is toxic, and obsessive, and ill-fated. Love that is thwarted, as viewed through the lens of authors who are queer-identifying themselves.” Abusive relationships are too often played off as romantic (think Twilight and Hush Hush), so it’s nice to see those sorts of relationships being shown for what they are, even when the characters themselves can’t recognize it. While horrific in real life, villain protagonists and toxic relationships can be fascinating studies in fiction. I also enjoyed having imperfect, even villainous queer characters whose character faults aren’t tied to their sexuality.

In American Gothic by LC von Hessen, villain protagonist John Smith is a serial killer (although he’d never refer to himself as such since “those guys are losers”) who has an unfortunate habit of murdering his dates. It’s not premeditated, it just seems to happen. But one day, one of his victims, who he dubs “L,” comes back to life. Or rather, he reanimates, as he’s still technically dead. L has no memory of his time alive, so John weaves an ever changing, fictional history of their romance. As L slowly rots away, John falls deeper in love with him. As shown with his past crushes, John is more in love with the fantasy he conjures then the men themselves. L allows him to project his ideal partner on to a blank slate he can fall in love with, like some sort of twisted Pygmalion, whereas living men would frequently reject him for being unemotional or creepy. John is a selfish lover, viewing his partners only by what they can do for him rather than their needs. He stalks and harasses one of his exes to the point they delete all their social media, but John still views himself as the victim and wonders why he didn’t kill his ex. John wants L to live, not for L’s sake, but for his own. He even tells him, “I won’t let you die. You’re not allowed to die unless I want you to die.” His selfishness and obsessiveness reminded me of male stalkers who feel they’re owed something by the object of their affection and can’t understand the word “no.”

This Body is Not Your Home by Son M., Love Like Ours by C M Violet, and Fortune Favors Grief by Cassandra Khaw are also stories of men who kill their lovers. Domestic violence against men is rarely examined. Even though 1 in 10 men will experience intimate partner violence or stalking in their lifetime, DV is usually thought of as a women’s issue only. Research on domestic violence among LGBTQIA+ people is even more sparse, even though gay men experience higher rates of physical violence then straight men. So, it’s refreshing to see stories that focus on intimate partner violence in gay relationships. Some of the stories focus more on mental and emotional abuse rather than physical. Both Sardines by Gretchen Felker-Martin and Zero Tolerance by M. F. Rose deal with queer teenage girls who are bullied. The former is a body horror story about a fat girl struggling with her sexuality and the latter is about cyber bullying. In this case, it’s their non-romantic relationships that are toxic.

Cleodora by August Clarke is a more lighthearted tale that follows the romance between a beautiful sea monster and a sea captain. The Captain discovers the monster and claims her as her bride, naming her Cleodora after a prophetic river nymph (The Captain seems to conflate the nymph Cleodroa with Andromeda, a princess who was offered as a sacrifice to a sea monster and rescued by the Greek hero Perseus). She sees Cleodora as helpless, which may explain why the Captain has no qualms about marrying a monster, happily feeding her new bride live eels and listening to her stories of drowning men. Cleodora feels equally unthreatened, stating “It’s fortunate my true love is a woman, because women do not hurt each other.” Ironic, considering how the story ends. The story feels like the original, darker version of a German fairytale, with hints of selkie wife folklore and siren myths.

Not all the romances involve toxic relationships or unrequited love. Bad Axe by Ed Kurtz is a tragic love story wherein John loses his lover, Eric, to the lake at Bad Axe in Minnesota. They’re never able to recover the body, so John goes back to Bad Axe to drown himself so he can be with Eric again. A touching yet morbid story it shares similarities with the myth of Hero and Leander. Hero, a priestess of Aphrodite, throws herself out of her tower after her lover, Leander, drowns trying to swim to her. The tragedy in Bad Axe is that John and Eric have a beautiful relationship that was tragically taken from them and now John must try and navigate the world through his immense grief. Black Hole, a sci-fi story by November Rush, also centers around a beautiful relationship that’s torn apart, but this time it’s between two parasitic, sentient fungi. Despite not being human, their love is no less pure and real. Lost and Found by Charlene Adhiambo also deals with lovers being united in death, but in this case they didn’t know each other before they died. 

It’s an intense read– many of the stories handle dark themes like transphobic healthcare systems, bullying, drug abuse, suicide and AIDS analogies–but a beautiful one, full of romance and tragedy. Remarkably, each one of the stories in Bury Your Gays is as strong as the last, and I’d be hard pressed to pick a favorite. Some broke my heart, others chilled me to the bone, and yet others were touching in a bittersweet way. But all left a lasting impression.

Tags: Adult, Anthology, Body Horror, Book Review, Gay, Ghosts/Haunting, Highly Recommended, Killer/Slasher, Lesbian, LGBTQIA, Monster, Own Voices, Romance, Trans
Never Whistle at Night edited by Shane Hawk and Theodore C. Van Alst Jr.

Never Whistle at Night edited by Shane Hawk and Theodore C. Van Alst Jr.

Formats: Print, audio, digital

Publisher: Vintage

Genre: Ghosts/Haunting, Historic Horror, Killer/Slasher, Monster, Myth and Folklore, Occult, Psychological Horror

Audience: Adult/Mature

Diversity: Indigenous American (Alaskan Native, Pueblo, Comanche, White Earth Nation, Cree, Georgian Bay Metis, Mohawk, Cheyenne-Arapaho, Hidatsa Mi’kmaw, Cherokee, Tłı̨chǫ Dene, Hidasta, Mandan, Sosore, Sioux Penobscot, Chickasaw, Choctaw, Sicangu Lakota, Edisto Natchez-Kusso, Lipan Apache, Anishinaabe)

Content Warnings (Highlight to view): Alcohol Abuse, Animal Death, Child Abuse, Child Endangerment, Death, Drug Use/Abuse, Forced Captivity, Gaslighting, Gore, Illness, Oppression, Mental Illness, Pedophilia, Racism, Rape/Sexual Assault, Sexual Abuse, Slurs, Torture, Verbal/Emotional Abuse, Violence

Blurb

Many Indigenous people believe that one should never whistle at night. This belief takes many forms: for instance, Native Hawaiians believe it summons the Hukai’po, the spirits of ancient warriors, and Native Mexicans say it calls Lechuza, a witch that can transform into an owl. But what all these legends hold in common is the certainty that whistling at night can cause evil spirits to appear—and even follow you home.

These wholly original and shiver-inducing tales introduce readers to ghosts, curses, hauntings, monstrous creatures, complex family legacies, desperate deeds, and chilling acts of revenge. Introduced and contextualized by bestselling author Stephen Graham Jones, these stories are a celebration of Indigenous peoples’ survival and imagination, and a glorious reveling in all the things an ill-advised whistle might summon.

 received this product for free in return for providing an honest and unbiased review. I received no other compensation. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255: Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.

There are many recognizable names in this collection: Rebecca Roanhorse, Richard Van Camp, Cherie Dimaline, Mona Susan Power, Darcie Little Badger, and Waubgeshig Rice. There’s even a foreword by Stephen Graham Jones. But I was especially excited to be introduced to some new (to me) Indigenous authors.

The stories in the anthology vary from fun campfire stories about werewolves (Night Moves by Andrea L. Rogers) and ghosts (Night in the Chrysalis by Tiffany Morris) to more serious and disturbing tales about residential school sexual abuse (Sundays by David Heska Wanbli Weiden), mental health (The Prepper by Morgan Talty), stolen land (Limbs by Waubgeshig Rice), and missing and murdered Indigenous women (The Ones who Killed Us by Brandon Hobson). There were bits of Native languages sprinkled throughout the various stories, for example I learned Uguku is “owl” in Cherokee, Kwe’ is “hello” in Mi’kmaq, and Mahsi’ cho is “thank you” in Gwich’in. This felt especially nice to see since so many Native languages are endangered. I can’t possible review all the amazing stories within the collection (and they are all amazing), so I’ll focus on a few of my favorites.

Kushtuka by Mathilda Zeller is about an Alaskan Native woman named Tapeesa. Recently an obnoxious White man named Hank Ferryman and his son Buck have moved to the area to build a monstrous lodge full of stolen Native artifacts. Tapessa is sent to the lodge cook for one of Hank’s parties and on the way the grotesque man asks her to tell him a “Native story.” Tapeesa warns that telling stories after dark could catch the attention of a spirit, but Hank laughs this off as silly superstition. She tells him the story of the Kushtuka, a shape-shifter that can take human form and tries to lure people away. As predicted, the story summons a Kushtuka which attacks Hank’s lodge. We also see this idea of attracting the attention of evil spirits in Before I Go by Norris Black, where a woman’s grieving causes the Night Mother to appear and offer to bring back her dead husband (it doesn’t end well).  

One of the things I related to in Kushtuka was Tapessa being called “basically White” by Hank because her dad is White. As a biracial person myself, having others (especially White people) try and tell you your identity isa pet peeve of mine. Historically, I would’ve been considered Black since my father is Black (due to the “one-drop” rule which I discuss below), despite having light skin. Yet these days most White people label me White because I’m White-passing. In both cases, White people choose my identity for me without listening to what I have to say, much like Hank does for Tapessa.

In White Hills by Rebecca Roanhorse, a White woman named Marissa is judged for having “too much” Native blood by her White in-laws. Marissa is your typical rich, White woman. She’s married to a wealthy business man named Andrew, is very concerned with her appearance, and lives in an HOA neighborhood in a big house. After going to the country club to announce her pregnancy to her husband, Marrissa makes the mistake of mentioning she’s a small percentage of Native (in reference to not being offended by a racist mascot) and her husband becomes visibly upset. The next day Elayne, Andrew’s mother, takes Marissa to a “specialist” who has racist phrenology drawings on the wall. Elayne explains that she doesn’t want a “mutt” grandbaby who may be dark skinned and “savage” (despite Marissa being white). The way in which Elayne views Marissa’s child is very reminiscent of the “one drop” rule. The one-drop rule was a legal principle based on a form of hypodescent, the assignment of a mixed-race child to the ethnic group considered “lower status.” In other words, anyone with Black ancestry (no matter how far back) was considered Black. There were strict classifications for mixed-race individuals that were given offensive names like “Mulatto” and “octoroon,” I discuss more about how this racist system allowed the US to hold up White supremacy here. I mentioned above how annoying it is when other people (especially White people) decide my identity for me, butit’s even worse when the government does it.

And this leads me to blood quantum. Blood quantum is highly controversial and personal, and since I’m not Indigenous and therefore shouldn’t weigh in on such a heated debate I will tread carefully and stick to the facts as best I can. If you’re not familiar, Blood Quantum laws were enacted by the United States government to determine if someone was considered Native or not dependent on their degree of Native ancestry. The first “Indian Blood law” was originally created in 1705 when the Virginia government wanted to limit the civil rights of Native people and people of Native descent. Some Native tribes continue to use blood quantum to determine who can enroll for tribal membership, others do not. Leah Myers, a member of the Jamestown S’Klallam tribe, gives an example of the importance of tribal enrollment in her Atlantic essay:

“Tribal citizenship is more than symbolic. It determines eligibility for educational assistance, medical care, and other social benefits. Plus, only members can attend citizen meetings and vote in tribal elections. If my future children don’t meet the blood requirements for my tribe, they could still participate in events, cultivate plants in the traditional-foods garden, and take Klallam-language courses. But no matter how much they served the community in love and time, they would be deemed a ‘descendant’ and marked as separate.”

Here’s a guide to Blood Quantum that gives both the arguments for and against blood quantum (full transparency, most Native sources I looked up were against these laws). Basically, blood quantum proponents argue that getting rid of blood quantum rules will make scarce resources even scarcer due to population growth and that it will allow disconnected outsiders and pretendians to join the tribe, which will erode their culture. Opponents of blood quantum argue that statistically it will eradicate Native nations, and point to the law’s racist origins which were intended to control and erase Indigenous people. It also makes relationships complicated, as Indigenous people must calculate their potential children’s percentage of Native blood and if they can enroll or not, which can put a strain on families. Blood quantum also conflicts with traditional Indigenous ideas about kinship and has“no basis in Native American traditions.” Essentially, both proponents and opponents disagree on the best way to preserve their tribal nations.

This idea is explored more fully in the story Quantum by Nick Medina. A woman named Amber is so obsessed with blood quantum and getting her children on the tribal roll that she favors her son Grayson, who’s 5/16 Native, while ignoring his brother Sam, who is only 1/8 Native, to the point where Sam is practically feral. She even tries to steal blood from a deceased Native man from their tribe so she can inject it into Sam.

Another story I enjoyed is Collections by Amber Blaeser-Wardzala, an incredibly creepy story about collecting human remains. Professor Smith, a liberal White woman, collects the heads of all the students she’s helped. She’s very proud of her collection: she has all the sexualities and genders, all the religions, and almost all the races. An Indigenous head would be her “white whale.” Megis (called Meg by the White professor) is understandably horrified by the collection, as is one of her Black classmates, but none of her white classmates seem to be. Professor Smith implies she wants to help Megis so she can have her head for her collection. Megis, the first person in her family to go to college, is desperate to stay on Professor Smith’s good side so she can maintain her scholarship and get a good job, and therefore doesn’t have much choice but to stay in the house of horrors. While an extreme example, the story underlines how troubling it is when museums collect human remains without consent and how academics will treat bodies as mere curiosities. 

“When [Native American artifacts and human remains] were acquired, collectors weren’t thinking of Indigenous peoples as human beings. People were resources, and human remains were to be preserved alongside pots” says Jacquetta Swift, the repatriation manager for the National Museum of the American Indian and member of the Comanche and Fort Sill Apache tribes. It’s the unfortunate reality that most human remains on display and in private collections, are unethically sourced from BIPOCs against their wishes.

This theme is also lightly touched on in Navajos Don’t Wear Elk Teeth by Conley Lyons where a Native man named Joe has a summer fling with White man named Cam. Cam collects teeth, some of which turn out to be human (he claims his last boyfriend was a Navajo man who gave him an elk tooth for “good luck” which Joe is dubious about). One of Joe’s friends refers to this as “bad medicine” and suggest Joe get an elder to sage his house. 

Not all the stories are quite so dark, however. Snakes are Born in the Dark by D. H. Trujillo felt like a Goosebumps book or a fun story kids tell to scare each other, and I thoroughly enjoyed it. In the story, an Alaskan Native boy named Peter goes hiking in the woods with his white cousin Maddie and her rude boyfriend Adam. They come across Native petroglyphs in the Four Corners desert which Maddie and Adam both immediately touch. Peter warns them not to touch the carvings but Adam continues to do so while mocking him. Unsurprisingly both Maddie and Adam suffer unpleasant (though non-lethal and impermanent) fates which results in a humorous ending. It’s a fun twist on the classic “Indian curse” where we (and Peter) are rooting for the White people to get their comeuppance.

I could go on and on about the stories in the anthology, like Hunger by Phoenix Boudreau where two Cree college girls, Summer and Rain, outsmart a Wehtigo. Or Scariest. Story. Ever. By Richard Van Camp that touches on who gets to tell Native stories and how to share culture without stealing it. They’re all great. I also felt like I learned a lot while reading the anthology.

Tags: Adult, Alaskan Native, American Indian, Anthology, Book Review, Ghosts/Haunting, Highly Recommended, Historic Horror, Killer/Slasher, Monster, Myths and Folklore, Occult, Psychological Horror
Claustrophilia by Ezra Blake

Claustrophilia by Ezra Blake

Formats: digital

Publisher: Smashwords

Genre: Blood & Guts (Splatterpunk), Body Horror, Killer/Slasher, Psychological Horror, Romance

Audience: Adult/Mature

Diversity: Gay main characters and author, trans male author

Takes Place in: US and Italy

Content Warnings (Highlight to view): Alcohol Abuse, Amputation, Cannibalism, Death, Drug Use/Abuse, Forced Captivity, Gaslighting, Gore, Illness, Kidnapping, Medical Torture/Abuse, Medical Procedures, Mental Illness, Necrophilia, Mentions of Pedophilia, Physical Abuse, Rape/Sexual Assault, Self-Harm, Sexual Abuse, Slurs, Slut-Shaming, Suicide, Torture, Verbal/Emotional Abuse, Violence

Blurb

Christopher Dour’s life was terrible before he was kidnapped. He spent too much time studying the Providence Butcher’s victims and not enough talking to living people. He was erotically obsessed with the idea of murdering Dr. Ivan Skinner, his medical school advisor. I was only a matter of time before he killed someone, possibly himself–but the Providence Butcher had other ideas. After all, the first time should be special, and Chris was going about it all wrong. Now those life-or-death decisions are out of his hands. He’s breaking. What’s worse, Chris has a lot in common with the Butcher. Nobody else has truly cared about him before. When he’s not being tortured, he’s being cherished. If Stockholm syndrome feels like love, then in practice, what’s the difference? Chris can’t maintain his dignity, but can still cling to his shattered moral compass. Or he can let go, submit, and become the unspeakable. At least then he wouldn’t be alone. Prepare to become an accomplice.

The very first page of Claustrophilia gave me a panic attack, and when I finished it, I felt like someone had put my brain in a blender. I swore I’d never force myself to experience something so sick, sadistic, and stressful again.

Well, that promise lasted all of four months and then I reread it. Why would I expose to that filth again? Because I love this book so goddamn much. The writing is amazing. Like, made-a-deal-with-a-dark-force-to-obtain-supernatural-talent amazing (Blake is also an incredibly talented artist, which is just all kinds of unfair). I read the entire thing in one traumatic sitting even though it was 2 AM and I really needed to take a break. It’s sooooooo good, but soooooo fucked up and I’m not sure I should even be admitting to reading it. Hell, just purchasing Claustrophilia will probably put you on some kind of FBI watch-list. Although I’m pretty sure I’m already on there, thanks to my Google search history. Disclaimer: If you are a law enforcement agent I had totally legitimate, non-creepy reasons to look up “at-home lobotomy instructions,” “how to dissolve a body” and “where to buy cursed dolls” even if I can’t think of any right now. Also, some weirdo stole my credit card and bought Claustrophilia. And reviewed it. And then read a bunch of erotic, gay Deep Space Nine fan fiction followed by two-hours of zit-popping videos on Youtube. Someone who wasn’t me.

For the sake of your sanity, I’m going to warn you right now, if you are someone with any kind of triggers, stop right here. I’m serious. Claustrophilia is chock-full of extremely explicit torture (medical, physical, sexual, and psychological), cannibalism, gore, and a super fucked up, abusive relationship. It’s a good book, but it is splatterpunk. So, if that’s not your thing, stay far, far away from this book and most likely this review. But if you have a strong stomach and can handle a scene where a guy fucks another guy’s brain (literally) I’d definitely recommend it. Will/Hannibal shippers, fans of Rotten.com’s Rotten Library (R.I.P.), and extreme horror enthusiasts will all enjoy Claustrophilia.

Admittedly I’m not usually a fan of splatterpunk. I used to enjoy extreme horror, back in my early twenties when I felt like I needed to prove what a badass horror fan I was, but the turtle death scene in Cannibal Holocaust put an end to that phase. I still like fucked up shit, but visceral, graphic violence just isn’t my cup of tea. Plus, I don’t find it particularly scary. I work in a hospital, so I see guts, amputated limbs, and dead bodies all the time; that stuff just doesn’t gross me out. And unfortunately, a lot of splatterpunk also seems to equate to sexualized violence against women handled in the worst way. possible *cough*Richard Laymon*cough* But Blake manages to create a graphic, gory story without the sexism. Most torture porn comes with a heavy dose of misogyny, and with all the real-world examples of abuse, torture, and murder of women by men, it’s kind of hard to enjoy it in fiction. But an erotic exploitation novel between two men doesn’t come with the same baggage (although, obviously, abuse can and does happen in same sex relationships and I’m not trying to minimize that). And cannibal doctor Ivan Skinner is pretty equal opportunity when it comes to his victims so there are no sexist vibes.

Dr. Ivan Skinner is a pretentious asshole sophisticated gentleman who loves fine art, opera, and gourmet food (usually people). He plans on running off to Italy, loves torture and mind games, and is an overall terrible friend. He’s basically a gay Hannibal Lecter. So essentially Hannibal from the Bryan Fuller TV show, but even more sadistic. Chris is an older medical student, struggling with school, work, and a general lack of direction. He falls in love with Ivan, who then tortures Chris mentally, physically, and sexually until his student becomes a murderous psychopath. And don’t worry, Blake doesn’t try to romanticize or glamorize their abusive relationship. This isn’t Twilight or 50 Shades of Gray. He makes clear from the get-go that everything between them is twisted, perverted, and ugly, even if Ivan and Chris sometimes mistake it for something else. While the torture does have shades of BDSM I’d hesitate to call it such because it’s non-consensual, and BDSM is all about explicit consent. It’s utterly fascinating to watch, and yeah, some of the sex scenes are hot, but in the end it’s a repulsive and deeply disturbing relationship where Ivan intentionally traumatizes and brainwashes Chris until he’s entirely dependent on the older man. Not that Ivan would have had to try very hard to push Chris over the edge. The young medical student is already emotionally unstable, possibly a budding serial killer, and being around cadavers all day is sending him spiraling towards a nervous breakdown.

I would just like to state, for the record, if a pathology assistant (which Chris is acting as) had a nervous breakdown it’s far more likely to be the result of dealing with the giant piles of paperwork, frequently missing slides, the dictation software breaking down again, or one of the endless phone calls from physicians who want to know if the results they only just requested are done yet like you’re supposed to drop everything else to focus on them and their nonsense and somehow break the laws of spacetime (but ~heaven forbid~ you point out that you could get to their stuff a lot faster if they stopped calling every five fucking minutes because then you’re the asshole). Look, all I’m saying is if I found out someone went on a killing spree because they got yet another phone call asking why a pathology report wasn’t ready, I’d get it. But working with dead bodies is not that stressful. They just sort of chill and don’t bother you. If you’re stressed out by the dead, you probably don’t belong in medicine.

Anyway, it’s absolutely fascinating to witness Chris’ deteriorating mental state. It’s incredibly stressful, but also offers a sort of sadistic pleasure as you wonder how much more he can stand before he snaps completely. While there is a lot of gore, it’s not the scary part of the story. It’s the suspense and psychological horror that’s terrifying. You keep wondering, “How much worse can it get?” And then it gets worse. So. Much. Worse. I think the last time a story affected me this viscerally was Eric Larocca’s Things Have Gotten Worse Since We Last Spoke. And as a horror reviewer, I’m not easily phased.

Tags: Adult, Blood & Guts, Body Horror, Book Review, Gay, Killer/Slasher, LGBTQIA, Own Voices, Psychological Horror, Romance, Trans
Unshod, Cackling, and Naked by Tamika Thompson

Unshod, Cackling, and Naked by Tamika Thompson

Formats: Print, digital

Publisher: Unnerving 

Genre: Apocalypse/Disaster, Killer/Slasher, Sci-Fi Horror, Werebeasts

Audience: Adult/Mature

Diversity: Black main characters and author, lesbian character, Biracial Black/Creek character

Takes Place in: LA, California

Content Warnings (Highlight to view): Alcohol Abuse, Animal Death, Body Shaming, Child Abuse, Child Death, Pedophilia, Police Harassment, Racism, Rape/Sexual Assault, Slurs, Verbal/Emotional Abuse, Violence

Blurb

A beauty pageant veteran appeases her mother by competing for one final crown, only to find herself trapped in a hand-sewn gown that cuts into her flesh. A journalist falls deeply in love with a mysterious woman but discovers his beloved can vanish and reappear hours later in the same spot, as if no time has passed at all. A cash-strapped college student agrees to work in a shop window as a mannequin but quickly learns she’s not free to break her pose. And what happens when the family pet decides it no longer wants to have ‘owners’?

In the grim and often horrific thirteen tales collected here, beauty is violent, and love and hate are the same feeling, laid bare by unbridled obsession. Entering worlds both strange and quotidian, and spanning horror landscapes both speculative and real, asks who among us is worthy of love and who deserves to die?

I received this product for free in return for providing an honest and unbiased review. I received no other compensation. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255: Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.

I absolutely love horror anthologies, so I was excited to receive Unshod, Cackling, and Naked by Tamika Thompson. Many of the stories in the anthology focus on the balance between humans and nature and the morality of killing, owning, and eating animals. Bridget has Disappeared takes place in a dystopian near-future with disappearing resources which lead to poverty and crime. I Will be Glorious is about coping with loss and a killer tree. The Bats and The Turn are both about diseases that seemingly spread overnight (much like COVID) that cause dogs and bats, respectively, to turn against humans and attack them. The Turn especially focuses on the humanity’s relationship with domesticated animals and describes what would happen if dogs no longer wished to be kept as pets. Similarly, And We Screamed examines humanity’s relationship with livestock, and why we choose to eat some animals and feel entitled to try and control them. It also examines the sanctity of death and dead bodies. I found this story especially interesting because I was probably the exact opposite of the target audience. I eat meat and have several pets. I used to work on a farm with livestock (some of which were being raised for food) as a child, and I volunteered at an animal hospital where I sometimes had to help euthanize sick animals in my teens. In college I majored in biology and had no qualms about dissecting dead animals, including rats and cats (despite being a huge rat and cat lover).

In And We Screamed there’s a scene where the main character refuses to dissect a cat and her classmate points out that it’s messed up because it still has a face. My first thought was “Well, how are you supposed to dissect the eyes if it doesn’t have a face?” (Which turns out to be the teacher’s argument as well.) It was intriguing to be reminded that something I consider routine and mundane was actually horrific for many people, and to see why exactly it was so frightening from their point of view.  I was able to understand and empathize with where the author, and her characters, were coming from, even if I didn’t fully agree with her conclusions. I also recognized the mental disconnect that makes me willing to dissect a rat for science while also dropping over a grand on veterinary bills for a rat I keep as a pet.  Truly a testament to Thompson’s skill as a writer.

My favorite stories in Unshod, Cackling, and Naked were the ones with feminist themes. In I Did it for You a young rape survivor tracks down creepy men and cuts off their small toe, turning them into victims who will have to carry a scar for the rest of their lives, just as she does. She points out to one cop–the one who raped her because he thought she was a prostitute–that losing a toe is nothing like losing your will to live after being sexually assaulted. I always enjoy a good rape revenge story and I appreciated that Thompson makes the sex workers in I Did it for You heroes rather than victims (like they are in most horror), and they feel like real characters rather than stereotypes.  

Mannequin Model is the story from which Unshod, Cackling, and Naked draws its name. In it, a woman acts as a “living doll,” modeling clothing in a store window where she’s objectified and sexually harassed. She’s treated as a literal sex object, with no voice or will, so it’s extremely satisfying when she finally rebels. But my absolute favorite story in the collection is I am Goddess. In it, a woman named Lira wants to convince her husband to pay for face treatments so she can be beautiful. Her marriage to her husband is basically every bad heterosexual relationship you’ve read about on Reddit. Lira works full time and does everything around the house. She pays the mortgage and all the bills out of her paycheck, despite earning the same amount as her husband. Her husband uses his own money to buy himself big-screen TVs and flashy new cars while telling Lira they can’t afford a washer and dryer or a car for her, so she’s stuck doing laundry by hand and taking the bus. He flirts with other women, dismisses her feelings, and ignores her unless he wants sex. But Lira puts up with it with a smile because she has been conditioned her whole like to believe she needs a man to be “complete” and that she’s lucky to have anyone at all considering her appearance. All of Lira’s accomplishments growing up are downplayed until she finds a husband. Her cousin constantly mocks her appearance and makes Lira feel inferior. No wonder she’s trapped in such a toxic relationship. But her husband’s refusal to let her get the one thing she wants, her face treatment, finally pushes Lira over the edge. She finally sees her husband for who he really is, a loser, and all her pent up anger and frustration comes pouring out. She gets even, and it’s glorious. Definitely one of the strongest stories in the collection, in my humble opinion. 

Tags: Adult, African American, Anthology, BIPOC, Biracial, Black, Book Review, Lesbian, LGBTQIA, Own Voices
We Are Here to Hurt Each Other by Paula D. Ashe

We Are Here to Hurt Each Other by Paula D. Ashe

Formats: Print, digital

Publisher: Nictitating Books

Genre: Body Horror, Killer/Slasher, Occult, Psychological Horror

Audience: Adult/Mature

Diversity: Queer, Black author and characters

Takes Place in: Ohio

Content Warnings (Highlight to view): Child Abuse, Child Death, Child Endangerment, Death, Drug Use/Abuse, Illness, Incest, Kidnapping, Necrophilia, Mental Illness, Pedophilia, Racism, Rape/Sexual Assault, Self-Harm, Slut-Shaming, Torture, Violence

Blurb

With these twelve stories Paula D. Ashe takes you into a dark and bloody world where nothing is sacred and no one is safe. A landscape of urban decay and human degradation, this collection finds the psychic pressure points of us all, and giddily squeezes. Try to run, try to hide, but there is no escape: we are here to hurt each other.

I received this product for free in return for providing an honest and unbiased review. I received no other compensation. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255: Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.

If you’ve ever thought “Gee, I’m feeling too mentally and emotionally healthy. I should read something so disturbing and intense my therapist will finally be able to pay off their student loans from all the sessions I’m going to need,” then look no further then Paula D. Ashe’s We Are Here to Hurt Each Other. This horror is extreme. Ashe explores such taboo topics as incest, child abuse, child murders, self-harm, and religious extremism without flinching, yet it never feels like she’s making light of the subject matter. It’s extreme horror that never feels exploitative.

Interestingly, Ashe’s stories are very light on the gore (with a few exceptions). I’ve always found extreme horror that relies too much on blood and guts to be boring (blame my ultraviolent horror phase in college for making me jaded), so it was one of the things I particularly liked about the book. There are also very few examples of the supernatural in this anthology, and no supernatural antagonists. All the villains are very much human. Ashe’s work focuses on psychological horror, the terrifying in the mundane, and the terrible things the average human is capable of. What if you found out your own child was a monster? And not the furry or fanged kind, but the regular old terrible human kind? What if, to cope with abuse, you became the abuser without even realizing? What if you would do absolutely anything to keep the one you love? Ashe takes these simple, awful questions and gives us the terrifying answer, sometimes in a variety of ways. Bereft and Because you Watched, both deal with adult children dealing with their histories of extreme abuse and culpable siblings, but are two very different stories.

The stories are extremely well written, and I was impressed how each character had such a distinct voice. No two stories sound the same, but they all share Ashe’s poetic talent. We are Here to Hurt Each Other is a gripping and deeply unsettling anthology; Ashe’s skill shines through in each story, though I found Exile in Extremis, The Mother of All Monsters, and Because you Watched to be my personal favorites. The first is an epistolary story about a drug so powerful it is said to bring back the dead and with references to the classic horror anthology The King in Yellow by Robert W. Chambers. The second is about the relationship between a mother and her son while a series of child murders take place. And the last is about the strained relationship between siblings who have witnessed the abuse of their youngest sister at the hands of their cruel parents.

We Are Here to Hurt Each Other is not an easy read, but it is an excellent one. Despite their depravity the stories are still hauntingly beautiful. You’ll find this anthology sitting with you long after you put it down.

Tags: Adult, African American, Anthology, BIPOC, Black, Body Horror, Book Review, Killer/Slasher, LGBTQIA, Occult, Own Voices, Psychological Horror
The Final Women by Pardeep Aujla

The Final Women by Pardeep Aujla

Formats: digital

Publisher: Self-Published

Genre: Demon, Killer/Slasher, Occult

Audience: Adult/Mature

Diversity: Black main character, Latina main character, Vietnamese main character, lesbian main character

Takes Place in: type here

Content Warnings (Highlight to view): Alcohol Abuse, Amputation, Bullying, Death, Drug Use/Abuse, Gore, Homophobia, Mental Illness, Racism, Self-Harm, Sexism, Suicide, Verbal/Emotional Abuse, Violence

Blurb

The mass murdering Phantom of Haven Cove is dead. For the one who killed him, however, life has never been the same.

How do you return to normality after facing such a monster? How do you live when consumed by guilt, anger, fear, and denial? How do you connect with others when no one understands what you’ve been through?

But there are others… Final girls of their own Haven Cove massacres. And now, thirty years later, they must all face a new question…

What do you do when the killer returns?

I received this product for free in return for providing an honest and unbiased review. I received no other compensation. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255: Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.

What happens when final girls grow up? It depends how they deal with the trauma of what happened to them the night they faced off with the masked killer, Silas Crowe. If you’re Nell James, you grow up to become a lonely and agoraphobic author who tries to turn the worst thing that ever happened to her– watching her friends get murdered one by one–into financial gain. If you’re Josie Jedford, you numb your fear with drugs. Or you could become a paranoid survivalist like Ana Gómez who transforms her badly burned body into a living weapon. Even Cassie Phong, who seems to have the perfect life what with her wealthy husband and two children, can’t escape the PTSD she developed the night she faced off with Silas Crowe. Each woman has done her best to put the past behind them, believing Crowe to be dead once and for all. That is until Camp Haven Cove reopens and a new group of teenagers goes missing. Nell realizes that Silas Crowe never died, and never will unless she, and the other three former final girls find a way to deal with him once and for all. Now well into their forties the four final woman team up to put a stop to the killings once and for all.

Slasher heroines are almost exclusively young women: teens and twenty somethings with bare breasts and flat stomachs (they’re always conventionally attractive) enjoying the prime of their lives through sex, drugs and drinking. Any woman above the age of thirty is either a mother or a side character, and if she has a few gray hairs she’s relegated to the role of a frightful hag. But as nostalgia for horror of the 80’s and 90’s breathes new life into horror franchises, Hollywood is doing something new. Instead of rebooting and recasting their heroines, they’re allowing them to grow up from Final Girls into Final Women. Sidney Prescott (Scream), Laurie Strode (Halloween), and Sally Hardesty (The Texas Chainsaw Massacre) all recently reprised their roles in their respective franchises as badass heroines over the age of forty. And as someone who will soon be saying goodbye to my thirties, it’s refreshing to see older women get their time in the slasher spotlight, and that’s one of the things I liked best about The Final Women.  Nell, Josie, Ana, and Cassie are all approaching fifty, but they all get to be the heroes of the story, and I found them much more relatable then horny, drunk teens in the woods. They’re also not written for the male gaze, which is refreshing.

Another thing I liked about the book was Aujla’s realistic depiction of PTSD. None of the women escaped Silas unscathed, they each bear their own physical and mental scars, as one would expect from anyone going up against a slasher. Nell displays avoidance of people and places that remind her of her traumatic event and might trigger a flashback. Cassie and Josie both develop substance abuse problems, alcohol and drugs respectively, a common comorbidity for people with PTSD. Ana is prone to angry outbursts and aggressive behavior and is hypervigilant. All the women struggle with nightmares and flashbacks. It’s refreshing to see a slasher actually deal with mental health and the aftermath of a traumatic event (something we’re starting to see in more recent film sequels). I genuinely cared about all the main characters, something that rarely happens in horror fiction, and I was scared to see any of them get hurt or killed. Aujla just writes them so well! It’s sweet to see these women from different walks of life bond and draw strength from each other.

The Final Women was fun in a way the best 80’s slashers are. Gory, over the top, and wickedly funny. I absolutely devoured it as I found both the story and the characters enthralling. It draws on classic horror tropes while still being wholly unique. If you’re a fan of slashers you’ll definitely want to check this one out. 

Tags: Adult, Asian American, BIPOC, Book Review, Demon, Highly Recommended, Killer/Slasher, Latine/Latino, Lesbian, LGBTQIA, Occult, Vietnamese

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Splinter by Jasper Hyde

Splinter by Jasper Hyde

Formats: Print, digital

Publisher: The Magnificent Engine

Genre: Folk Horror, Killer/Slasher, Occult, Myth and Folklore, Romance

Audience: Adult/Mature

Diversity: Black main character and author, Filipino British main character, asexual (demisexual) main character and author, bisexual main character, main character with ADHD, Trans masc/Non-binary author

Takes Place in: Sleepy Hollow, NY

Content Warnings (Highlight to view): Ableism, Bullying, Death, Drug Use/Abuse, Medical Procedures, Mental Illness, Police Harassment, Racism, Torture 

Blurb

In a small town hidden behind the hills of New York, things are far from ordinary. As Sleepy Hollow’s youngest Medical Examiner, the pressure intensifies for Dr. Drusilla Van Tassel when the headless bodies of her sister Katrina’s friends start surfacing. Meanwhile, Drusilla’s ex-lover Ichabod Crane returns to town, dredging up feelings better left buried.

Things take a turn for the worst when Drusilla comes face-to-face with the Headless Horseman, who is back to settle old scores – and she and her sister are the perfect targets. Drusilla can repel the horseman with an unknown power, but her sister isn’t so lucky, and she goes missing.

However, when Drusilla discovers Ichabod is a monster hunter, she has no other choice but to turn to him for help. Even if that means working with a man she feels an inexplicable attraction to. Will they find Katrina and banish the headless horseman once and for all?

I received this product for free in return for providing an honest and unbiased review. I received no other compensation. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255: Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.

If you decide to read Splinter, keep in mind that this story comes from a small, indie publisher and didn’t benefit from a professional editor. There are quite a few grammar errors sprinkled throughout. I didn’t find them particularly distracting, and the quality of the writing was still good, but I know this will bother some readers. I would encourage them to give Splinter a chance anyway, as it really is an enjoyable story and I hope my review will encourage you to check it out.

Dr. Drusilla Van Tassel is our main character, and I kind of love her. She’s an introverted, bisexual, horror fan who just wants to do her job as a medical examiner, and I can relate to that. Her sister Katrina, on the other hand, is outgoing, popular, and prefers her rich, white friends over her own sister. But Drusilla is just as hostile to Katrina, so it’s not your stereotypical mean girl situation. I found it interesting how Drusilla can relax and use AAVE in front of her Black assistant (and former lover) Kyndall, but codeswitches with Katrina like she does around white people. It underlines how “other” Katrina is from her and how uncomfortable Drusilla feels in her own sister’s presence. Although, she does feel guilty for not doing more to support Katrina when her husband Brom died under mysterious circumstances.

One night Drusilla is called in to deal with a murder, and the victim is no other than Denis Carter, Katrina’s close friend. Poor Drusilla just can’t catch a break! At the crime scene, we see firsthand the racism and sexism Drusilla faces on a regular basis from the law enforcement officials she has to work alongside when one rookie cop tries to stop her from entering the crime scene. Despite having graduated Magna Cum Laude from Cornell she still gets treated as a “Black girl playing dress up.”

Then Katrina’s former friend and lover, Ichabod Crane (who I like to imagine looks like Piolo Pascual), shows up out of the blue and starts pestering her for details of the strange murder. Because they ended things badly, she isn’t exactly thrilled to see him. But when another murder takes place, the two are forced to set aside their differences and work together. What follows is a fun, supernatural mystery with a great sex scene. This was the first time in a story I’ve seen someone on the asexual spectrum have sex. Not only are asexual character underrepresented in fiction, but they’re often stereotyped as always being completely sex adverse, which just isn’t true, especially in the case of people who are demisexual like this particular character.

I really appreciate that Hyde not only put the effort into getting Filipino sensitivity readers, but also included their email in the beginning of the story for anyone to reach out to them if they made any mistakes in representation. I wish more authors would do that!

If you were a fan of the Fox tv series Sleepy Hollow that aired from 2013-2017, but hated the way they treated Nicole Beharie and her character, this book is for you. It feels like a remedy to the show without being a fix-it fanfiction. Instead, Splinter gets to be its own thing. It’s a quick, compelling read that sucks you in, helped in no small part by its compelling and complex characters.

Tags: ADHD, Adult, African American, Asexual, BIPOC, Bisexual, Black, Book Review, Disability, Filipino, Folk Horror, Killer/Slasher, LGBTQIA, Myths and Folklore, Non-binary, Occult, Own Voices, Recommended, Romance, Southeast Asian, Trans
The White Guy Dies First: 13 Scary Stories of Fear and Power edited by Terry J. Benton-Walker

The White Guy Dies First: 13 Scary Stories of Fear and Power edited by Terry J. Benton-Walker

Formats: Print, audio, digital

Publisher: Tor Teen

Genre: Apocalypse/Disaster, Dark Fantasy, Eco Horror, Killer/Slasher, Monster, Mystery, Myth and Folklore, Romance

Audience: Young Adult

Diversity: Black characters and authors, characters of Chinese descent and Chinese New Zealander author, Indigenous characters and author (Seminole), Korean American characters and author, Bisexual characters, Queer women characters, Non-binary character and authors, Ace Spectrum author, MENA character, Bangladeshi-Irish author, Iranian-American author, Latinx characters and author

Content Warnings (Highlight to view): Alcohol Abuse, Amputation, Bullying, Cannibalism, Child Abuse, Child Death, Child Endangerment, Death, Drug Use/Abuse, Forced Captivity, Gaslighting, Gore, Mental Illness, Racism, Rape/Sexual Assault, Suicide, Verbal/Emotional Abuse, Violence, Vomit

Blurb

13 SCARY STORIES. 13 AUTHORS OF COLOR.
13 TIMES WE SURVIVED THE FIRST KILL.

The White Guy Dies First includes thirteen scary stories by all-star contributors and this time, the white guy dies first.

Killer clowns, a hungry hedge maze, and rich kids who got bored. Friendly cannibals, impossible slashers, and the dead who don’t stay dead….

A museum curator who despises “diasporic inaccuracies.” A sweet girl and her diary of happy thoughts. An old house that just wants friends forever….

These stories are filled with ancient terrors and modern villains, but go ahead, go into the basement, step onto the old plantation, and open the magician’s mystery box because this time, the white guy dies first.

I received this product for free in return for providing an honest and unbiased review. I received no other compensation. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255: Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.

This is a book that is going to make racists people mad, and I’m here for it. Consider yourself forewarned: if you’re white, this book is not written for you and you’re going to need a thick skin to read it. White people are so used to having positive representation in media that a book where white people make everything worse and always end up dead is going to rub the more sensitive white folks the wrong way, even those who might consider themselves allies. But for the rest of us? It’s awesome and a much-needed subversion of the “Black Guy Dies First” trope. Now, just because the white guy dies first in these stories does not make the BIPOC immune from horrific deaths. Hedge and The Protégé both have Black teens who meet violent ends. A Native person in Best Served Cold is tortured. They’re just not the first to die and get to be main characters.

Many (but not all) of the stories focus on the racism characters face and how often bad things happen to BIPOC people because of the actions of white people. Farz-joon from Break Through Our Skin by Naseem Jamnia is a non-binary, Iranian high school student who desperately wants a Smithosian internship. In order to secure one, they agree to volunteer at the University of Chicago’s Oriental Institute (thankfully, the problematic name was changed to the Institute for the Study of Ancient Culture in 2023) working under a condescending, racist, and transphobic old white professor named Dr. Hudson who thinks he knows more about Iran than Farz does because he’s studied it, speaks Farsi, and actually visited Iran, which Farz has not. He also objects to the Institute’s name change because the original name has “history” and “meaning.” Farz tolerates his boorish behavior so they can fulfill their dream of becoming an archeologist and challenge the idea that gender can be determined from a skeleton alone, but of course Dr. Hudson criticizes their “modern” ideas about gender stating “political correctness has no place in ancient history”, despite historical evidence of gender non-conforming people existing in ancient Iran and bioarchaeologist’s more recent views on sex and gender. Unsurprisingly, it turns out he only hired Farz to give the exhibits a “layer of authenticity” and he’s willing to jeopardize Farz’s future by withholding his recommendation.

Wasps by Mark Oshiro focuses on how gentrification hurts immigrant communities, while Hedge by Kalynn Brown has a topiary garden created by wealthy whites in the 1970s where anyone who enters winds up dead, including the main character’s father. In Grave Grove by Alexis Henderson, a Black teen named Rumi befriends a white Northerner named Kaitlin and she helpsadjust to life in the Southern US. The two even start a podcast together entitled Girls and Ghosts. Their newest episode is about Kyle Adams, a racist who went missing in the eighties after chasing a Black teen, William Jones, into an abandoned plantation. Unfortunately, we quickly learn that Kaitlin is not a good friend to Rumi. She ignores her at school in favor of hanging out with white girls, makes Rumi do all the grunt work for their podcast, and is actually pretty racist for someone who probably considers themselves liberal. She excuses Kyle’s racism because it happened in the past (the 1980s) and “everyone was racist back then.” She thinks William is a “drug dealer” who belongs in prison because he was caught with marijuana, despite smoking weed herself. She views Kyle as the victim, not William. She doesn’t want to talk about the racist history of the plantation or consider the slaves who died there, just the missing white boy. She even mentions her sister’s best friend got married at the plantation, a favorite location for Southern brides (gross). Side note, but I loved that Kaitlin believed in the supernatural while Rumi was the skeptic, since BIPOC are so often cast as superstitious and foolish compared to logical white people. I’m a skeptic myself so it was nice to see a character like me in both Grave Grove and Hell is Other Demons, where the Black main character is an atheist.

Best Served Cold by H. E. Edgmon and The Protégé by Lamar Giles both have the BIPOC main characters get into trouble specifically because they choose to trust a white person. In the former, our protagonist, EJ, makes the mistake of accepting a white man who befriended their brother. EJ struggled with internalized racism throughout their childhood, doing things like using cheap, unsafe contacts from the mall to change their eye color from brown to green. Kai, their brother, tells EJ that those are their ancestor’s eyes, and that their appearance connects them to their ancestry and they should be proud of them. Kai works to reclaim a past that was stolen by colonization (like learning traditional farming and hunting), and teaches EJ about ancestral trauma. EJ realizes the reason they feel angry and frustrated is because they are “playing a game whose rules have never been designed for me to win.” Their mother claims to be white because she passes, even though her grandfather was sent to a residential school in Oklahoma. She denies her heritage. EJ and Kai’s parents grew up together on a reservation in Florida, but moved to Chicago as adults. They told their children they’d left the Rez to give them a better life. Kai brings his white friend (possibly boyfriend) Isaac, who has intense green eyes, to a Pow Wow where the other Natives give him side eye. Clearly, they see something Kai doesn’t (there are other white people there but they don’t face the same level of scrutiny). One of the community leaders talks about MMIWC (Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Children) which serves as foreshadowing. It’s implied that the antagonist in the story is a certain evil spirit from Algonquian mythology (one who’s associated with winter and cannibalism). Edgmon is Seminole, not one of the Algonquian tribes, but he writes with respect, never breaking the taboo of using the spirits name which is said to summon it. This particular creature is also a perfect representation of colonialism with its insatiable hunger and destructive nature.  Kai and EJ do everything they can to fight colonialism but still fall victim to the evil spirit.

The Protégé by Lamar Giles, like Best Served Cold, is a particularly tragic story with the main character, Troy’s, life ruined by his best friend, in this case an older, white gentleman named Jack Meridian. Jack is a retired magician who’s been mentoring Troy in the art of card tricks and illusions, and one of the young teen’s only friends. Troy so admires the older man that he immediately agrees to do him a favor, accepting a package while Jack runs errands downtown. Simple enough, right? While Troy’s older brother Darius is having a party with his friends, Troy sees that the news is reporting a mass killing at the mall where Jack was heading. He tries to contact his magician mentor but the person who killed him answers the phone and threatens Troy if he doesn’t give them the package he received. The killer is revealed to be Danford Dread, a magician who “perverts” the art and performs dark and gory magic that “plays to the worst in people.” And now he’s after Troy and his brother. Even though the white guy in this story is a “good guy” he still ruins a Black boy’s life by bringing him into his world and putting him directly into danger.

In Hell is Other Demons by Karen Strong, the main character is killed (she spends most of the story as a ghost) because her crush’s white boyfriend starts meddling with the supernatural and summons a demon. The other stories of dating a white boy don’t end with dead young women, but they do highlight the perils of interracial dating, namely that white men often fetishize non-white women. I mean, just look how BIPOC women have their own categories on porn sites (gross). Obviously not all mixed-race relationships are problematic; my parents are a mixed-race couple, my sister has an amazing Chilean fiancé (who is himself biracial), and I’m friends with happily married couples in mixed relationships. Unfortunately, there are always bad apples.

In both the Golden Dragon by Kendare Blake and Docile Girls by Chloe Gong, Korean-American Sophie and Chinese-I-think-American-but-possibly-New-Zealander Adelaid are dumped by their white boyfriends (and subsequently lose all the white people they thought were their friends) who fetishized them but don’t view them as committed relationship material. As Sophie’s sister puts it, they’re an exotic bang to mark off their “international bang bingo card.” Even after she gets dumped, Adelaid’s ex sees her as too weak and docile to be the killer who’s been stalking the teens, an assumption that proves fatal for him. This is unfortunately common, as all the East Asian-American women I know I can attest to. When they’re sexually harassed, it almost always has racist undertones. They’ve been propositioned by white men looking for “submissive waifus,” had “me so horny” shouted at them, asked if they have sideways vaginas, or “complimented” on their “exotic” beauty. White men have long fetishized East Asian women, with examples dating as far back as 1898 with the book Madame Butterfly. A Columbia University study from 2007 showed that in online dating, White men seemed to have a strong preference for Asian women when it came to hookups, but when they wanted a committed relationship, they preferred white women. Meanwhile, Black women, especially those with dark skin, are considered less desirable than women of other races.

In All Eyes on Me by Faridah Àbíké-Íyímídé main character Helen deals with a white boyfriend, Asher, who is constantly committing microaggressions. He mocks her kinky hair, and implies she can’t be an actress because she’s Black and not a “bombshell.”  Yet Helen still feels guilty about wanting to break up with Asher because everyone else considers him the perfect, all-American boy. And as a Black girl she’s supposed to be grateful that a white boy wants her, even though being tied down to him and trapped in their small town forever sounds like a nightmare. Fortunately for all three girls, they end their stories without being tied down by their racist exes.

Not all the stories in the collection are focused on race and racism, however. The Road to Hell by Terry Benton-Walker has a very original set up, exploring an abusive relationship between a haunted house and a family living it with the house as the abuser. Everything’s Coming Up Roses by Tiffany D. Jackson is about a mentally unwell girl named Leesa who is obsessed with gardening and documents her daily life in her journal. Leesa is an unreliable narrator and the true horror is slowly revealed over the course of the story. Like most anthologies, the quality of the stories varies, but none that I would have rated below three out of five stars. Some were good, others, like Everything’s Coming Up Roses, Gray Grove, and Best Served Cold, were great. It’s also worth noting that many of the stories are VERY gory, which may be too much for younger teens who aren’t big horror fans. Of course, since most horror fans were reading Stephen King when they were eight, I don’t foresee this being an issue for anyone who decides to read this book.

Tags: American Indian, Anthology, Asexual, Asian, Bangladeshi, BIPOC, Bisexual, Black, Body Diversity, Book Review, Chinese, Iranian, Korean, Latine/Latino, Lesbian, LGBTQIA, Own Voices, Young Adult
Another Elizabeth by Elle Mitchell

Another Elizabeth by Elle Mitchell

Formats: Print, audio, digital

Publisher: Little Key Press

Genre: Killer/Slasher

Audience: Adult/Mature

Diversity: Main character and authors with hypermobile Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome (hEDS), bisexual main character

Takes Place in: Oregon

Content Warnings (Highlight to view): Ableism, Animal Abuse, Animal Death, Body Shaming, Imagined Cannibalism, Imagined Child Abuse, Imagined Child Death, Death, Forced Captivity, Gaslighting, Mental Illness, Pedophilia, Physical Abuse, Police Harassment, Self-Harm, Slurs, Sexism, Suicide, Verbal/Emotional Abuse, Violence

Blurb

Another Elizabeth is a gripping literary psychological crip horror novel that readers will sink their teeth into. Fans of dark humor and challenging fiction will be thrilled to delve into the mind of a deeply flawed disabled woman with a desire to kill.

Elizabeth’s life is taking a turn.
She has three jobs, a boyfriend that loves her too much, and a recent diagnosis of Hypermobile Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome. She’s coming apart at the seams. Now all she cares about is keeping her promise to her younger self before her body fails her—kill without getting caught.

Will she physically be able to satisfy her urge while maintaining her carefully built façade of normalcy? And if so, will she be able to stop with just one victim?

I received this product for free in return for providing an honest and unbiased review. I received no other compensation. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255: Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.

Inspiration porn is a real problem when it comes depicting people with disabilities. The term was originally coined by disability activist and comedian Stella Young. As Young puts it in her 2014 TED talk in Sydney, “We’re not real people. We are there to inspire.” She explains that we have been sold the lie that disability is a bad thing, and therefore living with a disability makes you exceptional. One of the reasons I love Another Elizabeth is because I thought of inspiration porn while I was reading it and what the reactions of able-bodied people might be. Elizabeth has Hypermobile Ehlers-Danlos syndrome (hEDS), which, if you’re not familiar, is a genetic condition that causes connective tissue to weaken resulting in hypermobility in the joints and chronic pain. She works at a grocery store called Juno Foods with her boyfriend, teaches ESL classes, and kills people who piss her off.  That’s right, Elizabeth “overcomes” her invisible disability despite struggling with pain and weakness to become a serial killer! How inspirational!

A drawing of Elizabeth wearing a gray T-shirt and jeans and leaning on a purple cane. In her other hand she holds a bloody knife. Her clothing is covered in blood. Behind her is a black, blood spattered background with bloody red lettering that reads "the only disability in life is a bad attitude."

All joking aside, I loved reading a book where the main character has  disability, written by someone with a disability (and not some well-meaning ally) that isn’t meant to inspire non-disabled people or demonize people with disabilities. Elizabeth is a great character. She shows hints of being a sociopath, is an expert manipulator, and often fantasizes about hurting others. When her doctor suggests she start using a cane, Elizabeth immediately wonders if she’ll use it for anything other than bashing people’s brains in. Even innocent things bring out the darkness in Elizabeth. When she sees babies, she imagines how easy it would be to break their fingers, and when she makes candy, she fantasizes about putting poison in it.

Yet she still seems to care about her friend, her ESL students, and her himbo boyfriend on some level, so she’s not completely heartless. Or at least Elizabeth admits she wouldn’t murder any of them. Awwwwww. In fact, she only kills people who she believes deserve it, like an ableist woman who abandoned her family after her husband became paralyzed, an obnoxious coworker, and maybe the odd pedestrian here and there. The fact that she happens to like their teeth is just a bonus. In her free time Elizabeth watches forensics shows and reads true crime novels for inspiration. This means she is meticulous about covering her tracks. I found myself greatly appreciating Elizabeth’s hyper-competence when it came to crime, carefully planning each murder down to the very last detail. Elizabeth is also someone who is usually good at whatever she tries, despite putting little effort into it, and this seems to apply to being a serial killer. Because she can’t physically overpower her victims, Elizabeth gets very creative finding ways to make her murders more accessible.

Villains with disabilities in fiction are often portrayed in a problematic way, at least when written by the non-disabled. They are the monstrous “other,” whose moral corruption manifests physically as disability. Jan Grue, is a Norwegian academic, author and actor (best known for role as Ivar Salvesen in Occupied) who uses a wheelchair. In his Guardian article The Disabled Villain: Why Sensitivity Reading Can’t Kill Off This Ugly Trope Grue writes “This particular trope, wherein a character’s moral and physiological natures mirror each other, is as universal as it is ancient. It is reflected in the philosophy of Plato, in commonplace phrases like ‘a healthy mind in a healthy body,’ and in the foundational texts of the cultural canon. In Buddhist tradition, too, disability has been construed as an impediment to understanding and enlightenment – and even, for some, as a punishment for actions in a past life.”

The Take’s video Why the “Disabled Villain” Trope is So Offensive, explains that disability is “used as a metaphor for villainy or moral failing.” In an interview with Den of Geek after the release of Skyfall, producer Michael G. Wilson explains, “It’s very much a Fleming device that he uses throughout the stories – the idea that physical deformity and personality deformity go hand in hand in some of these villains. Sometimes it’s a motivating factor in their life, and what makes them the way they are.” In other words, those with disabilities are assumed to despise their condition because being disabled is undesirable, and they seek to harm the able bodied. Unfortunately, this metaphor can cause real-life harm, as it reinforces the idea that having a disability is “bad” and difference is “scary.” Horror is especially notorious for using the “Evil Cripple” trope, with famous villains like Freddy, Jason, and Leatherface all sporting physical disfigurements. Other famous examples of disabled villains are the Phantom from The Phantom of the Opera, multiple James Bond antagonists, Mr. Glass in Unbreakable, Mason Verger from Hannibal, Captain Hook from Peter Pan, Mr. Potter from It’s a Wonderful Life, and Darth Vader from Star Wars.

 

Mr. Glass from Unbreakable (top left), The Phantom from the Phantom of the Opera (top right), Captain Hook from Hook, Raoul Silva from Skyfall, Freddy Krueger from Nightmare on Elm Street (bottom left), and Mason Verger from Hannibal (bottom right). None of the characters pictured here are portrayed by disabled or disfigured actors.

lizabeth is a villain protagonist with a disability, she’s an incredibly well written, well-rounded character. She’s an evil (or at least morally gray) character who also has a disability, rather than a character who is evil because of a disability. Most importantly, Elizabeth is written in such a way that the audience is rooting for her sociopath self and able to relate to her. (Or at least I was. Who among us hasn’t fantasized about killing awful people?) Usually, villains with disabilities are written in such a way that they feel alien and are frightening in their strangeness, and this is accentuated by their disability or disfigurement.  Instead of seeming scary because of her disability, Elizabeth finds the opposite to be true. People assume she’s helpless: something she uses to her advantage. When suspicion falls on her, Elizabeth plays up her disability, relying on other people’s ableism so they think she’s innocent. It also helps that the author has hEDS herself, so the book is Own Voices and Elizabeth’s character just hits differently.

Because the narration is first person, we get to see Elizabeth’s detached way of looking at the world and her twisted way of thinking. We get an intimate look at her struggles, both keeping her “other life” a secret and trying to kill victims when she’s not as strong as an able-bodied male killer. And of course, we get to learn about her frustration when dealing with her chronic pain and her boyfriend’s annoying abundance of concern for her. He’s convinced that she’s too fragile to function, yet doesn’t have the same concern for her comfort during sex. Side note, I love that Elizabeth gets to have hot sex scenes with her boyfriend. People with disabilities almost never get to have sex in fiction. In fact, outside of Mat Fraser in American Horror Story, George Robinson in Sex Education, and Peter Dinklage in Game of Thrones, I don’t think I’ve ever seen anyone with a disability have sex in popular media (and of course those examples are all white, cisgendered men with conventionally attractive faces).

Another Elizabeth is a fascinating look into a twisted mind with a character that you can’t help but root for despite the fact she’s a serial killer who manipulates others. The story is the perfect length, not so long that it drags but not so short that it feels rushed. The second half of the book is especially exciting and the story is interspersed with bits of dark humor.

Tags: Adult, Book Review, Chronic Illness, Disability, Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome, Killer/Slasher, Own Voices, Physical Disability, Recommended
Spectrum: An Autistic Horror Anthology edited by Aquino Loayza

Spectrum: An Autistic Horror Anthology edited by Aquino Loayza

Formats: Print, digital

Publisher: Third Estate Books

Genre: Body Horror, Folk Horror, Myth and Folklore, Psychological Horror, Sci-Fi Horror, Slahser/Killer

Audience: Adult/Mature

Diversity: Autistic characters and authors, trans, two-spirit, agender and non-binary characters and authors, gay characters, asexual author and characters, Mexican American author and character, Latinx authors, biracial Filipino and Taiwanese author, Afro-Indigenous author

Content Warnings (Highlight to view): Ableism, Alcohol Abuse, Animal Death, Bullying, Cannibalism, Child Abuse, Eating Disorder, Gaslighting, Gore, Illness, Medical Torture/Abuse, Mental Illness, Physical Abuse,  Rape/Sexual Assault, Self-Harm, Suicide, Torture, Transphobia, Verbal/Emotional Abuse, Violence

Blurb

Deep in the recesses of our minds are twisted realities that so closely mirror our own. In these pages, our nightmares are laid bare, made to manifest. There is no waking up; there is no going back once you fall into the tapestry of terrors that await. Are you ready? From courteous neighbors gone awry to the burning brightness of everlasting daylight comes Spectrum: An Autistic Horror Anthology reflective of the vast array of neurodivergent artists in our community and the things that keep them up in the night, the things they can’t look away from.

Don’t Blink.

I received this product for free in return for providing an honest and unbiased review. I received no other compensation. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255: Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.

Unfortunately, to review this, I do have to address some of the drama surrounding it. Anyone in the horror book sphere has probably heard it and it might turn some folks off this amazing anthology. However, you may not have heard about how Third Estate Books addressed it, and you shouldn’t pass on this book just because of a few bad apples.

One of the anthology’s original authors, Zach Rosenberg, was revealed to have a history of harassing and bullying women and femme identifying people. Writer and editor Evelyn Freeling details the harassment she received from Zach Rosenberg here. After Rosenberg posted a non-apology the next day Mattie Lewis shared her own negative experience with the author. Shortly afterward it was revealed that one of the editors of the anthology, Freydis Moon, had been impersonating a Latine person to sell their books and bullying others online. You can find details of the Freydis Moon controversy here. Third Estate Books released statements that both Moon and Rosenberg had been removed from Spectrum and that they would have no place on any other projects moving forward. Therefore, I would still recommend this book, as the publisher has taken steps to ensure the safety of everyone involved and removed anyone problematic. Now, on to the review!

I was happy to see that many of the authors and characters in the book were trans, agender, or non-binary (not surprising since trans and gender diverse folks are up to six times more likely to be autistic). There was also some BIPOC representation with Asian, Latine, and Afro-Indigenous authors, though I would have liked to have seen more. The stories were a very interesting mix. Some were straightforward and followed a classic story structure, while others felt more like stream of consciousness writing and focused more on  the poetic words used than forming a coherent plot (Survive Lot 666, Neighborly, and Discourses of the Seven Headed Monkey come to mind). But both styles worked well. A few of my favorites were Freedom was a Flaying by Onyx Osiris, Curse the Darkness by Die Booth, and The Sun Approaches Every Summer by Akis Linardos. The first of these stories was a violent revenge story where the bullies get violently massacred by the Aztec flayed god, Xipe Totec. I love revenge stories, and this one was particularly satisfying and twisted with a nice nod to the author’s heritage. Booth’s story was more of a “be careful what you wish for” tale, a genre of story I also greatly enjoy. The Sun Approaches Every Summer was particularly unique where a man with magical abilities slowly watches the town he lives in die because the sun is getting too close. As the townspeople fear witches, he’s forced to mask, hiding both his autism and his magical abilities. It reminded me of the Twilight episode The Midnight Sun, except in this story the protagonist is the only one immune to the heat due to his magic and is eventually the only one left alive.

The last story in the anthology, Different by Ashley Lezak, is one of only two in which autism is central to the story. In it, a little autistic girl named Abigail is “cured” by her parents who want a “normal” child.  One of ASAN’s (the Autistic Self Advocacy Network) core beliefs is that “autism cannot and should not be cured.” One thing many allistic and non-disabled people don’t seem to grasp is that Autism is part of who a person is and eliminating that would fundamentally change who they are. As Andrew Pulrang explained in an article for Forbes entitled What Do Disabled People Mean When We Say We Don’t Want A Cure? ,”Life without disabilities may at times have its attractions. It’s something that can be interesting, even fun to speculate about. But since it would often fundamentally change who we are, it’s not always a 100% attractive prospect.” The desire to “cure” autism is similar to the appeal of gay conversion therapy. Parents who can’t love their children as they are try to change them to be more “normal,” someone they can accept. This is what makes Lezak’s short story so frightening: the idea that not only can parents not love and accept their child as they are, but that they would fundamentally change her as a person without her consent. And while the procedure Ashley undergoes is fictional, it’s not too far removed from the lobotomies performed on unwilling patients until the 1970s to change their personalities and even sexual orientation.

The other one is Safe Food by Xochilt Avila, in which a teen named Cedar struggles with their avoidant and restrictive food intake disorder (unfortunately many autistic people also have eating disorders) and an abusive father. What their father doesn’t understand is that it’s not that Cedar doesn’t want to eat, it’s that they have such severe sensory issues around taste there are only certain foods they can palate, none of which their father ever gives them. This story is another example of how badly parents can treat their autistic children (although in Cedar’s case their dad probably would have been abusive even if they were neurotypical). Unfortunately, it isn’t uncommon for autistic individuals to be abused, and their abuse is often blamed on their “challenging behaviors” rather than society’s ableism. Often the media will portray the abuser with sympathy as they were “burdened” with having an autistic child.

But those were the only two stories that felt like they made autism and autistic issues major plot points. The others chose to focus more on undead creatures, migraines, curses, abandoned buildings with dead whales, monkey gods, music, haunted houses and a head in a box. And honestly, I like that. While autism is part of someone’s identity, it’s only one part and Spectrum allows its authors to be their full selves rather than just focusing on their autism. I also really enjoyed seeing how differently autism manifested in each of the fictional characters, underlying how autism really is a broad spectrum. Some had severe sensory issues requiring soft clothing and ear protectors, others didn’t. Some struggled socially, others did not. Some characters had trouble with eye contact while others didn’t. Some were single, while others in committed relationships (there seems to be a myth that autistic people don’t date or have sex, which is patently untrue). There was no “one size fits all.” Autism is just one aspect of their personalities instead of all it, like is often the case when neurodiverse characters are written by neurotypicals. But their autism also wasn’t downplayed like it didn’t matter at all. They got to be multidimensional people.

Tags: Adult, Anthology, Autism, Body Horror, Book Review, Disability, Filipino, Folk Horror, Latine/Latino, LGBTQIA, Mexican, Myths and Folklore, Neurodiversity, Non-binary, Own Voices, Recommended, Taiwanese, Trans
Bury Your Gays: An Anthology of Tragic Queer Horror edited by Sofia Ajram

Bury Your Gays: An Anthology of Tragic Queer Horror edited by Sofia Ajram

Formats: Print, digital

Publisher: Ghoulish Books

Genre: Anthology, Body Horror, Ghosts/Haunting, Killer/Slasher, Monster, Romance

Audience: Adult/Mature

Diversity: Queer and trans authors and characters

Content Warnings (Highlight to view): Alcohol Abuse, Body Shaming, Bullying, Death, Drug Use/Abuse, Eating Disorder, Homophobia, Medical Torture/Abuse, Medical Procedures, Necrophilia, Police Harassment, Rape/Sexual Assault, Slurs, Suicide, Torture, Transphobia, Violence

Blurb

A manifestation of ecstasy, heartache, horror and suffering rendered in feverish lyrical prose. Inside are sixteen new stories by some of the genre’s most visionary queer writers. Young lovers find themselves deliriously lost in an expanding garden labyrinth. The porter of a sentient hotel is haunted within a liminal time loop. A soldier and his abusive commanding officer escape a war in the trenches but discover themselves in an even greater nightmare. Parasites chase each other across time-space in hungry desperation to never be apart. A graduate student with violent tendencies falls into step with a seemingly walking corpse. Featuring stories from Cassandra Khaw, Joe Koch, Gretchen Felker-Martin, Robbie Banfitch, August Clarke, Son M., Jonathan Louis Duckworth, M.V. Pine, Ed Kurtz, LC Von Hessen, Matteo L. Cerilli, November Rush, Meredith Rose, Charlene Adhiambo, Violet, and Thomas Kearnes.

I received this product for free in return for providing an honest and unbiased review. I received no other compensation. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255: Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.

An exquisite anthology of queer horror that boasts such talented authors as Cassandra Khaw, August Clarke, and Gretchen Felker-Martin, this collection contains something for everyone. In its pages, you’ll find alien fungi, body horror, dark fairytales, undead lovers, and lonely ghosts. Named for the common trope where gay characters often meet with untimely ends in mainstream media, this anthology subverts the trope by putting it in the hands of queer writers.

In Your Honor, I’d Like to Put You in the Shoes of One of Dr. Morehouse’s Thirty Proven Clients by M. V. Pine, a trans woman (although she’s never referred to as such) struggles to find gender-affirming care. It’s the 1970s and she’s been dishonorably discharged from the army for “mental health” reasons. Her family doesn’t support her. She refers to her genitals as “a tumor.” A tumor that’s benign (hence, no doctor will remove it for her) but still mortifying. Because she’d do anything to be rid of it, she becomes an easy mark for Dr. Morehouse, who performs dangerous back-alley vaginoplasties on trans women. His surgical room is dirty and he runs out of anesthesia halfway through the procedure. He doesn’t provide antibiotics or pain medication. But the woman would rather die than go another day living with her “tumor.”

This is a story is about what happens when people don’t have access to safe, gender-affirming care. In 2017 a trans woman known only as “Jane Doe” underwent a back-alley orchiectomy which caused her to lose large amounts of blood. Police arrested James Lowell Pennington, who had performed the procedure without a medical license. Doe defended Pennington stating “Arranging a back-alley surgery was out of pure desperation due to a system that failed me.” Why would someone risk their life for what seems like an elective procedure? A study published in JAMA that followed trans and non-binary youths ages 13 to 20 showed 60% reduction of depression and 73% reduction of suicidality in participants who had initiated puberty blockers and gender-affirming hormones compared to those who had not. Another study published in JAMA on gender-affirming surgeries among 27,715 trans and gender diverse adults showed a 42% reduction in psychological distress and a 44% reduction in suicidal ideation among those who were able to receive gender-affirming surgery compared to those who wanted to but could not. There are many such studies that show similar results. Access to safe, gender-affirming care is quite literally lifesaving and immensely improves quality of life for trans and gender diverse people.

Another story that touches on the desperation many trans people feel just to have access to gender-affirming care is Worth the Dying Shame by Matteo L. Cerilli. In it, trans men are being infected by tainted, counterfiet testosterone with a disease that causes their bodies to decay as if dead (a clear parallel to AIDS). They hide their Body Rot under heavy clothing, dark glasses, and face masks. This causes an already unaccepting public to further turn on trans men. With jobs drying up, friends abandoning them, and doctors no longer willing to prescribe testosterone, the men who are able togo back in the closet. Others are forced to buy their T on the black market since doctors are no longer willing to prescribe the real stuff, which carries an even greater risk of infection. The story follows two trans men who have become infected, Dimeshine and Rictus. Rictus chose to detransition because he can still pass for a girl, but Dimeshine continues to inject T despite the risk of decaying faster. Both turn to the dark web to try and slow their Body Rot, trusting the community more than they do hospitals (understandable considering how often healthcare fails trans people). The two argue over whether Dimeshine’s little brother, Ratty, who is still early in his transition, should use testosterone or not. Dimeshine is firmly against it, worried Ratty might become infected like he was, but Rictus argues that he can’t blame Ratty for wanting to die for something they both would have killed for. These stories are a solemn reminder of what happens when the healthcare system fails LGBTQIA+ patients. As someone who works in healthcare, I held both stories especially heartbreaking.

Surprisingly for a horror anthology, many of the stories were love stories. Editor Sofia Ajram states the collection “was created out of a desire to read stories about tragic queer love. Love that is broken, love that is toxic, and obsessive, and ill-fated. Love that is thwarted, as viewed through the lens of authors who are queer-identifying themselves.” Abusive relationships are too often played off as romantic (think Twilight and Hush Hush), so it’s nice to see those sorts of relationships being shown for what they are, even when the characters themselves can’t recognize it. While horrific in real life, villain protagonists and toxic relationships can be fascinating studies in fiction. I also enjoyed having imperfect, even villainous queer characters whose character faults aren’t tied to their sexuality.

In American Gothic by LC von Hessen, villain protagonist John Smith is a serial killer (although he’d never refer to himself as such since “those guys are losers”) who has an unfortunate habit of murdering his dates. It’s not premeditated, it just seems to happen. But one day, one of his victims, who he dubs “L,” comes back to life. Or rather, he reanimates, as he’s still technically dead. L has no memory of his time alive, so John weaves an ever changing, fictional history of their romance. As L slowly rots away, John falls deeper in love with him. As shown with his past crushes, John is more in love with the fantasy he conjures then the men themselves. L allows him to project his ideal partner on to a blank slate he can fall in love with, like some sort of twisted Pygmalion, whereas living men would frequently reject him for being unemotional or creepy. John is a selfish lover, viewing his partners only by what they can do for him rather than their needs. He stalks and harasses one of his exes to the point they delete all their social media, but John still views himself as the victim and wonders why he didn’t kill his ex. John wants L to live, not for L’s sake, but for his own. He even tells him, “I won’t let you die. You’re not allowed to die unless I want you to die.” His selfishness and obsessiveness reminded me of male stalkers who feel they’re owed something by the object of their affection and can’t understand the word “no.”

This Body is Not Your Home by Son M., Love Like Ours by C M Violet, and Fortune Favors Grief by Cassandra Khaw are also stories of men who kill their lovers. Domestic violence against men is rarely examined. Even though 1 in 10 men will experience intimate partner violence or stalking in their lifetime, DV is usually thought of as a women’s issue only. Research on domestic violence among LGBTQIA+ people is even more sparse, even though gay men experience higher rates of physical violence then straight men. So, it’s refreshing to see stories that focus on intimate partner violence in gay relationships. Some of the stories focus more on mental and emotional abuse rather than physical. Both Sardines by Gretchen Felker-Martin and Zero Tolerance by M. F. Rose deal with queer teenage girls who are bullied. The former is a body horror story about a fat girl struggling with her sexuality and the latter is about cyber bullying. In this case, it’s their non-romantic relationships that are toxic.

Cleodora by August Clarke is a more lighthearted tale that follows the romance between a beautiful sea monster and a sea captain. The Captain discovers the monster and claims her as her bride, naming her Cleodora after a prophetic river nymph (The Captain seems to conflate the nymph Cleodroa with Andromeda, a princess who was offered as a sacrifice to a sea monster and rescued by the Greek hero Perseus). She sees Cleodora as helpless, which may explain why the Captain has no qualms about marrying a monster, happily feeding her new bride live eels and listening to her stories of drowning men. Cleodora feels equally unthreatened, stating “It’s fortunate my true love is a woman, because women do not hurt each other.” Ironic, considering how the story ends. The story feels like the original, darker version of a German fairytale, with hints of selkie wife folklore and siren myths.

Not all the romances involve toxic relationships or unrequited love. Bad Axe by Ed Kurtz is a tragic love story wherein John loses his lover, Eric, to the lake at Bad Axe in Minnesota. They’re never able to recover the body, so John goes back to Bad Axe to drown himself so he can be with Eric again. A touching yet morbid story it shares similarities with the myth of Hero and Leander. Hero, a priestess of Aphrodite, throws herself out of her tower after her lover, Leander, drowns trying to swim to her. The tragedy in Bad Axe is that John and Eric have a beautiful relationship that was tragically taken from them and now John must try and navigate the world through his immense grief. Black Hole, a sci-fi story by November Rush, also centers around a beautiful relationship that’s torn apart, but this time it’s between two parasitic, sentient fungi. Despite not being human, their love is no less pure and real. Lost and Found by Charlene Adhiambo also deals with lovers being united in death, but in this case they didn’t know each other before they died. 

It’s an intense read– many of the stories handle dark themes like transphobic healthcare systems, bullying, drug abuse, suicide and AIDS analogies–but a beautiful one, full of romance and tragedy. Remarkably, each one of the stories in Bury Your Gays is as strong as the last, and I’d be hard pressed to pick a favorite. Some broke my heart, others chilled me to the bone, and yet others were touching in a bittersweet way. But all left a lasting impression.

Tags: Adult, Anthology, Body Horror, Book Review, Gay, Ghosts/Haunting, Highly Recommended, Killer/Slasher, Lesbian, LGBTQIA, Monster, Own Voices, Romance, Trans
Never Whistle at Night edited by Shane Hawk and Theodore C. Van Alst Jr.

Never Whistle at Night edited by Shane Hawk and Theodore C. Van Alst Jr.

Formats: Print, audio, digital

Publisher: Vintage

Genre: Ghosts/Haunting, Historic Horror, Killer/Slasher, Monster, Myth and Folklore, Occult, Psychological Horror

Audience: Adult/Mature

Diversity: Indigenous American (Alaskan Native, Pueblo, Comanche, White Earth Nation, Cree, Georgian Bay Metis, Mohawk, Cheyenne-Arapaho, Hidatsa Mi’kmaw, Cherokee, Tłı̨chǫ Dene, Hidasta, Mandan, Sosore, Sioux Penobscot, Chickasaw, Choctaw, Sicangu Lakota, Edisto Natchez-Kusso, Lipan Apache, Anishinaabe)

Content Warnings (Highlight to view): Alcohol Abuse, Animal Death, Child Abuse, Child Endangerment, Death, Drug Use/Abuse, Forced Captivity, Gaslighting, Gore, Illness, Oppression, Mental Illness, Pedophilia, Racism, Rape/Sexual Assault, Sexual Abuse, Slurs, Torture, Verbal/Emotional Abuse, Violence

Blurb

Many Indigenous people believe that one should never whistle at night. This belief takes many forms: for instance, Native Hawaiians believe it summons the Hukai’po, the spirits of ancient warriors, and Native Mexicans say it calls Lechuza, a witch that can transform into an owl. But what all these legends hold in common is the certainty that whistling at night can cause evil spirits to appear—and even follow you home.

These wholly original and shiver-inducing tales introduce readers to ghosts, curses, hauntings, monstrous creatures, complex family legacies, desperate deeds, and chilling acts of revenge. Introduced and contextualized by bestselling author Stephen Graham Jones, these stories are a celebration of Indigenous peoples’ survival and imagination, and a glorious reveling in all the things an ill-advised whistle might summon.

 received this product for free in return for providing an honest and unbiased review. I received no other compensation. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255: Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.

There are many recognizable names in this collection: Rebecca Roanhorse, Richard Van Camp, Cherie Dimaline, Mona Susan Power, Darcie Little Badger, and Waubgeshig Rice. There’s even a foreword by Stephen Graham Jones. But I was especially excited to be introduced to some new (to me) Indigenous authors.

The stories in the anthology vary from fun campfire stories about werewolves (Night Moves by Andrea L. Rogers) and ghosts (Night in the Chrysalis by Tiffany Morris) to more serious and disturbing tales about residential school sexual abuse (Sundays by David Heska Wanbli Weiden), mental health (The Prepper by Morgan Talty), stolen land (Limbs by Waubgeshig Rice), and missing and murdered Indigenous women (The Ones who Killed Us by Brandon Hobson). There were bits of Native languages sprinkled throughout the various stories, for example I learned Uguku is “owl” in Cherokee, Kwe’ is “hello” in Mi’kmaq, and Mahsi’ cho is “thank you” in Gwich’in. This felt especially nice to see since so many Native languages are endangered. I can’t possible review all the amazing stories within the collection (and they are all amazing), so I’ll focus on a few of my favorites.

Kushtuka by Mathilda Zeller is about an Alaskan Native woman named Tapeesa. Recently an obnoxious White man named Hank Ferryman and his son Buck have moved to the area to build a monstrous lodge full of stolen Native artifacts. Tapessa is sent to the lodge cook for one of Hank’s parties and on the way the grotesque man asks her to tell him a “Native story.” Tapeesa warns that telling stories after dark could catch the attention of a spirit, but Hank laughs this off as silly superstition. She tells him the story of the Kushtuka, a shape-shifter that can take human form and tries to lure people away. As predicted, the story summons a Kushtuka which attacks Hank’s lodge. We also see this idea of attracting the attention of evil spirits in Before I Go by Norris Black, where a woman’s grieving causes the Night Mother to appear and offer to bring back her dead husband (it doesn’t end well).  

One of the things I related to in Kushtuka was Tapessa being called “basically White” by Hank because her dad is White. As a biracial person myself, having others (especially White people) try and tell you your identity isa pet peeve of mine. Historically, I would’ve been considered Black since my father is Black (due to the “one-drop” rule which I discuss below), despite having light skin. Yet these days most White people label me White because I’m White-passing. In both cases, White people choose my identity for me without listening to what I have to say, much like Hank does for Tapessa.

In White Hills by Rebecca Roanhorse, a White woman named Marissa is judged for having “too much” Native blood by her White in-laws. Marissa is your typical rich, White woman. She’s married to a wealthy business man named Andrew, is very concerned with her appearance, and lives in an HOA neighborhood in a big house. After going to the country club to announce her pregnancy to her husband, Marrissa makes the mistake of mentioning she’s a small percentage of Native (in reference to not being offended by a racist mascot) and her husband becomes visibly upset. The next day Elayne, Andrew’s mother, takes Marissa to a “specialist” who has racist phrenology drawings on the wall. Elayne explains that she doesn’t want a “mutt” grandbaby who may be dark skinned and “savage” (despite Marissa being white). The way in which Elayne views Marissa’s child is very reminiscent of the “one drop” rule. The one-drop rule was a legal principle based on a form of hypodescent, the assignment of a mixed-race child to the ethnic group considered “lower status.” In other words, anyone with Black ancestry (no matter how far back) was considered Black. There were strict classifications for mixed-race individuals that were given offensive names like “Mulatto” and “octoroon,” I discuss more about how this racist system allowed the US to hold up White supremacy here. I mentioned above how annoying it is when other people (especially White people) decide my identity for me, butit’s even worse when the government does it.

And this leads me to blood quantum. Blood quantum is highly controversial and personal, and since I’m not Indigenous and therefore shouldn’t weigh in on such a heated debate I will tread carefully and stick to the facts as best I can. If you’re not familiar, Blood Quantum laws were enacted by the United States government to determine if someone was considered Native or not dependent on their degree of Native ancestry. The first “Indian Blood law” was originally created in 1705 when the Virginia government wanted to limit the civil rights of Native people and people of Native descent. Some Native tribes continue to use blood quantum to determine who can enroll for tribal membership, others do not. Leah Myers, a member of the Jamestown S’Klallam tribe, gives an example of the importance of tribal enrollment in her Atlantic essay:

“Tribal citizenship is more than symbolic. It determines eligibility for educational assistance, medical care, and other social benefits. Plus, only members can attend citizen meetings and vote in tribal elections. If my future children don’t meet the blood requirements for my tribe, they could still participate in events, cultivate plants in the traditional-foods garden, and take Klallam-language courses. But no matter how much they served the community in love and time, they would be deemed a ‘descendant’ and marked as separate.”

Here’s a guide to Blood Quantum that gives both the arguments for and against blood quantum (full transparency, most Native sources I looked up were against these laws). Basically, blood quantum proponents argue that getting rid of blood quantum rules will make scarce resources even scarcer due to population growth and that it will allow disconnected outsiders and pretendians to join the tribe, which will erode their culture. Opponents of blood quantum argue that statistically it will eradicate Native nations, and point to the law’s racist origins which were intended to control and erase Indigenous people. It also makes relationships complicated, as Indigenous people must calculate their potential children’s percentage of Native blood and if they can enroll or not, which can put a strain on families. Blood quantum also conflicts with traditional Indigenous ideas about kinship and has“no basis in Native American traditions.” Essentially, both proponents and opponents disagree on the best way to preserve their tribal nations.

This idea is explored more fully in the story Quantum by Nick Medina. A woman named Amber is so obsessed with blood quantum and getting her children on the tribal roll that she favors her son Grayson, who’s 5/16 Native, while ignoring his brother Sam, who is only 1/8 Native, to the point where Sam is practically feral. She even tries to steal blood from a deceased Native man from their tribe so she can inject it into Sam.

Another story I enjoyed is Collections by Amber Blaeser-Wardzala, an incredibly creepy story about collecting human remains. Professor Smith, a liberal White woman, collects the heads of all the students she’s helped. She’s very proud of her collection: she has all the sexualities and genders, all the religions, and almost all the races. An Indigenous head would be her “white whale.” Megis (called Meg by the White professor) is understandably horrified by the collection, as is one of her Black classmates, but none of her white classmates seem to be. Professor Smith implies she wants to help Megis so she can have her head for her collection. Megis, the first person in her family to go to college, is desperate to stay on Professor Smith’s good side so she can maintain her scholarship and get a good job, and therefore doesn’t have much choice but to stay in the house of horrors. While an extreme example, the story underlines how troubling it is when museums collect human remains without consent and how academics will treat bodies as mere curiosities. 

“When [Native American artifacts and human remains] were acquired, collectors weren’t thinking of Indigenous peoples as human beings. People were resources, and human remains were to be preserved alongside pots” says Jacquetta Swift, the repatriation manager for the National Museum of the American Indian and member of the Comanche and Fort Sill Apache tribes. It’s the unfortunate reality that most human remains on display and in private collections, are unethically sourced from BIPOCs against their wishes.

This theme is also lightly touched on in Navajos Don’t Wear Elk Teeth by Conley Lyons where a Native man named Joe has a summer fling with White man named Cam. Cam collects teeth, some of which turn out to be human (he claims his last boyfriend was a Navajo man who gave him an elk tooth for “good luck” which Joe is dubious about). One of Joe’s friends refers to this as “bad medicine” and suggest Joe get an elder to sage his house. 

Not all the stories are quite so dark, however. Snakes are Born in the Dark by D. H. Trujillo felt like a Goosebumps book or a fun story kids tell to scare each other, and I thoroughly enjoyed it. In the story, an Alaskan Native boy named Peter goes hiking in the woods with his white cousin Maddie and her rude boyfriend Adam. They come across Native petroglyphs in the Four Corners desert which Maddie and Adam both immediately touch. Peter warns them not to touch the carvings but Adam continues to do so while mocking him. Unsurprisingly both Maddie and Adam suffer unpleasant (though non-lethal and impermanent) fates which results in a humorous ending. It’s a fun twist on the classic “Indian curse” where we (and Peter) are rooting for the White people to get their comeuppance.

I could go on and on about the stories in the anthology, like Hunger by Phoenix Boudreau where two Cree college girls, Summer and Rain, outsmart a Wehtigo. Or Scariest. Story. Ever. By Richard Van Camp that touches on who gets to tell Native stories and how to share culture without stealing it. They’re all great. I also felt like I learned a lot while reading the anthology.

Tags: Adult, Alaskan Native, American Indian, Anthology, Book Review, Ghosts/Haunting, Highly Recommended, Historic Horror, Killer/Slasher, Monster, Myths and Folklore, Occult, Psychological Horror
Claustrophilia by Ezra Blake

Claustrophilia by Ezra Blake

Formats: digital

Publisher: Smashwords

Genre: Blood & Guts (Splatterpunk), Body Horror, Killer/Slasher, Psychological Horror, Romance

Audience: Adult/Mature

Diversity: Gay main characters and author, trans male author

Takes Place in: US and Italy

Content Warnings (Highlight to view): Alcohol Abuse, Amputation, Cannibalism, Death, Drug Use/Abuse, Forced Captivity, Gaslighting, Gore, Illness, Kidnapping, Medical Torture/Abuse, Medical Procedures, Mental Illness, Necrophilia, Mentions of Pedophilia, Physical Abuse, Rape/Sexual Assault, Self-Harm, Sexual Abuse, Slurs, Slut-Shaming, Suicide, Torture, Verbal/Emotional Abuse, Violence

Blurb

Christopher Dour’s life was terrible before he was kidnapped. He spent too much time studying the Providence Butcher’s victims and not enough talking to living people. He was erotically obsessed with the idea of murdering Dr. Ivan Skinner, his medical school advisor. I was only a matter of time before he killed someone, possibly himself–but the Providence Butcher had other ideas. After all, the first time should be special, and Chris was going about it all wrong. Now those life-or-death decisions are out of his hands. He’s breaking. What’s worse, Chris has a lot in common with the Butcher. Nobody else has truly cared about him before. When he’s not being tortured, he’s being cherished. If Stockholm syndrome feels like love, then in practice, what’s the difference? Chris can’t maintain his dignity, but can still cling to his shattered moral compass. Or he can let go, submit, and become the unspeakable. At least then he wouldn’t be alone. Prepare to become an accomplice.

The very first page of Claustrophilia gave me a panic attack, and when I finished it, I felt like someone had put my brain in a blender. I swore I’d never force myself to experience something so sick, sadistic, and stressful again.

Well, that promise lasted all of four months and then I reread it. Why would I expose to that filth again? Because I love this book so goddamn much. The writing is amazing. Like, made-a-deal-with-a-dark-force-to-obtain-supernatural-talent amazing (Blake is also an incredibly talented artist, which is just all kinds of unfair). I read the entire thing in one traumatic sitting even though it was 2 AM and I really needed to take a break. It’s sooooooo good, but soooooo fucked up and I’m not sure I should even be admitting to reading it. Hell, just purchasing Claustrophilia will probably put you on some kind of FBI watch-list. Although I’m pretty sure I’m already on there, thanks to my Google search history. Disclaimer: If you are a law enforcement agent I had totally legitimate, non-creepy reasons to look up “at-home lobotomy instructions,” “how to dissolve a body” and “where to buy cursed dolls” even if I can’t think of any right now. Also, some weirdo stole my credit card and bought Claustrophilia. And reviewed it. And then read a bunch of erotic, gay Deep Space Nine fan fiction followed by two-hours of zit-popping videos on Youtube. Someone who wasn’t me.

For the sake of your sanity, I’m going to warn you right now, if you are someone with any kind of triggers, stop right here. I’m serious. Claustrophilia is chock-full of extremely explicit torture (medical, physical, sexual, and psychological), cannibalism, gore, and a super fucked up, abusive relationship. It’s a good book, but it is splatterpunk. So, if that’s not your thing, stay far, far away from this book and most likely this review. But if you have a strong stomach and can handle a scene where a guy fucks another guy’s brain (literally) I’d definitely recommend it. Will/Hannibal shippers, fans of Rotten.com’s Rotten Library (R.I.P.), and extreme horror enthusiasts will all enjoy Claustrophilia.

Admittedly I’m not usually a fan of splatterpunk. I used to enjoy extreme horror, back in my early twenties when I felt like I needed to prove what a badass horror fan I was, but the turtle death scene in Cannibal Holocaust put an end to that phase. I still like fucked up shit, but visceral, graphic violence just isn’t my cup of tea. Plus, I don’t find it particularly scary. I work in a hospital, so I see guts, amputated limbs, and dead bodies all the time; that stuff just doesn’t gross me out. And unfortunately, a lot of splatterpunk also seems to equate to sexualized violence against women handled in the worst way. possible *cough*Richard Laymon*cough* But Blake manages to create a graphic, gory story without the sexism. Most torture porn comes with a heavy dose of misogyny, and with all the real-world examples of abuse, torture, and murder of women by men, it’s kind of hard to enjoy it in fiction. But an erotic exploitation novel between two men doesn’t come with the same baggage (although, obviously, abuse can and does happen in same sex relationships and I’m not trying to minimize that). And cannibal doctor Ivan Skinner is pretty equal opportunity when it comes to his victims so there are no sexist vibes.

Dr. Ivan Skinner is a pretentious asshole sophisticated gentleman who loves fine art, opera, and gourmet food (usually people). He plans on running off to Italy, loves torture and mind games, and is an overall terrible friend. He’s basically a gay Hannibal Lecter. So essentially Hannibal from the Bryan Fuller TV show, but even more sadistic. Chris is an older medical student, struggling with school, work, and a general lack of direction. He falls in love with Ivan, who then tortures Chris mentally, physically, and sexually until his student becomes a murderous psychopath. And don’t worry, Blake doesn’t try to romanticize or glamorize their abusive relationship. This isn’t Twilight or 50 Shades of Gray. He makes clear from the get-go that everything between them is twisted, perverted, and ugly, even if Ivan and Chris sometimes mistake it for something else. While the torture does have shades of BDSM I’d hesitate to call it such because it’s non-consensual, and BDSM is all about explicit consent. It’s utterly fascinating to watch, and yeah, some of the sex scenes are hot, but in the end it’s a repulsive and deeply disturbing relationship where Ivan intentionally traumatizes and brainwashes Chris until he’s entirely dependent on the older man. Not that Ivan would have had to try very hard to push Chris over the edge. The young medical student is already emotionally unstable, possibly a budding serial killer, and being around cadavers all day is sending him spiraling towards a nervous breakdown.

I would just like to state, for the record, if a pathology assistant (which Chris is acting as) had a nervous breakdown it’s far more likely to be the result of dealing with the giant piles of paperwork, frequently missing slides, the dictation software breaking down again, or one of the endless phone calls from physicians who want to know if the results they only just requested are done yet like you’re supposed to drop everything else to focus on them and their nonsense and somehow break the laws of spacetime (but ~heaven forbid~ you point out that you could get to their stuff a lot faster if they stopped calling every five fucking minutes because then you’re the asshole). Look, all I’m saying is if I found out someone went on a killing spree because they got yet another phone call asking why a pathology report wasn’t ready, I’d get it. But working with dead bodies is not that stressful. They just sort of chill and don’t bother you. If you’re stressed out by the dead, you probably don’t belong in medicine.

Anyway, it’s absolutely fascinating to witness Chris’ deteriorating mental state. It’s incredibly stressful, but also offers a sort of sadistic pleasure as you wonder how much more he can stand before he snaps completely. While there is a lot of gore, it’s not the scary part of the story. It’s the suspense and psychological horror that’s terrifying. You keep wondering, “How much worse can it get?” And then it gets worse. So. Much. Worse. I think the last time a story affected me this viscerally was Eric Larocca’s Things Have Gotten Worse Since We Last Spoke. And as a horror reviewer, I’m not easily phased.

Tags: Adult, Blood & Guts, Body Horror, Book Review, Gay, Killer/Slasher, LGBTQIA, Own Voices, Psychological Horror, Romance, Trans
Unshod, Cackling, and Naked by Tamika Thompson

Unshod, Cackling, and Naked by Tamika Thompson

Formats: Print, digital

Publisher: Unnerving 

Genre: Apocalypse/Disaster, Killer/Slasher, Sci-Fi Horror, Werebeasts

Audience: Adult/Mature

Diversity: Black main characters and author, lesbian character, Biracial Black/Creek character

Takes Place in: LA, California

Content Warnings (Highlight to view): Alcohol Abuse, Animal Death, Body Shaming, Child Abuse, Child Death, Pedophilia, Police Harassment, Racism, Rape/Sexual Assault, Slurs, Verbal/Emotional Abuse, Violence

Blurb

A beauty pageant veteran appeases her mother by competing for one final crown, only to find herself trapped in a hand-sewn gown that cuts into her flesh. A journalist falls deeply in love with a mysterious woman but discovers his beloved can vanish and reappear hours later in the same spot, as if no time has passed at all. A cash-strapped college student agrees to work in a shop window as a mannequin but quickly learns she’s not free to break her pose. And what happens when the family pet decides it no longer wants to have ‘owners’?

In the grim and often horrific thirteen tales collected here, beauty is violent, and love and hate are the same feeling, laid bare by unbridled obsession. Entering worlds both strange and quotidian, and spanning horror landscapes both speculative and real, asks who among us is worthy of love and who deserves to die?

I received this product for free in return for providing an honest and unbiased review. I received no other compensation. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255: Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.

I absolutely love horror anthologies, so I was excited to receive Unshod, Cackling, and Naked by Tamika Thompson. Many of the stories in the anthology focus on the balance between humans and nature and the morality of killing, owning, and eating animals. Bridget has Disappeared takes place in a dystopian near-future with disappearing resources which lead to poverty and crime. I Will be Glorious is about coping with loss and a killer tree. The Bats and The Turn are both about diseases that seemingly spread overnight (much like COVID) that cause dogs and bats, respectively, to turn against humans and attack them. The Turn especially focuses on the humanity’s relationship with domesticated animals and describes what would happen if dogs no longer wished to be kept as pets. Similarly, And We Screamed examines humanity’s relationship with livestock, and why we choose to eat some animals and feel entitled to try and control them. It also examines the sanctity of death and dead bodies. I found this story especially interesting because I was probably the exact opposite of the target audience. I eat meat and have several pets. I used to work on a farm with livestock (some of which were being raised for food) as a child, and I volunteered at an animal hospital where I sometimes had to help euthanize sick animals in my teens. In college I majored in biology and had no qualms about dissecting dead animals, including rats and cats (despite being a huge rat and cat lover).

In And We Screamed there’s a scene where the main character refuses to dissect a cat and her classmate points out that it’s messed up because it still has a face. My first thought was “Well, how are you supposed to dissect the eyes if it doesn’t have a face?” (Which turns out to be the teacher’s argument as well.) It was intriguing to be reminded that something I consider routine and mundane was actually horrific for many people, and to see why exactly it was so frightening from their point of view.  I was able to understand and empathize with where the author, and her characters, were coming from, even if I didn’t fully agree with her conclusions. I also recognized the mental disconnect that makes me willing to dissect a rat for science while also dropping over a grand on veterinary bills for a rat I keep as a pet.  Truly a testament to Thompson’s skill as a writer.

My favorite stories in Unshod, Cackling, and Naked were the ones with feminist themes. In I Did it for You a young rape survivor tracks down creepy men and cuts off their small toe, turning them into victims who will have to carry a scar for the rest of their lives, just as she does. She points out to one cop–the one who raped her because he thought she was a prostitute–that losing a toe is nothing like losing your will to live after being sexually assaulted. I always enjoy a good rape revenge story and I appreciated that Thompson makes the sex workers in I Did it for You heroes rather than victims (like they are in most horror), and they feel like real characters rather than stereotypes.  

Mannequin Model is the story from which Unshod, Cackling, and Naked draws its name. In it, a woman acts as a “living doll,” modeling clothing in a store window where she’s objectified and sexually harassed. She’s treated as a literal sex object, with no voice or will, so it’s extremely satisfying when she finally rebels. But my absolute favorite story in the collection is I am Goddess. In it, a woman named Lira wants to convince her husband to pay for face treatments so she can be beautiful. Her marriage to her husband is basically every bad heterosexual relationship you’ve read about on Reddit. Lira works full time and does everything around the house. She pays the mortgage and all the bills out of her paycheck, despite earning the same amount as her husband. Her husband uses his own money to buy himself big-screen TVs and flashy new cars while telling Lira they can’t afford a washer and dryer or a car for her, so she’s stuck doing laundry by hand and taking the bus. He flirts with other women, dismisses her feelings, and ignores her unless he wants sex. But Lira puts up with it with a smile because she has been conditioned her whole like to believe she needs a man to be “complete” and that she’s lucky to have anyone at all considering her appearance. All of Lira’s accomplishments growing up are downplayed until she finds a husband. Her cousin constantly mocks her appearance and makes Lira feel inferior. No wonder she’s trapped in such a toxic relationship. But her husband’s refusal to let her get the one thing she wants, her face treatment, finally pushes Lira over the edge. She finally sees her husband for who he really is, a loser, and all her pent up anger and frustration comes pouring out. She gets even, and it’s glorious. Definitely one of the strongest stories in the collection, in my humble opinion. 

Tags: Adult, African American, Anthology, BIPOC, Biracial, Black, Book Review, Lesbian, LGBTQIA, Own Voices
We Are Here to Hurt Each Other by Paula D. Ashe

We Are Here to Hurt Each Other by Paula D. Ashe

Formats: Print, digital

Publisher: Nictitating Books

Genre: Body Horror, Killer/Slasher, Occult, Psychological Horror

Audience: Adult/Mature

Diversity: Queer, Black author and characters

Takes Place in: Ohio

Content Warnings (Highlight to view): Child Abuse, Child Death, Child Endangerment, Death, Drug Use/Abuse, Illness, Incest, Kidnapping, Necrophilia, Mental Illness, Pedophilia, Racism, Rape/Sexual Assault, Self-Harm, Slut-Shaming, Torture, Violence

Blurb

With these twelve stories Paula D. Ashe takes you into a dark and bloody world where nothing is sacred and no one is safe. A landscape of urban decay and human degradation, this collection finds the psychic pressure points of us all, and giddily squeezes. Try to run, try to hide, but there is no escape: we are here to hurt each other.

I received this product for free in return for providing an honest and unbiased review. I received no other compensation. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255: Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.

If you’ve ever thought “Gee, I’m feeling too mentally and emotionally healthy. I should read something so disturbing and intense my therapist will finally be able to pay off their student loans from all the sessions I’m going to need,” then look no further then Paula D. Ashe’s We Are Here to Hurt Each Other. This horror is extreme. Ashe explores such taboo topics as incest, child abuse, child murders, self-harm, and religious extremism without flinching, yet it never feels like she’s making light of the subject matter. It’s extreme horror that never feels exploitative.

Interestingly, Ashe’s stories are very light on the gore (with a few exceptions). I’ve always found extreme horror that relies too much on blood and guts to be boring (blame my ultraviolent horror phase in college for making me jaded), so it was one of the things I particularly liked about the book. There are also very few examples of the supernatural in this anthology, and no supernatural antagonists. All the villains are very much human. Ashe’s work focuses on psychological horror, the terrifying in the mundane, and the terrible things the average human is capable of. What if you found out your own child was a monster? And not the furry or fanged kind, but the regular old terrible human kind? What if, to cope with abuse, you became the abuser without even realizing? What if you would do absolutely anything to keep the one you love? Ashe takes these simple, awful questions and gives us the terrifying answer, sometimes in a variety of ways. Bereft and Because you Watched, both deal with adult children dealing with their histories of extreme abuse and culpable siblings, but are two very different stories.

The stories are extremely well written, and I was impressed how each character had such a distinct voice. No two stories sound the same, but they all share Ashe’s poetic talent. We are Here to Hurt Each Other is a gripping and deeply unsettling anthology; Ashe’s skill shines through in each story, though I found Exile in Extremis, The Mother of All Monsters, and Because you Watched to be my personal favorites. The first is an epistolary story about a drug so powerful it is said to bring back the dead and with references to the classic horror anthology The King in Yellow by Robert W. Chambers. The second is about the relationship between a mother and her son while a series of child murders take place. And the last is about the strained relationship between siblings who have witnessed the abuse of their youngest sister at the hands of their cruel parents.

We Are Here to Hurt Each Other is not an easy read, but it is an excellent one. Despite their depravity the stories are still hauntingly beautiful. You’ll find this anthology sitting with you long after you put it down.

Tags: Adult, African American, Anthology, BIPOC, Black, Body Horror, Book Review, Killer/Slasher, LGBTQIA, Occult, Own Voices, Psychological Horror
The Final Women by Pardeep Aujla

The Final Women by Pardeep Aujla

Formats: digital

Publisher: Self-Published

Genre: Demon, Killer/Slasher, Occult

Audience: Adult/Mature

Diversity: Black main character, Latina main character, Vietnamese main character, lesbian main character

Takes Place in: type here

Content Warnings (Highlight to view): Alcohol Abuse, Amputation, Bullying, Death, Drug Use/Abuse, Gore, Homophobia, Mental Illness, Racism, Self-Harm, Sexism, Suicide, Verbal/Emotional Abuse, Violence

Blurb

The mass murdering Phantom of Haven Cove is dead. For the one who killed him, however, life has never been the same.

How do you return to normality after facing such a monster? How do you live when consumed by guilt, anger, fear, and denial? How do you connect with others when no one understands what you’ve been through?

But there are others… Final girls of their own Haven Cove massacres. And now, thirty years later, they must all face a new question…

What do you do when the killer returns?

I received this product for free in return for providing an honest and unbiased review. I received no other compensation. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255: Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.

What happens when final girls grow up? It depends how they deal with the trauma of what happened to them the night they faced off with the masked killer, Silas Crowe. If you’re Nell James, you grow up to become a lonely and agoraphobic author who tries to turn the worst thing that ever happened to her– watching her friends get murdered one by one–into financial gain. If you’re Josie Jedford, you numb your fear with drugs. Or you could become a paranoid survivalist like Ana Gómez who transforms her badly burned body into a living weapon. Even Cassie Phong, who seems to have the perfect life what with her wealthy husband and two children, can’t escape the PTSD she developed the night she faced off with Silas Crowe. Each woman has done her best to put the past behind them, believing Crowe to be dead once and for all. That is until Camp Haven Cove reopens and a new group of teenagers goes missing. Nell realizes that Silas Crowe never died, and never will unless she, and the other three former final girls find a way to deal with him once and for all. Now well into their forties the four final woman team up to put a stop to the killings once and for all.

Slasher heroines are almost exclusively young women: teens and twenty somethings with bare breasts and flat stomachs (they’re always conventionally attractive) enjoying the prime of their lives through sex, drugs and drinking. Any woman above the age of thirty is either a mother or a side character, and if she has a few gray hairs she’s relegated to the role of a frightful hag. But as nostalgia for horror of the 80’s and 90’s breathes new life into horror franchises, Hollywood is doing something new. Instead of rebooting and recasting their heroines, they’re allowing them to grow up from Final Girls into Final Women. Sidney Prescott (Scream), Laurie Strode (Halloween), and Sally Hardesty (The Texas Chainsaw Massacre) all recently reprised their roles in their respective franchises as badass heroines over the age of forty. And as someone who will soon be saying goodbye to my thirties, it’s refreshing to see older women get their time in the slasher spotlight, and that’s one of the things I liked best about The Final Women.  Nell, Josie, Ana, and Cassie are all approaching fifty, but they all get to be the heroes of the story, and I found them much more relatable then horny, drunk teens in the woods. They’re also not written for the male gaze, which is refreshing.

Another thing I liked about the book was Aujla’s realistic depiction of PTSD. None of the women escaped Silas unscathed, they each bear their own physical and mental scars, as one would expect from anyone going up against a slasher. Nell displays avoidance of people and places that remind her of her traumatic event and might trigger a flashback. Cassie and Josie both develop substance abuse problems, alcohol and drugs respectively, a common comorbidity for people with PTSD. Ana is prone to angry outbursts and aggressive behavior and is hypervigilant. All the women struggle with nightmares and flashbacks. It’s refreshing to see a slasher actually deal with mental health and the aftermath of a traumatic event (something we’re starting to see in more recent film sequels). I genuinely cared about all the main characters, something that rarely happens in horror fiction, and I was scared to see any of them get hurt or killed. Aujla just writes them so well! It’s sweet to see these women from different walks of life bond and draw strength from each other.

The Final Women was fun in a way the best 80’s slashers are. Gory, over the top, and wickedly funny. I absolutely devoured it as I found both the story and the characters enthralling. It draws on classic horror tropes while still being wholly unique. If you’re a fan of slashers you’ll definitely want to check this one out. 

Tags: Adult, Asian American, BIPOC, Book Review, Demon, Highly Recommended, Killer/Slasher, Latine/Latino, Lesbian, LGBTQIA, Occult, Vietnamese

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