The Woods are Always Watching by Stephanie Perkins

 

Formats: Print, audio, digital

Publisher: Dutton Books for Young Readers

Genre:  Killer/Slasher, Thriller

Audience: Y/A

Diversity: Indian-American Main character

Takes Place in: North Carolina, USA

Content Warnings: Amputation,  Child Endangerment, Death, Forced Captivity, Gore, Kidnapping, Rape/Sexual Assault, Torture, Violence (Highlight to view)

Blurb:

Bears aren't the only predators in these woods. Best friends Neena and Josie spent high school as outsiders, but at least they had each other. Now, with college and a two-thousand-mile separation looming on the horizon, they have one last chance to be together—a three-day hike deep into the woods of the Pisgah National Forest. Simmering tensions lead to a detour off the trail and straight into a waking nightmare; and then into something far worse. Something that will test them in horrifying ways.

Camping and horror go together like chocolate and toasted marshmallows. There’s just something about being out in the middle of nowhere with only the light of a bonfire to really prey on those primal fears. In Western tradition, the woods have been a symbol of the dark and unknown for as long as folklore and fairytales have been told: a place where witches, wild beasts, monsters and faeries dwell.

The threat of becoming lost in the forest and falling victim to these creatures is central to many dark tales. In the beginning of the Divine Comedy Dante finds himself wandering in a dark wood, the “selva oscura,” unable to find his way and set upon by a lion, a leopard, and a she-wolf. Little Red Riding Hood encounters a wolf when she wanders off the path (though some interpretations of the fairy tale say the wolf is meant to represent a sexual predator) and Hansel and Gretel stumble upon a witch after losing their way in the woods. In Tam Lin, anyone who wanders into the forest runs the risk of becoming the fae’s blood tithing to hell. The films the Ritual and the Blair Witch both have a group of friends become lost in the woods through supernatural means and then assailed by a Jötunn and the titular witch respectively. But beasts and supernatural beings aren’t the only monsters in the forest. Ordinary humans can be just as —if not more — deadly than wolves and witches. The woods are popular killing grounds for murderers like William Mitchell Hudson (the Texas Campsite Killer) and Herbert Mullin. Ivan Milat was a serial killer who specifically targeted backpackers while Alexander Pichushkin lured dozens of victims to Bitsevski park before murdering them. It’s safe to say the woods can be a dark and dangerous place in both fiction and reality, as best friends Neena and Josie are about to discover in Perkins’ outdoor horror novel The Woods are Always Watching.

Neena Chandrasekhar is a carefree and fun-loving teenage girl, especially compared to her worrywart best friend, Josie Gordon. After the death of her father in a car accident, Josie is scared of the world and often needs Nina to push her to try new things, like camping.  Neither girl is much of an outdoors woman, but going on a solo camping trip is practically a rite of passage in Asheville North Carolina, and with Neena soon leaving for college, the duo decides it’s the perfect way to celebrate their last few days together. They have GPS, printouts of the trails, and Josie’s brother’s camping gear, so what could possibly go wrong? Well, it’s a horror novel, so a lot.

The trip gets off to a rough start with both girls quickly realizing that they may not be physically prepared for such an arduous journey. Their exhaustion soon leads to short tempers and building tension as Josie quickly becomes fed up with Neena’s cavalier attitude towards camping and Neena gets annoyed with her best –friend's condescending bossiness. Their friendship is further put to the test as the duo discover how ill-prepared they actually are for their hike through the woods and each takes out their frustration on the other. Caught up in their own petty squabbling the pair are dangerously unaware of something watching and waiting for them in the woods until it’s too late.

The Woods are Always Watching is slow to start, focusing on teenage drama and interpersonal conflict for the first chunk of the story, which can feel tedious even if it does offer glimpses into the main characters’ psyches. We don’t meet the actual villains of the story until almost halfway in (although there are hints to their presence early on). But once the action actually does get started, I found I couldn’t put the book down. Perkins is a master of creating atmosphere and suspense and making the forest feel dark and foreboding, especially to two inexperienced girls. The whole book feels like a modern-day fairytale with two naïve young women journeying through the dark woods

So, will you enjoy this particular dark woods story? Well, it’s essentially a young adult version of Deliverance, and the film is a good metric of how much you’ll like this book. Does the idea of being isolated in the woods, and slasher/folk horror terrify you? Then you’ll enjoy Stephanie Perkins’ camping-gone-wrong novel. Evil hillbillies and threats of rape not your thing? Then you’re probably better off skipping this one.

 

Transmuted by Eve Harms

 

Formats: Print, digital

Publisher: Unerving

Genre: Body Horror

Audience: Adult/Mature

Diversity: Trans main character and side character, queer main characters, Japanese-American side character

Takes Place in: Los Angeles, CA USA

Content Warnings: Body Shaming, Forced Captivity, Gore, Medical Torture/Abuse, Medical Procedures, Transphobia (Highlight to view)

Blurb:

Her doctor is giving her the body of his dreams... and her nightmares. Isa is a micro-celebrity who rarely shows her face, and can’t wait to have it expertly ripped off and rearranged to look more feminine. When a successful fundraiser makes her gender affirming surgery possible, she’s overjoyed—until she has to give up all her money to save her dying father. Crushed by gender dysphoria and the pressure of disappointing her fans who paid for a new face, she answers a sketchy ad seeking transgender women for a free, experimental feminization treatment. The grotesquely flawless Dr. Skurm has gruesome methods, but he gets unbelievable results, and Isa is finally feeling comfortable in her skin. She even gains the courage to ask out her crush: an alluring and disfigured alchemy-obsessed artist named Rayna. But Isa’s body won’t stop changing, and she’s going from super model to super mutant. She has to discover the secret behind her metamorphosis—before the changes are irreversible, and she’s an unwanted freak forever. Transmuted is an outrageous and unapologetically queer body horror tale that will leave you gasping, giggling, and gagging for more.

Harm excels at taking the everyday horror of living trapped in a body you don’t recognize as your own, dials it up to a hundred, then soaks it in blood, sex, and mad science.

Isa is a trans woman who struggles both with her weight and gender dysphoria. Her hormone replacement therapy (HRT) helps, but what she’d really love is to get facial feminization surgery (FFS) and it appears that her wish will soon become a reality. By raising money through her Twitch channel and charity streams, Isa has finally saved up enough to have the procedure. Everything is looking up. That is until her sister calls and all but demands the money for their shitty dad’s cancer treatment. Frankly I think the cancer is Karma for constantly misgendering his daughter and being all-around shitty to her, but despite my yelling at the pages to “not give that bastard a cent” Isa didn’t take my advice and caves under the guilt and familial pressure. Now that all the money everyone helped her raise is gone, Isa is just distraught and desperate enough to respond to a sketchy internet ad promising free and miraculous feminization treatments for trans women. As you can probably guess, this is not the wisest of decisions. as most things that sound too good to be true usually are. What follows is a bizarre and twisted journey of body horror and alchemy as Isa’s body transforms in ways she never expected.

If you’re someone who’s bugged by discussions of gender dysphoria and find the concept of passing problematic, you probably won’t enjoy this book. This is not a body positive story where the protagonist discovers her true beauty and learns to love herself. This is a book that explores what it’s like to feel disconnected from your body, like it’s some alien thing instead of part of you, and takes it to its extreme. Which honestly? I’m fine with. Body positivity is fucking hard guys. I totally support it and I’m happy for people who have learned to love their body and how they look, but for me that goal feels unattainable and it’s just too much pressure. I’m more a fan of body neutrality, which means you don’t have to love, or even like your appearance to feel good about yourself and appreciate what your body can do. We don’t live in a bubble and there’s constant pressure to appear thin, White, and cis to be considered attractive and accepted by society. Even if you understand intellectually that it’s transphobic to expect trans women to appear feminine and pass as cis and that beauty standards for women are inherently racist, sexist, and fatphobic it still wears on your self-esteem. I appreciate how Transmuted doesn’t pull any punches when examining gender dysphoria. Isa’s hatred of her appearance is painfully familiar and honest, as is her desperation to “fix” her face so she can stand to look in the mirror. It also reminds me of how one trans person, Luna, described her feelings of dysphoria “Gender dysphoria is something that is painful. It hurts. It's... looking in the mirror and thinking, "Holy heck. Who is that person? Who am I looking at? Is that- Is that someone that's come into my house?" And then realizing, no, that's just- that's just me in the mirror.”

It's impossible to "think positive" all the time and that's okay. Negative emotions and feelings are valid.

Despite how horribly wrong things go for Isa, this is not a warning about seeking gender affirming surgery or a lesson about being happy with what you have. It’s a horror story about unethical medical practitioners who prey on trans people, like surgeons who completely botch the surgery on their trans patients (trigger warning, graphic description of medical procedures at link), and illicit online pharmacies. Note that very few trans people regret getting gender confirmation surgery —only around 2%, compared to the 65% of people who regret getting cosmetic surgery — and most surgeries in the US are preformed by skilled surgeons who specialize in trans medicine. But there aren’t many of them, and the waiting list for their services can often be up to two hundred patients at a time. It’s incredibly difficult for trans people to access healthcare. According to LGBTQ taskforce nearly one-in-five trans people reported being denied needed health care outright because of their gender identity, 28% of trans and gender non-conforming people avoid seeking healthcare due to discrimination, and over 50% had to teach their providers about trans care. On top of the difficulty of trying to access healthcare, many trans people can’t afford it: 20% of trans people are uninsured and they’re nearly twice as likely to be living in poverty than the rest of the population. 

Isa’s situation is exaggerated for the purpose of making the story more horrifying, but her struggle to find healthcare isn’t. Both Isa and her best friend are part of the 10% of trans people forced to turn to the grey market for their HRT, so it’s clear that accessing trans-friendly healthcare is already a challenge for them. This is the scariest part of Transmuted to me, not the mad doctor and his twisted experiments or the bizarre mutations Isa goes through, but the knowledge that the remedy to her mental anguish is so simple, yet impossible to obtain like Tantalus reaching for the fruit tree in Tartarus, and the horror of knowing thousands of real trans people are in her situation every day. 

Hide and Seeker by Daka Hermon

Formats: Print, audio, digital

Publisher: Scholastic 

Genre:  Demon, Monster, Psychological Horror

Audience: Children

Diversity: Black author and characters

Takes Place in: Tennessee 

Content Warnings: Child Abuse, Child Endangerment, Death, Forced Captivity, Gaslighting, Police Harassment (Highlight to view)

Blurb:

One of our most iconic childhood games receives a creepy twist as it becomes the gateway to a nightmare world. I went up the hill, the hill was muddy, stomped my toe and made it bloody, should I wash it? Justin knows that something is wrong with his best friend. Zee went missing for a year. And when he came back, he was . . . different. Nobody knows what happened to him. At Zee's welcome home party, Justin and the neighborhood crew play Hide and Seek. But it goes wrong. Very wrong. One by one, everyone who plays the game disappears, pulled into a world of nightmares come to life. Justin and his friends realize this horrible place is where Zee had been trapped. All they can do now is hide from the Seeker.

You'd think I'd eventually learn that kid's media can be just as scary as horror aimed at adults. After all, Over the Garden Wall, Coraline, and Skeleton Man all managed to scar me permanently. And yet, I went into Hide and Seeker foolishly assuming that it would be tame in comparison to my usual horror fare. Well, boy was I wrong. This book was INTENSE. I mean, just look at that cover! Suddenly I was a child again, hiding under the covers from the monsters in the darkness but still unable to put the book down despite the nightmares I knew it would cause. I haven't had a good scare like that in a while and it was absolutely wonderful. 

Over the Garden Wall: nightmare fuel for the whole family!

Jason is coping with the death of his mother and the disappearance of his best friend, Zee. Despite support from his sister and counselor he still struggles to accept her death and deal with his panic attacks (major kudos to Hermon for portraying an accurate depiction of panic attacks and anxiety). Then Zee reappears suddenly, covered in scars and speaking in riddles about a monster called the Seeker. What should be a joyous occasion quickly turns sour when children in the neighborhood start to disappear after a game of hide & seek. Jason and his friends Lyric and Nia soon learn that the kids were whisked away by the demonic Seeker to a place beyond their worst nightmares, and it looks like they’re next.

Of our trio of heroes, I’d have to say Nia is my favorite. She’s clever, rational, and despite her photographic memory and love of trivia she struggles with schoolwork. It was a nice change of pace to see the token “smart kid” suck at test taking and homework, a reminder that schoolwork is not an accurate measure of intelligence and ingenuity, and learning disabilities don’t mean you’re stupid. Nia uses her wits to help the kids out of more than one scrape and pushes her friends to be their best. She also knows enough about horror movie tropes to advise against splitting up the group. Nia is awesome. Not that Lyric or Jason are slouches. They’re fiercely loyal to each other, and it’s incredibly heartwarming. Even at their worst moments, the kids stick together and support their friends. 

This is the perfect book for kids who love Goosebumps and Stranger Things but are still too young for Stephen King and R-rated Slashers. Hermon is amazing at creating atmosphere and building terror without relying on blood and gore (there are minor injuries though, like bug stings, burns, and minor cuts). Her dialogue conveys the intensity of the situation without swearing. By implying Nowhere is a place where all your greatest fears become real and leaves its victims traumatized and covered in scars, our imaginations are able to come up with the worst possible scenarios. Not that Hermon leaves everything up to the reader’s imagination: there are plenty of giant bugs, living dolls, needles, and rat-snake hybrids to convey how truly terrifying Nowhere is.

Justin faces a lot of scary things, but racists and systemic oppression aren't among them. It was nice to have a middle-grade book with a Black hero that didn’t deal with racism. Black folks already have to deal with racism All. The. Time. We deserve escapist stories where Black kids get to exist without having to worry about discrimination. Nic Stone, author of Dear Martin put it best in her article for Cosmopolitan:

“…I can’t help but wonder how different the world would look if we’d all grown up seeing Black people do the stuff White people did in books. Going on adventures. Saving the day. Falling in love. Solving mysteries. Dealing with a broken heart. Getting caught up in a riveting love triangle. Taking down oppressive regimes. (I mean, HELLO, a bunch of farm animals took down a dictatorial pig in a book that’s been on middle school curriculum lists for decades. Yet Black people can’t survive the first book in a dystopia trilogy?) What if we’d seen Black people in books just being human?”

The closest the book gets to dealing with racism is when the kids get harassed by a police officer while riding their bikes though a nice neighborhood. Ironically, it’s the one White kid in the group that hates cops the most due to his father being sent to prison for a crime he didn’t commit, and he warns the others not to ask the police for help. And it’s such a nice change to see Black kids fighting make-believe monsters rather than real ones. 

The Butcher's Wife by Li Ang Translated by Howard Goldblatt and Ellen Yeung

Formats: Print, digital

Publisher: Peter Owens

Genre: Psychological Horror, Blood & Guts, Historic Horror

Audience: Adult/Mature

Diversity: Taiwanese characters and author

Takes Place in: Taiwan

Content Warnings: Alcohol Abuse, Animal Abuse, Animal Death, Body Shaming, Bullying, Death, Gore, Illness, Sexism, Slut-Shaming, Police Harassment, Physical Abuse, Rape/Sexual Assault, Sexual Abuse, Attempted Suicide, Verbal/Emotional Abuse, Victim-Blaming, Violence (Highlight to view)

Blurb:

Chen Jiangshui is a pig-butcher in a small coastal Taiwanese town. Stocky, with a paunch and deep-set beady eyes, he resembles a pig himself. His brutality towards his new young wife, Lin Shi, knows no bounds. The more she screams, the more he likes it. She is further isolated by the vicious gossip of her neighbors who condemn her for screaming aloud. As they see it, women are supposed to be tolerant and put their husbands above everything else. According to an old Chinese belief, all butchers are destined for hell—an eternity of torment by the animals they have dispatched. Lin Shi, isolated, despairing, and finally driven to madness, fittingly kills him with his own instrument—a meat cleaver. A literary sensation in the Chinese language world with its suggestion that ritual and tradition are the functions of oppression, this novel also caused widespread outrage with its unsparing portrayal of sexual violence and emotional cruelty. This tale has made a profound impact on contemporary Chinese literature and today ranks as a landmark text in both women's studies and world literature.

Warning: the rape scenes in this book are graphic and disturbing. They're meant to be, though not in a way that feels like a cheap scare or exploitative. t's still incredibly hard to read. Li focuses a lot of the injuries, both physical and emotional, that her main character endures as a result.

"Among Taiwan’s third-generation writers, Li Ang is the most controversial woman writer”

– MIT biography of Li Ang

Feminist author Li Ang published the Butcher’s Wife during the White Terror, the period of martial law between May 1949 to 15 July 1987 that started with the 228 incident, notable for its harsh censorship laws. When the Communists gained complete control of Mainland China in 1949, two million refugees fled to Taiwan. The Kuomintang (KMT) party of Taiwan arrested anyone they thought to be Communist sympathizers, including members of the Chinese Nationalist Party, intellectuals, the social elite, and anyone who criticized the government. Once arrested, inmates would be subjected to horrific torture or execution. In this way the KMT was able to rid themselves of anyone who might be resistant to their propaganda. Books that were suspected of promoting communist ideas were banned, including books from the Japanese colonial era, anything that went against traditional sexual morality, depicted characters challenging authority, went against popular sentiments, or “endangered the physical and mental health of youth” (if you enjoy horror games check out Red Candle’s Detention to learn more about the White Terror). Needless to say, anything by Karl Marx was also banned, even books by authors with names that started with “M,” such as Max Weber and Mark Twain, were suppressed because their first names sounded too similar to Marx in Mandarin. Most famously writer Bo Yang was jailed for eight years for translating Popeye cartoons because the KMT felt the comic was critical of leader Chiang Kai-shek. So what Li Ang did was incredibly risky, considering her book criticized traditional gender roles, Chinese society, and included frank depictions of sex and sexual violence. Critics, government officials, and self-proclaimed "moral guardians" were outraged when the United Daily News awarded Li's novel first place in their annual literary contest.

The Popeye cartoon that led to Bo Yang's arrest. From the Taipei Times. 

The Butcher’s Wife starts with a news article reporting Lin Shi's murder of her abusive husband. She kills him not only to protect herself, but to avenge the countless animals he butchered (Lin Shi can't bear to see living things suffer, and her husband would torture her by forcing her to watch him kill animals). The newspaper seems convinced Lin Shi has a secret lover, claiming her confession "defies logic and reason" since the only possible reason a wife would have for murdering her husband is because she's unfaithful and not as an act of self-preservation against an abusive monster. Others believe Lin Shi did it because she was "mentally unbalanced" after watching him kill animals. Locals are convinced it was a case of her mother reaching for revenge beyond the grave. Lin Shi is then paraded around on the back of a truck as a warning to others, before her execution. Men complain she's not attractive enough, and that it would have been exciting if her non-existent secret lover were found. The article then goes on to complain about women who want equality and to attend Western schools, and the decline of "womanly virtues". "Such demands are actually little more than excuses for a woman to leave house and home and make a public spectacle of herself. They comprise a mockery of the code of womanly conduct and destroy our age-old concepts of womanhood". Lin Shi literally tells the police why she killed her husband, and they still don't believe her.

Lin Shi has had a rough life. Her father died when she was nine and a greedy uncle used this opportunity to throw Lin Shi and her widowed mother out of their home, the one thing they had left, so he could have it for himself. The two are then forced to wander the streets doing odd jobs. One winter, when food is scare, Lin Shi's starving mother prostitutes herself to a solider in exchange for food. When she's discovered, her family ties her up and beats her, then takes Lin Shi away to live with her uncle, and they never see each other again. Lin Shi is forced to work as a servant for the very same uncle who stole her home and would like nothing better than to sell her off. With no mother, Lin Shi's menarche comes as a shock, and the neighbors laugh at her as she screams "Save me, I'm bleeding to death!" Her uncle betroths the unfortunate girl to a pig-butcher who no one else is willing to marry. He brutally rapes her on their wedding night. Lin Shi's cries of pain are compared to a dying pig, which arouses the butcher. He gets off on humiliating and hurting women and refers to them as "sluts", "whores", and "cunts". Ironically, the only woman he seems to respect is Golden Flower, a prostitute. We only get glimpses of his past and humanity when he's with her.

In Taiwan butchers were believed to go to hell upon their death where they're tortured by the animals they've killed. There's even a shrine outside the slaughterhouse dedicated to the souls of the animals where monthly ceremonies are held. In the netherworld, wives are considered equally guilty and also punished for their husband's crimes. Chen Jiangshui kills Lin Shi's ducklings in a fit of drunken rage and slaughters a pregnant sow when he first starts out as a butcher. The aborted piglets give him nightmares and the other slaughterhouses workers tell Chen Jiangshui that the piglets will demand the right to live from him and cause him to die a horrible death if their spirits aren't appeased. Despite his initial fear, he suffers no ill fate, and eventually the butcher stops believing in spirits and retribution. He is filled with anger he is unable to control, and everything seems to anger him. Fear, discomfort, confusion, conflict, all transform him to a raging monster. Chen Jiangshui conflates sex and slaughtering pigs. Plunging his knife into their throats gives him great pleasure, as does forcing his wife to scream like a dying pig when he rapes her and beating her if she doesn't cry enough. For him, the spurting of blood has an orgasmic effect. Ironically, while he's aroused by bloodshed in violence and death, he's disgusted by Lin Shit's menstrual blood which he believes brings misfortune on a man. That's how deep his hatred of women goes.

 Like many people in abusive relationships, Lin Shi can't leave. She has no support network, no money, and nowhere to go. She's totally dependent on her husband for her survival. Lin Shi is pressured by her community to be a "good wife" and is blamed for anything bad that happens in the relationship.

It's not only her husband who abuses her, Lin Shi is mocked by the other women, ones she considers friends, who look down on her for having sex so frequently (they too refuse to belief she's being raped) and claim she's a "slut" like her mother. They spread vicious gossip behind her back and belittle her to her face. Lin Shi is so used to mistreatment she doesn't even try to correct them. Eventually, with no one to trust, she becomes terrified of everyone, walking with her shoulders hunched and avoiding the other women as much as possible. The one thing she loves, the ducklings she tries to raise, are killed by her husband. Auntie Ah-Wang, argues that Chen Jiangshui is a "good man" and can't possibly be abusive since he saved her life. Lin Shi literally has no allies. The traditional patriarchal family system in Taiwan puts women in a subservient position to men. Even with updated laws to protect women, Taiwan still had a shockingly high rate of domestic abuse. "In 2016, 117,550 domestic violence cases were reported to officials in Taiwan. That is 322 each day, or one every five minutes" (source) and that's only what's been reported. The actual number could be much, much higher.

Li Ang’s book is a criticism of traditional patriarchal power structures and paints a stark picture of the everyday violence suffered by women not only in Taiwan, but the world over. Horrifying and beautifully written everyone owes it to themselves to read this unflinching tale of one woman’s domestic horror.

The Taking of Jake Livingston by Ryan Douglass

 

Formats: Print, audio, digital

Publisher: Penguin Random House

Genre: Ghosts/Haunting

Audience: Y/A

Diversity: Gay, Black main character, Black side and major characters

Takes Place in: Somewhere in the US

Content Warnings: Alcohol Abuse, Bullying, Child Abuse, Child Death, Child Endangerment, Death, Drug Use/Abuse, Gaslighting, Homophobia, Incest, Oppression, Mental Illness, Physical Abuse, Racism, Rape/Sexual Assault, Slurs, Suicide, Verbal/Emotional Abuse, Violence (Highlight to view)

Blurb:

Jake Livingston is one of the only Black kids at St. Clair Prep, one of the others being his infinitely more popular older brother. It’s hard enough fitting in but to make matters worse and definitely more complicated, Jake can see the dead. In fact he sees the dead around him all the time. Most are harmless. Stuck in their death loops as they relive their deaths over and over again, they don’t interact often with people. But then Jake meets Sawyer. A troubled teen who shot and killed six kids at a local high school last year before taking his own life. Now a powerful, vengeful ghost, he has plans for his afterlife–plans that include Jake. Suddenly, everything Jake knows about ghosts and the rules to life itself go out the window as Sawyer begins haunting him and bodies turn up in his neighborhood. High school soon becomes a survival game–one Jake is not sure he’s going to win.

Being the only gay Black kid in a preppy, White private school sucks and I would know. Ryan Douglass does a perfect job capturing my high school experience in The Taking of Jake Livingston.  Teachers are racist and assume everyone is straight. There are never any Black characters (besides slaves) in the books read for English class, and slavery gets glossed over in history. Black history isn’t mentioned at all except for maybe a day or two in February so the school can look woke. The whole thing feels like a scene from Get Out. I relate to Jake Livingston quite a lot. Except for the gender difference, he’s basically teenage me. He’s so paralyzed by anxiety and the thought of getting in trouble that Jake never lets himself have any fun, take risks, or even learn to drive. His low self-esteem means he doesn’t even recognize when a hunk named Alastor starts hitting on him. In fact, Alastor has to explicitly state that he’s interested and even then, Jake doesn’t seem entirely convinced. Reminds me of when my now-wife first asked me out on a date and I didn’t realize that it was a date because there was no way that tall, smart, hot chick could possibly be interested. 

But hey, at least I never had to deal with seeing ghosts. Poor Jake sees the dead everywhere. Normally it’s just like watching a recording of someone’s final moments stuck in an endless loop, but occasionally the ghosts are sentient. Even more rarely, they can interact with the world. As you can probably guess, this makes life even harder for Jake who’s already living with the “weird kid” label. Jake was fine (or at least surviving) just keeping his head down, avoiding confrontations, and doing everything he could to stay out of trouble and avoid the school bully, Chad. That is until the ghost of Sawyer, a malicious ghost with a troubled past who seems to have it in for Jake, shows up. Sawyer is, or rather was, a school shooter. He died by suicide after bringing a gun to school and killing his classmates. Apparently that wasn’t enough death for him because Sawyer is hell bent on terrorizing Jake and increasing his body count. 

There’s an interesting contrast between Sawyer and Jake. Both boys were abused by men in their lives, bullied by classmates, in the closet, and were introverts who felt alone in the world. But only one of them became a school shooter. Despite being put through a very similar hell, Jake never resorts to violence except once, and even then it’s fairly minor and honestly kind of justified (Chad was being a racist jerk and totally deserved it in my humble opinion). Jake fights back, Sawyer murders innocent people who had nothing to do with his abuse. So why the difference? 

The majority of mass shooters are White men. According to Statista over the past 40 years 66% of mass shooters are White, nearly three times higher than the number of Black mass shooters. A study on school shootings by Joshua R Gregory states: 

“Popular theories suggest that gun availability, mental illness, and bullying bear some relationship to school shootings; however, levels of gun availability, mental illness prevalence, and bullying victimization do not differ substantially between whites and non-whites, indicating that these factors might account for school shootings within, but not between, races.”

One theory is that men often lack the support networks needed to cope with loss, tragedy, and low self-esteem. Sawyer is alone and struggling with his mental health. His largely absent mother is more concerned with the perception of having a “weird” son than actually getting her son any help. She unfortunately buys into the common belief that having a mental health condition is somehow shameful for a man. As a result, Sawyer never gets help for his violent tendencies outside a handful of visits to a therapist who barely listens to him. He feels alone and unable to reach out. In contrast, Jake does develop a support network of family, friends, and even the ghosts of his ancestors to help him out when things are looking bleak. But that still doesn’t explain why White men are more likely to be school shooters than Black men. Is it because most White terrorists are racist extremists? In 2020 they were responsible for almost 70% of all domestic terrorism plots. But Sawyer doesn’t give any indication of being racist at any point. Or it could just be that he had access to a gun, as White men are 50% more likely to own a gun than Black men and most school shootings were carried out with legally purchased firearms. To be honest, I don’t know the answer. 

For dealing with such a sensitive topic I think the book did rather well. Even though Douglass gave Sawyer a tragic backstory, it was never used as a justification for his actions. Trauma was also handled well and appropriately. Of course, the book was not without its flaws. The world-building felt undeveloped and I was unclear on the rules of “Dead World.” Why could some ghosts interact with Jake and others couldn’t? I really enjoyed the idea of Jake’s ancestors supporting him, to the point I was moved to tears, but it also left me puzzled. Were they ghosts too? Why hadn’t Jake noticed them before? It’s unfortunate, but I felt that the ghosts were the weakest part of the book. I found myself much more invested in Alastor and Jake’s adorable, developing relationship than anything that had to do with specters. Which is pretty weird for me, usually I hate romantic subplots and just want the story to focus on the scary parts. A lot of the story just felt confusing and messy, which hindered it from being a four-star book no matter how much I loved the characters. Despite its flaws, The Taking of Jake Livingston is still a good book, especially for queer Black kids, and worth checking out. 

Things Have Gotten Worse Since We Last Spoke by Eric LaRocca

Formats: Print, audio, digital

Publisher: Weirdpunk Books

Genre: Body Horror, Psychological Horror, Romance

Audience: Adult/Mature

Diversity: Lesbian main characters

Takes Place in: Unknown

Content Warnings: Animal Death, Death, Mental Illness, Gaslighting, Homophobia, Suicide, Verbal/Emotional Abuse (Highlight to view)

Blurb:

Sadomasochism. Obsession. Death. A whirlpool of darkness churns at the heart of a macabre ballet between two lonely young women in an internet chat room in the early 2000s—a darkness that threatens to forever transform them once they finally succumb to their most horrific desires. What have you done today to deserve your eyes?

Holy shit…this book. Definitely shouldn’t have read it at 1 am.

This epistolary novella starts out innocently enough. It’s the early 2000s and a young woman named Agnes is selling her antique apple peeler on a LGBTQ+ message board. Another young woman, Zoe, offers to buy the apple peeler. The two email back and forth and start up a friendship. Agnes is having a really tough time and Zoe does something incredibly kind and generous to help her out. Awwww. It also turns out both women are gay and developing feelings for each other. Sounds like a sappy Hallmark Christmas movie doesn’t it (if Hallmark ever aired anything that wasn’t incredibly heteronormative)? Except then things start getting kind of weird (also like Lifetime Christmas movies!). Agnes, who’s life honestly kind of sucks, is beholden of her “guardian angel” and a little too willing to please her. Zoe wants to push Agnes out of her comfort zone and ask her “What have you done today to deserve your eyes?” Super creepy, although nothing necessarily sinister yet. Still, relationship red flags are starting to pop up. As the two grow ever closer, Zoe suggests they enter a BDSM/sugar mama relationship which Agnes immediately agrees to. Zoe will email tasks which Agnes must complete to please her “sponsor” (Kudos to LaRocca for using sponsor/drudge instead of master/slave which can have racist connotations). And things start going downhill rapidly as both women prove how emotionally unstable they really are.

Twitter User @daveaddey noticed something interesting about Hallmark Christmas movie posters. Namely that they all look like they'll eat your soul.

BDSM is not inherently harmful. Even when it’s meant to cause pain and discomfort, it shouldn’t result in any permanent physical, emotional, or mental harm; every act should be consensual, not coerced and when I say consensual, I mean enthusiastic consent, not the lack of a “no” or safeword. But like with all things, there are people who take it too far. Doms are supposed to prioritize the safety and well-being of their submissive, but Zoe is more interested in seeing how far she can push her new toy before it breaks. She doesn’t listen when Agnes tells her she’s uncomfortable and ignores the fact that a desperately lonely Agnes in not in the right headspace to make informed decisions. Zoe even makes her perform acts that that threaten Agnes’ ability to function in everyday life and takes control of her finances (which is a big red flag). That’s when things start to get really disturbing. Yes, it gets even worse. I won’t reveal any spoilers, suffice it to say this book is not for the squeamish or anyone triggered by depictions of psychologically abusive relationships.

Aftercare is important

Things Have Gotten Worse Since We Last Spoke is one of the most uncomfortable and disturbing books I’ve read all year. I spent the final third of the novella squirming and distressed, muttering “Oh no, oh no, oh no” to myself. Watching an abusive relationship develop as a lonely young woman’s mental health declines is incredibly upsetting. The warning signs in the relationship are subtle and easily missed if you don’t know what to look for, at least until it’s too late.  And the body horror pairs perfectly with the psychological horror, making the story even more unsettling. This novella may only take an hour to read, but the dread will stay with you for days. So, what have you done today to deserve your eyes?

 

Testament by Jose Nateras

Formats: Print, digital

Publisher: NineStar Press

Genre: Ghosts/Haunting, Psychological Horror

Audience: Adult/Mature

Diversity: Gay Main character and side characters, Bisexual side character, Hispanic/Latinx (Mexican) Main Character, Asian-American side character, Black side character

Takes Place in: Chicago, IL USA

Content Warnings: Gaslighting, Homophobia, Mental Illness, Racism, Rape/Sexual Assault, Self-Harm, Suicide (Highlight to view)

Blurb:

Gabe Espinosa, is trying to dig himself out of the darkness. Struggling with the emotional fallout of a breakup with his ex-boyfriend, Gabe returns to his job at The Rosebriar Room; the fine dining restaurant at the historic Sentinel Club Chicago Hotel. Already haunted by the ghosts of his severed relationship, he's drastically unprepared for the ghosts of The Sentinel Club to focus their attentions on him as well.

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.

Once upon a time during a LGBTQ+ group therapy session, someone dropped one of those truth bombs that totally changed my perspective on things. “If you’re a minority in American you have trauma. You may not even be aware of it, but it’s there.” Holy. Shit. Suddenly the fact that I always felt stressed, anxious, and depressed made sense. I realized the headaches, stomach problems, chronic fatigue, and back and neck pain (for which I’d spent thousands of dollars seeing specialists only to be told they didn’t know what was wrong with me) were all due to minority stress. Well fuck.

Mind. Blown.

Testament is a horror story about trauma and minority stress, and the protagonist Gabe’s struggles were achingly familiar.  He worries about how to let new people know he’s gay in a way that feels natural, finding a boyfriend who doesn’t see him as “exotic” or call him “papi,” and working around a bunch of rich White people. And poor Gabe works in rich douche central, a swanky hotel that once functioned as a members-only men’s club called The Sentinel Club. As if working around so many White folk isn’t unnerving enough, the hotel also seems to be home to something supernatural and sinister. Something that has its attentions turned on Gabe.

**trigger warning: discussion of suicide and mental health**

Reeling from a suicide attempt after a bad breakup Gabe is not in the best place mentally. He’s incredibly hard on himself, constantly calling himself “worthless” and “pathetic.” He pushes people away assuming they don’t care and refuses to ask for help. As someone who has had their own battles with depression, this also felt achingly familiar. It was also incredibly well done. Writers tend to portray depression as someone staying in bed for days in a state of ennui and despair, unable to move and refusing to eat. But that kind of severe depressive episode is hardly commonplace. Most folks suffering from depression are still (at least partially) functional and go to great lengths to hide their illness in front of others, which is why it’s so difficult to recognize when someone’s actually depressed. Gabe gets dressed, goes to work and forces himself to smile and act like everything is fine while his brain screams insults at him and everything reminds him of his ex. 

**end of trigger warning **

What’s especially brilliant is how Nateras uses Gabe’s haunting to mimic his mental state. Gabe is trapped both by his past and the entity that latches on to him and follows him everywhere. It will seemingly disappear before suddenly and violently announcing its presence, much like his depression and PTSD. In fact, most of the horror in the story comes from Gabe wrestling with his inner demons rather than the outer ones. It’s not quite gothic fiction, but I’d definitely call it gothic-adjacent with its slow burn horror and tumultuous emotions. Of course, if you dislike the slower pace of gothic horror and its focus on the characters rather than the haunting, you may not enjoy Testament. Fortunately, it’s a quick read, so even if you get bored quickly like I do you’ll probably be fine. 

There’s a lot of discussion about the evils of privilege, power, and money. And they are evil. They corrupt and hurt those without. And while no, not all White people are evil, there’s no way of telling the good from the bad with a glance, and a lifetime of negative experiences sets off every alarm bell in my head. There’s nothing quite like the fear you experience when you realize you’re the only person of color in a sea of privileged White folk, even if they’re the “nice” liberal kind. Such situations immediately make me uncomfortable and anxious, even as a White-passing Black person. I jokingly call it that Get Out feeling. There’s a particular scene in the book I found especially frightening when Gabe gets on a subway car, discovers he’s the only non-White person there, and he’s surrounded by wealthy-looking men. It’s terrifying. Nateras knows it and uses the scene to make the book even scarier. He does it so well I want to shove Testament into White people’s faces and yell “See? This. This is how I feel all the time.”

Sadly not the worst date he's been on with a White guy

I could go on and on about how the book uses minority stress to create horror and how the haunting is a metaphor for privileged White men who hurt BIPOC, but it would get into spoiler territory and I really want you to read this book. So, I’ll end it here with a warning, beware of White gentleman’s clubs because you never know what kind of evil lurks there.

Children of Chicago by Cynthia Pelayo

Formats: Print, digital, audio

Publisher: Agora

Genre: Dark Fantasy, Demon, Killer/Slasher, Myth and Folklore, Thriller

Audience: Y/A, Adult/Mature

Diversity: Bisexual main character, Puerto Rican main character and author, Latinx characters

Takes Place in: Chicago, IL, USA

Content Warnings: Alcohol Abuse, Child Death, Death, Forced Captivity, Gaslighting, Illness, Kidnapping, Mental Illness, Physical Abuse, Police Harassment, Suicide, Violence (Highlight to view)

Blurb:

This horrifying retelling of the Pied Piper fairytale set in present-day Chicago is an edge of your seat, chills up the spine, thrill ride. ‪ When Detective Lauren Medina sees the calling card at a murder scene in Chicago’s Humboldt Park neighborhood, she knows the Pied Piper has returned. When another teenager is brutally murdered at the same lagoon where her sister’s body was found floating years before, she is certain that the Pied Piper is not just back, he’s looking for payment he’s owed from her. Lauren’s torn between protecting the city she has sworn to keep safe, and keeping a promise she made long ago with her sister’s murderer. She may have to ruin her life by exposing her secrets and lies to stop the Pied Piper before he collects.

And I chiefly use my charm

On creatures that do people harm,

The mole and toad and newt and viper;

And people call me the Pied Piper.

-          The Pied Piper of Hamelin by Robert Browning (1812-1889)

"The Pied Piper of Hamelin"by Augustin von Mörsperg, 1592

My dad was born and raised on the Southside Chicago and will tell anyone who will listen that his birthplace is the best city in the world. My wife, on the other hand, firmly believes Chicago is akin to LA in the ‘90s. When I did finally manage to lure her there with the promise of deep-dish pizza and the Museum of Science and Industry she did admit the Windy City was a pretty cool place and not at scary as she was expecting (even after we stumbled onto an illegal street race). Although the crime rate there is higher than the national average, Chicago is hardly the crime and drug filled dystopia my wife and other outsiders seem to believe it is. In fact, its violent crime rates are far lower than those of Anchorage, Wichita, and Milwaukee. The dangerous reputation may have come from Chicago’s fascinating history of crime, gangsters, and serial killers or even the many tragedies that have befallen the White City in the past. Modern-day boogiemen like the Lipstick Killer, John Wayne Gacy, the Ripper Crew, and Richard Speck all called Chicago their home. The Blue Beard-esque H. H. Holmes built his murder castle in Englewood. The city’s most notorious gangster, Al Capone, has morphed into something of a folk hero and tragedies like the Great Chicago Fire and the Haymarket affair have taken on almost a legendary status. Dark rumors surround the abandoned Edgewater Medical Center. Stories like these have shaped Chicago’s history and how it’s perceived by the rest of the country: a gothic city haunted by the past. But darkness and death aren’t all the city has to offer.

Fairy tales, at least the original versions and not the Disney-fied ones, are often a child’s first introduction to the world of horror. Beautiful and sinister stories full of threats of death and assault, mutilation, hungry wolves, and dark forests have been used to frighten children for generations. Fairy tales are beautiful roses and sharp thorns, poisonous treats, beauty and blood. They also share many of the same elements as gothic fiction. Sometime in the distant past, a helpless woman is placed in a dark and dangerous setting (now a castle instead of a forest), where she is threatened by supernatural forces until rescued by the hero. Orphans and peasant girls are made to suffer before finally coming into riches. Animals no longer speak, but still bring portents of doom. Nature is wild, dangerous, and unpredictable. Both have themes of revenge, isolation, rags to riches, abuse, and women who are under constant threat as the men in her life fight over her body. Bluebeard, and other versions of the Aarne–Thompson type 312 tale, are the perfect example of a gothic fairy tale. In the story a woman leaves her family to marry a mysterious stranger and goes to live in his isolated and lonely castle. But locked away in a castle is a dark and dangerous secret. The wife can go in any room, but one, which contains the bodies of the stranger’s previous, murdered wives.

In the original version of Cinderella, the Little Mermaid, and Sleeping Beauty, the step sisters cut off parts of their feet and birds pecked out their eyes, the mermaid's tongue was cut out and every step she took on land was agony, and Sleeping Beauty was raped and impregnated with twins by a married king while she slept.

Cynthia Pelayo draws on the city’s history to create her gothic urban fairy tale, Children of Chicago. The city stands in for the dark forest, a vaguely supernatural setting where unwary children disappear and gang members prowl the street like big bad wolves. The book follows recently orphaned Lauren Medina, a deeply troubled police detective hunting a serial killer known only as The Pied Piper-- a shadowy boogeyman who preys on children then vanishes into the night. It’s rumored he can be summoned by burning a black candle and speaking a spell in front of a mirror. Throughout the story, Lauren is unstable and brimming over with barely-contained emotion, a staple of any good Gothic tale, as she wrestles with her missing memories of her sister’s death. Lauren breaks the typical female fairy tale mold where women were relegated to witches, wise women, virginal damsels, and evil stepmothers. She’s not exactly evil, but she isn’t pure and heroic either, instead she’s but a rare example of a female Byronic hero intentionally written to be tragic, unlikeable, morally gray, and hiding a dark past, much like the heroes found in gothic horror. In fact, few of the women in the story fall into any of the aforementioned roles. Stepmothers aren’t necessarily evil, even if their angry stepdaughters perceive them as such. Damsels in distress may possess more agency than they seem to, and villainous women can also be victims. I genuinely enjoyed seeing a female character (who wasn’t intended to be liked) embrace her darkness and struggle with her morality. Just as much horror came from Lauren’s psychological trauma and instability as it did from the threat of the supernatural.

While Lauren initially came across as “the young female cop with a dark past and something to prove” trope (aka Jodie Foster in Silence of the Lambs), it soon became clear that unlike Clarice Starling, we’re not necessarily supposed to root for her. And unlike every maverick detective in an ‘80s buddy-cop comedy, Lauren’s flagrant disregard for the rules in order to get her guy aren’t justified, but instead dangerous and unjust. Though, much like police in the real world, she’s able to get away with it. I appreciate that Pelayo avoided turning her crime drama into “copaganda” by making Lauren a protagonist, but not a hero. I admit I used to enjoy shows like Brooklyn 99, Lucifer, and Law & Order SVU (yes, I’m old) even though I recognized how incredibly problematic they were. But ever since 2020 I’ve more or less lost my taste for any media that portrays a corrupt system as a heroic force for good, justified in flouting the law. It no longer feels like harmless fantasy when you realize how many people actually believe that cop shows reflect real life and officers only target “bad guys” as oppose to anyone they don’t like (mostly BIPOC, the poor, and the mentally ill). So, reading a crime story where the police weren’t heroes was a relief. In fact, Lauren’s only redeeming quality is that she has a soft spot for troubled teens, ever since the mysterious death of her own sister.

Brimming with references to Chicago’s history, it’s clear that Pelayo loves her home while still recognizing its flaws. In fact, the novel feels just as much a crime story as it does a guide to the dark and fantastical parts of the Windy City. She holds a Master of Fine Arts in Writing from The School of the Art Institute of Chicago and it shows in her writing. Throughout Children of Chicago Pelayo references the original, dark versions of famous and not-so famous fairytales, from Cinderella to the Singing Bone, adding to her own story’s dark atmosphere balancing on the edge of reality and fantasy. Pelayo’s novel is full of missing mothers, an unjust society where the most vulnerable suffer, magic mirrors, plenty of gore, spells, and a moral message. But overall, it’s a subversion of the classic fairy tale formula where the good are rewarded, the evil are punished, and morality is clearly defined. In Children of Chicago the “heroes” are neither pure-hearted nor moral, evil escapes justice while the innocent suffer, and no one is getting a happy ending.

It’s unfortunate that the darkest parts of Chicago’s history have shaped so much of its reputation when the Windy City has so much to offer. As my wife soon discovered on her first visit, the city is full or art, beauty, and wonder. Pelayo doesn’t just show the city’s dark side, she shows its magic as well. “Fairy tales are in our blood as Chicagoans” one of the books characters explains. Walt Disney, L. Frank Baum, Ray Bradbury, and Gwnedolyn Brooks were all inspired by the city to create their own fairy tales. Colleen Moore created her famous Fairy Castle and donated it to The Chicago Museum of Science and Industry. Children gathered pennies to create the Rock-a-Bye Lady from Eugene Field’s poem. The haunting beauty of the SheddAquarium feels like you’ve stepped into another world. The city even has a secret Little Mermaid inspired bar! It’s this beauty, contrasted with the allure of danger, that makes Chicago as wonderous as any fairytale.

Photos of Colleen Moore's Fairy Castle from the Museum of Science and Industry. Pictured here are the library (top), exterior (left) and great hall (right).