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madarauchiha's reviews
446 reviews
Angel of the Abyss by Ed Kurtz
dark
mysterious
sad
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
4.0
β¨π my about / byf / CW info carrd: uchiha-madara π β¨
A very interesting murder mystery. Not really anything about horror in the paranormal or supernatural sense, unless you count the occasional fictional occult parts of the movie. So if you're looking for that kinda horror, this ain't it. But if you want a murder mystery with rotating pov and a solid ending, here you go? It's well written and interesting.
major alcohol use, blood, child abuse, csa, gore, gun violence, medical content, murder, pedophilia, police, rape, sexual assault, sexual harassment, sexual violence
medium anti black racism, anti communist sentiment, antisemitism, fatphobia, homophobia, infidelity, misogyny, sexual content
minor ableism, ableist c slur, ableist r slur, abortion, alcohol, child abuse, child death, death, drug abuse, drug use smoking tobacco, hitler mention, homophobic f slur, pregnancy, racial slurs, racism, religion catholic, sexual content, trafficking
A very interesting murder mystery. Not really anything about horror in the paranormal or supernatural sense, unless you count the occasional fictional occult parts of the movie. So if you're looking for that kinda horror, this ain't it. But if you want a murder mystery with rotating pov and a solid ending, here you go? It's well written and interesting.
major alcohol use, blood, child abuse, csa, gore, gun violence, medical content, murder, pedophilia, police, rape, sexual assault, sexual harassment, sexual violence
medium anti black racism, anti communist sentiment, antisemitism, fatphobia, homophobia, infidelity, misogyny, sexual content
minor ableism, ableist c slur, ableist r slur, abortion, alcohol, child abuse, child death, death, drug abuse, drug use smoking tobacco, hitler mention, homophobic f slur, pregnancy, racial slurs, racism, religion catholic, sexual content, trafficking
Content Warnings
Graphic: Murder, Rape, Blood, Child abuse, Gun violence, Medical content, Alcohol, Gore, Pedophilia, Sexual assault, Sexual harassment, and Sexual violence
Moderate: Sexual content, Racism, Racial slurs, Homophobia, Antisemitism, Infidelity, Misogyny, and Fatphobia
Minor: Ableism, Child abuse, Death, Pregnancy, Abortion, Trafficking, Drug use, Antisemitism, Child death, Drug abuse, Racial slurs, Racism, Sexual content, and Alcohol
Head Full of Mountains by Brent Hayward
slow-paced
1.0
β¨π my about / byf / CW info carrd: uchiha-madara π β¨
its incredivly boring when sci fi books try to make absolutely convoluted analogistic terms that are impenetrable to parse for the sake of sounding futuristic.
"Oh the hypersmash triple fluid dynamo portentator is disfunctionated!!" no it's a space ship engine, and it's broken. If your world building was good you wouldn't have to resort to sending your lingo through google translate via 10 different languages.
at 2/3rds through i skipped to the last four chapters to see if it was a stupid "actually its not a dystopia the father kidnapped a kid and was living in the woods thw whole time!" twist. no its just bizarre dream shit.
I should've known it was stupid shit when it quoted some about missionaries colonizing indigenous nations for the epigraph.
minor cannibalism
medium death, body horror
major anti indigenous racism, missionaries,
its incredivly boring when sci fi books try to make absolutely convoluted analogistic terms that are impenetrable to parse for the sake of sounding futuristic.
"Oh the hypersmash triple fluid dynamo portentator is disfunctionated!!" no it's a space ship engine, and it's broken. If your world building was good you wouldn't have to resort to sending your lingo through google translate via 10 different languages.
at 2/3rds through i skipped to the last four chapters to see if it was a stupid "actually its not a dystopia the father kidnapped a kid and was living in the woods thw whole time!" twist. no its just bizarre dream shit.
I should've known it was stupid shit when it quoted some about missionaries colonizing indigenous nations for the epigraph.
minor cannibalism
medium death, body horror
major anti indigenous racism, missionaries,
Content Warnings
Graphic: Racism, Colonisation, Death of parent, and Death
Moderate: Child death and Death
Minor: Cannibalism
Valley of Terror by Zhou Haohui
adventurous
dark
mysterious
sad
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.0
β¨π my about / byf / CW info carrd: uchiha-madara π β¨
Interesting. Mildly racist or xenophobic in making the tribe kinda simplistic war mongerers but what do i know about intra asian racism. Very few women and very stereotyped. Decent horror. More mystery and gore than anything else. The chapter thirty seven and onwards explain everything if you just want to know the plot.
It's got a terrible portrayal of psychiatric institions. Also made up mental illnesses.
Also oh yeah it's pretty bad copaganda.
Lastly it's competently written but uh, not the best. Very show, don't tell, pretty superficial.
major ableism, confinement, copaganda, death, drowning, gore, gun violence, medical content, parental death, police, prisons, religion, self harm, spiders, suicide, war
medium insects, blood, torture,
minor alcohol, cannibalism, genocide,
Interesting. Mildly racist or xenophobic in making the tribe kinda simplistic war mongerers but what do i know about intra asian racism. Very few women and very stereotyped. Decent horror. More mystery and gore than anything else. The chapter thirty seven and onwards explain everything if you just want to know the plot.
It's got a terrible portrayal of psychiatric institions. Also made up mental illnesses.
Also oh yeah it's pretty bad copaganda.
Lastly it's competently written but uh, not the best. Very show, don't tell, pretty superficial.
major ableism, confinement, copaganda, death, drowning, gore, gun violence, medical content, parental death, police, prisons, religion, self harm, spiders, suicide, war
medium insects, blood, torture,
minor alcohol, cannibalism, genocide,
Content Warnings
Graphic: Ableism, Confinement, Death, Death of parent, Gore, Gun violence, Medical content, Self harm, Alcohol, Suicide, War, and Blood
Moderate: Blood and Torture
Minor: Genocide, Alcohol, and Cannibalism
String Follow by Simon Jacobs
dark
slow-paced
- Diverse cast of characters? No
0.25
β¨π my about / byf / CW info carrd: uchiha-madara π β¨
only one other book has bored me as much as this one. That being 'snakeskins' by tim major.
oh good an omniscient narrator following along to a bunch of teens in high school. one is mentally ill and a couple are super rich and the rest i legit dont know. They're largely interchangeably and it's not just because they all have generic white people names. im not sure what the plot is. ita very meandering and rambling. slow paced. Is this scary? no. is it tense? no?,
ok so I finished the book and this is the entire plot, this is your spoiler warning.
First 1/4 book is exposition on who the characters are. Then the psychotic kid gets into a car crash semi on purpose bc of his psychosis and beth whitegirl who was in the car with him survives, drastically changes her identity to the point of changing schoola and vecoming unrecognizable as her previous self. Peple from her first school thinks shes dead like the psychosis kid so they decide to hold a death party at her house. inexplicably the parents are absent. like everything else, this is a hige stretch of belief.
occasionally we get interruptions of rambling in all caps. ok whatever., you know those ramblings from Annihilation / the southern reach books? well it's like that. execpt instead of being purpsefully meaninglessly evocative, it's just 3chan levesl of edgy white boy self hate.
meanwhile tyler whiteboy who is attempting at a harem cult groupie thing migrated from squatting in one houses' basement to beths house. this happens on the same night as the death party. There's a fight. People die or dont idk im not paying attention. There's graphic violence, beth survives, the tyler harem is broken up, the death party is allegedly run by the other cult mentioned way earlier? It's not really clear and I'm not paying attention at all. Afterwards some of the kids get into a car together and they end up in a semi abandoned church that was mentioned earlier. That was were the half blood burst [?] cult was hosting its meetings. The book ends here.
oh also theres a prog rock singer who gets migraines and one of two female xharacyers chat him up. also theres a school shooting.
none of this is especially relevamt to anything else happening in yhe book. if youre into this sorta thing then i guess youd enhoy it. i dont care avout wgite people and i especaiily sint care avout this book or anythign happebing in this book.,
There's a lot of typos because I wrote this on my phone and I DO NOT give a shit enough to fix any of this. thanks for reading. even more thanks if you dO NOT read this boring ass fuck of a book. And honestly it's unforunate because the writting is pretty good! It's great, it's decent, it's got a surreal flavor to it and feels pretty tense at times. I just do not care about the plot or characters at all.
major arson, blood, bullying, car crashes, child death, cults, drug use smoking marijuana, fire, gore, mass shooting, medical content, murder, physical abuse, psychosis, rape, school shooting, sexual assault, suicide attempt, toxic friendship, toxic relationships, violence, gun violence
medium child abuse, self harm, sexual content
minor child death, colonization, genocide, menstruation, suicide
only one other book has bored me as much as this one. That being 'snakeskins' by tim major.
oh good an omniscient narrator following along to a bunch of teens in high school. one is mentally ill and a couple are super rich and the rest i legit dont know. They're largely interchangeably and it's not just because they all have generic white people names. im not sure what the plot is. ita very meandering and rambling. slow paced. Is this scary? no. is it tense? no?,
ok so I finished the book and this is the entire plot, this is your spoiler warning.
occasionally we get interruptions of rambling in all caps. ok whatever., you know those ramblings from Annihilation / the southern reach books? well it's like that. execpt instead of being purpsefully meaninglessly evocative, it's just 3chan levesl of edgy white boy self hate.
none of this is especially relevamt to anything else happening in yhe book. if youre into this sorta thing then i guess youd enhoy it. i dont care avout wgite people and i especaiily sint care avout this book or anythign happebing in this book.,
There's a lot of typos because I wrote this on my phone and I DO NOT give a shit enough to fix any of this. thanks for reading. even more thanks if you dO NOT read this boring ass fuck of a book. And honestly it's unforunate because the writting is pretty good! It's great, it's decent, it's got a surreal flavor to it and feels pretty tense at times. I just do not care about the plot or characters at all.
major arson, blood, bullying, car crashes, child death, cults, drug use smoking marijuana, fire, gore, mass shooting, medical content, murder, physical abuse, psychosis, rape, school shooting, sexual assault, suicide attempt, toxic friendship, toxic relationships, violence, gun violence
medium child abuse, self harm, sexual content
minor child death, colonization, genocide, menstruation, suicide
Content Warnings
Graphic: Drug use, Gun violence, Blood, Sexual violence, Car accident, Violence, Child death, Fire/Fire injury, Rape, Schizophrenia/Psychosis , Self harm, Bullying, Toxic friendship, Drug abuse, Gore, Medical content, Sexual assault, Toxic relationship, Mass/school shootings, Murder, and Physical abuse
Moderate: Self harm, Child abuse, and Sexual content
Minor: Genocide, Suicide, Child death, and Colonisation
The Litigatrix by Ken Liu
mysterious
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? N/A
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
3.0
Content Warnings
Graphic: Fire/Fire injury
Minor: Murder and Death of parent
Scanlines by Todd Keisling
adventurous
dark
mysterious
reflective
sad
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
4.0
β¨π my about / byf / CW info carrd: uchiha-madara π β¨
What I expected. Reddit nosleep creepypasta levels of writing exploiting a suicidal man's death, with all the gimmicks and tropes well retread, written mainly to say 'first!' when it comes to a horror story about this dead man.
What I got. A delve into midwestern small town early 90s 00s depression fueled ableism towards mental illness and toxic masculinity, bootstrap mentality, and oh yeah, suicide horror. IS that a genre, suicide horror? I guess it'd fall under paranormal. Ringu was suicide horror, to a degree, innit desu? Let's call it suicide horror, a sub sub sub to the etc degree genre of paranormal horror.
Anyways, yeah it deserves the 4 star rating [as of writing this]. It's creepy, horrific, graphic, there's depth to it so you're thinking about it long after finishing, and it hits all the neat horror tropes but in a well done way. If you can handle suicide and child death, give it a go.
major addiction, asphyxiation, child death, gore, gun violence, psychosis, suicide
medium alcoholism, cancer, classism,
minor addiction, car crash, drug use marijuana and prescription drugs, gore, parental death, religion christianity?, religious bigotry, sexism, sexual content, usa 9/11 event, vomit
What I expected. Reddit nosleep creepypasta levels of writing exploiting a suicidal man's death, with all the gimmicks and tropes well retread, written mainly to say 'first!' when it comes to a horror story about this dead man.
What I got. A delve into midwestern small town early 90s 00s depression fueled ableism towards mental illness and toxic masculinity, bootstrap mentality, and oh yeah, suicide horror. IS that a genre, suicide horror? I guess it'd fall under paranormal. Ringu was suicide horror, to a degree, innit desu? Let's call it suicide horror, a sub sub sub to the etc degree genre of paranormal horror.
Anyways, yeah it deserves the 4 star rating [as of writing this]. It's creepy, horrific, graphic, there's depth to it so you're thinking about it long after finishing, and it hits all the neat horror tropes but in a well done way. If you can handle suicide and child death, give it a go.
major addiction, asphyxiation, child death, gore, gun violence, psychosis, suicide
medium alcoholism, cancer, classism,
minor addiction, car crash, drug use marijuana and prescription drugs, gore, parental death, religion christianity?, religious bigotry, sexism, sexual content, usa 9/11 event, vomit
Content Warnings
Graphic: Gun violence, Schizophrenia/Psychosis , Suicide, Addiction, Child death, and Gore
Moderate: Alcoholism, Cancer, and Classism
Minor: Addiction, Car accident, Drug abuse, Drug use, Gore, Death of parent, Religious bigotry, Sexism, Sexual content, and Vomit
The Other Side of the Mountain by Michel Bernanos
mysterious
sad
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? N/A
- Loveable characters? N/A
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? N/A
3.0
β¨π my about / byf / CW info carrd: uchiha-madara π β¨
plot? A man joins a sailing ship, the ship hits a stall [no wind means the sails don't work and ship isn't propelled / moving], and the crew descends into cannibalism. MEDIUM PLOT SPOILERS Once most of the crew is dead, he and the ship's cook struggle to lead the remaining crew to their destination. A mysterious storm hits, only he and the cook survive to find themselves stranded in a strange land. FULL PLOT SPOILER They travel through it, with various bizarre, deadly alien creatures, towards a mountain in hopes of getting a better lay of the land. They encounter strange human / other statues along the way. At some point their body's start calcifying and turning into mineral statues as well. The book ends with them reaching a hill or mountain crest just as they fully calcify into statues. At the top of the hill mountain they see below them a lake which is actually a enormous bright blue eye gazing at them. The end.
How do I feel about this book? Uh confused and interested. It was decent writing, no particular problematic content that often plagues cosmic horror that I especially noticed. At least, not stephen 'holy fuck I'm the hugest racist' king levels, anyways. It contained some gorey scenes and violent content but it felt distant enough that it wasn't perturbing material.
Would I rec this? If you like cosmic / alien esque horror, sure. It was maybe an hour read, real quick for me.
major body horror, cannibalism, drowning, gun violence, murder, violence
medium blood, death, vomit,
minor alcohol,blood, colonization, injuries,
plot? A man joins a sailing ship, the ship hits a stall [no wind means the sails don't work and ship isn't propelled / moving], and the crew descends into cannibalism. MEDIUM PLOT SPOILERS
How do I feel about this book? Uh confused and interested. It was decent writing, no particular problematic content that often plagues cosmic horror that I especially noticed. At least, not stephen 'holy fuck I'm the hugest racist' king levels, anyways. It contained some gorey scenes and violent content but it felt distant enough that it wasn't perturbing material.
Would I rec this? If you like cosmic / alien esque horror, sure. It was maybe an hour read, real quick for me.
major body horror, cannibalism, drowning, gun violence, murder, violence
medium blood, death, vomit,
minor alcohol,blood, colonization, injuries,
Content Warnings
Graphic: Body horror, Cannibalism, Gun violence, Murder, and Violence
Moderate: Blood, Animal death, and Vomit
Minor: Alcohol, Blood, Colonisation, and Injury/Injury detail
Last Days by Brian Evenson
There's a conversation to be had about using disabled bodies in horror specifically because oh no, they're not '''normal''' human body peoples?!?! what hte?!?!??eleven!!?! This book has a lot of that. I don't think I have the experience or tact to really delve into it.
It's not a horror novel, per se, despite the marketing. It's a noir mystery with religious cult horror. Don't expect cosmic horror, paranormal or supernatural horror.
The noir is present and quite clinical at times. Almost dry, but I'll chalk that up to me not liking noir [or gothic] genre at all.
Was this scary? I guess? It's scary in a gorey way. The disabled bodies were presented as horrifying and I don't think that's kind or respectful of people who are disabled or disfigured. Whether or not the author intended it, there's inescapable ableism present in the book. It was competently written and coherent, in the least.
minor vomit,
major alcohol, amputation, arson, demolition, injuries, fire, gore, gun violence, kidnapping, medical abuse, murder, police brutality, self harm, sexual content, stalking?, torture, violence
dark
mysterious
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.0
βͺ How do you know the moment when you cease to be human? Is it the moment when you decide to carry a head before you by its hair, extended before you like a lantern, as if you are Diogenes in search of one just man? Or is it the moment where reality, previously a smooth surface one slides oneβs way along, begins to come in waves, for a moment altogether too much and then utterly absent?Or is it the moment when you begin opening doors, showing each man behind each door the head of his spiritual leader before killing him with the cleaver tucked into your belt? Or is it the moment when all these dead begin to talk to you in a dull, rumbling murmur? Or is it the moment when these same voices suddenly fade away and stop talking altogether, leaving you utterly alone?
There's a conversation to be had about using disabled bodies in horror specifically because oh no, they're not '''normal''' human body peoples?!?! what hte?!?!??eleven!!?! This book has a lot of that. I don't think I have the experience or tact to really delve into it.
It's not a horror novel, per se, despite the marketing. It's a noir mystery with religious cult horror. Don't expect cosmic horror, paranormal or supernatural horror.
The noir is present and quite clinical at times. Almost dry, but I'll chalk that up to me not liking noir [or gothic] genre at all.
Was this scary? I guess? It's scary in a gorey way. The disabled bodies were presented as horrifying and I don't think that's kind or respectful of people who are disabled or disfigured. Whether or not the author intended it, there's inescapable ableism present in the book. It was competently written and coherent, in the least.
minor vomit,
major alcohol, amputation, arson, demolition, injuries, fire, gore, gun violence, kidnapping, medical abuse, murder, police brutality, self harm, sexual content, stalking?, torture, violence
Content Warnings
Graphic: Ableism, Alcohol, Medical trauma, Medical content, Fire/Fire injury, Injury/Injury detail, Gore, Gun violence, Violence, Kidnapping, Murder, Death, Police brutality, Torture, Self harm, and Stalking
Minor: Vomit
The Hole by William Meikle
adventurous
dark
mysterious
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? N/A
3.0
β¨π my about / byf / CW info carrd: uchiha-madara π β¨
Pretty standards small town cave horror with cosmic horror origins. Unfortunately has some slight anti indigenous racism, but at least the author named the Cree Nation instead of 'random unknown tribe'.
It also has the standard sexism involved with cishet men writing horror.
Pretty standards small town cave horror with cosmic horror origins. Unfortunately has some slight anti indigenous racism, but at least the author named the Cree Nation instead of 'random unknown tribe'.
It also has the standard sexism involved with cishet men writing horror.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Body horror, Gore, Medical content, Violence, Blood, Car accident, Death, Excrement, Child death, and Gun violence
Moderate: Classism, Drug use, War, Alcohol, and Alcoholism
Minor: Racism, Xenophobia, and Ableism
The House on the Borderland by William Hope Hodgson
adventurous
emotional
mysterious
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? N/A
- Loveable characters? N/A
- Diverse cast of characters? N/A
- Flaws of characters a main focus? N/A
3.0
β¨π my about / byf / CW info carrd: uchiha-madara π β¨
I guess this is cosmic horror? Don't get me wrong, I really enjoyed it. I can appreciate ye old flavor of writing, and especially liked this story for being brief and to the point. I swear half of them wrote rambling shit like they were getting paid per word, wether that were true or not. I thought the science fiction descriptions of the manuscript portion were cool and interesting from a layperson POV and would rec this book.
PS there's some xenophobia shit about the two men [who are british I think] being real shitty about Irish people and how they speak. It's a brief paragrah but you know, just a friendly heads up for Irish folk. Fuck brits!
It's two men who go on camping trip, find a stone monument and a manuscript half buried in the location. one reads it out loud. its a recounting of a man who lived in a nearby manor house whose locarion somegow causes the man to experience out of body passage through time. Initially he wanders around his property with his dog and comes across the same stone pit the two men did. Around there is a man with a pig's head. He escapes for now. He goes out again and wanders around his property with his dog who's attacked by the pig man things. The dog is injured but lives, for now. Eventually the Pig Men discover the house where he and his sister live. They launch an assault on the house and the man boards up the windows, etc. The sster is upset about this which leads me to think the dude had a psychotic break of some kind? Which may or may night have happened. It's unclear. The man explores his house a little, falls asleep. He has another out of body experience which takes up the rest of the book. Basically he zips around space as time magically speeds up, allowing him to watch the collapse of the universe. There's a weird green star?? Idk wtf bqq, tbh. There's some shit about his Lost Love and he finds her in space and they cuddle for a while because she has to escape because the Star of Darkness or whatever is coming. The end of that story.
[continued plot spoilers]
Apparently it freaks out one of the men and he acts a lil weird but nothing comes of it. They finish their camping trip, go back to town, and some folks say yeah there was a house there but it's gone now and nobody knows what the fuck happened to it. The end, for real this time.
Oh also the man in themanuscript sees Dead Old Gods or somethings like it in the Stone Pit that the two men were camping at. Idk.
major animal death, confinement, gun violence, gore, injuries, body horror,
medium gun violence, xenophobia,
minor alcohol,
I guess this is cosmic horror? Don't get me wrong, I really enjoyed it. I can appreciate ye old flavor of writing, and especially liked this story for being brief and to the point. I swear half of them wrote rambling shit like they were getting paid per word, wether that were true or not. I thought the science fiction descriptions of the manuscript portion were cool and interesting from a layperson POV and would rec this book.
PS there's some xenophobia shit about the two men [who are british I think] being real shitty about Irish people and how they speak. It's a brief paragrah but you know, just a friendly heads up for Irish folk. Fuck brits!
It's two men who go on camping trip, find a stone monument and a manuscript half buried in the location. one reads it out loud. its a recounting of a man who
[continued plot spoilers]
Apparently it freaks out one of the men and he acts a lil weird but nothing comes of it. They finish their camping trip, go back to town, and some folks say yeah there was a house there but it's gone now and nobody knows what the fuck happened to it. The end, for real this time.
Oh also the man in the
major animal death, confinement, gun violence, gore, injuries, body horror,
medium gun violence, xenophobia,
minor alcohol,
Content Warnings
Graphic: Animal death, Gore, Confinement, Gun violence, Injury/Injury detail, and Body horror
Moderate: Gun violence and Xenophobia
Minor: Alcohol