vanmeers's reviews
491 reviews

😭😭😭 absolutely unhinged! it’s giving ‘it’s me, charlie’ vibes but if charlie had an unlimited amount of semen. 

found this on sale at forbidden planet and figured i had to grab it because it looked both adorable and creepy? literally never heard of kanako inuki before, but this feels like the perfect introduction to her work: lots of shorter stories to really get into the vibe of her horror stories! 

definitely wanna read more of her work (especially bc it feels like some of these short stories are beginnings of longer stories? or i hope so!).

thank god that ethan hawke is hot because this really isn’t the next big hit in the literary sphere. 

i listened to the audiobook narrated by hawke himself (hot, except for mostly all the sex scenes which feels impossible but yet here we are) and it was an enjoyable read. 

it’s all about a semi famous actor trying his hand at shakespeare on broadway while going through a messy divorce. all because he’s got a god complex and a dick he can’t keep in his pants. despite being an insufferable character, you really couldn’t help but being intrigued by him and his escapades. i’ll give ethan hawke that but mostly it felt like what the road by jack kerouac probably is — insufferable and pretentious but also full of sooo much sex and misogynistic written women. 

(also is this also biographical because we all know our boy hawke had his own share of cheating on his wife? and was in a shakespeare play? they say write what you know about it guess). 

gotta admit it felt like it was dragging on for ages, so many continuous reminders of ‘this is a small town’ and ‘hockey is really important!’ not to mention the danish narrator wasn’t,,, amazing. 

but it really picked up after the rape and it was impossible to put down afterwards. the pay off of all repetitive reminders and character building up until then made sense after. i absolutely was hooked and was compelled by sooo many characters. 

so yeah it was maddening how difficult it was to get past the first act of it but it’s so worth it after and i’m definitely continuing the series (also can we talk about how backman just knows how to capture the nuances and diversity in human beings and they all felt fleshed out?? love when male authors can write men and women like real human beings). 

do you love queer horror, potential alien invasions and toxic relationships? then you’ll want to devour ROTGUT! 

this little gross book comes out today and it’s the perfect book for anyone who’s into indie queer horror that’ll disgust you and make you feel all kinds of things — good and bad, actually. it’ll make you feel sick to your stomach while craving more. 

ROTGUT follows morrow, a band member of Cluster Headache, who has BPD and is currently spiralling. they’re in a toxic sort of relationship, they’re struggling to keep it together and they’re also seeing strange creatures everywhere that may or may not be real. 

the depiction of mental illness, queerness and despair is honestly on point and it makes for a pretty great read that i think most of my mutuals on here would absolutely devour. 

ROTGUT is perfect for fans of magnus thorne and eric larocca, to mention just a few authors, so yeah please read it — i know I’ll be rereading it again SOON. 

Raise your hand if you’ve ever felt lost at one time or another in your life — if you’re a Woman in Society™, then you’ll probably have felt a certain kind of loneliness that’s almost impossible to describe, but which Angela Sylvaine perfectly manages to convey in her short story collection The Dead Spot: Stories of Lost Girls. 

This collection feels both refreshingly new but achingly familiar and it contains a variety of different and unique stories of women and girls lost in one way or another. There’s stories of little girls abandoned by their parents, young girls looking to belong and of women lost to the world; there’s stories full of grief, loneliness and sadness.

Some of my favourite stories were: 

The Dead Spot is honestly a pretty strong collection of stories, that are all equally good, but they all give off different kinds of vibes within subgenres of horror — there’s some paranormal, science fiction and urban legend’ish vibes to the stories and if you’re into Jennifer’s Body and Yellowjackets there’s two stories that are giving everything you’d wish for. Not to mention, there’s a good amount of queer stories and characters in this collection, so that’s a huge win to me. 

Overall, a really solid horror short story collection and if you’re looking to read something by Sylvaine for the first time, this is a good starting point (but I would highly recommend Frost Bite by her as well though!). 

// ARC received by the author for an honest review.

the zombie story was so gross 👌 but this is mostly one of sonnet’s less extreme or gory collections! 

i’m your papa is still very much a collection that’s eerie and somewhat gross, full of twists and what feels like classic sonnet’ stories but definitely more low-key horror. 

it’s a perfect collection for anyone who wants to read judith sonnet, but who wants to steer clear of the extreme horror stuff that she writes.  so if you wanna give her books a try, definitely read this — and if you’re into the extreme and grotesque, read it anyway! it’s worth it! 

it’s unnerving how realistic a scenario this is but like THAT ball gag scene was soooo gross.  i would simply kms if that happened to me. jessie is stronger than i am lmao

also buddy read some of this with my sister, sharing the same kindle, on a plane ride from england and that’s called ✨ sisterly bonding ✨ 

not judith sonnet somehow making STDs even more unappealing than they already are !!!!