Horror – Nonfiction and Nonsense

The Black Farm by Elias Witherow

I think I picked the absolutely most perfect book to start off my reading for this month. Being that it is October, horror and thriller novels are the only ones that I thought would do for the theme. The first chapter was devastating, the couple having lost all hope and having decided to act on the only solution they could think of. The second chapter was disgusting, horrifying, and brutal. I was appalled and intrigued by what was to come if those first few chapters were only the prelude of upcoming misery and terror. What an opening, I was almost dreading what I was going to be reading if the first few pages grossed me out that much. The author was correct when they stated that this book was not for the faint of heart, I could tell that much was true only twenty pages in.

The first few chapters are indeed the most brutal, in my opinion. But I found myself saying ‘gross’ or ‘ew’ out loud several more times. I was more vocal while reading this book than I have been in a long time. This book literally has all the triggers, it was in turns stomach churning, depressing, violent, graphic, and hopeless. The entire time I was reading it I was thinking that there is no way anything good was going to happen to our lead character or any of the characters in the story. I was honestly shocked with the outcome, because throughout the entire story it just felt like things were leading towards a particularly grim resolution. I found myself wondering if the author was in an ok place when they wrote this, because it seems like only a very troubled mind could have come up with many of the scenes. You will know what I am talking about if you ever decide to pick this up. I would suggest that you yourself be in an ok place mentally when you read this because it can be off putting, and that’s putting it nicely. And maybe don’t read it right before bed. I didn’t have nightmares exactly, just very unusual dreams, when I did read it right before going to sleep. The story just fills you with an awful desperation in your soul along with feelings of dread for its entirety. I don’t know if I will ever be able to find another book like this. If you have suggestions, please let me know! I think that as of right now, this is officially the most disturbing book that I have ever read. Is it sinister that I want to try to find something to top it?

This Thing Between Us by Gus Moreno

Fiction

This book had me deeply interested in parts one and two, but it started to lose me towards the middle of part three. By part four, I was out.

Proclaimed to be a horror story, it gives both that and psychological thriller. You can’t decide if there actually is a supernatural presence haunting the main character or if they are going crazy due to extreme grief. But you might get scared regardless of whether or not the events are actually happening to the main character as a lot of what is described is rather disturbing. Besides the scare factor, this story also has a gross factor. Brutal dismemberments, body disfigurements, violent attacks, this tale has the works. It is not the worst story I have read in terms of making me go ‘ew’ but I would put it on my list.

I can’t say much more without giving away too much of the story, but I will say that it is worth reading. You’re left wondering about what really happened throughout the course of the events and what the aftermath is going to be. Finishing this book had me on the verge of considering a philosophical question, but I never actually got to figuring out what that question might be.

The Lost Village by Camilla Sten

Fiction

I had a really great time with this book. Until the very end I could not tell if what was going on in the village was real or a paranormal incident. I won’t spoil anything for you, I’ll just give a little background on the plot.

Alice is an aspiring filmmaker, and by aspiring I mean that she went to school for it and has had no success or real life experience in the field yet. Everyone she had classes with seems to be doing well and having success in their careers, yet she can’t seem to land a job. Filming a documentary about an abandoned village in Sweden has been something she has been dreaming of doing her entire life, and she finally has gotten enough money, volunteers, and resources together to begin the project. She’s done the research, rented all the necessary equipment, and sourced together a few good friends to help her scout out the area and take preliminary photos and videos. It seems that she has done all the necessary prep work to make the project go smoothly, including intense research of the area and sourcing former residents of the village to interview. But once she and her crew are in the village all the research in the world has not prepared her for when things start to go wrong almost immediately.

The back cover has it right, it does feel like you are reading a book that would be akin to the Blair Witch Project. It’s a little spooky, mysterious, and has psychological elements. I also really enjoyed reading a thriller that took place in Sweden. I love the Girl with the Dragon Tattoo series, and while this book was nothing like those books it for some reason made me want to go back and read the whole series again. It also made me want to read another book by this author, titled The Resting Place. So if you decide to read The Lost Village and enjoy it, maybe you will also be interested in another work by the author. If you get to it before I do, let me know what you think!

Perfume: The Story of a Murderer by Patrick Suskind

Fiction

I watched the film adaptation of this novel many years ago, well before I knew that it was taken from a book. I actually only very recently found out that Perfume was a novel when I saw it during one of my book store wanderings. Even though I’ve only seen the movie once I remember it well because the story was so interesting, and the fact that Alan Rickman was in it was also a contributing factor. I was hoping that my experience reading the book would leave me just as stricken as I felt after watching the movie. Hope can only go so far, as I wouldn’t say that the book had as much of an impact on me as the film did. But I will say that the actors, writers, and director, did a great job at sticking pretty closely to the story. And as for reading the story, it made me want to watch the movie again.

The tale is about a man who is born with an incredible sense of smell. He can smell things that no other human, and perhaps even animals with the most sensitive olfactories, can detect. He truly lives to smell, nothing else in life brings him joy but the pursuit of new scents. For many years during his youth, he walks blindly through the streets of Paris, using his sense of smell to guide the way, as he tries to discover every smell that exists. As he enters adulthood, he leaves Paris, entering a very strange period of his life during which he makes an incredible revelation. I was honestly surprised that it took him as long as it did to have this realization. Having made this startling discovery, his life’s purpose goes from sniffing out scents to learning how to make them.

I would recommend both the book and the movie to anyone who loves bizarre stories. I can see why the author is a bestseller, especially if his other books are just as good.

The Handyman Method by Nick Cutter and Andrew F. Sullivan

Fiction

This book was very bizarre, and it got more so the deeper I delved into it. I was desperately trying to figure out what was going on with the dad for the first few chapters. Was he actually going crazy? Was he imagining things due to the trauma of an incident, or was he just genetically predisposed to have mental health issues that were now starting to manifest? Or, were the voices and images actually real?

I was leaning towards ghosts or a haunting of some kind, especially when things started going on with the son too. Once the little boy started to see weird things I thought that this would be the extent of the troubles with this family, but then things started going on with the mother as well. It turned out that she was why all this strangeness was happening but I still couldn’t figure out why, I couldn’t figure out her motive. Her point of view chapters are when things started to make a little bit sense, the mystery started to unravel with her monologues. She didn’t outright say what was going on until much later, but she gives you enough of a hint in those earlier chapters to begin to figure it out.

Besides the hearing of voices, seeing strange things, and mental instability, there is a lot of gross imagery to go along with this story. You’ll read through descriptions of creepy dolls and figures, bugs, slime and mold, squirming rodents, and bodily disfigurement. There is a lot of verbiage in this story that is so good at making you picture what is going on that you might curl your lip in disgust. The scare factor was good, but the disgusting factor was better.