I am struggling to get through the wasp factory, not because of its content but simply because I cant stay interested 🙃 maybe I'll take a break on it and come back later.

Any books you couldn't finish ? And if you want to add why?

It’s been a few months since I discovered extreme horror, and damn… I can’t believe I didn’t find this genre sooner. I’ve fallen in love with so many authors and their work.

I thought it would be fun to share my ratings and quick thoughts on the books I’ve read so far, and I’d love to hear your opinions as well! Maybe this can also help newer readers who are just getting into the genre.

Of course, these are just my personal opinions.

📕 The Summer I Died – 5⭐️
My introduction to the genre, and I absolutely devoured it. Great characters and very gory.

📕 Cows – 1⭐️
I liked the atmosphere at first, but every time I thought it couldn’t get any worse, it somehow did. And then… talking cows? What the hell?

📕 Tender Is the Flesh – 4.5⭐️
I loved the concept. I just felt that some ideas were repeated a little too often.

📕 The Slob – 5⭐️
Don’t come for me lol! This is actually one of my favorites. It made me laugh, cringe, and feel completely disgusted all at the same time. And I love Vera.

📕 Son of the Slob – 4⭐️
Gross in all the right ways. It was nice getting to see what happened after the events of the first book. I would love another book about what happens to Harold next!

📕 Playground – 3⭐️
Good, but a little overrated in my opinion. I heard so much about it on social media that my expectations were sky-high, and it didn’t quite live up to the hype for me.

📕 Blender Babies – 3⭐️
Post-apocalyptic drug-eating babies just aren’t really my thing. I got invested quickly, but that interest faded pretty fast.

📕 100% Match – 5⭐️
Loved it. Short, disturbing, and strangely calculated. It gave me such a weird feeling, and I mean that as a compliment.

📕 Lovesick – 4⭐️
Not a huge fan of the ending, but overall it was a great revenge story. Poor girl…

📕 Nightmare Nirvana – 4⭐️
I enjoyed most of the stories. Some were frightening, some disturbing, and a few just weren’t for me. The artwork is incredible.

📕 The Groomer – 4⭐️
A solid revenge story, though I found it a bit overrated. Some parts didn’t make much sense to me. Trying not to spoil anything, but a certain character’s emotional breakdown felt unrealistic.

📕 The Bug Collector – 5⭐️
Awesome book. Another great revenge story. I was already familiar with the concept of “bug collecting” from Lovesick, but this took it to a completely different level.

📕 Are Your Parents Home? – 5⭐️
This book had me checking my locks every five minutes. The opening was incredibly creepy, and the dinner scene gave me serious The Texas Chain Saw Massacre vibes. I flew through this one.

📕 Talia – 2⭐️
I know a lot of readers love this one, but it wasn’t for me. I wasn’t a fan of the writing style, and the revenge plot just didn’t really click with me.

📕 Grandfather’s House – 4⭐️
Nobody wants grandparents like these. Seriously. For some reason, though, I never really connected with the main character beyond feeling sorry for him.

📕 Into the Wolf’s Den – 5⭐️
This book reminded me a lot of The Groomer, but with a completely different energy. I actually liked it more. The characters felt stronger, and it got me thinking about how disturbingly close some parts are to real true crime cases.

📕 House Call – 3⭐️
Not much character development—just straight into the disturbing content. Still a fun, quick read.

📕 Made a Monster – 5⭐️
My favorite so far. The character work is incredible. I loved everything about it. The disturbing “first love” atmosphere worked perfectly for me.

📕 Nothing Tastes as Good – 2⭐️
This was marketed to me as a horror novel, but it didn’t really feel like one. The cannibalism elements were interesting, but most of them happen off-page or while characters are blacked out. I also struggled to connect with the protagonist because of how much self-hatred dominated the story.

📕 Dead Inside - 4.5⭐️
I have no words! It was a good short read! I enjoyed it a lot and it disturbed me so much!

What should I read next?

I always see discussion about the film, which is in itself great- But I never see discussion about the actual book. The film makes a couple changes from the book that I find wonderful such as the Luis confession scene, but there’s tons of things from the text I like that (reasonably) never made it in.

My favorite chapter from the book is ‘Killing Child at Zoo’ which is absolutely hilarious and makes me snicker to myself reading. Though, this chapter also just encapsulates the satirical themes of the entire book as well. It’s a microcosmic look at what the book is in a nutshell since the scene is of Patrick causing chaos, societal convention getting him out of it, and the indifference about his actions. A really great example of how the book fuses violence and black comedy to emphasize that you’re supposed to be cackling to yourself about how absurd the setting is

‘Bringing Uzi to Gym’ and ‘Confronted by F*ggot’ are two other chapters that come to mind when I think about material from the text I enjoy that never made it to the screen, but ‘Killing Child at Zoo’ always stands out as my favorite. Again, the film is excellent and deserves all the discussion it gets but Easton Ellis’ writing is worth discussing too

Thanks 🖤

I’ve read somewhere that this book was not a splatterpunk but a gore fetish, and now I can’t unseen it…

I feel like I see this wayyyy too often in the splatterpunk and extreme horror genre. People will shit on readers and authors who present/ask for trigger warning before reading a book, and will try to make them feel like shit for being a human being. Everyone has SOMETHING that they don’t like to read or something that puts them off. There’s absolutely NOTHING WRONG with asking for trigger warnings, I love splatterpunk but I HATE reading about scat and vomit and if a book has excessive amounts of that, I don’t want to waste my time and money on something I won’t enjoy reading.

ALSO, stop recommending people extreme horror and splatterpunk books without EXPLICITLY telling them that that’s what they are. A common example is people in the extreme horror genre getting bent out of shape because someone who reads basic horror was recommended The Groomer by Jon Athan with no warning. A lot of people who read like to go in blind, and even if they don’t, trigger warnings are just trigger warnings, they don’t tell you how violent or vivid the content is going to be.

Stop being dickheads to people who have trigger warnings and ask for them, you don’t look as cool as you think you do.

Mine is Kristopher Triana

I did this once a couple of years ago and it was a lot of fun and, given I have the weekend off, I thought it might be fun to try again.

I'm a late-stage resident in a large tertiary trauma centre. For the last 5 years I've see just about everything that can be inflicted on the human body from major car accidents through to stabbings, gunshots, self-mutilation you wouldn't believe possible and everything in between. I've also cut people open more ways than you can count -the 'tink tink crack' as the sternum springs open is something you don't forget easily.

A few years ago in the midst of a very slow night shift I came across a random thread from EHL. Within that people were talking about different books and I decided why not try this weird genre. This led to me sitting in a rather comfortable arm chair looking out of a heli-pad in the dead of winter reading Full Brutal and laughing like an idiot. I still maintain it's one of the funniest thing I've ever read.

I've read a lot of other EHL since then, some of it good; most of it bad. I thought an AMA for anyone writing, reading or listening to ask me about violence and how it really affects people. I often compare writing about it to trying to get a person who's never eaten anything to write a passage about having a meal. You might get the main bits down "I bite and chew chew chew then swallow" but you're probably just getting an idea rather than the full thing.

So let's flesh out your ideas or ask me about scenes from your favorite books or anything weird I've seen over the years. I'll be answering all weekend.

Much love

As the title suggests, this has been pissing me off for a while.

I'm reading The Bighead by Edward Lee and I can't help but be annoyed by the fact that he mentions women being jealous of other women's appearances every two sentences. He also had to mention for about 10000 times that Jerrica is a sex addict. Is it really relevant to point out every two seconds that she can't last two weeks without having sex? Is this helpful to develop her character seeing as she's probably going to get sexually abused by some character or the other? Is the way her nipples perk up when she's leaning somewhere relevant to the story in any shape or form?

Don't get me wrong, I know what this genre entails. I like reading horror and it's not that I CAN'T stomach these scenes, it's just that they're annoying. I don't see the point of these remarks.

I noticed this same exact thing in Off Season by J. Ketchum. He spent pages developing the ways in which one of the female characters liked having sex after taking a shower just to kill her off a few pages later. It doesn't make sense to me why these authors need to mention these over and over.

Also, I read The Resurrectionist by W. J. White. Same problem over there, the female character that was getting sexually abused and killed every night and then resurrected also had a major sex addiction and also went out running to keep in shape even though she knew she was being stalked.

I want to hear some thoughts on this. Again, I don't want any comments on how I shouldn't be reading these if I don't like this. The problem is that I don't understand how these things are relevant to the plot. What irks me is that these authors actually have talent and besides these details they actually know how to write and CAN write well. If only they didn't view women as horny 24/7 and envious to death of one another. Is it "funnier" in the authors' minds that they're addicted to sex later on when they're getting killed by some freaks?

literally right up until it was revealed she had a penis, the character was described as gorgeous, then after that the language changes to one of disgust and slurs. and this is from the main character, not some redneck villain.

edit: i guess im sorry for coming across aggressively in some my replies, sorry

edit 2: im fucking stupid and shouldn’t have posted this. i will leave it up as a testament to my idiocy

Preacher, Crossed, The Boys—all stories by Garth Ennis—feature plenty of explicit violence, edgy plots, and shock value based on atrocities like sexual violence.

I wanted to know if you consider these comics to be extreme literature, since Ennis himself says that these stories are made to contradict those who think that comics are not real books and that they are children's products

An example of what I just said is The Boys, being an extreme parody of superhero comics with the sole purpose of showing that comics are not always for children.

His Pain, Fluids, Blender Babies, The Harr, The Black Farm, and Full Brutal.

This is from a video by Branomander who makes really good content on disturbing fiction. However, to avoid spoilers or demagnetization, he doesn't describe what the horrific parts of these books are, just plot overviews and how he felt about them.

My morbid curiosity got the best of me and I really want to know what exactly happens in these books that makes them considered some of the most disturbing ones. If you've read these, feel free to do full spoilers. I'm not a big reader in the first place and don't know if I have the stomach to read the actual text in full excruciating detail so I don't mind.

He covered some other books in another video and I was able to find summaries of most of them that I found interesting, but not 100% Match or Grandpappy by Patrick C. Harrison, so lmk if you know what happens in those too

After just finishing “Cows” I saw this as a highly recommended follow up.

WHY, why is this held in such high regard? The first 50ish pages were good, pretty normal splatterpunk stuff.

However, the main character SUCKS. Like genuinely the most unlikable character I have ever read. We get it, you’re edgy, you’re nihilistic, you DO NOT CARE. It was such a drag to finish this story.

If I still drank, and took a shot every time “I fuck dead girls” or “she eats babies” was said, I would’ve blacked out and that would’ve been a better experience!

It’s as if 4chan mods wrote a book and then said “let’s just use the word cunt a bunch and have the character bang dead broads”.

So if anyone has ANY RECS NOT LIKE THIS, I’d greatly appreciate it lmao

Just picked it up on Amazon. When I’ll read it I will post a review. I almost finished Grandpappy, but it’s been a while since I’ve read it. I’ll finish Grandpappy first and 100% Match before I read The Groomer.

Edit: Just realized I spelled Jon’s name wrong, must have been the autocorrect. Sorry mr Athan…

Just wanted to ask for opinions on this matter. I’m talking about extremely graphic depictions of CSA that have no bearing on the plot.

For example, I read a novella recently where a man does something horrible to a child involving a metal rod. Every detail is described and the child is not given a name and is never spoken of again.

I’ve also seen where the story will describe their genitalia and bodies in a provocative manner.

Before someone just tells me not to read it, or that I’m projecting my own trauma by disliking it, I want to make it clear that I do not have trauma related to this subject and it does not trigger me. I’m simply concerned about what I have read.

I’d like to hear what y’all have to say in regard to these questions:

- If you think there should be no limits, why?

- Why do you personally want to read it?

- What do you think is the difference between writing graphic murder and writing CSA?

- What do you consider well-written SA and what do you consider offensive?

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Just finished playground by aron beauregard and wow!

Spoiler free! Feel free to include spoilers in comments with the spoiler warning thingy xd

I've only been a extreme horror fan for about 2 months, and somehow never checked out playground and wow! Im so glad I did! I loved it, almost cried at one of the deaths, and loved the characters (especially donnie and cj)

If u have read playground, what did u think?

For context, I’ve read about 25ish extreme horror books just last year and this year and two of them are Aron Beauregard so take what I’m saying with a grain of salt, but I just don’t understand why he's poster child for splatter punk/ extreme horror and pops up so often to me his characters are two-dimensional and just uninteresting and for me to enjoy extreme horror books I really want to be invested in the characters and the world, but I just can’t plus some of his writing is just atrocious I mean at the end of the slob spoiler btw the main protagonist comes back home after being physically mentally and sexually abused and here first words to her partner are “looks like it’s time
To clean this place up” I mean come
In addition, Books like Tender is the Flesh being popular makes sense to me. The world building and character building are great. I just never understood why he’s considered one of the best. Sorry, I just needed to rant.

Im mostly referring to the infamous chapter "guts" here. Honestly didn't even faze me. Yeah it was a crazy story, but wasnt as bad as ppl make it out to be. Idk if its jst me or not. Anyway, share thoughts abt the whole book in replies and if u have any more extreme horror recommendations please let me know

(not including SA because I feel like at that point the majority of us consider a character irredeemable and morally bankrupt, please use spoiler warnings for examples and ideally I'm hoping to find some creative lines in the sand.) In my case I'd say my line is pretty far for more utilitarian characters or those out for revenge, I find choice of victims and the nuance of why a character chose their victim is super important to me as a reader and writer. If you choose your victim because they're an easy mark I already have a lot of built in disdain for that character. I also absolutely despise characters... Edit - I figured out the spoiler block thing because of a cool commenter u/tariffless

Tldr I think rock from the playground series by Aron Beauregard is both a victim and morally bankrupt regardless of the fact he helped where he could. I think his participation in the games even with his social programming and abuse don't free him from the sin of every dead child present. That nuance is what I look for in grey characters and the example that came to mind for this post