Agree 100% with your take on Things Have Gotten Worse....when I heard what the plot was, I was like "this is totally my jam". But it was so disappointing. And yeah, the pompous tone, especially when they're discussing the apple peeler at the beginning, drove me nuts.
The pompous tone would have definitely worked if it had… you know, gone somewhere! 😂 That book truly left me with the infuriated final thought of, “This was all so pointless.” Remember when the author made a big fucking point about “redacted passages” but they only redacted like two bits of text and then forgot to use that motif altogether on the latter half and then the whole redacted thing never tied into the end or worked for anything? Brilliant writing.
One of my favorite things about the Watership Down movie is how the violence is never just for shock. All the disturbing scenes feel very organic, if that makes sense. Not at all like the cheap horror you get from most films
Absolutely, and moreover just because it’s “animal violence” it doesn’t feel sensationalized or surreal. It’s just natural violence, part of the natural world, and it is horrifying!
The point you made at 7:55 summarizes my entire problem with transgressive fiction. Like, there has to be SOMETHING to the violence, you have to say something in your story or it's just meaningless and ineffective IMO.
Agreed with your sentiment, but to me, it’s what makes transgressive fiction stand out from extremity. I feel that “transgression,” in the sense that Foucault defined at least, always has a consciousness around where violence comes from and why it’s enacted, and it’s what makes it meaningful to me. Extremity and shock writing feel like they just use these subjects as toys to play around, and not concepts to be explored.
I knew Foucault was going to show up on this channel eventually!!! I tried to help my kid with a paper but post modernism has slipped from my mind...all I could do was confirm that his chosen theorist Hannah Arendt was in the right milieu...but there's enough left in mind to spark when you say this, and to start overanalyzing the form of the form...
If it was difficult to find shocking news stories, photos, or such, I would see a place for pure shock, but since one can easily access the darkness of humanity, and use it for whatever analytic purposes desired, there seems to be no point to creating shock, and it always seems to seep more into the creator than into anything the reader/viewer/listener can use. GG Allin was ultimately a creative construct, but I don't think it meant much to anybody but GG Allin. Whereas I lived next door to a foundational post punk band, Fugazi, who were not living punk every second, they were working artists, and clearly had much discipline (more beer than they let on, but that's the worst thing I can say, it seems the straight edge occasionally wobbled with bud light parties). And their work is not wayyyy out there, but I think is mainly transgressive, and it can be built upon, studied with purpose, reconfigured, etc in the quest for meaning. Whereas GG Allin is just a historical oddity. His work is evidence of violence, but we have digitized newspapers and combat video, and we don't need choreography added to weird raw impulses, that's what human sexuality is for...
"And does... extreme horror stuff to her," - Juan 😂😂😂 This cracked me up. The worst extreme horror novel I've ever read was "Dead Inside." It tried so hard to be edgy and nihilistic but it was just pompous and annoying and not written very well in my opinion. I find it odd how many extreme horror authors choose to be as extreme as possible over any strong writing. Just because it's extreme doesn't mean that there should be a lack of plot, characterization, and consistency. Those things make it more disturbing in my opinion. I hate "Survivor," although I will admit "The Slob," entertained me in a trash sort of way. Anais Nin, never read her but I've heard nothing but amazing things about her writing so I'm a bit surprised to hear a negative, but glad to hear it from someone I actually trust. Last point, I hate to use the word love, but I really love "The Girl Next Door." One of the thing I think it excels at is the realism. It could absolutely happen. It's horrifying and made me sob when I read it, and it is absolutely one of the most disturbing books I've ever read.
I will admit, I have zero plans to ever check out Chandler Morrison. Everything assures me it’s more of the same, which is decidedly not for me. I do see how some of these can be enjoyed as trash, and I hope my viewers will also know me as a trash lover. 😂 However, to me, for these titles, even the trashiness felt too forced. 😔 The Girl Next Door is a masterpiece, and I “love” it as well!
@emoluver619 I had heard that. I think it's still hard for some authors to main realistic even when portraying real events, but Jack Ketchum does a good job.
I've learned that I have a very low tolerance for sadism for sadism's sake. I don't like it in general but when it's clear the author is writing one-handed, I realize that I've nonconsensually been tricked into reading someone's porn fantasy and I feel personally violated.
Some of the most disturbing books I’ve read would be the Girl next Door (which I read in early 2000’s) and more recently Such Nice People. The later legit creeped me out. I have a video recommendation; I think it would be cool if you shared with us the inspiration behind each of your short stories in Poking Holes. I am very curious about how you came up with some of those concepts.
I have a copy of Such Nice People! This comment assures me it’ll be something fierce. 😂 And there’s a livestream I did with Jared (the Poking Holes illustrator) where I went into detail behind the inspiration of some stories, if you’re interested!
Oh man. I read Innocent World about a year ago and it left me weirdly disassociated (especially after a particular scene)... I convinced myself that there HAD to be a reason for it all, a method to the madness, but it was as you said; shock value. I can handle almost anything disturbia can throw at me but the weird way this author seemed to obsess over how traumatic or how disturbing she can make a scene was strange. Nobody I know has read it so I haven't been able to talk about it. Thank you for bringing it up!
I felt entirely the same, and I am happy I am not alone in that reception! Yes, like I TRIED to say here haha, but I don’t know how well it came across: It was such a real and profound topic and set of characters, but the tone just felt like it squandered so much of that in order to go for the in-your-face transgression.
I didn't mind the conversations in Survivor; I think it was kind of a neat idea for the villain and victim to talk and see each other's humanity before the inevitable violent conflict. The only problem is that the author lacks the writing talent to pull it off.
Our dude is looking FIT!!!! I refuse to watch anyone else who covers this subject matter other than him, and Mique. I would adore a crossover video! Haha
Currently planning a surrealist short story that I want to hit those disturbing horror beats, and vids like this are so helpful -- even if I disagree with an opinion, knowing what didn't work and why for others is great guidance. time to binge your channel now !
Pretty sure I’ve mentioned this before, but it begs repeating. I asked a large group of extreme horror fans to give tell me the most well written, best example of the genre. Tight plots. Fully realized characters. You know. Good writing. I waited as the responses rolled in. …and it was pretty much every book on your list. This video is spot on. Nailed it! If you like this stuff, fine. But please be willing to admit that TASTE IS SUBJECTIVE, BUT SKILL IS NOT SUBJECTIVE.
YES. I think these authors would benefit A LOT if they were just upfront and honest about the fact that, “Hey, we’re just here to sell books!” THAT would altogether appease those of us who approach literature not as a cash grab but as a passionate hobby. Cash grab books and truly transgressive, confrontational literature both belong to horror, but they MUST exist in separate discussion spaces, I feel.
just binged all your disturbing book videos and you look so different compared to the older videos! looking very good and love the content and how in depth you go when describing books
Holy shit, I'm so glad I'm not alone with my opinion on I'm Thinking of Ending Things. I just..did not give a shit. I tried the movie because I thought maybe I just missed something, but nope I still didn't care. I'm hoping to read We Spread soon so I can see if it was just the book or maybe if Reid just isn't for me. We've briefly talked about extreme horror before and I'm 100% with you, especially wrt to certain current horror darlings.
I've heard very mixed things about JF Gonzalez as a writer, and I haven't read him myself yet, though the Lifetime Achievement award was named after him for his behind the scenes work as much as it was his writing. That said, atrocious editing is a huge problem with modern extreme horror/splatterpunk books and some Bizarro books too. Editing is hard and tedious, and even major publications go out with mistakes, but take some damn pride in your works and don't let them go to print with multiple typos on every single page. I'm a member of a few Facebook groups for indie horror books and it really bothers me to see an author or other readers get bitchy when someone points out a book is full of typos. Why are you even writing if you care so little about the most basic things about it? That's one of the reasons I appreciate this channel so much. You take the indie extreme stuff seriously, look at it honestly, and have good enough tastes to call out this kind of thing.
Sounds like JF Gonzalez got the Laymon treatment: Beloved figure within the community, but terrible at the typewriter. Seriously, I am not even asking for “editing” at the level of pristine proofreading. I am begging these authors to at least learn the difference between “peak” and “peek.” 😭 I would not survive in any of these Facebook groups. Their narrow-mindedness would have me wanting to fight on the daily. And thank you for the kind words on my channel! I am seriously speaking from nowhere except the place of a fan of this stuff who wants to see it better exemplified!
Agree with 26:43. Also I've never read The Girl Next Door nor seen the film, but the story was familiar, and I remember I watched the movie 'An American Crime' that similarly draws from Sylvia Likens' story, and watching that movie left me feverish 💀
Once again, your opinions are S tier. I haven't found another person who has a Thing(TM) against I'm Thinking of Ending Things the way I do. The movie is so much better- Kaufman was able to pick out the little threads of brilliance and sew something a lot more profound out of it. AND DON'T GET ME STARTED ON SURVIVOR 🤬🤬🤬
I remember when we read Survivor and it was so unintentionally hilarious. It was hard for me to believe anyone took it seriously. I found it mildly entertaining at times, but you are correct in describing it like a Hallmark movie. I do like some bad disturbing books, but even I have limits, and one of them is a lack of an interesting narrative. I'm reading The Light at the End right now and that type of story is very fun for me. There is an interesting, "B Movie" story in there with moments of splatter, but the story, fun, and love of current (80s) pop culture seems to be what is most important. I know a lot of people are into many of the books you mentioned here, but I don't enjoy "extreme for extreme sake" I like it because it peppers an otherwise interesting premise. It blows my mind that Charlie Kaufman would adapt I'm Thinking of Ending Things. I haven't read or watched the adaptation, but it's hard for me to picture such a great writer enjoying a piece of fiction the way you described it.
Always appreciate your thoughtful comments. Saves me from wasting my time with books that I probably wouldn’t enjoy. Although I do plan to give Survivor a try because of the praise it gets. How about making a video of every book you have. Just showing us the cover and mentioning the title. I kept looking around you at the shelves to see what else you have.
17:09 I love this running joke of you saying that title wrong. I remember in the og review you called it Things Have Gotten Worse Since We Last Talked About Kevin 🤣🤣🤣
I have mixed feelings about Anais Nin. I haven't read Delta of Venus, but the stories I have read had this frustrating pattern where they ended just as they reached an interesting concept. They often felt like the intros to much longer stories which were never completed.
Hey Juan! Awesome vid! I particularly liked the comparison between Talia and Ketchum's book. Though I haven't read it, I liken the execution of Talia, as you described it, to a soloist in a musical piece who throws his best idea at the beginning of the solo only to peter out as the solo progresses. I've read a couple of Ketchum's books and boy does he build on idea after idea well.
I’ve read the first 8 from your list and mostly agree with you. I think Watership Down is a great book, but I’ve never seen the movie. Also, thank you for saying that Survivor feels like a lifetime movie. That’s exactly the vibe I got from it but couldn’t put it into words. I think the guts of that book is an extremely messed up story that had potential, but the unnecessary characterization of the “co-star” and the complete tone change of the chase at the end baffled me.
I no longer have the patience for fiction, and am knee deep in research projects that fill my reading time, so I finally acknowledged that I am not going to read Watership Down. So I read the Wikipedia plot summary. Not exactly the traumageddon I anticipated. However, I think the memory I have is a combo of Watership down and velveteen rabbit. And, to this day literally, I always think either Marlon Brando or Sal mineo did voice work for the movie, but really, I've combined Watership down with on the waterfront, also never seen, but vaguely associated with a brooding hottie of the 50s... ooof my brain is not good.
Great analysis on these books. The only ones I've read of these are Watership Down, Woom, and Things have gotten Worse... I enjoyed Watership as a fantasy novel(yes, the movie was more disturbing), and was amused by Woom. However, I found Things have gotten Worse to be very underwhelming.
Oh god, I agree with every single one of these! But the worst one I have ever read is a very short story called baby in a blender, it was so pathetic and badly written and trying so hard to be edgy.
super refreshing to see you counteract the opinions of the majority of reviews on this site, I believe in particular, with things have gotten worse, that it portrays queer women as a commodity, and as a lesbian, it just felt like a parody, except not funny. I just think the portrayal and use of queer women for shock value was weird
I was disappointed by Haunted, I read Guts as a short story beforehand, and while the rest of the book has some exciting moments... I found it extremely repetitive and had a hard time pushing through to the end. All the characters became boring mush in my head. Good video! Thanks!
I remember very much enjoying I’m Thinking of Ending Things when I read it a year or two ago! Even in the more meandering parts it still felt tense to me and kept my attention, though I’m interested to see if my thoughts have changed since then if given a reread. Very fun and interesting video overall though!
Thank you so much for watching! Of course, you are absolutely not alone in your enjoyment of I’m Thinking of Ending Things. I think by now we should just know I expect very different things out of a “disturbing” book haha!
My friend, I think this is now one of my favourite videos from your channel! I also think this conversation was necessary, and as always, you providing us with the sincerity that characterizes your personal exploration of horror that gives so much to everyone of us. About "SURVIVOR"... you what I felt when I read it? Like the same disappointment I had with "The Poughkeepsie Tapes": it had everything on its side, the atmosphere, the themes, the fucked-up situations, a great found-footage aesthetic like few in this genre... and then... the killer-kidnapper opens his mouth... and talks.. and screams stuff... and spoils the whole thing -_- (at least for me). That same feeling.
Thank you so much for such kind and flattering words I feel truly unworthy of! I actually liked Poughkeepsie Tapes a lot haha, but THERE’S another issue I find with a lot of extreme horror books: They all seem heavily inspired by horror MOVIES, but the authors don’t seem to understand that an actual image can hold by default much more power than a poor description of one, which is what they all fill their books with. :(
I'm new to your channel and have really enjoyed all the videos I have sat through! My biggest pet peeve in any kind of book, but especially that of horror or thriller, is when an author isn't patient with their subject matter enough and jump the gun to get to "the good parts" that it stops the narrative head on. I was told The Thing Between Us by Gus Moreno was a fantastic new talent and I needed to read...but oh god, this was so bare bones, basic stuff that when the book did do anything I would consider interesting, it falls flat on it's face by it's pacing and absolute need to tell you through references how much the author knows about horror.
OH MY GOD. Thank you so much for making me never pick that book up. When horror novels are just a vessel for authors to flex their “horrorhead” muscles… Insufferable to me.
@@PlaguedbyVisions no joke, it kept doing that thing with King work specifically-and no disrespect at all, but it was like...obnoxious to the point that it kept using tropes King uses and gets to the point of "wow, so...this is it huh?" okay. Especially animal tropes King has done...I mean fuck the mc finds a st Bernard and I'm like "NOOOOO THIS IS LAUGHABLE, STOP."
Rapidly becoming my favorite book-tuber online. Fantastic analysis and nuanced reviews. I look forwards to more content & your inevitable ascension to the upper tiers of UA-cam fame.
I agree that I'm Thinking of Ending Things was a bad book. I gave up on it too. However, the film adaptation by Charlie Kaufman is actually really good. I recommend giving it a go. Speaking of film vs movie, I saw a film adaptation of The Girl Next Door and was not crazy about it. I'm wondering if you've seen the film and what you thought. It just made me angry how the boy just let it all happen even though he supposedly cared about her. Is the book the same way? Because in the film the utter lack of agency drove me batty.
The book is absolutely the same, and that lack of agency is what makes it so disturbing. At least I truly felt the ensnaring culture of the 50s fully closing around this kid: He’s a kid, already struggling with his own impotence, and there is absolutely nowhere he can turn to for help.
I'm glad someone agrees with me about The Slob! It'd been hyped up in the extreme horror subreddit that I got giddy going into it. I found it to be pretty tedious, and for little reward. Half the book was just needless backstory, and by the time we actually meet The Slob himself, he feels like an afterthought. I found the ending to be ridiculous too - it was as if the author didn't have enough faith in his writing to have his protagonist show true emotional vulnerability, so had her end with a snarky one liner.
Yes, that was truly the issue: The first half feels tedious, but I stuck around because I was compelled by what it might lead to… Then what it led to was completely disjointed, so you end up with two useless halves that never make a whole. 😪
Wait, I love the idea of having videos on books/movies/etc that are actually the worst. How fun! 😂 We'll try not to cancel you for your opinions! Good to see you're doing alright, Juan ♡ The Jan 6th joke had me ROLLING.
Survivor is what got me into shock-horror books. I am not educated enough about literature to say whether it is a well written book. I only know that it has opened my mind up to the genere and I will always appreciate it for that.
Two Minutes into the video, thinking: "Haha, who's offended just because he doesn't like a book." 2 Minutes into the video: "He doesn't like that rabbit book I devoured a few times in my teens.... He's attacking me as a person!"
Gotta say, I'm surprised The Roo isn't on the list. Not sure if it's on the more distrubring side or not, though. I think you pointed out the problem with most disturbing books that fail to land, especially something like Things Have Changed Since Last Summer. It took itself too seriously and didn't have time to breathe
Juan if you can find it please look for 'Spree' by a horror writer named James Williamson. It's a great murderous psychopathic teenage boy meets murderous psychopathic girl whose father is rotting from venereal disease and they drive across the country murdering everyone they meet. And yes it has an animal cruelty scene which actually tops those unreadable few pages of Crime and Punishment. You know - the horse. I was GOING to buy The Slob but you saved me brother !
@@PlaguedbyVisions No way !!! You actually found and read that total slab of obscurity ? I went into that book with utterly zero expectations and ended up having it hit like a bullet in the gut ! (To quote you I think). I mean the kid who routinely beats his own mother and the perverted father rotting from syphilis and his hellbent mission to cross the country to murder the one person who ever treated him decently and his perpetually oozing eyeball. Sadly I don't have Instagram. Though I'm excessively sociable I can't stand any social media. But please tell me ! Did you enjoy Spree or have I judged it with all the sense of a meatball with a glitter-covered cat toy for a brain ?
@@PlaguedbyVisions And since I have your attention are you with me on demanding a full moratorium on zombie apocalypse novels where the dead rise and people have absolutely no clue what's going on ? If you join me on drawing a line on that crap it'll add heft and gravitas to my line. Any more zombie books with clueless live victims go straight in the crapper. Don't misunderstand. I support the troops but I've been suspending my disbelief on that score for decades now and am just too thin and noodly to keep doing it.
Survivor REALLY didn't do it for me and I agree more or less entirely with what you said here, it's very refreshing to see SOMEONE say it about that one. it honestly felt like the author tried to write a crime thriller, realized he'd done nothing to make it stand out, and then was like awww crap and threw in a bunch of extreme hardcore stuff to make it stand out. it's not just poorly written, but the bland writing makes the extreme horror not even feel extreme. like I agree the tone is Lifetime movie-esque. during the first snuff film scene I was basically sitting there like "that sucks" instead of like, wincing away. I also totally agree about the Bad Guy Monologues in it lol, omfg they were unbearable. Muriel/Mabel (can't remember her name) was GREAT though, but she gets into the story proper way too late... she's also probably kind of a stalk "shocking" character, but at least she has a personality and humor
I remember reading I'm thinking of ending things when I was a teenager and finding it insanely boring, pointless, confusing and not even remotely disturbing. The ending was definitely no improvement either so you definitely didn't miss out dnfing.
As I've not heard of any of the other books, I can only speak on Watership Down. Now I am someone who doesn't deal well with animal violence, however I know when I can deal with it and how to. So the points within the novel where I am reminded these are rabbits I dealt with. It's a very good book and one I do recommend although I can see how the glossary part can make it difficult or tedious. The film was much harder a row to hoe as I react stronger to animation than to live action so couple that with this story that benefited so much from being visually presented, it just a slam to the gut, especially with the inclusion of Art Garfunkel's Bright Eyes. But again, so worth the experience.
Woom was definitely a disappointment for me. There were a couple of eyebrow raising moments but overall it really didn't get under my skin or entertain me as much as the online hype lead me to believe it would. However, I absolutely LOVED Talia. It was pure edgelord filth with some pretty generic writing but I couldn't help but be entertained by it. Read parts of it to my girlfriend at the time while drinking wine in a bath on holiday. She ended up reading the rest on her own and enjoyed it too haha. #booksforaromanticgetaway
Online hype is the bane of “disturbing” discourse. I find that I am VERY lonely in my pursuit of truly confrontational literature. Most people just want the titles that get the clicks and have enough gross, empty stuff to cite. I’m glad Talia worked for you! I did not even find it entertaining. The “revenge” part specifically I skimmed, because every murder was being described the same and it was dumb and I didn’t care about anyone involved. 😂
I've never read and of J.F Gonzalez "extreme horror' stuff. But Clickers is brutal. It's like Starship troopers if a bunch of unaware civilians had to contend with the bugs on Klendathu. It's so ugly in it's honesty about how poorly equipped modern civilized people are for that kind of existential struggle.
Weird to see Innocent World get mentioned here. Ami is one of my best friends and from what I know, the book is somewhat autobiographical with some Ryu Murakami inspired flourishes.
Fascinating! I can’t believe you personally know the author! I think there’s so many factors that could be at work here, primarily the fact that it’s a translated work-so much can be lost in translation, from style to these almost unconscious inflections that can really color the entire work.
I just wanted to comment and say that I've actually seen people echo your sentiments about Survivor. So you're definitely not the only one who found it overrated. Also, out of curiosity, I was wondering if you've read Twins by Bari Wood? It's the source material for the David Cronenberg film Dead Ringers. Not sure if it would be considered extreme or not, but I've heard it is quite dark.
I’ve seen this film (not sure if it was the uncut version, but it was pretty gnarly), and no joke, I had NO IDEA it was also based on an Adams novel. Richard Adams was… doing something, wasn’t he?
I read the Girl Next Door and enjoyed it. It led me down a path reading nothing but Jack Ketchum for about 6 months. I have to admit that it was more about the real-life case that inspired it than the story itself. The "horror" I hate is the horror you described. When it feels like the author is overdoing it for shock value. No development. There is no reason for the actions. If the author (and filmmaker) doesn't care, why should I? I would have to say "Thing's have gotten worse..." is up there for being pretty underwhelming. I had high hopes, but it was a big letdown.
Loved the title and the cover of Things Have Gotten Worse...but that was it. Nice ideas, but the execution wasn't well done and some things just didn't make sense. I also didn't get all the fuss about I'm Thinking Of Ending Things. I saw the twist coming from afar (same with Foe) and I totally agree that it seemed desperate to achieve something and to be mysterious. And it totally failed to do that in my opinion.
I gasped when I saw Talia on the list. I’ll fight to defend it lol It’s very cartoonish, I’ll give you that, but honestly that’s just the charm of it. The psycho bodyguard still gives me the creeps when I think of him. It is the weaker of the trilogy though; Billy Silver outshines both of its companion novels. I think Velope has a habit of going so extreme that it’s turns out be absurd and very wtf-ish, but that’s why I enjoy it.
The Slob was a real let down for me. Just finished it yesterday. It was pitched to me as a crazy book but it just felt like a young adult book following writing conventions and but just with gore.
As someone who has read “I’m Thinking of Ending Things” and loved it, I think that part of the reason why you didn’t enjoy it is because it’s (in my opinion) not an extreme horror book. To me, it’s more of a thriller book with horror elements. At first, the book was hard for me to keep up with because of all of the confusion it caused me. But, whatever reason, that made me like the book even more. I felt disappointed by the ending at first, but the longer I thought on it, the more I decided that I liked it. *spoiler warning* To me there is something so scary about being so messed up and lonely in your own mind (which I interpret as dementia or Alzheimer’s because he is a confused old man) that you have created a fake reality for yourself and then come to realize that it’s not real at all. I am terrified of Alzheimer’s and dementia, so this book played off of my fear in a way that I will never forget.
Every time I try to read extreme horror, I always end up disappointed. The most recent one was No One Rides for Free by Judith Sonnett, and all the criticisms you have about these various books also applied to this one. I think I have a newfound appreciation for the term "torture porn" now. Because that's what this book was. In porn, the storyline, the acting, the technical aspects of the cinematography, etc., are all secondary to the fucking. The fucking is what you're there to see, so most of the time they don't even bother with the rest. Extreme horror is very similar. Narrative complexity, character depth and development, mechanics, grammar -- it's all an afterthought. And the writers of these books deflect all criticism as readers being too timid or easily offended. No, that's not remotely the case. The book just sucked.
Your last point especially is what infuriates me more: That these authors are fueled not just by subpar writing skills and a poor handle on storytelling techniques, they’re also HIGHLY defensive of their craft, even though they never truly address the criticisms towards their WRITING, just the subject matter. Like, I’m not offended that you wrote a story about murder. I’m offended that you don’t know how to write but are convinced that you do.
Great video! I loved Watership Down as a child, not sure if I was disturbed. I also loved Duncton Wood, which was perhaps a more complex tale. You say you don't dnf books, I dnf'd the first extreme horror I tried to read- The Resurrectionist by Wrath James White. I did not dnf it because it was terrifying, I dnf'd it because it was a terrible story, badly told, I can take blood. semen and shit as well as the next guy, perhaps he was offering the appetizer before the main course, I don't care. The most disturbing books I've ever read are by Sven Hassel on world war 2.
@@PlaguedbyVisions Nope, I only reached the part where he raped both of them, slit their throats and said he would see them soon. I just found the writing atrocious but still have it on my kindle. I you think I should venture further I will do so.
I HATED I'm Thinking of Ending Things. It was just a dull series of slightly odd setpieces tied together at the end through a pathetic attempt at the overused Tyler Durden twist. It erased the few mildly interesting elements and made the whole thing feel like a waste of time.
Every time i read this title i crack up. The 'worst distirbing..'..can those two things coexist ? Actually blood makes a pretty good adhesive but you gotta keep it outta the poop !! Are we hanging wallpaper ?
I admit the only one I've read is Thinking of Ending Things (Watership Down is in my collection someplace but haven't got to it yet). I was expecting a psychological thriller, as opposed to transgressive horror, and I enjoyed it until I got to the twist. That twist though 🤦♀️
I really don't have the stomach for this kind of literature and for the most part don't even care about the books you review, but your eloquence, wit and flawless comedic delivery make listening to you an absolute delight
Ooof I didn’t like Survivor either. It just wasn’t great and I didn’t care about any of the characters so didn’t care what happened. I wanted to be really effed up by it and I was so let down. One thing I really hate about a lot or extreme horror and why I don’t read it that much-especially if it’s written by a man, is the persistent use of SA of women to show how ‘edgy’ or ‘effed up’ they can be. This was great!
Isn’t it so amazing how all these books purport to be “EVEN MORE EXTREME THAN THE OTHERS,” but they’re all the same? 😂 Very one note, and the misogyny you mention bothers me to a deeper extent, because so many of these books read like the authors’ personal fantasies, and I do NOT want to be made a participant in all that mess. 🤮
Bizarro fiction disappoints just for the reasons you stated in your outro. Pacing is important, and the reader needs variation if they are to be entertained by your novel. I haven’t finished a lot of extreme horror for this reason.
Okay, I mostly agree with this, but I do have an exception: Robert Devereaux’s Santa Steps Out. The humor and bizarre elements were so masterfully controlled and expertly delivered, that it absolutely worked for me as an absurdist magic realism novel that kept getting weirder and weirder. 😂
okay while I understand that everyone has their own opinion, the whole point of I'm thinking of ending things was the ending!!!!!!!! I can't believe you couldn't finish it! Lol I'm prolly biased as hell because it is one of my favorite books ever and if it didn't grab you than Iain Reid is prob just not your thing
You know, I wonder how much expectations affect these reactions. This comment makes me realize the book may have been… mismarketed to me? 😂 I was expecting mind-bending mystery, but instead got surreal nonsense. 🤔
@@PlaguedbyVisionsMaybe it's a matter of personal taste, but it's unfortunate that you couldn't bring yourself to finish it. Reading the story in its entirety made things really come together. Going into it blind also made it very effective. A lot of your problems with the story make more narrative sense when you read it as it is.
@@JohnDoe-xf8ew Yeah I meant to also say I don’t mind surreal nonsense at all! Maldoror blew me away hahaha. But it does seem to be a matter of expectation. With your comment in mind, I might give the novel another try.
there's 3 books I have by 2 different authors that I would like to share with you Juan. the first one is 'The Developing Artist's progression into The Artist Henry, As Witnessed by K120 & A5000' written by Justin Schaeffer, and oh man is it a strange book like, I wouldn't exactly call it disturbing for what the story of the book is and what it all means in the end, but moreso of who wrote it and how it was written. I believe the man who wrote it is mentally ill and this book I feel reflects that side of the author. not to say that anything written by someone with a mental illness is inherently weird or disturbing just because the author has mental illnesses, but because a lot of what is on this book is just hard to comprehend and it's jarring because it's mixed in with comprehendable paragraphs it's just like a shock to read a paragraph about Henry falling asleep in his bed with his eyes fading as the sky turns black, then the next paragraph separated by a long line of plus signs then talking about how soociety pushes quotas on people. it's a very cheap book and a short read with 'LXVII' pages (every page is labeled with a roman numeral) however every other word is a typo with varying degrees of readability. I don't mean to offend by calling this book disturbing because of the fact a mentally ill man wrote it, but maybe one day you could do a video on just weird and strange books that are a notch down from novels like Tampa and such. now for the second author and his 2 books I own, 'Invisible Eugenics: How The Medical System And Public Schools Are Killing Your Children' and 'The Hidden Evil: The Financial Elite's Covert War Against The Civilian Population' are 2 books by Mark M. Rich which act as studies on social programs and those who operate and own them in the United States however I would not take a lot of what is in these books as fact, for some topics include how vaccines kill children by giving them permanent brain damage, and the connection between the elite and satanism. I call these 2 books disturbing because of the mindset and beliefs that went into the creation of these books but please do keep in mind I do not hate or feel disdain towards the author for producing these, I feel it is necessary to view this in a neutral light however I do not blame you or anyone else if you decide these books are deplorable and won't talk about them for one reason or another. with all this in mind of these 3 books and 2 authors being mentally unwell in varying degrees, these books were still a fun read regardless of what was said in them.
For me, William S Burroughs would be number fucking one on my list of transgressive fiction writers that I absolutely cannot connect with. I have attempted to read the Naked Lunch multiple times and have failed, getting bored or frustrated with the sort of proto-edge lord content in his most famous books. I have also attempted to read the Soft Machine and the Ticket That Exploded and failed. With the latter, I was reading it at work during my lunch break when I finally DNFed it. I found it frustrating, devoid of plot and overly focused on juvenile descriptions of ejaculations. I remember continually flipping the book over to read the plot synopsis on the back over and snapping "Where the FUCK is that story in this book? What fucking book are they reading?" Yeah, Burroughs just isn't for me. At all.
Watership Down being 10 breaks my heart. It's personally one of my favorites, but I understand it's not for everyone. I find that it's dragged down by every other internet personality claiming it's disturbing and fucked them up as kids. In my eyes it's not a disturbing book at all. It's a slightly dark piece of children's fantasy
I was excited to read Clickers after hearing so much about the lauded author. It's not good. Endless missed opportunities with a handful of decent set ups and payoffs. The second half was a chore. Maybe the 35 sequels are better.
i think Survivor was well written, when the main character relizes what she did and that a baby and her mother died terribly because of her cowardice and it broke her i felt it inside...thats good writing
Survivor and Girl Next Door really worked for me. Both invested the reader in the characters and so it wasn't just amateur night at the butcher shop. Or, at least, it was that way for me. I thought Things Have Gotten Worse... was just silly and too implausible. Gross, sure, but gross is easy. Woom was idiotic. I couldn't buy that anybody would want to do that in the first place, and also the anatomical details are just dumb. It doesn't matter how obese someone is, they aren't any bigger inside. Peel a dead fat person and you find a skinny person. (I know this because I know med students who've done that). And Woom was built entirely around that idiotic idea. Totally, totally overrated, that book. Watership Down was okay but dragged on way, way, WAY too long. I didn't find it disturbing at all... it's odd to me that it shows up on disturbing lists?
came here after seeing a short video on Paul Curran's Generation Bloodbath...looking forward to your video reviews....have you done Fucked Up by Damien Ark?...
Welcome to the channel! Glad to have you, and Paul Curran rules! I actually JUST contacted Damien Ark some days ago and received an ecopy of Fucked Up. It’s in the works!!! 😀
on my goodreads i never really rate anything i read; i can tell you if i liked or disliked a book, but quantifying it with a number is just a weird thing for me. the only exception to this was Woom which i gave 2 stars lol. it feels like the only underlying message beneath all of it was just "bitches be crazy" (which is a reason i also disliked Things Have Gotten Worse) and "whoa what if a sexy lady did something WEIRD and GROSS when she's supposed to be having sex with you wouldn't that be CRAAAAZZZZYYY". not the worst thing i've ever read but i definitely want my $13 and three hours back
I know a decent amount of people have been praising David Sodergren lately but I can’t get enough of his writing. Pretty extreme levels of violence but doesn’t dwell on it, and he’s just so damn entertaining. Also some good twists and hidden meanings you may not get until towards the end
Genital grinder was just not it. Woom almost got there but eh. Now, I know it got a lot of hate but I actually took it as parody, so Dead Inside just worked for me. The Necrophiliac is good and so is a lot of the Dennis Cooper books. Surprisingly, I was not a fan of American Psycho. The constant obsession with labels and name brands takes away from the story, it's half, literally half of the book. What I really want is a crazy religious horror, like full on, let's go to Hell. Or just a really scary ghost, haunted house book that can blow Matheson's Hell House out of the water. Fingers crossed.
Genital Grinder not being in is the most disappointing thing I have ever read. 😂 I’ve heard Edward Lee’s City Infernal trilogy is very much an extreme, zany journey to hell, or something like that!
great vid! Personally a book I started reading and couldn't finish was A 120 days of Sodom, but not for the reasons you'd think. I read it because after seeing the movie, I couldn't stop thinking how... plain and superficial it felt. I felt we didn't really get to know the libertines nor the victims, and that bothered me a lot. Specifically with the Bishop, I felt like he had so much more potential as a character, as his main struggle through the movie was how he couldn't satisfy himself. I thought this was so interesting because it creates a different dynamic between the libertines; 3 of them are having the time of their lives and one of them can't get to that point. It would've been so interesting to have a monologue of him or a scene that showed us why and since when he feels that way, just a peak into his mind. I started reading the book in hopes of getting a little more understanding of his character and was totally disappointed to see that the book was totally lacking exposition about the libertines. You get reminded a hundred times how horrible they are, how monstruous they are, tho de Sade never shows you why they are that way, so to me, the violence never gets to disturb me because I don't know them. Maybe they were born evil, but I refuse to believe they are that one dimensional where the only thing they do is being evil and have sex. Even if they are that repulsive, there should be more to them; I feel like the only emotion range they have is being horny. Maybe I'm asking for too much but the transgressive fiction that shocks me to the core is when I get to know the characters, because then the violence takes meaning.
Talia was just so bad… I can excuse grmataical errors to an extent but I think the worse offense this book holds is the Mary Sue ending. Just barely explanation with little thought, she turns into a demon and happy ending
I didn’t even get to that in this video, goddamn… first of all, terribly outdated use of the “magical negro” trope, coupled with how disjointed and absentminded the twist was… look, I called it “the worst book I’ve ever read” for a reason. 😂
Agree 100% with your take on Things Have Gotten Worse....when I heard what the plot was, I was like "this is totally my jam". But it was so disappointing. And yeah, the pompous tone, especially when they're discussing the apple peeler at the beginning, drove me nuts.
The pompous tone would have definitely worked if it had… you know, gone somewhere! 😂 That book truly left me with the infuriated final thought of, “This was all so pointless.” Remember when the author made a big fucking point about “redacted passages” but they only redacted like two bits of text and then forgot to use that motif altogether on the latter half and then the whole redacted thing never tied into the end or worked for anything? Brilliant writing.
I LOVED the book as I was reading it, but when I got to the final pages, I remember thinking “……that’s it..? THAT’S how it ends??”
One of my favorite things about the Watership Down movie is how the violence is never just for shock. All the disturbing scenes feel very organic, if that makes sense. Not at all like the cheap horror you get from most films
Absolutely, and moreover just because it’s “animal violence” it doesn’t feel sensationalized or surreal. It’s just natural violence, part of the natural world, and it is horrifying!
Totally agree with you regarding The Slob. I found it boring at times and not at all disturbing to me.
For a writer to turn hyperviolence boring… I think it becomes its own kind of unforgivable. 😂
The point you made at 7:55 summarizes my entire problem with transgressive fiction. Like, there has to be SOMETHING to the violence, you have to say something in your story or it's just meaningless and ineffective IMO.
Agreed with your sentiment, but to me, it’s what makes transgressive fiction stand out from extremity. I feel that “transgression,” in the sense that Foucault defined at least, always has a consciousness around where violence comes from and why it’s enacted, and it’s what makes it meaningful to me. Extremity and shock writing feel like they just use these subjects as toys to play around, and not concepts to be explored.
I knew Foucault was going to show up on this channel eventually!!! I tried to help my kid with a paper but post modernism has slipped from my mind...all I could do was confirm that his chosen theorist Hannah Arendt was in the right milieu...but there's enough left in mind to spark when you say this, and to start overanalyzing the form of the form...
If it was difficult to find shocking news stories, photos, or such, I would see a place for pure shock, but since one can easily access the darkness of humanity, and use it for whatever analytic purposes desired, there seems to be no point to creating shock, and it always seems to seep more into the creator than into anything the reader/viewer/listener can use. GG Allin was ultimately a creative construct, but I don't think it meant much to anybody but GG Allin. Whereas I lived next door to a foundational post punk band, Fugazi, who were not living punk every second, they were working artists, and clearly had much discipline (more beer than they let on, but that's the worst thing I can say, it seems the straight edge occasionally wobbled with bud light parties). And their work is not wayyyy out there, but I think is mainly transgressive, and it can be built upon, studied with purpose, reconfigured, etc in the quest for meaning. Whereas GG Allin is just a historical oddity. His work is evidence of violence, but we have digitized newspapers and combat video, and we don't need choreography added to weird raw impulses, that's what human sexuality is for...
"And does... extreme horror stuff to her," - Juan 😂😂😂 This cracked me up.
The worst extreme horror novel I've ever read was "Dead Inside." It tried so hard to be edgy and nihilistic but it was just pompous and annoying and not written very well in my opinion.
I find it odd how many extreme horror authors choose to be as extreme as possible over any strong writing. Just because it's extreme doesn't mean that there should be a lack of plot, characterization, and consistency. Those things make it more disturbing in my opinion. I hate "Survivor," although I will admit "The Slob," entertained me in a trash sort of way.
Anais Nin, never read her but I've heard nothing but amazing things about her writing so I'm a bit surprised to hear a negative, but glad to hear it from someone I actually trust.
Last point, I hate to use the word love, but I really love "The Girl Next Door." One of the thing I think it excels at is the realism. It could absolutely happen. It's horrifying and made me sob when I read it, and it is absolutely one of the most disturbing books I've ever read.
I will admit, I have zero plans to ever check out Chandler Morrison. Everything assures me it’s more of the same, which is decidedly not for me.
I do see how some of these can be enjoyed as trash, and I hope my viewers will also know me as a trash lover. 😂 However, to me, for these titles, even the trashiness felt too forced. 😔
The Girl Next Door is a masterpiece, and I “love” it as well!
Just to let you know, The Girl Next Door is loosely based on the case of Sylvia Likens. So it’s realism is through events that actually took place.
@emoluver619 I had heard that. I think it's still hard for some authors to main realistic even when portraying real events, but Jack Ketchum does a good job.
I've learned that I have a very low tolerance for sadism for sadism's sake. I don't like it in general but when it's clear the author is writing one-handed, I realize that I've nonconsensually been tricked into reading someone's porn fantasy and I feel personally violated.
100%!!! I don’t want to make outright accusations on a video that are unfounded, but I do suspect THIS is what’s going on with a lot of these books. 🤮
Some of the most disturbing books I’ve read would be the Girl next Door (which I read in early 2000’s) and more recently Such Nice People. The later legit creeped me out. I have a video recommendation; I think it would be cool if you shared with us the inspiration behind each of your short stories in Poking Holes. I am very curious about how you came up with some of those concepts.
I have a copy of Such Nice People! This comment assures me it’ll be something fierce. 😂 And there’s a livestream I did with Jared (the Poking Holes illustrator) where I went into detail behind the inspiration of some stories, if you’re interested!
@@PlaguedbyVisions I will check it out!!
Oh man. I read Innocent World about a year ago and it left me weirdly disassociated (especially after a particular scene)... I convinced myself that there HAD to be a reason for it all, a method to the madness, but it was as you said; shock value. I can handle almost anything disturbia can throw at me but the weird way this author seemed to obsess over how traumatic or how disturbing she can make a scene was strange. Nobody I know has read it so I haven't been able to talk about it. Thank you for bringing it up!
Lol, I’m actually best friends with the writer.
I felt entirely the same, and I am happy I am not alone in that reception! Yes, like I TRIED to say here haha, but I don’t know how well it came across: It was such a real and profound topic and set of characters, but the tone just felt like it squandered so much of that in order to go for the in-your-face transgression.
I didn't mind the conversations in Survivor; I think it was kind of a neat idea for the villain and victim to talk and see each other's humanity before the inevitable violent conflict. The only problem is that the author lacks the writing talent to pull it off.
Hahaha, absolutely, in that sense, ANY of these concepts would absolutely shine in better hands, in my opinion!
@PlaguedbyVisions Maybe Gonzalez should have been the idea man, and someone else should write the books.
Our dude is looking FIT!!!! I refuse to watch anyone else who covers this subject matter other than him, and Mique. I would adore a crossover video! Haha
Haha, I’m not really sure who Mique is, or if they’d want to collab with the Booktube dumpster dweller. 😂😂😂
Currently planning a surrealist short story that I want to hit those disturbing horror beats, and vids like this are so helpful -- even if I disagree with an opinion, knowing what didn't work and why for others is great guidance. time to binge your channel now !
@@renwhit100 thank you so much for watching, and best of luck in your studies/writing! 💖
Pretty sure I’ve mentioned this before, but it begs repeating. I asked a large group of extreme horror fans to give tell me the most well written, best example of the genre. Tight plots. Fully realized characters. You know. Good writing. I waited as the responses rolled in. …and it was pretty much every book on your list.
This video is spot on. Nailed it!
If you like this stuff, fine. But please be willing to admit that TASTE IS SUBJECTIVE, BUT SKILL IS NOT SUBJECTIVE.
YES. I think these authors would benefit A LOT if they were just upfront and honest about the fact that, “Hey, we’re just here to sell books!” THAT would altogether appease those of us who approach literature not as a cash grab but as a passionate hobby. Cash grab books and truly transgressive, confrontational literature both belong to horror, but they MUST exist in separate discussion spaces, I feel.
@@PlaguedbyVisions completely agree!
Ah Watership down, such wonderful childhood memories 💖
I remember I first learned about it because someone made a fan edit of it along to some Marilyn Manson song back in like 2009. 😂😂😂
just binged all your disturbing book videos and you look so different compared to the older videos! looking very good and love the content and how in depth you go when describing books
🙏🙏🙏
Holy shit, I'm so glad I'm not alone with my opinion on I'm Thinking of Ending Things. I just..did not give a shit. I tried the movie because I thought maybe I just missed something, but nope I still didn't care. I'm hoping to read We Spread soon so I can see if it was just the book or maybe if Reid just isn't for me.
We've briefly talked about extreme horror before and I'm 100% with you, especially wrt to certain current horror darlings.
I’m sorry, but “We Spread” has got to be the funniest title for a book I’ve ever heard. 💀💀💀😭😭😭
@@PlaguedbyVisions I don't think you're sorry at all ¯\ヽ(´ー｀)ノ/¯
@@shereadsatmidnight You’re absolutely right.
I've heard very mixed things about JF Gonzalez as a writer, and I haven't read him myself yet, though the Lifetime Achievement award was named after him for his behind the scenes work as much as it was his writing.
That said, atrocious editing is a huge problem with modern extreme horror/splatterpunk books and some Bizarro books too. Editing is hard and tedious, and even major publications go out with mistakes, but take some damn pride in your works and don't let them go to print with multiple typos on every single page.
I'm a member of a few Facebook groups for indie horror books and it really bothers me to see an author or other readers get bitchy when someone points out a book is full of typos. Why are you even writing if you care so little about the most basic things about it?
That's one of the reasons I appreciate this channel so much. You take the indie extreme stuff seriously, look at it honestly, and have good enough tastes to call out this kind of thing.
Sounds like JF Gonzalez got the Laymon treatment: Beloved figure within the community, but terrible at the typewriter.
Seriously, I am not even asking for “editing” at the level of pristine proofreading. I am begging these authors to at least learn the difference between “peak” and “peek.” 😭
I would not survive in any of these Facebook groups. Their narrow-mindedness would have me wanting to fight on the daily.
And thank you for the kind words on my channel! I am seriously speaking from nowhere except the place of a fan of this stuff who wants to see it better exemplified!
Agree with 26:43. Also I've never read The Girl Next Door nor seen the film, but the story was familiar, and I remember I watched the movie 'An American Crime' that similarly draws from Sylvia Likens' story, and watching that movie left me feverish 💀
I can’t do true crime. Too much for me haha.
Once again, your opinions are S tier. I haven't found another person who has a Thing(TM) against I'm Thinking of Ending Things the way I do. The movie is so much better- Kaufman was able to pick out the little threads of brilliance and sew something a lot more profound out of it. AND DON'T GET ME STARTED ON SURVIVOR 🤬🤬🤬
I’m also happy to hear of other peeps who found that novel underwhelming! And yeah, Survivor was doodoo from a butt.
I remember when we read Survivor and it was so unintentionally hilarious. It was hard for me to believe anyone took it seriously. I found it mildly entertaining at times, but you are correct in describing it like a Hallmark movie. I do like some bad disturbing books, but even I have limits, and one of them is a lack of an interesting narrative.
I'm reading The Light at the End right now and that type of story is very fun for me. There is an interesting, "B Movie" story in there with moments of splatter, but the story, fun, and love of current (80s) pop culture seems to be what is most important.
I know a lot of people are into many of the books you mentioned here, but I don't enjoy "extreme for extreme sake" I like it because it peppers an otherwise interesting premise.
It blows my mind that Charlie Kaufman would adapt I'm Thinking of Ending Things. I haven't read or watched the adaptation, but it's hard for me to picture such a great writer enjoying a piece of fiction the way you described it.
If it eases your mind a bit, I keep reading in the comments here that Kaufman’s adaptation is FAR superior to the novel.
*I'm Thinking Of Ending Things Since I Knew What You Did Last Summer and Things Just Gotten Worse Since We Last Talk About Kevin*
I love this Fiona Apple album.
@@PlaguedbyVisions When the pawn... was thinking about ending things...
Always appreciate your thoughtful comments. Saves me from wasting my time with books that I probably wouldn’t enjoy. Although I do plan to give Survivor a try because of the praise it gets. How about making a video of every book you have. Just showing us the cover and mentioning the title. I kept looking around you at the shelves to see what else you have.
17:09 I love this running joke of you saying that title wrong. I remember in the og review you called it Things Have Gotten Worse Since We Last Talked About Kevin 🤣🤣🤣
Hahaha! I’m so happy someone likes my dumb humor.
I have mixed feelings about Anais Nin. I haven't read Delta of Venus, but the stories I have read had this frustrating pattern where they ended just as they reached an interesting concept. They often felt like the intros to much longer stories which were never completed.
My experience was very similar-I felt like I was reading someone attempt to describe the spicy bits of an erotic story from really bad memory.
Hey Juan! Awesome vid! I particularly liked the comparison between Talia and Ketchum's book. Though I haven't read it, I liken the execution of Talia, as you described it, to a soloist in a musical piece who throws his best idea at the beginning of the solo only to peter out as the solo progresses. I've read a couple of Ketchum's books and boy does he build on idea after idea well.
Talia would be more akin to the soloist showing up for a concert but it’s a 12 year old kid who doesn’t know how to play music.
@@PlaguedbyVisions Lol!!
I’ve read the first 8 from your list and mostly agree with you. I think Watership Down is a great book, but I’ve never seen the movie.
Also, thank you for saying that Survivor feels like a lifetime movie. That’s exactly the vibe I got from it but couldn’t put it into words. I think the guts of that book is an extremely messed up story that had potential, but the unnecessary characterization of the “co-star” and the complete tone change of the chase at the end baffled me.
I am so happy that someone else saw the absolute “bottom of the barrel made for TV” energy emanating from Survivor (and not in a good way at all)!
I no longer have the patience for fiction, and am knee deep in research projects that fill my reading time, so I finally acknowledged that I am not going to read Watership Down. So I read the Wikipedia plot summary. Not exactly the traumageddon I anticipated. However, I think the memory I have is a combo of Watership down and velveteen rabbit. And, to this day literally, I always think either Marlon Brando or Sal mineo did voice work for the movie, but really, I've combined Watership down with on the waterfront, also never seen, but vaguely associated with a brooding hottie of the 50s... ooof my brain is not good.
I don't think I've watched any of your new videos since you started working out and I was like "is this the same dude?" Good job and great video!
Yes, it’s me, the same bitch!
Great analysis on these books. The only ones I've read of these are Watership Down, Woom, and Things have gotten Worse...
I enjoyed Watership as a fantasy novel(yes, the movie was more disturbing), and was amused by Woom. However, I found Things have gotten Worse to be very underwhelming.
Thank you so much for watching! “Underwhelming” is certainly how I’d describe Things Have Gotten Worse as well.
Oh god, I agree with every single one of these! But the worst one I have ever read is a very short story called baby in a blender, it was so pathetic and badly written and trying so hard to be edgy.
Idk that sounds like a masterpiece to me, bud. 😂
super refreshing to see you counteract the opinions of the majority of reviews on this site,
I believe in particular, with things have gotten worse, that it portrays queer women as a commodity, and as a lesbian, it just felt like a parody, except not funny. I just think the portrayal and use of queer women for shock value was weird
Right? It was giving “idk anything about lesbians but I need the diversity clout.” 😭
@@PlaguedbyVisions frrr
I was disappointed by Haunted, I read Guts as a short story beforehand, and while the rest of the book has some exciting moments... I found it extremely repetitive and had a hard time pushing through to the end. All the characters became boring mush in my head.
Good video! Thanks!
I agree for the most part, but “Guts” and “Exodus” really salvaged the entire thing for me. 😂
Yeah, okay, Exodus was a banger... I can't deny that one 🤣
I remember very much enjoying I’m Thinking of Ending Things when I read it a year or two ago! Even in the more meandering parts it still felt tense to me and kept my attention, though I’m interested to see if my thoughts have changed since then if given a reread. Very fun and interesting video overall though!
Thank you so much for watching! Of course, you are absolutely not alone in your enjoyment of I’m Thinking of Ending Things. I think by now we should just know I expect very different things out of a “disturbing” book haha!
Things have gotten worse since we last spoke was INESCAPABLE in 2021...it was something that you just had to be there to experience 😅
My review was one of the first on Booktube! Some girlies got mad. 😅
My friend, I think this is now one of my favourite videos from your channel! I also think this conversation was necessary, and as always, you providing us with the sincerity that characterizes your personal exploration of horror that gives so much to everyone of us. About "SURVIVOR"... you what I felt when I read it? Like the same disappointment I had with "The Poughkeepsie Tapes": it had everything on its side, the atmosphere, the themes, the fucked-up situations, a great found-footage aesthetic like few in this genre... and then... the killer-kidnapper opens his mouth... and talks.. and screams stuff... and spoils the whole thing -_- (at least for me). That same feeling.
Thank you so much for such kind and flattering words I feel truly unworthy of! I actually liked Poughkeepsie Tapes a lot haha, but THERE’S another issue I find with a lot of extreme horror books: They all seem heavily inspired by horror MOVIES, but the authors don’t seem to understand that an actual image can hold by default much more power than a poor description of one, which is what they all fill their books with. :(
You want a good book with SLOB on the cover , read Rex Miller's SLOB, about the giant serial killer Chainsaw. That's intense material.
I do own a copy of that! I’m currently selling my horror paperbacks, but you’ve made me wonder if I should keep that one. 🤔
I'm new to your channel and have really enjoyed all the videos I have sat through! My biggest pet peeve in any kind of book, but especially that of horror or thriller, is when an author isn't patient with their subject matter enough and jump the gun to get to "the good parts" that it stops the narrative head on.
I was told The Thing Between Us by Gus Moreno was a fantastic new talent and I needed to read...but oh god, this was so bare bones, basic stuff that when the book did do anything I would consider interesting, it falls flat on it's face by it's pacing and absolute need to tell you through references how much the author knows about horror.
OH MY GOD. Thank you so much for making me never pick that book up. When horror novels are just a vessel for authors to flex their “horrorhead” muscles… Insufferable to me.
@@PlaguedbyVisions no joke, it kept doing that thing with King work specifically-and no disrespect at all, but it was like...obnoxious to the point that it kept using tropes King uses and gets to the point of "wow, so...this is it huh?" okay. Especially animal tropes King has done...I mean fuck the mc finds a st Bernard and I'm like "NOOOOO THIS IS LAUGHABLE, STOP."
Yeah, everybody loved Woom but when I tried reading it, it felt shocking, but banal. Like the story was too weak to keep reading.
It didn’t even feel shocking to me. I wrote nastier stuff as an edgy teen on Reddit. 😂
Rapidly becoming my favorite book-tuber online. Fantastic analysis and nuanced reviews. I look forwards to more content & your inevitable ascension to the upper tiers of UA-cam fame.
Thank you so much! 💖😭🙏🏽
I agree that I'm Thinking of Ending Things was a bad book. I gave up on it too. However, the film adaptation by Charlie Kaufman is actually really good. I recommend giving it a go.
Speaking of film vs movie, I saw a film adaptation of The Girl Next Door and was not crazy about it. I'm wondering if you've seen the film and what you thought. It just made me angry how the boy just let it all happen even though he supposedly cared about her. Is the book the same way? Because in the film the utter lack of agency drove me batty.
The book is absolutely the same, and that lack of agency is what makes it so disturbing. At least I truly felt the ensnaring culture of the 50s fully closing around this kid: He’s a kid, already struggling with his own impotence, and there is absolutely nowhere he can turn to for help.
I'm glad someone agrees with me about The Slob! It'd been hyped up in the extreme horror subreddit that I got giddy going into it. I found it to be pretty tedious, and for little reward. Half the book was just needless backstory, and by the time we actually meet The Slob himself, he feels like an afterthought. I found the ending to be ridiculous too - it was as if the author didn't have enough faith in his writing to have his protagonist show true emotional vulnerability, so had her end with a snarky one liner.
Yes, that was truly the issue: The first half feels tedious, but I stuck around because I was compelled by what it might lead to… Then what it led to was completely disjointed, so you end up with two useless halves that never make a whole. 😪
Wait, I love the idea of having videos on books/movies/etc that are actually the worst. How fun! 😂 We'll try not to cancel you for your opinions!
Good to see you're doing alright, Juan ♡ The Jan 6th joke had me ROLLING.
I haven’t been cancelled yet, so I guess I wasn’t mean enough. I suck at being a tea spilling problematic gay. :(
Survivor is what got me into shock-horror books. I am not educated enough about literature to say whether it is a well written book. I only know that it has opened my mind up to the genere and I will always appreciate it for that.
I don’t believe it has anything to do with education! I love innocuous trash-it just has to be readable and engsging haha.
Two Minutes into the video, thinking: "Haha, who's offended just because he doesn't like a book."
2 Minutes into the video: "He doesn't like that rabbit book I devoured a few times in my teens.... He's attacking me as a person!"
And that section is probably the nicest he gets to any of the books on this list. :P
HAHAHAHA! Sorry about the rabbit book! 🐇
Gotta say, I'm surprised The Roo isn't on the list. Not sure if it's on the more distrubring side or not, though. I think you pointed out the problem with most disturbing books that fail to land, especially something like Things Have Changed Since Last Summer. It took itself too seriously and didn't have time to breathe
Yes, The Roo was left out since it’s not really a “disturbing book” haha, but it definitely sucked!
the girl next door made me sad
It devastated me!
I’m pretty sure you’re my new favorite! You are hysterical. 😂😂 great video.
Always glad to make people laugh! 😊
Juan if you can find it please look for 'Spree' by a horror writer named James Williamson. It's a great murderous psychopathic teenage boy meets murderous psychopathic girl whose father is rotting from venereal disease and they drive across the country murdering everyone they meet. And yes it has an animal cruelty scene which actually tops those unreadable few pages of Crime and Punishment. You know - the horse.
I was GOING to buy The Slob but you saved me brother !
I don’t know if you saw, but I made a post about this over on Instagram!
@@PlaguedbyVisions No way !!! You actually found and read that total slab of obscurity ? I went into that book with utterly zero expectations and ended up having it hit like a bullet in the gut ! (To quote you I think). I mean the kid who routinely beats his own mother and the perverted father rotting from syphilis and his hellbent mission to cross the country to murder the one person who ever treated him decently and his perpetually oozing eyeball. Sadly I don't have Instagram. Though I'm excessively sociable I can't stand any social media. But please tell me ! Did you enjoy Spree or have I judged it with all the sense of a meatball with a glitter-covered cat toy for a brain ?
@@PlaguedbyVisions And since I have your attention are you with me on demanding a full moratorium on zombie apocalypse novels where the dead rise and people have absolutely no clue what's going on ? If you join me on drawing a line on that crap it'll add heft and gravitas to my line. Any more zombie books with clueless live victims go straight in the crapper. Don't misunderstand. I support the troops but I've been suspending my disbelief on that score for decades now and am just too thin and noodly to keep doing it.
Survivor REALLY didn't do it for me and I agree more or less entirely with what you said here, it's very refreshing to see SOMEONE say it about that one. it honestly felt like the author tried to write a crime thriller, realized he'd done nothing to make it stand out, and then was like awww crap and threw in a bunch of extreme hardcore stuff to make it stand out. it's not just poorly written, but the bland writing makes the extreme horror not even feel extreme. like I agree the tone is Lifetime movie-esque. during the first snuff film scene I was basically sitting there like "that sucks" instead of like, wincing away. I also totally agree about the Bad Guy Monologues in it lol, omfg they were unbearable. Muriel/Mabel (can't remember her name) was GREAT though, but she gets into the story proper way too late... she's also probably kind of a stalk "shocking" character, but at least she has a personality and humor
Mabel was truly a glimmer of trashy genius in what was otherwise uninspired slop. 😔
I remember reading I'm thinking of ending things when I was a teenager and finding it insanely boring, pointless, confusing and not even remotely disturbing. The ending was definitely no improvement either so you definitely didn't miss out dnfing.
I think it’s a misled person’s idea of what a deep book is.
We really have to get better at picking buddy reads, king!
What I’m reading is “We need to buddy read Son of the Slob and Talia 2.”
I’ve made a grave mistake…
As I've not heard of any of the other books, I can only speak on Watership Down. Now I am someone who doesn't deal well with animal violence, however I know when I can deal with it and how to. So the points within the novel where I am reminded these are rabbits I dealt with. It's a very good book and one I do recommend although I can see how the glossary part can make it difficult or tedious. The film was much harder a row to hoe as I react stronger to animation than to live action so couple that with this story that benefited so much from being visually presented, it just a slam to the gut, especially with the inclusion of Art Garfunkel's Bright Eyes. But again, so worth the experience.
The Watership Down film is a masterpiece!
My neighbors favorite books is watership down and they own every English edition of it.
Blast this video at full volume next to their window.
Woom was definitely a disappointment for me. There were a couple of eyebrow raising moments but overall it really didn't get under my skin or entertain me as much as the online hype lead me to believe it would.
However, I absolutely LOVED Talia. It was pure edgelord filth with some pretty generic writing but I couldn't help but be entertained by it. Read parts of it to my girlfriend at the time while drinking wine in a bath on holiday. She ended up reading the rest on her own and enjoyed it too haha. #booksforaromanticgetaway
Online hype is the bane of “disturbing” discourse. I find that I am VERY lonely in my pursuit of truly confrontational literature. Most people just want the titles that get the clicks and have enough gross, empty stuff to cite.
I’m glad Talia worked for you! I did not even find it entertaining. The “revenge” part specifically I skimmed, because every murder was being described the same and it was dumb and I didn’t care about anyone involved. 😂
this man must be the Anthony Fantano of book reviews lol
Lmao that's so true. I love both of them.
I am flattered beyond belief. ❤
I've never read and of J.F Gonzalez "extreme horror' stuff. But Clickers is brutal. It's like Starship troopers if a bunch of unaware civilians had to contend with the bugs on Klendathu. It's so ugly in it's honesty about how poorly equipped modern civilized people are for that kind of existential struggle.
I tried reading that! It was terribly written, in my opinion.
Weird to see Innocent World get mentioned here.
Ami is one of my best friends and from what I know, the book is somewhat autobiographical with some Ryu Murakami inspired flourishes.
Fascinating! I can’t believe you personally know the author! I think there’s so many factors that could be at work here, primarily the fact that it’s a translated work-so much can be lost in translation, from style to these almost unconscious inflections that can really color the entire work.
8:12 Would you ever consider redoing the disturbing books iceberg?
I’m really just not a fan of the format at all and I think at this point the fad is dead. 😅
I just wanted to comment and say that I've actually seen people echo your sentiments about Survivor. So you're definitely not the only one who found it overrated.
Also, out of curiosity, I was wondering if you've read Twins by Bari Wood? It's the source material for the David Cronenberg film Dead Ringers. Not sure if it would be considered extreme or not, but I've heard it is quite dark.
I own a copy of Twins, but I’ve never read it before!
perfect review of I'm thinking of ending things.
Hahaha, glad it resonated with you! 😂
would you consider doing a best list based off the same criteria? like literary devices and handling of the material
I’m on it!
You want disturbing Richard Adams highly recommend Plague Dogs, book and the movie (if you can find the uncut version).
That’s such a good book!
I’ve seen this film (not sure if it was the uncut version, but it was pretty gnarly), and no joke, I had NO IDEA it was also based on an Adams novel. Richard Adams was… doing something, wasn’t he?
I read the Girl Next Door and enjoyed it. It led me down a path reading nothing but Jack Ketchum for about 6 months. I have to admit that it was more about the real-life case that inspired it than the story itself.
The "horror" I hate is the horror you described. When it feels like the author is overdoing it for shock value. No development. There is no reason for the actions. If the author (and filmmaker) doesn't care, why should I?
I would have to say "Thing's have gotten worse..." is up there for being pretty underwhelming. I had high hopes, but it was a big letdown.
Yes, truly, some of these extreme horror authors are barely telling stories in their books, and that is personally unforgivable haha.
Great video Juan. Don’t ask me why but I’ll still probably check these out 😂
“Try it for yourself” is always my mantra!
Loved the title and the cover of Things Have Gotten Worse...but that was it. Nice ideas, but the execution wasn't well done and some things just didn't make sense.
I also didn't get all the fuss about I'm Thinking Of Ending Things. I saw the twist coming from afar (same with Foe) and I totally agree that it seemed desperate to achieve something and to be mysterious. And it totally failed to do that in my opinion.
Agreed on all points! I keep hearing the film adaptation of I’m Thinking of Ending Things was superior, however.
I gasped when I saw Talia on the list. I’ll fight to defend it lol It’s very cartoonish, I’ll give you that, but honestly that’s just the charm of it. The psycho bodyguard still gives me the creeps when I think of him. It is the weaker of the trilogy though; Billy Silver outshines both of its companion novels.
I think Velope has a habit of going so extreme that it’s turns out be absurd and very wtf-ish, but that’s why I enjoy it.
Oh I don’t mind ridiculous and extreme at all lmfao. I just like it when authors know the difference between “peek” and “peak.”
The Slob was a real let down for me. Just finished it yesterday. It was pitched to me as a crazy book but it just felt like a young adult book following writing conventions and but just with gore.
That’s a good description of it! Very simple without delivering any of the zaniness.
As someone who has read “I’m Thinking of Ending Things” and loved it, I think that part of the reason why you didn’t enjoy it is because it’s (in my opinion) not an extreme horror book. To me, it’s more of a thriller book with horror elements. At first, the book was hard for me to keep up with because of all of the confusion it caused me. But, whatever reason, that made me like the book even more. I felt disappointed by the ending at first, but the longer I thought on it, the more I decided that I liked it. *spoiler warning* To me there is something so scary about being so messed up and lonely in your own mind (which I interpret as dementia or Alzheimer’s because he is a confused old man) that you have created a fake reality for yourself and then come to realize that it’s not real at all. I am terrified of Alzheimer’s and dementia, so this book played off of my fear in a way that I will never forget.
Hahaha, I don’t just read extreme horror. 😂😂😂 I have a freaking Masters in literature. The book was just tryhard and shit imho.
Every time I try to read extreme horror, I always end up disappointed. The most recent one was No One Rides for Free by Judith Sonnett, and all the criticisms you have about these various books also applied to this one. I think I have a newfound appreciation for the term "torture porn" now. Because that's what this book was.
In porn, the storyline, the acting, the technical aspects of the cinematography, etc., are all secondary to the fucking. The fucking is what you're there to see, so most of the time they don't even bother with the rest. Extreme horror is very similar. Narrative complexity, character depth and development, mechanics, grammar -- it's all an afterthought.
And the writers of these books deflect all criticism as readers being too timid or easily offended. No, that's not remotely the case. The book just sucked.
Your last point especially is what infuriates me more: That these authors are fueled not just by subpar writing skills and a poor handle on storytelling techniques, they’re also HIGHLY defensive of their craft, even though they never truly address the criticisms towards their WRITING, just the subject matter. Like, I’m not offended that you wrote a story about murder. I’m offended that you don’t know how to write but are convinced that you do.
27:42 Excellent Burroughs allusion there.
Of course that’s what that was!
Thanks! There’s a couple on the list here that are gonna move down my tbr now!
Hahaha, glad you found the video useful! But as I always say, you should always try stuff for yourself if you’re truly curious! 🙏
I could just not get through American Psycho! It was so boring which I know was an intentional choice but I needed more spice.
All I remember from that book is the zoo scene, the rat scene, and that Less Than Zero is a way better novel.
@@PlaguedbyVisions I'm still nervous to give less than zero a try since I hated American psycho 😅
Great video! I loved Watership Down as a child, not sure if I was disturbed. I also loved Duncton Wood, which was perhaps a more complex tale. You say you don't dnf books, I dnf'd the first extreme horror I tried to read- The Resurrectionist by Wrath James White. I did not dnf it because it was terrifying, I dnf'd it because it was a terrible story, badly told, I can take blood. semen and shit as well as the next guy, perhaps he was offering the appetizer before the main course, I don't care. The most disturbing books I've ever read are by Sven Hassel on world war 2.
Did you get to the part in The Resurrectionist where they go to Vegas and go to a concert and gamble a little? That part was like 50 pages long. 🙃
@@PlaguedbyVisions Nope, I only reached the part where he raped both of them, slit their throats and said he would see them soon. I just found the writing atrocious but still have it on my kindle. I you think I should venture further I will do so.
That part was fun and dumb! I think you’re good, though. 😂
@@PlaguedbyVisions 🤣
I HATED I'm Thinking of Ending Things. It was just a dull series of slightly odd setpieces tied together at the end through a pathetic attempt at the overused Tyler Durden twist. It erased the few mildly interesting elements and made the whole thing feel like a waste of time.
Realest review of that book I’ve ever read. 😂
Every time i read this title i crack up. The 'worst distirbing..'..can those two things coexist ? Actually blood makes a pretty good adhesive but you gotta keep it outta the poop !! Are we hanging wallpaper ?
Blood does NOT make a good adhesive! It takes too long to dry and stains everything. 😡😡😡
I admit the only one I've read is Thinking of Ending Things (Watership Down is in my collection someplace but haven't got to it yet). I was expecting a psychological thriller, as opposed to transgressive horror, and I enjoyed it until I got to the twist. That twist though 🤦♀️
Don’t you love when an author has been trying so hard that they get lost in their own BS, and so their only remedy is more BS? 😃
I read Woom maybe it’s just me it tickled my funny bone.. my half sister told me to read it I have not read his other books like gristle & bone.
Sometimes all we want out of books is to have our funny bone tickled! I have a very different sense of humor is all.
Couldn't possibly agree more about your list.
🙏🙏🙏❤️
I really don't have the stomach for this kind of literature and for the most part don't even care about the books you review, but your eloquence, wit and flawless comedic delivery make listening to you an absolute delight
😚😚😚
Ooof I didn’t like Survivor either. It just wasn’t great and I didn’t care about any of the characters so didn’t care what happened. I wanted to be really effed up by it and I was so let down. One thing I really hate about a lot or extreme horror and why I don’t read it that much-especially if it’s written by a man, is the persistent use of SA of women to show how ‘edgy’ or ‘effed up’ they can be.
This was great!
Isn’t it so amazing how all these books purport to be “EVEN MORE EXTREME THAN THE OTHERS,” but they’re all the same? 😂 Very one note, and the misogyny you mention bothers me to a deeper extent, because so many of these books read like the authors’ personal fantasies, and I do NOT want to be made a participant in all that mess. 🤮
@@PlaguedbyVisions Yes! Totally agree. I don’t have time to read an incel’s daydreams. 😆
Bizarro fiction disappoints just for the reasons you stated in your outro. Pacing is important, and the reader needs variation if they are to be entertained by your novel. I haven’t finished a lot of extreme horror for this reason.
Okay, I mostly agree with this, but I do have an exception: Robert Devereaux’s Santa Steps Out. The humor and bizarre elements were so masterfully controlled and expertly delivered, that it absolutely worked for me as an absurdist magic realism novel that kept getting weirder and weirder. 😂
okay while I understand that everyone has their own opinion, the whole point of I'm thinking of ending things was the ending!!!!!!!! I can't believe you couldn't finish it! Lol I'm prolly biased as hell because it is one of my favorite books ever and if it didn't grab you than Iain Reid is prob just not your thing
I know, but I just couldn’t hahaha. To each their own!
I was super enthralled by ITOET, probably just because I really enjoyed the dream like quality of the plot progression.
You know, I wonder how much expectations affect these reactions. This comment makes me realize the book may have been… mismarketed to me? 😂 I was expecting mind-bending mystery, but instead got surreal nonsense. 🤔
@@PlaguedbyVisionsMaybe it's a matter of personal taste, but it's unfortunate that you couldn't bring yourself to finish it. Reading the story in its entirety made things really come together. Going into it blind also made it very effective. A lot of your problems with the story make more narrative sense when you read it as it is.
@@JohnDoe-xf8ew Yeah I meant to also say I don’t mind surreal nonsense at all! Maldoror blew me away hahaha. But it does seem to be a matter of expectation. With your comment in mind, I might give the novel another try.
there's 3 books I have by 2 different authors that I would like to share with you Juan. the first one is 'The Developing Artist's progression into The Artist Henry, As Witnessed by K120 & A5000' written by Justin Schaeffer, and oh man is it a strange book like, I wouldn't exactly call it disturbing for what the story of the book is and what it all means in the end, but moreso of who wrote it and how it was written. I believe the man who wrote it is mentally ill and this book I feel reflects that side of the author. not to say that anything written by someone with a mental illness is inherently weird or disturbing just because the author has mental illnesses, but because a lot of what is on this book is just hard to comprehend and it's jarring because it's mixed in with comprehendable paragraphs it's just like a shock to read a paragraph about Henry falling asleep in his bed with his eyes fading as the sky turns black, then the next paragraph separated by a long line of plus signs then talking about how soociety pushes quotas on people. it's a very cheap book and a short read with 'LXVII' pages (every page is labeled with a roman numeral) however every other word is a typo with varying degrees of readability. I don't mean to offend by calling this book disturbing because of the fact a mentally ill man wrote it, but maybe one day you could do a video on just weird and strange books that are a notch down from novels like Tampa and such. now for the second author and his 2 books I own, 'Invisible Eugenics: How The Medical System And Public Schools Are Killing Your Children' and 'The Hidden Evil: The Financial Elite's Covert War Against The Civilian Population' are 2 books by Mark M. Rich which act as studies on social programs and those who operate and own them in the United States however I would not take a lot of what is in these books as fact, for some topics include how vaccines kill children by giving them permanent brain damage, and the connection between the elite and satanism. I call these 2 books disturbing because of the mindset and beliefs that went into the creation of these books but please do keep in mind I do not hate or feel disdain towards the author for producing these, I feel it is necessary to view this in a neutral light however I do not blame you or anyone else if you decide these books are deplorable and won't talk about them for one reason or another. with all this in mind of these 3 books and 2 authors being mentally unwell in varying degrees, these books were still a fun read regardless of what was said in them.
Thank you so much for your very thorough recommendations!
For me, William S Burroughs would be number fucking one on my list of transgressive fiction writers that I absolutely cannot connect with. I have attempted to read the Naked Lunch multiple times and have failed, getting bored or frustrated with the sort of proto-edge lord content in his most famous books. I have also attempted to read the Soft Machine and the Ticket That Exploded and failed. With the latter, I was reading it at work during my lunch break when I finally DNFed it. I found it frustrating, devoid of plot and overly focused on juvenile descriptions of ejaculations. I remember continually flipping the book over to read the plot synopsis on the back over and snapping "Where the FUCK is that story in this book? What fucking book are they reading?"
Yeah, Burroughs just isn't for me. At all.
The only Burroughs I’ve read is Naked Lunch, and I quite enjoyed it because it felt like a peek into the useless white mentality of its time. 😂
Watership Down being 10 breaks my heart. It's personally one of my favorites, but I understand it's not for everyone. I find that it's dragged down by every other internet personality claiming it's disturbing and fucked them up as kids. In my eyes it's not a disturbing book at all. It's a slightly dark piece of children's fantasy
I’m sorry! 😭 Maybe I’ll give it another shot someday.
I was excited to read Clickers after hearing so much about the lauded author. It's not good. Endless missed opportunities with a handful of decent set ups and payoffs. The second half was a chore. Maybe the 35 sequels are better.
I tried reading that, too! It was godawful. :(
i think Survivor was well written, when the main character relizes what she did and that a baby and her mother died terribly because of her cowardice and it broke her i felt it inside...thats good writing
Survivor and Girl Next Door really worked for me. Both invested the reader in the characters and so it wasn't just amateur night at the butcher shop. Or, at least, it was that way for me. I thought Things Have Gotten Worse... was just silly and too implausible. Gross, sure, but gross is easy. Woom was idiotic. I couldn't buy that anybody would want to do that in the first place, and also the anatomical details are just dumb. It doesn't matter how obese someone is, they aren't any bigger inside. Peel a dead fat person and you find a skinny person. (I know this because I know med students who've done that). And Woom was built entirely around that idiotic idea. Totally, totally overrated, that book. Watership Down was okay but dragged on way, way, WAY too long. I didn't find it disturbing at all... it's odd to me that it shows up on disturbing lists?
Omg THANK YOU why was Woom like, “Fat women can probably fit another human in them!” Tell me you’ve never been with a woman before..
came here after seeing a short video on Paul Curran's Generation Bloodbath...looking forward to your video reviews....have you done Fucked Up by Damien Ark?...
Welcome to the channel! Glad to have you, and Paul Curran rules! I actually JUST contacted Damien Ark some days ago and received an ecopy of Fucked Up. It’s in the works!!! 😀
COWS!
(Great video, the discussion of GND at the end was a master stroke- no pun intended)
I think you didn’t like Cows because you’re from the UK.
@@PlaguedbyVisions I don’t understand!
Just playing. 😂 I think I myself was taken by how grimy and horrid it made the UK look. That’s stayed with me since my teens! I’m so sorry…
I can tell I hate your political views from the opening lines but god damn does your content still smack. Keep up the good work man
Thanks!
on my goodreads i never really rate anything i read; i can tell you if i liked or disliked a book, but quantifying it with a number is just a weird thing for me. the only exception to this was Woom which i gave 2 stars lol.
it feels like the only underlying message beneath all of it was just "bitches be crazy" (which is a reason i also disliked Things Have Gotten Worse) and "whoa what if a sexy lady did something WEIRD and GROSS when she's supposed to be having sex with you wouldn't that be CRAAAAZZZZYYY". not the worst thing i've ever read but i definitely want my $13 and three hours back
Woom reads like the writings of a man who barely heard what a “vagina” is and it makes him very angry and sarcastic because f*ck women. 😂😂😂
Haven't been on this channel for a few months, damn dude, have you been hitting the gym? you look great!
The gym, counting calories, living healthier, and going to therapy. 💪
6:40 Didn't Harlan Ellison write something like that? I Have No Lips Yet I Can Speak.
I Have No Lips and I Must Cream
@@PlaguedbyVisions Heh, heh
Ok been getting addicted to the recommendations
Get addicted, baby! Thank you so much. 💖
I know a decent amount of people have been praising David Sodergren lately but I can’t get enough of his writing. Pretty extreme levels of violence but doesn’t dwell on it, and he’s just so damn entertaining. Also some good twists and hidden meanings you may not get until towards the end
Oh, I might just have to check out a title by him! Thank you for the suggestion!
So spicy, love it!
Was it? I thought I was very nice! 😂
@@PlaguedbyVisions The spice was mild, don't worry. You were perfectly nice. I was referring to 7:28- 7:46, had me laughing.
@@kerilowman9257 That’s the tone I read all their books in.
Genital grinder was just not it. Woom almost got there but eh. Now, I know it got a lot of hate but I actually took it as parody, so Dead Inside just worked for me. The Necrophiliac is good and so is a lot of the Dennis Cooper books. Surprisingly, I was not a fan of American Psycho. The constant obsession with labels and name brands takes away from the story, it's half, literally half of the book. What I really want is a crazy religious horror, like full on, let's go to Hell. Or just a really scary ghost, haunted house book that can blow Matheson's Hell House out of the water. Fingers crossed.
Genital Grinder not being in is the most disappointing thing I have ever read. 😂
I’ve heard Edward Lee’s City Infernal trilogy is very much an extreme, zany journey to hell, or something like that!
great vid! Personally a book I started reading and couldn't finish was A 120 days of Sodom, but not for the reasons you'd think. I read it because after seeing the movie, I couldn't stop thinking how... plain and superficial it felt. I felt we didn't really get to know the libertines nor the victims, and that bothered me a lot. Specifically with the Bishop, I felt like he had so much more potential as a character, as his main struggle through the movie was how he couldn't satisfy himself. I thought this was so interesting because it creates a different dynamic between the libertines; 3 of them are having the time of their lives and one of them can't get to that point. It would've been so interesting to have a monologue of him or a scene that showed us why and since when he feels that way, just a peak into his mind. I started reading the book in hopes of getting a little more understanding of his character and was totally disappointed to see that the book was totally lacking exposition about the libertines. You get reminded a hundred times how horrible they are, how monstruous they are, tho de Sade never shows you why they are that way, so to me, the violence never gets to disturb me because I don't know them. Maybe they were born evil, but I refuse to believe they are that one dimensional where the only thing they do is being evil and have sex. Even if they are that repulsive, there should be more to them; I feel like the only emotion range they have is being horny. Maybe I'm asking for too much but the transgressive fiction that shocks me to the core is when I get to know the characters, because then the violence takes meaning.
Sorry for the long ass comment, but I really needed to take it off my chest lmao
My comments are always a safe space to vent. ❤️
@@PlaguedbyVisions thanks Juan🫶🙌🙌 have a nice day!
Talia was just so bad… I can excuse grmataical errors to an extent but I think the worse offense this book holds is the Mary Sue ending. Just barely explanation with little thought, she turns into a demon and happy ending
I didn’t even get to that in this video, goddamn… first of all, terribly outdated use of the “magical negro” trope, coupled with how disjointed and absentminded the twist was… look, I called it “the worst book I’ve ever read” for a reason. 😂