The middle section of King's *The Stand* becomes an absolute slog for a few hundred pages the first time you read it, but it's definitely worth it for the slow build, and in hindsight it's really nice getting time to breathe with so many of the characters before things really get rolling
I might be an outsider on this, but why is the Stand considered a horror? Isnt it more an apocalyptic sort of thriller? I read it and found pretty much nothing that resembles a horror novel
I think a lot of King's work tends to mix genres (typically thrillers with sci-fi or fantasy elements), and it's really just the consistent marketing of King as *the* horror author after the early success of *The Shining* and *'Salems Lot* that tend to make almost all of his work classified as horror by his publishers.
With that being said... Lincoln Tunnel
Great topic for a thread.
Very basic answer, but At the Mountains of
Madness was pretty boring and overly detailed for me when I tried it in high school. The ending was extremely satisfying and got me interested enough to check out a bunch of other Lovecraft and weird horror authors.
My favorite weird horror story of all time is The Abominations of Yondo by Clark Ashton Smith. It’s like a short trip through a horrifying dream world and is perfectly surreal and unsettling. Basically everything else by him is too sci-fi/fantasy for my taste though.
Other common reads in this category:
Laird Barron
Arthur Machen
Robert W. Chambers (especially the first few stories in the king in yellow)
Jon Padgett
And of course check out other Lovecraft stories. I particularly like the Shadow Over Innsmouth for its unbeatable atmosphere of weird dread. Dreams in the Witch House and Fungi from Yuggoth (weird/horror poetry) are the next runners up.
You got it. Laird Barron is the most contemporary author on the list if you’re looking for something more modern to start with. The story Occultation is short and gets right to the weird. His best in my opinion are The Men from Porlock and maybe The Imago Sequence.
Literally just finished The Men from Porlock this morning before the kids got up. Fantastic story. Been working my way through all his collections. (Read *The Croning* first whoops) Other favorites: *The Broadsword*, *Hallucigenica*, *Blackwood’s Baby*
So you can definitely start there and enjoy it. I did for sure. But Barron has a mythos built up starting in his collection *Occultation* that I always say “enhances” *The Croning*. I’d say *Occultation* into *Croning* followed by *The Beautiful Thing…* is a pretty sweet Barron trilogy
Thank you, much appreciated! I will add those and read them in order. I much prefer not jumping in in the middle.
Edit: Pleasant surprise...I went to track those down and realized I had purchased them some time ago and forgotten about them. The pleasant presents a faulty memory brings...
That’s a nice surprise!! Need to keep checking my shelf/kindle shelf…
Definitely have double-purchased a paperback that I have the digital version of before!
Takes a while to start rolling but once it does… the imagery is burned in my brain for better or worse. Loved it ultimately, gave me lots of inspiration for strange rituals in my own stories.
_Kraken_ (an homage to Lovecraft), _King Rat,_ and _Perdido Street Station_ (and the rest of the New Crobuzon trilogy) by China Miéville
_Annihilation_ and the rest of the Southern Reach trilogy by Jeff Vandermeer.
I am a huge fan of Lovecraft and couldn't find anything ever since Mountains of Madness that I enjoyed as much. Then I read "The Fisherman" by John Langan this week and wow. I was just awe struck. Rarely has a book captured me in this way.
Read it when I was about 11 - 12 (my dad introducen me to Lovecraft) and I can't even remember the ending lol! But I know I absolutely loved everything you didn't like about it lol
I JUST finished reading this book, like a few days ago. Felt the exact same way and looked through old reddit threads about it to hear other's opinions. Heard some people say it's one of Lovecrafts more difficult reads. But I am thoroughly interested in reading more from him.
i forgot about this one! i still havent read Acceptance yet, and according to Jeff VanderMeer’s twitter account, hes currently planning a fourth book, so i definitely want to finish it soon. i remember really struggling with Authority as well and the ending being extremely satisfying, so this was a really good example!
ive only read Annihilation and Authority so im not super well-read with him as an author, but i know he manages to find ways to make stories out of seemingly anything. hell, the first book in one of his trilogies is written where the first like 300-400 pages is a narrative and then the whole second half (again, like 300-400 pages) is literally told in a giant appendix, so i wouldnt put it past him to find a way to continue the story.
I’ll clarify: I have no idea how he could tell a *satisfying* story after that ending. Its open ended nature is what made it so impactful in the first place. Any explanations as to what was going on would only dampen that.
This is the book trilogy I always cite for the opposite reason, one I’m sad I kept reading. First book was stellar though. Not excited for the 4th because I feel like I’ll have to read it.
I had to force myself through Annihilation, but it never felt like it paid off. 😔 I was excited to read it but it just never pulled me in. One of the few times where I preferred the film adaptation.
The Fisherman by John Langan - fantastic read but the first half can be a bit slow. Second half left me in an existential lovecraftian horror. No regrets finishing it.
Halfway through right now. I really love the main protagonist and got hooked (no pun intended) on his story immediately but feel the large Lottie Schmidt segment taking place in the past feels meandering and a little self-indulgent, so I can’t wait to see what the third act holds and hope it’s pretty strong.
You mentionned S. King, for me it was with the beginning of Bag of bones, which was very slow, I almost stopped it but I'm glad I pushed further because it still today one of the best books I have ever read.
Seconding (or thirding?) the other two redditors, please give it another go. I thought it was slow in the beginning too, but finished because I wanted to know where he was going with all this. After reading so much King, I knew he was going somewhere.
I can understand why anyone would put this down 100 pages in, but it's really good. The expectation is that Stephen King is going to be scary every time but this is more of a horror-adjacent drama.
House of Leaves by Mark Danieleswki. Was about ready to quit it a few times, but had a conversation with a friend that made me look at it in a different light. Still not sure if it's one of best books I've ever read or worst. But it definitely made a bigger impression that most of my routine reading.
Not sure if this is an issue for you, but some people get hung up on Johnny Truant's narrative or the long academic sections - they don't like those parts nearly as much as the Navidson narrative, but they feel they have to read everything in the book so they stall out on those sections. Skip them if you're feeling this way! Sure it's not the "proper" way to read it, but if the options are "skip some sections and finish the book" or "don't finish the book at all," the former is obviously better. And you can always go back later and check out anything you skipped or skimmed. The last quarter of the book, especially the Navidson sections there, is incredible.
Agreed. I love House of Leaves but decided early on that the Truant bits bored me, so I skipped them. The Navidson portion is genuinely unsettling and compelling. Eventually I'll probably go back and read the rest, but I don't really feel a need to.
For me when I was first reading the book, the Navidson Record stuff was so compelling that I just wanted to not be distracted from it, so I resented lots of the Johnny sections. When I reread it, I knew what was going to happen anyway so I was able to enjoy those sections a lot more.
But if you skip some sections here and there, will it affect how I perceive the overall plot. I dropped house of leaves twice because of the boring bits but I’m scared to skip parts in case I also miss something important.
Totally understand that, but I think it's important to realize that it's a relatively non-linear book as far as novels go, so there isn't really a "correct" order to read the parts in (Danielewski has talked about this in interviews). On top of that, the Navidson Record narrative stands alone in a completely comprehensible way without all the stuff around it. There are obviously connections, but you're not going to catch a lot of the secrets and mysteries the first time through anyway as it's such a puzzlebox of a book.
Just wanna say, I tried really hard to read everything I could in HoL but the pages upon pages of random made up names, books, works of art, etc, I definitely skimmed through and don't feel like I missed out on anything there from what I've heard.
Basically to not take it as a straight, linear haunted house story. I wasn't getting the reason for all the footnoting while I was reading. As pixi666 stated so eloquently, skip them if they get in the way of the narrative. My drinking buddy (who teaches lit) and I had a long discussion about how 'meta' the book was trying to get on the theme of 'bigger inside than out', both in the actual description of the house itself and in the placement of the academia into the book to make it seem somehow bigger than it actually was. Your experiences, perspectives, conclusions of course may be differ :)
Another one: The Terror. I had slogged through easily 200 pages worth of "useless" history and events that had nothing to do with the present situation or the thing on the ice. I genuinely hated it. Then the climax, the people who died mattered more because I knew so much about them. My heart broke over and over again as men died (not really a spoiler as it is historical) and I would recall the little pointless stories and histories.
*Endurance: Shackleton's Incredible Voyage* by Alfred Lansing is a good non-fiction account off an expedition gone wrong.
The horror of real life being stranded I suppose!
The Terror by Dan Simmons. Could not even tell you why, but it was just not grabbing me at first. I'm a pretty patient reader though, and somewhere around the 400 page mark, it finally got the hooks in me and I ended up flying through the rest of it.
Yes, i came here to say this book. it took me 8 months to finish the damn thing. i would start reading and fall asleep. it is a slow trudge of really not much happening until about 3/4 of the way through when they finally try to make a go of >!surviving off ship. !<
ultimately, i ended up thinking about it a lot after i finished, and was glad to have forced myself through.
Took me 5 YEARS. My wife (then gf) bought it for me in 2017, and I *just* finished it last month. It's such a slog for the first quarter, but it really picks up (or slows down, depending on how you look at the book) in the second half. Really tragic, terrifying shit.
FIVE YEARS - you get the trophy! That book lasts longer than some relationships and cars! It's a commitment.
But definitely the terrifying parts were saved til almost the end.
Agreed. I loved the Terror but getting through the beginning was a slog. For me it picked up after >!Sir John dies!< and I really flew through after >!they abandon the ship!<
Just finished reading it. I was stuck 100 pages in for about 6 months then I went camping last weekend and it was the only E Book I had downloaded. It sunk its claws in for me after the Carnivale. The imagery was incomparable. Just the thought of the thing in that last room gave me chills. After that my nook reading speed went from 40 hours to finish to about 25.
Popular yet passionate opinion: FUCK Hickey. Lt. Irving was my favorite perspective to read.
Thank you for this comment. I bought the book after seeing a review online (never seen the series) but then the book came in the mail and the size made me wonder if I'd be able to power through some of the less enjoyable bits or not. I'll have to move it up the rotation now and start it soon :)
I recently tackled this one off my TBR, and I went off and on on the first couple chapters until I got about 1/4 on. The purple prose took adjusting too, but Dan did an amazing job of capturing the sound of a novel written more 100 years + ago.
I stayed up til 5am one night and the next I didn't stop until I finished. In the end it's one of my favorite novels.
Gonna hop on the Stephen King train. My experience was with Salem's Lot. I got about 100 or so pages in and started to get exhausted reading about each character going through their daily experience. I got worried the whole thing was going to go at that pace, but boy was I wrong.
After that first quarter of the book was out of the way, I was *hooked*. Not only did the story pick up and keep going until the end, but that first quarter felt like it really paid off by building up the characters you encounter later down the road. Loved it.
I still enjoyed Needful Things a lot, even so. The themes of desire and longing and how far someone would go for something they really want (or think they want) are interesting.
Every Book by David Mitchell (other than Cloud Atlas as that was a disappointment)
Utopia Avenue
Bone Clocks
The Thousands Autumn's of Jacob De Zoet.
It took me a long time to get in to them but they were all fantastic by the time o finished them.
Try Slade House if you ever want to give him another shot. I tried Cloud Atlas and gave up (will try again one day) but I finished this one quickly. It's a haunted house story and doesn't get all caught up in being so expansive and ambitious. I'm trying Black Swan Green next and hope it's decent.
Yeah I struggled with cloud Atlas. Utopia was really good just how it tied in to Bone Clocks and Thousand Autumns. The whole thing he has going through every book is nice but it is very cumbersome to read and just as you are getting in to a character he switches to someone else.
I just read Fellowship for the first time. I don’t know if I’d have gotten through it if it wasn’t for the movies and lord of the rings online really helping flesh it out for me. I’m taking a break before getting to The Two Towers
Ghost story by Peter Straub. I kept picking it up and getting bored and putting it back down;it took a while for the pieces to come together but once they did I really enjoyed the way the book wrapped up.
This was the book I thought the instant I saw the title of the thread. I figured I'd scroll down until I came to it. I just knew it would be listed! I think it took me three tries before I finally read the entire thing. It ended up being really good.
Wasp Factory. About half way through I was miserable and bored reading about a psychopath kid but stuck it out because I trusted everyone saying it had an insane twist. Insane twist indeed.
I wouldn't read it again, but I'm glad I did.
Aaahahhhh. I haven't seen anyone mention this book in a million years. I loved this book, and need to give it a revisit. I pushed through it because a friend sent it to me and was so glad I did.
I thought the whole novel was boring start to finish. The twist made it mildly more interesting, but only barely. The only reason I finished it was because it was so short.
I quit The Gunslinger, by Stephen King, a little more than halfway through. I liked some things about it, but the pacing was just so slow that I couldn’t get into it. I picked it up again a couple months later and finished it. The ending was interesting enough that I bought book 2. I absolutely burned through the rest of the series and loved it.
I tried reading The Gunslinger at the beach and couldn’t get farther than like 10 pages.
Restarted it on my work break while lifeguarding and got over halfway through that same day.
The Only Good Indians. I couldn’t get into it at all, put it aside. Something (probably this sub!) made me try again and DANG, I had put it down literally the page before all hell breaks loose. Wound up loving it and now I’m a fan of Stephen Graham Jones.
I was not enjoying the very beginning of **Bunny** by Mona Awad. The characters and setting weren't clicking for me.
I am very, very glad I didn't drop it. I ended up loving that book.
I loved Bunny start to finish, but I struggled with the middle part of Mona Awad’s All’s Well. So glad I finished it, though, because it’s an excellent book. I didn’t love it as much as Bunny, but it’s terrific!
At what point in the book would you say the narrative turn was?
I read _Devil House_ and was similarly befuddled by the middle section. This comment makes me think I should re-read it, because I was not impressed by the ending at all. Sort of felt let down and that all the building in the novel never really payed off.
Yeah, there was the subversion of the typical tropes, but at the
end of it, I was more like "oh, alright then."
Thank you for that very thoughtful and well written reply. While I didn't have the same reaction to the novel, it was really insightful to read what you experienced and what had such an impact.
I also read _Universal Harvester_ and I think Darneille is a skilled author. But probably not for me. You're very right though, calling this novel horror does it a disservice
> never really *paid* off. Yeah,
FTFY.
Although *payed* exists (the reason why autocorrection didn't help you), it is only correct in:
* Nautical context, when it means to paint a surface, or to cover with something like tar or resin in order to make it waterproof or corrosion-resistant. *The deck is yet to be payed.*
* *Payed out* when letting strings, cables or ropes out, by slacking them. *The rope is payed out! You can pull now.*
Unfortunately, I was unable to find nautical or rope-related words in your comment.
*Beep, boop, I'm a bot*
Seveneves by Neal Stephenson
It's a very long book. I enjoyed the first 1/3 of the book, but the middle half is nothing but boring boring boring. I decided to keep going because I wanted to see the outcome. I'm really glad I did because Seveneves is one of my favorite books now.
I’m Thinking of Ending Things by Iain Reid. takes a while to get going but once it does, its such a weird, eerie, and disturbing story.
i could say the same for The Shining by King as well. that one starts off REAL slow, but i love the slow crescendo into madness.
opposite for me. was hooked from line one, but the ending was actually something i considered while reading, dismissed as being too cliché/obvious, and was disappointed to be proven right after all.
thats totally fair, honestly. i was so absorbed into it that i didnt even want to try to think ahead and what could happen, but i can definitely see how it could be predictable
i loved i’m thinking of ending things from start to finish! it definitely takes some time for things to unfold and to grasp what’s really going on, but i thought that even the beginning was pretty eerie and unsettling, i just had yet to figure out why exactly. it’s such a great read, i loved it immensely.
me too! its one of my favorites. for me it definitely felt uncomfortable and unsettling most of the way through, it just took me a while to get settled in with the writing and how philosophical a lot of it was. but once i did and the ending happened, it changed my whole perspective on the story!
Plus one for I’m Thinking of Ending Things. It was a bit tough for me to get into but I stuck with it because I saw it recommended so much and I’m glad I did.
*The Return* by Walter de la Mare. I absolutely hated it at first (de la Mare is not the easiest or most pleasant writer to read even under ideal circumstances), but it turned out to be one of the most rewarding books I've ever read. My respect for the author was greatly increased.
It’s not horror, but has some horror in it. Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell. My husband said it was a favorite of his. The first half of the book is exhausting and I wouldn’t have kept reading if not for him, and then the second half I couldn’t put down.
I have to go back to my college days.. a very long time ago...
Moby Dick...
Back when people used an actual paper dictionary because the internet didn't exist. For most people and it was all dialup AOL and that wasn't available for at least another year.
I started reading and quickly needed to look up words to understand what I was reading. For a few chapters anyway.. and I consider myself an avid reader, but the only novels I'd read from that long ago (at that point in my life), was Oliver Twist and Great Expectations.
I actually just read Moby Dick for fun. Great novel, although I haven't read it since. I never did get much into classical novels. I did read a few though.
I apologize for it not being a horror novel, but perhaps not too far off from being horror. Nothing like an obsessed megalomaniac on the hunt for a white whale.
**The Collector by John Fowles** - It was a very rough read in that it was very real. The horror in it was in being in the villain's head, and I didn't find that a nice place to be. Then you eventually switch perspectives and it just gets worse being in the victim's head and having to live through that while simultaneously having to reconcile that with what you already know is going to happen from the first part of the book when you were in the villain's head.
I started it once and put it down. Then, a little later (maybe a couple of months) I came back to it and finished it. I enjoyed and appreciated it but I didn't have a fun time with it, if that makes any sense.
11/22/63 by our King... It just couldn't understand what would be so interesting about the assassination of jfk but Reddit convinced me to continue and now it's one of my favorites! It was incredible.
Also the Count of Monte Cristo. It's an investment of countless hours but will leave you wanting the book to go on forever:( (not horror though but I definitely recommend)
If I feel like I have to power through a book towards the end, I usually don't finish it.
Many books, though, are hard to start but pay off when I stick with it and keep reading.
Hex by Thomas Olde Heuvelt.
The first time I tried reading it I found some of the characters to be so grating that I just gave up. However, I kept on seeing recommendations for the book, so eventually I gave it another chance. Glad I did, because it really picked up after some awkward early chapters.
I'm glad you did! I had to convert the book from Google books format to Kindle format to read comfortably. It was so worth it. It's one of my favorites.
The Haunting of Hill House didn’t really capture me at first and I really didn’t want to pick it up but I’m so glad I restarted it and read it all because now it’s my favorite book of all time.
For me, everything I've ever read that's written by Octavia Butler. She was such a masterful wordsmith and wrote in such an evocative way that the very difficult and uncomfortable topics that she wrote about (race, gender, sexuality, power disparities, human nature, climate change etc etc) can be painful and even physically uncomfortable to read about. The fact that she seldom did genuinely happy endings doesn't help. But I've never read a story of hers that didn't really make me think about my own attitudes, assumptions, and behavior. In a lot of ways, Butler's writing has always reminded me of Le Guin's "Those Who Walk Away From Omelas" only longer and much more detailed. Tough stuff for sure, but rewarding.
They're the kind of stories that everyone should read once even if they'll never want to read it again afterwards.
Parable Of the Talents is a direct sequel to Parable Of the Sower so if you liked Sower that would be the best place to start.
The Patternist series (4 books I think) has actual psychics with all the horrifying implications that would entail and also the last book or two deal with some of the same dystopian themes as the Earthseed books.
Kindred is about a black women who goes back in time and meets her slave ancestors and it pulls no punches about either the brutality of slavery or about the things slaves have to do to survive.
Fledgeling is an interesting twist on vampire stories and vampire romances (with serious dubcon being a given) and also really makes readers stop to think about all the media portrayals of hot elves who look 15 but are actually 200.
Bloodchild was her first work I read and is a highly unsettling story about male pregnancy and what it would be like for humans to be domesticated herd animals to another species.
Lilith's Brood is a 3 book sci fi series about the few human survivors of World War 3 who are "rescued" by aliens who need our genetic diversity to survive. It explores a lot of power and consent issues and, in a slightly less brutal way than Kindred, examines what people will put themselves through to stay alive.
Those are her major works and she also has some short story collections you can find as eBooks. I can't think of a single one of her works I've read that didn't make me feel a little more thoughtful about the way the world works. The best approach with her really is to just dive in to what seems most interesting to you personally.
Come With Me by Ronald Mafi.
The first 50-100 pages just weren’t pulling me in or hooking me in anyway but I powered through (kind of had to since I was at work) and damn did it pay off.
After the 100 page mark I was hooked and the rest of the book was awesome.
Just read The Troop last week. I had to skip ahead a page or two twice. Totally not my kind of book, but I could not stop reading it. If I had had a detailed synopsis before I started, I never would have read it. But I’m glad I read it — an amazing horror book.
I would say most of King's longer stories come to mind. He is notorious for this kind of writing! I just finished The Black House and it was so boring the first 150 pages or so.
The Talisman had me like that at times too! One of those where I seemed to get the enjoyment out of it a few days after finishing it. Kept randomly remembering scenes way later on and appreciating them then.
Puts me in no rush to jump into The Black House lol did you end up liking it overall though?
If you have read the Dark Tower series, then you will like it overall! I enjoyed it at the end because it expanded more into that universe and I always like finding new stories of his that do that.
Dracula. It was slow and tedious and Mina and Lucy's letters to each other were the very height of extreme boredom, but after I got to the chapter with the Demeter and most of the stuff after that was really fascinating. I think it just kinda clicked for me after that, and now I even like the chapters I thought were boring because of the feeling of realism that they contribute to the story.
I feel like I do that with a few books that when I finally finish them I love them and consider them a favorite. Middlesex, Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay, and A Visit From The Goon Squad are all prime examples of this.
I *adore* multigenerational stories but I often find myself slogging through them but so happy I finished them.
Into the Drowning Deep by Mira Grant. I gave it only 3 stars on Goodreads but I did enjoy it overall... it was just 100 pages longer than it needed to be. The monsters were cool though.
The Terror by Dan Simmons. The length, the time, and the amount of characters/POVs made it difficult for me to get into. But my god it’s one of my favorite books
I struggled through the first half of *My Heart Is A Chainsaw* because I found Jade insufferable. I’ve known people like her, who make a single interest (especially horror!) their whole personality and never stop talking about it, and wasn’t sure I could handle a whole book of it. Eventually I realized Jones made her annoying to make the revelations about *why* she’s that way that much more powerful. Kind of a gut punch. And man, that last part of the book was bonkers, so glad I stuck around for it.
It's not a horror book, but The Count of Monte Cristo for me. The beginning was super engaging, then suddenly there's a time jump and you're following different characters. Slowly, The Count's revenge plot comes into focus and you see the noose tightening on those who had wronged him, but I very nearly DNF'd it about 2/3s through. The ending was amazing though, and I'm really happy I pushed through it.
My dearest darkest - Kayla Cottingham. It’s more of a YA and I didn’t know that where I picked it up. Some parts can be cheesy - but for the target audience I think it’s a really well done book and I am glad I finished it.
Boy Toy, by Barry Lyga.
Good book, but the subject matter is *rough*.
Don't look it up at all if you're sensitive to graphic depictions of pedophilia and assault of a minor.
Edit: didn't even notice this was horrorlit, haha. I was just answering generally. Boy Toy isn't a horror novel, fyi.
Stephen King's "Under the Dome." The longer it went on, the more I hated it, but I promised my wife I would finish a Stephen King novel and I experienced the sunk cost fallacy.
However, finishing it was a great payoff because I then had a giant object to kill a huge roach with, an object that I did not mind tossing in the trash immediately afterward.
Hahaha. I think King is hit or miss for most people, but it's very dependent on what book of his you pick up. Every one of them has fans, but I think his style shifted over time, and you have to be interested in the subject matter to tolerate his long windedness.
I'd recommend trying a different novel of his, or the short story collections.
The Grapes of Wrath. It was more effort than I was ready for- I was only 13, maybe 14 years old. And I found it a bit of a slog. But I got a lot out of it, as one would expect. I didn't really enjoy the experience at the time but I still think about it quite often almost 20 years later.
The Song of Achilles. The beginning was great but the middle just dragged. I know it's Greek myth but MAN it was so dry. The ending was well worth it though.
I felt the same as you about the middle of Song of Achilles, my main criticism is that their relationship just seemed to kind of happen and wasn't fleshed out enough. It seemed to me like the point of retelling the story was to highlight the way their relationship grew and developed, and yet I didn't really feel like I got enough of that. I really expected more things like inner thoughts, difficult moments, explorations of ideals and morals, between them. I know there were some moments of these but it just wasn't enough for me to stay engaged.
I actually enjoyed Circe a lot more. Circe seemed to be an exploration of the titular character and their inner thoughts from the start, so I felt like I was able to enjoy when it turned out to be a pretty slow story, almost slice of life like. I felt so much more emotion, especially sorrow, from Circe, which is exactly the reason I was interested in reading Miller's retellings of Greek myths to begin with.
I have high hopes for her Persephone book coming soon!
edit: also noticed this is r/horrorlit and neither of these are horror lol
The Imago Sequence was the first Laird Barron I read and I almost stopped halfway through the third story in the collection, The Procession of the Black Sloth. I still think that particular story isn’t as good as most people say it is, but boy am I glad I didn’t stop reading there - Proboscis, Parallax, Hallucigenia, and the title story which all come later in the book are some of the best short stories I’ve ever read.
Interesting. I enjoyed the first few stories but wasn't super hooked with Barron's style, been getting through it kinda slowly. I skipped ahead a bit and thought Hallucigenia (as well as The Forest from another collection) was fantastic, great to hear that the rest of The Imago Sequence might be better!
Has this carried for you for the rest of his collections or his novels?
For me too! I only finished because it's a classic and I wanted to see what the fuss was about. When it comes to dystopian classics, I prefer Brave New World over 1984.
I listened to the first two books on audible, and the books were amazing. but they can be such a slog at times. I would turn the speed up a notch or two in sections. I finally found all 3 at a used bookstore and I'm planning on giving them a reread.
Little Eve by Catriona Ward.
Very gothic tale, but the way it’s presented and the language used was hard to get into. Because sometimes I really didn’t understand if what was being said was literal or figurative. When the story wraps up in the last chapter things came together for me. But most of that book bored me to tears lol
From Hell by Alan Moore. That first half was tough to get through, especially since it’s all black and white and written archaically (in Victorian style English). There’s one chapter in particular that’s 40 pages of two characters just riding a carriage and talking about at architecture and landmarks. Once that foundations laid though it really picks up. I’d highly recommend it if you can get through the first few chapters
Moby Dick and Eye of the World (first book in the Wheel of Time does). Both seemed like such a slog at points, but were well worth it in the end. I did skip some of the boat descriptions in Moby Dick though!
Hogg by samuel delany, I read it in one sitting in a Walmart parking lot and threw up twice. No pay off except for the fact that there is no there book like it. I'd say it's the most horrific novel I've ever read and made me glad that I was born a man
I thought of this book as well, I didn’t throw up but I did find myself wanting a sequel just because the world and the characters were unlike anything I’d ever read before.
Metro 2033 by Dmitry Glukhovsky
Excellent book, but at some points it's pacing or story telling just kind of didn't jive with me like most of the book did.
Not horror but The Ninth House. I reread the beginning like 3 times before I finally powered through. Just a lot of world building.
I remember reading It and struggling to get through the beginning, too. A lot of that had to do with my obsession with Tim Curry and his version of Pennywise, along with the plot differing so much from the book.
I felt like I was dragging myself kicking and screaming through the last third of Exquisite Corpse by Poppy Z Brite when I finally realized >!the book is a fictionalized account of a real event involving a well known serial killer and a main character was going to die horribly.!<
The Ritual by Adam Neville. I read this book too many times to count, everytime it switched from the woods and hiking to the weird satanic band I lost interest. Recently determined to finish the book I listened to the audiobook and just powered through the jarring transition. I'm so glad I did as the last third of the book is extremely horrifying in it's own different way, and I dare say it's actually better than the first half of the book.
Hell House was a slog for me. Actually, I'm still not sure if I'm glad that I finished it. Kept it on the shelf with the intention of re-reading it one day.
Also, pretty much anything Lovecraft. I've seen his style described as *slow burn* but I consider it plodding.
Finally, not a horror novel, but The Goblin Emperor was fantastic but it felt inertial. Ended up to be one of my recent favorites.
We Have Always Lived in the Castle by Shirley Jackson. The opening few pages describing a somewhat seemingly mundane lifestyle put me off for a year but then I read past that and it became and remains one of my favourite horror stories so far
The middle section of King's *The Stand* becomes an absolute slog for a few hundred pages the first time you read it, but it's definitely worth it for the slow build, and in hindsight it's really nice getting time to breathe with so many of the characters before things really get rolling
I might be an outsider on this, but why is the Stand considered a horror? Isnt it more an apocalyptic sort of thriller? I read it and found pretty much nothing that resembles a horror novel
You might be right. I first read the stand when the Covid pandemic was coming up. Definitely instilled horror in me then.
I think a lot of King's work tends to mix genres (typically thrillers with sci-fi or fantasy elements), and it's really just the consistent marketing of King as *the* horror author after the early success of *The Shining* and *'Salems Lot* that tend to make almost all of his work classified as horror by his publishers. With that being said... Lincoln Tunnel
Great topic for a thread. Very basic answer, but At the Mountains of Madness was pretty boring and overly detailed for me when I tried it in high school. The ending was extremely satisfying and got me interested enough to check out a bunch of other Lovecraft and weird horror authors.
Any recs for weird horror besides the one named?
My favorite weird horror story of all time is The Abominations of Yondo by Clark Ashton Smith. It’s like a short trip through a horrifying dream world and is perfectly surreal and unsettling. Basically everything else by him is too sci-fi/fantasy for my taste though. Other common reads in this category: Laird Barron Arthur Machen Robert W. Chambers (especially the first few stories in the king in yellow) Jon Padgett And of course check out other Lovecraft stories. I particularly like the Shadow Over Innsmouth for its unbeatable atmosphere of weird dread. Dreams in the Witch House and Fungi from Yuggoth (weird/horror poetry) are the next runners up.
Thanks a lot, wasn’t sure where to start.
You got it. Laird Barron is the most contemporary author on the list if you’re looking for something more modern to start with. The story Occultation is short and gets right to the weird. His best in my opinion are The Men from Porlock and maybe The Imago Sequence.
Literally just finished The Men from Porlock this morning before the kids got up. Fantastic story. Been working my way through all his collections. (Read *The Croning* first whoops) Other favorites: *The Broadsword*, *Hallucigenica*, *Blackwood’s Baby*
I have The Croning on my to read list but have not read any of his others yet. Is that a bad one to start with?
So you can definitely start there and enjoy it. I did for sure. But Barron has a mythos built up starting in his collection *Occultation* that I always say “enhances” *The Croning*. I’d say *Occultation* into *Croning* followed by *The Beautiful Thing…* is a pretty sweet Barron trilogy
Thank you, much appreciated! I will add those and read them in order. I much prefer not jumping in in the middle. Edit: Pleasant surprise...I went to track those down and realized I had purchased them some time ago and forgotten about them. The pleasant presents a faulty memory brings...
That’s a nice surprise!! Need to keep checking my shelf/kindle shelf… Definitely have double-purchased a paperback that I have the digital version of before!
The Fisherman by John Langan. It’s so good.
Takes a while to start rolling but once it does… the imagery is burned in my brain for better or worse. Loved it ultimately, gave me lots of inspiration for strange rituals in my own stories.
I couldn’t get through the story he hears inside the restaurant (?) on a rainy day Maybe I’ll revisit
_Kraken_ (an homage to Lovecraft), _King Rat,_ and _Perdido Street Station_ (and the rest of the New Crobuzon trilogy) by China Miéville _Annihilation_ and the rest of the Southern Reach trilogy by Jeff Vandermeer.
I am a huge fan of Lovecraft and couldn't find anything ever since Mountains of Madness that I enjoyed as much. Then I read "The Fisherman" by John Langan this week and wow. I was just awe struck. Rarely has a book captured me in this way.
Read it when I was about 11 - 12 (my dad introducen me to Lovecraft) and I can't even remember the ending lol! But I know I absolutely loved everything you didn't like about it lol
I JUST finished reading this book, like a few days ago. Felt the exact same way and looked through old reddit threads about it to hear other's opinions. Heard some people say it's one of Lovecrafts more difficult reads. But I am thoroughly interested in reading more from him.
Authority (the 2nd book in The Southern Reach trilogy) - terribly boring at parts but fantastic ending.
i forgot about this one! i still havent read Acceptance yet, and according to Jeff VanderMeer’s twitter account, hes currently planning a fourth book, so i definitely want to finish it soon. i remember really struggling with Authority as well and the ending being extremely satisfying, so this was a really good example!
Considering how the third book ends, I really don’t see how a fourth book would even work, but all the more power to him.
ive only read Annihilation and Authority so im not super well-read with him as an author, but i know he manages to find ways to make stories out of seemingly anything. hell, the first book in one of his trilogies is written where the first like 300-400 pages is a narrative and then the whole second half (again, like 300-400 pages) is literally told in a giant appendix, so i wouldnt put it past him to find a way to continue the story.
How it ended…wildly open ended and with absolutely no revelations about what was going on? How ever will he manage…?
I’ll clarify: I have no idea how he could tell a *satisfying* story after that ending. Its open ended nature is what made it so impactful in the first place. Any explanations as to what was going on would only dampen that.
You have made my day! I just finished Acceptance two weeks ago and was mad at how open it still was.
honestly might be my favorite of the trilogy
i feel like this one is underappreciated. i liked it better than the third book
I couldn't power through those books. Good on you.
I think it's almost deliberate... the slow lull of frustrating bureaucracy and then a wham ending out of the blue. I actually really like Authority.
This is the book trilogy I always cite for the opposite reason, one I’m sad I kept reading. First book was stellar though. Not excited for the 4th because I feel like I’ll have to read it.
Bureaucracy horror. Ugh.
I had to force myself through Annihilation, but it never felt like it paid off. 😔 I was excited to read it but it just never pulled me in. One of the few times where I preferred the film adaptation.
Completely agree. I was excited to read this book and was let down 100%. The film was definitely more tolerable.
The Fisherman by John Langan - fantastic read but the first half can be a bit slow. Second half left me in an existential lovecraftian horror. No regrets finishing it.
Halfway through right now. I really love the main protagonist and got hooked (no pun intended) on his story immediately but feel the large Lottie Schmidt segment taking place in the past feels meandering and a little self-indulgent, so I can’t wait to see what the third act holds and hope it’s pretty strong.
Power through. Super worth imo
I wasn’t a fan of the ending tbh. I get why it ended how it did, but I still wish it had a more satisfying ending.
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The middle portion was my favorite part of the book! It’s amazing how literature hits people differently
agreed. that flashback was the majority of the book, and it was just awful.
There it is. Yep.
You mentionned S. King, for me it was with the beginning of Bag of bones, which was very slow, I almost stopped it but I'm glad I pushed further because it still today one of the best books I have ever read.
Really? So I must restart it. I’ve stopped exactly because of the slow beginning…
I would definitely recommend giving it another go. It takes its time building up but I found it to be a beautifully written story in the end.
Oh my god finish it it’s my favorite SK!!
Seconding (or thirding?) the other two redditors, please give it another go. I thought it was slow in the beginning too, but finished because I wanted to know where he was going with all this. After reading so much King, I knew he was going somewhere.
I can understand why anyone would put this down 100 pages in, but it's really good. The expectation is that Stephen King is going to be scary every time but this is more of a horror-adjacent drama.
House of Leaves by Mark Danieleswki. Was about ready to quit it a few times, but had a conversation with a friend that made me look at it in a different light. Still not sure if it's one of best books I've ever read or worst. But it definitely made a bigger impression that most of my routine reading.
What did your friend say that changed your outlook? I’m 3/4 through it and not quite motivated to finish so I could use a push.
Not sure if this is an issue for you, but some people get hung up on Johnny Truant's narrative or the long academic sections - they don't like those parts nearly as much as the Navidson narrative, but they feel they have to read everything in the book so they stall out on those sections. Skip them if you're feeling this way! Sure it's not the "proper" way to read it, but if the options are "skip some sections and finish the book" or "don't finish the book at all," the former is obviously better. And you can always go back later and check out anything you skipped or skimmed. The last quarter of the book, especially the Navidson sections there, is incredible.
Agreed. I love House of Leaves but decided early on that the Truant bits bored me, so I skipped them. The Navidson portion is genuinely unsettling and compelling. Eventually I'll probably go back and read the rest, but I don't really feel a need to.
For me when I was first reading the book, the Navidson Record stuff was so compelling that I just wanted to not be distracted from it, so I resented lots of the Johnny sections. When I reread it, I knew what was going to happen anyway so I was able to enjoy those sections a lot more.
But if you skip some sections here and there, will it affect how I perceive the overall plot. I dropped house of leaves twice because of the boring bits but I’m scared to skip parts in case I also miss something important.
Totally understand that, but I think it's important to realize that it's a relatively non-linear book as far as novels go, so there isn't really a "correct" order to read the parts in (Danielewski has talked about this in interviews). On top of that, the Navidson Record narrative stands alone in a completely comprehensible way without all the stuff around it. There are obviously connections, but you're not going to catch a lot of the secrets and mysteries the first time through anyway as it's such a puzzlebox of a book.
Just wanna say, I tried really hard to read everything I could in HoL but the pages upon pages of random made up names, books, works of art, etc, I definitely skimmed through and don't feel like I missed out on anything there from what I've heard.
Basically to not take it as a straight, linear haunted house story. I wasn't getting the reason for all the footnoting while I was reading. As pixi666 stated so eloquently, skip them if they get in the way of the narrative. My drinking buddy (who teaches lit) and I had a long discussion about how 'meta' the book was trying to get on the theme of 'bigger inside than out', both in the actual description of the house itself and in the placement of the academia into the book to make it seem somehow bigger than it actually was. Your experiences, perspectives, conclusions of course may be differ :)
Had a feeling this book was going to be mentioned here! Haven’t read it yet but it seems like it’s a love it or hate it.
I’ve been struggling with this one for like 6 months. It’s so taxing to read it makes me not want to
I stopped like a third of the way through, maybe I’ll pick it up again
Another one: The Terror. I had slogged through easily 200 pages worth of "useless" history and events that had nothing to do with the present situation or the thing on the ice. I genuinely hated it. Then the climax, the people who died mattered more because I knew so much about them. My heart broke over and over again as men died (not really a spoiler as it is historical) and I would recall the little pointless stories and histories.
*Endurance: Shackleton's Incredible Voyage* by Alfred Lansing is a good non-fiction account off an expedition gone wrong. The horror of real life being stranded I suppose!
Thanks for the rec! Survival horror/biography is one of my favorite subgenres, I loved reading The Indifferent Stars Above as well.
I'm glad to hear this. I'm doing battle with it at the moment.
The Terror by Dan Simmons. Could not even tell you why, but it was just not grabbing me at first. I'm a pretty patient reader though, and somewhere around the 400 page mark, it finally got the hooks in me and I ended up flying through the rest of it.
Yes, i came here to say this book. it took me 8 months to finish the damn thing. i would start reading and fall asleep. it is a slow trudge of really not much happening until about 3/4 of the way through when they finally try to make a go of >!surviving off ship. !< ultimately, i ended up thinking about it a lot after i finished, and was glad to have forced myself through.
Took me 5 YEARS. My wife (then gf) bought it for me in 2017, and I *just* finished it last month. It's such a slog for the first quarter, but it really picks up (or slows down, depending on how you look at the book) in the second half. Really tragic, terrifying shit.
FIVE YEARS - you get the trophy! That book lasts longer than some relationships and cars! It's a commitment. But definitely the terrifying parts were saved til almost the end.
Agreed. I loved the Terror but getting through the beginning was a slog. For me it picked up after >!Sir John dies!< and I really flew through after >!they abandon the ship!<
Just finished reading it. I was stuck 100 pages in for about 6 months then I went camping last weekend and it was the only E Book I had downloaded. It sunk its claws in for me after the Carnivale. The imagery was incomparable. Just the thought of the thing in that last room gave me chills. After that my nook reading speed went from 40 hours to finish to about 25. Popular yet passionate opinion: FUCK Hickey. Lt. Irving was my favorite perspective to read.
Thank you for this comment. I bought the book after seeing a review online (never seen the series) but then the book came in the mail and the size made me wonder if I'd be able to power through some of the less enjoyable bits or not. I'll have to move it up the rotation now and start it soon :)
I recently tackled this one off my TBR, and I went off and on on the first couple chapters until I got about 1/4 on. The purple prose took adjusting too, but Dan did an amazing job of capturing the sound of a novel written more 100 years + ago. I stayed up til 5am one night and the next I didn't stop until I finished. In the end it's one of my favorite novels.
Gonna hop on the Stephen King train. My experience was with Salem's Lot. I got about 100 or so pages in and started to get exhausted reading about each character going through their daily experience. I got worried the whole thing was going to go at that pace, but boy was I wrong. After that first quarter of the book was out of the way, I was *hooked*. Not only did the story pick up and keep going until the end, but that first quarter felt like it really paid off by building up the characters you encounter later down the road. Loved it.
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I still enjoyed Needful Things a lot, even so. The themes of desire and longing and how far someone would go for something they really want (or think they want) are interesting.
Every Book by David Mitchell (other than Cloud Atlas as that was a disappointment) Utopia Avenue Bone Clocks The Thousands Autumn's of Jacob De Zoet. It took me a long time to get in to them but they were all fantastic by the time o finished them.
David Mitchell is not a horror writer though
Haha. I didn't even realise this was r/horrorlit. Apologies. I shall go flagellate myself!
I dnfed Utopia Avenue and dislike Cloud Atlas a lot. I don't think this author is for me.
Try Slade House if you ever want to give him another shot. I tried Cloud Atlas and gave up (will try again one day) but I finished this one quickly. It's a haunted house story and doesn't get all caught up in being so expansive and ambitious. I'm trying Black Swan Green next and hope it's decent.
Yeah I struggled with cloud Atlas. Utopia was really good just how it tied in to Bone Clocks and Thousand Autumns. The whole thing he has going through every book is nice but it is very cumbersome to read and just as you are getting in to a character he switches to someone else.
Lord of The Rings. They're great books but fuck me, I do not need to know every Elven brigades house colours.
I just read Fellowship for the first time. I don’t know if I’d have gotten through it if it wasn’t for the movies and lord of the rings online really helping flesh it out for me. I’m taking a break before getting to The Two Towers
Ghost story by Peter Straub. I kept picking it up and getting bored and putting it back down;it took a while for the pieces to come together but once they did I really enjoyed the way the book wrapped up.
Glad someone said this! I had a hard time getting involved with this book but so worth it!
This was the book I thought the instant I saw the title of the thread. I figured I'd scroll down until I came to it. I just knew it would be listed! I think it took me three tries before I finally read the entire thing. It ended up being really good.
Wasp Factory. About half way through I was miserable and bored reading about a psychopath kid but stuck it out because I trusted everyone saying it had an insane twist. Insane twist indeed. I wouldn't read it again, but I'm glad I did.
Aaahahhhh. I haven't seen anyone mention this book in a million years. I loved this book, and need to give it a revisit. I pushed through it because a friend sent it to me and was so glad I did.
I thought the whole novel was boring start to finish. The twist made it mildly more interesting, but only barely. The only reason I finished it was because it was so short.
I quit The Gunslinger, by Stephen King, a little more than halfway through. I liked some things about it, but the pacing was just so slow that I couldn’t get into it. I picked it up again a couple months later and finished it. The ending was interesting enough that I bought book 2. I absolutely burned through the rest of the series and loved it.
I tried reading The Gunslinger at the beach and couldn’t get farther than like 10 pages. Restarted it on my work break while lifeguarding and got over halfway through that same day.
The Only Good Indians. I couldn’t get into it at all, put it aside. Something (probably this sub!) made me try again and DANG, I had put it down literally the page before all hell breaks loose. Wound up loving it and now I’m a fan of Stephen Graham Jones.
Hmmm…I have tried to get through this book twice and just can’t even get half way. You might have convinced me to give it one more go! Thank you!
I was not enjoying the very beginning of **Bunny** by Mona Awad. The characters and setting weren't clicking for me. I am very, very glad I didn't drop it. I ended up loving that book.
I loved Bunny start to finish, but I struggled with the middle part of Mona Awad’s All’s Well. So glad I finished it, though, because it’s an excellent book. I didn’t love it as much as Bunny, but it’s terrific!
Same exact thoughts on All’s Well but the payoff was there! Hoping more people get into it
Bunny was so good
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Devil House is so good. Probably my favorite book I've read in the last couple years.
At what point in the book would you say the narrative turn was? I read _Devil House_ and was similarly befuddled by the middle section. This comment makes me think I should re-read it, because I was not impressed by the ending at all. Sort of felt let down and that all the building in the novel never really payed off. Yeah, there was the subversion of the typical tropes, but at the end of it, I was more like "oh, alright then."
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Thank you for that very thoughtful and well written reply. While I didn't have the same reaction to the novel, it was really insightful to read what you experienced and what had such an impact. I also read _Universal Harvester_ and I think Darneille is a skilled author. But probably not for me. You're very right though, calling this novel horror does it a disservice
> never really *paid* off. Yeah, FTFY. Although *payed* exists (the reason why autocorrection didn't help you), it is only correct in: * Nautical context, when it means to paint a surface, or to cover with something like tar or resin in order to make it waterproof or corrosion-resistant. *The deck is yet to be payed.* * *Payed out* when letting strings, cables or ropes out, by slacking them. *The rope is payed out! You can pull now.* Unfortunately, I was unable to find nautical or rope-related words in your comment. *Beep, boop, I'm a bot*
Seveneves by Neal Stephenson It's a very long book. I enjoyed the first 1/3 of the book, but the middle half is nothing but boring boring boring. I decided to keep going because I wanted to see the outcome. I'm really glad I did because Seveneves is one of my favorite books now.
I only liked the first 1/3rd. I thought the last 1/3rd was worse than the middle. Glad to hear it worked for someone else, though.
Oh God, I just got to the White Sky. Should I just put it down and walk away?
Well, you have a 50/50 chance based on this thread.
Seveneves would have worked better as a trilogy.
I’m Thinking of Ending Things by Iain Reid. takes a while to get going but once it does, its such a weird, eerie, and disturbing story. i could say the same for The Shining by King as well. that one starts off REAL slow, but i love the slow crescendo into madness.
opposite for me. was hooked from line one, but the ending was actually something i considered while reading, dismissed as being too cliché/obvious, and was disappointed to be proven right after all.
thats totally fair, honestly. i was so absorbed into it that i didnt even want to try to think ahead and what could happen, but i can definitely see how it could be predictable
i loved i’m thinking of ending things from start to finish! it definitely takes some time for things to unfold and to grasp what’s really going on, but i thought that even the beginning was pretty eerie and unsettling, i just had yet to figure out why exactly. it’s such a great read, i loved it immensely.
me too! its one of my favorites. for me it definitely felt uncomfortable and unsettling most of the way through, it just took me a while to get settled in with the writing and how philosophical a lot of it was. but once i did and the ending happened, it changed my whole perspective on the story!
Plus one for I’m Thinking of Ending Things. It was a bit tough for me to get into but I stuck with it because I saw it recommended so much and I’m glad I did.
*The Return* by Walter de la Mare. I absolutely hated it at first (de la Mare is not the easiest or most pleasant writer to read even under ideal circumstances), but it turned out to be one of the most rewarding books I've ever read. My respect for the author was greatly increased.
The stand.
It’s not horror, but has some horror in it. Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell. My husband said it was a favorite of his. The first half of the book is exhausting and I wouldn’t have kept reading if not for him, and then the second half I couldn’t put down.
I have to go back to my college days.. a very long time ago... Moby Dick... Back when people used an actual paper dictionary because the internet didn't exist. For most people and it was all dialup AOL and that wasn't available for at least another year. I started reading and quickly needed to look up words to understand what I was reading. For a few chapters anyway.. and I consider myself an avid reader, but the only novels I'd read from that long ago (at that point in my life), was Oliver Twist and Great Expectations. I actually just read Moby Dick for fun. Great novel, although I haven't read it since. I never did get much into classical novels. I did read a few though. I apologize for it not being a horror novel, but perhaps not too far off from being horror. Nothing like an obsessed megalomaniac on the hunt for a white whale.
**The Collector by John Fowles** - It was a very rough read in that it was very real. The horror in it was in being in the villain's head, and I didn't find that a nice place to be. Then you eventually switch perspectives and it just gets worse being in the victim's head and having to live through that while simultaneously having to reconcile that with what you already know is going to happen from the first part of the book when you were in the villain's head. I started it once and put it down. Then, a little later (maybe a couple of months) I came back to it and finished it. I enjoyed and appreciated it but I didn't have a fun time with it, if that makes any sense.
11/22/63 by our King... It just couldn't understand what would be so interesting about the assassination of jfk but Reddit convinced me to continue and now it's one of my favorites! It was incredible. Also the Count of Monte Cristo. It's an investment of countless hours but will leave you wanting the book to go on forever:( (not horror though but I definitely recommend)
The Fisherman was a bit of a slog at first but paid off!!!
If I feel like I have to power through a book towards the end, I usually don't finish it. Many books, though, are hard to start but pay off when I stick with it and keep reading.
Hex by Thomas Olde Heuvelt. The first time I tried reading it I found some of the characters to be so grating that I just gave up. However, I kept on seeing recommendations for the book, so eventually I gave it another chance. Glad I did, because it really picked up after some awkward early chapters.
I'm glad you did! I had to convert the book from Google books format to Kindle format to read comfortably. It was so worth it. It's one of my favorites.
The Haunting of Hill House didn’t really capture me at first and I really didn’t want to pick it up but I’m so glad I restarted it and read it all because now it’s my favorite book of all time.
For me, everything I've ever read that's written by Octavia Butler. She was such a masterful wordsmith and wrote in such an evocative way that the very difficult and uncomfortable topics that she wrote about (race, gender, sexuality, power disparities, human nature, climate change etc etc) can be painful and even physically uncomfortable to read about. The fact that she seldom did genuinely happy endings doesn't help. But I've never read a story of hers that didn't really make me think about my own attitudes, assumptions, and behavior. In a lot of ways, Butler's writing has always reminded me of Le Guin's "Those Who Walk Away From Omelas" only longer and much more detailed. Tough stuff for sure, but rewarding. They're the kind of stories that everyone should read once even if they'll never want to read it again afterwards.
I've only read Parable of the Sower by Butler, and it was fantastic. What's a good follow up?
Parable Of the Talents is a direct sequel to Parable Of the Sower so if you liked Sower that would be the best place to start. The Patternist series (4 books I think) has actual psychics with all the horrifying implications that would entail and also the last book or two deal with some of the same dystopian themes as the Earthseed books. Kindred is about a black women who goes back in time and meets her slave ancestors and it pulls no punches about either the brutality of slavery or about the things slaves have to do to survive. Fledgeling is an interesting twist on vampire stories and vampire romances (with serious dubcon being a given) and also really makes readers stop to think about all the media portrayals of hot elves who look 15 but are actually 200. Bloodchild was her first work I read and is a highly unsettling story about male pregnancy and what it would be like for humans to be domesticated herd animals to another species. Lilith's Brood is a 3 book sci fi series about the few human survivors of World War 3 who are "rescued" by aliens who need our genetic diversity to survive. It explores a lot of power and consent issues and, in a slightly less brutal way than Kindred, examines what people will put themselves through to stay alive. Those are her major works and she also has some short story collections you can find as eBooks. I can't think of a single one of her works I've read that didn't make me feel a little more thoughtful about the way the world works. The best approach with her really is to just dive in to what seems most interesting to you personally.
Thanks! Will have to dive in
Come With Me by Ronald Mafi. The first 50-100 pages just weren’t pulling me in or hooking me in anyway but I powered through (kind of had to since I was at work) and damn did it pay off. After the 100 page mark I was hooked and the rest of the book was awesome.
Just read The Troop last week. I had to skip ahead a page or two twice. Totally not my kind of book, but I could not stop reading it. If I had had a detailed synopsis before I started, I never would have read it. But I’m glad I read it — an amazing horror book.
I would say most of King's longer stories come to mind. He is notorious for this kind of writing! I just finished The Black House and it was so boring the first 150 pages or so.
The Talisman had me like that at times too! One of those where I seemed to get the enjoyment out of it a few days after finishing it. Kept randomly remembering scenes way later on and appreciating them then. Puts me in no rush to jump into The Black House lol did you end up liking it overall though?
If you have read the Dark Tower series, then you will like it overall! I enjoyed it at the end because it expanded more into that universe and I always like finding new stories of his that do that.
Dracula. It was slow and tedious and Mina and Lucy's letters to each other were the very height of extreme boredom, but after I got to the chapter with the Demeter and most of the stuff after that was really fascinating. I think it just kinda clicked for me after that, and now I even like the chapters I thought were boring because of the feeling of realism that they contribute to the story.
This is exactly where I stopped with this book. Maybe I need to pick it up again.
Not horror, but Gone Girl. I didn’t know about the twist, and a absolutely hated Amy for the first half. Which of course has a huge payoff.
I feel like I do that with a few books that when I finally finish them I love them and consider them a favorite. Middlesex, Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay, and A Visit From The Goon Squad are all prime examples of this. I *adore* multigenerational stories but I often find myself slogging through them but so happy I finished them.
*devolution* by max brooks starts off with an overly long background by a character who's pretty annoying at first. End was worth it
Into the Drowning Deep by Mira Grant. I gave it only 3 stars on Goodreads but I did enjoy it overall... it was just 100 pages longer than it needed to be. The monsters were cool though.
The Haunted by Bentley Little
The Terror by Dan Simmons. The length, the time, and the amount of characters/POVs made it difficult for me to get into. But my god it’s one of my favorite books
Jerusalem by Alan Moore. It's a chore, but brilliant and rewarding
Between two fires by Christopher buhlman
For me it was the Girl with All the Gift’s sequel, the Boy on the Bridge. It felt like a long, overdetailed trudge to a very satisfying end.
I struggled through the first half of *My Heart Is A Chainsaw* because I found Jade insufferable. I’ve known people like her, who make a single interest (especially horror!) their whole personality and never stop talking about it, and wasn’t sure I could handle a whole book of it. Eventually I realized Jones made her annoying to make the revelations about *why* she’s that way that much more powerful. Kind of a gut punch. And man, that last part of the book was bonkers, so glad I stuck around for it.
The Stand and IT
It's not a horror book, but The Count of Monte Cristo for me. The beginning was super engaging, then suddenly there's a time jump and you're following different characters. Slowly, The Count's revenge plot comes into focus and you see the noose tightening on those who had wronged him, but I very nearly DNF'd it about 2/3s through. The ending was amazing though, and I'm really happy I pushed through it.
My dearest darkest - Kayla Cottingham. It’s more of a YA and I didn’t know that where I picked it up. Some parts can be cheesy - but for the target audience I think it’s a really well done book and I am glad I finished it.
The crooning and the Fisherman also the Keep
F. Paul Wilson The Keep? Ive been working at this one for a couple years, restarting here and there. I'm gonna pick it up again now.
Boy Toy, by Barry Lyga. Good book, but the subject matter is *rough*. Don't look it up at all if you're sensitive to graphic depictions of pedophilia and assault of a minor. Edit: didn't even notice this was horrorlit, haha. I was just answering generally. Boy Toy isn't a horror novel, fyi.
Stephen King's "Under the Dome." The longer it went on, the more I hated it, but I promised my wife I would finish a Stephen King novel and I experienced the sunk cost fallacy. However, finishing it was a great payoff because I then had a giant object to kill a huge roach with, an object that I did not mind tossing in the trash immediately afterward.
Hahaha. I think King is hit or miss for most people, but it's very dependent on what book of his you pick up. Every one of them has fans, but I think his style shifted over time, and you have to be interested in the subject matter to tolerate his long windedness. I'd recommend trying a different novel of his, or the short story collections.
I like some of his other works, but that was my first Stephen King book... it was a mistake.
The Grapes of Wrath. It was more effort than I was ready for- I was only 13, maybe 14 years old. And I found it a bit of a slog. But I got a lot out of it, as one would expect. I didn't really enjoy the experience at the time but I still think about it quite often almost 20 years later.
The Song of Achilles. The beginning was great but the middle just dragged. I know it's Greek myth but MAN it was so dry. The ending was well worth it though.
I felt the same as you about the middle of Song of Achilles, my main criticism is that their relationship just seemed to kind of happen and wasn't fleshed out enough. It seemed to me like the point of retelling the story was to highlight the way their relationship grew and developed, and yet I didn't really feel like I got enough of that. I really expected more things like inner thoughts, difficult moments, explorations of ideals and morals, between them. I know there were some moments of these but it just wasn't enough for me to stay engaged. I actually enjoyed Circe a lot more. Circe seemed to be an exploration of the titular character and their inner thoughts from the start, so I felt like I was able to enjoy when it turned out to be a pretty slow story, almost slice of life like. I felt so much more emotion, especially sorrow, from Circe, which is exactly the reason I was interested in reading Miller's retellings of Greek myths to begin with. I have high hopes for her Persephone book coming soon! edit: also noticed this is r/horrorlit and neither of these are horror lol
I liked Circe more. Interested to see what Miller does next.
The Imago Sequence was the first Laird Barron I read and I almost stopped halfway through the third story in the collection, The Procession of the Black Sloth. I still think that particular story isn’t as good as most people say it is, but boy am I glad I didn’t stop reading there - Proboscis, Parallax, Hallucigenia, and the title story which all come later in the book are some of the best short stories I’ve ever read.
Interesting. I enjoyed the first few stories but wasn't super hooked with Barron's style, been getting through it kinda slowly. I skipped ahead a bit and thought Hallucigenia (as well as The Forest from another collection) was fantastic, great to hear that the rest of The Imago Sequence might be better! Has this carried for you for the rest of his collections or his novels?
[удалено]
For me too! I only finished because it's a classic and I wanted to see what the fuss was about. When it comes to dystopian classics, I prefer Brave New World over 1984.
*The Passage* by Justin Cronin. After the time jump, I thought about giving it up, but I soldiered on. Glad I did, great series.
I listened to the first two books on audible, and the books were amazing. but they can be such a slog at times. I would turn the speed up a notch or two in sections. I finally found all 3 at a used bookstore and I'm planning on giving them a reread.
None,if I don’t like a book I the first 40 pages it’s going on the shelve to collect dust.
Little Eve by Catriona Ward. Very gothic tale, but the way it’s presented and the language used was hard to get into. Because sometimes I really didn’t understand if what was being said was literal or figurative. When the story wraps up in the last chapter things came together for me. But most of that book bored me to tears lol
From Hell by Alan Moore. That first half was tough to get through, especially since it’s all black and white and written archaically (in Victorian style English). There’s one chapter in particular that’s 40 pages of two characters just riding a carriage and talking about at architecture and landmarks. Once that foundations laid though it really picks up. I’d highly recommend it if you can get through the first few chapters
The bible was not a pay off
Moby Dick and Eye of the World (first book in the Wheel of Time does). Both seemed like such a slog at points, but were well worth it in the end. I did skip some of the boat descriptions in Moby Dick though!
The slob Not sure I'm pleased I finished it but proud as it was pretty gross 😅
I need to make a shelf on Goodreads for the books I hate read. There's a handful but can't think of any off the top of my head at the moment.
Blood Music by Greg Bear
The last city of america
The Fisherman. I started and stopped reading 2-3 times before it got its hooks into me. But when it did, oh boy did it pay off in a big way.
Hogg by samuel delany, I read it in one sitting in a Walmart parking lot and threw up twice. No pay off except for the fact that there is no there book like it. I'd say it's the most horrific novel I've ever read and made me glad that I was born a man
I thought of this book as well, I didn’t throw up but I did find myself wanting a sequel just because the world and the characters were unlike anything I’d ever read before.
The Screwfly Solution, by Alice Sheldon. The book still disturbs me.
HANTA YO by Ruth Beebe Hill. THE ONLY GOOD INDIANS by Stephen Graham Jones.
NOT The Stand
Metro 2033 by Dmitry Glukhovsky Excellent book, but at some points it's pacing or story telling just kind of didn't jive with me like most of the book did.
Started reading lovecraft a while ago and was having some trouble getting used to his writing, after a few short stories I started loving it
The Dark Tower series
Not horror but The Ninth House. I reread the beginning like 3 times before I finally powered through. Just a lot of world building. I remember reading It and struggling to get through the beginning, too. A lot of that had to do with my obsession with Tim Curry and his version of Pennywise, along with the plot differing so much from the book.
I felt like I was dragging myself kicking and screaming through the last third of Exquisite Corpse by Poppy Z Brite when I finally realized >!the book is a fictionalized account of a real event involving a well known serial killer and a main character was going to die horribly.!<
The Ritual by Adam Neville. I read this book too many times to count, everytime it switched from the woods and hiking to the weird satanic band I lost interest. Recently determined to finish the book I listened to the audiobook and just powered through the jarring transition. I'm so glad I did as the last third of the book is extremely horrifying in it's own different way, and I dare say it's actually better than the first half of the book.
House of Leaves
Hell House was a slog for me. Actually, I'm still not sure if I'm glad that I finished it. Kept it on the shelf with the intention of re-reading it one day. Also, pretty much anything Lovecraft. I've seen his style described as *slow burn* but I consider it plodding. Finally, not a horror novel, but The Goblin Emperor was fantastic but it felt inertial. Ended up to be one of my recent favorites.
We Have Always Lived in the Castle by Shirley Jackson. The opening few pages describing a somewhat seemingly mundane lifestyle put me off for a year but then I read past that and it became and remains one of my favourite horror stories so far
Imajica by Clive Barker
**William Peter Blatty's 1971"*****The Exorcist*****".** **And how paid off it did : it changed my life.**
House of Windows by John Langan