Last October we asked TheLitCritGuy for some spooky horror book recommendations for the book club and we ended up reading The Twenty Days of Turin by Giorgio De Maria - an allegory for the fascist violence during The Years of Lead in Italy. This year they have very kindly provided us with another round of horror recommendations for us to choose from. These are:

Manhunt by Gretchen Felker Martin,

A post-apocalyptic novel that follows trans women and trans men on a grotesque journey of survival. Beth and Fran spend their days traveling the ravaged New England coast, hunting feral men and harvesting their organs in a gruesome effort to ensure they’ll never face the same fate. Robbie lives by his gun and one hard-learned motto: Other people aren’t safe. After a brutal accident entwines the three of them, this found family of survivors must navigate murderous TERFs, a sociopathic billionaire bunker brat, and awkward relationship dynamics — all while outrunning packs of feral men, and their own demons.

Tell Me I'm Worthless by Alison Rumfitt

A dark, unflinching haunted house novel that takes readers from the well of the literary gothic, up through Brighton's queer scene, and out into the heart of modern day trans experience in the UK. Three years ago, Alice spent one night in an abandoned house with her friends Ila and Hannah. Since then, things have not been going well. Alice is living a haunted existence, selling videos of herself cleaning for money, going to parties she hates, drinking herself to sleep. She hasn’t spoken to Ila since they went into the House. She hasn't seen Hannah either. Memories of that night torment her mind and her flesh, but when Ila asks her to return to the House, past the KEEP OUT sign, over the sick earth where teenagers dare each other to venture, she knows she must go. Together Alice and Ila must face the horrifying occurrences that happened there, must pull themselves apart from the inside out, put their differences aside, and try to rescue Hannah, who the House has chosen to make its own. Cutting, disruptive, and darkly funny, Tell Me I'm Worthless is a vital work of trans fiction that confronts both supernatural and real-world horrors as it examines the devastating effects of trauma and the way fascism makes us destroy ourselves and each other.

Things Have Gotten Worse Since Last We Spoke by Eric LaRocca,

Sadomasochism. Obsession. Death. A whirlpool of darkness churns at the heart of a macabre ballet between two lonely young women in an internet chat room in the early 2000s -- a darkness that threatens to forever transform them once they finally succumb to their most horrific desires. What have you done today to deserve your eyes?

The Cabin At the End of the World by Paul Tremblay

Seven-year-old Wen and her parents, Eric and Andrew, are vacationing at a remote cabin on a quiet New Hampshire lake. Their closest neighbors are more than two miles in either direction along a rutted dirt road. One afternoon, as Wen catches grasshoppers in the front yard, a stranger unexpectedly appears in the driveway. Leonard is the largest man Wen has ever seen but he is young, friendly, and he wins her over almost instantly. Leonard and Wen talk and play until Leonard abruptly apologizes and tells Wen, "None of what’s going to happen is your fault". Three more strangers then arrive at the cabin carrying unidentifiable, menacing objects. As Wen sprints inside to warn her parents, Leonard calls out: "Your dads won’t want to let us in, Wen. But they have to. We need your help to save the world." Thus begins an unbearably tense, gripping tale of paranoia, sacrifice, apocalypse, and survival that escalates to a shattering conclusion, one in which the fate of a loving family and quite possibly all of humanity are entwined.

VOTE HERE

Voting will close on Monday

Thank you to @marxisthayaca for writing the book summaries!