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Synopsis:
Steve’s friend has exclusive access to a new substance to promote muscle mass. The plan is to get rich once the boys see how insanely huge it makes him. But when his sweet girlfriend throws him across the room with freakish force, he knows something has gone terribly wrong. He messed up, and the girlfriend he loves might never be the same because of it. The dead bodies are piling up as Steve searches for a way to undo his mistake. Swept from one bloody horror to the next, he will need more than brute force to survive the chaos of the night and get back to save his girl.
Fans of supernatural thrillers and unexpected twists are sure to get a satisfying dopamine rush out of this quick and grossly entertaining read! WARNING Contains profanity, debauchery and violence.
Review:
Squirm is the first in the Tales of GymBro Horror series written by Hugo Bernard. I was honestly hooked on this series by the idea of “Gymbro Horror.” There is something about going to the gym and seeing all of the gymbros and gym rats who spend so much of their life trying to get bigger, look better, get swole, and be attractive to their partners, potential partners, and hopefully themselves. Some of it is with good intentions, but like with any sort of culture, there is a dark underbelly. I look forward to reading horror stories based on the whole gym scene.
The basic concepts of Squirm fit into the desires that many people in the gym want: to be bigger, stronger, larger than anyone else in the gym. Most steroid use is not by professional athletes or fitness competitors, but by the guy next door who wants more muscles. Steve is a guy who is teetering on the edge of what he can do next to get bigger. He sees one of his friends getting huge at an alarming pace, and this friend introduces him to something called FrogJuice. He has also nicknamed it Squirm, due to the tadpole looking things that are swimming around in the drink. Squirm makes Steve pack on pounds of muscle in a short period of time, get a gym girlfriend, and start making a ton of money. Then the strange side effects begin, particularly when some of the women around him get it into their system. Before long, the semi-good idea of taking Squirm turns into a horrible idea, and Steve finds himself in more trouble that he ever expected.
There are some elements of good horror, but the bigger focus of the story is the danger that Steve gets into, from rival testosterone sellers, from scientists who studied Squirm, from women who have accidently taken it and turned monsters, from the military, from himself. There are good chase scenes, many kills, but the real interesting part, the dynamics of the infection, is just sort of glossed over. I would have liked to seen more concentration of the grisly body horror aspects of the story, because there really is some great potential that just seems passed by.
The second in this series, called Shredz, is coming out in March. I am not going to lie. I am all for another installment of Gymbro horror. This was fast paced, fun, and I enjoyed every minute of it. I cannot wait to see what Hugo Bernard does next with the series.
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