Review: Daddy’s Boy by Michael David Wilson

Posted on July 28, 2025 by ghostvillehero

Buy it here:

Amazon, Bookshop

Synopsis:

Wentworth is at his wit’s end. He has no money, his cat’s been kidnapped, and every time he tries to kill himself, he fails. Worst of all, he lives in Kidderminster.

But sometimes you’re given a lifeline. For some it’s a lottery win, for others a promotion. For Wentworth, it’s an out-of-shape 50-something named Norman wearing an ‘I was on Naked Attraction’ t-shirt and scuffed Reeboks.

Wentworth thinks he’s in luck but makes a series of progressively worse decisions and soon finds himself on the run from a gang of criminal reprobates.

The two flee to Norman’s holiday home but there’s a local serial killer on the loose, something messed up is happening next door, and Norman is becoming uncomfortably clingy.

Can Wentworth evade the criminal mob, shake off Norman’s advances, and uncover his neighbour’s secrets before he falls victim to the approaching serial killer?

Review:

Michael David Wilson is founder and one half of the This is Horror podcast. Every week he and his co-host Bob Pasterella interview horror and horror adjacent creators, mostly writers, about their craft. Having listened to This is Horror for years, I have learned about many aspects of writing, but also about the hosts, particularly what Michael David Wilson finds extremely funny. When he interviews Max Booth III, Brian Asman, Jason Pargin, or Danger Slater, you know that the interviews have a tendency to go off the rails. All of the episodes of This is Horror are fantastic, informative, and inspiring, but there are some guests, particularly Max Booth III, that spend the entire interview making Michael David Wilson laugh and struggle to keep the entire episode together. Having said this, constant listeners have a good idea of the things that Michael David Wilson finds funny, and for those who do not know, who have never heard the This is Horror podcast, all they have to do is read a copy of Daddy’s Boy.

Daddy’s Boy starts with Wentworth trying to get a loan from the bank, actually just waiting in line to get a loan from the bank, when a stranger comes up, a scraggly guy wearing a I was on Naked Attraction t-shirt, that promises Wentworth a million pounds to help him with a job. Of course the job doesn’t pan out and the guy, Norman, keeps making worse and worse decisions until the two of them are hiding out in Norman’s holiday home. The next door neighbors are a mystery, and the more that Wentworth finds out about Norman, particularly that he is his absent father, and the neighbors next door, the more that Wentworth realizes that he cannot just leave these people and the situation. Add in some dick jokes, some sausages, and a lot of really stupid interactions, and you have the idea of everything that makes Michael David Wilson laugh.

One movie that Michael David Wilson really praises is The Greasy Strangler, and I can see the influence of that humor in the story of Daddy’s Boy, not only the obvious father/son connection, but the way that the fathers are almost trying to teach their sons life lessons in their own bizarre way, and all the sons want is validation in the relationship. This is the same dynamic in the first few seasons of Rick and Morty, where you ask yourself “Why is Morty agreeing to this?” In Daddy’s Boy that question is the same. “Why is Wentworth agreeing to this?” The truth that there is a yearning in Wentworth to do the right thing, build a relationship with his father, regardless of how poor his father’s choices are, and make sure nothing bad happens to him. Buried underneath a thick layer of inappropriate behavior and humor, there is a genuine yearning for Wentworth to have something or someone in his life that is worth holding onto. 


I enjoyed Daddy’s Boy because I enjoy Michael David Wilson’s sense of humor. The story is absolutely ridiculous, and I can only imagine how much he enjoyed writing it. This will not be for everyone, but if you are someone who likes The Greasy Strangler, this is a must read. I hope that this will also steer more people toward the This is Horror podcast because it is really a treat for readers and writers alike.

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Essay 003: Ozzy Osbourne

Posted on July 26, 2025 by ghostvillehero

This week Ozzy Osbourne died at the age of 76, and there has been an outpouring of sympathy and tributes from the entire world. At nineteen, he was a founding member of Black Sabbath and had a successful solo career. He started the OzzFest music festival in 1996 when he was 47, but it was not until 2002, when MTV aired the reality show about the life of him and his family, The Osbournes, that he became a household name. This also switched his role from a feared metal singer to an iconic celebrity. Memories and sympathies have been shared by much more qualified people, including a heartwarming interview with Henry Rollins on CNN, but Ozzy is important enough to have every fan, no matter how small, share their memories about him, his music, and his influence.

I was born in the late 70s and when I was a kid, Ozzy Osbourne was the boogeyman. I grew up in a very conservative Christian home, and there was no way that I could listen to Ozzy’s music. He was the singer of Black Sabbath, and nothing should ever be dark about the Sabbath. He bit the heads off of doves and bats. He drank, did drugs, and pissed on the Alamo. But the biggest fear instilled in me was that listening to his music will drive me to suicide. In 1984, John McCollum, a clinically depressed teenager, listened to the Ozzy song, “Suicide Solution,” and killed himself. His parents sued Osbourne and lost, but this did not matter. In my house, he was the cause of it all. This was also in the midst of the Satanic Panic, with the crusade against everything that might have any sort of affiliation with the devil, so Ozzy Osbourne was very high on the list of public enemies. I was really young at this time so I did not really have much opinion. I just knew that going to the store and seeing the album covers and titles for The Ultimate Sin, Diary of a Madman, and No Rest for the Wicked reinforced the idea that my parents and the church was probably right. 

Then No More Tears came out in 1991. I was a freshman in high school, so by that time I was also listening to as much music as possible and starting to form my own opinions about life. Most of the songs on that album, including the hits like “The Road to Nowhere,” “Mama I’m Coming Home”, and “No More Tears”, seemed like songs less about evil and more about feelings of sadness and isolation, which is pretty much how I felt in my life. I also was starting to play music, and my guitar playing friends were really into “Crazy Train”. We played that song so much, multiple times every time we were jamming in my buddy’s barn, that I knew every beat of that song, every lyric, and I did not feel like it was really evil as much as just having a wild time. I also was learning a few Black Sabbath songs, mostly through covers from other bands, like Faith No More’s version of “War Pigs” and Pantera’s cover of “Planet Caravan.” Beyond these few songs and the Black Sabbath songs on the radio, which were pretty much “Iron Man” and “Paranoid”, I did not really delve into the Black Sabbath catalog or Ozzy Osbourne’s solo albums until I was well into adulthood.

Henry Rollins has a spoken word performance where he talks about meeting Ozzy and being such a huge fan of him and of Black Sabbath. I always respected Henry Rollins and his opinions, so him talking about Ozzy made me give his music a deeper listen. There is something to be said for the first four Black Sabbath albums being the music that not only shaped a generation but spawned a genre. Even when I listen to other metal bands, I am looking for the things that are prominent in those first four albums, especially the science fiction themes of songs like “Iron Man” and “Electric Funeral” and long instrumental breakdowns that really turn the song into a completely different listening experience. Black Sabbath has been in heavy rotation as I have grown older and started to appreciate different things in the music that I listen to. This has led to a growing love of Black Sabbath and Ozzy Osborne because I love different things than when I was a teenager. Having said this, I do not think that I would have thought much about Black Sabbath if it was not for Henry Rollins being such a huge fan and friend of Ozzy Osbourne.

John Darnielle of the Mountain Goats is also a huge fan and wrote a 33 ⅓ book about the Black Sabbath album Master of Reality. In the book, he talks about Black Sabbath being one of those bands that inspires a group of friends to start a band. Throughout his career, Ozzy Osbourne created music that was never perfect and polished. His best songs are raw and a little sloppy. His best singing is not great. His best lyrics are sometimes a little silly. The early Black Sabbath albums sound as if they were rehearsed mostly in neighborhood garages. This gives every artist hope. Aspiring musicians, like my friends when I was in high school, are given the courage to start bands, write songs, and be exactly who they want to be because Ozzy did it, and look at how good he did. This makes Ozzy Osbourne, not only a legend, but a true starting point, the north star or the ground zero of countless bands and artists, some famous but some still practicing in the garage. His success is proof that passion and love is just as important as talent. 

Ozzy Osbourne will be missed dearly, by his family, his friends, the artists he influenced, and by his fans, but I also feel like his legacy will live on in every single person that sees him and Black Sabbath as a part of their lives. He might be the starting point in their musical journeys but he is also the starting point in many every day journeys. True legends never die; they just continue to grow through those whom they influence. Ozzy’s music and legacy will live on forever. 

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Review: > rekt by Alex Gonzalez

Posted on July 11, 2025 by ghostvillehero

Buy it here:

Amazon, Bookshop

Synopsis:

A disturbing examination of toxic masculinity and the darkest pits of the Internet, Alex Gonzalez’s rekt traces a young man’s algorithmic descent into depravity in a future that’s nearly here.

> be me, 26
> about to end it all
> feels good, man

Once, Sammy Dominguez thought he knew how the world worked. The ugly things in his head—his uncle’s pathetic death, his parents’ mistrust, the twisted horrors he writes for the Internet—didn’t matter, because he and his girl, Ellery, were on track for the good life in this messed-up world.

Then a car accident changed everything.

Spiraling with grief and guilt, Sammy scrambles for distraction. He finds it in shock-value videos of gore and violence that terrified him as a child. When someone messages him a dark web link to footage of Ellery dying, he watches—first the car crash that killed her, then hundreds of other deaths, even for people still alive. Accidents. Diseases. Suicides. Murders.

The host site, chinsky, is sadistic, vicious, impossible. It even seems to read his mind, manipulate his searches. But is chinsky even real? And who is Haruspx, the web handle who led him into this virtual nightmare? As Sammy watches compulsively, the darkness in his mind blooms, driving him down a twisted path to find the roots of chinsky, even if he must become a nightmare himself . . .

Not for the faint of heart, rekt combines the cautionary warnings of Black Mirror with the seedy rawness of Chuck Palahniuk in its unrelentless examination of the emotional holes we fill with content.

Review:

Last month, during the protests in Los Angeles, most of the rest of the country watched the confrontations between protesters and police through videos on social media. Many of these videos were of peaceful protests, but there were a few that were full-on battles between authority and protesters. One of these videos showed armored vehicles rolling down the street with people on an overpass throwing huge chunks of rock and concrete at the vehicles, smashing the windshields and whatnot. I watched this video several times in a row because there were some things that did not seem right about it, like the vehicles looked and moved weird, like the vehicles were getting smashed by debris thrown at them with incredible accuracy, and like there were no insignia on the side of the vehicles that marked them as Los Angeles or even California police. The armored vehicles that were getting destroyed by chucks of thrown concrete just said “POLICE” on the side. I have not been able to find the video since the first day of seeing it, and most of my doubts about the authenticity of this video and any video I see on the internet really started after reading >rekt by Alex Gonzalez.

The novel is about Sammy Dominguez, a guy who grew up watching video clips on the internet that he should have never seen. When he was ten, he watched a guy get beheaded in grainy internet footage while at a friend’s house, and this has shaped his entire life since. When his girlfriend Ellery dies in a car crash, he uses more and more extreme videos on the internet to help him cope and further drift away from being able to function in real society. One day he gets an anonymous internet link to a webpage that had the video of Ellery dying in her car crash. But also Ellery dying in hundreds of videos, over and over, each video in a different way. He soon learns that there is a whole group of people bet on the odds of how someone will die, all with videos made with AI. This leads Sammy into an investigation on who runs this website, and if his girlfriend’s death was really an accident or set up for a huge payout.


This novel has some very disturbing imagery and actions from the main characters, but the most disturbing aspect of >rekt is that the entire idea stems from a real problem. Many videos on the internet, especially social media, can be so easily manipulated and even created from scratch. This toxic sludge at the bottom of the internet surfaces and there is no longer any way to tell what is real from what is fake. Being able to make videos of someone dying is just as easy as videos of a talking sasquatch or videos of protests being presented as riots. Alex Gonzalez’s book reflects on this and how we are a society that needs to be smarter about technology, even when society is starting to drift away from critical thinking and channels are being placed where it is being discouraged. >rekt is a prime example of how people are being purposefully misled is not in the future but is happening every single day.

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Review: The Staircase in the Woods by Chuck Wendig

Posted on May 23, 2025 by ghostvillehero

Buy it here:

Amazon, Bookshop

Synopsis:

A group of friends investigates the mystery of a strange staircase in the woods in this mesmerizing horror novel from the New York Times bestselling author of The Book of Accidents.

Five high school friends are bonded by an oath to protect one another no matter what.

Then, on a camping trip in the middle of the forest, they find something a mysterious staircase to nowhere.

One friend walks up—and never comes back down. Then the staircase disappears.

Twenty years later, the staircase has reappeared. Now the group returns to find the lost boy—and what lies beyond the staircase in the woods. . . .

Review:

The Staircase in the Woods is the newest Chuck Wendig novel, and it is the first novel written by him that I have read in a long time, since Blackbirds and the Angry Robot days. I have bought a few of his novels and have watched him find success, particularly with the Star Wars novels that he wrote, but this is the first I have read in close to a decade. It is a shame that it has taken me this long to get back to another Wendig novel, especially since when I wrote the review of Blackbirds in 2016, I said that he was a novelist that should be followed and read. I guess I did not follow my own advice.

His newest novel starts with a group of five friends that were always there for one another during high school. They saw themselves as friends with a bond that could never be broken. Until they were on a camping trip and a staircase in the middle of the woods appears and Matty decides to go up the stairs. He disappears and so does the staircase. After this, the friend group is accused of his death and their friendship dissolves. After years, one of the members, Nick, finds another staircase in the woods, and they decide to climb the stairs to try to find their friend who disappeared years earlier. The horrors that await them are unspeakable. A hidden world unfolds, making the friends face their individual and collective past, their anger toward one another, and their sorrow in and attempt to survive long enough to find their friend.

When I first started reading The Staircase in the Woods, I quickly remembered how Chuck Wendig writes. He uses a tone that feels lighthearted and jokey, even when his characters are in horrible and dangerous situations. There are times when the tone of the writing is what keeps the sadness and fear at bay, as if he is reminding us that these characters are in this story, but it’s still a story. There’s nothing to be afraid of. This tone keeps The Staircase in the Woods from being so bleak and dreary that it is unreadable. The way Wendig writes scenes and chapters keeps us as a spectator and just removed enough from the story to bring too much heartache and sadness. This separation is what makes this novel palatable and effective, and this is why any reader should not hesitate to climb up the staircase in the woods and disappear into this story.

I received an ARC through NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

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Review: Horror Movie by Paul Tremblay

Posted on April 30, 2025 by ghostvillehero

Buy it here:

Amazon, Bookshop

Synopsis:

A chilling twist on the “cursed film” genre from the bestselling author of The Pallbearers Club and The Cabin at the End of the World.

In June 1993, a group of young guerilla filmmakers spent four weeks making Horror Movie, a notorious, disturbing, art-house horror flick.

The weird part? Only three of the film’s scenes were ever released to the public, but Horror Movie has nevertheless grown a rabid fanbase. Three decades later, Hollywood is pushing for a big budget reboot.

The man who played “The Thin Kid” is the only surviving cast member. He remembers all too well the secrets buried within the original screenplay, the bizarre events of the filming, and the dangerous crossed lines on set that resulted in tragedy. As memories flood back in, the boundaries between reality and film, past and present start to blur. But he’s going to help remake the film, even if it means navigating a world of cynical producers, egomaniacal directors, and surreal fan conventions — demons of the past be damned.

But at what cost? 

Horror Movie is an obsessive, psychologically chilling, and suspenseful twist on the “cursed film” that breathlessly builds to an unforgettable, mind-bending conclusion.

Review:

Paul Tremblay has been producing novels at a steady rate, releasing a new book almost every year. His latest Horror Movie is about a guy who was in a horror movie in college, a horror movie that was lost after an accident on the set, a horror movie that has become an obsession with horror fans and convention goers, a horror movie that is getting remade using as much of the screenplay as possible. Half of this novel is the narrator, who played “The Thin Boy”, as the only survivor left, living the best he can while getting calls to appear at conventions, and meet with producers and directors to make the new version of Horror Movie. The other half is the script to the original Horror Movie. As the novel progresses, the story starts to blend, and we learn what happened to make the original Horror Movie film be considered lost film, how fans think it is cursed, and what really happened to make everyone think this way.

The story is entertaining, the characters are interesting, and I really like the mechanics of the story, which is really about the mechanics of filmmaking. There is the whole mystic behind the “magic of moviemaking” because most of the time, watching a good movie then watching how difficult it was to film is the equivalent to learning how sausage is made. Unfortunately we do not want to believe that many movies are a nightmare to film. We want to think that making films is a wonderful process without difficulty, but the truth is that this rarely ever happens. In the case of Horror Movie, the original movie is shot with several problems, and it is no surprise that only pieces of the movie that even exist are a few clips uploaded to YouTube and a leaked script. Trembley tries to pulls us away from being readers of a novel to being fans of a lost film that we too hope is successful on the second filming. 


Horror Movie is a good novel but it kind of feels like the end is actually the beginning. When the final pages are over, this is a good place to really start the novel, that there is so much more now that could happen. This is not the feeling of “I want more” as much as the feeling that this story is incomplete, that the entire novel is the origin story of “The Thin Boy” and not the whole story at all. As it stands, the way that this novel ends undermines all of the buildup and weakens the entire story. The ending really lowered the experience of the story, and this is unfortunate because I did like the journey.

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Review: The Antidote by Karen Russell

Posted on April 27, 2025 by ghostvillehero

Buy it here:

Amazon, Bookshop

Synopsis:

From Pulitzer finalist, MacArthur Fellowship recipient, and bestselling author of Swamplandia! and Vampires in the Lemon Grove. A gripping Dust Bowl epic about five characters whose fates become entangled after a storm ravages their small Nebraskan town

The Antidote opens on Black Sunday, as a historic dust storm ravages the fictional town of Uz, Nebraska. But Uz is already collapsing—not just under the weight of the Great Depression and the Dust Bowl drought, but beneath its own violent histories. The Antidote follows a “Prairie Witch,” whose body serves as a bank vault for peoples’ memories and secrets; a Polish wheat farmer who learns how quickly a hoarded blessing can become a curse; his orphan niece, a basketball star and witch’s apprentice in furious flight from her grief; a voluble scarecrow; and a New Deal photographer whose time-traveling camera threatens to reveal both the town’s secrets and its fate.

Russell’s novel is above all a reckoning with a nation’s forgetting—enacting the settler amnesia and willful omissions passed down from generation to generation, and unearthing not only horrors but shimmering possibilities. The Antidote echoes with urgent warnings for our own climate emergency, challenging readers with a vision of what might have been—and what still could be.

Review:

Like everything I have read by Karen Russell, The Antidote is a difficult book to review. The story intertwines five characters, with three-ish narrators (there are a few more, but there are three main narrators) set in a Nebraska town where people are leaving at an alarming rate due to the failure of their crops and farms. With the real life devastation of loss and failure as the backdrop, Russell writes a story filled with superstition, magical realism, and hope. One of the main characters, known as the Antidote, is a “Prairie Witch” or “Vault”, a person who for a small fee will hold onto your worst memories and secrets so that you can live a happy life. She encounters a young girl, Dell, who has lost her mother and is living with her uncle Harp, who’s farm is the only one where crops seem to be thriving under the watchful eye of a sentient scarecrow. Added to this is a serial killer, The Lucky Rabbit Foot Killer going through Nebraska killing women, crooked cops, and a black photographer, Cleo, who has been sent to Nebraska to be a photographer for FDR, but whose camera is taking photographs of the horrible history of the region. The Antidote is a deeply unsettling yet wonderfully beautiful novel that is not easily forgotten.

This is not a quick read. This is not a novel that you can just zip through and go onto the next thing. Karen Russell writes books that demand your attention, that need to be absorbed. Stories that will sink into you and make you think about them for hours when you are not reading. The density of her writing is one of those aspects that can be appreciated because the story is supposed to be heavy, the situation the characters find themselves in is difficult, and the deep sadness of loss and everything that you own being destroyed is something that can be felt in the pages of The Antidote, like the hurt that the characters experience is real. And some of the story is real. The story of The Antidote is told against the backdrop of a drought in Nebraska, with dust storms killing crops and everyone starving to death. The buffaloes have been slaughtered, and the Native Americans have been pushed off the land. The violence and blood have soaked into the land, and this story is the result of this history. The real history and the magic that Russell adds makes a story that is immersive and heartbreaking.

Karen Russell’s writing is hard to review because it is nearly perfect. This is one of the few novels I have read in a long time where I just want to write “No notes.” Russell has written another novel where there is not much that can be said about it besides praise. Though it is not an easy read, it is an important read because Russell is writing the new American classics. 

I received this as an ARC from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

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Review: The Proof of My Innocence by Jonathan Coe

Posted on April 18, 2025 by ghostvillehero

Buy it here:

Amazon, Bookshop

Synopsis:

When Phyl, a young literature graduate, moves back home with her parents, she soon finds herself frustrated by the narrow horizons of English country life. As for her plans of becoming a writer, those are going nowhere. But the chance discovery of a forgotten novelist from the 1980s stirs her into action, as does a visit from her uncle Chris – especially when he tells her that he’s working on a political story that might put his life in danger.

Chris has been following the careers of a group of students, all present at Cambridge University in the 1980s, now members of a think-tank which has been quietly pushing the British government towards extremism. And now, after years in the political wilderness, they might be in a position to put their ideas into action.

As Britain finds itself under the leadership of a new Prime Minister whose tenure will only last for seven weeks, Chris pursues his story to a mysterious conference taking place deep in the Cotswolds. When Phyl hears that one of the delegates has been murdered, she begins to wonder if real life is starting to merge with the novel she’s been trying to write. But does the explanation really lie in contemporary politics, or in a literary enigma that is almost forty years old?

Darting between decades and genres, THE PROOF OF MY INNOCENCE reimagines the coming-of-age story, the cosy crime caper and the state-of-the-nation novel with Coe’s trademark humour and warmth. From one of Britain’s finest living novelists, this is a witty, razor-sharp novel which explores how the key to understanding the present can often be found in the murkiest corners of the past.

Review:

When I started The Proof of My Innocence, I did not know how much I was going to enjoy every aspect of the story. The novel starts with a long prologue, with Phyl living with her parents at a vicarage after finishing college, working at the Japanese restaurant in the airport, coming home to watch episodes of Friends as a comfort, and trying to figure out her next step in life. One of her mother’s friends from college, Christopher Swann, stops to visit on the way to a convention of conservative leaders as material for his liberal blog. Phyl starts to read his blog and even though it is not a topic she finds very interesting, she feels like she can write too. She makes a list of the types of novels that are popular and/or books she likes to read. The list consists of three subgenres: Cozy Crime, Dark Academia, and Autofiction. The rest of the novel is set into three parts. The first part is a crime section, where Christopher ends up dead at the conference and the older detective close to retirement is trying to solve the crime. The second is a slim autobiography of a friend of Chris and Phyl’s mother from Cambridge, and how there were some strange things going on at the campus. The third section is in the voice of Phyl and Chris’s adopted daughter Rashida as they travel around Europe trying to find more clues to the death of Chris. The three parts are written in the style of the subgenres that Phyl writes at the beginning of the novel, and they are distinctive and have their own rewards.

The entire novel also has a backdrop of a tumultuous political climate. England has a new Prime Minister, Queen Elizabeth passes away, and the Conservative government is changing things for the perceivable worst. This does not make much difference in the plot except that it is a device that adds another layer of turmoil to the world that the characters are trying to navigate, and it gives a good reason for someone who writes criticism against the conservative party to wind up dead at a convention for the conservative party. Even if this might be seen as a warning to some readers (especially in this moment in history when reading and art are an escape for what is happening at a government level), there are so many other elements to the novel that makes it worth reading. The Proof of My Innocence is a parallel story of trying to find your voice in a post college world, trying to find a place in a government system that you really do not fit into, and a crime novel poking fun at crime novels and literary cliches by making puns and even delving into pop culture theories like why many people stream episodes of Friends for comfort. Even the title of the novel is a play on words. This playfulness with tone and voice in a story about murder and shady politics is what makes The Proof of My Innocence a novel that I will remember and want to reread simply to catch the nuances I definitely missed the first time. 


I received The Proof of My Innocence as an ARC from Europa Editions in exchange for an honest review.

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Review: The Houseguest by Thomas Berger

Posted on April 2, 2025 by ghostvillehero

Buy it here:

Amazon

Synopsis:

Chuck Burgoyne is no ordinary houseguest. The Graveses (father Doug; wife Audrey; son Bobby; and daughter-in-law Lydia) have gotten used to his polite manners and gourmet breakfasts. But one morning at the Graveses’ summer home, Chuck fails to appear.

When Chuck finally does surface, he is no longer sweet and charming, but rather has become aggressive and arrogant, abusing each family member in turn. Each family member that is, except the fellow outsider, Lydia. Once Chuck rescues her from the dangerous undertow of the ocean, Lydia can’t help but feel obligated to him, even after his uninvited advances to her while she’s half asleep. Slowly it becomes apparent to the family that Chuck isn’t anyone’s guest but rather a perfect stranger who wormed his way into their home. Yet the Graveses are so concerned with not offending him by being impolite that they willingly accept the abuse he freely dishes out. In private, however, they all scheme for his undoing. But will anyone muster up the courage?

An eerie and clever novel, The Houseguest introduces one of Berger’s most dangerous and compelling villains.

Review:

“The process that led to the decision to kill Chuck Burgoyne, who for the first week of his visit had proved the perfect houseguest, began on the Sunday when, though he had promised to prepare breakfast for all (he was a superb cook), he had not yet appeared in the kitchen by half past noon.” ~ p. 3

This is the first sentence of The Houseguest, the 1988 novel by Thomas Berger. The novel is about Chuck Burgoyne being the houseguest of the Graveses family, Doug, his wife Audrey, his son Bob and Bob’s wife Lydia. All four of them love Chuck but he quickly grows out of favor with them, and the family starts to accuse one another of letting this person into the house as their guest. Only to find out that none of them invited him.

The core of this novel is a home invasion story, one of the most frightening horror/thriller subgenres because a stranger breaking into our home and uprooting our lives is a total breakdown of our safe space. The whole world is dangerous when your home is in danger. The Graveses home is a vacation home on an island, and this creates a different type of danger. They are away from their real lives and can feel the isolation. There is no escape from the danger that Chuck Burgoyne represents, and he uses this as one of his advantages. This is also a social satire about the Graveses who have more money and privilege than sense. They feel like they can get away with whatever they want because they have money, this vacation house on an island ran by pretty much one family, The Finches, who do all of the cleaning, the taxi service, own the grocery store, and are law enforcement. Doug Graves is a lawyer and habitual adulterer that women are not safe to be around, even forcing himself on some of his son’s girlfriends when everyone was underage. His wife Audrey is sad, angry, and an alcoholic, mostly because she hates her husband and the life that she lives. Their son Bobby is an idiot, and Lydia does not know where she fits into this family. They all see themselves as better than the Finches and the island, and Chuck uses all of their arrogance against them. They think that they have the upper hand because this is their home, they are privileged, and they do not the sense to feel otherwise. As the book progresses, so do their schemes to kill Chuck, and each one is more ludicrous than the last. In the end the satire comes full circle.


The other thing that can be said about this novel, which can be noticed just from the first sentence, is that Thomas Berger’s writing is intricate and interesting. There are many things to unpack in this one sentence as well as every sentence. Berger writes a slim novel, but there are so many events that are explored, so much of the family history and character development unravels in a single sentence. This can be off-putting to some readers because this is not a style used very often. Periodically reading a book written with this much richness in every line is impressive. Even though the story does fall short in many aspects because there is not a single character that you want to win in the fight between the houseguest and the family, The Houseguest is an interesting read, if only for how it is written and how the story unfolds.

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Review: When the Moon Hits Your Eye

Posted on March 30, 2025 by ghostvillehero

Buy it here:

Amazon, Bookshop

Synopsis:

From the New York Times bestselling author of Starter Villain comes an entirely serious take on a distinctly unserious subject: what would really happen if suddenly the moon were replaced by a giant wheel of cheese.

It’s a whole new moooooon.

One day soon, suddenly and without explanation, the moon as we know it is replaced with an orb of cheese with the exact same mass. Through the length of an entire lunar cycle, from new moon to a spectacular and possibly final solar eclipse, we follow multiple characters — schoolkids and scientists, billionaires and workers, preachers and politicians — as they confront the strange new world they live in, and the absurd, impossible moon that now hangs above all their lives.

Review:

In the end notes of When the Moon Hits Your Eye, John Scalzi states that this novel is the third in a trilogy of novels based on theme: ordinary people being thrust into extraordinary situations. The first two in the trilogy The Kaiju Preservation Society and Starter Villain are both excellent stories that explore different aspects of this idea. I did not start this novel with this in mind. I started it because it is the new John Scalzi book. I cracked the book only knowing the simplest part of the premise: The moon has turned into cheese.

The novel does not read as a novel as much as a collection of stories around the reactions of the moon just one day turning into cheese (well a cheese like substance. NASA will not commit to calling it cheese). With each chapter being a day in the lunar cycle, it shows this singular event through the eyes of people all over America, from NASA scientists and astronauts, to politicians and billionaires, to regular people like preachers and Reddit users who do know know whether or not this is a hoax. The novel starts without much direction, but halfway through, an event on the cheese moon brings an impending doom to Earth. From this point forward, the people in Scalzi’s novel change their focus. We spend every new chapter and every day with characters who are living with the knowledge that their imminent death is coming. Their actions and reactions become more humane, more focused on coming together to show that friends, family, and love are more important than all of the other things that generally distract us. There are moments in When the Moon Hits Your Eye that display honest emotions and heart. 

When I am reading or writing, I always think about two principles of the stories that I like to read and tell. The first is “No story is perfect, but it has to be told well.” The second is “Never take yourself too seriously.” John Scalzi’s novels are great examples of these two ideas. When the Moon Hits Your Eye is not a perfect novel, nor does it pretend to be. There is a chapter toward the end of the novel that actual explores this idea and says the same thing. When you try to be perfect, you pull all of the life out of the story. The second, not taking himself too seriously? He has written a novel about the moon turning into cheese and uses pretty much any cheese pun he can think of. He puts easter eggs throughout the novel (including a law firm with the names of the history of bass players in Metallica), but he does his best to balance the silliness with an actually readable and heartfelt story. When the Moon Hits Your Eye is not his best novel, and it is definitely not perfect, but it is enjoyable because it does not try to be serious at all. 

I received an ARC from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

Reviews of other John Scalzi novels:

The Kaiju Preservation Society

Starter Villain

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Review: Starlet by Danger Slater

Posted on March 27, 2025 by ghostvillehero

Buy it here:

Ghoulish, Bookshop

Synopsis:

FAME. FORTUNE. JELLYFISH.

When an aspiring young actress accepts an invite to a fading A-lister’s home, she soon learns the terrifying secrets of the Hollywood Elite.

Review:

I was catching up on episodes of the This Is Horror podcast, and toward the end of last year, Danger Slater was a guest. In his interview, he talks about his books, his life, and trying every type of Kit Kat bar. By the end of this interview, I had bought both Starlet and Moonfellows. Earlier this week I read Starlet in one sitting, and I immediately knew that Danger Slater is an author that I now have need to read everything he writes.

Starlet stars with Deja Seawright, an aspiring Hollywood actress from Eau Claire, Wisconsin, struggling to get jobs but continuing to audition every day. She runs into Brandon Bowers at pizza place. He was once a famous A list actor who had started to fade a long time ago. Brandon and Deja start a texting relationship while he is filming on location, and on his first night back in Los Angeles, she is invited over for what might the last night of her life.

Danger Slater has written a body horror novel that is funny, fast paced, and entertaining. At the core of the story are the tropes of the girl who is trying to make it to stardom and the actor who will do anything to stay relevant, but his telling is so far removed from what other authors would do with the same prompt that it almost feels like he is the first person to write about this. One of the things that makes this work the most is that Slater never takes the story or the writing too seriously. He uses jokes and weirdness throughout so that when the real jokes and weirdness happens, we are already conditioned to believe them. This causes Starlet to be a success even when it could be the most bonkers story that I read this year.

Starlet is inspired by the allegations against Armie Hammer, but Slater goes far beyond the cannibalism fantasies that Hammer was accused of sharing in Instagram DMs. Slater uses this only as the genesis of the idea, and the things that Brandon Bowers does makes Hammer’s ideas seem almost normal. I enjoyed this novella from beginning to end, and all of the twists and turns made sense in a nonsensical way, proof that Danger Slater knows how to come up with a crazy story and execute it in a way that makes it all believable. 

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