Ultimate Popsugar Reading Challenge discussion
2024 Challenge - Regular
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40 - A Horror Book Written By a BIPOC Author
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I LOVED that duology!!! I still have not read her latest, Rust in the Root - I think Root is not horror though?
Nadine in NY wrote: "Dea wrote: "If anyone is looking for lighter horror, Dread Nation (book one) and Deathless Divide (book two) by Justina Ireland dwell more on the psychological toll of the zombie uprising than the ..."Actually the plot does veer into some horror elements at various points. It's not extreme and it's not gory, but it does get a bit creepy. In some ways it reminds of VandeMeer's Annihilation. I'd say it's a bit horror-adjacent, but could work for those that aren't really in to horror books.
I'm definitely going to read Ring Shout and Deathless Divide this year, but do you all think Our Share of Night would also work? I read about half of it last year and found it compelling, but I had to return it to the library before I finished. For those with easily affected stomachs, it's graphic.
I am BEGGING you all to read some Tananarive Due for this prompt.She is criminally underrated.
I suggest The Good House as a start, but her new book The Reformatory was very well received.
Personally I'm gonna do My Soul to Keep which is the first in a trilogy.
I'm kind of expanding this to include the sub-genre of social horror.For this one, I've decided to go with The Intersectional Environmentalist: How to Dismantle Systems of Oppression to Protect People + Planet as it deals exactly with oppression (as noted in the title) and oppression is part of the social horror genre.
I really don’t know what I want to read. Would Bad Cree by Jessica Johns work for this prompt?
Sherri wrote: "I really don’t know what I want to read. Would Bad Cree by Jessica Johns work for this prompt?"I think so. It's on the lighter side of horror, I would say - I tend to be a scaredy-cat and read it with no having to leave the lights on all night. But definitely has both tense and gory moments. And Jessica Johns is Indigenous.
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Yes, it's very light horror, more like magical realism than horror, but I still think it would work for this category. I did not like it, I found it rather dull and I didn't connect with the main character, and I felt like the characters just kept doing the same thing over and over again without purpose, and a lot would have been solved if they would just TALK to each other. And there are A LOT of dream sequences, which is something I tend to find very boring. Apparently I was so annoyed by this book that I wrote a lengthy review LOL
https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...
Now, Shutter, on the other hand, I LOVED that book!!! It's also light horror, not too terrifying, but gruesome murders are described; she is a forensic photographer (hence the title) and she communicates with ghosts.
https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...
I know I've been opinionated over the years and some readers generally agree with me and some readers are generally my polar opposite - depending on where you fall on that spectrum, you can decide which of these books might work best for you!
Other BIPOC horror that I enjoyed (none of these are too scary) are Lone Women (which I loved) & The Fervor (which was just okay), and older books from Stephen Graham Jones before he got into his slasher phase (Mongrels, which is one of my all time favorite books, & Mapping the Interior)
I read Empire of Wild by Cherie Dimaline, a werewolf story.I enjoyed the main character, Joan, and the way Metis legends were used in the C21 world. I thought the book got rather too thriller-ish later on, but I liked the ambiguous ending. Won't cause nightmares.
Nadine in NY wrote: "Shannon wrote: "Never Whistle at Night: An Indigenous Dark Fiction Anthology"I'm reading this right now, and can confirm! it is not terrifying. So far each story is just a little weird, and often the "dark" part is how people treat each other, not paranormal activities.
(Of course I haven't read the whole thing yet. But so far, it's dark but not horrifying.)"
I got about a quarter of the way through this book and had to DNF. I thought the writing was really good, but I wasn't in the right headspace for it.
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I never finished it either, I ended up having to return it to the library because I was out of renewals. It's not that it wasn't good, I just don't read many short story anthologies so I never wanted to pick it up, there was always a novel I was in the middle of instead.
I'll try again this Oct. It feels like an "Oct/Nov" book.
I don't read horror so I'm going to be stretching this prompt a bit to include social horror. Just need to figure out a book for it.
Tricia wrote: "Shiver by Junji Ito is a graphic novel made up of a series of his short stories. They are creepy as heck but maybe not as terrifying for people who hate to read horror books."Yes!!! I only read the first story and it was so intriguing, I couldn't wait to get home to read the rest.
I read Never Whistle At Night: An Indigenous Dark Fiction Anthology by Shane Hawk. I did like it. I don't mind horror (though a lot of the stories were not strictly "horror" as many have mentioned) , I just didn't like most of the stories.
I still haven't picked a book for this prompt. My aim is to read something by Alma Katsu. I just haven't decided what yet. Last year I read and really enjoyed her book The Hunger. It's about the Donner Party but in addition to all the horror they suffered as it was, she felt the need to throw in some supernatural creatures to the mix! Wendigos, maybe?? I can't recall if that's what they were or if they were just *things*. Anyway, the book was mostly the real story of what wound up happening to the Donner Party. I recommend it.I was also browsing through my audiobook collection and came across The Getaway. The cover creeps me the heck out (I warned you), but the synopsis makes it sound like a dystopian world where the rich get shuttled off to Disney World to survive the end of the world while the poor have to make sure they're comfortable.
I'm listening (in fits and starts) to Bacchanal for my one word title book, but it is also listed as horror. I haven't gotten very far into it, but so far it's about a black girl in historical Louisiana who can telepathically communicate with animals and she joins the circus.
the weight of blood by Tiffany D Jackson
If anyone is looking for a quick, not so scary book, I would recommend Dark-Thirty: Southern Tales of the Supernatural. It's a middle grade book from the '90s. I picked it for this prompt because I thought it would be interesting to reread as an adult.
This whole thread was really helpful for me in finding a book that a horror wimp like me could enjoy. "The Trees" by Percival Everett was really good:http://www.lauraruthloomis.com/whats-...
Ultimate Popsugar Reading Challenge
Books mentioned in this topic
VenCo (other topics)Mexican Gothic (other topics)
The Hunger (other topics)
Bacchanal (other topics)
The Getaway (other topics)
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Authors mentioned in this topic
Cherie Dimaline (other topics)Silvia Moreno-Garcia (other topics)
Alma Katsu (other topics)
Cherie Dimaline (other topics)
Stephen Graham Jones (other topics)
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No fist-pump here! Boos and hisses instead! I do NOT read horror. I will most likely substitute a mystery/thriller novel instead as I have done with other c..."
If anyone is looking for lighter horror, Dread Nation (book one) and Deathless Divide (book two) by Justina Ireland dwell more on the psychological toll of the zombie uprising than the graphic details of the zombies. (You do get some of that, though.)
It's alt history. What if the dead started rising during Gettysburg? How would that have altered the course of history? (Spoiler: Still not a good time for non-white people.) But the main characters are Black women, and very competent ones at that.
Dread Nation has more zombie action than Deathless Divide.