now that I can actually get through a day without breaking from migraines

and ohMYGOD it's so good

it's half horror novel, half feminist analysis of 80s slasher movies

(please Grady please do the same thing to Giallo > )

I have a special place in my heart for 80s slashers and the 90s slasher revival and could sit here scream-lecturing about them, but hhhhhh he hits a lot of high notes about how they're problematic as fuck

His books are just fucking. Subversive of the horror genre while also being 100% revitalizing and fresh and I love him ;.;

I literally have read all of his books the minute they come out (with the exception of this one because Migraine Marathon)

Horrorstor was hysterical and We Sold Our Souls was gutting and wonderful and heartwrenching and they were so completely different from one another, and his writing is so inviting, like. I don't feel like he's writing under the influence of All the Drugs like King or None of the Drugs and All the Popularity (...king)

It's really accessible and faintly emotional without being overwhelming, and he lets his protags - who have been women every time - be strong and broken and fallible and kind of shitty people but also you can't help but like them??

The protagonist in this one has a deep emotional connection with her houseplant and it's presented in a way that on its surface is funny and pitiable but then you read more about it and it's like. "...Oh."

/screams into hands

Honestly I'm just happy to go to a horror section in the bookstore and find that it's not seven shelves of Stephen King; lately this one australian author's been really getting spin for her books (good but not a strong writer), and Paul Tremblay (ALSO very good), and then Hendrix's books are gaining popularity

I like King, don't get me wrong, but I feel like a lot of his books are popular because he's Stephen King.

And also I think he wrote better when he was high. :\ Not suggesting I think he should get high, his work just seems too clean and lacks the distressing stream of consciousness now.

i think I like Hendrix for the same reason I like the Scream franchise: it's self-aware horror, faintly meta (Scream 4 went overboard with that)

and it's fresh in the way Scream was fresh.

Horrorstor, is set in what's obviously Ikea, and is sort of Lovecraftian but also hilarious and pokes at capitalism, iirc. (It's been a while.)

We Sold Our Souls is about a band whose frontman sold the souls of his band to become famous, and is from the perspective of the bassist, washed up and working in a motel. And the ending is bliss.

I REALIZE I AM BABBLING LIKE CRAZY ABOUT HORROR NOVELS I'M SORRY

I just. I don't read books that please me very often.