Reduce the TBR Aug 25
I am on a quest to Read and Reduce my TBR list! I will pick out a few books at a time to give my attention to and decide if my passion for the book burns bright or has fizzled out. I will share my decisions and hopefully inspire others to add or cull it from your lists. This post will all be horror books! I'm excited to dive back into this genre just in time for the seasons to change.
I'm starting with 553 books on my list.
I. Aftertaste by Daria Lavelle
Fantasy, Romance, Horror - 400 pages - Published in 2025
Konstantin Duhovny is a haunted man. His father died when he was ten, and ghosts have been hovering around Kostya ever since. Kostya can’t exactly see the ghosts, but he can taste their favorite foods. Flavors of meals he’s never eaten will flood his mouth, a sign that a spirit is present. Kostya has kept these aftertastes a secret for most of his life, but one night, he decides to act on what he’s tasting. And everything changes.
Kostya discovers that he can reunite people with their deceased loved ones—at least for the length of time it takes for them to eat a dish that he’s prepared. He thinks his life’s purpose might be to offer closure to grieving strangers, and sets out to learn all he can by entering a particularly fiery ring of Hell: the New York culinary scene. But as his kitchen skills catch up with his ambitions, Kostya is too blind to see the catastrophe looming in the Afterlife. And the one person who knows Kostya must be stopped also happens to be falling in love with him.
Set in the bustling world of New York restaurants and teeming with mouthwatering food writing, Aftertaste is a whirlwind romance, a heart-wrenching look at love and loss, and a ghost story about all the ways we hunger—and how far we’d go to find satisfaction.
Dialogue & Destinies
Not necessarily the kind of horror I'm looking for but, I love it. This reminds me of T.J. Klune's stories which I have adored so far. I am absolutely keeping this book.
II. Youthjuice by E.K. Sathue
Horror, Thriller, Contemporary - 288 pages - Published in 2024
A 29-year-old copywriter realizes that beauty is possible—at a terrible cost—in this surreal, satirical send-up of NYC It-girl culture.
From Sophia Bannion’s first day on the Storytelling team at HEBE (hee-bee), a luxury skincare/wellness company based in New York’s trendy SoHo neighborhood and named after the Greek goddess of youth, it’s clear something is deeply amiss. But Sophia, pushing thirty, has plenty of skeletons in her closet next to the designer knockoffs and doesn’t care. Though she leads an outwardly charmed life, she aches for a deeper meaning to her flat existence—and a cure for her brutal nail-biting habit. She finds it all and more at HEBE, and with Tree Whitestone, HEBE’s charismatic founder and CEO.
Soon, Sophia is addicted to her HEBE lifestyle—especially youthjuice, the fatty, soothing moisturizer Tree has asked Sophia to test. But when cracks in HEBE’s infrastructure start to worsen—and Sophia learns the gruesome secret ingredient at the heart of youthjuice—she has to decide how far she’s willing to go to stay beautiful forever.
Glittering with ominous flashes of Sophia’s coming-of-rage story, former beauty editor E.K. Sathue’s horror debut is as incisive as it is stomach-churning in its portrayal of all-consuming female friendship and the beauty industry’s short attention span. youthjuice does to skincare influencers what Bret Easton Ellis did to yuppies. You’ll never moisturize the same way again.
Dialogue & Destinies
This mostly appealed to me because I wear makeup and use other beauty products. It also has a pretty cover that makes you want to know what's in moisturizer. I have a strong feeling that I won't like Sophia and she won't have much development. I will remove the book.
III. Eat the Ones You Love by Sarah Maria Griffin
Horror, Fantasy, Romance - 288 pages - Published in 2025
A twisted, tangled story about workplace love-affairs, and plants with a taste for human flesh
During a grocery run to her local shopping center, Shell Pine sees a ‘HELP NEEDED’ sign in a flower shop window. She’s just left her fiancé, lost her job, and moved home to her parents’ house. She has to make a change and bring some good into her life, so she goes inside and takes a chance. Shell realizes right away that flowers are just the good thing she's been looking for, as is Neve, the beautiful florist who wrote the sign asking for help. The thing is, Neve needs help more than Shell could possibly imagine.
An orchid growing out of sight in the heart of the mall is watching them closely. His name is Baby, and the beautiful florist belongs to him. He’s young, he’s hungry, and he’ll do just about anything to make sure he can keep growing big and strong. Nothing he eats – nobody he eats – can satisfy him, except the thing he most desires. Neve. He adores her and wants to consume her, and will stop at nothing to eat the one he loves.
This is a story about possession, and monstrosity, and working retail. It is about hunger and desire, and other terrible things that grow.
Dialogue & Destinies
This reminds me of Blob: A Love Story by Maggie Su. I liked that book and I like plants. I'll keep it.
IV. Sour Cherry by Natalia Theodoridou
A stunning reimagining of Bluebeard—one of the most mythologized serial killers—twisted into a modern tale of toxic masculinity, a feminist sermon, and a folktale for the twenty-first century.
The tale begins with Agnes. After losing her baby, Agnes is called to the great manor house to nurse the local lord’s baby boy. But something is wrong with the child: his nails grow too fast, his skin smells of soil, and his eyes remind her of the dark forest. As he grows into a boy, then into man, a plague seems to follow him everywhere. Trees wither at the roots, fruits rot on their branches, and the town turns against him. The man takes a wife, who bears him a son. But tragedy strikes in cycles and his family is forced to consider their own malignancy—until wife after wife, death after death, plague after plague, every woman he touches becomes a ghost. The ghosts become a chorus, and they call urgently to our narrator as she tries to explain, in our very real world, exactly what has happened to her. The ghosts can all agree on one thing, an inescapable truth about this man, this powerful lord who has loved them and led them each to ruin: If you leave, you die. But if you die, you stay.
Natalia Theodoridou’s haunting and unforgettable debut novel, Sour Cherry, confronts age-old systems of gender and power, long-held excuses made for bad men, and the complicated reasons we stay captive to the monsters we love.
Dialogue & Destinies
This looks like a combination of horror and literary fiction. I'm curious to see how those two genres work together. I'm also interested in the themes it touches on so I will keep it.
V. Loneliness & Company by Charlee Dyroff
Dystopia, Science Fiction, Literary Fiction - 288 pages - Published in 2024
Lee’s life is perfectly mapped out. A top student and professor favorite, everyone expects her to land one of the coveted roles at a Big Five corporation. So when, upon graduating, Lee finds herself at a company no one’s heard of in the dead city of New York instead, her goals are completely upended.
In this new role, Lee’s task is to gather research to train an AI how to be a friend. She begins online and by studying the social circle of her outgoing roommate Veronika. But when it’s revealed that the company is part of a classified mission to solve loneliness—an emotion erased from society’s lexicon decades ago— Lee's determination to prove herself kicks into overdrive and she starts chasing bolder experiences for the AI.
How far will Lee go? As loneliness continues to spread, she must decide what she’s willing to give up for success and, along the way, learn what it means to be a true friend.
Loneliness & Company is an enchanting, gorgeously written novel about finding meaning and connection in a world beset by isolation.
Dialogue & Destinies
A friend recommended this to me, but I didn't read anything about it before adding it to my list. She said it was unsettleing and I like where the description is going. I'm keeping it!
VI. The Ritual by Adam L.G. Nevill
Horror, Thriller, Paranormal - 418 pages - Published in 2011
Four old university friends reunite for a hiking trip in the Scandinavian wilderness of the Arctic Circle. No longer young men, they have little left in common, and tensions rise as they struggle to connect. Frustrated and tired, they take a shortcut that turns their hike into a nightmare that could cost them their lives.
Lost, hungry and surrounded by forest untouched for millennia, they stumble across an isolated old house. Inside, they find the macabre remains of old rites and pagan sacrifices; ancient artefacts and unidentifiable bones. This place of dark ritual is home to a bestial predator that is still alive in the ancient forest. And now they’re the prey.
As the four friends struggle for salvation, they discover that death doesn’t come easy among these ancient trees...
Dialogue & Destinies
This reminds me of one of my favorite horror books called The Troop by Nick Cutter. On an alternative cover of this book, there's a tag line that says "They should have gone to Vegas" which made me laugh. I'll keep it!
VII. The Laws of the Skies by Gregoire Courtois
Horror, Thriller - 148 pages - Published in 2016
Twelve six-year-olds and their three adult chaperones head into the woods on a camping trip. None of them make it out alive.
The Laws of the Skies follows the terrified children as they scatter into the night to escape danger, dressed only in their pajamas. They face their darkest childhood fears and new imaginary threats, like trolls masquerading as boulders and child-eating tree trunks.
A harrowing story of those days in the woods, of illness, poisoning, and accidents; of a love triangle among tots; a pint-sized hero; and a child on a murderous rampage that comes to a grisly end. Part fairy tale, part horror story, this macabre fable takes us through the minds of all the members of this doomed party, murderers and murdered alike.
Dialogue & Destinies
I am so intrigued by the fact that it's a bunch of 1st graders killing and being killed. This also reminds me of The Troop. I'll keep it.
VIII. Womb City by Tlotlo Tsamaase
Horror, Science Fiction, Dystopia - 416 pages - Published in 2018
Nelah seems to have it all: wealth, fame, a husband, and a child on the way. But in a body her husband controls via microchip and the tailspin of a loveless marriage, her hopes and dreams come to a devastating halt. A drug-fueled night of celebration ends in a hit-and-run. To dodge a sentencing in a society that favors men, Nelah and her side-piece, Janith Koshal, finish the victim off and bury the body.
But the secret claws its way into Nelah's life from the grave. As her victim's vengeful ghost begins exacting a bloody revenge on everyone Nelah holds dear, she'll have to unravel her society's terrible secrets to stop those in power, and become a monster unlike any other to quench the ghost's violent thirst.
Dialogue & Destinies
Now, I know what I said about Sci Fi. However, many of the reviews for this book talk about worldbuilding and how there's a lot of it. The tidbits I learned from the reviews made me want to learn more about the world. I'm going to keep it.
IX. They Never Learn by Layne Fargo
Thriller, Mystery - 349 pages - Published in 2020
Scarlett Clark is an exceptional English professor. But she’s even better at getting away with murder.
Every year, she searches for the worst man at Gorman University and plots his well-deserved demise. Thanks to her meticulous planning, she’s avoided drawing attention to herself—but as she’s preparing for her biggest kill yet, the school starts probing into the growing body count on campus. Determined to keep her enemies close, Scarlett insinuates herself into the investigation and charms the woman in charge, Dr. Mina Pierce. Everything’s going according to her master plan…until she loses control with her latest victim, putting her secret life at risk of exposure.
Meanwhile, Gorman student Carly Schiller is just trying to survive her freshman year. Finally free of her emotionally abusive father, all Carly wants is to focus on her studies and fade into the background. Her new roommate has other ideas. Allison Hadley is cool and confident—everything Carly wishes she could be—and the two girls quickly form an intense friendship. So when Allison is sexually assaulted at a party, Carly becomes obsessed with making the attacker pay...and turning her fantasies about revenge into a reality.
Featuring Layne Fargo’s trademark “propulsive writing style” (Kirkus Reviews) and “sinister, of the moment” (Chicago Review of Books) suspense, They Never Learn is a feminist serial killer story perfect for fans of Killing Eve and Chelsea Cain.
Dialogue & Destinies
I don't remember adding this to my list but I'm glad I did! It sounds like a book I want to keep.
X. Dead Silence by S.A. Barnes
Horror, Science Fiction, Thriller - 343 pages - Published in 2022
A GHOST SHIP.
A SALVAGE CREW.
UNSPEAKABLE HORRORS.
Claire Kovalik is days away from being unemployed—made obsolete—when her beacon repair crew picks up a strange distress signal. With nothing to lose and no desire to return to Earth, Claire and her team decide to investigate.
What they find at the other end of the signal is a shock: the Aurora, a famous luxury space-liner that vanished on its maiden tour of the solar system more than twenty years ago. A salvage claim like this could set Claire and her crew up for life. But a quick trip through the Aurora reveals something isn’t right.
Whispers in the dark. Flickers of movement. Words scrawled in blood. Claire must fight to hold onto her sanity and find out what really happened on the Aurora, before she and her crew meet the same ghastly fate.
Dialogue & Destinies
Sounds like a good ghost story. I'll keep it.
Results
I had 9 keeps and 1 remove. This didn't change my overall number much, but I am more excited to get back into the horror genre. This brings me down to 552 books.
Are you a fan of horror? What books are you going to read this fall?
Happy Reading!
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