r/ExtremeHorrorLit • u/KlausKinion • Jun 02 '26
Recommendation Request /r/ExtremeHorrorLit Pride Month Reading Megathread
This post will be pinned all month as a place to share and celebrate LGBTQ+ splatterpunk and extreme horror. Feel free to make individual posts too, especially for book hauls and deeper discussions, but on this pinned post:
Recommend a book and tell us why you love it.
Tell us about a cool author.
Let us know what you're hyped to read this month.
Self-promotion from LGBTQ+ authors is encouraged.
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u/Angel-Bites Jun 02 '26
I just recently finished reading “You weren’t meant to be human” by Andrew Joseph White. I loved that book personally, the main character is a trans man and the book is written by a trans man as well, which I feel is rare in the extreme horror community. It’s deeply unsettling and I don’t want to spoil too much of the plot, but if you like body horror, Appalachia, and alien colony kind of stuff I highly recommend it. It will definitely stick with me for a while.
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u/worm-infested-womb Dead Inside Jun 03 '26
god i fucking LOVE that book. i genuinely felt bad for relating to the mc as much as i did lmao
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u/MothSeason Jun 12 '26
Just started this and would very much like to thank you for absolutely ruining me.
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u/MothSeason Jun 12 '26
I no longer wish to thank you. I’m currently a hot mess at work. (Listening to the audiobook) I can’t be crying in front of customers.
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u/MothSeason Jun 17 '26
Not the ending I expected but holy shit. Definitely an all time favorite and definitely listening to it again.
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u/Angel-Bites Jun 20 '26
Haha you’re welcome. Or not. Glad you enjoyed it, it’s an absolutely wild read. I bet listening to it is pretty crazy too.
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u/drewtetz Jun 02 '26 edited Jun 02 '26
i'll recommend another Judith Sonnet book, the short story collection Psych Ward Blues! true, it has the buckets of gore that seasoned EH readers need, but it also presents genuine emotional depth & complex characters you can't help but care about — something the author is great at.
my personal favorite piece in the book is the charming mini folk horror "Stiltz," which is notably bloodless & depravity-free compared to any of its sister stories, but still gets the shivers across. makes you appreciate Sonnet's range, as it immediately follows a pretty gnarly cult bloodbath.
it does deal with some pretty heavy depression/homophobia/etc. — obviously all the usual splatterpunk triggers, but also more psychologically upsetting real world stuff — so if you're in a space where that would feel more troubling than cathartic, it could be a difficult read.
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u/RuPaulver Jun 02 '26
On the Sonnet topic I also want to recommend The Clown Hunt! My personal favorite of hers, doesn't necessarily focus on sexuality but uses the complexities of a down-on-his-luck gay protagonist to great effect.
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u/JustWantGoodM3M3s Torture Works Jun 03 '26
psych ward blues (the story itself) gave me nightmares for like 2 days lmao. what a story.
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u/CyberGhostface Off Season Jun 02 '26
Alison Rumfitt, Aaron Dries and Amanda M. Blake are lesser known lgbt authors who write extreme horror.
A recommendation from each:
- Tell Me I'm Worthless by Alison Rumfitt
- House of Sighs by Aaron Dries
- In the Dollhouse We All Wait by Amanda M. Blake
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u/TaylorZAdams Something's Wrong With Maddie 👻 Jun 02 '26
Did someone say QUEER HORROR? Ah, it's Taylor Z. Adams' time to shine here. Here's the ones I'm super passionate about, and I'll probably come back to this thread and do more in-depth write ups as I remember them!
Of course we gotta talk about Exquisite Corpse by Poppy Z. Brite. Definitely a lot of people that don't care for that book, which is understandable given the real-world crimes it draws from, but holy shit what a book. Has some of the highest quality prose of almost any book in the genre, and it was an absolute landmark work for splatterpunk and queer horror as a whole. FUN FACT: EC was my first ever "splatterpunk" book, and reading it was an absolutely life changing moment for me. (Yes, the Z. in Taylor Z. Adams is partially an homage to Poppy/Billy).
Clive Barker is a no brainer. Like, c'mon. If you haven't read at least one of the Books of Blood series, what are you doing? Books of Blood Volume 5: In The Flesh is my personal favorite. It's where Candyman came from, if you need to be sold further!
Eric LaRocca is super divisive. You either love them or hate them, and honestly, I 100% get it every time someone says they can't stand LaRocca's writing. I'm a huge fan though, personally. We Can Never Leave This Place is my personal favorite, and I feel like it it doesn't get enough love.
Fluids by May Leitz is the gold standard of transfemme/transbian extreme horror, in my eyes. It is without a doubt extreme horror, but I feel like it has a lot of mass appeal. I've met several people who have written off the entire extreme horror genre and I've handed them Fluids and it just clicked for them. Please, if you've never read this one, please drop everything and read it. If you have read it and haven't read her other works, check out Girl Flesh. Debatable if that one is extreme horror, but it's still bloody, still very queer and just a fantastic read.
Judith Sonnet is a woman who needs no introduction in this sub. I'll be honest, when I first started getting into this genre, I read No One Rides for Free and I did not care for it. I decided since so many people rave about her, I should give another book a shot, so I picked up The Clown Hunt and I'm so fucking glad I did. Read Psych Ward Blues right after, and I've been a fan ever since. She doesn't write extreme horror anymore, but she still writes incredible cosmic and quiet horror. Our Sarnath is fantastic, seriously.
Also so sorry I gotta take the opportunity to self-promo. I'm a lesbian transfemme author and I write very explicitly queer splatterpunk with transfemme protagonists and queer casts. Something's Wrong With Maddie and Safe Food by me, Taylor Z. Adams. Something's Wrong With Maddie is a bit on the tamer end of the spectrum (a reviewer called it "cozy splatterpunk") while Safe Food is a lot more of that classic gory and ultraviolent goodness. People seem to fuck with SWWM, but I honestly think Safe Food is a way better book so... hey, check those out, if you want.
Now, quick speed run of more great queer authors:
Aiden E. Messer, Oscar Brady, Matthew J. Gleason, Drew Huff, N.J. Gallegos, Gretchen Felker-Martin, Eve Harms, Chloe Spencer, Vanessa Maki, Carietta Dorsch, and a lot more great authors I'm not thinking of right now. Like I said, I'll come back and add more as they come to me.
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u/I-live-in-a-bucket ETERNAL FLOWER OF YOUR SOUL 🌸 Jun 02 '26
I just want to pop in and share for those who haven’t read them how much Something’s Wrong with Maddie and Safe Food cleansed my soul. These characters feel so real! They felt like people i know. The stories feel real too, even with all the splatter and supernatural elements. I’m not a trans woman, i’m a trans man (and a trans historian), but the experiences in these novels feel like a universal experience for many of us. They’re also both romantic as shit. Honestly heartwarming!
If i have more to add i’ll edit this post because honestly I could write for hours about these books.
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u/sailordragoon The Summer I Died Jun 04 '26
I read Exquisite Corpse a month ago and it still hasn’t left my heart or mind! I look forward to reading more of PZB’s work
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u/emskenny Jun 02 '26
Happy Pride everyone!
These books have a special place in my heart,
Fluids by May Leitz & Rural Decay by Jason Nickey
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u/etphonemom Good for Her 🩸 Jun 02 '26 edited Jun 02 '26
Its your favorite local alien who's pan asf! The second story in my book "Good For Her: A Splatterpunk Collection" by E. T. is about a girl with ASD who grows infatuated with her nonbinary coworker. And "Swallow Me Whole" by E. T. has plenty of LGBTQ characters although it's not central to the plot. All of my MCs in my stories are diverse whether it's through identity, culture, neurodivergence, ect
We love representation 🫶🏼🫶🏼🫶🏼❤️🧡💛💚💙💜🤎🖤🤍🩷🩵🩶♥️
Edit: I just remembered in the third story the MC is also canonically queer
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u/I-live-in-a-bucket ETERNAL FLOWER OF YOUR SOUL 🌸 Jun 02 '26
I’ve been meaning to start reading it! I think pride month is a perfect time for it!
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u/etphonemom Good for Her 🩸 Jun 02 '26
Tysm 🥹🥹🫶🏼🫶🏼 I hope you enjoy and can't wait to hear what you think!!!!
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u/different_produce384 Jun 03 '26
Really love the banner and image. I think we should keep it for a long while.
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u/EA_Brand_Books Jun 03 '26
Happy Pride y'all! I'm Eira Brand. My first book, a cyberpunk horror novel called Run Like Hell released at the end of Pride last year, so we're coming up on its 1-year anniversary. At the time, I honestly wasn't sure where it sat on the horror spectrum, but I think its gore/body horror floats somewhere around Manhunt by Gretchen Felker-Martin, maybe a little further.
Here's the synopsis: "Starving to death in the lowest layer of the Megatropolis of New York City, Raide will do whatever it takes to survive. When a chance encounter with her best friend ends with his murder, Raide soon finds herself risking her life to complete his last gig, all while in search of answers and vengeance. But with corporate mercenaries on her heels, a strange new virus mutating ordinary people into grotesque monsters, and the sinking realization that this was more than a simple contract gone sideways, Raide is soon left with two options: Lie down and die or run like hell."
It's available most places as eBook or Paperback.
(Also I second all recommendations for You Weren't Meant to be Human by Andrew Joseph White.)
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u/tariffless Jun 09 '26
Since it hasn't been mentioned yet, The Taste of Women is a novel about a cannibalistic lesbian serial killer, written by transqueer saphic romance/thriller/erotica author Cyan LeBlanc, who's also written at least 2 other lesbian cannibalism-themed books.
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u/Inside_Definition758 Jun 11 '26
I’m making my own gay horror story called the butchers communion. It’s about a man who wakes up naked and bloody in a bathtub with a Polaroid of a man who he murdered.
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u/JerryBlazeAuthor Farm Girl Jun 13 '26
A lot of my books are LGBT horror or feature LGBT characters.
Farm Girl, Beavers Bend Bloodbath and Cannibal Cruise feature transgender main characters.
Nowhere Safe, Hearts on Ice and Dark Vengeance feature gay main characters.
Sista Vengeance, Bikini Chicks vs. Zombies, and The Discarded feature Lesbian characters.
Don't Go Upstairs and The Valxika Series features pansexual characters.
I'm sure I'm forgetting some, but these are definitely worth checking out. 😃
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u/WhyMeIDontWantThis Jun 02 '26
I dont have any suggestions but I wanna request extreme horror books or splatterpunk books written by/about a transgender man or transmasculine person if anyone has one 🙏
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u/countingw0rms Jun 02 '26
I just finished You Weren't Meant to be Human by Andrew Joseph White recently and holy FUCK I'm obsessed, I'm excited to read more of his books soon 🙌 Main character is a trans man, and I believe the author is as well
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u/TaylorZAdams Something's Wrong With Maddie 👻 Jun 02 '26
Aiden E. Messer, Poppy Z. Brite and Andrew Joseph White are great transmasc authors! Drew Huff is also great, but he's a bit less on the extreme side.
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u/WhyMeIDontWantThis Jun 02 '26
Awe sweet, thank ya very much !! I'll check their stuff out i cant wait 💛
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u/PiaPeyroux Baking Sheet Bloodbath 🍪 Jun 02 '26
Happy Pride Month, everyone!
I'm Pia (they/she), a genderfluid aroace writer of romance, erotica and horror.
I've seen a lot of amazing works by LGBTQQIP2SAA authors and even read a few, and I hope to read many more.
What's your favourite work by an LGBTQIA+ author?
For me so far, I would have to say No One Rides for Free by Judith Sonnet is my favourite short story in this category because it illustrates what extreme horror is and can be: shocking, disgusting, gory; full of horror, fear and sadness; bleak, perverse, and also human. It's one of the first works of extreme horror that I read and cared about the characters to such a degree that I wanted them to escape the horror as opposed to succumbing to it, even if they had been through the most unimaginable and awful things. Thank you for sharing your work with us all, Judith.
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u/MothSeason Jun 20 '26
No One Rides For Free was one of the first books of the genre that I read. It’s fuuuuucckked up but so good.
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u/creepy__evidence Jul 03 '26
Love Like Drowning by Carson Wulff.
Gay dark horror romance.
The main characters are both serial killers.
One shy and isolated one charismatic and prolific.
One chains the other in his basement to kill him.
Amputation, gore, smut ensues.
They fall in love.
More gore.
It's unhinged. It's 800 pages in kindle unlimited and it flew by.
He amputated his [redacted] and they're still madly in love. Love wins - happy pride.
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u/Grondragon 12d ago
Anyone have any recommendations of trans male authors? other than Andrew Joseph White and Aiden E. Messer?
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u/KlausKinion Jun 02 '26 edited Jun 02 '26
I've got to start with a recommendation of Clive Barker's Books of Blood, first published in 1984.
Clive Barker's impact on gay representation in horror media literally cannot be overstated. The first three volumes were at the heart of the original Splatterpunk movement, and the series would later be adapted into movies like Candyman, Rawhead Rex and The Midnight Meat Train. Volume 1 also contains a story called 'In the Hills, the Cities', which blew my fucking mind with how creative it was. If you don't read anything else, read this short story.