Book Review: Shiny Happy People by Clay McLeod Chapman

 

Shiny Happy People by Clay McLeod Chapman

Delacorte Press, 2025

ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0593904084

Available: Hardcover, ebook edition, audiobook

Buy:  Bookshop.org

 

 

I find Clay McLeod Chapman’s work uniquely disturbing. While Shiny Happy People, his foray into YA horror, isn’t as gruesome as some of his previous work it is a natural fit with his other work, especially Wake Up and Open Your Eyes. 

 

Kyra was abandoned by her addict mother at a young age and is now the adopted daughter of a loving family, whose father works long hours at a large pharmaceutical company, BoTanic, which employs most of the town. She has terrible anxiety and panic attacks, and a supportive “black sheep” best friend, Halley.

 

Kyra’s need for control and family history of addiction mean she’s completely straight-edge even in the face of peer pressure, so when a new party drug starts making the rounds at school, she’s one of the few who hasn’t taken it and can observe the effects it is having on the people around her. Kids who have taken the drug go into violent convulsions, followed by becoming artificially happy and calm, causing ah uncanny valley effect that Kyra feels but can’t explain to the adults around her, who are also acting very strange. With the people around her all gaslighting her, Kyra starts doubting her grip on reality. The only person who seems to be on her wavelength is new boy Logan, who is clearly hiding something.

 

Flashbacks to Kyra’s abandonment in a dark room infested with bugs, mold and fungus are truly claustrophobic and creepy, On a personal level, as someone who lives with epilepsy, the descriptions of violent convulsions created a visceral response. Kyra’s description of her anxiety as “ivy threaded through my ribcage” is vivid, and when it gets entangled with already-creepy fungal horror becomes terrifying, with its network spreading wider and wider. This horror is not limited to one school or even one town.

 

There is so much going on in this book: it comments on addiction, Big Pharma, hive mentality, peer pressure, ethical corruption, mental health, and more, but messaging doesn’t take over the story. Chapman follows Kyra’s narrative thread all the way through at a fast pace. It’s an uncomfortable, disorienting ride, and one that’s well worth taking.

 

Highly recommended.

 

Reviewed by Kirsten Kowalewski

Posted on March 12, 2026 by , Reply

Musings: Doing What You Love with Someone You Love, by Kirsten and Miles Kowalewski

 

 
This entry was written at the request of my son Miles, previously referred to here as the Monster Kid for privacy reasons (Miles is just a few months older than Monster Librarian, and inspired our Monster Movie Month project in July 2012. A  little kid doesn’t need his name out there on the Internet) There are some really cool blog posts in the July 2012 archives for this blog) At 20, he is no longer a kid and while he’s home from college he wanted to share how important it is to him that the two of us share the experience of watching and talking about horror movies together. We’ve each written a little about it here, first from my point of view and then from his. Mine is a bit wordy, but make sure to read what he has to say. It’s so cool to see what he thinks about the time we spend together sharing this interest! If you’ve ever wondered how horror-loving kids turn out, mine is kind, curious, loving, generous, and enthusiastic about his interests.

 

Kirsten: 

I am more of a horror reader than a horror movie watcher. Being married to a horror movie lover made movie nights challenging, to say the least. But my son has not just followed in Dylan’s fandom footsteps but has even gone further, majoring in media production and screenwriting, and working on short films for Radiance, Ball State University’s immersive learning experience in filmmaking. Since Miles was a kid, he has had an interest in monsters and scary movies– in fact, one year, Dylan helped him shoot a short monster movie during his birthday party. As a teenager Miles read about and took classes in screenwriting for horror movies, learned to write film criticism, connected with people online, and even to conventions.

 

I have learned that if you want your kids to spend time with you, it makes a difference if you take time to share their interests, so I watch and talk about horror movies with Miles. I love getting to share the experience with him, and because it’s interesting to him, he makes it interesting, and even exciting, to get into it with him. I probably text him now with more horror movie related content than I do cat videos (college students apparently need a steady diet of cat videos). I owe many thanks to James A. Janisse of the Kill Count, who has made it possible for me to talk about movies intelligently with him even when I haven’t watched them through.

 

Almost all of the movies I’ve seen in theaters in the past year have been with Miles, and this actually was a great year for watching horror movies in a theater. I’m probably not representative of the general moviegoing population, but in addition to Sinners, four of the five movies I saw in theaters were horror movies, and worth the ticket price (28 Years Later, Weapons, The Long Walk, and Frankenstein). I really think that they are a lifeline for movie theaters. I saw the first three with my son, and watching a movie on the big screen in a movie theater is a great experience to share with someone who really is interested in being there and enjoying it.  I love Guillermo del Toro and everything Frankenstein, and although Miles was at school, I could go back and forth with him about cinematography, directorial choices, special effects, storytelling, and all the other things I’ve learned from him about filmmaking, especially horror, even though we weren’t able to see it together.  I saw del Toro’s Frankenstein with my mom, who loves the book but doesn’t like violence or horror, and there is a world of difference in the discourse when you are sharing the experience with someone who isn’t open to it.

 

Since Miles is in college now, we mainly watch movies when he’s home on break, and this year we’ve watched It Follows (a favorite of his), Pearl, Get Out, Psycho, Cure, and Black Christmas together.  We also watched Night of the Living Dead and Dawn of the Dead again, because we learned that the Monroeville Mall, where parts of Dawn of the Dead were filmed, will be demolished later this year. We actually intended to visit this weekend while he is on spring break, but then I discovered there’s actually going to be a final farewell there in June, with original cast members in attendance, so I think we’re going to wait for that!  I watched them casually in the past, but now horror movies mean more, because they’re something Miles and I share.

 

 

Miles: To me, this whole experience has been getting to do something that I love with a person that is into and enjoys the same genre as I do. We both have different specialties in regards to the horror genres, across multiple mediums. I enjoy movies more then I do books and for Mom, it is vice versa.

 

I specifically enjoy watching horror movies with my Mom because I have always been fascinated with movies as medium and horror as a genre ever since I was incredibly young. Plus I also think that it may help that it is something we do together, to varying degrees of enjoyment.

 

I find that with these movies we watch, it helps us bond and grow closer together. I don’t think Mom would have willingly watched any of the movies that we did with anyone else (maybe except for Daddy, but he was into some pretty intense stuff). And given how unique and special my mom can be with these kinds of things, it is always a treat to do.

 

In summary, you can dice it many different ways. It could be family bonding, the continuation of legacy, film analysis, criticism and appreciation, or maybe just laughing and screaming at whatever is on our screen for the night (most likely all of the above). But at the end of the day, it is something that I always have found brings me a sense of warmth and comfort in a world that always seems to be getting darker and colder.

 

 

Posted on March 4, 2026 by , Reply

Book Review: EnterPAINment by Wol-vriey

EnterPAINment by Wol-vriey

Burning Bulb Publishing, 2025

ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-1964172521

Available: Paperback, Kindle edition, audiobook

Buy:  Amazon.com

 

This is an example of a book with an excellent plotline, but subpar execution. An overwhelming amount of sleazy sex permeates nearly every page, and turns what could have been one hell of a thriller into a softcore porn novel.  It’s a shame, because this is from a writer with a solid track record of hardcore horror novels.  I’ll have to grant a mulligan on this one, it’s below what he is capable of.

 

The plot is established in the first few pages, and again, it IS a good one.  Dave Ferguson is a down on his luck former MMA fighter who gets a shot at making big money again, as a trainer.  The catch?  It’s in a large, hidden facility, and he won’t see the outside world as long as he is there, for what goes on is a highly illegal underground fighting competition, held on a regular basis for extremely wealthy spectators (mainly females) with no moral scruples.  They want to see pain, blood, and death-for real. Think of a modern day version of the whole Roman gladiator thing, and you’ll get the idea.  As the story progresses and some of Dave’s friends get killed, he has to decide whether it is all worth it for the big bucks.

 

That’s the bare-bones basics. There is a bit more to the plot, but unfortunately some intriguing ideas get short shrift. A subplot about one of the characters doing wacky black magic and demon summoning was intriguing, but it barely figured into the overall plot. There is some good material in this book. For example, the author has a handle on how to write a pretty good fight scene, and he has some really messy ones with weapons such as utility knives.  They are good, drawn-out battles with plenty of back and forth, and they are enterPAINing. The brawls are pretty brutal, and the gorehound readers should love them.  If the book had concentrated more on the fighting scenes and character development, it would have been much improved.

 

Alas, such is not the case, as the sleazy sex simply overwhelms the book and draws away from the good stuff.  Yes, raunch is a part of the hardcore genre, but it needs to be a tool in service to the story, not the overriding aspect. It’s difficult to get through more than 5 pages of this book without something explicitly sexual happening, and it detracts from the overall enjoyment of the story.  Case in point: the fights themselves were good, but the author kept cutting away at various points in each fight to describe explicit sex acts. It was a needless distraction, and took away from what should have been the most impactful moments.  Sex even made its way into some of the fights, and while I give credit for thinking outside the box, the times when it happened were rather ridiculous.  You’re fighting for your life, and you suddenly have the urge to get busy with one of the spectators?  It just didn’t work, and came off as an excuse to throw in another dose of sleaze.  As a reader, I expect better. The characters aren’t remotely interesting: they needed to be more developed. I would have settled for them at least playing strip poker, but they seemed to be there just to add doses of explicit sex.

 

There really isn’t much else to add, since there wasn’t much to work with.  If you have a thing for serious sleaze, this one may interest you, but I actually have to stamp this one with Not Recommended for other readers.  Hopefully this is a one-time aberration for the author and he gets back to doing what he does best, writing hardcore horror with warped humor, in his next book.

 

 

 

Reviewed by Murray Samuelson

Posted on March 2, 2026 by , Reply
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