2026
- Currently Reading: Stone Butch Blues - Leslie Feinberg
- (5/31/26) You Weren't Meant To Be Human - Andrew Joseph White
- (2/1/26) Carmilla - Sheridan Le Fanu
- (1/20/26) They All Died Screaming - Kristopher Triana
Below you can see my thoughts and messy notes on each book that I've finished this year! Please read with caution - some of the books that I've read are extreme horror and I may mention disturbing topics. I try to avoid spoiling books but I make no promises.
You Weren't Meant To Be Human
May 31 - Andrew Joseph White
" Festering masses of worms and flies have taken root in dark corners across Appalachia. In exchange for unwavering loyalty and fresh corpses, these hives offer a few struggling humans salvation. A fresh start. It’s an offer that none refuse. Crane is grateful. Among his hive’s followers, Crane has found a chance to transition, to never speak again, to live a life that won’t destroy him. He even met Levi: a handsome ex-Marine and brutal killer who treats him like a real man, mostly. But when Levi gets Crane pregnant—and the hive demands the child’s birth, no matter the cost—Crane’s desperation to make it stop will drive the community that saved him into a devastating spiral that can only end in blood. "
I think You Weren't Meant To Be Human was the first time I've ever read a book about somebody who is a transgender man (like myself) who fears being pregnant (also like me) and it is definitely a book I need to reread in the future.
This is not a book I would recommend to others unless they are queer, tired of respectable and sanitized queer characters and enjoy extreme horror. If you have read and enjoyed You Weren't Meant To Be Human, I would recommend that you try reading Full Brutal by Kristopher Triana.
With that being said, I adore the strong themes throughout You Weren't Meant To Be Human, especially the lesson that we are all victims of a government that views it's people as tools. Which is something I've felt before but this book help me put those feelings into words.
Quotes
"By the time it makes you an offer, it already knows you won't say no." - page 8
"You will feel the sun on your face when we cannot" - page 14
"Do you understand that if there is a parasite inside me I'll kill myself" - page 39
(My physical notes say 'mood, samesies even' however this book did help open up the line of thought that as an adult in a currently trans-and-healthcare-safe part of the United States, I really need to quit with the self-destructive idea that 'if I somehow ever become pregnant, I will kill myself' because I have easy access to abortion care.)
"Battling the queer urge to light yourself on fire to keep someone else warm, giving everything you have to save a member of your community because you know, you know nobody but you will ever help" - page 195
"It is a shock to Crane that this creature dies . . . Why else would the Hive be so capable of anger, which is just another word for fear?" - page 251
"He is however afraid of dying a woman. He is afraid he won't be allowed to die at all" - page 265
"She will never be allowed to grow up happy or whole, because the Hive will always want her and her body and her ability to create more people just like her" - page 305
Carmilla
Feb 1 - Sheridan Le Fanu
" In an isolated castle deep in the Austrian forest, Laura leads a solitary life with only her ailing father for company. Until one moonlit night, a horse-drawn carriage crashes into view, carrying an unexpected guest—the beautiful Carmilla. So begins a feverish friendship between Laura and her mysterious, entrancing companion. But as Carmilla becomes increasingly strange and volatile, prone to eerie nocturnal wanderings, Laura finds herself tormented by nightmares and growing weaker by the day… Pre-dating Dracula by twenty-six years, Carmilla is the original vampire story, steeped in sexual tension and gothic romance. "
★★★★★★★★⯪☆
9.5 out of 10 Stars
The titillating relationship between Laura and Carmilla is what kept me reading, this book has beautiful dream-like imagery, however it suffers from predictability which I believe is a consequence of time and its status as a classic. Admittedly, I'm surprised to see that past me had rated Carmilla so high, seems I'll have to add it to a need to reread list. I would also like to eventually seek out Carmilla fanfictions and derivations.
Quotes
"When you look behind you at the schloss how all it's windows flash and twinkle with silvery splendor, as if unseen hands had lighted up the rooms to receive fairy guests" - page 23
"The lady threw her daughter a glance at which I fancied was not quite so affectionate as one might have anticipated from the begining of the scene. . . I was filled with wonder that my father did not seem to perceive the change" - page 28
"Then she described a hideous woman, who was gazing all the time from the carriage window, nodding and grinning derisively towards the ladies with gleaming eyes and large white eyeballs and her teeth set as in fury" - page 34
"Now the truth is, I felt rather unaccountably towards the beautiful stranger. I did feel, as she said, "drawn towards her" but there was also something of repulsion. In this ambiguous feeling however, the sense of attraction immensely prevailed." - page 40
"Dearest your little heart is wounded; think me not cruel because I obey the irresistable law of my strength and weakness; if your dear heart is wounded, my wild heart bleeds with yours. In the rapture of my enormous humilation I live in your warm life, and you shall die - die, sweetly die - into mine. I cannot help it; as I draw near to you, you, in your turn will draw near to others and learn the rapture of that cruelty, which yet is love; so for a while, seek to know no more of me and mine, but trust me with all your loving spirit" - page 46
(I have got to find a metal song inspired by Carmilla, I feel like it has the potential to go hard)
"I was conscious of a love growing into adoration, and also of abhorrence. This I know is paradox, but I can make no other attempt to explain the feeling" - page 47
"often from a reverie I have started, fancying I heard the light step of Carmilla at the drawing room door" - page 156
They All Died Screaming
Jan 20 - Kristopher Triana
" It’s called The Scream... Once you get it, you simply cannot stop screaming. You can’t eat or sleep. It drives you more and more insane until you can’t stand to be alive a second longer. When the phenomenon hits Chuck's city, the chronically unemployed pervert joins a band of misfits to make his final stand. Can Chuck, a bitter bartender, a dockside prostitute, a conspiracy theorist, and a homeless man find a way out of the apocalypse… Or will they all die screaming? "
WARNING They All Died Screaming is a splatterpunk book. It is dark, violent and sexual.
Everything I have to say about They All Died Screaming will probably look like mad rambling since I'm copying from my physical notes and this is a book that I read at the begininng of the year, so my memory of it isn't fresh enough to add much context. From decoding my notes and my memory of They All Died Screaming, this book was about sex, consumption and loneliness. Here's a spoiler-heavy, non-edited excerpt from my notebook:
______________________________
Ough the ending, I have questions. When Chuck kills the baby girl he says he's doing so because she wouldn't be a real woman like Leslie, she'd grow up to be veal. What does this mean to Chuck? At first, to me this comes off as just another man determining the life of a girl/woman, exerting control. But then I think Leslie is the only woman Chuck seems to have loved in ways other than sexual, the only woman he ever did anything for. With the veal it was all about consuming their bodies. When Chuck kills the girl it is because he knows that he wouldn't be able to love her in a non-sexual way, he wouldn't be able to be a father. We know he has no issues with being a predator based on his interactions with Brittney - he would just view the girl as veal so he kills her to avoid this fate. And yet this is once again men controlling womens lives due to sex and love.
Chuck kills her because he would love her wrong. This is not the girl's fault, it's Chucks. Is it still a mercy kill - yes. Chuck could've found somebody else to raise the girl though. Despite the times she still has a right to life.
When Chuck leaves the babies with Brittney, it is once again a man controlling a woman's fate. He had just had sex with a teenager and left her with two babies to care for even though Leslie wanted him to make sure they were safe. Chuck leaves Brittney with the babies because she is a woman, he doesn't even know if this teenager wants or knows how to be a mother!
___________________________________________
There is something kinda neat I would like to say about They All Died Screaming - it has a character who is a trans girl and an asexual character, and they are not the squeaky clean presentable sort of queer characters. Which to be clear, I enjoy messy queer characters. If I had a nickel for every Triana book I've read that has an 'unconventional' asexual character I would have two, which isn't a lot but it sure is neat. The character who is asexual in They All Died Screaming is asexual because he could never feel attraction again after he caused sexual trauma to people. He didn't decide to be celibate, an important distinction to make, he is just no longer capable of feeling sexual attraction. I personally believe that the author, Kristopher Triana has an extremely nuanced understanding of asexuality and his character Kim from from Full Brutal is my favorite asexual character.
Quotes
"He was realizing it was not the act of killing that would make him a man. He had to force himself to become a man if he were going to kill in the first place" - page 86
"Evolution. When nature sees a species is no longer viable, that it has nothing left to offer, it finds a way to terminate it. Usually its slower and more graceful than this, but that's not nature's fault; that's our fault. We're the ones tearing each other to ribbons. It's our brains that are wired to turn us into screamers when this virus hits us. I think that says a lot about what we are. Other species fade away while we go out in a blaze of blood and violence. And you want to know why? Because society had its chance and we all blew it, humankind is about as noble as a septic tank full of maggots" - page 118
"This isn't a goddamn cure, you fucking imbecile. It's just some farfetched excuse for men to sexually assault women, even girls. There are no cops holding up law and order, only a basic moral code, so this podcast shitbird is trying to validate cruelty and incite violence upon women for his own twisted reasons" - page 120
"he heard the rustle of the leaves on the bushes that lined the windowsills of the complex across the way. They were lush and green, alive with the blessing of the season. And instead of a pigeon, a cardinal landed upon the branches, fluttering in colorful indifference to the grievous horrors that had fallen upon human beings" - page 135
"I treated them like pieces of meat - I was a pig" - page 160