Disturbing books: Woom by Duncan Ralston 

The worse thing you can say about an extreme horror book is that it is completely forgettable. And most of them are. It's like they settle on biology and never get to the inhumanity of it all.

Sounds like what I've seen referred to as a pizza cutter: All edge and no point.

Never expected to hear Tarantino and Woom in the same thought or discussion😂

You ever read any Edward Lee extreme novels? Some can be a miss but i find his humour really lifts his work above most extreme horror books out there

This book was whacked. It did make me physically uncomfortable enough that I actually squirmed in my chair a little.

I read it myself and thought it was like you said, edgy to be edgy. I’m part of a horror Facebook group where I heard about it and thought, oh my goodness people love it let me check it out! It was just disgusting for no point. It leaves you definitely feeling like you wasted an hour or two, so I feel this in my core.

I agree with you, I read it and remember it but that doesn't mean it was good.

Ha ha ha the ending was epic wasn’t it? 🤮 that was my first book I read in extreme horror . Sooooooooo disgusting! Great review !

I think it was Woom that made me realise I probably just don't like extreme horror/splatterpunk novels (though I do tend to enjoy such films). I've yet to read one that got more out of me than a groan and some eye rolls.

This has been on my wish list for a while, and I only remembered it when I was working with someone who mentioned it. She told me the summary and the main event and apparently 'wot..?' Summed it up well.

Did you ever see the movie Blue Velvet? Some of the premise of Woom as you describe it makes me think of Dennis Hopper in that film with the gas mask and the kinky sex with Isabella Rossellini.

Oh dear, I'm guilty. I think I recommended this one on here! 😅 I totally agree it was trashy and gross, and it felt like I knew it was building up to something totally beyond-ridiculous...but I liked it, for the purely childish entertainment factor! I would still recommend this to someone who gets off on outlandish and freaky extreme stuff,...a bit like Guts by Chuck Palahnuik. It's not for everyone though. I do like your comparison with Tarantino !

Hats off for finishing this one, I think, lol. I DNF'ed it after the first few pages.

So much bad writing in extreme horror.

I seriously think anyone could write an extreme horror novel. I don't care for it one bit. I do love horror though! 🖤✌️😎

I liked it. It certainly isn’t a masterpiece, but sometimes (not too often, but sometimes) I can find the entertainment value in a gross-out story, even if it’s gross for the sake of being gross. I doubt it’s something I’ll ever reread, but if anyone ever asked me to suggest a disgusting book, I’d probably recommend this one.

This was my first extreme horror and it was ok but certainly far from great. Some of it made me really cringe but probably not the parts you would imagine. Ok book but not great, read a couple Edward Lee since then and idk if extreme horror is really my genre… a bit fun but not memorable for me.

When you're done with your disturbing books reading journey, a video recap of least disturbing to most disturbing would be awesome. Or better yet, if you want to read disturbing books a ranking of least/beginner disturbing books to read up to red light, sirens blaring, be prepared to be effed up proceed with caution.

If you rotate the word WOOM, 360 degrees, it spells WOOM. Did you (or someone) mention that on a previous video ? Just killing time here. 🤣

Please read Happy Mutant Baby Pills by Jerry Stahl. It’s funny while being disturbing and truly beautiful.

I haven’t read it but I find a lot of extreme horror comes over as written by people who barely ever read

It’s on KU but not high on my list of priorities. I think I probably skip it and not feel like I’m missing out.

I couldn't find that ''Lovely Bunch of Coconuts'' story anywhere, so can you tell us what happens?? :)

I agree with a lot of what you say, Olly. There's a lot of trashy extreme horror about. Personally, I'd only recommend books written by Kristopher Triana, C.V. Hunt, Adam Howe, Brian Keene, David Sodergren, Judith Sonnet, and Aron Beauregard.

It sounds like the type of book that might be suited to a person putting their toe into the subgenre for the first time were it isn't really disturbing as some of the other books. Although it might just be one of those each is own one person gross is another person disturbing. I know I gave my dad Tender is The Flesh for father's day and thought it was disturbing and told me it would most likely would get nightmares which was the closest thing to a positive review I ever got from him for a book I gifted him.

This book was just goofy. These extreme horror books comes off as extreme camp for me.

💚🖤

I actually liked this book, saw both "big surprises" a mile away but then again i listened to the audiobook... weirdly, i did read that other people thought his portrayal of african americans as oddly racist but i thought in particular it was that pimp/dealer character... wasn't he white in the book?! i swore he was... either way i can see why people think it's edgy for edge sake but i ended up for once feeling bad for the main character even though he did a very unforgivable act in the ending. i did like the threading of all the stories to the main plot... i took from the book it was a character who was doomed and was trying to find some start over button

Think i posted a comment on a video here a while back about this book. Yeah its kinda yuck without a point on occasion. I wouldnt read it again but no major regrets having read it.

Alright, I didn't mind it but I felt like it was obvious where it was going. Too obvious and then it happens and you're like...okayyyyyy. Was that the point? Okay

Not a fan of WOOM. Extreme horror comes off as rather silly to me in most cases. there are some really good writers who are in the sub-genre, Ed Lee and Wrath James White come to mind immediately but most of the time, it feels rushed and poorly edited as most extreme books feel like they were finished and sent off to be self-published immediately. The ones that take the time to develop a story, write, and edit come off much better IMO.

I thought Woom was absolute crap. The basic premise is idiotic, because (trying not to give too many spoilers but it's almost impossible) even if you bought that anybody would WANT to do this dumb thing to begin with (which I cannot believe), it doesn't matter how obese a person is, they aren't going to be bigger inside. I know people who've been involved in autopsies and if you "peel" all the adipose tissue off of a 400 pound person there's just a skinny little person inside. Since the author didn't seem to understand that, the whole thing was just anger-making-stupid to me. (Kealan Patrick Burke's Kin - another overrated stupid book -- also displays ignorance of this). I don't care how extreme a book is, but if it's idiotic, I'm not gonna like it. Also I figured out what the big "surprise" was going to be about before I even opened it. Woom is a childish cartoon, and a waste of reading time. The fact that some people like it makes me wonder how dumb and undemanding the extreme-horror audience is getting... I think we're going to end up getting a LOT more crappy books if they can't recognize a dud when their head's shoved into it...

I didn’t think to much of it it was pretty forgettable and kinda meh for me

Olly why are they always clowning on you on Goodreads? 😭

Hello Olly

So I’m very new to extreme horror and I didn’t like it at all! I guess both ending very quickly. I didn’t understand the female character’s reaction (shyla?) at the end, no one would have that reaction. Clearly the author did zero research on the female anatomy. Didn’t understand the focus on weight until I read the reviews of other people. Not sure why the author added the slur as it didn’t add anything to the story. But really nothing made sense it was disgusting just for the sake of it.