The concept really intrigued me and reminded me a Joe Hill novel which I was really excited for. But the prose for me was too much and like another reviewer it read like a poem which turned me out.

I am very interested by stories centered around a fascination with death, and this one was carried the theme through the progressive poems in moving verse. I was not exactly expecting poetry from this story, but the story is told through the medium rather well.

*3.5 stars*

I found it difficult to decipher between the two main characters, but I did love the verse and enjoyed the dark, emo vibe of his. I love short chapters, and this gave me that, along with the horror I always crave. If you're looking for horror and poetry, I would partake!

I must say when I saw this book was horror poetry I was very intrigued and curious. I have never read horror poetry and I didn't even know it existed. I must also say that the poetry version of horror is really enjoyable. The way this author wrote the poems it was telling a story and I feel like this was speaking to someone who's having suicidal thoughts. The descriptions to me was so vivid and real and I enjoyed reading. It was an easy read.

Super creepy,super different!

Amy Langevin has written this book in a complex manner,with suspense and shocks throughout.

4/5 stars.
Recommended one time read.

My expectations when I first decided to read this book weren't met when I actually started reading the first page. Zylen LaRocque just launched into a poetic rampage, I had to tread slowly to understand what he was talking about. Honestly, if it weren't for my personal dislike of leaving books unfinished, I would have abandoned this ship. But then towards the middle, he simmered down and I can very clearly catch up with what he was rambling about, I realized that this book is very artful and affecting. It's not what I expected. It's more than what I expected it to be!

I think that's all I can really say without including spoilers.

As someone who has never read a book in verse before, I found this very difficult to get into but once I did, I really enjoyed it. I will mention that I found it difficult to decifer between the two main characters (they didnt have enough individuality in their voices for me to separate between) and had to read quite far into each chapter to figure out which character it was. However as I said, being my first book in verse,I found it very clever. Everything rhymed or had good quick rhythm. I especially enjoyed the short and to the point chapters which you could tell were the quick deaths in the plot. At some points in the book you had to just join the dots and fill in the blanks after a certain chapter (before the asylum) but this made the book more interactive.

Hasnt made me think twice about reading another in verse book.

There's no doubt that Langevin has a way with words. The prose flows beautifully. I can appreciate that this book is unique.

I struggled to connect to the story. This book is intense from the start and I never found the ability to root for our character. Not only that, but they're unlikable. The psychology of the main charactern intrigued me, however, while I have exposure to horror, I struggled with the descriptions of rape.

Ultimately this book was not for me. I know that there are individuals who will appreciate the writing style mixed with horror.

I thank Netgalley and Langevin for the opportunity to read this book in return for an honest review.

If I had a penny for every time I failed to kill myself, I'd have enough money to hire a hit man.

I requested this from Netgalley not sure what to expect, but the title intrigued me. And I'm still not really sure how I feel about it.
This read is interesting? Unique? Special? Let's go with special... It is a 90 paged poem, which is a first for me. And in some ways this writing style really works... yet in others it doesn't.

We follow the depressed and (I guess) delusional Zylen (wtf is that name...) who wants the attention of 'someone' and starts a relationship with Death... which then leads him to become a serial killer. The poem format works very well to show the instability of Zylen's mind, and makes the gore a bit less in your face (yet also highlighting it). But at the same time it failed to make me feel connected to anything in this book. I could have happily put this down at any point.

Zylen doesn't just kill these people. He really makes an effort... so obviously trigger warnings for a whole bunch of stuff including suicide, rape, torture and extreme violence.

I am writing this in advance! TRIGGER WARNINGS!!!! Suicide, rape, abusive relationship.


This was an interesting read. I like how it is written in poetry format and how the descriptions are put across. I love poetry so the writing was very easy for me to read.

The imagery was very well executed, I liked the idea of the relationship between Death and Zylen. I think it interesting how Death controlled Zylen so he [Zylen] became a monster. Unfortunately I DNF because I personally didn't like the rape in this book.

Thank you Netgalley and the publisher for the eARC. All opinions are my own.

I would describe this book as being dark & poetic which usually would be my thing, but in this case it didn't exactly work for me. 

I did think the writing was lovely it just was very hard to connect to the story, so maybe more simplicity would have made me enjoy this story more.

With that being said the lovely writing has me interested in checking out some of her future work, but unfortunately I just couldn't bring myself to like this one.

This was.... interesting. I had to double check that it wasn't poetry. It read like it which definitely turned me off. But as soon as I began to think of it as more of the ramblings of a mad man, I began reading more. This book is super dark.

This was a big.... no for me. I wanted so much to love it but I swear to god I just couldn’t force myself to like the writing. I mean, on one hand it’s kind of poetic... in a sick, dark, disturbing way. Which, I usually LOVE... but here it just didn’t work. It didn’t flow properly for me and that ruined the vibe of the whole story.

Like the premise, not the execution.

I can see some enjoying this! But me, hard pass.

Thank you to Netgalley for sending me an Arc for an honest review!

This story is written in verse and follows our main character, Zylen LaRocque, who's a suicidal, sociopathic serial killer who thinks himself married to death.
As macabre as it sounds, I loved to read about a character who was morally on the dark side and not written to be likeable whatsoever.
The atmosphere in this book made your hairs stand up throughout the whole thing. It was raw, dark and unapologetically showed us the thoughts of a serial killer without skimming around it.
I would've loved for the writing to be more structured, because I personally I got confused quite a bit about what was going on in some chapters, though I also believe that it being written in verse, gave the whole plot a sheen of dramatics and mystery.

I would recommend this one to anyone, who loves themselves some poetry on the macabre and dark side of the book world.

When browsing NetGalley for a book to read, this one jumped out at me. The synopsis sounded like it was going to be a horror story that was right up my street. What I didn't realise, however, is that this is a collection of poetry. I think, had I known that I'd not have looked twice and moved on straight away - I am so glad that I didn't as I really had a blast reading The Man who Married Death, but I have been at a bit of a loss on how to review it. Poetry isn't something that I've dabbled in so knowing how to review it accordingly was a little bit elusive, hence the time it has taken me to write up this review.

The Man who Married Death follows the story of Zylen LaRocque - a sociopathic, suicidal, young-man who tries to kill himself multiple times; I found the flow of this section of his life rather humorous akin to the Scissor Sisters song 'I can't decide.' It built up the premise of the plot nicely and led the reader down the dark rabbit hole that the rest of the book provides - when Death makes his appearance. There is a fine romantic quality to a man who has failed to kill himself so many times that he proposed to the spectre of Death.

As the plot progresses the visions given to the reader become darker. They intertwine the depravity and erotic expertly. All the while leading the reader, and Zylen, to believe that both he and Death share the same physical body. A union of both body and soul. I firmly believe that the poetic nature of this book help prop up the sinister ideas within - if this story was written in prose, I think the story would be unbalanced and come across as comical rather than the sinister offering we currently have.

I've touched already on the element of erotica in the poetry; it's deeply embedded with the darker story within The Man who married Death and comes across in a natural, if, disturbing way. The blend of horror and sex has always fascinated me and I've found that a lot of horror novels try to off-set the horror elements to their stories with sex. The Man who Married Death is no exception to this, but there is a feeling of curiosity attached to it; especially when Death takes over the thinking. Death wants a woman, despite being married to Zylen which is seen as a betrayal to the mortal. There are deeper meanings to the erotica within the poetry, giving it a justified meaning to being present. It's not sex for shock-tactics or for 'the sake of it.' For which I applaud Amy Langevin highly. Blending the two elements - horror and erotica - into a single story is often mishandled and I find it detracts from the story-telling. I am more than happy to say that this is not the case in The Man who Married Death.

The poetry has a fine quality flow to it and I found myself settling into the poetries stanzas really easily. The Man who Married Death is a page-turner and I found myself eager to find out the fate of both Zylen and Death.

Of course, anyone who believes they're married to death only ends up in one place in the mortal world; the loony bin and I found there was a romantic quality to Zylens thoughts upon being committed to such a place - while continuing on with the depraved acts that got him committed in the first place. The ending of the poetry is fitting and conclusive and builds to a nice point before dropping.

Summary
An enjoyable collection of poetry with dark elements. Not for the faint-hearted as there are disturbing, abusive scenes within. Overall a great read for those that savour horror and depravity.

Honestly, I had to DNF this and i was very excited to read it. The writing style was just too much for me - too wordy, just too much altogether. It really took away from the story and seemed like it was just being fluffed.

All I can imagine is a goth youth crawling out of their candlelit crypt, dipping their quill into an inkwell and scribbling this ditty. I mean, yeah, it’s like that. Not quite a poem, more like poem adjacent, with some very suspicious rhymes to boot, this is a tale of a 28 year old depressive suicidal pale thing named (kid you not) Zylen LaRocque, which alone should tell you all you need to know about this story, who hallucinates marrying Death and having a passionate homosexual love affair with him, which leads Zylen to become a serial killer. Like all proper gothic ditties it ranges in style from ponderous to pretentious to preposterous without much of a writing skill or talent to anchor it. Despite it all, it actually isn’t the worst thing out there, but mainly because I’ve recently read one such thing and this one at least understands the basic rules of writing, grammar and sentence structure. It actually tries (to a fault, really) to live up to its artistic and literary aspirations and its failures are inadvertently comic, so it can be read easily (and very quickly) for some laughs. Certainly, it wasn’t intended as a comedy, but then again it’s the way it worked for me and really all readers create their own experiences. It might sing to some goth teens out there, who knows. Thanks Netgalley.

this was such a great concept for a book, and I feel like the author was able to deliver on the concept. I really felt for Zylen and I enjoyed reading this book.

"Relaxation steadies the hands that anxiety used to curse."

The imagery that is seen through Zaylen's head is done beautifully. It's a unique take and story idea. The writing style is an excellent choice. Some of this is hard to read but its a decent story.

I started reading page one. And within 30 words, set the book down. And, when that happens, I wondered why I'd had that reaction. It looks like poetry. It doesn't have the rhythm, but it has the style. A conflict started within revolving around, "Can I read what looks like poetry?" and "Am I being an idiot for not reading something that looks like poetry?" and "Is this poetry?" and "Is this a romance novel masquerading as darkness?"

I reread the book's blurb. I confirmed that this was a single story, having noticed numbering throughout the story. The description hinted at an entangled relationship with death *might* pointing to a romance (which does nothing for me).

And after all these assumptions, I picked it up again. I read history and things dark. And then I was swept into the story. All I had to do was push aside my assumptions and enjoy the trip. The first chapter chilled me with the visually terrifying and beautiful scene in the snow.

This story is dark. The text is set off as poetic. Yet, readers should know that the journey is dark. And it's also dark. And I so thoroughly enjoyed everything about Amy Langevin's book. So, so much. In my mind, I deleted the carriage returns as I read. Oh, this was such a beautiful, wonderfully worded tale of terror. This is Poe, not Stephen King. (It's annoying to me when horror books come out appealing to Stephen King.)

I had fleeting thoughts while reading that some authors strain to make "big sounding words" fit in their books or their speech and it fails. And each time I hit a more complexly worded, imaginatively reflective sentence, I thought, "Oh, this is going to be it. This is where the author makes it sound like a pre-schooler talking about dark matter [the science topic]." Strong, big words that don't match the feel of the narrative. It never happened. Each time I had this thought, I stopped at the end of the phrase and was delighted to realize that indeed, the sentence wouldn't have worked any other way. In short, it worked nicely.

I was stunned when I read through the scene at the waterfall. I had been enjoying the metaphysical interaction between the story and me so far, but nothing prepared me for the O-S moment I had passing through this point. There is no way to give the reader a feel for what is going to happen to them when reading this, but if you enjoy this kind of dark matter, this passage will feed that hunger.

I don't know the author. I've never read anything by them. And even when I do post a review, I always try to include a negative, or maybe something that broke at some point, to highlight that I'm not a fanboy. Again, I don't know the author, and I have no horse in the race.

I recommend this to anyone who would like to avoid the jump scare and the haunted house tale, but still wants something to give them the O-S moment. I hope I've represented "The Man Who Married Death" well. And I hope you read it.

There is beauty here in this darkness.