There’s something about horror that draws to it those of us who are, in some ways, different, and Peter Counter explores just some of them – sometimes unintentionally – in his collection of personal essays about the genre. There’s a lot here, but at its core it’s a view of the genre as a whole through one man’s eyes. Some essays are more narrative than others, some speculate as to why we like one aspect of the genre or another, but there’s a core theme running through these as well.

Reading this feels like we’re seeing a man come to terms with something traumatic from his past, something that weaves its way through this collection and Counter’s life. Horror is, in many ways, the home of the traumatised; there are so many of us in this genre drawn to it who have experienced something dark in our lives, and even if our trauma isn’t the same, it’s hard not to feel a connection with Counter and his experiences.

This is narrative memoir, the essays linked by Horror and Counter’s life, circling back often to his neurodivergence, specifically his experiences of PTSD. It’s an intriguing collection, referencing everything from video games, books, films to creepypastas, manga and beyond. This is someone who clearly knows the genre well, and has spent a lot of time immersed in it.

It really stands out, too, how much of a fan Counter is, yet one who is able to look at the issues in the genre and criticise these, too. I will admit, I found the middle to be a bit weaker – I can’t pinpoint fully why, but around the midpoint I was finding some of the essays to be growing just a little tedious, yet they do pick up again and I found myself absolutely racing through the last few, totally engrossed in them.

I really recommend this if you’re a fan of horror, or involved in horror in any way. Counter has some great insights into the genre, his discussions around horror and mental health are handled really well, and it nudges you towards thinking about the genre in slightly different ways.

Thank you to Invisible Publishing for providing a copy of this book via NetGalley. Views remain my own.

Didn't capture my attention and engagement. I'll hopefully try again in the future. Didn't capture my attention and engagement. I'll hopefully try again in the future.

This was a great book to read during the month of October under a blanket with a cup of Hot Chocolate!.. It even comes with a warning at the beginning of the book to add to the scares!

I recommend this book to anyone looking to not sleep at night.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for an E-ARC of this book in exchange for an honest review.

A little bit of everything in one book with short stories that are sure to please everyone. I totally enjoyed this book and even used it for a party one night while connecting with friends via zoom for an entertaining evening with something a little different. After reading aloud we discussed each one and I'm sure others will be doing the same.
Even if you're just looking for a brief read, this is the book for you!

This is a collection of essays about horror as a genre. There's gore, monsters, and scary stuff! + PTSD and recovery explored. It's really cute and a fun read.

Calling all horror fans who can recite all the Friday the 13th movies, who root for the cosmic forces, who love slasher films, and for those who think Midsommar and Hereditary were about way more than pagan sacrifice.

This is the perfect collection of reflections on the genre and what they mean to people who love the gore, the scares, and the monsters. Also an analysis of post-traumatic stress, togetherness, and recovery.

I find that this slim volume is a great stocking stuffer and go-to birthday gift for horror fans that want a deeper analysis of the genre. I've never read a book that treats the full breadth of the beloved horror genre with such care, appreciation, and self-awareness. Thoroughly enjoyed!

See below for a full list of essays included in this anthology:
Interviews with my Family Ouija Board | Celebration of Life | A World Made of Train Tracks | Please Add Me to Your Zombie Survival Network | Too-Loo | Corporate Personhood | The New Necronomicon | The Shattered Teacup | On the Horror of Comedy | Manufacturing Mephistopheles | Beeps and Boops | Manifest Doom | Five Liters | Fighting Ghosts | 100 Seconds to Midnight | Metaphysical Graffiti | Silent Ruins | Where the Creepypastas Are | Broken Nightmare Telephone | Fear of the Shark | Audient Void, Authorial Void | Extrasensory | On Madness | Cannibal Symposium | Wallpaper | Devil's Nostril | Santa Claus Versus the Smoke Monster | When the Screaming Stops

Summaries of my favorite essays in the bunch:
* "The FBI's Basement Office" - After potentially seeing a UFO, the author grapples with what X-Files and ufology teach us about human connection, faith, skepticism, and trust.
* "Where the Creepypastas Are" - Analysis of creepy pasta and how the internet world built its own myths that transcend the chat rooms where they originated.
* "Cannibal Symposium" - A group of friends discuss the ethical considerations of cannibalism.

Thank you NetGalley for a copy of the book in return for an honest review.

* I was provided a free copy of this book in exchange for a fair and honest review*
Content Warnings: PTSD, gun violence, suicide, suicidal ideation, mental illness, trauma, discussion of horror movies and content that includes torture, mutilation, cannibalism, self-harm, etc.

It's been a while since I've enjoyed reading a book that filled in the dots between traumatic real-life events and searching out scary make-believe things. As a cis-woman with PTSD (several traumatic life events) who is drawn to horror, this is something I've noticed in other survivors -- from SA and DV survivors to a varied range of traumatic life events.

Not only does this book talk intelligently and empathetically about horror content, it also connects the dots between seeking out fictional horror as a means of coping with lived horror.

The essays are easy-to-read, would make an excellent podcast or an audio book, and though they are smart, well-researched, and often a bit academic, they are accessible to everyday readers and this part is super important -- the essays never condescend to the reader. These essays talk to you one-on-one about fictional horror narratives and then anchors it in real-life events, fears, and lingering problems related back to the horror of the everyday, the banality of horror, all the things we can't control -- but that we draw strength from in the fictional because we can put the book down, pause the movie, switch to another channel -- we have power in how we experience the fictional horror.

If you've got trauma and/or PTSD in your life, go into this book knowing there is a lot of content that might be disturbing, but you can just bookmark it for later or skip it (for example, the Hannibal chapter is pivotal to the essays collection, but might be difficult for those affected by real-life accounts of violence.) That said: it is also really empowering (it was for me, anyway) to be able to work through some of the icky feelings about how trauma manifests much later in ways that are wholly unhelpful and socially isolating. To be able to harness the lexicon of horror for the right words to express what it feels like to live with horror and survive horror and still have to find ways to keep fighting that horror in your everyday life. It gave voice to survivor's guilt and made sense to make the connection between being drawn to fictional horror after having lived through trauma.

Definitely an author I'll be following, a book I'll be purchasing and gifting, and I hope that the author's next work picks up where this leaves off.

A review for this title appears in the latest issue of FANGORIA magazine. If the publishers would like a PDF copy of the article, reach out to the reviewer directly.

I appreciated the social commentary the author wanted to approach with his essays. I enjoyed most of the essays in the novel. I loved that they were all unique and referenced different aspects of horror individually. While these weren't necessarily scary, they did make me think about scary subjects, which I think is what the author was going for. Well done.

I enjoyed this a lot more than I expected to ! I liked Counter's insights into a lot of my favorite horror shows and films. Would definitely read more by him!

like every collection, some bits sing and some drag. such is the case with this one, and it's not a bad thing! the ones that were good were VERY good, and they were my favorite type of horror analysis. i spend a lot of time thinking critically about the horror genre and i think that's why some of the essays were a bit more polarizing for me. i'm set in my opinions and not likely to have my mind changed. overall, very enjoyable and the perfect read for horror fans.

Unfortunately, DNF. I find with short story/essay collections, that the first story really sets the tone for the rest - and the first couple just didn't grab me with enough of anything to continue reading. A shame, because I thought I would really enjoy this.

I love horror. I love essays. I love discussing life by discussing movies. So of course Be Scared of Everything would be right in my alley. And yet I hadn't expected it to hit quite as close to home as it ended up doing. While usually I tend to stick to books from well-known publishing houses, Invisible Publishing's Be Scared of Everything told me I really do need to look further and enjoy everything that's out there. Also, will you just look at that perfect cover! Thanks to Invisible Publishing and NetGalley for providing me with a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

Horror has always been a big part of my fiction, and even non-fiction, intake. Initially I pursued it for the thrill of it, that shiver down the back that makes you look twice at the darkness in the corner of your room. But as I got older and became, sadly, more acquainted with the trials and hardships of life, horror took on a different meaning for me. Not until this collection of horror essays was able to truly put it into words, because Peter Counter seems to feel exactly the same way. When the illusion of safety and normality shatters, even if just for a moment, it is only really in horror that you can find relief. While the rest of the world seemingly clings to the idea that everything is fine, deep down you know it isn't. It is the horror film or the horror book that gives you an opportunity to not just accept but thrive on the knowledge that yes, something is seriously wrong and you're right to be suspicious and wary. I have found that horror films and books let me explore that fear and worry and even anger in a way that no other genre does. In that way I can probably credit horror with a certain stability I have reached in life. In this way I resonated with Be Scared of Everything, except that Peter Counter is much more eloquent and knowledgeable when talking about horror or mental health.

In Be Scared of Everything Counter has collected a number of personal essays all centred around horror. Each essay explores deeply human emotions, whether it is working through personal trauma, the numbness that comes with the slow, inevitable collapse of the world, or dealing with grief, by deconstructing horror films, books, short stories and even songs. Each time Counter made a connection between one of these texts and his own life, I felt something click. They all feel natural and he makes it look easy, which surely belies the hard work put into these essays. It would be impossible to discuss every single essay, so below I will discuss just a few. In 'The FBI's Basement Office' Counter makes a surprisingly effective and emotional case for UFO sightings which acknowledges our engrained need to disbelief without mocking the believers. His essay 'The Shattered Teacup' on Hannibal Lecter and specifically the recent TV show resonated so strongly with me I had to stare out of the window for a bit after reading it. This is also largely what my first paragraph refers to. 'On Madness' had a similar effect. 'Where the Creepypastas Are' is a brilliant essay about the medium of creepypasta and its allure. I also adored 'Cannibal Symposium' which was basically a transcript of a conversation about cannibalism between three people over lunch. It was funnier than it should be and more insightful than the premise might suggest.

Counter is a great writer. I hadn't had the pleasure of reading any of his writing before Be Scared of Everything, but reading his essays feels like a good conversation with a friend who may or may not have tapped into something genius along the way. The essays read easily and especially for those actively engaging with the horror genre there will be many recognizable references and meaningful links. Something I really appreciated was how Counter was able to highlight H.P. Lovecraft's central position in the horror community while unapologetically stating just how racist that man was. I understand the idea of separating the artist from the art, but how can we do that when the artist actively shoved his assholery into his art? It is something often avoided by horror fans but I think it's very important to confront since Lovecraft was not just a horrible person but also let his own prejudices affect his work for the worse. By engaging with it, Counter was actually able to somewhat salvage the good from Lovecraft's work for me, which was a nice bonus.

I must say I adored Be Scared of Everything a lot more than I expected. I was looking forward to essays about horror movies but got essays that have changed how I look at horror and have given me a language to discuss what the genre means to me. For that, I am enormously grateful. I'd recommend this to anyone who feels the pull to the dark.

I found this quite hard to review due to it being a collection of essays.

But I really enjoyed it. I liked being able to pick it up and read one or a few essays depending on my mood.

This covers real life topics entwined with horror -whats not to love?

It's hard for me to leave a review for a collection this varied. I felt that some entries were insightful and/or entertaining while others dragged and read like a pretentious freshman trying to impress their film/psych/lit professor. On average, I'll round it to 3 stars. Worth the read but I'm glad I received a free ARC and didn't pay for this.

My first non-fiction book in a while and I made the right pick! Part criticism, part memoir, it’s a smart analyses of horror through the lens of pop culture. The essays are short, some only a couple of pages, but they touched on everything from zombies to ghosts to occult to cannibalism. The writing is smart, empathetic and relatable. I loved how the author shows the way horror has helped him cope with his own trauma, like in “The Shattered Teacup”, which looks at Hannibal Lecter and the effects of PTSD, and "When The Screaming Stops", which looks at death in fiction and reality.

I should note that the book does spoil a number of horror movies and TV series, including Hannibal, The Sixth Sense, Hereditary and The Witch. I’m happy to say I’ve watched them so I had no problem with spoilers but if it bothers you maybe you can skip the specific essays. They’re so good though! As a lifelong horror fan this book speaks directly to me.

Thank you to @invisibooks and @netgalley for a review copy!

This collection of horror essays from across the pond covers everything spooky and scary, from ouija boards to sharks, sleep paralysis, the enduring fame of Hannibal Lecter, creepypasta, the films of Ari Aster, haunted houses and yes, even horror novels, including way too much about famed racist H.P. Lovecraft. Rather than a singular collection, <i>Be Scared of Everything</i> reads like a series of 29 blog posts with one connective thread, a real-life traumatic event that still haunts the author.

Be warned: essays are a hard thing to categorize, to judge, to review.

This collection of loosely-connected essays focus on topics as alike and yet different as Ouija boards, zombies, aliens, Lovecraft, horror in comedy/comedy in horror, blood, PTSD, Ghostbusters, Led Zeppelin, video games, Creepypasta, found footage horror, psychological horror, cannibalism, Yokai, and atheism.

Essays injected with a bit of humor in the beginning of the collection run deeper and darker toward the end, chronicling the author's struggle with mental illness and search for something to believe in. The essays are thought-provoking, for sure, though at times the thoughts they provoke are unpleasant and unwanted. Author Peter Counter is obviously intelligent, well-spoken, a deep thinker. I believe this series of essays was, more than anything else, a sort of catharsis for him, a way to express his fears and questioning of life through the lens of horror movies, games, and stories.

"Each life is a haunted house with it's own wallpaper - full of ghosts, goblins, angels, and giant trickster dogs - that keeps us from wandering into darkness."
{from the essay 'Wallpaper'}

An engrossing, well written and highly entertaining collection of essays.
I loved the style of writing and I think the author's ideas are interesting.
Highly recommended.
Many thanks to the publisher and Netgalley for this ARC, all opinions are mine

This was just superb! I was expecting a quick jaunt through a few horror films and books but it is far, far more than that. The author weaves his own personal trauma and experiences through the essays, but not in a self-indulgent way. The main theme running through it is why horror tropes resonate with us. What is it about fictional monsters that strike the atavistic chord in our souls?
I was pleased to see some old favourites such as Hereditary discussed, and of course the enduring power of the chainsaw to set our hearts racing (I’m someone who has to cross the road if someone is using a hedge strummer, so I TOTALLY ‘got’ this section!). It also explained why my legs broke into a run at a Scare Park even though I knew the petrol powered chainsaw weilded by the man behind me had no teeth on it. It wasn’t entirely because I wanted to ‘play the game’ and not leave him at a loss as to what to do next.....
There wasn’t a duff chapter in the book and I read it very quickly, learning new things (the Demon Core) as well as revisiting old favourites. I should have left the last chapter about the death of pets until daylight though - it was hard to switch off the light and go to sleep after the author had articulated perfectly my thoughts on that situation.