This was a very eclectic and interesting collection of personal essays about various different horror tropes, ranging from zombies and cannibals to PTSD. I thought that some of the insights here were fascinating, but ultimately, the collection felt more like a memoir through a horror lens rather than a series of works about the genre.
I received a free copy of this book from the publisher in exchange for a fair and honest review.

The first thing I would like to say about this book is that its cover is beautiful, the design it is so well put and interesting. Second, every collection of stories I've read include many stories that I truly enjoy and that I would recommend. However, they also tend to include stories that I wouldn't classify as "good". But, that is also part of the interesting factors of collections like these, no matter the person who Is reading it, they'll always find one that they're going to really enjoy! So, yes this collection is definitely getting recommend from my part because I know, my student in my case, are going to enjoy this type of horror.

I really enjoyed this collection of stories! I'm likely not going to finish it before it archives, so I just want to submit a review. Each story I read left me suffieciently spooked to varying degrees. I'd likely recommend this to someone as a good Halloween-time coffee table book because the cover is so cool and it's easy to pick up and put down. There's literally something for everyone — zombies, aliens, ghosts.

Not what I was expecting, and I was surprised in the best way.
Peter Counter visits so many figures and events of pop culture and real history! It was amazing. A really clever book of essays that kept me on my toes, blending fiction with the author's very real trauma.

Another thing is that I finally got to know much more about horror movies and games I would never-in-a-million-years have the courage to experience myself. Now I know what happens in them!

Note to self - read the whole titles, not just the main title. After the first "story" I was mildly surprised because the next one was not a story. Only then did I notice that it wasn't stories per se, but actually essays. Despite that little faux-pas that was totally on me, I decided to keep going and I realized this was incredibly great. As always with collections, there were some parts I liked more and some I liked less.
My absolute favourite was the conversation between the writer, the editor and the sales person who discussed cannibalism. That was a conversation that's only normal between people working with books. I am a hobby author myself and I had had a similar conversation multiple times. with some of my friends. It was really nice to read and exactly my sense of humour and genre. I love horror in general, but I have always had a weakness for stories involving cannibalism.
That's probably why the essay about the show "Hannibal" was my second favorite. Mostly because of the sentence: "It's worth stating here that engaging in cannibalism is not a phase in the recovery process for PTSD". It might just be beacuse of my makabre sense of humour.
All in all - it was a nice read for the Halloweeen season and I am pretty sure I will come back to some of these stories again.
I received a free ARC by Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.

Be Scared of Everything is a great read for this time of year. I'm not the best non-fiction reader as I find I have to be REALLY interested, and immediately invested in the subject matter of non-fiction books or it loses me, but I love all things horror so it wasn't a problem with this pick.

In this collection of essays Peter Counter explores all things Horror from demons and zombies to horror writers and even TV series such as Hannibal. But unlike your average collection of essay, the author weaves in details of his own life, and stories that he has been told over the years which gives it a uniqueness.

As with most collections, some of the essays were better than others, and I did find that I would skim read some, especially the first couple. Overall though, Be Scared of Everything is a in-depth exploration of all things Horror and what fear means in everyday life..

I have to be honest- I considered putting Be Scared of Everything down around a quarter of the way through. I didn't see the point of the essays, and thought they were a bit pretentious. However, as I kept going, I began to enjoy this book more and more. The essays started to really come together, and become more relatable, more poignant.

It was an essay where Counter talks about when he'd "rave" as a result of his post-traumatic stress that really sold me. I'm right here in the throes of post-traumatic stress, and Peter Counter really nailed it with his description of raving in that context. It was incredible to have something I'm currently going through put into the words I haven't been able to find.

The last essay, too, about the death of a beloved pet- that one brought me to actual tears, as two of my three cats lay spooning each other just inches away from my feet as I read the essay and as I type this review. I've been through that loss before, but with family pets. My three cats now are mine, my first pets that have been my own, on my own as an adult. They're still kickin', and I know I'd do anything to resurrect them if it came to it, if I could.

All this to say, I didn't love Be Scared of Everything, but I did really like it, and would recommend it to both avid and casual horror fans alike.

Peter Counter's Be Scared of Everything is a collection of essays about the horror genre across media and, in fact, in real life.The collection of texts is varied, moving form the personal to the horror blockbuster, touching on horror-adjacent things, and covering most media including opera, manga, books, and Led Zeppelin, essay about his family's history with Ouija boards, a long musing on Brian Fuller's Hannibal and Counter's own trauma, etc etc.
The collection is something of a mixed bag, just like the media it describes. Sometimes engaging, and thought provoking like P.T. or the music of Led Zeppelin and sometimes falling a little flat, with the repetitions of a bad Creepypasta. As with so many of these types of essay collection Counter is stronger when being personal, vulnerable and intimate.

A collection of essays covering the horror genre, everything from cannibals to Cthulhu to chainsaws.

Some of the essays we're a little dry, I think those would be more accessible to hardcore fans of horror, but a casual or amateur viewer like myself may have some trouble getting through some of the essays. That being said, a lot of these were super easy to get into, and the theory was interesting if a little absurd.

For hardcore fans of horror: This is for you!

For the rest of us: You'll get something out of it, but a bit of this will go over your head.

Thank you NetGalley and the publisher for an advanced e-copy of this book!!!

The cover is honestly the thing that caught my eye and made me want to read this. It doesn’t hurt that I also love horror. This is a group of essays about everything horror related from zombies to cannibalism. I found I enjoyed the essays more when the author was talking about something I was interested in such as NBC’s Hannibal and Stephen King. The author has been able to use horror as a way to deal with his ptsd about some terrible things in his life.

This is a great read for horror lovers and none horror lovers alike!!!

This was an interesting series of short essays on the interaction of trauma and horror, and how we substitute our realities for the ones that we preference. Sometimes the demons that are outside of us are the easier ones to let in- the scaring comes from the fact that they're more disassociated from us than the monsters we really know. I found this book really fascinating, and it helped bridge a bit of a gap for me in that I have the same horror fixation as the author, and I find comfort in the weird.

There's also a comforting form of magic in these kinds of books, a secret divulged and shared by the author with you on the proviso that you keep it safe. I think perhaps it could have been a little longer, and perhaps some of the essays could have been a little more fleshed out, but there's obviously a lot of love that the author poured into this book, and I commend it on that basis. The voice could also be a little more refined, but I did still enjoy enjoy it a great deal.

Some delightfully creepy stories to be found here. A great read. Some of my favorites were 'Corporate Personhood' and 'Devil's Nostril'. I also greatly appreciated the content warning placed at the beginning of the book -- this is something that I think a lot of authors ought to start implementing in their works.

Peter Counter’s Be Scared of Everything examines the relationship between horror trends (of both the past and present) and pop culture. The effect of the genre on the budding adolescent interest in playing guitar, popular reactions to journalism, and psychological treatment is explored in a collection of short essays.

While there are interesting relationships described between the pop culture elements in this collection, its largest problem is that its attempt to appeal to a wide audience creates an unevenness in quality and depth of the essays. The essays about things that have personally affected Counter—like the events that caused his PTSD, or his family stories about the paranormal—are the most memorable and striking additions to the collection. However, there are also quite a few essays that are extremely basic knowledge for any fan of the genre, or aren’t timely or relevant in the year of its release. The rise and fall of the zombie movie, the game P.T., and creepypastas all are included in the book, but a basic Google search for these brings up countless articles that are available for free, and there doesn’t seem to be anything especially insightful about these subjects in Be Scared of Everything.

In addition to the unevenness of the essays, many of the essays that seem written for a more general audience are short and seem to end abruptly. As the collection comes to an end, though, it seems to hit its stride; the themes of its pieces become heavier, the depth of the analysis becomes noticeably stronger, and it’s easier to follow understand how each piece of culture discussed relates to the thesis of the essay it’s in. There are 5-star quality essays about the existential horror of normal existence, and there are things that even hardcore horror fans may never have thought about before. The inclusion of those essays make Be Scared of Everything worth a read; however, I wish that the marketing of the book, and the contents within, were aimed at the niche audience of horror lovers who want critical analysis of its place in larger culture.

Content warnings: bipolar disorder, gun violence, grief/loss

3.5 stars.
I don't think the author has quite perfected his voice yet- occasional phrases feel forced or like a showy affect. But as a horror fan about the same age as the author with Bipolar 2 and PTSD, this book definitely spoke to me. This was an interesting and unique book, and I'll be watching to see what this author does in the future.

Great book of horror essays! Each essay was very well written and held my interest. Now I have more books to add to my must read list.

I loved this book so much. The essays were well written and they were a mix of memoir type pieces and analytical moments. Big respect to the author for writing about Eddie Izzard and Ghost BC. This was excellent and i really want to read more by this author.

What an absolute gem of a book. Horror essays aren't exactly falling off the shelves so this is a proper treat to read for anyone that loves both horror and non-fiction. It's an easy read that you can get lost in and creeped out by in equal measure. Very enjoyable, thank you so much for the chance to read it. Also - that cover is absolutely stunning.

"Each life is a haunted house with its own wallpaper— full of ghosts, goblins, angels, and giant trickster dogs— that keeps us from wandering into darkness."

A fantastic collection of horror essays, which at first seem unconnected (well.. except that they're all about elements of horror), but soon it becomes clear that the book coalesces around a horrific real experience in the author's life.

So, horror essays! They're a thing, who knew. And they're quite a lovely thing too - frequently very funny, just as frequently built up around poignant ideas, and just as just as frequently written in quite beautiful prose.

"Like life, horror begins with oblivion, is animated by human resistance to that terrible lifelessness, and finally urges us to accept death as inevitable."

Some of the subjects that are taken apart: ouija boards, the Alien franchise, Lovecraft and his racism, Hannibal Lecter, a group of people discussing cannibalism. And then there is the author's trauma I mentioned earlier, which I feel you should take in yourself (although I'm sure other reviews will - I wouldn't say "spoil it" - ..demystify it.

"Will Graham and Clarice Starling both want the same thing: they want to be normal. Hannibal Lecter’s gift to them is denying what they want on principle, saying that the source of their pain and confusion is that they’re right and the normative world is wrong."

Not all of the essays work, they sag a bit in the middle, I thought. But there are a lot of them, so none of the essays really outstays its welcome.

There’s something deep, lurking in the darkness, that connects all these essays as one.

I went in thinking it was going to be short horror stories, but quickly realized it was actually more of a thought experiment on the horror genre and its history. A little unexpected, but amazingly pleasant!

There are a lot of references, some that I knew, some that I didn’t. Peter covers a broad range of point of views and delivers very interesting essays. Not only does he explain the process behind the horror theme through history and across various mediums, but he also integrates his personal experiences. The collection of essays takes a dark turn when you realize the real author’s real story.

I won’t spoil, so I will just say that I was not disappointed in this book. I enjoyed reading about the many faces of horror and it inspired me to add some movies and shows to my watchlist, as well as books to my reading list.

Before I get into my review, I have to say that this cover is STUNNING. It was the main reason I wanted to pick it up. Then I found out that it was a book of horror essays, and that was all I needed to know.

Content Warnings: self-harm, suicide, gun violence, PTSD, blood (the author kindly included these in the beginning of the book!!)

This book is told in first person, and it follow the author, Peter Counter, as he tries to navigate what makes a horror story. He compares plot points of various horror mediums, such as games, movies, and books. He looks at why the public thinks they're scary and makes sure to add his commentary as to what is scarier, or why society chooses that topic over something else.

My first thought while reading this, was how similar our thought processes aligned. Anytime Counter would bring up a topic in one of the stories, we would have similar snark opinions to match. I thought the commentary on why society hyperfocuesed on zombies was a good conversation, and one that I have been arguing for years!

Be Scared of Everything takes a new approach to looking at what inspires horror, and I found it to be a refreshing take. I mentioning his story on the zombies, but besides that my favorite stories were: Celebration of Life, Corporate Personhood, The New Necronomicon, and Manifest Doom. I found them all to be rather funny, and I got all of the references in these stories.

I do think any horror fan should read this, but I do think they should be aware there are oodles of references and spoilers ahead. Some I'll admit I didn't even get, but for the most part I didn't think it hindered my experience. The only cons I have with this are that I felt like some of the stories could have been cut to make everything fit together nicer, and that toward the end it felt like I was dragging my feet.

The first half of these short stories were extremely fast paced. I was laughing throughout, and making note of some of the lines, but then I hit the second half. Only a line or two would stick out to me at a time, and this is where I felt some of the stories could have been cut. Even with that, I still gave this a 3 stars, because I loved some of the stories, and will be sure to read the ones that stuck out to me again.