I requested this as soon as I noticed the author….big fan of Josh Malerman. I didn’t even read the summary before I stared to read. My first thought was “Really? A pig? This is disappointing.” I was so wrong! I should have known that this author can take any concept and make it psychologically terrifying. Malerman is a master of unrelenting tension and terror.

I'm a big fan of Josh's work, I really think he's a fantastic spider. Pearl falls fall short of his past work. It's increasingly confusing premise and lack of character development leaves a ton too be desired.

I was a bit disappointed that this was a reissue of a book and not a new book, but decided from the beginning to, “put a pin in that”, and just judge the book on it’s own merits. It was a new story to me and I’m sure will be to many others also.
A bucolic farm; two boys and their mom visiting Grandpa….. Sounds innocent right? A talking pig on grandpa’s farm sounds familiar to any of us who have read E.B. White’s “Charlotte’s Web”. Pearl, however is not Wilbur, and no creative spider webs are spun by benign spiders in this book. Pearl, instead is the story of an evil, telepathic pig who spins his own web of death and carnage. I definitely recommend this book to horror fans, particularly those of Stephen King.

I’m a fan of Josh Malerman. The man knows how to produce original literary scares. But it hasn’t been an immediate and easy road, no grand first impressions. It was more along the lines of underwhelming firsts, followed by (interest rekindled by a thoroughly excellent Netflix adaptation of his most famous work) several good to great other works.
And then there was the recent Goblin, which was somewhere in the middle. Thing is, Goblin was a major publisher’s reprint, so technically, chronologically you can still say Malerman is progressing nicely, instead of, say, meandering, quality wise.
And so this book, much like Goblin, is a reprint of a limited Cemetery Dance edition book by a major nongenre publisher. But the thing is, it reads very much like a limited genre edition book, which is tom say it’s good for a selected genre fan base, but not necessarily the general public.
Me, I’m a genre fan. Unreservedly so. And whatever uneven love for Malerman’s work I might have, he’s the author whose books I’d download on name only. Which I did. Although in this instance a thoroughly plot summary read might have been advisable.
And so here you have it…Malerman at his most Orwellian with an animal farm you’re not likely to forget anytime soon, even as you walk away, think WTF was that. If this book doesn’t make you a vegetarian or at least Kosher, nothing will. In a comparison based advertisement style this is…Planet of the Apes Oink edition meets Charlotte’s Web with Babe thrown in for good measure. But really it’s just about the dire consequences of a farm animal gaining sentience on a level recognizable by and comparable to intelligence as the bipeds understand it.
It’s a surreal number with over the top violence and thoroughly disturbing themes and imagery, so in that way it’s definitely good for genre fans. But it also has a sort of trippy quality to it. Of all Malerman’s books so far, this is by far the most acid trip like. It also kind of seems like maybe it should have been a longer short story or a novella, but it got stretched out into a novel.
Not quite a creature feature, this book certainly offers the readers a different and memorable and strangely sympathetic monster. And it is well written, Malerman does that reliable enough. But it’s just so strange and weird (both of which are generally positive descriptors), but it’s strange and weird like a nightmare you wake up bewildered from, not a book you read.
Anyway, though were just some of my personal thoughts on this. It may work differently for different readers. Actually, I’m certain it will. And Malerman certainly continues to be the author to watch, if only based on the sheer originality and darkness of imagination. So read if you dare. Thanks Netgalley.

My thanks to Random House/Ballantine/Del Rey books. Josh Malerman and Netgalley.
This book was a hoot! The concept is all sorts of messed up, and that's probably why I loved it!
Also, pigs scare the poop outta me! My sister raised pigs, and long story short? Don't ask Lisa to feed the pigs, because all that snorting pork rushing at me is terrifying! Panic? No. Full blown horror? Yes!
For me, this really was a horror story. That damn Pearl!😱😵

Pearl by Josh Malerman

Full feature for this title will be posted at: @cattleboobooks on Instagram!

This is one of the weirdest books I have ever read in my entire life, but I wish I hadn't been expecting something atmospheric as I've come to know of Malerman. If you're expecting Birdbox, back up, put this book down for a moment, and recalibrate because this is about a telepathic killer pig.

A telepathic killer pig.

This is told in multiple POVs, one of which is from the pig's. Now, you must be thinking, "I don't know if I can read a book about Babe eating people's faces," but I think if you're OK with books by Stephen King or his very talented son, you will enjoy this masterpiece of bizarre.

This pig is the worst. He has the ability to control people's minds. I'm not quite clear on his reasoning because he leaves some people alive while others are just straight-up murdered. Getting into the mind of Pearl who is a psycho, in all aspects. I could imagine his hatred stemmed from the way we as humans treat animals, especially those raised for slaughter. I like to imagine that Pearl came from outer space and just hates Earth and really just wants to go home to other psycho pigs like himself sort of like this awful horror movie I watched about a killer llama that just loves to laser people with his eyes for absolutely no reason.

While reading Pearl, I got to thinking that maybe this was one of Malerman's manuscripts that he shoved aside way before Birdbox released and set him upon a path of authors known for their creepy yet emotional stories. The writing didn't feel Malerman, and the only way I got through it was to imagine it was written by someone else.

I still love Malerman and I look forward to new works by him in the future.

#Pearl
I do not know where to begin with this novel...it is incredibly creepy, but exceptionally well written. It was definatly out of my wheel house in reading material, but I was fascinated none the less. Well play Mr. Malerman! What a read for horror fans!.

Great story...Always enjoy Josh Malerman books to friends...Very creative characters and plots! Highly recommend!

The entire premise of this book was everything that I never knew that I needed.
This book blew away my expectations.
The story was fire, the characters amazing, the writing fabulous!
I was praying I would get accepted to read and review Pearl and I'm so thankful to NetGalley, Random House Publishing Group - Ballantineand author for this advanced ebook copy!

I found this to be well paced overall, though the plot does unravel slowly - but not in a bad way at all! It felt like a really rich, engaging build up.
The characters were very well developed.
The pacing was great as well, I found it hard to put my Kindle down because I had to see what happened next!
Overall very enjoyable, loved it!

Thank you for this copy!

This is a reissue of the book "On this, the day of the pig" if you enjoy horror about crazy animals then this book is for you. I typically do not like this genre but decided to give it a try. I found the actual story interesting and engaging but felt the book was very repetitive. Some of the repetitons could be eliminated to give the book more of a punch, in my opinion.

This is my first book by Josh Malerman and I was so excited to get into it because I was in the mood for dark and creepy!

Whoever was in charge of marketing this book is smart. So smart. After requesting this ARC that sounds delightfully, if vaguely, sinister and creepy, I found out it's a re-release of one of Malerman's older works called "On This, the Day of the Pig". If it had kept the same title, I never would have picked it up since I was not, and am still not after finishing the book, interested in telepathic killer pigs. I trudged through, thankful the book was only 304 pages.

This book feels like it's maybe edging on a message. Is it about humans treatment of farm animals, animal abuse, animal consumption? Is it about the law and "pigs" being in control? Is it about those "pigs" making you think you want to do what they say because they have the ultimate power? I truly don't know because no matter how close Malerman edges to a message, he really never makes it there and this just reads like a weird choice for a creepy story starring a animal.

I tried to read this straight through but one of my pig pet-peeves (ha) was the massive amounts of repetition. It was so annoying to read the same lines and thoughts over and over again. If I had to read that the pig "sat on his ass" again I might have screamed. The repetition, made up curses (pukin', etc.), and the weird almost stream of consciousness way this book was set up was very off-putting. The gross factor of bodies being described, fluids, etc. was obviously pointed but I tend to dislike gross horror so that did't work for me either. Also, WHY was it necessary to include a cop that thought about masturbating to the idea of an 18-year-old girl LOOKING at him even though "he's not even into young girls". I really didn't like this book....

The only things I enjoyed about this book were the way Malerman brings in new characters, each one getting a back and forth of memories leading to how they are connected to Pearl, and how the book actually ended. The disquiet about being unsure what really happens in the end was interesting to me, though I'm not sure any of this book felt like actual horror to me.

I would recommend this book to people who like horror including animals or "gross" horror or other Josh Malerman books.

Thank you to NetGalley and Del Rey for my ARC!

This is a renaming of a previous published work of Josh Mallerman, but no matter what the name is, it remains constant with his devotion and versatility within the genre of horror.

Pearl is a pig that is tired of being a “slave” to the whims of the world and decides to reach out (with his mind no less) and touch the people around him to make them “sing” (read scream and die a brutal, bloody death here) for his entertainment.

Horror has many faces and many different sub-genres and Mallerman knows how to make a splash (quite literally with blood and body parts at times) with his craft.

This was definitely an entertaining and frightening look at what those things we think the least about just may be thinking about us.

A 4 out of 5 star read, and a hearty recommendation for horror lovers everywhere.

Thank you so much to #NetGalley, Random House Publishing Group- Ballantine, and the creator of so many nightmares, Josh Mallerman for providing me with an electronic ARC in exchange for my honest opinion.

Allow Stephen King to rewrite Animal Farm in his style and you'd get 'Pearl'.

I had basically no idea what I was getting into (in this case it isn't a good thing). The blurb is (too) vague and I think most of us assumed this would be a more.... normal story. I actually thought this would be a ghost story. I was skipping to the first chapter and saw the title page with the lines "Previously published as 'On this, the Day of the pig'". That was enough to get me to check out Goodreads reviews which are sort of mixed but most recently they're pretty low, readers aren't exactly happy that this is a re-release about a murderous, pig capable of telepathic manipulation . Yes you read that right. I believe the publishing team needs to make the content more clear, starting by re-writing the blurb to be a little less vague, otherwise there's a risk to both the book and author's ratings when this is officially in the hands of the public.

Anyway, I read the reviews and decided I was still interested. I enjoy weird Sci-fi horror/thriller books and movies. I've spent so much time watching the Scyfy channel and reading Stephen King's and similar novels. While I'll give this type of story a chance it's definitely it's just not for everyone. I liked the idea behind this plot so much that after reading the first few chapters I thought this book would be a favorite. Now I feel sort of bad because I want to love this book but it just isn't that good. I'm still not even done but I've decided I'm far enough along to give the review.

As I progressed through this book I found myself growing more disinterested. At first I thought the writing was engrossing, I read 40% of the novel in day but each day since then I just haven't felt like resuming. I finally pinpointed why I felt this way , this book has no rising action. It dived right into the "action", no build up, very little character information , no background information. And then for some reason this information is given randomly throughout the book. One minute you're reading about the oh so scary thing the pigs are doing and the other is the introduction to some additional character.. It feels messy, haphazard even. I can already tell where the story is going so combine that with the poor pacing, I'm just not very interested in how the events play out. I'm about 60% in now and I'm not even exaggerating when I say I've pretty overwhelmed by the constant mention of pigs, specifically Pearl. Even when the human characters are mentioned, whether it is flashback or current events, it's always seems to be from the perspective of this psychic, telepathic pig or their actions are as a result of its control. And it definitely doesn't help that Pearl's "voice" when he's actually communicating is like a preacher carrying on a sermon either.

This book is the a great example of too much and not enough at the same. I do think the writing could and should have been better, especially considering this is a re-release. . I think finish reading eventually but I'm not eager to.

Thank you Netgalley and Random House Publishing for giving me access to this ARC in exchange for an honest review.

I never thought I'd read a book about an evil, telepathic pig, but alas, here I am. On one hand, I think this novel is brilliantly done. It's vivd, thrilling, fast-paced, and gory, all things that I love. But on the other hand, I felt so stuck on the absurdity of an evil, telepathic pig that I struggled to take the story seriously. That's probably more of a problem with me than with the actual book, and honestly, that's probably why it can be such an effective story: pigs are considered to be unthreatening and goofy, and Pearl completely smashes that idea into the ground. Maybe I can't get past my own head, and that was what kept me from getting absorbed into the idea? I don't know. It's a good book, I appreciate Malerman's writing style (he's one of the top horror writers out here right now, anyway), and there are plenty of thrills that roll out one after the other. But would I read this again? Probably not. But again, that's probably more on me than on the novel.

Hmmm… okay….this book is one of a kind!
I don’t have a problem reading a book which has extra sensitive and intelligent pig as a main character.

Since I read Charlotte’s Web and watched 1995’s Babe movie, they started growing on me! ( it doesn’t mean for me to work in farm and raise hundreds of them but you got the point! )
So the subject choice in this book about mind controlling pig who uses people till he gets enough information he needs! And the horrific part about our main character is his mind controlling game may reach to extreme points like giving the people horrifying hallucinations.

I can honestly say this is a little peculiar, interesting subject choice to write about and attract interests of the readers! Did I like it? Not truly! Did I hate it? Of course not! It was still good written, unique gory criticism of animal ethics!

Only one thing truly bothered me : when I requested this book and gave myself high five to have a chance to read the early copy of Josh Malerman’s brand new book, I was extremely excited about getting approval. But as soon as I got the copy, I realized this book is rereleasing of “On this, the day of the pig”which was already published on 2019. I felt misled and disappointed.

Absolutely nothing changed how I feel about the author’s brilliant writing skills. He’s one my of all time favorite horror authors. But I think this book didn’t fit with my expectations. As I told before it’s intriguing, original story with unique choice of main character: a sociopathic pig who plays dangerous mind games! But it’s not intriguing enough to think this book as one of the best works of the author. And I was a little frustrated not to have a chance to read a new book of Mr. Malerman as well.

So I’m giving three solid stars and I’m looking forward to read brand new works of the author I near future as I’m crossing my fingers.

Special thanks to NetGalley and Random House Publishing Group/ Ballantine/ Del Rey for sharing this digital reviewer copy with me in exchange my honest opinions.

"Pearl," with it's cryptic title and mysterious description, leaves so much to the imagination. I went into this book knowing very little and I'm not sure whether that helped or hindered my experience. In Pearl we find ourselves on a pig farm in a rural farming town. It centers around the owner of the farm and his family as they try to deal with Pearl - a pig that seems to have more to him than meets the eye.

While I initially found the premise hard to get into (Killer pig?) it did become pretty spooky. Malerman's descriptive writing had me so grossed out - I quickly learned I could not snack while reading this book! I found it so overly gory but I am not a fan of body horro My biggest gripe is with the pacing. This book dragged for me, I kept hoping we could get back to the action rather than just reminiscing. I was super interested in Pearl himself, but I didn't have any feelings towards any of the other characters. They felt flat and weren't very interesting.

I was underwhelmed with this book. I think I need to read another one of Malerman's works to get the feel for his writing. Special thanks to Netgalley and Random House Publishing for providing me with an E-ARC in exchange for my honest review!

I feel like Josh Malerman has a new book coming out every few months. It's not a bad thing but I do find it strange when authors all of a sudden get popular and all of their old work is rebranded as new and rereleased. It's hard not to wonder why it never made the cut the first time around? And I don't mean that in a negative way against the author. For the record I'm a huge Malerman fan and read this the first time around (I prefer the original title) and I'm happy that more people will get a chance to read this. If you are expecting something akin to Bird Box or Unbury Carol (my personal favorite) then think again. This is more similar to Goblin, but even then it's very much its own thing. This is a short, fun, slasherish read that shows Malerman and his most laid back. 4 out of 5.

Thanks to the publisher and Netgalley for this ARC.

I was so excited to be approved for Pearl. I loved Bird Box, and was anxious to dive into this one. However, I did not realize it was a prior release. Also, no thanks when I started realizing I was reading about a killer pig.

This book reads like a Sharknado-type horror about killer pigs. For me, it was more funny than scary. None of the suspense or tension holds up when the premise is so ridiculous. All you can do is picture it being made into a film with obvious fake blood and overly dramatic deaths.

Josh Malerman is hit or miss for me. I loved Bird Box (as I think most people did), but I hated Unbury Carol. This book felt a bit lazier than both in terms of writing. The characters felt like caricatures: stoned group of teens, kid with a heart of gold, bumbling cops, etc.

It’s also just overly gory. Don’t get me wrong, I appreciate gore in horror novels… but this felt very gratuitous at times to me in the descriptions of events.

This could make a great B-movie that I’m sure would have a weird cult following, but as far as books go… I’d say skip it.

I received an eARC via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.