an atmospheric horror with a lot of potential, this is a slow-creeping tale that evokes the anxiety of pandemic-era sentiments. a little too much going on for the short page count here, but still a good, creepy read.

Definitely reminiscent of Bird Box, this thriller novella started out strong. Even though it was quite short, I found myself bored and wishing for it to wrap up. The writing was full of lovely imagery but instead of building tension it seemed to slow things down. In the end, it wasn't a favorite.

Novellas are always hit or miss for me. I wish there would have been a little more insight here into what was actually going on. I know you're supposed to be a little in the dark with the unreliable narrator but I just felt like I didn't get enough to really care and delve into the story. It was really well written though and I would love to give something else by Sunny Moraine a try.


Thank you to NetGalley and Tor Nightfire for the ARC!

This was a poignant and horrific exploration of what it means to be human in the face of civilisation breakdown. The idea of going insane by looking is not a new one, but I thought that Sunny Moraine did a good job at breathing new life into it. This was a study in paranoia and the need for human interaction, despite the dangers and I appreciated the discussion around the dangers implicit in this even without a deadly madness ensuing. The ending was pretty brutal and overall, I thought this was a great and heart breaking read.
I received a free copy of this book from the publisher in exchange for a fair and honest review.

This book left a lot to be desired and also… I don’t really care enough to desire more anyway? Idk this was just meh

It wasn’t horror in my opinion. It was trying to be Bird Box without any of the attachment to the characters or story. Like everything was surface level and awkward. I didn’t care about whatever relationship Riley and Ellis were building, I didn’t really even feel all that excited by the evil scary mystery of looking in peoples eyes.

The concept was really cool and it had some cool elements. The flashbacks of the mom. The paranoia. But it was missing things for sure.

All that said, this was such a quick read that it wasn’t all that bad to just zip through in a few hours.

This was very interesting in the beginning, but I lost interest as the story went on. For a novella, I felt like very long to me. I liked what the author was trying to say, but it didn't work for me. I would recommend it to people, even though I didn't love it.

Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for an eARC in exchange for my review.

YOUR SHADOW HALF REMAINS by Sunny Moraine is set in a world where eye contact can kill. Riley has isolated herself away from the world, living off online orders for groceries and supplies. As the book opens, she's throwing her phone into the lake, yet another step farther away from any human contact. The story progresses when someone moves in close by and she must navigate how to deal with human contact again (or choose not to) while strange things start to happen to her which may or may not be connected.

I think that this book had a lot of potential to really create a creepy atmosphere and I did find that there were some moments that achieved the vibes I was looking for. That said, there was a lot of time spent in Riley's head that took us onto a lot of tangents and I felt like this was longer than it needed to be. For such a short book, I found it a little too easy to put down.

I would definitely try reading from Sunny Moraine again in the future even if this one fell a bit flat for me.

This was so weird. I kinda feel like it was too short and the pacing was really weird because of that. The ending felt super rushed but worst of all it was basically left up to you to discern what was going on and I didn’t love that

𝘞𝘰𝘶𝘭𝘥 𝘪𝘵 𝘣𝘦 𝘣𝘦𝘵𝘵𝘦𝘳 𝘵𝘰 𝘬𝘯𝘰𝘸 𝘴𝘰𝘮𝘦𝘰𝘯𝘦'𝘴 𝘵𝘩𝘦𝘳𝘦, 𝘦𝘷𝘦𝘯 𝘪𝘧 𝘴𝘩𝘦 𝘯𝘦𝘷𝘦𝘳 𝘴𝘱𝘦𝘢𝘬𝘴 𝘵𝘰 𝘵𝘩𝘦𝘮?

This novella is compared to Bird Box where eye contact seems to cause people to become violent. We meet Riley who has not looked at anyone's face or eyes in a while. A new neighbor moves to town and Riley has an overwhelming need to interact with Ellis. As they grow closer, Riley’s grip on reality begins to slip. Is Ellis trying to drive her crazy, is Riley already infected or is she losing her mind from isolation?

I thought this was an intense read with some gore and violence. We only get Riley's perspective so there's an element of not knowing what's the truth. I wasn't sure if she was really losing her mind or she's just not telling the reader everything. If you enjoy apocalyptic books, make sure to check this out

Thank you Tor Nightfire for an advanced copy.

“In the end, maybe it’s disturbing how easy it was to adjust. How easy it is for the worst things imaginable to become normal.”

thank you to Netgalley and Tor books for gifting me an eARC of Your Shadow Half Remains by Sunny Moraine, a horror novella inspired by the pandemic.

This book is for you, if you like:
💫 Unreliable narrators
💫 Character focused stories
💫 Mad women
💫 Explorations of human nature
💫 Unique narrative styles

In this novella, the main character, Riley, slowly descends into madness, as she seeks out her new neighbor despite the possibility of a fatal outcome. My favorite part of the story was the highly suspenseful exploration of relationships and the human need for connection!

The slow unraveling of Riley’s sanity also makes for a very distinct narrative structure. The narrative comprises largely of Riley’s inner monologue, shifting between her current life and her reflections on the early days of the pandemic. While I enjoyed the distinctiveness of the narrative, I struggled with its being fragmented almost to the point of incoherence at times.

Ultimately, while there’s a lot to love about this novella, and it packs a punch considering its length, a little too much was left up for interpretation for me to really connect with it.

TW: Gore, body horror, pandemic, death of a child, murder, mentions of cannibalism and suicide.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

Throughout my reading of this novella, I was reminded of many things: Bird Box, 2020, The Happening, The Last of Us... All are good comparisons for some aspects, but this definitely had its own unique flavor, as well. I love a story with an unreliable narrator, and this certainly checked that box. It can be rather gory at times in its descriptions, so if that's not your thing, stay away. But if you want a quick story that starts our relatively normal and slowly devolves into a fever dream, where nothing is ever certain and the ending is left ambiguous? Pick this one up. And finally... can we hear some noise for that cover? Gorgeous, haunting, creepy, lovely. Amazing.

I started this kind of overlooking the horror tag, thinking it was going to be more dystopic than anything else, and boy was I wrong! I was glad I read this completely while travelling on trains that were not so empty that the loneliness could contribute to the sense of unease of this book but also not so full to make me claustrophobic and paranoid. I think reading this alone in my room would have been too much for me.

Trying not to spoil anything, this novella tricks you into following the narrative one way until it forces you to face that maybe you were a little too gullible. While this effect definitely worked for me, I also wished for things to blend into each other a bit more than they did and feel less rushed as we got towards the end. I definitely felt a sense of lacking something by the very last page, combined with a sense of frustration for the many unanswered questions (but that was absolutely the intention of the author, and I mention this as a positive aspect of this book - if good books leave you feeling something, then this was a good book).

DNF (for now) at 40% - I'm going to try this again in audiobook in the future. It's immersive and intense, but unfortunately I keep being drawn away from the story. I think the audiobook will suit me better.

I unfortunately didn't really gel with Your Shadow Half Remains. I enjoyed the narrative voice for the first three-quarters or so, and it felt like a solid, if less than action-packed, read. However, the final quarter left me feeling actively frustrated. I much preferred the quiet meditation on isolation this had started out as (admittedly contradicting the book's blurb somewhat), and watching Riley attempt to open up and allow herself to 'see" Ellis. Riley is so unreliable as a narrator (a characteristic I often quite enjoy) that the two characters feel hugely underdeveloped. The sudden change of pacing towards the end is jarring and, though this may be purposeful, left the conclusion feeling like a loose end. I appreciated Sunny Moraine's writing style however, so may pick up more works by them.

I'm not entirely sure why I even requested this book to begin with, given that upon re-examination of the description, it doesn't really fit with what books I typically read. I'd also completely forgotten that it was closer to a novella than to a novel and that may have changed how I read it as well, fully expecting a longer book.

I didn't really like this all that much. Very much unreliable narrator, which I usually end up enjoying, but this narrator was unreliable to the point that it confused and annoyed me trying to pick out what was real and what wasn't real. Too much was going on and yet not enough, given that it was a novella. I know that that means that the author wants to keep the story short and sweet but this was just entirely too short of a story to really get me feeling anything about any of the characters or situations that they found themselves in, though I was initially intrigued.

Fantastic dark story about the end of times. The Bird Box comp is definitely apt, and while I enjoyed that story too, I really loved the contained setting of Your Shadow Half Remains more. It's very claustrophobic and eerie and depicts well the feelingsof someone in isolation.

If looks could kill…
Why come up with a brand-new version of the apocalypse when you can extrapolate one from existing successful works and simply put your own spin on it?
And so, combining David Moody’s Hater series and John Malerman’s BirdBox series and introducing the twist of eye contact in the mix, this novella comes to live.
Mind you, the other books mentioned operate on a much larger scale with a full cast of characters, etc. This is a much more intimate, two-person play, with both of them tentatively staggering toward something like a romance, while one of them may or may not be losing her mind.
It is interesting to contemplate the world where eye contact will kill. It checks enough boxes to make the cut for what publishers (and presumably audiences, though who dictates and curates whose choices isn’t always clear) seem to want these days. The writing’s pretty good. The book can be read quickly in one sitting. And then more or less forgotten. Thanks Netgalley.

A beautifully written story that feels part Birdbox and part The Crazies. I am enjoying the fact that modern horror has started to embrace the dark an dreadful vibe of early horror stories.

One part poem and one part novel, Your Shadow Half Remains is a speculative fiction which mirrors the film Bird Box. Incredibly unwinding and strange, this book takes a unique look at a pandemic sweeping a nation...but this pandemic is different from the ones of our reality. While at times, Moraine's work feels incredibly confusing (for the sake of being so) I can't help but feel like I just read something special.

This book is a little bit difficult to review. I definitely enjoyed the first half, I was so intrigued by the post-apocalyptic world where one look can send people into violence. It’s a world where things still function but not nearly as well as before and I’ve never seen that done before. I also enjoyed the creepy moments when our character moves into a new house. However, the narrative really lost me halfway through. It got very surreal and I’m not sure if we were ever meant to know what’s actually going on. I wish there was a little bit more to the story because it felt extremely unsatisfying at the end.