Thanks to the publisher and Netgalley for this eARC.

“The Coiled Serpent” by Camilla Grudova is a mesmerizing collection of short stories that plunges readers into a surreal and often grotesque world.

Known for her distinctive style that blends the macabre with the mundane, Grudova’s latest work continues to push the boundaries of contemporary fiction, offering a series of unsettling yet captivating tales.

The collection features a variety of stories, each more bizarre and thought-provoking than the last. Stories include a woman sent to a cursed hotel for ailing girls and a museum director curating a venomous garden.

Each tale is a journey into the absurd, where the lines between reality and fantasy blur, and the ordinary becomes extraordinary.

Grudova’s characters are as peculiar as the worlds they inhabit. They are often grappling with personal anxieties, societal pressures, and existential dilemmas.

Despite their oddities, these characters are deeply human, reflecting the fears and desires that lie beneath the surface of everyday life. The protagonists in these stories are frequently marginalized individuals, whose struggles and resilience add depth to the surreal landscapes they navigate.

Grudova’s writing is lyrical and visceral, evoking strong visual and emotional responses. Her prose is rich with imagery, often drawing on elements of body horror and the grotesque to create a sense of unease. The language is precise and evocative, capturing the strangeness of her worlds with a painterly attention to detail. Grudova’s ability to blend the fantastical with the familiar makes her stories both unsettling and compelling.

“The Coiled Serpent” explores themes of transformation, identity, and the human condition. Grudova delves into the absurdities of contemporary life, using her surreal narratives to critique societal norms and expectations. The stories often reflect on the impact of capitalism, the fragility of the human body, and the search for meaning in a chaotic world. Grudova’s work challenges readers to confront their own perceptions of reality and the boundaries of the possible.

“The Coiled Serpent” is a testament to Camilla Grudova’s skill as a storyteller and her ability to craft narratives that linger in the mind long after the final page.

This collection is a must-read for fans of surreal and speculative fiction, offering a series of stories that are as thought-provoking as they are unsettling.

Grudova’s work is a reminder of the power of fiction to explore the darkest corners of the human psyche and the strange beauty that can be found there.

I primarily requested Camilla Grudova’s “The Coiled Serpent” because I love single-author short story collections that are horrific – writers using horror to subvert real-world issues – and in some stories that felt obvious and in others not so much. I enjoyed how Grudova incorporated horrific and gory elements to shine a light on women’s reproductive rights and assumptions about what women’s bodies should be used for (birthing children) in addition to how women’s bodies are used (consensually or not) to satiate heterosexual men’s desires, and the role women are expected to play in caring for others (like children).

Each short story is a complete story (thank goodness Grudova knows the structure of a short story), and not one story is overwritten. Most of the stories are on the shorter side of short stories, so if you prefer longer ones, just keep that in mind. However, all of the stories are well-written, interesting, weird, sometimes absurd, and hilarious. There were also moments I felt rage and sadness and when I was finished reading this collection, I wanted to read more of Grudova’s work! I now definitely want to try out her other works of fiction!

If you do not enjoy horrific or gory writing, then avoid this. However, if you enjoyed Bora Chung’s collection, “Cursed Bunny,” Sayaka Murata’s “Life Ceremony,” and/or Maria Enriquez’s “The Dangers of Smoking in Bed,” then I think you would enjoy Camilla Grudova’s “The Coiled Serpent”!
My absolute favourite stories are “The Custard Factory,” “The Green Hat,” “Avalon,” “The Poison Garden,” “Madame Flora’s,” the titular story “The Coiled Serpent,” “The Meat Eater,” “The Apartment,” and “Hoo Hoo”…Pretty much the entire collection!

Many thanks to Netgalley and The Unnamed Press for allowing me to read and review an ARC of this great short story collection!

The Coiled Serpent-Stories-Camilla Grudova-Publishing October 8th, 2024 by Unnamed Press.

LONGLISTED FOR THE 2024 DYLAN THOMAS PRIZE

A book of strange short stories that remind me of Ottessa Moshfegh. These stories are quirky, and the characters and settings are just as odd. But that’s a good thing. The strangeness of each story works. The characters and the grotesque things they do. Grudova uses sentences and words sparingly, creating surreal unsettling images that the reader will love or hate. Not for the faint of heart. A writer to keep your eye on. (* This is the second book from Unnamed Press I’ve read. The first was States of Emergency by Chris Knapp. They keep putting out cool books.) 3.8 goldfish. There was no emoji for 0.8 of a goldfish.

This was definitely a unique and strange read but it really had me hooked. The stories in this collection felt very unusual, gory and vivid.

The Coiled Serpent is a collection of eclectic horror stories, most of which contain commentary on society, capitalism and the human experience.

The concept behind most stories were unique and utterly bizarre, but ultimately I was left wanting more. I felt that a lot of the stories had no clear direction and every time I felt like I was finally learning about the characters and the world, the story would end abruptly. Most, if not all the stories also include grotesque descriptions of bodily fluids and unnatural transformations of the body, which I feel in some cases only added to the shock value and nothing more.

In saying that, there were a couple of standouts which I felt were complete and impactful stories such as ‘Ivor’, ‘The Green Hat’ and ‘The Coiled Serpent’. I also think this collection is still worth picking up if you’re in the mood for something strange and horrifying during spooky season!

Thank you Unnamed Press and NetGalley for the ARC!

I feel like maybe this is protest fiction, but I don't get what exactly the author is against. Regardless of setting, each of the stories in this collection goes beyond extreme horror to I don't know what level to call it, ultimate horror? I looked it up, and the subgenre of extreme horror "is characterized by the depiction of extreme acts"; the stories in The Coiled Serpent, each uniquely evidences combinations of gratuitous violence, gore, and taboo subjects.

In the first story Ivor for example, an idolized boy at boarding school is forever youthful while the other students age to decrepitude, but the horror lies equally in the appalling neglect they all suffer, as well as the unnatural degree that their fawning over Ivor reaches. That seems to be the formula here, that a setting is established as horrifyingly filthy or squalid, populated by characters described as singularly revolting and who do things that are nauseating; but then there is a plot twist and something else completely ends up being the most horrifying thing in the story. It never gets boring, that is for certain.

2⭐️ I think this had so much potential tho 😭

I was initially really excited to read this book. As a lover of strange stories and grotesque imagery, I was really drawn in by these elements in this series of short stories. I think the writing style was great and I love how uncomfortable the prose made me feel.

Other than that, I feel like these stories were all shock and no substance. There felt like there wasn’t any proper plot within any of the stories and I really struggled to connect with the characters as the stories are so short (sometimes not even 10 pages).

I think this book had a lot of potential but just didn’t live up to my expectations with execution. I still enjoyed the absolute weirdness that was these stories tho 🤣

Thanks NetGalley & Unnamed Press for having early access to this e-arc 💕

🐍🐍🐍 The Coiled Serpent by Camilla Grudova
———————————————————————
The Coiled Serpent is a collection of 16 short stories packed with bizarre, quirky, and gross oddities. It reminded me a bit of A Series of Unfortunate Events by Lemony Snicket with a dash of The Mighty Boosh. Some stories had me laughing, scratching my head, and often saying ‘eww.’ Expect plenty of bodily fluids and oddball scenarios. It’s definitely a gross-out read, but the story that stood out most for me was ‘The Custard Factory.’ It’s definitely a cheese-dream of a book!

Thanks to NetGalley for the ARC!

It was not my cup of tea, unfortunately. Quite gruesome stories. If you like short horror stories you may give it a try.

A good book to sit with and enjoy some quality times. Readers go for it. The coiled serpent will keep you coiled too.

Rating: 3.5 stars out of 5

If I had to describe this book in a few words, they would be: moist, crusty, disturbing, and repulsive. This book is disgusting and uncomfortable, but in a good way if you're looking for something to gross you out.

Some of the stories are forgettable, but others are standouts that make this book worth it. My favorites are:

The Custard Factory (A mother's sticky revenge for the abuse of her daughter), Madam Flora's (A specialized school for girls missing their periods), The Coiled Serpent (Three grimy tech bros try semen retention - This one included a poem in binary at the end, which I took the time to convert to English), and The Meat Eater (A woman's extreme and deadly obsession with a man)

To say this book is weird is an understatement. It gives you perspectives that no one needs from some really sick or abused characters. If you're a fan of unsettling horror and don't mind graphic content, this collection might be for you.

Unfortunately for me after reading the first 4 stories in this book I just cannot find the willpower to continue and so have to mark this as a DNF.
I love the grotesque and morbid angle of the stories and this is what drew me to this book from blurb. However, there just isn't enough substance for me and I've found the stories to be disjointed and just generally difficult to follow.
There's no real sense of feeling for any of the characters, but this could just be my preference for full novels over short stories.

If you enjoy short stories with a macabre nature then I think you'd really enjoy this book!

Thank you to the publisher for allowing me to read a copy of this book via Netgalley

The Coiled Serpent is weird and grotesque and yet, I couldn’t stop reading.

Not going to lie I did really struggle with a pretty much every one of the stories, but that uncomfortable aspect is part of its appeal. I don’t know how best to explain this beyond that, but what an addictive collection of short stories.

this is a DNF for me.

I had high hopes for this book but after reading the first 3 stories I was left thinking what was the point of each one? It just seems a lot of what is in the stories is added for shock value and being gross which I don't mind and actually enjoy if done well but that isn't the case here. There is no substance under any of it. Everything seemed too random, There was no connection within each story, this made them feel unfinished and I just couldn't force myself to sit through the remaining stories.

thank you to netgalley and Unnamed Press | The Unnamed Press for sharing a digital copy. as always, opinions are my own.

I did not like this book. It was a collection of stories that focused on grotesque and disturbing horrific scenes and scenarios. I thought it was deeply disturbing and am curios as to why this was even written. I think it is not for me

Thank you to NetGalley, the publishers, and especially the author for this ARC in exchange for my honest review of the book!!

The most common reaction I had while reading the book was receiting "what the fuck, what the fuck, what the actual fuck" on a loop. I found most of the stories quite bizarre and didn't knew what to think of most of them tbh, especially at the beggining.

The book tackle themes of body horror here and there but imo where the book shines the most is in it's descriptions of truly the most grotesque situations. Not only is Grudova great at coming up with the exact situation/imagery to disgust you (the son in the third story, iykyk) but I think it becomes even more disgusting and disturbing when you sit for a moment and meditate the fact that this IS life for a lot of people. It is exagerated, but it also reflects accurately what a lof of folks have to go through because of 🌈capitalism🌈

Putting that aside, I did find myself kind of disapointed that a lot of the stories seemingly had no plot? They felt a bit like outlines (very curt narration, not much description) or first drafts. It would be like peering into the life of this random person one moment and then at a random point the story ends. I suspect both the language she used and the nature of the narrative might have to do, again, with the fact that this are supposed to be your random everyday person, whose lives are just kind of unremarkable? Yet the simplicity of the language makes it that more shocking when you read someone eating vomit nonchalantly because there is just no build up, there's no sensation that this is a special moment, it's just part of every day life.

I think for me this is might of those books that becomes more enjoyable when you read it a second or third time. Because on first read I think it is quite easy to fixate on the grotesque parts and overlook the social critique.

A wickedly sharp and dark collection of short stories where the real twists inexorably into the surreal. I love how the world and the characters feel so rooted in the real world, yet drift so far and so deep into the utterly, and spectacularly, weird.

This collection is great for fans of gore, the grotesque, and body horror. Grudova seems to be fascinated with bodily fluids, excrement, rotten food, bugs and other creepy crawly things, highlighting how disgusting human and nonhuman bodies can be. While not all the stories stood out to me, many seemed to recycle the same gory details in different configurations, the ones that did delighted me (“Ivor,” “The Custard Factory,” “The Poison Garden,” “Madame Flora’s”). These stories all shared a temporal murkiness that piqued my curiosity. I kept thinking a story was set in some historical past only to be surprised by the mention of something from our contemporary moment; kind of like purposeful anachronisms. All in all, if you’re a queasy reader, I’d recommend staying away, but if you’re fascinated by gore then this might work for you.

i'd technically give this a 3.5 star rating! i enjoyed the author's general style as well as her attention to detail. the plots were unique, too; i haven't seen these ideas anywhere els. but the 'horror' and 'gothic' labels are somewhat misleading here; grudova's stories feel more strange and grotesque (i'm talking bodily fluids - lots of it) than anything. still, i enjoyed it and will be on the lookout for anything else the author publishes in the future.

Such a strange, unique and interesting collection of stories. Even though it took me a few of them to fully get into it, I simply couldn't stop reading no matter what. Such an incredible writing style and an absolutely amazing way to turn the mundane into something more. Every single story is so thought-provoking, I had the best time while reading this and I found myself wanting more by the end.

Many thanks to Unnamed Press & NetGalley for the eARC. All opinions are my own.