A bold new voice in Filipino horror.
In Cabiling’s horror novel, when a zombie outbreak ravages the slums of Manila, a young Filipino boy must do whatever it takes to survive.
Despite the ubiquity of drug abuse within his community—the crowded slums of Tondo, Manila—Min Arnaiz is determined to finish his education and do more than scavenge trash like the rest of his peers. His days of normalcy are numbered, however; Min is only 12 when he loses his parents, his friends, and his home to a violent zombie outbreak. While the exact origin of the disaster is unknown, some attribute it to teens abusing a new methamphetamine-like drug known colloquially as “shabu.” (“In those shanties, teens who attempted to numb the pain brought by lifetimes of abuse and hardship did drugs and started to look and behave like zombies.”) Desperate to find a safe haven, Min leaves on a motorcycle in search of shelter, hiding in abandoned apartments and dilapidated houses until he’s able to stow away on a boat headed to the United States. There, he ends up in the “Below,” a community that lives predominately underground in the sewers of New York City…until the next wave of the outbreak follows him from the Philippines to American shores. Cabiling’s debut novel moves at a breakneck pace, with violent and grotesque chaos reigning. He effectively breaks up the gore with tense moments that depict times before the first outbreak and in the interregnum before its second wind sweeps across the world. Min is a sympathetic narrator pushed past the brink multiple times who still manages to keep fighting until the very end. Although the cast in the second half has a similar amount of page time, Min’s friends and family in Manila are rendered in more compelling detail, making their fates more gut-wrenching than those that befall the members of the community he builds underground. The commentary on the negative effects of drugs is a little too heavy-handed, but overall, this is a thrilling, action-filled ride.
A bold new voice in Filipino horror.Pub Date: N/A
ISBN: N/A
Page Count: -
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: July 27, 2024
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
A dark and twisty look at just how far one woman is willing to go to find inspiration.
A struggling writer finds an unexpected muse when a mysterious man shows up at her cabin.
Petra Rose used to pump out a bestselling book every six months, but then the adaptation happened—that is, the disastrous film adaptation of her most famous book. The movie changed the book’s storyline so egregiously that fans couldn’t forgive her, and the ensuing harassment sent Petra into hiding and gave her a serious case of writer’s block. Petra’s one hope is her solo writing retreat at a remote cabin, where she can escape the distractions of real life and focus on her next book, a story about a woman having an affair with a cop. When officer Nathaniel Saint shows up at her cabin door, inspiration comes flooding back. Much like the character from Petra’s book, Saint is married, and he’s willing to be Petra’s muse, helping her get into her characters’ heads. Petra’s book is practically writing itself, but is the game she’s playing a little too dangerous? Does she know when to stop—and, more importantly, is Saint willing to stop? Hoover is no stranger to controversial movie adaptations and internet backlash, but she clarifies in a note to readers that she’s “just a writer writing about a writer” and that no further connections to her own life are contained in these pages—which is a good thing, because the book takes some horrifying twists and turns. Petra finds herself inexplicably attracted to Saint, even as she describes him as “such an asshole,” and her feelings for him veer between love and hate. The novel serves as a meta commentary on the dark romance genre—as Petra puts it, “Even though, as readers, we wouldn’t want to live out some of the fantasies we read about, it doesn’t mean we don’t enjoy reading those things.”
A dark and twisty look at just how far one woman is willing to go to find inspiration.Pub Date: Jan. 13, 2026
ISBN: 9781662539374
Page Count: -
Publisher: Montlake
Review Posted Online: Sept. 27, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 2025
Amateurish, with a twist savvy readers will see coming from a mile away.
A woman accused of shooting her husband six times in the face refuses to speak.
"Alicia Berenson was thirty-three years old when she killed her husband. They had been married for seven years. They were both artists—Alicia was a painter, and Gabriel was a well-known fashion photographer." Michaelides' debut is narrated in the voice of psychotherapist Theo Faber, who applies for a job at the institution where Alicia is incarcerated because he's fascinated with her case and believes he will be able to get her to talk. The narration of the increasingly unrealistic events that follow is interwoven with excerpts from Alicia's diary. Ah, yes, the old interwoven diary trick. When you read Alicia's diary you'll conclude the woman could well have been a novelist instead of a painter because it contains page after page of detailed dialogue, scenes, and conversations quite unlike those in any journal you've ever seen. " 'What's the matter?' 'I can't talk about it on the phone, I need to see you.' 'It's just—I'm not sure I can make it up to Cambridge at the minute.' 'I'll come to you. This afternoon. Okay?' Something in Paul's voice made me agree without thinking about it. He sounded desperate. 'Okay. Are you sure you can't tell me about it now?' 'I'll see you later.' Paul hung up." Wouldn't all this appear in a diary as "Paul wouldn't tell me what was wrong"? An even more improbable entry is the one that pins the tail on the killer. While much of the book is clumsy, contrived, and silly, it is while reading passages of the diary that one may actually find oneself laughing out loud.
Amateurish, with a twist savvy readers will see coming from a mile away.Pub Date: Feb. 5, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-250-30169-7
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Celadon Books
Review Posted Online: Nov. 3, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 2018
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