Welcome to our eleventh post about the Horror A Month Storygraph Reading Challenge. One last prompt to go after this! We have had so much fun doing a challenge together so rest assured we will be doing another one next year!
November Prompt: Written by a Different Culture/BIPOC author
Try to choose a book that introduces you to a culture other than your own
Discussion of the Prompt:
This was such a wonderful prompt! I bought Moon of the Crusted Snow on one of my random bookstore trips and decided to read that with my friend Lauren. Ariel already read it earlier in the year so I was happy to dive into a book she loved.
I saw Taaqtumi featured in a Native American literature book to celebrate Native American heritage month, and I was immediately drawn to the idea of more Arctic horror. Having read Kriti’s pick of the month earlier this year, I was excited to see what horrors awaited in an anthology with a central theme of the snowy wilderness.
Ariel’s November Horror Read
Taaqtumi, an Anthology
(Find it on Storygraph and Goodreads)
Synopsis:
“Taaqtumi” is an Inuktitut word that means “in the dark”—and these spine-tingling horror stories by Northern writers show just how dangerous darkness can be. A family clinging to survival out on the tundra after a vicious zombie virus. A door that beckons, waiting to unleash the terror behind it. A post-apocalyptic community in the far North where things aren’t quite what they seem. With chilling tales from award-winning authors Richard Van Camp, Rachel and Sean Qitsualik-Tinsley, Aviaq Johnston, and others, this collection will thrill and entertain even the most seasoned horror fan.
General Thoughts of Book
Written by several Indigenous authors, each story in Taaqtumi presents its own unique approach to a wintery horror story. Some of the scariest stories for me in this collection were less than 20 pages; while others used a slow-building plot to increase the horror thrill at the end. All in all, this was a phenomenal collection where each story was terrifyingly well written in its own right, and I would highly recommend to anyone looking to read some quick but powerful short stories in an overall solid anthology collection!
Kriti’s November Horror Read
Moon of the Crusted Snow by Waubgeshig Rice
(Find it on Storygraph and Goodreads)
Synopsis:
A daring post-apocalyptic thriller from a powerful rising literary voice
With winter looming, a small northern Anishinaabe community goes dark. Cut off, people become passive and confused. Panic builds as the food supply dwindles. While the band council and a pocket of community members struggle to maintain order, an unexpected visitor arrives, escaping the crumbling society to the south. Soon after, others follow.
The community leadership loses its grip on power as the visitors manipulate the tired and hungry to take control of the reserve. Tensions rise and, as the months pass, so does the death toll due to sickness and despair. Frustrated by the building chaos, a group of young friends and their families turn to the land and Anishinaabe tradition in hopes of helping their community thrive again. Guided through the chaos by an unlikely leader named Evan Whitesky, they endeavor to restore order while grappling with a grave decision.
Blending action and allegory, Moon of the Crusted Snow upends our expectations. Out of catastrophe comes resilience. And as one society collapses, another is reborn.
Content Notes: Gun violence, Death, Violence, Cannibalism, Alcoholism, Suicide.
General Thoughts of Book
Moon of the Crusted Snow is a haunting winter tale! I read it in one evening. It is so real and so hard to put down. I have been fortunate in having close friends to discuss this book with and while I will keep my review short here, I will be back with a more thorough discussion on this book – it deserves its own post like HEX did last month.
Moon of the Crusted Snow has numerous themes that it touches on. The writing is concise and factly. I loved how the authors gave the reader pieces of history that they might not know, while also showing the impact of those times on their present. The community values of surviving together are portrayed beautifully and there is so much to take away from this book – not just about the book itself but also the past and where we go from here. I found this amazing reading guide put together by Ontario Tech University that I will walk through to organize the discussion in the next few days. If you are in North America, this book will open your eyes to Indigenous communities. In the context of the pandemic, it will make you question how you have behaved and how they respond in the book. I touched on the colonialism side of it in my review of Goodbye to the Sun, and I will be back with more soon.
While the horror level in the book itself isn’t very high, the more you think about it, the more it stays with you and the more horrifying it feels.
Final horror recommendation of the year will be coming up in December! Have you read any horror books that were published this year?
Thank you for joining us for yet another Horror a Month post! Look through all our horror reads at our Horror A Month Challenge home page.
Cover image: Photo by Osman Rana on Unsplash
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