Peach Parchment #62
November 10th: Halloween Hangover [Books]
For the past FIVE weeks, I have written updates for my 31 horror movies in 31 days challenge for the month of October.
This required a lot of writing, and even more horror movie watching.
Now that November is here, I am experiencing something I have never felt before…
…A Halloween HANGOVER!
In order to recover from this, I am going to take it easy this week, and bridge the gap between October and the upcoming end of the year.
In doing so, I am going to write about a handful of books.
I have a lot of ‘down time’ at my day job which allows to read quite a bit.
So along with my 31 horror movies in October, I was able to read a fair number of Horror books. Here’s a brief recap of the books I was able to tackle last month:
HALLOWEEN: THE OFFICIAL MOVIE NOVELIZATION by John Passarella
A novelization of the 2018 Halloween sequel helmed by David Gordon Green. I started this on the morning of October 1st, via audiobook, and it immediately got me into that October feeling. It mostly follows the movie beat for beat with little deviation.
HALLOWEEN KILLS by Tim Waggoner
Of the three Halloween novels I read this month, this is the strongest, which was surprising to me. Because inside of the David Gordon Green trilogy, I found this film version to be the weakest.
The novel succeeds where the movie fails because the seemingly endless cast of characters in Haddonfield are given full inner lives. This helps make the impact of their deaths at the hands of Michael Myers mean something.
Novelist Tim Waggoner (who also did the novelization of Terrifier 2) removes a lot of the ‘Evil Dies Tonight’ repetition which was heavily mocked and memed in the film.
HALLOWEEN ENDS by Paul Brad Logan
This one is pretty good. This Halloween novelization has the most ‘new’ material, including a number of scenes and backstory not included in the film. Corey Cunningham’s home life is more deeply explored, but the Laurie Strode of this novel feels completely different than the character from Halloween Kills.
STRANGE PICTURES by Uketsu
To escape the rain one day, I ran into the Barnes & Noble on 5th avenue. While inside I saw the staff making a series of Tik Tok videos with a life-sized cardboard standee of this book’s novelist: Uketsu.
After I left, I googled Uketsu and discovered that on top of being a novelist, he’s a mysterious Youtube presence, whose true identity is unknown. His first two novels Strange Pictures and Strange Houses caused an immediate sensation in Japan when they were published. This all seemed so intriguing to me, so I immediately grabbed a copy of Strange Pictures.
This is worth a read. The protagonist of the novel stumbles upon a 15-year old blog with a series of posts chronicling a man’s experience awaiting the birth of his their child. At first, the blog posts seem innocuous and quite unremarkable. But upon a closer examination strange details begin to emerge hidden inside the images posted along with the blog. And I’ll leave it at that- check this one out.
MOUTH by Joshua Hull
I read this on the Amtrak from NYC to Philly one night. Joshua Hull is a horror screenwriter and this is his first novel.
A rural drifter named Rusty is gifted a property by a casual acquaintance. But only on the condition that Rusty takes on the job of feeding the previous owner’s pet: Mouth. Rusty jumps at the opportunity but quickly discovers Mouth is a hole-in-the-ground with endless rows of teeth (think the Return of the Jedi’s sarlacc pit). And Mouth is hungry for flesh. This is a quick, breezy read that you can finish in one sitting. Light and fun, with some emotional gut punches at the end.
YOURS CRUELLY, ELVIRA by Cassandra Peterson
The only non-fiction book of the month.
This is the memoir of Cassandra Peterson, the performer and creator of Elvira: Mistress of the Dark. Peterson is very open about her success but more so about difficulties of her life. There’s a number of very shocking admissions in this book, but always a strong element of humor even when she describes her darkest moments.
This is a ‘been-there, done that’ type of memoir. Peterson somehow was everywhere and knew everyone. There’s stories about Elvis, Vincent Price, Tom Jones, RuPaul, Jimmy Page (maybe the darkest in the book), Madonna, Federico Fellini, and Engelbart Humperdinck, to name only a small fraction. Peterson doesn’t let anyone off the hook, not even herself.
REST STOP by Nat Cassidy
This didn’t entirely work for me, but I really wanted it to. Our narrator finds themselves at a gas station rest stop during a nightlong road trip. When a mysterious person locks them in the men’s room, our narrator must try several methods to escape.
The set-up is great, but the execution leaves a little to be desired. It constantly breaks its narrative rules, and there are too many contrivances used to keep the suspense going.
MELON HEAD MAYHEM by Alex Ebenstein
This is Book #1 in the Killer VHS series by Shortwave Publishing. This reads like an adult version of a Goosebumps book.
Two cousins, Carson and Sophia, find a strange VHS in their grandfather’s basement. Watching the movie on the tape, a forgotten 1980s horror movie called Melon Head Mayhem, releases the titular Melon Heads: bipedal creatures with razor sharp teeth and claws into the real world. And that’s kind of it. Not much else happens other than Sophia and Carson battling these monsters for 100+ pages. But those pages are breezy enough.
PIERCING by Ryu Murakami
Maybe the most intense premise of all the books this month. A man suffers from severe OCD-like symptoms, where he has the sudden compulsion to stab his newborn baby with an icepick. He is terrified this compulsion will eventually force him to act upon this impulse. So he thinks of ways which might eliviate his symptoms. Eventually he settles on, hiring a sex worker who he can kill with an icepick instead of his baby. Yikes!
The plot development in this book is excellent. Because the woman our narrator hires is perhaps the worst person he could have found to help achieve his icepick goal.
THE OLD LADY by Kristopher Triana
2025 marked my attempt to get into the genre of Splatter-punk horror novels.
I started reading a number of the popular authors in the genre, and I’ve already read 4-5 books by Kristopher Triana. Content and gore aside, a LOT of splatter-punk books are very overwritten, and The Old Lady is one of the worst offenders. The plot is very pulpy, like an updated Rambo: First Blood movie, but it’s length and unfocused structure made it quickly wear out its welcome.
The plot follows Tracey, the daughter of a Vietnam War veteran whose entire childhood was spent learning the ins and outs of jungle combat survival from her father. After a stint in jail, Tracey returns to the cabin of her childhood only to discover it’s filled with a group of teenagers who got lost in the woods. As they attempt to return to civilization the teens are intercepted by a group of Neo-Nazis who are hatching an evil plan out in the woods. Lucky for the teens, Tracey is the only person equipped with the skills to help.
PSYCHO by Robert Bloch
This is the novel which was adapted into the Alfred Hitchcock film of the same name. This is a stone cold classic. & a first time read for me. It’s excellent.
This might be in my top ten favorite books I’ve read in 2025- so I’ll save a full write up for December. Reading this novel got me eager to look into me to check out Robert Bloch’s other work, wherein I found his short story Your Truly, Jack the Ripper. This story is a masterpiece of pulp fiction writing (and only 6 pages long!).
WALKING PRACTICE by Dolki Min
A shapeshifting alien has crashed landed on earth. It can mimic the form of a human being in order to capture other humans and eat their flesh. But if this alien is not careful it’s mimicry can glitch, including if it has to do extraneous things like ‘walking up stairs’.
This book uses the alien’s oscillating back and forth between being inside of male-presenting bodies and female-presenting bodies to make points about how those bodily presentations are encountered in the world and the expectations that are immediately thrust upon those bodies. Kind of a fun idea, kind of cheeky… kind of obvious. The book makes it’s point, and then makes it’s point again, and again. And again. Despite being less than 150 pages long, this book felt never-ending.
There you have it! The official end of the 2025 Halloween season, here on Peach Parchment. Those brief books recaps have helped alleviate this Halloween hangover and has got me ready to jump into the final weeks of the year.
See you next week for something new &
as always,
Thanks for reading!
November 2025.