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Nenia ✨ I yeet my books back and forth ✨ Campbell's Reviews > The Safety of Unknown Cities
The Safety of Unknown Cities
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THE SAFETY OF UNKNOWN CITIES was recommended in this erotic horror thread I sometimes hang out in. The comparisons to Clive Barker both intrigued and terrified me because Barker is a fantastic author, but his stuff definitely pushes the limits of what I can handle. This book is a lot like the Hellraiser series, especially with the hedonistic sex addict heroine, Val, who fucks the way other people do hits of morphine; she needs greater and greater extremes to get the same highs, but it's never enough.
That's why she's searching for this place called The City. It's a place so terrifying that some people would rather blind themselves than see it-- unless you're a pervy weirdo, and then it's heaven on earth, where no sex act, no matter how depraved, is disallowed. Val goes all the way to the middle east with an intersex man who is also her lover, who holds the secret to The City over her head to toy with her.
But Val isn't the only one looking for The City. Breen, Val's ex lover and a serial killer-slash-sadist, is now looking for it, too.
I knew this book was going to be hardcore because it literally opens up with a graphic eye-gouging scene. It only goes downhill from there. I felt really uncomfortable reading this book and as with other readers, it made me feel a little physically ill. I found myself comparing it to THE HELLBOUND HEART, which was also about pleasure taken to wildly horrific extremes, but in that book, Barker left a lot of the horror to the reader's imagination. Here, Taylor feels the need to lay it all out, and the end result of that is that all of the body horror just gets stacked up on top of each other, until by the end of the book, you're asking yourself both what the point of it all was, and when it would end.
I skimmed to the end because I wanted to see if the characters made it out okay. None of them were particularly likable but with a book like this, it's kind of nice to know who-- if anyone-- makes it out alive. One of my favorite characters in the book got a pretty raw deal, so that was a bit of a bummer. Not sure I'd recommend this to anyone but readers of the extreme horror genre.
2 to 2.5 stars
by
Nenia ✨ I yeet my books back and forth ✨ Campbell's review
bookshelves: horror, dark-and-twisted, magic-and-sparkles-and-shit
May 08, 2024
bookshelves: horror, dark-and-twisted, magic-and-sparkles-and-shit
Instagram || Threads || Facebook || Amazon || TikTok
THE SAFETY OF UNKNOWN CITIES was recommended in this erotic horror thread I sometimes hang out in. The comparisons to Clive Barker both intrigued and terrified me because Barker is a fantastic author, but his stuff definitely pushes the limits of what I can handle. This book is a lot like the Hellraiser series, especially with the hedonistic sex addict heroine, Val, who fucks the way other people do hits of morphine; she needs greater and greater extremes to get the same highs, but it's never enough.
That's why she's searching for this place called The City. It's a place so terrifying that some people would rather blind themselves than see it-- unless you're a pervy weirdo, and then it's heaven on earth, where no sex act, no matter how depraved, is disallowed. Val goes all the way to the middle east with an intersex man who is also her lover, who holds the secret to The City over her head to toy with her.
But Val isn't the only one looking for The City. Breen, Val's ex lover and a serial killer-slash-sadist, is now looking for it, too.
I knew this book was going to be hardcore because it literally opens up with a graphic eye-gouging scene. It only goes downhill from there. I felt really uncomfortable reading this book and as with other readers, it made me feel a little physically ill. I found myself comparing it to THE HELLBOUND HEART, which was also about pleasure taken to wildly horrific extremes, but in that book, Barker left a lot of the horror to the reader's imagination. Here, Taylor feels the need to lay it all out, and the end result of that is that all of the body horror just gets stacked up on top of each other, until by the end of the book, you're asking yourself both what the point of it all was, and when it would end.
I skimmed to the end because I wanted to see if the characters made it out okay. None of them were particularly likable but with a book like this, it's kind of nice to know who-- if anyone-- makes it out alive. One of my favorite characters in the book got a pretty raw deal, so that was a bit of a bummer. Not sure I'd recommend this to anyone but readers of the extreme horror genre.
2 to 2.5 stars
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Reading Progress
March 31, 2024
– Shelved as:
fantasy-wishlist
March 31, 2024
– Shelved
April 4, 2024
–
Started Reading
April 4, 2024
– Shelved as:
horror
April 4, 2024
–
4.0%
"One of the reviews for this on Amazon said something like how this was "the most Clive Barkiest book that Clive Barker never wrote" and I thought that was hilarious"
May 7, 2024
–
22.0%
"This book is fucking disgusting and everyone in it is a bad person but the writing is also really good and I need to see what's going to happen even though I know I'm going to regret it lololol HELP ME"
May 7, 2024
–
30.0%
"This book is so violent that it is actually stressing me out a little BUT I WANNA KNOW WHAT THE CITY IS
God, I'm getting Clive Barker flashbacks lol"
God, I'm getting Clive Barker flashbacks lol"
May 7, 2024
–
49.0%
"I actually started playing Pokemon Violet while I read this on my Kindle app because it's so effing scary. I'm going to need a reward for getting through this because I hate body horror and there's soooo much of it.
BUT. Writing is really evocative and good. It takes talent to make stuff so messed up sound poetic. If you like Clive Parker, you will enjoy this lady."
BUT. Writing is really evocative and good. It takes talent to make stuff so messed up sound poetic. If you like Clive Parker, you will enjoy this lady."
May 8, 2024
– Shelved as:
dark-and-twisted
May 8, 2024
– Shelved as:
magic-and-sparkles-and-shit
May 8, 2024
–
Finished Reading
Comments Showing 1-4 of 4 (4 new)
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Sarah Beth
(new)
May 08, 2024 03:54AM
Just the description from your review stresses me out! That was kind of why I had to give up the Anita Blake series--there was too much gratuitous and disturbing violence. When one of my fave characters seemed like they were going to have to suffer purely for shock value I was out.
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Sarah Beth wrote: "Just the description from your review stresses me out! That was kind of why I had to give up the Anita Blake series--there was too much gratuitous and disturbing violence. When one of my fave chara..."The only way to read this book is while playing Pokemon with a cat on your lap, no joke. But I'm the same way. I have had to drop series and quit reading books when the character torture got to be too much. Especially in erotica or romance! There has to be some tenderness to get me through the rough bits.
Great, honest, review here, Nenia! Definitely seems like one to give a miss:)
Sarah wrote: "Great, honest, review here, Nenia! Definitely seems like one to give a miss:)"It's good if you're into extreme horror! Not so good if you're not. :)
