Here are 72 books that Slowly We Rot fans have personally recommended if you like
Slowly We Rot.
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Growing up in theatre, I was completely immersed in plays, which tend to be deep dives of the human psyche, and I latched on to those examinations like a dog with a bone. I’ve always loved the complexities of the human mind, specifically how we so desperately want to believe that anything beautiful, expensive, or exclusive must mean that the person, place, or thing is of more value. But if we pull back the curtain, and really take a raw look, we see that nothing is exempt from smudges of ugliness. It’s the ugliness, especially in regard to human character, that I find most fascinating.
For me, insight into the extravagant celebrity status-like lives of the characters in this movie is akin to the guilty pleasure of watching reality TV. This book brings out the voyeur in me, giving me permission to explore a perfect example of rich kids gone wild and the horrific consequences of unchecked actions.
I grew up in a lower economic class family surrounded by very wealthy, undisciplined friends, and so many of the characters and decisions hit close to home. I won’t lie; I felt a little better about myself and my own life after I finished reading. Yet, I’ll also admit that I didn’t want the train wreck to end.
NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • The timeless classic from the acclaimed author of American Psycho about the lost generation of 1980s Los Angeles who experienced sex, drugs, and disaffection at too early an age. • The basis for the cult-classic film "Possesses an unnerving air of documentary reality." —The New York Times They live in a world shaped by casual nihilism, passivity, and too much money in a place devoid of feeling or hope. When Clay comes home for Christmas vacation from his Eastern college, he re-enters a landscape of limitless privilege and absolute moral entropy, where everyone drives Porsches,…
It is April 1st, 2038. Day 60 of China's blockade of the rebel island of Taiwan.
The US government has agreed to provide Taiwan with a weapons system so advanced that it can disrupt the balance of power in the region. But what pilot would be crazy enough to run…
Ever since reading Jonathan Swift’s A Modest Proposal in high school, I’ve always appreciated books and stories that can tackle dark subject matter in a completely deadpan way. The creator knows what they’re doing is kind of a joke and they’re inviting you along for the ride. I enjoy reading books where I think the writer had a really good time writing it, even if that means occasionally torturing the reader.
High Life is pitch black Hollywood noir. It’s one of those rare books that starts out dark and just keeps getting darker and more disturbing. Stokoe outdoes himself on nearly every page. This book was shocking and eye-opening, even for me. I’ve read a lot of extreme horror and I think this might outdo nearly all of them. Stokoe manages to fully flesh out the characters, rendering them terrifying, absurd, and profoundly sad, and does so with a style that is compulsively readable.
Hollywood. The City of Dreams at the end of the nineties. Jack has one ambition – to get famous. He doesn’t care how. He just wants to be like the people he sees in tabloid magazines and on TV: Brad Pitt, Johnny Depp, Tom and Nicole, Arnie, Bruce, Sly.... But the desire for fame has a dark side and he finds himself in a world of drugs and crime, whores, snuff shows, incest, deceit and despair. When his wife is found dead – murdered and disemboweled – and the search for her killer leads him to the femme fatale of…
Books that make me feel uncomfortable are usually the ones that have stuck with me most over the years. There’s just something so alluring to me about an author who can effectively bring out that feeling in readers. When I started writing stories, I wanted to make my readers squirm – I wanted to layer the guts and gore with underlying psychological themes that made the violence and trauma that much more impactful. These books that I mentioned acted almost as study guides on how to blend shocking violence with themes of loneliness, depression, and rage. If you layer these correctly, you’re going to effectively be able to make your reader uncomfortable and your stories memorable.
This is a truly bizarre novel that can be read in one sitting, but it’s worth every page. Dripping with creativity, this book is a tour of a truly imaginative world unlike anything else I’ve read. The characters and locations will stick with you long after you finish it and the loss the main character feels resonates in a way you’ll never expect.
In a world made out of meat, a socially-obsessive monophobic man finds himself to be the last human being on the face of the planet. Desperate for social interaction, he explores the landscape of flesh and blood, teeth and tongue, trying to befriend any strange creature or community that he comes across.
The Year Mrs. Cooper Got Out More
by
Meredith Marple,
The coastal tourist town of Great Wharf, Maine, boasts a crime rate so low you might suspect someone’s lying.
Nevertheless, jobless empty nester Mallory Cooper has become increasingly reclusive and fearful. Careful to keep the red wine handy and loath to leave the house, Mallory misses her happier self—and so…
Books that make me feel uncomfortable are usually the ones that have stuck with me most over the years. There’s just something so alluring to me about an author who can effectively bring out that feeling in readers. When I started writing stories, I wanted to make my readers squirm – I wanted to layer the guts and gore with underlying psychological themes that made the violence and trauma that much more impactful. These books that I mentioned acted almost as study guides on how to blend shocking violence with themes of loneliness, depression, and rage. If you layer these correctly, you’re going to effectively be able to make your reader uncomfortable and your stories memorable.
Forget everything you know about the horror genre. This book is one of the most overwhelming, disgusting things I’ve ever read, and physically gagged multiple times while reading it. If you’re not familiar with extreme splatterpunk, brace yourself. Nothing can prepare you for the all-out gore, guts, and absolutely insane depravity found in this book. There’s one scene in here that will never leave me. You’ll know it when you get to it. Oh, and it’s kind of about a pig.
Like many of my generation, my formal introduction to the zombie genre started with George A. Romero's Night of the Living Dead. Stories of the zombie apocalypse, and the arterial sprays, dismemberments, and eviscerations that accompanied it, have fascinated me ever since. But, I'm also a psychology professor. Although I was initially captivated by the carnage of the undead, I quickly found that the mindsets of the survivors were equally fascinating. More than anything, I love seeing how fictional worlds represent real-world psychological concepts.
When the dead roam, this book will function as a med-school, first responder, and training physician all rolled into one. That's a good thing, for medical professionals will be at ground zero for the zombie apocalypse. And most won't survive the first few days of the dead, as preserving life will seem more paramount than preserving death. And by the time staff figure out that both are equally important, it will be too late. Nevertheless, those who survive the apocalypse's initial stages will eventually need medical care. Even a minor wound could prove deadly if poorly cleaned. I found the information and practical advice in the book fascinating and potentially helpful under dire circumstances.
THIS IS YOUR BOOK OF SECRETS The one ensuring your survival! If you've been afraid of what's coming, rest easy, those days are over! By cutting the extra and expanding the essential, we've combined the most important sections from our Survival Medicine series, The Prepper Pages, & created this Mini Med School - just for preppers. An apocalypse is inevitable, because the term "Zombie Apocalypse" is a metaphor for expecting the unexpected. By covering hundreds of conditions known to occur frequently in disasters, this book is going to leave you confident with the way you'll react in medical emergencies. It's…
I have long been a fan of zombie apocalypse scenarios. The first movie I watched was the classic Dawn of the Dead remake. Shocked and fascinated, I wanted more, devouring anything I could find on the topic. It wasn’t long before I stumbled across my first zombie apocalypse book, and I was hooked. It became an obsession for a while, and I spent my free time reading one zombie book after another. Finally, I reached a point where I wanted to write my own story and version of the apocalypse, and I did. Fast-forward several years, and I’m now a full-time author with numerous completed series, most of them zombie.
This book was a surprise to me in many ways. While I love Zombie Apocalypse books, they can become a bit samey after a while, and that’s why I’m always on the lookout for something fresh and unique. Boy, did I get that in spades with this book!
Not only was I introduced to the fascinating world of long-distance running, but I also loved the characters, especially the main character, Kate. She’s both strong and vulnerable. A woman who would fight to the death for her loved ones but cry in secret for her lost husband.
I became so engrossed in this story that I even contemplated taking up long-distance running, a feat of epic proportions, considering I’ve never run anywhere in my life.
Kate’s love for running turned into a coping mechanism after her husband died. But when a lethal zombie virus breaks out, it becomes her only means of survival.
As the infection spreads like wildfire, Kate receives a desperate call from her son, Carter. Trapped in a dorm room with no way out, it falls on Kate to rescue him.
But cars have become a liability in the apocalypse—and standing between Kate and Carter are 200 miles of impassable, zombie-infested roadways.
Don’t mess with the hothead—or he might just mess with you. Slater Ibáñez is only interested in two kinds of guys: the ones he wants to punch, and the ones he sleeps with. Things get interesting when they start to overlap. A freelance investigator, Slater trolls the dark side of…
I love zombie apocalypse fiction and movies and games. There’s something fascinating about survival and post-apocalyptic fiction, where you see the real character and desire of humanity to survive no matter what. I also like the morbid humor that shows up. I started writing the zombie apocalypse call center series as a way to poke fun at my customer support center experiences and mix it in with my own fascination with zombie apocalypses.
An interesting and funny take on the zombie apocalypse.
The main character has a morbid sense of humor and a loyal dog and is trying to find his daughter no matter what it takes.
The story is fast-paced and will keep you wondering what will happen next, as well as discovering what the main character will do to survive the zombies and also get some food.
I enjoyed the balance of humor and action, which kept me reading until the last page.
It's been three long years since Deadbreak. That's what everyone's calling it – the day the dead rose. Every day since then Jeremiah Reid has had one goal: to make his way back to his daughter. With his four-legged companion, Joe, Jeremiah has to travel a lawless wasteland teeming with zombies, bandits, and worse, like people who put anchovies on pizza (you know who you are). It's a new world out there and no one is safe. People are weary, cities are in ruin, supplies are scarce, and brains are on the menu. If he’s going to have a chance,…
I love zombie apocalypse fiction and movies and games. There’s something fascinating about survival and post-apocalyptic fiction, where you see the real character and desire of humanity to survive no matter what. I also like the morbid humor that shows up. I started writing the zombie apocalypse call center series as a way to poke fun at my customer support center experiences and mix it in with my own fascination with zombie apocalypses.
In Dead City, Ian Keys created a drug that stopped the ravages of the zombie infection and allowed infected to live alongside humans again…or did he?
The cure he’s developed may not be a cure afterall and the company that hired him is keeping dangerous secrets from the world, with a secret agenda that threatens all of humanity.
If Ian can’t find out the truth in time, the world as he knows it may be destroyed.
I got caught up in the suspense, wondering what would happen next and if Ian would survive or get caught by the company or the zombies.
As a writer and independent game developer, I’ve always adored “families of choice:” motley crews of strangers drawn together by circumstance and whose bonds are strengthened to an indestructible degree by the trials they face together. This passion has manifested both in my favorite stories (The Lord of the Rings, The Walking Dead, Mass Effect) as well as the ones I write myself! After teaching writing at Cornell University, where I also earned my MFA in Fiction, I turned my sights on my own creative projects, all of which invariably feature weird found families (a robot crew and the human misfits accompanying them; two assassins and an escaped mind-reading slave; et cetera).
I love zombie apocalypse stories, and I especially love zombie apocalypse stories that feature unlikely groups of survivors being forced to learn to work together to ensure their new family’s survival.
No one does this better than Lilith Saintcrow in her book, which follows Ginny, a failed medical student turned small-town librarian, and Lee, a close-mouthed, socially awkward, but scarily competent ex-soldier, as they learn to trust one another and lead a group of strangers out of their backwoods town during the onset of an undead pandemic.
Not only are the road-tripping found family dynamics here sublime, but Saintcrow has a special talent for describing each character’s viewpoint and unique voice in ways that elevate the chest-aching romantic tension and human psychology at play.
Cotton Crossing was a dead end, but not for Ginny Mills. She's just marking time, getting experience in the county library system, before moving back to a decent urban environment. Then the phones stop working.
Lee Quartine knows there's no way the pretty girl at the library will even look at him. Especially since he can't open his mouth. He knows he's a hick, but when the power starts going out and the woods are full of strange creatures, it's good to have someone around who can build a fire. And kill.
I’ve loved zombie movies since I was a kid and first saw Return of the Living Dead during a slumber party. Since then I’ve watched as many as I could, along with shows like The Walking Dead and Z Nation. The changes in the publishing industry over the past few years have given me something even better – hundreds of amazing books about romance and survival in the zombie apocalypse to read. The five books on my list are the very best of those that eventually inspired me to write my own books. I hope you like them!
This is a slow-burn romance in the zombie apocalypse. It’s a story that’s really about learning to forgive the people you love when they hurt you, and forgiving yourself for your mistakes. There’s sizzling chemistry between Lola and Cole, a plot that blends romance with action to keep you turning the next page, and characters that you want to hug and strangle at the same time.
She’s rebuilding her life. Duty flows through his veins. When the undead rise, can they survive long enough to take a risk on each other?
Phoenix, Arizona. Lola Jenkins chooses loneliness over being burned again. And after she alienated her secret crush years ago by betraying his sister, her self-loathing follows her everywhere… even into a chance encounter with the handsome man. But as his bitter words chase her out of a sandwich shop, her day gets a whole lot worse when she runs straight into a world gone mad.
Cole Beckett values courage and honor. So, although he’s still…
