Books like Unwieldy Creatures

Gabino Iglesias has become a phenomenon in horror through a lot of hustle and plain hard work. His 2022 novel cemented his reputation as the king of border horror.

This novel follows the fate of Mario, a man broken by debt due to his family’s crushing medical bills. With a failing marriage, he reluctantly takes a job as a hitman, agreeing to do one last job hijacking a cartel’s cash shipment before it can reach Mexico.

Mario reluctantly works with his meth-addicted friend and a cartel insider. To make this dangerous endeavor worse, enter supernatural horrors that shocked me—and I am not easily shocked.

Is there blood? Of course! Gore? Plenty! Monsters and demons? Yes! You are guaranteed to lose sleep after reading this novel.

V. (Violet) Castro’s debut novel, released in 2021, put her on the horror map, and for good reason.

I loved how she blended Mexican legend and culture to tell a supernatural horror story that is rich in detail, dialogue, and dark humor. The setting is a Texas wedding held on a renovated farm.

But very bad things start to happen, all seemingly tied to a legend of a 1950s murder of a Mexican farmworker. But—so people say—the woman’s death piqued the interest of the Aztec Goddess of Death, who pledges herself to the murdered woman.

Castro’s expert storytelling upends classic tropes to make this book an exhilarating and frightening literary ride that is smart and timely.

H.G. Wells’s The Island of Doctor Moreau, published in 1896, is one of his most intriguing—and frightening. Moreau has created human hybrid beings via surgical experimentation on live animals.

In Silvia Moreno-Garcia’s retelling of the Wells classic, she goes further than the original’s philosophical themes by exploring the political, sociological, and cultural conflicts that arise from colorism, colonialism, and sexism.

In a fascinating twist on Wells’s narrative, she sets her novel in 19th-century Mexico during the Caste War of Yucatán, when the indigenous Maya people rebelled against the Mexicans and Europeans who subjugated them to work their ranches and farms. 

She also centers much of her tale on Moreau’s hybrid beings. It is, quite simply, a thrilling novel that is as horrifying as it is thought-provoking.

Sometimes I want to sink into the Sunken Place, and this collection of scary stories by authors ranging from sci-fi icon NK Jemisin to writer-illustrator Ezra Clayton Daniels does the trick.

Here’s the thing about short story collections: you’ll love at least one, right? Especially when the book’s edited by someone like quirky genius Jordan Peele, of Get Out, Us, Nope, and Key & Peele fame.

Without giving any spoilers, I’ll say this book’s got cops, creeps, and cousins, human and (utterly) inhuman monsters.

Kim Van Alkemade wrote this New York Times bestselling novel based upon a series of real-life experiences, including those of her great-grandmother who worked as a counselor in New York’s Hebrew Orphan Asylum.

Orphan #8 is a powerful and unforgettable book about Rachel, who after being placed in New York’s Hebrew Infant Home, is subjected to experimental radiation treatments as Dr. Mildred Solomon bolsters her medical reputation at the expense of the little girl’s health.

The story focuses on Rachel, now an adult nurse, when Dr. Solomon becomes her patient. Given the widespread popularity of this book, I know I was not the only reader riveted by Rachel’s choice between compassion and retribution, and the extraordinary human capacity to cause harm and to love. 

Welsome investigates a particularly repugnant episode in medical history; doctors secretly injecting hospital patients with plutonium as part of the Manhattan Project. Designed to weigh the increased threat of cancer during the outset of the atomic era, the book navigates the governmental and scientific concerns of a new nuclear world, the prestigious players who argued for human experimentation, and the unwitting victims - all hospital patients - who’d be used as test material. In addition, Welsome also explores other Cold War examples of atomic abuse such as “radioactive cocktails” given to pregnant women and radioactive breakfast cereal given to five and six-year-old “morons” at state institutions. 

Healthcare is delivered by people who are sometimes subject to biases or prejudices, and this book is a vivid and extraordinarily researched account of how horrible it is when these biases and prejudices go unchecked.

However, what really hit hard for me was that this book is only half about medical history. The last part of this book discusses research practices and biases that are in effect today.

As a physician, this book was imperative to better understand the historical and contemporary issues involving race and medicine. 

This book was my introduction to this famous horror author, and though occasionally Koontz gets repetitive with his characters and storylines, this was something out of the ordinary.

We have a character that can only go out at night, and we have non-human escapees from a military research institute. A perfect mix for a gripping read, although for me, I was sold on the friendships and relationships in this book.

The lead character’s pet dog and his rich surfer dude friend and how they all interact with each other adds humour and lightness to a truly scary story that involves genetically modified animals who can understand humans. Again a supernatural and out-of-the-box story idea that kept me enthralled and made it stand out.

Bluebird by Sharon Cameron took my breath away. It’s a thriller, a mystery, a romance, and the best type of historical fiction all rolled up together, and though it’s officially young adult, it’s too good for adults to pass up. The novel follows a German girl named Eva who flees Germany for New York City in 1946 seeking justice as much as safety. The daughter of a Nazi mastermind, Eva is hunting down her father for reasons both personal and political, and her journey is filled with both physical and psychological danger. Bluebird is fast-paced and fascinating, as well as thought-provoking and full of well-researched history on everything from Nazi propaganda to Quaker humanitarian relief in New York City. 

Known only to true devotees of medical ethics and the history of human research, Jay Katz’s hefty volume (1,150 pages) is a comprehensive encyclopedia of humans used as research material. Information-packed chapters cover everything from Chester Southam’s use of senile hospital patients in cancer cell injection studies during the 1960s, and the legal fallout from such indiscretions, to the ethical obligations of researchers, and the evolution of informed consent as a pillar of ethical human research. Impressive in both detail and scope, this imposing piece of scholarship is a valuable resource for anyone looking to learn the many moral and legal issues inherent in experimenting on humans.