Welcome to Litsy!

The original member of our horror book club had a baby, so in her honor we are dedicating a year to #childhorror. We officially started in Dec. with Sealed, which, as @Reggie said, is a book that could convince you not to get pregnant.

The everyday anxiety when early pregnant is exacerbated by isolation, loneliness, oh, and the looming threat of a skin sealing epidemic.

How do you have enough hope to reproduce on a polluted, dying planet?

If there was ever a book to convince you not to become pregnant this would be it. We follow Alice, who is pregnant and it is anything but comfortable. She‘s also a hypochondriac. She has moved out to the Australian countryside with her baby‘s father Pete to make a go of it. And everything feels wrong. Including the looming threat of a skin sealing epidemic on the rise. I loved this book. It started out as one thing and like a snake that keeps👇🏼

Horrifying and riveting. In this pre-apocalyptic story heavily-pregnant Alice is struggling in a new remote home. Her discomfort, mental and physical, is palpable. Her body feels alien, invaded by the new life, and she is panicked by stories of an unknown disease. Almost unbearably tense, this is an evocative horror story on many levels. I could not look away. (There is a traumatic birth scene, proceed with caution.)

The best part of this week is hiding in my office with good chocolate and a new book!

This is a good one. Set in Australia during the rise of a new autoimmune disease in which a victim's skin grows over eyes or orifices. A heavily pregnant woman and her boyfriend escape from the city in hopes of avoiding infection ... but it's a horror story and you know how well escaping to the sticks works in those ... Besides the horror, it offers terrific writing and clever perspective on environmental and social crises. I'll read more Booth.