Crushing Snails: Novel Review
I can’t promise anything, dear reader, but here’s a review and there may be some in the future! My life has been in some big fluctuations but hopefully I’ve gotten it to settle!
Keep an eye on my blog, I do intend to update more – especially about my writing and events I’ll be attending.
For now – amazing news. I’ve finished a space horror novel and am working with beta readers to polish it up. I am really excited for this one, it’s over 300 pages! I am hoping to get it ready for publication soon! I’ve also started writing my next one! How do we feel about more space horror?
Onwards to the spoiler-free review!
The Author
Creator of unsettling dark speculative fiction
As a writer of horror and dark speculative fiction, I find inspiration in the macabre and unsettling, a reflection of my fascination with the human psyche, nurtured by my background in psychology, education, and literature. What you’ll find in all my work are morally gray characters, struggles with complicated grief and mental illness, and a queer, feminine lens of horror.
While I loved my years as an elementary teacher, getting to know and teach many wonderful students, I’ve now embraced my true calling as an author.
As a southern girl who’s lived all over the U.S. (as well as overseas), I have stories set in many places, but I seem to keep coming back to the South.
Besides writing, I love playing pretend with my daughter, hiking, retro video games, and playing Dungeons and Dragons.
Also, my debut novel Crushing Snails won the 2024 Goblin’s Choice Award from The Dead Languages Podcast.
— Emma E. Murray’s About Me page on her website
You can check out more on Murray’s website, or follow her on Instagram or TikTok.
The Book
Winnie Campbell is sixteen and a burgeoning serial killer. Her father blames her for her mother’s death, dotes on her little sister, and executes increasingly cruel punishments meant to humiliate Winnie. As the punishments morph into torture, she begins fantasizing about regaining some semblance of power, eventually working through her rage by killing small animals.
When her violent games escalate and she accidentally kills an infant while babysitting, Winnie gets a taste of a power she doesn’t want to let go of. Her obsession with killing grows, and so does her fascination for Leigh, a girl that reminds her of her younger self.
Winnie wants to kill. She wants to die. She wants to be someone other than herself. And killing Leigh, a symbolic suicide, could be the key to her metamorphosis.
“A shocking and utterly harrowing examination of the creation of a murderer. Although Crushing Snails excels in many areas, this novel is perhaps most skillful at effectively illustrating the very human compulsion for violence and depravity. Murray’s excellent novel showcases the very human possibility of carnage—the horrifying prospect of brutality—when curiosity is sated and when we finally surrender to our most feral desires.”
—Eric LaRocca, author of Things Have Gotten Worse Since We Last Spoke
"Masterfully executed and chilling to the core, Crushing Snails is a terrifying look into the darkest depths of the human mind and the ways in which monsters are formed. With the intensity level set to high, Murray draws you into complicity as you witness one girl’s spiral into obsession and depravity, culminating in a horrifying conclusion you’ll never forget."
— Kelsea Yu, Shirley Jackson Award-nominated author of Bound Feet
"A nightmare of power and control, or perhaps even something more wayward. Crushing Snails is provocative and demanding, spiraling and unapologetic. Emma Murray is an exciting emerging voice in horror challenging what is normal and what is safe."
—Cynthia Pelayo, Bram Stoker Award-winning author of Crime Scene
“Sick, twisted, and compulsively readable—Emma E. Murray’s Crushing Snails is a coming-of-age story that goes to dark and darker places, leaving me constantly hanging between two modes of thought: one-more-chapter and holy-fucking-shit.”
—Carson Winter, author of The Psychographist
— Crushing Snails book description from Goodreads
First published August, 2024 through Apocalypse Party, Crushing Snails is an extreme horror novel by Emma E. Murray and deals with some pretty heavy topics of abuse and child death. It also won the 2024 DLP Goblin’s Choice Cummies Award!
The Review
Dear reader, you might be thinking – but PLM, you have always been adverse to reading extreme/splatterpunk horror! What happened?
Actually, Emma was a guest on the podcast I co-host with Carson Winter. We were discussing extreme horror and I did voice that I was hesitant to dive into the sub-genre because of the prevalence of SA and all that. Carson gushed about Crushing Snails and Emma said she still had some signed copies left. I threatened to live-tweet my reactions as I read.
And I did. Mainly in emotes to keep it spoiler-free. Feel free to check it out, haha.
I couldn’t put the book down. Yes it was brutal, yes it still haunts me. In equal turns I was enthralled and repulsed.
One talent Emma has is writing about the grotesque with a delicate touch. Her descriptions of horror and scenes that would turn my stomach was poetic. There were times when I would stop and admire the way she would frame certain scenes with such artistry.
Breaking it down: the realism. You know I love me some supernatural horror and that’s also why I tend not to read serial killer/slasher horror. I really enjoyed this portrait of a killer that Emma painted. I watched the main character, Winnie, descend into darkness – influenced by past trauma and her twisted family life. I watched her obsession spark to life. It was painful, it was horrifying, it felt so very real.
The setting, the family: they could be anywhere. They could be your neighbours, they could be family friends. I think that’s what added to the horror of the book. How real it felt.
The end was a slowly tightening noose, a part of me wished Winnie would fight against it, the majority of me accepted this slow sinking into darkness along with her.
It was horrible, it was beautiful. I could not look away.
10/10
x PLM
