Wrath James White is a horror author I recently discovered, and I figured this month was the best time to pick up and read one of his books. I admit I gravitated towards this collection because of the title.
I'll let you determine what that says about me.
Like Porno for Psychos is a collection of ten stories book ended by two poems. I'll start off with what I enjoyed the most. I'll be avoiding spoilers for the most part.
The book opens with a poem titled "Sex and Slaughter". In this poem, a sadistic psychopath insists that his desire to inflict pain is the purest expression of love. It's a pretty good piece that sets the tone of the rest of the book perfectly.
"Feeding Time" is a gloriously over the top story about a woman with a fetish for lions. There are a lot of porn story tropes on display here, and every single one is turned up to 11. And it is fucking awesome. I had a lot of fun reading this one.
"Rottweiler" is a very short one. It's about a boy and the lengths that his dog will go to protect him from his perverted babysitter. A very satisfying revenge story.
"House Cleaning" is another very short one. This one is more of a vignette than a story. Here, we meet a woman who takes cleaning seriously. Very seriously. I love the build up Wrath creates in such a small space and ends it with a great pay off.
"Fatter" is another one that's more of a vignette. This is a very tragic one about a woman desperate to lose her excess weight. I couldn't help but feel for this poor woman.
"After the Cure" is probably the one that reads the most like a porno. Up until the ending that is. In this story, a cure for not only AIDS but for every single STD has been discovered. After it's administered to several people, an unexpected side effect begins to manifest. This story was actually very erotic and that made the ending even more of a punch in the balls.
Now for the ones I didn't like.
"Like Peyote for Pimps" is a story about a pimp who sets out to deal with the serial killer who's been murdering his girls. This story had some interesting ideas, but just didn't work as a whole for me.
"Make Love to Me" is the poem that ends this collection. A role reversal from the first poem, this is about a masochistic expression of desire. While not terrible, it wasn't as good as the first poem and felt like a weak way to end the book.
I should note that I enjoyed the rest of the stories, so this book comes out with ten hits and only two misses.
On another note, this book has several copy editing errors. Not enough to ruin the book, but enough to be pretty noticeable. I hope these get fixed if it has another printing.
This is a very short book at 87 pages, so the weak stuff works against it harder than usual. That said, I think the strong points were strong enough that this book is worth the $8 price tag if you're looking for horror that goes all out. I know I'll be checking out more of Wrath's work. The extreme violence and explicit, perverted sex will be off-putting for many, but what the hell do you expect with a book called Like Porno for Psychos?
Buy Like Porno for Psychos by Wrath James White here.
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