The Beauty
Nominated for the Shirley Jackson and Saboteur awards, this game-changing story was chosen by Adam Nevill as one of his favourite horror short stories: “What a refreshing gust of tiny spores this novella explodes into, and I inhaled them all with glee”.
Somewhere away from the cities and towns, in the Valley of the Rocks, a society of men and boys gather around the fire each night to listen to their history recounted by Nate, the storyteller. Requested most often by the group is the tale of the death of all women.
They are the last generation.
One evening, Nate brings back new secrets from the woods; peculiar mushrooms are growing from the ground where the women’s bodies lie buried. These are the first signs of a strange and insidious presence unlike anything ever known before…
Discover the Beauty.
Somewhere away from the cities and towns, in the Valley of the Rocks, a society of men and boys gather around the fire each night to listen to their history recounted by Nate, the storyteller. Requested most often by the group is the tale of the death of all women.
They are the last generation.
One evening, Nate brings back new secrets from the woods; peculiar mushrooms are growing from the ground where the women’s bodies lie buried. These are the first signs of a strange and insidious presence unlike anything ever known before…
Discover the Beauty.
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Community Reviews
2.75/5
Women have long been gone, a mysterious disease being the cause of death for all of them. Now, the men that remain continue with their lives knowing that they're the last ones left. In a remote valley there is a community of boys and men, and our narrator Nate is the storyteller of the group, in charge of weaving tales to entertain. One day mushrooms start growing above the graves of women, bringing turmoil to the collective and altering their future.
If I had a nickel for every book I read where an isolated group, in which everyone is of the same gender, roamed a world where the opposite gender had disappeared for some reason or another I'd have two nickels. Which isn't a lot but it's weird that it happened twice! I bring this up because I felt the same way after reading this than I did after reading [b:I Who Have Never Known Men|11996|I Who Have Never Known Men|Jacqueline Harpman|https:i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1636235968l/11996._SY75_.jpg|14356] by [a:Jacqueline Harpman|7620|Jacqueline Harpman|https:images.gr-assets.com/authors/1341768880p2/7620.jpg], just kind of ok? In the sense that it had no real impact on me. I didn't hate this but I also didn't enjoy it. At the same time it certainly was memorable. The problem I had with both books is that I got the sense that the authors were trying to say something but I never managed to divine what.
In The Beauty I felt the author attempting to make a point about gender, sexuality, perhaps even the binary?, but it was never a cohesive strong idea. I'm not sure what I'm supposed to gather from all that. Is it a reverse of gender roles and a way to show the ridiculousness of such system? Maybe something about rape culture? Gender essentialism and its pitfalls? Trans rights? The canvas was too crowded for me to get the full picture. Something was missing, maybe a couple more pages to this book.
When it comes to the horror of it all I wasn't too shocked or squicked, probably because the body horror was so pregnancy related that I managed to shrugh it off, that's just something bodies do. One thing that did save this book and raised it to 3 stars was the writing. The strongest element in this project, the way it's told was engaging and helped me connect with the main character. And while I felt the ideas behind didn't come across I was glued to the pages due to the increasing tension.
Some TWs: weird dubious consent, sex with mushrooms, murder, uhhh loss of male sexual organs that get replaced with female ones?? it's not consensual or at least not informed??, MPREG, basically the omegaverse but with fungus and make it horror.
I was sixteen when they all died and I thought I understood this loss, but it comes to me that I didnât know what women gave to the world. It wasnât about their lips, their eyes or the gentle quality of their voices. It was about the way that all men are a part of them. And now we are part of nothing.
Women have long been gone, a mysterious disease being the cause of death for all of them. Now, the men that remain continue with their lives knowing that they're the last ones left. In a remote valley there is a community of boys and men, and our narrator Nate is the storyteller of the group, in charge of weaving tales to entertain. One day mushrooms start growing above the graves of women, bringing turmoil to the collective and altering their future.
If I had a nickel for every book I read where an isolated group, in which everyone is of the same gender, roamed a world where the opposite gender had disappeared for some reason or another I'd have two nickels. Which isn't a lot but it's weird that it happened twice! I bring this up because I felt the same way after reading this than I did after reading [b:I Who Have Never Known Men|11996|I Who Have Never Known Men|Jacqueline Harpman|https:i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1636235968l/11996._SY75_.jpg|14356] by [a:Jacqueline Harpman|7620|Jacqueline Harpman|https:images.gr-assets.com/authors/1341768880p2/7620.jpg], just kind of ok? In the sense that it had no real impact on me. I didn't hate this but I also didn't enjoy it. At the same time it certainly was memorable. The problem I had with both books is that I got the sense that the authors were trying to say something but I never managed to divine what.
In The Beauty I felt the author attempting to make a point about gender, sexuality, perhaps even the binary?, but it was never a cohesive strong idea. I'm not sure what I'm supposed to gather from all that. Is it a reverse of gender roles and a way to show the ridiculousness of such system? Maybe something about rape culture? Gender essentialism and its pitfalls? Trans rights? The canvas was too crowded for me to get the full picture. Something was missing, maybe a couple more pages to this book.
When it comes to the horror of it all I wasn't too shocked or squicked, probably because the body horror was so pregnancy related that I managed to shrugh it off, that's just something bodies do. One thing that did save this book and raised it to 3 stars was the writing. The strongest element in this project, the way it's told was engaging and helped me connect with the main character. And while I felt the ideas behind didn't come across I was glued to the pages due to the increasing tension.
Some TWs: weird dubious consent, sex with mushrooms, murder, uhhh loss of male sexual organs that get replaced with female ones?? it's not consensual or at least not informed??, MPREG, basically the omegaverse but with fungus and make it horror.
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