The Update Finally Arrives

    Hello all, this is Gnarly Book Reviews creator and sole writer Jonathan Golden. After a nine-year hiatus, I'm returning to the horror review scene with a vengeance. But we'll get to that later; first, some context.

    I want to start with a tremendous and heartfelt thanks to everyone who visited my blog since its inception in 2013. It's trite, I know, but I fully expected this labor of love to forever linger in obscurity. When I was regularly updating GBR, I got the occasional appreciative comment, and each one left me shocked and overjoyed. Actual human beings were reading my reviews! In fact, a few humans enjoyed them! My greatest aspiration for this blog was for it to resonate with a few like-minded people, and I'm incredibly fortunate that it did. To all those who visited this site and left a kind comment, you're a bunch of saints and heroes, and you have all deeply impacted me to this day. To those who visited this site at all, you're also heroes, and well on your way to saint status. To those who are just visiting this blog for the first time, you're pretty cool too. I spent a ton of time writing these reviews -- far more time than the writing quality would suggest -- and I couldn't be happier with the results.

    If the story ended there, it would have been more than enough. Dayenu and all that. But a few years later, Gnarly Book Reviews had a (tiny) bit of a resurgence, with new traffic coming in from Reddit users searching for YA horror novels from their childhoods. Shout out to r/tipofmytongue for driving most of my views. Now I have, like, twenty-something positive comments, and given GBR's niche (at best) content, that's practically celebrity status. In this dark, quiet alley of the internet, fate offered me a free bump of premium, grade-A success, and baby, I snorted that fame off of fate's dirty house key and asked for seconds. Gnarly Book Reviews is back, and it's gonna be better than ever.

    But first, I'm gonna talk about the past some more. Here's the full, uncensored story of how I came to be the world's most niche written content creator (and what a high bar). I already talked in an earlier post about being inspired by Blogger Beware. After being an avid fan for years, I reached out to the creator, Troy, and asked if I could try out his craft. He kindly gave me the thumbs up, and GBR was born. The part I've kept secret until now, a fact known only by my closest friends, is that I started this blog in the Summer before high school, when I was 14, and I was only 16 when I wrote my final post. This will likely come as a surprise to very few people, maybe zero people. I was pretty damn young when I did this, and like every internet user born in the 90s, I tried desperately to hide my age. I'd like to think I was a pretty good writer for a young teen, but looking back on my old posts, my lack of experience definitely shows.

    Cultural literacy is a crucial asset for a project like this one, as is actual writing acumen, and when I started this blog, I was severely lacking in both. I had basically only seen one tv show, The Simpsons, and one movie, The Simpsons Movie. But what I lacked in applicable skills, I made up for in gumption. I found and refined my writing voice, learning to rely on my own brand of contextual humor that seemed to elicit a giggle here, a guffaw there. I may have been just a snot-nosed little twerp, but I think I made a few clever jokes during my two-and-a-half year run. I reread old posts every once in a while and still make myself laugh. The way I see it, if one of my creative projects can still entertain me years later, it was already worth doing. After all, nobody will ever find me funnier than me. But hopefully I made some of you laugh as well. 

    That's why this site is still important to me. To you, who are reading this now, and all those who visited in the past, know that you did more than indulge an amateur writer's side project. You encouraged a young me to grow creatively and (arguably) comedically. The internet is an apathetic and twisted world, often more conducive to cruelty than kindness. I grew up talking shit on internet forums as a kid, but I was always armored with anonymity. With GBR, I was putting myself out there, and though I would never have admitted it, even generic internet hate would have weighed heavily on my heart. Instead, I received nothing but support, and I have all of you to thank for that. Words can't properly express how much that means to me. 

    I'm fiercely proud of this blog, cringe and all. I worked damn hard on it, and for what it is, I think it's not half bad. When I'm dead and faded from the collective memory, future generations will read this blog and think, "Well, it's not The Wire, but I liked all the Irish jokes he made in The Beast Beneath the Boardwalk review." There's just a couple things I wish I had done differently...

1. I wish I had been a little easier on Shivers and Scary Stories for Sleep-Overs. Most of my criticism was for comedic effect, but I wasn't exactly punching up (even though I was technically part of the target demographic). M.D. Spenser was a relatively niche YA author trying his best, and I lampooned the average Shivers book a little too hard. At least I gave him credit for the standout titles, though. On the other hand, Scary Stories for Sleep-Overs was genuinely good for the genre, and looking back, I feel that a lot of my conclusory reviews for its books were too hard on them. Q.L. Pearce and friends did a great job making one of the best YA horror anthologies in the business. They did have too many vampires, though, even for the 90's. The series had an average of, like, one vampire per book.
2. I wish I had been a little harder on Sucker Punch. That movie seems like it was written by a horny 13-year-old boy with no creative oversight. I'm relieved that I called out a lot of its faults, and at least I was wise enough to know it was bad. But if I had known how successful Zack Snyder was and would become, I might have let myself do a hyper-critical deep dive, because that's punching up. I wrote posts that were pages long ripping into Shivers books nobody's even heard of, and then I write a one-page "review" where I discuss Sucker Punch like it's a real movie? What was I doing? And, to top it off, I made a genuine reference to American Horror Story in the process. If anyone needs evidence that I was 15 or 16 when this blog was active, there it is.

    So that's GBR's origin story, and boy is it a page-turner. But enough about the past; I'm 26 now and ready to outshine my former self. But how? Blogs haven't been a relevant concept for over a decade and every children's horror book series has been done to death. Well, speaking of American Horror Story, Ryan Murphy content has long been a guilty pleasure of mine. You might know him from Glee, AHS, American Crime Story, The Politician, Dahmer, you get the idea. He was FX's content creation powerhouse until Disney consumed his benefactors, and now he's one of the Big Mouse's shining stars. I've been watching his shows on and off since I was active on GBR, and though they're not everyone's cup of tea, I'd argue they're entertaining and generally well-produced. At least, they were, but we'll get to that soon.

    

    After American Horror Story found massive success, Murphy was given several more anthology series under the American ____ Story umbrella. I mean, he did so well the first time, surely giving him five shows to juggle at once wouldn't compromise the quality, right? Thus, American Crime Story was born, and two more unreleased shows were greenlit: American Sports Story and American Love Story. In my humble opinion, AHS dropped off after season 2 and nosedived after season 3, but it now has twelve seasons in the bag, so what do I know? Either way, it's still fun to watch every now and then when I feel like turning my brain off. I won't get too deep into the pros and cons in this post, but I will say one thing: his shows had both pros and cons. But that all changed when he and Brad Falchuk created another anthology series, an AHS spinoff given the unfortunate name American Horror Stories. It's like the first one, but plural. And on this shoddy, shameful rock, I shall build my empire. 

    You see, American Horror Stories isn't just bad. It's bad in every conceivable way a TV show can be bad. Imagine if the 90's Goosebumps show and Riverdale had a baby, then add Ryan Murphy's cringiest qualities and subtract any oversight from the network. It's one of the worst shows I've seen and I can't get enough. So, I'm coming back to GBR to review and synopsize every single episode along with my best friend Joan Cyrus (and some more friends and special guests). But this time, the reviews will be in video format, because it's 2025 and not even old people are willing to read anymore. We'll also punch up the episodes and come up with some alternate story beats, which I'm sure the Stories writers' room will greatly appreciate. We might even write an episode ourselves. As an opinionated media consumer with no meaningful creative experience, I really think I have a lot to offer here.

    Together, we'll help this whimpering runt become the groundbreaking, Emmy-winning, episodic horror series it was always meant to be -- with a little constructive criticism. We might love this show for all the wrong reasons, but we are legitimate fans, so even when we rip certain episodes to shreds, we do it all as a labor of love. Murphy, we respect you as a creative force and watch a lot of your content even though you'll definitely never read this. Please don't sic your fans on us. Also, hire us.

    So welcome, readers old and new, to GBR's first review-and-recap series in over a decade. I'll post all my updates here (and on the GBR Insta). Also, no release window yet, but it's coming. I'm gleefully (wink wink) riding the coattails of yet another semi-successful horror project, which in turn is riding the coattails of its franchise predecessors. Together, we make one big Ryan Murphy fame train. I choo-choo-choose you to hop aboard and watch me burn my career in entertainment to the ground before it even starts.