This review first appeared in Booklist on February 1, 2025.
Welcome to Slasherville, Ohio. The small town of Satterville earned its sinister nickname by being the site of gruesome murders committed by two individuals wearing cheap plastic wolf masks—events that became infamous after a series of sensational novels about the killings gained immense popularity. The bloody legacy of the Wolf Man attacks weighs heavily on CJ, who witnessed their father’s murder during the last spree and who, years later, mysteriously receives the manuscript for a new Slasherville novel. When someone starts killing again, seemingly using the unpublished book as a guide, CJ knows they must unmask this new Wolf Man and confront their trauma once and for all. Aspiring to give a generation their own Scream, Winans (Bianca Torre Is Afraid of Everything, 2023) delivers a thoroughly modern thriller that’s both a sharp slasher and a clever commentary on the genre. This contributes to the growing trend of horror stories, like Kalynn Bayron’s You’re Not Supposed to Die Tonight (2023), told from the perspective of queer protagonists, offering new, refreshing takes on an otherwise widely explored genre.
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