Rating: 3.5 stars rounded up

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for the eARC!

If you're ready to immerse yourself in a whirlwind of unsettling beauty and existential dread, then buckle up for Nour Abi-Nakhoul's Supplication—an enigmatic voyage into the depths of horror. This is a sublime “WTF did I just read” book featuring body horror and weird insect stuff, playing out like a poorly-lit indie horror darling. Abi-Nakhoul's prose is a mesmerizing tapestry woven with threads of doom and empowerment. Each page drips with a visceral sense of foreboding, balanced delicately by the protagonist's evolving sense of agency. From the chilling opening scene of awakening in a basement to the surreal encounters with strangers and the haunting exploration of memory and identity, Supplication is a literary rollercoaster that will leave you breathless. The narrative unfurls with the protagonist awakening in a basement, tied to a chair—a metaphorical rebirth into a nightmarish reality. Death and rebirth become intertwined as the protagonist navigates a labyrinth of uncertainty, encountering surreal horrors and grappling with fragmented memories. Themes of agency, identity, and the elusive nature of humanity permeate the narrative, shrouding the reader in an aura of existential unease. While Supplication dazzles with its lyrical prose and thought-provoking themes, there are moments where the narrative falters, leaving the reader grappling with ambiguity and confusion. The last third of the novel definitely needed some tightening. Supplication will resonate with readers who appreciate atmospheric horror, experimental narratives, and introspective storytelling. Fans of authors like H.P. Lovecraft and Jeff VanderMeer will find themselves drawn into Abi-Nakhoul's dark and surreal world. In the end, Supplication is a haunting meditation on the human condition, offering glimpses into the abyss of our fears and desires. While not without its flaws, it stands as a testament to Abi-Nakhoul's skill as a writer and her willingness to push the boundaries of genre and form.

📖 Recommended For: Fans of avant-garde horror, lovers of atmospheric prose, seekers of philosophical depth, admirers of unconventional narratives, and those intrigued by explorations of existential dread and empowerment.

🔑 Key Themes: Surreal Horror and Existential Dread, Agency and Autonomy in the Face of Uncertainty, Memory and Identity, The Boundaries of Humanity and Inhumanity, The Fragility of Perception, The Complexity of Human Connection.

Content / Trigger Warnings: Drug use (moderate), gun violence (moderate), medical trauma (minor).

Rating: 2.7 leaves out of 5
-Characters: 3/5
-Cover: 4/5
-Story: 3/5
-Writing: 3.5/5
Genre: Horror
-Horror: 0/5
Type: Ebook
Worth?: Maybe

Want to thank Netgalley and publishers for giving me the chance to read this book.

I am not sure how to start this review. The writing was definitely something new to me. It was poetic writing but with that it explained things to a painful degree. I don't think the story needed all of that and I am not sure if Nour was trying to go that route or just writes like that. It took away from the story and if it was trying to go the horror route it failed. I couldn't focus on the story because of it and if there was horror it was suffocated by the writing style.

I had high hopes for this books. The cover art, the synopsis, the publisher were all ingredients for a delicious feast. However, I didn’t quite connect with the story and ended up skimming through it in order to give this review.

***What I didn’t enjoy***

The plot wasn't the focus, which is fine and I enjoy narratives that focus more on character than plot. However, this book had neither. The reader is forced to jump around quite quickly with the narrator, and none of that is really driven by characterisation or emotion.

There were some really beautifully visceral pieces of imagery. However, it felt disconnected and I couldn't feel the emotion behind it. There were a lot of 'thens' and things 'suddenly' happening, which felt jarring and kind of like a cop out.

At first I chalked that up to the narrator's mental state - perhaps dissociation or psychosis - but that got exhausting after a while. I feel like more fluctuation there - parts of lucidity among the delirium - would have helped with pacing and connecting the reader to the story. It would have also helped accentuate wonder into what was and wasn't real, which would have helped me stay engaged.

***What I liked***

As mentioned above, there was some wonderful imagery. I really loved the way dialogue was represented, as if it was happening inside the narrator’s head. Gorgeous!

While I can always appreciate a book with intricate storytelling and I was so excited to dive into this novel, I unfortunately found the prose unnecessarily dense and convoluted which made the narrative challenging to follow thus I had to add this book to the DNF pile.

Thank you NetGalley and the publishers for an eARC.

Supplication was the most beautiful type of strange. Abi-Nakhoul grabbed my attention from the first page and didn't let go. I felt like I was tied to a chair right along with our unnamed narrator--forced to endure horror after horror. The writing was a little overwrought and lost me at times, but I honestly do think that was the point. It's supposed to be disorienting and I can confirm it succeeded in making me spiral in the best way. I can definitely see why this has been getting mixed reviews, but it really worked for me. Surreal nightmare fuel at its finest.

Thank you so much to NetGalley and Influx Press for this e-arc!

Although I usually don’t rate my DNF’s, I’ve seen enough after 200 pages to:
1. Know that I am not going to change my mind about disliking it.
2. Have a profound headache, the likes of which not many novels can claim to have caused me.
There may be an audience out there who will eat a book like this up, and on the surface I thought I might be part of that audience. Unfortunately, I was not.

The story:
An unnamed woman wakes up in a basement, tied to a chair, a strange man looming over her. Following a bloody escape, she emerges from her captivity into the light of a strange and alienating town. Her journey through the streets of this nightmarish landscape, and her equally nightmarish mind is captured here in these pages.
What I liked:
The most striking part of Supplication is its prose. In fact, it’s basically all the novel has to offer, as the plot is barely there, and more so hinted at than actually developed. The author clearly has a great grasp of “the feeling of language”. She paints a hallucinatory picture in your mind with her words, and if the goal was to disorient and confuse the reader, they definitely succeeded in that aspect. Maybe, if I had read this as more of an experimental type of long-form poetry, I might have enjoyed it more, just for its artistic value… As it stands; it’s barely readable as a novel…

What I didn’t like:
The prose in this book isn’t so much purple, as it is somewhere outside the visible spectrum into the ultraviolet hues. Dense to the point of being almost unreadable, this was a labour to get through, and ultimately failed to deliver any plot or development of substance. Metaphors go on for paragraphs on end, seemingly without purpose or reason. Speaking of which; the same can be said for our protagonist. It’s (perhaps deliberately so) impossible to get a feeling for our protagonist, her motivations, or even her emotional state. She floats through the story like a ghost, not connecting to anything around her, let alone the reader. Again; this might be deliberate, as a manifestation of her post-traumatic state and feelings of isolation from the world as a result. In that case: well done to the author for capturing that. As the reader however, her character was so slippery and incorporeal that I felt like I had nothing to grasp onto.
Overall; a very marmite book, that unfortunately wasn’t for me. Credits to the cover though, for capturing the essence of the story: flowery, dense, disturbing, eye-catching, and something I would NOT hang on my wall as it’s distinctly not my personal taste…

Many thanks to Strange Light by Penguin Random House for providing me with an ARC in exchange for an honest review. All opinions are my own.

I’m not quite sure what to think of this book. Some of the writing was beautiful and other parts were very hard for me to follow and didn’t keep my attention. This did not strike me as a hard hitting horror, but I feel everyone’s horror level/ideas are different. I feel like this will be THE book for some, but not most.

Thank you to Netgally for providing this ARC.

Thank you netgalley for an e-arc!!

This is a tough one to rate and I have been going back and fourth since I finished it. I have decided a solid 3.5 (rounded to 4).
The first ~30-35% was absolutely stunning. CONFUSING, and I stumbled through, but was able to hold onto enough. It felt like a situation that was more about living in the writing and feeling the emotions, rather than latching onto a stable storyline. I was getting chills at some of the metaphors for trauma and effects of trauma. I would read passages and then just sit and soak in the words.

BUT then the story had some moments that felt a little clunky, and then the last ~25% really just got away from me and I found myself much more disconnected compared to how I felt in the beginning.

Overall, I wish there was a little more cohesion and just a bit more grounding moments, but the writing absolutely stood out as some of the most unique I've ever read (which pushed it to the extra half star). BUT this will not be a book for the masses.

3.5 ⭐️

In Supplication we follow an unnamed woman who awakes tied to a chair in a basement with a man holding a knife stood over her. She very quickly manages to escape captivity and the majority of the book follows her emerging back into a world that is strange, nightmarish and feels like a fever dream.

I feel like a lot of the low ratings for this book are due to having no idea what’s happening at any point which I don’t mind in books but to me I read this as a metaphor/surreal horror exploration of trauma, pregnancy and feeling lost and violated, kind of similar to Peach by Emma Glass.

You know the scene at the start of Beau is Afraid where he’s making the journey from his apartment to the shop across the street to get a bottle of water and everything is chaos around him and it’s the most stressful, anxiety inducing thing to watch?? this book kind of reminded me of that.

While some of the writing and word choices felt a little clunky and repetitive, overall I did really enjoy the experience of reading this and feel like it doesn’t deserve all the 1 and 2 star ratings it’s getting.

This book had me wondering if I was hearing and seeing things that were not there. Hallucinatory horror done right. I really enjoyed this ride. Thank you to NetGalley and Penguin Random House Canada for the opportunity to read this early!

This is a hard one to review because I think this author is definitely talented. The first quarter of this book was really interesting even though it was written in a very weird style. My biggest issue with this book is that it feels like it goes on too long. There is nothing wrong with an experimental book but after 100 pages of this strange style, it becomes hard to want to stay connected.

I’m sure for the target audience, this will be an all time favorite book. I hope it finds that audience.

An unusual and fascinating reading experience, this is horror of a different kind. It relies heavily on description and perspective rather than interaction and dialogue and it kind of works. The writing style is quite compelling but the lack of dialogue can make it seem a bit heavy going. I think that may be a matter of getting used to a different approach to horror writing,

This is a hard one to review.

I enjoyed reading the book. Some of the prose was absolutely beautiful, but often could be repetitive and overwhelming. While the entire story reads like an incredibly bizarre fever dream, I didn’t have trouble following the basic path of the story.

I really hoped towards the end the metaphorical nature of the book would reveal itself a bit more than it did. The book did come full circle in a way and it’s ENTIRELY possible I am just not smart enough to understand the message, but I never did. If the book could’ve shed some more of the metaphorical nature towards the end to reveal more connections I likely would’ve loved this book. Ultimately, this book left me wanting more and feeling dissatisfied. I wouldn’t mind reading this author in the future, but struggled to “get” this book.

A similar book that I really loved would be Cuckoo by M. Ennenbach. Much of that book is completely bizarre and nonsensical, but in the end it very masterfully reveals what happened.

I received an advance review copy for free from NetGalley and I am leaving this review voluntarily.

While I did enjoy the writing, I don't think this book is for everybody. There is very little dialogue in the entire book, and most of the writing consists of both descriptions and thoughts. Also, the reader gets absolutley no explanation to what's happening and things get real weird, including creatures/being appearing. I do think that people who like very strange books and can keep a very open mind.

Personally, I enjoyed the first 50-60%, I didn't mind that I couldn't really understand what was happening or why. A bit similar to my reading expirience of Bunny by Mona Awad (the books are not similar, just what I wanted them to do), I liked it when things were just unhinged and strange, but in the second half, it felt like the author was trying to frame the strangness and things were toned down. In both books I wanted things to just be as weird and intense as they can be, but it felt like the opposite happened.

In general, I'm not entirley sure what the book was trying to do. There are some really ineteresting parts in the first half about existing in the world and being a part of it, what is the purpose of the world as well as ours, but I can't say a saw that continued past the halfway point. But maybe I didn't connect the dots well enough. I'm not the most bothered by not understanding exactly what the author wanted to do with this novel, though I would love to hear/read what she has to say about it.

I was eager to dive into this book, but unfortunately, I couldn't connect with the writing style. It's labeled as a "hallucinatory horror novel," and indeed it lives up to that description, but it's just not my cup of tea. Nevertheless, I anticipate that this book will garner a dedicated cult following.

Well... It's "different."
This was just too abstract for me to get into. It felt like a liquid running across the pages, it was fluid, it moved, but I couldn't identify it. I couldn't make sense of it, which made it a frustrating read. I tried to be patient, but the deeper I got, the more I started getting annoyed by the purple prose-- by the surrealism.
In the end, I was a bit confused, but happy to be out of its convoluted stream.

Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for this ARC!

I was very excited for this title on the face of it. I love horror - it definitely fits as my favourite genre- and I am never someone to pass up on something that feeds from a trauma response. I was hoping this would be a Lovecraftian master work, but unfortunately this was not to be.

This was a very odd book. I felt that it was more an exercise in art than anything else, with a sharp focus on descriptions and using language to paint pictures, but unfortunately I found the pictures were a little too abstract for my liking. This book felt a bit lost, like it was trying to be elevated but wasn't quite getting there, and there was no characterisation beyond the mental workings of what appeared to be a very confused narrator, but not in an unreliable way, just in the way that it didn't feel like it was connected and cohesive enough.

It was not an easy read, but not because it particularly focused on any great terror or panic - it was just dense, and it felt as though the actual story was lost to style. I wish that I had the opportunity to enjoy this more, but I just didn't feel that this was accessible for all audiences, well-written, or within the scope of horror. It felt like a literary exercise that went on too long, an attempt at trying to sound more educated in a horror format than what was really going on. This one was definitely a miss for me I am afraid.

Supplication by Nour Abi-Nakhoul is billed as "hallucinatory literary horror," and although it certainly lives up to that categorization, it still somehow fell short for me. Either its message went completely over my head (entirely possible), or it's just not that good.

I was interested for the first 40% of the story, but by 60% through, it seemed that my many questions about the narrator were doomed to go unanswered. What at first felt like a gripping metaphorical narrative of trauma, fear, and a search for rest, eventually became a meandering journey of episodic horrors inflicted on a main character exhibiting increasingly bizarre behavior.

Although this is a first person narrative, it feels as though everything in the story is happening to the narrator, rather than the narrator participating in her own story. She's drawn from interaction to interaction by some cosmic, unknowable horror, but even her own actions leave me with more questions than answers, especially in light of the conclusion.

This book started out as a promising wild ride, and turned into a frustrating slog filled with purple prose and not much else. Definitely missed the mark for me.

Thanks NetGalley for the advance reader copy of this book.

This book promises a horror-filled soul-seeking journey of a nameless protagonist as she emerges from traumatic captivity. Her harrowing journey is delivered through a stream of consciousness and purple prose

...In all honesty though, I feel like I need a literary detoxification after this journey. This could be a case of the level of writing being beyond my comprehension but I was struggling to comprehend any meaning behind the convoluted prose. There were repetitions that took me out of the story instead of evoking emotion, there were analogies that needed some time to process and connect them to the situation at hand. By the end of it, I was quite exhausted.

The author is clearly talented though, and was probably exploring some deep-rooted trauma in her own way so I would be keen to give any future works a chance.

Thank you to NetGalley, Penguin Random House Canada, and Strange Light for this advance reader copy. I leave this review voluntarily.

Brace yourself, readers! Supplication is an intense, nightmare journey, following our unnamed narrator from one bizarre situation to the next. We join her as she wakes up tied to a chair, but her escape is just the beginning of her troubles.

This book is relentless. There is no relief in the myriad of disturbing things our narrator goes through. Abi-Nakhoul’s writing created such horrific images in my head, I don’t think I’ll ever fully recover. I could only read a certain amount in one sitting. The writing is consuming, and requires full attention and focus.

The fact that this is in the first person adds a level of terror to the story. We have no choice but to accompany the narrator on her surreal journey.

Fans of brutal, weird, literary horror will appreciate Supplication.