Surreal and unsettling body horror extravaganza. This was a delight! It belongs on autumnal horror reading lists. I definitely liked some stories more than others ("The Poison Garden"? Haven't gotten over it yet) but I really feel like it has something for most people - just maybe not for anyone who's very squeamish or easily disturbed.

What a book! I went in expecting something unusual, and that is exactly what I got, fifteen short stories full of a mix of gross, horror, dystopia and whimsy.
Most of the stories are set in sort of surreal locations, although there are clues to tell us they are set in the UK. The world presented here is such a unique, grim one. Crumbling mouldy houses and apartments, antique books and fine biscuits, greedy decadent and decaying rich overlords. Things are archaic, full of black mould, bodily fluids, depraved people, and for some reason, eggs and custard!
Each story is incredibly descriptive and presents slices of life in a particular place populated with quirky characters, some endearingly naive, and some controlling and unpleasant people. We get to visit a bathhouse, a boarding school, a custard factory, we encounter a pre-Raphaelite artist and his models, girls who struggle to menstruate, awful landlords, a maid seeking revenge, programmers who become obsessed with an occult book, and many others.
A clear love for history and art permeates the book and being an art history graduate myself, I really appreciated that. I particularly liked the stories “Ivor”, “The green hat “, “Novel about Fan “ and “madame Floras” which had a more historical, Victorian setting.

Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for an ARC of this book in exchange for an honest review.

A wonderful collection of the weirdest stories! If you like anything disturbing and weird then you will enjoy every one of these short stories. Each one was completely different from the last, and packed such a punch considering their length. I highly enjoyed this collection and recommend it to anyone seeking out something completely different!

Camilla Grudova’s stories draw on personal anxieties and impressions of life in contemporary Britain. A place that provides ample fuel for nightmarish fiction. Like Grudova’s earlier work, these pieces trade in the visceral and macabre. Her particular form of body gothic has a heightened visual quality - the verbal equivalent of shock art or the paintings of outsider artists. Grudova’s talked about failed ambitions to write children’s books but this collection, with its numerous references to custard creams, Rupert Bear and Ovaltine, often seems to echo the landscapes of vintage children’s literature. But her characters are grappling with trauma or rage or both, a parade of murderous women, degenerate children and sadistic men.

Grudova’s Britain is a blood-soaked nursery governed by imperious nannies or a snot-filled, boarding-school that serves as a breeding-ground for an anachronistic class system. A system highlighted in entries like “Madame Flora” which revisits the domestic gothic of key influences like Barbara Comyns’ particularly her novel The Vet’s Daughter. It’s an interesting companion piece to the Hitchcock-inspired “Ivor” set in a boys’ public school where pupils never leave, just grow older, more raddled and more depraved. Her Britain’s overrun with misplaced nostalgia, littered with images of empire and relics of supposedly “better” days. Its history is steeped in perversity, suggested via Grudova’s retelling of the experiences of the working-class, Victorian girls ruthlessly exploited, by male, pre-Raphaelite artists.

Some pieces play out in fantasy or alternative worlds, like the monster-inhabited “Hoo Hoo” with its unsettling, post-apocalyptic flavour. Others like “The Poison Garden” explicitly comment on contemporary society, based in rapidly-gentrifying Margate it features a male character who masks deep-seated misogyny behind a façade composed of left-leaning politics and literary pretensions. “Avalon” and “The Apartment” revisit themes from Grudova’s Children of Paradise: grasping landlords and decaying flats; consumerism; the abuse of workers by indifferent employers and the plight of the precariat under capitalism; as does “The Surrogates” with its exploration of cultural snobbery, and the treatment of marginalised, Eastern European workers. Grudova’s curious title piece is an oblique examination of conspiracy theories and obscure online communities, here presented through her version of the practices of real-life followers of a philosophy put forward by C. J. Van Vliet in his 1939 The Coiled Serpent. Van Vliet urged men to practice celibacy and semen retention as a pathway to spiritual peace and worldly prosperity, ideas now enthusiastically promoted via YouTube videos and dedicated Reddit forums.

Grudova continues to delight in the transgressive, her collection’s filled with lovingly-detailed descriptions of oozing, festering, stinking bodies, pumping out streams of waste. Although, I found the effect less striking than before, reading these close together felt a bit like reading Sade, the accumulation of the repulsive and the degenerate numbs more than it startles – whether that’s intentional or not I couldn’t tell. I still admire Camilla Grudova’s commitment to politically-charged, body horror but unlike The Doll’s Alphabet there’s a lot here that seems rushed or slightly undercooked.

A short story can be a half formed thing. Often times these collections requires an awful lot of separating the wheat from the chaff and The Coiled Serpent is no exception.

When I read Children of Paradise I felt it didn’t quite push the horror envelope enough but the quiet yet grotesque horror of Children of Paradise that is still present in many of these stories which is where Grudova’s storytelling really shines.

There are several stories that raise the body horror stakes and launch into a higher realm of depravity but it kind of leaves a feeling of ‘and? Where’s the rest of it?’

If you’re a fan of no narrative just vibes then this will likely be something you’ll love. If you’re looking for meaty morsels that leave you thinking - you won’t quite find it here.

3.5 up to 4.

I received an ARC of this book thanks to NetGalley and publisher Atlantic Books in exchange for an honest review.

I got through three stories in this collection before I sadly realised it wasn't for me. I'm admittedly not a huge fan of body horror, but I can tolerate it/skim over it for the sake of a good story. Unfortunately, I just didn't get the point of any of these stories.

I would describe this as magical realism with a lean towards horror rather than horror itself? The theme of the three stories I read seemed to be 'a bunch of gross and weird stuff happens and then the story ends', with the first story at least having a semblance of a plot but the second one in particular leaving me feel like I was reading a rambling list.

Maybe if you're a fan of the bizarre or particularly into body horror, this might be worth a read. I just couldn't get into it

This was an interesting short story collection - there was a mix of body horror, fairy tales and general unsettling stories. It was quite a dark, disgusting and uncomfortable read at times.
Some of my favourite stories include: The Green Hat, The Poison Garden, Madame Flora’s and The Coiled Serpent. Each story was unique and some had good conversations on society, beauty standards, poverty and feminism.
Overall, it was a mixed collection for me - some stories I really enjoyed and some I felt lacked substance or I just didn’t get them. I think fans of body horror, short stories and Ottessa Moshfegh would enjoy this