(I received this book from the editor and NetGalley in exchange for an honest review)
Lot to unpack here, which is not the usual way I start my reviews but I can assure you this is not the ‘usual’ horror novel either; And I did not like it.
Built upon a kind of interesting idea, that people seemingly start to lose their minds due to TV and social media, it went off rails for me in the very first scene and for a moment I was even ready to DNF it (about fifteen minutes into the reading!). Such a visceral reaction, you could say, but believe me when I tell you that what it is described caught me off guard completely: it was disgusting, so much longer than it needed to be and, simply put, hard to stomach.
However, I did not DNF it, I really enjoyed Whisper Down the Lane, somehow liked What Kind of Mother and I was looking forward to reading Ghost Eaters, but this… this is a no for me, because I don’t enjoy horror novels where there is no fear but lots of gore and morbid scenes.
Why did I continue reading? Because once the perspective changed from Noah and his parents to his brother Asher and his family, I thought maybe this was it, the first pages had been nothing but a bizarre choice, let the real story, the one that ‘holds a mirror to our divided nation, and will shake readers to the core’ begin.
The influencers and their cult like behaviour was interesting, the way the father of the family was caught in all the TV madness was very well described but it just felt so on the nose. I mean, the evil TV channel is called Fax News, I really don’t know what I was expecting.
And so, every time I thought that the message and the social commentary was starting to set in, to find its place, there it was, another scene just for shock value: Oh, look, extreme sexualisation, violence towards animals and children…
In the end, I just had to accept that I was not getting the politic and social critique I thought I would find, try to find some positive in the middle of the chaos (because there are some good ideas, and some imaginative use of tropes) and move on.

Wake Up and Open Your Eyes by Clay McLeod Chapman is a deeply icky read, but not in the way I had hoped. I wanted to like this; I should have loved this. As someone who shares the book's opinions and loves a good, unhinged visceral horror, I was prepared for a gross, satirical, and probably offensive horror story—what I wasn’t ready for was the extreme sexualisation that runs through it. The overt misogyny, particularly at the start is surprisingly overwhelming and frankly hard to stomach. It took me ten minutes to hate it. It clawed back a bit as little it carried on, but I still just didn’t like it.

While the political commentary on media and extremism could have been intriguing, it gets lost as the book tries way too hard to have shock value. Plus, some of the content is excessive, even for horror, particularly the scenes involving incest, which are included in a way that feels exploitative, and is just more poorly written ‘hagsploitation’. This kind of writing feels less like a critique of societal ills and more like an excuse to sensationalise and degrade women’s bodies for shock value.

I’ll give it credit for some interesting takes on common tropes, but what could have been a dark, biting commentary instead feels like a missed opportunity wrapped in over-the-top imagery. I really like the premise and the message, and think it would have made a solid novella, but if you’re hoping for something with more nuance or depth, I’d suggest skipping this one.

Disclaimer though: I didn’t like the prose and the execution - I would however defend it adamantly to anyone attacking it for its message or it’s politics, it makes a hell of a point that’s very valid for our current dystopia, I just don’t think it’s a particularly good writing. Ironically might make a pretty good TV series.

A huge thank you to the author, @Netgalley and the publisher for the ARC in exchange for an honest review.

Creepy and ethereal, this is one to watch. I wonder if it would have been better released during halloween but I can see this on a lot of TBRs in the future.

When I started reading Clay McLeod Chapman’s Wake Up and Open Your Eyes the opening was weirdly familiar and I was certain I had come across it previously. The penny finally dropped upon reading the acknowledgements, a similar version of the story had appeared in Andrew Cull and Gabino Iglesias’s superb FOUND: An Anthology of Found Footage Horror Stories. Although the author takes the novel in a slightly different direction to the earlier piece, being so familiar with the original took some momentum was taken from the opening section of the novel. However, when it deviates it does so in style, which is both graphic and shocking.

This was my fourth Clay McLeod Chapman novel, this author has a terrific back catalogue, and I am happy to recommend The Remaking (2019), Whisper Down the Lane (2021) and Ghost Eaters (2022). The sheer range of his fiction is incredibly impressive and Whisper Down the Lane is surely one of the best novels on the market about the Satanic Panic phenomenon.

Never one to revisit an old idea, Chapman returns with another clever, if not entirely new concept. It features a powerful political message bubbling in the background, coming from the UK I was able to distance myself from the bizarreness of American politics, conspiracy theories, right wing news channels and the crazy idea that the 2012 Sandy Hook school shooting was fake. Republicans might not enjoy this book, as it takes non-too-subtle swipes at their side of the fence via Fax News (changed from Fox News) forcing home the point we cannot trust what we see on television. There are also some similarities to the underrated Stephen King novel Cell (2006) novel, I much preferred the King tale, as it lacked the unnecessarily heavy political message which drives this.

Wake Up and Open Your Eyes is built around the fact that watching endless 24-hour cycles of Fax News leads to a type of demonic crazy brainwashing. When this happens there are incredibly violent and a few sexual outbursts, when in a split second the mundane flashes of everyday life turn into a fight for survival. I enjoyed these moments of collapse as America hurtles to the brink of collapse. However, beyond the warning that we cannot trust influencers, social media, politicians or television there was little else going on. Having said that, there were still plenty of blackly funny moments, the family being forced to eat gross vegetarian food at their family dinner, whilst their mother went off the rails, had me chuckling.

Even though I had read it before, the opening still packed a punch, with Noah Fairchild travelling to Virginia from Brooklyn to visit his parents as they haven’t answered the phone in ages apart from warning him about the “The Great Reckoning”. Only to find them in a vegetive zombie state, and ready to kill, after a steady diet of Fax News. This was a great concept for a short story, but I am unsure there is enough to carry a novel, with the narrative moving onto other member’s of Noah’s family before circling back to him in the final section. I enjoyed some of the diversions more than others, finding the teenager whose only interaction on Twitter was with bots (who always ‘liked’ his Tweets) was strangely moving. The mother who stupidly clicks on an email link, as she genuinely wanted to believe there was something out there to make her ‘well’ or ‘happy’ could be bought over the internet also has a believable downward spiral.

The book is more political than it needed be and is full to the brim with social commentary, perhaps too much for some readers who are seeking some horror escapism. It will undoubtedly become a polarizing book, but it held my attention to the end, even if it is not my favourite by this author. Possession is a common enough trope, as is using the mass media to influence and control, but Chapman still manages to deliver a fresh take on familiar ground.

Wake Up and Open Your Eyes is a horror novel about an apocalypse brought about by right-wing news and social media in the USA. Noah's parents have been parroting far-right views for a while now, but when his mother leaves a cryptic message and then can't be contacted, he drives from Brooklyn to Virginia to check on them, but what he finds is his parents in a weird state, trying to attack him. Then it turns out they aren't the only ones, and Noah's brother and his family have fallen victim too, and then Noah and his nephew must try and make it back to Brooklyn, through the radicalised hordes.

I've been hearing about this novel for a while, and even though I didn't really enjoy the only other Clay McLeod Chapman book I've read, I wanted to give this one a go, and I'm glad I did. The satire in this is very explicit—there's Fax News, there's influencer juice cleanses, there's Baby Ghost to the tune of Baby Shark—and the horror is too, with memorable moments of gore and sex. This isn't for the faint-hearted, and a good recent comparison is Alison Rumfitt's work: if you enjoy that, you'll be able to handle the stuff in this, with Tell Me I'm Worthless cited at the end in a list of influences and useful works for writing the book. I enjoyed that it was more extreme, not shying away from ideas of possession and what horrible things that makes people do to their bodies.

The structure is more experimental than most apocalypse stories, focusing mostly on the initial moment in the first part, then the build up in the second, and then just after that initial moment in the final section, which is intercut with lots of found footage moments to give a sense of the scale of devastation. This format doesn't give much space for connection with the central figure, Noah, but you delve further into the minds of his brother Asher and Asher's family, and it's not the sort of horror where you need a deep connection as it is more about the shock of what is happening more generally than specifically what is happening to Noah. The ending doesn't give much closure or explanation, and perhaps lacks a really memorable closing moment, but it also plays on a 'liberal' idea that such an apocalypse could be easily recovered from, suggesting that far-right threats aren't just something to ignore.

I really like horror that blends together modern fears with classic horror elements like possession, and Wake Up and Open Your Eyes feels like an American version of Alison Rumfitt's work, exploring the visceral horror of media radicalisation and far-right views. The middle section, about how one family got to that point, was perhaps the strongest part for me, especially in light of this theme, but overall this is a great horror novel that doesn't shy away from being in your face, and you just can't shut your eyes.

What did I just read. This was so ????? Exploring sometime in the near future where society has been gaslit and brainwashed into acting out in fits of violence, the reader follows the journey of the Fairchild family as each member of the family experiences this apocalypse. This is clearly a commentary on Fox News, online communities and how quickly people fall into conspiracy theories.

There were some overly sexual moments that I felt were added purely for shock value, these were incredibly disturbing to read. There was no real answer at the end of the book either, it spiralled into further madness. My frustration grew reading this, both at the plot and the uncomfortable truth that there are some people who believe things like this. This is a book unlike anything I’ve read before, both good and bad. A thought provoking and frankly terrifying book.

Wake up and open your eyes - Clay McLeod Chapman

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Thank you to @netgalley and @titanbooks for allowing me to read and review this copy in advance of its release date in January 2025.

Wow. All I can say is wow. This book was like a fever dream.

This is an apocalyptic horror, and probably one of the best I’ve read in a long time. Unlike most books in the apocalyptic genre this book concentrates on the very start of the apocalypse.

The story is split into three sections, and is so cleverly done. I won’t go into too much detail as I don’t want to ruin this, but first we follow Noah, as he tries to find out why his parents aren’t answering his calls.

The second part flips to Noah’s brother, Asher and his wife and two kids at the very start of this epidemic.

And in the final part we are back with Noah as he travels back to Brooklyn.

I feel like each part just gets better and better and CMC’s use of language and visceral imagery made me pause for a break a few times. There is a large amount of body horror, gore and some really uncomfortable sexual imagery too.

This book flips perspectives a few times as we follow different characters, however the stand out writing for me was the last part that is narrated from the point of view of Anderson Cooper. This was done so well and really worked to show Noah’s removal from the situation and his reaction to the new world around him.

This book carries a stark message/ warning about the use of social media, influencers, news and fake news, and the split in American politics at the moment. As a non-America I probably lost some of the nuances, however this didn’t detract or distract from the story. Every aspect of society is covered in this apocalyptic horror, including children and that absolutely awful baby shark song. Having this stuck in my head while reading actually upped the terror and fever dream qualities of this book.

As a huge Stephen King fan I definitely drew some similarities from “Cell” and a more up to date version of this tale. I was pleased to see a long list of books that CMC had drawn inspiration from in the writing of this book and Cell was one of those.

Altogether this was an insanely gripping and terrifying read. It was also thought provoking and gruesome.

Characters- 9
Atmosphere- 10
Writing Style- 10
Plot- 9
Intrigue-9
Relationships-8
Enjoyment- 8
9/10

#WakeUpandOpenYourEyes #NetGalley