David Södergren

This book follows two sisters, Ana and Rachel Logan, on vacation in Thailand. They are having a wonderful time exploring everything that Thailand has to offer. They see the sights, go to parties, meet guys, and generally live their best lives. They decide to go to a party on the beach near their hotel where they make friends. The next morning, they find themselves and their new friends on a boat drifting in the ocean. None of them can remember how they got there but the boat won’t start. show more After drifting for a while, they see an island in the distance. It has lush vegetation and sandy beaches and seems to be a real paradise. Spoiler Alert: It is not.

I loved this book. I cannot believe that this is David Sodergren’s debut novel. He did a wonderful job writing characters that were likeable and that I wanted to root for. He also did an equally good job writing terrible, awful characters that I wanted to throat punch. Ana and Rachel’s relationship is deep and nuanced with plenty of backstories to give their interactions meaning. Their dialogue is also very funny. All of the characters had their own time to shine (or stink) and you could tell that Sodergren really took the time to make sure that no one was forgotten.

Once the terror ball starts rolling, there is no shortage of scares and terrifying moments. Sodergren unleashes his island on the reader slowly, and each new revelation leads you closer to an ultimately satisfying and horrifying conclusion. Despite the slow reveal of what is actually happening, this is not a slow read. Sodergren punches his readers in the teeth repeatedly with carefully crafted death scenes and brutal situations. The hits keep coming right until the end. I cannot recommend this book highly enough. I already have Sodergren’s next book, Night Shoot, and after finishing this one, I don’t think it will last long on my TBR cart. show less

I went into Maggie’s Grave expecting either effective pulp horror or genuinely unsettling folk horror, based on the premise and cover. What I got instead was a book that never commits to a tone, never builds sustained tension, and relies on juvenile shock in place of atmosphere or plot development.

The biggest issue is structure. Scenes are constantly cut short before anything meaningful happens. Instead of letting tension build, the book jumps POV or location at the first hint of momentum. show more This makes the story feel fragmented and prevents any moment from becoming genuinely cinematic or frightening.

The characters are extremely thin, even by pulp standards. I’m fine with archetypal or “wooden” characters in fast horror, but here they barely feel human at all. They exist only to advance the plot, with almost no interiority or lived-in behavior. As a result, major events—especially deaths—land flat because there’s no emotional groundwork.

The book also leans heavily on fake-out scares (“someone’s in the house!” → “oh, it’s nothing”), which quickly become predictable and annoying rather than suspenseful. By the midpoint, I felt consistently ahead of the book instead of drawn into it.

Tonally, the novel collapses in the second act. What seems intended as extreme or shocking horror instead reads as unintentional comedy. The gore is graphic but not frightening, largely because it’s written in a juvenile, slapstick register that undercuts any sense of dread. Several scenes felt more Scooby-Doo than horror—except written with crude shock value rather than wit or charm.

Finally, the central mystery has nowhere to go. Key revelations arrive too early and flatten the narrative stakes instead of escalating them. By around 40%, it was clear the book had shown its full hand, and nothing suggested a deeper or more coherent payoff ahead.

I DNF’d not because the book was “too gory” or “too pulpy,” but because it lacked tension, atmosphere, character weight, and narrative momentum. It didn’t trust scenes enough to let them breathe, and it mistook shock for horror. show less

If someone told me that I'd be reading a short Scottish cosmic horror, romance, with a crusty old lady as a heroine, satire that both insults progressives and cleverly lances Donald Trump (micro-penis and all) all at the same time - and I would have SO MUCH FUN reading it that I couldn't put it down? I would have told them that they were mad.

So that happened.

A gruesome spectacle with a great premise!

There was actually a nifty little trolley problem running underneath the story that made it more interesting.

Why is the life of one baby more valuable than the lives of all the adults? Why should all the residents of Auchenmullan (plus a handful of outsiders) die hideously and painfully at the hands of Maggie when a solution is at hand? At first, the question isn't considered, because everything happens too fast. The adults of the town work to show more prevent the tragedy from happening in the first place, and then, to solve the Maggie's return, they … yeah, I'll never figure WTF they were trying to do. That's when the wholesale slaughter begins.

Eventually, the sacrifice must be considered, and our protagonist Beth begins to think about it after she loses everyone that's dear to her, except for her best friend Alice, the mother of the baby. It's not unreasonable, but it is far too late.

Not sure how I feel about the end. It twisted a bit too much. I should have known because Maggie always followed Beth. It was also far too easy for Beth to become the “final girl” when so many others had tried so much more and failed. As Beth watched Maggie gather herself together again, I understand why she turned. It wasn't fair to Beth as a character, but I get it. It was the same way I felt about Maggie. Conflicted.

None of that was a complaint. Maggie's Grave was loads of fun to read. It's a great example of why I read horror. There are always interesting problems, moral dilemmas, questionable actions, and awful, horrible consequences.

I like Sodergren's style and I look forward to reading more of his books. I loved The Haar and I loved this one. show less