The boys of Barren County

by Stuart Bray, Jason Nickey (editor)

The Boys of Barren County is a dark and gritty story about a group of teenagers who love to live life on the edge, so much so that they resort to sex, drugs, and murder. All in the name of keeping themselves occupied.

Genres: Horror

154 pages, Paperback

Published January 13, 2024

Reviews

[Peter Topside · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.5 stars. Rough story. It followed several drugged up youths just parading around a podunk town committing all sorts of atrocities, including hate crimes, rape, and murder. Sort of reminded me a bit of A Clockwork Orange. Things eventually catch up to them all, but not necessarily in the ways that you'd imagine. It was all sort of one note, but that was the point that the author was trying to put across. The misery and hateful actions and mindsets are all that these kids knew. And the drugs didn't help anything, either. And any of them who wanted to escape from that vicious cycle was harmed for being a nonconformist. The themes were deep, but the writing was shallow. Taking time to explore each of the characters from a first-person POV was a wise choice, but it all needed more development. A little less on the nonstop vulgarity, sex, and violence, putting in place some additional insight would have been a big assist. And the ending just fell flat for me. Not Stuart Bray's best work, but still worth a look for any of your bloodhounds out there.

[The_5ft_reader · Rating 4 out of 5]

A little different to other stuff I've read from this author but just as disturbing! A group of teenagers, a dead-end small town, and every trigger warning you could think of!

[amerie ♡ · Rating 4 out of 5]

this was so… rough? kind of left me with an odd heavy feeling

[The Yeti Reads and Reviews · Rating 5 out of 5]

Small-town boredom can lead to big-time problems. This is the story of a group of teenagers who all have their own issues and succumb to boredom by committing an unthinkable crime during the Valentines fair. This act leads the group down a path that they cannot recover from. Told from the point of view of each character, Brays spins a tale that will stick with you long after you read it. Sex, drugs, and violence are not the best mixture; once you add toxic personalities to the mix, it's all downhill from there. Another stellar book from Stuart Bray, who outdoes himself with every release. Definitely check it out!

5 severed fingers out of 5

[Aiden Messer · Rating 5 out of 5]

Okay, that was heavy. Here, we follow three boys and one girl, all messed up in their own ways. Together, one bad decision after the other, they slowly descend into hell

[Laura Bilodeau · Rating 5 out of 5]

What an ending!

Stuart Bray NEVER ceases to amaze me. This ride was a little slow to start off but once you get a grasp of the writing style and multiple POV’s and overlapping timelines you’ll see just how crazy and twisted this story is. Brooke… she’s a total badass though. Definitely enjoyed this one!

[Danielle Yvonne · Rating 5 out of 5]

First five star book of 2024!!
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Read this in one sitting. Incredible fking book. 👏🏼

“He was a narcissistic little prick with no moral boundaries, and it became worse every time he stuck that little glass pipe between his lips.” 😮‍💨

Really heavy subject matter that puts you in your feels beyond the “typical” extreme horror / gore / splatterpunk theme. Hits hard. This is something I can appreciate and think that Stuart Bray does really well. It’s sick and twisted and disturbingly beautiful if I may boldly say.‼️

“…do drugs and like sluts but do it right, pace yourself.” 🫥

POV’s between a meth addict and his terrible fking friends / victims. Wild ride. Could not put my kindle down. 😵

Def check the TW’s on this one for those sensitive to certain subject matter. 🔴 But SOO well done and hope everyone reads this book and enjoys it as much as I did. (To the splatterpunk community, the TW isn’t for you. lol)

Ohh && there’s mentions of Valentine’s Day if anyone is doing any holiday reading challenges etc. ❤️

[Jessie Paige · Rating 2 out of 5]

Surely all these 5 star reviews are known to the author… a poorly edited, shallow story. Okay concept, poor execution.

[Rebecca Ventrella · Rating 3 out of 5]

Rating: ★★★☆☆ (3/5)

Warning: this is an extreme horror book

The Boys of Barren County follows teenagers Dale, Tony, Shawn, and Brooke as they fall into a life of crime to pass the time in rural Kentucky. Things come to a head when Tony’s Uncle Leo joins the mix.

This book had decent pacing and a premise that could have worked. The plot felt implausible, and major events were glossed over instead of shown. With little to no character development, it was hard to care what happened to anyone. I wanted to like it more, but it just didn’t deliver.

On the plus side, this one is easy to breeze through in one sitting.

[Rica · Rating 5 out of 5]

Man I don’t even know where to begin with this. This was soooooo good. I’m so glad that I chose this as the first book I’ve read from this author instead of one of the more popular ones so I didn’t have clouded judgement.


We follow a group of 4 friends Tony, Dale, Shawn and Brooke. In a small town there’s nothing to do but drugs and sex and apparently murder. Tony is the “head hancho” asshole with lack of empathy and remorse, Dale has a lot of heart a terrible family and is the crazed meth head of the bunch, Shawn comes from a good family who seems to get caught up with his friends in spite of his parents and poor Brooke has such a lack of self worth she gets passed around like a joint in Eric Foreman’s basement. Just used and abused. What made this book horrific for me was that this IS someone’s life somewhere. This book is RAW. It’s dark and deep and delves into drug use, physical abuse, low self worth and mental health issues. I think the worst and best thing about this book is that it’s relatable. Not everyone, but a lot of us have experienced at least one thing that happens in this book. The foreword/ content warning for this book I appreciated I think more than any other foreword I’ve ever read. You can tell the author wrote it with heart, care and experience. I’m deff going to be checking out more from this author and this is going to stick with me for quite some time I know.

[Carrie Shields · Rating 4 out of 5]

"𝐓𝐡𝐢𝐬 𝐢𝐬 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐬𝐡𝐢𝐭 𝐈 𝐜𝐚𝐧'𝐭 𝐬𝐭𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐚𝐛𝐨𝐮𝐭 𝐩𝐞𝐨𝐩𝐥𝐞; 𝐭𝐡𝐞𝐲 𝐰𝐚𝐧𝐭 𝐭𝐨 𝐬𝐮𝐜𝐤 𝐞𝐯𝐞𝐫𝐲𝐭𝐡𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐲𝐨𝐮 𝐡𝐚𝐯𝐞 𝐫𝐢𝐠𝐡𝐭 𝐨𝐮𝐭 𝐨𝐟 𝐲𝐨𝐮𝐫 𝐟*𝐜𝐤𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐡𝐚𝐧𝐝𝐬."

A noted departure from his usual extreme horror titles, THE BOYS OF BARREN COUNTY was a solid foray into transgressive fiction that was absolutely bleak and devoid of any joy. This type of fiction features characters who feel confined by the norms or expectations of society and break free of them in unusual or illicit ways. I saw shades of Robert Cormier's 𝑻𝒉𝒆 𝑪𝒉𝒐𝒄𝒐𝒍𝒂𝒕𝒆 𝑾𝒂𝒓 and 𝑻𝒉𝒆 𝑪𝒂𝒕𝒄𝒉𝒆𝒓 𝒊𝒏 𝒕𝒉𝒆 𝑹𝒚𝒆 by Salinger, but because this is a Stuart Bray title, you can expect much more suffering and moral ambiguity.

The characters in this book seem to have no redeeming qualities. Many of the male characters have a love affair with crystal meth and violence. Human life has no value to them, and they think nothing of using the only female in the group as both a receptacle for their carnal urges and a punching bag for their rage.

Bleak, desolate, and and dismal, this story will stay in your head long after the story is over. There is no one to root for, no one to pin your hopes on. Just like the title suggests, the souls of these characters are barren and empty. If they were born elsewhere and raised by different people, would they have a chance in the world? That's a question that you will ponder for a long time. This book is available now on KU and paperback.

[Matthew Vaughn · Rating 5 out of 5]

I recently read Stuart Bray 's The Boys of Barren County, and no surprise here, I loved it. If you pay attention to me at all, surely you've noticed I don't only read extreme horror or splatterpunk, I love a good Transgressive book. I'd say this one falls squarely there. It does still have some extreme moments, and I don't know when I've last read a book with so many terrible characters.
It's a pretty gnarly tale told through a drugged out lense. Crime, passion, and betrayal, all the ingredients to a killer story!

[Marie Cervantes · Rating 3 out of 5]

I enjoyed the book. The only thing I didn’t like was that the author did not have any transition between past or present throughout the book. Many times a character would be in the present and the next paragraph the story would be about the past, then shortly after that, it would switch back to present time. It left me confused and having to recheck to understand what time frame the story was in. other than that i enjoyed the book. i love Stuart Bray books and will continue to read more.

[RatedHforHorror · Rating 4 out of 5]

A group of four friends that end up taking a life. The leader of the group is truly the worst and the mental and physical abuse that he puts on his friends is insane and they are insane for stay in this group. A lot ends up happening near the end and it is very well deserved especially for the leader. This book is very violent and was a quick read for me.

[Rachal Davis · Rating 4 out of 5]

Bray caught our attention with his extreme horror and now he is gaining respect with his transgressive horror, Bray brings the same fear and terror but it is even more effective when it mirrors real life situations and scenarios.

[Erin Sterett · Rating 5 out of 5]

Another amazing tale from Stuart Bray. Small town living and small town problems. Throughout the story you get to read from the POV of the main characters. It flowed really well, and packed a punch of violence and gore.

[Nemanja Vasic · Rating 5 out of 5]

Very Violent

A cast of some of the most deplorable characters I’ve read in a while. This was a violent meth fueled nightmare, but written in Bray’s usual addictive style. CW: lots of violence, SA included. Heavy homophobic language…..it served a purpose.

[Emily Brady · Rating 4 out of 5]

What. The. FUCK!!!

[Lauren Earnest · Rating 2 out of 5]

Quick Read

Read this in like an hour.. just a lot of violence, drugs, sex.. it was okay for a quick read but wouldn’t be something I recommended..

[Halley · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.5 stars rounded up

[AnxiousCloud · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was like a direct gut punch .. and o felt empathy for each character…. Bray does it again another masterful written book. This style of writing is so addictive. Loved it 👏🏻