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ITSY
When the guide disappeared in the middle of the night, Carly and her siblings didn’t think their adventure vacation could get any worse.
They were wrong.
After an unknown species of spider bites Carly, they soon realise - things can always get much, much worse...
From Matt Shaw, the author behind The Dreams They Weave, Infestation and Bunny Kong, comes a new horror to get your skin crawling.
They were wrong.
After an unknown species of spider bites Carly, they soon realise - things can always get much, much worse...
From Matt Shaw, the author behind The Dreams They Weave, Infestation and Bunny Kong, comes a new horror to get your skin crawling.
- GenresHorror
87 pages, Kindle Edition
Published March 15, 2024
55 people are currently reading
72 people want to read
About the author
Matt Shaw
531 books2,208 followersBiography
MATT SHAW was born, quite by accident (his mother tripped, he shot out) September 30th 1980 in Winchester hospital where he was immediately placed on the baby ward and EBay. Some twelve years later (wandering the corridors of the hospital and playing with road kill when he was on day release), the listing closed and he remained unsold, he was booted out of the hospital to start his life as a writer and hobbit – beginning with writing screenplays and short stories for his own amusement before finally getting published when he was twenty-seven years and forty-five seconds old.
Once Published weekly in a lad's magazine with his photography work, Matt Shaw is also a published author and cartoonist. Has to be said, can be a bit of a flirt and definitely, without a shadow of a doubt, somewhat of a klutz.
Favourite books
"Roald Dahl's Collection of Short Stories"
Tim Burton's Melancholy Death of Oyster Boy
Anything, really, written by himself. Because he is that good.
MATT SHAW was born, quite by accident (his mother tripped, he shot out) September 30th 1980 in Winchester hospital where he was immediately placed on the baby ward and EBay. Some twelve years later (wandering the corridors of the hospital and playing with road kill when he was on day release), the listing closed and he remained unsold, he was booted out of the hospital to start his life as a writer and hobbit – beginning with writing screenplays and short stories for his own amusement before finally getting published when he was twenty-seven years and forty-five seconds old.
Once Published weekly in a lad's magazine with his photography work, Matt Shaw is also a published author and cartoonist. Has to be said, can be a bit of a flirt and definitely, without a shadow of a doubt, somewhat of a klutz.
Favourite books
"Roald Dahl's Collection of Short Stories"
Tim Burton's Melancholy Death of Oyster Boy
Anything, really, written by himself. Because he is that good.
Ratings & Reviews
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Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 29 of 29 reviews
April 17, 2024
Spiders!
Several young adults decide to go on a trip that one of them had won. A trip to the Amazon Jungle with one guide. Whatever could go wrong, right? I wouldn’t dare spoil one minute of this by telling some details. You’ll have to experience it right along with the group. Oh no, did the guide leave them? They sure hoped he would return!
Several young adults decide to go on a trip that one of them had won. A trip to the Amazon Jungle with one guide. Whatever could go wrong, right? I wouldn’t dare spoil one minute of this by telling some details. You’ll have to experience it right along with the group. Oh no, did the guide leave them? They sure hoped he would return!
September 8, 2025
If there's one thing that bugs me, it's spiders. I don't care how small or large they are, they skeeve me out. So, anyone with a fear of spiders or anything with more than two legs should probably steer clear of this one. Now the story was fine, but extremely predictable. Not much gore, but a lot of body horror and there was, which sort of seemed out of place, a scene of rape and some other sexual content. The thing that really took away from this experience was how rushed it felt. We didn't get to know any of the characters, as they were just pushed along for the ride here. And, whenever a story is written as such, I find myself unable to care because I don't know who these people are, and everything else fails to hit the mark after that. I've read almost all of Shaw's offerings and he is a very talented horror writer. I just wish that with a story like this, which had a ton of potential, that he took his time and really developed some of his shorter works. Lots of great content, but nothing is done justice.
August 27, 2024
The positives: gorgeous cover, spiders ARE terrifying, amazing body horror, I LOVE that Matt will personalize the stories for people (name, characters, fears, etc) who want a custom story.
The negatives: Pretty predictable, not too much character depth/background, minimal explanation for the events that occur.
The negatives: Pretty predictable, not too much character depth/background, minimal explanation for the events that occur.
January 3, 2025
I truly hate spiders! I am utterly petrified of them. This book just reinforces that fear and why I am never going to the Amazon. I’ll watch videos on YouTube for that experience. Great job Matt. I feel like I have spiders crawling all over me!!
June 11, 2024
I loved it. Fast paced, loved the action and the story line. The only negative for me would be I wished it was longer. If there was a second book I would read it straight away.
🕷️🕷️🕷️🕷️🕷️highly recommended
🕷️🕷️🕷️🕷️🕷️highly recommended
May 31, 2024
This was a very interesting read, it was a little confusing seeing as some of the before sections were in random order but I still enjoyed this read more than I expected to.
July 23, 2024
Naff ending.
November 9, 2024
I quite enjoyed Matt Shaw's "The Infestation". It did a great job of presenting the madness and fear of a world-changing natural disaster happening in real time with limited information and very poor odds. So, when a new Shaw book about spiders came out I was excited (let's not talk about the afterthought that was Infestation 2).
The reason for the book's creation and/or the author's mindset shouldn't matter - but I mention this because I do think it makes sense after I put the book down. This is a book that a fan purchased. Giving him some names and a topic (spiders, chiefly) and Shaw challenges himself to make a novella to meet that person's request. We'll come back to this later.
Carly is very lucky and invites her brothers and sisters over to share her luck with them. Turns out she forgot about a contest she signed up for and ended up winning it. The prize? A trip for 6 to the Amazon. She and her husband are going and her siblings, begrudgingly visiting her ("couldn't this have been a phone call?") to hear this are invited as well.
So they head out with a guide named Emmanuelle (which I guess could be a unisex name, but I've watched too many EuroTrash movies to ever think of a man being named it). After a few days, Emmanuelle goes AWOL. They wake up with him gone, stuck deep in the Amazon with no idea what direction to go. Worse, Carly is bitten by a spider and is rendered unconscious with strange bruising and marks appearing. Do they stay in the same spot hoping to be found? Or do they move away, if only to avoid anyone else being bitten? If so, where do they go?
Take a pinch of body-horror, add some man vs. nature horror, throw in some Italian Cannibal films and you've got a good idea of what to expect. It's not quite as gross as Matt Shaw at his most unhinged, but there are a few moments of strong stuff to be found here.
However, there's one thing that makes it hard to recommend, and that's the structure of the novella. Instead of providing a linear story, Shaw switches between "Now", "Then", "Later" and "Fever Dream". This isn't necessarily a bad literary device, but it's done 40-50 times in 80 pages. Way too much to maintain any tension. There are some fun moments and a few cringe-worthy (in a good way) horrific moments to be had, but it feels like a rough draft. A complete rough draft (so the purchaser got what they paid for), but a little TLC could have pushed this into a much better read.
If you like spider tales and/or cannibal stories and have enjoyed Shaw's work in the past, this will do. Hell, it's only about an hour of your time. But, if you're looking for something with tension, horror and style, I think you're better off with The Infestation or Violet Eyes for your spider reading. It's just too choppy for it's own good in its current state.
The reason for the book's creation and/or the author's mindset shouldn't matter - but I mention this because I do think it makes sense after I put the book down. This is a book that a fan purchased. Giving him some names and a topic (spiders, chiefly) and Shaw challenges himself to make a novella to meet that person's request. We'll come back to this later.
Carly is very lucky and invites her brothers and sisters over to share her luck with them. Turns out she forgot about a contest she signed up for and ended up winning it. The prize? A trip for 6 to the Amazon. She and her husband are going and her siblings, begrudgingly visiting her ("couldn't this have been a phone call?") to hear this are invited as well.
So they head out with a guide named Emmanuelle (which I guess could be a unisex name, but I've watched too many EuroTrash movies to ever think of a man being named it). After a few days, Emmanuelle goes AWOL. They wake up with him gone, stuck deep in the Amazon with no idea what direction to go. Worse, Carly is bitten by a spider and is rendered unconscious with strange bruising and marks appearing. Do they stay in the same spot hoping to be found? Or do they move away, if only to avoid anyone else being bitten? If so, where do they go?
Take a pinch of body-horror, add some man vs. nature horror, throw in some Italian Cannibal films and you've got a good idea of what to expect. It's not quite as gross as Matt Shaw at his most unhinged, but there are a few moments of strong stuff to be found here.
However, there's one thing that makes it hard to recommend, and that's the structure of the novella. Instead of providing a linear story, Shaw switches between "Now", "Then", "Later" and "Fever Dream". This isn't necessarily a bad literary device, but it's done 40-50 times in 80 pages. Way too much to maintain any tension. There are some fun moments and a few cringe-worthy (in a good way) horrific moments to be had, but it feels like a rough draft. A complete rough draft (so the purchaser got what they paid for), but a little TLC could have pushed this into a much better read.
If you like spider tales and/or cannibal stories and have enjoyed Shaw's work in the past, this will do. Hell, it's only about an hour of your time. But, if you're looking for something with tension, horror and style, I think you're better off with The Infestation or Violet Eyes for your spider reading. It's just too choppy for it's own good in its current state.
August 22, 2024
I don't know if my takeaway from this should be: Never go to the Amazon, or Don't trust a random vacation offer from a sketchy company, even if it's from a family member. Both? Both seem like excellent takeaways....
Jeez, what a string of bad luck for Carly and her family. She wins this random trip to the Amazon from a giveaway that she doesn't remember entering, only for their guide to faff off in the middle of the night with all of their documentation. Then Carly gets bitten by a weird giant spider, she gets very very sick, and everyone is captured by a very unfriendly spider-worshipping tribe. Finding out what was actually supposed to happen and where everything actually went wrong was just the icing on the cake!
Itsy reinforced every horrible thought I've ever had about spiders (those fevered dreams were horrifying enough to send a chill down my spine, so thanks a bunch for that!), made even worse by the fact that I've found two spiders in my house within the last couple days. I now have the ick thinking of anything happening to me like what happened to Carly, and am feeling the great desire to thoroughly fumigate my house.
Matt's books are always a delight to read and guaranteed to have me making fun faces at them wherever I happen to be!
Jeez, what a string of bad luck for Carly and her family. She wins this random trip to the Amazon from a giveaway that she doesn't remember entering, only for their guide to faff off in the middle of the night with all of their documentation. Then Carly gets bitten by a weird giant spider, she gets very very sick, and everyone is captured by a very unfriendly spider-worshipping tribe. Finding out what was actually supposed to happen and where everything actually went wrong was just the icing on the cake!
Itsy reinforced every horrible thought I've ever had about spiders (those fevered dreams were horrifying enough to send a chill down my spine, so thanks a bunch for that!), made even worse by the fact that I've found two spiders in my house within the last couple days. I now have the ick thinking of anything happening to me like what happened to Carly, and am feeling the great desire to thoroughly fumigate my house.
Matt's books are always a delight to read and guaranteed to have me making fun faces at them wherever I happen to be!
June 8, 2024
“People worship all sorts of things out here.”
The cover is quite something.
Love the introduction and dedication. It’s really cool that Matt is so engaging with his stans.
Set in Brazil.
Out of the blue, Carly wins an adventure trip for six people to visit the Amazon rain forest.
Told in a then/now style; we follow Carly, her husband Stephen, and her siblings: Martha, Rilee, Matthew, and Christopher.
Stuck. Stranded. In the jungle. And Carly has just been bitten by a godawful, humongous spider.
Their guide, Emmanuelle, abandons them.
Oh, and…Carly’s biggest fear in the world? Spiders.
The spider carvings on the trees. The nest.
The tribesmen. Capture. The creepy women…with the hair.
Disorienting jungle. Creepy. Noisy. And clueless people.
Scary, but devolves fairly quickly.
Ultimately, not much is explained. The thrills and chills seem pointless—like they’re there just because they “should” be. Ends up coming off as vacuous and gratuitous.
“Remind me again why we thought it would be a fun trip?”
The cover is quite something.
Love the introduction and dedication. It’s really cool that Matt is so engaging with his stans.
Set in Brazil.
Out of the blue, Carly wins an adventure trip for six people to visit the Amazon rain forest.
Told in a then/now style; we follow Carly, her husband Stephen, and her siblings: Martha, Rilee, Matthew, and Christopher.
Stuck. Stranded. In the jungle. And Carly has just been bitten by a godawful, humongous spider.
Their guide, Emmanuelle, abandons them.
Oh, and…Carly’s biggest fear in the world? Spiders.
The spider carvings on the trees. The nest.
The tribesmen. Capture. The creepy women…with the hair.
Disorienting jungle. Creepy. Noisy. And clueless people.
Scary, but devolves fairly quickly.
Ultimately, not much is explained. The thrills and chills seem pointless—like they’re there just because they “should” be. Ends up coming off as vacuous and gratuitous.
“Remind me again why we thought it would be a fun trip?”
July 16, 2025
Reading this book as someone who HATES spiders I was ready to be creeped out (which I was).
Really loved the twists of how we ended up there and how it all played out with the spiders and the tribe.
HOWEVER, I would’ve given this such a higher score if it wasn’t for that scene. I just really dislike in some horrors when some form of SA is involved it just feels soooooo unnecessary and not something I want described out to me.
Taking out that scene I loved everything else!
Really loved the twists of how we ended up there and how it all played out with the spiders and the tribe.
HOWEVER, I would’ve given this such a higher score if it wasn’t for that scene. I just really dislike in some horrors when some form of SA is involved it just feels soooooo unnecessary and not something I want described out to me.
Taking out that scene I loved everything else!
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
July 1, 2024
I love Matt’s books. It’s hard for him to not catch my attention. This one was particularly horrible. But only because I HATE spiders. I swear my skin was crawling. I love that he did this for a fan who has a fear of spiders and used her name and everything. I also loved that it went back and forward from before, now, etc.
The story was creepy and freaked me out.
The story was creepy and freaked me out.
April 29, 2024
3.5 ⭐️
Quick and decent read
What I took from the book
1) don’t sign up for “too good to be true” adventures 2) learn how to get out the Amazon without going to the Amazon
3) have a sense of survival skills
4)don’t go near any tribal areas
Also…. Watch out for the spiders 🕷️ :)
Quick and decent read
What I took from the book
1) don’t sign up for “too good to be true” adventures 2) learn how to get out the Amazon without going to the Amazon
3) have a sense of survival skills
4)don’t go near any tribal areas
Also…. Watch out for the spiders 🕷️ :)
June 7, 2024
was felt at to read but…
Was reluctant to read this as not a massive fan of spiders but this was done really well and not your typical spider horror.
Really enjoyed it and certainly wasn’t what I expected.
Was reluctant to read this as not a massive fan of spiders but this was done really well and not your typical spider horror.
Really enjoyed it and certainly wasn’t what I expected.
June 20, 2024
Quick but fun spider read!
Very enjoyable and full of interesting twists ! It
was harder to read with the before/ now splits but it also helped shape the story. I'd love to read a few more by this author.
Very enjoyable and full of interesting twists ! It
was harder to read with the before/ now splits but it also helped shape the story. I'd love to read a few more by this author.
September 10, 2024
I didn’t expect much from this short read, but what a wild ride it was. I loved the flash back to the present and past. The sibling relationships were so believable and the banter was 10/10 between them.
May 4, 2025
A fun little creature feature
This story was all over the place narratively. I liked the creature feature aspect, but all of a sudden, there were cannibals involved. That part of the story just came out of nowhere.
This story was all over the place narratively. I liked the creature feature aspect, but all of a sudden, there were cannibals involved. That part of the story just came out of nowhere.
May 12, 2025
Matt Shaw’s Best
Just a really really great story. I’m a sucker for spider creature features AND cannibal movies, and this one was a little bit of both. Classic ironic horror twist as well. Not as extreme as some of Shaw’s other stuff, but a great creepy crawly tale all the same.
Just a really really great story. I’m a sucker for spider creature features AND cannibal movies, and this one was a little bit of both. Classic ironic horror twist as well. Not as extreme as some of Shaw’s other stuff, but a great creepy crawly tale all the same.
May 18, 2025
Excellent Short Horror
Very interesting and gory! Such an excellent story that ran smoothly from beginning to end. The author kept my attention, increasing my curiosity with the turn of every page. I stayed enthralled the entire time! Wonderful tale of horror.🤗
Very interesting and gory! Such an excellent story that ran smoothly from beginning to end. The author kept my attention, increasing my curiosity with the turn of every page. I stayed enthralled the entire time! Wonderful tale of horror.🤗
April 11, 2024
Tops
One of those stories we can all relate to where we venture into the unknown. Shaw hits another homer with this one.
One of those stories we can all relate to where we venture into the unknown. Shaw hits another homer with this one.
May 3, 2024
It was Green Inferno with spiders.
May 25, 2024
Gah
What a horrible adventure. Definitely not a reason to go trekking through the jungle. Complete horror all the way around.
What a horrible adventure. Definitely not a reason to go trekking through the jungle. Complete horror all the way around.
July 9, 2024
the itsy bitsy spider….
This was a pretty good read unless your terribly afraid of spiders. I would recommend it as one of Matt Shaws tamer stories but well worth reading.
This was a pretty good read unless your terribly afraid of spiders. I would recommend it as one of Matt Shaws tamer stories but well worth reading.
July 20, 2024
Horrifying!
Definitely worth the read, but man! Totally creep factor 12! Never going there, I don't like spiders or snakes!
No thanks
Definitely worth the read, but man! Totally creep factor 12! Never going there, I don't like spiders or snakes!
No thanks
August 14, 2024
Chilling
Ooh, fellow arachnophobes, don't miss this one. It definitely made my skin crawl more than once. Great story! Really quick read. Fully enjoyed!
Ooh, fellow arachnophobes, don't miss this one. It definitely made my skin crawl more than once. Great story! Really quick read. Fully enjoyed!
November 11, 2024
ITSY
Brilliant short horror story definitely not for anyone with a fear of spiders 🕷️ or gruesome horror will definitely be reading more from Matt shaw
Brilliant short horror story definitely not for anyone with a fear of spiders 🕷️ or gruesome horror will definitely be reading more from Matt shaw
March 11, 2025
Not what I expected. Creepy, terrifying and gorey in a quick novella.
May 18, 2025
3.5
loveeeed the idea of the dangerous Amazon!
The "then and now" story line was a little annoying.
loveeeed the idea of the dangerous Amazon!
The "then and now" story line was a little annoying.
May 15, 2024
Could not put this down! I started reading this before bed and decided I’d finish the next day. Here I am, 3 in the morning, exhausted and yet, HAD to finish.
Easily a 5⭐️ read in both horror aspects and originality.
Easily a 5⭐️ read in both horror aspects and originality.
Displaying 1 - 29 of 29 reviews